Stolen Child (23 page)

Joy

Joy cycles down the lane. In the distance she can see the Burren rising and falling like the back of a great grey beast. She shouts over the hedgerow at her father who is walking through the meadow. He lifts his arms above his head and waves them back and forth, as if he’s sending a distress signal. Maybe he is. She resists the urge to stop and go to him. Lucinda was expecting her an hour ago and it’ll take at least twenty minutes to cycle to her house. Living in the back end of nowhere is a pain. She has to either cadge a lift from her parents or cycle.

‘See you later,’ she shouts at her father.

‘Be careful,’ he shouts back. ‘Make sure Splotch doesn’t follow you.’

Splotch pants behind her. He’ll stop when she reaches the top of the lane and be back there again waiting for her return. An amazing dog who knows what she’s going to do before she does. Her father walks slowly now, his head bent, his hands clasped behind his back. She cycles faster. It upsets her to see him so depressed but that’s the way he’s been since his plans were turned down.

The cottage is almost invisible under the summer leaves.
What use is it to anyone? It’s so long since her ancestors lived there that it’s crumbling back into the earth. She slows to allow Splotch to catch up and he passes her, scampering after a rabbit that has darted from the hedgerow. The rabbit streaks along the green grass in the centre of the lane. Silly rabbit. It should run into the bushes and hide. She shouts at Splotch to stop. His tail is up, his ears back as he races towards the T-junction at the top of the lane. The rabbit keeps going, a grey flash across the main road where drivers drive too fast and her parents always warn her to stop, look and listen. Splotch follows the rabbit and disappears from view. She screams but her voice is drowned by the squeal of brakes. She knows what is going to happen the instant before she hears the thud, a high anguished yelp, then silence.

She drops her bicycle and runs forward onto the main road. The car has been driven into the grass verge and the driver’s door is open. A man bends over Splotch, his back curved as if he is praying. Joy huddles against his car, her hands over her face. Her father runs from the meadow and snatches her into his arms, almost lifts her off the road and presses her against his chest. His heart beats hard and fast like a drum.

‘I thought…’ he swallows loudly and holds her tighter still, holds her upright or maybe she’s the one holding him because he’s trembling so much his legs will surely sink him to the ground. ‘I thought it was you—’

‘It’s Splotch,’ she sobs loudly. ‘He’s dead. I know he’s dead.’

The man looks over his shoulder and gestures at them to come forward. ‘Is he your dog?’ He speaks so softly she can barely hear him.

Still sobbing, she nods and leans down. The dog’s body quivers as if he is wired to electricity. His eyes remind her of the blind stallion, that same milky glaze. The man strokes
Splotch’s throat, a slow stroking movement that keeps the dog still while his other hand probes for injuries. He finds one when he touches the left hind leg. An anguished yelp and Splotch’s head shoots up, his body convulsing for an instant before succumbing once again to the gentle strokes and the low, soothing voice.

‘He only glanced off the side of my car.’ The man moves aside and allows her space to kneel beside him. ‘He’s injured but not seriously.’

‘We’ll take him to the vet.’ Her father rings the vet on his mobile phone and turns back towards the lane. It will take him ten minutes to walk back for his jeep and Joy is relieved to hear the man offer to drive them to the clinic.

She sits in the back seat with Splotch and keeps him calm. He’s stretched on the flattened cardboard box the two men used as a stretcher to lift him into the car. Her father sits beside her. Occasionally he reaches over Splotch and pats her cheek, pats her hand. The lines around his eyes are deep. She never noticed them before. In the rearview mirror she sees the man’s reflection. He catches her gaze and smiles.

‘Not much longer to go,’ he says. ‘Your dog will be as right as rain as soon as that leg heals. A bolt from the blue, he was. Just as well I’d slowed coming to the junction or the little mutt wouldn’t have had a chance, so he wouldn’t.’

The man’s hair is blond and spiky. He’s from Dublin. She recognises his accent.

‘What’s your name?’ he asks.

‘Joy Dowling.’

