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Dedication
In memory of Barry Corcoran
1941 - 2010 His brilliant blue
eyes and wonderful smile, his quirky sense of
humour, we ponder awhile. We wonder why he was
taken so soon, the answer for us,
will never be known. Perhaps heaven sought
a new finance man, someone honest and
able to plan. All we know is that
we needed him here, to guide us along
through many a year.
Excerpt from the ‘Cruel Curse’ by Sheila Corcoran 2010
About the author Barry
Corcoran began writing short stories after retiring from a career in finance,
which took him to The Third Arm
published in 2008 was his first serious novel. Barry is
survived by his wife Sheila, two children, Liz and Vincent, their partners
Madeleine and Christine, and seven grandchildren.
THE POISONED CHALICE
He was terrified as he
scrambled, crablike, across the floor into the corner. Rain was driving through
a broken window. He felt something scratching his neck and jumped sideways,
clawing at his shoulder. It was only a fragment of the sacking which still clung
to him despite his uncontrolled fall down the precipitous slope. Grazes and cuts
from the branches dripped blood onto his shirt, already filthy from his tumbling
descent. Head slumped forward; he tried to steady his breathing. There was a
crashing on the roof. Leaning back into the corner, he raised his head and
stared blindly upwards. The musty smell was now overpowering. He was sitting in
a pool of water. Another scream from somewhere close by made him jump. What the
hell was he going to do? Seven months earlier
Friday night – the Mulhall’s Templestowe home Daniel Mulhall was slumped in
his chair in front of a log fire, his face ashen. He gripped the whiskey tumbler
with a ferocity that threatened its very existence. Carenza had left an hour
earlier. Their son Michael had been screaming as she’d dragged him through the
front door. ‘It’s too late, Daniel. I
still love you,’ had been her parting comment, ‘but you just don’t care about
me.’
He slurped another mouthful of Jameson’s,
the strong spirit burning the back of his throat, trickling down to his stomach
to spread its comforting warmth throughout his body. He stared unseeing at the
flickering plasma screen, unable to believe that his marriage had reached
breaking point. Surely she must have realised all the hours he worked were for
the benefit of his family. Yet even in his distress, he saw the hollowness of
his excuse. Family had been important, but his job as a forensic accountant had
become his obsession. He revelled in the thrill of uncovering the tell tale clue
which ultimately led to the conviction of a white-collar criminal. He was good
at his job, very good, every conviction providing a rush impossible to describe,
motivating him to work even harder. His motivation was born of his
memories of the day his father’s trust in his close friend and financial advisor
had been betrayed. Daniel had been seven at the time and and had come indoors
from cricket. The memory of his mother crying in a chair, head bowed in shock,
had never left him. The trusted friend had fled to White-collar criminals were,
in Daniel’s view, the lowest form of life, hiding behind a veneer of
respectability, indifferent to the pain and suffering they inflicted. It annoyed
him that the public was so forgiving when physical violence was absent. They
never saw the shattered lives, the suicides, the broken relationships and homes
repossessed. The victims’ only crime had been to trust somebody. ‘You get too involved,’
Carenza would tell him. ‘You can’t change the world.’ Daniel could never understand
her attitude. ‘You’re just like everybody else,’ he would shout, ‘you just don’t
care.’ At last the whiskey was having
the anaesthetising effect he craved. Leaning back, he closed his eyes. The line
of a song crossed his mind – ‘you never know what you’ve lost ’til it’s gone’.
Was it the Little Yellow Taxi? He couldn’t remember. Saturday – 9.38AM Next morning, mouth dry,
choking down his nausea, thought processes confused, he stumbled into the
kitchen, tripping over Michael’s toy train. Tears filled his eyes. Poor Michael.
He was only three years old and followed Daniel round like a puppy. Carenza was usually meticulous
about keeping the house tidy. There was no woman’s touch to be seen today. He
gazed at the messy plate from last night’s beans on toast, still on the table.
