She moved away from him, leaving him the doorway free to make his exit. Please, please, God, may Martin not be coming up the stairs. “Go now. Run away, I’ll say nothing,” she said in a voice a bit above a whisper. He looked at her, confused, and seemed to come after her again. She fell on her knees trying to avoid him.
When Martin came in and stood frozen in shock, blocking the doorway, he saw the tableau of his wife kneeling, cowering in terror from a wild man about to batter her with a chair. “Get off, get off her,” roared Martin, flinging himself on the man with the wild eyes.
The man raised the chair and beat Martin with it as Maura dragged herself to her feet to come and pull him off. Only the sound of Emmet’s voice as he ran up the stairs shouting “What’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s happening?” broke the remorseless series of blows.
Now that there were three of them the man with the wet coat, the straggly hair, and wild, mad eyes realized he might be outnumbered. Grabbing up a soaking-wet bag of possessions, he pushed his way past Emmet and down the stairs.
“Daddy, D-Daddy,” Emmet stuttered out the words in his grief.
“Get Peter,” Maura said. “Phone him this minute.” Then she ran out the door and down the stairs.
“Maura, come back,” Emmet cried.
“He’s not going to get away…he’s not going to do this to Martin and get away.” In seconds she was at the door and looking out on the dark quiet street of Lough Glass. “Help!” she called. “Help! Get help, there’s a man running down the road. Stop him, stop him. He’s attacked Martin.”
Almost at once lights went on, doors opened. Maura saw young Michael Sullivan come out of the garage across the road, and the Walls in the hardware shop followed.
“Which way?” called Mr. Wall.
“He’s gone down toward the Brother’s.” The Walls started to shout too and roused the Hickeys over their meat shop and by the time the noise came to Foley’s pub there were people out in the street running after the figure they saw staggering and stumbling away.
When Sergeant Sean O’Connor arrived on the scene the man with the wild eyes and the words that were hard to understand was firmly held. Held, it had to be said, by the after-hours drinkers from Foley’s bar and some who had crossed the street from after-hours drinking at Paddles’ place. But such niceties as the licensing laws were unimportant now.
“It’s one of the knackers, bloody tinkers always the same,” said Mrs. Dillon from the newsagent’s shop. She hadn’t known such excitement in years as to witness the capture of a criminal just outside her door.
“It’s not,” said Paddles.
Sergeant Sean O’Connor was indifferent as to who the man was. He moved him firmly into the Garda car under the efficient armlock of the young Garda who was with him. The sergeant was giving the impression that the fun was over. “You’ll all be on your way home now,” he said mildly, looking at the two open-licensed premises beckoning warmly if illegally in the night.
People shuffled around noncommittally.
“Is Martin McMahon all right?” asked Dan O’Brien, who had run from the hotel to see the cause of the commotion.
“The doctor is with him now, he won’t want a flood of people in on top of him. So I won’t detain any of you from your beds,” said Sean O’Connor, taking his prisoner into custody.
“It’s not very deep, Maura.” Peter Kelly knelt on the floor beside his friend Martin.
“But he’s unconscious.”
“That’s because he hit his head falling down…”
“Has he concussion?”
“I don’t know. We’ll get him to hospital.”
“My God, Peter, what’ll we do? I will kill that madman with my own bare hands if Martin’s badly hurt.”
“No, his pulse is fine. He’s going to be fine.”
“Do you mean that? Or is it just to make me feel better?”
“Maura, he’ll be grand.”
“Can he hear me?” she asked.
“No, I wouldn’t think so. No, not now. But he’ll come around, he’ll be fine.”
Just in case, Maura knelt beside him and kissed his bloodstained face. “You’re going to be fine, Martin. I’ve seen Peter’s eyes, he means it. And I love you, I love you with all my heart. You make me sing with happiness.”
Emmet McMahon and Peter Kelly exchanged glances. They knew they weren’t meant to hear such a declaration of love. It was very private and neither of them would ever refer to it again.
It was a long night in the cell. Sean O’Connor got dry clothes for the dirty and shivering man in his charge. He even gave him a cup of tea though his heart wasn’t in it. He had seen the blood on the floor of the McMahons’ kitchen and was still awaiting news from the hospital about Martin’s condition.
The man was deranged and made little sense. He spoke a lot about his sister. Or was it his sister? She’d want to know where he was and what had happened to him. Mostly he rambled and moved from sentence to sentence without finishing the first. His words were confused. He needed to be in a psychiatric home, Sean O’Connor guessed. Perhaps he had even come from one. As he left the cell he saw the man curl up to sleep on the bench-style bed. He was mumbling names over and over. None of them made any sense to Sergeant O’Connor.
Lilian was still up when Peter Kelly got back from the hospital.
“It’s all right,” he reassured her from the door. “It’s all right. He’s regained consciousness, they’re testing him for concussion, and he’s had a lot of X rays. No, he’ll be fine.”
Lilian let out her breath in relief. “And Maura?”
“Insisted on staying in there in the hospital with him. Brought Emmet with her. They found them beds.”
“Was it necessary?”
“It was what she wanted to do,” Peter said, pouring himself a brandy.