His eyes narrow, then he switches his attention back to the road. ‘Have we met before?’ he asks.

Now that the shock has subsided, she can think clearly again. He looks familiar, deeply tanned like her father, as if he spends most of his time outdoors. She remembers then,
the waves and the surfboards, and Joey talking to the man with the rig. She drew a circle around them but they were too busy discussing jibs and sails and wind speeds to notice her.

‘In Lahinch. I was with my brother Joey.’

‘The Canadian lad with the surfboard?’

‘He’s my son,’ her father says. ‘He’s actually Joy’s halfbrother.’

‘Ah, I wondered. The name’s Dylan Rae.’

‘I’m David.’ Her father lifts his hand in a half wave and Dylan does the same. ‘Do you live around here?’

‘A few miles outside Ballyvaughan.’

‘You from Dublin originally?’

‘Born and bred.’

‘So is Susanne, my wife. How’ve you settled down?’

‘We’re well settled now. I’m a counsellor and my wife drives the ambulance for St Anna’s Clinic. The kids are native, through and through. If we dared move back to the smoke, they’d disown us.’

Sandra, the vet, is waiting for them. ‘He’s going to be fine.’ She echoes Dylan’s words and hugs Joy. ‘He’ll stay here overnight and you can collect him tomorrow afternoon. That’s a dangerous junction. You’ll have to keep him on a lead in future.’ She speaks fast as she administers a sedative and Splotch’s eyelids drift closed.

Dylan drives them back to Rockrose and comes into the house when her father insists. Her mother is sitting in the conservatory. She makes tea and serves scones with cream and jam.

‘What part of Dublin?’ Dylan asks her.

‘Clontarf,’ she says.

Dylan grew up in Howth. Joy knows Howth. She can see Howth Head from her grandparents’ house. At night it glistens
with lights. She goes walking along the cliff with her grandfather and Tessa. Dylan knows people in Clontarf. He keeps mentioning names he hopes her mother will recognise but she doesn’t know them.

Her mother rattles her cup in her saucer and checks her watch. She has a meeting about the organ fund with Fr Davis in the church hall.

Dylan takes the hint and says he must be on his way.

He stops to admire the blind stallion.

‘What a magnificent piece,’ he says.

‘My mother designed it.’ Her father sounds so proud. ‘She has her own studio. Miriam’s Glasshouse.’

‘I know it. Nikki buys stuff there every Christmas. But I’ve never seen this beauty before.’ He bends forward to lift the stallion but it’s attached to the table.

‘It’s a precious piece.’ Her mother rests her hand on the stallion’s head. ‘Joy is always galumphing around the place so I had to take precautions.’

Galumphing! Why does her mother always make her feel so hefty? And in front of strangers too. Joy hates the way she does it, the slight smile that suggests it’s just a joke but they both know she means it. Every word. Her mother is petite. She has small hands and takes size three in dainty shoes and moves as if the wind is behind her back, blowing her forward too fast.

Dylan touches one of the stallion’s hooves, traces his finger over the blind eyes.

‘“The Blind Stallion of Leamanagh Castle”.’ He reads the words engraved into the base of the stallion. ‘Leamanagh Castle,’ he says. ‘A grim edifice.’

Joy shows him the scar on her forehead. Her mother walks from the conservatory. She hates it when Joy mentions that time.

Dylan nods when he sees her scar. It’s hardly noticeable any more but he says, ‘It’s hard to get through life without a few scars.’

He runs a counselling clinic. Mostly it’s a hang-out place for young people to spill out their troubles. At least that’s the way he makes it sound. He looks back at the stallion.

‘I was blind too,’ he says. ‘Blind to everything but my own needs.’

Susanne

Victor Breen’s house is an impressive edifice. It sits on the summit of a hill, a proud tribute to our Celtic Tiger. David may pour scorn on its brash brickwork and the statues of soaring eagles above the doorway, which are, I agree, over the top, but Victor has made his money through hard neck and hard sell. He deserves to flaunt it as he chooses. Annette, his wife, is of the same opinion and Victor’s fiftieth birthday gave her the perfect opportunity to entertain.

