This Is Now

by Ciara Geraghty

  Inside the parcel were things he had left behind in her apartment. Ordinary things like socks, a box set of The Wire, a pinstriped tie he kept for emergencies, a toothbrush, a packet of razor blades, a book on fly fishing.

  At the bottom was her key to his house.

  A brief note, written on a yellow stickie. I think that’s everything. Martha.

  The writing was not like hers. It was written in small capital letters. It left nothing to the imagination.

  He stopped calling.

  He concentrated on work. There was a new case. There was always a new case. He was grateful for that. Joan got married and he danced with her, the way Martha had shown him.

  He concentrated on work.

  She wasn’t on the news anymore and part of him was glad about that. It might have distracted him from the job. Seeing her face.

  He had put her in the recovery position.

  That’s how he had left her.

  On her couch.

  In the recovery position.

  Nineteen

  The pecking order was clear from the beginning. The pecking order was always clear. There was the leader, his followers, the hangers-on, the outcasts.

  The leader was short and stocky. There was something barely contained about him. Like an active volcano, ready to erupt at a moment that could never be anticipated. He was seventeen, long black hair and a face that would have been pale had it not been for the clusters of spots that spread from the bottom of his neck to the top of his forehead, many of them raw red or bleeding from picking and scratching.

  One of the staff had introduced Roman to the boys earlier, at dinner.

  ‘This is Roman Matus,’ the guard said. They didn’t call themselves guards but that’s what they were, all the same, with their keys jangling from a metal ring attached to their trousers.

  The guard introduced Roman to the leader first, as if he, too, knew the pecking order. The boy – Marcus – stood up, extended his hand. ‘Ah, Roland, my uncle Jimmy told me to expect you. Asked me to extend his warmest wishes for your continued rude health.’

  ‘It’s Roman,’ the guard said. Marcus ignored him.

  ‘Your uncle Jimmy?’ Roman said, as the boy pumped the hand that Roman had offered.

  ‘Jimmy Carty? You two are acquainted, I understand? He says to tell you that your mother’s fine. He’s taking real good care of her.’

  The boy winked at Roman, resumed his seat as the guard continued the introductions. The room seemed to shrink, the walls pressing in on him, making it hard to breathe. He nodded at each of the other boys in turn until the guard had finished, couldn’t remember any of their names. Beads of sweat bloomed across his upper lip and he struggled not to wipe it, not to draw attention to his fear. His weakness. The guard nodded towards an empty seat near the end of the table, between a fat black kid and a skin-and-bone Romanian with thick-lensed glasses.

  The outcasts.

  Roman sat on the chair, made a great play of being hungry, concentrated on eating, stuffing food into his mouth. It tasted neither good nor bad. It tasted of nothing as he sat there and ate and thought about Marcus, the leader, being Jimmy’s nephew, being in Trinity House, being locked in with him. He knew it was not a good thing but wondered how bad it might be. He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. All around him, the sound of the other boys. No one spoke to him. It would be up to him to speak first. To announce himself, so that they could categorise him. A follower, a hanger-on, an outcast. He knew how the system worked. He said nothing. Kept eating. After dinner, he went to his room.

  He tried to formulate a plan but all he came up with was to keep to himself, keep quiet, keep out of trouble. That sounded like advice a father might give. When Roman was younger, he had assumed his father would arrive. One day. There would be a knock on the apartment door in Puck and Roman would answer it and there he’d be. His father. Standing there, smiling. And Roman would know it was his father because ... well, he would just know. People knew things like that, didn’t they?

  Everything was different now. He was different. Besides, how could anyone find him here? In this room that locked from the outside.

  There wasn’t much in the room. A bed, a locker, a wardrobe. The window was small and square, set high in the wall, the glass divided by three bars. Through it, he could see only cloud. He lay on his bed and watched the clouds edging past.

  In the morning, the rattle of keys, the click of the lock, the door swinging open.

  The place was set up to resemble a normal house. One like Meadhbh’s or Adam’s. There was a kitchen, a dining room, a room with a telly and a room that they called a games room, with a pool table and a PlayStation and a bookshelf.

  The sound of doors being opened, shut, locked, unlocked echoed along every corridor. It was not like a normal house.

