Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind

by Deirdre Shanahan

  ‘He didn’t deserve it,’ Torin gulped, heaving to steady his voice.

  ‘Don’t take it rough. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘I know,’ his voice wavered. He knew nothing except one thing and the knowledge sliced through him. He wanted to run into the furthest distance. Lose himself. Lose whatever it was he had brought with him.

  ‘I gotta go. The match is starting. I’ll call again. Let you know what’s up.’

  Torin walked to the furthest part of the site, to the fields at the far end and bedded down. His jacket was a pillow. The horses in the distance did not bother him. They looked across and lay down, easily elegant. Like models, long-limbed girls on the front of the shiny mags his mum liked. Horses. People. Horses were easier.

  He could not sleep at first for the rip of a siren. A low hum of traffic on distant roads, roads weaving through small fields and farms. The Gards might sneak around. They would have found the truth. He dreamt of Caitlin riding in an open top low sports car. He called after her, his voice gliding with a siren, but she could not hear.

  California Row: 1

  Music thumped like blood. A bass wrapped around Caitlin and sapphire lit her hair. She was dizzy with flecks of emerald and lavender. A man with cropped hair bought her a cocktail, golden orange swirling while turquoise lights played over her cheeks.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, leaning on the counter.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ His smile glistened.

  She drank vodka, a slippery silver fish rising, to block out the days, the nights. The man spoke to a younger man at the bar. In the shadowy light, filtering reds and oranges, it could only be Torin. She pressed back against the women behind her. She should leave. Or demand answers. The young man turned, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. The same light brown hair. The same shaped face. But the nose and eyes were different. She needed to sit. He would never look the same again.

  She had stayed late at Breen’s checking the stock. Torin had been and left Delia by the time she arrived. The old woman was full of him. How good he was at helping. How he was content to sit and talk and wait. Have tea. Admire old photos. And Eva. How she had come and gone years ago leaving Caitlin behind.

  She had shouted. Yelled at Delia for some sense. For something to help her understand, until there was little the old woman could tell her that she did not already know. And what she knew, she did not want to know.

  ‘What harm was in it? Your mother only tried to do what she thought was the best for you. For her.’

  Too raw and scared of seeing anyone, Caitlin wanted to be alone. Free of him. Of her. Delia. Eva. All as bad as each other. She would wash off the past. Her skin. Run away from all of them. If she drank and stayed out all hours, she would forget. Kill the memory.

  ‘You all right?’ Lola sat beside her

  ‘I was when I came out.’

  ‘Sit here.’ Lola pulled out a chair from a table. Caitlin leant her head on her arms The dead beat of garage music prowled the walls. ‘Where’s Annie?’

  ‘By the DJ last time I saw her.’

  ‘I’ll get her. Then let’s leave. I’ve got no more money. You can’t have either. Come on.’

  ‘Now?’ Caitlin asked.

  ‘It’s almost three. I’ve had enough. You have too.’ Lola grasped her arm and tugged her along.

  They slipped through the press and pull of girls, stilettos and sequin jackets, pushed up against bangles and bare waists. A fury of music in a barrage of glittery lights. Shadows bubbled, sheets of turquoise tones. At least here she was not different. The last couple of weeks she had seen black people. Some of the men had great jobs in finance or were studying. A few girls were Asian and she had met an accountant from Delhi. It was easier, yet she missed the expanse of land from her window. The pulse of the sea. Wandering where she wanted. Salty air on her skin. Don’t be stupid, she told herself. You’ve had a bellyful. You don’t need more air. Sea air or city, what’s the difference? It’s all around.

  A taxi dropped them at the top of the road from the site.

  ‘No point putting off those drivers,’ Annie said, leading her along to the battered gate and crushed metal fence.

  Annie had been on the site with her family for five years and told Caitlin she slept with a knife under her pillow. Had warned of a tall fella ranging around. He was not from California Row but another part of the city, and Annie had sworn she had seen him once at the back of one of the trailers talking to a bunch of kids.

