The Girl From Yesterday (16 page)

‘D’you think you can?’

‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘What I do know is that it’s probably nowhere near as bad as you think it is, and that school can sometimes be a really scary experience for kids – it can put them off things for the rest of their lives. Look at me: I can barely do simple maths because of something a teacher put in my school report once – put me off numbers for ever. So I do know where you’re coming from.’

Gladys sniffed, and I saw that, despite her attempts to be dispassionate, she was actually crying quietly.

‘So maybe I’m not dumb after all?’

I took her hand and squeezed it.

‘One thing I am absolutely, categorically certain of miss, is that you are in no way, shape or form dumb. And I want you to stop saying it. You have to start believing in yourself.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘You’re going to have to do better than that,’ I said.

‘Little baby steps,’ Gladys said, but she smiled and wiped her eyes.

It was a start.

A week passed since I had gone to social services, then two. I waited for Chaplin to storm into the offices of the
Western News
, informing me that it was all over, that social workers had stormed the house like a battalion of the SAS, and the entire family had been whisked off to various care institutions. But nothing of the sort happened, and my boss remained implacable.

I knew from experience that things can move painstakingly slowly in the field of child protection. Cases can take years to come to a climax; however, I also knew that there would have been a visit to the house within, at the most, forty-eight hours of my visiting Sid Doran. Taking that into consideration, Chaplin should have seen some changes, even if only in the moods of the parents.

Finally, I could stand the suspense no longer.

‘Rob, can I ask you something?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve been out to the Blaney house within the last few days, yeah?’

‘I refuse to tell you anything about the Blaney family on grounds that you are likely to stick your busy-bodying, bleeding-heart do-gooder nose into things and make a complete fuck-up of my life.’

‘Yeah, I know all that, but you have, haven’t you?’

Chaplin sighed a deep ‘will he never relent’ sort of sigh.

‘I was out there yesterday. A date has been set for the hearing. Tom is like a bear with a sore head over it all.’

‘But other than that, you didn’t notice any difference? Dora made no reference to social services being out . . . the kids didn’t look cleaner or better fed?’

‘They all looked exactly the same to me, which is how I like it, thank you very fucking much.’

‘They shouldn’t, though,’ I said.

‘Look, as much as it has pissed me off, you did the right thing. Obviously the other do-gooders down the social decided that you didn’t have enough to bring them out there. Boo hoo. Very sad. Think of it this way: there must be other, needier children that require attention.’

I said nothing, turning back to my keyboard and finishing a piece I was writing. Chaplin was probably right. Probably.

Half an hour later I made an excuse (‘I need to pick up an ink cartridge, Rob,’) and made for my car.

At child services, the same girl was behind the counter, looking as if she had never left. I wondered if she slept in the cupboard behind her.

‘Could I see Sid Doran please?’

‘And do you have an appointment sir?’

‘No. I came here two weeks ago to make a referral, and I just wanted to follow up on that.’

‘Very well, just take a seat and I’ll see what I can do.’

I sat in the same chair I had occupied during my last visit. I again tried to read (this time Garth Ennis’s
Preacher)
but made comparable headway.

After fifteen minutes a tall, thin woman in black skinny jeans and a grey woollen top arrived at the counter, whispered something to the blonde girl and approached me.

‘Mr Dunphy, I’m Josephine Welch, senior social worker. Thank you for taking the time to call out. I assure you that the matter is fully in hand.’

‘The family have been visited?’

‘Your concerns have been addressed. Thank you for your time.’

I realized she was more or less telling me to leave. I wasn’t going to go so easily.

‘I used to be a social care worker. I know that, as the person who made the complaint, I am entitled to an update on what you’ve done.’

‘As I said, we are dealing with your issues. That really is as much as I can divulge just now.’

‘Have you called out to the house or not?’

‘Goodbye, Mr Dunphy.’

Josephine Welch turned on her heel and walked back the way she had come. I sat there for another five minutes, but no more information was forthcoming. I considered chaining myself to the chair, but it wasn’t bolted to the floor and was made of fairly flimsy plastic.

