I felt a right prat, slipping into that fantasy world where you start to believe that life is a video and you’re the star. Then again, a prat is exactly what I was.
For a Saturday night the streets were very quiet and empty. A light drizzle fell, all wispy and shiny under the streetlights. I was pretty steady on my feet but Beano was lurching along in big, wayward strides that took him from one side of the footpath to the other. The sweat was rolling from him and he kept gulping from the big cider bottle in his pocket.
‘How did I think of it?’ he yelped as we neared the town park.
‘Quit the shouting, Beano. And stop drinking that stuff.’
‘There’s no one around, OD,’ he said. ‘No one notices the likes of us. Not until now, anyway.’
I was getting nervous and sober, thinking of the consequences of what we were about to do. Next week, I’d be signing on again and looking for a job. Who’d take me on after this escapade? And what if we ended up in court? Then my name would be in the paper and I’d have a criminal record and maybe do some time in jail. I’d have to leave town, and if I started running away at seventeen, where would it end? I’d be just another anonymous loser drifting from town to town, from city to city.
But we were at the park by now and I was already finding reasons for going ahead with our plan. I wasn’t going to get a job anyway, criminal record or no criminal record. Not with my address, not with my ‘family history’. And in any case, why would I want to hang around this town where I wasn’t wanted or respected?
We climbed the gate and ran across to the JCB.
‘Did you ever drive anything before?’ Beano asked with a wild cackle.
I never had.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I drove Mahoney up the wall.’
He belched out a big, drink-sodden chuckle. His pale face had a queer, ghostly brightness in the faint light. I sensed his strangeness and my bad knee started feeling weak from the running.
We climbed into the cab of the JCB. I searched around for a light but couldn’t find any. I was in the driver’s seat. Beano was crowding in over my shoulder. My hands were shaking and the keys rattled like chains.
‘Get off my back, Beano!’
‘Sorry, sorry!’
I was getting used to the dark and starting to see the outline of the dashboard. Eventually, I found the right slot for the key with the tips of my fingers. I slipped the key into place.
‘Bingo,’ I said. ‘We’re in business.’
My hand fell on the gearstick and I shoved it forward. We were moving, slowly and jerkily at first, but my aim was true. We were heading for the rockery. The noise in the cab was deafening, the weight on the steering wheel enor mous. I couldn’t figure out how to move the bucket out front up and down, so I just drove straight into the care fully arranged heap of rocks and clay and plants. We both shot forward and slammed our heads off the windscreen.
My foot was stuck on the accelerator and the JCB inched forward and upwards. We were climbing the rockery and I knew what was at the top end – a drop into the fountain and four feet of water.
I turned the key and pulled it out. The engine went dead. I peered out into the night. We were balanced on top of the rockery and the front wheels couldn’t have been more than a few inches from the water in the fountain.
When we moved to jump out, the whole JCB started rocking back and forth. I grabbed Beano’s shoulder.
‘Take your time,’ I said quietly, as if even the sound of my voice might be enough to dump us in the water. ‘Open the door real slow and climb down nice and easy, all right?’
Beano’s bravado was gone. He whimpered like a child as he clambered down and the JCB gave a lurch forward. I got to the door and the cab rose, swayed from side to side and dipped again towards the fountain – except this time it didn’t stop. I took off like a skydiver without a parachute, and the wet earth came up at me so quickly that I had no chance to stop my fall. My bad knee buckled under me and I screamed out in agony as the JCB plunged, wheels over cab, into the water.
Beano was holding me and screaming something that didn’t make sense – until I saw the flashing blue light of a squad car.
‘Run for it!’ I shouted through my pain. ‘Out the back, by the fields. Go on!’
‘I can’t leave you,’ he sniffled. ‘I got you into this. I’ll take the blame.’
‘Go, Beano!’
‘No way! No way!’
We were nabbed. The only damage we’d managed to do was to upend the JCB and wreck my knee. It didn’t seem worth all the trouble as we sat side by side in the back of the squad car on our way to the Garda barracks. Beano cried all the way.
