Wednesday's Child (22 page)

‘You’re shitting me, Max. You’re in the clutches of one bastard of a hangover and we both know it. Now, get some vitamin C and some Alka-Seltzer or some tomato juice and a raw egg or whatever the fuck it is you use as a cure and when you feel human we’ll talk.’

He nodded and instantly regretted it, massaging his temples and moaning quietly. He stood and delicately left the room. I lit a cigarette and waited for him, talking to him through the open door.

‘I didn’t think that professional drinkers got hangovers. I thought that was a problem only we amateurs had to deal with.’

Mutters were my only response, so I followed him into the kitchen. With Cordelia gone, the house was not in a pleasant state: the sink was piled full of dirty dishes, the bin overflowed with rubbish, and foul dishcloths lay here and there in damp bundles. The whole place reeked of desperation.

‘Didn’t catch that.’

He was trying to drink a pint of water and seemed to be finding the experience less than pleasant.

‘It all depends what you drink, how much and for how long.’

‘Oh.’

‘I always do badly on gin.’

‘And you had some last night?’

‘I’ve been drinking nothing else for three days.’

‘If it makes you sick, why do you drink it?’

‘Ever had a hangover?’

‘On occasion.’

‘Does something specific bring it on, or just having one too many?’

‘Well, some things cause it worse than others, but I’d say that once I know I’m over my limit, I also know that I’ll be a bit the worse for wear in the morning.’

‘But it doesn’t stop you from drinking again, and having one too many?’

‘No.’

‘It’s the same for me.’

‘Mmm.’ I shrugged.

He drank some more water and belched loudly, holding his chest in discomfort. Acid indigestion, I imagined.

‘We have something of a problem, Max.’

‘What’s this “we” shit?’

‘I’m the one who has to tell your children why they’re still in foster care.’

‘Tough for you.’

‘Yes, it is.’

He downed the rest of the water in a series of deep, nauseating gulps and slammed the pint glass down on the greasy, stained draining board. He looked at me with venom.

‘Do you want to know why I hit the gin, Shane?’

‘I do.’

‘Not much gets me really comatose any more. It takes a lot. I needed to get very drunk very fast. So I got a bucketful of juniper juice and I got blotto. And I did it because this is fucking killing me. I can’t stand to have them away from me, Shane. They’re only down the road but they might as well be in fucking Brazil, because I’m not allowed to see them. My own kids! So I drink. And drinking means I can’t see them. Catch 22, isn’t that what they call it?’

‘I understand, but you have to understand my position as well. While you’re in this state, my hands are tied.’

‘Smug bastard.’

What he said made me think. The problem was, I didn’t really know how to solve the problem. By drinking, he was delaying his reunion with his children, but my decision not to allow access was causing him to drink even more heavily. I just didn’t know what to do.

I sat in my living room that evening, Tom Waits playing gently on the stereo, singing about being wounded and wasted myself. I wrote a list of the pros and cons of the whole McCoy situation. To be honest, I was beginning to feel that I was trapped, whichever way I went. While it seemed that Max had been violent towards his wife, there was no evidence to suggest that he had ever been violent with his children. Neglectful, certainly. Psychologically abusive, definitely. But not physically violent. Was there an emotional bond between them? A very close one, but
I was not sure how much of that was insecure attachment. He had been the only constant adult figure in their lives since the death of their mother, and that would have contributed powerfully to the links between them. However, the children also had a genuine affection for Dympna, who was not likely to need to be undressed for bed or to have her vomit mopped up.

I was not foolish enough to underestimate the bonds of blood or the indelible imprinting between parent and child, though. I had worked with children in the past who had been unspeakably tortured by parents and who had gone back to them at the first available opportunity after having been taken into care – Connie Kelly was a clear case in point. I sat back and listened to Tom, who didn’t sound in much better shape than I was: sometimes music says it like nothing else. It seemed that my clear task here was to get the family back together. The best way to do that was to give Max as much support as I possibly could to get off the alcohol, and to try and help the children develop a more healthy relationship with him. Cordelia saw him as a child and heavily idealised her dead mother. Victor seemed afraid all the time, worried about what Max was going to do next. Ibar had become totally self-sufficient, having learned in his five years that everything was transitory and nobody stayed around for long.

I needed to help these kids build up a set of
positive, real memories of their family. I pondered this. Where to begin? It seemed to me that the memories the children had were all a mix of fact and fiction, a mythology they had created between them to protect themselves from the grim reality. What were the touchstones I used when thinking of my own childhood? I suddenly recalled the conversation I had had with Gráinne Hartigan about Gillian. Her mention of a television programme had brought back a flood of memories. I saw myself as a three-year-old, kneeling in front of an old black-and-white television in the kitchen of my family’s home on a grey Saturday evening as my mother busied herself with the evening meal. I smiled again as I thought of it. I would use the artefacts that all families have: songs, stories, places; I would encourage them to tell me all the little anecdotes that they shared. I would begin to build with the children a true image of their history, one that would encompass
all
their feelings about their father, mother and indeed themselves, both positive and negative. It was quite a task, but was absolutely necessary if they were ever to have a real relationship with their parents. And, anyway, if my meeting with Max that morning was anything to go by, I had plenty of time.

