White Lies (11 page)

OD

I really blew the big reunion with Nance. There I was at the front door, ready to smash the world to pieces, and as soon as I heard her easy laugh inside, a switch turned in my head. I was all reasonable again, full of good intentions. They didn't last more than a couple of minutes.

She gave me one of those cold, proud looks and I was on the defensive straight away. Everything she said was short and sharp, and then she was heading for the front door and I lost it. That word slipped out and I took what was coming to me. The slap brought me back to that terrible night when Mam and Jimmy laid into each other. By the time she left, I was on for bringing the JCB down to Moran's fancy house and levelling it, never mind finishing off the park.

I changed into a pair of old jeans, flinging stuff all over the place as I charged around my room. When Jimmy called me, I knew why I was making such a racket. I kicked his door open and found him lying on his bed.

‘What d'you want?' I asked him gruffly.

‘Nance is under pressure,' he said. ‘Go after her.'

‘We have nothing to say to each other, me and Nance. And anyway, it's none of your business.'

‘You might listen for a change. It wouldn't do you any harm.'

I charged over to the bed, caught him by the shirt front and lifted him into a sitting position.

‘Don't you tell me what's good for me, Jimmy,' I shouted. ‘You lost the right to do that years ago.'

‘I know,' he said.

I pulled him closer. His shirt was ripping between my fingers and I grabbed harder.

‘I lost my mother because of you.'

‘I know.'

I was filling up. The words were catching in my throat. ‘We have … we have nothing. We have less than nothing …'

‘I know.'

‘Stop saying that. Stop saying you know. You know nothing.'

‘I – '

‘Shut up, Jimmy!' I screamed. ‘You bum; you empty, selfish, sick bum. My life is in bits and it's your fault. Everything that's happened to me, all your fault!'

He was looking into my eyes. I realised he was having trouble breathing. I looked down at my hands. They were on his throat. I pushed him away from me and he fell back on the pillow, gasping.

‘Brass is back,' he moaned. For a second I thought he was trying to provoke me to finish him off, put him out of his misery. ‘Brass is back,' he repeated. With what seemed like his last ounce of strength, he raised himself on one elbow.

I backed away, frightened by what I'd done, terrified by the look on his face.

‘Save yourself, OD,' he said in a strangled whisper. ‘No one else can do it for you. Save yourself.'

‘How?' I said, gagging on the words. ‘How the hell can I?'

At the Galtee Lounge, Beano and me got well and truly smashed. At least this time he was drinking before I even got there, but of course I didn't try to stop him. Some of the lads from the team were there waiting for a phone call from the St. Peter's game. We stayed on our own. I couldn't make myself feel excited about the prospect of that call. I was too busy trying to forget what had happened up at the house and building up some Dutch courage for the task ahead.

Beano's big line for the night was another Jack Nicholson – the Joker in
Batman
again: ‘You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.' He said it so often I asked him if the record was stuck.

Johnny Regan hovered around for a while, but I warned him off. Even when Beano was at the bar getting another round, I was watching.

‘What did Johnny say to you?' I asked when he came back.

‘Nothing.'

‘He was talking to himself, was he?' His eyes were flickering madly, as they always did in the smoky atmosphere of the Galtee.

‘You're on about the drugs again, OD,' he said, more loudly than he'd meant to. ‘Why do you always treat me like a kid … like I can't think for myself?'

We finished our pints in silence. It was a quarter past nine. Time to make a move.

‘Beano,' I said, ‘let's go break some eggs.'

I felt a right prat, slipping into that fantasy world where you start to believe that life is a video and you're the star. Then again, a prat is exactly what I was.

For a Saturday night the streets were very quiet and empty. A light drizzle fell, all wispy and shiny under the streetlights. I was pretty steady on my feet but Beano was lurching along in big, wayward strides that took him from one side of the footpath to the other. The sweat was rolling from him and he kept gulping from the big cider bottle in his pocket.

‘How did I think of it?' he yelped as we neared the town park.

‘Quit the shouting, Beano. And stop drinking that stuff.'

