Even the Dead

17

When the doorbell rang, Quirke pulled up the lower half of his front window and put his head out and looked down into the street and was surprised to see Phoebe standing below on the step. He wrapped the front door key in his handkerchief and dropped it down to her. The street was thick with the evening’s smoky sunlight. He went back into the kitchen, where he had been eating a lamb chop with bread and sliced tomatoes; it was his standard dinner when he was dining alone, if dining it could be called. He scraped the plate into the bin under the sink and rinsed it at the tap. He rinsed his knife and fork, too, and put them with the plate on the draining board and laid a tea towel over them. Then he stopped, surprised at himself. Why try to hide the fact that he had been having his dinner? After all, Phoebe too lived alone, and must often eat by herself.

He heard her tap at the door and let her in. He always felt shy of her when there were just the two of them together. He frowned at her agitated look.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong.” She stepped past him and went into the living room. There was a splash of late sunlight on the floor by the window. She turned to him, holding out a sheet of paper. “I got this today.”

“What is it?”

She handed him the page. The first thing his eye fixed on was the Mother of Mercy heading. The message was in shorthand, with Phoebe’s translation written out below it.

Dear Phoebe sorry this is the only way I can contact you I’m being kept here against my will please help me Lisa

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Is this from Lisa Smith? How did you get it?”

“It was in a parcel of laundry.”

“What sort of laundry?”

“Just laundry. Not mine. It was delivered to the Country Shop, and they kept it for me.”

Quirke sat down at the table and read the message again. Years ago, he had gone to the Mother of Mercy Laundry in search of a young woman called Christine Falls; later there was the business of getting Maisie out of there; and now here was a plea from another young woman, from the same place.

“I don’t understand,” he said again.

“Isn’t that laundry the one where that girl had a baby that was sent away to America? The place Grandfather Griffin was involved in funding?”

He nodded. “Yes. Your grandfather and his friends in the Knights of St. Patrick used it as a maternity home — cum — detention center for unmarried mothers. But how would Lisa Smith be in there?”

“Someone must have known she was in the house in Ballytubber, and came and took her away. I’m going to go to that Mother of Mercy place and find out what’s going on. From what she says, you’d think it was prison she was talking about, not a laundry.”

Quirke sighed. “You’ll be wasting your time. No one will tell you anything. That place is run on secrecy and fear.”

“What do you mean? It’s a laundry, for God’s sake.”

“Sit down, Phoebe,” he said. She came to the table and sat opposite him. “There are things you don’t know about, believe me. The church controls this country, the church and its agents in organizations like the Knights of St. Patrick. You can’t imagine the power they hold. They’re not ignorant, they’re not just bigots. Well, they are bigots, they are ignorant, but they’re also very clever and very subtle, and they know exactly what they’re doing. They have a philosophy, of sorts. Or ideology, I suppose, is a better word. They’re just the same as the Communists they’re always warning us about — two sides of the same coin. The child they took from Christine Falls and sent to America was only one of hundreds of babies, maybe thousands, that over the years have been sent abroad in secret and given to Catholic families to bring up as their own.” He paused, with a bitter laugh. “Hackett and I tried to put a stop to it. The only result was that I got beaten up, Hackett was taken off the case, and that was the end of it.”

Phoebe was gazing at him, baffled and indignant. “So it’s still going on?”

“I suppose so.”

“But surely it’s illegal?”

“It probably is. I don’t know.”

“But there are adoption laws.”

“Laws can always be got round, or just ignored. This is Ireland, Phoebe. There’s nothing the church can’t get away with.”

She sprang to her feet. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “The church isn’t above the law.”

He smiled up at her sadly. “In this country, it is.”

“I don’t care. I’m going up to that place and I’ll demand to see Lisa. You read the note: she needs our help.”

She started towards the door, but he reached up and caught her by the wrist. “Wait,” he said. “Sit down. Please, Phoebe.”

She hesitated, her lips set in a thin, pale line—How much she looks like her mother when she’s angry, Quirke thought — then reluctantly went back and sat down again, holding herself erect, with her hands on the table.

