The Girl From Yesterday (27 page)

‘I like what they’ve done to your hair,’ I lied. ‘Are you pleased with it?’

She shook her head, and I saw her eyes fill with tears.

‘Hey,’ I said gently. ‘Would you like a cuddle?’

She nodded and I reached out to her and she came to me and sobbed bitterly as I rocked her like a baby.

A long time later she asked:

‘What goin’ t’ happen t’us?’

‘You’re all going to stay in hospital for a little bit, until you get well again, and then you’re going to live with your mum.’

‘Wha’ ’bout Daddy?’

‘Your dad is sick in his mind,’ I said. ‘He has to stay in a special hospital for a while. Maybe a long while.’

‘Where Dom?’

‘In a room about two minutes away from here. Want to go see him?’

‘No. Soon, maybe.’

She snuggled back down into me. I kept my arms wrapped about her.

‘Can I have somet’in’ t’ eat?’

‘Sure can,’ I said. ‘I’ll ring the nurse.’

I did, and some toast and juice were secured for the little girl. When the food came (and the considerate nurse brought some coffee for me), Emma said, around bites of toast and jam:

‘Mammy gonna feed us now?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘There will be somebody coming to spend time with you all to make sure she does.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ I said. ‘But I know you’ll like them. They’ll help you all to make a better life for yourselves.’ ‘You come see us too?’

‘Try and keep me away!’ I laughed. ‘Of course I’ll come and see you.’

‘We play games an’ all? Like before?’

‘Lots of games. And you’ll have TV and the radio and maybe a video game or two, as well.’

She paused, her mouth full.

‘What TV like?’

‘Well, it’s like a magic box that shows you pictures and tells you stories, and there’s music and colours, and you’re going to probably watch far too much of it!’

She giggled and drank some juice.

‘Shane?’

‘Yes, sweetie.’

‘I don’ tink Mammy ever really liked us all that much.’

‘Oh,’ I said, not entirely surprised at this statement.

‘Yeah. She di’n’t give us much food, even when Bad Daddy not around. An’ when we cried, she never hugged us or nothin’. Never talked to us much.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘If your mum was scared all the time, and that could make her maybe forget how to show you she loved you. Being really unhappy can do that, you know.’

‘Can it?’

‘Yeah. And I think your mum was very unhappy for a very long time.’

‘How we make her happy again?’

‘Well, that’s something to work on with your new worker. But it can be done. You just need to teach her how to be a good mum.’

Emma had finished her toast and was sucking hard on the straw that protruded from her juice carton. When she was sure it was empty, she placed it carefully down on her plate.

‘We go see Dom now?’

I held out my hand and she took it.

‘I wants to tell him all about the TV,’ she said gleefully.

They had a wonderful conversation about it. I wondered for a time if it was healthy to have them placing so much hope on something so crass and mindless. I could hear Jacob Blaney rumbling away in rage somewhere in my subconscious. But I eventually decided I didn’t care, and just enjoyed the simple joy of two kids who had just emerged from a terrible darkness.

I kept getting the text messages.

I checked with Jessie and Rachel and Carla, and their inboxes had been uncontaminated by McKinney’s attentions for many months. It seemed that my interference had stopped him from bothering my students, but had for some reason attracted him to me.

I called in to The Grapevine. The manageress peered at me over the counter.

‘You back?’ she asked. ‘It’s the same price for the dog.’

‘No, thank you. I want to see Jeff McKinney.’

‘Wheelie? He’s gone, thank God. Bloody nuisance, always hangin’ around, gettin’ under me feet.’

‘What, did you sack him?’

‘You can’t sack someone you don’t employ.’

I didn’t know what to say.

‘So he never worked here?’

‘I let him sleep in a little cubbyhole out the back. His parents fucked off and left him when he was thirteen or so without a bite of bread in the cupboard or a penny to his name. The house was fallin’ apart, not fit for a dog to live in. He came here lookin’ for work, but sure, I didn’t have anything for him to do – I felt sorry for him and gave him somewhere to stay, let him take his meals with the staff.’