The butler took our coats and escorted us into a reception room where we enjoyed a pre-dinner drink and made small talk with the other guests. Apart from Dr Una Williamson, my bridge partner, and her husband, Andrew, I knew most of them from the Chamber of Commerce and the Lions Club. I was surprised to see that Dylan Rae and his wife, Nikki, had been invited. They were underdressed for such a formal occasion. He was in casual trousers and an open-necked shirt. She wore a dress of crushed velvet that looked as if it had been pulled from the back rail of a charity shop. As it turned out, I was wrong. It had belonged to her great-grandmother and is a genuine antique.

She’s a friendly, talkative woman but I never feel comfortable in his presence. It’s his eyes that unnerve me; too direct and challenging for small talk. Last year he helped Lisa, Victor’s daughter, who’d stopped talking to her family for a year and had demanded all her meals in her room. She joined the party for a short while and kissed her father’s cheek, so, it’s possible Victor has reason to be grateful to Dylan.

Initially, they looked out of their depth until David insisted we join them. He’s become quite friendly with Dylan since Splotch’s accident and they’ve gone surfing together on a few occasions. Una and Andrew joined our circle. As an ambulance driver, Nikki knows her quite well and we made polite conversation until we were led into the dining room.

Victor drank too much and became quite belligerent towards the end of the meal. I don’t know who was responsible for bringing up the subject of drugs. Victor, I suspect. He believes his daughter’s odd behaviour was directly related to substance abuse and is of the opinion that the state should bring back hanging for drug pushers. Black and white, that’s Victor’s view of life. It’s easier not to argue with him when he’s drinking but Dylan wasn’t prepared to pander to his views. He insisted that the lack of government funding for rehabilitation facilities was disgraceful and that there was a serious lack of Garda initiative in the fight against drugs.

Victor demanded to know where personal responsibility came into the equation. He became so flushed I thought he was going to have a stroke. Annette Breen looked furious with the pair of them. This was her big occasion and the lively chatter around the table a few minutes earlier had died down under the force of their argument. Nikki shot her husband a warning glance which Dylan caught full on. He apologised to Annette and admitted the reason he became so
emotional when the subject of drugs came up for discussion was because he had been an addict in his younger days.

‘Only for Nikki’s intervention and perseverance, I would have died,’ he said.

‘Nonsense,’ said Nikki in her brisk, matter-of-fact voice. ‘It was Carla Kelly who forced you to take stock of your life.’

She spoke so casually I thought I’d misheard…or that my inner demon had uttered her name aloud. I almost expected everyone’s eyes to turn in my direction, demanding answers. But they were looking from Nikki to Dylan with undisguised curiosity. Even Victor had calmed down sufficiently to ask if Nikki was talking about the Carla Kelly whose baby was stolen?

‘The very person,’ said Nikki, and told us a story about a crazed woman wandering aimlessly through a desolate wasteland searching for her child. I began to bleed. I knew the instant it started. I left the table and asked one of the maids to direct me to a bathroom. I was bleeding heavily. Fortunately, I had protection and was able to manage the situation but I knew I would have to leave soon. I opened my evening bag and used blusher on my cheeks. I brushed my teeth and reddened my lips. I still look youthful in a good light. My main asset is my eyes. They are serene. They do not mirror my soul. For that I am fortunate.

I returned to the dining-room where the conversation had flowed from dangerous memories to the ever present reality of spiralling property prices. And everyone looked perfectly at ease discussing how their houses had increased in value and wasn’t it amazing how the money markets had lost all sense of reason.

That was a week ago. I’ve stopped bleeding now…but only just. Each month it comes, and sometimes twice, heavy, prolonged. But it passes, everything passes. I want my body
bleached, scoured, freed from the unending demands of hormones and cyclical calendars. I want my womb ripped out but then…what? Would the truth be revealed, laid bare beneath the magnifying lens of experts, sleuths, busybodies? Can it reveal the fact that it has never pulsed and released you into life? The thought terrifies me yet I must seek help. It’s too dangerous to wait any longer.