“Well?” she said coldly.

“I’ve told you, there’s no point in going up there. They’ll deny everything. They’ll say they never heard of Lisa Smith.”

“Then I’ll go to the Guards.”

“The Guards won’t do anything. Places like that laundry are protected — there’s an invisible fence around them that you won’t break through. Take my word for it. I tried, and I failed. Inspector Hackett failed. That’s the way it is.” She began to protest, but he held up a hand. “Wait. Listen. There might be a way to get her out, if she is there.”

“How?”

“There’s one person who can get in, if anyone can.” He stood up. “Come on. It’s a long shot, but let’s try it, at least.”

* * *

Taxis were scarce at that time of the evening, and they had to walk up to Baggot Street before they spotted one and flagged it down. The sun was setting behind the rooftops, and spiked shadows lay along the road and against the housefronts. Quirke asked Phoebe to recount again, in detail, how the parcel of laundry had got to her, but she could add nothing to what she had already told him: it had been left at the Country Shop with her name on it. “Probably it came with the ordinary delivery from the laundry,” she said. “The manageress, when she gave me the parcel, wasn’t in a mood to be helpful.”

“But why at the Country Shop?”

“Because Lisa Smith doesn’t know where I live. She must have put the note in the parcel and addressed it to me at the only place she thought I was likely to be.” She looked out at the street and the houses passing by. “How can they keep her there, virtually a prisoner, in this day and age?”

“Because they can, that’s all,” Quirke said.

The taxi crossed the canal over the humpbacked bridge and drove down into Lower Baggot Street.

“By the way,” Phoebe said, “I had lunch today with Dr. Blake.”

Quirke set his jaw and stared straight ahead. “Oh, yes?”

“Yes. She’s very frank, isn’t she.”

“Is she?”

She leaned around so that she could look him in the face. “Why, Quirke,” she said, “I do believe you’re blushing. Are you in love?”

“What a question.”

“It’s a very simple question, I think.” She sat back, smiling to herself, pleased. “I like her a lot. Though I wouldn’t have thought she was your type.”

“And what’s my type?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Lean and svelte?” She glanced at him. His left ear, the one she could see, was bright pink. “I mean, Dr. Blake is hardly Isabel Galloway, now, is she.”

Still Quirke gazed stolidly before him, past the taxi man’s head and out through the windscreen. They were on Merrion Road now. There was the salt smell of the bay, off to their left, unseen behind the houses.

“Listen, Phoebe,” Quirke said, “I have something to tell you.”

“Do I want to hear it? I always get nervous when you look like that.”

“It’s about Mal.” He paused. “He’s — he’s not well.”

Phoebe was quiet for a moment. She turned her face to the window beside her, away from him.

“How not well is not well?”

“It’s bad. He’s dying.”

“Of what?”

“Cancer. Cancer of the pancreas. It’s inoperable.”

She was surprised not to be surprised. For years, she realized, Mal had been slowly dying; cancer was only a confirmation of the process, the official seal on his fate. Long ago something had stopped in him; a light had gone out. She had seen it when he took early retirement from his position as head of obstetrics at the Holy Family Hospital. His marriage to Rose, which others might have mistaken for an eager grasping at life and all it had to offer, Phoebe knew to be merely a thing he had let himself drift into, absentmindedly.

But it was his father who had passed the death sentence itself on him. All his adult life Mal had supported Judge Griffin and covered up for him, had made excuses, told lies, had forged documents, even, to save the old man from having to pay for his wrongdoings. And all he had got in return was his father’s contempt.

She loved Mal. Somehow she hadn’t known this simple fact, until now. From her earliest days she had believed that Mal was her father, until Quirke finally worked up the nerve to tell her the truth. Even yet Mal seemed more like a father to her than Quirke did. Mal was finical, distant, disapproving, yet always there, always concerned, always loving, in his undemonstrative way. Soon, though, he would be there no more.

“I’m sorry,” Quirke said.

She didn’t look at him. “For what?”

“I don’t know. For being the bearer of bad news, I suppose.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

“He asked me not to tell you.”

“Does Rose know?”

