The Changeling (9 page)

Her blood cooled. She looked steadily at Killian; her fingers tingled, and she flexed them slightly, experimentally.

Killian winced, and touched his stomach. ‘Hey . . .’

‘What?’

‘You poked me . . .’

She felt a faint, startled flicker of triumph. ‘I didn’t
touch
you. And I wouldn’t, if you were the last boy on earth.’ Again, her eyes strayed towards the windowsill; Shay was gone, his cup abandoned.

Annoyed, Killian said, ‘What d’you keep looking over there for? I know Bogger Boy chatted you up on the bus, but he’s not so pretty now, is he?’

‘
What do you mean?
’

He brightened again at her reaction, though still prodding at his stomach tenderly with both hands. ‘What? You didn’t notice the state his brother left him in?’

‘His brother?’ It was as if a hand had reached in and squeezed her heart.

‘Yep, Bogger Boy stole his brother’s car yesterday and crashed it, and my dad says John Joe Foley was in the pub last night getting drunk and guilty about beating Shay up for it—
Aargh!
’ Killian doubled up, clutching his stomach.

Shay was already halfway down the corridor towards the gym.

‘Wait!’ She was damned if she was going to let him keep disappearing on her, just because he was too proud to let her know he’d been beaten up. ‘Shay,
wait.
’ Aoife sprinted down the empty hallway and grabbed his sleeve, and finally he stopped walking and stood with his back to the wall, his arms loose by his sides. There was a violent crimson bruise over his cheekbone, and a black cut on his mouth. ‘Oh, Shay . . .’

He half smiled, although it was more of a lopsided grimace, presumably so as not to split open the newly healed cut on his lip. ‘Not as bad as it looks. Crashed again and hit my face off the wheel.’

‘You did not – your brother did this to you.’ She was having a hard time keeping her voice steady, between fury at John Joe’s violence and fear for Shay with no parent to stand up for him at home, and above all the despair of not knowing how to make things right.

‘No, I crashed the—’

‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘I’m not, I—’

‘
Shay.
People know. John Joe was telling everyone down the pub.’

He looked taken aback and annoyed. ‘Was he indeed, the gobshite? I hope he told people I gave as good as I got.’ He showed his knuckles to her with a look of pride; they were bruised and cut. So that’s why he’d had his sleeves pulled up over his hands, as well as hiding his face.

Aoife, who had been feeling so light, felt suddenly weighed down. ‘I’m so sorry about this.’

‘Not your fault. It was me crashed the car, and now he’s got no wheels apart from the tractor and I owe him, that’s all.’

She said fiercely, ‘You don’t owe him, he’s a brute.’

Shay’s face closed down; he looked off to the side. ‘He’s not, he’s just mad strong and he forgets his own strength. And I do owe him. He’s minded me since I was five years old. The social had foster parents lined up for me. He was only seventeen but he fought for the right to raise me, and he got me back after a year and I was right happy to get home.’

‘OK, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.’ Though it didn’t really change her mind about John Joe.

He said, ‘I can work off what I owe him by doing stuff around the farm. I’m good at lambing. I never lose a lamb, never.’

Aoife felt even worse now about giving the fifty euros to Sinead. If only she’d known that she’d had it and that Shay needed it. She longed to stroke the dark cut on his mouth, to heal it somehow. She shoved her hands hard and deep into the pockets of her school trousers, to keep herself from touching him. ‘I want to help.’

‘Aoife, it’s not your problem. I’ll sort it.’

In her pocket, her left hand closed on a slim packet. She fingered it – absently, and then with growing puzzlement. She pulled it out. An envelope full of hundred-euro notes.

For a long moment she just stared, incredulous. This finding money was getting . . . ridiculous. She flicked slowly through the thin sheaf of notes. Three, four . . . Her heart gave a frightened thump . . . Six, seven, eight . . .
Twelve hundred euros?
What . . .? Where . . .? She looked up at Shay; he seemed dazed yet transfixed by the sum of money she was holding. On a wild impulse, before she could think about it, she thrust it at him. ‘Here. There’s plenty enough there to buy a decent secondhand car.’

He came to with a start, pushing it back at her like it might burn him. ‘No! Jesus! Where did you get that?’

‘I don’t know. Take it!’

‘You don’t
know
?’

