Taken Away (20 page)

James Hueston leant forward, putting a hand onto the teapot. ‘Will I pour you a cuppa, missus?' Ma smiled gratefully at him.

Meanwhile Dom was staggering clumsily forward, apparently aiming for a chair. I couldn't take my eyes off him. As James Hueston poured Ma's tea, he too was surreptitiously following my brother's progress, and we both sighed with relief when Dom managed to sit himself in the chair right across the table from the old man.

Have a cuppa,' said James Hueston, pouring tea into my ‘brother's cup. Dom said nothing. His hands, resting on the kitchen table, were curled slightly and immobile; his face was like a waxwork dummy's.

Then James Hueston smiled at him, that tremendous, warm smile, and I saw Dom's expression open in surprise and relief. He leant forward, like a flower towards the sun, his lips parted, and for the first time since we'd fought each other in the garden, Dom relaxed. When James Hueston turned to me and asked would I like a cup of tea, I didn't answer. But he went ahead and poured anyway, and I unthinkingly wrapped my hand around my mug, staring at him all the time.

James Hueston's smile had
warmed
my brother. I don't mean in any sappy hearts-and-flowers way, either. His smile had actually, physically
warmed
my brother's hands and cheeks. I saw Dom's fingers relax; I saw the tight flesh bloom and lose its mottled blue. His cheeks flushed gently and, despite retaining their polished stone-like appearance, they softened. For the first time in hours, some of the pain seemed to leave Dom's body, and he began to look alive.

I could have leapt from my chair and hugged James Hueston 'til his brittle old ribs snapped with the pressure, but I didn't. I raised my cup to my lips instead and quietly sipped my tea.

THE TRUTH

MA WAS LAUGHING
gently as she finished her tenth cup of tea that day. She shifted Dee's loose-limbed weight in her lap and told James Hueston how we drank far too much of the stuff in the Finnerty household; how my dad always said that by the time we hit the grave none of us would ever rot, we'd be too pickled from tea. Ma said that if they dug her up in a hundred years, they'd think she was a saint because, like Bernadette, death would not corrupt her. She laid her head back in solemn beatitude, closed her eyes and laid her free hand on her breast, looking angelic.

‘Saint Olive of the Barry's Green Label,' she intoned. ‘Bless my teapot.'

James Hueston chortled in genuine delight, and his amusement pleased Dom, who gave a rusty little chuckle.

Something banged the back of my chair. I spun to look, but nothing was there. Yesterday's storm was back, gusting against the house with force, shushing through the eaves and down the chimney so that the rooms were filled with tiny stirrings and insistent little
thud thud thud
s of not-quite-snug doors and windows batting in their frames. I looked around the subtly shifting room and pulled my chair a little closer to the table.

James Hueston laid his cup down, looking questioningly at my ma as he took a pack of Woodbines from his pocket. She nodded and smiled at him and asked Dom would he get the fags from her handbag in the sitting room. Dom didn't even look in her direction, just continued gazing at James Hueston like a sleepy cat. Ma seemed completely oblivious to how stoned he was, how blissed out.

I jumped to my feet. ‘I'll get them for you, Ma.'

‘Thanks, love. Bag's hanging on the back of the armchair.'

Dee was unconscious in Ma's lap, her curly head lolling into the crook of Ma's arm, a thin line of drool shining on her chin. Ma was going to get a crick in her neck holding her like that. I was just about to offer to take Dee in and lie her on the sofa when I hesitated. I realised I didn't want her out of my sight. I wanted her here, with Ma and me and . . . and Dom. All of us together, under the hard spot of the kitchen light, within the benign radius of James Hueston's presence.

I ran my fingers through Dee's curls and went into the sitting room. Nan was snoozing on the sofa, her feet up on a little poof. I pulled the tartan car-blanket up around her shoulders and tucked her in a bit. She was deeply asleep, not a stir out of her. In the kitchen I heard James Hueston strike a match, and the sweet smell of his cigarette smoke wafted in to me.

‘Your husband told me about your home, missus. I'm sorry for your troubles.'

Ma made a noncommittal sound.

‘Anything I can do to help while your man is away . . . just ask.'

