The Godforsaken Daughter (23 page)

“Beautiful cards,” Henry said. “Tarot, aren’t they?”

Ruby was forced to turn fully toward him. Oh God! She’d forgotten to put them back in the case. A feeling of dread gripped her. How was she going to explain them?

“I . . . I don’t know what they’re called.”

“I used to have a deck.”

He saw her look of surprise.

“Oh, a long time ago . . . when I was a teenager,” he lied. “Can’t remember any of the meanings now.”

“I know the meanings,” Ruby said, proudly.

She moved an inch closer and watched him shuffle the cards. She thought him a very odd doctor. Why wasn’t he telling her to get dressed? Why wasn’t he filling out a form and asking her questions? Like her age, and if she was on medication, like Dr. Brewster used to, on the rare occasions she went to see him.

“Do you really?” he said. “All the meanings? I’m impressed . . .”

He saw the little compliment, all too briefly, light up Ruby’s sad features.

“Right, I’m going to test you.” He spread the cards facedown on the bed. “I’ll pick one out and you tell me what it means.”

He saw her hesitate, then nod.

“Good.” Henry turned over a card. “Oh dear, Ruby, I’m afraid it’s not good.” He held it up. “It’s the Death card.”

“Oh, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna die.”

“Thank heavens for that.”

“No, it means . . . it means that you’re coming to the end of something . . . and you’re gonna have a new beginning . . . and that things are gonna be better for you, so they are.”

“I see. . . .”

“That maybe you’ve lost someone . . . and that . . . that part of your life’s over and you . . . you have to move on, like.”

For a couple of seconds Henry allowed himself to think of Connie. “That’s very interesting,” he said. “Did you ever pick that out, Ruby? That card?”

“I did, aye . . . and I knew it was right ’cos . . . ’cos I lost Daddy and . . .”

He heard her voice breaking. “Is that his photo?” There was a framed picture on the bedside locker. It showed a man leaning against a tractor, smiling broadly.

“Aye . . . that’s him.”

“You must miss him a lot?”

Ruby nodded. Dabbed her eyes with the hankie. “But I wasn’t gonna drown meself.”

“That’s okay . . . I believe you, Ruby.”

“. . . and I’m not goin’ into no hospital, ’cos . . . ’cos . . . there’s nothin’ wrong with me.”

Henry took out his notebook. He scribbled down the clinic telephone number and address of Rosewood. “Now, tonight, if you need me, just call this number at any time. And don’t worry about waking me up. I’m on call.”

Ruby looked up, surprised. “You’re . . . you’re not gonna put me in St. Ita’s?”

“No, not tonight, Ruby.” In his bag he found a blister pack of sedatives and broke one off. “Take this. It will help you get a good night’s sleep.” He stood up. “Now, tomorrow at twelve p.m. I want to see you at the clinic in Killoran. I’ve written down the address. Does your sister drive?”

She nodded.

“Good. I’ll ask her to take you.”

“But I can drive meself.”

“Best not to, having taken sleep medication.” He moved to the door. “Now, get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Henry shut the door of the bedroom on a much-relieved Ruby and headed downstairs.

To his surprise and at that ungodly hour, Mrs. Clare and her daughter had a visitor. A man was sitting with them at the kitchen table. A clergyman.

“This is Father Kelly,” the mother explained.

The priest stood up. “How do you do, Doctor? William Kelly. You’re new to these parts.”

“Yes. Henry . . . Henry Shevlin.”

“This is a terrible business with poor Ruby,” Father Kelly said, shaking his head bleakly. “A terrible, terrible business indeed.”

Henry said nothing.

“I asked him to come over in case we had trouble getting Ruby in the ambulance,” Mrs. Clare put in. “She can be very awkward and abusive to me and May, but she wouldn’t behave like that in front of the Father, you understand.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say you’ve had a wasted journey, Father. Ruby is not going anywhere tonight.”

“What?” The news had Mrs. Clare scraping back her chair. She rose.

