Julie

So that’s his game.

The hand I’m holding the phone in shakes as I scan the article.

He’s trying to get away with what he did by claiming he’s mad.

‘It’s disgraceful, that’s what it is,’ my father says, looking up from the knot of wires he’s attempting to untangle. He’s decided to mow the lawn. I’ve explained to him we have gardeners who come in to do that for us. They’re the only staff we’ve ever had over the years. At first I told Harry I was uncomfortable having a cleaner or live-in help, because there were only two of us and I wasn’t raised that way. But later the reason changed. I didn’t want anybody else about the house. Strangers judging me.

Dad finds the plug amid the tangle and sticks it in the wall, removing an air freshener to do so. He looks at the air freshener like it’s something that fell off the bottom of a spaceship, before casting it aside. He needs to have a purpose, my dad. It will take him hours to do the acre behind us, but I think that’s why he chose the task. He’d probably do the golf course too, if he could get on to it. Eighty years of age and he still lives by the old adage – the devil makes work for idle hands.

The sitting room has been scrubbed, the rug removed and the floorboards sanded and revarnished. My family did it all before I returned, in a matter of days. I still can’t go in there.

My mother is making sandwiches.

‘Outrageous,’ she agrees, halting the butter train momentarily to snatch the phone away. ‘Nobody should have to read what’s happening in their own lives in the bloody newspapers. The police should have been out to you first thing to tell you what your man is at. And as for you, missy’ – she picks up the butterknife and waves it like a warning at Helen – ‘stop showing her rubbish on that phone. If you want to help, find me some tinfoil. This batch can go in the fridge with the others.’

‘She’s well used to reading about her life in the newspapers,’ Helen replies, playing musical plates. She gives me a sympathetic smile.

God, how often have I seen Helen over the last few years? I’ve been so lax with my family and friends. I just let everybody drift.

It doesn’t matter to her. Blood is blood. Throughout the trial she rang and checked in with me regularly. Some of my siblings didn’t bother. Nobody would have said anything bad about Harry to my face, but their silence when we needed support spoke volumes.

Not Helen though. Even with how she felt about Harry.

She picks at the crumbs discarded by our mother, all the time watching me to make sure I’m coping okay. I love her to bits but, in this very moment, I just want to scream.

You’re wrong. I was wrong. Harry doesn’t deserve to die. I want him to live.

‘Little pickers have the biggest knickers,’ I say instead, sweeping up the crumbs with my hand.

She sticks her tongue out at me, trying to cheer me up, but I look away. I wish they’d all stop being so nice. I’m not worth it.

The mound of sandwiches on my kitchen island is growing again. Ham, cheese, chicken, tuna, salmon. This invasion of my home is like a continuation of the attack the other night. They’re all wrapped up together, a chain of events there’s no escape from – the assault, the police, the arrival of concerned loved ones refusing to leave me alone, a constant stream of well-wishers in person and on social media. Yes, an event hasn’t truly happened until you’ve posted about it on Facebook – even my husband’s coma. What’s the emoticon for Isn’t this awful, but they sort of had it coming, didn’t they?

I just want everybody to leave me alone so I can think.

‘Mam,’ I say, exasperated. ‘Why are you making so many fucking sandwiches?’

She flinches.

‘Language, Julie. I know you’re upset, but there’s no need for language. People will call in. We have to offer them a cup of tea and a bite to eat. Your colleagues from the school have all been ringing, asking when they can drop by. Nobody expects you to do anything. They just want to be here for you. Why don’t you go upstairs and have a rest?’

My mother has an entirely innocent interpretation of people’s concerns; of course she does. She can only view them through the filter of her own good heart. All my co-workers – even my friends – gave up on me a long time ago. I tried to renew the friendships when I went back to work but it was never the same. Too much time had passed. Too much had happened in my life.

My dad has got the mower going and I can see him through the French doors, already scratching his head as he tries to work out the logistics of our sprawling garden. The grass doesn’t even need to be cut.

‘Oh, Mam, as if she’ll sleep,’ Helen says. She takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. ‘I couldn’t sleep last night and I had a Xanax before I went to bed. I might try one with a bottle of bloody wine tonight. Oh!’

She freezes. We all do.

