Boys Don’t Cry
Fíona Scarlett
For my Da – who continues to inspire me every day
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Finn
Joe
Author’s Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Ice cream. Any flavour. Chocolate, banana, strawberry, or that one that has all three striped together, sandwiched in a wafer. A screwball from Mr Whippy with double sauce and sprinkles, begging Ma for a euro and legging it down the concrete steps, praying that I’d get there before he left, following the music-box sounds of ‘Greensleeves’, or ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’, or ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’.
Being pushed in a Tesco trolley round the back of the flats. Joe giving us all a shot, but letting me stay the longest. Pushing me faster. Spinning and laughing while crashing into the overflowing double-steel bins.
Mrs O’Sullivan reading Roald Dahl. The Witches. The Twits. Matilda. Out loud. Putting on the voices. Letting me borrow them after and never asking for them back.
My red Transformer, the one Da got me for my birthday. Even with its left wheel missing and scraped-off face, it was still my favourite.
Swimming in the sea at Dollymount Strand. Making sandcastles then kicking them down. Poking the washed-up jellyfish with a stick and standing on the dead ones.
Ma warming my pyjamas on the bedroom rad, tucking me in, making sure to plug in my Stormtrooper night light. Always.
Joe flying down Captains Hill, with me on the handlebars. Joe sneaking me into 15s films at The Plex, with plastic bags of popcorn, fizzy worms and Coke. Joe sharing his headphones and turning up the volume when Da took chunks out of Ma.
I still wish they’d let Da visit.
I wish they’d let me home.
I wish they’d serve Big Macs here instead of cabbage, mash and ham.
Dr Kennedy said to write it all down, the things I’ll miss the most. It’s supposed to be part of the process, help me transition. But trying to fit everything in that’s busting out the top of my head is sending me mental. Plus nobody has come out and said it yet. Not the nurses, not Dr Kennedy, not Ma.
But Joe asked me if I was afraid.
That’s when I knew.
Joe
I’m getting closer now and the four towers are in view: Gandhi, Mandela, King and Bojaxhiu. Each tower named after someone who inspired change, hoping that the names would rub off on the dossing sponging bastards who existed there.
Of course we live in Bojaxhiu, or The Jax as it’s more fondly known. Could they not just have fucking called it Teresa?
It’s a scorcher, which means everyone is out getting that healthy Irish burn. Lads bare-chested, toddlers stripped to their nappies, and little shits out in force with their water guns and balloons soaking anything that moves.
I get to The Jax and enter the stairwell and the heat has just intensified the unidentifiable bang of the place. The rusted Dublin City Council No Ball Games sign has finally fallen and is fighting for space amongst the discarded syringes and smokes boxes and dried-in gank.
I used to hide funny messages for Finn amongst the endless scribbles of graffiti plastering the walls. He’d spend hours looking for them, searching between Tina is a leg opener and Anto woz here and Jimmy is gay, and would always answer back. That’s how I knew he’d found it, his spider scrawl there right next to mine.
As I’m climbing the stairs David Carthy is in his regular spot, the corner between floors three and four, giving him enough of a head start in either direction if needed. He’s all encased in thick sweet smoke and off his head on whatever-the-fuck sample he’s helped himself to today. He’d better watch it, Dessie Murphy doesn’t do freebies.
‘All right, Joe,’ David calls out as I pass.
‘David,’ I say, nodding, and continue on up.
‘How’s your Da?’ he asks.
‘Fucked if I know,’ I say over my shoulder.
‘Well, you can tell him thanks from me. Business is booming since his holiday chez Joy.’
‘Looks it, yeah,’ I say, and I can see the crimson come to his face and his fist clench but he won’t fucking touch me, no one will. They’re all afraid of Da.
I push my way through onto the landing of floor ten and the wall of the veranda has been repainted. Wimbledon White, according to the tin. Michael from 101B does the honours twice a year. ‘It has to look the part,’ he says.
Dessie Murphy may own the stairwells, but we take ownership of our landings. Welcome mats are placed at doors, window boxes hang from ledges, and Josie from 104B has two little porcelain frogs on either side of her entrance, all the way from Santa Ponsa, she says. Our window boxes lie empty. Ma didn’t plant them this year.
I take a look over the veranda, squinting at the unusually clear blue skies. Dublin Mountains to the left and Dublin Bay to the right. Fuck, you couldn’t pay for that view. In the time before, I’d be legging it in to get Finn and Dart it out to Dollymount; spend the day building sandcastles and swimming in the sea.
I put my key in the door and the smell hits me first, Bacardi and Marlboro Whites, followed closely by the moist, enclosed darkness. I heave apart the curtains, push open the windows and start cleaning up around Ma, who is spread unconscious on the couch. I put one hand behind her head, another across her chest, and roll her onto her side. I get the fleece blanket from Finn’s bed, his favourite Captain America one, and place it over her, tucking it in under her chin. I go to the press under the sink, root around for the black sacks, and there it is, right at the back where I’d left it, cobwebbed-forgotten. I reach out to touch it, but pull myself back, not ready yet to face it.
