“This country’s moral heritage?” Green Boy sneers. “What would you know about the morals of my country?”
“With all due respect, this is still a Catholic country.”
“Is this a wind-up? Jesus feckin’ Christ, man. Have you been living under a rock or what? I dunno what kind of Ireland you came here for, but we’re more or less done with the Bible-bashing bullshit. Equal marriage? Repeal the Eighth? News to you, mate?”
Green Boy keeps getting louder, but the Americans stay icy, polite. I expect Fiona to come running back, but she doesn’t. She stands there, her body language wary, curious. I feel afraid for her, suddenly. I start quietly slipping my jeans on underneath my huge skirt, the taffeta rustling noisily as I do.
One of the older men hears it and turns around, taking in Fiona and me for the first time.
“Sir, do you really think it’s appropriate to have school-aged children in your store?” He turns to Fiona. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“It’s … uh, it’s a half-day.”
“And don’t you think you should be doing something more productive and … wholesome with that time?” His eyes scan her body. The dress that was so funny a few minutes ago now feels like proof of some terrible crime. “Where do you go to school?”
“St Bernadette’s.”
“And is that a Catholic school, honey?”
“Umm, kind of.”
“How do you mean, kind of?”
“Like our principal is a nun, but I don’t believe in God.” In saying the word “God”, Fiona seems to regain some kind of courage. “And this shop rocks. There’s nothing wrong with this shop. Morally or any other way.”
Green Boy permits Fiona a tiny smile. This spurs her on even more.
“And don’t call me honey. Not if you’re going to call him sir.”
He smiles at her, his lip curving tightly inwards.
“Of course,” he says, then turns his attention to Green Boy. “If you’re not going to listen to me, I’m afraid I’ll have no choice.”
“No choice?” he spits back. “What are you going to do?”
They stare at one another wordlessly for a second, and I suddenly remember nature documentaries about alpha predators.
“Well. I must be going. Have a nice day, girls. Why don’t you take a pamphlet from one of our boys here?”
A waxy blue brochure is thrust into my hands, and they’re gone. Children of Brigid, it says in big, proud letters. There are photographs of teenagers being baptized in picturesque outdoor lakes.
“Vomit,” I say, breaking the silence that had fallen between me and Fiona. I pass it to her.
“Gross,” she replies, her voice still faintly shaken. “Still, at least the blond one was good-looking.”
“They all kind of looked the same to me.”
“Let’s go run those lines,” she says. “This wedding dress is giving me a rash.”
“Yeah,” I agree, the fun of dressing up now strangely deflated.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WE END UP IN BRIDEY’S, A STICKY OLD CAFE WHERE A POT OF tea for two people is only a euro, and a slice of apple tart is two. It only has two kinds of customer: old people, and arty types who are on the dole. We sit on a musty green sofa, the tinned apples sliding across my tongue. I read Othello and Fiona does Desdemona. It doesn’t seem that great a part, if I’m honest: a lot of her thrashing around and saying that she would never be unfaithful. There’s no denying it, though: Fiona is good. She does something with her voice, making it tremble in some places, making it strident in others. I hear her giddy voice.
“Yet I fear you, for you are fatal then!” she says, grasping my hand. “When your eyes roll so: why I should fear I know not, since…”
She pinches the bridge of her nose again. “Give me the line.”
“Since guiltiness…”
“Since guiltiness I know not; but yet…”
Another nose pinch.
“But yet I feel…” I prompt her. “C’mon, you know this.”
“But yet I feel love?”
“No.”
“Come on, just give me the whole line.”
“Fine,” I say, standing up and gesturing with the sheets of paper. I put on a crazy theatrical voice, like a drunk Ian McKellen. “Since guiltiness I know not, but yet I feel I fear!”
“Maeve,” a voice comes from behind me. A voice that’s all too recognizable. I turn around.
“Roe.”
We stare at each other wordlessly for a moment. He isn’t in his school uniform either. He’s wearing a scarlet bomber jacket that would almost look sporty if the collar wasn’t leopard print.
