The Lost Souls' Reunion (28 page)

That is how Sister Mauritius found us.

‘This,' she spat, ‘does not surprise me one bit. Outside now, the pair of you.'

We came into the office where she waited, Thomas holding my hand, my head held high against my fear. My eyes shining brightly with recent love and now anger, my lips red with it. Thomas did not look at me, but his grip was sure.

She looked at the hands and she looked at each of our faces and she said, softly, ‘Disgusting.'

We did not answer, which forced her to carry on talking. She pointed with a trembling finger at me, ‘A woman who was given a chance to make something of herself and this is what you do with it. Did you give her money?' she asked Thomas.

He shook his head.

‘If you want to have a bed to sleep on, you'd better answer.'

‘No.'

‘Then she lets a man who could be her grandfather, a sick man, do that for nothing. I know now the stories are right about her. Why wouldn't they be, with the mother she has.'

I thought of Thomas and his need to remain here a while longer and I did not speak.

I found our continued silence shameful. I did not know why Thomas would not defend us and I could not speak since I knew he would be the one to remain here. I know now that in our silence we held all dignity. Had we uttered one word we would have said our love needed defending.

The more we remained silent the more Mauritius railed.

‘You pair were watched up to this. Don't try to pretend this has not happened before. This little bitch, this little bit of nothing, would turn us into a brothel. Bound for hell she is. And,' she pointed the finger at Thomas now, her brows knitted together, her breath short and bursting out of her, ‘no doubt you'll be making the trip sooner than her.'

The years when Sister Mauritius had touched herself and hated the wetness, then hated the dryness which came after desire left her, all this torment came out of her now. So she retreated into sanctimony. She lowered insult and swore never to let me near the place again.

‘Get your coat, get out. Tell that window cleaner living with your whore mother to look elsewhere for work. He won't work anywhere in Scarna either, once I have had words with those that I know in the town.

‘Go on,' she screamed, when I showed no signs of movement.

‘You,' she pointed at Thomas. ‘If you follow her you will not get back in here.'

I left the two of them there. He did not follow me. When Sister Mauritius told him he had until the end of the week to make other arrangements he nodded and turned on his heel.

*   *   *

Margaret was pacing up and down the dayroom, Joe slouched in a chair. It was the slack time just before lunch, on the day following the discovery.

The news of the night's activity had been pieced together only from Sister Mauritius's admission that Mary Sive would not be back. Joe was told to assist Mr Cave in the packing of his belongings should he need help.

Black's Mass and funeral were to be put back until the afternoon. An eye was to be kept out for Mary Sive. The caretaker and gardener had already turned me away, on Sister Mauritius's instructions. Cave was to be watched, on Sister Mauritius's instructions.

Thomas Cave had not risen for breakfast. He lay on his still-made bed, fully clothed, facing the curtain that was the only wall he had. The staff had not touched him. He made no attempt to answer their questions.

‘A cup of tea, Thomas?' Margaret enquired.

‘Will you take your pills, now?' Joe wanted to know.

They had not shifted him. They took pleasure in surmising what Cave had done with me.

‘I'm the only one saw anything, I was doing the baths with her the other day and I saw her giving him a job under the flannel,' Joe revealed.

Margaret was eager to match this, ‘I was told by Mauritius herself to keep an eye on them. I saw them at it loads of times.'

Around them the men near death, who sat in the dayroom, seemed as if they heard nothing. But they had heard and they all, without exception, wished it had been them.

*   *   *

After lunch the Jaguar pulled up in the driveway.

Margaret rushed to meet Jonah, before he entered the building.

‘Well, I have the news for you. I want the money first and I'll tell second.'

Jonah was tired, he had been drinking all night and that morning. He had begun to wonder if I was worth his attention, he felt me to be ungrateful. His father bored him now.

He had really wanted a quiet day.

‘If the information is good, the money will be good,' he snapped.

‘Oh,' Margaret rubbed her hands on her skirt. ‘It's good.'

