One Hundred Names Read online

  ‘We have wine in the evenings.’ Bob spoke on behalf of himself and the empty armchair before him.

  Which made sense. Constance was known to have at least a bottle of red wine every evening, and right now it sounded like a much better idea than coffee to Kitty.

  ‘And where would the wine bottles be hiding?’ Kitty smiled at Bob fondly.

  He met her smile and the light returned to his eyes. ‘Ms Green Fingers herself liked to store them in the potting shed.’

  Kitty wandered out to the still bright evening, across the grass to the potting shed, unslid the lock and stepped inside. It smelled of damp and soil. She switched on the stark white light, which dangled dangerously from a thin wire in the centre of the ceiling, and was faced with shelves of single bottles of red wine, each sitting in a terracotta pot of soil.

  ‘She liked to keep them warm,’ Bob said suddenly, appearing behind her. ‘She insisted they all have their own beds, kept to a temperature of no less than ten degrees.’

  Kitty laughed. ‘But of course. And what are these?’ She examined the dozens of other pots with Post-it notes impaled by sticks stuck into the soil.

  ‘Her ideas.’

  Kitty frowned. ‘I thought her ideas were all in the filing cabinet.’

  ‘They were the developed ones. Most of them began here. She called them her little seeds. As soon as they would pop into her head she would write them on a Post-it note and skewer them into these pots. Then occasionally, when she was short of an idea or two, she would come out to the shed to see if her ideas had grown.’

  Kitty looked at him in surprise. ‘Why did I never hear about this?’

  ‘Because, my love, if I told anybody about this, Constance would be in a mad house.’

  ‘She already was in a mad house, Bob. With you.’ They both smiled. ‘So perhaps there’s something about her “Names” story here …’ She moved along the line of potted Post-its, reading the messy scrawled animated words and feeling an overwhelming urge just to be with Constance, to see her, to touch her.

  ‘There wouldn’t be anything here about that if it was in the filing cabinet. It may have started here first as one name, or five names or maybe not even a name at all. If it was in the filing cabinet, it had become something. This was the nursery for them all.’

  ‘Her babies,’ Kitty smiled, eyes running along the sporadic, spontaneous thoughts that had all at one stage popped into Constance’s mind. She thought about what Bob had said: the idea wouldn’t have appeared in the filing cabinet if it hadn’t become something and it was so frustrating not knowing what that something was. Come on, Constance, Kitty silently wished, taking a last look around the shed, give me a clue. She waited a moment but the potting shed remained still and silent.

  Kitty grabbed a bottle of wine, thought better of it, took a second and followed Bob back to the house. She removed the pile of photo albums from the armchair facing Bob, a French-style armchair with a metallic gold flower design. She could see Bob and Constance sitting by the roaring fire, discussing issues, theories, far-off, outlandish stories to cover, both arguing and bonded by their love for the unusual and fantastical, and equally so by the ordinary and seemingly mundane.

  ‘How are you, Bob?’ Kitty finally asked. ‘How are you doing?’

  He sighed. A long heavy sigh that carried more weight than any words. ‘It’s been two weeks. One shudders to think that it’s been that long. The day after her funeral I woke up and said to myself, I can’t do this. I cannot get through this day. But I did. Somehow. And then that day was over and I was facing the night and I said to myself, I cannot face this night. But I did. Somehow. And then that night was over. I have said the same thing to myself every day and every night since. Each second is rather torturous, as though it will never move on, and as though it will never get any easier, and yet when I look back on it, look where we are. Two weeks on. And I’m doing it. And I still believe I simply cannot.’

  Kitty eyes filled as she listened to him.

  ‘I expected the world to end when she died.’ He took a bottle from Kitty, opened it swiftly with a bottle opener that had been on the side table next to the Irish Times crossword, a biro and his reading glasses. ‘But it didn’t. Everything kept going, everything is still going. Sometimes I go for walks and I find that I have stopped moving, and everything else is still shifting and evolving all around me. And I wonder, don’t they know? Don’t they know about the terrible thing that has happened?’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ Kitty said gently.