“Hey,” I say. “How are you?”
Roe doesn’t respond. He just blinks at me. It isn’t until Fiona jumps up to shake his hand that he makes any move at all.
“Hi, you’re Roe, right? I’m Fiona. I’m so sorry about what’s going on with your sister. I’m sure you must be having a terrible time.”
Everything she’s saying is technically correct and totally polite, but the way she’s saying it is so rushed and manic that it’s only adding to the mounting pressure between us.
But it does its job. It snaps Roe out of his shock at seeing me. He takes Fiona’s hand for a quick shake, then drops it and turns back to me.
“Hey. Not good, actually,” he says. “I’m not exactly sleeping very well, as you can probably imagine, and Mum spends her evenings crying so loudly that I’ve started doing my homework in here. But I see you’ve taken this, too. Should have seen that coming.”
“Roe, I’m so sorry about Lily. But you have to believe me, that tarot reading I gave her—”
“Jesus, Maeve –” he runs his hands through his dark curls, and scrunches them tightly in his fist at the crown of his head – “you think this is about your fecking tarot cards? You abandoned her. You were her only friend and you knew she was vulnerable and you left her wide open. Now there’s some weirdo…”
His voice cracks at this. There are purple lines under his eyes, a spiderweb of anxiety on his pale skin.
“Now there’s some weirdo who probably has my sister bundled into a van somewhere, doing God knows what to her. Do you know the stuff I’ve had to hear about, in the last week? Have you ever had a total stranger in your house, talking to your parents about sex trafficking? They went through her things, Maeve. Her sketchbooks. Her fantasy novels. Trying to make out like she … like she’s the freak, just because she likes drawing. Because she likes making stuff up.”
I suddenly remember Lily’s sketchbooks. Giant mechanical birds. Steam-punk piglets, with cogs for noses. The most startling, creative stuff you can think of, and I haven’t even seen them in a year. I can’t imagine how amazing they are now.
“I’m sorry, Roe. I don’t know what to say, except I’m sorry.”
“I’m only her brother. What the hell was I supposed to do? You’re not meant to be close to your sister. Not at this age. I always thought we’d come back together when we were older. That’s how it’s supposed to go. But now I’m never going to see her again. Because you … because you had better people you wanted to be friends with.”
“You will see her again, Roe. You will,” I protest, my eyes filling with tears. What in the hell have I been playing at? Running around town with Fiona Buttersfield while Lily’s life is in danger?
“But worse than that,” he says, his voice harsh again, “is that I thought we were friends, Maeve. I could have really used a friend. But I didn’t hear a peep out of you.”
“The school told me not to get in touch,” I protest. “My parents, too. They said not to talk to you. That you were going through enough. I wanted to call you, Roe, honestly. I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“Whatever, Maeve. I have to go find somewhere else to study,” he says. “Believe it or not, I still have a Leaving Cert this year. It was nice to meet you, Fiona.”
And with that, he’s gone.
I sit back
down, staring straight ahead.
“Maeve,” Fiona says tentatively. “He’s just mad. He didn’t mean that.”
“No, he does,” I say. “He really, really does.” I drop my face into my hands, and start to cry.
Fiona puts an arm around me, rubbing my back with her hand. She doesn’t say much, which I’m grateful for. A new onslaught of snotty, soupy tears pours out of me whenever I order myself to stop.
“Sorry,” I say through choked sobs. “I’m sorry. You can go. Just leave.”
“Pal, I’m not going to leave you here. Not after that.”
“I deserved it, though.”
“Maybe. He didn’t have to go in on you, though. Christ.”
I hold some coarse paper napkins to my eyes, the cheap paper scratching at my skin.
“What happened between you and Lily?” Fiona asks quietly.
I bite my lip, trying to find the words. How can I explain how bad a friend I am to the first real friend I’ve made in years?
