The Magdalen Martyrs (24 page)

“My Uncle Brendan taught me well. His favourite line was, ‘It’s not what you know but knowing where the information lies.’”

I said,

“He sure would have been proud of you.”

A pained expression lit her face, then was replaced by the severe look. She said,

“I am so angry with him.”

I nodded, and she snapped,

“With you, too.”

“Me?”

“You were his friend, weren’t you?”

“Um . . . yes.”

“Why didn’t you watch out for him?”

“I wasn’t focused . . .”

She stood up, near spat,

“And when are you focused? When you’re ordering large whiskies, is that when you pay attention? You were a poor excuse for a friend.”

After she’d left, I remembered what Babs Simpson had once said,

“Alcoholics are almost always charming. They have to be, because they have to keep making new friends. They use up the old ones.”

She’d been the editor of
Vogue
and
Harper’s Bazaar.

Her indictment had seared my soul. I don’t even think she meant it as such. If anything, she’d said it with a knowing resignation.

I don’t know how long I sat staring into my glass. All the grief I’d caused and endured had come storming upon my soul. At the very best of times, I was never “fond” of myself. For that moment, I was full of self-loathing. Then, I understood how Brendan could arrange a noose, step on a kitchen chair and swing. A middle-aged woman was cleaning and clearing the tables. I observed without caring a badge in her blouse. One of those frigging smile jobs. Written underneath was,

“Put on a happy face.”

I could have happily torn it off and made her eat it. She indicated Ridge’s Diet Coke, asked,

“Is that a dead soldier?”

“Oh yes.”

She paused, and I knew I was getting her scrutiny. I didn’t look up. She said,

“Cheer up, it might never happen.”

“It already has.”

Stymied her, but not for long. She was the type who’d find merit in politics. She said,

“You never know what’s around the corner.”

Now I looked up, pinned her with everything I’d been feeling, said,

“If it bears the slightest resemblance to my past, even the tiniest similarity, then I’m fucked.”

She took off quick.

Bill Cassell’s funeral rates as one of the most miserable I’ve ever attended. God knows, I’ve clocked up my quota. They’ve ranged from upbeat through pathetic to the plain sad. But for sheer misery, this was the pits.

A filthy day, the driving rain that soaks you entirely. No amount of wet gear is sufficient. You feel it dribble down your neck, wash along your legs, saturate your socks. It is relentless, a ferocious cold, and you understand the true meaning of “wretched”. Four people in all at the graveside. The priest, Fr Malachy, who had tried to light a cigarette. He failed. A gravedigger and a tiny frail woman. I was the fourth. Malachy rushed through some empty psalm. I helped the gravedigger lower the coffin. He was grunting with effort. I asked,

“Aren’t there usually two of you?”

“He wouldn’t come out in this weather.”

We made a bad job of it. The ropes cut into my hands, and
I broke the nails on two fingers. When we were done, the woman stopped forward, let a single white rose flutter down. I moved to her, asked,

“Maggie?”

“Yes?”

“You’re Bill’s sister?”

She shrank back from me, as if I was about to assault her. Her whole demeanour was that of a whipped dog. Not only had she the body language of a victim, but also her eyes said she Uved in expectation of further punishment. I tried to appear as unthreatening as I could. Not easy when you’re bundled in a guard’s coat, wet through and two feet from an open grave. She answered,

“Yes.”

As if pleading guilty.

I put out my hand, said,

“Jack Taylor.”

Her hand met mine slowly and she asked,

“Were you Bill’s friend?”

She had huge saucer eyes; guile or badness had never touched them. I didn’t want to out and out lie to such a person, so I said,

“We went to school together.”

“Bill didn’t like school.”

“Me neither.”

This seemed to ease her apprehension, and she said,

“You were so good to come and it being such a woeful day.”

I had no truthful reply. Malachy touched me on the shoulder, asked,

“A word?”

I said to Maggie,

“Excuse me a moment.”

And I turned to him, snapped,

“What?”

He backed up. Jesus, everybody was doing that. The vibes coming from me must have been deadly. He said,

“I’m surprised you’re here.”

“Like it’s any of your business.”

He made a vain attempt to wipe rain from his face. Even his dog collar was soaked. He said,

“Your mother had a stroke.”

“Yeah?”

“Good God, man, is that all you have to say?”

“Where is she?”

“She’s back home now. Will you go to see her?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You have the heart of the devil.”

“Thanks.”

I turned back to Maggie. She was gazing at the grave with such a profound look of desolation. I’d have taken her arm but felt she’d have jumped. I said,

“Maggie, can I get you a taxi?”

“No, no, I have a car.”

She could see my amazement, said,

“Bill bought it. He bullied me into driving lessons. I wasn’t very good and I’d have given up, but you know Bill. He wasn’t a man you could go against.”

I nodded. Here was something I could certainly bear testament to. She said,

“I didn’t know what to do after.”

“After?”

“You know, people hire hotels and have something for the mourners, but . . .”

Her distress at the lack of people was palpable, so I said,

“Why don’t we go and have a drink, raise a toast to his memory?”

Her clutching at this lifeline was awful. She near cried,

“Would you . . . oh . . . that would be wonderful. . . I’ll pay . . . We can talk about Bill. . . and . . .”

