The Girl From Yesterday (14 page)

At nine I strolled to the newsagents around the corner from my house. Garshaigh did not have a real arts supply shop, but the little shop at which everyone bought their newspapers sold various types of paper, paints, colouring books and drawing pads of all kinds. I bought a large blank art pad, some crayons, markers and chalks. Now I was ready for my visit.

Dora met me at the door.

‘We’re seein’ a lot of you lately,’ she said.

‘Just trying to get to know you,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel I can really write about someone until I have some sense of who they are.’

‘Fair enough,’ she said, standing back to let me in. ‘Tom is away on business.’

‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘The story isn’t just about him, is it? It’s about all of you.’

She thought about that.

‘I promised him I’d clear one of the back rooms – he wants to use it as an office to deal with this whole bloody court case.’

‘How’s that proceeding?’

‘I thought you’d have a better handle on that than me. Your boss seems pretty obsessed with it.’

‘Oh, he’s fascinated, all right,’ I said. ‘But he only tells me what he thinks I need to know.’

‘Well, maybe I should take a leaf out of his book.’

‘I won’t tell,’ I said, winking – Shane the charmer.

‘I suppose it can’t hurt. According to Tom his brother has produced a document – and Tom has seen a copy of it – written by a psychiatrist from the local sanatorium, swearing that his father was in mental distress when he made his final will. And apparently the psychiatrist is prepared to stand up in court and back this all up.’

‘And is he reliable?’ I asked. ‘Some of those shrinks are as crazy as their patients.’

‘From what I gather, this guy is not a nut job. Tom is up in a heap.
Saying
you have something is one thing, but
producing
it is a whole other thing. And then having the psychiatrist be happy to stand up and state his case – according to our guy, it gives Gerry a very strong case.’

‘What will you do if you have to sell up?’

‘Tom will never sell up,’ Dora said dolefully. ‘He’ll barricade himself in here with his gun and that will be that. It’ll be a fucking siege.’

‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ I said.

‘Maybe it’s what we all need – a bit of a shake-up,’ she said, but then seemed to catch herself and paused. ‘I really have to sort out that room. Do you want to see the kids? The three youngest are about.’

‘That’d be nice,’ I said.

Winnie, Dom and Emma said they knew a great spot for a picnic and they led me across the fields for a couple of hundred yards until we came to a thicket of ash trees. What looked like a rabbit path had been beaten through these and Emma tripped down it, followed by the other two. All three children were barefoot, both girls wearing their grey/white shift dresses, Dom in the same clothes he had worn the last time I’d seen him. Emma led the way, weaving a path through the tall trees and leading us out into a hollow grove of bracken and gorse. A sheer wall of rock rose up behind, making the place sheltered and quiet, the sound of the trees rustling in the gentle breeze a pleasing ambient white noise.

I had brought a proper picnic blanket and laid it out on the soft grass, and Winnie insisted on helping me set the food and drink out.

‘Who maked all this food?’ Dom asked as we ate – it was only about 10.30 in the morning, but I hadn’t had breakfast, and I assumed (correctly) that the children hadn’t either, so everyone was quite happy to get stuck in.

‘I did,’ I said.

‘You don’t gots a wife?’

I shook my head.

‘She dead?’ Winnie asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I just haven’t got married yet, that’s all.’

‘You should get a wife for yourself,’ Dom said, as if this was the most sensible thing in the world.

‘Maybe I like being on my own,’ I said.

‘But if you had a wife, she could make your food,’ Emma said, placing a hand on my arm as if to say:
this is very simple stuff you know – try and keep up!

‘You’re all
eating
my food,’ I said. ‘Is it so bad that I need someone else to make it for me?’

There was much shaking of heads and noing to this question.

‘Well, if I can make food that tastes good, and if I don’t mind doing it – where’s the problem?’

Winnie cut herself a huge slice of apple pie.

‘What ’bout cleanin’ up?’ she asked. ‘You surely to goodness can’t like cleanin’ up?’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t really like cleaning. But when it’s only me and Millie . . .’

‘Who’s Millie then?’ Dom cut in.

‘Millie is my dog.’

‘What kind of a dog?’

‘A greyhound,’ I said.