‘There's no one around, OD,' he said. ‘No one notices the likes of us. Not until now, anyway.'

I was getting nervous and sober, thinking of the consequences of what we were about to do. Next week, I'd be signing on again and looking for a job. Who'd take me on after this escapade? And what if we ended up in court? Then my name would be in the paper and I'd have a criminal record and maybe do some time in jail. I'd have to leave town, and if I started running away at seventeen, where would it end? I'd be just another anonymous loser drifting from town to town, from city to city.

But we were at the park by now and I was already finding reasons for going ahead with our plan. I wasn't going to get a job anyway, criminal record or no criminal record. Not with my address, not with my ‘family history'. And in any case, why would I want to hang around this town where I wasn't wanted or respected?

We climbed the gate and ran across to the JCB.

‘Did you ever drive anything before?' Beano asked with a wild cackle.

I never had.

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘I drove Mahoney up the wall.'

He belched out a big, drink-sodden chuckle. His pale face had a queer, ghostly brightness in the faint light. I sensed his strangeness and my bad knee started feeling weak from the running.

We climbed into the cab of the JCB. I searched around for a light but couldn't find any. I was in the driver's seat. Beano was crowding in over my shoulder. My hands were shaking and the keys rattled like chains.

‘Get off my back, Beano!'

‘Sorry, sorry!'

I was getting used to the dark and starting to see the outline of the dashboard. Eventually, I found the right slot for the key with the tips of my fingers. I slipped the key into place.

‘Bingo,' I said. ‘We're in business.'

My hand fell on the gearstick and I shoved it forward. We were moving, slowly and jerkily at first, but my aim was true. We were heading for the rockery. The noise in the cab was deafening, the weight on the steering wheel enor mous. I couldn't figure out how to move the bucket out front up and down, so I just drove straight into the care fully arranged heap of rocks and clay and plants. We both shot forward and slammed our heads off the windscreen.

My foot was stuck on the accelerator and the JCB inched forward and upwards. We were climbing the rockery and I knew what was at the top end – a drop into the fountain and four feet of water.

I turned the key and pulled it out. The engine went dead. I peered out into the night. We were balanced on top of the rockery and the front wheels couldn't have been more than a few inches from the water in the fountain.

When we moved to jump out, the whole JCB started rocking back and forth. I grabbed Beano's shoulder.

‘Take your time,' I said quietly, as if even the sound of my voice might be enough to dump us in the water. ‘Open the door real slow and climb down nice and easy, all right?'

Beano's bravado was gone. He whimpered like a child as he clambered down and the JCB gave a lurch forward. I got to the door and the cab rose, swayed from side to side and dipped again towards the fountain – except this time it didn't stop. I took off like a skydiver without a parachute, and the wet earth came up at me so quickly that I had no chance to stop my fall. My bad knee buckled under me and I screamed out in agony as the JCB plunged, wheels over cab, into the water.

Beano was holding me and screaming something that didn't make sense – until I saw the flashing blue light of a squad car.

‘Run for it!' I shouted through my pain. ‘Out the back, by the fields. Go on!'

‘I can't leave you,' he sniffled. ‘I got you into this. I'll take the blame.'

‘Go, Beano!'

‘No way! No way!'

We were nabbed. The only damage we'd managed to do was to upend the JCB and wreck my knee. It didn't seem worth all the trouble as we sat side by side in the back of the squad car on our way to the Garda barracks. Beano cried all the way.

A couple of young guards took us to a cell. They didn't rough us up or anything, but I still felt like I'd been done over. I made it to the bunk in the corner of the cell. When they locked the door, Beano came and rested his head on my shoulder and I felt his whole body shaking.

‘I'm afraid, OD.'

‘They'll let us out after a few hours,' I assured him. ‘Don't worry.'

That only freaked him out even more. He lay back on the bunk and I saw that his eyes were jammed tight shut. He was gasping for air and I was sure he was going to have some kind of fit. I thought of the drugs again, but I didn't want him to think I didn't believe him – even if he was lying.