“We used to be best friends. We grew up together. But we had one of those intense, weird best-friend relationships where things that were funny or interesting to us were weird and gross to other people. And when we were in third year, I decided that I would rather be popular than be friends with Lily. And I started, sort of … cutting her off.”
Fiona doesn’t say anything, just raises her eyebrows silently.
“Just, you know, not inviting her to stuff. Hoping that if I was just casually mean to her, she’d get the hint and find some other people to be friends with. But she never did. So last year, I…”
I trail off. Is Fiona really ready to hear about what a horrible person I actually am?
“Look,” Fiona says, her arm still around me, “I don’t know why Lily is missing. I don’t know if she’ll come back. But whether she does or doesn’t, you can’t beat yourself to death over how you acted when you were thirteen. Yes, it was stupid and shallow. But, once again: you were thirteen. I got nits when I was thirteen.”
“Nits? At thirteen?” I say, mock-horrified, still sniffling through tears. I squash the urge to correct her. Maybe I started distancing myself from Lily at thirteen, but I dealt the killing blow only a year ago, at fifteen. There are girls in some countries who are married by fifteen.
“Hey, I’m not judging you, friend-dumper,” she nudges me. “Or are you going to dump me now, too?”
“Nah,” I reply, nudging her back. “You can stay.”
We leave Bridey’s some time later. The dark February evening is already settling in, navy as the school uniforms balled up in our bags. Fiona’s arm is looped through mine, protective and strong.
“It’s only half four,” she says. “D’you wanna swing by Basement again? I saw a basket of weird earrings I wouldn’t mind going through.”
“Sure,” I say, and we turn through the cobbled side- street until we’re back at the crumbling behemoth of a shop again.
Only this time, we’re not alone.
Outside the shop is a throng of people, forty at least, all shouting and holding signs up.
“Are they singing?” Fiona asks, her ear cocked to the air.
“They’re chanting,” I reply, utterly dumbfounded.
Each syllable punches through the air, falling into a hard, practised rhythm. We inch closer, keeping our arms linked, our grip tightening on each other. We don’t speak, keeping our ears trained on the crowd.
“OUR! MORALITY! IS NOT! FOR SALE! OUR! MORALITY! IS NOT! FOR SALE! OUR! MORALITY! IS NOT! FOR SALE!”
“What in hell? Where did this come from? Is this…?”
“Yes,” I agree, before she even has the words out. “I think it is.”
“Those guys? Those Americans? Are they here?”
I stand on my tiptoes. I’m a good bit taller than Fiona, so I can see above heads a little easier. I don’t see the Americans. What I do notice is even more disturbing.
“Everyone here is our age.”
“Yeah,” she nods. “And look at the signs.”
I peer closer. They all say “de-Basement” and have a big red “X” over the word. Clever.
At the front of the crowd, Green Boy is trying to confront the crowd while an older woman – presumably the owner – talks frantically on the phone, keeping a worried eye on the crowd.
Fiona and I edge closer to the front, the chanting still vigilantly on beat.
“OUR! MORALITY! IS NOT! FOR SALE!”
Protesting, in one form or another, is a thing you get used to in this city. Here and all over Ireland, I expect. During the abortion referendum a few years ago, the streets were littered with photos of baby hands, baby feet, baby heads. Baby anatomy threading through the street lamps. People with loudspeakers yelling about the rights of the child. Before that, it was the marriage-equality referendum. Joanne took me to a protest where a man stood on a stage and talked about the rights of the family, the importance of marriage, the eyes of God. I held Joanne’s hand and we shouted at him until we were hoarse.
But this is different. This isn’t a referendum. It’s a shop.
Why are these people so young? Why are they protesting about a clothes shop that sells the occasional rubber harness and novelty bong? This kind of stuff has been part of the city for as long as I can remember. Clothes shops that sell photocopied zines and bad CDs at the till. Music shops that sell green LEGALIZE IT! T-shirts. The city is big enough to have a few different alternative “scenes”, small enough that the most talented people in that scene eventually leave. Some of my earliest memories are of Pat coming home in a rage because the singer in his band was leaving to pursue a career in Dublin. Or London. It was always either Dublin or London.