‘Do you race her?’ Dom asked, his eyes lighting up.

‘No.’

‘Do you take her lamping?’

‘No.’

‘Do she go hare coursing?’

‘No.’

The three children looked at me as if I were clearly intellectually disabled.

‘Why do you have her then?’ Dom asked, his voice dripping with disdain.

‘She’s my friend. I like the company.’

‘D’you have any other friends?’ Winnie wanted to know.

‘I have you guys.’

‘We don’t count,’ Dom said. ‘We’re just kids.’

‘Yeah, I’ve got lots of friends,’ I said, dodging the topic. A debate on Lonnie and my running away didn’t seem useful. ‘What about you? Do
you
have lots of friends?’

‘Nah,’ Emma said, shoving half a cupcake into her mouth. ‘We ain’t allowed to play with other kids, in case they teaches us bad stuff.’

‘There must be other kids who don’t watch TV and live like you do,’ I said. ‘Maybe you could play with them?’

‘Jimmy used to go t’ school,’ Winnie said. ‘I hoped they’d let me go, but they di’n’t. Dad said Jim had been ruint by goin’.’

‘I bet your mum teaches you loads though,’ I said. ‘I’m sure she makes your lessons really fun.’

‘She never teaches us nothin’,’ Emma said. ‘ “You go on out an’ play, children, while I clean up in here.” That’s what she says.’

‘She must teach you
sometimes,’
I said.

‘I don’t remember the last time,’ Dom said. ‘Winnie can barely read, and I can just about write my name. Emma there can’t read at all!’

‘Is that true, Emma?’ I asked.

‘I can sing you the alphabet,’ Emma offered, not one bit embarrassed at these revelations. ‘Jim teached me.’

She stood up and began to sing the Alphabet song most children learn at school. I could tell that she had learned it phonetically – the letters themselves meant nothing to her. ‘L, M, N, O, P’ became ‘ellemellohpee’ and ‘Q, R, S’ was sung as ‘queues are best’. But I applauded loudly when she finished.

‘So I can
kind
of read,’ Emma said, getting some more lemonade.

When we had cleared away the food I took the paper and colouring materials from another bag.

‘Here’s something for you all,’ I said. ‘Let’s draw some pictures.’

The kids pounced on the colours delightedly.

‘What of?’ Dom asked.

‘Anything you like,’ I said.

The next hour was spent with me idly sketching the ash grove, while the three children filled page after page with images. I paid no attention, not wanting to staunch their creativity in any way. I hate seeing children being given a page with a picture already on it – that has its place, but true creativity begins with an empty page and no limits placed on what can go on it. The kids, who usually chatted away nineteen to the dozen, fell silent and all I could hear was the scratching of pens on paper, bird song from above and the trees whispering to us all.

As the time on my watch approached midday, I called a halt.

‘All right you lot,’ I said. ‘I have to get back to work, and your mother will think that I have abducted you all. Let’s have a look at what you drew.’

‘I drawed our house,’ Emma said, showing me a very colourful rendition of the homestead, with a smiling sun in the sky above it. ‘That’s me in the window, waving.’

There was a little stick figure in the top right window, waving out.

‘And who’s this?’ I asked, pointing to another window, in which was a rather frightening-looking face.

‘That’s Bad Daddy,’ Emma said.

‘Bad Daddy?’

‘Yeah. We have a Good Daddy and a Bad Daddy.’

This was new.

‘Like, two different people?’

‘No!’ Winnie said. ‘The same. But different too. Look.’

She produced a page which had been divided into two equal parts by a line down the middle. On one side was a figure that was certainly Tom. It was big, lumpy, dressed in a blue shirt and jeans, with a mess of black hair and a smiling face. Behind him was the house, again with a sunny sky, clouds and birds. On the other was the same blue-clad figure, but this time with a fiercely angry face. The background showed black clouds and lightning, and in Bad Daddy’s hand was a stick or cudgel.

‘I see,’ I said. ‘I take it you don’t like Bad Daddy much.’

‘He’ll whip you,’ Dom said.

He showed me a picture he had drawn of a large figure, hand raised above his head, while a smaller one cowered.

‘An’ he’ll do worse stuff,’ Winnie said gravely.

