The Turing Option

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Perhaps because you are a doctor. I’ve kept it inside, never talked about it to anyone before. Looking back now, now that he is dead, I can finally say it out loud. I don’t… I don’t think he ever loved me. I was just comfortable to have around. There is a lot of mathematics in demography, so I could follow him a bit when he talked about his work. He lost me rather quickly but he didn’t seem to notice. I imagine that he saw me as a warming presence, to put it simply. This didn’t matter to me, not at first. When he asked me to marry him I jumped at the chance. I was thirty-two then and not getting any younger. You know that they say that if a girl is not married by thirty that’s the end of it. So I accepted his proposal. I tried to forget about all the schoolgirl ideas of romantic love. After all, people have made successes of arranged marriages. Thirty-two is a hard age for a single girl. As for him, if he loved anyone it was her. Dead, but that didn’t matter.”

“Then he did talk about this earlier relationship with the girl in Ireland?”

“Of course. Grown men aren’t expected to be virgins. Even in Kansas. He was a very honest and forthright man. I knew he had been very, very close to this girl but the affair was long over. At first he didn’t mention the boy. But before he proposed he told me what had happened in Ireland. Everything. I’m not saying I approved, but past is past and that’s all there was to it.”

“And how much did you know about Brian?”

“Just as much as Paddy did — which was precious little. Just his name, that he was living with his mother in some village in the country. She didn’t want to hear from Paddy, not at all, and I knew that made him very upset. His letters were returned unopened. When he tried to send money, for the boy’s sake, it was refused. He even sent money to the priest there, for the boy, but that didn’t work either. Paddy didn’t want it back, he donated it to the church. The priest remembered that, so when the girl died he wrote Paddy about it. He took it badly, though he tried not to show it. In the end he worked hard to put it all from his mind. That’s when he proposed to me. As I said, I knew a lot of his reasons for what he did. If I minded I kept it to myself. She was dead and we were married and that was that. We didn’t even talk about it anymore.

“That is why it was such a shock when that filthy letter came. He said he had to see what was happening and I didn’t argue. After he came back from that first trip to Ireland, I have never seen anyone so upset. It was the boy that mattered now, past was past. When Paddy told me about his plans for the adoption I agreed at once. We had no children of our own, could have none, there were fertility problems. And the thought of this motherless little boy growing up in some filthy place at the end of the world, you see there was really no choice.”

“You have been to Ireland?”

“I didn’t have to go. I knew. We had been in Acapulco for our honeymoon. Filthy. People ought to realize that there is nothing wrong with the United States — and it is a lot better than all those foreign places. And by this time the new position had come through and Paddy was teaching at the University of Free Enterprise, double the Kansas salary. A good thing too, the amount we had to pay to those Irish relatives. But it was worth it to save the child from that kind of a life. Paddy did it all — nor was it very easy. Three trips to Ireland before it was settled. I fixed up the boy’s room while Paddy went back that final time. He had a friend there, a Sean something he had been to school with. A lawyer now, a solicitor they call it over there. Paddy had to go to court, before a judge. Ours is a Catholic marriage, that was the first thing they wanted to know. No chance of adoption if we weren’t. Then paternity tests, humiliating. But worth it in the end. The plane was four hours late getting in but I never left the airport. It seemed they were the last ones off. I’ll never forget that moment. Paddy looked so tired — and the boy! Skin the color of paper, must have never been out in the sun for his entire life. Skinny, arms like matchsticks sticking out of that filthy jacket. I remember I looked around, almost ashamed to be seen with him dressed like that.”

Snaresbrook raised her hand to stop her, checked again that the recording light was on. “Do you remember that moment well, Dolly?”

“I could never forget it.”

“Then you must tell me about it, every detail. For Brian’s sake. His memory has been — shall we say injured. It is there but we have to remind him about it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Will you help me — even if you don’t understand?”

“If you want me to, Doctor. If you tell me that it is that important. I am used to taking things on faith. Paddy was the brains in the family. And Brian of course, I think they both looked down on me, not that they ever said. But a person can tell.”