Crying in the Dark

by Shane Dunphy

  ‘Their home is a tiny little place,’ Molly continued. ‘Terraced.’

  I shook my head in disbelief. ‘You are trying to tell me that you won’t let Mina have a relationship with this boy whom she obviously adores because he comes from a working-class background? Tell me you’re not serious.’

  ‘There is more to it than that,’ Dirk said irritably. ‘There is the whole issue of the … er … the physicality.’

  ‘The sex,’ I helped him out.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mina is not worldly,’ Molly said. ‘She does not understand the implications of her actions.’

  ‘You are worried that she may get pregnant.’

  ‘Yes. And there are diseases. It is too complex an issue for someone of her abilities. She’s too young.’

  ‘Mina’s seventeen, Molly. I’m not suggesting for a second that she and Jacob should be hopping into bed with one another. Most seventeen-year-olds are, by the way, but that’s another story. They just want to be able to have a relationship out in the open, with your blessing. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.’

  ‘It’s not really your business, Shane, with respect,’ Dirk said.

  ‘You asked me to come out here and help you deal with Mina’s unhappiness and her running away. I believe that I have found the reason for it. Now, you’re telling me that it’s none of my business. I’m confused, Dirk.’

  ‘She has not run now in weeks,’ Molly said.

  ‘She’s been locked in her room! She’s embarrassed and miserable. I’d hardly write that up as a victory.’

  ‘I don’t see that the running away and her confused feelings for this Jacob boy are connected, anyway,’ Dirk said, pouring a glass of lemonade for himself from the ever-present jug.

  ‘I think it’s pretty easy to see the link. She believes, correctly, it seems, that she can’t have a relationship with him because of her disability. So, she runs away to be off by herself and to try and do what “normal” people do. She may even be looking for Jacob for all I know. It seems she goes to working-class areas. Mina feels stigmatized by her condition. She is craving what everyone else has, and, seeing as she’s not allowed to have it here, she looks for it elsewhere.’

  ‘This is purely assumption,’ Molly said, getting visibly more annoyed. ‘You have not asked Mina.’

  ‘I have. She just told me, for God’s sake!’

  ‘We do not have to sit and listen to this rubbish,’ she said. ‘I would like you to leave, please. We were enjoying a pleasant afternoon before you arrived.’

  ‘You’d better go, Shane,’ Dirk said, standing up.

  I stood up too. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, Molly, but please think about what I’ve said. Mina will run off again, because she doesn’t know what else to do. She needs someone to offer her an alternative. It would be lovely if the person to make the offer was you.’

  I nodded at Dirk and left. I had said all that I had come to say anyway.

  Larry sat, facing the wall as I read to him. He’d been that way for two sessions now, but on this particular evening he glanced over his shoulder at me a couple of times, so I thought that perhaps I was starting to make progress. I had read Hansel and Gretel up to where the children had been left in the forest and had followed the trail of pebbles Hansel had dropped, and made their way back home the first time. I read on:

  Once more, there was a great scarcity in all parts, and the children heard their mother saying at night to their father, ‘Everything is eaten again; we have one half-loaf left, and after that there is an end. The children must go; we will take them farther into the wood, so that they will not find their way out again; there is no other means of saving ourselves!’ The man’s heart was heavy, and he thought, ‘It would be better for thee to share the last mouthful with thy children.’ The woman, however, would listen to nothing that he had to say, but scolded and reproached him. As he had yielded the first time, he had to do so a second time.

  ‘He gaveded in again,’ Larry said, his face still pressed against the wall.

  We were in the sitting room, and it was just after eight o’clock in the evening. The other kids and staff were at various points around the house, so we had the room to ourselves. It was quiet and pleasant in the gentle light as night slowly descended. This special time was Larry’s and mine. He had not made any comments on the story before, so I was anxious to capitalize on it.

  ‘Yes. In the story, they seem to be saying, because he gave in the first time, he hadn’t much choice but to give in a second time – I’m not so sure about that, though. I think he probably could have said no, if he’d really wanted to.’

  ‘Their mammy din’ want them no more. She mus’n’a likened them much, hah?’

  ‘I suppose not. It’s hard to say. Sometimes mammys and daddys do bad things, but it doesn’t mean they don’t love their children. It’s really hard for mammys and daddys not to love their children.’

  ‘I bets them kidses …’

  ‘Hansel and Gretel.’

  ‘Yeah, them. I bets they was right mad at them there parents.’

  ‘They went back home though, didn’t they? Even after they’d been left all alone in the forest.’

  ‘Yeah. They did, too.’

  Larry turned around and sat looking at me. I was on a beanbag, with the big, old book open in my lap. I had pulled another bag over for him, but he had curled up in the corner, on the floor. He scuttled over now, and sat on the beanbag next to me, looking at the picture. It showed the bedroom, with the two parents in bed, talking, and Hansel and Gretel in twin beds at the foot of the larger, marital one, also awake and listening. The dressing table in the room was strewn with make-up bottles, perfume, creams and all the accoutrements of a woman who took scrupulous care of her appearance.

  ‘Lookit all that there stuff,’ Larry said, pointing to the cosmetics in the picture.

