Dark Room

I didn’t know how long we had until Rosaleen and Arthur returned with Mum, if they were returning with her at all, but I had given up caring about being caught. I was done with their secrets, tired of tiptoeing around and trying to peak underneath things when nobody was looking. Weseley, in full support of my next move led me to the bungalow across the road. We were both looking for answers and I had never in my life met anybody like Weseley who was going out on a limb to help me so much. I thought of Sister Ignatius and my heart tugged. I had abandoned her. I needed to see her too. I remembered how during one of our first meetings she had grabbed my arm and told me she’d never lie to me. That she would always tell me the truth. She knew something. She had practically told me then that she knew something, now that I look back, had quite obviously asked me to question her, and I hadn’t realised it until now.

Weseley led me down the side passage. My knees trembled as I walked and I expected them at any time to give way and send me to the ground like a house of cards. The morning was darkening and the wind was picking up. It was only noon and already the sky had clouded over, great big grey clouds gathering as though the sky’s eyes were covered by bushy eyebrows, its forehead furrowed in concern as it watched me.

‘What’s that noise?’ Weseley asked as we neared the end of the passageway.

We stopped and listened. It was a tinkling sound.

‘The glass,’ I whispered. ‘It’s blowing in the wind.’

It was a slightly disturbing sound. Unlike the tinkling of a chime, it sounded as though the glass was smashing, as the little pieces, the round and the jagged, hit against each other in the wind. Multiplied by hundreds, it was an eerie sound.

‘I’m going to go down and check it out,’ Weseley said once we’d stepped into the back garden. ‘You’ll be fine, Tamara. Just tell the woman you came over to thank her and take it from there. She might tell you more after that.’

I nervously watched him walk across the lawn, past the workshed and he disappeared into the field of glass.

I turned to the house and looked in at the windows. The kitchen was empty. I lightly rapped on the back door and waited. There was no answer. With a shaky hand, which I admonished myself about being so dramatic, I reached out and pulled down the handle. The door was unlocked. I pulled it open a crack and peered inside. It was a narrow hallway, which turned sharply to the right. There were three doorways off the hallway, all closed, one on the right, two to the left. The first on the left led to the kitchen‑I already knew there was nobody in there. I stepped inside, trying to keep the door open so that I wouldn’t feel so trapped and so it wouldn’t feel like I was totally breaking and entering, but the wind was so strong it blew shut. I jumped and once again told myself how stupid I was being. An old woman and the woman who’d given me a gift were hardly going to hurt me. I rapped lightly on the door to my right. There was no answer and so I gently turned the handle and slowly opened the door. It was a bedroom, definitely the bedroom of an old lady. It smelled damp and of talcum powder and TCP. There was an old dark wood bed with floral duvet cover, slippers by the bed and a duck‑egg‑blue carpet that had seen more than a few Shake ‘n’ Vacs. There was a free‑standing wardrobe probably containing all of her worldly outfits. A small dresser with a tarnished mirror sat against the door wall, a hairbrush, medication, the rosary and the Bible all neatly laid out on its surface. Facing the bed was the window overlooking the back garden. There was nothing else, nobody inside.

I closed the door gently and continued down the hall. The carpet was covered by an unusual kind of plastic mat, as if to keep the tiles clean. It made a scraping noise beneath my feet and I was surprised nobody had heard me coming. Unless the woman was in the workshed again, which meant that she’d see Weseley. I froze and almost went back outside but I’d come this far and there was no going back. I reached the end of the hall, where it turned to the right. There was another door at the end of the hall, which led to the television room, which I had already seen through the window. With the television up loud so that I could hear the Countdown clock ticking, I assumed that was where Rosaleen’s mother was, but after all my wondering about her now wasn’t the time for me to introduce myself. It wasn’t her I was looking for. There was a small entrance hall at the front door and to the left of me there was another door, behind which I guessed was the second bedroom.

I knocked so gently the first time I barely even heard it myself. My knuckles brushed against the dark wood as though they were a feather. The second time round I knocked harder and I waited longer, but there was no sound.

I turned the handle. The door was unlocked and it opened.

With my overactive imagination, I had envisaged much about Rosaleen’s secrets over the past few weeks, possibly years, but in reality they had all disappointed me. The findings in the garage, while intriguing and hurtful for me not to have known that Arthur and Mum were friends of Rosaleen since childhood, didn’t live up to the scenarios I had created in my mind. The initial mystery behind the house turned out to be Rosaleen’s ailing mother; the dead bodies in the garage had actually been everything the castle had been stripped of. While intriguing, it was slightly disappointing because it didn’t match up to the level of tension I felt around Rosaleen. It didn’t match up to the level of secrecy she was shrouded in.

But this time I wasn’t disappointed.

