The Girl From Yesterday (17 page)

‘Would it not be better to use a room that has some natural light?’ I asked, not unreasonably.

‘I don’t want to give anyone the option of looking in from the outside,’ he said. ‘This is my war room. I have to keep it as secret as I can. I’ll spend money on a few candles if that’s what it takes.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said.

Tom dug about in a drawer in a heavy wooden desk.

‘This is my father,’ he said, pushing a black-and-white photograph in a leather frame towards me. The image was of a square-jawed, determined-looking man with a shock of white hair and a quizzical eye.

‘He looks like a smart man,’ I said, not quite sure what the customary response was. ‘He has real character in his face.’

‘He was a great man,’ Tom said. ‘A really great man. I want you, a master of letters, to look over something and tell me if it is the work of a person losing their wit. Gerry is alleging that my father was in the latter stages of dementia just before he died. Now, I can tell you that I spent almost every waking hour in his company, and I never had any sense of him not being in control or experiencing any kind of issues with memory or understanding. This is an addendum to his will – it was read out by the solicitor when the contents of the legal document were revealed to the family. It was penned two days before Da died.’

He held out a piece of heavy paper, folded many times.

‘You’re sure you want me to read it?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it’s very personal.’

‘Read it.’ Tom said and, sitting down on the chair opposite me, folded his arms and closed his eyes as if going to sleep.

The letter carried the address of the Blaney home and was dated as Tom had indicated. It was handwritten in a deliberate, masculine script and looked as if it had been executed in fountain pen. I wondered if Chaplin had been shown this. I would have to ask him.

Dear Thomas
,

The land is my greatest gift to you. It has sustained our family in this beautiful, mystical place for more than nine centuries, and I bequeath it to you now. Tend it. Till it. Feed it with your sweat and the sweat of your children. The land in the West is harsh and unforgiving. If you show weakness it will break you like a twig in the wind. I know I have sometimes been a cruel parent and an unloving father, but this has been because I need you to be strong and unyielding. My dearest wish is that, in another millennium, there will be the children of a Ponse de Blaney on these acres, living as we have lived, as our father lived and as his father lived. You hold the authority to achieve that now, Thomas. Do not let me down
.

I am going to my grave in an era where the mind has no peace. I cast aside the trappings of modernity many years ago now, and it did my soul good to see you do likewise. Do not waver in your determination to continue in this fashion. The media peddles poison: sex, ignorance, crudity and disrespect for all things decent. My life has only been improved since I went back to traditional ways. I know you feel the same. Do not allow your children’s minds and spirits to be warped by the smut and evil that abounds through television, radio and, worst of all, the internet. Teach them yourself, you and your wife, so you know precisely what they are learning
.

I leave you my land, my house and the largest portion of my money. I have found that the best way to keep wealth is to be slow to spend it. On these acres, be they field, hill, beach or woodland, you will find everything you and your family need to live well. Make your way through what is free and to hand. Leave the money where it is, spend only what you need and you will find yourself never wanting
.

Treat your brother well. He has chosen a different road to you – to us – but he is still your blood
.

Make me proud, son. Make your forefathers proud
,

Your loving father
.

I couldn’t read the signature, but then, I didn’t need to. I looked over and saw that Tom was gazing at me.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Is he mad?’

‘I would say that he comes across as a little eccentric,’ I said delicately. ‘But the letter is well structured, very articulate and follows a clearly laid-out theme. He knows exactly what he wants to say to you, and says it. There is no dementia evident, no.’

Tom leaped up as if I had just slapped him.

‘I knew it! I knew it! Come on. Let’s celebrate!’

He ran out of the room with a hop and skip, like a small boy. I followed, barely keeping up.

Tom went straight to one of the stairwells that plunged down under the earth into the basement tunnels.

‘Come on,’ he called back. ‘You’ll be glad you did.’

Using my phone as a torch, as I had done before, I went into the darkness. The corridors down here smelt of damp earth and must. I could just make out his dark shape ahead of me, but then it disappeared.

‘Into your left,’ he called, and then a blanket of light spilled out of a doorway, and I knew where I was going.