  ‘All the make-up?’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe if she buyded less of that they could have more t’ate.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Read some more.’

  When the old folks were asleep, Hansel got up and wanted to go out and pick up pebbles, to leave a trail as before, but the woman had locked the door, and Hansel could not get out. Nevertheless he comforted his little sister, and said, ‘Do not cry, Gretel, go to sleep quietly. The good God will help us.’

  ‘He means God up in the sky,’ Larry said.

  ‘Do you think He lives up in the sky?’

  ‘One of the womens in the last place we was in said that there do be this oul’ fella lives in the sky and minds you. Him’s called God.’

  ‘And what do you think of that?’

  Larry shrugged. ‘I dunno. Never did anyt’in’ for us. Maybe He don’ liken’ kids none.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true.’

  ‘I reckon she was lyin’ anyways.’

  ‘A lot of people believe in God.’

  ‘I don’ care abou’ dat now. Read some more.’

  Early in the morning came the woman, and took the children out of their beds. Their bit of bread was given to them. On the way into the forest, Hansel crumbled his in his pocket and often stood still and threw a morsel on the ground. The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they had never in their lives been before. A great fire was made, and the mother said, ‘Just sit there, you children, and when you are tired you may sleep a little; we are going into the forest to cut wood and when we are done, we will fetch you away.’

  ‘She’s lyin’!’ said Larry urgently. ‘They’s gonna leave them there children in the woods again. You shouldn’ do dat to children, so you shouldn’. That’s a awful mean, cruel ting to do.’

  His voice was thick with anger, and I could feel him trembling. He had cuddled into me, his face pressed into my shoulder.

  ‘Want me to stop?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it making you feel a bit bad?’

  He nodded. ‘Little bit. But it’s on
ly a story.’

  ‘Sometimes stories can make us think of things that might have happened to us. That can be hard.’

  He nodded again. ‘These be awful mean parents,’ he said hoarsely.

  They fell asleep, and evening came and went, but no one came to the poor children. They did not awake until it was dark night, and Hansel comforted his little sister, and said, ‘Just wait, Gretel, until the moon rises, and then we shall see the crumbs of bread which I have strewn about; they will show us the way home.’ When the moon came they set out, but they found no crumbs, for the many thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked them all up. Hansel said to Gretel, ‘We shall soon find the way,’ but they did not find it. They walked the whole night and all the next day, too, from morning till evening, but they did not get out of the forest, and were very hungry, for they had nothing to eat but two or three berries, which grew on the ground.

  ‘They must be fierce hungry,’ Larry whispered. ‘I know what that do be like. Me ’n’ Francey use be rale hungry when they lockded us up. They di’n’ use give us hardly anyt’in’ t’ate. You git pains ’fore long, in yer belly. There wasn’ even any water ou’ in that there shed. Sometimes we’d snake out, we’d ’scape, an’ we’d catch us birds ’n’ such, an’ we’d ate them raw. They wasn’ nice, but we wasn’ hungry no more.’

  ‘How did you know how to catch them, Larry? I don’t think I’d be able to catch a bird, no matter how hungry I was.’

  ‘There was this ol’ cat what use come into our yard. We could see him t’rough de window of the shed. We use watch him all the time. He’d come up an’ sit on the window ledge and we could kinda play wit’im t’rough the glass. He were a right nice cat, so he was. See, he’d catch little birds that’d come down to our yard. We seen how he done it. He’d get down rale low on his belly like, an’ snake along on the ground rale slow, and then he’d jump … it took us a long time to get it right, but we was so hungry, we keepded on tryin’. There was a field behind our house that no one never went into, and we’d go in dere. Mammy never founded out about it. We’d go back to the shed ’fore she ever knew we was gone.’

  ‘Just like Hansel and Gretel went back.’

  He looked at me with big eyes, full now of a pained understanding.

  ‘We di’n’ have nowheres else to go.’

  After three days, they reached a little house and they saw that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that its windows were clear sugar. ‘We will set to work on that,’ said Hansel, ‘and have a good meal. I will eat a bit of the roof, and thou, Gretel, canst eat some of the window, it will taste sweet.’ Suddenly the door opened, and a very, very old woman, who supported herself on crutches, came creeping out. Hansel and Gretel were so terrified that they let fall what they had in their hands. The old woman, however, nodded her head and said, ‘Oh, you dear children, who has brought you here? Do come in, and stay with me. No harm shall happen to you.’ She took them into her little house, and good food was set before them. Afterwards, two pretty little beds were covered with clean white linen, and Hansel and Gretel lay down in them, and thought they were in heaven.

  ‘Look at the pi’ture,’ Larry said, pointing at the plate.

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘She’s like the Mammy. She’s older, but look at them ear-rings. And see them shoes she’s a-wearin’. It’s her a’righ’. That there’s the Mammy.’

  It has been a custom in visual representations of fairytales that the criminal, be it male or female (and in fairytales the human representation of evil tends to be female, while the male representation tends to be an anthropomorphic beast – the big bad wolf or the troll or a demonic dwarf), is often depicted as being physically similar to the parent of that sex. This continues right up to J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Captain Hook is the double of Mr Darling, Wendy’s father. It’s hard to know if this is a modern, Freudian interpretation of a child’s fear of their parents, or if it was ever intended by the early storytellers. It’s probably a moot point, though, since it is another element that has been dropped by present-day publishers.

