Field of Blood

He stepped in front of his mother and pulled the door half shut, filling the space with his body. Mrs. Ogilvy sniffed a demand for attention behind him. “Get back inside, Ma,” he said.

Mimi whispered something that Paddy couldn’t hear and backed off. A door slammed behind him.

“Not the Ogilvys’ favorite girl, then?”

“Go home, Paddy.” He had never spoken so coldly to her before, and it threw her.

“I didn’t do it, Sean.” She spoke quickly, afraid he would slam the door in her face. “I confided in a girl at work when I saw the picture of Callum, and she sold the story. I only told her because I was upset.”

Sean looked past her.

She felt a rising sense of fright. “I swear, Seanie, I promise that’s what happened-”

“My ma’s gutted. I read it at my work. I was eating my lunch and somebody showed it to me. It wasn’t nice.”

“You read the paper?” She was surprised, because he never admitted to reading the Daily News. It was a point of pride with him, because it was more of a broadsheet than a tabloid.

“Someone else bought it,” he explained.

“Sean, would I do that? Would I, Sean?” She was using his name too much, her voice high and wavering. She knew her face was contracted against her will, her mouth stretching wide with fear.

“I don’t know what you’d do anymore. I see the article in the paper, it’s your paper, what am I supposed to think?”

“But if I’d written it, would I say we were Catholic? Would I mention that?”

He almost smiled. “What’re ye saying? You’d betray me and my family but ye wouldn’t say a bad word about the church?”

Paddy found she couldn’t keep up the supplicant’s role anymore. “Well, piss off, then, if you don’t believe me.”

She heard Mrs. Ogilvy tutting at the swear word behind him. The sneaky old bitch hadn’t left the hall at all. Sean stepped back and shut the front door in her face.

Paddy didn’t move. She waited for three minutes. Finally he opened again.

“Go away,” he said quietly, and shut it again.

III

Paddy walked the two miles home in the rain, more dejected by the step, certain it would be bad in the house. She thought of Meehan’s seven-year protest in solitary confinement, of the keening men and women in the political prisons of Moscow and East Berlin, of Griffiths’s wasted life and lonely last moments, and knew that other people faced worse than her, but it was cold comfort tonight. She was sure they wouldn’t believe she was i

She took a deep breath as she fitted her key in the lock. The sound of the door scraping along the carpet protector was the only noise in the house, and the throbbing silence buzzed in her ears. She wanted to call a hello but was worried that it might sound nonchalant. When she hung up her coat in the hall cupboard she noticed that a lot of coats were missing. She took off her shoes and put on her slippers, all the time hoping for a call or a greeting of any kind.

It was eight o’clock but the living room was eerily tidy, no empty cups of tea or folded newspapers on the arms of the chairs. Paddy stopped in the kitchen doorway. Trisha was busy attending to something in the sink and kept her back to the room. Paddy saw Trisha’s face reflected in the window, noticed the tension on her neck and the tightness of her jaw. She didn’t look up.

“Hello, Mum.” She could see herself, nervous, reflected over Trisha’s left shoulder.

Trisha stood up straight, keeping her gaze down. She moved over to the cooker, lifted a warmed bowl out of the oven, and carelessly ladled carrot soup into it from a pot. She slammed it onto the kitchen table, flicking her finger at Paddy before turning back to the cooker. Paddy sat down and started to eat.

“That’s lovely soup,” she said, as she had been saying every teatime since she was twelve.

Without a word, Trisha bent down and opened the oven, took out a plate from a stack of five, and filled it with boiled potatoes from a pot, a portion of wet peas, and lamb stew. She dropped the plate to the table. The potatoes had been boiled too long and were dry and cracked, yellow inside and powdery white on the outside.

Paddy put her spoon down carefully in the soup. “I didn’t do it, Mum.”

Trisha took a glass from the draining board and ran the cold tap, touching the water to test the temperature.

Paddy started to cry. “Please don’t, Mum, don’t shun me, please?”

Trisha filled the glass and tipped a drop of orange squash into it, just enough to cloud the water. She put the glass onto the table.

“Mum, I saw the picture of Callum Ogilvy at work and told a girl, and she said I should write the story and I said no.” Paddy’s nose was blocked and oily tears dripped into the thick orange soup, taking a minute to sit on the surface before dispersing. She struggled to catch her breath. “Then this morning I was on the way to work and I saw the story in the paper. It wasn’t me, Mum, I swear it wasn’t me.”

Trisha stood and looked at the floor, so angry she almost broke the habit of a lifetime and asked why. She turned and left the room. Paddy heard her out in the hall, opening the coat cupboard, tinkling metal hangers. Trisha shucked off her slippers one at a time, stamped on some outdoor ones, and then she was gone, the front door slamming shut behind her.

Paddy ate her soup. Marty had been shu

Paddy ate her stew and the powdery potatoes. Then she had some ice cream, and then went back for some more even though she was very full. She sat in front of the television for a while, until Gerald came in at half nine. He called hello through the house but dropped his voice when he saw the back of Paddy’s head in the good armchair. He took off his coat in silence. She turned on him as he came through the living room heading for the kitchen.

“You shit, Gerald,” she said. “You don’t even know what happened.”

He kept his eyes down and nodded at her sorrowfully, implying that she had brought this on herself.

“Are you not speaking to me? It wasn’t even me.”

Gerald shrugged again, averting his eyes.

“You fucking arsehole,” she said, standing up.

“I’m go

“I’m go