The Field of Blood (34 page)

It was dark and wet underfoot. She took the less-worn parallel path a couple of feet uphill from the muddy main track, trying to keep out of the mud and puddles. Within twenty feet she had cleared the bushes and trees and was on the bare hillside. The sounds of buses and cars and a lone whining motorbike wafted up the hill. She followed the hill around until she was no longer facing the city. White stars shone from the inky sky.

She looked out over the dying industrial valley. There was an ironworks down there that had given off the sulfurous smell of bad eggs night and day for as long as she had been alive, but now the lights were dark and all the men had been laid off. Smaller factories around it in the valley were closing down, farther down the river the shipyards were laying off, and every morning brought news of brand-new endings. The proud city was dying. Paddy lit her fifth cigarette of the day and blinked back tears as she thought of Sean and Naismith and what might have happened had he managed to grab her.

She was responsible for Heather’s death. She’d wished her harm when she gave her name to Naismith. And what was a wish but a vulgar prayer to whoever else happened to be listening.

It was half past ten when Paddy slipped her key in the front door. As she opened it the first thing she noticed was the television was off and the living room was empty. An ominous light spilled into the hall from the kitchen. She didn’t have time to hang up her coat before she heard her father’s voice calling her through, trying to sound calm.

She saw a snapshot as she passed the serving hatch to the living room. Her family were gathered around the kitchen table, her mother and father grim-faced, the boys and Mary Ann huddled close together in a little row. Mary Ann was smirking at the tabletop, pressing her lips first to one side and then the other, trying not to scream with laughter. The boys stared at the table, dying with discomfort at the confrontation, the very men their father had made them. She noted sadly that Sean wasn’t there and the only unoccupied place at the table was untouched, a clean glass sitting by it, clearly intended for her.

The kitchen table was scattered with the remains of a stillborn party: triangular sandwiches curling into sarcastic grins, a jug of weak orange squash, and an unopened bottle of sweet, viscous Liebfraumilch. As a centerpiece to the table sat a small white cake. The decorative silver balls on Marty’s side of the table had been pulled out, leaving bullet holes in the icing.

Paddy held her coat over her arm, standing in the kitchen doorway like a visitor who didn’t plan to stay long. She saw herself through their eyes: in at ten thirty without her engagement ring on, with mud on her shoes and tear-swollen eyes.

Con was so tense that he had to turn his entire body to look at her, twitching his little moustache side to side like a comedy humbug.

“It’s late, I know,” she said.

Her dad couldn’t cope. It was enough that a child had defied him, but for her not to be penitent and for it to be his youngest daughter was too much.

“How dare you,” he spluttered, the whites of his eyes turning red. “I will not be spoken to … I will not be spoken to—”

Trisha pressed her hand over Con’s. “Where have you been all day?”

“I was at a friend’s house.”

“Which friend? We’ve phoned everyone.”

“It’s someone you don’t know.”

The boys glanced nervously at each other. Mary Ann took a deep, shuddering breath and bit her hand. The family knew everyone; they were everyone.

Her mother choked back a sob. “Patricia, where are your tights?”

Paddy looked down at her bare legs. One of her fat knees was capped with a large scarlet scab. She could imagine what her mother thought: that she had been chased by a gang of men in some sort of bizarre Protestant sex ceremony. It was kind of true.

She bristled. “I didn’t want to come home. I can’t stand the atmosphere here.”

“Well, who made the atmosphere here what it is?” Con shouted, standing up and leaning over the table. “You did. You bloody made it.”

Trish pulled him by the sleeve down into his seat. “Quiet, Con, stay calm.”

“Look,” Paddy shouted, “I was at the hunger strikers’ march. I fell and hurt my knee and I had to take off the tights to clean the dirt out of the cut.”

She shifted her heavy coat to the other arm and lifted her knee for them to see. It looked very dramatic in the bright light. The cut was scabbing up brown at the edge but still wet and yellow on the inside. They stared, but no one said anything. Marty looked suspiciously at Paddy, as if she had done it deliberately for sympathy.

Her mother stood up. “A hundred and fifty people were arrested in the town today. We’ve been phoning every police station in the city.”

“I wasn’t arrested, I just got knocked over.”

“Well, thank God for that, anyway,” said her father loudly.

