Mulligan's Yard (13 page)

It occurred to Amy, as she followed her mother on this final journey, that death prompted people to remember those they had ignored for years: several faces from the past had decided to put in
an appearance on this sad day. In death, Louisa deserved a visit; in life, she had been relegated to the rear seats of memory, just another penniless widow trying to offload three daughters before
following her husband into the great beyond.

The service was beautiful, Amy supposed. St Augustine’s was high Anglican, its speciality the quality of its choir. The singing was excellent, almost inspirational. Amy fixed her gaze on
the coffin and allowed ‘Abide With Me’ to flow over her. She could smell incense and flowers, while the scent of beeswax rose from highly polished pews.

It was a proud church, cared for as well as any fine drawing room. This was the house of the Lord, a comfortable extension of everyone’s home, a place where one could visit and think about
life’s problems and joys. The clergy’s attitude was that there was no harm in coming in to check a shopping list or to rest weary feet. Jesus’s house was like any other, except
that the Host here was invisible, precious and deserving of total respect.

Amy remembered how Mother had answered when questioned about St Augustine’s. Why did she travel so far on Sundays? Could she not have used a church nearer to the village of Pendleton?
Wasn’t St Augustine’s rather Roman in its celebrations?

Louisa’s reply had always been the same. ‘God is special, so we should dress up for Him. Had I wanted a drab Christianity, I should have become a Methodist.’ Oh, Mother,
Mother. How you tried, how you changed, how you battled to set up the business. And how you loved this beautiful, glorious little church.

The first real tears followed gravity’s path down Amy’s cheeks. Busy with arrangements, tired from comforting her sisters, she had squashed her own grief. But now, in this place
which had always made Louisa and her family welcome, the oldest of the dead women’s children was finally overcome. Sweet voices of young choristers, excused from school for the funeral,
enveloped her, penetrated her inner self. Mother had gone, and no one would see her like again. In recent months, Mrs Louisa Burton-Massey’s true colours had shone through, had been as bright
as the sunlight now piercing stained glass in St Augustine’s windows.

Margot’s arm crept around her older sister’s shoulders. Amy was in charge now. At twenty-two, Amy would have to become the pilot, the navigator, the sailor in the crow’s nest.
Margot, heartbroken on her own account, was further stricken by the knowledge that Amy would now be forced to look after everyone and everything. While the older girl was used to running the home,
a new business was a huge responsibility. Mr Mulligan had promised to do all he could, but Amy was scarcely speaking to him. The business would be closed for a while, closed before it had opened
properly.

Mr Mulligan had offered Pendleton Grange as venue for a post-funeral buffet, but he had been thanked and refused. The Burton-Massey girls did not want to drink tea or sherry after their
mother’s burial, so the congregation could simply disperse and fend for itself.

Margot withdrew her arm and fiddled with a glove. She was an orphan. Scarcely out of her teens and with both parents dead, she felt terrified. Rupert was in the church, had been dragged along by
Helen and Camilla, Margot suspected, but he had made no move to comfort Margot in the days since Louisa’s death. Just a dream, Mother had said. Both Eliza and Amy had agreed that Rupert was a
waste of time and space, though Eliza had been slightly kinder than Amy. A thousand buttonholes stared Margot in the face. How many miles of stitching was that? Hems might make a less than welcome
change. How many miles in a thousand hems? Poor Mother was in that box, crated up like fruit from foreign parts. It was fancy, polished, decorated with brass, but it was still a wooden
container.

Eliza simply breathed. Since Louisa’s death, she had felt strangely liberated, as if expecting that her own life might now begin in earnest. She missed her mother, had been shocked by so
sudden a departure, yet she retained a calm that did not match the seriousness of this occasion. Unable to weep, she found within herself little need to mourn. Sometimes, she did not know who or
what she was; this was one such time.

At the rear of the church, James Mulligan leaned on his cane. He wore his everyday clothes, but tie and gloves were in plain black, not the greys and blues he usually favoured. Like a dagger
twisting in his son’s stomach, Thomas Mulligan’s sins refused to be digested. James Mulligan’s father had caused all this.

