Masters of the House (23 page)

Where had Dermot been? Not in the house, but he'd been in the house overnight. That didn't tell one anything, of course. The fire could have been started by some sort of device. Or Carmen could have got into her mother's quarters at the pub and started it without Dermot's help. His father had had an early breakfast, as was his wont when he was in work, which he had not broken himself of when out of work. Then he had gone off, as he so often did, going round building sites looking for work and calling in at the Job Centre. That was it. Before the ambulance came, his mother had rung the Bramley Job Centre and asked that a message be given her husband if he called in that she had been taken to the hospital.

It was late afternoon by the time Dermot was driven home. Plenty of time for him to have seen the
Yorkshire Evening Post
at the hospital and to have been struck by the double blow. The more he thought about it, the less Matthew could see his father
as any sort of prime mover in Rose Morley's death. Weak, yes, stupid, yes, wicked, no. He would not—
surely
he would not—have actively participated in the taking of his lover's mother's life.

And, in fact, there was a sort of living proof that he had not. He had seen the
Post,
seen the report of Mrs Morley's death, and realised that—unwittingly but foolishly—he had been one of the agents of her death. It was that, combined with the death of his wife and baby, that had driven him mad with grief and guilt. To his simple mind it seemed like an instant judgment.

Matthew's mind strayed to the earlier stages of Dermot's affair with Carmen. With the other men there had been a stage at which sex began to be mixed up with questions that caused them unease and eventually led them to hotfoot it out of the relationship. Those questions must have involved how to cause death without arousing the suspicions of fire officers and accident investigators. Either the other three men were brighter than Dermot Heenan, or Carmen had seen that she had to get subtler in her approach. What was certain was that Dermot had provided her with the sort of information or know-how she needed. Perhaps having provided it, he was immediately uneasy, fearful that it might be misused. When he read of Rose's death in a fire, he was devastated. And the other news came immediately on top of it.

Some days later, in Peter's back garden, Matthew told his friend about Carmen's mother's death and about his father's possible involvement in it.

“I don't think he
did
it, or even helped her to do it. That doesn't seem like my dad—even if he was madly passionate about her. But I think he provided her with the method of getting rid of her, the way to start a fire without rousing suspicion
that it was started deliberately. She must have got it out of him because he was too stupid to realise what she was doing. But he must have wondered afterwards, and when he read of the fire while he was in the hospital and then heard of Mum's death and the baby's, it drove him over the top.”

Peter considered this.

“If it did happen like that, he could have hated the thought of Carmen and what she used him for.”

“Maybe he does if he can think at all. That's what we told Carmen when she came round.”

“He could have killed her.” Peter held up his hand as Matthew began to protest. “He may seem like a total mess, but he has the strength, and there could be some sane corner of his mind where he blames her for how he is.”

“How would he know she was there? He's shut away in that little room the whole time.”

“Before your Auntie Connie came, he was alone in the house all the hours you were at school. He could have set it up himself—arranged an assignation with her.”

“He couldn't,” said Matthew obstinately. “He could never have got downstairs and out of the house that night without our knowing. And you don't know our dad—you don't know the
way
he is mad. He's just a pathetic lump. Before he went for treatment he wouldn't do anything without being persuaded or forced into it. Otherwise, he just sat there. He's not all that different now. You're talking about him as if he was a normal man, or half a normal man. He's not.”

Peter left it at that. There was a sort of awkwardness about trying to persuade a friend that his father was a murderer.

That Sunday, Rob made one of his rare appearances at St Joseph's—Rob and Grace, in fact, though Grace said her being there was purely social because she couldn't pretend she was a
believer, let alone a Catholic. Auntie Connie was always trying to persuade Rob to go, so she was pleased; but Matthew suspected that one of the reasons for their being there was that Grace was pregnant and beginning to show. It was, on Rob's part, a sort of announcement. Everyone was surprisingly nice about it and surprisingly relaxed. (“It would have been a different matter if this was Ireland,” said Auntie Connie, though without explaining whether this made England a better or a worse place.) Probably the congregation's acceptance of the situation sprang from their dislike of Carmen and their feeling that she had treated her husband abominably.

“You'll make a fine father,” said one of the women to Rob. The priest was friendly and studiously took no notice of Grace's bulge.

Auntie Connie was now a valued member of the St Joseph's congregation—not too active in the weekday activities because everyone recognised that, as an elderly woman with a brood of young children, she had her hands full. But she took the four of them to church every Sunday, her circle of friends increased, and she was respected as someone who had taken on in selfless fashion an onerous task. Her actual connection to the Heenan family was variously reported, but after a time it was simply accepted. Family ties in Ireland are notoriously intricate.

That Sunday, after mass, everyone stood around in the sunlight in little groups. Jim Leary was also paying one of his rare visits to church, to sneer, and he and Peter stood joshing Rob and Grace. Some way off, Matthew was standing with Auntie Connie and her friend Mrs O'Hara. Every now and then he caught Auntie Connie looking over towards Grace and her bulge.

“You'd like Rob and Grace to be able to marry, wouldn't you?” he suddenly said.

Auntie Connie smiled at Mrs O'Hara, unembarrassed.

“Of course I would, Matthew. Any mother would.”

“Doesn't the law declare someone ‘presumed dead' after they've been missing a certain time?”

“Whatever the law may say, it's not what our church says.”

“Does the church say you have to know your wife is dead before you can marry again?”

“It's a lot more careful than the law will be, I know that. So it's impossible and not worth thinking about. I must make the best of it, and so must Rob and Grace.”

Suddenly, a moment after she had finished speaking, Auntie Connie jumped. It was something she had heard. Matthew looked up at her, then over to the other group nearby. The voice of Peter's father had floated over to them.