“I’m very tired,” said Paddy. “I’m very, very tired.” She didn’t know what else to say, so she backed out of the kitchen.

Gerald responded instinctively. “G’night, God bless.”

Paddy heard her mother muttering angrily to him as she hung up her coat and climbed the stairs.

She lay down fully dressed and stared at the ceiling, thinking about Heather Allen’s shuffled teeth and the stray hairs stuck in the stinking towel. Paddy had ruined herself and killed a girl. She had done terrible, terrible things.

The bed was shaking. She opened her sticky eyes and found Trisha sitting on the side, crying, a hand pressed tight against her mouth, worried and frightened and small.

Paddy had never seen her mother look so helpless. They reached for each other, hands knocking against faces, head against head, as Trisha folded up her baby in a watery mist of coos and sighs.

“I’m so worried for you,” she said when she finally had her breath.

Paddy sniffed hard. “You don’t have to worry for me.”

“But last Sunday ye missed mass, and now yesterday … I’m frightened for you.”

“Don’t worry, Mum.”

Trisha smiled anxiously and stroked Paddy’s hair back off her face. “Will you come to mass for me?”

“Mum …”

“Please, do it— for me?”

Paddy had been hoping last week would set a precedent. She hadn’t planned to go to mass. She didn’t believe in it and never had. The whole parish hated her. She’d had sex with a man she wasn’t married to. She’d told a lie that killed a woman. The last thing she wanted to do was pause an hour and consider her conscience.

“Please?”

So Paddy went to mass for her mother, who went for her father, who went to set a good example for his children.

Parishioners greeted friends and chatted in the chapel yard. The Meehans felt themselves being watched by the rest of the congregation as they walked around the corner and entered the low-walled yard. Gerald and Marty pretended not to care. Every thirty seconds or so Mary Ann gave out alarmed little yipping barks, laughs delivered too quickly to have any breath behind them. Paddy stared straight ahead, looking at no one. She felt a hand on her arm. Her father was there, his hand on her elbow, showing a united face for other people’s benefit.

The Meehans didn’t linger on the steps but went straight in and sat along a pew two-thirds of the way up the chapel, where they always sat, near to the ostentatiously religious families but not with them.

Father Bowen began the service, accompanied by the squalling of small children stationed at the back, their parents ready for a quick exit if the babies got too noisy. Paddy didn’t dare look at the benches where the Ogilvys sat, but guessed from the shape of the shadows in the right-hand corner of her eye that Sean was sitting with his mother and two older brothers, their wives, and an assortment of fidgeting nephews and nieces.

She stood and sat as required, her mind obsessively circling Heather Allen. Someone had killed her because they thought she was Paddy, but she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to kill her in the first place. It was to do with Townhead, to do with the man in the grocery van, maybe even something to do with Thomas Dempsie.

Five young girls from Trinity school made the offertory procession, and stilted bidding prayers were read out by boys from the same year. Prayers were offered up for the repose of Granny Annie’s soul. Communion was run like a military operation: the deacons stood at the side of the pews, letting out and holding back the communicants, only ever allowing four or five to queue in the aisle. Those who didn’t have souls clean enough to receive the Eucharist had to stay behind alone on the bench. Paddy sat alone on the bench, feeling watched by the people behind, imagining Ina Harris spitting at her up the aisle.

At the end of the service, when they were all going in peace to love and serve the Lord, Paddy found Sean waiting by her pew. He genuflected with her, and they fell into step for the silent walk down the aisle, shuffling through the main doors and shaking hands with Father Bowen. Paddy looked back to the congregation flooding out and saw the pink relief on her father’s face because Sean Ogilvy was back onside. They tripped down the stairs to the yard.

“So.” Sean dug at the edge of a concrete slab with the toe of his shoe. “Do you want to come to the pictures tonight? We never got to see that film.”

“I didn’t do it.”

Sean glanced at the people next to him. “I don’t want to talk about that here.”

“Well, I do.”

“Paddy, you brought it on yourself—”

“Shut up, Sean.” She moved around so her father and mother couldn’t see her face. “Listen, your cousin is being set up. Those children were driven there to kill that child, and no one cares but me. No one gives a shit, and if he was from a better family everyone would want to know what went wrong.” He looked angrily down at her, and she dipped her head. “I meant his immediate family.”

He was quiet for so long she had no alternative but to look up.

