The Good People

by Hannah Kent

  ‘When Anne was confronted by the constabulary she led them to where she had left Micheál’s body.’

  ‘Micheál? Please, can I see him?’

  The policeman gave her a long look. ‘The three of you drowned Micheál Kelliher, Mrs Leahy, and ’twas Anne Roche that hid his body.’ He glanced at the paper again. ‘A shallow grave at that. Barely a grave at all. No more than ten inches deep.’

  Nóra began to breathe rapidly, pressing her temples. ‘I do not think ’twas Micheál.’

  ‘Your grandson. Buried like a dog.’

  ‘No. I do not think ’twas Micheál.’

  She began to sob. A wail that filled the room.

  ‘Mrs Leahy?’

  ‘I do not think ’twas Micheál!’

  ‘Come now.’

  ‘’Twas a fairy!’ Nóra put her elbows on the table and cried into her hands.

  ‘Mrs Leahy, ’tis important that you gain control of yourself and tell me what happened. Did Anne Roche tell you that your grandson, Micheál Kelliher, was a fairy?’

  Nóra nodded, her face still hidden in her hands.

  ‘And you are remorseful, for you understand that this was not the case?’

  She wiped her nose on her sleeve and looked down at the shiny smear. ‘’Twas not Micheál they found then,’ she whispered. ‘That child was not my grandson.’

  ‘Surely you would know your own grandson.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. He was changed. I saw him, and when he was brought to me, he was changed.’

  ‘And this Anne told you that the change in him was because he was now a fairy?’

  ‘She said that Micheál had surely been taken by the fairies. The cripple was one of Them. She told me she would have my grandson returned to me.’

  The constable regarded Nóra carefully. Rolled another cigarette.

  ‘Mrs Leahy. You, a woman of otherwise good repute, believed this woman when she told you your paralytic grandson was an otherworldly sprite?’

  ‘Paralytic?’

  ‘Had not the use of his legs.’

  Nóra used her shawl to wipe her eyes. ‘What? What is the word again?’

  ‘Paralytic. ’Tis a medical term, used to describe children such as yours who have not the use of their legs, or arms, or anything at all. ’Tis a known affliction, Mrs Leahy. A disease of immobility. And ’tis what the coroner and his peers are saying Micheál suffered from.’

  ‘No. ’Twas not a suffering. ’Twas not him at all.’

  ‘Yes, it was, Mrs Leahy.’ The man suddenly leant forward. ‘All this talk of fairies. Sure, people will tell themselves anything to avert their eyes from the truth of a matter.’

  ‘He will be waiting for me.’ Nóra began to weep again. ‘He’ll be waiting for me, and no one there to welcome him home. Oh God in Heaven!’

  ‘Mrs Leahy, did you tell yourself what you wanted to believe? Or was it some other understanding you were working towards? Give an old poor woman a chicken. Some fuel. And in return she’ll deliver you of a runt, all the while gabbling about the fairies.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’ Nóra drew her hands into fists. ‘Micheál will be there, returned. And after all I’ve done, all to have him back with me. And you’re keeping me here! ’Twas all I wanted, to have him back with me.’

  The constable narrowed his eyes and took a long drag, watching her. The paper flared between his lips. ‘Sure it was, Mrs Leahy. Sure it was.’

  Nance looked up from where she sat on the cart rattling on the road through Killarney. Every rock and rut knocked through her bones, until she felt that her remaining teeth would shudder from their gums. She was unused to travelling so quickly. Unused to the rapid pull of a horse, its ears upright to the urging of the dark-coated man sitting in front, dirty collar about his ears.

  She had lost track of time.

  The widow was sitting across from her, pinned against the corner of the cart and the broad shoulder of a policeman. Nance could not tell if Nóra was awake – a shawl covered her face, and her head hung forward. When they had brought them out from the barracks and set them on the cart, the widow – pale, feeble-looking – had leant across and whispered to Nance. ‘They will not believe me,’ she’d breathed. But not a word since.

