Wednesday's Child (8 page)

I said nothing in response to this description. I recognised some of the traits in myself and just shifted uncomfortably on the seat. I knew that these women were attempting to teach me something important, and suspected that Andi was behind it.

‘They put her on the O’Gorman case and a couple of other real stinkers. It wasn’t weight of numbers with her – it was the types of cases. Every case was
severe: multiple problems, usually on the books for years, little hope of making any real change. But Sinéad, God love her, would not be told. Every day she’d arrive into the office and you’d just know that she was telling herself that today, today would be the day she’d make a difference to these children. And of course she’d go out to their houses, full of vim and vigour, and the children and their parents would be waiting for her with those dark, dark clouds hanging over their heads and all that baggage dragging along behind them, and she’d get drowned by the hopelessness of it day after day after day without fail.’

Andi, who had said nothing so far, joined the chorus.

‘When the O’Gorman case fell apart, she fell apart too. It was just too much for her to bear. You see, Shane, we’re supposed to be the good guys. Other people reject these kids, not us. But here was a case where we
did
reject the kids we were supposed to be representing, and Sinéad was the contact person, the face that they thought of when they thought of the Health Board. She had to take some time out; started seeing a therapist. All that noise, her being in with Melanie – it’s just a front. She’s hurting inside. I don’t know how she keeps coming to work.’

I picked up a quarter of my as yet untouched sandwich. ‘You three sure know how to make a bloke feel welcome,’ I said. ‘I appear to be on a rocky road to an inevitable breakdown.’

They laughed, but looked embarrassed. ‘All we’re
saying,’ Betty said gently, ‘is that in this type of work you have to be all things to all people – sometimes you feel like you don’t even know who you are any more, you wear so many different masks during the average working day. You can go from being the “universal aunty” to the “avenging angel” in the space of an afternoon – sometimes you have to be both at the same time for Christ’s sake! You can lose yourself very easily. There are a hell of a lot of skills needed to do what we do, but one of the most important is the ability to ask for help if you need it –
before
you hit rock bottom. We’ve all been there. I bet that even good ol’ Melanie has been there too; that’s why she wasn’t prepared to end up in
that
place again. She may not be everyone’s favourite person, but we could all learn something from her.’

I sipped my lukewarm coffee and smiled at the concerned faces.

‘Remind me of that after my afternoon visit.’

‘I will,’ said Betty, lighting another smoke. ‘I’m going with you.’

We were to pick up Victor McCoy from the small secondary school in the seaside village where he lived. I watched as the throng of children burst out of the gate, wondering if I would be able to pick Victor out from the crowd. Of course Betty knew him, but it’s a game I sometimes play with myself. After years of working with, for want of a better word, ‘troubled’ children, I often find that I can pick a new client out
of a gathering, or spy a potential challenge in a new class of children straight off. I identified Victor without any difficulty at all.

He stood apart from the other children, smaller than the majority of them and with a bent-over, loose posture. His bag, which seemed almost empty, sat at his feet on the tarmac of the yard. He had made no move to leave the confines of the playground and had not even strayed far from the front door of the school building. He was gazing off into space, seemingly unaware of his surroundings. I wondered if he was looking for cloud-shapes or observing birds in the trees beyond the perimeter line of the fence.

‘I’ll go and get him,’ Betty said, opening the passenger door.

He was slouching against the wall, his left leg tangled with the strap of the schoolbag, his foot swinging, using the strap to create resistance, as if he was exercising the muscle. Betty was almost on top of him when he looked over at her. Had he noticed her coming and wanted her to make the effort to come to him, or was he oblivious of her approach? He certainly did not jump when she called to him, just moved his face around to look at her. I saw her lips move and she gestured with a nod toward the car. Victor’s eyes moved in my direction. He slowly unfolded from the wall and moved to pick up the bag, only then noticing that it was still wrapped about his legs. He almost fell getting it but then followed
Betty to the car. I turned as he climbed in the back, extending my hand.

‘Hey, Victor. I’m Shane. Good to meet you.’

My hand was taken in a loose, light grip, but not shaken. He did not meet my eyes, just looked at the floor of the car.

‘We’ll head straight home, Victor,’ Betty said. ‘I want Shane to meet your dad. We’ll pick Cordelia and Ibar up at the house, and then maybe the five of us can go and get an ice-cream and have a chat.’

I thought I heard a muttered ‘okay’ from the back, but I couldn’t be sure.

The McCoy house was a renovated cottage that may have once been a farm labourer’s home or even a holiday chalet, not that I could imagine anyone holidaying in that barren little village. Victor got out silently and walked to the door. Betty gave me a look that said: we’re in for a long afternoon. We followed the round-shouldered Victor up the short path. He was ringing the bell repeatedly and opening the letter box and calling through it in a hoarse voice – I got the impression that Victor was not used to speaking, and shouting seemed to cause him strain.

‘What’s the story, Victor?’ I asked. ‘Dad not home?’

He looked at me nervously for the first time, chewing his lower lip and scratching frantically behind his left ear. I kept my eyes on his and reached out and banged as hard as I could on the door.

‘Maybe he just nodded off,’ I said. ‘Happens to me
sometimes. Big lunch, boring afternoon TV. Nothing to worry about.’

We listened to the silence that seemed to boom from the house.

‘I bet he’s just dropped out for milk or something,’ Betty said, patting Victor on the shoulder (he cringed at the touch and she pulled back rapidly). ‘Let’s wait in the car.’

