Authors: Maeve Binchy
“James, my friend, you think it might be true and that's why you told me privately.”
“No, I do
not think
that.” James was indignant.
“So why the secrecy, then? Why can't the others be told how absurd this woman is? You are all so helpful to me, why shouldn't the others know the extent of her madness and delusion?”
“Of course, Brian. I'm sorry, I didn't think.”
“You did think, but you thought the wrong thing. If that girl
is
pregnant, it has nothing to do with me.
Nothing.”
“Look, it even might be to our advantage,” James said, anxious to make amends. “You know, blood test, DNA, that sort of thing.”
“Thanks, James, really, I mean it, thanks.” But Brian's face was grim. He was disturbed that James would doubt him like that. Even for a minute.
At the heart clinic, it was Hilary's day off, but she had trained Ania very well in the routine. Ania went about her work confidently, noting and filing and confirming appointments. She checked that there were suitable chairs ready in the waiting room.
Rosemary Walsh was there with her husband, Bobby; she was whining, as usual. Bobby, on the other hand, was smiling as always and both cheerful and polite. It was striking how like his father Carl was and how very unlike his snobby mother. Ania sighed. This was no time to think of Carl. Maybe she shouldn't be thinking of him at all. She was such a poor judge of men—look at the fool she'd made of herself over Marek. She must not do that again.
There was a ring at the clinic door. It must be a new patient: everyone else knew to walk straight in. When Ania went to answer it, she saw an elderly woman in her seventies, clutching a thin coat around her. She had straight, matted hair and big, frightened eyes. Then the woman gave her name: Kathleen Edwards, 34 Mountain-view Road.
She filled in carefully the name of Mrs. Edwards's family doctor and of her cardiologist, and took a photocopy of the discharge sheet from the hospital.
“I have to put in your next of kin, Mrs. Edwards. It's just a formality—you know hospitals! It's in case you didn't feel well one day and we needed to get in touch with someone. Shall I put your husband's name?”
“No, pet, he'd be no good to God, man or the devil,” Mrs.
Edwards said sadly. “He'd be bound to be drunk or in a temper about something. Put my daughter's name.”
“And that is …?”
“Eileen Edwards. I'll give you her mobile phone number. That's the best way to find her.” Ania wrote it down carefully on the form.
“Where does she work, your daughter?” She hoped the woman couldn't hear her heart thumping as she asked the question. Mrs. Edwards looked at least twenty years older than the age in her file.
“She works for a big advertising company in an old Georgian house. They give her beautiful clothes to wear. She has to look smart, you see, to meet the public.”
Ania knew that none of the clothes that Eileen had stolen, none of the money she had made by selling stolen handbags, had come to this woman. She felt a lump in her throat. Maybe that's what mothers did—proud of their own daughters no matter what they said or did. She thought of her own mother back in Poland telling everyone how well young Ania was doing in Ireland and how she visited big stores and tried on coats that cost twenty weeks’ wages!
Ania was miles away in her head when she realized that Rosemary Walsh had walked in and was talking to her. She seemed to be offering her a cleaning job of some sort.
“Because Bobby is literally able to do
nothing
around the house, I will need someone for a couple of hours each evening, washing, ironing, cleaning. I won't ask you to do the silver. You wouldn't be used to good silver, you might ruin it, but basic stuff.”
“When, Mrs. Walsh?”
“As soon as you can. Tonight if you like.”
Ania wondered should she take it. It would mean that she would see more of Carl, be in Carl's home, maybe even have her English lessons there. But wait a moment. Mrs. Rosemary Walsh would not consider her son and heir cavorting with the cleaning staff, the
Polish
cleaning staff. Worse still! She must say no immediately. Why had she ever said in front of this woman that she was anxious to make money?
“Sadly, Mrs. Walsh, I already have too many jobs. I could not
give you good attention. I can suggest a friend of mine, Danuta? Or another called Agnieszka. What do you say? Shall I ask them to call to your house?”
“That is, of course, if
they
have the time.
If they
haven't swept up all the other jobs in Dublin.”