I was a bit surprised at how dark it had become already. The garden was barely visible through the window. The almost blank glass made me feel watched. I hastily shut the curtains, then went and threw another few bits of turf onto the fire. The room brightened instantly.

‘The two sisters have already offered their help, Mr Hueston. Thank you so much.'

There was a rueful chuckle from the old man. ‘Oh, you'll have as much help as you can handle, then . . . that Jenny's a fierce woman.' There was an awkward pause. ‘May is looking well, is she? Seems happy?'

My mother must have nodded or shrugged, some wordless communication, as there was silence in the next room. I stood at the fire, brushing turf-dust from my hands, and looked around me. Nothing felt right.

Nan sighed, and I jumped as if she'd let out a yell.

James Hueston murmured in the kitchen, ‘I feel I need to apologise to your boys for the state they found me in yesterday. I was . . . well . . .I was very much the worse for wear, missus, and I'd hate for them to think that I was
that
kind of a man.'

The window was rattling a low, continuous samba behind the curtain – like someone trying to get my attention. I took a deep swallow and struggled with the irrational feeling that I was somehow standing my ground. The back of my neck crawled with the sensation of being watched.

Ma's big shoulder-bag was just in front of me, but instead of getting her fags and leaving, I stood quietly listening to the shifting, living silence of the room.

The floorboards creaked, the unmistakable feel of someone moving their weight on the floor beside me. Despite the cosy heat and the kindly light, my heart began creeping slowly up my throat. A cold breeze passed over the back of my neck. It felt as though something were circling me, and I had to stop myself from backing up against the wall to ease the vulnerable feeling between my shoulderblades.

Low and almost inaudible, a voice whispered into my ear, ‘Pat.'

I jumped, and my hands flew out as if to ward something off. ‘Who's that?' I whispered, scanning the room with bulging eyes.

Ma's voice drifted from the kitchen, gently encouraging James Hueston to continue. ‘You'd been drinking?' she said.

‘Truth is, missus . . . a bit like your little girl there, I've been having some terrible dreams myself lately, and I finally tried to drown them in a bottle. It's not an excuse, but . . . ' His voice trailed off, and the kitchen was very quiet for a moment.

The voice spoke in my ear again.

‘Pat.'

I felt a little puff of breath on my cheek and jerked back at the physical intrusion into my space. A welcome spark of anger cut through my fear.

‘Go away,' I said. ‘Leave us alone.'

There was a pause, as though something had been shocked into stillness. That surprised me, and I felt a little rush of confidence, a real sense of my own power. Behind me, on the mantelpiece, a small china dog began to vibrate, rattling gently against the stone of the mantle. I glared at it.

‘Cut that out,' I said.

The dog stopped its rapid jittering as suddenly as it had begun. Very, very quietly, but with a strength that amazed me even while I was doing it, I spoke out into the room: ‘I want you to leave him alone. Do you hear me? Leave my brother alone. And leave Francis alone, too. I mean it.'

I heard a desperate rushing noise within the room, and a fierce, cold draught gusted from the fireplace against the back of my legs. There was a low, agonised moaning. To anyone else, it would have been the sound of the wind scouring the house, but I knew it was here, in the room, rising up from the walls. It was the very essence of desolation.

‘You're not welcome here,' I said. ‘I want you to leave.'

The wind wailed in the chimney. At that moment, I felt an awful wave of nausea stagger me backwards, and I slumped against the wall. There was a tearing sensation in my chest – a terrible kind of
rending
– and I grabbed the front of my jumper in sudden agony.

And then there was nothing. No more sound. No more sensation. Just a quiet, empty room, and an unexpected feeling of abandonment and remorse.

‘Oh Patrick!' said Nan. She was looking up at me with wide-eyed dismay. ‘Oh Patrick,' she said again. ‘What have you done?'

‘Pat?' Ma called, worry in her voice. ‘Is your nan alright?'

‘She's grand, Ma. She's just talking in her sleep. Hang on and I'll get her settled.' Nan and I stared at each other, me splayed against the wall, clutching my chest, she shaking her head slowly, her eyes full of tears. I wobbled across to tuck the blanket a little better around her, and stroked her cheek with the back of my finger. ‘It's all right, Nan. Everything's fine. No need to be afraid now.'

