After the riot, the dance hall shut down for a few weeks. I wrote a thorough report for Inspector Bower, except that the bit where I dropped the sergeant on his arse missed the final draft. Apparently my quick actions and initiative were noted, but beyond that there was silence. The dance hall’s since reopened. It seems it’s all done and dusted.
I don’t know if anyone was charged. I heard the wounded blokes recovered, and the Diggers were confined to base until they moved up north for jungle training. When they were eventually given leave, the Americans relented and let them in.
And there were no incidents.
I haven’t seen Colonel Reynolds around at all. For all I know, he may have gone elsewhere. Just as well: he’s done his dash with me.
The town’s certainly changed. I’ll wager there’ll be a few girls nursing broken hearts once the Yanks leave. Every night Gracie’s full of stories about which of the local ladies have taken up with the Americans, and every morning I do my best to forget it. Jesus might have been above judging others, but I’m not, so it’s probably best I don’t know. We’ve all heard it: the Americans might be overpaid and over here, but I’m making it my mission to put a dampener on the oversexed.
Constable Mahoney said he caught a couple in the act in Downey’s Lane, off the main street. He heard voices and stumbled across a Yank giving a woman a knee-trembler up against the wall. He thought it sounded like they were having a fight, so he had his truncheon drawn, but it turned out to be anything but. All I’ll say is, Vera Anderson’s looking pretty happy with herself lately and she’s got a spring in her step.
Today I’m alone in the station, happy enough with the boredom that surrounds me, when the door creaks. I can’t help scowling when I spot who’s walking through it. Maud Percy. From our church. Self-appointed, self-righteous and self-important. I can tell by the twist of her mouth that she’s on another one of her heavenly missions.
‘Sergeant Furey!’
I duck under the desk.
‘Sergeant, I need to speak to you on a most serious matter.’
I don’t get up.
‘I see you there,’ she hisses, leaning over and tapping the counter with a bony finger.
She has a direct line to the Pope and God, so what could she possibly want with me?
‘Really, Sergeant! I must insist!’
It’s pointless hiding. I get up slowly, pretending I was tying a shoelace.
I flash her a look. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mrs Percy.’
She’s apoplectic, and I know exactly why.
‘Miss Percy!’ she squawks. ‘It’s Miss Percy. You know very well!’
Of course I do. I’m winding her up. Old Maud would have to be the biggest gossip in town.
‘Can we speak in private, Sergeant?’
‘Of course.’ She’s knocked the wind out of me. There’s no one here. Still, I lead her around the back.
She perches on the chair like a hawk. ‘Have you seen her?’ she snaps.
‘Who, Miss Percy?’
‘That horrible woman. The…the…abortionist… That murderer of human life!’ She draws breath only when she finishes her sentence.
She’s flushed. For a moment, I hope she’ll pass out.
‘Who? Floss McCarthy?’ I respond. ‘Last I heard she’d left after you led the campaign to run her out of town. That must have been five years ago.’
She interrupts, ‘Yes, yes, of course. And that’s only because Father Donnelly and I were doing God’s good work. With no help from the police, I must say.’
She looks me over like one of the nuns who taught me in early primary school.
‘Now, now, Miss Percy, there wasn’t enough to prove that she was doing abortions. No one said she did, remember? I can’t charge a person just based on suspicion. We’re not in the Dark Ages anymore.’
‘She must have been guilty, or else why would she have left town?’
I roll my eyes. ‘She left,’ I begin, ‘because you turned her into a pariah and someone burned her house down. She left because she was scared out of her wits.’
‘This is not the time for the whys and the wherefores. She’s back again. What are you going to do about it?’
‘Nothing. She’s allowed to move back, if she wants to. It’s a free country.’
‘I must insist you visit her and find out what she is doing here,’ she continues.
I pause before saying, ‘I won’t be doing that.’
‘Well, Father Donnelly may have something to say about that!’ she snaps back. ‘You should know by now, you shouldn’t get on the wrong side of Father Donnelly. The members of the Roman Catholic Church are the saviours of Christianity, unlike those idolatrous, heretic Protestants.’ She’s almost screeching. ‘If you regard yourself as a good Catholic, you must believe, above all else, that all human life is precious. Thou Shalt Not Kill, said the Lord. Therefore, you must arrest her and punish her!’ She’s booming like she’s preaching from the pulpit.
My mind flips to something I read once, about a man in France: Alfred Dreyfus, his name was.
I say, ‘I also have to uphold the law of this state, and I can’t go and arrest someone on your say-so. It’s civil law before canon law around here. You’ll find that even the church stopped burning witches without good cause a long, long time ago.’
