by Cethan Leahy
‘Easy for you to say, your one is a ride,’ said Rickie. ‘Balls, that’s the bell. Later.’
‘Later.’
‘Later?’ said Adam.
I had noticed that since the appearance of Aoife at the school gates, Adam’s fellow students were a bit less distant. They weren’t coming over to the house with flowers or anything, but his cachet had certainly risen among the ranks. I would suggest that this was very shallow of them, that his popularity depended on his ability to have an attractive girlfriend, but I guess they didn’t know him. If he had a girl, this was something that they could relate to, rather than thinking of him as the ‘attempt to kill self with hammer’ boy.
***
At lunchtime, Adam was told to go to the principal’s office. He hadn’t done anything wrong as far as he was aware, but still worried about it as we walked down the corridor to the office. On the way I admired the Christmas decorations that were littering the wall. I had only just learned about Christmas and it sounded bizarre. Trees indoors, plants to kiss under, songs about kings and gentlemen and being cold outside.
Adam knocked on the door.
‘Come in,’ called Mr O’Neill.
‘You wanted to see me?’
Despite being quite thin, the principal projected a width that made him fearsome. ‘Please sit,’ he said. ‘Adam, as we are approaching the Christmas holidays I wanted to have a little chat.’
‘Okay.’
‘Really, I just wanted to congratulate you on the great strides you are making. I’ve noticed your grades have improved and your teachers tell me you are being more responsive and getting on with classmates much better.’
‘Thank you?’
This was true. Adam now had all the things that happy, successful people have. He had a hobby, he had a circle of friends, a girlfriend even, someone to talk to about his troubles. (In one of the writing group evenings, I can’t remember which one as they all blended into one, Niamh said that the key to drama is conflict. No one wants a story about people having a grand old time, since it’s boring. And she’s right. Let’s just say the weeks between Halloween and December were full of uneventful bliss.)
‘You should be very proud. I appreciate how tough it is to keep things on an even keel.’
‘What’s an even keel?’ I asked.
‘Especially with all the messy business with Chris.’
The principal put out his hand to shake. Adam, a little confused, put his out to join it.
‘Oh, and I have some good news!’ Mr O’Neill continued.
‘Mmm?’
‘We’ve set a date for the mental health seminar. We’ve arranged a whole day of talks and events for the students to really get to grips with the difficult issues of mental health. We even have a musician coming in.’
He mentioned a name, but I had no idea who he was referring to.
‘Uh, very good, sir. When is it?’
‘January. You know, new year, new start. We are going to film it, put it on the Internet, really reach people, maybe even make the school go “viral”,’ he said, using his fingers as quotation marks.
‘Very exciting.’
‘If it goes right, we’ll make some major steps to avoiding more … incidents,’ he said, carefully choosing the word so as not to offend Adam.
‘Sounds good,’ said Adam, letting his principal off.
‘Yes it does.’ As he stood, the bell rang. ‘Ah, it’s time for you to return to class. Oh, I think I see Philip waiting. He’s my next appointment. He has taken his brother’s death very hard, you know. Can’t imagine … anyway … Hello, Philip, I was just telling Adam here about our mental health event.’
Philip clearly didn’t think that this was good news, but he said nothing and merely nodded. As he stared at Adam, his face turned an odd shade of red, as if someone was slowly pouring a carton of cranberry juice into a human-head-shaped jug. Adam smiled nervously.
‘At any rate, come in, Philip. Adam, I’ll talk to you anon.’
As he walked past, Philip bumped him in the shoulder, unbalancing Adam a little.
‘Sorry,’ said Philip, insincerely.
Mr O’Neill shut his door behind them and Adam wandered down the corridor. ‘Wait, which class is next?’
I informed him I wasn’t his timetable, so he pulled out his journal and checked. Geography.
‘Balls, I left the book in my locker.’
Adam ran to the hall where the lockers lived. On the way he ran into a classmate dossing off a class, who nodded at him. How curious that Adam was now worthy of notice. Moving on, Adam found and opened his locker. As he pulled out his book, a piece of paper fluttered out of the locker and fell softly to the floor. Adam picked it up and opened it.
