The Paper Bracelet by Rachael English

Author:Rachael English [English, Rachael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472264671
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2020-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Ailish

When the text arrived, Ailish was pulling the last of the turkey meat from the carcass. She’d torn a recipe from a magazine she’d found in the hotel and planned on making a casserole. Keith was in the sitting room watching television. Stevie was out with his friends. Although it wasn’t yet four o’clock, the dark was closing in. She’d lit the fire several hours before, and the afternoon had a sleepy post-Christmas feel. Tired from the previous day’s festivities, she was looking forward to a rest.

Because Beth had already contacted her about the car crash, she was surprised to see a text message from Katie.

Can you talk? it said.

Not really. Ailish lowered the sound on her phone. If Keith heard the bing-bong of her message notifications, he’d ask questions.

Beth’s about to send you an email. It’s very important!!

Please tell me it’s good news.

Yes!!

She’d never known Katie to use even one exclamation mark, not to mind four in the space of two lines.

Another text arrived: When you’ve read the article, call me (if you can).

Article? Did this mean that Katie and Beth were sending her a newspaper cutting about Carrigbrack? Was Chrissie mentioned? From the sitting room, Ailish heard a familiar snort. Keith was asleep.

Will do, she replied.

She washed the grease from her hands, put on her coat and climbed into her boots. Her heart thumped so loudly she worried her husband would hear. Slowly, stealthily, she opened the front door and closed it behind her. She slunk down the road like a fugitive and turned the corner onto Kennedy Crescent before risking a look at her email.

The article, from a London newspaper called The Irish Herald, was five years old. It was headlined ‘The Woman Who Listens’.

She tapped to enlarge the image. She didn’t have to see a caption or read a word. With one finger, she lightly traced the outline of Chrissie’s face. The solemn eyes, the thin lips, even the gap between her front teeth: Ailish knew them all. They stared back at her from every mirror.

‘It’s you,’ she said.

She sat down. That the footpath was wet didn’t matter. She could have been sitting in the middle of a rushing river and she wouldn’t have noticed. The article was far longer than expected. And it was entirely about Chrissie:

When Chrissie Mulcahy arrived in Lond Chrissie Mulcahy arrived in London at the age of sixteen, she’d already been through more than many people experience in a lifetime. Chrissie, who’s originally from County Clare, was just thirteen when she became pregnant. She’d been raped by an elderly neighbour.

It was, she says, ‘a different and distant world. We didn’t use the word rape back then. Nor did we know words like paedophile or abuse. “Interfered with” was about as far as people would go.’

It was made clear to young Chrissie that she was a source of shame, not just for her family, but for the whole village. ‘I don’t think my parents fully understood what had been done to me,’ she says.

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