The room, when I got there, was full of barrels, all stacked up against the wall. He had a small table and two wooden chairs in the middle of the floor upon which were sat some pewter mugs.

‘Sit, sit,’ he said, picking up one of the mugs and opening a tap in one of the barrels that was sitting a little higher up the wall.

He placed the full mug in front of me. I picked it up and sniffed the contents. The aroma was malty, slightly sweet – altogether very pleasant.

‘Drink,’ he urged.

I took a sip. It was ale. And very good ale at that: it had a deep, hopsy flavour, lightly effervescent but not too gassy.

‘Did you brew this yourself?’

‘The barrels from here down are mine,’ Tom said, indicating a spot on the wall. ‘What you have was made by my father.’

‘It is excellent,’ I said. ‘But look, I have to drive. How strong is it?’

‘You have two mugs with me, and then I’ll give you a bit of breakfast – you can go for a swim if you like too – and then you can be on your way.’

I reasoned that (seeing as my trip to Ennis was fictitious anyway) it couldn’t do any real harm to have a few drinks with the man. So I raised my mug.

‘To the Ponse de Blaneys,’ Tom said solemnly.

‘The Ponse de Blaneys,’ I echoed and we drank.

‘He set the fuckin’ social workers on me you know,’ Tom said after a few moments of contemplation.

‘Who – your dad?’ I asked, caught off guard.

‘No. Fucking Gerry.’

‘Tell me,’ I said.

‘They came out a week or so ago. A bald bloke and a skinny woman. Talked to the children, talked to Dora. Talked to
me
. Said that someone had voiced concerns. I mean, what does that even mean, eh?’

‘Damned if I know,’ I said, playing the innocent.

‘I’ll be the first to admit I slap the kids from time to time. It’s how I was raised and it’s the only way I know. I stand over my decision not to send them to school. You’ve spent time with my kids and you can testify that they are mannerly and well behaved.’

‘Totally,’ I said.

‘There was some guff about them being too small – failure to thrive or some such shite. Of course they’re small,’ he laughed, the sound like a dog barking. ‘They’re kids! I mean to say, what do you expect?’

‘So what’s going to happen?’ I asked, having another swallow of ale. I was already feeling a little light-headed – it was a very long time since I’d drunk before ten o’clock in the morning.

‘I have to send them to school, the whole lot of them, even Jimmy,’ he said, looking like an errant urchin who has been roundly chastised. ‘The social workers said the kids weren’t getting any kind of education here at all, that their progress had already been badly affected.’

‘You going to do it?’ I asked, holding out my mug as he went back to the tap.

‘Don’t see as I’ve much choice,’ he said. ‘But the way I see it, I’ll send ’em for a short while until all this fuss dies down, then I’ll take ’em out again and no one’ll be the wiser.’

‘And that was the only thing they asked you to do?’

‘The kids have to be sent for a medical. A checkup, like. They said they thought they weren’t gettin’ enough to eat. Jaysus, every time I look at one of the little feckers they’re stuffin’ somethin’ in their gobs.’

We drank on in silence. I watched him with my peripheral vision. He seemed to be coiled, as if the slightest thing could send him into either hysterical laughter or bilious rage. I decided to poke the sleeping bear with a stick to see what might happen.

‘How has all this been on you, Tom?’

‘What?’

‘How are you doing? Man to man, no one here but us two guys. How are you coping with all this stress? Your brother is trying to take your home away, the thing you have worked your whole life for. Now social services are suggesting that your parenting skills leave something to be desired. That’s enough to shake anyone’s foundations.’

Tom swallowed and looked at his bulging stomach.

‘I’m a’righ’,’ he said in a little voice.

‘Really?’ I asked disbelievingly. ‘I don’t know many people who would be. Aren’t you even a little stressed?’

Tom shrugged, sniffing all of a sudden. He coughed and turned his face away.

‘You’ve had your drinks now,’ he said in a voice that sounded as if it were coming from under a blanket. ‘You can go on. Dora will fix you something to eat. Tell her I said.’

