Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [82]
Outside it is cooler, at least; the edgy breeze of late afternoon fills the town of Kilkenny. I walk along the main shopping street, wondering where the gaol could have got to. A hamburger carton impales itself on my heel; I kick it off. My toes feel crushed; my head is beginning to pound. Anything could have been built on the site of Petronilla's last months: a hardware shop, a B&B, a public toilet. A gaol is by nature anonymous; all it requires is four walls or a hole in the ground, a barred square of light if you're lucky.
I pause outside a pub offering Live Trad To-Nite. I stare at the five narrow bars just above ground level, the darkness behind them. All they hide is a cellar of beer barrels, but if I close my eyes I can almost see her pallid hands caressing the iron. Petronilla in the shadows, crouched in her dirty smock, once good linen, a present after her first year of service. A face like a drop of honey, looking out of a bedraggled wimple—unless they shamed her by leaving her head naked. Did her pale hair come down at last, escaping coif and cap and veil, falling back into girlhood?
I rest my palms against the pub's gray slate, ignoring the glances of passersby, and try to conjure up the rest of her. Would there be marks of torture, the telltale insignia on wrists and soles? Probably not; there would have been no need, since she seems to have told the whole story freely once her mistress had escaped to safety. Besides, they probably preferred to bring the girl unmarked to the stake, a perfect sacrifice to the fire-breathing dragon. Where would they have done it, I wonder—outside the gaol, outside the city walls, or in the busy thoroughfare of the market square? Which supermarket sits on Petronilla's ashes now? Pressing my fingertips so hard against the cement that they turn gray, I ask every question I can think of. Was there anyone there that day who, remembering alms or a kind word or just the turn of her cheek, had enough mercy on the girl to add wet faggots to the kindling? Was there enough smoke to put her to sleep before flames licked the arches of her feet?
This is one of the times when I wish I still had the ability to cry.
Petronilla is not here. There is nothing left. I do not know what I was hoping for, exactly: some sign of presence, some message scratched for me on the prison wall, some whisper from her walking ghost. I shut my eyes more tightly, but all I can hear is an inane pop song leaking from a taxi window. Hold on, the singer begs, Every word I day is true. Hold on, I'll be coming back for you.
I let go of the wall; the pads of my fingers are scored and pockmarked. As I stare at them they plump into their usual shape. The daily miracle, the return to the same healthy flesh. How long must it go on?
I stride back to my car, through a crocodile of French schoolchildren; in the car park, I have some difficulty remembering what colour Volvo I rented. Automatically I fasten my seat belt. I have never tried to kill myself; I am afraid to discover that it would not work. I shrug off my shoes and lean my head back on the padded rest. What on earth am I doing here?
My ring is cutting into my finger; I pull it off and stare at it. Rubies to stave off disease; this is my last one. Once in Birmingham someone tried to mug me, and I cracked his nose with this ring.
Time has not absolved me of anything. The clothes have been transformed, the name is different—I change it every fifty years or so—but the face in the rearview mirror is the same. And in almost seven centuries of exile I have not managed to forget Petronilla.
It is almost funny, is it not? One would think that a woman who in her esoteric researches had stumbled across the secret of immortality would feel free. Exhausted by life's repetitions, yes, starved for fresh food, tormented by the bargain she made, but in some sense free. To wander, at least, to move, to leave behind the quarrels of mortals. I never expected