She wasn’t here earlier on and arrived only after Mrs Doran’s class had already started. The light sheen of foundation she’s wearing doesn’t mask the shadows under her eyes. I should feel sorry for her. I don’t. I look across at her and all I can think of is her neighbour. Brian. It’s not only our house he’s disappeared from. I never see him around town these days and Sean hasn’t mentioned his name since that night at the A and E. Maybe he’s gone to college after all. Not that it matters. It’s curiosity, like, nothing more.
When I watched Jill come into our classroom I thought, No way am I going to listen to her sob story. I’ve changed my mind. She’s bound to know where Brian is. The bell rings. I get to Jill quickly and catch her off-guard. She’s still putting away her economics textbooks.
‘Well, Jill. You all right?’
She looks up from her bag. A picture of holy suffering.
‘Hi, Eala.’
Suddenly she’s on her feet and wrapping her arms round me. Nothing unusual in that. Not for Jill. She’s into hugging. Sometimes she might have seen you only a few hours before, but she greeted you like she’d been away for a year. But this hug is different. Tighter and it lasts longer. Our classmates are still filing out, taking their time to witness her antics. Some think the scene is touching. Others can’t help smirking. A few squirm at the absurdity of it. I’m with this last bunch. I’m still debating about pulling free when Jill lets go. She takes a deep breath like she’s about to reveal all. I hear Angie’s voice in my head. Don’t let her start, Eala; tell her you need to find Brian because … because …
‘Have you seen Brian around lately?’ I ask. Angie asks. ‘Because he took a loan of one of Dad’s DVDs – All Dogs Go to Heaven – you know, the film Dad worked on. And I really need to get the DVD back.’
Brilliant, Angie says. Like Brian would borrow a kiddies’ film?
Jill’s stumped. Her lips move, but she doesn’t know what to say. Or maybe she knows what to say, but she’s too polite to put it into words. Angie’s too quick for her anyway. Squeeze out a few tears, Eala.
‘I’ve so little left of Dad, I …’
I tell Angie to get lost. Because of the foundation cream, Jill’s blush has a weird green tinge to it.
‘I haven’t seen him, but I’m sick of listening to the racket from his workshed. Win had to go in there a few times before she went back to Dublin and ask him to turn off that saw thing or whatever it is so Richard could sleep,’ Jill says.
‘He’s not gone to college, then?’
She shakes her head. She’s waiting for me to ask about her sister. I don’t. As I turn away, she holds my arm.
‘Win’s planning to give Richard up for adoption,’ Jill says.
‘She’s better off,’ I tell her. ‘Maybe the kid’s better off too.’
Only now do I notice how stuffy and downright putrid the air in the classroom is after a few hours of stale breath and body smells trapped without an open window to escape through. For some reason I think, This is what prison smells like.
‘You’re fair messed up, Eala,’ Jill says and I’m surprised at how dead calm she is. ‘I mean you were always kind of sarcastic, but funny, like. Now you’re pure cynical and … and cruel. I know it must be hard for you, but … Eala, you really need to talk to someone.’
Which really sets me off.
‘Someone like you, maybe?’ I say. ‘Like I could get a word in edgeways with you moaning on about Win and her little sprog.’
‘Do you want to know why I came to school today?’ Jill asks, and I’m thrown.
‘Same reason we all do.’
‘Because of the court case,’ she says. ‘I wanted to be here for you. Which is more than you’re prepared to do for me.’
I’m flabbergasted. I look at Jill, but she’s studying her fingernails. No nail polish. It must be the first day since she was about ten years old that she hasn’t painted them.
‘I don’t need all this crap today.’
‘You can’t walk away from people,’ she says, all goo-eyed. ‘People who care about you, who … I’m going down to the lunch hall.’
Laughter comes bursting out of me as she heads towards the classroom door through the maze of benches. This is totally mad, but I can’t stop myself. I’m laughing and shouting at the same time.
‘Look at her! “You can’t walk away,” she says, and then she walks away!’
In the far corner of the room, Angie’s doubled over with laughter too.
