The Boy That Never Was

by Karen Perry

  At first light, I dressed and got the van to start. I drove slowly, mechanically, my face set in a dull, numbed expression. Driving, parking, talking to the woman at reception – all of it felt slightly surreal, as if I were outside my body, watching myself going through this set of actions. I felt I couldn’t possibly cry any more. And yet, when I spoke to the midwife on duty and told her I’d miscarried during the night and she turned to me with an expression of such pity, I found fresh tears brimming over once more, all my emotions rushing to the surface.

  ‘Oh, you poor pet,’ she said. ‘Have you other children at home?’

  I shook my head, no, and she rubbed my back comfortingly.

  ‘Let’s get you sorted out,’ she said, handing me a plastic container and directing me to the bathroom.

  When I came back with my sample, she told me to sit in the waiting room, which was already filling up with women there for their ante-natal check-ups.

  ‘No,’ I said, surprising her. ‘I’m sorry. But I just can’t sit out there in that room full of pregnant women.’

  And then the tears came all over again. Perhaps it was because of that, or maybe she just felt sorry for me because I was there alone; in any case, she ushered me through to an examination cubicle straightaway.

  ‘Sit tight there, love. The doctor will be along to you in a minute.’

  She left me alone, and I sat on the examination table and looked at the grey walls around me, and I had the thought that this would be it for me. A cursory examination. An appointment made to flush away the remaining traces of my pregnancy. My last chance gone. There would be no more babies. No more children. I wondered how things would be with Harry now. His behaviour since I’d become pregnant had led me to understand that he did not want the child. Well, now that had been neatly taken care of for him. A spiteful thought, but I was hurt and angry. All night I had tried phoning him, getting his voicemail every time. What was he doing? Why, at the moment when I needed him most, could he not be there for me? I dreaded seeing him again. I couldn’t bear to hear whatever worthless words of comfort he would try to offer. It would all sound fraudulent. I didn’t want to be comforted, anyway – not by him. And it struck me that this time I would have to grieve alone. After Dillon, we were at least able to share our pain, confide in each other, get angry with each other, hammer against the walls, scream into the night, weep in each other’s arms. Whereas now, I knew that I would keep my grief separate from him. I had a vision of the days and nights to come – Harry circling me with his concern, trying to keep his relief hidden from me, while I remained aloof, holding my sadness away from him, maintaining the distance between us. A distance that, I knew, would grow and grow.

  I staggered out of the hospital. Staggered – that is the only way to describe it. Stunned, confused, blinking in the light of the new day. My mind was awash with all that had just occurred. The doctor, a tall, solemn black man with a firm, confident voice, slightly accented, peering through to that most private space, saying: ‘Your cervix is closed.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Still I could not fathom it. All that blood. The terrible rush of it.

  An ultrasound. A hazy image like a TV with poor reception. The dark cavern of my womb appearing – a pocket of blackness. Then I saw it. A tiny shape curled into one corner. A caterpillar. A bean. A fern waiting to unfurl.

  ‘There!’ the doctor said, a note of triumph in his voice. ‘You see? There is your baby.’

  ‘But … is it …?’ I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t ask if it was alive.

  ‘You see this here?’ His dark finger pressed against the screen. ‘You see?’

  And then I saw it. A flickering. A rapid pulse.

  ‘Your baby’s heart beating.’

  And I felt my own heart quicken.

  ‘I don’t understand. The bleeding. There was so much of it. How can –’

  Busy taking images from the ultrasound, he shrugged his reply.

  ‘Who knows why these things happen. Who can say?’

  He handed me a small black-and-white print. The little bean resting, waiting, in that dark space inside me. I held it in my hand and swallowed hard.

  ‘So what now?’ I asked.

  ‘You have had what we call a threatened miscarriage. But your baby is still alive. And your cervix has closed. Hopefully, the bleeding will have stopped.’

  ‘So what should I do?’

  Again he shrugged.

  ‘It is up to you. Some say that bed rest helps. But there is no real scientific evidence to back this up. Try to stay calm. Try to stay positive. It is in the hands of God.’

