“Okay, well, if you think everything is okay, then I’ll leave it and hope things improve with Celeste. Thanks for staying back to meet with me.” She picks up her bag, the grey suede slouchy one with the fringing, and gets up off the chair.
“I’m telling you they’ll be best friends again next week – that’s what they’re like at that age.”
Ella nods. “Well, let’s hope so.” But she doesn’t feel convinced. She walks a zigzag line between the desks to get to the door. She reaches the door handle, opens it and walks out of the classroom.
Conor checks the clock. It’s 4.15. Usually Jack is here by now.
He checks the clock again: 4.25. He starts to wonder where Jack is and then tells himself that he is being silly. He’s probably off doing something with his mother. He goes back to doing his VAT return. He finally managed to pay the rent, two weeks late, and it’s a weight off his mind.
Finally the door opens.
“Hey, Jack, I didn’t think you were coming today.”
“Rachel came and was asking me loads of questions so I couldn’t go anywhere. I had to wait for her to go and then Ma was in a bad mood so I said I was going out to play.”
“Who’s Rachel?”
“Y’know, the prissy one?”
But Conor doesn’t know. He keeps hearing Jack talking about her and he guesses that she is an official of some kind but he doesn’t know why or what for and neither does Jack it seems. He doesn’t want to probe but trying to piece Jack’s chaotic life together and keep up with its cast of people is difficult.
“And now Ma’s in a bad mood.”
“Why is your ma in a bad mood?”
“She’s always in a bad mood whenever Rachel comes. She said she wishes people would just listen to her and that this one would stop poking her nose into our business and leave us alone. She always makes Ma all angry and that’s why I don’t like her. She whispers if I’m there and they always talk for aaggggges and then they go quiet whenever I go near them. Ma says she’s wrecked tired when she’s finished with her because she keeps asking her stupid questions and writing down the answers in her notebook like Inspector bloody Clouseau.”
“Well, sometimes we all have to do things we don’t want to do – look at me, I have to do this VAT return even though I don’t want to.”
“Well, it’s not fair.” He crosses his arms stubbornly.
“Life’s not fair, Jack.” Conor decides to change the subject. “So did you get the results of your maths test back?”
Jack nods. “I got eight out of ten.”
“Well done! If you keep going like that I might start getting you to do this for me –” He points at his paperwork.
Jack smiles. “I could do loads of work for you and then you could pay me and I could use the money to buy things like books and Giant Jawbreakers. I’d buy something nice for Ma too because she seems a bit sad all the time now so maybe some perfume might cheer her up. I grew her a daffodil plant in school for Mother’s Day and I gave it to her and she started to cry and I wasn’t sure if she hated the daffodil or not. Mine didn’t grow as big as Kev Higgins’s or Franky Ward’s. So I didn’t know if she was happy or sad because it was too small and then she started laughing, saying that of course she was happy but a bit sad too, so I was confused. How can you be happy and sad at the same?”
“Well, people are funny, you know? Sometimes when something makes us really, really happy we cry.”
“Well, that’s just weird. I never cry when I’m happy, not even when Santa got me an Xbox with Minecraft for Christmas last year. That was the best present ever!”
“Yeah, you’re right, people are weird.”
“You don’t think Ma was sad about the daffodil so? I know ma’s like chocolates and those smelly bubble-bath things that make the house all stinky but I didn’t have enough money to buy any of those – maybe if I had a job though I could buy her something nice.”
“How about making her a cup of tea or doing a job for her? I’m sure that would make her happy.”
“Yeah, maybe. Why don’t you have any kids, Conor?”
“Well . . . I . . . ”
“Do you not like them?”
“Of course I do! I nearly did but it . . . just didn’t happen.”
“Why?”
“Like I said, sometimes life isn’t fair.”
“Why?”
“Because my girlfriend died.”
“Were you sad?”
He nods. “Yeah, I was – very sad. I still am to be honest.”
“Well, that’s a pity because I think you’d be an okay dad.”
“Only okay?”
“Well, good then, I suppose.”
“Thanks, Jack, that really does mean a lot, thank you.”
“I better go. I’m meant to be getting milk in the shop for our tea and I don’t want Ma to start crying again.”
Chapter 32
Ella stands on the pier, looking out at the pretty fishing boats bobbing gently in the harbour. The sunlight is bright and the colourful buildings behind her look like one of those colour-enhanced John Hinde picture postcards showing Ireland at its very best. The wind whips the end of her scarf up into her face and she pushes it down again.