  Nights chill as winter crept towards them. How quickly time passed when no old lady pondered over a fire complaining of rheumatism. But soon it would be the dead heart of winter with no big fires like Delia’s. People were less friendly, more hurried, talked of the difficulty of getting dole, how they had to queue everywhere. The cold was getting colder. She pulled her coat close, which did not help because she was heavy and sluggish. Her skin itched, a red, hazy rash crawling on the inside of her arm, the way it used to be when she was nervous and too many things were happening.

  Their heels flitted through the site to the trailer where they locked themselves tightly in. In bed, Caitlin pulled a duvet around her shoulders. She was hungry for the city and what it gave, could fill herself with it. Music, clubs and the sheer press of other people blocking out the night.

  Lola and Caitlin trawled department stores. They passed through the large plate glass doors of Browns, which opened like arms and made Caitlin want to stay for hours. They hung around cosmetic counters, tried perfumes, asked for samples of cream they would never touch but stash away.

  Lying in bed, mid-afternoon, with Annie and Lola up and gone, one for a job, the other to kick around the city, a knock hardened against the door.

  ‘Caitlin, you there?’ Shane called.

  His dark brown eyes were loyal, watchful. He made her laugh, was always handing over money for drinks. He knew the best place to buy cheap bread and milk. His square-shaped hands had grasped hers a month back when he had come into the bar and said, ‘You need to get out of here. I need to get out of here.’ She had told him she wanted to leave but did not know how. She had kept back her fears. The knot of confusion of knowing and not knowing which lay at the back of her heart. He had told her he could get the loan of a car and she had thought little of his suggestion until he came to the bar when she was on during the morning. He said they should go and go now.

  The battered dark blue Beetle, which a German couple had dumped after a holiday, took them off and they drove along the coast, through midland towns and to Galway She had wanted to go further north but he said their money would run out and they should head for where he had connections and try Dublin.

  When they first arrived on the site, she had pushed back the duvet to let him in. She had raised herself, wanting him deeply. To shield her from what she knew of herself. He could make her someone else. Someone new. She beat her fingers on his back, urging him. He could block out what had gone on.

  She would fight off the memory. Bury him. But Torin’s face came to her. Sailing on the cusp of a breeze as she and Shane surveyed a ridge of headland in Moher or as they crawled in heavy traffic of a market day in a small town. His eyes. A boy as tall as him waiting at a bus stop. The tilt of his head. His hair.

  ‘You all right?’ Shane asked, his hands on the steering wheel

  ‘Yes. I’m fine.’ She was as right as she ever could be. He leaned over, patted her knee gently. They sped past and when she looked over her shoulder, the boy had gone.

  Shane took her into a whirl of speed so the air was hard round her ears. But she wanted to drive further, go to other cities. The length of the country. Even America. It was big enough to hide in. They could travel without being noticed. She could fall into the landscape, be anyone. Be who she wanted to be. Her mother had dumped her, but coming here would make sure she put everything between them. She would cut her off. Have no li
nk. She would not be afraid of who she might see or who was around the next corner. Shane drove fast but kept his eye on the speedometer as though they were the only ones. A frisson of air shot through her, an intake of breath as she slipped to the side of the seat.

  They drove as far as the Wicklow hills where he parked and they spent the day roaming. She smelt air sweeter than she had known for a long time. She wondered where Torin was, and as soon as she had, wished she hadn’t. Did he think of her? Or was he fighting like her, to forget? She shivered, longing to know. And yet not to.

  The girls were out, so Shane had room to lie down on the bed beside her. His hair was long and he had a week’s beard. He wore the same denim jacket he had worn when they arrived at the site.

  ‘Good news. We can make some money. Mehall says we can go out with him for a drive.’

  ‘Collecting the scrap?’

  ‘I know it’s not what you want to do. Not what I want much, but he’ll give us a split of what he makes.’

