Twisted Agendas (24 page)

He opened his car boot, leaned inside and removed with difficulty a large plastic bag that glinted in the light. Clutching it with both hands, he closed the lid of the boot with his forehead.
Once again he checked up and down the street before walking across to the house. The bag’s heft made him bend over slightly as he walked and he stopped after he reached the pavement to
readjust his grip.

As soon as he disappeared inside, Agnes climbed out and walked up to his car where she discovered the boot wasn’t properly shut. With eyes riveted on his front door, she eased the deck lid
open and peeked inside. More bags were inside, but her angle of vision and the gloomy interior prevented her from seeing what it was. Her eyes instantly smarted when she lowered her head into the
boot’s cavity. The uppermost bag had a tear and she knew instantly what its contents were.

“Hey there, what are you doing?”

Agnes straightened up so fast a spasm of pain passed through her lower back. Her head hit the edge of the boot’s lid.

“Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Hartley.” Danny said as he approached.

“Your boot was open and… and I was just about to close it for you.”

As she rubbed her head, he regarded her with concern.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“Didn’t half give me a fright, you did.”

“Here, let me help you to your house.”

“No.”

He made no attempt to remove another bag from the boot, just stood waiting for her to leave.

After she got inside her house, Agnes ran to the front window and watched him take out three more bags. An opportunity had just presented itself. A brilliant opportunity to remove Julia Ralston
and the Irishman from the house and get her son back home. Brimming with excitement, Agnes sat and began to complete her letter:

I’m almost recovered now from the terrible fright I got when that bomb went off on Hammersmith Bridge. I was there that night Ma’am and reported what I saw to
the police.

Now I find out there’s another of these IRA terrorists living next door. I never trusted that Irishman from the minute I set eyes on him. Ever so dodgy, he looks. When I saw him
carrying bags of fertiliser into the house he’s sharing with Julia Ralston, you could have struck me down with a feather. I’m so frightened he’s making bombs there, Ma’am. I
shouldn’t have to put up with neighbours like her at my age. But what can I do? Nobody cares or listens to old people anymore.

Well, I’ll sign off for now but will write again.

With loyalty and affection, I remain yours,

Agnes Hartley

Piper started around the park a second time. She watched three old men playing bocce, lingered in the shade of the hangman’s elm and finally stopped to admire the
intricate carving on the Washington Memorial that reminded her now of Marble Arch. As she reached the weathered picnic bench again, the one where her friends and she had sat at when she was a
student, she pondered again if it was a good sign Todd was now an hour late.

Three days ago, he’d called to say he was returning to New York for a short visit because a Wall Street investment bank wanted to interview him immediately. Although they chatted regularly
on the phone, Piper’d been so busy with her research she hadn’t realised until he arrived how much she’d actually missed him. They’d gone to an off-off Broadway show the
previous evening, a monologue written and directed by an old NYU friend, and afterwards met up with Vanessa for drinks but stayed only half-an-hour because Todd wanted a good night’s
rest.

The angry honks of a car horn drowned out the shrieks of toddlers playing at a nearby jungle gym. Piper glanced over the low hedge toward the street. A pedestrian had stepped off the pavement
and almost gotten knocked over. She scanned the onlooker’s faces watching the scene but Todd wasn’t among them. Famished, she took out the sandwiches she’d bought for their
lunches and began to eat while typing into her laptop. She spotted him five minutes later walking past the Arts and Science Center across the street. He looked handsome in a black pinstriped suit
though she still much preferred him in jeans. She stood and waved until he saw her.

“This place’s a lot shabbier than I thought it’d be,” he said. His gaze travelled diagonally to a homeless man stretched out on a park bench.

“San Francisco has homeless people, doesn’t it?”

“A lot.”

“None in Nob Hill, I’d imagine.”

“True.” He wiped the bench seat before sitting beside her. “My folks want to meet you.”

“I’m too scared of the Big One happening.”

“Oh stop. I want you to meet them, Piper.”

“All in good time.”

“Hey, working together on our relationship’s going to be a two-way street, you know?”

She scratched the surface of the picnic bench with her nails for a moment. “Okay, the suspense is killing me. What happened?”

