I wrenched clumps from my hair and screamed until Martha came running from across the road.
53
Peter, 2020
When Mark said ‘cottage’， I imagined a small thatched one-room place like you saw on Irish tourism posters in New Zealand, and although it had a slate roof and small enough frontage, everything was new and modern and clean inside. There was a stream running under glass bricks all the way through the house. I’d never seen anything like it. Mary was not what I expected at all. She stared into my face until I looked away. We didn’t know what to say to each other and then she shook my hand and went into another room and played the piano. It brought back memories of Dad when I was a small boy, locked in that bedroom, listening to the music he played. Mark told me that it was the shock, that she’d be okay in a few minutes. He seemed to be comfortable here. He’d pointed out his apartment on the way into the village, but Mark and Mary seemed close, I guess like family should be.
We had sandwiches and tea and, later, wine and a pasta meal. I wasn’t used to talking so much but they had endless questions, about Denise, about what Mary had been like as a girl. She kept correcting me: ‘My name is Sally.’ I couldn’t help getting it wrong, but I got the hang of it. I was relieved when they finally said that a taxi was on its way to take me to the hotel in the next town. I was exhausted from the talking and all the withholding of information. I had to be so careful about what I said and what I didn’t say.
Back at the hotel, I slept fitfully. In the hostel in Dublin, I hadn’t dreamed at all and thought it was a sign that I was finally in my rightful place, but having spent the evening with Mark and Sally, they all came back to haunt me, Lindy, Rangi and Dad.
Sally came to collect me the next day and we went to a cafe in her village. This time, I asked her the question that had bothered me. Why did she not remember me? Hadn’t our mother told her about me? She explained something about her psychiatrist father medicating her. She had no memory of our mother. I was relieved and jealous. Relieved she didn’t know what I’d done to our mother but jealous that she could forget it all. There were so many things I wanted to forget. She asked about our father, and I could see she was upset that he had treated us so differently. ‘He hated women,’ was the only explanation I could give. It seemed inadequate but the only thing I could say.
Over the following week, we spent a lot of time together and with our Uncle Mark. I liked her. She said the weirdest things sometimes. She wanted me to see a therapist but I was afraid of someone being able to see into my head. Sally was the only woman I’d talked to properly since Lindy and, when she invited me to stay in her house, I was relieved. I could tell she was pleased with me. Sally seemed to have plenty of money but it wasn’t my business where she got it. She wanted me to meet all her friends but pretend to be a cousin. I couldn’t do that. I had so many lies to juggle that I couldn’t cope with any more.
As much as I liked her, I couldn’t help feeling envious. She had grown up with a mum and dad, gone to school, played sports, all the things that had been denied to me. And by her own account, she had squandered all of those opportunities to live in a solitary way until just the last few years. Now, she had friends, now she had some kind of job playing the piano. I had nobody in my life except her, and I could never be fully honest with her.
The connection I yearned for was not in Ireland. Neither Sally nor my Uncle Mark could give me the feeling I craved. Sally was so pleased to have me there, Mark less so, but I couldn’t relax. The tension in my head never dissipated, even for a moment. I needed Lindy, or someone like her.
I checked in with work regularly on my laptop, and said I was dealing with my medical issues. They knew me well enough not to pry. Several problems arose that I could handle remotely, often in the middle of the night. I needed to stay on the payroll until I figured out what I was going to do next. I couldn’t stay with Sally indefinitely, but could I stay in Ireland? Should I go home to New Zealand? Where was home?
Over Christmas lunch, Sally mentioned Amanda Heron. It hadn’t occurred to me that she would show up on the ancestry website. In the beginning, I denied all knowledge of her, but Mark was so suspicious, I lied and said I’d had some short affairs. They showed me the website. There she was, the baby I had delivered, ‘50% DNA shared’。 I told them I didn’t want to know. My initials that were connected to her on the website were PG. That, at least, was some comfort. If anybody went looking, my initials in New Zealand were SA. Mark and Sally had provided no other information, not even their birthdates.
But I had underestimated those amateur podcasters. On 12th January, an email landed in my inbox.
Dear Mr Armstrong
I apologize for bothering you again. By process of elimination, we believe you are the son of Conor Geary, also known as James Armstrong.
Some information has recently come to light which has made us focus more particularly on your father. It has not been possible to find a birth certificate for him in this country, nor is there any record of a James Armstrong studying dentistry in Ireland in the years he might have qualified. We believe the certificate he had was a forgery.
We heard from a retired cop who met James Armstrong when he accompanied a woman to the police station to report the disappearance of her teenage nephew, Rangi Parata. Parata drowned in a lake a few miles from your home in Rotorua. I believe you lived next door to Parata? The circumstances of his death were not deemed suspicious at the time, but in the light of recent events, we wonder if your father might be connected not just to the abduction of a girl in Ireland, but also to the drowning of Rangi Parata and potentially to the disappearance of Linda Weston.
There is something else. As you know, this podcast story was originally all about the disappearance of Linda Weston in 1983 and Amanda Heron’s quest to find out what happened to her mother. Just in the last few weeks, Amanda’s birth father has appeared on an ancestry website. We know nothing about him but for his initials – PG – and the fact that his DNA shows him to be 98 per cent of Irish descent.
We know that James Armstrong could not be Amanda’s father as he died eleven years before she was born. But he lived outside Rotorua at the time Linda disappeared. He lived next door to Rangi Parata. He did, as far as we know, live in Ireland for some period, and he also practised as a dentist for five years in Rotorua. The man wanted in Ireland was a practising dentist, and a father of one child, Mary Norton, born to the girl he kidnapped there.
I know that this is a lot to take in for you and I apologize for presenting you with such potentially upsetting information.
Is it possible that you were also abducted? We would really like to gain as much information about your father as possible. This may all be a misunderstanding but one we would love to be able to clear up, with your help.
I understand that you are currently on leave from the Aotearoa National Bank and, understandably, we cannot get any information as to where you live or even a mobile phone number for you. If you are monitoring your email, please get in touch at your earliest convenience. All of my contact details are at the top of this email.
Ngā mihi
Kate Ngata
I stared at the screen, reading and rereading the email. The amateurs were far closer to the truth than the police. Kate Ngata had not mentioned going to the police with this new information but surely it was only a matter of time before she did?