‘You asked if she was going to call Louisa Ma. Did you not think that might have hurt her? She’s at home now crying her heart out. Do you have no sensitivity? Our ma will always be our ma but we need to move on. Louisa is our friend. She is a good woman and is good to Alice and that’s all that matters, not what we’re going to call her when she’s married to our father.’
Luke has tears in his eyes because boys like Luke are allowed to cry and weep. If the grown-ups saw him all the women would crowd round him and tell him what a wonderful boy he is, and the boys who made him weep would be made to feel bad because he’s too thin to beat up and too clever to argue with. Luke feels a lot older than the rest of us, like a little man, though there are only a few years between us all. One day we will have all caught up to each other in age and I wonder if I will still feel like Luke is too good for a hiding. The truth is, you can’t be punching the likes of Luke, it’s against some kind of law. It would be weak, a bit like Fat Ralph. You can get mad at Fat Ralph. You can push him about, give him Chinese burns and wedgies, but you can’t fight him. It wouldn’t be fair.
I wonder if I should say sorry to Dirty Alice, but since no one asks me to I decide not to bother. I’ll just stay out of her way for a while. It’s what Luke suggests anyway.
TWENTY-THREE
HALLOWEEN IS MY favourite time of year. I take a big goody bag and say ‘Trick or Treat?’ at every door I chap. People like that round here, they don’t want loud knocks and kids opening their bags expecting chocolates dumped into them before running off to the next house to do the same, especially Marianne’s ma. She always asks for a trick and I always do my keepy-uppies. This means I always get good sweets and monkey nuts and toffee apples. Sometimes you get fruit. I hate fruit, but it’s rude to complain. Once I got a toothbrush, that was the worst. One year people brought eggs to smack on people’s windows who didn’t like Halloween, like old folk with weak hearts and who maybe couldn’t afford to buy the treats, so names were taken and arses were kicked. It never happened again.
I am a soldier this year and I have green all over my face. It’s camouflage. Everyone thinks I look good. Paul is a farmer and sings ‘Old MacDonald’ whenever he is asked for a trick and Fat Ralph dresses like a girl. He says he is Marilyn Monroe and everyone laughs so hard they don’t even ask him for a trick, which is a good thing because Fat Ralph can hardly do anything.
Marianne is a girl vampire and Dirty Alice is Charlie Chaplin. Fiona and Tracey go as Siamese twins all stuck together, they look funny like that and I like their costume the best.
Granny is giving out toffee apples and monkey nuts. Her toffee apples have a strange taste but no one cares on Halloween so long as they get something for their bags.
It is dark and cold out but you can’t wear a jacket or you would ruin your look and so everyone freezes. The kids go in groups together and are not allowed to leave the scheme; they have to stay in their own area. Ma makes a big fuss about this. The grown-ups are having their own party at the Bowling Club. Da isn’t very original and goes as a vampire. Ma goes as a playing card, which is very unusual. She looks different from everyone and I think she is the best. She is the Queen of Hearts. My ma is clever to have made her costume. Granny helped her with the hearts though and makes a big fuss until Ma says, ‘I couldn’t have done it without you, Shirley.’ This makes Granny feel better about missing the party and staying at home to give out her toffee apples and monkey nuts. Miss Connor and Mr McFadden go as a doctor and a nurse. Everyone thinks this is hilarious, but you can’t see Miss Connor’s legs too well and her costume doesn’t suit her at all. She is wearing thick white tights and a real nurse’s uniform she borrowed from the infirmary up the road. She even has lace-up shoes and thick-rimmed glasses. She is white from head to toe except her lips, they’re dark red, and so I suppose she is still the most beautiful woman in the world even if she is a boring nurse about to marry boring Mr McFadden.
I am out for hours and when I get home I have the biggest bag of sweets you have ever seen in your whole life. I throw them onto the floor and separate the fruit from the Pick ’n’ Mix, the chocolates from the dainties, and I make a big pile of monkey nuts, which are my favourite. I also make a pile of liquorice and Spangles. I hate them. They make you shite too much. Granny has fallen asleep on the sofa and Ma and Da are out having a good time and so I can stay up late and no one will care. Then Paul MacDonald and Fat Ralph show up at the window and are tapping at it like a couple of eejits.