  The games room was where the other boys hung out after school. When Roman arrived there, the leader was bent across the pool table, expertly sliding the cue back and forth along the V he had made between his thumb and forefinger, the followers and hangers-on laughing at something he had said.

  Roman made his way along the wall, kept his eyes on the ground, made no sound. He stopped near the bookshelf. There were about ten boys in the room. Aged between fifteen and seventeen, Roman guessed.

  Marcus hit the white ball with the tip of his cue, potted two reds and straightened, looked at Roman.

  ‘Look what we have here, boys. A Polak who reads,’ he said, smiling and moving towards Roman.

  The cue stick was tucked under his arm and when Marcus stopped the tip of it was inches from Roman’s neck.

  ‘Perhaps you could start a book club, Roland?’ he said to Roman. ‘Wouldn’t that be a pleasant way to pass an evening, boys?’

  The followers smirked and the hangers-on laughed, too loud. The outcasts concentrated on the television screen, relieved that their numbers had swelled, giving them better odds.

  Roman told himself to say nothing. To ignore Marcus. Instead, he ignored his own advice. ‘My name is Roman,’ he said.

  ‘Do I look like somebody who gives a shit what your name is?’ Marcus stepped closer to Roman, whispered the words so close to his ear that Roman could feel flecks of spittle land on it.

  ‘Everything alright over there, lads?’ The guard – a bulky man with a bald head and a white face, vast as a vacant car-park – looked towards them.

  Marcus smiled. ‘Just talking to Roland here about the possibility of starting a book club.’

  ‘A book club?’ The guard looked dubious.

  ‘We’ll talk about it some more later, OK, Roland?’

  He was pretty sure he wouldn’t stand a chance against Marcus. Roman was nearly as tall as him but Marcus had bulk. And he had his followers. And hangers-on. That was like an army compared to what Roman had.

  Roman didn’t think he was a good fighter. He had only ever fought one time.

  The first time Pieter Adams had called Roman a bastard was when Roman was seven. Babcia was in the kitchen, hacking a head of cabbage with an enormous knife, when Roman returned from school that day. Asked her what it meant.

  ‘Who said such a terrible word?’ Babcia let go of the knife. It clattered against the wood of the table. She put her face in her hands and shook her head. She’d probably start crying next. Babcia cried about everything. She always said the same things when she cried about Mama. The high hopes she’d had for her. Before The Trouble.

  Roman wasn’t sure what The Trouble was but he had an idea that it might be something to do with him. Or maybe his father.

  Once, he asked Babcia if she had known his father. ‘Ha,’ Babcia spat. ‘Your own mother barely knew him. A fly-by-night, that fellow. Here today, gone tomorrow.’

  Pieter had several theories, all of which he liked to share with Roman and the rest of the class.

  By the time Roman was eleven, he knew what bastard meant. And illegitimate. They were words that Pieter had hissed at him so often, Roman no long
er heard them. But then, Pieter came up with a new word.

  Whore.

  ‘You don’t know who your father is because your mama’s a whore.’

  Roman couldn’t let that go. Not that. ‘I’ll fight you after school. Usual place.’

  There was an initial sense of satisfaction following the declaration. Pieter was the one who picked the fights. That was the way it had always been.

  Roman’s declaration was issued with calm conviction, before he turned and walked away, whistling, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  As if he could beat him.

  There weren’t many rules attached to the fights. You showed up, faced your opponent in the middle of the clearing, where the grass no longer grew with the weight of so many feet. Pieter’s gang counted down from five. And then it began. They didn’t usually last long, the fights. Pieter was the biggest boy in the class. It was the kind of big that would, in later years, run to fat. People said Roman was small for his age. Mama said he was only eleven years old; he had plenty of time to grow.

  Roman didn’t wait for Pieter’s gang to finish the countdown. He charged, bent his head, rammed it into Pieter’s chest. Pieter, taken by surprise, staggered backwards and Roman knew that this was probably his only chance. He kicked Pieter’s shin, pushed his hands into the solid wall of his chest, put what weight he had into the push, kept running and pushing until Pieter toppled backwards, his head connecting with a bare branch, stretching from a cluster of trees like an arm. A helping hand. Pieter lay on the ground, his hand clamped to his head and blood oozing thickly between his fingers. Roman had a moment to feel it. The upper hand. The sensation of a wrong being righted. The sweet feeling of victory.