  It was money at least and meant she could go on at this distance. Life without Delia was bound to be tough, she told herself. She grabbed a jacket and folded up the bed. A couple of years since she had lived in a trailer, but the way to manage was coming back. You had to fold and pack away clothes neatly, along with the bed. Anyone at the stove had to move first, and if anything was to be kept safe it had to be mostly stashed high up on a shelf above your head. She did not mind. All she had to do was to keep doing things. Going out at night. In the day wandering into the centre. She threw a cup of tea down. Outside the bright red caravan opposite, an older woman glared, her hands on hips.

  ‘What’s wrong with you girls, drawing attention to us with them paintings?’

  The moon and stars Lola had painted on the side of their trailer were a shimmer of gold and silver. The woman smoked on as Caitlin and Shane passed and he told Caitlin to ignore the woman, as painting was in their blood. He walked on with his easy pace, a slight swing from side to side as though he was pleased with himself or the hum of a tune was going through him. His own man. Could take her wherever she wanted. With him, she could forget. Be whoever she wanted.

  ‘We’ll all fit in,’ Mehall said as they squeezed alongside each other in the front.

  Mehall, a flat cap at an angle, was quick and nifty. No sooner had he a lorry piled but it was sold to the scrap-yard. One of the women on the site said he must be a millionaire. Caitlin did not care. She reckoned if he was, he worked hard. He was on the lookout for a caravan for the two of them. A good bloke. He never bothered them. He let Shane look after her. They drove following the motorway around the city, passing slip roads and burger bars, past the estates and mega stores for carpets and tiles, heading for smaller roads.

  ‘I’ll be going around the good parts. Blackrock, Greystones. You two jump down when I stop and call to the doors. Ask if there’s any spare scrap metal. I’ll come along after you and help sling it in.’ He jerked a look over his shoulder at the scrabble of iron pipes, fridges and gates slung on the back.

  The lorry dragged and was surly as it climbed a hill. He drove along wide suburban streets with trees leading to neat roads with tall old houses painted in soft tones like the layers of a wedding cake. They worked through the streets, driving slowly and stopping, the scrap mounting slowly in the back of the truck. With each new road a few more bits were added: the back of a fire, walls of an oven, the pick of an axe, shoe caps, metal hangers and a steel framed chair. Mehall loaded them on with great cheer.

  ‘You’ve done a grand job. I might have news about a caravan soon. A man who owes me a favour told me he had one.’

  It would be good to be out of the cramped way of Shane’s cousins, in their own place. Mehall gained speed. They passed onto the main road with rows of shops and the hard work was over. She returned to the trailer to find the girls were out. She lay on the bed with Shane, grateful for the familiarity of him even if by the morning he had retreated to his uncle’s place.

  She needed a job. The girls asked around, but no one would take her on. Annie worked in the market and Lola, with long dark hair and deep olive eyes, was a dresser in the theatre. She returned with tales of actors’ tantrums and drinking sessions, how one was so tipsy he was unable to wear the full costume, going on stage with only a shirt and trousers, the waistcoat hanging from the dressing room door. Once she brought back a sequined jacket which was going to be thrown out and they took turns in wearing it. Annie was good at selling. With her blonde hair and long nails, anyone would want to buy from her. She sold clothes straight out of the warehouses, even if they were loose and not well cut, with beads on the outside of trouser legs or on the lapels of jackets. They tried on dresses and jackets and experimented with free samples of make-up. Annie applied luminous red lipstick and eyeliner. She cut Caitlin’s hair close to the scalp and coloured it blonde. With it steely and short, she was like a boy. Tougher. Stronger. No one could break her. Tell the difference, she thought. Watch me disappear.

  ‘What about it, then?’ Annie asked. ‘You said you could tell the future.’ She offered her palm.

  Caitlin held it. A broken life-line ran, a winding love line, the moons of Venus and Mars soft and lumpy in the grubby palm.

  ‘Everything will come. But be watchful of too much ease.’

  This was clear for other people to understand and they loved it. She wished she could do it for herself.

  ‘Can you see anybody?’ Annie persisted.

  ‘I can’t see people. I see paths people make and those they might follow.’

  ‘Is there anybody coming up mine?’ Annie laughed.

  ‘There is someone.’ She held Annie’s palm.

