The Disenchanted Widow Read online

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2013 Christina McKenna

  Cover design and illustration by David M. Kiely.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Amazon Publishing

  PO Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781611099539

  ISBN-10: 1611099536

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012922283

  Also by Christina McKenna:

  My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress (memoir)

  The Dark Sacrament (nonfiction)

  The Misremembered Man (fiction)

  Ireland’s Haunted Women (nonfiction)

  In memory of Mark

  Contents

  Start Reading

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  Chapter twenty-six

  Chapter twenty-seven

  Chapter twenty-eight

  Chapter twenty-nine

  Chapter thirty

  Chapter thirty-one

  Chapter thirty-two

  Chapter thirty-three

  Chapter thirty-four

  Chapter thirty-five

  Chapter thirty-six

  Chapter thirty-seven

  Chapter thirty-eight

  Chapter thirty-nine

  Chapter forty

  Chapter forty-one

  Chapter forty-two

  Chapter forty-three

  Chapter forty-four

  Chapter forty-five

  Chapter forty-six

  Chapter forty-seven

  Chapter forty-eight

  Chapter forty-nine

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “I saw an angel in the marble, and carved until I set it free.”

  Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475–1564

  Chapter one

  Bessie Lawless, recently widowed and routinely brazen, had reason to feel cheated.

  Just days into a period of dry-eyed mourning (during which she’d buried her feckless husband, lost her job at My Lovely Buns bakery, and suffered palpitations when a plastic bullet, released by a paratrooper in riot-control mode on the Antrim Road, whizzed past her right ear while she was hanging out the Thursday wash), she thought—she really thought, and could have been forgiven for thinking—that things could not bloody well get any worse.

  But alas, as is the way of woe, which bulks up on misery when given the chance, things did indeed get worse. And all it needed was a single phone call to North-Eastern Mutual to prove the adage correct.

  Packie had taken out life insurance cover soon after they’d married, long before the drink had taken him over and the path of connubial bliss had wobbled way off course. As the torturous years passed, the thought of the maturing policy, realized in a Packie-free future, kept Bessie’s hope alive and madness at bay.

  She needed that money now. She really, really needed it. To free herself. To stall the Dentist. To buy herself more time.

  The brute had given her a deadline—and that deadline was upon her.

  She’d made the phone call the previous day, fingers slipping on the dial. Expectation unnerving her knees and making her head spin. How much money was due? Quite a bit, she’d reckoned.

  A brisk, officious voice down the line.

  “Patrick…Patrick who?”

  “Lawless.”

  “Lawless…Patrick? Just a moment.” The creak of a chair. A filing drawer pulled out and pushed home…shuffling papers…her hammering heart…Presently the voice back on the line. Gentler now. A small sigh launching words she could not bear to hear.

  “I’m afraid…”

  What?

  “I’m afraid that…due to—” A polite cough. “Due to outstanding nonpayment of premiums, the account for Mr. Lawless was…was closed quite some time ago.”

  What? What was he saying? It can’t be. It can’t be. Bessie biting back tears. Sweat breaking. A scream rising. She’d been counting on this. She’d been bloody well counting on this. The nest egg. The money pot.

  But the nest was eggless, the pot plundered, Packie’s account as bare as a barn in winter.

  That night, in a sleepless rage, she’d surveyed the wreckage of her life. What had she to show for her thirty-one years? A dead marriage and the miserable bequests left to her: a dodgy record player, a drawer full of unpaid bills, a wedding ring, and a barely roadworthy clunker. Yes, that was all.

  The record player she’d keep, since it had given her more joy than the husband. The bills she’d ignore. The ring she’d pawn. The barely roadworthy clunker she’d use to do a runner. As for his useless surname: in her head she’d ditched it already.

  The rent was overdue, the gas meter on empty. There was nothing left to do but junk the old life and ship out—out of Belfast, she and the boy. Fast and free. Away from the Dentist, the debt collectors, and murderous bombs, the bad memories twisting in her head like rattlesnakes.

  There was no time to waste.

  Picture her now on the morning of departure: standing over her nine-year-old son, fag in gob, arms akimbo, impatience blazing in her troubled heart, while Hercules—named after a tattoo on his dead father’s chest—crams clothes into a Dunnes Stores shopper, a bag that’s already at bursting point.

  “Now, get a move on, son! We have till get out of here quick.”

  “Och, Ma! This bag’s too wee.”

  “Yer head’s too wee, son.”

  She blew jets of smoke from her nostrils like a dragon in a fairy tale, crushed the fag in a prickly pear cactus on the windowsill, yanked the bag from him.

  “Now, look here. What did I say, son? Essentials only.” She pitched out a thick roll of comics, a headless Action Man, and a lumpy pouch of Stickle Bricks. “Clothes only.”

  “But I want them, Ma!” whined the boy. “They’re mi-i-i-ine! I wa-a-a-a-ant them!” He stamped a tiny foot on the threadbare carpet as tears spouted out of his baby-blue eyes.