“We work very hard, Mrs. Walsh, and we are glad to be here. It is good to know we are so welcome in this land,” she said, trying to hide the tears of rage and humiliation.
To her astonishment, Mrs. Edwards, who was listening to the conversation, reached out her hand and clutched her arm. “Good girl,” she said. “Good, strong girl. Where did you get the courage?”
“I don't know,” Ania said truthfully.
“You would never let a man beat you like I do.”
And Ania, for the first time in her life, confessed as she had never confessed to anyone before, “I did once, Mrs. Edwards, but not anymore.”
When the committee met at Corrigans bar that night they were staggered by the news about Eileen's mother.
“A smart ad agency where they
give
her the clothes. Huh!” said Johnny. The man in the porter's hut outside the upmarket apartment had, according to Tim, turned out to be a known fence, dealing in only top-of-the-market goods. James said that maybe Eileen kept all her things in Mountainview Road. If they could only get in there. Ania said she knew she was being irritating, but she felt very uncomfortable using this poor woman, who was, after all, a patient in the clinic where she worked, as a trap to catch Eileen.
“It would break her old sad heart into little pieces,” she said.
They were all silent. Only Brian Flynn seemed to understand and sympathize.
Nothing happened for a week. Father Tomasz came up from Ross-more and was brought up to speed on what was happening. He said
it was like a story but nobody knew the end. Eileen came in and out of the social center as usual, but more fleetingly She said no more about Father Flynn, just a few mysterious remarks to the effect that everyone would know soon enough. In a short time they would see for themselves.
And then, on her second visit to the heart clinic, Kathleen Edwards walked out of the clinic without looking where she was going and tripped over a loose paving stone. Fortunately, it wasn't too serious. The A&E department treated her for shock and a graze on her forehead, but what was to happen now? They asked the clinic for details of her next of kin. Johnny was there when the request arrived.
“Why don't I take her home? I have something to do up that way, near Mountainview Road,” he said.
“How do you know where she lives?” Clara had Kathleen Edwards's file in her hand.
“Oh, I think Ania mentioned it. Look, it's Ania's lunchtime. Why don't we both take her home?”
Normally Clara was loath to make anything easier for Frank Ennis and the mandarins, as she called them, in the hospital, but this did seem sensible. “And you'll contact the daughter, okay?” she said, just to check.
“Absolutely. We'll ring the advertising agency,” Johnny said.
In 34 Mountainview Road they found a very shabby, ill-kept house. Two windows had been broken and were filled in not with glass but with plywood.
Ania went off to make a cup of tea and Johnny looked around. “You'll need a rest. You've had a shock,” he said.
“Yes, well, I'll lie down on the sofa,” Kathleen Edwards suggested.
“No, let's get you into a bed.”
“He might come home. He wouldn't like to find me in bed.”
“Well, is there another bedroom?” Johnny asked.
“Only Eileen's. We never go in there. It's locked, you see.”
She looked to a door across the corridor from the kitchen/living room. Johnny ran at it with his shoulder. The door splintered.
“It's not locked now,” he said.
They looked in. Two clothes rails stood there with jackets, coats and dresses on them, some in plastic bags. Handbags and shoes were lined up in the alcove beside the window, and down one wall were shelves holding a series of sweaters, blouses and jeans. Kathleen Edwards stood, her hand holding her throat.
“You broke down her door,” she gasped.
“It was an emergency,” Johnny said. “She won't mind. Let's call her and tell her about everything.”
Eileen answered her phone immediately.
“Your mother had an accident. She's fine and we've got her home, but she will need someone here to keep an eye on her.”
“If she's fine and you're with her, then she doesn't need anyone else.”
“Come back here, bitch. Come back this minute,”
Johnny said slowly.
“Who
is
this? What on earth is this about?”
“It's about you, Eileen. I'm standing in your bedroom. Come home at once.”
“You can't be!”
Her voice was a gasp.
“Want me to read out the merchandise to you? From left to right?”
“Are you the Guards?” Her voice was shaky now.
“I'm one step, one phone call from the Guards. Let's say ten minutes from the Guards.”
“I can't be home in that time, the buses are—”
“Take a taxi.”
