Bronagh's Confessional (Part three of five)

I suppose there’s no longer any way of avoiding the truth about my own part in the death of Sarah McDonnell, then, is there? Because she might not have been the first to get the terminal Darling Jim treatment, I know that well enough now, but she was the first one I knew. Truth is I couldn’t stand her, alive or otherwise. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel just gutted at the thought that I didn’t stop Jim’s little helper when I had the chance.

I was after listening to Jim when I noticed the unsmiling Asian fella by the bar. I’d seen his little pantomime earlier, what with advertising their next show just up the road, but now I really paid attention to his eyes. They had no hatred in them that I could see, merely calculation. When Jim sauntered out of the place with an arm around Fiona, I lost sight of him for a moment. You really must excuse this jealous little marshal without a gun, but all my desires left the room with the both of them. Jim never even looked back at me or anyone else. He was in the zone he preferred the most – the moment before the kill, be it figurative in a sexual way, or literal in the Sarah McDonnell fashion.

But back to Tomo, sorry.

So, anyway, there was Jim’s trusty assistant still standing at the bar, handling the money everyone had crammed into his felt hat. Except he didn’t count it, that’s what set my alarm bells chiming before anything else. What kind of itinerant seanchaí roadie cares nothing about the cash? He crumpled the notes in both fists and jammed the paper balls into his hunting coat like wads of newspaper. Then our eyes met, and he nodded politely. Part of me, the spurned and hurt percentile, had half a mind to arrest him on some pretext that would force Jim to disengage from his romantic adventure with my friend, and instead come down to my cop shop and bail out his surly pal. But I just nodded back.

My jealousy was nothing compared with the flaming red cheeks belonging to Sarah McDonnell, the town totty. There she was at the end of the bar, more bangles and earrings on her than a statue of Shiva, hands clenched and eyes on the door, as if she could will Jim back into the room. I instantly felt better about the world and had another sip of my pint. You see, Sarah worked down the road behind the Formica counter at Allied Irish Bank, waving her dyed hair and batting those blues at anyone who cared. Whenever any of us, meaning anybody who wasn’t a male prospect, came in to make a deposit or whatever, we barely merited a look from Her Highness. Any fella who knew how to shave without cutting himself and had a reasonable amount of hair left on his head got the whole treatment, didn’t he? With foreign tourists, it was even worse to witness. Sign here, please, sir. What a nice jacket, sir. Are you in town by yourself, then?

That must be why Sarah finally left McSorley’s Bar and decided to follow the object of her desire. If Fiona was taking Jim to her place, then Sarah’s stalking would only take her four streets up from the bar, and I had no desire to hear any of that nonsense for myself through thinly paned glass no matter who won, thanks all the same.

But Jim’s silent creature had a mind to join in the fun somehow, for he shadowed Sarah out of the bar, hands still screwed into his pockets as if something resided in those folds of waxed cotton that couldn’t stand the light of day.

Stop me. Because that moment, as Tomo brushed past at the door is when I could have reached out, invoked the law, and acted as my intuition bade me. He wasn’t going back to the van for a kip, was he? His eyes still revealed no hostility, merely more of that same concentration that you’ll see on pilots when they walk onto the jetway with all their kit right before taking off. That kind of focused, unhurried anticipation. I stepped aside and let him past, and I regret it every single day.

I spent the next few hours feeling sorry for myself back at my place. My flat is on the edge of town, just past Fiona’s and those other Walsh princesses’ burned-out childhood home; the windows still have the soot from the gas explosion around them like messy mascara on someone who just cried. I crawled into bed, uniform and all, and watched some crap TV. Then I got back up to make tea, and told myself things maybe weren’t so bad. I still had a decent job, my husband and I were in mediation again to save what might still be left of our marriage, and my daughter just rang from her father’s to leave a message and tell me she missed her mammy. I drank the tea and wept with relief. The balmy summer sky kept the dead of night from getting as dark as Jim’s tales.

I must have dozed off, and awoke myself with a start just before dawn.

I still can’t remember if I dreamt anything, but the feeling that gripped me as I looked around the tiny room at my daughter’s scattered toys was a dread so physical it felt as if someone was in the room with me. I leaped up, crumpled uniform and all, and waved my stick about like a lunatic to dispel the notion. Outside, I caught a glimpse of a vehicle lumbering silently down the road, engine idling softly in the turn. It could have been Martin from the bakery, or Cathy getting ready to open up the SuperValu. I wish I could tell you honestly that I saw its color. I want it to have been white. For at least then I know that I could have told Sergeant Murphy of my suspicions about Tomo and Jim’s van, rather than blame Sarah’s death on some unnamed druggie, provenance unknown.

I got up and walked briskly in the direction from which I’d seen the van emerging. There were fresh footprints in the dewy grass leading up the the old Glebe Graveyard. I held my breath and tried to dispel the dreamless sense of dread I’d felt in my sleep as I made my way past the headstones.

Sarah McDonnell lay on her back, one shoe off, and her face worked over by someone who wanted to make sure she was quite done winking at anyone ever again. I rang Sergeant Murphy right before I threw up on some unlucky fella’s last best granite wishes. I know who did this, I thought. I looked him in the eyes. And I can never prove a thing.

Now, wouldn’t you feel like shite at least for the rest of the day?