Dead right, p.16
Dead Right, page 16
“Calm down darling, please. This is not doing you any good. Rick wasn’t who he seemed, we could see it but you couldn’t.”
Mary shuffled forward, hand outstretched, dragging bedding behind her. She nudged a brimming chamber-pot, its contents slopping over the rim, staining the pale carpet. Her face crumpled in disgust.
“Don’t darling me. You’re as bad as each other and I never thought I’d say that of you Mary. Never. Oh God…”
Anne slumped forward burying her head in rumpled sheets, gripping the stained linen with clenched fists, her muffled sobs disturbing the sanctitude of the darkening room.
Bernadette smiled benignly, her fixed, off-centre grin irritating Mary, who glared at her.
“How could you have brought this up now? For Jesus’ sake, Bernie.”
“We should keep it down or we’ll wake Nanny.”
“Oh God, you’re impossible.”
“Just being considerate.”
Nanny lay motionless on the sofa, her low rasping breaths a reassurance of her undisturbed presence.
“We need to be honest with each other.”
“Why for pity’s sake?”
“Because we have so little time.”
“Christ!”
Breathless and exhausted Mary lay down, twisting awkwardly to stare up at Bernadette, who appeared to be malevolently looming over her stricken family. A gaunt harpy, Mary thought as she fainted.
“To do otherwise would be irresponsible. The godliness of our soul is what matters …”
She gazed contemptuously at Mary.
“… to me anyway.”
“What was the deal?”
“Ah, the youngster returns to us.”
“What was the deal? You said it was part of the deal.”
Anne’s tone was surprisingly firm.
“You were paying attention then despite all your shenanigans.”
Bernadette couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of the melodrama playing out in front of her on the sitting room floor, the actors lying down barely able to move, one comatose the other manically alert, her eyes staring intently.
“Tell me.”
Bernadette, relishing her starring role, paused, moistening chapped lips, before answering.
“You knew in your heart of hearts that Rick was not right for you …”
“That’s not true.”
Dismissively she raised a hand and pressed on.
“… not the one. You knew he was shallow and only interested in getting you into bed, but you wilfully chose to ignore the fact. Focusing only on the superficial – his good looks and fit body – and not on the important things: his character, his heart and soul. He wanted your body and nothing else.”
“No!”
The cry was eerily mournful in the muggy twilight air. Mary stirred.
“Yes Anne, double, triple yes. That’s what he was. Mary and I could see the truth, but you were blind to it. We tried to talk to you but you wouldn’t listen, you were caught up in the passion of a boy. He was your first, I know, and that is always special but he was not the one to be your last.”
“But he was, wasn’t he?”
“Oh, Anne no …”
Bernadette was momentarily at a loss for words.
“He was my last.”
Anne was crying, her face crumpled, her skin crimped around the eyes, but the tears had stopped.
“I’m alone because of you.”
Breathing was difficult, her words congested.
“I have nobody because of …”
“No Anne you have us.”
“No, I don’t. I really don’t. You’re the reason I’ve never been with anyone. I’m still a virgin because of you.”
Angrily she struggled to rise up on all-fours and lunge at Bernadette, her distraught wail piercing. Mary opened her eyes, Nanny above them on the sofa lifted her head. Too weak to be effective, Anne’s assault came to nothing and she fell back, Bernadette kicking out at her.
“The deal with Rick was if I slept with him he would go away and leave you alone. And he did just that. I’ve no idea where he went if that’s going to be your next question. He wasn’t for you Anne, he really wasn’t”
“How many times?”
“What?”
“How many times did you go with him?”
“Several.”
Anne moaned and clutched her head.
“Four or five, that’s all, I swear to God.”
Mary groaned. Sobs forced the air from Anne’s heaving chest, leaving her breathless and unable to speak. Nanny slumped back, her head sinking into the heaped blankets. The sofa shook, a pale wrinkled vein-rippled leg, suddenly protruded, a thick dark-blue woollen sock gathered at the ankle, her arms reached out palms spread, there was a knocking as the wooden frame hit the wall, then everything stilled. In the silence they heard Nanny’s final gasp of surprise followed by a ragged exhalation.
