The City of Shadows

but as if they were in a language he didn’t know very well.

‘Nine months ago she went to Merrion Square for an abortion — ’

‘Please, I’m sure you know where you are!’ he whispered, leaning in towards her, his eyes darting nervously now, as if he was being watched.

‘I do, and I know who you are.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I know you were the father of her child and I know you made the arrangements with the doctor, Mr Keller. Susan wrote to me about you.’

He was calmer now. He had never seen her before, but he had realised who she was. He didn’t know her, yet he felt as if he did. He had heard too much about her from Susan not to. There was only one person she could be.

‘You’re Hannah.’

‘Yes.’

‘You could only be Hannah.’ There was a smile on his lips. It surprised her, not because it was a smile, but because it was tender. There was a memory, and somewhere, in a way she didn’t understand, it mattered to him. As they walked out of the cathedral he put the sign he was carrying down on a table by the door. ‘Father Byrne Confessions in English.’

‘I know you’ve lied to the Guards, in your letter. They know that too.’

It wasn’t quite the truth. The only policeman who knew was milking cows in West Wicklow. The priest didn’t reply. His face was expressionless, but in his silence she could still feel his pain, even though she couldn’t get hold of what it was. They were in the gardens now, among the linden trees and the close, neat box hedges in front of the Bishop’s Palace. He had said hardly anything, but already he wasn’t what she had expected. He was quieter. There was nothing about him that felt like the man Susan had described, talking endlessly, passionately, excitedly through a whole night as they walked the streets of Dublin. He finally spoke again, slowly at first.

‘I didn’t know she was dead. It was only when the Gardai contacted me that I found out. I didn’t know what to think. It seemed hard to believe.’

‘But not very hard to lie, to pretend you hardly knew her.’

‘I’m not proud of that. But I couldn’t change anything.’

‘And that makes it all right?’

He shook his head, looking down at the ground.

‘I’d already told lies. I didn’t know how to undo those. There were a lot of things I couldn’t face. I kept lying.’

She almost felt sorry for him as he looked up, but not for long.

‘You know where they found her?’

‘Yes.’ He didn’t want to think about that; it was in his voice.

‘He’s left Ireland now, the man Keller, the doctor. He’s been gone for months. They don’t know where he is.’ She wasn’t asking questions now, simply stating the bleak, unhelpful facts to herself. ‘So no one can ask him. No one wanted to ask him though. People even helped him leave Ireland.’

As she watched Francis Byrne she could see something else in his face now; it looked like fear. It hadn’t been there before; that was something else, more like self-pity. But suddenly he seemed oddly far away, as if what he was feeling had nothing to do with her or with anything she was saying.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again bleakly.

Hannah persisted, pulling him back to what mattered.

‘What happened the day she went for the abortion?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t with her.’

‘But you knew she was going?’

‘We hadn’t seen each other for nearly a fortnight. I was about to leave Ireland to go to Germany. It’s what we’d agreed. We both needed to start again. Once we knew it was over, Susan was the one who — she was very firm about what we had to do — even about — she said the end was the end.’

Hannah heard Susan’s voice in those last words; that at least was true.

‘Didn’t you try to find out if she was all right?’

‘We’d made our decision. It’s what she wanted.’

‘You could have asked Mr Keller.’

‘Do you think I felt easy about dealing with a man like that?’

‘No, it must have been unpleasant for you, Father.’

‘That’s not what I meant. Not at all.’

The self-pity was back. It was enough of what he meant.

‘I don’t know what happened. I can’t even begin to imagine — obviously something went wrong with the operation. I didn’t have any idea.’

‘You did send her there. You paid for it. She told me.’

‘Yes. It was wrong. All of it.’

‘Perhaps it was God’s judgement on her, is that it?’ she snapped.

‘Do you think I didn’t care about her?’

‘I don’t know. I know she cared a great deal about you once.’

‘Look, Hannah, I don’t know what she said about me.’

‘Why does that matter now?’

He didn’t reply, but it did; it still mattered. She was uncomfortable with him. He felt unexpectedly a part of Susan, in a way that confused her. She didn’t know what was true now. She didn’t know if she believed any of it.

‘There was a time I did try to talk to Susan, about another way, about leaving the priesthood. It wasn’t a long conversation. She said she didn’t want me to do that. I think we weren’t very good for each other really. She felt that more than I did at the end. We’d both made a mistake. Susan said she didn’t want me to destroy my life for that. We went our separate ways.’

‘What about her life?’

‘If I hadn’t cared about her life, do you think I’d have gone through with it? There was a child, a child we — it was what she wanted. I owed her that, even if the price was a sin.’

‘I don’t care about your sins. I only care about my friend!’ There were tears of anger in her eyes.

Her voice was softer suddenly, almost pleading.

‘There must be something else you can tell me!’

‘I did love her. I don’t know what she felt about me. I never did.’ It felt like the truth, but it was his truth, selfish, secret, self-absorbed.

Hannah wanted to turn on him and scream. She couldn’t give a fuck about his feelings, but the words startled her. No, he never did know. She saw something she hadn’t seen before, something she had never caught in Susan’s letters. The words were in her head again and she could hear Susan’s voice saying them; the words tumbling over each other as they did when she spoke. Susan had always used the word love too easily. There was attraction, friendship, fun; there was intellectual fire; there was the joy of a passionate secret; there was sex. She used to laugh at Hannah because she held on to the word love and kept it close, as if it was too precious to use. As Hannah looked at he priest now he seemed weaker, smaller. She wondered if he ever had been quite the man Susan wanted him to be, the man she wrote about when she first met him. Did he really know nothing? After all this time, was it just that he simply didn’t know?

‘I need someone to tell me why my friend is dead,’ Hannah said, her voice more measured again ‘You’re the only person there is. Can’t you understand?’

‘I don’t know. I only know I wish she wasn’t dead. I wish she wasn’t.’ He whispered the words over and over again, like a prayer. ‘I wish she wasn’t.’

As he spoke, the first of the Angelus bells tolled. Father Francis Byrne crossed himself. It was as if he had put on a new face quite suddenly; the vulnerability was gone. He seemed stronger. She knew he would say no more now. He had told her enough of the truth for her to almost lose her way in it. But it still wasn’t the whole truth. She knew that. She shook her head.

‘I won’t let her be forgotten. I won’t stop!’