The Private Wound (22 page)

“Mr. Kevin Leeson has been taken away from his house by a body of men. Were they
bona fide
?”

“Don't worry your head about that, Mr. Eyre.”

“
I'm
not worrying. It's Mrs. Leeson. She wants to know what it's all about.”

“She'd have a right,” replied the voice with maddening cosiness. “Time enough, Mr. Eyre. The Super'll be visiting her this evening.”

“But for God's sake, man! Mrs. Leeson should be told what her husband's been charged with.”

“She will, she will.”

“Told
now
.”

“I have my orders.”

“But surely—is it the murder?”

I could almost hear the sergeant's brain cumbrously ticking over the telephone line. “What makes you think it'd be the murder?”

“Oh, sod you!” I banged the receiver down. Maire was staring at me in desperate surmise, her green eyes nearly starting from their sockets.

“His lips are sealed. From the way he prevaricated, I got the impression that Kevin has been arrested for murder. Though I don't know why everyone has to make such a mystery about it. I'm sorry, Maire.”

She stood up, back to me, her body bowed and rigid, her head leaning against the wall—an immemorial attitude of the woman in shock. After a long while, she turned round. “I was afraid of it. Oh Dominic, I was so afraid of it,” she said brokenly, slumping down again into a chair.

I patted her shoulder. I felt dreadfully ill at ease. “Try not to worry, Maire. Try to believe he'll be proved innocent.”

“Oh, if only he'd been more open with me! I'd have forgiven him. He kept everything to himself, so I couldn't help him. That woman—she's been the ruin of everything. When I saw her that night—” Maire broke off abruptly.

“
Saw
her?”

She gave me a strange look, half flurried, half sly. “I don't know what you'll think of me. I didn't tell you all the truth about what happened the night she was killed. It doesn't matter, now they've arrested him. Nothing matters.”

The proud head lifted to me. The eyes had an inward look. “I told you I wandered about in the demesne. I was miserable—angry with myself that I could go spying after him—it's so humiliating to find you've sunk to that. Well, I
did
see her.”

“Yes?”

“I was creeping quietly about. You know that screen of trees on the edge of the demesne, between the rough pasture and the river. I looked out from there. It was dark; but not so dark I couldn't see her lying on the grass by the Lissawn.” Her face contorted. “Stretched out naked, sprawling like a whore.”

“Yes?”

“And then it—the body—disappeared.”

“
Disappeared
?”

“A patch of darkness came between me and it. That's what it seemed like the first moment. The next, I knew it must be a man, in a dark suit. The darkness stayed there a little. I was too far away to hear anything that was said. Then I saw her arms again, coming round the dark figure, as if—as if she was trying to pull it down on to her. I couldn't stand any more. I ran away. Blindly. To get out
of the place, I sat down by the track awhile. It was horrible.” Maire burst into a storm of sobbing.

“But, Maire,” I said presently, “you couldn't recognise this black figure you saw. How could you know it was Kevin?”

“Who else could it be?”

“It could have been me,” I managed to get out. “Did you never think it might have been?”

“No. Well, not at the time. I was expecting it to be Kevin, so I assumed—— It wasn't you, was it?”

“No.”

“And then Kevin did come home. And he was in a dark suit. And he seemed to be behaving in a very queer way. Irritable, exhausted—I don't know how to put it—he wasn't
with
me. He was like a stranger. So when I heard that Harry—”

“But Maire, if—wouldn't you have seen blood on his clothes?”

She shuddered. “I don't know. I suppose so.”

“The police examined them, too.”

“I just thought he'd somehow avoided—”

“And you never hinted to him what was in your mind?”

“Oh, I'd never dare. I did ask him, what he'd been doing that evening and why he was so late home. He said about the car running out of petrol. I didn't like to tell him I'd been out looking for him.” Maire gave me a little sad ghost of an appealing smile. “I'm afraid you've a lot to forgive me for, Dominic.”

“Me? Forgive
you
?”

