The Quiet Truth: a haunting domestic drama full of suspense Page 3

  I shock Rhonda into a guttural noise. I go on. My memories of Ella never fade for long.

  She was the most beautiful creature. Even Cedric thought so. We climbed the tree on Dicey’s Corner as we knew she’d pass under us and we could keep up our vigil of her unnoticed. We lay against the branches, and peered through the leaves quietly. Our pure thoughts were impure. I adored her.

  Ella was about to be married even though she wasn’t much older than us. She was a beautiful woman who was walking the road picking flowers. We were only boys and still she stirred the willies on us. I didn’t know then that she’d always be the one for me, I just knew she was wonderful.

  I stop and sniff. ‘How time changes us handsome fellows into dirty old men?’

  Rhonda merely smiles and lets us settle back into that day all those years ago.

  We held our breath as she walked under the tree and her hair blew in the breeze. It was all golden and fair, like an angel’s.

  She is a cliché, a vision and was oh-so real then. Even now the sight of her in my mind’s eye is very vivid.

  On our way home, I made up my mind that I wanted to see her again. It took many months to know her patterns. I became what in today’s world would be known as a stalker. To me, it was love and that is what it is to this day. I needed to be near her and this required a notebook and questioning of our neighbours. It began subtly at first and then was not so discreet.

  It was known everywhere that I had a notion for Ella O’Brien. That was nothing unusual. Most of the men thought her attractive. Whether married, single, widowed, or not that way inclined, most males understood, without it even having to be said, that Ella stirred us.

  I doubt the women of today know what it is like to have nothing to enhance their beauty. With makeup, advertisements and photographs we are surrounded in fake prettiness. Ella was a living, natural beauty. She was like a walking work of art and, of course – Ella knew it.

  Rhonda snorts. It doesn’t stop me from talking.

  Ella might have started out playing with my emotions. She toyed with men in general and we let her. It was a fun pastime for us all really.

  Ella married young, and it was thought that she had picked well. She tricked a young doctoring student into making her pregnant and they’d lost the baby, but not the marriage. Dr O’Brien was a fine-looking chap. Even those of us not keen on mentioning the handsomeness in a man had to admit that he was a fine specimen. We all knew we couldn’t compete with his brains either.

  Ella had chosen a good man – or so we all presumed. Looking back, she too was floundering around from one great mistake to the next. We all felt she was plucked from a pedestal somewhere. Of course, she was a normal human and she made unholy blunders just like the rest of us idiots.

  Most women loathed her. They were all jealous of her beauty, you see. Except her own doting relatives, of course. She had many relations and she was stifled by them and was rarely alone. I discovered that Ella’s danders on a Sunday and her shopping trips were about the only times she was without companions. And one of her most frequent stops was in Daly’s Butchers.

  Jock Daly was a huge man, his hands were the size of shovels and his shoulders broad enough to carry sides of animals easily.

  ‘I like your gumption, Charlie Quinn,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you a trade.’

  ‘Butchering?’ Father hollered. The mere mention of working in the village sent him into a spin until he took all my wages. I managed to persuade Daly to slip me an odd sly shilling now and again, that Father knew nothing about. ‘Surrounded in temptation!’ was the usual shout as Father took my hard-earned crust. The time learning the trade flew in and I ignored the man as best I could. If only he knew how much temptation a then sixteen-year-old boy put in his own way. I always thought of ways to escape. I constantly dreamt of naked women and drinking porter. I became a good runner too. I moved quickly even with the big boots I wore to the butchers with the steel caps.

  Cedric was to join what Father called the ‘pagan newspaper men in Tyrone’ and I was happy tearing across the fields and romping into Daly’s a couple of minutes late every morning. Jock Daly didn’t give out like usual folks. He would dig you in the ribs with his elbow and then grunt what it was for. It could be from a previous grievance of many days before and it hurt for many days after.