He closed his eyes, smelt burning peat, whiskey on his father’s breath, on his clothes, even in his sweat. Mammy running across the yard, screaming when the shovel winded her, curling like
a foetus as she tried to protect her face and belly. The day had come, of course, the day when James, albeit still in his thirteenth year, had throttled the man to within an inch of total asphyxia.
‘Touch my mammy again and I’ll see you in hell.’ Even when young, James had dwarfed most adults.

So Mammy had sent her beloved son away to be educated in Dublin by Christian Brothers. The money to support him had come from the Church, a fact that had been intoned regularly whenever James
had failed at his books. The brothers had not been cruel; they had simply sought to remind him that the Catholic Church was his sponsor and that he should repay his betters by working hard.

Mammy had been found dead in a field, supposedly trampled to death by a bull whose temperament had been remarkably good. Even as a ten-year-old, James had spent many happy hours talking to
Samson, leading him about, answering the loud snorts, which always managed to sound tame when compared to the bellowings of other male cattle. Samson had loved Kitty Mulligan above all other
beings; Samson had not killed her.

Thomas Mulligan had murdered his wife. The product of the union between Kitty Gallagher and Thomas Mulligan stood now mourning another of that wild man’s victims. Had Alex Burton-Massey
lived, he might have recovered from the wounds of war. Had Mulligan Senior not cheated his gambling partner, the man would probably not have killed himself. And now, his widow was on her way to
everlasting joy.

James opened his eyes and stared at the backs of three young women. Amy, tough on the outside, tender beneath the veneer, was crying. He could tell from the movement of her shoulders that the
sobs had erupted at last. Eliza, unnervingly beautiful, had drawn herself to one side, as if separating herself from this grievous occasion. Eliza’s grief was internal, he judged, and she
retained a strength that showed sometimes in her face, often in her movements. Eliza, James decided, was possessed of a degree of self-management that would help her to survive. Margot, the
youngest, seemed to be staring at the floor. James knew that he could not return to Ireland until these girls were settled. The sins of the father had, indeed, been visited upon this particular
son.

How to atone? Would they accept the return of their property more easily now that Louisa was dead? And what would they do with it? There was a mortgage to be repaid, and would the sale of the
inn cover that? Why should they sell the whole yard? Those businesses could keep them in comfort. No – he had to free the Grange of debt before returning it to its rightful owners. As for the
inn, that would probably have to be sold whatever – it was not making money. He closed his eyes and counted the hundreds, possibly thousands, needed now to put Pendleton Grange to rights.
Giving it back was not enough: the house should support itself, should make its own income. Otherwise, it would surely become a millstone far too heavy for the necks of three young women. Sighing
deeply, James opened his eyes and bade his mind break free of its circular thinking. The house, the farms, the yard and the inn must rest awhile.

The vicar was speaking. ‘Louisa Burton-Massey was a true lady. Had it not been for her and others of her ilk, St Augustine’s Church would not be here. She and her husband gave
unstintingly so that both church and vicarage could be maintained.

‘After the premature death of her husband, I visited Mrs Burton-Massey frequently, as her grief was immense. I can only hope that I gave that good woman a degree of comfort. Just prior to
her own death, Mrs Burton-Massey set up a business in an attempt to provide some security for Amy, Eliza and Margot, her three daughters. The last time I saw her, she was laughing and happy. I am
sure that she meets her Maker now in a state of grace.

‘She had a very strong faith, a total belief in God and His Holy Trinity. There is a soul newly arrived in Heaven this day.

‘I leave you now to pray silently and inwardly as we all thank God for sending us such a wonderful human being.’

Amy could not pray. She tried to tell God of her gratitude, but she resented Him for taking Mother so early. Louisa had spent five solid years in torment, a mere four months as a tangible
person. Still, Heaven had no time. Heaven went beyond all known dimensions; it was a state of simple happiness. Was Father there? Did God allow suicides to grace Paradise?

James left the church, the vicar’s words echoing in his mind. The untimely deaths of two people made him guilty by proxy, since he was the son of a wicked man. Louisa might not have worked
so hard, might not have died, had he, James Richard Mulligan, found a way to force the woman to take back her property. The ace of spades, the devil’s card, the— Who was that? Staring
down Thicketford Road towards Tonge Moor, he saw a short fat man. He had seen him before, quite recently, too.