  ‘Yes, I think that she is very like the Mammy.’

  ‘No, she is the Mammy!’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Yeah. She be’s a witch, don’ she?’

  ‘Will I read the next bit?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The old woman had only pretended to be so kind, she was in reality a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the little bread house in order to entice them there. When a child fell into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast day with her. Witches have red eyes and cannot see far, but they have a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near. When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighbourhood, she laughed maliciously, and said mockingly, ‘I have them, they shall not escape me again!’

  ‘Yeah, she does be a witch a’righ’. That ol’Mammy was a witch all the time, so she was. I knowed it.’

  ‘Why did you think that?’

  ‘ ’Cause she was so mean, and made the Daddy do what she wanted and he done it, even though he din’hate them kids like she done.’

  ‘You don’t think the Daddy was that mean, then?’

  ‘No, the Mammy is worse. That’s why she does be a witch. If she hadn’ bin there, that ol’ Daddy prob’ly woulda bin nice ’nough to them there kidses.’

  ‘You seem pretty sure about that.’

  ‘Oh, I know what Mammies is like. They’s much worser than what Daddies is. That ol’Daddy, him’s not a bad ol’ fella really. I tink him’s ascairt of ’er, tha’s the problem.’

  ‘But he’s bigger than her. Why would he be afraid of her, Larry?’

  The boy looked solemnly at the plate, and pointed to the figure of the witch, standing at her doorway in the forest glade where the bread house acted as a beacon for lost children.

  ‘Lookit ’er. See that there face? She lookens small an’ weak an’ old, but she idn’t. Inside of her she’s stronger and wickeder than any man. See how them there kidses is lookin’ at ’er? See how scairt they is? They see wha’ she really do be like. They know. She trickses ’em with her voice, ’tendses to be all nice. But right there, when they sees ’er for the first time, they knows. They knows she’s mean and cruel.’

  ‘Can you tell just by looking at someone that they’re mean or cruel?’

  He was still gazing, rapt, at the painting in the book.

  ‘Oh, yeah, wit some people you can. I knowed wit …’ His voice tapered off.

  ‘Who, Larry? Who did you know who was like that?’

  He shook his head vigorously, as if there were flies inside it that he was trying to quell.

  ‘No. I can’ say. She’ll find out if I telled.’

  ‘You can tell me, Larry. No one can get you here.’

  ‘She can. She ain’ ’fraid o’ nobody. She tole me that if I ever said the tings she done, she’d get me. I’m fierce scairt of her, so I am.’

  ‘Okay. We can talk about it when you’re ready. Will I finish the story?’

  But he stood up, looking distressed, glancing at the window as if expecting to see a wizened face pressed against the glass.

  ‘No. I wan’t’ go t’ my room. I don’ wan’ no more tonight.’

  ‘Okay, Larry. Want me to go up with you?’

  He shook his head and backed cautiously from the room, his eyes fixed on the window all the time. I sat alone in the silence and flicked through the last few pages, looking at the plates in the remainder of the book. I paused on a scene of the witch stoking the oven to roast Hansel. The lines of her face were thrown into sharp relief by the light of the flickering embers, her visage a rictus of spite and menace. The image was so vivid it made me shudder.

  Who was the witch in Larry’s life? The only real possibility was difficult to countenance, and cast an even more unpleasant pallor on the Byrnes’ story. It also led me into the
realms of a societal taboo that was rarely talked about, even in child protection.

  I stood up and looked through the window and across the lawn at the high trees of the overgrown garden behind Rivendell, as a cloud of crows came in to roost and the darkness caught the city in its embrace.

  PART THREE

  Hard Times

  Let us pause in life’s pleasures

  And count its many tears

  As we all sup sorrow with the poor.

  There’s a song that will linger for ever in our ears:

  Hard times, come again no more.

  ’Tis the song, the sigh of the weary:

  Hard times, hard times – come again no more.

  Many days you have lingered, around my cabin door.

  Hard times, come again no more.

  Hard Times BY STEPHEN FOSTER

  (FROM THE SINGING OF WOODY GUTHRIE)

  11

  The piercing sound of my mobile phone ringing cut through fragrant clouds of sleep and brought me to jarring consciousness. I swore loudly and fumbled about on the bedside locker until my hand fell on the jangling, flashing irritant. It was just getting bright outside, which meant it was sometime around five in the morning.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shane, it’s Ben. Did I wake you?’

  ‘No. I was up practising my Tai Chi.’

  ‘Good for you. Mina Henry is missing again. She apparently found out the alarm codes of the house, used them and strolled out the front door some time during the night.’

  ‘She’s run before. Why the hell are you ringing me at the crack of dawn?’

  ‘She left a note this time. It says she’s not coming back. Her parents are distraught, and have been asking for you.’

  ‘The last time I was there, they threw me out. Tell them they can fucking wait until a civilized hour.’

  ‘Shane, the note she left could be construed as suicidal.’