“Of course.”

As if the mention of her name had conjured her, there was Rose now, in her Bentley, pulling in at the gateway of the house. The taxi drew up and Quirke paid the fare. Rose, getting out of her car, turned in surprise as they walked towards her.

“My, my, how nice,” she said. “A family visit, no less.” She kissed Phoebe lightly on the cheek. “I can see, by your look, that you’ve heard our sorrowful tidings.” She turned to Quirke. “I thought Mal said you weren’t to tell her, that he’d do it himself.”

“Yes,” Quirke said, “he did.”

“You never could keep your mouth shut, could you, Quirke.”

“Oh, Rose,” Phoebe said, “I’m so sorry.”

“Yes, well, it’s a sorry thing.”

They climbed the steps to the front door, Rose and Phoebe ahead, with Quirke following. Phoebe had a sudden, clear image of the three of them — in what, six months, a year from now? — walking up these same steps, wearing black armbands.

“Mal is resting,” Rose said. “He tires easily, these days.”

Phoebe experienced a sudden flash of anger. Why had Rose interfered in their lives? Why did she marry Mal, the most unlikely husband she could have chosen, and bring him to live in this vast, painted corpse of a house? But her anger subsided as quickly as it had arisen. It wasn’t Rose who had sapped the life from Mal. He had suffered too many losses. His father had betrayed him, and then Sarah, his wife, had died, and now he was dying himself. It wasn’t fair.

They went into the big gold drawing room. The wallpaper was a deep shade of yellow, and there were gilt chairs, and even the plaster cornice around the four edges of the ceiling was gilded.

“Can I offer anyone a drink?” Rose said. “I’ll call Maisie.”

She pressed a porcelain button set into the wall beside the fireplace.

“In fact,” Quirke said, “it’s Maisie we’ve come to see.”

Rose turned to him in surprise. “Maisie?”

“Yes. There’s something we want to ask her to do.”

There was a tap at the door and Maisie appeared, in her black-and-white maid’s uniform.

“Ah, Maisie,” Rose said, with a chilly smile. “Dr. Quirke and his daughter have come specially to see you. What do you say to that?”

Maisie’s cheeks flushed and her eyes flitted anxiously from Rose to Quirke and back again.

“Come over here,” Quirke said, taking her by the arm, “come over to the table and sit down. I want to talk to you.”

Maisie looked at Rose again, and Rose shrugged and turned away and took a cigarette from the ormolu box on the mantelpiece and lit it. Quirke led Maisie to the table, and they sat down.

“Tell me,” Quirke said, “is there anyone you know at the Mother of Mercy Laundry? Anyone there that you’re still in contact with?”

“At that place?” Maisie said incredulously. “Sure, why would I want to keep contact with anyone there?”

“The thing is, Maisie, I — we — we need someone to go into the laundry and — and make inquiries. You see, Phoebe here has a friend who we think is in the laundry, and who wrote to her, asking for her help.”

Maisie darted a glance in Phoebe’s direction, then turned back to Quirke. “What sort of a friend?”

“It’s a girl, a young woman, called Lisa, Lisa Smith.”

“And what’s she doing in the Mother of Mercy?”

“We don’t know. She vanished a few days ago, without a trace. Then, today, Phoebe got a message from her, smuggled out in a batch of laundry.”

“Oh, aye,” Maisie said, nodding, “that’s the way we used to do it, when we wanted to write to someone. The van drivers were in on it. We used to bribe them with cigarettes, or sometimes we’d steal a nice tablecloth, or a blouse or something, for their wives. What did the note say?”

“That she was in the laundry against her will, and asking Phoebe to help her.”

Maisie snorted. “I don’t know of anyone who’d be in that place that it wasn’t against their will. Even the nuns themselves are like prisoners, in there.”

“The trouble is, Maisie, we’re not sure who Lisa Smith is.”

“You don’t know—?” She turned to Phoebe. “But she’s your friend, isn’t she?”

“Not really,” Phoebe said. “I was in a course with her, but I didn’t really know her. I’m not even sure that Lisa Smith is her real name.”