And I didn’t have any chains. The world just kept on throwing obstacles in my way.

‘You got a mammy and daddy?’

‘My mammy is dead,’ I said.

‘Oh!’ she was genuinely shocked by this news. It was as if the mortality of her parents had never occurred to her.

‘You sad ’bout dat?’

‘I was. I still miss her, but I’m not as sad as I used to be.’

‘Your daddy alive still?’

‘Yes.’

‘Him sad?’

‘He was, too, but he got married again to a very nice woman.’

‘So . . . you gots a new mammy . . .’

‘I suppose I do. But I was a grown-up when my dad married her, so as much as I am fond of her she’s not really like a mam to me – I don’t need minding.’

‘But she nice to you.’

‘She is. Very much.’

The girl was picking up pebbles and putting them into groups based on their colour. ‘Your daddy whack you?’

I thought about the question – it was a miracle I had never been asked it before during all my time working with children, but I hadn’t. I was tempted to dodge it, but then decided on the truth.

‘Well, when I was little it was very normal for parents to smack their children. My dad slapped me from time to time – never really very hard – and so did my mum.’

‘They ever make you cry with them whacks?’

‘I don’t really remember,’ I said. ‘I reckon they must have done, but it didn’t happen very often.’

‘You mad at them for whackin’ you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘They weren’t being mean. I was usually being a bit of a brat. My brother was even worse, though. He used to be very badly behaved sometimes, and he’d get whacked a lot more than me.’

‘What he do?’ she asked, her voice hushed in fascination.

‘Well, once, he told my mother to shut up!’

I realized as I said it that any other child would laugh in my face – dialogue between children and parents now regularly contained worse insults than that. But the girl gasped in horror.

‘He tole her to shuddup! He must’ve been whacked somethin’ dreadful!’

I laughed.

‘I remember seeing him coming running out of our garden as fast as his little legs could carry him, and then I realized that my dad was running after him.’

‘Oh no,’ she said, her hands to her mouth, barely breathing.

‘Well, it didn’t take my dad long to catch him, and he got a wallop then. But, see, my parents didn’t hit us and keep hitting us. We’d get a slap, usually on the bum, and that would be that. I think my brother got sent to bed really early that evening, but that was as far as it went.’

The girl’s eyes were wide, her face pale.

‘If I said that to my mammy or daddy, I’d be whacked so bad I couldn’ walk fer a week,’ she said.

‘They wouldn’t hit you that hard, would they?’ I asked.

‘Well, not my mam, but my dad? You can be sure he would whack you and whack you. He uses him fists like dis—’

She bunched up her fists and snarled at me, punching the air like a boxer in training.

‘And what about other punishments,’ I asked. ‘Do you ever get sent to bed early or grounded?’

‘We gets sent to bed alrigh’,’ she said.

‘I used to hate that,’ I said. ‘I’d look out the window at all my friends playing on the street outside, and I’d feel terribly lonely.’

‘Oh,’ the girl said, ‘we don’t be lonely. When we gets sent to bed, we isn’t on our own for very long.’

She wouldn’t be drawn on what she meant by that.

The conversation was closed.

I had never seen a child protection case from the outside before, and I was not enjoying the experience. I sat in the Austin, playing Tom Waits very loudly for five minutes so no one would hear me shouting and swearing. Then I drove far too fast back to the office. When Chaplin asked me if I had gotten the ink cartridge I simply glared at him, and we spent the rest of the afternoon staring at one another through lidded eyes. It was very silly and not very productive.

I was just about to tidy up before going home when my mobile phone rang.

‘Sid Doran here,’ came the voice. No beating about the bush with this guy.

‘Thanks for getting back to me, Sid. I was just wondering if you made any progress on the Blaney situation?’

‘Obviously I can’t tell you too much – confidentiality and all that.’

‘I just want to know if you checked out the issues I brought to your attention.’

‘Yes. A home visit was made.’

‘And?’

‘All I am obligated to tell you is that we did make a follow-up visit.’

