‘… like I’ve no rights, like I’m some fuckin’ plank of wood. You women think it’s all down to you – dominion over life and death, eh? I was just trying to get my say. It was half mine.’
Ali tried to get to her feet, but Davy grabbed her hand and pulled, holding her down next to him and pointing a finger in her face.
‘You listen: I’ll tell you how it was supposed to go, and then how you messed it up.’
‘I feel sick.’
‘I don’t care.’
Davy looked round for the whiskey bottle, but he couldn’t reach it and keep hold of her at the same time.
‘Bugger. Anyway, Peggy goes to Dublin to have the baby, and I follow after. Her sister’s trying to persuade her to keep it, to come back to Buleen and live openly with her little bastard in my own town. I’d never be rid of her.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I sorted something out. It was perfect. I told her I had a family in England, rich people desperate for a baby, who would give it the life of a princess. We do a deal. I persuade Peggy to give me the baby one night in Dublin and tell her I’m going to take it over on the ferry.’
‘Did you?’
‘Of course I didn’t. I would have been stopped at the first post. It was just a tale. No, I had a better plan. I figured I could drive as far as Portlaoise and back without your mother missing her car. Drop the baby near the hospital in the dark. I even had a wee bed set up in the back of the car, a towel to wrap it in. I’m not a monster. They’d be searching the midlands for the mother. Nothing to connect it to her or me.’
‘It’s still alive?’
‘It would be, if you hadn’t arrived at the door with your little blondie friend.’
‘What?’
‘Your house. That night. The thing was screaming – a noise that would strip the skin off you. I popped back to yours, figured I could get some milk and whiskey down it. Just dope it, like. I knew no one was in. But still it won’t stop crying. I was in the laundry room with it when I hear the key in the door and you two giggling in the hall. You made me panic.’
His voice was accusing, but he wouldn’t meet her eye. Ali remembered coming in with Fitz that night, because Fitz wanted to meet Davy – wanted to meet any man she could – and him coming out of the scullery all flustered, and her thinking it was shyness.
‘What have you done, Davy?’
‘I’ve done no worse than thousands of women, than my own sister did. What difference is there between a foetus and a just-born baby that knows nothing or no one – days, that’s all it is.’
‘There is a difference,’ said Ali.
His hand grabbed the back of her neck and tightened.
‘Don’t give me crap. You don’t know enough to keep your knickers on, either. I had to leave it somewhere, so I thought I’d put it in that little garden you talk about so much. A nice present for Sister Bernadette and her meddling. And there you were, under a tree, getting your titties out for some boy.’
It felt like being punched. He had been there, the figure walking on the path down to the Rosary Garden. He had seen her with Ronan. This wasn’t made up.
Davy let go of her, turned away. When he spoke, his voice was barely there. ‘I just needed it to shut up.’
‘Davy, it wasn’t an “it”.’
He wrapped his arms around his head as if warding her off. ‘It wasn’t my fault—’
Ali leapt for the hall, grabbing at the jamb to pivot herself towards the front door. She fumbled with the snib while he called her name from the living room, a forlorn wail that almost made her waver, but the door was opening now and she could see the dusky sky and the path through the trees beckoning her out of there.
She stepped out into air, forgetting that the ground would be so far. Her body pitched forward, flying down towards the cement boulder that suddenly filled her vision.
33
>
Swan knocked on Dr Nolan’s study door. Outside, in the dwindling light, his small team readied themselves for the short trip to Caherbawn.
‘Come in!’
It was more of a library than a consulting room, though an examination bench covered in nasty beige vinyl lurked against one wall. The sight of it reminded him of Ali, and what she had been subjected to on his orders. But the girl and the mother hadn’t been quite honest with him – they had never mentioned an uncle being with them in Dublin.
Dr Nolan was sitting at an old-fashioned writing desk, a fat reference tome open before him, a brass lamp casting a civilised light. He slid off some wire-rimmed reading glasses as Swan approached. There was a ring of falseness to the pose, as if he had been waiting to be interrupted.
‘I’ll assume you know why we’re here, Doctor.’
A nod and a shrug. I do, but I don’t.
‘Your daughters have given contradictory statements to me about the fate of the baby your daughter Peggy was carrying. What do you know of it?’
‘I would think that Bernadette would be your more reliable witness. My younger daughter’s state of mind isn’t strong.’
‘She didn’t seem very focused. What have you given her?’
‘She’s on a prescription tranquilliser. All above board.’
‘When did you notice she was pregnant?’
Dr Nolan hesitated a moment. ‘She concealed it from us. I didn’t know till quite late along.’
‘I thought the signs would be more obvious to a medic,’ said Swan.
The doctor tightened his jaw. ‘The girls tend to rely on their mother for those kind of confidences.’
There was no regret for his lost grandchild, nor did he seem inclined to
