She slides the papers out of the envelope.
The opening page is a solicitor’s letter, from the newspaper, stating that they are going to run with this story tomorrow. If there is anything that Laura Button would like to respond to, please do so by end of business.
She removes the letter and starts reading.
LIARBIRD? is the headline and the story is about how a garda in Gougane Barra believed that Laura’s grandmother Hattie Button killed her husband. It was thought by the garda at the time that her fourteen-year-old daughter Isabel, who became Button after her father’s death, was also involved. Garda Liam O’Grady died years ago, but his daughter has done an interview with the newspaper. She tells them how her poor father dedicated his life to trying to bring to justice those he believed responsible for the death of his friend, Sean Murphy. The deceased’s wife was Hattie Button, an Englishwoman, who Sean met while she was minding children for a local family. Sean fell for her and they quickly married and had a daughter, but Hattie was unusual, she didn’t venture to the town much or get involved, was always considered a social outcast. Yes, Sean liked a drink, but he was a hard-working farm labourer and a good man. When asked whether Sean was violent, as bruises and cuts, old and new, were found on his wife after his death, the garda’s daughter says she doesn’t know, and anyway it doesn’t alter the fact that Hattie Button and her daughter killed Laura Button’s grandfather Sean Murphy.
Laura feels sick.
Sean was found face down in a creek on their grounds. He had drowned in shallow water. There was alcohol in his system and a blunt-force trauma to the back of his head. Sheila says her father always believed Hattie was responsible for Sean’s death, but he’d never been able to find proof that Hattie killed him. She took her daughter out of school and they became hermits, their only contact with the community was through the family business of dressmaking and alterations, which they needed to keep going. Garda O’Grady always stayed in Hattie’s life, hoping he would catch her out eventually, but it was not to be. He went to his grave feeling he had failed his friend. Laura’s mother was a simple woman, ‘something not quite right with her’, whatever she thinks about her role in Sean Murphy’s death, the garda’s daughter says it’s shameful what ‘Tom Toolin did to her, taking advantage of a sick woman. No wonder they hid the child.’ Sheila is not surprised to learn of Lyrebird’s violent behaviour in the nightclub. ‘She’s not as sweet as she makes herself out to be. She’s a liarbird, not a lyrebird. A liar like her grandmother and mother.’
Laura can’t breathe. She can’t breathe. She can’t make a sound. She reads it all over again, her precious Gaga and Mam being torn apart when they’re dead and buried. Their secrets spilling out, dirty horrible lies that they tried so hard to contain; none of their spirit captured or known, the joy and the fun, the happiness that embraced that cottage, just these cold, ugly, dark, horrible lies.
It’s Laura’s fault. She brought this on them. She should have stayed hidden in the woods.
32
‘I think she’s in shock,’ Selena, the opera singer, says. There’s a smell of cigarette smoke off her, as she’s just returned from the garden after having her hourly menthol cigarette that she thinks nobody notices her having.
The StarrQuest semi-finals are complete, everybody that has got through to the final is now in the house, the newest arrivals came late last night; Sparks, a nineteen-year-old magician, and Kevin, a young and hunky country and western singer. Despite the fact that only one of them could go through to the final, the votes had been split as the nation had fallen for both young men. Jack, in a moment of weakness, couldn’t bring himself to choose one of them and instead sent them both through. It was a results show of tension and tears. As a consequence of his heartfelt decision there will be six acts in the final next weekend and all have a week living together and to prepare their final performances. Now the five other acts stand around Laura’s bed, watching as she’s curled into a foetal position, staring into space, completely unresponsive.
‘She’s definitely in shock,’ Master Brendan of the Alice and Brendan circus act says. ‘If I’m finding this entire thing weird, imagine how she feels.’
‘I’m loving it!’ Kevin, the country and western singer, pipes up. After famously singing a song to a secret crush, admitting his love for her, he received five hundred thousand hits on YouTube. Heartfelt decisions aside, he was simply too popular an act for Jack to lose from the final. And he had moved the focus of his affections from his one true love to Alice, of Alice and Brendan the circus duo.
‘Can she hear us?’ Alice says loudly. ‘Maybe she’s had a stroke or a nervous breakdown and she can’t hear us.’