The girls run ahead of her into the playground and she follows behind with Maisie wrapped up in her buggy.
Inside the playground, she sits down on a bench and watches the girls running across the bouncy surface in chaotic directions.
A man comes in a while later and sits down on the bench beside her. His two boys run over and commandeer the pirate ship.
“Nice day, isn’t it?”
“Spring has sprung,” she says dryly.
“About time. It’s been a long winter.”
She nods. “It sure has.”
He has a kind face. His eyes are darkest brown so you can’t see his pupils. He is slightly round about the middle but he is attractive. He bends forward and starts rooting in the rucksack at his feet. He comes back up with a packet of ginger nuts. “Want a biscuit?” he asks, offering the packet to her.
Her automatic response is to say no. She doesn’t have the energy to get dragged into a conversation with a stranger but she finds herself taking it from him anyway and biting into its sugary hardness.
“Don’t tell my wife this – but I never leave the house without a packet of these.” He taps the side of packet with his forefinger.
“Bribery?” she asks.
He nods. “Absolutely, works every time!”
“Don’t worry – your secret is safe with me. You have to cut yourself some slack when you can, don’t you?”
Since she has been at home she is seeing a lot more dads collecting children from school or doing the daytime activities like ballet drop-offs, playground runs. It reminds her of those old wartime movies where the men returned home from war with injuries and had to mind the children while the women went out to work to provide for their families.
“I recognise you from somewhere,” he says, using his thumbs to push up another biscuit from the packet.
“Really?” She tries to sound surprised but she doesn’t pull it off. She would never have made an actress. Two weeks in Dramasoc had told her that.
“You’re yer’ one off the telly!” he says through a mouthful of ginger nut. “You were caught running off with that watch, or maybe it was a bracelet – the really dear one.”
She is waiting for what will surely come next.
“How’ve you been? You got a right doin’.”
She turns to look at him, wondering if she has heard him right or if he is taking the piss out of her but his brown eyes seem genuine. He is the first person to ask how she has been since that fateful day.
“I’m . . . I’m . . . em . . . okay, y’know.”
“I’m an alcoholic,” he says out of nowhere. “Recovering, I should add – I’ve been dry for four years now, since just after Jake over there was born.” He points with a ginger nut betwee
n his thumb and forefinger to the smaller of the boys who is swinging from the monkey bars with his two arms. “But I couldn’t do it to Laura any more – that’s the wife. I couldn’t keep putting her through that. She had a toddler to look after and then the baby, and I was a bigger trouble to her than either of the boys. I would vanish on benders for days at a time and wouldn’t answer my phone. Sure the day of Jake’s christening, I sloped off to the pub for a swift one but it wasn’t until my brother-in-law hauled me out of there at six o’clock that I realised I had missed the whole thing – I missed my own son’s christening, the whole bloody thing, and poor Laura had to tell the priest that I got called in to work. She was mortified. When I finally showed my face, she was in bits. God, I knew, of all the things I’d done to her, this was the very worst of them – that was my rock bottom. That was when I realised that I couldn’t do that to her any more and if I was to have any chance of holding onto my family, I had to change. And I did. I went into a treatment program and got dried out but then I was made redundant six months ago – I’m a plasterer by trade. I think Laura was awful worried that I’d go back on the drink again but, thank God, I didn’t. I was tempted – believe me I had some dark days but I could never go back to that place again no matter how bad it gets. It’s hard being without a job though – I’ve always worked even at my worst. I was always the first on the site at eight o’clock every morning. I was always able to provide for my family.”
“It’ll pick up soon.”
“Here’s hoping. I’m trying to see the positives in it. At least I’m getting to spend time with the boys. I never did that before and I must say I’m actually enjoying it. You lost your job too, didn’t you? I read it in the paper.”
She nods. That is one thing she has never been able to get used to: strangers knowing details about her life. The older one of his boys is screaming as he zip-lines across in front of them.
She watches Dot climbing a rope wall, determined that she will get to the top even though it’s designed for kids a lot older than her.
“I’ll be up in court soon.”
“How do you think it will go?”
“I don’t know – it depends on the judge on the day. My solicitor says that the best I can hope for is a fine but I could get a sentence too if they want to make an example of me.”
He nods.
“I just wish I could turn back the clock,” she says.
“Who are you telling? But you can’t change the past – the future is the only thing that we have control over – that’s one thing we learn in our meetings – I go to AA every week. We can’t undo the hurt that we did to others – believe me, if I could go back and not do those terrible things to Laura I would but I can’t do that so I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to her.”