I want wine. I want to take a bottle of wine and crawl into my downy-soft bed, drink it dry, then open another one. I’d sleep if I’d a bottle of wine to snuggle up with. I’m parched, the inside of my mouth craving just a drop, the syrup to make all things better.

That’s the thing with alcoholism, isn’t it? You’re never really recovered. It’s always just there, on the sideline. Waiting.

‘Helen,’ my mother says, her voice falsely cheerful, ‘I’m out of bread. Why don’t you make yourself useful instead of sitting there and … and talking fucking nonsense.’

I nearly fall off the stool. Helen’s eyes widen.

‘That’s put me in my place,’ she says, and swings her legs off the breakfast-bar stool. ‘Three Hail Marys for you, Mammy.’ She mouths ‘sorry’ in my direction before grabbing the car keys from the counter. I shake my head dismissively. She meant nothing by it. They’re all on tenterhooks, terrified that this trauma will knock me off the wagon.

‘I know you’re upset, Mam, but there’s no need for language,’ I say when Helen has left.

‘Don’t start. This is not the time to be talking about drink and drugs. Sure, why don’t we all break out the happy tablets and have a … what do they call them? A rave. Indeed, we’ll have an oul’ rave.’

I snort. She rounds the counter and cups my tear-swollen face in her hands.

‘You need to sleep, my beautiful girl. I can see your brain working overtime behind those tired eyes. We’re here, and we’ll take care of you. All you have to do is mind yourself so when Harry wakes up you’ll be there for him. He’s going to need you. Don’t fall back on alcohol. It won’t help. You’ve been strong for so many years. Harry needs you to stay strong.’

I nod. I don’t tell her that I’m equally afraid of Harry dying and of him waking up. Afraid of what he might say to me when he does.

You just watched.

I go to my bedroom, the largest room upstairs. The floor-to-ceiling windows here give us a view of a glistening Dublin Bay stretching into the distance. Once the door is closed, I get the footstool by the rocking chair in the window and carry it into the walk-in wardrobe.

There, I reach up to the back of one of the top shelves and retrieve the hidden laptop. The Guards had no search warrant for the house when they arrived in response to my call for help. We were the victims for once.

But for all I know they did an illegal search. I’ve a very suspicious mind when it comes to the law, these last few years.

Harry and I spoke about what the police would do next if the attempt to prosecute him for fraud was unsuccessful.

‘They’ll come after our assets, Julie,’ he’d said. ‘The Criminal Assets Bureau. It will move beyond financial irregularities and fraud at the bank to a criminal investigation into me, and that will give them the power to search and seize.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked.

‘Well, I can’t move anything while the trial is going on. They’re watching everything. Afterwards, when they’re looking for a new file to be opened, we’re going to move everything into your name. The house is already switched and I’m making weekly payments from my bank account into yours, but I need to talk to you about something else now. The other accounts. The ones they don’t know about.’

After all those years of being married to a financier, suddenly I was getting a crash course in where to hide money and how to grow it.

And finding out that my husband had been keeping yet more secrets from me.

He never learned. After everything that had happened between us, he still thought it was a good idea to hide stuff.

The fucking idiot.

The accounts are one of the many reasons I can’t have a drink. I need to set the process in motion, the one that should have started as soon as the trial was over. I suppose we were both so taken aback by the verdict that we got a bit carried away, thinking everything was going to be all right. Who knew there was something else coming?

Before I input the complex password that will launch me on the cyber trail to access the private banking, I go back on to the webpage Helen showed me, and the article about Harry’s attack.

I read it again, and that same feeling of anger and confusion tears at me.

Diminished responsibility.

It’s bullshit. No matter what he says – JP Carney – I know it’s all lies.

He knew what he was doing.

That detective one, Moody, isn’t worth her socks if she isn’t wondering if I’m somehow involved in the attack on Harry. If she isn’t yet, by the time she’s done a full background check on us and discovers our many problems, she will be.

She’ll try to connect me to that animal Carney, no doubt.

She’ll just be doing her job. But they won’t find anything linking me to the attack on my husband.

I shut down the article and go back to the system that will take me into the offshore accounts.

Whether Harry wakes up or not, it’s time to start moving that money.

And then I’m going to figure out exactly what JP Carney is up to.

I need to know why he has wrecked everything.