  ‘Is he good-looking?’ Annie’s eyes were dark with longing.

  ‘I can’t rightly see. But yes. Leastways, decent looking.’

  ‘D’you reckon I’ll go any place? America?’

  ‘There’s someone holding a pen or something aloft.’

  ‘It could be the flame herself has. The Statue of Liberty.’

  It was good to be wanted. To have something others needed. To be wanted for who she was. Delia had said reading palms came with time and if she looked intently, she would catch a sense of what was to happen. She had to concentrate. It was in the air and in the sounds. Or it wasn’t. You were not to let on. People believed seeing into the future was like looking for something on a shelf, or the way you would turn a tap on and let the water flow. Delia had said, feel your way with the telling, the way an animal does in the night, sniffing into corners, letting the smell lead. Foxes or badgers deep in the dark know their way. People dream. They need to, so let them. Don’t break it. Dreams are as delicate as the bones of a thrush and if you grind them down, like the poor bird, there will be no flight. Delia led her to believe everyone creates their own future. She had said that every day we get out of bed, we are on our way to it. It was the one thing the old woman gave: how there is only the everyday, the slow tracking forward. Tell people what they need. Tell them more and they’ll buckle you for it, push you under.

  She would have liked a sister. Someone to grow up with. Help her be herself. It could have been Torin. When she looked at how it was, for both of them, they both had a rough deal. Both had been deceived. But which the greater? Had this been what Eva had wanted? She turned around the facts to make them fit and a swell of sickness rose.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Annie asked as Caitlin tore to the toilet.

  She vomited, her body heaving. She wiped her mouth, taking a glass of water. She wanted to tell the girls but was scared. In the evening, wrapped in a big coat, pulling the collar up, she headed to the city on the bus with them. They went to Lockets Club, in the north, working their way to The Kitchen, where anyone looking good or unusual, or both, got in. The girls smiled at the bouncers who winked and stood aside as they entered.

  A thin boy with slicked back hair looked l
ike a business man, someone who could afford the evening, so she let him buy her a couple of drinks but sought the girls at their table. The days with Delia fell away. She was renewed. Against the glow of the walls and shattering lights, mauve going to blue back to lavender, she and the girls danced, drank, danced more. The incessant beat pulled. She returned to the table flushed and warm with sweat. Her head spun with the reel of music, firing and deadening her, drawing out a needle of pain. The dark and its tones blocked out the day, the light. Torin was clearing out of her system. The longer she stayed in the city, the more she came to bars and met people. Other people, anybody, the more he was washed out. Sluiced. The way a farmer might clear down the yard of shit, she thought, or the way the men with horses cleared out the boxes after them. She was letting in new life. It would be all hers and she would go wherever she wanted.

  At two, she left with the girls, tripping down the steps onto the street for a cab. It was so late, it was quiet and early. She could not sleep. Music zoomed through her. The face of the man at the bar coursed through. She dreamt of Delia in washes of shadows. Her wrinkled face peering. Sharp eyes. A swish of her skirt about the rooms. The thud of her step.

  ‘This’ll settle you.’ Annie offered a mug of hot milk with brandy.

  Caitlin wanted more than settling. She wanted deep, cavernous sleep, walls of protection, wind-breaks against disturbance. She slept until the next afternoon, rising with fistfuls of energy.

  For days and nights, she knew what to take to keep her awake and what would make her sleep. The girls were out one afternoon when, fired with a need for order, she tidied up, clearing the mess of bread and biscuits, opened tins of soup and beans left out. She swept up crumbs littering the floor. Washing up was dried and put away. She cleared the bins. She was better. Alive. Alert. She rummaged in her bag for a mirror. Her skin was greasy, pores enlarged, and her cheeks had a run of tiny red veins. Her hair was matted and lank. Roots from the blonde dye showed and the crop was growing wildly, over her ears, down the back of her neck. A golden sun shone in the way she had seen on walks to the sea; she opened the door for a better view of the distant trees, which were tall and lavished with bare branches. But turning to close the door, she slipped.