I Saw You (34 page)

‘OK, Mr Leonard, is there anything else you want to say? Any questions?’ De Paor gets ready to leave.

Leonard looks at him and smiles again. ‘It was terrible what happened to your da. Terrible to die like that.’

De Paor doesn’t answer. He puts on his coat.

‘It was that girl’s fault. She just sat there, the fucking bitch. Sat there and watched him drown.’

De Paor looks at him. ‘What did you say?’

Leonard waves towards the chair. ‘You didn’t see it, did you, Mr de Paor? Well, why don’t you sit down?’ He twists himself sideways and crosses his legs.
‘I’ve a story to tell you. If you’re sitting comfortably I’ll begin. Once upon a time there was a gang of lads and they went off one day out into Wicklow. It was a grand hot
day. And they fancied a bit of a swim or, even better, a spin in a big, fast boat.’

The lights had turned to green. The car behind was hooting its horn. The sound was all around him. ‘OK, keep your fucking hair on.’ McLoughlin jerked forward. The car behind was on
his tail. He looked in the mirror. ‘Arsehole,’ he shouted.

The driver smiled. He put his hand out the window. He held up his index finger. His shirt was rolled up. The snake coiled around his wrist, the jaws wide open. And the fangs extended.

The water was cold, but not unbearable. Vanessa lay on her back and floated. It had been such a lovely day. Helena had brought a picnic and they had walked down the hill
towards the little clearing by the edge of the lake. The horse had followed and so had the dog. Helena had lit a fire, in the circle of stones, and she had boiled water for tea, then heated a
frying-pan when the stones were hot and fried eggs. She had cut thick slices of bread and buttered them, and Vanessa had eaten her egg, the yolk dripping on to her skirt. She had thought it the
most delicious meal she had ever had.

‘When’s your birthday?’ Helena had asked. And Vanessa had told her it was the day after tomorrow.

‘What are you doing to celebrate? It’s a big day, your eighteenth.’ Helena stirred the embers with a stick and a flame shot out, glowing orange with a hint of green.

‘I don’t know. Mum isn’t very happy at the moment. And all my friends are away. That’s one of the problems with having a birthday at the beginning of August.’
Vanessa held out her mug for more tea. ‘I’d have been going too if my sister hadn’t died. I was going to Italy for the summer, to stay with a family.’

‘Lovely.’ Helena broke up some twigs and fed them to the embers. ‘But maybe not as lovely as here. And, anyway, if you were so far away you wouldn’t be able to take
possession of your new house, would you?’ A twig snapped loudly in her hands. The dog looked up. ‘Are you going to the solicitor in the morning to sign the papers?’

‘I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it. Anyway, I don’t need to do anything like that. I can just come out here. You gave me the key already.’

Helena didn’t reply. She got up and walked over to the horse who was grazing the rich grass that grew in the crevices between the rocks. She fumbled in one of the saddlebags and pulled out
a small video-camera. ‘Here,’ she held it up, ‘I love making little movies. I like recording the truly important things that happen. When Dominic was little I had a cine-camera. I
have all the old films. I must show them to you. Then I was sick for a long time and I couldn’t do anything like that. But when I got better and I came to live here Dominic got me this and
it’s so easy and so much fun. Now,’ she held up the camera, ‘let’s find out what kind of person young Vanessa is. What do you have in your big bag? Show me the
contents.’

Vanessa rummaged through it. ‘Well, I’ve got my phone and my purse and an apple and a make-up bag. And my iPod. And a couple of books.’

‘What are the books? Show me.’ Helena changed the focus of the camera and zoomed in.

‘There’s this by Sylvia Plath, the poet. It’s her novel,
The Bell Jar
. Well, of course it’s hardly a novel, really, more of an autobiography.’ She held it up
towards the camera. ‘It belonged to my sister. She loved Sylvia Plath’s poetry.’

‘And you do too?’

‘I never really bothered with it before. We did her in the Leaving Cert. But when Marina died I started to read her. It’s very sad stuff. Sad when you think what happened.’

Helena put down the camera. ‘Well, that’s enough for now. Such a lovely day. I fancy a swim. Do you?’

‘I don’t have my togs.’ Vanessa closed her bag.

‘That doesn’t matter. There’s no one around for miles and miles. No one but me. And I won’t mind.’ She began to unbutton her shirt. ‘Go on, it’s
fine.’

