Wednesday's Child (26 page)

The judge was a corpulent man with a florid face and not much hair. He listened closely and then turned his rheumy gaze upon us.

‘You are applying for a Supervision Order for one Veronica Kelly, of 8, Douglas Terrace. I believe that you have some reports to support your application?’

Jospehine nodded at Sinéad, who without pause launched into her brief report. She had not had much contact with the family over the time I had been working with them, but she gave the main points of
the case articulately and concisely. I had a copy of the report I had given at the case review, and stood beside her, waiting to relate my own perspective, which I modestly felt would be even more valuable. Sinéad concluded after around two minutes.

‘We also have a report from the community child-care worker, who has been the main worker on the case over the past seven months.’

‘Yes, yes, I don’t think that will be necessary. Are you both in concurrence that this is in the best interests of the child?’ the judge asked Josephine and Sinéad.

‘We are.’

‘So be it. The order is granted as of this date.’

I felt like I had just been kicked in the genitals. I did not, it seemed, even warrant a short input into the discussions. I was delighted that the order had been granted, but devastated at my treatment. I stood, slightly behind the two social workers, and rolled my report into a ball. There was some further debate, none of which I heard. I was only aware of a muted thudding in my head and a sense of having been cast aside like so much garbage. What killed me the most was that I was fully aware I was being childish. Connie was now under a Supervision Order, which was what we had set out to achieve. My ego was of no importance. Knowing this, however, was of no help. I dropped the crumpled report in the wastebasket on the way out. It seemed that was all it was worth.

*

Libby opened the front door, smiling at me warmly. I immediately knew that the moment I had been waiting for had arrived. Whatever she had been planning either had been, or was about to be, put into action. I gritted my teeth and smiled back.

‘Hey, Libby. Gillian ready to do some work today?’

‘Oh, she’s ready all right. She’s waiting for you in the therapy room.’

The words ‘therapy room’ were virtually dripping with sarcasm.

‘That’s great, Libby. Sure I’ll go right on through, so.’

‘You do that, Shaney-boy.’

The door to the room was closed. Libby stood halfway down the living area and folded her arms, waiting for me to go inside. I was tense now, knowing that something was going to happen, and the chances of it being in any way pleasant were negligible. I looked back at her.

‘What are you waiting for?’ she taunted.

I felt a trickle of sweat roll down the small of my back, and grasped the doorknob. I could sense Libby’s excitement. I turned the knob and swung the door open.

The snarl of the dog that was waiting for me in the room sounded like a klaxon and I threw myself backwards as it lunged for me. I landed with a sickening thud right onto my coccyx and a current of pain shot up into my lower back.
Christ, that is going to have one hell of a bruise on it tomorrow
, I thought briefly, but
then I was scrabbling to get purchase on the threadbare carpet with the heels of my boots, trying to shove myself as far as I could away from the animal. My back hit the wall and I could go no farther. The dog stopped in the doorway of the room and remained there, growling at me. When it saw that I was subdued, it turned tail and padded back to a large pile of fabric in the centre of the room, which it climbed on top of and settled down upon. Laughter brought me back to my senses and I turned to see Libby and Gillian together, almost hysterical in their mirth. Gillian must have been in one of the bedrooms all along. I pulled myself up and walked stiffly back to them.

‘Very funny,’ I said, finding it difficult not to get really angry. I was in pain, I had received a nasty shock, and I was also disappointed. The work with Gillian had been going well, and I had hoped that we would be able to complete it. We almost had, too, but were three sessions away from the final regression – a very delicate juncture. Gillian had been exploring what it felt like to be a member of her family, what that meant to her, and had been trying to identify her place and role. This particular piece of personal development was pivotal for her being able to make the break from her mother and move into care – Libby had timed the strike very well.

I looked back into the therapy room. The ‘nest’ upon which the dog was sitting was made up of the tent and the duvets and blankets, all piled into a heap. I felt an even more concentrated surge of annoyance.
Libby had not done this unthinkingly. She was telling me exactly what she thought of the work we had been doing.

‘Doesn’t Rex look cosy in there?’ Libby sneered from behind me.

Rex was her favourite, the one the neighbours said she was intimate with.

‘He looks extremely comfortable, Libby. I don’t suppose you could have waited for us to finish what we were doing before you moved him in.’

‘Ah, ye’d done enough! All that navel-gazing isn’t good for you. My Gillian told me she was sick of it. She just didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Isn’t that right, Gill?’

‘That’s right, Mammy. He gets soppy when he’s upset.’

I shook my head and gazed at the huge animal perched atop the tools I had been working with for the past four weeks. There was something deeply symbolic about what I was looking at, something archetypal, as Jung would have put it. The scene was like something from a Greek tragedy, the dog like some mythological beast, standing guard over the gateway into Gillian’s subconscious. Perhaps Libby
had
been paying attention. The thought made it almost more horrifying.

‘Well, I suppose there’s no point in my sticking around today.’

‘No. You be off with yourself. I’ve got my room, and this is exactly what I wanted it for. You’ve had
your fun with Gillian, but that’s enough of that. Everyone’s happy.’