‘What do you fools want?’ I whisper.
‘Michael,’ says Paul, ‘you have to come to the Woody.’
‘At this time of night? If I get caught outside this house past ten I’m a dead man,’ I say.
‘Please, Michael. It’s Miss Connor. She’s been hurt,’ says Fat Ralph.
I put on my shoes and jacket all the time wondering what Miss Connor is doing in the Woody when she is supposed to be at the Bowling Club pretending to be a nurse.
Paul and Fat Ralph walk quickly. They’re fairly rattled and explaining to me why they were in the Woody, like I’m a grown-up and I need to know.
‘We were just looking for the nudey magazines, Michael, when we heard her. Someone’s hurt her. It wasn’t us.’
When we get to the Woody it’s pitch black but with strange noises, quiet noises, the kind the dark makes. Paul has a torch and flashes it in front of himself.
‘She’s over there.’
Fat Ralph points to where Miss Connor is lying in a heap, a bundle of white. I hear her moaning.
‘Gimme the torch,’ I say to Paul.
He hands it over.
‘Come on,’ I say.
I don’t want to go alone, I’m frightened, but they’re more frightened and won’t come with me. They’ve seen what I haven’t and don’t want to see it again.
‘Michael,’ says Paul, ‘her clothes are ripped and she’s naked in places. Can you give her your jacket? I’m not wearing one.’
‘I will,’ I tell him and take off my coat.
It’s just a few steps to Miss Connor. She is lying on her side, her face swollen and bleeding, her clothes savaged by the same dog who savaged at my ma’s clothes. I lay my jacket across her breasts. I know what I am looking at.
‘Go get my granny,’ I scream.
Paul and Ralph don’t move.
‘Go get her!’ I yell.
They start to run, leaving me alone in the Woody with Miss Connor. Her breath fades in and out and I think she might die. I want to stroke her hair and tell her it’s OK, but I daren’t lay a hand on her.
It’s a few minutes before Granny comes rushing through the bushes screaming for Louisa. Granny gets to her knees and is crying for poor Miss Connor.
‘Are the police coming, Granny?’
‘They’re coming, son,’ she says.
Soon the Woody is bursting with people. Miss Connor is deaf to it. They say she is half conscious. They have a mask on her to help her breathe and a pink blanket to keep her warm. I see the arm of my jacket falling from the side of the stretcher and think of her bleeding breast. I think of Marianne in the bushes and know there is a nakedness a boy is not supposed to see. It seems every neighbour we have is standing around the ambulance, blocking the police and all kinds of helpers. Miss Connor’s stretcher slides into the ambulance driven by Kenny’s da and when he sees Miss Connor’s face he says, ‘Dear God.’ Luke goes with Miss Connor and holds her hand. Alice is to stay at Marianne’s house until Mr McFadden shows up. No one knows where he is and everyone is wondering if it was him that hurt her. I wonder the same. I wonder if Mr McFadden hurt my ma too.
TWENTY-FOUR
NO ONE THREW me from the kitchen, I just knew I wasn’t supposed to be there and so I left the room and let them talk about poor Miss Connor and then listened at the door. Mr McFadden had been with Ma and Da all night and so he couldn’t have hurt Miss Connor.
Da said the party at the Bowling Club had been wild. Miss Connor had gotten drun
k and was dancing with Patrick Thompson. Da said it made Mr McFadden mad with jealousy and so he had a row with Miss Connor, who ran from the club in tears. Mr McFadden stayed with Da and propped up the bar for the rest of the night.
‘I couldn’t get them away from the drink, Shirley,’ says Ma. ‘Oh God,’ she cries.
‘They’ve arrested Patrick Thompson,’ whispers Granny. ‘They’re saying Louisa went off with him on her own.’
‘Patrick Thompson?’ says Da.
‘Didn’t he go with Tricia Law for a while?’ says Granny.
‘It can’t be him. He doesn’t smoke,’ says Ma.
‘Then we have to go to the station and tell them that, Rosemary,’ whispers Da.
‘If you go to that station I might get into some kind of trouble for not telling them about what happened to me,’ cries Ma.
