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Authors: Nadine Dorries
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had changed.
There was also another dimension to the holiday. While they were away it would be the first time Jerry, Alice and the baby had been alone in the house together. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Kathleen put on her coat to head home. She would call in at the Anchor pub to use the phone and ring the pub at the back of the butcher’s in Bangornevin. Days ago she had already let them know they would be coming home. Kathleen had known all along that it was the only thing they could do. She just had to convince everyone else.
They had made the decision to return to Ireland, she felt they had no time to lose and that feeling was exhausting her.
‘I know the answers will come to me in me own kitchen,’ she said to Alice. ‘I’ll get everything sorted from there. Just a few weeks to wait.’
Nellie and Kitty were now standing next to Alice, stroking baby Joseph’s feet whilst he bounced up and down on Alice’s hip. Nellie was now comfortable in Alice’s company. A miracle, considering that, only a few years ago, Nellie had been terrified of her.
Simon and Howard had finished knocking on all the doors in the four streets and had retired to the car. They both lit a cigarette whilst they drank tea from the thermos flask provided by Howard’s landlady.
‘So,’ said Howard, ‘the sister’s magnificent revelation is that the father spent a lot of time in number nineteen and now the eyes and ears of the world, Molly Barrett, tells us Maura Doherty should be knocked out with grief, but she isn’t.’
‘Fantastic, solid, wonderful leads. The super will be so pleased,’ Simon replied in a voice dripping with sarcasm.
‘They may not be strong leads, Simon, they may even be weak, but they both come from different people and both point to the same house. Something is better than nothing and, anyway, was it just me, or do you think the sister was hiding something?’
‘Bloody hell, was she?’ Simon replied. ‘She looked like a scared rabbit. Didn’t look me in the eye once, and her hand was shaking, did you notice that?’
‘I did. Something or someone had taken the wind right out of her sails in between her calling us at the station and our arrival at the convent.’
Howard wound down the window of the panda car and shook the remaining contents of his cup out into the gutter, then screwed it back onto the top of the flask.
‘Come on then,’ he said to Simon, who was in the process of rolling up a cigarette, ‘let’s knock on number nineteen and give that tree a good shake.’
Alice covered Joseph with his blanket just as the Doherty kids burst in through the back door, looking for their tea. Maura’s second daughter, Angela, was the first in and began to strop about the fact that Kitty had had yet another day off school. This was nothing new. Angela found a new subject to strop about at least once a day.
‘I have had to sit in that classroom with Sister Theresa all day long,’ Angela yelled, pointing at Kitty, and they all stopped dead as they heard a knock on the front door.
A loud knock. Three long, fierce bangs on the front door. They sent a shiver of fear like a trickle of iced water straight down Maura’s spine.
Alice had heard the knock before. She knew exactly who it was.
Even the twins, in the midst of helping themselves to a plate of biscuits, were frozen in mid-raid and looked towards their mother.
The three knocks came again a second time and made each one of them flinch.
As deafening and as threatening as a death knell.
5
S TANLEY WHEELED THE empty oxygen cylinder into place, on the end of a long line of huge spent cylinders waiting for the truck to arrive with full replacements.
He looked across from the hospital stores entrance to the large door of the kitchens on the other side of the yard to see if Austin was about to emerge. He would have to hurry. Stanley wanted a ciggie and they couldn’t have one here without blowing themselves up.
Stanley had been a wreck
There was also another dimension to the holiday. While they were away it would be the first time Jerry, Alice and the baby had been alone in the house together. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Kathleen put on her coat to head home. She would call in at the Anchor pub to use the phone and ring the pub at the back of the butcher’s in Bangornevin. Days ago she had already let them know they would be coming home. Kathleen had known all along that it was the only thing they could do. She just had to convince everyone else.
They had made the decision to return to Ireland, she felt they had no time to lose and that feeling was exhausting her.
‘I know the answers will come to me in me own kitchen,’ she said to Alice. ‘I’ll get everything sorted from there. Just a few weeks to wait.’
Nellie and Kitty were now standing next to Alice, stroking baby Joseph’s feet whilst he bounced up and down on Alice’s hip. Nellie was now comfortable in Alice’s company. A miracle, considering that, only a few years ago, Nellie had been terrified of her.
Simon and Howard had finished knocking on all the doors in the four streets and had retired to the car. They both lit a cigarette whilst they drank tea from the thermos flask provided by Howard’s landlady.
‘So,’ said Howard, ‘the sister’s magnificent revelation is that the father spent a lot of time in number nineteen and now the eyes and ears of the world, Molly Barrett, tells us Maura Doherty should be knocked out with grief, but she isn’t.’
‘Fantastic, solid, wonderful leads. The super will be so pleased,’ Simon replied in a voice dripping with sarcasm.
‘They may not be strong leads, Simon, they may even be weak, but they both come from different people and both point to the same house. Something is better than nothing and, anyway, was it just me, or do you think the sister was hiding something?’
‘Bloody hell, was she?’ Simon replied. ‘She looked like a scared rabbit. Didn’t look me in the eye once, and her hand was shaking, did you notice that?’
‘I did. Something or someone had taken the wind right out of her sails in between her calling us at the station and our arrival at the convent.’
Howard wound down the window of the panda car and shook the remaining contents of his cup out into the gutter, then screwed it back onto the top of the flask.
‘Come on then,’ he said to Simon, who was in the process of rolling up a cigarette, ‘let’s knock on number nineteen and give that tree a good shake.’
Alice covered Joseph with his blanket just as the Doherty kids burst in through the back door, looking for their tea. Maura’s second daughter, Angela, was the first in and began to strop about the fact that Kitty had had yet another day off school. This was nothing new. Angela found a new subject to strop about at least once a day.
‘I have had to sit in that classroom with Sister Theresa all day long,’ Angela yelled, pointing at Kitty, and they all stopped dead as they heard a knock on the front door.
A loud knock. Three long, fierce bangs on the front door. They sent a shiver of fear like a trickle of iced water straight down Maura’s spine.
Alice had heard the knock before. She knew exactly who it was.
Even the twins, in the midst of helping themselves to a plate of biscuits, were frozen in mid-raid and looked towards their mother.
The three knocks came again a second time and made each one of them flinch.
As deafening and as threatening as a death knell.
5
S TANLEY WHEELED THE empty oxygen cylinder into place, on the end of a long line of huge spent cylinders waiting for the truck to arrive with full replacements.
He looked across from the hospital stores entrance to the large door of the kitchens on the other side of the yard to see if Austin was about to emerge. He would have to hurry. Stanley wanted a ciggie and they couldn’t have one here without blowing themselves up.
Stanley had been a wreck
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