A couple of young guards took us to a cell. They didn’t rough us up or anything, but I still felt like I’d been done over. I made it to the bunk in the corner of the cell. When they locked the door, Beano came and rested his head on my shoulder and I felt his whole body shaking.
‘I’m afraid, OD.’
‘They’ll let us out after a few hours,’ I assured him. ‘Don’t worry.’
That only freaked him out even more. He lay back on the bunk and I saw that his eyes were jammed tight shut. He was gasping for air and I was sure he was going to have some kind of fit. I thought of the drugs again, but I didn’t want him to think I didn’t believe him – even if he was lying.
‘I’m going to die, OD.’
‘Cut it out, Beano,’ I said, but I was more scared than I’d ever been in my life. I was certain he’d taken something and was just about to call for help when he spoke again.
‘You don’t understand, OD,’ he cried. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be locked up in a room like this for days … for weeks …’
He opened his eyes and looked around at the walls as if he expected them to cave in at any minute. ‘They used to tie me to the bed when they went out. Once they didn’t give me anything to eat for three days.’
I held on to him and felt him crumple against me.
‘Why did you never tell me, Beano?’
‘It was before we met up,’ he said. Then he panicked again. ‘But it’s not like that now, OD. See, it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Mammy wasn’t well and my father was halfmad from worryin’. But since she got the tablets, things are … grand … they’re grand now, honest.’
I didn’t have any right to ask him: he was already in bits and he didn’t need me to break him up some more. I imagined I was thinking of Beano’s welfare, but what was really happening was that I had a new target for my anger. The site foreman from hell. Snipe Doyle.
‘What did he do to you that night after the Galtee, Beano?’
He eased himself away from me. There was hate in his eyes and I hoped it wasn’t directed at me. I knew I deserved it, the way I was pushing him. Then the smile took root. The Jack Nicholson smile. The one that comes before he gets nasty. Beano was off – as Jack, bawling out Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men.
‘You can’t handle the truth!’ he yelled. ‘You want the truth? I’ll give you the truth!’
‘Christ, Beano, give over the play-acting.’
Jack Nicholson disappeared into thin air. Beano’s face went dead.
‘He pushed me down the stairs,’ he said. ‘With his fist.’
Behind him, the cell door swung open. The young guard pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.
‘Get out of here, lads,’ he said. ‘There’s no charges. Just stay out of trouble or we’ll be down on you two like a ton of bricks.’
‘But we stole a JCB and we wrecked – ’ I began in disbelief.
‘Look, we’ve talked to the Council and to Mr. Moran,’ he explained patiently. ‘They don’t want this story about the park getting out. Bad publicity, you know. Count yourself lucky, lads, and beat it.’
I limped out of the barracks with my arm around Beano for support. We must have looked like no-hopers in a threelegged race. And no-hopers is what we were. Our big protest had fizzled out, squelched by the powers that be.
At the front gate of our house I said good night to Beano, but I had no intention of going in. A mad idea was brewing in my head. I’d failed to get at Moran or the jerks who let us waste six months on a park that was never to be, but Snipe wouldn’t escape my clutches.
‘Go home and go to bed, Beano,’ I said.
‘What if he’s there,’ he pleaded, ‘waiting for me.’
‘It’s Saturday night, Beano,’ I reminded him. ‘He’ll still be in the pub.’
‘I suppose so,’ he mumbled dismally and shuffled off. ‘You’ll still be my pal, won’t you, OD?’
It was just what I needed him to say. Now I really could believe I was doing this for him.
‘You know I will,’ I said. ‘Now, go on and go straight to bed, right?’
I pretended to search for my key until I heard the front door of his house close in the distance. My stomach tightened and I looked up at the sky. It had cleared by now. The stars were in their usual places and not taking a blind bit of notice of me. There was a poem in that somewhere, but my mind was far from poetry. I tried putting some weight on the bad leg and it just about held up. That was all right. I wouldn’t need to run anyway. I was finished with run ning, I thought.