She’s turning crimson. ‘Well, if you do not, I’ll be speaking to Father Donnelly.’
The truth is, no Catholic in town wants to incur the wrath of Father Donnelly. He’s fire and brimstone. And I certainly don’t want to incur Gracie’s displeasure for getting on the wrong side of the priest. She worships him.
I’m caught. ‘Right. I’ll go and have a talk to her, but that’s all I can do.’
She gives me Floss’s address and smirks. I don’t really want to know how she found it out. I watch her leave; there’s not an ounce of Christian compassion in her twisted old body. Then I lock up the station and head off.
God, give me strength.
Floss McCarthy answers the door as if she’s expecting me.
She eyes me up and down and scowls. ‘I was wondering when you’d come around. I can guess why you’re here. I saw that old papist witch when I was buying groceries. So, she ran straight to you.’ She shakes her head. ‘You Papists like to stick together and tell each other stories about horrible sinners like me, just so you can feel better about yourselves.’
She’s aged a lot since I last saw her; her hair is totally grey and she walks with a stick. For years she brought babies into the world as a midwife, but when all of this abortion stuff blew up she was struck off the register.
‘I’m only here to check everything’s all right,’ I reply, ‘as a policeman, and nothing else.’
‘Hah! Well, there’s nothing to see here, Jack.’
‘I hope so, Floss. It didn’t end well the last time.’
‘Let’s be perfectly frank about why you’re here, shall we? You’ve popped in to check if everything’s all right—as you say—because you think I’m setting up an abortion clinic, don’t you?’
‘Are you?’ Even in wartime, we both know it’s illegal.
She exhales. I smell alcohol and morphine on her breath.
‘I never ran an abortion clinic in the first place, Jack, you know that. There’s no crime in handing out French letters and diaphragms, is there? I just provided contraception assistance for poor bloody women trying to avoid getting in the family way. Poor bloody women too alone, or too afraid, or too sick to have a child. Poor bloody women…like your sister.’ Her eyes are gimlets. ‘You raided me a few times. Was I ever doing anything illegal? No. And no woman who came to see me woman ever complained. To this day I can’t understand why I was run out of town.’
‘We never figured out who started the fire. Still, you survived. You’ll always survive. Someone always tips you off.’
‘Not me. You should be looking at Maud Percy and her mob of ratbags. They’re the ones who tried to murder me.’
‘That’s a bit far-fetched, Floss. She’s difficult, I’ll grant you that, but she’d never do anything like that.’
‘You know, most of the women who came to me for advice were Catholic; women kept poor and pregnant by the teachings of the Catholic Church. I don’t remember the Church ever telling them that they really didn’t have to have a baby every five minutes just to get to heaven.’ She scratches her ear. ‘How is your sister by the way?’
‘She died four years ago.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?’
I look away and she doesn’t press me. She probably already knows and her question’s rhetorical. Just to prove her point.
‘So why did you come back, Floss?’ I ask. ‘I mean, you know it’s never going to be any different.’
‘I know that,’ she replies, ‘but I wanted to come home to die. This is my home. I have the right to die here.’
I’m searching for a lie in her words—a play for sympathy—but all I can see is a painful truth.
‘You’re dying?’
‘Yes. It’s the reward you get for living a sinful life. No matter what anyone else thinks, the truth is that I devoted my whole life to helping women.’ She stops. Quietly, she adds, ‘Cancer. A few months left, at most.’
‘And you’re here alone?’
‘An old mate is looking after me.’
I take a step back. ‘Well, I never thought… I mean, we’re just about the same age…’
Her face drops. ‘Neither did I, neither did I.’
I look at my feet and shift my weight. ‘Since I’m here anyway, would you mind if I asked you a quick question?’
She snorts, as if she’s been waiting all along for the sting in my tail, and she’s just felt it. ‘Right,’ she mutters.
‘You didn’t happen to help a young girl deliver a baby in the last few weeks?’
‘Take a look at me, Jack,’ she replies, ‘do I honestly look as if I’m capable of delivering a baby? I’d be flat out delivering a letter, these days.’
I watch her hand shake and can’t help but agree. It was a silly question and, even though I’d like to ask her another, I let it go. ‘Look after yourself, Floss,’ I say instead. ‘Try to stay off the map.’
‘Just keep that Papist lynch mob away from me. I want to die in peace.’
‘I’ll do that,’ I reply. ‘Everyone is entitled to peace in their final days.’
‘You’re a good man, Jack Furey.’
Her words hang around as I turn away. If I’d been a good man, things might have been very different for a lot of people.
Including my sister.