Robert looks down at his family. Orla is quieter now, maybe it’s seeing her daddy fully dressed, standing on his own; one thing back to normal. The men have turned off the radiators, which is good, but also means the room is freezing. Sinead’s nipples push against the material of her pyjama top. Martha is convinced everyone has noticed. She does her best not to look.
These men must have weapons. Five against four isn’t much of an advantage. What if they’d had people staying last night? She looks around and yes, right there, in the hand of one of the quieter men, she sees a gun. Was it there all along? Her throat starts to close over. She is suddenly very, very scared.
‘Robert.’
It comes out like a high-pitched whine, like the air being let out of a tyre. Her husband kneels down and holds her hands and two of the men stand over him.
‘It’s okay, Martha.’ Robert is scared, she can tell, but he holds her eyes the whole time and speaks loudly.
Two of the men by the door laugh. She could have sworn they glanced at Sinead.
She grips Robert’s hands tighter. She cannot tell him her premonitions, so she says, ‘Do exactly what they say,’ and hopes he understands.
‘I will.’
‘Exactly, Robert. Do it exactly.’
‘I will, I will. I’ll go and get the money and I’ll come right back to you. Nothing else. I swear.’
‘You swear?’
‘I swear.’ He holds her eyes. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Her breathing returns to normal.
Through the window, she watches Robert walk down the gravel to the station wagon. He’s wearing the wrong jacket. It’s navy while his trousers are black. Two of the men flank him, both talking in his ears. He looks like a reluctant child, being accompanied by his parents on his first day of school.
You’d think the men were reassuring him, if you didn’t know better, and if it weren’t for the balaclavas.
A silver car pulls into the drive and another man in a balaclava steps out. Did they buy them in bulk or did they each have their own? There isn’t much cause for owning a balaclava in a temperate climate like Ireland, unless of course you are a terrorist, unless you need one for your next terrorising session. She decides to say this to the police when it is all over and done with; they should start with the balaclava shops.
The new balaclava man talks to one of his accomplices and then gets back in the car. Robert starts the engine of the family station wagon. She hates this car now. She wills Robert to be okay. Her eyes flick back to the silver car, a Renault Laguna. The man starts that engine. The car staggers slightly and, just before he pulls out of the driveway after Robert, Martha sees his face.
He rolls the balaclava up like a hat and frowns at the gearstick. Then he looks back towards the house. And before she knows what she’s doing, she’s smiling at him. He snaps his head around and the car moves forward. Martha turns her head just as quickly and she catches two of the men looking at Sinead. She doesn’t need to see beyond the balaclavas to know what’s written on their faces and she strains her wrists against the rope.
‘Did you girls dress up for Halloween?’
The man sitting on the couch with his legs spread and his head leaning back has been doing all the talking since Robert left and everyone else went quiet. The same man was perusing their framed family photos on the mantelpiece earlier, knocking a couple for good measure, so they smashed on the floor beside Sinead.
There are three men in the living room. The boss man went through to the kitchen with another one about an hour after Robert left and hasn’t been back. Martha wishes she could see her husband. She worries about his asthma, then reminds herself that he is good in emergencies. She says it all the time, not realising how much she means it: she would trust Robert with her life.
‘Did youse? Ha? Did youse go trick or treating?’ He laughs, though nobody else has said anything and his own questions are hardly witticisms. ‘Fucking knocking on doors and dirty old men asking if you’ve been naughty or nice.’
‘That’s Christmas. That’s not Halloween.’
Orla has blown the hair back from her face and is speaking in that patient teacher voice she uses when explaining something to Martha and Robert that, at their ‘advanced age’, they really should know.
The man pauses and Martha’s heart hammers. Then he looks up at his accomplice standing by the door and he howls. ‘She’s fuckin’ right!’ He laughs too loudly, smacking his thigh too violently. ‘She’s smart, this one. Well, whatever the fuck. What did you dress up as?’