  ‘There are good widowers and bad ones. You hear about the good ones all the time. Gosh, isn’t so-and-so great, so strong, so brave for doing whatever so soon. I fear I’m not a good widower, Kitty. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t wish to go anywhere. Most of the time I don’t want to even be here, but you’re not supposed to say that, are you? You’re just supposed to say insightful meaningful things that surprise people so that they can tell other people how brave you are. Brave,’ he repeated, his eyes filling. ‘But I was never the brave one. Why it should fall upon me to become that now is beyond me.’ Bob swiftly reached for the second bottle, opened it as quickly, deftly, and then handed it back to Kitty. ‘I don’t know where we keep the glasses,’ he said, then clinked his bottle against hers. ‘To … something.’

  ‘To our beloved Constance,’ Kitty said, lifting the bottle to her lips and drinking. The red wine burned her throat on the way down but left a delicious warm sweet coating in her mouth. She quickly followed it up with another mouthful.

  ‘Our beloved Constance,’ Bob repeated, thoughtfully studying the bottle.

  ‘And to getting through tonight,’ she added.

  ‘Ah, now that is one I will drink to,’ he said, and raised his bottle in the air. ‘To getting through tonight.’

  They sat in a comfortable silence, Kitty trying to figure out how to broach the subject, but Bob beat her to it.

  ‘I sense you’ve run into some trouble with the story.’

  ‘That’s an understatement,’ Kitty sighed, then took another swig. ‘I’m sorry to admit it, Bob, but I’m lost. Totally and utterly lost. Pete is expecting the story by Friday, or at least to know what it is, and, well, unless I figure this out I have to go up there and tell him that there is no story, that I have ruined the entire Constance story. Yet another failure on my part.’ Her eyes felt hot as they filled up with frustration and guilt.

  ‘Ah. Well, perhaps there’s something I can help you with,’ Bob said, maintaining his good nature in spite of what she had revealed. ‘I’m afraid I know no more about the names than you do, and after a week of your investigations I now know even less, but what I do know is Constance, so allow me to give you a lesson in Constance.’ He looked upward at the light, his eyes shining as he brought her to life in his mind. ‘Do you remember that awful murder around fifteen years ago on Ailesbury Road, where the multimillionaire business mogul husband was suspected of bludgeoning the wife to death with an odd cleaning implement?’ Kitty shook her head. ‘You were probably too young to remember it but it was rather big news. They never caught him, by the way, though all assumed it was him. He moved away, sold the house, and not much has been heard of him since, but Constance pored over every word of that case and something about it resonated with her, excited her, really, and not just because it was the usual educated wealthy man who should know better accused of murdering his wife. Constance, like every other journalist, was desperate to get an interview with the young maid who had found the wife in the bedroom, alerted the police and who had been the star of the trial that he walked away from. She was a young beautiful thing from the Philippines or Thailand – I can’t remember where exactly – but Constance kept going to the house to try and speak to her, and whenever Constance was busy meddling in something else, which was often, as you know, she sent me around to the house to try to convince the maid to speak to us. I assumed, like everyone else, it was to talk about the case, what she saw, what she had foun
d, what kind of a man her boss was, what kind of relationship the husband and wife had, what were her personal suspicions, that kind of thing …’ Bob stared into the distance and laughed, thinking of what came next. ‘It turned out that what struck Constance as interesting was not the murder story but the item that the husband had used to murder his wife. It was an old cleaning implement – I can’t remember what it was called – which had been brought to Ireland by the housemaid and, doing a story about old traditional cleaning methods, Constance had been desperate to speak to the young woman about the implement.’

  Kitty smiled, shaking her head.

  ‘And she spoke to her too. Ours was the only magazine that year to get an interview with the most popular housemaid, and we didn’t even mention the murder at all. So the point is, my dear, you may think Constance is leading you down one track but in reality, it is most likely a completely different track altogether. With Constance, it’s never about what you think it’s about. Whatever you think is logical, forget about it, it is not logical to Constance. Start trying to see it from her eyes, try to feel it from her heart, for it was a big and complicated one, but it will find you her story.’

