A Woman Unknown (27 page)

When the children saw at which house we drew up, they kept a respectful distance. I parked behind Anthony Hartigan’s hired Rolls-Royce. Perhaps never in its history had Cotton Street been host to two motor cars at once.

Fitzpatrick exited awkwardly from the vehicle, holding onto the bonnet while I passed his crutches and the bottle of whisky.

A group of men stood about outside the house, by the window, smoking. Behind them, the curtains were drawn.

Fitzpatrick swung towards the door. He acknowledged someone, with a nod and a murmur of his name, Jimmy. Here then was the ancient gnome, his moth-eaten cap worn at a jaunty angle. He leaned against the window sill, his gaunt cheeks sucked in as he drew on a clay pipe.

I followed Fitzpatrick into the downstairs room, which hushed as we entered. Chairs and buffets must have been
brought in by neighbours. There was barely an inch of unoccupied floor space. As we entered, two women stood to leave. I turned sideways to let them pass, and they acknowledged me with nods as they left.

Fitzpatrick set the whisky down on the table. Anthony had been standing with his back to the fire. He leaned across to shake Fitzpatrick’s hand, and at the same time gave me a friendly nod. ‘Mrs Shackleton, thank you for coming.’

‘My condolences,’ I said to him and to anyone else who wanted to accept them.

Fitzpatrick turned to the woman nearest the fire. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Aunt Mary. Mona did her best in life, and that’s a fact.’

I glanced about the room, wearing my amiable yet slightly sorrowful visitor look. The mirror above the fireplace was turned to the wall. The shelf held a crucifix, statues and little black-edged cards with pictures of saints.

The hum of conversation resumed.

Fitzpatrick was explaining to Aunt Mary how he injured his foot.

A woman seated by the table said, ‘You’ll have a cup of tea.’

‘She will of course,’ Hartigan said. ‘And Cyril, you’ll take a drink. What was it you said you did to your foot?’

While Fitzpatrick explained his accident again, I watched the woman with tight ginger ringlets pour tea. She was about Deirdre’s age, and I took a guess. ‘You’re Rita, a friend of Deirdre’s?’

‘I am. Or that is to say we were good friends but some people don’t like a woman to keep up with old friends.’ She stared accusingly at Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick ignored her. To the room in general, he said, ‘This is Mrs Shackleton, a family friend.’

He had lost the nerve to introduce me as the person helping him to find his wife.

Rita said, ‘Well I’ve never heard of you.’

There seemed to be no opportunity to ask had anyone seen Deirdre. She simply was not mentioned.

Fitzpatrick turned to me. ‘Will you come upstairs, Mrs Shackleton?’

Rita gave the slightest of titters.

Fitzpatrick let me go first and I was glad of that as I did not relish the thought of his toppling backwards down the narrow stone staircase and crushing me to a pulp. But after the first step, he gave up. ‘Will you carry up these blessed crutches? I’ll manage best under my own steam. I’m used to being on my knees.’

I carried the crutches up the stairs, and then turned to see Fitzpatrick making rapid progress on hands and knees.

Once upright again, Fitzpatrick dipped his fingers in a small font of holy water that was nailed to the wall where in a different house there may have been a light switch. The font was attached to the base of a metal crucifix, about six inches long, the tiny thorn-crowned figure looking sadly down at the water below his feet.

The bedroom window was open a little but gave no breeze. A sheet had been rigged to stretch from the posts at the bed head to its foot, providing a canopy. Candles flickered on the mantelpiece and washstand. I hung back as Fitzpatrick adjusted his crutches and approached the bed, stepping round three women who knelt at the bedside, telling their beads with a low murmur, as if chanting spells.

Fitzpatrick touched the dead woman’s forehead. I brought myself to look at Deirdre’s mother for the first and last time. Mrs Hartigan’s skin had a parchment-like quality, with many small lines, like cracks in old paper. There was a sharpness to her features and the severely parted grey hair and closed, deep set eyes made her look already like an effigy on a tomb.

Fitzpatrick stepped back. ‘Say goodbye,’ he ordered.

I hesitated. It felt strange to be paying respects to a woman I had not known, and too intrusive to touch her, as Fitzpatrick had. But having come into the room, I could do no other than approach, ignoring the kneeling women on my right.

I almost touched her forehead, sufficiently close to feel a cold tingle in my fingers. This would get me nowhere. Where is your daughter? I asked silently

You’ll be the last to know, came the dead woman’s wordless reply.

Fitzpatrick disconcerted the praying women by awkwardly using his crutches as an aid to lowering himself to his knees. He pulled beads from his pocket to join in.

I glanced around the room. There was a flowered dress on the back of the door, carefully placed on a hanger. It did not belong to the dead woman, or the aunts. It was a short-sleeved summer frock. How much time did Deirdre spend here? I wondered. And was she here now? Perhaps she had dashed to hide in the cellar when someone said, Your husband is coming.

It was then that I noticed Eddie in the corner of the room, looking every inch the boxer, dazed from life’s punches but waiting to spring into the ring. One look at his unhappy face told me that Deirdre was not here.

When the rosary came to an end, two of the women stood up nimbly enough and after kissing the dead woman’s forehead, and touching her cheek and hands, they left. The remaining woman then pushed herself to her feet, using the edge of the bed. Fitzpatrick, forgetting his own infirmity, moved to help her, saying, ‘Sorry for your loss, Aunt Brenda. She looks at peace. Her troubles are over.’ He then spoke to the dead woman. ‘Mona, your life was hard but you saw your son at the last. You died a contented woman.’