“So you're just starting out with a kid, while my Peter's about to buy his own car. I'd rather be in my shoes than yours, I must say.”

Matthew looked back again at Auntie Connie. Her face was now a mask.

“Is that Peter's father?” she asked, her voice not quite normal. Matthew nodded. She went forward to her son's little group.

“You're Peter's father, Matthew tells me. I'm his Auntie Connie. I heard you say Peter was about to buy a car. There's ours just sitting idle in the garage. He's welcome to have the use of that while he's learning.”

Matthew, watching, realised there was still something oddly unnatural in the way she spoke, even in the way she held herself. What was odder still, there was the same palpable unease under the habitual bravado of Peter's father.

“I say, that's a generous offer!” he said, with his usual eagerness
to get something for nothing. “Hear that, Peter? That would be even better than selling stamps to get one, wouldn't it?”

Matthew turned away from the scene and made conversation with Mrs O'Hara on the first topic that came into his head.

“Auntie Connie doesn't quite know what to think about Rob and Grace and the baby. She thinks she ought to disapprove, but she can't.”

Mrs O'Hara smiled down at him.

“Well, that's natural, isn't it? We can't always follow the church's teaching in our hearts, can we? I think everyone here understands. We all know what a horrible person Carmen was. Rob deserves a bit of happiness and a nice woman.”

Matthew thought for a moment, then said, “Auntie Connie came round to you the evening Carmen took off, didn't she?”

“The evening after,” said Mrs O'Hara, in a matter-of-fact voice. “We'd arranged it the previous Sunday. I had a bit of decorating to do, and I wanted her advice. I remember because we talked of nothing but Carmen that evening. We didn't know she'd gone for good then, of course, but poor Connie was shocked she'd stayed out the night. She'd thought of ringing me up to say she couldn't come, but Rob told her it had happened before, and that shocked her still more. Poor Connie. It's a good job there's someone around with good, old-fashioned standards, that's what I say.”

Matthew, looking towards his “aunt” and the other group of worshippers, felt something shut in his heart.

T
HEY GATHERED IN THE HALLWAY
, and Jamie climbed the stairs softly to see that she was awake and wanted to see them. Greg had just arrived by taxi from the station, wearing his habitual worried expression. How Greg had become the worrier of the family Matthew never knew, for he had had the same sort of structured but carefree childhood as Jamie had had. But it was easy to look into his face and see him in a few years' time married and worrying about his mortgage, his children's education, what they should be allowed to watch on television and for how long. Worry was already pinching at the features of his pleasant face. Perhaps he had understood and felt more at the time of their mother's death than anyone had realised.

Jamie sped back down stairs.

“She's awake, and I've put her to rights. She'd like to see us all together.”

They nodded, and started solemnly up the stairs. It's like the death of Mother all over again, thought Annie, only this time we're with her. Jamie opened the bedroom door and ushered the rest in. It was odd how, since the others had left home, he had quite naturally become the master of the house. Auntie Connie lay there in a pretty pink bedjacket they all remembered her knitting, her face and upper body sadly thin and wasted, the eyes still sharp and interested.

“My, you're looking well, Annie,” she said, her voice sounding as thin as her body looked but still with an Irish twang that was irresistible. “Motherhood does agree with you.”

“It does. I always knew it would.”

She looked round at the little circle of faces, pride in her expression.

“Now don't look too solemn, all of you. You're together again, and that's rare, and I want to hear lots of laughter from downstairs. If I should drift away, what could be better than to go with the sound of your laughter in my ears?”

“Are you
sure
?” Greg asked, not needing to say more.

“Oh, yes. The doctor tells me it won't be long. And to tell you the truth, I feel it in my bones. I thank God I haven't had the pain that some cancer patients have. It's going to be quick and merciful.”

Annie went over to the bed and held her hand.

“You've been a good woman. You've done good. Everyone here knows that.”

“Oh, Annie love, don't twist the knife! I've done all the silly and wicked things people do do, and then more. But when I look at you four, I do thank God. He only allowed me one child of my own. But then, late on, he gave me four more. And what a joy you've been to me.”

“We owe everything to you,” Annie said.

“No you don't. I couldn't be what your mother was—”

“You have!” said Jamie.

“You don't remember her, my lad. I can only say I've done my best. And I know that you'll all be all right. There's the joy of it. I know Annie will see that Jamie has a home, but even if she couldn't, I
know
that Jamie will be all right. It's in his face—and don't blush, my lad: it's a lovely face. . . . So I've been a lucky woman.”

“We'll always remember you,” said Matthew, sticking to the literal truth.

“Oh Matthew, what you and Annie must try to do is remember your mother and honour her memory. The others are too young. . . . Well now, you go off. We don't want a scene, do we? That's for books. They don't do any good. You go off and catch up with each other's news. I've said what I wanted to say. I've done my best by you, but the important thing is you've all made me very happy, and it's that I remember now.”

“You've been—” Greg began.

“Now that's enough,” she said, raising a wasted hand. “Be off with you. But I'd just like a few words with Matthew.”

Annie, rising from the bed and still holding her hand, looked at her reproachfully.

“Why with Matthew?”

“Don't be upset, Annie. Matthew and I have a bit of unfinished business—have had these many years. It would upset me too much telling you all. But he and I can discuss it quite calmly now, can't we Matthew?”

“Oh, yes. Quite calmly,” said Matthew.

Auntie Connie watched them, feasting her eyes on them with love, until the door shut behind them. Then she turned to Matthew.

“Sit on my bed, will you Matthew? I hope He pardons white lies, don't you? Because I've just told one or two. I know you can never love me like the others do, and I've understood that. But it's meant there's always been a strain between us, hasn't there?”