The Glass Lake (11 page)

Dr. Kelly hastened to make things more cheerful. “Well, that's very good of you, Dan. And we have a lemon and some cloves, and that'll put the heat into all of us. I'm prescribing it as a doctor now, mind you, so you all have to take heed.” Sergeant O'Connor kept saying he wouldn't have a drink, but he waited as they were poured out. “Sean, it's for your own good. Drink it,” Dr. Kelly said.

“I don't want to drink this man's whiskey, I have to ask was there a note…?”

“What?” Dr. Kelly looked at the sergeant in horror.

“You know what I mean. I have to ask it sometime, this is the time.”

“This is not the time,” Clio's father whispered.

But not quietly enough for Kit. She turned away as if she hadn't been listening.

She heard the sergeant speak in a lower tone. “Jesus God, Peter. If there is a note, isn't it as well we know?”

“Don't you ask him, I'll do it.”

“It's important. Don't let him…”

“Don't tell me what's important or not, don't tell me what I'm to do or not do…”

“We're all on edge…don't take offense.”

“I'll take as much offense as will suit me. Drink that whiskey, for God's sake, and try not to open your mouth until you've something to say.”

Kit saw Sergeant O'Connor redden, and she felt sorry for him. It was like getting a telling-off at school. Then she saw Clio's father move through the people to get to her father. Surreptitiously she moved nearer to them.

“Martin…Martin, my old friend…”

“What is it, Peter? What is it? You don't know anything you're not saying?”

“I don't know anything I wouldn't say.” Peter Kelly looked wretched. “But listen to me, would there be a question at all that Helen went off somewhere on her own? Like…Dublin, to see anyone…you know…”

“She'd tell me, she's never gone anywhere without telling me. That's the way it is between us.”

“Where would she leave a note if you weren't here to tell?”

“A note…a message…” Martin McMahon finally understood what his friend was struggling to say. “No, no,” he said.

“I know. Jesus Christ, don't I know. But that ignorant bosthoon Sean O'Connor says he can't go on looking until he's made sure.”

“How dare he even suggest…”

“Where, Martin? Let's just rule it out for him.”

“I suppose in the bedroom…” Kit saw them walk into her father's bedroom, the cold room with the picture of the Pope over the bed. She stood with her hand at her throat, and realized that they were both watching her. “Kit love, will you go back inside out of the cold, and sit by the fire with Emmet.”

“Yes,” she said. She watched as they went into her father's bedroom, and then she slipped into the kitchen.

Rita was busy pouring the whiskey into glasses that had cloves and lemon juice and sugar. “It's too like a party for my taste,” she grumbled.

“Yes.” Kit stood beside the range. “I know.”

“Should we put Emmet to bed, do you think? Would your mother like that if she come home?”

“I think she would.” Neither of them noticed the “if.”

“Will you get him or will I?”

“Could you go, Rita, then I'll go and sit with him?”

Rita carried the tray of whiskies out of the kitchen, and with a quick move Kit lifted the handle and opened the mouth of the range. The flames inside licked up at her as she threw in the envelope that said
Martin
, the letter that would mean her mother could not be buried in consecrated ground.

F
OR
a whole week every day was like the day before. Peter Kelly got a friend to come and work in the pharmacy, with instructions to bother Mr. McMahon only when really necessary. It seemed that Lough Glass put off having problems that only the chemist could cure.

Clio's mother and her aunt were in and out of the McMahon house all the time. They were very polite to Rita. They kept saying that they didn't want to interfere but they happened to have a pound of ham, or an apple tart, or an excuse to take the children up to their house. And the days seemed to fit into a sort of mad pattern.

They all slept with their doors open. Only Mother's door was closed. Every night Kit dreamed that her mother had come back and said, “I was in my room all the time, you never looked.”

But they did look. Everyone had looked in Mother's room. Including Sergeant O'Connor in case there were any clues that she had gone away.

There had been all kinds of questions. How many suitcases were there? Were any of them missing? What had Mother been wearing? Only a jacket, not an overcoat, not a raincoat. And the drawers were opened as well as the wardrobe. Were any clothes missing?

Kit felt very proud that everything was so tidy, so neat.

She felt that maybe Sergeant O'Connor would tell his wife that Mrs. McMahon had beautiful sprigs of lavender in the drawers of nightdresses and slips. That her shoes were all polished and neat in a line under her dresses in the old wardrobe. That the brushes on the dressing table had silver handles matching the mirror. And most of all she was pleased that she had done what her mother would have wanted.

Yes, surely it was what Mother would have wanted.

There was hardly any time to think, but from time to time Kit stole into her own room to try and work it out. Was it possible that Mother, who always knew what she was doing, wanted that letter found? Should she have read it? Suppose there had been a last wish in it. But then it had not been addressed to her and if there was something for Daddy…

Kit felt young and frightened. But she knew she must have done the right thing. She had burned the note. Now when they found Mother's body it could be buried in the right place, and they could all go and put flowers on the grave.

There were divers in the lake, men who wore suits of rubber. Kit had not been allowed to go down and watch, but Clio told her. Clio was being very nice. Kit couldn't remember why she ever got annoyed with her.

“They want you to come up and stay with me,” Clio said over and over.

“I know and it's nice of you all, but…Daddy, you know. I don't like to leave Daddy alone.”

Clio understood. “Would it help or be worse if I were to stay here?” she asked.