  The hands of God. Strange words coming from the mouth of a doctor. I had long ago stopped believing in a God. And yet, when he said it, I felt a strange tug inside me. A kindling of the hope I’d thought was dead. I had something to cling to once more, something to put my faith in.

  9. Harry

  Spencer was there when I got back. Not standing at the gate like every other welcoming friend or relative but hunched over in the bar, struggling with the crossword. The same robe, the same tangle of hair. It was as if he hadn’t moved since I had left. When he saw me, he winced, shaking his head in disapproval at another of our country’s woes.

  ‘Did you see this?’

  Not how was the trip, not how was the gallery, heard you were delayed, how did you fare, what about the CCTV footage – no, none of that. Instead, his hoarse voice could only manage the vituperative ‘Did you see this?’

  In his hand was the smudged and ragged front page of one of the national newspapers. He pointed to a headline about a well-known broadcaster’s autopsy. The word ‘cocaine’ was writ large. The rumours had been confirmed.

  ‘What did you expect?’ I said.

  ‘They’ve come down a bit hard.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘People died to feed his habit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what the papers say.’

  I shrugged, and Spencer stood up a little unsteadily. He took my bag, and we walked out of the airport.

  ‘Here, give me the keys,’ I said. ‘You look like you’ve been here all week.’ He handed the keys over without a fuss and shot me the kind of look that suggested he might indeed have been there the whole time I was away. I actually couldn’t be sure.

  Dublin seemed tired as we drove towards it. It may have been my passenger, but there was a mangy look to the city. Even the welcome to dublin sign looked jaded.

  ‘Take the tunnel,’ Spencer said. ‘I’ll pay.’

  After being roombound for several days, I found it strange to be driving. In fact, after all of my discoveries, the whole sensation of travel was dreamlike.

  ‘The Port Tunnel, another colossal waste of money. Did you hear they’re moving the fucking port to Balbriggan?’

  ‘You’re turning into a grumpy old man.’

  ‘I am a grumpy old man. You’ll also have noticed, it’s been three days, the snow has gone nowhere!’

  He said it as if the snow had slighted him personally. As we coasted through the tunnel, Spencer looked at his phone and sighed. ‘Here, let’s ditch the car and go for a pint. I’ve an awful headache.’

  ‘Somewhere by the Point Depot?’

  He rubbed his hands together. ‘Yeah, brill. Maybe someone will nick the car. I’m sick of it.’

  We found a small pub, one of the old early houses where the dockers went, and slipped into a private corner. Spencer ordered two pints.

  ‘Get that into you,’ he said, gulping greedily at his.

  It felt odd, sitting there in the semi-darkness, the two of us huddled over our pints while outside the morning was just getting going: trains pulling into stations, commuters spilling out, people hurrying towards offices while the wind whipped across the Liffey. I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and my body cried out with fatigue, yet a kind of crazed energy fizzed through me, a manic desire to keep going
, to get moving, to pursue this one lead before it went stone cold. My son was alive. I had seen him. He was out there. He was close – I could sense it.

  ‘So. Are you going to tell me why it is that you needed to see me so urgently? It’s not often I get a call at dawn demanding a lift from the airport.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. And listen, thanks. I appreciate it.’

  ‘No problemo. So, what? Things a bit tight, are they? Couldn’t make the fare for the Aircoach? Had a barney with the missus and she refused to pick you up?’

  The mention of Robin brought a tinge of remorse. I hadn’t called her, hadn’t even texted. I had ignored her calls, her messages, some part of me needing to shut down against her and avoid contact. Part of it was cowardice – this I was fully aware of. After Daphne, well … I could hardly look at myself in the mirror, let alone speak to my wife. I was afraid of what my voice might give away. But part of it had to do with this new resolve I had, this burning need to find Dillon. To track him down. What I had seen the day of the protest – it wasn’t a delusion. I was not going mad. The CCTV footage confirmed what my gut had registered long before. He was alive. That was the important thing. And now I needed to find him, to bring him back, to reunite him with his mother so that maybe, just maybe, she might finally be able to forgive me. I had the thought that if I could bring Dillon back to her, it might be possible for me to erase the look of horror that had contorted her features when she’d discovered how I had left him alone.

