Stolen Child (18 page)

Joy

Clang, clatter, roar, growl, smash.
Joy draws the yellow duvet over her head and tries to block the sounds of anger.

She reaches for Polar’s paw.

Polar says, ‘Silly buggers,’ and makes her laugh because Joy is not allowed to say that word. He says, ‘Silly buggering buggers,’ and Joy laughs louder.

‘Why are you laughing?’ Her mother enters the room and pulls down the duvet. Her eyes are red and her mouth is a straight line that means no nonsense. She does not hear Polar. No one ever hears him except Joy.

‘Go to sleep, Joy,’ she says. ‘Eleven o’clock is far too late for you to be awake.’

‘Why are you and Daddy fighting?’ Joy asks.

‘Fighting?’ Her mother laughs with her straight mouth. ‘We’re not fighting, darling. We’re just playing a game. Did we wake you?’ She kisses Joy. ‘A grown-up game, Joy. That’s all it is.’

Polar winks and smiles, a real smile. ‘Liar,’ he mouths. ‘Bet they’re still fighting over Joey. She’s an
effing
liar.’

Another forbidden word. Joy loves Polar. Her mother says she’s far too old to sleep with a bear but Joy doesn’t agree.
He’s her only link with Joey now that he will never be allowed to stay in Rockrose again.

He phoned tonight. He told her a knock-knock joke and said Leanne and Lisa are doing his head in. He wishes he had only one sister and her name was Joy. She made up the last bit but she knows it’s what Joey really thinks, and Polar agrees.

Her father comes in to kiss her goodnight. His face is long and sad the way it always is when he and her mother fight. He does not pretend it was a grown-up game. Instead, he hugs her so tight she can’t breathe and tells her she is an ace.

‘My ace kid,’ he says. ‘What story do you want me to read tonight?’

‘The swan maiden,’ she says.

It reminds her of Joey, although it hurts her head, thinking about the picnic. Her mother cried because Joy went to the airport to say goodbye to him. She wrote all about it in the Judgement Book. Joy saw her when she woke up and went down to the kitchen for a glass of milk. She was sitting at the table and writing so fast that she didn’t look up for ages. She saw Joy standing there, staring, and slapped the book closed. When Joy asked her what she was doing she said, ‘I’m entering Joey’s name in the Judgement Book.’

That’s bad. Only bold behaviour goes into the Judgement Book. Her mother keeps saying Joey shoved her. Joy doesn’t remember anything about the fall. Only her toes catching in the ridge of concrete and lunging forward. She doesn’t even remember hitting her head. She touches her scar. It’s still bumpy and sore if she presses it.

The Judgement Book used to be in a box with a padlock in the back of her mother’s wardrobe. Joy found it once when she was searching for Polar. He was in the washing
machine, but her mother never said, and Joy had been frightened that he was lost forever. She’d searched everywhere before she found the box. It wasn’t locked and there were three Judgement Books inside. One smelled musty but the other two were new and the one on top had lots of blank pages. Her mother came into the kitchen and made a noise like a kitten when she saw Joy drawing on them.

‘You are a bold
bold
girl,’ she said, and smacked her legs for being naughty again. Joy had cried softly after her mother left the room but she must have heard because she came back and rocked her…rocked her…sobbing big whooshing sobs,
Hug me…kiss me…love me.

Joy lies back in bed and listens to her father’s story about the swan maiden. She imagines the beautiful maiden rising from the lake and taking the chieftain’s hand. They walk together into his wonderful castle and sit on thrones and everybody bows down in front of them. Then the picture changes and it’s her and Joey on the thrones. Their golden crowns are as bright as the sun.

Tomorrow her father is going away again to make money so that they can have the nicest house in Maoltrán. She clings to his neck when he kisses her goodnight. It’s no use asking him to stay. He never does. The row tonight was not about Joy. It was about school. Joy is afraid of school. The children who go there pull hair and pinch and kick and bite. She could kick back, if she went, and bite their arms. But her mother says home-school is the best.

Home-school is boring. She hates sitting at the kitchen table and writing words that no one but her mother can see.

After her father finishes the story she kisses Polar and lies in the darkness. The swan maiden went back to the lake after living for three years in the castle. Her grandfather went away after living for six years with her father. That’s why her father
will never leave her. And Joy will never leave Joey when she grows up. She will live in Canada and lock Leanne and Lisa in a dungeon. But, until then, she will be extra good so that her mother doesn’t put her name in the Judgement Book ever again.