  And then Pieter’s gang surrounded him, held him by his arms, dragged him towards Pieter, who had staggered to his feet, thick lines of blood oozing down his face, giving him a wild, savage appearance.

  ‘Look what you did,’ Pieter said, pointing to his head as if Roman might not have noticed the blood.

  ‘Good,’ shouted Roman. Then he spat at Pieter although it was a pathetic spit that did not go anywhere near Pieter’s face. ‘And I’d do it again if you had the guts to call your little boyfriends off.’

  Pieter curled both hands into fists. ‘Hold him,’ he had said.

  ‘What’s going on over there?’ the guard asked at breakfast on the third morning.

  Roman bent to retrieve his fork that Marcus had elbowed off the table. He’d waited until Roman’s hand was leaning against the floor before he flattened it with his boot and Roman cried out in pain.

  ‘Are you alright, Roland?’ Marcus asked, poking his head under the table, smirking.

  ‘Sorry,’ Roman said to the guard as he returned to his chair. ‘I was just picking up my fork and I ...banged my head off the table, that’s all.’ The pain in his hand, hidden beneath the table, was loud as a scream. Roman clamped it between his legs, used his left hand as best he could to butter his toast.

  He sat through his afternoon classes, ate dinner, watched television and waited for the bell to ring for bedtime. He couldn’t have told anyone what he ate for lunch or for dinner or what programme he’d watched. He moved from one thing to the next. He felt like a ball in a pinball machine, falling and landing, then falling again.

  He tried not to think about Mama. About Meadhbh. And Adam. They were part of a place that seemed a long way away now. A place that he couldn’t go back to.

  He thought about the man at the bank – Mr Hartmann. He was so old. And the bullet had spun him around, tore through his body. How could somebody that old survive something like that? Sometimes he imagined that the old man did wake up. Did recover. Remembered everything that had happened at the bank that day. What would Jimmy do to Rosa then? What would he get Marcus to do to Roman? Saliva pooled in his mouth like he was about to throw up.

  ‘Are you alright, Roman?’ One of the guards – a woman – put her hand on Roman’s arm as he passed her in the hall. ‘You’re very pale.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Roman said. ‘Thanks.’ He moved on. The realisation that he was alone, that he had never been so alone, settled on him, heavier and heavier, as the second hand crept along the clock face in the games room.

  There had been other small incidents. Nothing that any of the guards noticed. Someone shoved him against the wall of the corridor as he made his way to his classroom. As Roman bent to gather the books that had fallen from his bag, someone kicked one, sent it sliding down the corridor. Roman picked the books up, continued on his way as if nothing had happened. Running on the basketball court during PE, someone hooked a foot around his foot, sent him sprawling. ‘Are you alright, Roland?’ One of Marcus’s gang bent down to where Roman lay on the ground, looked around before landing a kick in Roman’s stomach, leaving him winded and coughing.

  ‘Get up there, Roman,’ called a guard from the sidelines. ‘No histrionics, please. This isn’t football.’

  Now, in the games room, Marcus and his gang were gathered in a corner, bent low over a coffee table, playing cards. Marcus glanced at Roman, sitting by himself on the couch, winked, returned to the game.

  Roman thought about the days. All the days that stretched in front of him. He didn’t know if he could manage them. All the days.

  He had to.

  Roman had seen Jimmy hurt a woman. A drug addict who couldn’t pay. He had punched her face, then walked away, massaging his fist with the fingers of his other hand. He hadn’t watched her fall, didn’t turn as she hit the ground. He had hit her like she wasn’t a woman. Like she wasn’t a person. He had done it and walked away, like it cost him nothing.

  Roman’s breath seemed to be stuck in his chest. He stood up. Left the room. He asked if he could take a shower. He didn’t want a shower.

  He wanted to go home. It was such a childish thought. He knew that. He did not allow himself to cry in the shower. He bit his lip hard, concentrated on the pain and didn’t cry. He squeezed shampoo into his hand, rubbed it onto his hair.

  The door into the bathroom opened. It didn’t lock but there was a light that went on, on the door outside, when someone was in there. Nobody was supposed to come in when the light was on.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Roman’s voice sounded like the voice of a younger boy. It sounded afraid.