“My daughter’s just tried to kill herself and you’re telling me she doesn’t need the hospital? Well, I beg to differ, Doctor. I
know
my daughter better than you do . . . I
know
what she’s capable of . . .”

She stood with hands splayed on the table, glaring at him. She made for a formidable foe. He immediately felt sorry for Ruby, and all she must have suffered down the years as a victim and target of this woman’s wrath. He decided it best just to let the raging torrent run its course.

“. . .
you
didn’t see the state she was in when she came in here. May had to practically pull her out of that lake or she wouldn’t be alive. She wouldn’t even be sitting up in that room. What if she tries it again when you leave? What then? She’s headstrong. You don’t know what’s she’s like. She always gets her own way.”

I doubt that, thought Henry, but said nothing, simply waited for her to finish.

“Do you want to have her death on your conscience?”

Henry didn’t answer.

Mrs. Clare became exasperated. “Well, do you?
Do you?
”

Then: “Now, now, Martha . . .” It was the priest, patting her arm. “There’s no need going and upsetting yourself. The doctor knows best.”

The matriarch looked his way, lips pursed. The air thrummed in the fallout. Henry watched her struggle. But he could see where her allegiances lay. In Mrs. Clare’s world, the clergyman—God’s disciple—was the only man she would allow to overrule her.

“I see, Father . . . whatever you feel is best. Perhaps you could go up and have a word with her. She’ll listen to
you
.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Henry said. “I have given Ruby a sedative to help her sleep. She needs to rest undisturbed for the remainder of the night.” He turned to May and produced a card. “She has an appointment with me at twelve tomorrow. Please drive her to the clinic, as she might be drowsy. Will you do that?”

May took the card. “Yes,” she said, abashed.

“Thank you. Now: I’ll be on my way. I think we all could use some sleep. Good night.”

Chapter twenty-eight

S
o James McCloone has finally kept an appointment?” Henry said. “No stray heifers or errant piglets needing his attention this morning, then?”

Ms. King allowed herself a little half smile. “I’m happy to report that he is indeed here in the flesh, Dr. Shevlin. There’s just one small thing, though.”

“Uh-oh!”

“He’s brought a lady with him . . . a friend, Rose McFadden. And Mrs. McFadden is insisting, with Mr. McCloone’s apparent blessing, that she comes in to have a word with you first.”

“Really? Well, anything to make James feel more comfortable, Edie. Send her in.”

“You don’t feel it’s a little unorthodox, Doctor . . . ?”

“Well, perhaps a little. But if she can help clarify things with regard to James’s situation it can only be a good thing.”

Ms. King withdrew, and seconds later, Mrs. McFadden in her Sunday best—crepe de chine frock in pixie pink and an elaborate hat to match—was filling the doorway.

“God, hello, Dr. Shelfin! I hope you don’t mind me wanting to see you first.” She came forward and shook Henry’s hand with an enthusiasm he found disarming. “Rose McFadden’s me name. Pleased to meet you, Doctor.”

“And you—and you, Mrs. McFadden. Please take a seat.”

“I will indeed. But just call me Rose, Doctor. None of that old missus or mister with me.” She settled herself on the sofa but barely paused to draw breath. “I just thought I’d come to fill you in on a couple of wee things about Jamie. ’Cos he’s not very good at the talkin’, and maybe would be afeard to tell you things about himself that I could enlighten you about.”

“That’s no problem at all.” Henry pulled up one of the armchairs. “Good of you to be so concerned for his welfare.”

“Oh, Jamie and me go back a long way, Dr. Shelfin. Me and my Paddy would of befriended Jamie soon after Mick died, ’cos we were worried about him being on his own, so we were.”

“Mick was his uncle?”

