In a Moment

by Caroline Finnerty

  The atmosphere in the small house perked up instantly. Chloe and Kyle didn’t seem so weighed down with worry and fear, and Jean could relax a bit more now that she knew Paul wasn’t going to descend upon them all in a vicious rage. The Gardaí had rung to check how things were since he had been released and she was glad to report that things were great, in fact better than they had been in a long time. Imagine if she had listened to them and pressed charges like they had wanted her to do! Of course she was very grateful that they had stepped in when they did but all that was required was a caution and he was back to his old self again. Her son had learnt his lesson; he wasn’t a violent man like they had made him out to be.

  For the first time in weeks, she began to sleep at night without fear. Chloe and Kyle began to do better in school; the combination of being able to get their homework done in peace and getting a good night’s sleep had worked wonders and made Jean feel awful because it was only now that she was realising just how badly they had been affected by Paul’s violence.

  Paul seemed to have a new-found respect for her and her house and no longer saw it as his own stomping ground to invite his friends over and do whatever he wanted. Whatever they had said to him in the Garda station, it had worked.

  She stopped making excuses when her mother or Louise suggested calling over to her – she was no longer afraid of what state Paul would be in. He began to talk to her again – granted, there was no in-depth conversation, only greetings like ‘Hi’ or ‘See you later’ but it was a start. She hoped that maybe he was finally beginning to grow up. He still went out with the lads to God knew where and she was pretty sure he was still doing his assortment of drugs but, if he was leaving her and the twins alone, she was going to leave him alone.

  36

  December, 2009

  Saturday morning was the one morning of the week that the Kinsella family all sat down and ate breakfast together. Morning time on the weekdays was a blur of trying to coax the girls to sit down to eat a few bites of breakfast cereal while Nora flustered around making lunches, finding missing school-ties and packing schoolbags that she had been promised were already packed. Her husband Pat was usually on the road early every day to beat the commuter traffic from their County Wicklow home into Dublin City Centre. But on Saturday mornings they normally all sat down together and had big blow-out late breakfast. Of course it was Nora who was left cooking the fry, flipping pancakes or pouring maple syrup over the waffles, but it was as much a treat for her as it was for the rest of the family. The three girls were seated around the breakfast table whilst Nora tossed the eggs over in the frying pan.

  “I no want guggy-egg,” Emily, the three-year-old, roared at her mother.

  “No guggy-egg, love – I’ll make it hard, so.”

  “But I want guggy-egg!” Katie, her four-year-old daughter, protested.

  “All right, here you go then,” Nora said in exasperation as she walked over to the table with the frying pan and placed the egg onto Katie’s plate before bring the pan back over to continue cooking Emily’s egg. Nora knew Katie was just doing it to be difficult – whatever her sisters did or wanted Katie had to do the opposite.

  “What way do you want your egg, Orla?”

  Orla was six and was a mini-adult in comparison to her two younger sisters.

  “Guggy-egg is for babies, I want it hard.”

  “No, it’s not!” Katie whined. “Mammy, tell her it’s not!”

  “Orla, guggy-egg isn’t for babies – stop winding Katie up!”

  “Ha!” Katie said goadingly to her sister.

  “Now that is enough, the pair of you!” Jesus, Sweet Mother of Divinity, why do I bother at all with family breakfasts? They aren’t worth the stress!

  “But I need soldiers, Mam!” Katie was looking at the lonely egg on her plate.

  “Right, sit back down. I’ll put toast on for you now.”

  “I want soldiers too!” Emily was roaring again.

  “Emily, I can hear you perfectly well – there is no need to shout.”

  Nora popped bread into the toaster and wondered how she would get through the day. It was only eight o’clock and already she was worn out from the demands of her daughters. And Pat was enjoying a lie-in as usual. It irked her that, even though she was up early with the kids all week, just because he went out to work he automatically felt entitled to his weekend lie-ins. It didn’t matter to him that her job as a stay-at-home mother didn’t operate from Monday to Friday with the weekends off and an hour-long lunch-break. In a few minutes she would shout down the hall to wake him up and he would wander into the kitchen with a big sleepy head on him and have his ‘family breakfast’ served up to him on a plate. She sighed and opened the fridge door and a carton of milk that had been hastily stuffed onto the edge of one of the glass shelves fell out and spilled all over the floor.

  “For Christ –” she shouted but, when she saw her daughters looking at her wide-eyed, fearful of the tone of her voice, she stopped herself in her tracks. “Who left that there?” She took a deep breath. Patience, she reminded herself, patience. She knew already that today was going to be trying.

  She had bent down on her hunkers and was looking into the cupboard under the sink for kitchen-roll when suddenly there was a huge screech from outside. Its pitch sent a chill down her spine. What was that? It was followed instantly by the sound of metal crashing upon metal. She felt goose-pimples rise on her skin. Sweet Jesus. She looked over at the three girls who now, instead of being frightened by her, were frightened instead by the noise coming from outside.