‘That was very generous of you,’ I said.

‘I always thought he’d grow up and move on. He never did, though. He just got older and stranger.’

‘Stranger?’

‘He was always watchin’. You’d go into a room and you’d be doin’ some work there, and the next thing you’d realize he’d been there the whole time, sittin’, watchin’ you. I’ve gotten I don’t know how many complaints from staff and guests.’

‘Why didn’t you just throw him out?’ I asked.

‘You know why,’ she said. ‘He’s in a wheelchair. He’s got special needs.’

‘That doesn’t mean he can’t be an asshole,’ I said.

I changed my number.

The messages stopped.

Gladys Pointer passed all her exams.

Technically I should have just handed all the details over to the school’s administrative office so they could send out her results along with everybody else’s, but I couldn’t wait to let her know. So I got her phone number from her file and asked her to meet me in the café for lunch.

‘What’s up?’ she asked as she sat down.

‘What do you want to eat?’ I asked her. ‘This is my treat.’

‘Oh – um, well, the toasted special. And a cappuccino.’

I handed her the envelope with her results in it.

‘You have a look at that while I order.’

I went up to the counter and gave the girl (it was Carla’s day off) our order, then went back to Gladys, who was pouring over the page.

‘What does it mean?’ she asked, not looking too happy.

‘It means you not only passed everything,’ I said, ‘but that you got honours in everything, too. And not only did you get honours in everything, you got a Distinction, which is like an A, in two of the four subjects you studied. You did fantastically well, Gladys. You should be really proud of yourself.’

‘But . . . how?’ Gladys asked, almost speechless.

‘You worked incredibly hard,’ I said. ‘You faced up to the difficulties you had and you overcame them. You also found something you like and you really care about and you gave it a hundred per cent, a hundred per cent of the time. That makes a big difference, I think.’

‘Did you go easy on me?’ she asked, looking genuinely terrified to ask. ‘You know, because we get on and all that.’

‘Are you asking me if I gave you an easy ride?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. I have to know, Shane. This year has half killed me. My ma keeps tellin’ me she’ll be proud no matter how I do –
like she’s expectin’ me to fail!
Tell me the truth, Shane. Please.’

‘I treated your work the exact same as I did everyone else’s,’ I said in as calm and gentle a voice as I could muster. ‘I did not go any
harder
on you, but I didn’t go any
easier
either. No, you deserve the grades you got.’

‘D’ya
swear?’

‘Honest injun,’ I said, and without warning she flung herself across the table and hugged me fiercely. ‘Thank you,’ she said, half crying and half laughing. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘You did the work, Gladys, not me!’ I said, patting her on the back and laughing too. ‘All I did was point you in the right direction.’

‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ she said, sitting back down and rubbing her eyes.

‘I think you were ready to do the work,’ I said. ‘I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.’

‘Thank you,’ she said again.

‘It was my privilege,’ I said truthfully.

The Blaney homestead and all the land attached to it was sold to the Midden Development Group lock, stock and barrel one month after the court case. Jacob Blaney’s will had been deemed null and void, and that meant his estate was to be liquidated and the profits divided. Gerry very decently gave Dora and the children three-quarters of the money earned, and they bought a modest house in Garshaigh.

The good people at Midden published their plans for the land in the
Western News
. The entire fifty acres were to be turned into a massive shopping centre with a cinema, a bowling alley, a paintball arena and every kind of shop and restaurant imaginable. It would bring a lot of business and employment to the region.

I expected either widespread condemnation for the scheme or else unanimous support. Instead we got neither. I sat in the office the day after the plans were made public, expecting a shitstorm of indignation, but none arrived. It was as if people just weren’t that bothered by the news, as if it mattered little to them. I was amazed. Maybe there was something in it all that I was missing – as people kept reminding me: I was a blow-in.

* * *

One week later I was at my desk alone – Chaplin was covering the courts that day, and I was writing the obituaries, a grim but necessary job for any local paper. Suddenly the door opened and Gerry Blaney came in, carrying two Styrofoam cups of coffee.

‘They tell me down below you drink it black,’ he said.