“Yes . . . Oh, Mick was the greatest man, Doctor! I remember me collecting for the Duntybutt Senior Citizens Ladies Friendship Club Luncheon, and Mick giving me five pound and three pence out of a tea caddy on the fireplace. The most money I got all day. He’d a heart bigger than the Rock of Cashel, truth be told. That’s why him and Alice adopted Jamie when he was a wee one. Mick wanted tae give Jamie a better start in life from that old orphanage in Derry. And no better couple could he have landed with. God was surely smiling down on Jamie that day.”

Henry consulted his notes. “That would be St. Agnes Little Sisters of Charity?”

“Yes, that one. Now Jamie was there till he was ten but he doesn’t talk about it much . . . so me and my Paddy don’t like till ask. ’Cos it kinda day-presses him. And that old day-pression isn’t much good for a body, so it’s not. But what I was gonna tell you, Doctor, was about a couple of wee things that happened Jamie in the past while that’s causing him to be day-pressed, like. Well, they’re not wee things . . . ’cos if they were wee things they wouldn’t be day-pressin’ him and he wouldn’t have tae come here till see the likes of you, Doctor . . .”

Henry nodded. “Yes, indeed.” He sensed that Mrs. McFadden’s propensity for circumlocution had the distinct possibility of playing havoc with the morning’s schedule. Wernicke’s aphasia came to mind. He wondered idly whether she had possibly sustained a knock on the temporal lobe in infancy.

“. . . and I know he’d be too embarrassed to tell you himself. That’s why I thought I’d fill you in. Now you might think it’s a wee bit cowardly of him not tae tell you himself, but better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life, as they say. I—”

“Two things,” Henry said. He really felt he needed to shepherd this conversation or he might be in the clinic well past midnight. “So, what’s the first thing?”

“Yes, the first thing is: he’s got a wee cut on his eyebrow, and I can explain that, Doctor.”

“Oh . . . ?”

“Yes, he had a wee bit of a run-in with Bertie Frogget. Now you wouldn’t know Bertie Frogget, being new to these parts. But he’s the auctioneer. Would be a far-out relative of my Paddy’s on his grandmother’s side, twice removed. But that’s neither here or there.”

No, it isn’t, Henry thought, unkindly.

“. . . the thing is: he sold Jamie’s heifer for a lower price than Jamie was expecting. Now, Bertie Frogget would be a fair enough man at the best of times, so I don’t know what got into him that day. ’Cos, you know, he sold a pair of Belgian Blues for my Paddy last month and got him such a good price he was able to buy a kick-start lawn mower for himself and had enough left over for a Hotpoint twin-tub with automatic rinse for
me
. Not that I wanted the Hotpoint twin-tub with automatic rinse, mind you, Doctor, ’cos I’ve never minded warshing the clothes with me hands. Never been afeard of a bitta work, me. Sure haven’t wommin been warshing clothes with their hands since Moses was runnin’ about in short trousers? But you know, Doctor, now that I have it, I don’t know how I managed without it. But isn’t that the way of it? What you don’t want you’ll not miss, for when you haven’t got it you’ll not worry about it as me mother, God rest her soul, used to say . . .”

As a psychiatrist, Henry’s great gift was his ability to listen and empathize. Now, sitting across from the voluble Rose, he felt that facility being sorely tested. He eyed the clock above her head. He needed to speed things along.

“So James had an altercation with—”

“Alter-
what
?”

“Sorry, a disagreement with Mr. Frogget
and
—”

“Oh, but that’s not the end of it, Dr. Shelfin . . .”

Henry feared as much.

“. . . you see, somebody rung Sergeant Ranfurley when Bertie and Jamie were scrappin’ about on the Fair Hill. You wouldn’t know Sergeant Ranfurley, Doctor, either, you being new to these parts. He’s a big man with a square head and a red face on him. Been here a wee while now. Not that I would know him too well, thank God. ’Cos, as you well know, Doctor, no good ever came of a policeman having tae knock your door either day or night. But isn’t that the way of it? No, the first time me and my Paddy spoke to Sergeant Ranfurley was last week when we went to the station to collect poor Jamie—”

“So James was arrested, then?”

“Well, yes and no, Doctor . . .”