  Nance looked past the bulk of the constable beside her and stared out into the streets of Killarney. The inns and lodgings, the fine line of the high street and the close, filthy lanes and yards that ran off it. Smoky, sunny Killarney with poxy children spitting in the alleys and men carrying baskets of scraw and sod. After five nights in her tiny barracks cell there was suddenly too much noise, too many dirty faces staring at them, noses wrinkling. She had fled this place twice. This unkind town. Mad Maggie, Mad Nance: one and the same. Father gone to the water, mother to the fairies, there’s no knowing which way this one’ll turn, but ’tis clear she goes with Them. She goes with Them that does be in it. She is of the Good People.

  Nance shut her eyes tightly and braced herself against the jolt of the lane. When she opened them again the muck of the town had faded and they were on the old mail coach road to Tralee, between the mountains of rock and grass, a blessed distance from the towering horizon of trees, the lakes and hiving swarm of Killarney. Men were in the fields, seeding the eyes of cups, while other potato plants were stalking up and out of the earth. The world had finally flowered. Ditches starry in dog violet and gorse, sow thistle, dandelion and cuckoo flower creeping into the fields. The lone fairy whitethorns left to themselves amidst the cultivated ground, blossoming into thick curds of white. Her heart soared to see the bee-blown, petal-filled trees.

  It will be May Eve in time, Nance thought. And she thought of how, in the valley, the people would soon pluck the yellow flowers for the goodness they drew from the sun, pulling primrose and marsh marigold and buttercups, rubbing them on the cows’ udders to bless the butter in them, placing them on doorways and doorsteps, those thresholds where the unknown world could bleed into the known, flowers to seal the cracks from where luck could be leached, on that night of Bealtaine bonfire.

  Twenty miles from Killarney to Tralee. Thirty from the valley. Even when she was younger and used to hard walking, a road like this would have taken her sun-up to sundown to tramp.

  The light faded. The afternoon became quiet and the crickets began to chirp against the far-off call of a cuckoo singing down the dusk. Nóra had begun to weep quietly. The cart rattled the irons about their wrists.

  Here is God, Nance thought. I see him still.

  Mary was sitting on the floor of the narrow Killarney barracks room with her head resting against the corner of stone, her fingers pinching the skin of her arm. Ever since the policeman had taken her from Peg O’Shea’s cabin, a trembling had set up in her hands, and she had fallen into the habit of nipping her flesh to quell the shaking.

  Her head ached. She had wept for the first two nights, sobbing into her hands, still dirty with the mud from the river, until her eyes swelled and she was dazed with exhaustion. The policeman who had questioned her had seemed uncomfortable at her distress. He had handed her his handkerchief, waited patiently until she could answer his questions.

  But now Mary felt dry, tearless. She glanced down at the cloth, balled in her lap, and brought it to her face. It still smelt of shop soap, tobacco smoke.

  The afternoon had darkened. There was a small square window high in the cell, and throughout the day Mary had focused on the sunlight falling across the wall, transfixed by its slow shifting. She closed her eyes. She could hear men speaking to one another outside in the barracks yard, and then the echo of footsteps walking down the long corridor beyond her cell.

  There was a sudden clanking as the door was unlocked and opened, and Mary, expecting to see a constable, was surprised by the sight of a familiar face.

  Father Healy waited until the door had been closed and locked
behind him before speaking to her.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mary Clifford.’

  ‘Father.’

  The priest looked around for somewhere to sit, then, seeing only the bare stone floor, stepped over to Mary and squatted on his haunches.

  ‘This is a sorry business.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  He paused. ‘I have been told that you swore an information.’

  Mary nodded, tucking her knees up to her chest. She was aware of the grime on her feet, the muddy hem of her skirt.

  ‘I have some good news for you. The Crown counsel would like you to be their chief witness.’

  Mary felt her mouth dry in panic. ‘Their chief witness?’

  ‘Do you understand what that means?’

  ‘No, Father.’

  ‘It means that they are willing to drop the charge of wilful murder against you, if you turn witness. If you tell the court and the jury and the judge what you saw. What you did.’