  I was never late of a Tuesday. Never. That was the morning Ella O’Brien did her grocery shopping. In the early days, I wasn’t allowed to take orders from the customers and I’d watch her from the back store. She’d nod and smile. I’d wait all week for that small grin where her lips were mine for a millisecond.

  ‘Fine bit of meat,’ Jock Daly would say at Ella and wink over at me. I stopped blushing as I wanted her to think I was a man. I wanted Ella to see me as the best man there ever was and I grew stronger, taller, fitter, fuller and learned how to speak proper. Jock Daly was a talker and he could’ve sold sand to an Arab. He just had a way with him. I started to copy and mimic his methods. They didn’t come easy to a shy, downtrodden youngster and Jock taught me how to pretend that I had the gift of the gab.

  ‘You’ve a fire in that belly, young fella,’ Jock would say. ‘You’ll go far, you know. Farther than any about here. Don’t let the blood in you stop you from anything. You hear me now?’

  I felt then if I could be a quarter the size and half the man of Jock Daly, I’d make something of myself for sure. He taught me everything about butchering and more importantly, he made me believe in my wink to charm the ladies.

  ‘That flick of an eye will charm the pants off them,’ Jock said. I was never usually praised and yes, I liked that kind of talk. I was a hot-blooded and frustrated boy. My whole life was hemmed in with the stone walls and the whispering about what was good and proper.

  Thoughts of fleeing and tearing the clothes off women kept me living for most of my teenage years. I figured that kissing must be wild nice as people said that the films were all full of it. There was no other woman I wanted to kiss more than my Ella O’Brien. It never seemed to enter my stupidity that she was at least five years older and that she was not a moral option. It never occurred to me that she was married and out of my league. With a man like Jock hanging over my shoulder every day telling me how great I was at the job and what a charmer I was to the customers, I felt it was only a matter of time before I would grab and hold Ella O’Brien in my arms and press my mouth up against hers.

  That’s what kissing was then and it was all I thought about.

  I lick my lips and close my eyes.

  ‘Hullo, Charlie Quinn,’ Ella said over the wooden counter past Jock.

  My heart thumped like a drum. After years of her coming into Daly’s I was shocked that she knew my name. The innocence.

  ‘I’m looking for a nice bit of tongue,’ she said and my resolve left.

  Jock snorted and thumped my back hard. I nearly went through the counter. ‘Give her what she’s after, lad,’ he said.

  Ella knew how to torment us. There was no question that she enjoyed the teasing. She played games. I didn’t know the joys of a woman’s tongue and I didn’t fully know then that she was goading me. How green was I?

  Leaning against Rhonda’s couch, I chuckle to myself, remembering a few times when she made me blush. I don’t think badly of her. Even after all that’s happened, she’s still a pure goddess. I’m a sad old fool now and oh boy, back then, I was a pathetic young one.

  ‘Lust is a strong force, Rhonda, and when they collide with love and mingle with morals, the explosion can be a devastating one.’

  ‘Find a girl your own age, Charlie,’ Jock ordered. Even though I knew he was right, those girls were easy prey. I was confident, had my own money, and a swagger of badness which my father failed to trounce out. I was marinaded with Jock’s patter and pride. The combination of it all was a recipe for disaster. When I think of the glorious young skirts who made eyes as they passed Daly’s door. All I did was scoff at them. I didn’t even want to take
advantage – it was all too easy. What is it they say, ‘treat them mean and keep them keen?’

  That worked. Ella O’Brien sure kept me keen. I would have done anything for her without wanting anything in return. When I thought of her the churning in my stomach stopped and the pains of anguish I felt disappeared. Thinking of her helps bring a normality. Despite all that happened, she’s still good for my body.

  That said, it possibly wasn’t healthy in the long run. I became obsessive. She became a dream. I would still do anything for my Ella.

  5

  Charlie Quinn

  Rhonda’s child, Faye, has woken. She is playing with some teddies and we watch her together.

  ‘They say thinking about the past is not good for a man. Maybe that’s why I’m eaten away inside. When I think of Ella, I nearly always feel better. If I can ignore the guilt, she still brings me happiness.’