Snipe always came home from the pub by a short cut through an alleyway at our end of De Valera Park. All I had to do was get myself over there and wait. I hobbled across the road and into the unlit alleyway. The church bells rang out for midnight and I reckoned on an hour, maybe an hour and a half, before he fell into my trap. I was wrong.
It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before I heard footsteps at the far end of the lane. Snipe had already passed by me before I realised it was actually him.‘You’re early,’ I called after him.
Snipe wheeled around, but I couldn’t see his face well enough to know if he was frightened. I guessed he wouldn’t be. In his mind, he was still the tough little scrum-half who wasn’t afraid to play a man’s game.
‘What’re you doin’ here?’
‘I’m waiting for someone,’ I said. ‘A child abuser. I’m going to give him a taste of his own medicine.’
He sauntered towards me. I could see him better now. His eyelids were half-closed, he wasn’t wearing his Rugby Club tie and the buttons of his shirt were open, Mick Moran style.
‘You believe that white-headed eejit, do you?’
My fist sank into his beer belly and he keeled over. I kicked him with my good leg until he was flat out on the ground. I gave him one last shot with my bad leg and didn’t care about the pain.
‘Get up, Snipe. I thought you were supposed to be the hard rugby player.’
He groaned and shuddered uncontrollably. Then he stopped moving.
‘Snipe?’
I circled around him, sure he was playing a trick to catch me off my guard. I reached down and twisted his arm behind his back. There was no trick. He was out cold. His breath came in short, wheezy gasps. From the corner of his mouth, a little trail of blood glistened. I didn’t know what dying looked like, but I was sure this was it. I panicked and started to run, gripping the wall to hold myself steady.
There’d be no way out of this one if the guards caught me. I had to get out of town, some way or other. I got this lunatic notion of hopping on one of those trains that run through the town at night, down to Cork or up to Dublin. But if I did succeed in reaching either place, I’d need money to get on the boat to England. And I knew where I could lay my hands on some money. It was all madness, but it kept me going.
I had to wait to let a few people pass up the street before I emerged from the alleyway and crossed over to our house. The stairs might as well have been Mount Everest, they took so long to climb. I eased open the door to Jimmy’s room. There was just about enough light from the street outside for me to see he was lying facing the window – and to see the big Mexican sombrero on top of the ward robe.
I had it in my hands when Jimmy stirred and his head turned sharply. He was wide awake. When he saw the sombrero, he looked away again.
‘I’m in trouble, Jimmy,’ I said, my voice high, not my own, as I stuffed the wad of notes into my pocket. ‘I’ll send the money back to you.’
He said nothing. He just raised a hand to his mouth, took out his false teeth and dropped them in the glass of water on the bedside table. The water slowly turned red.I scrambled backwards from the room, knowing I was lost, lost forever, and truly sorry that I’d dragged Jimmy down with me. I trundled heavily down the stairs and opened the front door and stood there.
How many times had I wished I’d never have to come back to this house again? I remembered Mam. Had she been thinking what I was thinking now, when she left that last time? That you can’t leave fear behind you. That it tags along wherever you go. Maybe that was why she never wrote. I closed out the door behind me – softly.
The railway station was five minutes away if you had two good legs to carry you. It took me twenty minutes. I waited in the shadows for a train I wasn’t even sure would stop here.
The tracks leading into the station brought nothing but a raw breeze. I took shelter in a phone booth under the arch of the metal footbridge. After a while, I lifted the receiver and was surprised to find there was a line. When I fished the loose change from my pocket I felt that for once in my life I’d got lucky, but I didn’t believe it would last. The dock on the opposite platform said half past twelve. I dialled the first three digits of Nance’s number and stopped. It made no sense to drag Nance into this. I’d never stopped loving her and I couldn’t let myself hurt her any more than I already had.
Then I thought I could do one last decent thing before I escaped or was caught. Snipe was dying up there in a lane in De Valera Park. He was a bum but no one deserved what I’d done to him. I’d ring for help. So I rang Dr. Corbett, right?