No one had thought of that. I hadn’t thought of that. If Ma had told the police she was attacked, then Suzanne wouldn’t have been grabbed and Miss Connor wouldn’t have been hurt.
‘They’ll hate me if I speak up now,’ says Ma, ‘I can’t.’
Ma was right. Everyone would hate her. Everyone would hate us, especially Louisa Connor, so would Mr McFadden and Luke and Dirty Alice, but then she hates everyone so who cares about her. It was Miss Connor who would hate us the most. Her life was ruined because of Ma.
‘Louisa will tell them the truth,’ says Granny, smoking. ‘Patrick has nothing to worry about. She’ll tell them about the gold bracelet.’
‘What if Louisa doesn’t know the truth? What if she didn’t see a gold bracelet? What if he didn’t smoke?’ snaps Da.
‘She’s not going to say it was Patrick Thompson if it wasn’t Patrick Thompson, is she?’ shouts Granny.
‘Let’s hope not,’ says Da.
Everyone went to bed, but I don’t think anyone slept at all. Ma was crying and Da was thirsty. I don’t know if Granny slept but I bet she didn’t. I know I didn’t sleep a wink, but I must have, because when I opened my eyes it was morning already and I couldn’t remember the dark at all.
TWENTY-FIVE
MISS CONNOR IDENTIFIES Patrick Thompson as the rapist and everyone believes her except Ma, Granny and Da. I don’t believe her either but only because I believe my ma, who says the attacker smoked in her face, and Patrick Thompson doesn’t smoke at all. The attacker also wore a gold chain on his wrist like the one Suzanne Miller saw and since Miss Connor can’t remember anything about the man who hurt her the chain is not considered important enough, and because Ma won’t tell about her attack or the gold chain it just disappears from the evidence altogether. This is what Da has been saying all week, making Ma shout and cry.
Da is cut up about the whole thing. Patrick Thompson is the same age as my da. They drink in the pub together and sometimes they play darts. He doesn’t live on the scheme. He lives out by the shore in a tenement with his father, who is a very old man with gout, says Granny.
It’s a quiet house again and when words are spoken they’re spiky and sharp. I feel scared again.
When Miss Connor came home it was to Mr McFadden’s house and in a wheelchair pushed by Luke and Dirty Alice. Ma watched them from the window and even when they went into the house it was like she was rooted to the spot. She just stared at the door. Could have burned a hole through it.
Mr McFadden and Miss Connor are still to be married but it will be a summer wedding now and Granny says the sooner the better because it is sinful of Miss Connor and Mr McFadden to live together when they’re not blessed by the Pope.
‘What the fuck are you talking about? Louisa Connor has already been in hell and didn’t we send her there ourselves?’ screams Da.
Granny curls up at this and lights a fag.
Everyone has been very nice to Miss Connor since she came back, sending all kinds of lovely things to the house, but we didn’t, not even a card.
The house is cold and Christmas is around the corner. I don’t believe in Santa but I still want presents and I am worried Ma and Da have forgotten about me altogether.
I also worry for my new trousers. Every Christmas time I get a pair to match whatever jumper Granny or Ma has knitted for the school dance. When I remind Granny about the party she is delighted to produce the red-and-white jersey she knitted in the summertime. It’s the most horrible thing you’ve ever seen, but it’s also what I have to wear to the school dance and so I don’t complain. Ma buys the trousers from McMillan’s on the high street and they are too small for my legs. She never gets anything right. She’s even stopped doing her course. It makes me angry and I want to scream at her for being so stupid for not noticing my size. I can actually see my ankles in the trousers she buys and so she takes them back to the shop, but there are no more in brown and so I have to wear a pair in girly cream. I hate them, but wear them anyway. I’m too fed up to care.
At the party I dance with lots of girls, but not Marianne or Dirty Alice. I would rather dance with Laura Jones, who lives on a farm and smells like a cow. I don’t hold her hand though; I grab at her finger and twirl her around without touching her too much. She’s a bit of a dog and it is embarrassing for any boy to be near her, but the teachers make you, otherwise she would sit in a corner and chew her own hands off.
When we sit down for our juice and our Christmas fairy cakes I start to feel sick. I can’t explain it. My stomach starts to turn and I feel cold in my face.