  Kitty sat back in the armchair and took another slug of her bottle. Bob watched her while her mind ticked over the story he had just told her and then over the new stories Constance had led her to.

  And then she got it. She finally got it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  After spending a further few hours with Bob and another of Constance’s homegrown bottles of red wine, Kitty felt far more relaxed about approaching Pete. With a plan in her head, she was ready to pitch to him how she was now going to focus on the people she had met so far and only the people she had met. That particular part had been Bob’s idea. He had helped her to see that despite the fact she had figured out what the link was, she didn’t need to meet ninety-four more people in order to reach the same conclusion. There simply wasn’t the time to do all that dear Constance had planned for them to do. And she had really done it this time: Constance had come up with something grand and wonderful, so entirely full of her teachings, which made Kitty both excited and emotional. It was almost as if this was Constance’s parting message, her final words from the grave, and what perfect words to leave behind.

  Kitty wasn’t so nervous about going to Pete with her pitch, knowing Bob was behind her all the way, and also their relationship had evolved so much over the past few days. She smiled again to herself, that schoolgirl feeling of butterflies in her stomach. She was suddenly aware of how she looked, the flush in her cheeks from the wine, the jeans, the blouse, the flats she’d been wearing all day. Should she have changed? She fixed her hair and quickly rooted in her bag for her lipstick and powder. The door to the office opened and the two cleaners stepped out, having finished their work for the evening.

  ‘Can you keep that open for me, please?’ Kitty called to them, putting her make-up away. She rushed up the steps and went inside the office. It was silent inside, nobody working late apart from Pete, who as usual was bearing the brunt of responsibility. He didn’t have a girlfriend but she could imagine the frustration of sitting at home waiting for him to return at ten at night. She checked herself in the mirror at reception, fluffed her hair, opened another button on her blouse, and then ran through the story in her head, how she was best going to sell it to him.

  She heard furniture moving in Constance’s office and she headed in that direction. She was about to call out when she heard a woman laugh. Then sigh. She looked around, wondering if somebody else was in the office but it was quiet, eerily quiet. Then she got that feeling, that uh-oh feeling, and debated turning back and leaving. But it wasn’t in Kitty’s nature to leave a suspicious situation and so she moved forward, continuing to hear the furniture moving now and then, as if somebody was pushing a chair back and forth. She didn’t bother knocking. She knew instinctively that to do that would be to miss out on what she already knew in her heart. She pushed the door open and was faced with Cheryl, her grey office skirt up around her thighs, which were wrapped around the man pole she was currently gyrating against. Hands were all over her back, moving up and down, to her thighs, to her bottom, squeezing and pinching, looking so unromantic and clumsy that Kitty leaned against the doorframe and ruffled up her nose. They were not the hands of an expert.

  The sloppiness of their kisses was audible, along with an occasional sigh, and when she heard the duty editor’s voice, husky with desire, tell the acting deputy editor what exactly he planned to do with her in a rather vicious tone, she felt it was the right time to clear her throat. Cheryl jumped so far off the table Kitty wondered if it could be considered actual human flight.

  ‘Jesus, Kitty,’ Cheryl said, pulling her skirt down from her waist and pushing it back round her thighs. The buttons on her blouse were open and her fingers trembled as she tried to button them and then deserted the idea and instead pulled them closed and folded her arms. ‘We were just, I was just …’

  ‘About to screw your boss,’ Kitty said. ‘Yeah, I know. Sorry to interrupt you both. It does sound like Pete had proposed a good plan for you both but I popped by, as invited, to share my breakthrough with you. But maybe it’s not the best time for that.’ Her eyes fell on Pete and she suddenly felt emotional. She knew she had very little reason to feel that way but she genuinely felt betrayed. It had been only a few days’ flirtation but it had meant something to her, particularly after the disastrous weekend she’d had with Richie. Her love life was not going well, she was feeling sorry for herself, victimised, when really she should probably blame herself for her own ridiculous choice in men. But she wasn’t going to, not yet. Now she was going for self-pity just because of the way he was looking at her, the soft sorry expression in his eyes. She knew then that she was right to feel betrayed because she could see that he felt as though he had betrayed her.