We got back in and I turned on a Top 40 station. I detest Top 40 radio, but I have found that most children and teenagers listen to it pathologically, so I have become immune. Betty rolled down the window and lit a cigarette.

‘I’m sure he’ll be back in a moment,’ she said again.

Silence from the back.

An hour later a pretty blonde girl in a different school uniform to Victor’s, who was leading a small boy by the hand, turned into the garden and knocked on the door. Before I knew what had happened, Victor was out of the car and beside them, talking quietly and urgently and throwing glances in our direction.

‘Cordelia and Ibar, I presume?’ I asked Betty.

‘The very same.’

Cordelia said a few words to the now very anxious Victor and strode purposefully to the window through which Betty was smoking. Betty flicked the butt of her cigarette aside and smiled at the teenager. Ibar sat on the ground, all his attention focused on a beetle that had crawled from the grass verge. Close
up, Cordelia was not just pretty; she was beautiful. I knew from the conversation Betty and I had earlier that she was thirteen years old – Victor was fourteen, Ibar six. She looked, however, a couple of years older than that and projected a sense of control and maturity that made you immediately sit up and take notice. This was a young woman who knew what she wanted and would do what had to be done to get it. I could tell who was in charge in this family.

The background to the McCoy case was simple and straightforward. This was something of a relief after the complicated cases I had encountered the day before. Victor, Cordelia and Ibar lived in the cottage with their father, Max, who was an alcoholic in recent recovery. The family was English. The children’s mother, Beatrice, had died from an accidental overdose when Ibar was six months old. There had been talk that the death had been suicide. The reports from English Social Services, with whom we had a reasonably good relationship, suggested that there had been some domestic violence, although it appeared to be on both sides, with Beatrice giving as good as she got.

At any rate, the investigating detectives declared the death self-inflicted. Max moved from one unskilled job to another over the next few years, none of them lasting very long and many ending in his being asked to leave as alcohol began to take an ever more secure grip. Finally, as if fleeing something, Max and the children moved lock, stock and barrel
across the Irish Sea and settled in the village. Max secured a job as caretaker of the local school and his drinking went from bad to terrible. The family was befriended by some of the locals, particularly the parish priest and a couple of women who worked as cleaners in the school and the church. It was through these people that the McCoys came to the attention of the Social Work Department.

This informal support network felt that the children were being sorely neglected, with Cordelia playing the role of wife and mother to the three males. Max was barely functioning in his job at the school, and Victor was regressing further and further into himself. Ibar exhibited extremely aggressive behaviour in the junior infants class he attended. What brought matters to a head was Cordelia turning up to one of Victor’s parent-teacher meetings. The teacher in question did not know how to respond to this child with the eyes of an adult sitting before him, with Victor’s report card clutched in her hand and a list of perfectly reasonable questions about his academic development written out neatly on a piece of pink stationery. Social Services had been called in. Max was immediately sent to a clinic to dry out. The children were placed temporarily in the care of one of the local women who cleaned the church. Betty had been asked to visit them on a fairly casual basis during their brief foster placement, and she had also been checking on Max after his release from the clinic, helping him to deal with his new-found
sobriety and with his role as both father and mother to these children. My role was, primarily, to do some work with Victor, who, it had been noticed by everyone in contact with him, was becoming more and more isolated. I could already see that there was genuine cause for worry.

Cordelia glared into my car at Betty, who, to her credit, smiled back beatifically.

‘What are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to be visiting today.’

‘Well, we were just in the neighbourhood and thought we’d drop by. This is Shane Dunphy. He’ll be doing some work with you and Victor.’

I nodded and smiled, trying to look confident but probably looking more sheepish than anything else. Cordelia was making me feel like an intruder, and I had to remind myself that
I
was supposed to be the responsible adult in this interaction.

‘Well, it’s not convenient this afternoon. Daddy has been called away and has asked me to take Victor and Ibar out for some tea. You’ll have to come back another time.’

Her accent was peculiar. There were definite traces of an English accent, but there was also an American flavour and some very Irish aspects too. She spoke quickly, however, and with total confidence, as if she expected to be listened to and obeyed immediately, so that it was difficult to focus on her accent or locution.

Betty seemed momentarily fazed. Cordelia kept
her full focus on Betty during this brief lull. I realised that she had not looked at me at all. It seemed that she perceived Betty as being the one in charge and that, as the hired help, I did not warrant any attention. The pause continued and seemed to stretch out interminably. I was about to intercede when Betty said: ‘Where has Max gone?’

‘He’s gone into town.’

‘The bus will be due back in a few minutes. He’ll surely be on it, seeing as you’re home from school. We’ll hang on and then we can all go and get something to eat together. Hop in.’

Cordelia stayed exactly where she was, although she seemed to have lost much of her bluster. It was obvious that she had no idea where her father was, and that his absence was as much news to her as it had been to Victor. Both these children were scared (Ibar, who was poking the beetle with his forefinger, seemed totally oblivious), and in their different ways were trying to hide it. I wondered what had been going on in that little cottage. Cordelia sagged in almost exactly the same manner as her brother, and suddenly she looked every bit her thirteen years. She opened the door, steered Ibar in first and then climbed into the back, Victor following. Glancing into the rear-view mirror I saw a look pass between them. I couldn’t read what it meant, but it seemed to me to be a sigh of resignation.

We drove back into the village and I parked across the road from the bus stop.