Jacqui Rose - Avenged

The killings of the Brogans – Donal had given him no option but to lie about it. What else could he have done? And it wasn’t as if Patrick was entirely innocent; sins of the flesh must be punished in the severest of ways, so perhaps he could live with the fact Patrick would be held responsible for the Brogans’ killing. God would be his judge and he would make his peace with God.

And besides, even if he valued his own life so little as to let it be known that Donal O’Sheyenne was responsible for the murders, it wouldn’t make a difference. No-one would want to listen. Only a fool would cross Donal O’Sheyenne; they’d be certain to meet the same grisly fate as the Brogans, whose only sin was to want a baby in their childless marriage, which he had helped to arrange. And then of course there was the other matter. The other matter he didn’t like to think about. The one which had him in O’Sheyenne’s grip.

No, there was nothing he could do about O’Sheyenne right now. He hoped there’d come a day when the man would be held accountable for each and every sin, but today was not that day.

Turning back round to face Donal, Father Ryan spoke, feeling more settled. ‘Fine, Donal. You win, do what you must with the baby. But, as God is my witness, this will be the last.’

Donal winked. ‘Matthew, we go through this every time. It’d be quicker all round if you didn’t put us through this each time.’

‘How dare you!’

Donal O’Sheyenne said nothing; getting up to walk for the door. Stopping suddenly he turned to look at Father Ryan. When he spoke, his voice was cold.

‘“Be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”’ Then as if as an afterthought, he laughed, adding, ‘Peter five, verse eight.’

Donal O’Sheyenne smiled at the couple as they stood cooing over the Brogans’ baby. It was true, he was a handsome young fella, which was always good when it came to finding prospective parents. The price he charged for the child reflected that. It was much more difficult to get rid of the ugly ones and often they would be confined to a life in orphanages and industrial schools.

‘What happened to his real mother, Mr O’Sheyenne?’ The prospective father spoke to Donal.

O’Sheyenne walked to the window. It always fascinated him as to why would-be-parents asked this question. He wasn’t sure if it was simply out of curiosity or if they wanted to ease their consciences by being able to say to each other that they did the right thing in buying somebody else’s child. Like a lot of the babies, the ‘Brogans’ baby’ had been born to a sixteen-year-old girl, whose boyfriend had promised to marry her if she slept with him. Of course, like so many of the other girls in St Joseph’s, she’d been unceremoniously dumped the next month, heartbroken and pregnant.

Her parents had been mortified with shame and had quickly packed her off to St Joseph’s where she’d had the baby. The girl had wanted to keep him, but her parents had said that that was unthinkable, just as it was unthinkable for her to go back home. So the baby had been taken away and she’d been carted off to one of the Magdalene laundries run by the nuns, where she’d been ever since.

‘Did she die?’

Donal turned back to the prospective parent. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Did the child’s mother die? It’s just, he’s such an adorable baby, I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to give him up.’

With a wry smile, Donal answered. ‘That’s one way of putting it … Now, if you’re happy with him, we can go over the terms and conditions again.’

The couple nodded, beaming smiles. ‘Oh yes, we’d love to have him. We think he’d fit right in.’

O’Sheyenne sat down behind his desk, playing with the paper-knife. ‘Good. Well, as I say, there’s a one-off payment which you need to pay now, followed by two other payments a couple of months later. But you do appreciate if you don’t honour the payments I’ll have no choice but to bring him back to the orphanage and put him up for adoption again.’

‘Oh, we’d never not pay, Mr O’Sheyenne. We want a baby so much.’

‘I just don’t want any misunderstandings, I has something similar quite recently …’

Encouraged by his wife, the man got out his chequebook and quickly squiggled the agreed amount on the cheque. He tore it off and pushed it across the desk to Donal.

‘We’d like him. We’re happy with all your terms.’

O’Sheyenne looked at the cheque then stretched out his hand to the man and winked.

‘Congratulations; you’re now the proud parents of this beautiful baby boy.’

Mary O’Flanagan covered her ears. She didn’t want to hear anything else the Gardaí had to say. In fact she didn’t want to look at them either; if she’d had it her way, she wouldn’t be here at all. Though in actual fact, here was only the back room of the tiny hall running alongside the village bakery.

The back room of the hall doubled as everything. For plays, for cake sales, for council and church meetings, even a few times for evening mass when a large sycamore tree had fallen on the church and destroyed part of the roof. And now it seemed the room doubled as a Garda station.

Mary glanced across to her mother who was looking stern, her expression full of shame and blame. It’d been at her insistence that Mary had come here. The Gardaí had already spoken to her, but now they wanted to ask her what seemed to be the same questions all over again.

Her father, Fergus, hadn’t insisted, though only because he wasn’t speaking to her. He hadn’t spoken to her since that night, so he hadn’t been able to insist on anything at all. The only thing he had done was cry. Cry and turn his head away when she walked into the same room as him.

She knew it was a sin to have sex before marriage.

She’d known about the sins of the flesh since she was little, but she also knew her parents blamed her for what had happened and now, she was to blame Patrick, because that’s what Father Ryan had told her.

She’d asked to see him, but they hadn’t let her. Perhaps if she‘d been allowed to speak to him, he’d have been able to tell her this was all a terrible mistake and explain what had really happened.

But now she was so confused about everything, she couldn’t think straight. They kept on telling her over and over again how it was Patrick who’d done this to her, and now they were saying he had also killed the Brogans. None of it seemed to make sense.

She’d tried to tell her mother – who overnight had changed from the happy chatty person she loved into someone cold and harsh – that she really wasn’t sure it was Patrick. But her mother had gone to get Father Ryan who’d once more explained she was being foolish to think otherwise, and that there was no doubt that it had been Patrick who had done this to her. And even though she didn’t want to believe it, everyone had insisted there was no other explanation. So what other choice did she have than to believe it herself?

Ever since that night her love for the boy she was going to marry had turned into shame, hurt and pain. And as she sat in the back room, covering her ears, with judging and accusatory eyes turned on her, Mary O’Flanagan knew that, from this day onwards, she never wanted to hear the name of Patrick Doyle again.

Patrick wiped his eyes carefully. They were sore from crying.

No-one had really told him what was going on and since that night, his whole life had been turned upside down. He’d been taken to the back room of the hall by the Gardaí, who had asked him about Mary and the Brogans. Later, they’d interrogated him about Mary again and when he’d asked to go home, they’d refused him, instead taking him in a car to some place he didn’t know, to ask yet more questions about her.