Mr. Flood's Last Resort(96)

Soon enough there was another face at the mirror alongside the woman’s.

Everywhere Mary went Maggie followed, drifting behind, from room to room, twisting the end of her ponytail and staring accusingly.

Every night Mary took a tumble into the well. Her nails scrabbling against blasted brickwork. Her hands grabbing at the strange subterranean plants that grew from the cracks. Her lungs breathing the cold, earthy smell of the bottom of the world as she turned. Every night she was shattered by the impact.

Every morning, when she woke, Mary wondered if she could last.

*

STELLA IS asleep on the sofa, snoring softly. Her legs twitching as she chases the cats that slink and hiss through her dreams.

We see Frank Gaunt out and go into the kitchen and sit for a while drinking krupnik how it’s meant to be drunk, with a steady hand and a grateful brain.

Mary’s confession, the confession we didn’t show Frank Gaunt, is on the table between us.

“What do you want to do with it, Maud?” Renata’s voice is low, gentle.

I think about Mary, a proud broken fire-haired woman. Signing her name, sealing the envelope. I think about Maggie, safe now in the police morgue, raised from her unquiet slumber under rubble at the well’s end. Soon she’ll sleep in the family plot, only this time her rest will be eternal.

I think about Gabriel and Stephen, trapped at the foot of the stairs, their exit blocked by fallen debris. The cause of the fire: faulty wiring on a set of fairy lights.

Mostly, I think of Cathal sitting at the kitchen table at Bridlemere, whistling through his dentures, swearing amiably.

He pats down the wild white mane of his hair and smiles. Then he’s off, scudding down the cluttered hallway of my mind’s eye.

I get up and search the kitchen drawer for matches.

*

IT CATCHES. I hold the paper as it burns, dropping it into the sink when the flame gets too near my fingers.

I wait for a dim figure to step through the wall, with a glowing corona and a muttered prayer. With a cloak, or a robe, or a wall-eyed wink. But nowadays there are only two undaunted women in a maisonette with a bottle of krupnik.

“You’ve packed your passport, then?”

I smile. “I have.”

“Of course you have.”

“Will you be all right?” I say. “I’ll be back in a week or so.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Renata looks me in the eye. “You’ll come back when you’ve found her.”

I nod.

“And you will find her, Maud.”

I raise my glass to Renata and she raises her glass to me.