“Job’s mine if I want it.”

“Oh my God.” She handed him the lunch bag. “You’re officially a suit.”

“If I take the job.” He opened the bag. “I’d be required to spend four months here first before transferring to London for a year.”

“Just for a year?”

“That’s what they said. But things can change.” He looked inside the bag. “What’d you get me?”

“Ham and Swiss on rye. Will you take the job?”

“Well first, I’m going to interview with that bank in San Francisco next week. Better to have two or three places wanting me. That way I can up my starting salary.” He laughed.
“You know what they wanted me to do as part of the training when I get here?”

“Learn some kind of in-house research programme.”

“Take etiquette classes.”

“Get outta here.”

“The guy said there’s a lot of kids coming out of the ivy leagues who can’t use a knife and fork.” He regarded his sandwich. “At first I thought he was kidding
until their personnel director told me that kids today have the smarts to get into the right colleges and close multi-million dollar mergers, but they don’t have a clue about entertaining
clients and stuff.”

As she watched him eat his sandwich, Piper realised he was right. It took two to work on a relationship and he was prepared to do it. He didn’t need to return to London to work, in fact
his career path would be far better served if he moved to New York permanently.

“Hey,” she said, and lightly touched his arm. “Next time we’re over I’ll come with you to meet your parents.”

As she walked along the narrow path with its neatly trimmed verges, the sun kept disappearing behind the low scudding clouds. It was like the constant switching on and off of a
light bulb. Cloud shadows flitted over the obelisks and headstones on either side of her. The breeze became a moderate wind as she advanced, making the limbs of the elms restless and exposing the
paler undersides of their leaves.

All the network meteorologists had predicted thunder and downpours but, as the morning slid into early afternoon and the pale blue sky remained unchanged, Piper figured it was just one of those
oddball summer days that fooled everyone and didn’t bring a jacket or umbrella. After the mile walk from the train station, she realised her mistake and hoped her father would travel back
directly to the city so she could ride back with him. He’d called and offered to give her a ride to the cemetery that morning, but then called before she left to say something urgent had come
up and he had to go to Garden City.

As she rounded the copse of fir trees separating this part of the cemetery from the older section, she saw her father, dressed in a denim jacket, standing with his head bent in prayer. His right
hand rested on the horizontal of the cross forming part of Rory’s black granite headstone.

“I thought you said you were coming with your mother. Where is she?”

“She said she’d be here round quarter to four. You know, we could have come here earlier like she suggested.”

“It’s more peaceful near closing time.”

She regarded the oval photograph of her brother’s impish face positioned just above his name, birth and death dates etched in gold lettering. As Piper knelt on the marble coping and
blessed herself, her father checked his watch. She leaned over and placed the small bunch of roses she’d brought on the bed of dazzling white marble chippings, right beside a potted geranium
with two broken flower heads. When she visited Rory alone, she’d talk to him rather than pray because it felt more natural. But her father’s presence returned her now to the solemnity
of the funeral and saying a prayer seemed more appropriate today. She looked at her grandparents’ adjacent plot, their twin hearts headstone made of polished red granite. A weathered Irish
tricolour and American flag stood inside a vase.

The sharp edge of the coping began to bite into the soft flesh beneath her knee.

“I miss him,” he said.

“Rory’s always with us.”

“It’s not the same.”

She looked down trying to imagine exactly where her brother lay asleep just a short distance away, the silence between them broken only by the rumble of distant thunder. A couple walked by on
their way to the exit. Further along the main pathway was the only other remaining visitor, an old woman with a grizzled Labrador on a lead standing beside a grave blanketed with fresh
wreathes.

“Your old man loves you, Philomena. You know that, right?”

She moved closer and put her hand around his thick wrist and squeezed. It was an old signal between them, a sign she needed him to put his arm around her, one she hadn’t used since puberty
when she’d stopped wanting him to do it anymore. He remembered. As he turned and began to raise his arm, the front of his jacket opened slightly and she saw the black grip of a handgun.

“What the heck’s keepin’ your mother?”

His arm felt heavy on her shoulders.

“She’ll be here.” She waited a moment before speaking again. “Were you on police work earlier?”