Vanessa lay in the water. She floated on her back. She moved her arms and propelled herself slowly from the shore. She stared up at the sky. She kicked her feet up and down and the frothy wash
floated past. The dog’s big head broke the surface. He moved quickly, his coat gleaming and shiny. And behind them both Helena stood, her large body white in the sunshine. Her breasts hung
down, pendulous, heavy. She took a step deeper into the lake and her thighs quivered. She crouched down and let the water coat her body. Then she straightened and lifted her arms high. Drops of
water streamed down her white skin. She waded further into the water.

The girl floated on her back just out of reach. Her skin was sallow, pallid on her breasts and at her groin. Her hair streamed out behind her like the long tangles of lake weed. More lake weed
curled over her pubic bone. Her nipples were tight and dark against the pallor of her small breasts. Helena wanted to take hold of her helpless white body. Wanted to suck the life out of her. Spit
out the remains. In the same place that she had left the other interloper. The woman she had watched through the lens of her camera. On the ground with Mark Porter. Dominic had told her that she
was the one who had let James drown. She had sat in the boat and watched him. She had done nothing.

‘You must make her suffer,’ Helena said to him, said to her son. ‘Imagine how your father felt as the water pulled him down. Imagine how time slowed for him. Every second like
a year. I know that feeling,’ she said, ‘when time slows down. You feel as if you’re drowning in slime and mud. So you have to make her pay for that. You have to make her suffer
too.’

Helena felt the cold creep up her legs, over her knees, her thighs. The dog swam around the girl. He was a strong swimmer. He had swum with Helena that morning. That morning when they had come
down here and they had found the dinghy, floating gently, bumping up against the walls of the little harbour. And inside it the woman was lying on her face, a pool of vomit on the slatted floor.
And the dog scrambled up into the boat and began to sniff the vomit, then the woman’s face. She opened her eyes and stared into his. And said, ‘I’m thirsty, so thirsty. Help
me.’

Then fell back. Back into a deep, deep sleep. The dog jumped from the boat, and it rocked and rocked and water splashed into it. And Helena leaned on the boat and pushed it down and watched how
the woman fell on to her side, her head banging against the rowlocks. Her eyes opened a little. They looked as a baby’s eyes look when it falls deeply asleep. Helena pulled herself up on the
gunwales and the water poured in and the woman half fell into the lake. And Helena grabbed hold of her dress, pulled her out of the boat, gave her a push. And the woman floated, buoyed up by air
filling her skirt, towards the little rapids. Then she went under as the weight of her clothes dragged her down. Down, down, down. And she struggled, coughing, choking. But not for long. Less than
a minute. And a trail of big bubbles floated on the surface showing where she had gone.

4 August 2005. The day after tomorrow would be the tenth anniversary of Mary’s disappearance. Ten years since Margaret had seen her daughter alive. Now she stood outside
the front door of Jimmy Fitzsimons’s family home, high on the hillside above Killiney Bay. She rang the doorbell and waited. There was no reply. She rang again, then walked around to the back
of the house and peered in through the kitchen window. The girl, his younger sister, was at the sink. She had a tea-towel in one hand and a plate in the other. She gesticulated, waved at her, then
disappeared and reappeared a few minutes later, with a woman in tow.

Mrs Fitzsimons recognized her immediately. She opened the back door a crack. ‘What do you want?’ Her voice was defensive.

‘I want to talk to you, that’s all. I just want to talk to you.’ Margaret put her hand on the doorknob. ‘Can I come in?’ She moved closer. The girl, no longer a
girl, a woman now with a round body and a face that showed her age, even though the Down’s syndrome almost made her seem like a child, pulled her mother back.

‘Come in, then.’ Mrs Fitzsimons disappeared into the house.

They sat at either side of the fireplace. The grate was stuffed with rubbish. Newspapers, milk cartons, egg boxes. The girl crouched on a footstool beside her mother. No one spoke.

‘It’s been a long time,’ Margaret said.

‘What do you want?’ Mrs Fitzsimons’s voice was plaintive now.

The girl touched Margaret’s face. ‘I’m Molly,’ she said.

‘And I’m Margaret.’ Margaret took Molly’s hand and shook it. ‘How do you do, Molly?

Molly giggled. ‘I’m very well.’ Her voice assumed a tone of politeness. ‘And how are you? Are you a good girl?’

Margaret smiled. ‘I certainly hope so.’

