by Nesta Tuomey
‘Go on... go on,’ they urged her.
‘Pulled down his pants and showed his thing!’ gasped Sheena. More delighted shrieks. Sickened, Claire turned away. Was that what Eddie was?
Eddie didn’t seem old to her, not like her own father, or some of the other girls’ fathers. If he hadn’t been Sheena’s father she might have told Sheena about him. It would have been a relief to have told someone. Her own mother perhaps, if she had been at all like Jane, or Jane herself if she wasn’t his wife. It seemed unfair that the only people she might have talked to were out of the question.
Hero was in trouble again. She attacked the postman again and although the bite was not severe, the man’s trousers were torn and he had gotten a bad fright. He complained to the Gardaí and Eddie received a summons to appear in court. When he did the judge ruled that Hero be put down.
‘She’s not really vicious,’ Hugh told Claire earnestly. ‘I’ve a good mind to find out where that judge lives and bring Hero along to his house. Then he’ll see how gentle she is.’ He was almost in tears.
Claire listened to Hugh’s anguished plans and wished there was something she could do to comfort him. She felt as miserable as he did.
As the date of execution drew near Hugh insisted that he would do the job himself and in his own way. Jane and Eddie tried to dissuade him, thinking it was too fraught a situation for an eleven year old boy to handle but after they saw how determined he was, they withdrew their objections.
Hugh decided he would get chloroform from the vet and choose his own time. Mr Halligan gacw it to him, telling him, If you feel you can’t handle it, bring her to me.’ Hugh still kept putting the moment off. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Eddie secretly tried for a repeal of the sentence. He offered to muzzle the dog and keep him chained, anything to save him for Hugh. But it was no good. The judge refused to reconsider.
‘I’m sorry, son,’ Eddie said. ‘I did my best.’
Hugh nodded. It meant a lot to him that his father had tried again. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘There are only another few days left,’ Eddie said. ‘Best get it over with quickly.’
‘Your father is right, Hugh,’ Jane said gently. ‘You’re only prolonging the agony and causing yourself unnecessary pain.’
‘Okay...okay,’ said Hugh. ‘I’m going to do it. Don’t go on about it.’
‘Right.’ Eddie brought the discussion to an end. ‘No more delay. You’ve got until tomorrow or I’ll bring him to the vet myself.’
Hugh listened in silence. He knew he couldn’t bear for Hero to be put in a cage and given an injection by a stranger. Next morning when his father drove away he got the chloroform and steeled himself for the grim task ahead. He had to be the one to do it, he told himself, as he went to release Hero. He owed her that much.
Hero was delighted to see him. She frisked about, glad to be free after weeks of being chained up. When she came back to him he patted her and clipped the leash on to her collar. Hugh went up the back road, past the stables where he had got the straw for Hero’s puppies, and kept walking until he reached a rutted track, high above his home.
He took his dog into a field and let her off the leash. Hero tore about, enjoying her freedom. When she calmed down, Hugh threw sticks for her and watched her race and fetch, her paws skidding in the mud. Together they rolled and romped on the damp grass.
After a time, Hugh took the bottle from his pocket. Hero watched her young master, her eyes bright and intelligent, ready to spring forward whenever he threw what he was holding. While Hugh hesitated she whined with excitement and jumped up against him, muddy paws scrabbling his gabardine.
Hugh ran his hand caressingly over Hero’s head and down her flanks. ‘Good girl,’ he whispered. He gritted his teeth and grabbed her in a fierce necklock. Hero looked trustingly up at him and whined, believing this was some new form of play.
Hugh grimly reminded himself that the vet had assured him this method was quick and painless, no matter how terrible it seemed. He prised open her jaws and prepared to pour the chloroform down her throat, as Mr Halligan had instructed, but she moaned and struggled so frantically in her efforts to get free that the bottle was knocked from his grasp and fell into the long grass. Although badly shaken, Hugh still kept a tight grip on the moaning, struggling animal, feeling her paws scrabbling at his bare legs, drawing blood, but counting the pain as nothing compared to what he was suffering in his heart. He knew then that he couldn’t do it, and let her go.