‘I'm going to die, OD.'

‘Cut it out, Beano,' I said, but I was more scared than I'd ever been in my life. I was certain he'd taken something and was just about to call for help when he spoke again.

‘You don't understand, OD,' he cried. ‘You don't know what it's like to be locked up in a room like this for days … for weeks …'

He opened his eyes and looked around at the walls as if he expected them to cave in at any minute. ‘They used to tie me to the bed when they went out. Once they didn't give me anything to eat for three days.'

I held on to him and felt him crumple against me.

‘Why did you never tell me, Beano?'

‘It was before we met up,' he said. Then he panicked again. ‘But it's not like that now, OD. See, it wasn't really anyone's fault. Mammy wasn't well and my father was halfmad from worryin'. But since she got the tablets, things are … grand … they're grand now, honest.'

I didn't have any right to ask him: he was already in bits and he didn't need me to break him up some more. I imagined I was thinking of Beano's welfare, but what was really happening was that I had a new target for my anger. The site foreman from hell. Snipe Doyle.

‘What did he do to you that night after the Galtee, Beano?'

He eased himself away from me. There was hate in his eyes and I hoped it wasn't directed at me. I knew I deserved it, the way I was pushing him. Then the smile took root. The Jack Nicholson smile. The one that comes before he gets nasty. Beano was off – as Jack, bawling out Tom Cruise in
A Few Good Men
.

‘You can't handle the truth!' he yelled. ‘You want the truth? I'll give you the truth!'

‘Christ, Beano, give over the play-acting.'

Jack Nicholson disappeared into thin air. Beano's face went dead.

‘He pushed me down the stairs,' he said. ‘With his fist.'

Behind him, the cell door swung open. The young guard pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.

‘Get out of here, lads,' he said. ‘There's no charges. Just stay out of trouble or we'll be down on you two like a ton of bricks.'

‘But we stole a JCB and we wrecked – ' I began in disbelief.

‘Look, we've talked to the Council and to Mr. Moran,' he explained patiently. ‘They don't want this story about the park getting out. Bad publicity, you know. Count yourself lucky, lads, and beat it.'

I limped out of the barracks with my arm around Beano for support. We must have looked like no-hopers in a threelegged race. And no-hopers is what we were. Our big protest had fizzled out, squelched by the powers that be.

At the front gate of our house I said good night to Beano, but I had no intention of going in. A mad idea was brewing in my head. I'd failed to get at Moran or the jerks who let us waste six months on a park that was never to be, but Snipe wouldn't escape my clutches.

‘Go home and go to bed, Beano,' I said.

‘What if he's there,' he pleaded, ‘waiting for me.'

‘It's Saturday night, Beano,' I reminded him. ‘He'll still be in the pub.'

‘I suppose so,' he mumbled dismally and shuffled off. ‘You'll still be my pal, won't you, OD?'

It was just what I needed him to say. Now I really could believe I was doing this for him.

‘You know I will,' I said. ‘Now, go on and go straight to bed, right?'

I pretended to search for my key until I heard the front door of his house close in the distance. My stomach tightened and I looked up at the sky. It had cleared by now. The stars were in their usual places and not taking a blind bit of notice of me. There was a poem in that somewhere, but my mind was far from poetry. I tried putting some weight on the bad leg and it just about held up. That was all right. I wouldn't need to run anyway. I was finished with run ning, I thought.

Snipe always came home from the pub by a short cut through an alleyway at our end of De Valera Park. All I had to do was get myself over there and wait. I hobbled across the road and into the unlit alleyway. The church bells rang out for midnight and I reckoned on an hour, maybe an hour and a half, before he fell into my trap. I was wrong.

It couldn't have been more than ten minutes before I heard footsteps at the far end of the lane. Snipe had already passed by me before I realised it was actually him.‘You're early,' I called after him.

Snipe wheeled around, but I couldn't see his face well enough to know if he was frightened. I guessed he wouldn't be. In his mind, he was still the tough little scrum-half who wasn't afraid to play a man's game.