Sanctuary

24

A guard was killed in a ‘freak accident’. The brakes on his car failed and he hit a tree. He died on impact.

I crossed him off her list.

We were getting down to the wire.

In desperation, I decided to return to Sister Maeve. There had to be more I could learn. I dreaded going back; she had told me in no uncertain terms that she didn’t wish to see me again, but I’d been told that by most everyone I knew.

I entered the Mercy School and I swear, my heart was pounding. The girl who’d been at reception the last time had been so warm and friendly. I expected her to call the guards this time.

She didn’t.

‘Mr Taylor, terrific. Sister Maeve has been trying to find a way to contact you.’

What do you know?

She picked up the phone, had a brief conversation, then put it down and said, ‘Sister will see you now. Her office is on the first floor.’

Office?

I climbed the flight and my limp objected, but not too much. The door to her office was open and she rose from behind a cluttered desk to greet me. ‘Mr Taylor, please close the door.’

I did.

She indicated the hard chair opposite her desk and she looked seriously worried. I felt like an errant student facing the principal. She no longer had the twinkle in her eye and she actually wrung her hands. ‘I don’t know how to begin.’ She sighed then said, ‘I’ve met with Jo.’

I was going to shout, ‘Did you call the Guards?’ But I went with, ‘When?’

She was now in deep distress. ‘A few days ago, she told me she had a confession to make and as she no longer trusted the Church, she had chosen me to hear it. Not for absolution, she said, but to set the record straight.’

She paused to let me digest this, see if I had any comment.

I didn’t.

She continued, ‘Jo told me that she had been with a man before she joined the convent. In fact, because of that, she joined. She had. . lain with him and then found herself pregnant. Back then, it was difficult to be an unmarried mother. She went to England.’

That could mean only one thing: abortion. No wonder the poor woman was unhinged.

‘Did she try approaching the man?’

Her hands were now twisted round each other. She wouldn’t look at me.

Took me a moment and then it all came together. I blurted, ‘Me? Ah, for Jesus’s sake, you think I wouldn’t remember that?’

Maeve gave me the first direct look since I’d sat down. ‘She said you were an alcoholic even then and suffered blackouts. You had no memory of the event.’

Oh God Almighty, this was true. Harsh, bitter truth. From almost the beginning of my drinking, I had always been subject to blackouts. Then an even more horrendous realization struck me and I asked, ‘I could have had a child?’

Weeping, she nodded. Then she whispered, ‘It gets worse.’

She was fucking kidding. What could be worse? All those years of yearning for a child, I’d actually done the deed and the. .

I wanted to smash something, to drink the Corrib dry, to be numb.

Sister Maeve’s voice softened. ‘Siobhans’s suicide and the abortion. . it was like they merged, became one part of a mosaic of horror and loss. And Jo was truly lost. Then she read or heard about the death of Serena May — is that the little girl’s name?’

I nodded.

‘It was as if that became the catalyst, the fusion of all the trauma, all the terrible events, and gave her a focus. Now she could, as it were, lay it all on one single act. I’m not suggesting this was rational but she was in such a horrendous state of mind, she would have locked on to anything to escape the terror of her own thoughts.’

‘Where is she?’

Maeve seemed to have retreated into herself. The awful anguish of what had happened had finally caught up with her and she could no longer even think about it. She stared down at her hands, and I noticed the nails had dug into the palms, drawing blood.