Blood Sisters (39 page)

Dermot shook his head and kept on driving. He joined the ring road and headed west. Sister Aibrean kept her face covered but she started to sob – dry, husky sobs that sounded as if her lungs were made of wasps’-nest paper.

‘Please, Dermot, take me back, it won’t be too late.’

‘I can’t do that, Sister. I’m sorry. I sympathize, like, don’t think that I don’t, but if I don’t fetch you back I’m going to be in shite right up to me fecking earrings, let me tell you that.’

‘I have to flush the toilet,’ said Sister Aibrean.

‘What? What the feck are you talking about?’

‘I left the house this morning but I didn’t flush the toilet. If I don’t go back and do it, I’m going to be mortified.’

Dermot shook his head. ‘Unbelievable. You didn’t flush the fecking toilet. Well, I’m sorry, Sister, but if it’s a choice between your shite and mine, I’m afraid that mine takes priority.’

* * *

He left the main road at Farnanes and drove northwards up the winding country road towards Coachford. Sister Aibrean sat with her hands clasped in her lap, saying nothing, although she was thumbing through her purple rosary and silently praying inside her head for Saint Eustace to protect her. She had asked Dermot where he was taking her but his reply had been a long string of obscenities, so she had decided to remain silent and accept her fate.

Her life had been long and devout, and she believed that she had served God and Jesus to the utmost of her ability, as well as all the unfortunate young mothers and children that she had taken into her care. If God had decided that this was the day on which she was going to die, then He must have a reason, although she couldn’t imagine what it was or why He should have decided that it should be so frightening.

They crossed the narrow bridge over the grey, rain-prickled water of the Taiscumar reservoir and as they did so she closed her eyes and tried not to think of the unflushed toilet. Perhaps that was God’s way of demonstrating to Fianna and Paul that she was only human, after all. She had overheard Paul complaining to Fianna that Sister Aibrean seemed to think she was some kind of divinity.

They drove through Coachford, a strung-out collection of houses and shops, with two pubs facing each other across the main junction, O’Riordan’s and O’Callaghan’s. Sister Aibrean had hoped that there might be one or two early shoppers around so that she could knock on the window of Dermot’s car and signal that she was being driven away against her will. But the only people she saw were two men smoking and talking to each other in a lumber yard and they were too far away to hear her.

Dermot drove on for another few kilometres. High straggly hedges grew on both sides of the road, which made it impossible for Sister Aibrean to see where they were or exactly which direction they were heading in. After about five minutes Dermot turned off left down a long single-track road and eventually they reached a gate with a white wooden sign with Clontead Stud lettered across it. He drove in through the gate and along an avenue of lime trees beside a field with several horses grazing in it. Then he turned into a courtyard surrounded by stables and parked next to a horsebox.

Sister Aibrean looked around. Next to the L-shaped stable block there was a large, green-painted house with a clock tower on top of its roof and a Father Time weathervane. Dermot climbed out from behind the wheel and walked around the car to open her door for her.

‘Is this it?’ she said. ‘Are we here?’

‘Yes, Sister. End of the road. Do you want to be hauling your rear end out of there so?’

‘I suppose it’s no good my throwing myself at your mercy and asking you to drive me back home?’

‘You’re bang on, Sister. No good at all.’

Just then, the side door of the house opened. A woman came out, with a long grey raincoat draped over shoulders, and walked briskly across to the open car door. She had a jet-black bob and a handsome, fiftyish face, with a short nose and a wide, strong jaw. Even though she didn’t have her glasses on, Sister Aibrean could see that she had laid her foundation on too thickly and that she was wearing false eyelashes.

The woman gave Sister Aibrean a smile, although it was more of a smile of satisfaction than a smile of welcome.

‘Sister Aibrean!’ she said. ‘Thanks a million for coming. It’s been an age, hasn’t it?’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Sister Aibrean. ‘Who are you? I’m not here for choicer, I can tell you that.’

‘I didn’t go to Saint Margaret’s for choicer, Sister Aibrean. But that’s life for you, isn’t it? People who are stronger than us tell us what to do and we have to do what they say whether we like it or not, or they’ll give us a beating. All for our own good, of course. All for the sake of our souls.’