‘They tell you right,’ I said. ‘To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?’

He handed me my cup and sat down opposite me, making a big deal out of taking the lid off his, applying sugar and milk from those little plastic cartons that hold about two spoonfuls. I watched him, feeling nothing but distaste for the little man – he had done little but make my life difficult since I first encountered him.

‘How are those kiddies doing?’ he asked when he was content with his coffee.

‘Quite well, all things considered,’ I said. ‘They’re out of hospital now, and I’m told they’re building a relationship with their mother slowly but surely. They are a really wonderful bunch of children.’

‘Dora’s not such a bad skin either, if you give her a chance,’ Gerry said.

I looked at him.

‘What is the deal between you and her?’

‘The deal? Whatever do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean, Gerry.’

‘Would you believe me if I said I felt sorry for her?’

I almost choked on my coffee.

‘I would find that very hard to believe,’ I said.

‘Why so?’

‘It does not fit what I know of your character.’

Gerry grinned. It was not a pleasant thing to see.

‘And is it possible, even remotely, that you have misjudged me?’

‘Anything is possible,’ I admitted.

‘She was a young girl from a well-off, sheltered background who fell hook, line and sinker for the
legend
of the Blaneys. Let me tell you, Shane, that is a myth that has been dead and decomposing for a long time. I don’t know if she ever really paid any attention to Tom when they were courtin’. By the time he brought her out to the house and more or less imprisoned her there, it was too late.’

‘So you and her hatched this plan to sell the place out from under him?’

‘It was her idea. She’s a resourceful girl. I agreed to help.’

‘For no personal gain, obviously.’

He made a ‘little bit of this, little bit of that’ wobble with his hand.

‘I never said that.’

‘Well, it worked out well from my end, anyway,’ I said, ‘if you ignore the threatened beatings, the near sackings from my teaching post and the added trauma for the children. Goddam it Gerry, what the fuck was going through your mind?’

‘I regret some of those things,’ he said.

‘Some of them?’

He took a piece of paper from his inside pocket and handed it to me.

‘That’s a copy, you can keep it,’ he said.

‘What is it?’

‘You’re an investigative journalist,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you try reading it?’

I unfolded the page. It was a protection order for the house and land Gerry had just sold to Midden Development. It meant that nothing could be done to a single blade of grass on those fifty acres. Not so much as a shovel could be put into the ground. I noted that the order was dated 1998.

‘Did you know about this?’ I asked.

‘Of course.’

‘But you didn’t think to tell the company you just sold the land to for millions and millions of euro.’

‘They can try and get it overturned.’

‘But they won’t be successful.’

‘No. Not on that land. Far too much history on a tract of countryside that really hasn’t been changed – well,
ever.’

I looked at the order and shook my head.

‘You are some piece of work, Gerry Blaney,’ I said.

‘Thank you,’ he said, standing up. ‘You’re not exactly a shrinking violet yourself. You wouldn’t back down, would you?’

‘I did consider it,’ I said. ‘Let’s just say a little voice in my head wouldn’t let me.’

‘You look out for yourself,’ he said. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you kept an eye on my nieces and nephews.’

‘Or you could look in on them yourself once in a while,’ I suggested.

He smiled, a more pleasant expression this time.

‘Maybe,’ he said, and left me.

I sat and reread the preservation order. I realized that even though the land had, for the first time in a millennium, changed hands, it was still to all intents and purposes Blaney land. I also suspected that Gerry had plans to buy it back for a fraction of the price for which it had been sold.

And the cycle would continue.

I locked the door of my class and switched off the light in the hallway.

‘You finished then, Shane?’ George Taylor asked as I passed through the lobby.

‘Don’t you ever go home, Mr Taylor?’ I asked.

‘This is my home, in a way,’ he said.

‘Well, you have a good night,’ I said. ‘I’ll probably see you over the summer – I daresay I’ll be in and out, preparing for next year’s classes.’

‘I would expect no less,’ he said, leafing through some sheets on the clipboard he was carrying. ‘I may have some hours during the day next year – would you be at all interested?’