“If I'd told Mr. Concannon what I've just told you, he'd never have had you under suspicion. You must've been going through a dreadful ordeal. I know you—you were sweet on her,” added Maire shyly.

“You've got a good deal more to forgive me for.”

“I don't understand.”

“Well, you see, I passed on to Concannon what you told me about Kevin's movements that night.”

Maire's mouth tightened.

“I know you were talking to me in confidence. But I was in a worse jam myself. In fact, Concannon didn't seem all that interested. But I'm sorry. Truly.”

“And I suppose you want me to tell him what I was doing—straying about in the demesne?”

Underneath the edge of sarcasm, I seemed to feel a touch of apprehension in her voice.

“No, I said nothing about you, except that you'd bicycled out to meet Kevin, waited at the cross, and then returned home by the same route.”

“How can I believe you?” But I detected a note of relief.

“I wouldn't give
you
away. That would have been despicable. But I had no cause to love
Kevin.
”

The moment it was out, I realised how Maire could misinterpret that last remark. She gazed at me a moment.

“You mean, you do have cause to like me?” she asked in her most forthright way.

“I—what I mean is you've never done me any harm—you've been awfully kind to me.”

Maire averted her eyes. “And Kevin
has
done you harm? How?”

“Well, that boycott. And—”

“And?” she prompted.

I seized the nettle. “I believe he may have had the cottage burnt down.
And
had me dumped on the strand where I nearly drowned.”

“You must be mad, Dominic.” She sounded genuinely puzzled. “Why on earth should he do that? He liked you.”

I replied, as lightly as I could, “You're not the only jealous person in Charlottestown, Maire dear.”

“Ah, get on with you!” She gave a tentative laugh.
Then her handsome face clouded again. “I don't know how we can talk like this, with him gone from me. I ought to be ashamed of myself.”

“You won't do him any good by moping.”

“No, I won't, will I?” she replied in a strangely childish tone. Oh, the docility of women! “But what am I to do, Dominic?”

“Hang on. Survive. It may be all a dreadful mistake. Have a talk with Father Bresnihan when he comes back. Even if the worst happens, you still have the children. And I'll do what I can. One day, when all this is over—”

“Ah, this is disgusting talk,” she cried, her mood suddenly changing. She glanced at me suspiciously. “There's some men take advantage of a woman in distress. So they tell me.”

“Well, I'm not one of them.”

“You're a great comfort to me, my dear. Isn't it strange to be talking with you like this. The first time we met, I thought you were terrible stuck-up.”

I knew I was in the danger zone. Maire's conventionality and repressions were beginning to fall off her like clothes—an effect of the ordeal she had gone through these last days. And I was tired, careless, at the end of my tether.

“Maire, did you—do you love Kevin?” It came out before I could stop it.

Her eyes widened.

“
Love
him? But of course, I love him. He's my husband.”

I smiled at her.

“You're wicked to tease me like that. I
did
love him. I wanted to do everything for him—die for him, if need be—”

“And be a paragon of pure Irish womanhood. After Father Bresnihan's model. But after a bit you found yourself turned into just another housewife, with a husband
who kept all the interesting part of his life locked away from you.”

“You're very cynical, Dominic.”

“You know it's true.”

Her mouth quivered. She gave me a long, probing look. Next moment she had thrown herself at my feet, crying, “Oh, Dominic. I'm so lonely!”

I had not intended this, though I realised I had asked for it. I was lonely too. There was a great hole in my life that begged to be filled up. Maire's face was hot, still damp with tears: her breath was hot on my cheek. I kissed her. For a moment she went rigid in my arms; then her body relaxed, and she startled me with her passion. No, it was not passion, I thought, only a desperate search for oblivion in my arms.

We kissed a while. But, for me, it was no good. Harriet came between me and Maire. She had spoilt me for other women. Two lines of Meredith forced themselves into my head—

A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave

Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea.

I pushed Maire gently away from me. Her eyes had a blind look.

“I'm sorry, dear, but this won't do. It's all wrong,” I said.