‘You went to Saint Margaret’s?’ said Sister Aibrean. ‘Saint Margaret’s was closed down years ago.’

‘You can close down a mother and baby home,’ the black-haired woman retorted. ‘What you can never close down is the memories of what happened inside it.’

‘I have no idea at all what you’re talking about.’

‘If you’d care to come inside, I’ll explain it to you. Right at this moment my hair’s getting wet and I’ve only just had it done.’

Sister Aibrean reluctantly unbuckled her seat belt and Dermot helped her out of the car. She followed the black-haired woman into the house, while Dermot stayed unnervingly close behind her, as if he was making sure that she couldn’t turn around and make a run for it. As if she could, at her age, in the pouring rain, with the last house she had seen at least five kilometres away. In the whole of her life she had never felt so isolated and yet so trapped.

The black-haired woman led her into a large gloomy living room, with huge shabby sofas upholstered in chintz and a peat fire smouldering in the grate. On the walls hung oil paintings of thoroughbred horses, most of them with their heads too small for their bodies, and nineteenth-century prints of classic horse races, and framed rosettes.

‘Sit down, and I’ll explain why Dermot’s fetched you here,’ said the black-haired woman. ‘There’s no joy at all in getting your revenge on somebody if that somebody doesn’t
know
that you’re getting your revenge on them. I could have told Dermot to tie you hand and foot and throw you in the reservoir. But what would have been the point of that? You would have thought that you were simply being murdered for no reason at all. Not punished for what you did, you and your six Sacred Sisters.’

Sister Aibrean remained standing. She clenched and unclenched her bony, liver-spotted hands, trying to summon up the strength to reply to this black-haired woman calmly and with confidence.
Remember
, she told herself,
the Lord is right behind you
.

‘So,’ she said, ‘is it safe for me to presume that you were one of the fallen girls we took into Saint Margaret’s?’

‘That’s right, sister. Riona, that’s my name, Riona Nolan, although I doubt if you remember me.’

‘Riona Nolan? I do remember you. I do clearly. You were very meek and obedient as far as I recall.’

‘Browbeaten and intimidated, you mean. Every word you ever said to me was calculated to make me feel worthless and ugly and sluttish.’

‘Holy Lamb of God! How can you say such a thing?’

‘Because it’s true. You were a witch and a bully, and so were all of your sisters. There was only one person in those days who made me believe that I had any value at all as a human being and that was my son Sorley. If it hadn’t been for Sorley, I would have hanged myself, just like my friend Clodagh, and I mean that.’

Sister Aibrean slowly sat down, tucking a brown velveteen cushion behind the small of her back to support herself. ‘But now, Riona. We looked after you. We gave you a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in. We fed you and clothed you. We kept you warm in the winter. We tended to you whenever you fell sick. We prayed for you constantly, that you should see the light, and we showed you how to lead an upright and moral life.’

Riona shook her head and kept on shaking it. ‘You gave us the most miserable existence that anybody could imagine. You made all of us work like slaves. Our dormitory was freezing in the winter and suffocating in the summer. Our sheets were changed only once a month and we had to wear the same knickers for a week. Our food was gristle and cabbage and potatoes, and we were lucky if we got any gristle. And all the time you kept telling us that we were no better than common prostitutes.’

She stopped for breath. After what she had done to Sister Bridget and Sister Mona and Sister Barbara, she hadn’t thought that she would still be boiling with so much anger. Yet she could easily have crossed the room and slapped Sister Aibrean across the face – twice, three times, left and right. Instead, though, she sat down next to her and leaned forward so close that Sister Aibrean couldn’t focus on her and had to lean back.

‘You made me feel like
nothing
,’ said Riona. ‘Not only that, you made me feel that even if I repented and begged God for His forgiveness that I would
still
be nothing. And, like I say, Sorley was all that stopped me from killing myself. He loved me because I was his mother, and he never judged me. And what did you do? You took him away from me. You
stole
him, you witch! You took away the only meaning that my life ever had.’