This time I wished for seventies carpets and dark wood, for the smell of damp and a badly designed bedroom. Because what I saw shocked me to the core so that I just stood there, frozen, my mouth agape, unable to breath properly.

On each of three walls, covered from floor to ceiling were photographs of me. Me as a baby, me at my Communion, me on a visit to the gatehouse when I was three years old, four years old, six years old. Me at my school plays, me at my birthday parties and other parties, a flower girl at my mum’s friend’s wedding, dressed as a witch at Halloween, a scribbled drawing I’d done during my first year at school. There was a photograph of me at the entrance to the gatehouse from only last week, sitting on the wall, swinging my legs, my face up to the sun. There was a photograph of me and Marcus, him first calling to the house, of another day when we climbed into the bus and went on a journey. There was a photograph of the morning Mum, Barbara and I arrived at the gatehouse for the first time. Then me at the age of around eight years old, standing in the middle of the road to the castle by the house, bored as my mother talked with Arthur and Rosaleen over egg sandwiches and strong tea. There was a photo of me only a fortnight ago at the graveside, placing flowers by Laurence Kilsaney’s grave. There was a photograph of me walking towards the castle. Photographs of me with Sister Ignatius, walking, talking, lazing on the grass, and one of me in the castle, sitting on the steps the morning I first discovered the diary entry, with my eyes closed face up to the sun. I had known somebody was watching. I had written it. The photos were endless like a history of my whole entire life, scenes that I’d long forgotten and some which I never knew had been captured on celluloid.

In the corner of the room there was a single bed, unkempt, untidy. There was a small locker beside that, its surface filled with pills. Before I turned around to leave, my eye caught sight of a familiar picture. I walked to the far wall and took the now crumpled photograph out of my pocket. I held it up to the wall, they were almost a perfect match, though the one on the wall was much clearer. Gone was the finger before the lens and so the priest’s face was visible, Mum beside him with me in her arms. On my pink head was a hand with the ring. This photograph on the wall was much bigger than the one I had found. It had been blown up and zoomed in on and so the ring was very clear, very much in focus and the person who belonged to it was obvious.

Sister Ignatius.

Beneath the christening photograph was my mother holding me over the basin, and the priest trickling water on my head. I recognised that basin. It was filled with spiders and dust now in the chapel in the grounds. Beside that was a flushed face of my mother lying in bed, hair sticking to her damp forehead, me wrapped up in her arms, just born. Another photograph of Sister Ignatius holding me. Just born.

I’m not just a nun. I’m also trained in midwifery. She’d said that only days ago.

‘Oh my God,’ I trembled, my knees buckling from under me. I reached out to the wall but there was nothing for me to cling to apart from photographs of myself. My fingers caught on them and pulled them down as I fell to the floor. I didn’t pass out but I couldn’t stand. I wanted to get out of here. I put my head between my legs and slowly breathed in and out.

‘You’re lucky today,’ I heard a voice say behind me and I snapped to attention. ‘Usually this door is locked. Even I have never seen in here. He’s been busy.’

Rosaleen was standing at the door, leaning against the doorway, her arms behind her back. So calm.

‘Rosaleen,’ I croaked, ‘what’s going on?’

She chuckled. ‘Oh, child, you know what’s going on. Don’t pretend to me you haven’t been snooping.’ She looked at me coldly.

I shrugged nervously, knowing straightaway that I appeared guilty.

She threw something at me and it landed on the floor.

The envelopes I’d taken that morning and left in the kitchen when I’d found the pills in Rosaleen’s apron pocket. Then she threw something else, heavier, which thudded when it hit the carpet. I knew what it was straightaway. I reached out to grab the diary. I fumbled with the lock in an effort to open it and see if the burned pages were gone. Perhaps I’d changed the course already. But my questions were answered before I’d time to find out for myself.

‘You spoiled my fun, burning those pages.’ She smiled a crooked smile. ‘Arthur and your mother are at the house. I probably shouldn’t have left them…’ She looked off towards the house while chewing on the inside of her mouth. She appeared so vulnerable then, the sweet aunt who was trying to carry the world on her shoulders, that I almost reached out to her but when she turned to me the coldness was back in her eyes. ‘But I had to leave them. I knew you’d be here. I’ve an appointment to meet with Garda Murphy later today. You don’t know what that’s about, I suppose?’

I swallowed hard and shook my head.

‘A bad liar,’ she said quietly, ‘just like your mother.’

‘Don’t you dare talk about my mother like that.’ My voice trembled.

‘I was only trying to help her, Tamara,’ she said. ‘She wasn’t sleeping. She was tormenting herself. Going over and over the past all the time, starting to ask questions every time I brought a meal…’ She was speaking to herself now, almost as though she was trying to convince herself. ‘I did it for her. Not for me. And she was barely eating, so it’s not as though she took much of it. I did it for her.’