15
The courtroom is a kip. The high windows are so grimy that the afternoon light has turned to a dirty dusk before it reaches inside. Blistered and peeling wall paint is spotted with greeny-black mould. The place smells like a toilet that hasn’t been flushed since it was last used about a hundred years ago. It’s full of dark timbers, sticky to the touch. A judge’s high bench lords it over the witness box, the double row of pews for the legal people and the Guards, and the steep bank of seating where the rest of us sit.
Mam, Sean and myself are sitting in the second row of seats. Behind us sit Martin and Fiona Sheedy. In the front row and over to our right are Clem Healy, his brother Sham and his father. It’s the first time I’ve seen Clem Healy up close. He’s small, weedy and seriously acned. He looks about twelve, though I know he’s going on fifteen. His father, Trigger, is short, thickset and shaven-headed. In his black suit, he’d pass as a night-club bouncer, the kind who won’t let you in and lets you go figure out the reason. His buttoned and tieless shirt collar is embedded in the flesh of his thick neck. Sham is a twenty-year-old copy of his old man except that he wears a rapper’s oversized threads.
Clem was the first person I saw when we came in here. I felt physically sick with hatred. It didn’t help that he had his hoodie up and was grinning stupidly. When he glanced in our direction he didn’t seem to realize who we were. Either that or he didn’t care. Then the grin evaporated and he was a rabbit in the headlights. Sean had caught his eye. Clem nudged his brother, who took up the staring match with Sean. Trigger joined in too.
‘Stop it now, Sean, please,’ Mam whispered. ‘We’ll have none of that macho nonsense, do you hear me?’
Martin leaned forward to Sean and they exchanged a few quiet words. The staring match ended. Trigger turned to his son and pulled the hoodie roughly down. The kid flinched, expecting a blow from his father, but it was Sham who delivered an elbow into his ribs.
We had to sit through three cases before they came to ours. A mugging, a house break-in, a joyriding incident. Two boys and a girl. Thirteen, maybe fourteen years of age, all of them. Ordinary kids you’d walk past on the street and not look twice at. All three got suspended sentences. There wasn’t a lot of remorse on show.
Our case began about half an hour ago. A Guard gave evidence of the chase down by the River Walk and the arrest. Another gave details of tyre marks on the footpath. Starsky, wearing a bouncer’s suit not unlike Trigger’s, said that Clem Healy had, at first, claimed that Dad tried to knock him off his bike, but later admitted he’d been lying. In spite of Clem’s denials, Starsky felt sure that someone had been chasing the kid that evening. He also offered his opinion that Clem had been carrying illegal substances. The judge told Starsky he wanted proofs not opinions.
Then a middle-aged woman whose car had stopped at the junction pointed at Clem Healy when asked to identify the cyclist who caused the accident. Soon as I saw her, I knew she was the woman who held Dad until the ambulance arrived. I hated her for it. It should’ve been me holding him. But the worst part was yet to come.
Dr Reid, the psychiatrist from the rehab centre, outlined the damage done to Dad. He had this distinguished air of grey-haired wisdom about him. Dad had another French phrase to describe old guys like that, but I couldn’t remember it while Dr Reid spoke and I still can’t remember it now. At first, his evidence was full of incomprehensible medical terms. The prosecuting solicitor, a youn
g, dark-haired and efficient woman, soon got to the heart of the matter.
‘What, Dr Reid, in your opinion, is the long-term outlook for the victim?’ she asked, sweeping off her glasses for effect.
‘At this point, I’m forced to conclude,’ Dr Reid said, ‘that, notwithstanding some recent progress, a return to previous intellectual capacity is not a realistic prognosis. Behavioural problems, anxiety and depression are also likely to be ongoing.’
‘In a word, then,’ the counsel said, ‘Mr Summerton has been condemned to a life sentence?’
‘Mr Summerton and his family both. Yes, I’m afraid so.’
I already knew this, of course. It didn’t matter. I was sitting there, not moving, but I felt myself sinking into a bottomless pit. Dad wouldn’t have understood the psychiatrist’s words but, all the same, I was glad he didn’t have to hear them. Even if he did have to be at home with the Ice Queen. Beside me, Sean sobbed while Martin comforted him with a hand on his shoulder.