Brenda was not unlike her sister Mary, but her hair was still black, and her bright eyes looked altogether more intelligent, and more wary. ‘Is that so? Is that so indeed, or did himself downstairs, turning up in the image of his father, push you over the edge altogether, Mona? That and the rattling of the cart they call an ambulance, bumping her over the cobbles all the way to Roundhay until the poor soul’s insides must have been shook about and her very bones worked loose.’

Fitzpatrick adjusted his crutches. ‘That nursing home was a good clean place,’ he protested mildly. ‘And sure isn’t the matron’s family from Kilkenny? Deirdre did what she thought best.’

‘I don’t hold Deirdre to blame. But where is she?’

Fitzpatrick looked uncomfortable. ‘Here’s the point. I’m at a loss to know where she could be and I have this lady here helping me to find her.’

‘Aye well you’re looking in the wrong place. No one has seen her here.’

A heavy silence filled the room. Through the open window came the voices of the men, talking quietly in the street below.

‘Do you hear that, Mona?’ the aunt addressed the dead woman. ‘Your precious son-in-law does not know where your daughter is.’ She turned to him. ‘What have you done to the lass?’

‘I’ve done nothing. For mercy’s sake, Brenda, I’m doing my best to find her. You talk as if it’s my fault.’

She stared at him, and then spoke to Mona again. ‘Will you listen to the man’s excuses? It’s not his fault that he can’t find his wife.’

I caught Fitzpatrick’s eye, to let him know that he must not stand here arguing.

He took the hint and turned to go.

In the doorway, he put down his crutches and lowered himself onto his bottom to descend the stairs.

I offered the aunt my condolences. Eddie sat still in the corner, watching and listening.

When Fitzpatrick had gone, I said to the aunt, ‘Last year, Deirdre was in a spot of bother, a misunderstanding in one of the town shops. My partner helped her then and I want to help her now. She came here all the time. She came here when she didn’t come here, if you catch my meaning. If there’s anything at all you can say that will help me find her, please don’t keep it to yourself. I would like to talk to her for just five minutes.’

For a moment, I thought Brenda was about to tell me something.

Eddie cleared his throat.

Brenda walked to the door, saying to me as she left, ‘May God forgive you, casting aspersions on the girl in front of her dead mother.’

When she had gone, Eddie said, ‘Deirdre keeps her fancy clothes in a trunk under the bed.’

‘Has she taken anything?’

‘Not a thing.’

Something else was troubling him. I waited, but he did not speak again.

Footsteps on the stairs alerted me to Mona Hartigan’s next round of visitors. When they had entered, I left the room and slowly picked my way downstairs.

As I looked into the crowded room, I noticed that even the younger women were all wearing dark clothing. I was wearing light blue, wrongly dressed, a Protestant in a Catholic world.

I leaned over to Deirdre’s friend. ‘Thank you for the tea, Rita.’ I saw from her face that it was no use asking her about Deirdre. If she knew anything, she would go to the stake rather than tell me.

Fitzpatrick was no longer in the room. I said goodnight to the aunts and received a cold, ‘Thank you for coming,’ from Mary.

Outside, Fitzpatrick leaned against the wall, in the crowd of men. ‘Oh, Mrs Shackleton …’ He reached out and put down a glass on the window sill, moving as if to come towards me, but one of his crutches fell to the pavement. The group of men parted, so that we could speak. ‘Thank you for your kindness in fetching me. My brother-in-law will give me a lift home. We’re seeing Mrs Hartigan into the church.’

I nodded. ‘Then I’ll say goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

Anthony Hartigan’s sweet baby face wore a solicitous look. ‘Let me see you to your motor.’

This was ridiculous as my car was just a couple of feet away, but he walked beside me.

He took my hand, and looked at me, his bright blue eyes full of sorrow. ‘Thank you for coming. Here I am, home to see my ma, and this …’

‘A sad occasion.’ I climbed into the car.

He leaned towards me and said, quietly, ‘Have you found anything out?’

‘Not yet, but I will.’

‘And only a few days ago, we were at the races and we both backed a winner.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Sometimes outsiders can be surprising.’

The street had suddenly come to life. A man pushed a cart that held a coffin. From another direction came men and women in black, priests and nuns, here to take Mrs Hartigan to the church. Hartigan went to meet them.

Eddie appeared as I was about to drive away. He leaned into the motor and breathed whisky into my face. ‘Your name is Mrs Shackleton.’

‘Yes.’ The poor man must be more punch drunk than I had imagined.

‘And you are a war widow.’

‘I am.’

‘Was your husband in the army?’

‘He was a captain in the medical corps.’

He nodded. ‘I saw his photograph. God bless you. I can’t stop now. I have a coffin to carry.’

I waited until the coffin had been carried into the house, hearing the calls to Watch out, Lend a hand, Mind the door.

Anthony Hartigan may have arrived a little too late to give ease to his mother’s time on earth, but her send off could not be faulted.

I squeezed in at the back of the packed church, to the whiff of incense, not-so-clean humanity and the scent of lilies and roses. Through the crowds, I glimpsed the high altar, bedecked with blooms.

Marcus’s sergeant, Wilson, stood a few feet away from me, hat in hand. We did not acknowledge each other, although he had asked me to take out my hanky if I spotted Deirdre Fitzpatrick. This was not the best of signals because it left me desperately wanting to wipe my nose.

The organ struck up a melancholy hymn with fine dramatic timing as the chief mourners walked into the church, headed by Anthony, the aunts, old Jimmy with his penknife knees, and Fitzpatrick, crutches tapping out a tune on the tiled floor, his bandaged foot looking bigger than ever. No Deirdre.