But Patrick,' she quavered. ‘Your poor brother . . . ' ‘

I stroked her cheek and forced myself to smile at her. Her eyes began to drift shut. ‘He'll be okay, Nan,' I murmured. ‘We'll fix everything, don't worry.'

‘Your poor brother.' She was floating off, her eyes closing, her breath deepening. I stayed by her for a few moments, the way I would with Dee, just to make sure she was fully under. Then I straightened up and brought Ma her fags.

Everyone but Dom was looking at me expectantly when I entered the room. I handed Ma her cigarettes and made what felt like a rueful little shape with my mouth. ‘I think the wind startled her a little bit. She's gone back asleep now.'

There were
ah
s and nods of understanding from Ma and James Hueston. Dom was not on the same bus at all. He was gazing at James Hueston with a kind of floaty curiosity.

‘What are your bad dreams about?' he asked.

James Hueston gave him a long, searching look.

Ma shifted Dee and flicked her eyes to the old man. ‘Ah, Dom,' she said. ‘Mr Hueston mightn't want to talk about things like that.'

‘It's alright,' murmured James Hueston. ‘I don't mind.' But then he just sat there, silently looking down at the table, as though gathering the right words. He delicately picked a little flake of stray tobacco from his lip and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger as he thought.

I couldn't sit down. I just couldn't. I went to the sink with the pretence of getting myself a drink of water and let the tap run. I could see into the sitting room from here. Nan's feet were visible, resting on the poof. She seemed fine. The room seemed perfectly peaceful. I felt powerful and dislocated all at once. I had sent that thing packing! With just a command, it had run away. Was that all it had taken? In the end, was that all we'd had to do? Tell the soldier – the bad man – to leave? Command, and he would have to obey?

The window over the sink shook gently in its frame, and I glanced at it. It knocked twice.
Bang
.
Bang
. Very angry. Only my own face glared back at me from the glass. The feeling of dislocation grew. My eyes were dark. I looked furious with myself.

I swallowed the water convulsively. It was cold enough to splinter my teeth. I tore my eyes from my own reflection and forced myself to sit back down at the table.

‘I've been dreaming the same things since the war.' James glanced at my ma. ‘The First World War,' he said, and she nodded. ‘I were in the service in the second war, too, but I were a mechanic in the RAF then, didn't see no action.'

Ma smiled. Her brother Gary had been an RAF mechanic at the end of World War II. She didn't mention this to James Hueston, but that didn't surprise me; Ma didn't talk much about Gary's being in the British armed forces. There were some people on our road who were pissy about it, and Ma had learnt to carry her pride in her big brother quietly, inside herself.

James was looking down at the glowing tip of his fag as though there were a picture show running there that only he could see. His Woodbine was held between his two middle fingers, the glowing end sheltered in the cup of his palm, the smoke rising up between his fingers. A lot of old men smoked like that. Dad had told me it was from hiding the bright end of their fags at work or at war.

The old man raised the cup of his hand to his mouth, the fag completely invisible to the casual observer, and took a deep pull. The smoke trickled slowly out his nose and from the corners of his mouth as he contemplated my mother.

‘You believe in ghosts, missus?'

Dom jumped, and I sat straighter in my chair. I flicked a wary glance at my mother. Olive Finnerty was the most practical, down-to-earth, no-nonsense female you'd ever get to meet. She had no truck with bedtime scares or night terrors. You came complaining to Ma that you were scared of the dark, the most sympathy you'd get would be a clatter to the back of the head and an abrupt command to get a grip on yourself. My stomach tightened in anticipation of her response. I didn't want her scoffing at this old man, and maybe cutting this important topic off at the knees.

Ma regarded James Hueston thoughtfully. The house moved around us with the storm, shifting and sighing. Dee's breathing was a gentle, steady undercurrent, and the Aga ticked quietly in the background as the fire in its belly began to die down. Ma nodded. She looked down at Dee, and nodded again. ‘I think any person who believes in the afterlife must automatically have a belief in ghosts, Mr Hueston.' She gave the old man a very direct look. ‘But I think it's more likely that a person'd find themselves distressed by their memories than by any supernatural spirit.'