When I was seven or eight, we spent a summer holiday in Salthill. I wanted to go up in the Big Wheel opposite the long promenade and look out across the silvery waters of Galway Bay. Though she was pure terrified of heights, Mam sat in the bucket seat beside me. All the way up and then down again, she leaned back as far as she could and held on to my hand as if I could have stopped her falling should anything disastrous happen. I thought of that day as Dr Reid spoke and she clung to me.
After the psychiatrist finished his evidence, I was to be next. It didn’t happen.
For the last ten minutes, the microphone at the high bench has been switched off and there’s a discussion going on that we can’t hear between the judge, the solicitors, Starsky and a tall red-haired young woman.
Clem Healy is rocking back and forward nervously and it’s fair annoying. His father is bristling with impatience and we hear a muttered, ‘Get on with it,’ from Sham. The judge, an older man with half-moon glasses perched low on his nose, switches on his microphone.
‘No interruptions, please,’ he says. ‘Is that clear?’
Trigger looks back at the people behind him, passing the blame. The judge switches off his microphone again. I don’t like how this is going. Mam doesn’t either. She shakes her head as if she’s refusing to answer some terrible question she’s asked of herself. The discussion at the high bench is over. Clem Healy’s solicitor leads the young woman over to the witness box.
From this distance she looks like a size-zero model and her elegant walk seems weirdly out of place in this dingy courtroom. I can’t figure out who she can be. Another witness to the accident – with a different story to the one we’ve been hearing? Starsky’s back in his seat near the solicitors’ benches. His head is lowered.
‘Miss Delahunty,’ the solicitor begins. ‘Can you give us a synopsis of your psychological report on the accused?’
Christ, I’m thinking, another bloody psychologist and I know too well what her intention is. To get creepy little Clem off the hook. I turn and shoot Fiona Sheedy a filthy look. I can’t tell if it’s a smile or a wince I get in return.
‘Yes, well, having examined Clement,’ the catwalk psycho says, ‘I’ve reached the following conclusions. Firstly, it’s clear that he suffers from attention deficit disorder and a variety of more serious learning disorders related to this and other problems, all of which point to a significant developmental deficit. There’s an especially low reading age, low scores on intellectual indices and inadequate social skills, which are exacerbated by familial difficulties.’
‘In short,’ the defending solicitor says, ‘Clement Healy is simply incapable of being fully responsible for his actions?’
‘Yes.’
Mam has withdrawn her hand from mine. She stares vacantly at the diseased walls. Sean’s muttering to himself, beating a fist into his palm. Below us, Clem Healy is watching the psychologist’s click-clacking, high-heeled retreat to her seat like he’s still trying to figure out what she’s said. His solicitor beckons to him and his father digs him in the ribs to catch his attention. He jumps up and, in a weird half-run, makes his way to the witness box.
The judge takes off his glasses. He surveys the gallery where we sit and somehow I know he’s short-sighted and can’t actually see our faces. Maybe this is what they mean when they say that justice is blind. He starts to speak, but has forgotten to turn on his microphone.
‘We can’t hear you,’ Trigger calls out and the judge eyes him threateningly. Starsky’s staring back at him too and he makes a slicing gesture across his neck. Trigger smiles. The microphone comes alive with a piercing whistle. The judge taps it like a drum. Clem Healy can’t keep still, hopping around in the witness box like he needs to go to the toilet.
‘As a guilty plea has now been entered on behalf of –’ the judge shuffles through the file before him, – ‘of Clement Healy and, taking into consideration Miss Delahunty’s report, the case can be decided without further evidence or submissions.’
Sean leans forward, gripping the back of the seat before him.
‘I am not persuaded of any malicious intent in this case, only the extreme recklessness of an intellectually challenged young boy. My sympathies go out to Mr Summerton’s family. However, I do not consider that a custodial sentence is appropriate in this case. I, therefore, have decided on a sentence of forty hours’ community service …’
Clem Healy spins round. He’s smiling broadly at his father.
Sean stands up.
‘You can’t do this!’ he shouts at the judge. ‘You can’t let him walk!’
‘Sit down, please,’ the judge says. ‘I know this is difficult for you all, but –’
‘You know nothing,’ Sean answers. He’s flushed and wild and I know this isn’t going to end here today in court. ‘Come back to our house for an hour and you’ll see what it’s really like.’
