by Laura Elliot
Cameras click and the lights flash like scattered firework sparks. The journalists, having remained silent while she spoke, rear upwards with questions.
‘How can you explain the different blood groups?’
‘Isn’t DNA evidence irrefutable?’
‘How will you feel if it’s proved you are the Anticipation Baby?’
‘When do you intend meeting Carla Kelly and Robert Gardner?’
‘Had you any suspicions when you were a child that you were stolen?’
‘Did you ever wonder why you were brought up in such an isolated place?’
‘Why did Susanne Dowling home-school you for years?’
On and on the questions fly, their microphones jabbing at her like claws. Have they listened to a word she said? Her panic grows. A man stands in the front row and approaches her. He has wrinkles around his eyes, and a wide, narrow mouth that curves in a smile. A woman with a television camera closes in on Joy. He looks familiar but she can’t think of his name. The journalists fall silent when he speaks.
‘Joy, I’m Josh Baker from The Week on the Street.’ His voice creeps over her like something furry and soft. ‘On behalf of the assembled media, I want to thank you for speaking so frankly to us. Congratulations on your courage in holding this important press conference.’
She stretches backwards in her seat, suddenly scared, which is ridiculous because Josh smiles again.
‘Joy, can you tell us about your first childhood memories?’ he asks.
She remembers looking through the bars of her cot and seeing her father and mother smiling at her from their bed. The memory is so sharp she presses her hand to her chest, but it’s not a true memory because her father’s bed was always in the other room and he was gone so often…She remembers crying on the steps of his office…but that’s not a good memory…And she thinks about the games they played…how she used to pull the duvet over her head and he would crawl underneath her bed and into the wardrobe, pretending he couldn’t find her anywhere, and, how, when she jumped from under the duvet, she’d startle him so much he’d collapse on the bed, clutching his chest, yelling, ‘I give in. You win again, Champ!’
So many memories pressing against her head. Josh is waiting and smiling and it’s important to explain to the world that she did not have a weird, mixed-up childhood.
‘My father used to tell me stories in bed. He’d bring me to the Burren and teach me the names of flowers and once he—’
‘In your bed?’ asks Josh.
She stops, unsure if she has heard him correctly.
‘He told you stories in your bed?’ Josh, no longer smiling, looks concerned.
‘Yes. In…I mean…on my bed.’ She shakes her head, willing him to smile again. ‘We used to play games—’
She is aware that Patricia is pressing her knee, a hard squeeze from her dead-leaf hand, which is the signal for Joy to stop talking. But she can’t because Josh looks so grave and the camera is an all-seeing eye that freezes her expression.
‘Catching flies,’ her mother would say if she could see her sitting here with her mouth open, gulping when she swallows. She is unable to look away from Josh Baker when he asks, ‘Were there other men who played games with you at night?’
Her solicitor is on his feet, so angry that his hands bang off the table, and Joy is shrinking smaller and smaller, the way she felt when her father steered the boat through the towering walls of the Grand Canyon.
She stands at Patricia’s command. Her feet wobble. Jelly on a plate…jelly on a plate…another childhood memory…and Patricia supports her, moves her away from the green baize table.
A face flickers at the edge of her eye, stands out for an instant from the crowd. The journalists are leaving the room, ordered out by a woman in a Garda uniform. She looks so formidable that they obey her instantly. All except Clare Frazier. She wears glasses now. They make her look stern and stand-offish but they cannot hide the tears on her cheeks.
Joy wants to go to her. The pull is so strong she stops and tries to walk back but Patricia, strong for an old woman, has such a tight grip on her arm that she’s unable to break free. When she looks around again, Clare Frazier has disappeared.
Back in the foster home, when she is left alone at last, she does what she has wanted to do since that terrible morning. Katie, hearing her banging her head on the bedroom wall, holds her so still she can no longer harm herself.
Hi Joy,
Can you forgive me for being so stupid? I was so excited when I believed Isobel Gardner had been found that I emailed you without thinking it through. My mum says I’m always running off at the mouth and I guess that applies to email as well. You were right to be mad at me. I can’t bear to think how I’d feel if the social services came into my house and took me away by force.
I watched your press conference. It was horrible. Josh Baker is a sicko and I hope he suffers from leprosy of the tongue. My father used to read me stories and lie on my bed too. It’s disgusting the way that sicko twisted everything. But you were really cool.
If you don’t believe you are Isobel Gardner, no one can force you to do so. Even if (and I know it won’t happen) but even if your father is found guilty, you still can be who you believe you are.
If you want to email back that would be cool. But it doesn’t matter if you don’t. I’ll understand.
Yours sincerely,
Jessica Kelly.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Carla
The media showed no mercy. Josh had set the honeytrap and her daughter had walked right into it. Carla watched that night’s edition of The Week on the Street, read the papers the following morning. No Joy for Anticipation Parents was the kindest headline. Was Anticipation Girl Victim of Paedophile Ring? the most cruel. She was safe from prying eyes in her citadel, yet she was inside her daughter’s skin, flashing back in time and spinning from the exposure.