‘Or mine either,’ says Polar. ‘Blasted buggering bloody book.’

November came and went. Six years since Isobel’s disappearance. Robert rang on the date of her birthday, as he always did, but their conversation was brief, his uneasiness evident in the stilted words they exchanged. When he rang again a week later the reason was clear. His voice broke when he spoke Carla’s name. In the breathy silence that followed, she braced herself for bad news.
But what is bad news
, she wondered. The bad news he was about to deliver was his way forward and up. She fingered her bracelet. The tiny shells felt sharp under her fingers. Robert had bought it for her in a souvenir shop on the Barrier Reef and she had worn it ever since.

‘What do you want to tell me, Robert?’

Unable to bear his silence sherepeated the question and heard him sigh.

‘It’s about Sharon,’ he said. His voice strengthened. She’s not getting married to Harry. She and I…we’re together now.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you, Carla? I don’t. It happened and I can’t leave her. She needs me.’

‘Is there anything else you should tell me?’

‘I’ll always love you…no matter what—’

‘Robert, what do you want? Is it a divorce?’

‘In time…perhaps. I don’t want to talk about that now. But she’s going to have a baby in April and…’ He stopped again, as if this truth clogged his throat.

She sank to the floor, her back hunched against the wall. Everything was motion, momentum. Even grief had an antidote. He had told her he was willing to settle for less but, now, when he mentioned Sharon’s name, he no longer sounded as if he was speaking about a mate, a colleague, one of the lads.

‘Your baby, Robert?’

‘Yes.’ He was sorry, deeply sorry…he had not intended it to happen but Sharon had been good to him…supportive when Carla returned to Ireland…and she and Harry were never suited.

Carla cut off his ragged apologies and quietly replaced the receiver. In the living room she poured a shot of tequila, then a second one. She had expected to feel jealousy, anger, grief. Familiar emotions that pulverised her but could always be tamed. But not this, she thought, how can he do this to me? How can he hold his voice steady and break the news that he will soon become a father?

She arose, stiff, her legs cramping, and entered the kitchen, heated a saucepan of milk. Her father had always insisted on giving it to her when she was a child and unable to sleep. She poured the bubbling milk into a mug, added another generous measure of tequila, and stood on the balcony, allowing the mixture to cool before taking an occasional sip.

She lived in a sealed-in chamber, the walls soundproofed. Impossible to hear the sounds from other apartments. Often
she wondered if she was the only person living in the complex. Initially, she had sunk gratefully into the protective anonymity but tonight she wanted human company. She wanted to cry on someone’s shoulder. Raine was in Dusseldorf. Janet would look bewildered and probably say, ‘I told you friendship isn’t possible between a man and a woman. Something always gets in the way and it’s called
sex
.’

On the Grand Canal, a black satin ribbon splintered by street lights, the swans were sleeping. The only sign of movement was a lone prostitute walking slowly back and forth along the bank. Carla had seen her on other sleepless nights and recognised her peculiar walk, her limp exaggerated by the high heels she wore. Heavy make-up and tight clothes made it difficult to guess her age but Carla reckoned she was young, probably still in her teens. Usually, she was with other women but tonight she was working alone. A car passed and slowed. The prostitute stood beneath the street light and tilted her hip. Sharon came to mind, the same provocative tilt when she stood in the doorway of her house. Robert had not turned to look, not then. He had kept his eyes on Carla, believing they could still begin again.

The prostitute entered the car. It moved forward, indicated, and turned into a side street, sandwiched between tall glass buildings. The banks of the canal were now deserted, the silence absolute. Unable to bear her thoughts any longer, Carla pulled on a coat and left her apartment. She often walked at night when she was unable to sleep. Usually it was quiet where she walked, apart from the prostitutes who ignored her as long as she did not loiter near their space. Cars slowed but seldom stopped, the drivers moving on when she increased her stride and refused to look in their direction. She only returned to her apartment when she was exhausted but tonight she had energy to burn.

She stepped from the path and approached the wooden lock gate spanning the water. In the glow of street lights she saw the night’s litter trapped between the slats: Styrofoam cups, hamburger boxes, condoms, beer cans. The tall reeds rustled and swayed. A lone bird began to sing and a duck, as if alerted by this false early morning alarm, emerged from the reeds and swam in a circle before disappearing back between the stalks.