‘I mean it’s . . .’ She scrabbled in her head for inspiration. ‘It’s an early birthday present! From an aunt!
Take it.
’

Shay’s green-brown eyes grew hot, cheekbones flushed. ‘I will not – are you cracked? I don’t need your money.’ He said ‘money’ in a fierce voice, like he really meant ‘charity’.

‘Look—’

‘Aoife,
leave it
!’ And he was gone, striding away round the corner towards the gym.

He should have been in the next class, business, but he wasn’t. He must have been so annoyed with her that he’d walked out of the school.

Aoife sat scribbling flowers in her copy and thinking very seriously about the money. As much as she’d wanted Shay to take it, it was probably just as well he hadn’t. It couldn’t have come out of nowhere. It must be the money Declan Sweeney owed Maeve for doing his accounts, and somehow she had picked it up, thinking it was a note for school. She did most things on auto-pilot in the morning. Her mother would be going demented, turning the house upside down – hysterically berating herself for always putting things in a safe place and never being able to find them again.

When the bell rang between classes, she went to the school secretary, a maternal pinkish woman. ‘Rose, I feel really peculiar – could you phone my mam and ask can she come and sign me out?’

Reaching for the phone, Rose said, ‘You should eat more, Aoife. You’re too thin. You teenage girls are always on a diet, and then you wonder why you get tired and have headaches. Have a proper breakfast tomorrow.’

Aoife, thinking of everything she had eaten at first break, said earnestly, ‘I will, I promise.’

Maeve arrived with her dark blonde hair tied up on top of her head and wearing the shabby old green cardigan that she’d owned ever since Aoife could remember. She seemed very relaxed; clearly she hadn’t yet noticed that she’d mislaid a fortune. As they walked from the school to the car, she asked Aoife, ‘So, do you need to go to Doctor Lynn?’

‘No, I’m grand.’

Maeve shot her a look. ‘Grand apart from the splitting headache that’s making it impossible for you to concentrate in school?’

‘Yeah, apart from that.’ Aoife touched the envelope in her pocket. ‘Did Declan Sweeney pay you yet, by the way?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Oh. Are you sure?’

Maeve stopped walking for a moment, her hand on Aoife’s arm. Her expression had changed to one of concern. ‘Is this headache brought on by worrying about money? I know I’m always moaning about how poor we are, but we’re not going to starve.’

‘OK. Good.’

After they’d driven through Kilduff, Aoife said, ‘Did you or Dad lose any money at all recently?’

‘None to lose, sweetie. Why?’

‘Declan didn’t pay you anything in advance?’

Maeve sighed as she turned left into their lane. ‘I’m starting to feel like I’m missing something here, sweetheart. What’s really bothering you?’

‘Nothing. I found some money.’

‘Well, that’s a good complaint. How much?’

Aoife opened her mouth to say twelve hundred. But then didn’t. If it really
wasn’t
her parents’ money, she needed to think about the whole thing a bit longer. At the same time, it seemed mean not to share her new-found wealth. So instead, she said cautiously, ‘A hundred euros?’

‘
A hundred?
’ Maeve, who was in the middle of changing gears, stalled the car. Instead of restarting it, she sat staring at Aoife in astonishment. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘In my trousers.’

‘An old pair?’

‘Mm . . .’ Her school uniform was pretty old, although she suspected her mother was asking if she’d found the money in a pair of trousers that she hadn’t worn for ages.

Maeve, shaking her head in amazement, started the engine again. ‘Well, lucky you. It must have been left over from your confirmation or something like that. I wish I could find a forgotten hundred-euro note lying around.’

Aoife took one of the several hundred-euro notes out of the envelope in her pocket, and laid it on the dashboard. ‘You have it.’

Maeve smiled, pleased by this act of solicitude – very tempted, then resolute. ‘No, God no – you found it. Buy yourself that fancy pair of trainers you’ve been wanting.’

‘Really. Take it.’

Maeve weakened again, picking it up. ‘Aoife, that’s so sweet of you. Maybe just . . . I could borrow it until Declan pays me tomorrow? He’s giving me three hundred.’

‘Sure, whenever.’ She turned to gaze out of the window. So it could never have been the farmer’s money anyway.

Pulling up in front of their house, Maeve said, ‘If I’d known you were going to lend me a hundred euros, I’d have bought some lamb chops for dinner! But I really have to work.’

Aoife offered quickly, ‘I’ll go to the shop for you if you like.’