I frowned, not knowing whether to interrupt or let her talk it out with herself. While she was deep in thought, I reached for the envelopes. Looked at the name on the outside.

Arthur Kilsaney, The Gatehouse, Kilsaney Demesne Kilsaney, Meath

The next envelope had the same address printed on it but it was addressed to both Arthur and Rosaleen.

‘But…’ I looked from one envelope to another. ‘But…I don’t‑’

‘But, but, but,’ Rosaleen mimicked me and it sent shivers running down my spine.

‘Arthur’s surname is Byrne. Just like Mum’s,’ I said in a shrill voice.

Rosaleen’s eyes widened and she smiled. ‘Well, well, well. The cat wasn’t quite as curious as I thought.’

I tried to gather the energy to stand. When I did, Rosaleen seemed to ready herself, to do something with one arm still behind her back.

I looked at the envelopes again, trying to figure out what was going on.

‘Mum isn’t a Kilsaney. She’s Byrne.’

‘That’s right. She isn’t a Kilsaney, was never a Kilsaney, but she always wanted to be.’ Her eyes were cold. ‘She only wanted the name. She always wanted what wasn’t hers, thieving little bitch,’ she spat. ‘She was a bit like you, always showing up when she wasn’t wanted.’

My mouth dropped, ‘Rosaleen,’ I breathed. ‘What’s…what’s wrong with you?’

‘What’s wrong with me? Nothing’s wrong with me. I’ve only spent the past weeks cooking and cleaning, doing everything, looking after everybody, holding everything together, as usual, for two ungrateful little…’ her eyes widened then and her mouth opened wide and she shouted out with such anger I had to block my ears, ‘…LIARS!’

‘Rosaleen!’ I shouted. ‘Stop! What’s going on?’ I was crying now. ‘I don’t know what’s going on!’

‘Yes, you do, child,’ she hissed.

‘I’m not a child, I’m not a child, I’m not a child!’ I finally shouted, the words that I’d been saying over and over in my head finally coming out now louder with each breath.

‘Yes, you are. You should have been MY CHILD!’ she shouted. ‘She took you from me! You should have been mine. Just like him. He was mine. She took him from me!’ Then, as if that took all the energy out of her, she seemed to collapse in on herself.

I was silent while I searched hard. She couldn’t have been talking about Laurence Kilsaney any more‑that was years ago, before I was born, she must have been talking about…

‘My dad,’ I whispered. ‘You were in love with my dad.’

She looked up at me then, such hurt in her face I almost felt for her.

‘That’s why Dad never came back here with Mum. That’s why he always stayed in Dublin. Something happened between all of you all those years ago.’

Then Rosaleen’s face softened and she started laughing. Quiet chuckles at first, but then she threw her head back and laughed loudly.

‘George Goodwin? Are you serious? George Goodwin was always a loser, ever since he came here in his pretentious little car with his equally pretentious father, offering to buy the place. “It’ll make a great hotel, it’ll make a great spa,”’ she mimicked, and I could see him saying it, could imagine him arriving in his pinstripe suit with Granddad Timothy. Only short of pressing the red button to call in a bulldozer to knock the castle down, he must have been the devil to these people who wanted to protect their castle and their land. ‘He had to have everything, including your mother, even if she did have a child. Best thing he did was take your mother and you away from here. No! In fact, the best thing he ever did was end his life so those suits couldn’t take this land away too. That’s the best thing and only thing George Goodwin ever did. And he knew it too. I bet he knew it right up until he took that first sip of whisk‑’

‘STOP IT!’ I shrieked. ‘STOP IT!’ I ran at her to hit her, slap her, anything I could do to stop her from saying all these lies, these horrible nasty dirty evil lies, but she got to me before I got to her. Those strong arms, toned from punching dough, rolling apple pies all day, toiling her organic vegetable patch, carrying trays up and down those stairs every morning, were strong. With one arm held out she pushed me so hard I instantly felt winded, as though my chest had been crushed. I went flying backward and hit my head against the corner of the locker. I lay on the floor gasping. Then I started to cry. My vision was blurred, I tasted blood in my mouth but didn’t know how as I’d hit my head. I was disoriented, couldn’t stand up, couldn’t find the door.

After a time, I don’t know how long, I finally saw Rosaleen at the doorway, her image blurred. Feeling woozy I sat up, I touched my head and blood was on my trembling fingers.

‘Now, now,’ Rosaleen said gently, ‘why did you do that, child? Why did you make me do that? We’ll have to work out what we’re going to say,’ she said. ‘We can’t have you going back like this, after seeing all of this. No. No, I must think. I must think now.’