She held her hand out.

Jonah ignored it and made to move into the home.

‘It is freezing out here. I want to get inside.'

‘No! Out here I'll tell you, not in there. Give me the money first though.'

He continued walking.

‘OK,' she looked agitated. ‘Show me the money first.'

He sighed, his head pounded; his mouth was dry and stale. He took out a ten-pound note from his wallet.

Margaret told him.

She did not feel much. Just the sensation of falling at first. Then the gasping as the wind fought to get back into her lungs.

He had hit her once, hard, then walked away, then walked back, to punch her, hard again, in the stomach so she would not be able to run after him.

He had to do it, to stop her following him. He needed time to think. He needed to sort everything out. He drove away, without entering the building, without looking back.

*   *   *

Jonah parked the car at the end of the laneway. He watched the house. There was no sign of activity, no curling smoke. No dogs or hens about. It was quiet as a grave. He pulled away again and drove along the coast road, parking up to look at the sea. It was a day that spelled winter's arrival. The wind tossed the sea's white mane and gulls called to each other. He smoked slowly. His heart was turning to stone, his mud eyes darkened.

All his plans. All along I had been with his father.

*   *   *

Jonah came to Thomas, found him lying as he had lain since the night before, facing the curtain that surrounded his bed.

‘This time,' Jonah said, ‘you will not be able to hide behind silence.'

Thomas did not stir. Jonah sat in the chair next to his bed and waited. The old man's breath was so quiet he did not appear to live.

Jonah leaned forward and pushed him slightly, with the tips of his long fingers. The body tensed in an instant at the touch, all resistance. But it did not shrink away from it.

Jonah pinched the flesh on the back of the old man's arm until it turned red and then white and began to bruise under his fingers. Still no reaction, no sound.

He cast his eye around the curtained quarters, sighing, his breath came in shallow bursts of steam into the cold air, air filled with knives. His eyes glistened with the need to begin and the frustration of not knowing how. He opened the wardrobe doors and began to pull out the albums. Flicked through them. Snap, snap, snap. All names, all faces he should be familiar with as Thomas's son. All strangers.

‘You will have to move eventually,' he spoke to the back of Thomas. ‘You will have to get up sometime. I can wait until you do. I will stay until your bladder is aching. I can stay until you shit yourself.'

Thomas listened.

‘Like old times,' Jonah smiled. ‘Old times.'

A slight shift in Thomas's shoulders brought Jonah to his feet then. He leaned forward and whispered into the ear of his father, his lips so close he could almost bite it. He covered it in breath beads, so cold was the day.

‘You never knew what to do with a woman once you had your way with her.'

Thomas's face, hidden from view, was wet with tears. He looked into the life he did not have and he closed his eyes on it. All morning he had waited by the door. Mauritius had told him if he left the building he could not expect to gain entry to it again or collect any of his possessions. The old and frightened man in him had retired to his cubicle, suddenly afraid to leave his world.

‘If I am like this now, how will I be when I am in the world proper? She will be smothered,' he thought, as he waited for me to come and get him.

I had not come. He rose up from his chair and made to leave and instead lay on the bed. The eyes of Margaret and Joe were waiting to report to Sister Mauritius. Even the men were talking. Peter came and whispered, ‘Thomas?' and went away when he got no reply.

He tried to reason with himself and reason failed him. If he had been young, like me, he would not have come either to take away an old lover. He was glad for me that I had not come and taken on all that he was. He ached for himself and the public shame of all of this.

Then Jonah had come. Jonah talked on and finally the curtains were pulled back briskly by Joe O'Reilly.

‘Well, if it isn't the offspring of the great Casanova here. You'll have to be on your way. The lunch's on its way up. Not that this lad will have much of an appetite.'

‘I'll be back soon,' Jonah said. And, just before he left, ‘You will have to give it up with her. She is only after what money she thinks you have. You know her type. My mother was one.'

