I didn’t like seeing my big brother look so weak. So pathetic. So scared. It was so unlike Joe. Normally he was this larger-than-life character, full of self-confidence. Sometimes he was too full of self-confidence, but we all had our faults.
Joe had always had a swagger about him. A sense that he was destined for bigger things. The first in our family to stay on at school past sixteen, he’d been determined to rise above the fairly basic working-class lifestyle he’d grown up with.
Joe knew things – all the facts in the world. I could listen to him tell me stories about far-flung countries and exotic insects, the great battles in the history, the Greek myths; his knowledge seemed endless.
Being nine years younger than him, I had hero-worshipped him. Loved it when he took me out on the back of his bike to meet his friends. He never saw me as the annoying little sister – not the way my friends’ brothers saw them. And he always bought me sweets. A quarter of cola cubes in a white paper bag. I just had to give him the first one, to make sure it wasn’t poisoned, he’d say.
Now he was in pain, pale, and his mood was dipping day by day.
‘I’m scared,’ he’d told me as I sat holding his hand at his bedside.
‘What of?’ I asked. ‘We’ll take care of you, I promise.’
‘I’m not scared of dying,’ he said, ‘or even the pain that might come with it. I’m scared of what happens after.’
It wasn’t something I wanted to think about too much. I think I was still in denial about his illness. Just the day before, I’d wept in Dr Sweeney’s office, told him the thought of seeing Joe suffer and die was almost more than I could take. I couldn’t even think about after.
‘We’ll take care of you then, too,’ I said, gently rubbing his hand. ‘We’ll do right by you.’ I couldn’t hold back my tears, but nor could Joe.
‘I don’t mean like that,’ he’d said. ‘I mean the afterlife. Where I go. My soul, you know.’
‘You’re a good man,’ I told him.
‘I wasn’t always,’ he said and his eyes flickered from mine.
‘You repented and you stopped,’ I said. ‘That’s what matters.’
I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want to have this conversation. There are things I had buried deep in the recesses of my mind and Joe’s sins, those awful ones, were one of them.
‘I could get Father Brennan for you, to hear a confession. It might put your mind at rest a little.’
‘I think my sins are beyond what Father Brennan could fix for me,’ he said sadly.
‘But if I could forgive you …’ I said, my voice faltering.
‘The others haven’t,’ he said.
‘Others?’
I felt a shiver run through me. I knew of one. Heidi. I’d suspected something when I stayed at the house. I’d confronted him and he’d promised that he would stop. He promised me he hadn’t hurt anyone else.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve been so weak. I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t help it. I really tried, really, really tried.’
‘Who?’ I asked, my voice firm. I pulled my hand from his.
‘Does it matter now?’ he said. ‘It will all come out when I’m gone. I’m sure of it.’
‘Who?’ I asked again.
Who else had been told they were Joe McKee’s ‘favourite’? His ‘special girl’. I remembered how confused it had made me feel, but how I loved him. And how he had cried when I was older and asked him about it. How he said he was a bad person and he should just kill himself. And I’d be so, so scared that he would that I told him it was okay. I told him I was okay because that was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?
He whispered two names. Ciara and Heidi, of course.
‘When did it stop?’ I asked him.
‘I don’t remember … maybe Heidi was around thirteen. Something like that.’
I knew immediately that was at least two years after I’d left. Two years after he’d promised me, swore to me that he wouldn’t do it again.
He had lied to me. He had betrayed my trust once again. Something snapped.
‘They’ll tell everyone, after I’m gone, I know it. If not before. Everyone will know I’m a monster.’
I soothed him, because it felt like the right thing to do. I told him that I would sort it out, just as I did before. He wasn’t to worry.
What I didn’t tell him was that I had no intention of our family secrets being spilled. I had no intention of people asking me questions. Asking me did I know. Asking me if he did it to me, too. Because I loved him, as flawed as he was. As much of a monster as he was, he was still my big brother and if I could do one thing for him I would make sure his reputation was protected.
It was a mercy killing of sorts, in the end. I had left him, content, and gone downstairs. I had looked at the faces of the two young women whose lives he had destroyed. I had thought of the child I had been. Nine years old, or was it eight? I thought of all the times he told me it was because he loved me. All those times I believed him. Helped him.
I couldn’t stand to have any of us, wounded and damaged as we were, dance attendance on him when he had caused us so much pain. I knew we never had a chance of getting justice for his crimes, but I could make sure it was over. Really over. For us all.
I think I was in a haze when I did it. If I hadn’t been, maybe I’d have seen that stupid diary. Taken it with me, made sure no one ever read those words. But you see, I really didn’t plan it. I just popped my head around the door to his room and saw him sleeping there, like a baby. Without a care in the world. Sure that he would be protected in this life and the next – that his reputation would remain unsullied while he had destroyed three lives.
That’s when I lifted the pillow.