  ‘When you say Ella O’Brien,’ my biographer starts, ‘do you mean the Ella O’Brien who’s been in the papers again recently? She’s in her eighties now? The one who’s just come forward about her own story?’

  ‘The very one.’

  Is Rhonda disgusted or intrigued? It’s hard to tell. Regardless, the dam has burst open and I must continue.

  ‘Yes. That Ella O’Brien is my Ella.’

  ‘You knew her? Before you left for Canada? You loved her when she was a young woman?’

  ‘I did and I love her still.’

  ‘And did you know of the recent interest in her?’

  I sigh and clean my spectacles, giving myself a moment to compose my emotion.

  ‘Is this why you’ve come home, Charlie? Is she the reason you’ve come back?’ Rhonda asks, handing the child a sweet treat to silence her want of attention. ‘Have you kept in touch with her over all these years?’

  ‘If only I could have always been with her, things might have been different for us both.’

  ‘I should let you continue, Charlie. Please, don’t let my questions stop things. We’re still recording.’

  Talking through things, I gloss over months and years like they are easy to pass over. The work was tough and dealing with my father grew more and more difficult. After a year or more of working in Daly’s, I moved out of home and into a small room in an old woman’s terraced house in the centre of the village. I did odd jobs and kept her in meat in exchange for my bed and board. I was possibly around seventeen then and had my own few bob. I was no longer beholden to anyone else. I rarely saw Anna or Cedric and Jock’s shop became my world as I waited to see my Ella every week.

  Then she started coming in more often. Sometimes she would buy things she didn’t normally purchase. Ella always waited until I could serve her. One day, I noticed the bruises on her wrist under a glove. She saw me glancing at them during the next visit too. It was when the black eye was obvious under the muck she tried to cover it with, that I became angry and mentioned it.

  ‘It’s nothing. I walked into the cupboard.’

  Jock gripped my arm in the back store and hissed, ‘Ignore the workings in another man’s house. She’s a flirt and a tease. The poor man’s reputation is at stake and she pushes him to the edge of reason. You and I see her for a fleeting few minutes every week. We don’t know what it is like to have to deal with that one every day! She’d drive any man to drink. Don’t judge the poor sod of a doctor now. You don’t know the whole story and only see one side of this mess.’

  All I saw was another darling woman brutalised by a man who wanted control. Like my mother, Ella was the love of my life. She was all of the beauty I had in a grey world. Someone was hurting her as well. I was angry.

  I stop for a sip of tea. Rhonda nods, urging me to go on. How can I tell her that I used all of that moral high ground and more to justify my lust and our sin? How can I tell her what I did?

  I followed Ella one day. Finally, I gave in and stumbled after her in the street and cornered her in the back alley behind the pub. I think she knew that it was inevitable that we’d be together. She let me hold her wrist and remove the glove.

  I kissed her bruised arm, then her eye and finally her lips.

  Sighing now, I’m back to that first touching of our mouths. The press of warmth, the scent of perfume, the slick lipstick against cheek, the mound of her breast in my hand, the slide of Ella’s glorious tongue between my teeth.

  It’s hard to describe the thrill of that kiss. That passion did everything. It shook me to the very boots. I’d no idea that men and women mingled tongues and the naughtiness was too wonderful. It felt like a daydream until there was a batter of a beer barrel in the yard near us and a scuffle of the gate being opened. We both ran from the spot like children. She flittered away in one direction and I raced in the other. I found it hard to move with a large horn between my legs.

  Rhonda chuckles.

  I am reminded of Ella’s giggle when I got a sneaky note into her basket. She also managed a first visit to the room in my lodgings. I smuggled her in when the October twilight gave way to clandestine seductions. It was more than sex. To me it was a divine time.

  I was like a blind stallion and we were both walking into disaster. I cared little for the consequences. I never thought of us being caught and she didn’t seem in the least bit scared.