“I had some tea ready.”
“I’m past tea,” Peter said. He sat down at the kitchen table. “The girls in? Did Clio come home?”
“Yes, both of them like vipers. You could cut the atmosphere. They had some huge row which was still simmering.”
“What else is new?” Peter sounded weary.
“Who was he? Was it one of the tinkers?”
“No it wasn’t. Why do people automatically blame them?”
“Because they’re different, that’s why. What was he, then?”
“God knows…some tramp who came in.”
“There aren’t any tramps in Lough Glass. Anyway how did he get in?”
“Emmet left the door open. The poor lad is nearly dead with grief. He thinks it was all his fault. That’s why Maura brought him with her.”
They were silent. Lilian was thinking that Maura seemed to get on much better with her two stepchildren than she, Lilian, did with her natural children. She looked at Peter and wondered if he had any of the same thoughts running through his mind.
Kevin O’Connor danced with Kit. “Eventually I was able to prise you away from the lounge lizard,” he said.
“Whatever else he is he isn’t that,” Kit said.
“Oh really? He looks as if he’d stepped straight from the pages of a glossy magazine…with all the shine intact. Years of escorting ladies through crowded dance floors.”
“No, years of working long hours getting rust out of cars, tuning engines, selling tractors…”
“How do you know all that?”
“He’s the boy next door, he’s from Lough Glass.”
“Jesus, half of Dublin seems to be from that one-horse town. Clio as well. Well, it sure breeds fine-looking women.” His arms tightened a little around her.
Kit was about to pull away when she saw Stevie Sullivan looking at her over Frankie’s shoulder. She didn’t pull away, instead she smiled up at Kevin. “Any tighter and I’ll put my knee up with a sudden jerk,” she said, still smiling sweetly.
“You’ll what…?” He looked alarmed.
“You won’t be able to walk for a week,” Kit said, h
er face never changing. She could see Stevie watching them with interest, but with no idea of what was being said.
It wasn’t all that difficult to get men to fancy you if you tried, Kit decided.
The dance was over at midnight. All Saturday night dances in Dublin had to end then, it was so that it wouldn’t go on into the Sabbath Day. The national anthem was played and they went for their coats. Kevin O’Connor and his friend Matthew wondered casually if people might like to come around to their flat for a beer or a coffee. And to play records. Matthew managed to put such a leer of suggestiveness into the words “play records” that nobody was in any doubt about what he meant.
“I’ll walk you back to the hostel,” Stevie suggested to Kit.
“It’s not a hostel actually, it’s a bed-sit,” Kit said.
“Well, if I’d have known that, then I might have had somewhere to lay my weary head.” He smiled at her.
“Oh no, no weary heads, only my own,” Kit was relaxed. This was surely going well.
“I might have tried to persuade you.” He smiled.
“I wouldn’t have counted on it. No, better to have made your own arrangements.”
“Mine are simple, I drive back to the ranch, now.”
“Now, at this time?”
“No rest for the self-employed.”
“But tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“What other day do I have of meeting farmers, when they come in to Mass, telling them all about new equipment?”
“You’re really determined to make that place a success, aren’t you?”
“Well, it would make a nice change from the way it was handed to me, I can tell you that.” His voice sounded bitter for a second.
“Your mother must be very proud of you…”
“You know my mother, she’s proud of nothing. Oh God, that reminds me…could you hang on till I make a phone call.” They were just coming out of the hotel door but he searched his pockets for change and headed to the phone. He turned back to say, “I totally forgot that my mother’s staying with her sister…and I’m meant to be responsible for that young hooligan Michael.”
“How can you be responsible for him from here?”
“A good question. But I said I’d phone him at midnight to check that he was home and I’d kick the arse off him if he wasn’t.”
Kit laughed. He didn’t have to tell her whom he was phoning, but somehow it was a relief. Stevie Sullivan must have had a lot of telephone numbers he could call. Even this late on a Saturday night.
She watched the dancers leaving and the hotel wind down. Kit thought that it had been about as successful as it could possibly have been. She had definitely taken his mind off that baby-faced Anna. Anna would go back to Emmet for consolation. It was all going according to the plan.
Stevie was walking over to her, but there was something different about his face. “Hey, let’s sit down for a minute.” He indicated a group of chairs.
“But aren’t we going to go? They’re cleaning up.”
“It’ll take only a minute…”
“Was Michael not there?” She knew something had happened.
“No, he was there all right, but…”
“But what?”
“But he said that there had been an accident, that your father had got hurt.”
“Oh my God, a car crash, the new car. They weren’t used to it?”
“No, nothing like that, an intruder. But he’s fine, your father. He’s in hospital, but he’ll be out in a day or two, truly.”
Kit thought of scatty young Michael Sullivan and didn’t put very much faith in his judgment. Kit’s face was white with anxiety, she felt light-headed as if she were going to faint. Father in an accident with an intruder…what did it mean?
“Please, I tell you, it’s going to be all right.” She didn’t even have to say it, Stevie realized. “No, I didn’t take Michael’s word for it, I went back through the exchange to Mona Fitz in the post office. There was some kind of madman, they caught him. He hit your father but it’s going to be all right…”
“It might have been the same people who hit your mother.”