My heart sank.

Her car, a Toyota, was outside the gate. As she got behind the wheel, she seemed completely disoriented. Before I could speak, she got it together, and with two false starts, we moved into traffic. She gave a smile of defeat, said,

“I’m not very good at this.”

“Don’t worry.”

I figured I’d do enough for the both of us. We went down Bohermore at a snail’s pace. Other motorists raged at us. I suggested,

“Maybe move up into third gear.”

“Oh.”

As we passed Tonery’s, I said,

“Pull in here.”

More screaming of tyres as we attempted that. We side-swiped a parked van and ground to a halt. I got out fast, waited in the rain for her. She asked,

“Will the car be all right here?”

At least until the van driver arrived. I said,

“Sure.”

“When everything closed down
I felt the closing in myself
And what
Would I be doing with
Concepts like redemption?”

K.B.

The pub has a huge sun lounge at the back. Despite the outside
deluge, it was bright and welcoming. The barman nodded, said,

“I’ll come over.”

We sat and she said,

“This is my treat.”

I figured she didn’t get to say that very often. When the barman came, she said,

“A small sherry.”

I ordered Jameson.

We sat in silence till the drinks came. She didn’t seem uncomfortable with that, as if it was what she most experienced. I raised my glass, said,

“To . . . Bill.”

And she began to cry.

Not the loud sobbing type. Worse, that deep internal heaving that is horrendous to witness. Tears rolled down her cheeks, plinked into her glass. I stared at the rain.

What I was thinking was some lines of Merton that had struck a chord in my soul:

I kept my eyes closed, more out of apathy than anything else. But anyway, there was no need to open one’s eyes to see the visitor, to see death. Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the centre of your heart; eyes that do not see by reacting to light, but by reacting to a kind of chill from within the marrow of your heart.

She dried her eyes, said,

“It’s lovely here.”

“It is.”

“I don’t get out much.”

I searched for some cliche to answer, couldn’t find one, asked,

“Did Bill ever talk about a Rita Monroe?”

A shudder ran down her body, then,

“He was obsessed with her.”

“Why?”

She took some of the sherry, began,

“Bill adored my mother. But she wasn’t . . . well. I think she was very . . . brittle.”

She gave a nervous laugh, continued,

“Passed it on to me, I think. Anyway, she was always sick and used . . . to harm herself. Then she’d be in the hospital for a long time. Bill couldn’t understand it. He’d fly into rages, blame my father, blame me. When she came home, he’d be so delighted. The few times she was well, he was totally different. On fire with joy. After she died, my father sat us down, told us about her time in the Magdalen, that she’d never recovered. How that woman, Rita Monroe, had singled her out for persecution. Once Bill knew, he was like a man possessed.”

She looked at me, asked,

“Do you know about hate, Mr Taylor?”

“Please call me Jack. Yes, I do know about it.”

Her eyes bored into mine, and I saw a strength there. She said,

“Yes, I think you do. It became Bill’s reason for living. This is strange, but he was never more alive than when he was feeding the hatred. As if electricity had touched him. He never tired of planning revenge. You know what he was most afraid of?”

I couldn’t imagine, said,

“No.”

“That she’d be dead.”

“Oh.”

“He wanted her to suffer like our mother did.”

I considered briefly telling her what I knew. Before I could decide, she said,

“I hope he didn’t find her.”

“Didn’t you want her to pay for what she did to your mother?”

She shook her head, said,

“If she was so . . . demonic . . . as we’re told . . . life itself would deal with her.”

I finished my drink, said,

“I’m not so sure I agree with that.”

“Mr Taylor, Jack, my brother destroyed his life with hatred and cast a malignant shadow on mine. If he’d found that woman, it wouldn’t have made any difference. He’d become just like her. That’s what hatred does.”

I asked if I could get her another drink or some food, but she declined. She said,

“I’ll sit here a while. It’s peaceful.”

I stood up, my sodden clothes itching my skin, asked,

“What will you do with Bill gone?”

“I’ll tend his grave.”

“If you ever need anything, you can get me at Bailey’s Hotel.”

“Thank you, Jack. Bill was lucky to have a friend like you.”

When I got to the door of the pub, I looked back. She was watching the rain. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but she seemed content. I knew I wouldn’t see her again. Opened the door, put my head down against the onslaught.

I was in my room in dry clothes, sitting on the bed, flicking through
Spirit Brides
by Kahlil Gibran.

After my encounter with Bill’s sister, I wanted to be quiet, to read and to regroup. Don’t know what possessed me to pick that book. Here’s the piece I hit upon:

Woe unto this generation, for therein the verses of the Book have been reversed, the children eat unripe grapes and the father’s teeth are set on edge. Go, Pious woman and pray for your insane son, that heaven might help him and return him to his senses.

My mother would love that. I thought about what Fr Malachy had told me, about her stroke. The last thing in the world I wanted was to see her. Tossed and turned and eventually went to the window. The rain had stopped. I shook out my all-weather coat, decided to get it over with. Walked along Forster Street and stopped outside the site of the Magdalen. Soon, I’d go to call on Rita Monroe. What I’d tell her I had no idea. Would play it out as it happened.