They sat in silence. Then Margaret spoke again. ‘I wanted to see you, Mrs Fitzsimons, to say how sorry I am for all that has happened over the last ten years. We have both suffered, you
and I. We have both lost people we loved—’

‘Don’t,’ Mrs Fitzsimons cut across her. ‘Don’t say that. I didn’t love Jimmy. I’m not sorry he’s dead. He killed your daughter. I know he did. And
when he disappeared I was glad. I thought maybe he’d gone to America or Australia. I didn’t care where it was. I just didn’t want to have to look at him, be reminded of what he
was and what he had done.’ She put her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook. There was no sound. She took away her hands and her face was set with bitterness. ‘And when they found him
and he was dead I was relieved. He was gone from this world to the next where God will be his judge. And He will judge him harshly.’

‘Judge him harshly,’ Molly repeated. ‘Judge him harshly.’

They sat in silence again. Until Mrs Fitzsimons stirred and turned to her daughter. ‘The book,’ she said. ‘Get the book.’

Molly left the room.

‘I want you to have this,’ Mrs Fitzsimons said quietly. ‘I found it in Molly’s room.’

Molly stood before her. She held out a battered paperback.

‘You have it. Mammy says you have it.’ She put it on Margaret’s knee. Margaret opened it. The title page said
Songs of Innocence and Experience.
The author was William
Blake. And scribbled in black biro, in Mary’s hand, ‘This book belongs to Mary Mitchell, Torbay, Auckland, New Zealand, Southern Hemisphere, World, Universe.’

She walked from Killiney down the hill towards Dun Laoghaire. She walked fast, sweat dripping between her breasts and shoulder-blades. She wanted to get home. To lie in the
garden, to close her eyes, to sleep. To try to banish the pictures that came again. Mary’s body in the morgue. Jimmy Fitzsimons’s face as she wrapped the tape around it.

She walked through the town, then down to the path by the railway line. The beach at Seapoint was crowded today. She took off her sandals, stepped on to the sand and ran towards the sea. She
stood ankle deep in the lukewarm water. Small, benevolent waves rolled in from Dublin Bay and broke with ruffles of white along the beach. A little girl with tight curls stood beside her and kicked
at the water.

‘Why it wet?’ she enquired, and glanced up at Margaret.

‘Because it is,’ Margaret replied. ‘Because it’s water and water’s wet.’

‘Why is it coming on the beach?’ she persisted, and put out her hand to steady herself, her plump feet planting themselves firmly in the sand.

‘Because the wind pushes it towards the land and when it meets the beach it waves its little hands, see?’ Margaret bent down to the child’s height. ‘See the way the water
is waving at you? And that’s why it’s called a wave because when it sees a nice little girl like you with curly hair, it waves at you.’ She twined a curl around a finger.
‘You’ve got lovely curls. Where do they come from?’

The child looked up at her with a stern expression. Her blue eyes were uncompromising. She’s heard that one before, Margaret thought.

‘I growed dem myself,’ she replied, and shook off Margaret’s hand, then turned away and stomped back across the wet sand, breaking into a trot as she approached a small woman,
dark hair streaked with grey, who had begun to walk towards her. Margaret watched the greeting, the way the woman scooped her into her arms, nuzzling the child’s neck and holding her tightly
against her body. The child pulled away from the embrace and turned back towards the breaking waves, the shallow water, the bay, the sea beyond, and the horizon.

And Margaret felt again the pain of her loss. Of her continuing loss. Of her loss that would last for ever. She began to walk away. She sat down on a rock. It was encrusted with baby mussels,
sharp ridges of black. She ran her fingertips over them. And thought of the pipis that grew on the rocks near the house in New Zealand where she and Mary had lived through the years of Mary’s
childhood. She would never go back there. It would stay for ever locked into her memory. A perfect place to bring up a child. The long garden that sloped to the top of the cliff. The wooden gate
and the steps cut into the rock. The huge Pohutakawas that hung out over the sea. The deep pool in the bend of the creek that flowed below the cliff into the sea. And the branch that hung out over
it, the thick rope from which Mary and her friends would swing, backwards and forwards, then let go and drop like stones into the water. She had stood on the far bank, watched them and wanted to
stop her daughter. Couldn’t quite believe that the small girl with the skinny arms and legs could survive the swing and the drop, that seconds later her head would push up from the frothy
water and she would wave her arms and shout, ‘Mum! Did you see me, Mum? Did you see me do it?’