  ‘You haven’t used up all your favours with the Guards, have you, Spence?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Harry.’

  ‘The DVDs you got for me. I went through them. I found what I was looking for.’

  ‘That’s wonderful, Harry,’ he said sarcastically. ‘But I still don’t know what the fuck you’re up to.’

  ‘It’s a licence plate. I need to find out who owns the car and where they live.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, not really, Harry. What the fuck? Who do you think I am, Columbo? I don’t have any favours left – I’m all out of favours.’ He was exasperated. Something was annoying him, something apart from me. I had a hunch. Money was always on Spencer’s mind. It was probably that. I ordered another round and pressed on.

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘It always is with you.’

  I wasn’t entirely sure where Spencer’s contacts came from or why any Guard would do anything for him. He’d always been vague on that. He had a variety of interests, as he called them. He was part of a syndicate. They owned a horse together. Went to Cheltenham to watch it race. That kind of lark. McDonagh owed him money because he’d borrowed some to bet on one or two horses too many. I got that story piecemeal. He also owned or had an interest in a property that may or may not have been a brothel. The client list included names he could use. It’s not like he would, because he knew there’d be consequences for him if he did. But he could, if he had to, if you know what I mean. Something like that. It was a tangled mess really, and if he did a favour for someone, they’d usually do their best to help him out with something. But whatever tangle Spencer was in, I needed him. I have to tell him, I thought. It’s the only way.

  ‘Spence?’

  ‘What?’

  My mouth dried up, and my voice didn’t sound like my own. It was as if I were watching myself act and talk in this strange manner. ‘I saw Dillon,’ I said.

  ‘Who now?’

  ‘I saw Dillon. At the demonstration. The day I moved out of the studio. My son. I saw him.’

  Spencer didn’t seem to be taking in the weight of what I was saying.

  ‘He was with a woman, holding her hand. They were walking up O’Connell Street.’

  ‘If you have a fiddle, I have a cello.’

  ‘Spencer, do you hear what I’m saying? I saw my son. He’s alive.’

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Not this again.’

  ‘I saw him. I saw Dillon.’

  The barman looked over to our table. I had raised my voice. Spencer signalled to me to keep it down. ‘Now, hold on a minute, chief. Have you been taking your fucking meds?’

  That was a cheap shot, and Spencer knew it. The six weeks I had spent in St James’s had been a nightmare. I had been diagnosed with depression and a thought disorder. It’s not something I liked people to joke about. But I let it go; I pressed on. ‘Spencer, I saw him. I saw Dillon, and I need that fucking licence plate traced, and you’re my man.’

  For a time, Spencer said nothing. He looked about himself as if he were consulting invisible presences, waiting for their approval. They gave it, apparently. Because the next moment, he was smiling and asking me, ‘I’m your man?’ I didn’t think he was mocking me.

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Harry, we need to talk. Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I’ve found my son, Spencer, that’s all.’

  Spencer peered at me seriously. The lopsided sneer erased itself from his face. A look of concern came over it, and then a sudden exhaustion.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, his voice low, his eyes liquid and staring. ‘You’ve been going through some kind of a rough patch – I can see that. You’ve been under strain. The house, Robin’s work being cut back. Shit, I didn’t realize how tough things were till you told me you were closing up the studio. Don’t you think there’s a chance that this, this … sighting,’ he said, alighting on the word, ‘might have something to do with that? You wouldn’t be the first man who thinks he sees things that aren’t there. Christ, think of all the fuckers who spot ghosts or UFOs or moving statues of the Virgin Mary. Paranoid delusions. The thing is to recognize them for what they are – a sign. A wake-up call that you need to destress, sort your head out, slow down.’

  ‘A wake-up call to destress? Can you even hear yourself? You sound like a self-help book. Do me a favour and spare me the amateur psychobabble, will you?’