Thomas's voice came then, and it was so that all could hear, ‘You will not go anywhere near her or you will have me to deal with.'

There was no reply. Thomas heard the sound of Margaret and Sister Mauritius pursuing Jonah, calling to him. But his footsteps continued out the door.

*   *   *

Sister Mauritius sat in the chair, still warm from Jonah.

‘You know that man attacked one of our staff? What kind of a family did you raise? I have not called the police but I will do so if you are not off the premises by Friday. The member of staff is looking for danger money now, thanks to you.'

Thomas could not help smiling.

Sister Mauritius stood up. In the middle of the ward she made the general announcement.

‘The funeral of Mr Anthony Black, postponed from this morning, will take place this afternoon, at three.'

Thomas thought of where he might go and he found he could think of nowhere. He thought of his friend, Black, shortly to be placed into the ground. He thought of himself as a weak old man who had no clear notion of anything he had stood for. He had passed this on to the son who was not his, the legacy of being one who has always watched and has no right to join the world in its ways.

35 ∼ The Last Words of Myrna

I
LEFT
T
HOMAS
with Mauritius and I walked through the gates and prayed he would find the courage to follow me when I came the next morning.

I know now that we had both invited the day of discovery on us. We had persuaded ourselves that we had been hiding from the world. But we had done everything but declare ourselves openly.

All this went through me as I moved through the night air, heavy with mist.

The night was calmer than my thoughts. I should have known it was a death night, unnaturally still. The mist met my warmth and turned to beads of moisture on my skin. My tears linked the beads and together they wove a damp shroud of sorrow and non-seeing. What hope for Thomas and me?

I should have opened the eyes I had not used; I should have listened to all that the stillness was calling. But I was too lost in myself.

*   *   *

I was in the door before I knew all that had changed and the change caught me by the throat and took words away. Carmel was sitting by the fire, crying, Eddie with his arm around her shoulders.

‘Myrna,' Eddie explained. ‘She's taken a turn for the worst.'

‘Where have you been all night, Sive?' Carmel's voice was accusing. ‘She's been asking for you. Again and again. She's been shouting words we don't understand. Now all her voice is gone.'

‘Should we call the priest?' Eddie asked.

‘No,' Carmel and I spoke together.

‘No need for them here,' I continued. ‘We have our own ways.'

I went into the back room, alone. Leaving Eddie to argue with Carmel, in hushed tones.

‘If we don't call a priest they won't bury her.'

‘Don't talk now, Eddie. Let Sive tell us.'

I closed the door so their voices would not carry.

It was dark but for the lamplight which cast two dark shadows in the place where Myrna's eyes had been. When she opened her eyes they were as black as the shadows that had been placed in them.

She smiled thinly.

‘Where is he? Thomas Cave?' she spoke in a grainy whisper, squeezed through a tightened throat. ‘I was calling to you, to bring him with you.'

‘He did not come with me. I don't know whether he will come at all,' my voice liquid with tears. ‘We won't speak of him now. You must save your talk.'

She raised a hand.

‘Your grandmother is here, waiting for me to come off with her. She thinks as I do. If you can, do not be apart from him at all.'

The mist that had shrouded me in its warning had come to claim her, had coated her in a death sweat. She fought the still night and her ragged breath cut through the air. The glassy night sea and coal black sky carried the echoes of her breathing to the far off places. I traced the lines on her forehead and I read the stories in each line. I read the life that had been lived and was coming to an end.

I wanted to know all that I did not know of her, to fall into the days that were hers, but they were already lived and gone.

‘You have been a mother to me,' I said softly.

I pressed my lips to the whispers of hair on her forehead.

She tried to moisten parched lips with the tip of her dry tongue. I licked my own finger and ran it across them. I heard her words form in my ears, though those lips did not move to form them. These words came out of her heart and into mine.

‘You have been a daughter. I am swimming in the death sea, Sive, it is warm and calm because I am glad to be in it.'