‘Well – all I can say is that I’m sorry you feel that way,’ said Sister Aibrean. ‘As far as I’m concerned, we did the very best for you that we could, you and your son. You were in no position to bring him up yourself and, besides, he was God’s child, not yours.’

Riona sat back as if this was an argument that she was no longer interested in pursuing. Instead, she said to Dermot, ‘Can you go and get it ready?’

Dermot gave her the thumbs up and left the living room, and Sister Aibrean heard the side door slam.

‘You always devoted yourself to Saint Eustace, didn’t you?’ said Riona.

‘Yes, I did. And I am still devoted to him. He was one of the most inspirational of all the saints, although many claim that he was only mythical. I believe that he really existed and that the story of his martyrdom is true. I have felt his presence many times. I have heard his voice giving me encouragement.’

Riona said nothing for a moment and then she stood up. ‘You know, of course, how Saint Eustace died?’

‘Of course. Saint Eustace and his whole family, his wife and his sons. He had found Christ and so he refused to make a pagan sacrifice, and for that the Emperor Hadrian ordered him to be put to death.’

Riona went to the window. She could see that Dermot had opened one of the stable doors, directly opposite. ‘Go on,’ she said to Sister Aibrean. ‘How exactly was he put to death?’

‘Why are you asking me? You know already, don’t you? I told you enough times when you were at Saint Margaret’s. I even showed you pictures of it.’

‘I’d like to hear you tell me again, that’s all.’

‘But why? If you hated Saint Margaret’s and you despised me so much, why do you want to hear it now?’

‘Just tell me,’ said Riona. She could see her face faintly reflected in the rain-spotted window and she wondered if this is what she would look like after she had died and became a ghost, staring wistfully into the life she had left behind.

‘The Emperor Hadrian had the statue of a huge bull cast out of bronze,’ said Sister Aibrean. ‘It was hollow, with a hinged lid in its side. Saint Eustace and his wife and sons were forced to climb inside it and the lid was locked. Then a fire was lit underneath the bull’s belly, so that they would slowly be roasted to death.’

‘Go on,’ said Riona. ‘Tell me about their screaming.’

‘They screamed, of course they screamed, as anybody would,’ said Sister Aibrean. ‘But the statue had been made with special reeds in its nostrils so that their screams would sound instead like the bellowing of a bull.’

‘How long did it take them to die?’

‘Three days, according to the stories.’

‘That’s unlikely, wouldn’t you think? Who could survive being roasted for three days?’

‘God was protecting them, remember,’ said Sister Aibrean.

‘So God made him and his family suffer unbelievable agony for three long days before He finally allowed them to die. Yes, I can believe that, considering my experience of God and all who believe they are acting on His behalf. Cardinals and canons and all the other gobshites who call themselves clergy.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear you speak like that,’ said Sister Aibrean. ‘Without the church, and without those who serve it, there would be great desperation and hopelessness in the world. But why did you ask me to tell you about Saint Eustace again?’

Riona turned around. Sister Aibrean looked up at her, but she was silhouetted against the window and she couldn’t see the expression on her face.

‘Because I am going to give you the chance to prove that your faith is just as strong as his was. I think that’s what you call killing two birds with one stone. You can be a martyr, like the saint you’ve adored for so many years, while I can get my revenge on you.’

Sister Aibrean stared at her in horror. ‘What are you going to do to me?’

Riona turned back and looked out of the window. Dermot had appeared from the open stable door and waved to her.

‘Come with me. You’ll find out soon enough.’

Sister Aibrean crossed herself. ‘Dear Jesus,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Riona. ‘My thoughts exactly.’

When Katie arrived at the station she was irritated to find that Enda Blaney and Partlan McKey from the Garda Ombudsman were waiting in reception for her. She ignored them and went over to the sergeant on the desk, shaking her umbrella. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘The weather.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Jesus.’

Enda stood up and came over to her with what she obviously imagined was a smile, although she still looked to Katie as if she were right on the verge of bursting into tears. ‘Good morning, Detective Superintendent! It’s teeming out, isn’t it? We trust you can spare us a few moments more of your time.’

‘As long as it’s only a few moments, Enda. I have a heap of things to sort out this morning.’