  Pete had barely budged an inch from where he’d been caught. He stood at the desk, his hair a tousled mess, while he looked at Kitty expectantly, uncertain and nervous as to what she’d do next. He at least had the decency to show shame on his face.

  Cheryl sensed something was up too because she glanced from Pete to Kitty in confusion. ‘What’s going on here?’ Her two hands clasped her blouse closed so tightly her knuckles were white.

  ‘Nothing,’ Kitty said, and her voice mistakenly came out as a whisper. She cleared her throat and spoke loudly. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  And on that note, she left.

  Apart from feeling a little humiliated, deflated and victimised, in a professional sense, Kitty was empowered now because she suddenly felt that it didn’t matter what Pete said about her article, she would write it exactly how she wanted, how she felt Constance intended it to be, and she wouldn’t bend or be changed in any way, despite his temper, authority or threats. It was what she needed for her work. It had lacked confidence and now she felt nothing but. The ball was in her court, the story was hers to own. She hurried back to Fairview and at 10 p.m. now knew that going to Archie’s home at the flats was not the cleverest idea she’d ever had. Still, she was on a mission. She ran past the kids crowding the footpath and up the four flights of stairs to Archie’s flat. She banged on the door, moving from foot to foot, wanting to do this all now, not wanting another day to be wasted. She cleared her throat. She heard someone do the same and when she turned to the right she saw the young boy sitting on the basketball.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi,’ he imitated her.

  ‘Is he in?’

  ‘Is he in?’ he repeated.

  She rolled her eyes. He did the same.

  She backed away from the flat and ran back downstairs, through the crowd of kids who jeered after her and she ran around the corner to Nico’s chipper. Monday night and there was a long queue ahead of her. She spotted Archie behind the counter flipping burgers.

  ‘Archie,’ she called, pushing her way through the queue to get to the counter.

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sp; He turned around, giving her that familiar amused smile as if the joke was on her and she entertained him. ‘You’ll have to wait in the queue,’ he said, then turned back to his burgers.

  ‘I’m not here for food, I just want to talk to you.’

  She was trying to keep her voice down but even with the news report playing on the radio it was impossible not to be heard in the chipper. Archie’s colleague gave him a dark look and Archie was clearly annoyed. She was getting him into trouble.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, backing away from the counter. ‘Chips, please.’

  His colleague nodded and got to work, lowering a basket of chips into the hot oil. Her stomach rumbled. ‘And a cheeseburger,’ she added.

  Archie slapped another cheeseburger on the hotplate and it sizzled.

  Twenty minutes later she had made it to the cash register. Archie left his place by the hotplate to personally serve the food to her.

  ‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all day,’ she said, the excitement building in her again.

  ‘It’s a common complaint from women,’ he said, dousing her chips in salt and vinegar.

  ‘You have to help her,’ Kitty said.

  He looked up at her, finally met her eyes.

  ‘The woman in the café, you have to talk to her. Maybe you’re supposed to help her, maybe this is why it’s happening to you.’

  He looked at the others in the queue nervously, hoping they weren’t listening.

  ‘Five eighty,’ he said.

  She took her time searching for her money. ‘Meet me at the café again tomorrow morning. She’ll be there, won’t she?’

  He squared his jaw while he thought about it, then gave her a single nod.

  ‘Okay.’ She left the counter and pulled the door open.

  ‘Do you think it will stop then?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you want it to?’

  She left him with something to think about while she made her way in the cool night, the vinegar chips making her mouth water. Passing Archie’s flats she saw a boy cycling a familiar bike. She stopped, looking around to make sure he had no one to back him up. The crowd that had been hanging around were now gone, either on to a new destination, inside to their homes or were lingering in the shadows.