Eager to Please (19 page)

But it was Martin she loved. Truly. Once she’d got over the novelty of Daniel’s gentleness, his sweet eagerness to please. And she was relieved when Martin phoned to say he was
coming home.

‘It will be our secret, won’t it, Dan?’ she had said. And he had nodded and kissed her goodbye. On the cheek. And kept his distance.

Rachel had wanted Judith to keep her distance. She hadn’t been pleased when she came out from behind the racks of clothes in the dry-cleaner’s and saw her lolling against the
counter.

‘How did you find me?’ she asked as they walked through the shopping centre together.

Judith shrugged and smiled.

‘The grapevine,’ she said. ‘That old prison thing.’ And then said, ‘But why didn’t
you
find me? I thought I’d hear from you when you got out. I
thought you’d want to see me. I thought you’d want my help.’

But how to explain. That she had no room for her any longer. That she had other priorities. No room now for sweetness or tenderness, gentleness or kindness. So she sent her away. And now she was
dead. Donnelly had said they weren’t sure when she died. But she had been lying beneath the briars and nettles by the railway line for at least five days. Barely a mile away. When she could
have been loved and protected. Looked after. Judith had told her about the baby.

‘I can’t have it. I don’t want it. Will you help me?’ she had asked.

And Rachel had said no. That she couldn’t. She had other things she had to do.

‘Ask your mother,’ she had said. ‘She’s in England. She’ll sort it out for you. Or get the father to give you a few bob. He owes it to you, whoever he
is.’

Judith had looked at her with disbelief, and left without saying goodbye.

And what did I do, Rachel thought. I was glad she’d gone. I was scared someone would see her with me. I couldn’t wait for her to leave.

The guard had left the photograph behind. He had propped it up against the kettle. She picked it up and looked at it. Long and hard. And wept. And wept. Until there was nothing left inside but
sour bitterness and anger. She remembered the book that Judith’s brother had sent her for her birthday when she was in prison. Paintings by Caravaggio. There was a bookmark, a piece of
scarlet cord, tucked inside so it opened of its own volition at one particular painting. It had made Rachel gasp and put the book down on the tarmacadam of the exercise yard for a few moments
before she felt able to look at it again.

‘You know what it is, don’t you, Rachel?’ She felt Judith’s breath on her cheek.

‘Of course I do. Of course. It’s just . . . It’s just such a strange, surprising image.’

The sword cut through the bearded man’s thick neck. The girl stared intently, seriously at him. She pulled his head back and down, her fingers twisted through his hair. She remembered her
own head pulled back and down, her own hair trapped between Martin’s fingers.

‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it? It’s our favourite, Stephen’s and mine. One day we’re going to Rome, to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, to see it.
Together. Will you come with us?’

She had made a choice when she left prison. And the choice did not include Judith. She could not afford to be sorry. She could afford nothing now, nothing except her resolve. She closed her
eyes. She would think just for now how it all might have been. But after that she would think no more about her.

I
T HAD BEEN
easy for Daniel Beckett to find Rachel. The guard who did nixers for him had got hold of her address. He had read the conditions of her
release too. Said to him, ‘She’ll be no bother to you, boss. But if you’re worried we can warn her off.’

But what was there to worry him? She was harmless, she was helpless. She was on her own.

He drove to the house in Clarinda Park. The one with the row of dustbins outside, in the area in front of the basement, with the discarded crisp packets and chocolate bar wrappers lying jammed
up against the front railings. He had driven slowly past to see if he could see any sign of her behind the sagging net curtains that drooped across the big bay windows on the first and second
floors. He had slowed to a stop, the engine idling, and looked out, then put the car in gear and moved slowly up the hill, and driven right around the top of the square to park on the other side.
And wait.

He had found the daughter too. His daughter, he reminded himself as he sat in the café on the seafront at Howth and watched her move from table to table, taking orders, clearing away
dirty crockery. A summer job, he supposed, between school and university. The name of her foster-family and their address had come from the same source as Rachel’s. All in her file in the
Garda station. And it had been easy to watch the girl’s house and follow her down the hill to the town and the café.