The words of a song her father always sang at parties came to mind.
Why stand I here like a ghost in the shadows. It’s time I was going. It’s time I passed on.
A hot surge of tears pricked her eyelids. She leaned forward and looked down into the chasm below her. The water frothed and poured down into the next level. She was a step away from oblivion.
Was it so easy
, she wondered,
so sudden, this desire to let go?
She had always imagined suicide as a long, drawn out, mentally torturous process but now, poised, she realised that an unconscious momentum had driven her towards this moment.

She released one hand from the gate rail. Her heart pounded. Urine trickled between her legs, the sudden, warm gush reminding her of the last time she experienced this loss of control. Her midnight dash to the hospital and Robert, running towards her, wild-eyed and drunk with exuberance. She leaned further out, felt the strain on her other arm as her body slowly tilted sideways.
Let go…let go…let go.
Her body released tears and snot and sweat and urine but refused to release her hand.

The prostitute with the limp watched from the bank. She was a flicker on the edge of Carla’s gaze before she moved into full view and stopped under the street lamp. Her gaze was hard, unflinching. She will not stop me, Carla thought. She will watch me fall then walk towards her next trick.

‘I’m goin’ for a fag and coffee to Naffy’s,’ she shouted across at Carla. ‘D’ya wanna come?’

Slowly, Carla swung her arm back and grasped the rail. Her teeth chattered, an uncontrollable tremble that travelled through her body and weakened her knees, forced her to cling tightly to the rail as she stepped carefully to the bank and moved towards the path. She rubbed her face with the sleeve of her coat. The prostitute limped awkwardly yet she moved fast, her thin frame visible for an instant when she paused beneath a street light and glanced back. Carla stopped and stepped out of her panties, stuffed them deep into an overflowing litter bin. She was stripped of dignity, a madwoman who had decided not to belong to the night’s debris. The prostitute waited for Carla to catch up, her cardigan hastily buttoned, the buttons out of alignment. Such a trivial thing to notice at such a time and Carla noticed also how the fabric shimmered, a gaudy metallic shade that belonged to the night. It was at least three sizes too big for the young woman and she, as if realising she was being scrutinised, clasped her arms across her chest.

She pushed the door open. Naffy’s was a late-night greasy spoon, grimy lace curtains, paint peeling. The air inside was steamy. A few taxi men sat together with mugs of tea on the table. They nodded at the woman and settled their jaded gazes on Carla. Perhaps they thought she was a ghost. She felt like one, featureless, without lustre.

‘Sit there.’ The prostitute pointed to a corner table. Her skirt was short and narrow yet it sagged against her thin hips. Her feet slipped in and out of her high heels and the clacking of her footsteps was an uneven beat as she limped towards the counter.

Carla obediently slid into the seat and rested her elbows
on the oil cloth. The woman, noticing her cardigan, opened the buttons and fastened them correctly.

‘Wha’ was all tha’ about?’ she asked when she returned to the table with two mugs of tea. ‘Were ya tryin’ to bleedin’ top yerself?’

Her harsh inner-city accent grated against Carla’s ears. The fluorescent light shone through her heavy make-up and revealed a waif. No more than fifteen years old, Carla reckoned.

‘I was thinking about it,’ she replied. She sipped the tea, which had been sugared and milked. Her stomach kicked against the sweet, strong taste but she continued to drink it. As it warmed her insides, the taste no longer mattered. ‘Would you have stopped me?’

The girl – Carla could no longer think of her as a woman – shrugged. ‘Why the fuck should I have?’

‘No reason. How old are you?’

‘None a yer bleedin’ business.’

‘I see you sometimes. Are you not afraid being out there on your own?’

The girl glanced towards the door. ‘It’s the same as anyplace else.’

‘No, it’s not,’ said Carla. ‘It’s extremely dangerous.’

‘Ah, Jasus…don’t lay the bleedin’ good Samaritan shit on me.’ She fidgeted with her mobile phone, turned it over in her hand. When it rang, she hunched her shoulder away from Carla. ‘Yeah, Naffy’s. Yeah…yeah…see ya.’

She turned her attention back to Carla, her gaze wearywise. ‘Hangin’ off a fuckin’ bridge, that’s what’s dangerous. What’s yer name?’

‘Carla. What’s yours?’

‘Anita.’

‘Thanks for the tea, Anita.’

‘Yeah…well, see ya ‘round.’ The door of the café opened and a man stood waiting for her. Carla remembered Robert on O’Connell Bridge, the same shifting gaze that seized everything in a glance. Anita immediately arose and left with him. Carla watched them through the lace curtains until they were out of sight.