Ninemile House Read online

  Theresa exhaled a breath of gratitude, as gingerly she opened her own bedroom door and went in. In the mirror on the dressing table opposite, back-lit by the rosy fingers of dawn just beginning to penetrate through the folds of her floral chintz curtains, she could see her own reflection, ghost-like and wan. Her hair a profusion of wildness, bits of leaves and twigs tangled in it, stood out at all sorts of rakish angles and a large scratch traversed her right cheekbone where her assailant’s watch had caught her a glancing blow. Worst of all though were the eyes which stared across the room at her, those of a stranger, fathomless as the deepest ocean, dark, dead and flat, with no sparkle of life to light them. Shocked by her appearance, Therese grimaced and the stranger opposite grimaced in tandem, its mouth a garish red slash where the lipstick so carefully applied the night before had become smeared like the greasepaint on a circus clown. Easing the dress off her battered body, she kicked it to one side, no longer in thrall to it but rather hating what it had come to represent. The contusions on her arms and legs showed vivid against her white skin and there was a bite mark on her left breast, the indentation of teeth marks clearly visible. Disgusted, her hand rose and touched the area, almost as if she needed the evidence of touch, as well as sight to believe it was really there. Downstairs the grandfather clock chimed six times, galvanising her into sudden action. Soon her parents would be stirring and her father would be expecting her to accompany him to the stables. But she wouldn’t! She couldn’t! And he must never, ever know what she had done, because in Theresa’s mind, the man was right. She was a dirty little bitch, a tramp. She was just asking for it!

  ***

  Derry went back to work, reluctantly, but somewhat consoled by Sheila’s assurances that she would pop in every day to keep an eye on Gabby. That morning she was planning on taking her to the local shops and teaching her how to use what to Gabby was new money, although decimalisation had been introduced since as far back as 1971. Ironically, the advent of the Euro was already on the horizon with 2001 being touted as the proposed date. So, God help her poor sister, she would have to cope with learning not one, but two whole new sets of currency in a very short space of time. Still there was no help for it. Gabby couldn’t be expected to spend the next two years going round like the Queen of England with no money in her handbag. Learning how to handle money was a basic necessity, a very important part of her reintegration into society and Derry couldn’t wait to hear how she got on. In the meantime, though, there was work to be done so, relegating her sister to the back of her mind, she started a desultory rifle through her in-tray, hoping to turn up an interesting nugget or two from amongst the usual dross.

  “Ah, Mrs Quinn, nice of you to grace us with your presence. We were beginning to think you’d emigrated, so we were.”

  Derry didn’t need to look up to see who was speaking. The harsh Northern Irish accent told her it was Petey O’Driscoll, aka the Slug. His own unique brand of smell, old socks mixed with sweat and large doses of stale tobacco and alcohol, would have announced his presence without ever the need for speech. Coldly, she quirked an eyebrow. “Were you, indeed, Petey? Well, as you can see, you were quite wrong. I’m back and I hope you’ll excuse me, but some of us have work to be getting on with.”

  Sneering, Petey, leaned on her desk, baring his teeth in a disgusting display of yellow and brown decay. “So, it’s like that is it? Not two minutes back and you’re already ruling the roost. But then that’s women for you. Take them out of the kitchen and they lose the run of themselves.”

  Not bothering to hide her disgust, Derry reeled back. A hack of the old school, Petey O’Driscoll was renowned for his misogyny. Rumour had it that once, long ago, he was a force to be reckoned with in journalism. Politicians quailed at his name. Senior churchmen supposedly blanched. But that was before the booze took charge first of his liver and then of his brain and the only reason he was still in gainful employment was because his brother-in-law was the editor in chief. Even so, he had been consigned to an insignificant column on the sports page and his resentment of his colleagues, particularly the women was huge and he had earned his nickname from the dirty tricks campaigns he so frequently engaged on to discredit them. So far his success rate had been zero, but he lived in an alcohol induced fug of hope.

  “Listen, Petey.” Through gritted teeth, Derry strove to hang on to her patience, “I really don’t want to get into an argument with you. All I want is to be left alone. Is that okay? I mean, is that a problem for you?”

