The Convictions of John Delahunt (35 page)

‘Have you resumed writing?’

She sensed the reason behind my change of subject and nodded. ‘Yes. On my … original book. The one you rescued.’

‘That’s good.’

She said she worked in her father’s empty study because it had the best light. His bureau was of thick, dark oak. ‘It doesn’t wobble beneath my pen. I miss my rickety writing desk.’

I said I had little use for it in Grenville Street.

‘I’ve thought of you a few times sitting alone in the tenement.’ She almost sounded wistful. ‘How is the old room?’

‘Leaky.’

She smiled then, and a constriction in my chest eased, which only served to make me aware of it. Helen remembered herself, and straightened her mouth.

‘And cold. I’m being tormented by the Lynch children.’

‘Then take the money, John. Move out of that terrible place.’

‘It wasn’t so bad to begin with.’

‘It was always bad.’

My expression must have darkened. Helen turned away, enough for her profile to become hidden once more by her bonnet.

I said, ‘I’m sorry you thought so.’

She remained still.

I checked the path for any sign of Arthur and Mrs Bruce. The walkway was clear.

‘An annulment won’t do you any good, Helen.’ I gestured towards the tops of the houses on Merrion Square that peeked over the treetops. ‘These people won’t accept you back into their fold. Everyone will know you were once married, and no other man will ask for your hand.’

‘Perhaps I have no wish to marry again.’

‘So you’ll be happy to die alone …’

‘I’m sure I won’t be happy.’

‘And childless?’

She was stung more than I intended. During the months that Helen was unwell, we never discussed the procedure she had undergone, or its consequences.

We sat for a while in silence. The squirrel crept from the shrubbery on to the path, paused and sat motionless on its haunches, as if hoping not to be spotted. I scraped my foot in the dirt, which caused it to dart into the opposite verge.

Helen said, ‘He would have been due around now.’ I looked over, but her eyes remained downcast. ‘Our son. He would have been born this month.’

I didn’t know it was a boy. I had never thought to ask. Had the midwife in Dominick Street told her? That didn’t seem likely, especially since the procedure had been so distressful. Helen must have seen it, seen him, briefly in Mrs Redmond’s delivery room. The sight must have haunted her.

I hesitated, reached over and placed my fingers on hers, and was relieved when she didn’t withdraw her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Helen.’

We sat like that for several seconds, and I was reminded of when we first began courting, in a nearby grove in the same garden. Sometimes, between conversations, we would just sit with our fingers entwined amid the gentle sounds of the park and the dappled spring sunlight. Back then, Helen said the fact we could do so for so long and not get bored meant we were supposed to be together. Perhaps she was recalling it as well.

‘Come back with me to Grenville Street.’

She disengaged her hand. ‘I can’t.’ Before I could speak again she continued, ‘It’s more than that, John. I don’t want to. We were so miserable in that house.’

‘Not always.’ I didn’t know if she was ignoring the times we supported each other, laughed together, made plans, made love, or if she genuinely couldn’t remember. ‘I know how difficult it was towards the end.’

‘You don’t really. You don’t know the number of times …’ Her lips pursed. ‘The number of times I lay alone and held the laudanum bottle against my mouth, daring myself to drink it all.’

This was a moment when exactly the right thing had to be said. But I knew I hadn’t the ability to think of it, so it was best to remain silent. I wanted to take her hand again, but suspected she’d shake it off.

Helen reached up and undid the string beneath her chin. The prospect of seeing her head uncovered pleased me, but she just tied the string tighter.

‘I don’t know why you won’t accept Arthur’s offer.’

I said I didn’t want to lose her.

‘It would be best for everyone. You’ll have the means to start again.’

The money didn’t matter to me.

‘All our marriage did was ensnare us. If you don’t contest the annulment, then …’

‘Then it’ll be as if it never happened.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Just like our son.’

Helen took a sharp breath, and her mouth tightened.

I was abashed enough to look down. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘No. You shouldn’t.’

She looked over my shoulder, and I turned to see Arthur approaching, accompanied by Nathan. Mrs Bruce followed a distance behind, unable to keep pace. Helen got up and went to meet her brother, leaving me sitting alone on the bench. He took both her wrists and listened while she spoke close to his ear. Mrs Bruce caught up, and Arthur left Helen in her care before advancing on me with only his coachman in tow.