I mumbled something so incoherent I have no idea what exactly I was trying to say. All that I could think of was that she’d said my dad had taken me and my mum away from here, that Mum already had me. It was impossible. Nothing made sense. They’d met at a banquet dinner, a posh meal with lots of people, and as soon as he’d lain eyes on her he had to have her. He said it himself, he said it all of the time. They fell in love straightaway. They had me. That was the story, that’s what Dad had told me. Maybe I’d heard it wrong, maybe Rosaleen was making it up. But I had such a headache and now I was so tired, my eyelids so heavy, I just needed to close them. I realised then that Rosaleen was talking, but not to me. I opened my eyes again. She was looking down the hall, looking a little fearful.

‘Oh,’ she had her small voice on again, ‘I didn’t hear you come in. I thought you were in the workshed.’

The woman who made the glass. If I shouted out I could get some help but I heard a man’s voice and that made me nervous. It wasn’t Arthur’s voice. It wasn’t Weseley‑oh, where was he? Had he been hurt? He’d gone to the field of glass, all that glass. I’d had nightmares about that glass almost every night. Blowing in the wind, it would scrape and scratch, pierce and stab as I ran up and down the field, trying to get out, and the woman would be watching me. Where was the woman now?

‘Why don’t you go into the kitchen and I’ll make you a cup of tea? Wouldn’t that be nice? What do you mean? How long have you been standing there? But she ran at me. I was only trying to defend myself. I’m going to bring her back to the house now as soon as I sort her out.’

He said something else and I could hear the sound of the plastic floor. A footstep, followed by a dragging sound, a step again, then a dragging.

I pulled myself up to a sitting position and then I held on to the bed to try to stand up. Rosaleen was so busy talking to the man that she didn’t notice me stand. I couldn’t hear what the man was saying but her voice got harder then. It lost its nervous sweet edge and was back to the Rosaleen from moments ago. Possessed.

‘Possessive,’ Sister Ignatius had pondered my surmise of Rosaleen weeks ago. ‘That’s an interesting choice of word.’

‘Is this why you never let me into the room? Is this how you intended me to find out? This isn’t right, you know.’

His voice again, followed by a stamping sound, then a dragging.

‘And what’s this?’

Finally her arm came out from behind her back and she whipped out the glass mobile that had been given to me. I wanted to shout out that it was mine but there was so much commotion in the hallway.

‘This wasn’t part of the deal, you know, Laurie. I was happy to let you play around with the glass because you wanted it so much, I thought the fire and the glass would be healing for you after…well after everything, but you’ve taken it too far. You’ve ruined everything, you’ve ruined absolutely everything. Things have to change now. Things most certainly have to change.’

Laurie. Laurence Kilsaney RIP.

I was chilled. She was imagining him. Or she was seeing a ghost. No, that wasn’t right. I could hear him too.

There were some angry words and then Rosaleen swung her arm back and flung the glass mobile down the hall. I heard a scream. Then she dived at him and I saw a walking stick being swung and it knocked her away, and she fell back against the wall with a thud. She looked at him fearfully and I backed into the corner, huddled my head into my legs tightly just wanting to get out of there, wanting to be anywhere else but there but not able to move.

‘Rose?’ I could hear a voice call.

‘Yes, Mammy,’ she said, scrambling to get to her feet, her voice trembling. ‘I’m coming, Mammy.’ She gave the man one last look, then ran down the hall to the television‑room door.

The man stepped into the doorway and I prepared myself but when I saw him, I screamed. Beneath long scrawny hair, a face which was so distorted stared back at me. One side of the face looked as though it had melted and had been pulled at and the skin had been put back in the wrong place. He quickly lifted a hand to his hair and tried to cover his face. He was wearing a long sleeve but as he lifted his hand to his face it revealed a stump. His left side was completely burned, his shoulder drooped downward as though it were candlewax sliding down the side of the left‑hand side of his body. His eyes were big and blue, one was perfectly framed against soft smooth skin, the other was pulled down so much that it appeared to leap from its socket, revealing the white of the eye and all that was beneath. He started to come towards me and I began to cry.

I heard the back door open and the wind whooshed in. I heard steps on the plastic covering and the man Rosaleen had called Laurie turned in fright.

‘Leave her alone!’ I heard Weseley shout, and Laurie raised his hands in the air, looking shocked, sad, shaken. Then Weseley came in and saw me. I must have looked a mess because his face changed, anger took over, and he pushed Laurie up against the wall, his hand around his neck.

‘What did you do to her?’ he growled in his face.

‘Leave him,’ I heard myself say, but, I couldn’t get sounds out.

‘Tamara, get out of there,’ Weseley said, his face red, the veins throbbing in his neck from the effort it was taking to hold him off.

I don’t know how but I finally stood up, grabbing the diary, and pushed myself forward. I managed to lay a hand on Weseley to stop him. He let go of Laurie, grabbed me and pulled me from the room, pushed Laurie inside, slammed the door and locked it. He took the key and put it in his pocket, while I heard the man shouting to let him out.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 613