  “Now, Herkie, none of yer oul’ lip.” She grasped him by the shoulders and shook him. “You’ve read all them comics, and what good’s an Action Man with no head on him anyway? Mind you, yer bloody da had no head on him, neither, and that’s why we’re in this bloody mess. So think on.”

  “But me Action Man can still shoot, and I wa-a-a-a-nt—”

  “He can’t see till bloody shoot. Now, stop this nonsense or I’ll slap ye.” She raised her right hand in the manner of a traffic cop at a busy junction. “I don’t wanna, Herkie luv, but…”

  Herkie knew that his ma’s threat was genuine, and stopped immediately.

  “That’s a good boy.” She mopped his face with a cuff of her blouse. “I’l
l buy ye new toys as soon as we get on the road. A new life for me and new toys for you. How’s that?”

  “D’ye promise, Ma?”

  “Promise, son.” She hugged him briefly, grabbed up the bag, and made for the door.

  Herkie, his mother’s back turned, seized his chance. He stuck the headless Action Man down his pants.

  “Hurry up, son!” She took his hand and they hurried downstairs.

  The kitchen looked as though it had been done over by a burglar: drawers lay upended; cupboard doors gaped open; the sink, choked high with dirty dishes, was dripping water onto the floor.

  “I’ll check in here, son. You check the front room.”

  She snatched up her Seamus the Fireman ashtray, a pair of black tights, and a half bottle of Tullamore Dew from beneath a cushion on an armchair. Reapplied her lipstick at a wall mirror while stuffing the items into her shoulder bag.

  Out back, the Morris Traveller—cracked seats, bald tires, and rotting timber frame—sat loaded up with all their worldly goods.

  “Ma, we forgot the record player!”

  The sound of a vehicle drawing up out front cut the breath from her.

  Oh, my God! Could it be him? Jesus, it can’t be. Not now.

  She peered through the curtains and saw a shiny Austin Princess.

  Jesus, it is him.

  She had to think fast. Should she just leave the record player and dash out the back door? Was retrieving it worth the risk?

  The bolted gate, the garden path, and the locked hall door lay between them and would buy her a couple of minutes at least.

  She could do it.

  “Is it the Dentist, Ma?”

  “It bloody is, son.” She threw Herkie the bag. “Go on, son. Go! I’ll get it.”

  Herkie raced out the back, caught up in the drama of it all.

  She slid the record player off the sideboard and staggered out through the back door, her arms aching, mock-croc stilettos skidding on the mossy path.

  There was no time to shut the door. No time to bid farewell to the rented house on Valencia Terrace, and clearly no space in the car for the record player.

  But Bessie Lawless was used to snap decisions. Life with a volatile husband had sharpened her wits, given her the reflexes of a championship boxer. She stowed the record player on the passenger seat and pushed Herkie in on top of it.

  From within, the doorbell sounded.

  “Hurry up, Ma! He’s comin’, he’s comin’!”

  In seconds she was behind the wheel.

  She floored the accelerator.

  Squeeeeeeee! The engine’s high-pitched protest was alarming.

  “What was that big noise, Ma?”

  Bessie hadn’t a notion. And had neither the time nor inclination to investigate. She hit the accelerator again. The car bucked—and they were away.

  “Hi, come back here, ye fuckin’ bitch, or I’ll tear yer bloody—”

  In the rearview mirror she caught sight of the furious Dentist standing in the middle of the road, his face the color of the wine-stain birthmark splashed across his bald head.

  “Hopefully it’s the last we’ll see of him,” she yelled at the windshield, her heart pounding, hands sweating on the wheel. She made a sharp right out of Dunville Avenue, cutting him clean from sight—and, with a bit of luck, clean out of her life for good.

  It was April 1981, and Belfast was burning: a seething cauldron of hatred and division where down back alleys IRA gunmen performed impromptu knee surgery on informers, where no-warning bombs exploded in carrier bags and British soldiers kept eyes alert, Bullpup rifles at the ready. Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street, Charles Haughey leading the Dáil. In the Maze prison H-Blocks, a succession of young men were starving themselves to death for the cause of Irish freedom.

  The widow negotiated a warren of narrow streets, all decked out in tricolors and murals to the patriotic martyrs. Racing down Rossapena Street, she hit a ramp, causing Herkie’s head to bounce off the ceiling, before turning right onto Cliftonville Road. She was glad to be avoiding the rush-hour traffic. With luck, they’d reach the border before nightfall.

  “Where we goin’, Ma?”

  “As far away from this bloody place as possible. Who knows, son, if we can get the money together, maybe all the way till Amerikay till see the Statue of Liberry. But first—”

  “I’d love till see the Statue of Liberry, Ma!”

  “I know, son, but first we’ve got till earn us some money for the passage. Now, yer Auntie Joan in Sligo might help us out. Failing that, yer Uncle Bert in Hackney. But for now, son, light me a fag there like a good boy.”