When they stood above me, Arthur said, ‘I’m out of patience, John. If you ever come here again …’ He took a moment to compose himself. Nathan, who stood by his shoulder, looked down and smiled at me. Arthur continued, ‘I’ll give you one more chance. Agree to the annulment right now or we’ll proceed without you.’

Further down the path, my wife and her former governess watched our exchange.

I stood up and straightened my coat. Both Arthur and Nathan were taller than me, so I had to raise my chin. ‘My marriage is legitimate, and I refuse to renounce it.’

Arthur took a step back. ‘Nathan, Mr Delahunt is trespassing. Please escort him from the garden.’

The coachman’s grip was hard and unyielding. He pulled me in the direction of the furthest gate, and I stumbled as I tried to keep balance.

Then Helen called out, ‘Nathan,’ and everyone stopped to regard her. ‘He has a key to the gate. Make sure you take it from him.’

That was the last thing I heard my wife say. Nathan nodded brusquely, and dragged me away.

I didn’t want to walk home, for what was there to go home to? I wandered through the city, favouring streets I’d never gone down before. A slight swelling made the skin on my cheekbone smooth and taut where Nathan had punched me before evicting me from the park. I kept brushing it with my fingertips, intrigued that so light a touch could cause such a sharp sting. Beyond the Royal Exchange and Christ Church, the streets became narrow and winding as I neared the Liberties. One of my teeth had come a little loose, and I wiggled it with my tongue. On Francis Street, I stopped to view the newly constructed Catholic church of St Nicholas, one of the first built after the relief acts. It was tucked away from the main thoroughfare behind a neat railed courtyard, hemmed in by tall houses on both sides. I stood and considered its Roman design for a minute, then went towards its entrance, thinking perhaps I could rest for a while out of the cold. But the large, ironbound doors were locked.

I was about to turn away, but then noticed a narrow alley that skirted the side of the church. At points it wasn’t wide enough to walk two abreast. It emerged into Plunket Street, which had a peculiar meandering route, dimly lit by the odd street lamp in the early evening light. The cold air rang with the shouts of children. Broken cobblestones littered the roadway and bed sheets hung suspended between upper-storey windows. In the cold weather they’d take days to dry, though Helen and I had discovered that leaving wet sheets indoors just made a room humid, and every surface clammy – not what young families desired when consumption was rife.

A group of boys played some distance up the street, kicking a football made from the head of a ragdoll. But my attention was drawn to the house opposite, where a pregnant woman stood in a doorway with her son. He was slightly younger than the others, but he tugged on his mother’s skirt and asked for permission to join them. She looked so tired; one forearm leaned against the doorjamb, the other rested on her swollen stomach. Strands of dark hair fell beneath a cap and clung to her forehead.

Her son continued to plead until she finally relented. Before letting him away she removed a green scarf and placed it around the boy’s neck, tucking it beneath his collar. He scampered off immediately, and his mother watched after him. Something about her reminded me of Mrs Blackwood, the woman we saw hanged. Probably her black hair, drawn face and grey clothes. She distractedly rubbed her belly with both hands, as if satisfied after a large meal, then turned into the house and closed the door.

A coalman in a horse and cart rattled slowly through the street, and one of the boys shouted that they should jump on to the empty bed. They scrambled and jockeyed as the cart passed. The bigger ones moved to the front and with agile leaps made it safely aboard. The remainder were not so graceful, making frantic grabs at wooden slats and using their friends for leverage. Those aboard were helping their favourites and in short order most had clambered up.

Only the smallest boy remained. He grimly chased the vehicle and caught tight hold of the bed. When he jumped on, his legs were left dangling from the back. Then one of the older boys moved towards him, placed a muddied foot on his shoulder and pushed him back off.

The boy landed face first in the road and lay motionless as the catcalls from his friends receded. Once the cart turned the corner with Patrick Street, all was quiet.

‘Lad,’ I said from the pavement.

He was surprised at the noise, as if unaware that I had been standing so close.