I ignored Libby, feeling too angry to deal with her now.

‘I’ll see you later in the week, Gillian. I’ll pick you up from school.’

‘No! I don’t want to see you any more.’

I sighed and walked to the door.

‘Yeah. I’ve heard that one before.’

I don’t know if Libby stayed by the door as I walked to the car, but the dogs made no move towards me. Maybe they sensed that in my present mood I was as much a danger to them as they were to me.

My mobile phone rang on the way into work two weeks later. I was deep in thought as I drove. Gillian had disappeared again after she and her mother had destroyed the room. There had been no contact, no word from the school, and a ring around the refuges had revealed nothing. This was to the fore of my mind as I reached for the hand-set and looked quickly at the display. The word ‘
OFFICE
’ was blinking there. I pressed the answer key and put the phone to my ear.

‘Yeah.’

‘Shane, where are you?’

It was Josephine.

‘I’m on my way to the office. It’s only nine fifteen. I’m not late, am I?’

‘No, no, it’s not that. I’ve some bad news.’

‘What?’

I wasn’t even worried. I figured it was something trivial. I don’t know why I wasn’t more concerned, I just wasn’t.

‘Max McCoy was found dead last night.’

I felt my mind struggle to process the information.

‘Are you sure?’

‘No mistake. He was found by a girlfriend. She had a key to his house, apparently.’

‘I didn’t even know he was seeing anyone.’

‘Well, it seems he was. She let herself in and found him in the bedroom. He had taken an overdose.’

‘Oh Jesus.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah … yeah, I’m all right. The children …’

‘They haven’t been told.’

‘Does Dympna know?’

‘Yes, but they’re waiting for you to get out there. The kids will go to school as normal, and you can see them this evening.’

‘I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’

‘Okay. Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Yeah. I’ll see you in a bit.’

I put the phone in my pocket. At that moment, all I could feel was a creeping numbness. Could I have done anything to prevent this turn of events? I felt that I had tried as hard as I could to help Max. I had extended the hand of friendship. Could I have allowed access to continue, despite his intoxication and the effect it was having on the children? That
was a question I would never have the answer to now. I wanted to press the accelerator to the floor and just get into the office. I needed to be busy, doing something. I felt trapped and impotent in the car. I would, of course, be no use to anyone if I drove my car into a ditch. I turned on the stereo, thinking that some music might calm me. I had a Leonard Cohen CD with me that morning. Normally I loved Leonard Cohen, but I should have realised that in the circumstances he wasn’t going to lift my mood. I switched it off again and just drove.

Josephine met me at reception and we went up to her office. We sat and looked at each other for a moment, unsure where to start.

‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘Tell me from the beginning.’

Josephine reached for a page of scribbled notes.

‘I don’t have a lot of information. The ambulance services received a call through 999 at around ten forty-five last night. They went to the address of Max McCoy, where he was found in bed. He had consumed a dangerous amount of vodka and a large number of tranquillisers, which he had on prescription. He was given some treatment on the scene and then brought to hospital, where he was declared dead at twelve ten in the morning of liver failure brought about by a massive overdose of the aforementioned drugs, although apparently cirrhosis would have done the job very soon anyway. We can’t tell the family any definite cause of death until the coroner has been
over him. The woman who made the call is one Wendy Tremaine. She lives just outside the village and has been seeing Max, so she says, off and on for twelve months. They met at an AA meeting. She was at the scene and let the medics in. I was contacted by Penelope Granger, the hospital social worker, this morning at eight thirty. She recognised Max’s name as one of ours, and rang out of courtesy. I called Dympna, then you. That’s what I know.’

I heaved a deep sigh. The similarities between the cause of death of Beatrice McCoy and her husband were too close for comfort.

‘What will happen to the children now?’ I asked.

‘Dympna was doing us a favour in the short term. She never intended to have the children permanently. I suppose they’ll go into care. Residential or long-term foster. Wherever we can place them.’

‘I really don’t want these kids placed in res. They’d be eaten up by it.’

‘Give me a viable alternative.’

‘Leave it with me.’

‘We’ll get maybe another couple of months out of Dympna, but after that we’ll be under serious pressure to have them moved,’ Josephine said. ‘I don’t want to take advantage of that woman. She’s not even really a foster parent, you know. She’s a friend of the family who has stepped in to help out.’

‘I know that. Just give me a few days to talk to Fostering and see what we can do. The kids will want to know when I talk to them. Maybe not tonight, but
they’ll start wondering as soon as the shock wears off.’

‘Absolutely. How are you feeling?’

‘Like shit.’

‘I don’t want you getting all cut up over this now, d’you hear me? It was unavoidable. You’ve pulled out all the stops for the McCoys, gone above and beyond the call of duty. Max was on a self-destruct course before you ever came on the scene, so there’s no point in blaming yourself. He was a decent man who went astray somewhere along the line. You did all you could.’

‘I hope so, Josephine.’

‘You know you did.’

‘It doesn’t feel like that just now.’

‘You’ve just had the legs kicked out from underneath you. You’re bound to be disoriented.’