Mass — Sunday 10.00 am
Bingo — Monday night 7.30 pm
Mass — Tuesday 7.00 am
Fundraising Committee — Tuesday afternoon
Sewing for Babies — Wednesday afternoon
Flowers — Saturday afternoon.
Alex took out his phone and called Jerry. They needed to know if anyone else had been with Edwina in the car. She was working on a Saturday night, near a big inner-city hospital with an active A&E. Carjacking, until now the stuff of fiction, was becoming more of a possibility.
* Alex crossed the road and looked back at the church, an austere red brick building, the facade softened by the stained-glass windows and bell tower. As much as he tried, the sight still invoked a feeling of loss. He’d discovered it was one thing to reject the doctrine, to make a rational decision that what you were being taught was nothing more than a collection of fairy tales. It was another to live with the spiritual emptiness. He’d tried his best; married young, filled the emotional void with a wife and family, a new home to renovate, a demanding job. All of it crashed and burnt when his wife took their children and left. Their home sold. All he had left was his job.
Alex turned and walked, head down, hands in his pockets, until he found himself in Edmund Street, standing in front of Edwina’s house. Over a hundred years old, Victorian. A worker’s cottage but reborn with a loving hand. Different to Mrs O’Brien’s, further up the street, that ached of exhaustion. In desperate need of a saviour. He wondered how long she had lived there, struggling to cope. Fifty, sixty years? But soon she would be gone and the tide of renewal would continue. Next to it was Edwina’s old home, encased in scaffolding, an office conversion in progress. On the corner of the main road, double storeyed, large block. He was no expert, but he reckoned the location was worth serious money.
He left Edmund Street and turned the corner, making his way along the main road to the vegetable shop where Edwina had worked. Fabbiano’s. Fancy. Wooden barrels filled with pears and apples, cheeses and herbs. Cascading tiers of flowers. Gerberas, irises, roses, lilies. He wondered if Edwina had been the creative force behind the arrangements.
Old man Fabbiano was serving when Alex arrived. The news of Edwina’s murder had beaten him to the shop. It had escaped from the church and gym with lightning speed. Spread like a contagion along the main road. The old man jerked his head towards the back when Alex asked for Juliana. ‘Very upset, crying,’ he said. His face was white, his movements sluggish.
Alex threaded his way through to the back of the shop, found Juliana standing in a small kitchen cradling a cup of coffee, her eyes red, a trail of mascara down one cheek.
‘Edwina had such a rotten life,’ she kept repeating, wiping her face with her hand as she poured him a cup of coffee.
Alex nodded his thanks. Stood watching as she sat down at a small table.
‘No breaks. Teased at school, well, we both were. We were tiny tots when it began and it glued us together. Then she married young. God we were shocked. Edwina, pregnant? She was the last person you’d have thought would have been fooling around. But if there’s one thing we Catholic girls were good at it was counting the months from a hasty marriage. She was pregnant all right! Course it didn’t last long, her bloody husband, running off. Such a struggle. And now, finally, she starts to get things together. Loses weight, finds another job.’ She took a sip of the scalding coffee. ‘Life’s not fair is it?’
Alex, whose own life resembled a soap opera, agreed. It had been bad enough when his wife announced she was leaving, but when he’d realised he would lose his children too, that her departure was a package deal, a done deal, it had shredded his life. To have love ripped from you and not be able to do anything about it.
‘It’s never fair,’ he said.
There must have been something in his voice, a hint of truth and trauma, because Juliana suddenly started talking. Pouring it all out.
‘He was no good. It was terrible what he did to her.’ She spat it out, venom in her voice.
‘Sorry?’ For a few seconds, Alex thought he’d hit the jackpot.
‘Her no good husband. And she sixteen. Sixteen! Oh God. He was a total no-hoper. A dreamer. All the talk about doing the house up, turning it into flats, empty talk, nothing more. Didn’t have the know-how. He was big noting. She was the one who worked herself to the bone.’
‘Ah,’ Alex said, understanding she was deep in the past.
‘She was quite pretty then you know,’ Juliana continued. ‘Her mother had stopped giving her those terrible haircuts and she’d let her hair grow long. I used to cut her fringe and trim the ends. Couldn’t afford to go to a hairdresser. Her hair was brown, but in the sunlight it was shot through with red. And with her green eyes, she was cute. I’d have loved green eyes. Of course, once she had the babies it was a different story.’
Juliana reached into her pocket. Pulled out a bunch of tissues and wiped her eyes. Blew her nose. Sipped some coffee. Calmed herself before picking up the story.
‘The second birth, her son, Michael, was difficult. She was sick afterwards. She looked like hell for months. That’s probably what decided the bugger. Out the door as fast as he could. God forgive me for swearing.’ Juliana made the sign of the cross. ‘Her mother dead, she nineteen and left with two little kiddies. Oh God.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘We didn’t understand. I was a kid myself. I didn’t do much to help.’ She sat up, glared at Alex. ‘Then his parents!’ She spat the words out. ‘Pissed off. Did a midnight flit! Were renting,