‘Come here and let me see if you’re hurt.’

Obediently, he got up and came over. He was dressed in nankeen trousers and a chequered coat, beneath which his mother’s green scarf was visible. A round blue cap covered dark curls, though his eyebrows were a few shades lighter.

‘You seem unharmed,’ I said, and he nodded.

‘Any cuts on your hand?’

He looked into his palms, then held them up to me with his fingers outstretched, as if I’d asked how many were the commandments.

‘I’d say you’ve suffered worse before.’

He brought his arms to his side and lowered his head.

‘Is your father at home?’

‘No.’

‘When do you expect him back?’

‘He’s been gone over a year.’

I glanced again at his small house. ‘But your mother is with child.’

He didn’t answer, just put both hands in his pockets. ‘I have to be getting back.’

‘Wait.’ His coat had been ripped and sewn back together at the shoulder – its check pattern misaligned along a five-inch seam. I pictured his mother darning it by candlelight, the coat draped over her knees. ‘How would you like to make sixpence helping me with an errand?’

Another horse and cart clattered through the street and I took the boy’s arm. ‘Mind,’ I said. ‘Step up off the road.’ The cartwheels bumped over the cobbles and we waited for the din to fade.

He said, ‘I should ask Mam.’

‘No,’ I said, slightly louder than intended. ‘No, I don’t have time for that.’ I rummaged in my coat and withdrew a thruppenny bit. ‘You can have this if we leave now, and the rest when we’re done.’

The coin looked big in his small hand. He regarded it for a moment, and then closed his fist. ‘All right.’

I checked the street. A few old women spoke together in a doorway, and a labourer passed on the pavement opposite.

‘Follow me,’ I said.

Vendors on Francis Street went about their business, arranging stalls outside shopfronts, sweeping doorsteps and speaking with customers. The boy had to quicken his pace to fall into step beside me. His feet were bare, covered in grime, and I wondered how they must feel against the cold pavement. He altered his gait instinctively to avoid broken paving stones, sharp pieces of refuse and the more offensive spillages.

‘What’s your name, boy?’

‘Maguire.’

‘I meant your Christian name.’

He skipped around the paths of two men wearing top hats and greatcoats. When he returned to my side he said, ‘Thomas.’

A butcher’s shop stood at the end of Francis Street. Four pig carcasses hung from metal hooks outside its window, preserved in the cold air. The trotters and heads had been cut off and their underbellies slit length-wise. Inside the shop, a butcher was at work beside his gory block. He cleaved a piece of meat with a downward hack, left the blade embedded in the wood, and wiped his hand on a smeared apron.

At the crossroads I paused to decide which direction to take. Thomas waited beside me with his arms folded. I knew there were large areas of half-built streets on the outskirts of the city – bare fields with high-walled orchards, and even fenced-off pasture with animals grazing. There’d be no people; no witnesses. To our left, Thomas Street ran past St Catherine’s Church towards Kilmainham village. But I was unfamiliar with the roads in that direction.

Something occurred to me and I looked down at the boy. ‘We’re on Thomas Street,’ I said. ‘Like your name.’

He nodded. ‘I know. Mam says that every time we come down here.’

I didn’t want to turn back into Francis Street to go south towards the canal. And the road to our right only led to the city centre, past Christ Church, the Castle and on towards Trinity College. No, it was best to keep going forward, north over the river to more familiar ground.

I said, ‘All right, let’s go.’ But Thomas had wandered a few yards to the entrance of a stable-lane, where he stood with his head bowed.

‘What is it?’

He pointed. ‘There’s a rainbow in the puddle.’

I stood behind him. It was just a dribble of oil on the surface, and I told him so. ‘Come along, we have to cross the river.’

He leaned down to look closer. ‘I didn’t know oil had so many colours.’

It was rare enough that I could demonstrate my trifling knowledge of optics. I told him the colours of the rainbow were already inside the light. We could see them in the puddle because some of the rays had reflected from the surface of the oil, and some from the surface of the water beneath. Since we were looking at light from two different points simultaneously, the wavelengths of their various colours merged to produce a spectrum.

He remained quiet, and I realized he couldn’t have understood a word of my explanation.