I said nothing more, just put the mug back and left the room. I didn’t go looking for Dora, just started to walk the ragged roadway back towards the road, and once I reached it rang for a taxi to meet me. I had learned all I needed to know – things were beginning to move.

I rang the school mid afternoon and asked George Taylor if I could meet him for a few minutes. He said he could spare ten at half past five, so I made sure to be punctual.

‘What can I do for you, Shane?’

‘I’m not sure if you can really do anything, but I think I have to bring something to your attention.’

‘All right. I’m listening.’

‘Do you know a gentleman named Jeff McKinney?’

‘Of course. He’s in the storeroom as we speak organizing some photographic equipment for tonight’s group.’

‘He works for you?’

‘Just some odd jobs. He was a student here and I just . . . I took an interest in him, I suppose.’

‘He’s not doing a course then?’

‘Here?’

‘Yes.’

‘No. Not that I know of.’

‘He told me he was.’

‘I daresay you misunderstood. What of Jeff, anyway?’

‘Well, you know how I called him a gentleman?’

‘Of course.’

‘It seems he’s not.’

Taylor gave me a funny look, and I launched into a summary of what Carla and Jessie had told me, without mentioning their names. The principal sat and listened without motion or comment until I was finished.

‘And of course you have the phone messages with his number attached.’

‘No. I may be able to get them, but I’m not sure the girls in question want to be involved to that degree.’

‘So the complainants are not willing to come forward either?’

‘They’re kind of embarrassed.’

George Taylor shook his head sadly.

‘You will forgive me for thinking that what we have here is a vulnerable man being victimized.’

‘Not a disturbed man hiding behind his disability?’

‘Shane, there is nothing I can do. Give me evidence and I will act, I promise you. But there is not a lot I can do with Chinese whispers and hearsay.’

I knew he was right. I thanked him and went to meet Gladys.

As my meeting with George Taylor was so short, I got to class an hour and fifteen minutes early, armed with the materials I needed for that night’s session as well as one or two things for Gladys’s literacy assessment. I had some suspicions as to what her problems might be, but wanted to hear her reading and also get a look at some written work before I jumped to any conclusions. I turned on the lights, set up my computer so I could simply begin when the rest of the group arrived and then laid out the work I intended to do with Gladys.

Then I sat down to wait.

And I waited some more.

Gladys never turned up for any classes on time. I had noticed this, and it was one of the things that made me wonder about her literacy issues – there are certain learning difficulties that carry particular contiguous symptoms, one of which is complete lack of organizational skills. This knowledge did not make her dogged refusal to reach destinations at the carefully prearranged times any less irritating – I blithely thought of half a dozen things I would rather be doing than sitting in an empty classroom long before I needed to be. But I shoved these thoughts aside and settled back with another volume of
Preacher
to await Gladys’s arrival.

At 6.15, a quarter of an hour late, Gladys arrived.

‘Sorry, Shane,’ she said, looking genuinely apologetic. ‘I left the house in time but got . . . waylaid.’

‘Sit down,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘We have less time now than I would have liked, so I don’t want to waste any of it. Have a look at this.’

I pushed a magazine across the table. It was one of those celebrity gossip rags, with lots of photographs. I opened it on to a page recounting the latest exploits of the pop singer Britney Spears. Her behaviour didn’t really divert me much, but it seemed to be of consuming interest to a lot of other people and I gambled that Gladys would be one of these.

‘Have a go at the story I’ve circled,’ I said.

‘You want me to read it?’

‘Please. I’d like to hear how well you get on.’

The thing I liked about the magazine was that a lot of the information needed to successfully read the Britney article was already commonly known, or could be gleaned from the photographs that surrounded the columns. Gladys began haltingly, but soon picked up speed. The vocabulary in the piece was very simple, and though she stumbled over a few of the words – celebrity, bipolar, antisocial all caused her to pause – she did not seem deterred.

When she finished, I could tell the experience itself had done her good.

‘You did well,’ I said. ‘I would hardly call someone who can read a full magazine article illiterate. I can see that there are one or two problems, but they’re nothing we can’t get over. Let’s up the ante a bit. Here’s a book. It’s a novel, so I’d like you to read from here to here,’ I showed her where I had marked the page.