“So you see,” Quirke said to Maisie, “we’ve got to be sure she’s in the laundry — we’ve got to be sure we’re not being misled, that it’s not all some kind of hoax.” He smiled. “Think, Maisie,” he said. “Isn’t there someone at the laundry you could find an excuse to visit?”

Maisie lowered her eyes. In all the time she had been here, working for the Griffins, she had never got the hang of them and their ways. It was as if she was in a room with a glass ceiling; above her the others — Dr. Griffin and Mrs. Griffin, and Dr. Quirke, and the girl with him who either was his daughter or wasn’t — carried on their incomprehensible business, plain to be seen and yet shut off from her. There was a book she’d read once, in school or somewhere, that had pictures in it of Chinese people, or maybe they were Japanese, emperors and their wives and children, the men with wispy mustaches reaching nearly to the ground and the women with things that looked like knitting needles stuck in their hair. The women had funny little pursed-up mouths, and their faces were painted with some sort of white clayey stuff, and they all, even the children, had their hands tucked deep into the big drooping sleeves of the silk gowns they wore. They wouldn’t have been much stranger, those Chinese or Japanese or whatever they were, than this crowd, talking in code and eyeing each other suspiciously all the time. God knows, she thought, what they’re up to now. All the same, she had better help them, or say that she’d try, anyway. You’d never know what might be in it for her if she did, or what they might do to her if she didn’t.

“There’s one of the nuns,” she said slowly, “a young one, Sister Agnes, that was always nice to me. She wasn’t sly, like the others, who’d pinch your fags and and then run to the Mother Superior and tell her they’d seen you smoking. Sister Agnes had a soft heart. How she wound up in that place, I don’t know.”

“And is she still there?” Quirke asked. “Is she still at the laundry?”

“So far as I know, she is. Though I haven’t been back to the place since I got out of it.”

“Would you go back, now?” Quirke asked. “Just once? Just to see Sister Agnes, and talk to her?”

“I suppose I could,” Maisie said reluctantly. “I suppose they’d let me in.”

“I’m sure they would,” Quirke said. “I’ll go up with you, and wait outside.”

“But what if they won’t let me out again?”

“I’ll make sure they do. There’s no question of them keeping you there, no question of that at all. You have my word.”

She gazed at him doubtfully. Could she trust him? Could she trust any of them? She wished Dr. Griffin was here; he was the only one she had time for. Dr. Griffin was a gentleman, and now, God bless the mark, he was sick, and spent half his time in the bed.

She swallowed hard, and nodded. “All right,” she said. “Only how will I get in touch with her, with Sister Agnes?”

“I’ll phone the laundry,” Quirke said, “or Phoebe will, and say you’d like to pay Sister Agnes a visit, that you’d been wondering how she was getting on, since you left. Then, when you see Sister Agnes, ask her if she knows of Lisa Smith.”

“And if she says she does know her, what’ll I say?”

Now Phoebe spoke up: “Ask her to tell Lisa that Phoebe Griffin said hello. Then she’ll know I got her note, that we know she’s there, and that help will be on the way.”

Maisie sighed unhappily. The thought of setting foot in the Mother of Mercy gave her the shivers. “In what kind of a way are you going to help her?” she asked suspiciously.

“We’re going to get her out of that place,” Phoebe said. “I’m sure that’s why she wrote to me, to come and take her away.”

Maisie turned back to Quirke, shaking her head. “There’s no getting away from them, if they don’t want you to go.”

“They let you out,” Quirke said.

Maisie’s look turned evasive. “That was different. They were glad to see the back of me.”

“Why?” Quirke asked.

“Oh, just because.”

“Just because what?”

“They said I was a troublemaker. They took my babby from me and gave him away, to some swanky crowd in America, I suppose—” She stopped, glancing quickly at Rose, who still stood at the window with her back to the room. “Some family there, like. Not that they’d ever tell me. They never told anyone where their babbies had gone to. That’s no business of yours, they’d snap at you, and order you to get on with your work.” She paused again, and her look darkened. “Anyway, it was only because Dr. Griffin came up to talk to them that they let me go.”