  She hopped up and looked out the kitchen window. Her eyes scanned the garden as she saw clumps of leafy green foliage scattered all around the grass. The hedge, there was a hole in the hedge. What had happened to the hedge? Then she noticed the trampoline had been upended and was turned upside down, lying on the opposite side of the garden instead of in its usual spot. Deep ugly brown track-marks now divided the green lawn in two. Her eyes followed the tracks until they rested upon a car lying on its side. A car! It all seemed so out of place. Why was there a car in their garden? She could hear a commotion coming from the road.

  “Pat! Pat!” She shouted down the hallway of their bungalow towards their bedroom. But he was already running towards her; he had heard it too. He ran past her and the girls and out the back door. The four of them followed in haste behind him. They all stood momentarily on the doorstep, just surveying the sight before them, trying to process what they were looking at.

  Pat sprang into action. “Get the girls inside, Nora! Quick, call an ambulance!” he roared at her.

  And at last she realised what was happening and ushered the girls back into the house. Her daughters looked at her for explanation, their small confused faces trying to make sense of why their dad was shouting and why there was a car lying sideways in their garden. She hurried them into the playroom and told Orla to put on the Peppa Pig DVD for the girls. Emily was thrilled by the impromptu viewing of her favourite cartoon without even having to ask for it. She started jumping up and down, repeating giddily, “Peppa Pig! Peppa Pig!” Orla was about to protest, probably something along the lines of her not wanting to watch Peppa Pig and how it was only for babies but something about her mother’s voice and demeanour told her to do as she was told. She led her younger sisters into the playroom and turned on the TV for them.

  Nora fumbled with the phone, trying to dial 999 while simultaneously peering out through the frosted glass in the side panels of their door.

  “Hello, yes . . . There’s been a bad accident. At the crossroads on Newtown Road – a car has gone off the road and tumbled into our garden. I’m not sure how many are in the car.” Her voice was trembling. They took her address and said they would dispatch an ambulance and the fire-brigade.

  She ran back out to Pat who was trying to peer into the car through the shattered front windscreen but the millions of small cracks made it impossible.

  “They’re on their way,” sh
e said.

  He ran around to the back of the car, where the back window had fallen through and peered in.

  “There’s a baby in there, Nora. Holy Jesus!”

  Feeling utterly useless, Nora willed the emergency services to hurry the hell on.

  She watched, fearful that the car might explode or something, as Pat tried to climb up the undercarriage of the car so that he could look in through the side window.

  “It’s a man. There’s a man in the driver’s seat!” He started shouting into the car. “Hey, can you hear me? The ambulance is on its way. Can you hear me? What’s your name?” Pat watched the man’s eyelids flash open for a second before closing again. “You’re going to be okay, just hang in there.”

  Eventually sirens could be heard in the distance, getting closer. The fire-brigade arrived first and mobilised themselves into action immediately. They cut through the roof of the car as if they were opening a tin of bins. The ambulance pulled up swiftly after. One crew immediately began trying to free the baby and another began to remove the man. Both were removed gingerly and placed on stretchers. And then the ambulance sped off in the direction of Dublin County Hospital.

  Nora and Pat were guided back into their house by a Garda who had arrived on the scene also. He told them to sit down and made them sweet tea as if they were guests in their own kitchen. They all sat in silence for a while before he asked them for their version of events. They tried to tell him what they knew but the shock made it seem surreal and they weren’t sure if they were making any sense. Eventually the Garda left and told them they would let them know as soon as they had any news on the victims.

  Later on some of the neighbours had called around and they all sat huddled together around the rectangular table, adding in their pieces of the story. Nora and Pat soon learnt that there was another car involved too but it was a hit-and-run. It had gone into the ditch in front of the McDermotts’ house but had reversed out and driven off before anyone had time to stop it or get its number plates. They shook their heads in despair as to how anyone could be so callous. The neighbours would fall silent as they all prayed inwardly for the man and the baby before someone would speak up again as they tried to process their disbelief at what had happened on their quiet country road that morning.

  When the Gardaí phoned later that afternoon, they learnt the worst. The baby had died at the scene. It had been a baby boy, only six months old.

  “Oh, dear God! In our garden!” Nora found it hard to take. She felt the blood drain from her head and her legs felt weak beneath her. She had to sit down on a chair and catch her breath. Although it was a baby she had never known, she was a mother herself so she could only begin to imagine what the parents were going through. The man was in a coma in intensive care but his condition hadn’t deteriorated any further which they were hoping was a good sign. Pat had asked the Gardaí what had happened, what had caused the accident, but they weren’t inclined to comment until their investigations had been completed.

  That night as Nora tucked her three white-haired angels up in bed, she hugged them all so close that they tried to wriggle away from her arms in laughter. She was grateful that they didn’t seem to pay much heed to that morning’s events. Orla had asked what had happened and they had explained to her that there was a car-crash but never mentioned that there were people involved and she didn’t ask. She seemed more concerned by the fact that their trampoline had been uprooted. How blessed Nora felt to be able to hold her daughters. To think that only that morning she had been groaning inwardly, losing patience at their ever-increasing demands! What that baby’s parents wouldn’t give for that! They would never get to experience it now. And what would have happened if the children had been playing in the garden at the time? Her blood ran cold at the thought. You really had to cherish each and every day, she thought.