  ‘I did not mean for him to die, Father.’ She glanced down at the handkerchief in her hands, the tiny bruises on the inner flesh of her wrist.

  ‘Mary, look at me.’ Father Healy’s face was sombre. ‘They are going to free you. All you will need to do is make your oath, and tell the court what you told the policemen. What you swore in your information. Answer their questions as best you can.’

  Mary blinked at him.

  ‘If you turn witness, they will not charge you. Do you understand? You will be able to return home to your mother and father.’

  ‘I will not hang?’

  ‘You will not hang.’

  ‘And Nóra? Nance? Will they hang?’

  ‘They are gone to Ballymullen today.’ Father Healy shifted his weight, pulling at the cloth of his trousers. ‘You understand that Micheál Kelliher was not a fairy child, don’t you, Mary? He was a little boy suffering from cretinism. He was not taken by the fairies, but by the ignorance of his own grandmother and an old woman. He was not banished. He was murdered. You understand this, don’t you?’

  Mary clenched her teeth against the tears that suddenly threatened. She nodded.

  Father Healy continued, his voice low. ‘God has protected you, Mary. But let you find a lesson in the fall of Nóra Leahy and Nance Roche. Pray for their souls, and for the soul of Micheál Kelliher.’

  ‘Can I go to Annamore?’

  Father Healy rose, wincing. ‘That’s where you’re from, is it?’ He rubbed at a cramp in his leg. ‘Not until the trial is over. You’ll be coming with me to Tralee. The Crown counsel, the lawyers, will want to speak with you there. Do you have anywhere to stay in that town? Any kin?’

  Mary shook her head.

  The priest paused. ‘Let me see if I can’t arrange something for you. A place where you can work for your keep for the next few months, until the trial is over. Then you’ll be on your own, do you understand?’

  ‘Thank you, Father.’

  He turned and knocked sharply on the door, and the sound of boots could be heard. As the key was turned in the lock, Father Healy glanced back. ‘Give thanks to God for this, Mary. It is by His mercy alone that you are saved. I’ll return for you tomorrow.’ And then he was gone.

  Mary looked down at her soiled hands, her heart pounding. I am free, she thought, and she waited for relief to sweep through her.

  But it did not come. She sat, pinching her skin between her fingers.

  Nipping the bread to let the Devil out, she thought.

  They arrived in Tralee at dusk. Nance shrank into her seat at the sight of the town and its streets of business, at the fine houses along the promenade. Mail coaches, upright with gentlemen, clattered in the road amongst crowds of servants, tradespeople and the usual dregs of beggars. The widow briefly listed her head to gaze at the town, until they neared the limestone gates to Ballymullen gaol, when she glanced at Nance, terrified.

  ‘We will never leave this place,’ she whispered, eyes wide.

  ‘No talking,’ one of the policemen interrupted.

  Nance became frightened then. They passed through the gates and immediately the air felt heavier, dank. Under the weight of the shadows thrown by the high walls, her body began to tremble.

  Stone-silled, iron-grilled. The gaol was dark, and the constables moved them from the gate and into its passageways by lamplight. Nance’s throat filled with bile and she thought back to her cabin and Mora, who would surely be waiting for her, udder heavy with milk.

  The gaolers took Nóra and weighed her first, then after some discussion with the policemen they hauled the widow off into the dark corridor. Nóra looked back over her shoulder, her lips parting in terror before the shadows fell over her face, and Nance felt hands take her firmly about the arms and direct her to the scales.

  ‘Anne Roche. Unknown age. Four feet eleven inches. Ninety-eight pounds. White hair. Blue eyes. Identifying marks include: tender eyes; enlarged joint, left and right thumbs; front teeth; cut mark on forehead. Catholic. Pauper. Charged with wilful murder.’

  The women in the cell with Nance were mute and dirty. They lay on straw piled over the flagged floor, eyes large in the dark. One, her skin pocked like mountain soil, muttered to herself. Every now and then she shook her head, as if in disbelief at her imprisonment.

