back of the Garda car on my way to Dublin. We arrived at the Four Courts to a glut of reporters huddled around the entrance. Beneath the statues of Justice, Mercy, Authority and Wisdom, they hovered like bloodsuckers awaiting their feed: notebooks and pens, cameras and microphones poised to sup.
"Your waiting party," said Inspector O'Neill.
I shivered. I was wearing my most respectable outfit, as instructed by Mags, a brown linen suit, but it was too light for the Irish spring.
"Do you want me to try round the back instead?" Garda Cogley asked his boss. "See if we can avoid them?"
The Inspector nodded, curt.
Garda Cogley swung the car through some narrow back streets, then got out to tap on a steel door. Inside, another guard opened it a crack, listened, looked across at us in the car and nodded.
We were led through a warren of back rooms and when I saw Mags, waiting for us outside Court Two as arranged, I felt like she was an old friend. She led me through further corridors, her hand on my elbow, updating me as we walked. Pauline's bank manager cousin had arranged a mortgage on my father's house and farm to put up the bail and it had come through in time.
Good news then. We took our places in court. After a twenty-minute sitting, bail was granted on condition that I surrendered my passport.
We tried the back way out again, but this time we were refused and had to go round the front. "Prepare yourself, Dotes," Mags said, as we walked down the long, narrow corridor that led to the round hall and the front door. "They'll be out in force by now."
She was loving the whole thing, stomping up the corridor in her tough-cookie shoes, steering me through, her hand on my elbow, as the cameras flashed and the questions were thrown our way, like the barking of dogs: "Is the trial date set?" "Did you get bail?" "What are your plans?" One of them called, "Did you do it?" Could he really have expected to me to turn around and say, "Well yes, actually, I did"?
Some of the questions were for Mags. "Did she get bail?" "What's the plea?" As we pushed through, they moved with us, all of us together, like a multi-headed animal. Mags had her keys ready and, as soon as she had unlocked the car, she leaned across and opened the passenger door for me, but not before the journalists had come crowding round, popping questions like toy machine-guns. As we sat into the car, they pressed their faces to the windows, but it all had a forced feel, a going-through-the-motions of what they felt they should be doing.
Mags revved the engine, not too gently, and they parted to let us through.
She dropped me to the 1.30p.m. train back to Rathdrum and, from there, I took a cab to Doolough. As I walked from the cab to the front door, the windows looked down on me from under their fringe of eaves. Was anyone who lived in this house ever happy? I wondered as I approached. Did groups of children ever play here, giggle and do tricks on each other? I couldn't imagine it, but maybe the lack was in me.
What I would have liked to have done, if I'd been free to, was get this house ready for sale. Not so much for the money, as for the activity. Fixing it up, dealing with estate agents, the coming and going of potential buyers would have filled my days, but my bail conditions meant I had to remain, with only my writing as distraction.
I went in the back door to the kitchen. A blast of warmth from the stove greeted me. The house was back in order, the broken furniture chopped for wood, all the rooms cleaned and vacuumed and polished. The kitchen still seemed bare since we cleared it of my father's medicines and water-bottles, but he was still there. Part of him would remain, forever unburied.
I picked up the kettle. I would have a cup of tea. My father always drank coffee, a relic of his years in France, but tea was Mrs Whelan's "pick-me-up" of choice. Pauline's mother tackled her work like she went at her prayers, steadily ticking off the cleaning and the
"Your waiting party," said Inspector O'Neill.
I shivered. I was wearing my most respectable outfit, as instructed by Mags, a brown linen suit, but it was too light for the Irish spring.
"Do you want me to try round the back instead?" Garda Cogley asked his boss. "See if we can avoid them?"
The Inspector nodded, curt.
Garda Cogley swung the car through some narrow back streets, then got out to tap on a steel door. Inside, another guard opened it a crack, listened, looked across at us in the car and nodded.
We were led through a warren of back rooms and when I saw Mags, waiting for us outside Court Two as arranged, I felt like she was an old friend. She led me through further corridors, her hand on my elbow, updating me as we walked. Pauline's bank manager cousin had arranged a mortgage on my father's house and farm to put up the bail and it had come through in time.
Good news then. We took our places in court. After a twenty-minute sitting, bail was granted on condition that I surrendered my passport.
We tried the back way out again, but this time we were refused and had to go round the front. "Prepare yourself, Dotes," Mags said, as we walked down the long, narrow corridor that led to the round hall and the front door. "They'll be out in force by now."
She was loving the whole thing, stomping up the corridor in her tough-cookie shoes, steering me through, her hand on my elbow, as the cameras flashed and the questions were thrown our way, like the barking of dogs: "Is the trial date set?" "Did you get bail?" "What are your plans?" One of them called, "Did you do it?" Could he really have expected to me to turn around and say, "Well yes, actually, I did"?
Some of the questions were for Mags. "Did she get bail?" "What's the plea?" As we pushed through, they moved with us, all of us together, like a multi-headed animal. Mags had her keys ready and, as soon as she had unlocked the car, she leaned across and opened the passenger door for me, but not before the journalists had come crowding round, popping questions like toy machine-guns. As we sat into the car, they pressed their faces to the windows, but it all had a forced feel, a going-through-the-motions of what they felt they should be doing.
Mags revved the engine, not too gently, and they parted to let us through.
She dropped me to the 1.30p.m. train back to Rathdrum and, from there, I took a cab to Doolough. As I walked from the cab to the front door, the windows looked down on me from under their fringe of eaves. Was anyone who lived in this house ever happy? I wondered as I approached. Did groups of children ever play here, giggle and do tricks on each other? I couldn't imagine it, but maybe the lack was in me.
What I would have liked to have done, if I'd been free to, was get this house ready for sale. Not so much for the money, as for the activity. Fixing it up, dealing with estate agents, the coming and going of potential buyers would have filled my days, but my bail conditions meant I had to remain, with only my writing as distraction.
I went in the back door to the kitchen. A blast of warmth from the stove greeted me. The house was back in order, the broken furniture chopped for wood, all the rooms cleaned and vacuumed and polished. The kitchen still seemed bare since we cleared it of my father's medicines and water-bottles, but he was still there. Part of him would remain, forever unburied.
I picked up the kettle. I would have a cup of tea. My father always drank coffee, a relic of his years in France, but tea was Mrs Whelan's "pick-me-up" of choice. Pauline's mother tackled her work like she went at her prayers, steadily ticking off the cleaning and the
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