Lamb (4 page)

Then suddenly from nowhere, from the slipstream of the bird, a black-headed gull streaked and in a flurry of grey wings pinched the bread. Owen screamed with fright and struggled to get down. His fingers were pressed into his mouth.

‘It bit me. It bit me,' he yelled, his voice crammed with fingers. Michael laughed and put his arms round him.'

‘Let me see. Where's the blood? Let me see.'

Owen held out his fingers, glistening where he had sucked them. They were trembling.

‘You'll live,' he said.

‘But it bit me, the bugger.'

‘Shhh,' said Michael. The incident had created a small crowd and they were looking sympathetically at the boy and at the man hunkered beside him. An audience was the last thing that Michael wanted. People could remember the smallest snippets of information. A man and a blond-haired boy. On the boat. A seagull snatched bread from his hand.

‘Come on,' said Michael and hustled the boy away from the interest. He thought it best to go downstairs, away from the crowd at the rail.

‘It's not too bad. We might get a seat.'

He parted the crowd with his bag and Owen followed behind him. They saw an empty seat in the tea bar and moved into it. Out of the window Michael saw the last shoulder of Ireland slip past.

‘Well, Owen, we're away.'

The boy nodded, his eyes bright and nervous, glittering rather than shining.

‘Sit down and make yourself comfortable.'

‘Yes, Dad.' The boy smiled and winked cheekily and Michael cuffed him lightly on the head.

‘Don't overdo it,' he hissed. He gave Owen the money to get two cups of tea. The boy, obviously proud to be trusted, swaggered up to join the queue at the counter. He brought back two plastic beakers, yelping with the heat in his fingers. It was the colour of blood and tasted of iron. They had thimblefuls of milk which had to be torn open and they both spilled them. Owen took some sugar lumps from his pocket and offered one to Michael, which he refused. They were wrapped in twos and Michael watched the boy unwrap three packets and plonk the lumps in his tea. Owen watched the tiny procession of bubbles rising to the surface.

‘That's six lumps of sugar,' said Michael.

‘I can count.'

‘You'll ruin your teeth.'

Owen widened his lips and clacked his teeth together the way a chimp does.

‘They're O.K.'

‘That's only because they don't give you much sugar in the Home.'

They half finished their tea and Owen began to yawn.

‘Tired?'

‘Naw.'

‘Stretch out here anyway.'

Michael put his feet up on the facing window ledge and the boy settled down beside him, nuzzling beneath his arm.

They'd been up since first light that morning, and soon the boy was asleep, his mouth dropping open. Michael, not wanting to waken him, used his other arm to cover him with the tail of his anorak. He adjusted his protective arm and noticed again the glitter of his ring. He was conscious of the pressure it exerted on his finger and the unusualness of seeing it flash as he moved his hand. He still thought it a reasonable idea. Owen had agreed, but that didn't mean much because he agreed with most things Michael said.

Owen had waited outside the shop in Belfast, minding the bag, while he went into the jeweller's. A woman came quietly over the carpet to him.

‘Can I help you, sir?'

‘Yes, I'd like a wedding ring.'

‘Any particular price range, sir?' she said, going behind the glass counter.

‘Not
too
dear,' said Michael. He leaned on the counter and felt it warm beneath his hand. He peered down into its lit interior at the selection of rings, shining gold on scarlet satin. They were half sunk in the plush.

‘Ladies' or gents'?'

‘It's for myself,' said Michael. ‘I lost mine and I don't want my wife to know.'

The woman seemed to understand because she nodded sympathetically.

‘Yes, we get a lot of that in here. But it's the sentiment that's important, isn't it? A ring's a ring. It's what it means. That's the point.'

The woman produced a tray of men's rings and set them on the counter. Michael felt a moment of panic when he realized that he either did not know or had forgotten which hand it went on. He knew it was the third finger and flexed them both, his hands hanging by his sides.

‘Just look at those, sir, to see if there is anything that takes your fancy.'

She bustled into the back of the shop and came back with a device for measuring the size of his finger.

‘See anything like it?'

‘Like what?'

‘Like your ring. The one you lost.'

Michael pored over the tray and made an ‘Mmmmm' sound for effect. He was so unsure he felt he had to say,

‘Not really.'

She produced another tray, saying that these were slightly more expensive.

‘That's the one,' said Michael pointing to a gold ring with tiny flat facets.

‘My favourite,' she said. ‘Let me see your size.'

Still Michael was reluctant to commit himself to offering his right or left hand. He waited, pretending to be engrossed in the ring, until he saw out of the corner of his eye the woman make a move towards his left. He extended his hand and, flicking her eye from his finger to the device, she selected a hole from those she fanned out and tried it round his finger.

‘Is that comfortable?' she asked.

‘It's a bit sharp at the edges.'

She smiled at him, then selected a ring of the type he had chosen.

‘Try that,' she said, helping him fit it on his finger. Michael smiled and said,

‘Till death us do part and all that.'

‘For richer for poorer,' said the woman, joining in.

The ring fitted him well. He felt a foolish desire to look at himself in a mirror, as if it was a suit he was trying on. He looked over his shoulder and saw Owen staring at him through the window, his nose flattened against the glass.

‘That one will do grand,' he said. ‘How much?'

‘That one is forty pounds.'

‘Fine.'

‘Do you want me to put it in a box, sir?'

Michael hesitated. She looked at him slyly.

‘Can I suggest that you don't bother with the box, sir? If your wife were to find it you might have some explaining to do.'

‘Yes, you're right,' said Michael. He smiled at her. He liked her becoming involved in his conspiracy, or what she thought was his conspiracy. And it made his own game seem doubly clever. With the ring still on his finger, he took out a bundle of notes and paid.

