Heart and Soul (25 page)

He came into 34 Mountainview Road with his usual bluster and flung the wood and locks in the hall.

“What is this about?” he began.

“Your wife had a bit of a fall, Mr. Edwards. Fortunately her injuries are minor, but she is, of course, in a state of shock. She's in the kitchen if you want to check things out.”

“Who are you to be telling me to check things out in my house?” Michael Edwards had a red, angry face.

“Who am I? I am a friend of your daughter's and I also happen to work in the clinic where Mrs. Edwards was attending. That's who I am.”

“And why are you still here? She's home. She's all right. What's your business here?”

“To help you repair a door that unfortunately got broken in the course of things.”

“What?”

“Yes, I thought if we started now we could get it done together.”

“Well, you thought wrong. I'm having a pint, minding my own business and I get a message shouting the odds at me.”

“We could start by pulling the broken wood out,” Johnny said.

“How did the wood get broken?” he asked.

For the first time, Eileen spoke. “Do what he says, Dad. I mean it. It will be better for all of us in the end.”

“I won't be talked to like that in my own house—”

“It's Mam's house, Dad. She got it from her father. Remember?”

“Same difference,” he said.

“Not now. Things have changed.” Eileen was crisp.

“For you they may have if you want to put up with the manners of your fellow here.”

“He's not my fellow.” The sentence came out like bullets.

“Well, it's got nothing to do with me.” Mike Edwards looked as if he was heading back to the pub.

“Dad, have sense. She's telling the Guards. Finally.”

“She hasn't an ounce of proof.”

“She has. This nosey parker, she has the Polish girl, and she has me.”

“But you're not going to open your trap.”

“This time I am.”

“Why on earth?”

“It's my get-out-of-jail card.”

“And what about mine?”

“Mend the door, Dad, and then Johnny wants to talk to you.”

“And what will
you
be doing, I ask?”

“Making Mam some soup and toast.”

“But you never do that.”

“I'm going to be doing it from now on, it seems.” She looked balefully at Johnny.

Mike Edwards took off his jacket. Whatever this was about, it was serious. He looked into his daughter's bedroom. Rugs covered
the rails of clothes. He couldn't see what the clothes were even if he was interested. “This isn't going to look great, a door sort of nailed together,” he grumbled.

“The windows don't look all that great either. Eileen is going to a glazier next week to get those restored, aren't you, Eileen?”

“I am,” Eileen said glumly.

It took an hour to get the makeshift door mended and put on the lock. There were two keys. Eileen got one and Johnny kept the other.

“I'll be back in a week so we will see how the decluttering is getting on,” he said. “New windows might even be in?”

Mike went back to the pub, having cleared up the hall under Johnny's supervision.

“I hate a mystery,” he said over his shoulder to Johnny, “and you're one real mystery man, so you are.”

Kathleen Edwards was very unaccustomed to being fussed over and looked after. “Don't you need to get back to work, Eileen?” she asked anxiously.

“No, Mam, I have the rest of the day off.”

“And most of this week,” Johnny added helpfully in case she had forgotten. Eventually Kathleen Edwards went up to her bed and left Johnny and Eileen in the kitchen. He poured himself another mug of tea with the ease of a regular visitor, an old friend.

“You're not going to get away with this,” she said.

“I have,” he said simply. “I made you an offer, you accepted it. That's all.”

“You didn't make me an offer. You blackmailed me.”

“I asked three things. That you move all this stuff in your bedroom on to charity shops, that your mother is made safe and comfortable in her own home and that you tell Brian the charade is over.”

“And you'll tell him all this?” Her lip trembled.

“Not if you do your bit.”

“And if I don't, you get the Guards.”

“I have a great friend, a desk sergeant, he'd be down on you like a ton of bricks.”

“It's not going to be easy getting that stuff, as you call it, into charity shops.”

“You'll manage. You got it out of posh shops.”

“If my father gets drunk again I can't be held responsible.”

“I've given your next-door neighbor my phone number, told him I was a welfare worker.”

“He won't believe you.”

“I gave one meaningful look at that pit bull terrier with a muzzle that he has in the house. He believes me.”

“And Brian?”

“Tonight in Corrigans at seven o'clock. The snug at the back.”

“I'm not sure I'll be up for it.”

“I think you will be. It's Corrigans or it's my mate the desk sergeant at the Guards station.”

“But if I can't say it?”

“We've been over it twice. Let's do it a third time to make sure you're word-perfect.”

They filed into the back booth in Corrigans: James O'Connor, Father Brian Flynn, Johnny, Tim, Ania and Lidia, and Father Tomasz, who had taken the bus up from Rossmore for the occasion.

Brian thought it was just an ordinary meeting. He was surprised that James didn't have a clipboard and paper to take notes. James bought a drink for everyone. He cleared his throat.

“Eileen is joining us. She has something to say,” he began.

Brian struggled out of his seat. “James, what are you
doing?
There's no point in asking her anything. I thought you knew that.”

“No one is going to ask her anything. She wants to say something. Here she is now.”

Eileen was less of the Goldilocks now as she looked into six pairs of hostile eyes and the troubled face of Father Brian Flynn.

“Brian, I have to say something and it's not easy. I've had a troubled life and I am inclined to live in a fantasy world to make things better. So I pretend that I have a beautiful apartment instead of living in my parents’ falling-down place in Mountainview Road. I pretend I have a lot of upmarket friends, but in fact I have a violent, drunken father who beats my mother. I have no trust fund or allowance or whatever I said. I steal clothes and fashion items. I am barred from most of the stores in Grafton Street and Henry Street, so I have to go out to the suburbs now. I sell some of these things on …” She paused and looked only at the face of the priest.

