Himself(65)

All at once, as if automated, her eyes revolve in her head. She glares at him, as unblinking as a tomcat.

‘Take it with you,’ she hisses. ‘It belongs to you. Take it with you.’

Mrs Lavelle looks away as Teasie comes back into the room.

‘I’ve no honey. Will treacle do?’

‘I’d prefer the honey, if it’s all the same.’

Teasie peers through her smudged glasses with an expression of great uncertainty. ‘I could pop along to Mrs Moran and borrow a spoonful.’

‘That’s the plan right there! You could so, Teasie. I’ll sit with your mammy. She’ll be fine with me, won’t you, Mrs Lavelle?’

There is no response from Mrs Lavelle; her eyes are riveted to the pot plant in the corner.

Teasie hovers.

‘You’ll be no sooner gone than back again.’

‘Right so, I’ll be a minute just.’

‘Take your time,’ Mahony smiles.

Teasie goes out into the hallway and takes down her overcoat from the hook, pausing only to inhale Mahony’s jacket once more.

There’s a shadow in Mrs Lavelle’s front parlour, she says. It’s stretched out there along the sideboard, watching them. It fidgets the hem of the tablecloth and fingers the china plate. It shakes the curtains and pinches the cat. Its breath flutters in the empty grate and fogs up Teasie’s glasses. The shadow let itself in the day Mahony came to town and now it’s taken up residence.

Mrs Lavelle tentatively brings her hand up to wipe the corners of her mouth with the handkerchief knotted in her fist.

The shadow kept to the corners at first, she says. It hid behind the dresser, under the bed, in the hatbox on top of the wardrobe.

It waited and it watched.

Soon she began to hear footsteps on the stairs, a naked little patter, sticky wet. Watery footprints began to appear, on the lino and on the carpets, up the walls and along the windowsills. The place developed an underwater smell.

They found silt on the doormat and gravel on the hearthrug.

Mrs Lavelle took to wearing a nail tied around her neck, for such shadows can’t abide iron. But each morning the shoelace lay empty at her throat and the nail was gone. Soon the footsteps were iron-shod; they rang out on the kitchen flags and fell heavy up the stairs.

Soon her prayer cards were missing, and her crucifix, and her blue glass rosary beads. All gone. The shadow had eaten them.

The shadow grew braver and began to lick up the holy water she put around the place. It banged doors and left handprints in the butter dish. It threw saucers and howled down the hallway.

Mahony looks around the room. A framed portrait of the pope, with one hand raised in blessing, hangs over the fireplace. A few parched pot plants hang on grimly in the corners, and a pair of ugly ceramic dogs grace the mantelpiece. Anything that can be covered with an antimacassar is wearing one. A good layer of dust shrouds everything else.

There is not one dead person in sight.

Mahony speaks to her very gently. ‘You mustn’t upset yourself, Mrs Lavelle. Sure, there’s nothing here but us two. The only dead thing in this house is that moth in your sugar bowl.’

Mrs Lavelle clenches her handkerchief to her mouth and cries, ‘That’s because it frightened all the others away.’

Mahony’s heart jumps. ‘Who is it, Mrs Lavelle? Tell me.’

She shakes her head. ‘Where are my pills?’

‘I’ll get you your pills now, Mrs Lavelle. Just tell me who you see.’

She starts to rock herself with her hands balled to fists at her sides. ‘The dead pay back. You shouldn’t cross them. You mustn’t cross them.’

‘Who did you cross, Mrs Lavelle?’

Teasie hears the screaming as she lets herself in at the gate. She runs into the parlour to see Mahony on the floor in front of her mother’s chair. He has hold of her mother’s knees and her mother is looking down at him in stricken horror. When Mahony sees Teasie he lets go of the old woman and immediately the screaming stops. Mrs Lavelle slumps back in the chair with her eyes closed, twitching. Teasie hears herself asking him to leave in a voice that isn’t her own. In the hallway Mahony turns to her.

‘I need to talk to your mother again, when she’s feeling better. It’s important, Teasie.’

Teasie shakes her head. ‘Get out. Get out. Get out!’ She is still holding the pot of honey in her hand as she locks the door behind him.

In the parlour Mary Lavelle stares, her knuckles white on the arms of her chair. Her nightmare is crawling towards her, all along the skirting boards.





Chapter 34


March 1950


The fire was nearly out when Orla heard the sound. It wasn’t one of the night sounds she knew: an owl hunting over the fields, or the mournful cry of a vixen; these sounds were familiar to her.

This sound was different. It was muffled and heavy with threat.

In a moment they were inside. Men with their caps pulled down low, stark patterns from their lanterns, shouting, knocking over chairs.

She ran to take up her baby.

A man grabbed hold of her and tried to put her arms to the sides but she was too quick. She twisted herself free and took up a bottle and broke it against the wall. She turned and pushed it into him. She saw him stagger backwards.

She looked around for her boy.