Ambling along slowly in an attempt to look casual, James went towards Peter Wilkinson. An insurance agent, Wilkinson might have been on his rounds, but he was standing so still, his piggy eyes
seeing nothing, it seemed, except for the church in which Louisa’s service was currently taking place. ‘Looking for someone?’ James asked, when he reached the side of this oily,
repulsive Guardian of the Light Eternal.

‘What?’ Like one waking from a dream, the man almost shook himself.

‘Your brother keeps the Pendleton bakery and post office, does he not?’

‘That’s right.’ Small eyes raked over the Irishman’s face. ‘And you are James Mulligan.’

‘I am.’ James shuddered involuntarily.

‘You were at the funeral?’

‘Yes.’

‘And your culpability made you leave early. Had it not been for your father . . .’ He shrugged, lifting fat hands in a gesture of despair. ‘But we can’t be responsible
for the misdeeds of our fathers, I suppose.’

James leaned against the wall. The father of Peter Wilkinson had produced a strange creature. James suddenly felt very cold, as if the temperature had plummeted within these few seconds. He had
noticed this man lurking on the edge of Sniggery Woods, had investigated, had discovered Eliza singing a sad song. Peter Wilkinson had been watching Eliza Burton-Massey, of that fact James was
certain. And then there were the rumours, quiet whispers, words spoken in hushed tones by people who had chosen not to linger within the long shadows cast by Wilkinson’s Light.

‘Aren’t you a Catholic?’ the man asked now.

‘I am indeed.’

‘And you’ve attended a C of E service?’

James nodded.

‘A sin for you, isn’t it?’

James forced himself to meet the malevolent stare. ‘There are sins and sins, Mr Wilkinson. I can be cleansed quite easily.’ He paused for effect. ‘The cleansings in my Church
do not involve the laying on of hands.’

Wilkinson staggered back a pace. ‘What do you mean by that?’

James remained quiet for several seconds. ‘I mean whatever you choose to make of it, sir. But you would be wise to watch your step.’ He turned as if to leave, then swivelled on his
heel. ‘By the way, an American friend sent me some cuttings from a Dallas daily. Every time one of your burning bushes ignites, there seems to be a strong smell of paraffin in the
vicinity.’

‘The – the bush burnings are a mystery,’ stammered Peter Wilkinson.

‘So is your hypocrisy. Watch yourself. One of these days, you’ll go too far. Oh, by the way, I own the woods known as Sniggery. Stay off my land, please.’

Crooked teeth were bared in a travesty of a smile. ‘You own nothing, you Irish thief.’

James agreed, noticing at the same time how quickly Wilkinson’s anger rose to the surface. A fragile personality, then. ‘We arrive with nothing, and we leave the world in the same
condition,’ he said, with exaggerated patience. ‘Our value is contained in what we choose to do with the years between those two events. So look after your Light, Mr Wilkinson. Lights
have a habit of extinguishing themselves. Mrs Burton-Massey is today’s illustration of that certainty.’ He mustered his strength and walked away.

Peter Wilkinson felt the blood draining from his head. He had done nothing wrong. He had never done anything wrong. He simply performed the tasks required within his ministry. Boys, less
vulnerable than young females,cleansed themselves by doing good works within the community. But girls could not be left to wander in the wilderness. They were tomorrow’s mothers, producers of
laudators and bearers, even of guardians. The guardian had to be the first to touch the flesh of innocents, the first to guide them into the Light and away from danger.

His collar tightened. White dresses, pale limbs, warm bodies, trusting faces. Nothing ever happened, nothing unseemly. He simply poured his spirit into them by praying and soothing, words and
sympathy, no more than that. It was not sexual, he reminded himself yet again. His particular guardianship went above and beyond all that; he was as virginal as the girls he blessed. But, oh, if
only he could . . . if only.

He made sure that Mulligan had disappeared completely before returning his attention to the church. They would come out in a minute, those three beautiful girls, grief in their eyes, loveliness
on their faces. Perhaps one day, he might help to save them. If only . . . Dear Lord, if only somebody would . . . would love him for himself, for who and what he was. He could not help his
appearance. Being ugly did not remove need or desire; being almost impotent did not render him numb. If only, if only.