drinkers taken for IRA activists. That was all; one stark sentence sandwiched between paragraphs about the orphanage you were working in. “Peter said he was sure he heard the name Butler on the radio report.” When I read it I felt a gentle lift of the heart; he had, after all, been the instigator of what we did. He had presented us with the idea, urged us on, set up the plan. Then, as I re-read the news I thought, that deals with him, that settles part of the account. Now, what about us? His going was like a crack of light entering a dark room; the knowledge that he was dead allowed me seriously to consider what I should do to resolve my own unchallenged guilt. And so I pondered and recognised that no amount of charitable work or self punishment would do. I came to the decision that has prompted this letter and will unravel the past.
‘Joan, my new paid helper, will maintain me while I marshal my energy to write. She will be here again in the morning with her exhaustingly breezy manner and skirt that is just a little too short, making her plump knees look oddly naked. She will say how nice the bookshelves are looking now or aren’t the roses in the conservatory coming on a treat or I’ll feel better once I’ve got a nice breakfast down me. I will smile at her and when she’s bustled to the kitchen I will sink my head onto my chest and breathe deeply.
‘When she arrived the first time, wearing an awful apron, I was amazed at what I had let myself in for. I hid my feelings behind a businesslike mask. Cowardly, I almost told her that I had changed my mind or that we wouldn’t suit each other. I nearly cried out when she said that she’d have to be careful with her grammar now that she knew that I had been a teacher. Joan is the kind of person I would normally avoid, one of life’s surface optimists and lover of shallow wisdoms. When she touches her cheek and says that she speaks as she finds or you have to put your best foot forward, I want to run and hide.
‘But I won’t run, because I need Joan, I am no longer able to function alone. The days are too onerous without someone to do all those time-consuming tasks that can easily take hours when one moves at a snail’s speed. I am willing to endure recitals of the dreadful poet she likes, one Grace Ashley. Joan informed me that she has six teddy bears on her bed and in the early hours of today I pictured them watching her, open-eyed, just as I used to watch Martin. Then I reached into the drawer under my bed and took out this lap-top computer, a leaving present from my fellow lecturers. It wasn’t a surprise gift, I had told the head of languages what I wanted. As the parcel was handed to me I surveyed the uneasy figures in the room, standing awkwardly with their paper cups of cheap wine. I thought how horror-struck they would be if they had an inkling of the story that was going to be typed on their token of farewell, how their embarrassed sympathy would turn to outrage. An echo of the kinds of comments often uttered to reporters when a neighbour has been discovered in a crime came to me: “She always seemed a nice, quiet sort of person, kept herself to herself. Nobody round here would have thought she’d been involved in anything like that.”
‘As I waited for the blue glow of my computer screen to appear I propped my pillows higher, then took a couple of sips of brandy from my flask. It doesn’t stop the constant ache in my joints but it helps me bear it. Since this illness took hold I am always hot when I wake at night, chilled during the day. I had left the window open as usual and I turned my head towards the sharp air before I started writing.
‘The record that I am confiding to this screen, this long, painful series of letters, will serve several purposes. It is primarily for you, Majella. I want, I need you to have my account, my version of what happened. I want to say those things that could not be said then, when life raced away with us and words had to be so carefully chosen. Martin will receive his own personally tailored copy, a coward’s gift. I can summon up courage for many things but not for him; his reproachful eyes sear me. This is also a general confession for a wider audience, a purging of shadows and demons, a mapping of a blight that fell from the Belfast air. My frailty means that it will be in instalments but I will wait until I have completed it to send it to you, a small package bearing love and agony in equal proportions.
‘I am convinced that you confessed to a priest somewhere in Africa. You made a point of writing that you had returned to the church. I pictured you in a simple confession box in a tin-roofed chapel, a dusty village of thin people and animals around you. An ebony-skinned priest or perhaps a sandy-haired Irish missionary would have listened, his shocked breath freezing despite the heat before he raised his hand to bless you. What penance could he have given? What would the tariff be? I envied you your confession, your unburdening. My jealousy of it has grown with time. I wished that I could believe in a God who listened and forgave through human mediums. I have had to find another way of unburdening, lacking divine channels.
‘I find that I have addressed you in Italian, the language that we both excelled in, that we often talked in, that Finn didn’t speak and that first brought us together on an October morning in 1969.
‘You are going to have to forgive me, Majella, for the plan I am going to execute. I have taken a decision to clear the decks. I feel like a person who has been meaning to sort out a cluttered attic for years and finally gets down to it. Your mother didn’t like Finn, she thought he was a bad influence on you. I think that one of the reasons she was so kind to me was that she saw me as a polite, well-brought-up girl who would counteract Finn’s dogmatism. She once said to me in the cow shed that Finn was a cold, unfeeling character, that he had a marble heart. You will recall that I used to wear my emotions on my sleeve; when I loved I loved without reservation, hungry for affection. The cold clutch of guilt has made me guarded and watchful. Over the years it has frozen my spontaneity, slowly icing over my feelings. I have fashioned myself a marble heart in order to effect my plan. I have deliberately reduced my life to a small flat and a single purpose, abandoning Martin in order to concentrate on my task. Finn would have applauded my single-mindedness: “There is only one goal, comrades,” was his constant refrain.
‘I realise that I am addressing a Majella from another time. I don’t know the woman who inhabits an Ethiopian hostel and who has written that her skin is parched by the sun. I was familiar with a fresh, milky complexion, one that glowed with a rich bloom when you became fervent, which was often. That is how I visualise you, untouched by the years, no wrinkles or crow’s feet. You would joke that you’d have preferred the faded, wan look that was popular in the late sixties but your mother had given you too much buttermilk during childhood. The person you are now may hardly recognise the young woman then. When I glance back and see myself I feel an anguished fondness for the needy, uncertain person I was. That Nina bears little resemblance to the woman I am now, a grey-haired, crab-like creature. Finn would have been amazed at my apparent confidence in middle age and the certainty with which I run my days. “Nina Town Mouse” he used to call me in that teasing blend of comradeship and affection, or “Nina-mina-mina-mo”. My own secret name for myself now, stemming from my illness, is Wolf-woman. Finn would have had little time for my sticks and physical weakness. He was intolerant of sickness. When you had tonsillitis he bullied you from bed, saying that it was a question of mind over matter. He prescribed a long walk or a strenuous swim as antidotes for any ailment.
‘You see, Majella, I’m determined to say Finn’s name, to bring him in to this story at the earliest opportunity. We have been so coy about him over the years, leaving his name out but he is there, always a presence around us. Sometimes he used to stand between us and place a hand on our heads as if he was anointing us. I can still feel his palm with the chewed nails resting on my skull.
‘What is it you Catholics say when you enter the confessional? “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” I think I remember you telling me that the first autumn we met. You were an atheist at the time and you were explaining the superstitious rituals of the church to me, its rigid dogma and controls, the way priests ordered the lives of women, subjugating them. Finn came in as you were speaking and lightly ran his finger over the back of your hand. You turned to him with that eager love he always drew from you. He was holding a leather-bound copy of Trotsky’s writings to his chest. He looked like our very own cleric that day, dressed as he often was in a grey polo neck and black jacket. He may even have read an improving paragraph of Leon’s