  Once the girls were asleep she went back out to her husband. He wasn’t normally one for affection but he wrapped his arms around her so that her head was buried into his chest. She didn’t need to be able to see his face to tell he was crying. The reminder of the fragility of life that day had shaken them and they both knew that they would never be the same again. She said a prayer for the family of the baby boy, people she didn’t know but that were now living through every parent’s worst nightmare; she prayed they would have the strength to get through it.

  37

  The first thing Jean noticed when her son walked into the kitchen was a large gash right above his left eye. He was also limping badly and grimacing at each step he took. She got a fright and instantly rushed over to attend to him but he pushed her away and sat down.

  “What happened to you?” she asked worriedly.

  “Leave it, Ma, will you!”

  “That is some gash, Paul – you need to get that seen to.” She looked down at his leg where it was swollen to twice its size. “Jesus, Paul, it looks broken. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  She flustered around the place, moving papers and pushing jars to find her keys.

  “Not now!” he said, raising his voice.

  He looked out of it and Jean wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain he was in or for other reasons so she backed off. She placed her keys back down on the counter. On the one hand he looked to be in tremendous pain but still he was insisting he didn’t want to get it looked at.

  She went out to the hallway and through the glass panels of her front door she saw that Paul’s car was completely crumpled on one side. The metal was raised and folded and the white paintwork scraped off to reveal the tin underneath. She realised what had happened. She went back to the kitchen.

  “I saw your car!”

  He said nothing.

  “What the hell did you crash into?”

  “Ah Ma, stop, would you just give over, you’re wrecking me head!” He hopped up from the chair, taking a sharp intake of breath, then hobbled in obviously excruciating pain upstairs to his bedroom.

  She wondered what had happened and what trouble he had got himself into now. And worse – what kind of a state had he been in at the time? Suppose he had been driving faster? He was lucky he wasn’t killed. She shuddered at the thought. Her heart lurched as she realised it could have been very different; at least bones would heal. She would allow him sleep off the effects of last night and then she would insist that they go to the hospital and get the wound and his leg treated.

  She turned on the radio and went about the kitchen doing her chores. She cleaned out the fridge, throwing away a load of out-of-date yoghurts that Kyle had begged her for the week before but hadn’t eaten. She shook her head despairingly; she couldn’t afford to be throwing out food like this. She made a note to herself to tell Kyle later that the next time he begged her to buy him something in the supermarket he had better eat it. She cleaned down the counter-tops and swept and mopped the floor. She had to stop for a minute to flex out her wrist – she had only just got the cast off and, although the break had healed well, it tended to get sore if she did too much with it. She listened to the songs on the radio – it was one of those eighties hours. She sang along to A-Ha’s ‘Take on Me’. She remembered how she had thought that song was the best song ever when she was younger. She had bought the record and everything and had the band’s posters all over her bedroom wall.

  Then the serious tones of the newsreader could be heard as he broadcast the lunchtime news and the events that had taken place overnight.

  An earthquake measuring Force 7 on the Richter scale had hit Chile; the workers of Aer Lingus were going on strike on Monday; a baby had died after a serious road-traffic accident in Newtown Village and the male occupant in the car was in a serious condition in Dublin County Hospital. The Gardaí were appealing for witnesses.

  She knew that road well. It was a peaceful country road but all it took was for someone to hit those bends at speed and they could easily be gone – and there was one blind junction where there had been more than one accident in the past. Her heart went out
to the family – to lose a child like that was every parent’s worst nightmare.

  Jean then set about dropping the twins to their Saturday activities: Chloe was going to her horse-riding lesson and Kyle was going to soccer practice. She was grateful to her parents who paid for their activities since she had lost her job – it would have broken the kids’ hearts if she’d had to tell them that she could no longer afford it. Plus, she hoped it would give them an interest and a broader outlook on all the possibilities that life had to offer, and maybe stop them going down the same road as Paul. She wanted them to make something of themselves, be comfortable financially and not to make the same mistakes that she had.

  When she got back to the house, she went up to check on Paul. She pushed back the door to his bedroom, cursing silently as it creaked, but he didn’t wake. He was still sleeping off the effects of whatever was in his system.

  It had been months since she was last in his bedroom and she nearly gagged on the stale smell of smoke and overflowing ashtrays that littered the place. Posters of half-dressed pin-ups hung on the wall now – they hadn’t been there the last time. She looked at the rise and fall of his chest. The gash on his head wasn’t bleeding but it was gaping and could probably do with a stitch before it got infected. She couldn’t see his leg and she didn’t dare pull the blanket back to take a look. She tiptoed back out of the room and closed the door gently behind her. She would wait until he woke up.

  Jean had half an hour to spare before she had to pick up the twins. She sat down with a cup of coffee and a digestive and switched on the TV. The news was on and they showed the mangled car involved in that crash on Newtown Road being lifted up by a tow-truck. She dunked her biscuit in her tea and tutted at the wreckage. The poor baby didn’t stand a chance, she thought. She watched the Garda appeal for witnesses to the horrific hit-and-run.