“Well, this time I’ll go,” Quirke said.

Maisie looked doubtful again.

“I’d be very nervous, going in there,” she said. “I’d feel like some sort of a spy.”

“You’d be helping someone,” Quirke said, “the same way that Dr. Griffin helped you.”

There was a long pause. Maisie, looking miserable, heaved another sigh.

“All right then,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

She stood up. Quirke walked with her to the door. As she was going out, she caught him by the sleeve and drew him after her into the hall.

“What is it?” he said.

“Ssh!” Her voice sank to an urgent whisper. “You know them boxes of Player’s cigarettes, the navy blue ones with two hundred in them — do you know them?” He nodded. “Will you get me one of them?”

He laughed. “Oh, Maisie,” he said, “two hundred Player’s! You’ll smoke yourself to death. Let me give you money instead.”

She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t want money. I’ll do it for one of them boxes.” Her face softened. “I love the look of them — they’re real fancy, with the tissue paper inside and the lovely smell of tobacco.” She plucked at his sleeve again. “Not a word to Mrs. Griffin, mind! She’d be down on me like a ton of bricks.” She winked. “This is between the two of us.”

“All right, Maisie,” he said, laughing again. “It’s a deal.”

She grinned, and nodded, and hurried off.

He went back into the drawing room. Phoebe had taken up her handbag and was saying good-bye to Rose. She was on her way to meet David Sinclair. Rose went with her to see her out. Quirke took a cigarette from the box on the mantelpiece and lit it. When he turned, Rose was leaning in the doorway, watching him.

“Tell me what you’re up to, Quirke,” she said. “Somehow I don’t see you as a knight in shining armor, galloping to the aid of a damsel in distress.”

“Don’t you?”

“Seems to me it’s just another one of the games you play, these kids’ games you amuse yourself with.” She crossed the room to him and took the cigarette from his fingers. “I don’t care about this laundry and this girl who’s being held there against her will. I don’t care about any of that, Quirke. I don’t believe in chivalry. The world is full of girls in trouble, always was and always will be.”

“You’ve never been in a place like the Mother of Mercy Laundry,” he said.

“You think not? You know, darlin’,” she drawled, putting the cigarette to her lips, “there’s all kinds of institutions. There’s the famous institution of marriage, for instance. I’ve been in that, twice.”

He shrugged, smiling. “I’m sorry, Rose,” he said. “I don’t know what to say to you. I never do.”

“No, I guess you don’t.” She stepped closer to him and peered searchingly into his face. “There’s something different about you,” she said, “I can see it. You look—” She stopped. “I know what it is. You’re happy.” She laughed in wonderment. “I’m right, aren’t I? Yes. You know, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you happy before, except maybe once, long ago, that time you were in bed with me. What’s happened? Have you met someone?” He said nothing, holding her gaze. She nodded slowly. “That’s it, isn’t it. Who is she?”

He turned away from her and walked to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets and his back turned to her.

“It’s the shrink, isn’t it,” she said. “What’s her name, Blake? The one Phoebe works for? Have I guessed right? I have, haven’t I. I can read you like a book, Quirke, I always could.”

Still he would not speak. She came and stood beside him, smoking his cigarette. They were silent, both of them, looking into the garden. Casey the gardener, a gnarled and wiry little man, was rootling among the shrubbery, hacking at something. The shadow of a cloud swished through the street; then there was sunlight again, as strong as before.

“Oh, how smart you are, Quirke,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I underestimated you. Hell, you’ve got the whole thing figured out. First you get a head doctor all of your own, then you go up to that laundry and rescue the girl and make up for all the things you never did for your own daughter. Congratulations. It’ll be like going to that confession you Catholics have and telling all your sins and having them forgiven. My, my.”

He turned to her, his face flushed. “You really think that’s what I’m doing? You really think I’m that selfish?”

“You know you are, honey,” she said, smiling. “We all are. But I’ve got to confess, I’m jealous.”

“Are you? I’m sorry.”

“Here.” She gave him back his cigarette. “Oh, too bad,” she said, “I always do get lipstick on them, don’t I.”