Hero tore off down the field and vanished through a hole in the hedge. In a state of near collapse Hugh blindly felt about in the grass for the half-empty bottle and, hardly aware of what he was doing, screwed the cap back on and stuck it in his pocket. His breath rasped painfully in his chest and the muscles in his arms and shoulders trembled with the shock and effort of the ordeal. He hadn’t enough breath in him to emit more than a feeble whistle as he went in search of Hero. When he found her eventually on the roadway, she wouldn’t come near him but slunk along at the far side of the road. He went slightly ahead of her down the mountainside, calling repeatedly. He should have listened to his mother, he thought in anguish. There was no use in hoping for a miracle or messing about any longer. He had only succeeded in putting Hero through further distress. He was stricken when he remembered the stark look of terror and dismay in the dog’s eyes.
Now he whistled sharply, and Hero came reluctantly towards him, her tail between her legs. He clipped the leash on her collar and, going down on his hunkers, made a great fuss of her, stroking her and praising her, and feeding her the lumps of sugar he always kept for her in his pocket, until gradually she perked up a bit.
At the end of the road, Hugh resignedly turned in the direction of the vet’s house. He paused outside the gate bearing the familiar wooden sign, then he braced his shoulders and with an encouraging word to his dog went up the path and rang the bell.
The vet greeted him warmly, taking in his pinched white face and dejected expression. He brought Hugh through the empty waiting-room to his surgery and, with a kindly pat on his shoulder, sat him down.
Ned Halligan chatted away easily as he placed a bowl of water on the ground for Hero and ran a gentle hand over her silky coat. Then he turned away to fill a syringe with 10 ml. of Euthatal.
When Hero had finished drinking she collapsed back on the floor in her favourite position between her young master’s knees. Her tongue lolled out of the side of her mouth and she panted noisily, tired from her recent exertions. Hugh stroked her head, feeling choked and sad and desperately guilty. Halligan indicated that he should lift her up and hold her in his arms.
Hugh settled Hero as firmly as he could across his knees, petting her and whispering to her all the time. The dog whined a bit as though sensing what was to come.
‘Now, the thing to do is to hold her leg steady for me, there’s a good lad,’ the vet advised, as he approached with the syringe. With his free hand he fondled the dog’s floppy ears before moving lower and gently parting the animal’s fur in his search for the vein in his leg. ‘Don’t let her move on me now,’ he murmured. He withdrew the needle and straightened up with a relieved grunt. ‘That’s it. Good dog now.’
Hugh felt Hero jerk in his arms and saw her eyes rolling sightlessly in her head and her paws wildly paddling the air, before her head fell heavily against him. He cradled the shuddering animal fiercely against his chest, and his heart was unbearably stricken as he watched her in her death throes. After a few minutes Hero gave a last convulsive heave and lay still. Halligan went out closing the door after him.
Hugh buried his face in the dog’s warm coat that he had always taken such a pride in and, as the familiar smell and feel of her filled his senses, the dam of feeling broke inside him and he sobbed into her fur.
In the period leading up to Christmas Claire did not see Eddie at all. She stopped back after school most days to rehearse a review her class were putting on in the New Yea
r. Unexpectedly she found herself drawn into a group consisting of June, Imelda and Sheena, all of whom had aspirations to be actresses. They chose to do a skit on Fawlty Towers. Sheena, as Sybil Fawlty, wore an auburn wig and padded herself out in one of Jane’s bras. Imelda, who was the tallest of them, was just right for Basil and blonde-haired June for Polly. Claire was blonde too but was unsurprised to find herself cast as Manuel. She discovered she had a natural ability to play comedy, which was strange because she was the shyest of the four.
Rehearsing for the review helped take her mind off the worsening situation at home. For a time after the McArdle’s party her parents had seemed more in accord but during the Christmas holiday period, without the saving trips to work or school to distract them, there had been one acrimonious dispute after another.
One afternoon in January her mother called over to the McArdle’s house for coffee and a chat. Claire was playing cards with Ruthie and heard Jane saying, ‘You could just leave, you know. Take the children and start again. You’ve got a job and he’d have to pay something towards their welfare.’