“No.” He squeezed her left shoulder and then took his arm away.

Two large crows rose noisily into the darkening sky. She looked over just as her mother came hastily round the copse of trees. She waved as she approached.

“I forgot just how crazy the L.I.E gets on Friday afternoons.” Her mother blessed herself, touching her forehead and shoulders lightly with her orange painted nails. She placed a
bunch of scarlet roses and a chocolate bar on top of the white chip-pings. Tears welled in Piper’s eyes. Her throat constricted.

“I always bring him his favourite chocolate though I’m sure the birds eat it as soon as I leave.”

Piper wiped her eyes.

“But it makes me feel good. Crazy, huh?”

“It’s not crazy, Mom.”

Her mother looked about the cemetery. “Twice this summer, I’ve brought a book and just sat here for hours. I just feel so close to him when I sit here.”

“Sometimes I think we’ll see each other here, Philomena,” her father said.

Her mother didn’t answer, just watched the old woman and her arthritic dog pass by.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” her father said.

Piper detected a tremor in his voice, peered over and saw him regarding her mother with a strange look in his eye.

“I thought it was a crazy idea when Piper told me,” her mother said. “I nearly didn’t come after I thought about it some more.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Juan said it was a good idea.”

“What matters is we’re all here,” said Piper.

A finger of lightning darted across the distant horizon and was chased twelve seconds later by a peal of thunder.

“Piper tells me you’re living in the city now. You liking it?”

“Manhattan’s for young people.”

“Age is just a state of mind,” her mother said. “Forty-five’s the new twenty-two.”

“That why you’re dressed like one of those young pharmaceutical reps?”

The skirt of her mother’s business suit was very short. “
Dad
, we’re with Rory.”

“You think he’s looking down on us right now?” her father said.

“You bet he is,” said her mother. “One thing about Rory, he was always a curious kid.” She laughed sharply. The wind swallowed it instantly.

“I’ve got an umbrella in the car, Piper.” Her father held out the keys.

“I’m okay, Dad.”

“I meant for your mother.”

“I’m good.” Her mother looked at the sky. “We should get outta here or we’ll get soaked before we make it back to the parking lot.”

“I’d like to talk to your Mom alone.”

“What do you need to talk to me about, Kevin?”

“It’s between us.”

“We’ve nothing to say to each other that can’t be said in front of her.”

“Philomena, let’s just you and I talk for a minute.”

His voice was high-pitched now.

“I’m not going anywhere, Dad.”

“Leave us.”

“No.”

“I’m outta here.” Her mother turned to leave.

Her father reached quickly inside his jacket and pulled out the gun. “Don’t move, Philomena.”

“Who do you think… ”

“I didn’t want it this way.” Her father pointed the revolver at her mother. “Not in front of our daughter.”

“Dad!” Piper moved toward him but he stepped back. “What are you doing?”

Everything was surreal. She saw the gun but couldn’t believe it was there. She blinked slowly. It was still there, still in her father’s shaking hand, still pointed at her
mother’s chest.

“Dad, you’re the cop.”

“Kevin, think of your daughter,” her mother said, her voice unsteady now.

“You’ve ruined my life, Philomena. There’s nothing left.”

She’d never seen her father’s eyes so dead. Their dark blue cores were black and had no light.

“Kevin… listen to me.” Her mother swallowed hard. “Think before you pull… ”

“‘For better, for worse. Till death do us part.’ Remember that promise?”

Everything unfurled in slow motion as her father’s hand began to move. The revolver turned inward and then its muzzle was pressed against his right temple. A surge of raw energy passed
through Piper’s body. His finger flexed. For an instant she was at once captivated and horrified.

“NO. Dad, no. What Mom’s done to you is wrong. She’s treated you badly. But why kill yourself because of her?” Piper’s mind whipped through other convincing things
to say. She could not fail. “It’s a sin what you’re gonna do. A big sin. There’s no grey here.” The revolver stayed pointed. “Dad, I won’t change my name
when I marry. I’ll do that for you. I promise. I need you. But you have to promise you’ll stay for me. That’s what
I
need. Rory’s watching, Dad. He wouldn’t
want this.”