‘Sid, I’m a journalist, and I have contacts within child services all over the country. I could make a few telephone calls, talk to a few administrators in your office – it would take me a bit longer, but I could certainly get the information. Wouldn’t it be easier to just let me know what your plans are for the family?’

The line went quiet as Sid Doran thought about what I had said. I could almost hear the cogs grinding.

‘I went out there with a colleague a week ago. We took all your worries on board and we spent quite some time with the children and interviewed both parents.’

‘You didn’t talk to the kids
in front
of the parents . . .’

‘I am a fully trained professional, Shane, with quite a few years’ experience.’

‘Fair enough, I had to ask.’

‘Granted. We did very definitely find some issue of concern. Many of them were points you had raised. But we did not consider some other factors to be of such a pressing nature. So we will be discussing those points we think need to be addressed with Tom and Dora, and I believe we can make some headway on those.’

‘I see. So the kids won’t be taken into care?’

‘We did not see that as a necessity. In fact, I reckon it might actually have a negative effect. As you are aware, the likelihood of keeping the children together should they be placed in a residential setting would be very slim. These kids have a very powerful bond, Shane, which I would be loathe to break.’

‘So will there be continued contact from your office?’

‘We may appoint a worker. There are still some elements of our initial investigation outstanding. When it is complete we’ll have a clearer picture.’

I wasn’t sure how I felt about this news. On the face of it, I knew I should be pleased. But there was something niggling at me.

‘Did you talk to the school?’

‘I think I’ve said as much as I can,’ Sid said in his deadpan way. ‘Thanks for all your help on this, Shane. You did the right thing. The family definitely needs help. They’ll all be better for it.’

‘Thanks, Sid,’ I said. ‘We’ll be in touch, yeah?’

‘I’m sure we will,’ he said, and hung up.

I had a feeling I had just been fobbed off, but knew that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. If Sid had been out a week ago, and Chaplin hadn’t noticed any real difference, whatever social services had done had made little impression on them. That either meant that the Blaneys weren’t taking the machinations of the child protection services seriously, or that they felt they could simply ignore them without any serious repercussions. Either way, it didn’t look good.

Sid Doran struck me as a thorough, professional kind of guy. He did not look like someone who would allow Tom or any of his brother’s thugs – or the family’s not inconsiderable money and influence – frighten him. So what had happened?

I knew there was only one way to find out.

I got out to the Blaney house at eight thirty the next morning. A mist was coming in off the sea and I could hear herring gulls calling to one another as they rode thermals high above me. I had bought a cup of coffee in a foam cup at a service station on the way out and I sat where I was in the Austin, the window rolled down, sipping it, enjoying the early morning sights and sounds. I didn’t know how well Tom would greet me – I was mindful of Chaplin’s contention that he would find out that I had ‘informed’ on him – so was a little reluctant to get out and knock. The decision was taken out of my hands, however, when the large bulk of Tom Blaney hove into sight. He must have been walking the perimeter again.

‘Can I help you with something?’ he asked.

I searched for more hostility than usual in his voice, but could find none.

‘Just making an early call,’ I said. ‘I’ve some stuff to do in Ennis later today, but I had it down in my notebook to drop out and see you, so I thought I’d fit you in before leaving. I always figured you for an early riser, what with the farm and all.’

That seemed to please him.

‘Sure haven’t I a day’s work done already,’ he said. ‘You want to come in for a bit?’

I shrugged.

‘I’ll walk with you if that suits you better. I just want to run over what’s happening with the case. I hear a date has been set. How’s your side of things going?’

Something seemed to darken in him.

‘Not so well. My legal team tell me we have little to go on. And that bastard Gerry is sinking lower and lower every day.’

‘Yeah? What’s he done now?’

Tom sighed and looked out towards the ocean.

‘Come on in. I’ve somethin’ I want to show you.’

He brought me into a room behind the living area, a dark, stuffy, windowless cell that was piled with papers and books, mostly of a legal or historical nature. He spent a minute or two lighting candles and oil lamps, then asked me to sit in an ornate-looking armchair.