Around them there was a hazing of the light, a swirling hint of splintering form, then an absence in the room, a vacating of the spirit, as Bernadette was to recall later, Nanny had died with her soul rapidly exiting. The sisters sensed it together – the communion profound – quieting panic and soothing bruised feelings. Anguish curdled in their throats, the taste of grief distasteful. There was no ceremony, no transition, no before and after, no lingering farewells, no last words. She was gone.
Those left behind were integral to the story too. A chapter had closed, not with an unexpected plot twist, but with a foretold ending. It was a fitting conclusion to Part One. As the leading characters they were eager to read on, anxious to learn if the final scene of the whole saga was as expected. Their problem was to disentangle what was fact and what was fiction, what was an astute observation of the real or the upwelling of an emaciated sensibility, a hunger induced hallucination or a genuine revelation. The Scriptures were their preferred literary template, they all desired to emulate the divine, but they were difficult texts to follow with fading eyes and weak constitutions.
Bernadette possessed a practical streak, she discovered, layered deep within, that was throttling her grief. She momentarily reflected on her lack of feeling, her heartlessness, but it didn’t resonate and she cast such thoughts aside. Action was always an antidote to mawkishness and introspection. She got unsteadily to her feet, the effort was immense, every fist-like breath pummelling her chest, until the violence of the attack forced her to stop, gasping, head giddy. The room swirled and dipped and she feared she would fall. Flashes of burnt gold seared Bernadette’s eyes, blistering her sight, bleeding smoky visions into corners, crackling static interfering. She fell against the sofa her body curving sinuously as she sought to balance. Upright and holding on, equilibrium was gradually restored and she could see again, a wispy reality of marginal utility, but serviceable, her breathing eased and a sense of smell returned. For a delirious moment she felt whole before the physical dissipiation of their existence impinged and overpowered her.
The moment slipped and Bernadette slid with it, gliding in and out of consciousness. She had no idea why she was standing in the middle of the room, her leg pressed against the sofa was numb, the only sound the tick-tack of the hot water pipes, her sisters were absent and she seemed to be alone. Rubbing feeling back into the forgiving flesh of her calf Bernadette thought she remembered why she was there, the reason she was who she was, the actor. She grasped Nanny under the arms, sensing a vestigial warmth, and hauled. Her aunt was not heavy but there was resistance in the curled body, already a stiffening of the joints, a pooling of the blood. How long had they been adrift in this end of life epilogue? Minutes, hours, days? Time was an elusive, unreliable servant, absent when you most needed it, missing from the plotline Bernadette had running through her mind. She had no idea where her attendant had gone. Rigour, both mental and physical, was now what was required and she was the only one of her sisters able to provide it. Nanny had to be moved for the simple reason they couldn’t live with her anymore. The years together were over, the camaraderie, the intimacy, the deeper companionship of the devoted relation, so different from that of mere friends, was now just part of their history. The future promised much more, an eternity of harmony and joy, an infinite age of spiritual affinity. All they had to do was follow her and pass over. But before that she had to move Nanny out of sight, but not out of mind.
“What are you doing?”
The voice was commanding in tone, but groggy in execution. Mary, perturbed and dishevelled, her breathing staccato, was focusing hard from a half-raised position on the floor. Her weary mind labouring to tease meaning from the stippled pattern of facts in front of her – the overbearing juxtaposition of a towering Bernadette grasping a limp Nanny in her arms; the physical exertion being expended; the overwhelming sense of a lack of spirit – and failing to make out any arrangement that made sense.
“Mary let me deal with this. Nanny will be more comfortable in the dining room.”
“Why? What’s so uncomfortable about the sofa?”
“She can’t be with us now in the same room.”
“Don’t be silly Bernie she should be with us now more than ever. We’ve got to stick together.”