  She must’ve been petrified as she took a great risk to sneak away from her husband, and prying family, and cycle the few miles into town. She must’ve trusted me to never speak of it to anyone.

  ‘I cannot believe it,’ I told her over and over when finally she was in the ramshackle room with its peeling wallpaper and damp ceiling. ‘Why have you agreed to come here?’

  ‘I need you to make love to me, Charlie,’ Ella said without even blushing.

  I start to cough and stop my ramblings. Holding my painful side and hip I try to gather myself. The room is warm and I heave at my tight shirt collar with a trembling finger.

  Rhonda smirks. There’s a quick flash of understanding between us that we’re reaching the time when a film closes the bedroom door or a programme goes to commercial break. ‘Please go on, Charlie. Tell it to me the way that it was. It’s okay.’

  She looks at her notebook and shuffles her bum on the seat.

  ‘I’ll try,’ I say and open a button near the top of my shirt. Things cool slightly and I begin again.

  I had fantasised non-stop about how she would have looked naked. Every man in Tyrone thought about it. You see, there were no images of naked women in those days. I had imaginings of the curves but there was little else to educate me.

  We were alone. Ella took the lead and walked me onto the bed. She sat and removed my trousers. Then, without much hesitation she stripped bare while I held my cock in my hand and lost my mind in the sight of her.

  I wasn’t sure that I’d know what to do. I had only listened to Jock or seen the dogs at it in the street. I had grown up from that boy in the tree but I was still a naive seventeen-year-old fella with some bulging muscles and notions. I knew very little about a woman’s needs. It was a very nice surprise when I discovered what their bodies did to us.

  Ella showed me what her mouth could do. I thought I’d burst with longing. She let me lie on her, and slide between her legs and find the hidden place. We became one that evening. I filled my Ella with seeds of love and promised to always be hers. It was unbelievable. I don’t think I’ve ever made love like it since. It lasted no time at all. I was a fumbling wreck and she was always glancing at the door, which wouldn’t lock.

  It was possibly the best time of my life with a woman. My first and best time.

  Of course, Ella returned to my room again. For a few months, it was almost weekly. Each time we got more brazen, more lost in each other’s bodies, more entangled in the nakedness. The seduction of each other’s souls was even more intense. I made her shudder with desire and she made me moan loudly. It was the type of passion I always think of when I want… It was perfection.

  We were sinners and we were in love. Desper
ately, I clung to her when she wanted to leave. When she had to go I hugged into her even more. I saw it as desertion. The aroma of Ella lingered in the bed sheets and I’d sniff them until she returned to give herself to me again.

  I sucked every part of her, caressed each inch of skin with lips and loved every hair, every mole, rubbed deep inside her and devoured my Ella with lust. In between our sessions of lovemaking, I pulled my penis raw and never stopped thinking about how I might get inside her the next time. Which angle might get me deeper, longer, or stronger. I longed to make her gasp in pleasure. I loved to see her bite her bottom lip, and to hear her moan when I pumped with eager hips.

  As a young fellow, I had stamina for such things. She must’ve been delighted with my enthusiasm. I could see why men wanted women all to themselves and why married beds were sacred places. My mattress became an altar to Ella and I’d have done anything to have taken her all day every day into those blankets. I urged her to stay for more than a fleeting few hours. I couldn’t think of Ella doing those things with a husband or someone else, and every now and again I asked things which must have hurt her.

  ‘Do you let other men do this? Does your husband do it?’

  ‘No,’ she always answered and in my youthful innocence I believed that. In her defence, I feel she was truthful as really I’ve never been with any other woman in the way I was with my Ella.

  6

  Rhonda Quinn

  As I go about the mundane household chores that somehow have all become my job, I cannot help envying this Ella O’Brien. That is some turn-up for the books. Ella has lingered in the nation’s consciousness for decades. As much as her name is muck, and she’s accused of all sorts, a man has loved her passionately for more than sixty years. Charlie talks of her with such desire I thump the washing into the machine and slam the door shut.