Finn
‘Finn, you’re in goal.’
‘My arse, I was in last time.’
Myself, Jasmine, Dunner and Shane were the first ones there. We flung our school bags under the bench and stripped off our jumpers, running to mark the goalposts.
We always legged it right on the school bell, to get first shot at The Yard. Each block looked onto it, which meant you could get away with nothing, too many Mas’ eyes staring out through net curtains. That suited us just fine, it kept the older ones away. As for the younger ones? Well, they could go and shite, we could handle them.
It was supposed to be a garden – well, according to Da anyway – and there was a remnant of a burned-out bench to prove his point. But I was glad the council got bored and decided to leave it as it is. You wouldn’t get much football done in a garden, and the wheels of your scooter wouldn’t roll, and you’d probably get auld ones just sitting in it, looking at stuff. No, I much preferred it as it was, all concrete and
gated; it kept it just for us.
‘Penos?’ Dunner asked while taking twelve steps away from goal, trying to mark a spot in the cracking pavement with his heel. ‘Not beyond here or I’ll call cheat!’ he warned, and a Dunner warning was enough. Not that he’d do anything, mind you, but he was just such a moan hole that he’d go on and on about it for ages and drive us all demented.
‘Right so, who’s goalie?’ I asked, folding my arms determinedly. No way was I going in again. No one would look me in the eye. All lined up behind Dunner.
‘Ah lads, come on, I’m shit in goal,’ I said.
‘You’re shit at penos too,’ Jasmine laughed, ‘so it makes no difference.’ The cheeky wagon.
‘Youse owe me. Big time!’ I grumbled as I made my way to goal. ‘And no way am I feckin’ in tomorrow.’
I got my position, bent my knees like I’d seen on the TV, trying to make myself look like I knew what I was doing. But no matter what I looked like, I was crap in goal. I couldn’t catch, I couldn’t block, and I most definitely couldn’t do a long kick-out.
Jasmine was up first. Jasmine was better than the whole lot of us put together. She was better than anyone I knew. She played for the under-sixteen A team at our local club, the boys’ team, even though she was only twelve. She grabbed fistfuls of her fizzing red hair and piled it quickly on top of her head, fastening it with a black elastic band.
‘Jesus, Finn, your nose.’
‘Yeah, Jasmine.’ I could feel it running, but I wasn’t wiping it to let her have free rein on goal.
‘No seriously, Finn, it’s pumping.’
I cupped a hand under my chin, which immediately filled with blood. Pools of it. I lifted the bottom of my shirt and pressed it hard against it.
‘Here, Finn, use this,’ Shane said, throwing his jumper, leaving a lopsided goalpost.
‘It looks bad,’ Dunner said.
The three were crowded around me now. Looking. Worried. I tried to laugh it off, but the blood kept coming. Jasmine ran to get me Ma.
That was sign number one.
Joe
Life just goes on. Sitting here at the front of Mr Murphy’s English class, it’s as if nothing has even happened. Murphy has gone for his five-minute fag break, Johnny Mitchell is piling spitballs torn from the back pages of Macbeth, empty biro shooter at the ready, and Phonsie Dunphy’s blaring Nevermind through his portable Bluetooth speaker. Dunphy is such a pretentious bollox; he doesn’t even know what Nevermind is, or stands for, and I’m pretty sure he can’t name any member of Nirvana other than Kurt, if even that, but hipster code says one must love Nirvana. Fuck hipster bullshit.
They all turned up to the funeral, the teachers too, huddled together unable to conceal their fear of scumbag. Terrified that the cars they left in the unattended car park would be keyed or nicked. They eyed the bars on the church windows as they entered and huddled closer, knowing that no amount of holy water blessing was going to save them. You see, even as I’m here, in the same black crested blazer and pinstriped tie, the others can still smell the scholarship off me.
Look, the lads are all right really, and mostly they keep out of my way. I don’t bother them, they don’t bother me. Now everything sets my nerves on edge. Everything is raw and Dunphy’s music is cracking my skull.
‘Listen, Dunphy, would ya mind turning that off?’ I ask, trying not to show I’m pissed off right. Dunphy acts as if he hasn’t heard me, the prick. He’s just put ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on loop.
‘Seriously, Phons, could ya please just turn it off?’
He smirks and turns the volume up. Playing air guitar to the drum riff. I get out of my seat and right into his face:
‘Turn it the fuck off, Dunphy.’ But Jesus, he just keeps on singing. I give him a push. Full force on his chest, and he’s splayed on the ground and his lensless glasses are busted and my breathing is gone to fuck.
‘You bloody well deserved that,’ Johnny Mitchell shouts from the back to cheers from the others, but all I can think of is that despite my efforts, despite all that I’ve witnessed, I’m just like me Da.
*
‘Joe, I really wish I didn’t have to do this. You know that, right?’ Mr Broderick says while taking out a booking slip. A yellow one. That’s my second one this term, the second one since I started St Augustine’s College just over four years ago.