‘I can’t see myself doing it,’ Annette said.
‘Why not? You’d be better off.’ Jane sounded angry. ‘No one should have to put up with that kind of situation.’
‘I never thought it would turn out like this,’ Claire heard her mother say tiredly, ‘I expected better somehow. But there it is, the luck of the draw.’
And now her parents were in the middle of another dispute. They had moved into the dining-room for privacy, but the door was not quite shut and Claire could overhear what they were saying. She sat with her head deep in her book, wishing she wasn’t there but unable to get up and leave.
‘So I’m getting strident, am I?’ Annette demanded. ‘Well if I am it’s because I can’t seem to get through to you any other way.’
Claire felt a sense of inevitability sliding over her. The knot in her stomach tightened. Lately her father and mother acted as though they hated each other.
‘I have tried,’ Annette went on, ‘It’s not easy going back to work after so long. But there’s not much use in me trying if you won’t.’
‘We’ve been into all that,’ Jim said.
‘I know but I just can’t believe you... you say one thing and then you go right on doing the other.’ Her mother sounded agitated, Claire thought.
‘It means nothing,’ Jim said. ‘I’ve told you.’
Annette banged the table with her fist. ‘You keep on saying that. But I can’t accept it. I mean it must mean something or you’d give her up.’
This is awful, Claire thought. She turned the pages of her book but she hadn’t read a line. If only she had somewhere to go. She glanced towards the door but she didn’t want to go up and sit in her cold bedroom. She could go over to Sheena but he would be there, so she stayed with her head bent over her book.
Their review went down very well on the night. After they had finished their act Claire and Sheena changed out of their costumes and slipped down to the back of the hall to sit with Hugh and Terry. The four of them sucked lemon drops and watched the rest of the programme. In the front row Jane sat with Annette as Eddie had a medical dinner which prevented him coming. Her own father had promised to be there. ‘You can book me a seat in the parterre,’ Jim had joked, but although, at the start of the night, she had peeped through the curtain and anxiously eyed the darkening rows, there had been no sign of him. Claire was not really surprised.
Hugh thoroughly enjoyed the review. He thought that Claire was the best and funniest actress, but then he was prejudiced. Inspired by the stage show, he made a whole series of sketches, colouring the costumes in pastels and mounting the lot on cardboard. He hung them on the walls of his bedroom and when his father remarked on them, he flushed with pleasure. After that he began to take his drawing more seriously and spend more time at it.
Hugh propped his one and only photograph of Claire against his transistor radio and made several pen and ink drawings of her holding the pup, but he wasn’t really satisfied with any of them. She was far nicer, he knew.
Hugh was too shy to show the drawings to Claire. He kept them hidden in a box under his bed, knowing that if his brother ever found them he would never stop ragging him.
Towards the end of January Eddie and Terry began planning a duck shoot, as they did every year at this time. For days their conversation was totally centred on the most ideal locations and conditions, the best guns and cartridges. Terry, like his father, was a natural with firearms, as he was with anything needing co-ordination and skill. Hugh had no interest in blood sports and invariably found his attention wandering at the first mention of guns, until one evening, when sprawled behind the couch reading a comic, he heard them mention his name and sat up and took notice. Eddie was saying: ‘How about taking Hugh along with us on the shoot this year?’
‘Oh Dad! Do we have to?’ Up to this their sporting confraternity had been exclusively limited to his father and himself, and that was how Terry liked it.
Eddie laughed. ‘We don’t have to bring him but he’s old enough I think.’ Eddie had noticed how low the boy’s spirits were since Hero’s death, and he was looking for some way of making it up to him.
‘He’ll probably cry when we kill anything,’ Terry said in disgust. ‘He’s such a wimp.’
Hugh reared up from behind the couch at that. ’No, I’m not,’ he protested.
‘Of course not. Our Hugh’s no weakling,’ Eddie said staunchly, but with a sly grin at Terry, which seemed in Hugh’s hyper-sensitive state to imply there might just be some truth in it.