No, I rang the would-be medical student, Red Cross expert and girlfriend-snatcher himself. I rang Seanie Moran.
NANCE
‘It’s nearly seven o’clock, Nance,’ Tom said accusingly when I came in by the kitchen door. ‘We were worried about you, we thought …’
He was sitting at the kitchen table. There was no sign that they’d been eating. This time I hadn’t told them where I was going and had made no excuses.
I filled the kettle, bracing myself for the questions I had to ask. Sitting down opposite Tom, I listened to the breathy wail of the boiling water. The memory of that scene with OD brought with it only a dull aching. I felt no emotion. I felt nothing could hurt me more than I was hurt already.
‘We’ve had a phone call,’ he said quietly. ‘From Heather Kelly.’
I was wrong about the hurt. Betrayal doesn’t get any easier to bear.
‘She had no right to do that,’ I said.
‘Maybe not. But she did it for your sake … and for ours.’
I needed to dish out some pain too.
‘You dumped her, didn’t you?’
‘I suppose you could say that,’ he admitted, his head bowed. ‘So you found a photo of Chris?’
‘Yeah, and I had to hear his name from a stranger. Why did she leave the photo there for me to find like that?’
‘Nance, I didn’t even know she still had it until this afternoon. After Heather rang.’
I was shaken by the way he spoke of the photo, as if it was a secret May had kept from him. ‘May’s in a pretty bad way,’ he said.
‘What about me? How do you think I feel?’
‘I know, I know … but May is … very disturbed … very …’
I’d never seen him look so utterly defeated. I’m the one who’s been kept in the dark for years, I thought angrily.
‘You’re trying to make me feel guilty,’ I said. ‘You’re the ones, you and May, who lied to me.’
Tom sank further down into his chair. Drained of colour, he looked so old it seemed strangely odd that he was wearing a light blue tracksuit.
‘If you could just understand, Nance,’ he pleaded. ‘How young, how n
aïve we were. I was twenty-three; May was barely twenty-one. We had no plan, no idea how we’d tell you the whole story. We should have … prepared you when you were younger, but … we could never bring ourselves to spoil your childhood.’
‘I know all that. I know you didn’t mean any harm.’
He brightened a little at that. His smile was grateful.
‘Everything we’ve done has been for your happiness, Nance. We got it badly wrong, but you must believe that.’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘If you just tell me who my mother was, you can pretend I didn’t even ask, that I told you everything was all right. I know she’s dead and I’m not going to go looking for her family or anything like that. Maybe when I’m older. I have my family, you and May … Was it that American woman in the photo?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Those damn junkies, they destroyed …’
He buried his head in his hands and his anguish was terrible to see. I eased around the table, afraid but wanting to know who they’d destroyed. I rested my arm on his shoulder as much for my own comfort as for his. It almost seemed like my touch drew the truth from him. But not the truth I expected.
‘May is your mother, Nance,’ he whispered. ‘Your natural mother. Go to her. Please.’
I didn’t. I couldn’t. Instead, I went to my room and asked myself, over and over again, why she couldn’t admit to being my mother. I felt a dread as terrible as my constant nightmare and found myself trying to put American ac cents on those raised voices I’d so often heard in that dark dream. The accents didn’t really fit; but those Americans, I knew, held the key to the mystery of my past.
I heard Tom come quietly up the stairs. He tried both our doors, mine and May’s. They were both locked. He stayed outside on the landing for a long time. I didn’t hear him go down, but after a while I was aware that he was gone.
The house was an empty church full of the echoes of nothing. Was it shame, I asked myself? Was that what it came down to? Shame for her half-caste child – me? Was I, after all, someone’s ‘mistake’, not Heather’s as I’d thought, but May’s? Or was the shame about something else? Something to do with those American junkies, those drug addicts? Had May been involved in all that stuff? It didn’t seem possible.
White Lies Page 12