‘Yes?’ She stood beside him, her notebook in her hand, her pencil poised. ‘What can I get you?’

He ordered cappuccino and a ham sandwich. Then called her back to change his order to black coffee and a Danish pastry. Then called her again, said he wanted tea and a cheese roll.

‘Brown or white?’ she asked, in a tone of exaggerated patience.

He dithered, watching her expression of resignation turn to irritation.

‘You decide. I’m useless, can’t make a choice to save my life,’ he said and smiled up at her. She rose to the bait and took it. Picked wholewheat for him.

‘It’s better for you, you know. Healthier.’ And she smiled back. It had been years since he had seen her. He had heard when Rachel’s parents had given her up to be
fostered. And he had wondered whether he should intervene. But he thought it through. Rachel had never told anyone that he was the child’s father. He had waited for it to come out as evidence
in the trial. But she had said nothing. He had seen her face that day when he was giving evidence. Her shame at the way their relationship was talked about in open court. She didn’t want her
child to become part of that mess. He knew that was it. He had wondered about the kid, what she looked like as she grew up, what kind of a person she was becoming. And then he had met Ursula and
she had changed everything for him. She had given him children of his own. So he didn’t need that child of his imagination any longer. And he realized now, as he watched her, that he had all
but forgotten her.

He left her a tip and waved goodbye at the door. He watched her for a moment through the plate-glass windows. She reminded him of someone. Not Rachel, he thought. He would never have known that
she was Rachel’s daughter. And then he saw who it was as a cloud crossed the sun and his own reflection formed in front of him. She turned towards him and waved again. She was very something.
He couldn’t decide. Not pretty exactly, with her cropped black hair and her strong, sturdy body. And then he realized what it was. She was very sexy.

Like her mother, he thought. Or the way her mother once had been. Long-limbed and graceful, with a sweet smile as she woke. So beautiful and capable. So much his brother’s wife, and then,
as if by some magic spell, his very own. For how long? Two weeks, maybe three. A perfect time. Turned over in his mind like a pocketful of loose change. Then pushed away with all the other
memories. Until now, and the woman he saw walking up the hill from the town. She was nothing like she was then. She walked with a slight stoop, her back rounded. Her steps were short and hesitant.
She stopped every few paces and paused, as if she was catching her breath. She looked around, as if she wasn’t sure how far she could go, then walked on, as if, he realized, she was waiting
for permission. She passed within feet of him. He averted his gaze, looked down at the newspaper on his knees. Felt his heart begin to leap in his chest. She was so close he could have put out his
hand and twisted his fingers through her thick hair. Grey now, not dark and glossy the way it was before. But he didn’t. He shrank back into his seat and watched her walk the rest of the way
to the house. Watched her pause on the front step, stand staring at the door, then put her hand in her pocket and take out the keys. Watched her fumble and fiddle with them, before finally the door
opened and she walked through. Waited to see if she would appear at any of the windows in the front of the house. And when she didn’t he drove around the square and back out on to the road,
finding himself behind the row of houses, counting them up from the end until he spotted the right one. Parking on the side of the road, looking up, until he saw a shadow against the pane, then, as
the bottom half of the sash opened, her face as she leaned out, catching the breeze on her face. Lifting her head to the sky, closing her eyes so for a moment he recognized her for the woman she
had been. He waited until she had disappeared back inside the room. He imagined himself there with her. Watching her, curious to know. Would her skin still feel the way it did? Would he still want
to lie awake beside her, fearful of losing a moment of sensation? Would he still feel that moment of triumph when she turned and smiled at him and he knew she wanted him as much as he wanted
her?

And then it was time to go. He turned the key in the ignition and moved slowly away up the hill. A curious symmetry to all this, he thought, watching mother and watching daughter. He liked
knowing where they both lived and worked, he decided. He liked even better that they knew nothing about him. That was the way he wanted it. And that was the way it was going to stay.

