Within six days, Marie was in love.
She had kept it secret at first. Her family’s disapproval of her working for a Unionist newspaper had been made clear. Her father had never spoken about his involvement in the conflict, but she knew her Uncle Michael was up to his neck in it. Everywhere she went, people knew who she was, and who she shared her blood with. Her friends were from that community, too, and all but a few drifted away because of her job. When she could keep Jack Lennon secret no longer, they deserted her as quickly as everyone else she’d grown up with.
At the age of thirty-one, Marie McKenna found herself isolated, cut off from her old life. But she had Jack, and that was enough. Vague threats would surface now and then, Mass cards with bullets in the post, but the couple were strong. They could survive it.
Two years after meeting him, just a few weeks before the day she realised her period was late, Marie smelt perfume on him. By now, Jack was working CID, out of uniform. He said it was a female colleague, one who had shown no interest in him in the past. Seeing him in a solid relationship with another woman changed that. Day after day she had been throwing herself at him, often physically, but he had resisted her. He always had been, and always would be, faithful.
Jack Lennon was a charming and persuasive man. Marie believed every word he said. In retrospect, she imagined she saw him flinch when she told him she might be pregnant. She couldn’t be sure of it, but that was immaterial in the long run. All she could be sure of was arriving home on a drizzly evening two months later and finding their flat empty.
Fegan listened to Marie as she sat next to him on her sofa. Her face showed no emotion as she spoke.
“Do you want to know the really sad thing?” she asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “A week after he left me for her, she dumped him.” Marie gave a brittle laugh. “She wanted what she couldn’t have, and when she could have it, she didn’t want it any more. So much damage, just on a whim. Anyway, he phoned me, begging to come back. I told him to shove it.”
“Good,” Fegan said. “He sounds like an arsehole.”
Ellen looked up from her coloring. “You said a bad word.”
“Sorry,” Fegan said.
Ellen looked to her mother. “Mummy, can I watch a DVD?”
“It’s nearly bedtime, sweetheart,” Marie said.
“Can I just watch the start of it?” Ellen implored.
Marie sat forward on the couch and gave it her consideration. “All right, but no arguing when I say it’s bedtime, right?”
“Right.” Ellen grinned and went to a bookcase laden with paper-backs, CDs and DVDs. She picked a brightly colored case, opened it, and carefully removed the disc.
“Watch this,” Marie whispered. “She’s an expert.”
Ellen went to the player underneath the television, pressed a button to open its tray, and placed the disc at its center, adjusting it with her tiny fingertips. She turned on the television, found the right channel, and bounced over to the sofa. There was just enough room between Fegan and Marie for her to wriggle into. Fegan watched as Ellen manipulated the remote control until the film began to play.
“You’re very clever,” he said.
Ellen looked up at him, brought her finger to her lips - shush - and pointed to the television. Fegan cleared his throat and did as he was told. He caught Marie’s smile from the corner of his eye.
Soon, Fegan knew nothing but the movie. It was about an orange and white fish who searched a big blue ocean for his son. Sometimes he felt Ellen’s body jerk and rattle with laughter beside him, and he did the same. They felt strange, these spasms, rippling up from his belly to burst in his mouth. The moving images made shadows dance around the room, but they concealed nothing but Marie’s scattered possessions.
Ellen’s bedtime came and went with no protest from her mother, but as the film ended, Marie patted her knee and said, “Okay, missy, you got away with that one, but now it’s really time for bed.”
Ellen slumped forward, despondent. “Do I have to?”
“Yep, it’s nearly half-nine and you were supposed to be in bed an hour ago. It’s . . .” Marie paused as if remembering something she would rather have forgotten. “It’s dark outside.”
Fegan raised himself from the sofa. He looked to the curtained window, then back to Marie. She stood, lifting Ellen, and placed her upright on the floor.
“Go and get your jammies on,” she said. “Then we’ll get your teeth brushed.”
Ellen trudged to one of the doors beyond the kitchenette at the back of the house. She turned in the doorway, waved, and called, “Night-night, Gerry.”
“Night-night,” he said, feeling a little pang of sadness to see her go. He looked down to Marie, who stood with her hands in the hip pockets of her jeans.
“So, here we are,” she said.
“Yeah,” Fegan said. He was unable to hold her gaze and he looked away.
She cleared her throat and sniffed. “Listen, I’m pretty tired, too. I didn’t sleep well last night. I’ll, uh . . . I’ll see to Ellen, then take myself to bed. Will you be all right here?”
“Yeah,” Fegan said. “When they come I’ll be ready for them.”
“Okay,” Marie said. She stepped away, paused, and then came back to him. Standing on tiptoe, she placed a kiss on his cheek and smiled. “I’d say you were a good man, but I’m a terrible judge of character.”
Fegan watched her leave the room as the warmth of her lips on his cheek gave way to the slightest chill of moisture.