  That night Nance woke to a piercing shriek, and when the guard came to see what the fuss was about, holding a lamp aloft, Nance saw that the mutterer had thrown herself at the wall, splitting her head on the rock. The guard took her away. When they had left and the cell was once more snuffed of light, a voice spoke from the corner of the room.

  ‘I’m glad that one is away.’

  There was a pause, then another voice replied. ‘She’s turned in the head.’

  ‘Wantonly scalding with hot water,’ said the first woman. ‘That’s what she’s here for. Tried to boil her child like a pratie.’

  ‘What did they pinch you for then?’

  There was another pause. ‘Begging. And yourself?’

  ‘Borrowed some turf.’

  ‘Drink.’

  ‘And you, old biddy? Public nuisance was it?’ There was a snide chortle at this.

  Nance said nothing, her heart beating fast. She closed her eyes against the darkness and her ears against the faceless voices and imagined the river. The flowing river, in the height of summer. She thought of the green light cast by moss, and the berries on their brambles swelling with their sweetness, and the eggs in the hidden places breaking with tapping beaks. She thought of the life that thrust itself onwards outside the prison, and when she could see it there, see the unconquerable world, she finally fell into sleep.

  Grey light slid down the wall like a stain. Nóra had been unable to rest in the close air of the cell with the suggestion of bodies around her, their coughing and weeping, and the scuttering sounds she could not place that filled her with terror. It was a relief to have respite from the pitch-black she had wept into all night. Rubbing her eyes, she saw that there were seven other women in the tiny cell with her, most of them asleep. Nance was not amongst them.

  One girl, dark hair streaked with early grey, slept next to Nóra, her head resting on the wall. Another was sprawled by her feet, snoring. Both were thin, their feet black.

  Only one other woman was awake. Mouse-haired, she sat with her legs tucked up beneath her, eyeing Nóra carefully. After catching Nóra’s glance she slid forward, crawling across the floor until she was beside her. Nóra sat up hurriedly.

  ‘Mary Foley,’ the woman said. ‘Sleep well?’

  Nóra drew the canvas dress she had been given about her. It was damp.

  ‘I know what you’re here for. You murdered a child.’

  Nóra could smell the tang of the woman’s breath.

  ‘You’d best be after the priest. They’re after hanging women that do be murdering now.’
The woman tilted her head, examining Nóra with a cool eye. ‘Johanna Lovett. They dropped her out the front of the gaol not a month ago for the murder of her man.’ She winked. ‘Like a fish on a line, she was. Bouncin’ like a feckin’ fish on a line.’

  Nóra stared at her.

  ‘I’m in and out of here more often than a sailor up a whore,’ she said. ‘I know everything.’

  ‘I didn’t murder him.’

  Mary smiled. ‘And I don’t take the drink. But sure, the Devil manages to pour it down my throat anyway.’ She sat back on her heels. ‘Baby-dropper, are you?’

  Nóra shook her head.

  ‘How did he die then?’

  ‘’Twas no child at all.’

  Mary Foley raised her eyebrows.

  ‘’Twas a changeling.’

  Mary grinned. ‘You’re a mad one. Still, better to be mad than bad. That one there? Making an almighty racket?’ She pointed to the snoring girl. ‘Mary Walsh. Tried to conceal the birth of her baby. She’ll be getting three months or so, unless they also decide to charge her with deserting her child. Then she’ll be getting more. That’s the badness in it.’

  Nóra stared at the young girl and thought of Brigid Lynch, the blood rippling between her legs. The longed-for child in the cillín.

  The changeling buried in the Piper’s Grave. Ten inches of soil over that little body.

  ‘Yer one there with the burn mark on her face? Moynihan. Attempted self-murder.’ Mary sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Tried to drown herself. Kept bobbing up like a cork so they fished her out.’

  Nóra looked at the freckled girl Mary was pointing to, curled asleep in the corner, her hands tucked under her chin.

  ‘Surprising, the amount of them here after a ducking. ’Tis stones you want, if you’re after drowning yourself. ’Twould not be the way I’d go. Unless ’twas drowning in a bottle.’ The woman nodded to herself. ‘Sure. Only those who are born to hang are not afraid of the water.’

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  Mint