“Where’s your ring?” he said.

“I took it off. When I didn’t hear from you I didn’t know if I was still engaged.”

“We’re engaged until I tell you otherwise.”

She almost laughed at him. “Piss off.”

“You made a promise,” he said, “for better or worse.”

“No, I didn’t. I haven’t promised those things yet, remember?”

“I’m not having an argument with you here,” he said firmly.

Paddy shifted her weight from one leg to the other, rubbing the raw, soft tissue in her pants to remind herself about the night before. She smiled at him. Across the yard her father was smiling and talking to her mother.

“Okay, Sean, you want to go to the pictures with me? Let’s go to the pictures.”

“Tonight?” he said accusingly.

“You’re on.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven.” He walked away, brushing past her and knocking her with his shoulder. “And put your ring on.”

Walking Paddy to the train station from the chapel, Mary Ann waited until they were behind the Castle Bar before asking if she had seen Stephen Tolpy’s trousers from the back. Paddy hadn’t, and Mary Ann was laughing too hard to explain why the trousers were funny. Paddy watched her pink face, her twitching nostrils, and joined in for no good reason. The girls laughed all the way down the stairs to the platform, both wondering how anything could be this funny and laughing again at the fact that it was.

The platform was a strip of unsheltered concrete sitting in a large tract of overgrown land. To the north, beyond some low-level buildings, was a view of the city, right to the cathedral and the Drygate high flats. Behind the peaks and spires of the city they could see the clean, snowcapped hills. The wind hurtled across the flat land, coming from the town, making those waiting turn their backs and look away. Together the sisters turned into the wind, narrowing their eyes tightly, catching the dust and grit on their eyelashes, and walked the length of the platform, arms linked and still laughing.

Mary Ann squeezed Paddy’s arm. “I’m glad that fight’s over.”

Paddy knew it wasn’t. “I didn’t do it, you know.”

She squeezed again, harder this time. “I don’t care if ye did. I sometimes wish someone would do something and just—” But she stopped herself.

The train arrived, and Mary Ann waited until it was pulling out of the station, waving to Paddy and laughing, acting as though she was going away for a long time. Paddy waved back and giggled until Mary Ann was out of sight. She knew the fight would never be finished. She’d never belong in the heart of them as she had before.

As Paddy sat on the shuddering train into town, she remembered Meehan and his family and the unbridgeable distance between them.

After seven years protesting in jail, two books about the case, and a television documentary, Meehan had been offered parole papers.

“Sign them,” the officer said. “Put your name there and you’ll be out by the end of the week.”

“Do I have to say I’m guilty?”

“You know you do.”

Meehan had been in solitary for seven years, had got to walk in the yard for only twenty minutes once a fortnight. They wanted an excuse to release him, but it had to be on their terms. Meehan took a chance and said no. They wanted him out. Ludovic Kennedy’s book about the flaws in the case had raised his profile so much that keeping him in was bringing the justice system into disrepute.

Five days later he was standing in his wife Betty’s front room, holding a whisky tumbler in one hand and his royal pardon in the other, raising a glass with his family of strangers. It hurt his eyes to look at them. The colors they wore were so bright and their faces closed to him. His daughter was thin and gray, left weak by the treatment she had received for her nervous breakdown. His eldest son’s jaw was clenched even when he drank, a rope of muscle cutting across his face. And there was his big stupid cousin Alec and his ugly wife, neither of whom had ever liked Meehan much. They didn’t care whether he was guilty or innocent. They were only there because he’d been on telly.

Meehan knew he looked bad. He had the dry, gray skin long-term prisoners always had, and he had lost three stone over the years. He was a skinny old man now. Out of all of them only Betty looked good. She had dyed her hair blond, and it softened her. She was dressed in a white cotton pantsuit and red sandals, and she had been using a sunlamp: she had a faint white stripe across the bridge of her nose from the goggles. Before he went in Betty dressed dowdy; she used to be afraid of color. Now he watched her over the rim of his glass as he drank and saw a cheerful spark in her eye. Someone had put it there, and he knew it wasn’t him. He didn’t even have the heart to feel jealous. He had depended on Betty his entire adult life— he half despised her for being so dependable— but now she was moving away he felt nothing but admiration. He wished her well, he really did. He felt that she had got out too.