Himself(60)

‘Now that would attract the dead. Mary Lavelle knocks the head off Teasie whenever the poor girl forgets to put the milk away. She says that even a dribble of it will have her coming home to find a load of thirsty ghosts drawing up to her kitchen table, rubbing their cold little hands.’

Mother Doosey sweeps past looking skeptical.

‘She has Teasie building a ring of rocks round the house now,’ says Bridget. ‘It’s not so successful with the dead but it’s great against the devil. Interferes with his hearing apparently.’

Mahony smiles. ‘Do you believe in what she sees?’

‘Each to their own, that’s what I believe. If Mary Lavelle wants to see ghosts and bloody spectres hanging from her curtains, that’s up to her.’

‘She says that the dead were resurrected when I walked back into town.’

‘As if you haven’t enough demons to deal with?’ Bridget fixes him with shrewd eyes. ‘As you know yourself, Mahony, you’ve more to fear from the living.’

By the back door Mother Doosey nods gravely and drifts out into the garden to stand with her hands pressed into the downcurve of her back, gazing up at the passing clouds.

Bridget smiles at him. ‘I’ll tell you what though, I’ll worry about the dead the day they work out how to poison a scone.’

Mahony laughs.

Bridget picks up a fork and scratches her head with it meditatively. ‘I’ve got something for you, in exchange for your visit.’ She points the fork at him. ‘It takes great strength of character to walk five miles with a bag of fish heads, don’t think I don’t know that.’

‘So you were testing me?’ Mahony laughs.

‘I know your mettle.’ Bridget narrows her eyes. ‘You’re your mother’s boy.’





Chapter 28


May 1976


Mahony concentrates hard on the flies circuiting the light bulb. The bulb itself is ordinary, naked for a shade; it hangs down on a fifteen-foot cord, to the left of the middle of the ceiling. It has dictated the position of the furniture in the room; it is directly above Mrs Cauley’s bed. The bulb is a hot spot around the clock. Later on, when the flies lay off, the moths will take over.

Mrs Cauley is propped up in bed wearing an auburn wig, powder-blue crêpe de Chine and a frown. She’s not watching the flies. She’s watching Mahony. Only sometimes her eyes turn to the suitcase on the low table between them. Mahony screws out his cigarette and gets up off his chair. He goes over to the French doors and leans against the frame. Johnnie and Father Jim are drifting up and down the veranda, driven outside by the tension. Father Jim is holding forth, deeply engaged in a sermon of sorts, Johnnie meanders alongside him, looking down at his feet with his hands clamped over his ears.

Mahony will go out to them. He’ll have a walk and clear his head. He’ll hear what Father Jim has got to say. Then maybe he’ll go down to the bay. Then maybe out to sea, and to America even, keeping Mulderrig, Rathmore House and the suitcase firmly at his back at all times.

‘Christ on a crutch, Mahony, will you open the case and be done with it?’

Mahony pushes out against the doorframe and turns. ‘I will, yeah.’

Mrs Cauley feels for him, she really does, so she speaks gently. ‘Let’s start by running through what Bridget told you.’

He sits back down on the chair.

‘Inside that case are the worldly possessions of your mother.’

There is a frayed pink ribbon tied around the handle.

Mrs Cauley continues. ‘When your grandmother died, Bridget went up to the house and she found these things and saved them. Maybe to prove to herself that Orla and her baby had existed, maybe to keep them in case Orla ever returned.’

The lock has rusted.

‘Open the case, Mahony. You need to know what’s inside.’

One of the hinges will break as he opens it. It has held on for such a long time.

Some things are too much.

Inside there are baby clothes. Little vests, a knitted cardigan with ducks on the buttons and a pile of folded nappies, yellow with age. There’s a pair of shoes, black patent and worn at the heels. Mahony cradles one in his hand and looks inside. The shape of her toes is still pressed into them. There’s a dress made of shiny fabric, with the ghost of a stain under each armpit, a few blouses in differing sizes and a coat with a badly ripped lining. At the bottom of the case they find a purse with money in it, a play script and a silver-backed hairbrush, deeply tarnished. Caught in it are several long inky hairs.

Mahony doesn’t feel Mrs Cauley’s hand on his arm. He doesn’t hear her say his name.

He kicks over the table and walks out of the room.

There’s beauty today in the changing landscape. The sky is a freshly washed blue and the wildflowers along the road bend their bright heads, dipping through the long grass. Birds spin through the glass air to land on washing lines and survey lawns sprinkled with breakfast crusts.

It’s the time of the day when mammies shake out the dead with the doormats and set about making the dinner. They catch sight of Mahony from a casement window, or an angled mirror, or a propped-open back door. Then the housewives of Mulderrig patter out to stand on their doorsteps with a dustpan in hand, or a bowl of peelings, or a clutch of eggshells. Mahony strides past without a nod or a smile, with his hair whipped back off his face and his gypsy eyes burning.