  He nodded his head slowly, looked down at the glass in his hand and seemed to consider what I’d said. We had been good friends over the years. He was loyal. One of the few visitors when I was in hospital. One of the few who was not scared off by my monologues or dismissals, my lack of insight, my psychosis. It felt as if we had known each other all our lives. But then sometimes, I felt like my life had started only when I began art college and met Robin and Spencer, and took the apartment Spencer offered me to rent.

  I waited a long moment for him to speak. Then he looked up at me, one eyebrow raised, a grin starting out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve told your wife any of this?’ he said.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Nope?’

  ‘Just you.’

  ‘I’m fucking privileged.’

  ‘So, are you going to help me, or what?’

  He sighed heavily, considering the question, then put his glass down. Reaching into his jacket, he took a cigarette packet from the pocket and ripped the back off it.

  ‘Write the number down on the back of that. I’ll get on to Fealty.’

  I cast a look of gratitude across the table, then scribbled down the digits I had memorized.

  He picked up the card and squinted at it. ‘This’ll cost you, by the way.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ll want payback. It’s not something for nothing.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  He could have asked me for anything right then and I would gladly have given it. Anything to get Dillon back. Nothing was too high a price.

  We sat in silence then. In the corner of the room, a TV was on, tuned to a news report. A man was driving a cherry picker into the gates of the Irish parliament as a protest against the government. The high-reaching crane had all sorts of slogans on it. I couldn’t make them all out. But one of them read ‘anglo toxic bank’, and another had something to say about Bertie Ahern’s pension plan. One more I caught out of the corner of my eye: ‘all politicians should be sacked’.

  ‘Apparently
,’ Spencer said to me, nodding his head at the cherry picker, ‘he was a property developer.’

  We parted company then. I stood on the slushy pavement, watching Spencer’s hulking form as he ambled down Pearse Street, his overcoat pulled tight against the cutting wind coming in off the quays. I had done what I had intended to. Tapped Spencer for his contacts in the Guards. Set in motion my plan to track the licence plate of that car. I should have been filled with a sense of accomplishment, but instead I just felt deflated. Some remnants of nervous energy still whisked around inside me. I knew I should go home, try to patch things up with Robin. I wasn’t exactly sure how I would explain it – my wilful refusal to take her calls or reply to her messages. How could I justify that? This strange urge to focus all of my being on this one slippery goal, finding my son – this urge demanded that I turn my back on my other responsibilities, so afraid was I that I would become distracted and lose my nerve. So I didn’t call her. I didn’t return home. Instead, I went to Mary Street to see Javier.

  Javier is a fortune-teller. He runs his operation out of a basement beneath a hair salon. He’s well known. He reads tarot cards and palms and does charts and all that kind of thing. He’s nothing like a crystal-ball reader in a tent. He is one of the few people to have given me hope over the years. I rang, and his assistant said he could fit me in for a half-hour reading.

  The steps down to his place always give me goosebumps. A woman sat in his waiting room, ahead of me. She had travelled from County Clare, she told me. ‘He’s the best.’ She looked distraught, and I wondered what she was hoping to learn in this basement, what supernatural knowledge was about to be imparted to her and whether it would change her life.

  I had promised Robin I wouldn’t waste money on Javier again, after our last wedding anniversary. She was sensible like that. But that was before I had seen Dillon.

  Javier welcomed me into the back room. It was dimly lit, with a table and two chairs, the table draped with a red velvet cloth. I could smell the odour of a rich, dark tobacco. Javier had a calming presence. His hair was greying, and he spoke with a heavy Spanish accent. He asked me what sort of reading I would like. Years ago, I had become fearful of the tarot cards. As well as a sizable occult section, in the bookshop, Cozimo had kept a deck of tarot cards in our apartment above it; he sometimes dabbled. But whenever I went near them, they scared me. I’m not sure why. I remember him playing with them on our kitchen table one morning. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I am not going to tell you your future. I don’t need the cards to do that.’