She had hoped Joy would change her mind and meet them after the press conference. But the meeting she and Robert had attended this morning with Patrica had proved that their daughter was still determined to keep her distance.
‘Joy has had to make huge adjustments and she’s not yet ready for that final step,’ Patricia had told them. ‘It happens regularly enough when adoptive children prepare to meet their birth parents. They desperately want to make contact but the weight of their fear paralyses them. I know the situation is different with Joy—’
‘Isobel,’ Robert had snapped.
Patricia had nodded, apologetically. ‘I must put Isobel’s interests first. I’m sorry. Please be patient. The accident has further destabilised her. I’m so sorry your hopes have been dashed again.’
The meeting had been as frustrating as all the others and the social worker’s apologies had only increased Robert’s annoyance.
‘As her parents we have rights. Don’t you think we’ve suffered enough, waited long enough?’ His expression had hardened. ‘Does she think about us at all? Has she any consideration for the fact that we also have lives to lead. Can’t you talk to her again, change her mind?’
‘What would you like me to do, Mr Gardner?’ Patricia had compassionate eyes but her steadfast gaze was capable of steel. ‘Frogmarch her towards a meeting? That would hardly be the most auspicious way to begin a family relationship.’
With her reproof ringing in their ears, they had left her office.
Unable to stay still when she returned home, Carla tackled her apartment. She cleared out presses, swept mats, dusted the tops of picture frames, lifted armchair cushions to vacuum every crease and crevice underneath. She worked with a feverish intensity, as if by cleaning the hidden dust and grime of her surroundings she could bleach the confusion from her mind.
When her apartment was spotless, she soaked in a bath. Steam clouded the mirror and the bath bubbles slowly evaporated, every muscle in her body seeking relief. When the doorbell rang she sighed and decided to ignore it. Robert would not call to her apartment, nor w
ould her family. Unable to ignore a second, more prolonged ring, she pulled on a bathrobe and checked the security camera.
David Dowling was standing outside the apartment entrance. She stepped back, as if he was physically confronting her. Robert had sought to prevent him or any members of his family making contact with him or Carla. But David was not breaking that injunction. He was calling on Clare Frazier, hoping, perhaps, that she could bring him comfort. His face had that askew appearance, as if the muscles aligning his features had collapsed. She recognised his loss of control, his all-consuming anguish.
‘David.’ Her voice was softer than she intended as she pressed the release button. ‘Come on up.’
By the time he had taken the elevator to the sixth floor she was dressed in a skirt and top but was still in her bare feet. He hesitated at the front door, reluctant to enter.
‘Joy saw you at the press conference,’ he said. ‘I wanted to thank you for not asking her any questions.’
‘I’m not a journalist,’ she replied and led him into the living room. ‘I went there to offer her support.’
His hands, resting on his knees, clenched into fists. ‘I wanted to kill Josh Baker with my bare hands. No knife or gun, just my bare hands. You’ve seen the headlines, the insinuations. I had to seek an injunction to stop them alleging I abused my child. As if I would harm a hair on her head. But the damage is done. She was taken from me and now my reputation’s also gone.’
‘I’d hoped to talk to her afterwards,’ she said. ‘But she was whisked away so fast.’
He slumped into an armchair and hunched forward. ‘That sums it up.’ His voice cracked. ‘They just came one morning and lifted her.’ He paused, still unable to grasp the enormity of what had occurred. ‘It was over in a few minutes. My life…her life. Everything we’d shared…gone, just like that. You would think it couldn’t happen, wouldn’t you? The state can’t come into your home and destroy you. But they can…and they have…I can only see her in the company of a social worker. It’s one of the conditions of my bail. This morning, before I could leave Maoltrán, I had to present myself to a guard I’ve known all my life. I don’t know what to do, Clare. I’m lost…’
‘But she never belonged to you. The DNA evidence is irrefutable.’
‘Yes.’ He shook his head from side to side. ‘Irrefutable. Even Joy has to accept that now. Joey is with her, trying to convince her to meet her parents.’ He continued speaking, more to himself than to her, the raw anger on his face giving way to bewilderment. ‘Susanne never gave birth to Joy. How can that be? Who is going to believe I didn’t know? I should have known…’
‘David, listen. I need to tell you something.’
‘How could she do this to me…to steal another woman’s child?’ He was incapable of hearing her. ‘But the dead can’t speak and I’m left to explain…what? Who will understand what I can’t understand myself?’
His mobile phone rang. He answered it immediately and spoke tersely to the caller. ‘How long since she left?’ he asked. Already he was walking from her apartment. ‘I’m on my way now.’
He clicked out of the call and said, ‘That was Joey. Joy’s missing. She’s taken off with Danny Breen.’
Then he was gone. Carla heard the front door slam. The truth fell like a stone into the silence he left behind.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Joy
Dear Joy,
Your email has been brought to my attention. DNA testing is a very sophisticated tool for establishing identity and I wish I could give you a different answer.