Dr Williamson is my bridge partner on Tuesday evenings. Over the years we have attuned our bidding so well that we know what cards the other holds. But in her surgery, where we were separated by a desk, not a card table, I was lost.

It was difficult to subject myself to her probing. She asked too many questions. Was I feeling fatigued? My blood pressure was up, she said. Only slightly, which would suggest white-coat syndrome but, on the other hand, it would be worth further investigation.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me other than the onset of the menopause,’ I said. She checked my file. ‘You’re healthy,’ she said. ‘The last time you attended my clinic you were showing classic signs of anxiety. That’s quite a long time ago. You’re probably in need of a good overhaul.’

‘You make me sound like a clapped-out car,’ I said, but she was not amused.

‘The body is a delicate engine,’ she replied. ‘It’s tougher to repair when we drive it into the ground. Victor Breen is a hard taskmaster. Have you been overdoing it? You’re involved in so many committees. How long since you’ve had a smear test? Blood tests?’

‘Six months ago,’ I replied. ‘My gynaecologist carried it out. The results were clear.’

She tapped her pen on the desk, narrowed her eyes. ‘You must go for blood tests,’ she said. ‘We need to check you out
for iron deficiency. Ask your gynaecologist to forward the results of your smear test to me. Or, better still, I’ll contact Professor Langley myself.’

‘I don’t attend Professor Langley,’ I replied. ‘I have a gynaecologist in Dublin.’

‘Tell me his name and I’ll write to him,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to alarm you but the kind of excessive bleeding you’ve described means we could be talking about a hysterectomy.’

What does she mean by
we
? I swung my legs down from the examination table and told her I’d organise everything myself. If
we
were talking about a surgical procedure, I’d prefer to deal directly with my own specialist. I tried to soften my voice but I could see her puzzlement. She drew back, as if I’d offended her and pulled off her rubber gloves, throwing them away.

Everything is disposable except the past.

David is her patient. Last year he had blood tests done to check for a bug he’d picked up in Mexico. Your blood results when you were hospitalised would have been sent to her from St Anna’s. What else could I do but walk away?

At night, the blind stallion leaps through my dream and fastens his teeth into my stomach. I scream but no sound emerges. My mouth fills with sawdust. I fight him off but my limbs are flaccid. His teeth sink deeper. Blood begins to flow…flow…flow like a river in spate and I awaken, cursed, yes, they named it right, cursed with a womb that hates me.

The whisperers grow more insistent…
take her away…take her away…
Tomorrow we fly to Spain. I wonder will they come with me, those soft, insistent voices.

We’ll stay in Victor’s villa. We’ve gone there every summer since I started working with him but this will be a working
holiday to gauge the potential in the Spanish market. I’m the perfect person to run an overseas office. I’ve studied Spanish property law and have a working knowledge of the language.

I must do as Dr Williamson suggests. A smear test. In Spain I can seek medical assistance, start with a clean slate. They’ll miss me in Maoltrán but life moves on. David needs a holiday. He’s upset about his hostel but he’ll get over it in time. Spain will be good for him, take his mind off things. Our marriage may be in name only but I’ve tried to be an understanding wife.

Sometimes, I look at him and see him with a stranger’s eyes. I imagine him in bed with other women, his supple body rising and falling, his tousled hair falling over his forehead, his head arched back in deliverance. I long for him then, but it’s too late…far too late for regrets. You and I will face a new future…with or without him.

I love Spain. The dusty hills stencilled against the blue sky. The lazy afternoons when the sun glistens on the red rooftops and nothing stirs except the palms swaying lazily, and the terracotta clay crumbling under the claws of a ginger cat. No cheesies and English breakfasts here, no Irish pubs with their shillelaghs and shamrocks, no karaoke bars or stumbling drunks in this quiet resort where the only language spoken is Spanish and the only tourists are the Spaniards escaping their big cities.

We are strangers among strangers and the beast at my shoulder is quiescent.