A
NOTHER HOT DAY
. Another day to be enjoyed. Midsummer’s day. Hours of brightness ahead. The sun on her face so she put on her dark glasses and lay
back on her rug against a rock on the pebble beach at Killiney. A new experience to view the world through tinted lenses. She didn’t wear them before. She had never liked the way the colours
of the natural world were altered, made artificial by the glass. And she had never needed to hide before, to keep her emotions to herself, as she had yesterday. The day of Judith’s
funeral.

They had all been there. The guards, Jack Donnelly and a group of others she didn’t know. And Judith’s father and brother. They were both, she could see, in a state of shock. Rachel
remembered how it felt to peform mechanically, to greet the congregation with fixed smiles and firm handshakes. She sat at the back and watched. And saw the tall, slender woman with the
white-blonde hair cut in a ragged pageboy and her daughter’s face, ruined now by age, who followed the coffin, from the brightness outside into the gloom within. Judith’s mother, Rachel
thought. Elizabeth, that was her name. She watched her take her seat behind her husband and son. There was no contact between them. No recognition on either side of their relationship. She
remembered what Judith had told her. Her mother’s infidelity with a family friend. How her mother had left home. How she had come back and there had been a court case for custody. How she had
lost it and been granted limited access. How she had arrived after school one day and taken the children, driven to the ferry to England, driven all the way to Kent where she was living. And how
the police had come three days later and taken them home.

Rachel watched her as she left the church after the service. Saw how she stood apart from the other mourners. On her own, running her thin fingers absent-mindedly through her hair. Jack Donnelly
was the only person who spoke to her. He took her aside, his hand under her elbow. He looked as if he was asking her questions. She responded with nods and shakes of her head, her hands moving
expressively. Rachel remembered the postcards that she had sent to Judith in prison. Regularly, once a week. Watercolours of flowers and birds. Detailed, beautiful. Her name was in small print at
the bottom. She was an artist, Judith said. She worked in a nature reserve. It was like something out of a fairy story. A cottage in the woods.

‘Or that’s how it seemed to us at the time. Stephen and I were Hansel and Gretel in the gingerbread house.’

She had torn a piece off the edge of the card and twisted it into a tube to fit into the end of the joint she was rolling. She lit it and inhaled. The smoke came out of her mouth in a gasp of
breath. Then there was silence.

‘She wants me to go and visit her when I get out.’

Judith passed over the joint. Rachel took it from her.

‘And will you?’ she asked.

‘Do I have anything to say to her, after so long?’

Rachel waited until Donnelly had moved away and Elizabeth Hill was once again on her own. She walked towards her and held out her hand. Elizabeth looked at her, recognition in her eyes.

‘You’re the woman in the photograph, aren’t you?’

Rachel nodded.

‘You were her friend, weren’t you?’

Rachel nodded again, unable to speak.

‘Thank you, thank you for all you did for her. She wrote to me about you. She told me all about you, and she told me how much she loved you.’

Elizabeth’s grip was firm, her hand warm. She put her arm around Rachel’s shoulder. She kissed her cheek.

‘Be strong,’ she whispered in her ear. ‘Be strong for me and for Judith.’

Rachel looked at her watch. It was two o’clock. At this time yesterday Judith had been cremated. Her battered, beaten body transformed now into a pile of ash. Jack
Donnelly had asked her who would have wanted to hurt Judith in that way. She didn’t know what to say.

‘It was deliberate,’ he said, ‘not an act of passion or anger. Her injuries were designed to be agonizing. So who hated her enough to want to do it? Or was it the case that
someone wanted to make an example of her? Was that it?’

She couldn’t answer him. She wouldn’t answer him. Even when he threatened that he would make sure that she was back inside in a matter of days if she didn’t tell him. But she
just shook her head dumbly and tried to shut out the pain and keep the tears from spilling over and showing her weakness. They spilled over now and ran down her face behind her glasses. She closed
her eyes, squeezing them tightly together.