“Oh God!”
“We mustn’t leave her alone.”
“She’s left us Mary.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true.”
“Noooo.”
The extended exclamation dissolved into fractured bars of liquid sobbing. The effect comically musical.
“Mary for Christ’s sake. What does it matter?”
“It matters.”
Anne’s voice unexpectedly hard-edged.
“You can’t always get your own way.”
“I don’t.”
“You do Bernadette, you do. You always do, you always have.”
“Oh, not this again, please.”
“I hate you.”
“You’ve no idea what I think of you, you silly little bitch.”
Irritated Bernadette lowered Nanny’s body to the floor and pushed her partially beneath the sofa, closed each vacant eye with the palm of her hand, brushed the hair from her brow, noticing that the deep furrows of consternation that had marred her homely appearance of late seemed to have disappeared, placed a cushion under her head, another between her knees, pulled a quilt down from the sofa, kissed her lightly on the cheek, then tucked her in securely. She wanted her to be comfortable.
“I’ll leave you to it then, you ungrateful … I’m moving into the
dining room.”
“Good.”
The sliding glass doors dividing the two rooms were an effective barrier in keeping out the incapacitated living – Bernadette was relieved to be shut off from her sisters – but the dead were irrepressible passing back and forth at will. And it was not just the recently deceased for Nanny’s death had summoned a cavalcade of long dormant spirits to parade along the ancient intersecting pathways that formed the real physical geography of the place. Bernadette sensed them all and saw certain of the travellers in the gathering gloom. She was not surprised at their presence. Nanny had talked of the pilgrim spirits often to those who would listen. Many had thought of her as simply joking or of playing a blasphemous tongue-in-cheek game gulling the devout to rise, as they so often did, to take issue. But Bernadette knew differently. Nanny’s spiritual compass had always pointed firmly heavenward, but she was not averse to straying off the path once in a while to commune with the spirits of place, cavorting with the true believers of earlier more holy times. The chosen of any age always had something to pass on if you would just listen and Nanny believed that it was only a fool who was not receptive to such wisdom, who turned their minds away. A place never forgot its history and neither did she. There were always slights to be righted, wrongs to be avenged and the local familiars were always striving to do that. They never ceased through aeons of time to seek out the sympathetic living to help them heal their spiritual injuries. It was rare to find a spot on the earth without such weeping wounds, ages-old, scarring the landscape. When you did – and Nanny believed Eden Avenue was one such place, even though it had to her chagrin been forsaken by modern developers – you could exploit the immaterial calm to promote your own wellbeing, resolving the slights and wrongs of your own life unheeded by vexatious spirits.
They were there now in their grotesque chattering brilliance but Bernadette was not scared, proximity to the dead was a comforting reminder of her, of their, ultimate fate. She did fear however that with Nanny gone the conduit would close and in the process be lost, communication would end, that without their guidance she would not be up to the task she felt her aunt had entrusted her with.
To be of such company was an honour, but she was uncertain, sensing she might simply be in their presence but not of them. Confined as they were, as she was, in limbo on the outer edges, she felt loneliness descending, seeping round like a bank of fog. Raw and alone – a precursor she knew of what was to come – Bernadette experienced a revelatory insight in which she understood that despite her faith, the passing of Nanny marked the end of an era, a generational change. She was meant to follow, as were her sisters, they had sworn to do so and knew it was the right thing to do. They were already travelling on the devout pathway, purging themselves of all that was impure in mind and body. On their knees, flaying their souls mercilessly as they climbed the rocky pilgrimage road to salvation. The clichés flowed – the murmurings of nuns, the mutterings of priests – insulting her intelligence, softening her logic, turning thoughts to mush. They couldn’t save her now. But amongst the softness and fuzz there was a hard irritant core of belief that she stubbornly refused to abandon. She was not destined to die in this way, she was certain, but her sisters were. They were to be sacrificed to look after Nanny. She though was being kept back – Nanny hadn’t said so explicitly but she had hinted at it. Bernadette was the one who was to speak to and for the ages. There was no one else who could do it, she was clear on that point. The irony was that she was too weak to do anything about it. There was nothing and nobody left, just the emptiness and the redemptive pain. The path travelled was pre-ordained. It would be God’s will.