Maeve gave her another look. ‘Headache better already?’

‘The fresh air will do me good.’

Her mother laughed, maybe softened up by the hundred euros, pulling out her ancient yellow leather purse. ‘Oh, go on then. You sure you don’t mind walking that far?’

‘It’s not that far. I need to clear my head. What will I get?’

‘You choose – your money. Lamb chops?’

‘And cheesecake?’

‘Perfect.’ Maeve opened the purse. Frowned. Hunted through the different compartments. ‘What the . . .? I must have put it . . .’ She dug around in the pockets of her old green cardigan. ‘God, this is so annoying. I know I put it somewhere safe, I know I did.’

‘Oh, Mam—’

‘Don’t say anything! Just help me find it!’

Aoife picked up the purse from the dashboard. ‘Will I . . .?’

‘Feel free.’ Maeve was rifling with increasing anxiety through the driver’s door pocket, pulling out old letters, tissues, sweet wrappers.

Aoife checked through the untidy purse. In the zipped section were a lot of coins, but none worth more than twenty cents; in the wallet section were shop receipts, stamps, three raffle tickets, a library card, and the crushed skeleton of an oak leaf. ‘Try the floor. Maybe you dropped it.’

Maeve got out of the car and checked frantically around in the foot well, then under the seat. Nothing but old newspapers. ‘Oh God, this is a total nightmare . . . I can’t believe I’ve lost it. I feel so stupid – I’m such an idiot. I’ll still pay you back tomorrow . . .’ There were tears in her voice.

Aoife said hastily, ‘Maybe it’s in the back?’

‘
Why would it be there?
’

‘I don’t know – you had the window open, maybe it blew there?’

While her mother searched the back seat, now almost sobbing, Aoife quickly took another hundred euros out of her pocket and ‘found’ it in the glove compartment.

Maeve stood wiping her eyes with the corner of her cardigan. ‘Well done, Aoife. Thank God . . . I remember putting it there now, that’s my safe place in the car . . .’

‘Will I go to the shop now?’

‘Yes! Quick before I lose it again!’

CHAPTER SEVEN

The rain was still holding off, and a watery sun was breaking through. Strolling up the flowering lane, flies annoying her head, Aoife flicked through the remaining eleven hundred-euro notes.

She couldn’t even begin to understand it.

Maybe everything else that had happened to her in the last couple of days could be explained away. Imagining she could bicycle so much faster than normal could be down to the timer on her phone not working. Secretly believing that she was responsible for Shay Foley crashing his brother’s car, just because she’d wanted him to turn right? OK, that had to be delusional. Like the way she believed, deep down – no, far from deep down – that she’d shoved Sinead into the desk and poked Killian in the stomach without touching either of them. (An entertaining idea, but surely way too good to be true.)

But the twelve hundred euros was not an illusion. They existed. Her mother had seen two of these notes – had held one of them in her hand. Shay had seen the money too, when she offered it to him to buy his brother a car.

Because that was what it was for
 . . .

A new determination filled her. She wasn’t going to tell her mother about this. She would have liked to give Maeve more than a hundred euros, but she couldn’t risk her mother deciding that when it came to this amount of cash, finders wasn’t keepers. Yes, now she thought about it, she was pretty certain Maeve would hand the money over to the guards.

Reaching the garage, Aoife turned into the yard. Shay’s brother had beaten him, and nobody else seemed to care. She wanted to help him. She
needed
to help him. This money was the answer to her prayer. Didn’t people pray for all sorts of things? Health, love, good exam results? Why not money for a car? Maybe it was crazy to believe that it was literally a gift from heaven, but for now she was going to go with it.

Dave Ferguson’s garage consisted of two petrol pumps, a tin-roofed shed where he did his repairs, and a small shop selling bits and pieces to do with cars, motorbikes and push bikes. The owner was in the yard, prostrate under a green post office van. Aoife crouched down to speak to him. ‘I need some new tyres for my bike.’ It seemed an easier place to start than just coming straight out with wanting to buy a car.

‘Five minutes . . .’ He hit something fiercely with a wrench.

While waiting, she wandered around the yard. There was a rusty Toyota for sale at seven hundred and fifty, a small Honda for six hundred, and a very old but very beautiful cream-coloured BMW convertible, with no price on it – the vintage car she had seen Dave Ferguson tinkering with yesterday afternoon. She peered inside. It had red leather seats.