  “I vant to be alone,” Petey went into a ridiculous impression of Greta Garbo, and Derry saw a couple of her colleagues grin, then duck hurriedly down behind their computer monitors when they caught her eye. “I vant to be alone!” Petey leaned even further forward and Derry found herself almost gagging. “Well, Mrs high-and-mighty-married-to-a-politician, if what a little birdie tells me is true, you’ll be singing that song for a very long time to come. And much good may it do you.” Sure that he had got one up, he glanced around to see if anyone had witnessed his triumph, but the bastards were all pretending to be hard at work. Unperturbed, he leered at Derry. It didn’t bother him because soon he would be right back on top where he belonged. Petey O’Driscoll’s little birdie had only just started to sing. With a bit of persuasion and a lot of hard cash, the song could well become a whole opera with Derry and her hoity-toity husband, James Quinn, taking the lead roles.

  “Oh, fuck off,” Derry said, finally losing patience, as he continued to stand there and breathe on her, but there was something about the look on his ugly face, something smug and knowing that caused her more than a moment’s disquiet.

  “Don’t worry,” Petey, grinned again. “I’ve far better things to do than to be hanging about here, anyway.” Turning to go, he spun back round on his heel. “But just let me leave you with this thought from old Willie-boy.” Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown!”

  Derry rolled her eyes as he walked away, his ill-fitting suit and ungainly tread giving the impression of an elderly hippo. “Old Willie-boy, indeed! Only an ignoramus would refer to Shakespeare in such terms. Still, the encounter left her unsettled, and throughout the morning, she found herself replaying the conversation, looking for clues that might point to there being any substance in the jibes and not just the usual of outpouring of vitriol from a disgruntled and jealous old hack. Time and again, her thoughts came back to her sister. What else could it be? Had someone got wind of Gabby? Were they about to out Derry to the world as a cold and unfeeling bitch who had known her sister was locked up in a Magdalene home for thirty years and who had only recently done something about it? Derry knew enough of journalists to know that they would put whatever slant they liked on the story, the more salacious the better. Maybe, James had a perfect right to be worried. Mud stuck and his position both as Junior Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government and as the husband of a journalist, well known for being a champion of the underdog, the press and spin doctors for the opposition would go out of their way to ensure that plenty was slung his way. Derry gave an inward shudder. Oh, the hypocrisy of it all! Imagine the hype, the lascivious drooling over the screaming headlines as both she and James, were held up for pillorying. No sister, barring Cinderella’s would ever have been given a worse press. Heroically, she shrugged away the vision, picked up a document from her in-tray and pretended to be absorbed in reading it. All she could do was to wait until the crap hit the fan and then take whatever damage limitation measures were possible. Or, a possible alternative would be to get in there first and break the story herself, do her best to give it a positive, real-life, sob-story feel. “How I found my dead sister” by leading journalist, Derry Quinn! That would certainly scupper the whistle-blower’s big scoop, but it went against the grain to use her sister like that and, in any case, Petey O’Driscoll, running true to form, might simply be doing a bit of shit stirring, based on nothing at all. On balance, Derry decided to wait and see if anyone else said or hinted at anything. If wo
rking in the press had taught her anything, it was that there was always more than one person in the know and someone somewhere wouldn’t be able to resist dropping a hint or two as evidence of their superior knowledge. For added insurance, she invited Molly Kimble, a sub editor on the Sunday supplement, out to lunch. A nice enough woman in her own way, Molly was also the biggest gossip in Ireland and, as she weighed in at about twenty stone, that was literally, as well as figuratively. Still, if anyone knew anything, Derry reckoned, it was bound to be her. As it happened, all Molly wanted to talk about was her new grandson, his traumatic birth and the name her daughter had chosen for him, which had resulted in the father and mother of a row between daughter and mother. Orlando Depp McCarthy. Really, Molly had a point!

  Back from lunch, she felt confident enough to look straight through Petey, as he made to sidle up to her again, his rubbery lips beginning to flap like the outside of a torn pocket. Tosser! She couldn’t wait to go home.

  ***

  Over the next few weeks life started to settle into some sort of normality for Gabby. Slowly but surely she stared to gain in confidence, going for short excursions by herself down to the beach, where she would walk for ages along the edge of the shore, gathering shells and unusual pebbles, or simply sit on the sand or a rock, never tiring of looking out to sea. Today, Derry’s friend and neighbour, was coming to teach her the route to the local shops, something she looked forward to with a mixture of excitement and dread.

  Gabby liked Sheila, who in some ways reminded her of Angie back at Ninemilehouse. Although only a couple of years older than herself, there was a comfortable, maternal quality about her that inspired confidence. Brusque, no nonsense, but oozing kindness, she felt safe in her company and began to look forward to her visits, especially since Derry had gone back to work and Gabby sometimes felt lonely or at a loose end.