She held up a picture of a room where a black figure stood at the door. In the room was a bed, with the blankets clumped up. The occupant was not on the mattress, but hiding underneath, a common defensive tactic for children whose nights are disturbed by abusers.

‘Yeah, we got a Bad Daddy an’ a Good Daddy,’ Emma said, laughing. ‘Course, Mammy is just Mammy. Not good, not bad, jus’ Mammy.’

I doubted if that was much of a comfort.

I asked the kids if I could bring the pictures with me. They agreed so long as I let them hold on to the paper and pens. I said I thought it a perfect swap.

That afternoon I had to attend a trade union gathering, but I found it very difficult to focus. The pictures the children had drawn kept swimming round in my head. To my huge relief the meeting ended just after five and I went home to find Millie asleep in the kennel I had got for her. I put her in the back of the car and we went out to the beach where I jogged for a couple of miles, an activity that made me want to throw up, but at least drove thoughts of dual personality daddies out of my head for half an hour.

I cooked some steak for dinner, then sat down in front of
Starsky and Hutch
(the original series, of course) on the crime network. A kid with special needs was witness to a robbery and was being bullied not to testify. The two detectives were getting rather emotional about protecting him. I knew how they felt.

I don’t remember going to get the whiskey, but by the time Lonnie showed up I was roaring drunk.

‘So what’s your excuse this time?’ he asked.

‘ ’Scuse?’

‘What’s your excuse for not going to the police or social services or whatever the fuck?’

‘ ’Bout what?’

‘The Blaney children! You now have solid evidence that they are being abused.’

‘Don’t.’

‘You fucking do!’

‘The pictures do not show anyone being ’bused. They could just show the kids are scared of their Dad. It isn’ enough.’

‘You asshole!’ Lonnie screamed and punched me full force in the face. I was too stunned to speak for a moment, then gathered myself and lunged at him, but he was right across the other side of the room by the time I was able to move.

‘You fucking shithead!’ I roared. ‘You call me a chicken? You say I’m not fulfilling my respons’bilities? You went and fucking died on me! You ran out on me, and then you turn up as some crazy brain episode I’m having, and you have the balls to call me a coward?
You
left
me!
So don’t come the high ’n’ mighty, Lonnie Whitmore. It doesn’t wash.’

‘Those kids have no one.’

‘Oh my God, Lonnie – every case I get involved in, they
always
have no one. I’m listening to that all my life –
you’re the only one that can help
– well guess what? I’m not! There are plenty of other people out there. I’m a journalist now, and a teacher. I don’t need this shit in my head anymore.’

‘Christ on a bike, this is rich coming from you. Mister high and mighty! I actually thought you were worth something. I thought you were the man! But you are just a long-haired bleeding-heart wimp. That is all you are.’

‘Fuck off Lonnie. Go back to wherever you go when you’re not pissing me off.’

‘You don’t get off that lightly. This is not about some abstract moral dilemma. Those children are real, real kids who are probably hurting right this minute.’

‘Do
you think I don’t know that?’
I screamed at him.

Millie whined and ran under the couch.

‘Do
you think I don’t see those pictures in my head even as I am talking to you? After all that we’ve been through together, do you believe that I can just pass that off as meaningless?’

‘So do something about it!’ Lonnie bellowed back, standing up on the arm of the chair. ‘Make a difference in those kids’ lives.’

‘I can’t!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m afraid!’

‘What of?’

‘Of getting dragged back into all that shit again. The emotions and the pain and the constant possibility that you are
fucking up
someone’s life for good. I am
tired
of all that, Lonnie. Why do you think I came here in the first place?’

‘I don’t know about all that shit,’ Lonnie said, levelling his finger at me. ‘But I do know this:
you cannot pussy out on those kids
. They need you, and
you
owe
me
. If our friendship ever meant anything to you, prove it. Show me what kind of a man you really are.’

I gazed at him, stunned at what we had both just said, but particularly sickened that he would play that card.

‘I cannot believe you just said that,’ I murmured, my words barely audible.

‘Believe it. You know what you have to do,’ Lonnie Whitmore said, and then he wasn’t there anymore. I sat on the couch, my dog quivering with fear beneath me, and cried.

The girl was quiet. It was as if something had extinguished a light in her.