‘What do you and a nail have in common? You usually need a couple of swings of the hammer to do the job. Shame.’
That joke was terrible – whoever wrote it needed to work on his punchline. Adam also didn’t laugh. In fact he didn’t say anything. He just stared at it.
‘Adam, shouldn’t you be in class?’ said a passing teacher.
‘Oh, yes, sir. I forgot my book.’
He crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it back into his locker.
Twenty-Nine
Ding.
After six stops, the bus slowed to a halt and Adam and Aoife got off. Ballincollig was an unfamiliar place to Adam. In fact, as near as I could tell, being on a bus was an unfamiliar experience for Adam. Such was the existence of the city boy apparently. Everyone came to you, rather than you going to them. It cost nearly €4 one way to get to this stop, but he didn’t know if that was standard or not. He still complained about it.
‘So this is your street?’
Adam was nervous about ever meeting her mother, and doubly so since Aoife had told him about her problems. However, he didn’t say this, and when she suggested he come to her place after the writing group one evening, he felt it would be unboyfriendlike to refuse.
‘It’s a nice area. Lots of trees.’
‘It’s pretty boring. We do have many, many supermarkets, though.’
They walked along and, every step they got closer, it was clear that Aoife was becoming more and more unsettled. Eventually they got to her house, an unremarkable two-storey building with an overgrown lawn.
‘You ready?’ said Aoife.
‘Ready teddy!’ said Adam. He was attempting to lighten the mood, but he was as nervous as Aoife.
‘Oh, I forgot my keys!’ Aoife looked around and picked up a pot next to the door, revealing a house key. She gave Adam a conspiratorial look. ‘Tell no one.’
Aoife opened the door to her house and called, ‘Mum?’
‘Yes?’
‘Dad home?’
‘No. Your father is still at work. A meeting with a client overran apparently.’
Aoife’s mum appeared. She was a little shorter than her daughter, so she had to tilt her head up to speak to her.
‘Hello, Mrs Callaghan,’ said Adam.
‘Oh, you must be the young man that Aoife is always talking about,’ she said.
‘Mum!’
‘Well, her father is not home yet so I will go get some milk,’ she said, leaving the room. I wondered if milk and her father not being home were somehow connected? She walked with an uncertain step, as if a nervousness was built in.
‘I don’t talk about you that much,’ said Aoife. ‘She is confusing you with a different Adam I talk way more about.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Adam, grinning.
Mrs Callaghan returned holding a jug of milk and three glasses. She poured it out for the three of them and sat. Adam drank a sip of the milk and waited for the conversation to start.
‘So, how was your day, Mum?’
‘I went to town.’
‘Oh, we were just in town.’
‘Yes, we were, Mrs Callaghan. We were just at our writing thing. Aoife had written an amazing poem about a zombie who had fallen in love with an mannequin. Everyone thought
it was funny, even that girl with the weird laugh whose name I can never remember but sounds like–’
Aoife grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard, indicating that he was perhaps going a bit far.
‘That’s nice,’ said her mother, with a little, uncomfortable smile. The next thing she said was a question in her own language. Aoife responded in the same language, of which Adam and I understood nothing, but I sensed it held disapproval of suddenly switching language in the company of guests. Suddenly Aoife said Adam’s name and they both looked back at him.
‘Oh, ah, would it be okay if I used the bathroom?’
It would be a relief to get out of the room. Mrs Callaghan said, ‘It’s at the top of the staircase on the left when you go past the books.’
He finished his business and washed his hands. I noticed the cabinet above the sink was open a crack.
‘Go on. Have a look. Let’s find out what secrets lurk in the House of Tuffour-Callaghan.’
He rolled his eyes but still he opened the cabinet. Gels, ointments, spare toothbrushes and loads of boxes of pills. It was like a pharmacy in there. (We looked the names up later. They were pretty powerful anti-anxiety medicines.)