  Dressed in the navy pinafore and one of the high-necked, white blouses, Gabby made sure she was ready well before Sheila was due to arrive. She’d also washed her hair, but with no hairdresser on hand or any idea of how to use a blow-dryer, had simply left it to revert to its usual mass of loose waves. Neither did she bother putting make up on. Thirty years of indoctrination by the nuns wasn’t easily shrugged off and, whatever Derry might say about everyone wearing it these days - sometimes even the men and wasn’t that awful – make-up was wrong. It was vain and sinful and deep down in a part of her psyche, suppressed for many years, Therese knew the big trouble it could get you into.

  The new clothes were a different issue, though. For several minutes she had admired her modest image, twirling this way and that, before the full length mirror in her bedroom. That was sinful too and she knew she would have to admit to it in the confessional, whenever Derry got around to taking her there. Guiltily, Gabby made the sign of the cross as she thought about mass and the fact that she hadn’t been even once since coming to live with her sister. Except on the very rare occasions when illness had rendered her almost at death’s door, she hadn’t missed mass a single day for the last thirty years. Even then, there had to have been virtually no pulse and the onset of rigor mortis before the nuns let her off. Derry took the opposite view. As far as she was concerned attending church on the odd Sunday and holy days of obligation was enough to fulfill the criteria for being a good Catholic and all the craw-thumping the nuns and priests went on with was totally unnecessary.

  As Gabby waited for Sheila’s arrival, her mind travelled back to the first morning she had awoken in her sister’s house. Used to three long decades of early starts, her body-clock had kicked in as usual at five am. Disorientated by the icy-white light of dawn filtering through the curtains and the unfamiliarity of her surroundings, she panicked a bit at first, then the memories of the preceding day came tumbling back and the fear was rapidly replaced by excitement. Leaving the luxurious warmth of her bed, Gabby padded across the ankle-deep carpet to the window, pushed aside the muslin hangings and gazed with awe at the splendour of the scene unfolding outside. Rose streaked, the newborn morning sky gazed narcissistically upon its own exquisite face on a seascape canvas of sapphire blue. Seagulls, in a showy display of aerial acrobatic wheeled and dived, a blur of white plumage and yellow beaks, seeking out the pewter-bellied fish that taunted their hungry bellies just below the surface of the water. A straggle of less ambitious, smaller wading birds picked their way delicately on black webbed feet through the maze of seaweed, shells and stones carelessly discarded on the sand by the early tide retreating back the way it came. A man in a red jumper and gum boots was digging for something far out on the sands, his tan and white collie dog, turning circles at his heels and every now and then making a mad foray at something unseen. Gabby could just about make out the sounds of his high excited barking. Mentally hugging herself, she stood for a while, just drinking in the strangeness of the scene. The unfamiliar beauty of it all. She couldn’t wait to get down there and experience it all for herself.

  A slight cough and the sound of someone shifting in one of the other bedrooms, brought her spinning guiltily round, the dread that was almost second nature to her nowadays, rising up like a sickness in her stomach and banishing the unfamiliar feeling of pleasure. What on earth was she thinking of, standing idly at the window when Derry would, no doubt, be expecting her to be making herself useful. Hurrying into the bathroom, she gave her face a quick run over with the flannel, ran the toothbrush round her mouth, scurried back out and threw her clothes on. In five minutes flat, she was down in the kitchen, rummaging amongst the pots and pans and cupboards for the makings of the breakfast. When Derry appeared more than an hour later, yawning widely from behind her hand, it was to find that her sister had prepared a full, cooked breakfast for no less than twelve people. Aghast, she had stood rooted to the spot in the doorway, her gaze ranging between the table that was laden fit to burst, the works surfaces littered with the detritus of Gabby’s labours and her sister, herself, whose heart was sinking by the second, although she was at a complete loss as to what she did that was so wrong it had Derry looking like she’d walked in upon mass murder.

  “Gabby, what on earth have you done?” The life coming back into her legs, Derry had walked slowly over to the table and stood looking down. “Why have you cooked all this food? Were you expecting an army or something?”

  Confused and beginning to shake a little, Gabby shrugged. “I – I made breakfast. I thought you would expect me to cook. I always do at the convent. And I clean, too.”

  Her poor sister! Dismayed Derry put the pieces of the jigsaw together. Used to cooking for a whole retinue of nuns, Gabby had continued doing as she always did, forgetting that in this house there were only five people in total, including herself, and two of them were five-year old twins with the appetites of sparrows.