Then Pat left. And Cillian. And Abbie. Now it’s just me and Jo, and I’m sure she’ll be gone pretty soon, too.
“Do you want to hold a sign?”
A short, toothy girl of about eighteen is trying to shove a placard into my hands.
“It’s just, I really need a pee,” she continues.
“Piss off,” I say, shoving it back towards her. She teeters, and Fiona puts an arm out to stop her falling. She gives me a sharp elbow in the ribs.
“Excuse me, why are you protesting this shop?”
“Aren’t you protesting, too?”
“No. We like this shop.”
“Well, do you know that they sell drugs to kids here?”
Me and Fiona look at each other in utter astonishment.
“What?” we say in unison.
“Yeah. The whole thing is a front.”
“Who told you that?”
“It’s all online. It was on the Facebook group. The See-Oh-Bee group,” she adds shortly, seeing our blank looks. “Look, are you going to hold this or not? I really need to pee.”
“No.”
The girl glares at us, tucks her sign under her arm and stalks into the McDonald’s on the other side of the street. As my eyes follow her, I catch a flash of scarlet at the corner of my vision and feel a spark run through me.
Roe is standing outside the McDonald’s, staring at the mob with his mouth open. Our eyes meet. I put a hand up, palms flat, fingers straight. A gesture that is both “I see you” and “I’m not a part of this”. He watches me for a second, then looks away.
A few seconds later, the girl with the sign emerges from the McDonald’s looking furious. My guess is that they wouldn’t let her use the toilet without buying something. She looks at Roe in his red bomber jacket trimmed with leopard print, his school bag covered in badges, his hair long and curly. Everything in her body language is hotly, avidly disapproving.
Leave him alone, I demand silently, my inner voice sharp and protective. Don’t say a word to him.
The girl watches him for a moment, spits on the ground in front of him, and then crosses the street to rejoin the protest.
“Come on,” Fiona says. “Let’s get out of here before someone sees us with these nutters.”
“Sure,” I say. When I gla
nce back to find Roe, he’s gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET ABOUT LILY. BUT WITH FIONA around, it becomes possible to forget about witchcraft, the tarot and the Housekeeper card. I get email updates from Raya Silver’s Patreon account that I delete immediately.
“Why don’t you just buy more cards?” Fiona asks.
Why don’t I? They’re not very expensive, after all, and I’m sure the woman in Divination would be delighted to help me pick out a new packet. But I feel frightened of that side of me now. Of the WITCH branded into my rucksack. Frightened that those first years who are afraid to come near me have a very good reason.
Because it’s not just that I was good at memorizing cards, or telling people what they wanted to hear. When the cards were in my hands, I felt like I had discovered some part of myself that was better off hidden. Something troublesome and strange, thorny and not completely under my control.
“… she’s always been a bit of a bitch of course, but once she started getting a bit of attention for that witchy shit, she got really nasty…”
There was a truth to that, I think. When I had the cards, the girls in my year seemed silly and small. Their problems boring, their fights stupid. They exhausted me. Something about the tiny spark of power the cards gave me made me feel apart from the rest.
I couldn’t feel any more distant from my year group than right now. People are still deeply invested in Lily’s disappearance. Fliers with her face on are everywhere, a photo from our Junior Cert results. I wonder if they cropped me out, or whether Lily had cut me out long before.
Girls start coming to school with wild, exciting stories about being followed home from school by a vast and inconsistent variety of strange men. At first the guards were interested in these stories, but it became clear pretty quickly that the younger girls were getting weirdly swept up in the strange romance of being kidnapped. No one ever wanted to be like Lily, but now suddenly, everyone sort of does. There is a kind of glamour to being “chosen”, I think. I understand it, but it still makes me feel sick.
All Our Hidden Gifts Page 9