‘Shane, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to or where you’re getting your information, but you are way off beam on this one.’

Josephine sipped her drink and gazed at me with no small amount of anger. The rest of the bar was empty, the after-work crowd not in yet.

‘I spoke to the social worker who was on the case at the time. She’s retired now.’

‘And you took it on yourself to look this woman up and annoy the fuck out of her, did you? On whose authority? Did you do this during work hours?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s nice. That’s really nice. The next time you want to play Philip fucking Marlowe, you check in with me first. I can’t believe this!’

‘It all fits. Have you looked at the file?’

‘No, I have not! And I don’t need to know that this is all the rambling of an old woman who sounds like she was at the sharp end of the job for far too long and has taken to romancing in her twilight years. You have fallen, Shane, for an urban myth. Paedophile rings and kiddie brothels! I’m not saying they don’t exist, because they do, God save us, but what you are dealing with here is a fucked-up family. Is Mick abusing Connie? Probably, but you’ll never get either of them to admit it.’

‘Connie needs out, Jo. You know that.’

‘They took her out and she kept running back. You just told me as much.’

‘That means we give up on her?’

‘Who’s giving up on her? I told you to get out there and work with her. With
her
, mind, one-on-one. I don’t remember telling you to go off on some
half-arsed crusade. I really question your judgement on this one, Shane. Seriously.’

‘I want to call a Case Review.’

‘Why?’

‘To see if we can’t come up with some viable options for this child.’

‘On what grounds? She’s doing great! The only reason I sent you out there was to help her develop some social skills, for heaven’s sake! Look at her grades, look at her appearance. What exactly are we going to bring to this conference, other than wild suppositions by a childcare worker and a woman who isn’t even employed by the board any more! Why the hell didn’t she bring this to anyone’s attention at the time?’

‘She did. Apparently, she got the same reaction I’m getting now.’

That caused Josephine to stop.

‘Oh, well … I’ll think about it. You understand how it sounds, don’t you? I mean, Jesus, Shane. We’ll come off like fantasists!’

‘Josephine, I would rather look like an idiot in front of a room full of pen-pushers than leave this little girl in that situation one day longer than I have to. Do you understand where I’m coming from?’

‘You’ll be doing yourself no favours and you’re not going to make any friends. This case has been knocking around for a long time, and a lot of the people sitting on the review board will have worked on it. You’ll be telling them all that they were negligent in their duties. You’ll be a pariah.’

‘Seems a fair trade.’

‘You’re an awful arsehole. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yeah. It’s been pointed out to me before.’

Gráinne’s colleague was a diminutive Jungian psychotherapist named Maria McKinley. When I met her in a café in town, she was drinking espressos (she had five in the hour I was with her) and talking so fast that she gave me a headache. I am not self-conscious about my intellectual ability – I’m no Stephen Hawking, but I’m able to hold my own. This woman made me feel like a monosyllabic Neanderthal. I barely understood a single word she said.

Eventually, in total exasperation, I decided to bite the bullet and ask her to tell me, in plain English, what it was she was asking of me.

‘Maria, unfortunate though it may be, I do not possess a PhD in psychology. Neither am I a Jungian scholar – I am aware of Jung, but know almost nothing about him. If I’m to do the work that you and Gráinne are proposing, you need to understand that, because I am having real difficulty understanding
you
.’

Maria blinked and raised her hand at the waitress for another espresso.

‘Oh. I’m really sorry ’cause Gráinne told me you were a talented therapeutic worker and I just assumed
that you were into Jung y’know almost everyone who works in this area is so I just made that assumption and I hope I haven’t put you off or anything you see I’m really excited about working with you on this case it’s a fascinating study!’

That was actually the shortest sentence she had spoken to me.

‘Sorry to disappoint you. Let’s start from the top. How does regression work, and why should I believe that it’s not just a load of bullshit?’

That knocked the wind out of her sails completely.

‘You … you think it’s bullshit?’ she asked incredulously.

‘It does sound rather like it, yes. I don’t see how playing at being a baby can help Gillian. I’m all for her experiencing things that she’s missed, but as the person she is now. I’m really dubious about teenagers being encouraged to suck pacifiers and soil themselves. If a teenager is already sucking a pacifier as a comfort object, fair enough. But to suggest and encourage such a thing just strikes me as creating new problems.’

‘Oh dear. I see we have much work to do …’

‘Looks like it.’

When I went out to see Gillian two days later, I was armed with a working understanding of Jungian therapy and a slightly less dubious attitude towards it. I was still not one hundred per cent convinced, but I was prepared to try – besides, I was really
worried about Gillian, and would give just about anything a go.

Since coming back from her excursion to the refuge, Gillian had continued to self-injure, and her mood swings had become even more extreme. I was beginning to believe that she was a manic-depressive. One day she would be on top of the world, bright and cheery, overflowing with things to say and visibly delighted to be meeting me. The next day she would be apathetic and lethargic, sometimes even openly hostile. I didn’t need her approval, and had worked with children before who didn’t like me, but I felt that these drastic ups and downs were neither normal nor healthy. Her body was a patchwork of bruising and she continued to pull out handfuls of hair when she became agitated. Something needed to be done, and I was at a loss to come up with any useful alternatives.