Always a sucker for a little intellectual praise, Orla accedes with an answer. ‘I was Marie Curie.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘The scientist woman,’ says the lad by the door. He’s younger. Martha can tell from the self-conscious way he stands. ‘I did her at school. What did she invent again?’
‘Radium,’ replies Orla, shaking the hair from her face, her hands tied to the rad. ‘And she didn’t invent it, she discovered it. It already existed. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.’
‘Told you she was smart,’ says the man on the couch, spreading his legs a little farther. ‘And what did you wear, Brainiac?’ He winks at his accomplice.
‘I wore a white laboratory coat.’
‘And nothing underneath?’
Orla frowns. She looks to her mother, and Martha, who can hear the blood rushing in her ears, shakes her head.
Don’t mind him, she tries to convey. He’s a bad man. Don’t listen to a word he says.
The bad man whistles. ‘Very sexy,’ he says, throwing his head back again. ‘What do you think? Should we get you to show us your costume? A white coat and nothing underneath. Have you got fishnets? Maybe some high heels. I’d say your mammy could lend you some.’ He winks, this time at Martha, and starts laughing again, hooting away to himself. ‘And what about you?’ He leers down towards Sinead. ‘What did you dress up as? And careful now, ’cause I’m already feeling a little throb in me jocks.’
Sinead doesn’t speak. What if her daughter has gone into shock? What if she’s been scarred for life and she never talks again? But no, it’s okay. Sinead is moving; she’s chewing the inside of her cheek.
‘I’m talking to you, Leggy. Didn’t your mammy teach you that it’s good manners to answer someone when they’re talking to you?’ He slips down from the couch, on to the ground, and sort of crawls towards Sinead.
Martha’s stomach threatens to give way.
‘What did you,’ he inches closer still, ‘dress up as?’
Martha knows what he’s looking at; she knows what he sees.
‘Tell him,’ she snaps.
Sinead looks at her mother. She hesitates. Her eyes on Martha’s, she finally says: ‘I’m too old to dress up.’
The man starts to honk uncontrollably, as if this is the funniest of all the unfunny things that have been said so far. His laugh is so loud, so oppressive. He’s taken the oxygen from the room and he’s used it all up on this horrendous cackle.
Martha wants to shut her eyes but she doesn’t. She keeps them trained to Sinead’s.
‘You’re a big girl now, are you?’ says the man. His face is in Sinead’s but she keeps her eyes on her mother and Martha holds the stare right back. She sees a string of drool, emitted during the Great Laugh of 2018, running down her daughter’s pyjama top. She fucking hates those pyjamas. Sinead’s teeth are worrying the inside of her left cheek and in the corner of her right eye Martha sees the man’s gloved hand moving, slowly.
No, no, no, no, no.
She desperately wants to shut her eyes, desperately, desperately . . .
He removes the leather glove and rests his hand on her daughter’s left shoulder. A black, patent watchstrap shows. Sinead’s right eye twitches but she doesn’t move. Martha goes to exhale – not in relief, just because what goes in must eventually come out – but then, almost gracefully, the man slides his hairy, overgrown claw under the cream material of h
er daughter’s top and down on to her breast. He gives a murmur of satisfaction but the noise is far away, like it’s back in the kitchen with her own voice.
Sinead’s body begins to vibrate. Her wrists bang quietly against the radiator pipe. Still, the girl doesn’t move.
‘Mum.’
Orla’s voice, quivering beside her. Martha forgot she was there.
‘Mum,’ she says again, more urgently this time.
She gives Sinead what she can and keeps staring at her. Eyes on eyes. Nothing else exists.
Look at me, baby. Just, look, at, me.
There’s a crash from the kitchen and everyone jumps. The man with the oppressive laugh and life-destroying hands is stumbling to his feet, slipping back on his glove. The door bangs open and the men gather. One of them is holding some sort of radio. It crackles but no words come out.
She can’t hear what they’re saying.
‘Muh-ummm.’