‘Just up from Dublin for the day?' she said as she wrote out his receipt.

‘No, not Dublin,' said Michael. ‘Galway. I'm on holiday.'

‘I could have sworn your accent was sort of Dublin,' she said, flicking over the page and checking that the blue carbon had come through.

‘My parents were from Dublin. Maybe that's it.'

‘Maybe.'

Outside Owen was standing, the bag between his feet, looking in the window.

‘Look at those,' he said, pointing to a tray of digital watches. They were satin finished, stainless steel with square black faces. One had been fixed so that it flicked up the time every few seconds in its red computer figures.

‘Did you ever have a watch?'

‘Naw.'

‘Would you like one of those?'

Owen didn't believe him, but Michael brought him into the shop and asked to see the watches. Owen's wrist was too thin for any of the watches in the window. The woman showed them a child's watch of roughly the same design and they took that one. Owen asked her if it was waterproof and she said of course it was.

‘Time, Owen?' Michael asked when they were outside.

‘Four thirty-two.'

The boy's arm was now up over his ear, the face of the watch black and dead. He was best to sleep because now that they were getting well out to sea the boat was beginning to heave and lurch, despite the sunlight outside. Michael's leg went numb. He would have to move. He lifted Owen's head and pushed his anorak underneath. The boy snorted and curled up into a smaller ball, even though he now had the whole seat to himself. Seeing that he still slept, Michael went to the bar to get himself a drink. He queued with others, changing his weight from foot to foot as the boat tilted. When he got his pint he drank an inch into it so that he could carry it without spilling to where Owen slept.

He sat in the recess of the window opposite the sleeping boy, his back to the sea, and looked at him. He was small for his age – he didn't look much more than nine – and curled up he looked like a baby. His hair was fair and his closed eyelids had the brown pigment that goes with lack of sleep. Michael tilted his head to one side to see the boy's face the right way up. Thin and sharp, the skin pulled over bones that seemed brittle. Once he had broken his collar bone and had screamed almost to fainting when Michael had stupidly tried to take his pullover off over his head. When his eyes were closed there was no light about his face. It was a dead face, an old face in contrast to the child-like stature. The boy's nails were bitten so much that the round flesh of his fingertips swelled over them, and yet he had never noticed him biting them. Michael swirled the flat beer to a head and, as he drank, tilting the glass, he noticed a man sitting at the opposite side of the lounge staring at him. When their eyes met the man's eyes flicked away.

Over the next half hour, each time Michael's eyes strayed to the far side of the lounge the little man was watching him and each time the man looked away. He was unused to the feeling that he was doing something wrong. All his life he had been on the right side of the law. What he was doing now was right, but he knew that many wouldn't agree with him. No one, except himself, knew enough to make a judgment.

The whole system was totally unjust. He had tried to change it from within, tempering the law at every opportunity with his own warmth. Now the saving of an individual was more important than the law. Owen was more important. Michael may have been able to help to some extent boys who in the future would have come to the Home but he had given up that chance for something more complete. Besides he had also to save himself from the slack tide of his own life.

He looked at the state of Owen's clothes. Beneath his anorak the frayed denims and the sneakers split across the uppers . . . London would be time enough to kit him out. Old clothes were good enough for travelling. In Belfast he had noticed that the boy's flies were burst, the zipper pinching the gap in the middle. Beneath, his underpants were the colour of putty. His elbow jutted through a hole in him maroon sweater.

It was this caring for the boy that Michael looked forward to. Dressing him well, not prissily, buying him things he had never had before, taking him places. Teaching him. He knew there was more than enough time to salvage him, this piece of jetsam. Sacrifice was what was required.

He had never really felt this way before. The feeling he had had for his parents was something born of respect and gratefulness. He was used to them being there and was never conscious of his feelings for them. Years ago he had experienced something approaching this feeling for a girl who served in a sweet shop beside his school. Her pony tail, her brown eyes, her smile which he thought she reserved especially for him.

But the time had been one of religious fervour, of self-denial, and all his love was channelled towards Jesus and Mary. His store of it was so meagre that it allowed for no tributaries. All the intensity of his early life was saved for that time he would spend on bended knees either in front of the tabernacle or before the pictures in his bedroom.

One was entitled ‘Save me Lord!' It was a black and white print of Jesus walking on the water, His hand raised in benediction, His lightly bearded face full of love and pity. He was half turned towards Peter who was in the act of sinking, his chin arched upwards to avoid the water, his arms thrown wide in appeal. The whites of Peter's eyes blazed with fear. The sea was grey and jagged with waves, Christ's garment moulded to His body by the wind of the storm, His black hair flying. Once Michael had climbed on a chair to look with microscopic closeness at the picture. It was made up of tiny dots, shades of black and grey, close in some parts, widely spaced in others. The only place where there were no dots was in the white of Peter's eyes. It was nothing which produced that look of terror. That close to the picture, Michael had noticed that a film of dust had gathered on the inside of the glass.

The other picture was of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. Very dark, it had the wooden pose of an icon and her head was wreathed in gold. She held the Christ Child in hands that were long and thin and seemed the wrong way round, right for left and left for right. They did not hold the Child but were placed against Him as He floated. Her face was turned to heaven and exuded a love that Michael had tried to imitate.

Owen made a noise. Michael looked down at him, and as he stared at him the boy's eyes opened. He wrinkled his nose.

‘Hiya,' he said.

Too tired to travel further, they stayed that night in the first hotel they came to in Stranraer. The man who had stared at them also checked in and, because they had travelled on the same boat, the man took the liberty of speaking to Michael.

‘A nice crossing.'

‘Yes, indeed.'

Michael was sitting in the small quiet bar before having a meal. Owen was outside wandering in the garden. The man arranged himself in a chair beside Michael.