“Sounds like she’s a lucky woman.”
“I’m the lucky one. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for that woman. Look, you’re probably at rock bottom yourself right now, but it has happened and you can’t change that. You have to take the experience and use it to learn from. What I mean is – why did you decide to walk out of that shop with that thing still on your wrist? Were there other things going on at the time that you weren’t happy about? Something must have happened to make you do something that you wouldn’t ordinarily do.”
She looks down at red-and-green-coloured surface. “Maybe,” she sighs. “Maybe . . . ”
“Stop beating yourself up – it could have been an awful lot worse – at least nobody got hurt.”
But they did.
He continues. “Look, you’re paying for your mistake now so it’s time to forgive yourself.”
But she knows she will never be able to forgive herself. Ever.
She stands up off the bench and holds the girls’ coats out for them.
“Celeste, Dot, come on, time to go now. Maisie needs her bottle.”
She turns to the man. “Thanks for the biscuit.”
“Anytime.”
She pushes the buggy out of the playground.
Chapter 33
Rachel pulls up outside the address that she was given for her appointment with Jack’s father, John-Paul. She knocks on the door of the terraced house but there is no answer. She peers in the window through grey lacy net curtains but it seems there is no one home. She is just about to get into her car when she sees him coming up the street towards her.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says, drawing level with her.
The first thing she notices is how angular his face is. It is hard and bony. Cheekbones jut out over jawbones; his nose veers off to the left. Dark stubble dots his jaw line.
“Hi, John-Paul. I’m Rachel McLoughlin, nice to meet you.”
They shake hands. There is a faint smell of spirits off his breath.
“Come on in.”
She notices that his teeth are badly discoloured and black deposits sit in the grooves between them. He opens the door and shows her into a dull room. There is a settee and a TV but not much else.
She sits down on the settee. “Okay, so, as you know, I’m the social worker appointed by the court to carry out the Section 20 report about who should have guardianship of Jack after Tina passes away and I wanted to talk to you, as Jack’s father, for a little while to get your view on things. But first I just want to make sure that you understand the reasons for this report being carried out?”
“Yeah, it’s because Tina, me ex, is dying and she wants me son to live with her sister instead of with his da where he belongs.”
“Right, and as part of this assessment I will need to take notes, if that’s okay with you?”
“Grand.”
“I also have to make you aware that the report will be seen by the legal teams in the case too.”
“I’ve nothing to hide.”
“Okay, great. We’ll get started so and if you’re unsure of anything at any time just stop me, okay?”
He nods.
“How often would you see Jack?”
“Every few days. I’d see him more only his ma doesn’t like me going over there and she doesn’t let Jack stay here on his own either.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“I dunno.” He shrugs his shoulders. “She’s been mad with me since we broke up.”
“When did you and Tina break up and what were the reasons for that break-up?”
“When Tina was pregnant we broke up for a while but then when I saw me son I knew I had to give it another go, but then she started flipping out over every little thing and I couldn’t handle it to be honest. It was doing me head in.”
“And why do you think it is that Tina doesn’t want Jack to live with you?”
“Tina doesn’t like me, that’s what this is all about. But I’ve been off the gear for three years now, I’m a different man than when I was with her.”
“How long have you been living at this address?”
“Three years.”
“Where were you before that?”
“Well, I lived with Tina when we were together and then I stayed in me mates’ houses – just till I got me own gaff, you know?”
“Do you work?”
“I’m looking for a job but there’s nothing out there at the minute.”
“When did you leave school?”
“After me Inter.”
“Why was that?”
“I hated school, so I did. All the rules and the teachers giving it loads all the time – it just wasn’t for me.”
“Now I know from looking back through previous reports, and you already mentioned it, that you do have a history of substance abuse.”
“Yeah, but like I said I’ve been clean for three years now.”
“Are you enrolled in any treatment programme?”
“I get me phy every day in the chemist.”
“You mean methadone, yeah?”
He nods.
“And which chemist is that?”
“O’Shea’s.”
“I know it – there on Haymarket Street.”
He nods.
“Okay and how about alcohol?”
“I like a few pints the same as the next fella.”
“Have you a criminal record?”
“One time Tina called the Guards on me because I was roaring and shouting when I was drunk but I never hurt anyone. I broke into a car one time and robbed a woman’s handbag but that was when I was off me head. But I wouldn’t do anything like that now,” he adds quickly.
“And what do you think is the best for Jack? If you had to tell the judge.”
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