He was one of the first to call, Mr Broderick was. As soon as he heard the news, he called round to the flat. Sat on our sofa and chatted with Ma. He brought round a lasagne, and Guinness stew, and a big box of biscuits, not once mentioning the state of the place, or the state of us. But here I am, in his office again, and he’s still concerned. Always concerned. That I’m missing classes, that I’m causing fights, that his usual two-page Irish Times spread on inclusion and access and equality will be tainted by my bad news.
‘One more yellow slip, son, and you’re suspended. Do you understand, Joe?’ he says, while using his Murano glass fountain pen to fill in my slip.
He is looking at me now, at his scholarship boy who is not meeting expectations.
‘Do you want to talk to someone, Joe? A professional. I can organise it here in the school, if you’d like? It would be discreet. You could use my office.’
I’m not answering, or listening. Just looking past him and his antique walnut desk and his winged leather-backed chair, to the hall-of-fame pictures of past head teachers, Mr Broderick’s standing out black and white and frameless in a sea of thick gilt and conceited posing.
‘It’s just that Ms Smith has told me you’ve stopped going to your portfolio classes,’ he says.
‘So is that another yellow slip, sir?’ I ask, unable to conceal the crack in my voice. Betraying me.
‘No, Joe. No, it’s not that. It’s just, we’re all worried about you.’ His hand is reaching out. For what – my hand, a fatherly shoulder-pat? I pull my arms in and tuck my hands firmly under my armpits. ‘Look,’ he continues, ‘you need to start facing up to what has happened.’ I keep my head down and pull my arms in tighter, folding myself away from him and what he has to say.
‘I really do think you should talk to someone. You know I’m here, any time, and yes, I’m not an expert, but what I do know is that when grief comes knocking on your door, you have a choice, although it might not feel like it at the time, but I promise you, you do. Are you going to open that door and face it head on, or are you going to keep that door closed, try to lock it all out?’ I can feel my mouth drying, my heart thumping, my hands sweating.
‘Trust me, from experience, locking it out only makes it surge, makes it unbearable.’ The tightening and fluttering at my throat is beginning to swell, but I am fixed, rooted to the chair, not able to move, or breathe, trying to block out what is being said, letting it whitewash right over me.
‘I’m not pretending that I know what you are going through, and yes, you need time to process all that has happened, but you earned your place here, out of hundreds of applicants, not just because of your academic record, but because of who you are, your determination, your grit, and your art, Joe. You’re talented. Really, really talented. Please don’t give up on that.’
I run my thumb over the indented lump of hard skin on the middle finger of my left hand, forever stained with black ink and charcoal that no amount of scrubbing will remove.
‘Will you at least go and talk to Ms Smith? To arrange some catch-up classes?’ he says, holding my gaze. I hold it back.
‘Yes, sir,’ I say, with no intention of going near Ms Smith. She can keep her fucking concern too.
‘All right so, Joe,’ and he’s standing to signal we’re finished, and he’s shaking my hand like an adult.
‘I’m here, Joe. If you need me.’ His hand is still shaking mine. ‘Any time, Joe, I mean it.’ He gives it an extra-firm squeeze and walks me to the door.
But he doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t see.
How can I draw any more, when it was all for
him?
*
Johnny is waiting for me after school. He’s usually on the Dart southbound to his sea-fronted mansion by now. But here he is, sitting on the top step waiting for me. I don’t want his pity.
‘Hey,’ he calls, scrambling to his feet, skipping down the last few steps to catch up with me. ‘Listen, I’ve been meaning to ask you …’ He seems completely oblivious to the fact that I’m ignoring him. I quicken my pace. He keeps up.
‘I’m having a get-together at mine this Saturday. Will you come?’
Is he having a laugh? I’m having flashbacks to Johnny’s eighteenth, his Ma cornering me to tell me she was doing a brunch in The Shelbourne to aid ‘my people’, his Da telling me through billows of cigar smoke what a great young man I was for trying to rise above my station, all the time keeping his eyes fixed on me like a hovering security guard in Penneys.
‘The DJ starts at nine but cocktails are at eight,’ he says.
Jaysus, a fucking cocktail party. Typical Augustine boys bollox. Taking my smirk as confirmation, he slaps my back in prep-boy companionship.
‘Ah no, Johnny, I don’t know now, I’m not really into all that Bloody Mary stuff.’
‘Fuck Bloody Mary, and anyway, we’re only serving gin-based cocktails,’ he says. I look to see if he’s joking. He’s not, but his brace-straightened teeth are smiling at me like a mad yoke.
‘Look, it’s not really my thing.’ Nothing is really my thing any more. I have to get away from him and his smiling face and his niceness. No one can be that fucking nice all of the time. But Johnny is.
‘Come on, I’m not taking no for an answer, and Naoise is only dying to get back into you since last time, she hasn’t stopped going on and on and … oh Christ, Joe, I didn’t mean—’ and his face is flushing and he’s trying to cover up using that word. I laugh. Really laugh, feeling a little bit fucking normal again for the first time in ages.
‘So, you’ll come?’ he asks, relieved that I’m returning back to myself, if even just a little.
Boys Don't Cry Page 1