“I think Miss Walsh that we are very nearly done for today, but at this stage in your testimony I have to ask the question which I think everyone in this courtroom is burning to know the answer to. You have in what you said earlier hinted at some of the reasons, but I would like you now, if you can, to succinctly tell us why you and your family members decided to fast to the death and not say nurse Mrs Fanning through her inevitable decline and then continue with your lives?”
Bernadette had expected this question and had prepared an answer, which she would deliver with conviction. She thought she believed it and that belief gave her a great deal of comfort, particularly when the chill realization insinuated itself into a consciousness still somewhat befuddled by its own survival, that she was utterly alone.
“I am a deeply religious person, my family are as well …”
“Not true, you can’t say that. Suicide and murder are sins. You can’t pull that one.”
John was standing and staring at his sister, he was speaking at normal volume, but the pitch of his voice was monotonic.
“Mr Walsh please remain silent and sit down or I will have you removed from this courtroom.”
John flicked his eyes in the direction of the Coroner, then sank down onto his seat.
“We believe in the life hereafter. In eternity. Nanny, my sisters and I lived together in this life and we planned to continue to do the same in the next. We believed deeply that that was possible, and to achieve it together was not a sin. Nanny was ill with a terrible wasting disease, her life on this earth was not going to be worth living, it was kinder for her to go at a time and place of her own choosing. We made that possible. It was an act of faith, an act of devotion.”
The court was silent. Bernadette stepped back letting go of the rail bordering the front of the witness stand. Her skin adhered momentarily to the smooth metal surface – she realized she had been grasping it tightly. Each hand tingled with numbness. The Coroner cleared his throat before speaking.
“Thank you, Miss Walsh, we will continue tomorrow. The court is adjourned.”
The sun was shining for the first time that Bernadette could remember since she had left the house on Eden Avenue semi-conscious on a stretcher. She could feel the wan heat radiating through the grimy skylight and rippling in soothing waves across the top of her head – where a thinning crown of brittle hair offered little protection for her scalp – then caressing the dry skin of her slightly upward tilted face. It was the filtered shining she recalled from the balmy summer of their death descent, each rising and setting marking a downward twist of the spiral. Every slippage brightly illuminated, the extreme perversity of her fast intimidating senses into accumulating false memories and seeking renewal from a natural order overwhelmed by her religious fervour and mental and physical decline. All intimations of impending darkness were challenged by the brightness of the light, whether caused by souls burning in the conflagration awaiting at the end or being purified by fire, Bernadette had never been certain in her own unravelling mind. Nonplussed by the unexpectedly bright nature of the season they had by chance ended up with as a backdrop to their exit, she had struggled to overcome the inherent optimism of the time of year. Days passed and the perpetual sun blazed, its presence filtering through the heavy drapes into the house where their diminished bodies reached out to grasp at the fingers of restorative light.
Nanny admonished her, whispering in her ear, “to face her tormentors” and she was prepared, but in her now weakened condition she needed precious moments of respite from the sights and sounds of the impending ordeal. Smarting eyes closed against the glare, shutting out images of the curious filing along the rows of seats in the courtroom, taking their places before sizing her up, as well as blanking out the accusatory stare of her surviving sibling, harsh and unforgiving. People were always difficult, often irritating and sometimes chastening in their unpredictability. Bernadette could live without them. She had arrived at the court early, seeking solitude but hadn’t found it – the nudges, whispers and glances of onlookers following her every move – the concerned interventions of the Clerk nigglingly intrusive. Now hiding in plain view on the witness stand, if just for a few precious seconds, was the only time she had to be herself in those moments before the charade began all over again.
