Mr. Flood's Last Resort(86)

“It destroyed her.”

St. Dymphna saunters out through the wall of the dining room, just next to the open French windows. She prefers to take walls rather than doors just because she can. She pigeon steps through the flowers with a look of studied piety.

“Sometimes it’s worse, not knowing.”

Máire glances at me. “I think it is, Maud.”

We sit in silence for a while, looking at the nymph. The nymph tips her jug; from its spout runs a stream of clear water.

“But Mary loved her son and she loved to draw.”

“She drew?”

“She did; she was very good at it.” Máire laughs, her face transformed, expansive. “We planned to put together a book, just for ourselves. I would write it and she would illustrate it.”

“What was it about?”

“Stories about each of us growing up, you know, and how it was back then, in a different time.” She smiles sadly. “There are some of Mary’s drawings in the library. Would you like to see them?”

I would.

*

MáIRE LEADS me along empty corridors; the residents will be in the day room now, she says. There are activities most afternoons. The hallways are painted pink, like bad medicine. Residents’ artworks jostle with framed portraits of saints. I recognize all of the saints, even the obscure ones. Some of the portraits are more accurate than others.

Máire opens the door to a large, sunny room with old sofas and bookcases and a view out over the lawn.

She points to a picture above a filing cabinet.

“That’s by Mary.”

I move closer to a framed drawing of a sleeping girl of around seven, with her hand furled against her face. It’s lovely, rendered in vivid detail from the pin-tucked front of her dress to her upturned nose and the curls at her temples.

“This is also one of Mary’s; she used pastel here.”

The same child, older, sits reading. A ribbon is coming loose in her hair. Her hair is a soft bright auburn.

“It’s Maggie, isn’t it?”

Máire nods.

I look at the child in the picture: Mary’s little girl.

“What went wrong?”

Máire shakes her head. “I can’t answer that.”

“Are there any pictures of Mary, photographs I mean?”

“There are.”

Máire walks over to the bookcase and searches through a row of albums; she picks one out and hands it to me.

“The residents made this to commemorate the opening of the new wing.”

A priest with a pair of shears cuts a ribbon. Father Creedo himself. People look on smiling. Over the page there’s Mary in a shirtdress with shoulder-length red hair standing at the fountain. Behind her, water falls in blurred arcs through the air.

This is not the Mary I see in my dreams, blank-eyed, swooping. Nor is she the Mary of Cathal’s paintings, the pale muse with burning hair. This is a real woman in a real moment, having her picture taken. Her face caught somewhere between a smile and a grimace.

“Are there any of Cathal?”

Máire shakes her head. “He wasn’t so involved. He tended to use his time here to paint.”

I turn the pages until I reach a photograph taken on the lawn at the back of the home. Trestle tables are set for a party. There are paper cups and bunting and jugs of juice, seated children and adults looking on.

“Maggie is there, look.”

Maggie in a T-shirt and shorts, her bleached blond hair scooped into a ponytail, secured with a white bow. She has her foot up on the rung of a chair and is smiling.

But I’m not looking at her.

Because sitting at the other end of the table is Sam Hebden. Very young, very thin, but unmistakable.

“Who is this?”

Máire peers at the photograph then looks at me oddly. “That’s Gabriel.”

Next to him sits a fat child with black hair. A youthful version of the Gabriel Flood I know. I point to him. “And this?”

Máire looks again. “Stephen, Mary’s sister’s boy.” She glances at me. “Not a relation on your side?”

I shake my head.

“He was often with the Floods. Mary’s sister wasn’t always in the best of health. The two boys were inseparable, more like brothers, really.”

*

MáIRE OFFERS to walk me back to the entrance hall. She doesn’t ask me about my fictional memoir, nor volunteer any information on Mary Flood’s fund-raising. But she does let me borrow two photographs from the commemorative album. As we part, Máire Doherty looks at me kindly with her shrewd currant eyes and wishes me the best of luck.

And then I realize. I open my bag and take out the notebook. “I think Mary meant for you to have this.”

M D

Don’t be afraid to tell our story.

M F



AS I walk down the drive of Holly Lodge and turn out onto the road I hear a car slow to a crawl beside me. I don’t need to look up to know it’s a green Golf with a dented passenger door.

Dr. Gabriel Flood pulls over and winds down the window. “What happened to you?”

He is livid, white-faced, and his eyes are brutal.

The same man only different.

I glance around me. The road is deserted. On one side, a high wall, on the other, a wood. St. Dymphna sails out from the trees and across the road, her face graver than I’ve ever seen it.