“It would be different, and we're trying to make things feel a bit the same, I think.”

Clio nodded in agreement. “Can I do anything? I'd do anything to help.”

“I know you would.” And Kit did know.

“Well, think then.”

“Tell me what people say, tell me if there are things they wouldn't say in front of us.”

“Anything, even if it's not what you want to hear?”

“Yes.”

So Clio brought her all the gossip of Lough Glass, and Kit got a picture of the investigation. People had been asked if they had seen Mrs. McMahon on the bus or at the train station, in the nearby town, out in the road looking for a lift, or in anyone else's car. The guards were ruling out the possibility of her having left town alive and well.

“Wouldn't it be great if she had just lost her memory?” Clio said. “If she were found in Dublin and didn't know who she was.”

“Yes,” Kit said flatly. She knew that this would not happen. She knew that Mother had not left Lough Glass that night. Because Mother had written a note to say why she was taking her own life.

“It could have been an accident,” Clio said, trying to put the minority view.

All Lough Glass was saying it had been coming for a long time. The poor woman was unbalanced, there was no way she would have taken the boat out on a night like that except to end her life.

“Of course it was an accident,” Kit said, eyes blazing.

When Mother's body was found it would be buried properly, thanks to the good work Kit had done in thinking so fast. It must always be considered an accident. Mother must never become a name like Bridie Daly, a ghost to frighten children, a voice calling in the reeds.

“If she's in heaven she could see us now,” Clio said, looking at the ceiling.

“Of course she's in heaven,” Kit said, putting aside the fear that sometimes bubbled up to the surface that Mother might be in hell suffering the tortures of the damned for all eternity.

The callers to the house were legion.

Everyone in Lough Glass had something to offer, a word of comfort or hope, a special prayer or a story of someone who was missing for three weeks and had been found.

Sister Madeleine didn't call. But she never went visiting people. After a week Kit went down the lane to the hermit's cottage. For the first time she went with no gift.

“You knew her, Sister Madeleine…why did she do it?”

“I suppose she thought she knew how to manage a boat.” To the hermit it was simple.

“But we never take the boat out alone, she never did before…”

“She must have wanted to that night. It was a very beautiful night, the clouds kept racing across the moon like smoke from a fire. I stood at the window and watched it for a long time…”

“You didn't see Mother?”

“No, child, I saw nobody.”

“She wouldn't be in hell, Sister Madeleine, would she?”

The nun put down the toasting fork and looked at Kit in amazement. “You can't mean that you seriously think that for a moment?” she said.

“Well, it's a sin against Hope, isn't it? It's despair, the one sin that can't be forgiven.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“At school, I suppose. And at Mass, and at the retreat.” Kit was trying to draw up some kind of reinforcement.

“You heard nothing of the sort. But what makes you think that your poor mother took her own life?”

“She must have, Sister, she must have. She was so unhappy.”

“We're all unhappy, everyone's a bit unhappy.”

“No, but she really was, you don't know….”

Now Sister Madeleine was firm. “I do know. I know a lot. Your mother would not have done such a thing.”

“But…”

“No buts, Kit. Please believe me, I know people. And suppose, just suppose, your mother did feel that there was no point in going on, I know as sure as we are both sitting here that she would have left a note to tell your father and you and your brother what had happened to make her feel this way, and to ask your forgiveness…” There was a silence. “And there was no note,” Sister Madeleine said.

The silence between them was stifling. Kit was tempted to speak. Sister Madeleine would not tell, she would advise what to do. But it would be the end of everything if she told.

Kit said nothing. Sister Madeleine said it again. “Since there was no note then there was no way that your mother took her own life. Believe me, Kit, and sleep peacefully in your bed tonight.”

“Yes, Sister Madeleine,” said Kit with a pain in her chest that she felt would be there forever.

         

The sergeant was at their house that evening. He was talking to Rita in the kitchen. The conversation ended when Kit came in.

She looked from one to the other. “Is there any news?”

“Nothing. Nothing new.” Rita spoke.

“I was just asking Rita here if she was sure that you had all looked everywhere…”

“I assure you that if the mistress had left any account of her plans, whatever they might have been…it would have been a great relief to this family, and there is no way anyone would have kept it to themselves.”

The child looked pale to the point of fainting.

His voice softened. “I'm sure that's right, Rita. We've all got our job to do, you have to swill out the pots, I have to ask hard questions in places where there's grief.” His tread was heavy as he went down the stairs to the street.

“Swilling pots, huh,” Rita said.

Her indignation made Kit smile. “He has a great way of putting things,” she said.

“As if we didn't hunt the house high and low for a letter from the poor mistress.”

“And suppose we had found one…?”

“Wouldn't it have stopped them all asking bosthoons at the bus office and the railway station did they see the mistress all dolled up in a head scarf…? If there had been a letter wouldn't the poor master be at rest instead of wandering like a lost soul?”

Kit sat very still. Rita didn't know everything. Rita was wrong. If the letter had been shown, Mother would be buried outside the walls of the cemetery. Like Bridie Daly.

Now when they found Mother's body it could be buried with honor. When they found it.

         

Brother Healy told the boys that young Emmet was coming back to class. “If there's one mention or murmur out of any one of you about Mem Mem Memmet, or the lad's stutter I'll knock your heads sideways off of your necks in a way that no one will ever fix them straight again.” He had a ferocious look about him.