Himself(61)

They’ve never seen anyone like this: a Mayo Heathcliff. All curses and windstorm, black passion and fury. The women watch him until he is out of sight, for he’s as compelling as the weather.

If they saw what followed him, well, they wouldn’t wonder at the speed of his feet. For the dead are drawn to those with shattered hearts. They flit down from barns and outhouses, and dart out from attic rooms and cowsheds to join in the march.

‘Róisín, always a pleasure.’

‘What’s happened here, Mrs Cauley?’

The contents of the suitcase are strewn across the floor. From the bed Mrs Cauley is endeavouring to hook a nappy rag with a back scratcher. She sinks back into her pillows.

‘An autopsy; would you be so kind as to put all that back, Róisín?’

‘Of course.’

Róisín kneels on the edge of the rug and starts to fold. ‘Is Mahony here?’

‘He’s not. He went out for a walk.’

‘Do you know where he was heading?’

‘I don’t.’

Róisín nods. She hesitates to reach out for a little white knitted cardigan.

‘Where did all this come from?’

‘It belonged to his mother.’

Róisín recoils slightly. ‘You ought not to keep this in the house.’

‘Why not?’ says Mrs Cauley reasonably.

Róisín continues folding the piles into the case. ‘It can’t do Mahony any good. He needs to move on.’

Mrs Cauley’s smile drops a notch. ‘Mahony needs to find out what happened to his mother – that’s why he came here.’

Róisín shakes her head. ‘No disrespect, Mrs Cauley, but this is someone’s life you’re meddling with, someone’s feelings.’

Mrs Cauley licks her lips slowly. ‘Meddling?’

Róisín gets up off the floor and brushes her knees. ‘I know you mean well, Mrs Cauley, but you’re upsetting people, stirring up all these bad memories. Can’t you let the past alone? Can’t you let Mahony lay this to rest and get on with his life? This is certain to cause trouble for him.’

Mrs Cauley’s eyes are arctic. ‘What did you want with Mahony?’

‘I’ve heard something he needs to know. That’s all.’

‘What is it?’

Róisín doesn’t like the look on the old lady’s face. ‘I’d rather tell him directly.’

‘We have no secrets between us, Mahony and I.’

‘Well then, he can tell you after if he wants to.’

Mrs Cauley’s smile doesn’t falter. ‘As I’m sure he will. Isn’t he lucky to have a friend like you taking care of his interests?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say—’

‘But still, you ought to remember your place, Róisín. You’re a married woman and people gossip.’

Róisín laughs a little too loudly. ‘I don’t think of him like that.’

Mrs Cauley smiles up from the bed; dressed in the softest blue she’s as harmless as a soapsud. ‘Of course you don’t, dear. You wouldn’t compare a man like Mahony to your Noel, would you? Isn’t Noel the only man for you?’

Róisín colours.

‘You can live with Noel’s psoriasis and his drinking and his old mammy in the guest room if you’ve the kind of love you two share. Can’t you, dear?’

Róisín flares into tears and flees, dropping the kind of look on Mrs Cauley that could almost make a body feel guilty.

Alone in her library, Mrs Cauley takes out the play script and opens it. Her name is marked inside the cover: Property of Merle Cauley.

She was still Merle in those days.

Green-grey branches bleed from her name. They spread out across the page. Mrs Cauley touches them, traces their path. She imagines Orla, pencil in hand, dreaming. Lying on her stomach, kicking up her heels. Or sitting curled up in some quiet corner, biting her lip, absorbed, her hand moving across the paper.

Mrs Cauley turns over the page, following the branches as they weave through the words of the text, becoming darker, denser, more convoluted. They twist and writhe, weave and twine. Soon the words are hidden, obliterated, by the growing branches.

They reach downwards to form trunks and roots; they reach upwards to break apart into showers of leaves and stars. Here, a fat orange sun rises above autumn leaves. There, a winter storm cloud is caught between a tree’s twiggy fingers.

Mrs Cauley turns the page and animals begin to appear in Orla’s forest. A thin red fox noses delicately from one corner and a murder of flapping crows fly by, patterned deep blue and charcoal. Mrs Cauley turns the page and a hare with protruding eyes hops shyly through the undergrowth where giant black beetles swarm with great antlers.

Owls appear, moon-faced and sinister amongst the branches, in a forest shaded with heavy lines so that Mrs Cauley understands that it is night. The owls gaze down upon a crop of strange heads that sprout from tree trunks, or hang from branches, mild-eyed and pale, with blunt noses and unformed mouths and tiny starry hands.

Mrs Cauley turns the page, going deeper into the forest. A satyr-like creature grins up at her from behind a tree, with hairy haunches and a pointed chin. A swarm of bullet-headed bees pass by, with sleek plush bodies and fine gauze wings. One stares out at her with blue human eyes. Mrs Cauley turns over quickly.