“Yes.” She was standing over me, flushed, tidying her hair automatically. She had great dignity. “You're unhappy too, aren't you, Dominic?”

It was not till I had started back to Lissawn that the real revulsion came. What had possessed me to behave as I had with Maire? flirting with her, exploiting the disorientation Kevin's absence had caused in her? It was morally squalid. And, for that matter, what had driven Maire to behave so
out of character? As soon as I asked myself this, I began wondering what her nature really was. I had had little experience of women before Harriet; and Harriet had given me an advanced course in female strategy. We had played a thrilling game of stratagems with each other—a game so absorbing that it seemed to cover the whole gamut of the sex war. I had never fully trusted Harriet, never quite known where I was with her. How delicious had been the stimulus of that uncertainty! And now, Harriet would impose her own pattern upon my relationship with other women.

Maire, who had at first seemed so different—so strait-laced, sexless, forthright, consistent—I was now seeing her as a woman, as the idea of Woman Harriet had planted in me. Was not Maire, too, a mercurial person beneath her habit and training—inconsistent, devious, a bit sly perhaps, even a liar? Manipulating men unconsciously as Harriet had consciously manipulated me?

I began to question the account Maire had just given me of seeing Harriet by the Lissawn that night, seeing the dark figure standing over her, and running away. There was nothing implausible about it. Yet it seemed strange that a jealous woman, who had come out to find her husband in the act, should not have yelled out at him, exposed him there and then, instead of creeping tamely home: or at least, if she were not sure of the figure's identity, gone near enough to confirm it. Would not her rabid jealousy have overcome any puritanical disgust?

Suppose, for argument's sake, Maire had made this story up. What reason would she have to do so
unless the dark figure had been herself?
Maire had clearly been relieved to hear that I had not passed on to Concannon her first story about her movements that night. Then, why did she change it just now? Perhaps, believing I would tell Concannon, to put another nail in her husband's coffin. No, surely her
jealousy was not so extreme. It was all too baffling. Anyway, the police had presumably examined her clothes as well as Kevin's, and found no bloodstains on them. And yet again, I could see Maire as a Clytemnestra figure: it was difficult to imagine Kevin as anything more than an Aegisthus.

Then an extremely nasty thought occurred to me. Women, I reflected (meaning Harriet) had an instinctive skill in working on a man's desire by talking about sex. Maire's description of Harriet sprawling naked by the river, of her arms coming up to encircle the dark figure—it made me a participant with her in the sexual scene, a mental voyeur. Was this what, unconsciously, she had been aiming at? And then she had, as they say, thrown herself at my head.

No, no, it was ridiculous fantasy. Maire was merely a distraught woman, compelled to reach out blindly for any sort of comfort.…

Flurry and I were quietly soaking in his study when Concannon turned up again, about half past six. I had not been very forthcoming about my talk with Maire, and Flurry was no less taciturn. He greeted the visitor, though, affably enough, sitting him down in the best chair and putting a glass of whiskey in his hand. Concannon looked as if he were suffering from the aftermath of a crisis.

“So you've arrested my brother?” said Flurry without preamble.

“Yes. I'm sorry about it, for your sake.”

“Has he confessed?”

“He'll be making a full statement in Dublin to-morrow.”

“Do you usually take murderers to Dublin?”

“Kevin Leeson is not charged with murder.”

As soon as he said it, I realised how little all this time I had believed that Kevin could do murder. There was a silence.

“Well, I'm glad to hear that,” said Flurry at last. Knowing his own plans for dealing with the murderer, I could imagine he was more than glad. I said,

“
Not
the murder? What on earth has he been charged with, then?”

“What you would call treason, Mr. Eyre. Treason.”

Flurry sighed heavily. “I was afraid of it. The poor bloody fool. I should have tried to talk him out of it. I blame myself.”

“You knew he was mixed up in some political activity?”

“I did not. I guessed he might be. But I thought there was no use talking to him about it. He wouldn't be told by me. How long have you known this?”