‘Are you all right, Michael?’ says Mrs Roy. ‘You’re as white as a ghost.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say.
‘Away to the nurse,’ she says.
‘I don’t want the nurse,’ I say.
‘Come on now,’ says Mrs Roy and takes me by the shoulder. ‘Let’s go.’
It embarrasses me to have the teacher lift me from my chair, everyone is looking, but I also feel unwell and think maybe I should go to the nurse.
When I stand up the room starts to wobble and I fall over and hit my head, that’s how I end up in Kenny’s da’s ambulance. It is very clean.
When I get to the hospital torchlights are flashed across my eyes and pumps are placed upon my arms.
‘He’s fine,’ says the doctor to Ma.
‘Thanks be to God,’ says Granny.
Da wasn’t there. He was at home asleep no doubt, after his beers and his bottle.
‘He just had a turn,’ says the doctor. ‘Keep a wee eye on him and if he has any kind of episode like today then we’ll send him up to Inverclyde and have him checked out properly.’
Granny crosses herself.
Inverclyde is on the mainland and a very serious hospital; people go there when they have cancer or bad kidneys. When Grandpa Jake went to Inverclyde he never came back. I hope I never go to Inverclyde, and when they give me the orange juice to make me better I drink every last drop until I feel warm again.
‘He’s not eating enough,’ says Granny to Ma.
‘He eats plenty,’ says Ma.
‘You need some stew,’ says Granny. Ma rolls her eyes to heaven and I think maybe Inverclyde is a good idea after all.
TWENTY-SIX
MA DECIDES TO do a spot of decorating before Christmas. She starts with the living room. It is a big job and we have to pull at the wallpaper with scrapers and knives to make the walls smooth and without crinkles.
‘The new paper will look beautiful and without any creases or bumps,’ says Ma.
It is a boring job, scraping paper from walls, but everyone helps. Da goes mad about it all, especially when he has to move furniture and things like that. He moves it all anyway and then gets to the pasting. When the living room is done it looks nice and Ma decides the whole house has to be done. This isn’t what Da wants.
‘That’s a big job, Rosemary,’ says Da.
‘You can’t have one room papered and the rest of the rooms looking like shit. If you’re going to do a job then let’s do it,’ snaps Ma.
‘I said no,’ whispers Da and then heads to the door.
Ma seems
itchy. She has lots of energy all of a sudden and wants to do everything.
‘What’s the matter, Rosemary?’ asks Granny.
‘Nothing,’ she says, but it’s something. She starts to tidy things away and this makes Granny annoyed because everything is already tidied away. Granny keeps the house spotless but then Ma fetches a pail of water and starts in with the cleaning of the windows.
‘I did them yesterday,’ nips Granny.
‘I want to do them again,’ says Ma and that’s what she does. She’s rough with the cloth and the water and throws herself in and out the pail like she wants to dive inside it and swim away. Granny leaves the room and lets Ma get on with it. I follow Granny. Ma is getting on all our nerves.
When Da comes back he brings home the biggest tree you have ever seen and it makes Ma as mad as a hare because it goes all the way to the ceiling and bends at the top. It’s a brilliant tree, but Ma makes Da take it outside to cut the top off for the paper star. It is still too big and covers the front of the radiator and makes Granny think there will be a fire. I wonder the same but Da says everyone is daft. The tree even rips a little of Ma’s new paper in the corner of the room and that makes Ma pull the worst face at Da’s back. She is keeping her temper down, which isn’t like her at all, but Da has a drink on him and so making faces at him when he can’t see is the best thing to do. Granny keeps shaking her head at everyone but mostly the madness in Ma and Da.
‘We have to buy more decorations for the tree, Brian,’ says Ma.
‘What’s wrong with the ones we have?’ says Da.
‘This is a bigger tree,’ says Ma. ‘We usually have a smaller one, our lights won’t go once round this one. I don’t have enough Christmas balls or tinsel either.’
‘Then we’ll get them. You and me, Michael. What do you think? You’ll need more chocolates no doubt if we’re to cover the damn thing,’ says Da and this makes me excited. I always get chocolates spread across the tree wrapped in shiny paper and looking like wise men. It is good of Da to remind everyone. We’ll need hundreds.
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