“And then, because I didn't have anyone to love me, I made up someone to love me. I pretended that I was in a relationship with you. I see now what a dangerous, stupid, wrong thing it was to do. But I was so lonely. I tried to think of how comforting it would be. I made up all these stories. I watched you as you typed your password and then sent myself e-mails from the Internet café. I borrowed your mobile phone from the center and used it to send myself a message. I borrowed your key from Ania's handbag to get access to his flat.”

The silence was heavy. Their faces were stricken at the terrible things she had done.

“I'm very, very sorry, Brian. Can you forgive me?”

Brian was wordless. Literally without a word to say. Eventually he stuttered out, “Why now? Now, after all this time?”

Johnny's voice was smooth and soft. “Eileen had a great shock this morning when her mother had a fall. She realizes that some things in life are more important than others. She now has got her priorities right. Is that it, Eileen?”

“Yes, that's it. I see now what matters and what doesn't.”

The big, generous face of Brian Flynn was about to welcome her back as a friend, but Johnny had plans for that.

“Since it's obviously too embarrassing for Eileen to be around people who know this part of her life, she is not going to be in the center anymore. She wants to say good-bye to Brian tonight and
assure him in front of all us witnesses that if Brian forgives her and does not take her to court, she will not cross his path again.”

“Yes, that's what would be best,” Eileen said.

“But of course I forgive you,” Brian said. “You are very courageous to have come here of your own accord—”

“She had to come,” Johnny interrupted Brian's speech. “She is an ordinary, decent person who couldn't live long with such a deception and she knows that she will keep to this. It's the only thing she can do.”

And as Goldilocks walked out of Corrigans, and out of their lives, Ania noticed that she was not wearing smart boots as usual, or her high-heeled, smart leather shoes, and the scarf was not one that would have been worn at the races. Ania also noticed that Tim was paying a lot of attention to Lidia and asking her what kind of music she liked.

Brian was wiping his eyes, where tears of relief and happiness had begun.

“You are a very good druid, Father Brian.”

“A good
what
?” he asked her.

“Now I have to teach
you
English. It's an affectionate word for a priest.”

“No, it's not, Ania.”

“It is in Ania's world, but maybe you've had such a close call you might be prepared to get out of it and join the real world.”

“Ah, Johnny, Johnny, when all is said and done, what do you know about anything?” Brian asked, punching his friend cheerfully in the arm.

Mountainview, despite its pleasant name, was one of the tougher areas of Dublin. Some of the big estates were home to drug dealers and it wasn't a place to walk alone at night. The school had its ups and downs, but it was lucky enough to have a headmaster, Tony O'Brien, who could deal with toughness head-on.

Some of the older teachers found the change difficult. Things used to be different. The place had been shabby but they'd had respect. The children came from homes where money was short, but they were all keen to make something of themselves. Today they only cared about money, and if someone's big brother was driving a smart car and wearing an expensive leather jacket, it was hard to get interested in having a job in a bank or an office where you might never make enough to have your own house or car and a leather jacket was just a dream. No wonder so many of them joined gangs. And as for respect?

Aidan Dunne told his wife, Nora, all about it.

Big fellows would push past you in the corridor and sort of nudge the books out of your hand. Then they would laugh and say that sir must be losing his grip. Aidan remembered when they would rush to pick up the books. Not now. Now they called him Baldy, or asked him if he remembered the First World War.

It was the same with the women teachers. If they weren't married, some of the really rough fellows would ask them were they frigid or
lesbian. If they
were
married, they would ask them how many times a night did they do it.

“And what do you say?” Nora wondered.

“I try to ignore them. I tell myself that they're only insecure kids like always—it's just they have a different way of expressing it. Still, it doesn't make the day's work any easier.”

“And how do the women cope?”

“The younger ones are on top of it, they say things like, ‘Oh, you'd never be able to satisfy me like my old man does,’ or else that, sure, they are gay because the only alternative is horrible spotty boys with filthy fingernails.” Aidan shook his head. “By the time I get to the classroom I'm worn out,” he said sadly.

“Why don't you give it up?” Nora said suddenly. She taught Italian at an evening class and organized a yearly outing to Italy for the group. She had several other small jobs, but she had no interest in money or pensions or the future. She sat in one of the basket chairs she had bought at a garage sale and tried to persuade Aidan to join her in this carefree lifestyle.

But he was a worrier. It would be idiotic to leave his school now several years before retirement date. It would mean no proper pension; if he were to amount to anything he had to provide for Nora and his family from an earlier marriage.

“Oh, you've well provided for them,” Nora said cheerfully. “You've given Nell most of the money you got for the house, Grania is married to the headmaster of Mountainview School, Brigid has been made a partner in the travel agency. They should be providing for you, if you come to think of it.”

“But you, Nora, what about you? I want to look after you, give you some comfort and pleasures.”

“You give me great comfort and pleasures,” she said.

“But some
security,
Nora,” he pleaded.

“I never had security before, I don't want it now.”

“I have to finish out my time there.”

“Not if you don't like it. What about this lovely life we promised each other and we have mainly had?”

“It depends on my having a good safe job, Nora,” he said.

“No—it doesn't. Not if it's making you worry, and panic about these louts. We don't need it, Aidan. Not if it's affecting your health.”

“It's not affecting my health,” Aidan said firmly.

A week later Aidan and Nora were in one of their favorite secondhand bookshops; they were each browsing separately when she suddenly looked over at him. His hand was at his throat and he seemed to be having difficulty catching his breath.