Henry was sorry he’d spoken.

“. . . ’cos I ast Sergeant Ranfurley the exact same question. Sez I, ‘God, Sergeant, have you arrested poor Jamie, have you?’ ‘Not exactly, Mrs. McFadden,’ sez he. ‘Mr. McCloone is being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure for dis-ordin’ry conduct in a public place.’ Well, God, Doctor, the light nearly left me eyes. For it’s only for its own good that a cat purrs in the middle of the night, and everything might be all right in the house till the cow jumps into the garden and interferes with your floribundas, as they say. For that would be the first time the like of that has ever happened to poor Jamie. And it was a terrible shock for him. ’Cos he’s never been in a police cell in his life. But Sergeant Ranfurley was all right about it in the end. Me and my Paddy said we’d take him out—”

“That was good of you, Rose. And the second thing . . . ?”

Rose looked at Henry, mystified. “What second thing, Doctor?”

“You mentioned two things you wished to discuss with me concerning James. The first was James’s alter—sorry, difference of opinion with Mr. Frogget and his subsequent arrest. And the second thing . . . ?”

“Oh yes, the second thing is that last month if Jamie’s Shep didn’t go and die on him.”

“His dog?”

Rose nodded, sadly. “Oh, he was terrible close to Shep, Doctor. Mick got it for him when he was only a wee pup. And now that he’s gone, Jamie misses him terrible badly, ’cos he was the last link to Mick and Alice—”

“I’m sorry to hear that. We can become very attached to our pets.”

“Now, you might say he can always get another dog, Doctor, but it’s not the same, is it? I had a wee cat called Ethel and she was the greatest wee thing . . . I called her Ethel on account of me mother. For if the wee thing didn’t wander into the house the night of me mother’s wake. So I took it as a sign that the wee pussy was me mother comin’ back tae tell me she was all right on the other side, like, and—”

“Sorry to interrupt, Rose, but I really think it’s time I saw James.” He stood up.

“Oh, no bother atall, Dr. Shelfin. I’m sure Jamie’s tired waiting out there anyway. I’ll send him in to you.” She got up and patted Henry’s arm. “And you know, if there’s anything else I can do to help Jamie out, just let me know. ’Cos he’s a very good fella.” Rose’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But you know, between you and me, Doctor, all that Jamie needs is to meet a nice woman to keep him company.”

Henry eyed the clock again, fearful that Rose might flood him with another tsunami of her long-winded opinions on how to sort out the farmer’s love life. Yes, Wernicke’s aphasia. He was now certain of what earlier had been a mere suspicion.

“It’s the loneliness, you see. And men are not good on their own, if truth be told. They say they die sooner than married men, but you don’t need me telling you that. You being a doctor and all. And would you be married yourself, Doctor?”

Henry smiled. “Yes, I am, Rose.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me, a well-lookin’ fella like yourself. But you know, that’s the thing about these wimmen: they all want a well-lookin’ fella, and that’s where poor Jamie falls down.”

Henry put his hand on the door handle.

“Oh, and another wee thing before I go, Doctor. He’s great at the accordjin, is Jamie.”

“Yes, he told me.”

“Does the greatest version of ‘The Menstrual Boy.’”

Henry couldn’t believe his ears. Then the penny dropped. “Oh, you mean ‘The Minstrel Boy.’”

“Aye, that one, Doctor.”

“Right. Thank you, Rose. I appreciate you filling me in.”

Swiftly, he pulled open the door.

“Doctor Shelfin’s ready for you now, Jamie!” Rose called out.

Jamie, head buried in the
Mid-Ulster Vindicator
, roused himself. “Right you be, Rose,” he said, getting up.

“Now, I’m gonna sit out in that nice rose garden while I’m waitin’ on you, Jamie. Too good’a day to be stuck inside.”

“Aye, Rose. That’ll do . . . see you in a wee minute.”

Henry smiled, touched by the special bond the pair shared, and beckoned Jamie in.