‘What,’ she snaps, suddenly finding her voice. ‘What is it?’
She looks to Orla and Orla nods back to where she has just been looking, at Sinead. Only it’s not Sinead she is nodding at, it’s lower. It’s below Sinead. It’s the grey carpet turning black and, between her daughter’s scrawny legs, the dark circle pooling out.
The boss man breaks away from the huddle and comes at Martha so fast she flinches. ‘Where the fuck is he?’ he says, waving the radio at her.
She goes to wipe the saliva from her face but, of course, her hands are still tied.
‘Where the fuck is your husband?’
‘He . . . he’s coming.’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t fucking think so!’ He stands and turns back towards the men.
‘What’s wrong?’
The boss man ignores her, speaking to his collaborators instead. ‘Why isn’t that gobshite answering his phone?’ Nobody responds. ‘Fuck!’
Martha is worried. She is really seriously worried. What happened a moment ago at least came to an end, but this feels like something that won’t be over, something very bad, something beyond this room, something worse than all of this.
Where is Robert?
Why don’t they know where Robert is?
The man’s shoulders hunch as he paces the room. ‘Fuck!’
Orla starts to whimper again. Sinead’s vibrating wrists clang faintly against the radiator. Her daughter’s cheeks and neck are red. Because of what she’s done, not because of what has been done to her. Her daughter is mortified, while the men haven’t even noticed the piss.
Something awful has happened to Robert.
‘You’re fucked now,’ the man shouts at Orla. ‘Your old man doesn’t care about you. Whatever happens now has nothing to do with me. All right? It’s your dad. He’s left you behind.’ The man draws back and spits in Orla’s face.
Martha feels her bowels shift. Her stomach heaves. A dry retch. She sees Robert in the car, dead. She knows where the accident has happened, that turn off the second road, the blind spot.
She doesn’t want to think it, but the thought is there already; The only reason he isn’t here is because he can’t be.
The radio crackles and the boss man holds it up. Words splutter down the line. All numbers and locations. Is it a police radio? Martha thinks she hears ‘Abbyvale’ and she thinks she hears ‘accident’.
Another dry heave. She can’t help it. Orla is keening now.
Then the radio is gone, and the men. They’re out the door, into the kitchen. The back door opens and there are heavy, quick footsteps.
‘Where’s Dad? Mum? Where’s Daddy?’ Orla is banging her head against her mother, her voice increasingly aggravated. ‘Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?’
The sound of cars, outside, on the gravel.
Orla stops headbutting her. Martha gasps. Her heart stops then starts again.
‘He’s here! It’s him. He’s here!’
The front door is forced open. Footsteps. The living-room door flies back.
‘No . . .’
Her heart stops all over. The air leaves her. She thinks she will faint. It’s not Robert.
Two men wearing helmets and thick black vests over jackets. ‘Garda’ is written across their backs. Neither man is Robert, because Robert is dead. Her husband is dead. He’s dead. Her children’s father is dead.
Martha vomits. She hasn’t eaten today so it’s just bile. She swallows most of it back down, but there’s a trickle down the collar of her dressing gown.
Orla starts to hyperventilate.
The men in helmets run into the kitchen and out the back door.
And all she sees is Sinead shaking, not vibrating but a proper fit.
Her wet pyjama shorts cling as her body clangs against the radiator. She sees Sinead understanding what she already knows.
I’m sorry, baby, but your daddy’s dead.
*** Pine Road Poker ***
Ruby:
Public service announcement: Have youse seen what Shay Morrissey is holding?
He’s out on the road now.
Ellen:
What? A new plank of wood?
I’m in the middle of polishing a tricky knob.
Carmel:
Glad to know Joe’s having a good Saturday, anyway.
Ellen:
I expect that kind of crude humour from Ruby, Carmel, but not from you.
Carmel:
Sorry, Ellen. Couldn’t help myself. Won’t happen again.