“Yes, it might.”
“I feel sick with shock thinking about poor Father,” Kit said.
“It’s all right, go home and get on a nice warm coat and I’ll drive you back to him.”
“Will you?” She looked at him trustingly. All flirtatious behavior was long forgotten now. He put his arm around her shoulder and walked her to the car. “Maybe I’m only delaying you. I’ll go like this,” she said.
“No, you can’t go like that, not into a hospital. You’ll frighten the wits out of them.” Yes, he was right. “And another thing, I couldn’t drive all those miles beside you dressed in that getup. It would be more than flesh and blood could bear to keep my hands off you.”
“Then I’ll get changed,” she said, her tone mute.
And he seemed sorry to have made the remark. Kit was worried about her father, it had been a coarse sort of thing to say. “I’m sorry, Kit,” he said simply. “Sometimes I’m very rough, I disgust myself.”
“No, it doesn’t matter,” she said. They were talking like friends, real friends who knew each other very well. He sat in the car while she went in to change.
She hung up the dress that had worked such wonders and looked at her pale face in the mirror. It all seemed very childish and unimportant compared with poor Father. She wished she knew more about what had happened. Wasn’t it lucky that Stevie had phoned home. She had never known that he was the kind of fellow who would actually mind his younger brother. There were a lot of things she hadn’t known about him until tonight.
The towns and the fields, the woods, the crossroads and the farmhouses, slipped past in the night. Kit felt it was all so unreal.
“Try to sleep,” Stevie said. “There’s a rug there, you could put it under your head like a cushion.” She sat, small and frightened in her black polo-necked sweater and her black and red skirt. She had taken a jacket and a warm woolly scarf too but she didn’t need them. The luxurious car was very warm.
“Did Mona Fitz say any more?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t keep her on the phone, I thought it was better just to head out there.”
“Much better,” she said. Her voice was small.
“You’ll be fine,” Stevie said.
“I know.”
“These things don’t happen,” he said.
She looked at him, his face was very handsome in the moonlight. “What things?”
“There’s some fairness in the world,” Stevie Sullivan said. “I mean, they wouldn’t let you lose your mother and your father. He’s got to be all right.”
Sergeant Sean O’Connor woke with a start. It was seven-thirty in the morning. He had suddenly made sense of all the jumble of names, and of the man talking about his sister. He went into the cell, he kicked the bed and the man sat up alarmed.
“Tell me about Sister,” he said.
“What, what?”
“Sister Madeleine. Did you hurt her? Did you lay a hand on her? If you touched her I’ll have you beaten to death in this station and then give myself up.”
“No, no.” The man was frightened.
“I’m going down to her house this minute, and you’d better pray to your God that you didn’t harm her. That woman is a living saint.”
“No, no.” The man was like an animal crouched and frightened. “She was good to me. I stayed with her. She hid me, you see. She hid me in her house, first up a tree in the tree house, and then in her own cottage. I wouldn’t hurt Sister Madeleine, she’s the only person who was ever good to me.”
He parked the Garda car outside Paddles’ bar and walked down the narrow path to the hermit’s cottage. He stopped outside the window and peered in. The small bent figure was lifting her heavy black kettle from the hook over the fire. That at least was good timing. They could talk over tea.
She was pleased to see him. “This is a
real treat for me now. I was thinking wouldn’t I love a friendly soul to come in and have something to eat and drink with me. Not to be doing it on my own.”
“But don’t you choose to live on your own? Aren’t you a solitary person?” His eyes were narrow as he looked at her.
“Ah, there’s solitude and solitude.” A silence fell between them. Eventually the hermit said “Is there anything troubling you, Sean?”
“Is there anything troubling you, Sister Madeleine?”
Her eyes seemed to see through him, right across the corner of the lake and up to the prison cell where the frightened madman had lain on his bunk bed babbling her name. “You found Francis, Sean, is that it?”
“I don’t know what his bloody name is, but he said he’d stayed here, that you looked after him.”
“I did what I had to.”
“Harbor a lunatic?”
“Well, I couldn’t let him off on his own, he was wounded. And anyway he was frightened.”
“What was he frightened of?”
“That you’d catch him, and punish him.”
“But he hadn’t done anything yet, had he?”
“The garage, Kathleen Sullivan…you know all this, Sean.”
And suddenly it all clicked together in Sean O’Connor’s head. “You knew he had beaten that woman and still you hid him. You harbored a criminal.”
“That’s being too harsh.”
“For God’s sake, he’s put two people in the County Hospital. What do you call that, peace and light?”
“Two people?”
“Yeah. He beat Martin McMahon senseless last night.”
Sister Madeleine’s hands went up over her face, her shoulders shook. “The poor man,” she said. “The poor, poor man.”
Sergeant Sean O’Connor sat there, grim-faced. He would have liked to believe that the poor man she was feeling such sympathy for was Martin McMahon, coming innocently up his own stairs into his kitchen and seeing his wife being attacked.
But he feared it was the disturbed mind of the prisoner in his cell, the man she called Francis. “Tell me about Francis,” he said wearily.
“You won’t hurt him?”