Using tests on sixteen different areas on the DNA molecules submitted for Mr David Dowling and Mr Joey O’Sullivan, we have established a definitive profile on both. They are father and son.
Unfortunately, in the case of your own DNA molecule, the results were incompatible. No relationship could be established between you and Mr David Dowling or between you and Mr Joey O’Sullivan.
I am sorry to have to break this news to you as I have established from your correspondence that you had hoped for a different result. But I’m afraid you must take the result as definitive and capable of standing up in a court of law.
On a personal note, this sounds like a complex situation and I hope you have people around you who can help you come to terms with the changes taking place in your life.
With my best regards,
Jon Sutton
Managing Director
T.R.A.C.E. Laboratories Inc.
The seats in Danny’s Boxster are heated. Joy wriggles deep into the passenger seat and opens a packet of Rolos, leans over and places one on his tongue. She remembers an old advertisement she used to watch on television. Something about loving someone enough to give them your last Rolo. Her mother used to chant it when she gave her a treat. Do you love me enough to give me your last Polo, Rolo, jelly bean, jelly baby?
‘Where to?’ Danny shouts and she shouts back, ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road all the way home.’
Danny doesn’t want to go home. Home is misery. His father wants to sell the Boxster. Boom is over, he’s told Danny. The Celtic Tiger has become a dead dodo and no one’s buying or selling houses in Ireland, Spain or Timbuktu.
‘He can go take a fucking jump to himself,’ says Danny. ‘No one’s taking my car. Let him sell her fucking jewellery if he wants to lighten his load.’
His anger has been burning slowly ever since she got into the car but he can hardly expect her sympathy. Her, of all people.
‘A car is nothing.’ She has to yell above the music. ‘I’ve to give back my father.’
For some reason he thinks this is hilarious and she laughs along with him until her sides ache. ‘I’ve to give back my gran and my half-brother and my house and my friends and my identity,’ she shouts. ‘Beat that.’
He drives through the wide wrought-iron gates of Phoenix Park. The zoo is here. She used to visit it with her so-called grandfather and Tessa whenever her so-called mother brought her to Dublin for a visit.
‘My granddad and step-grandmother,’ she shouts. ‘I’ve got to give them back as well. My mother doesn’t count. Or does she?’
‘Does she what?’ Danny accelerates along a wide, straight road.
‘Does she count as a give-back, seeing as how she’s dead?’
‘Guess not. I wish I got to shaft my family. My old man’s turned the heat off in the swimming pool. Swear to Christ, it’s like a fucking icebox.’
‘Tough shit, Danny Boy.’
The car is powerful but small, only two seats. She wishes it was summer time so that Danny could open the roof and allow all the anger contained inside it to escape. Anger frightens her. She has tried to keep it under control since the press conference. Six stitches in her forehead. Her poor war-torn, scarred forehead. She had a fringe cut to hide them but they throb tightly when Danny turns the volume higher on the stereo.
Joy wants silence, not noise. She no longer wants to listen to voices talking reassuringly about grave miscarriages of justice and heads rolling. When silence settles she can hear her father’s heart beating far too fast. She hears her grandmother’s anxiety gnawing her chest. And Joey…what can she hear when she thinks about Joey? Chains breaking, sundering forever the links that once bound them together.
He sat for ages in her room today. Someone should have objected. He is not her brother and he was sitting with her on her bed. They could have done anything, kissed, even done it and that would have been all right. No incest involved. No even a molecule. He told her she would always be part of his family. No matter what DNA decreed, she was bound to them by love. On the night of the party, she wanted to kiss him. She remembers that crazy delirious longing to press her body close to his, closer than a brother and sister ever ought to be. It made sense at last, but all she wants is to turn back time. To be tortured and anxious because she was in love with her half-brother, and it felt half wrong, half right. Now, it’s all right, and that’s the most terrible truth.
&
nbsp; ‘You must meet your real parents,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to sooner or later. They’re not to blame for what happened.’
‘Do you believe our father knew?’ She hated asking him that question but Joey, like her, believes the truth. Only one person knew and she will never have to confess her crime.
After Joey had left, she sent a text to Danny. Need to escape these prison walls. Bring a rope ladder and rescue a damsel in distress. She sat back to await his reply. Katie never noticed her leaving the house. Danny parked around the corner and they were gone in a flash.
He parks the Boxster under trees. No street lighting here, just the two of them alone together. They listen to Wolfmother. She wants him to play something gentle but all his CDs are heavy metal. She steps outside and walks between the trees. The wind has ice on its breath. Poor Danny and his icebox swimming pool. Poor Danny and his Boxster. What on earth is she doing here with him?
She leans against the trunk of a tree and stares through the bare branches. Soon they will bud. Her mother stole her when she was a bud, almost straight out of Carla Kelly’s womb. The knowledge is a hard kernel rooting in her mind. Now that she has allowed it space, it can never be dislodged.
Danny puts his arms around her and pushes her back against the tree trunk. There are hundreds of trees. Maybe he wants to do it to her against every one. She giggles but he stifles the sound with his mouth.