There’s a Guard at one end of our row now and Starsky climbs the steps reluctantly to take the other end. Mam’s head is lowered, her hands over her ears. Martin is trying to pull Sean back down on to the seat. Clem Healy is skulking away behind his solicitor.
‘You’re dead!’ Sean calls after him. ‘Dead!’
‘Clear the courtroom,’ the judge says and switches off his microphone.
‘OK,’ Starsky says. ‘Can we leave quietly, please? Sean, leave it, OK?’
We file out slowly between the rows of seats, the Guard behind us, Starsky in front and beckoning us forward. It’s like we’re a gang of prisoners being led down to our cells. Single file and each of us alone. As we go by, Starsky says,
‘Sorry you had to go through all of this for nothing, Judy.’
Mam shrugs. Sean stops and I try to pull him on after me. He’s almost as tall as Starsky and in his face.
‘Some cop you are,’ he says. ‘You couldn’t catch a cold at the North Pole with your trousers off.’
In the corridor outside the courtroom, it feels like everyone is watching us. Waiting for more. Sean slips by me, hurrying to be out of this hellhole. Martin’s at his heels. I can’t see the Healys and I’ve lost Mam and Fiona. The noise of chatter and footfall is doing my head in. The heated, sweaty smell of the crowd is sickening. I’m drowning in it. I can’t breathe. Seeing stars, hearing them burn out with a loud hissing.
‘Bastard!’
Sean again. The crowd has parted and I see Clem Healy talking on his mobile and Sean’s fist coming out of nowhere and slamming into the side of the raised hoodie. The mobile falls on the floor. It stays in one piece and slides towards me. Sean’s holding the kid’s shoulder, preparing another punch. Trigger grabs a hold of Sean’s arm from behind. Martin catches Trigger by the shoulder and Sham is trying to pull Martin off his father. It’s like a crazy conga dance. Everyone’s watching them so they don’t see me stamp on Clem Healy’s phone and make bits of it. Starsky rushes across and steps in between Sean and the Healy sons. Martin and Trigger a
re squaring up to each other. Each has a fistful of the other’s shirt collar.
‘Anything happens to my son and you lot will be sorry you ever crossed my path,’ Trigger grunts. ‘You don’t know who you’re messing with here.’
‘You’re a scumbag, Healy,’ Martin says before Miss Understanding emerges from the crowd and eases him away from Trigger, whispering in his ear, patting him on the back like he’s a child.
‘Da,’ Clem Healy complains. ‘I lost me phone.’
His father slaps him across the back of the hoodie.
‘Well, go and find it.’
But Starsky’s had enough of them.
‘Get out,’ he says and pushes the Healys towards the courthouse exit.
‘But the young lad’s lost his phone,’ Trigger objects.
‘Make yourself scarce, Healy, before I cuff you for causing disorder.’
Tears flow down between the spots on Clem’s face. His nose is running too.
‘What if Mammy rings?’ he pleads.
‘She won’t ring, you dummy,’ Healy says and punches him so hard on the shoulder, the kid hits the wall.
A shiver runs through me. Someone catches my arm and I pull free. It’s Mam. And she looks at me downcast, defeated.
16
When I realized that Mam had invited Fiona Sheedy back to the house, I said I’d go with Martin in the Mercedes. Sean was already in the back seat of Mam’s car. The courthouse car park leads on to a one-way street and we’ve hit the evening traffic. I don’t mind the delay. I’m in no hurry to get home anyway.
Martin’s always driven these big Mercedes cars and when I was a kid I loved travelling in them and pretending I was some kind of princess or celebrity. I loved how smoothly they moved, how silent they were inside compared to our old banger of a station wagon. I’d sit in the back seat talking non-stop to my invisible friend. Once, Kathleen, sitting in the passenger seat, asked me what my friend’s name was. And in all innocence, I told her it was Angie. Whatever it was that she and Martin felt, neither of them reacted badly because I remember nothing else of that journey and it didn’t stop them spoiling me rotten every chance they got.
My Dad Is Ten Years Old Page 9