On leaving the bathroom, Adam noticed a half-open door across the hall. He peered in and could see it was Aoife’s room. It was oddly thrilling, sneaking around in someone else’s house. The room was an astounding mess. The floor was covered with loose sheets of paper, clothes and books. She had posters up of bands I didn’t recognise but I assumed from the gory depictions of some hell that they weren’t country music.
‘You need more skulls in your room,’ I said to Adam.
‘I’m all right, thanks.’
‘Aren’t you going to head in?’
He shook his head.
Lame, I thought.
Adam walked back downstairs and there was a beep from his phone. It was a text message from his dad asking if he would be home for dinner, but no rush.
‘Do you need to go?’ said Aoife.
‘Ah … no.’
‘Good, he can stay for dinner,’ said Aoife’s mother.
He texted back, ‘At Aoife’s. Will be fed here.’
A text pinged back immediately. ‘OK, enjoy meeting the in-laws.’
That was it. We were stuck there for the evening.
There was the sound of keys rattling and a door opening in the hall.
‘Is that your father? He told me he was stuck in a meeting and would be late.’
‘No, it’s your most handsome son,’ responded a voice, the owner of which stepped into the living room.
‘Josh!’ said Aoife.
‘Joshua!’ said her mother. ‘You’re supposed to be in Galway.’
‘I thought I’d pay a visit to my dear old family for the weekend. Hello mother, hey sis and … new friend.’
‘Hi,’ Adam said.
‘Oh, yes, Adam, this is my brother Josh. Josh, this is Adam, my friend, boy, boyfriend.’
‘Ah, got another one caught in your web, eh, Afs?’
‘He’s joking. I don’t have a web. I don’t date that many–’
‘It’s cool. I’m not judging. One, uh, should have many, eh … amours.’
Joshua started to laugh. ‘This one is funny! What’s for dinner?’
‘Oh, I’m not sure.’
‘I’ll start it, give you a break for once Afs. How does Thai sound?’
‘I’m not sure if we have the ingredients.’
‘Worry not,’ he said, opening his bag and pouring out an impressive collection of ingredients. ‘There was a flood in the local speciality shop and a box floated by our house. We have a year’s worth of glass noodles.’
He dashed into the kitchen, grabbed a wok and got started.
Dinner passed smoothly enough and it was agreed that Joshua made a delicious meal. Aoife and Joshua could talk forever, and at length they caught the table up with the minutiae of their lives. All in all, it was a fairly pleasant experience. Aoife’s mother seemed a touch eccentric, but nothing too shocking.
‘So how do you two know each other?’ Josh asked, setting his fork down on an empty plate.
‘Oh, we’re in the same writing group.’
‘You’re a writer too? What’s your bag? Funny stuff, sci-fi?’
‘Oh, he writes–’
‘Afs, I’m sure he can answer for himself.’
‘Ah, I guess drama. Some is a little horror-y.’
‘That’s cool, although, man, I can’t read any of that stuff. Gives me the creeps if there is a zombie or even a spider.’
‘I never understand why Aoife writes so much about ghosts and ghouls,’ said Mrs Callaghan. ‘Life is frightening enough without adding to it. I read one the other day that was about a man stabbed in a basement.’
‘Mum! I didn’t show you that one!’
‘You left it on the table.’
‘Yeah, in a notebook marked “DON’T READ, MUM!”’
‘It’s not good to be reading stories like that, or writing them.’
‘I can write what I like!’
In response, Mrs Callaghan didn’t say anything, but instead starting breathing in and out very quickly.
‘MUM!’ said Aoife. ‘Please don’t do this.’
Her mother clutched her chest and began to tremble. ‘My own daughter. She shouts at me. She doesn’t love me.’
‘Mum, you know I love you. I …’
Mrs Callaghan was now moaning and rocking in her chair.
‘Should I call someone?’ Adam said, getting up.
‘No, it’s okay. I’ll talk her down,’ said Josh. ‘Aoife, why don’t you walk Adam to the bus stop.’
‘Thank you for the dinner, Josh.’
Her brother gave him a thumbs up. ‘It’s all right. Next time, you’ll have to tell me the story behind your gnarly scar.’
They walked out the door and there was an unusual silence between them, and not a comfortable one either. Adam wanted to ask something, but he did not know the best route, and Aoife looked like she wanted to answer it but found an invisible roadblock stopping her.
Eventually, ‘Will your mother be okay?’
‘Yeah, she’ll be fine. If she finds things stressful, she has panic attacks. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have snapped at her about the stories–’
‘No, no, I shouldn’t have stayed for dinner, you did warn me a bit and–’
‘You’re too sweet. And besides, she asked you to stay. She seemed okay. I think having everyone there was just too much.’
‘Oh,’ Adam said.
‘I … I shouldn’t have brought you here,’ said Aoife.
‘No, it’s okay. Are you all right?’ Adam said.
‘Oh, it will be fine. Josh is here,’ said Aoife.
‘Sure? Shit, that’s my bus.’
‘We’ll talk about it later!’ said Aoife, kissing Adam on the cheek. Adam stuck out his hand to flag down the bus and then almost flew through the door in his eagerness to get away.
As the bus headed back into the city, he sat in an empty back seat and stared out the window, watching the passing trees turn into the bright windows of the city centre.
***
Later that evening Adam received an email from Aoife and it was pretty long. Writers don’t half go on. I would suggest if you have a burning desire to date a writer type, go for a poet. Poems tend to be shorter and it’s easier to pretend that they are any good.
Hi Adam!
Sorry about earlier. I find these kinds of things difficult to talk about so I have cut and pasted a story I wrote a long time ago. I don’t know if it’s very good and it’s definitely not as fun as the usual (so your kind of tale!) but it’s heavily based on the truth:
One Monday morning, Amy decided going to school was not something she wanted to do. However she had a cunning plan: if she hid underneath her blanket and avoided detection, if she stayed in bed and no one noticed, she wouldn’t have to go. She grabbed her light-up Pokémon cloc
k and covered herself with her duvet.
8.32. 8.33. 8.34.
She was getting away with it, she realised, she had outfoxed her mother! It didn’t matter that she had attempted this on at least a dozen different occasions and each time had failed miserably. Finally it was going to work.
8.45. 8.46. 8.47. This was usually the time her mother had her in the car on the way.
She had done it! But rather than be cocky, she stayed in bed, reading Skulduggery Pleasant. She read until she noticed that it was 10.12. It was odd that she had heard no sign of Mum. She didn’t want to go to school but she wanted to know where Mum was, so a stealth mission was required. She got out of bed and snuck around. No Mum in the kitchen, no Mum in the TV room, no Mum in the bathroom.
She tiptoed to her parents’ bedroom and slowly pushed open the door and peered in.
Her mum was hiding under her blanket too.
Her mum was a strange woman, but Amy didn’t know why until that day. Before then, Amy knew she was not like the other mothers in the school yard, but she assumed it was because she didn’t come from here. Perhaps there was a town of women like her somewhere else. Quirky ladies that felt things more strongly than here.
She looked so sad underneath the blanket but Amy wasn’t sure what to do, so she went to the kitchen to make her favourite meal, but she didn’t know what that was, since she rarely ate dinner at the same time as Mum and Dad. So she made Corn Flakes instead.
Amy brought it up to her Mum and gave it to her, but she didn’t respond. She just stared at Amy and looked sad. When Dad came home from work some hours later, he saw that Amy was still in her pyjamas.
‘Where’s your mother?’ he said.
‘In bed.’
He nodded and disappeared to their room. When he returned an hour later, he made Amy dinner, something he never did.
‘Amy, I’m afraid your mother is very sad.’
And that’s how I learned that my mother got sad.
Sorry, I don’t have a better ending.
A xxx
P.S. Spiderman during the week?
Thirty
The problem with being a ghost – actually there are many problems: being a ghost is pretty crap – but probably the main one is that there are not many activities you can partake in. Football, knitting and dressage are all completely out of the question for the physically non-present. However, there is one thing I can enjoy without the aid of a body: books.