  Herkie reached below the dashboard and picked up the Park Drives. He liked sitting on top of the record player (now that the ride was smoother) because it gave him a commanding view and made him feel as big as any adult.

  Screechh-h-h.

  She’d slammed on the brakes. At a zebra crossing—which she hadn’t even noticed, her eyes being mostly on the rearview mirror for fear of the Dentist—an old lady was tottering out. Bessie fumed, annoyed at the delay, and pressed the horn.

  The pensioner did a double take. On seeing Herkie with fag in hand, she waved her stick, appalled. The nine-year-old added to her dismay by dragging deeply on the cigarette and blowing the smoke out the window.

  “Stop yer clownin’, son.” She snatched up the cigarette.

  “Yer a disgrace!” the old lady called out. “I have the right o’ way.”

  “Well, away on with ye then!” the mother shouted, revving the engine.

  “Aye, away on with ye!” echoed the son.

  Bessie shifted the car into first gear and roared off, causing Herkie to topple from his perch.

  “Serves ye right for being a cheeky monkey. Now, make yerself useful and tell me if ye see any Brits from up there. This bloody thing isn’t taxed.”

  “I think I see one,” he said. He’d clambered back onto the record player and was holding on tight to the knobs.

  “Don’t be daft, son. The Brits are like friggin’ blackheads. Ye never get one but a whole bloody rash—and when ye don’t bloody want them…like now.”

  She slowed the car to a crawl and joined the queue as four members of the Queen’s Own Highlander Regiment, in fatigues and tartan berets, sprang out of an army truck and began setting up a checkpoint.

  “See, what did I tell ye? Now, you behave yerself, ye hear, and let yer ma do the talkin’.”

  “Aye, Ma.”

  The car in front was waved through, and Bessie moved forward, drawing even with a soldier. He’d an automatic weapon slung over his right shoulder, and its muzzle was now pointing menacingly close to her right ear. She instinctively raised a protective hand.

  “Where’s you off to then, luv?” the soldier inquired, chewing vigorously on a piece of gum and aiming the query at her bosom.

  None of your bloody business. “Oh, just going out for the day…with my son.”

  He glanced into the back. “You take the whole ’ouse wiff you every time you goes out then?” He eyed Herkie. “What’s that fing you’re sittin’ on, sonny?”

  “What’s a ‘fing,’ Ma?”

  Bessie shot Herkie a baleful glance. The last thing she wanted was Soldier Boy going through her stuff. She’d have to nudge him off balance with a bit of the old girlie charm.

  “It’s my record player, sir. Helps me unwind in the evening…you know how it is.” She was glad she’d reapplied her lipstick as she simpered up at him, fully aware that the three-quarter profile she was presenting was most alluring.

  The soldier reddened, a vision of a Playboy centerfold rearing up at him—that was Bessie’s idea, anyway, and she imagined she’d struck close enough to the mark.

  The walkie-talkie in his breast pocket squawked, breaking the fantasy.

  “Mind how you go then,” he said, embarrassed, and waved them through.

  No worries there, thought Bessie Lawless: she’d every intention of minding how she
went.

  She was in the driver’s seat for the very first time in her life. She put the car in gear and sped off—away from the soldier, away from the bloody Dentist, her dead husband, and, with a bit of luck, the dreadful past.

  Chapter two

  Lorcan Strong was having no end of trouble with the bosom of Miss Theodosia Magill, Countess of Clanwilliam. She was showing far too much cleavage, for a start, which always made life difficult. He thought back to another lady he’d touched up only the year before: Harriet Anne Butler, a Belfast aristocrat. Miss Butler had been a joy to handle, she being more demure and less obviously endowed.

  Flesh was always a problem for Lorcan. All that blending of zinc buffs, cadmium yellows, and canton roses made him giddy at times, and no more so than when he was dealing with an expanse of bosom. What you could get away with in a face or hand in a portrait you couldn’t palm off so easily with a bosom. Everyone—male and female alike—was drawn, consciously or subconsciously, to that part of a painting more than any other.

  Even though the air temperature and humidity levels in the restoration room were perfectly controlled, Lorcan found the atmosphere on that fine April day oppressive. This had nothing to do with climate and everything to do with the tension he was feeling. For these days he was a troubled man living in a very troubled city. People were being slain with a depressing regularity. The “wrong” name, workplace, or address was enough to condemn you.

  In the general run of things, the conservator could remain on the periphery, an observer of events rather than a part of them. But all that had changed a month before when he, the idle spectator, had been dragged, through no fault of his own, into the fray.

  His hand quivered and he drew back from the canvas. He’d never experienced such upset to his routine before, and he resented it. Repairing an Old Master and keeping true to the spirit of its creator was not the preserve of the cack-handed or faint of heart. But of late his heart and hand, steady and assured for so many years, were failing him.

  He dipped a brush into a jar of thinner and stirred it, pondering his lot.

  By rights you should not be here at all. You should be home fulfilling your duty to your dear old mother. He was addressing the unspoken to the equally silent Countess as she gazed serenely out at the cluttered workroom.