The Rosary Garden by Nicola White (best books to read now TXT) 📕

shattered, and she smiled at him, thinking of a joke to make about hangovers. But he didn’t smile back, just stared at her like he wasn’t sure who she was or what she was doing there, and hurried up the hall to the front door. Something wasn’t right.

By the time she got to the front of the house, Brendan was halfway down the drive, running. Two Garda cars were parked in the road, their blue lights spinning silently. There was a tractor in the field, and a couple of Gardaí were trying to connect a flatbed trailer to it. She could see there were more people down by the river. They were right beside the bright curve of sand where she and Joan had picnicked. You could see it so clearly from here.

Joe and Una were standing down by the gate, looking over at the cars. When Brendan reached them, he stopped briefly and pointed back up at her, at the house. Joe turned, started to make his way up the drive.

Brendan reached the tractor and pushed past the Guards to quickly finish hooking the trailer to it, using something he had brought from the house. He got into the tractor cab and drove off to the river with both Guards sitting on the back edge of the trailer, feet dangling like children. A car passing on the road slowed right down to have a look.

Her uncle stood below her on the path.

‘Something’s happened,’ he said, and Ali’s first instinct was to laugh, but nothing came out of her mouth. She had a sensation that the inside of her body was completely hollow, light as a balloon.

‘Kevin Lawlor, from next door. He was out walking his dog. He found someone in the river. Drowned. Dear God!’

A response seemed to be called for. ‘Who?’ she asked.

‘Do you remember Joan, who used to work for us? I didn’t even know she was let out, but he recognised her straight away. She was caught on a branch in the shallows, lying on her back, you see. Not a mark on her.’

Ali put her hand out to clutch the door jamb, and the sharp corner of wood became the only solid thing in the whole world, an axis around which everything spun. Joe caught her by the waist and steadied her.

‘It can’t be Joan – she was at the dance last night. We were talking.’

‘She shouldn’t have been out of that hospital, let alone at a dance. You go inside while they bring her up.’

‘Bring her up?’ Ali had an image of Joan rising through dark waters, a rope wrapped around her waist. None of it made sense. The memory of Joan pushing past her in the dark outside the marquee, just hours ago, angry with her, telling her she knew nothing. What was it she didn’t know?

Down in the field the tractor was returning, heading for the road, the two Gardaí jogging along behind, hands on their batons. She couldn’t see what was on the trailer; it was hidden by the cab of the tractor. Joe turned to look.

The tractor steered out of the field and into the road, revealing a long blanketed shape on the trailer. An ambulance had appeared from nowhere and waited on the roadside behind the police cars. Another car drew up to join the line of vehicles. Father Philbin got out from one side, wearing his black raincoat. He took a rolled-up length of green material out of his pocket and hung it over his shoulders, hurrying to the shape on the trailer. Dr Nolan emerged from the other side of the car, and Aunt Una turned quickly and started to walk back towards the house.

Joe had an arm round Ali’s shoulders, was trying to turn her round and get her into the house. The last thing she saw was Dr Nolan lifting one end of the blankets, revealing a flash of Joan’s face, white and sharp-nosed, nesting in brown curls. Father Philbin was making the sign of the cross in the air above her. Joe gave Ali a final nudge into the hallway and pulled the door closed between them.

She swayed in the middle of the hall, a strange ringing in her ears. Maybe she would lie down here on the tiles, the diamonds of red and black that were so familiar. She folded herself down to the floor. The tiles were so cold. She shifted so that her back was against a wall.

Here was where the box had lain. Ma had taken it from her arms and bent down to put it right here. Ali moved her hand over the tiles as if they retained the print of it.

What have you got here, love? Ma in a crouch, lifting the lid. Ma putting her hand to the grubby towel, then falling back like she’d been bitten, thumping her back against the stair post. Aunt Una coming up the kitchen passage, bearing down on her like a storm. So fierce that Ali had covered her face against the blows she thought were coming. Feeling the spittle on her hands as Una shouted close to her head: What in Christ’s name have you done? Everybody looking at her; Una grabbing her wrist in her iron fingers, pulling at her. Nobody stopping her doing it. Ma looking away. Ashamed, it seemed.

The shifting guilt that always lurked inside her. This was the place it had come from. The front door opened and Joe came to stand over her, reached down his hand.

‘Get up now, we’ll go and have a drop of tea.’

Brendan was already sitting at the table, still as a statue. Ali took a chair opposite. His eyes were red-rimmed, but dry. Joe ran the tap, rinsed out the teapot and mugs, bustling and clattering.

‘Did you see her at the dance?’ Ali kept her voice low.

Brendan shook his head.

They heard the front door open and Una came down to the kitchen. She looked as if she had somehow lost