Rita Ann:
Is it my newspaper, Ruby? Is he holding several back issues of the Irish Times? Because really now, this has gone on long enough. It’s well beyond a joke.
Edie:
Looking out the window but can’t see from up here. x
Rita Ann:
What is it??
Ruby:
Sorry – was making lunch. A pneumatic drill! Like one of those massive professional yokes you see builders with on the street. I’m watching him from the window now.
Oh! Oh!!
Carmel:
What???
Ruby:
He’s heading around the side of his house!
Ellen:
Oh my God WHO gave that mad man a pneumatic drill??
Ruby:
He’s disappeared from sight. Maybe he’s drilling through whatever cars dared to park nine feet out from his property?
Fiona:
Oh lordy. I think Kevin parked ours around the side last night.
Ellen:
Should we call the police?
Carmel:
I’m going out for a look.
Edie:
Wait, Carmel! It may not be safe.
Ellen:
I don’t even want to imagine the mess he’ll make ...
Ruby:
G’wan, Carmel! Tell him he’s a nutjob from me!
TWENTY-THREE
‘Carmel! Wait!’
Edie tripped slightly on the bit of footpath outside Ruby and Madeline’s house that had been pulled up by the root of a tree. They’d called the council several times about it, and Bernie had gotten them all to sign a petition at November’s card game, but nothing had been done.
‘Coocoo, Carmel!’ She was trying to do up her coat one-handed as she jogged down the road. Carmel Dwyer was out her own gate, turning left down towards the Morrissey place at the end of the road and left again on to the Occupied Territory.
Just as Edie reached the Dwyer house, Robin stepped out the front door, wearing an oversized hoodie and carrying a packet of cream crackers.
‘Oh, hi, Robin.’ Edie was already breathless. Her GP told her some intermittent cardio could help with conception but after a day of walking to and from work left her with blisters, she’d shelved that advice. What did it matter anyway, when she and Daniel were too busy fighting to do the only sort of cardio that really mattered? ‘Sorry about last night, bit embarrassing really.’
‘What? Oh, that.’ Robin waved away her concern. ‘Did you see where my mam went
? She muttered something about Israel and the Middle East and just marched out of the house.’
‘It’s Shay Morrissey,’ said Edie, still catching her breath. She really was shockingly unfit.
‘That bully?’ Robin rolled her eyes. ‘When we were kids, he used to scream at us if we bounced a ball off his wall. He was worse than Mrs Ryan. Mam ate him once. Told him that was what happened when you bought an end of terrace; you got the massive bonus of not having to bring your bins through your house in exchange for kids occasionally using your wall as a goal.’
‘God, that’s true,’ said Edie, having a mini-epiphany. ‘I never thought of the bins benefit. It’d be great not to have to drag them through the house, or leave them in the front garden. I think it looks terrible when people do that.’ Then quickly: ‘But no offence to Madeline and Ruby.’
Robin reached into the packet and produced half a cracker. She looked tired.
‘Anyway, sorry.’ Edie shook her head. ‘I think your mother is about to eat Shay Morrissey again.’
‘What did he do this time?’
‘Well, I don’t know exactly. Ruby sent a message to the WhatsApp group saying he was out here with a big drill.’
Robin laughed, a shard of cracker spraying from her mouth. ‘Oh, we have to see this. The bloody mentaller!’
‘Where’s Jack?’ said Edie, trailing Robin down the road.
‘My dad’s taken him into town. They both needed to get new shoes.’
They rounded the corner on to the side of Shay Morrissey’s house where they came to a sudden stop.
‘Oh gosh,’ murmured Edie.
Robin gave a low whistle. ‘Mental, mental, chicken oriental.’
The brick wall at the side of his house had been painted with three massive words: MORRISSEY PARKING ONLY.
Each letter was about as long as Edie and the white paint at the bottom of the ‘Y’ had run to such an extent that it pooled at the base of the wall. Beside the pool of paint was a stack of bottle-green poles wrapped in cellophane.
Three Little Truths Page 18