  Roman heard the soft creak of rubber soles against the tiled floor. He stood there, under the shower, held his breath. A shadow appeared on the other side of the shower curtain. A silhouette. Then the curtain was yanked across, the rings screeching against the bar, and there was Marcus, standing there, saying nothing, the suggestion of a smile across his narrow face. His eyes travelled halfway down Roman’s body, then he smirked and shook his head. ‘I’d say you have the ladies begging for more. A lot more.’

  Roman wanted to cover himself with his hands. He didn’t. Instead, he stood there, straight up, his arms rigid by his sides. He could feel goosebumps erupt all over his skin. He was scared but he didn’t want Marcus to know, because fuck him.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said. His voice sounded reasonable, like he was fully dressed, having a normal conversation with a normal person in a normal place. The smirk slid from Marcus’s face. He lifted one hand towards his face as if inspecting it. Between his fingers, Roman saw the dull glint of a razor blade. He took a step backwards, the hard metal circle of the shower dial digging into his back. Marcus leaned towards him.

  ‘Do excuse me,’ he said, reaching behind Roman and turning the water off. In the hot, dripping silence that followed, Roman could hear a commotion outside in the corridor. ‘That’s one of my boys, having a convenient epileptic fit,’ Marcus said, nodding towards the door. ‘Keep the guards busy while you and I have a little chat.’

  ‘What about?’ It took effort to keep his voice even. To keep the shake out of it.

  ‘I thought we could talk about your mother, for starters. She’s coming to see her golden boy tomorrow, according to my sources.’ Marcus smiled, flicking the blad
e between his fingers as he spoke.

  Roman said nothing. In his temples, the back of his throat, his ears, he could feel his blood thumping.

  Roman shrugged. ‘So what?’

  Marcus stepped closer so that Roman could see the line of blackheads clustered along the bridge of his nose.

  ‘What are you planning to tell the bitch?’ Marcus’s voice was a whisper now. A hiss.

  ‘I already told Jimmy. I won’t say anything.’

  ‘Jimmy says he doesn’t trust you.’ The blade was between the tips of Marcus’s fingers now, inches from Roman’s face. Roman forced himself not to look at it. He took a breath.

  ‘Jimmy doesn’t have much of a choice, does he?’ It was only when he said it, out loud, that he realised the truth of it.

  Yes, Jimmy had Mama as his bargaining chip, but Roman had something too.

  He had the truth.

  A flicker of surprise crossed Marcus’s face. Roman took the opportunity to sidestep him, reach for his towel hanging on a hook just outside the cubicle. Marcus twitched at the sudden movement, snatched at Roman’s arm, pulled him out of the shower with one hand, the blade in the other.

  Inside Roman’s head, a switch flicking. Like a trip switch when a fuse blows. He had reached some boundary inside himself. The outer limit of what he could manage. What he could take. And what he couldn’t. He launched himself at Marcus, who stumbled backwards, looked for a moment like he might fall but then grabbed onto the edge of the wash-hand basin, righted himself. Roman bore down on Marcus, could feel the grunt of his breath on his face. ‘Come on,’ he roared at Marcus. ‘You want to cut me? Go ahead. Fucking do it.’ His breath was coming in bursts, his chest heaving with it.

  Marcus glanced towards the door. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he hissed. ‘They’ll hear you.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ shouted Roman. He didn’t. He was beyond caring. He raised his arm, made a fist of his hand and landed a punch on Marcus’s face. It was a good punch. Marcus staggered back, hit the wall then sprang forward, the hand that held the blade stretched in front of him. Roman heard the cut rather than felt it. It was a sound like a page getting ripped from a book. His face felt hot and wet and he put his fingers to his cheek, looked at them. It was only when he saw the blood that the pain made itself felt. A searing type of pain. He brought his hand again to his face, ran his fingers along the gash. It went all the way to the corner of his eye and he blinked and now everything was turning first pink, then red and the pain was intense now. It burned a path down his face, hot as a furnace. With his good eye, he saw Marcus coming for him again and he turned to run for the door and Marcus’s hands were on him now, pushing him, and his bare feet slipped against the bathroom tiles, wet with condensation, and he fell forward and the last sound he heard was that of his head – the side of his head – cracking against the edge of the wash-hand basin and he saw the floor coming towards him now, rising to meet him. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact.