The Moon King

by Siobhán Parkinson

  Ricky gave way to tears. He didn’t understand what was happening. All he wanted was to be left alone. He didn’t want to fight with Helen. And he didn’t want to go home, not if Ed was still there. He wanted to see his mother, but he didn’t ever want to see Ed again, and if Ed was at home, he didn’t want to be there. Ed would beat him again, especially if his mam was still away in the hospital. He beat him even when she was at home, but it would be much worse if she was away. No, he couldn’t go home, he just couldn’t. He had to hide. He had to avoid being sent home. He had to. Somehow. But where could he hide? Where would he be safe?

  CHAPTER 17

  Where’s Ricky?

  Mammy Kelly burst into the front room, skirts swishing, bracelets jangling, Billy bouncing in her arms. Billy put his arms out when he saw Rosheen and said, ‘Wo-wo!’

  ‘Rosheen!’ exclaimed Rosheen. ‘Did you hear that? He said “Rosheen”.’

  ‘That’s not “Rosheen”,’ said Helen scathingly. ‘That’s “water”.’

  ‘Wo-wo!’ Billy declaimed again, waving his little starfish hands at Rosheen and leaning out towards her.

  Mammy Kelly thrust Billy at Rosheen who gathered him delightedly into her arms.

  ‘Where’s Ricky?’ Mammy Kelly asked, looking from child to child.

  Fergal looked at Rosheen. Rosheen looked at Helen. Helen looked at Fergal.

  ‘He was here a minute ago,’ Rosheen said. ‘I didn’t notice him leaving the room. Did you, Ferg, Helly?’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’ snapped Helen. ‘It’s a stupid name.’

  ‘Hah!’ said Rosheen, ‘Helly Kelly, you’re a poem!’

  ‘Girls, girls, stop squabbling. Helen, will you go and find Ricky please. He needs to be here. I have Mrs O’ Loughlin in the kitchen now and she wants to talk to him.’

  ‘I’ll go, I’ll go,’ Rosheen offered. ‘I know where to find him.’

  She didn’t want to mention the moon-chair room, though she was pretty sure that’s where she’d find him. She couldn’t bear the thought of the grown-ups charging up to the top of the house and raiding Ricky’s special room. She could just imagine Mammy Kelly poking around in the crystal chandelier box, stirring the crystals with her pudgy fingers until they shivered; tripping over the lady with the lampshade hat and not even knowing to say ‘Excuse me’; smashing her way around that treasure trove that was Ricky’s special place, without even understanding about the moon king or anything, without knowing what it all meant. No, the best thing was to go after him herself and get him down, before anyone else started poking around up there.

  ‘No, I’ll go,’ said Helen.

  ‘No, let me,’ Rosheen pleaded.

  ‘Ma told me to go,’ said Helen, elbowing Rosheen out of the way, ‘and I know where to find him too. In fact, I’d like to find him. I want to tell him he’s wanted down in the kitchen by Mrs O’Loughlin.’

  ‘Oh, let her go, Rosheen,’ said Mammy Kelly. ‘It’s not a big deal, after all. It’s just a routine visit.’

  ‘Oh, I think Ricky thinks it’s a big deal,’ said Helen.

  ‘I hope Ricky is happy with us,’ said Mammy Kelly with a worried look, taking Billy back from Rosheen and hoisting him up on her hip. ‘I thought he had settled in very well. He doesn’t want to tell Mrs O’Loughlin that he doesn’t like it here, does he?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you what he wants to tell her,’ said Helen with a toss of her head. ‘But whatever it is, he’ll have to do it in sign language, won’t he?’ And she flounced out of the room, calling, ‘Ricky! Ricky! You’re wanted! It’s your social worker!’

  Mammy Kelly shook her head and left the room with Billy, a frown puckering her forehead. She knew Helen had been dead set against Ricky when he first came, but she’d had a long chat with her about it all, and she thought Helen had got over it. But now it didn’t look as if they’d made peace at all.

  Helen barrelled up the stairs, still singing out ‘Ricky! Ricky! It’s your social worker!’ That should get him good and worried, she thought meanly.

  She arrived on the first half-landing where the rocking-chair was nodding away like some demented old person. She put out a hand to steady it because it was making her seasick and anyway, she needed to stop for a rest. It was true she didn’t get enough exercise.

  On the first full landing she stopped again to get her breath and then lumbered on, up past the bird-mobile, which was swinging and dipping slowly, to the second full landing. She stopped again. It was very quiet up here. She had been able to hear the voices of the other children playing in the front garden on the last landing, but they were completely inaudible now. The top part of the house was like a different country, still and deserted, the air warm and heavy, the carpet muffling Helen’s footsteps. She toiled on up to the last landing before the attic floor and then took the final flight of stairs slowly.

  On the attic level, Helen was met by perfect stillness and two shut doors. She knocked loudly on Ricky’s bedroom door and marched in, still calling Ricky’s name.

  But he wasn’t there. The room was tidy and orderly and perfectly still. She stepped over to the wardrobe and took a quick look inside. Ricky didn’t have many clothes, and all that ever hung here were a pair of jeans, a few shirts and Ricky’s zip jacket. The wire clothes hangers rattled as she opened the door and the jeans and shirts swung slowly and forlornly in the current of air caused by her quick movements. No jacket, though. Had Ricky been wearing his jacket? She couldn’t remember.

  Impatiently, Helen slammed the wardrobe door closed. She looked under the bed. No Ricky. She checked behind the door and behind the curtains. The room was so tidy, there was nothing else to hide behind or under.

  Shaking her head, Helen came out of Ricky’s room and peered in all the dusky corners of the landing. He must be in the junk room, she thought with a sigh. She knew he’d been using it as a sort of den. She’d followed him up here on a few occasions, hanging back out of sight on the stairs, and seen him go in there. But that room was so full of stuff, he could be hiding anywhere in it. Helen was beginning to regret having volunteered to find Ricky. Now she was going to have to climb over things and get dust up her nose. She put her hand on the door handle and pushed, but the door wouldn’t give. Drat the boy! He’d locked himself in.

  ‘Ricky, come out of there this minute,’ Helen called through the keyhole. ‘Come on, now, you can’t keep Mrs O’Loughlin waiting. She’s a busy woman.’

  Silence.

  Helen threw her shoulder against the junk-room door, to make a noise, but there was no answering scrabbling from the other side of the door.

  ‘Ricky!’ Helen called imperiously. ‘Open up! You’re only making things worse. Don’t be such a scaredy cat. Come out and face the music.’

  Silence.

  ‘Ricky, I know you’re in there. There’s no point in hiding.’

  Silence.

  Helen began to get worried. Maybe he wouldn’t open the door and she’d have to go down and tell them and there’d be a big scene and it would all come out that Helen had been teasing him about Mrs O’Loughlin and she’d be in trouble. That could mean no telly for a whole week. Helen tried a different tack.

  ‘Ah, come on, now, Ricky. It’s all right, really. I was only pulling your leg about Mrs O’Loughlin taking you away.’

  Silence.

  ‘I mean, look, I know you’re not a juvenile delinquent, not really. That was just a joke. Come on, now, be a big brave soldier and come out. I’ll bring you down to them. Mrs O’Loughlin’s very nice. You’re not in trouble, Ricky. It’s OK.’

  Maybe he’d done something stupid. Maybe he’d jumped out of the window. Maybe he’d hanged himself! Helen broke out in a sweat.

  ‘Ricky, I … I … I’m sorry. I … I … I … I was only teasing. I didn’t mean to scare you.’ Helen knew that was a fib. ‘Not really,’ she amended.

  Silence.

  Then she heard a sound. Helen breathed a sigh of relief. Something was stirring on th
e other side of the door.

  But no, the sound wasn’t coming from the other side of the door. It was coming from behind. Helen spun round. Rosheen was coming up the stairs. That was all she needed, Miss Perfect on the scene.

  She turned to Rosheen with a scowl.

  ‘He’s locked himself in. He won’t come out.’

  ‘I’ll get him out,’ said Rosheen.

  Oh yeah? thought Helen, but she knew that if anyone could, Rosheen could probably do it, so she just said: ‘OK, but make it quick then, or they’ll be up after us.’ Right, she thought. Let Rosheen sort this one out.

  Rosheen pressed her face to the door and spoke urgently into the crack between the door and the doorjamb. ‘Ricky!’ she called. ‘It’s only me, Rosheen. Open up.’

  No reply.

  ‘Look, it’s OK. Mrs O’Loughlin is only here on a routine visit. She just wants to say hello and ask you how you’re getting on. Don’t mind Helen and her stupid stories. She’s only trying to scare you. She’s such a baby! Ouch!’

  The last bit was in reaction to a kick on the calf from Helen. ‘Go away, Helen,’ she hissed over her shoulder. ‘I can’t make him come out if you hang around here.’

  Helen gave a shrug and set off downstairs.

  ‘Come on, Rick, open up,’ Rosheen pleaded. ‘Helen’s gone now. I sent her downstairs. Let me in.’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Ricky? Are you in there?’

  Nothing.

  Rosheen rattled the door handle. ‘Please, Ricky! For me. I’m worried about you. I just need to know you’re OK. I won’t make you come down if you don’t want to.’

  Silence.

  Rosheen slid down to the floor and sat hunched there, her back leaning against the door. She listened very intently, trying to hear if Ricky was breathing on the other side of the door, but the harder she listened, the more she could hear her own breathing. She held her breath for a while, to see if that would help, but when she did that, all she could hear when she strained to listen was the beat of her heart.

  She sat with her chin resting on her knees and tried to work it out. Maybe Ricky wasn’t in there after all. But then why was the door locked? It didn’t make sense.

  ‘Ricky, Ricky, oh please Ricky, I beg of you to answer me! You don’t have to come out. You don’t have to open the door. Just say something, so I know you’re there and you haven’t run away. Anything.’

  Oh, he doesn’t talk, Rosheen remembered. ‘Hum something, Ricky. Or tap with your feet on the floor, anything to make a sound, so I know you’re there and you’re OK.’

  She thought again. ‘I won’t tell the grown-ups where you are,’ she offered as the final inducement. ‘I promise I won’t. You are the moon king, Ricky! If you’re my friend, just make a sound, please.’

  Was that a sigh? Rosheen’s ear was right against the door. No, it hadn’t been a sigh, she was sure of it. Not a sound, not a word, not a tap, not a breath.

  Suppose he’s not in there, Rosheen thought. But then what was the explanation for the door being locked? She slid onto the floor, her back to the door and her forehead resting on her knees, and wrestled with the problem. It could be that he’d locked it from the outside, she thought, but why would he do that? What on earth would be the point? And anyway, if he had, where was he now?

  CHAPTER 18

  Spiderboy Sleeps

  Nice, dark here, quiet. Spiderboy like dark, like quiet, like soft floor, no people, just your friends going sleep. Nice crack for Spiderboy crawl into. Cover up now for warm.

  Lipstick Woman not find Spiderboy here. Spiderboy not go home. Mam go home from hospital now want Spiderboy home. Not good. Ed home. Ed not like Spiderboy. Ed want hurt Spiderboy all times. Ed hurt Mam too. Ed not hurt Mam if no Spiderboy home. Mam and Ed good friends no Spiderboy. Spiderboy make Ed cross. Mam not make Ed cross no Spiderboy. Spiderboy better stay here your friends. Your friends like talk and sleep, that all, and eat. Just talk and sleep and eat. Spiderboy can eat that too. Spiderboy no talk like your friends, but like listen soft sounds, no shouting no screaming no doors slam.

  Spiderboy like sleep now. Tired now, all that stuff. Eyes sore.

  Not cry any more now, safe here. No more big tall house all stairs. No more moon chair. Not moon king no more, silly game. Just Spiderboy now here your friends. Cover up now some more, more warm. Warmy make yawny, eyes tired, so much tears all dried up now, so sleep. Sleep, Spiderboy now. Sleep.

  CHAPTER 19

  Humouring Mrs O’Loughlin

  ‘Another cup of coffee, Mrs O’Loughlin?’ Mammy Kelly offered. She’d been trying to entertain Mrs O’ for the past quarter of an hour, and she was running out of things to say to her. Ricky hadn’t turned up. He must be in the house somewhere, but none of the children had been able to root him out. It was a bit embarrassing. It made Mammy Kelly look like the kind of person who went around losing children.

  ‘No thanks, Mrs Kelly. I don’t really drink much coffee. It’s so hard on the system, isn’t it?’

  ‘Tea then?’ asked Mammy Kelly. ‘We have chamomile tea, or hibiscus, or raspberry leaf. Would you like some raspberry leaf tea, Mrs O’Loughlin? Or Pearl Grey? I mean, Earl Grey. We call it Pearl Grey. Family joke, you know. We think it sounds like one of those colours they make up on colour charts, you know, the ones the paint companies do? Like Buttery Yellow, Ice Blue, Applewood.’ Mammy Kelly knew she was burbling, but she was desperate to fill up the silence. ‘Zanzibar,’ she added lamely, ‘though goodness knows, that could be anything.’

  ‘No, no. Nothing at all, thank you.’

  Mammy Kelly started. What was the woman on about? Oh yes, the tea. She was refusing a cup of tea. What on earth had made her rabbit on about paint charts? She must pull herself together. The woman would think she was a crackpot.

  Mammy Kelly looked around the room. What could she offer this woman, to take her mind off the fact that the child she had come to see was missing? Well, not missing exactly. Just temporarily mislaid.

  ‘A brownie? Would you like a chocolate brownie?’

  ‘I’d love a chocolate brownie,’ intervened Helen, coming into the room. ‘Can I get the tin?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ answered Mammy Kelly. ‘They’re home-made, you know,’ she went on enthusiastically to Mrs O’. ‘I only give the children home-made cakes and biscuits. Well, at least that way you know what’s in them, don’t you? Ah, Rosheen, there you are, girleen. Did you find Ricky?’

  Rosheen had appeared in the doorway behind Helen, looking disconsolate. She shook her head.

  ‘He’s not in his room,’ she said. ‘Or anywhere upstairs. I don’t know where he’s got to.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs O’Loughlin, standing up and brushing imaginary crumbs off her lap, ‘I suppose there’s not much point in my staying any longer if you can’t find the boy.’

  ‘Oh it’s not that we’ve lost him or anything like that,’ said Mammy Kelly. ‘He must be somewhere about. He was here ten minutes ago.’

  ‘I was here ten minutes ago,’ said Mrs O’Loughlin with unnecessary accuracy, Mammy Kelly thought, ‘and he wasn’t here then.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ she mumbled. ‘Twenty minutes ago, maybe.’

  ‘I’ll be back at the same time tomorrow,’ said Mrs O’Loughlin stiffly. ‘Maybe you could arrange to have Ricky here to meet me then.’

  ‘Oh yes, certainly,’ said Mammy Kelly fervently, delighted the woman was going and the embarrassing situation was coming to an end.

  ‘But in the meantime, I am a bit concerned that nobody knows where the boy is,’ Mrs O’Loughlin went on, ignoring Mammy Kelly’s broad smile, ‘so I must ask you to ring me as soon as he turns up. I’d like to know that you have found him before I go to bed tonight. Otherwise I won’t sleep easy. Have you got my mobile number?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know you had a mobile,’ said Mammy Kelly, trying to sound impressed.

  ‘Yes, well, in this job it’s important to be available night and day. It’s a f
ull-time job, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Mammy Kelly. ‘I know it is. No rest for the wicked, is there?’

  ‘I don’t know about the wicked, Mrs Kelly,’ said Mrs O’Loughlin primly. ‘In this case it’s the virtuous for whom there is no rest.’

  ‘The virtuous, yes, ha-ha, the virtuous!’ Mammy Kelly forced herself to laugh, inwardly kicking herself for uttering that foolish cliché. ‘Yes, yes, the virtuous. Of course. Who else?’

  CHAPTER 20

  Break-in

  Later that evening, Helen was helping Mammy Kelly to get the tea.

  ‘Has Ricky turned up yet?’ her mother asked, handing her the breadboard. She was starting to get worried.

  ‘No,’ said Helen, guardedly. She didn’t want too many questions asked about why Ricky had gone and hidden himself away.

  ‘But it’s, oh, getting on for an hour since anyone saw him,’ said Mammy Kelly, handing her the breadknife as well. ‘Be careful with that, lovey,’ she added, automatically. It was what she always said when she gave anyone the breadknife. ‘Where did you look for him, that time?’ she went on.

  ‘Oh, just around,’ said Helen airily, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she peered into the crumby depths of the breadbin. ‘Which loaf, Ma? The brown or the white?’

  ‘Oh, cut them both,’ said her mother. ‘They’re like the lion and the unicorn in this house,’ she added, somewhat irrelevantly. ‘Around where?’ she added, determined to find out more about Ricky. An hour was a long time for a child to be missing. ‘Where did you look, I mean?’