The shiny orange sauce had dribbled onto the cloth. He hadn’t even cleared away
the stubbed out cigar from the saucer. The air was stale. Carenza never allowed
him to smoke in the house. Was it an act of defiance? If it was, in the cold
light of day it appeared pathetic. He put his head in his hands
and cried. Not a whimper but a full blooded outpouring of loss. The phone startled him. Was it
Carenza? Heart pounding, he tentatively picked it up, trying to control its
shaking. What should he say? ‘Is that Daniel?’ The voice
was male and unmistakably Irish. He stumbled over his reply.
He’d been convinced it would be Carenza. ‘Daniel? It’s Father Kevin.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry Father, you
caught me off guard. I thought it was Carenza.’ The voice softened. ‘That’s
why I’m calling, Daniel.’ ‘Carenza’s mother, Sophia,
called me from Dandenong last night. I’m not trying to interfere, Daniel, but is
there anything I can do?’ Father Kevin, the parish
priest at St Catherine’s, had officiated at their wedding eight years earlier.
Carenza thought the world of him. On a scale of one to ten,
Daniel rated himself a grade four Catholic. He attended Mass most weeks and
dutifully tipped his thirty dollars into the collection plate. But that was the
extent of it. He rated Carenza an eight point five. She tried to attend mid-week
Mass and helped the Legion of Mary with liturgical services; not a fanatic by
any means but the church provided stability for her. He put it down to her
Italian upbringing. Recently she had been helping out at a youth centre as a
support worker. His thoughts were clearing,
his response cautious. ‘I don’t know if you can help,
Father.’ The last thing he needed at
the moment was a confessor. Or was it? His immediate urge was to terminate the
conversation but the surprise caller was persuasive, drawing an explanation from
him. He didn’t pull any punches or
apportion blame. It wasn’t his style. Father Kevin was a patient listener,
waiting for the right moment to interrupt the rambling monologue. ‘Daniel, nobody’s perfect,
even me.’ He laughed lightly. ‘Why don’t you come and see me after Mass
tomorrow. We can have a coffee. Let’s take it from there.’ The O’Leary family Father Kevin Seamus O’Leary
had been a priest for thirty-four years. The eldest of five, his mother Bridget
had been happy when sixteen-year-old Kevin entered the seminary in Maynooth on
the coast of His father Brendan, like many
Irish men of his era, had been a heavy drinker, a decent man who nevertheless
struggled to provide for his family. But drink was forever on his shoulder;
tempting, bullying, niggling the corners of his consciousness until it had its
way. His strength gave way to debilitating illness, a steep decline until the
morning he was found dead outside ‘Ned of the Hill’, his local pub in Raheen. It
was a heart attack, Bridget O’Leary had been told; nothing could have been done
for him. He was only thirty-seven. There appeared to be no future for the
family. Kevin O’Leary’s only memory of
that drab day, rain splattering against the window, was an image of his Uncle
John, Guinness dribbling from his chin, singing what sounded like an Irish
dirge:
‘If you ever go to Kilkenny
And enquire about the hole in the wall
You’ll get twenty-five eggs for a penny
And then there’ll be nothing at all.’
At that point Uncle John had
slipped quietly from his chair, toppled over and begun to snore. Soon after Brendan’s death, a
friend visiting from ‘Unlike Bridget was a determined lady.
New hope rose in her and the family emigrated soon afterwards, landing in Bridget became the driving
force and inspiration for her children, working long hours to establish the
family in Williamstown, a working-class suburb close to the ‘We must all stick together
and help each other,’ she would say. ‘We are a family of integrity. Never forget
it. ‘Death before Dishonour’ will be our guiding principle.’ Kevin recalled her
infectious laugh, the flash of her blue eyes. She was indeed a beautiful lady.
The family had watched in awe as she built up a business near Many men tried to tame her, but none succeeded. She lived for her family and they for her. Click on the cart below to purchase this book:
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