The night before the shoot Eddie insisted on the boys watching him as he cleaned and oiled the guns. Then he loaded up, slipping the cartridges into the breeches and snapping the gun closed.
‘Never point it at anyone,’ Eddie told them. ‘That’s the first rule. And the second, always keep the safety-catch on until you’re ready to take aim.’
Terry looked bored. ‘I know all that, Dad,’ he said. ‘You’ve told me billions of times.’ He wanted to impress on Hugh just how often he’d been through it all before.
‘It can never be repeated too often,’ Eddie said sternly. He emptied the shotgun and handed it to Hugh. ‘Now let me see you loading up.’
Hugh took it from him gingerly.
‘Treat it with respect but don’t be afraid of it,’ his father advised.
Hugh fumbled for the cartridges and dropped some on the floor.
‘Clot!’ Terry said automatically.
Hugh bent to pick them up and hit the gun off the table. He flushed and looked at his father.
‘Go on,’ Eddie encouraged him. ‘You’ll soon get the hang of it.’
When Hugh had the gun loaded his father made him empty it and do it all over again, until he was able to do it without faltering. By this time Hugh felt more confident although he knew that it was not the loading, but the shooting of the gun that troubled him. He only prayed he would not look a fool before his father.
Next morning they rose at 3.30 a.m. and drove to Wexford. The sky was still dark when they reached the sloblands and parked the car by the side of the road.
Three times that morning they heard honking and the furious beating of wings overhead. Eddie and Terry brought down seven birds between them and all Hugh’s shots went wide. His dejection increased with his brother’s derision, his father’s laughter. Hugh went out several more times with Eddie and Terry but though his aim improved and he even succeeded in hitting ducks once or twice, the whole business of killing sickened him He was careful, however, not to allow Eddie see his revulsion and, whenever he could, made excuses to get out of going.
In February when Christopher had sat the entrance exam for his new school and been accepted for the following autumn, Claire’s father told her that he and Annette were going to separate.
‘Oh no!’ Claire wailed, thinking with her mother more cheerful lately everything had seemed to be going better between them. W
hen they had all gone out to New Year’s Day lunch in a restaurant, Annette and Jim had drunk a bottle of wine and been full of jokes and laughter in the car on the way home. And she had tried so hard herself. She had really thought she was succeeding. It was ages since he’d complained about having no hankies or socks. She stared miserably at her hands.
‘Just for six months,’ her father said, ‘and then we’ll see.’
‘But what about us?’ She was nearly crying, ‘Chris and myself?’
‘Your mother and I need time away from each other to think things out. Decide what’s best for all of us.’
‘But what about the summer holidays?’ They were to have gone camping in France this year. Oh how could they do it? Claire felt sick and trembling, her confidence all gone.
‘It won’t be so bad.’
How could he say that? It would be terrible. Some of the girls in her class were from broken homes. They had the lowest marks in the class and were always in trouble. Claire hated to think that she now numbered in that unenviable statistic.
Christopher blamed Annette for everything. ‘She shouldn’t have gone back to work,’ he told Claire shrilly. ‘That’s what it’s all about, you know. Dad hates her working. I’ve heard him say so. Mothers should stay at home or they shouldn’t be mothers.’
In the past their father had said something of the sort. While Claire honestly felt their home life would have been much easier if this were the case, she was struck by how unfair such a view was. After all, it wasn’t Annette who stayed out late every night and only shared family mealtimes on Sunday. Her mother always encouraged them to study and, if needed, was there to hear their homework. If lately she had lapsed it was only because she was finding her return to work a strain. And why shouldn’t her mother work? Claire thought. With the right kind of back-up support from their father and help in the house once or twice a week, she could have easily managed to keep the household running smoothly. At the same time, Claire loved her father. No one was entirely to blame for anything. She had learned this from the books she read. Her father and mother were made up of both good and bad. Young as she was Claire could make these distinctions. The pity of it was that they could not bury their differences and live in harmony. But she kept these thoughts to herself. Like Christopher, she felt despondent and rejected.