“Whoever you are, I can't afford taxis.”
“Yes, you can. Use some of the money you got from the porter up at the apartments when you sold him your handbag.”
“Who are you?”It
was like a whisper now.
“Come home and find out,” Johnny said.
• • •
Together Ania and Johnny calmed Mrs. Edwards down. They reassured her that her heart was fine, her blood pressure almost normal and all she was feeling was shock. They wanted her out of the bedroom and all it contained, so she sat at the kitchen table and told them how frightened she was that her husband would come home drunk. He was two men, her husband, one in drink and one sober. Trouble was, you never knew which one was going to come in that door.
“Don't worry. I'll be here.”
“He'll be very upset about that door,” she warned.
“I'm great with upset people,” Johnny promised.
Ania looked up with huge, anxious eyes. “You won't do anything …you know.”
“I won't,” Johnny promised. “And now it's time for you to get back to the clinic.”
“Oh, I must stay here and look after Mrs. Edwards.”
“You're not a nurse, Ania. Get back to Clara.”
“But how will I know?”
“We'll meet later on in Corrigans.”
“If my poor mother knew that I go to a public house every single night!” Ania grumbled, but Johnny was right. She had to go back to her job.
The taxi drew up outside 34 Mountainview Road and Eileen got out. Johnny noticed that she wore a smart, lilac-colored jacket and a black skirt and lilac-colored boots. She must do her shoplifting with a color-coordinated plan. Around her neck was one of those very expensive silk scarves that ladies often wore at the races. That's where Eileen Edwards would be more in place than letting herself into this broken-down house where the presence of a violent father and a nervous mother sat side by side with a locked room full of stolen goods. Johnny hardened his heart. No sympathy, no pity.
This woman was totally prepared to destroy Brian Flynn, one of her few decent friends left in the Western world.
Kathleen Edwards looked up fearfully when she heard the key turn in the lock. She seemed relieved that it was only Eileen.
“You didn't have to come home. I'm fine,” she began.
“I did have to, apparently. Where is he?”
“In your room. He says he'll repair the door.”
“He'd better. Who is he?”
“I don't know. He was there just after the accident.”
From the next room, as he listened, Johnny realized that the girl had not offered one word of sympathy to her mother. Eileen came into her bedroom and saw Johnny sitting casually on the bed. She recognized him at once as a regular at Corrigans, a man who had occasionally come to help at the center. He had a flat in the house where Brian lived.
“I might have known that it was his doing,” she said as she looked at the splintered door.
“He has no idea we are here.”
“We?”
“Ania and I. We brought your mother here after the accident. She's going to be fine, actually, if it's of any interest to you.”
“What will be of interest to
you,
Johnny, is what my father will do to you when he comes back and finds you've broken into his house.” Her voice was level. She had shown no fear, no panic at the situation.
“Of course, he will also find a house full of Guards, his daughter arrested for theft and himself brought down to the Guards station for domestic violence.”
“She'd never say a word against him.” Eileen looked scornfully toward the kitchen and the weak mother who had never stood up to violence before and would not do it now.
“She already has,” he said casually, almost lazily, as if he didn't really care.
“I don't believe you.”
“She's made a statement to Ania and myself. She'll talk to the Guards this time.”
“In your dreams.”
“Who else has she in this house that will listen to her?” Johnny asked. There was silence.
“What do you want, Johnny?” she said eventually.
Michael Edwards was on his way back from the pub where he had spent lunchtime. A very odd thing had happened. A message had come to the pub that he had to pick up some wood and bolts and a heavy-duty lock at Finn Fitzgerald's Builders Providers shop. They had been paid for because there were some urgent repairs to be done at home. It was very puzzling. Michael didn't remember any fracas at home last night. And when he went into the shop, Finn Fitzgerald had the stuff ready and had indeed been paid for it. “What's the story here, Finn?” he had asked.
“I'd get home as soon as you can, Mike. I didn't like the look of that fellow who was in here earlier with your daughter. Some kind of weight lifter.”
“And he paid?”
“No, your daughter paid. Real money. It's all kosher, Mike. Get back there soonish.”