The Month of Borrowed Dreams

by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

  ‘She did!’

  ‘Don’t you know she did!’

  Shaking her head, Mary reprised the sorry story of Malcolm Turner’s treachery. ‘That floozy from his office he was cheating with was Hanna’s friend. Did I tell you Hanna invited her to be poor Jazz’s godmother?’

  ‘She didn’t!’

  ‘With no notion of what was going on! I should’ve done a bit of digging meself when I heard the scamp turned it down.’

  ‘I suppose she must have had some streak of shame in her.’

  ‘Not at all, girl! Not one shred. No more than he had. Think of the way he behaved when Hanna found out. Going behind her back and telling the child a pack of lies!’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That Mammy and Daddy just “fell out of love”. And, of course, once he’d said it, Hanna had no choice but to go round backing him up.’

  ‘God forgive him!’

  ‘After bedding that trollop in the family home that Hanna was worn out caring for. And now he’ll be living high on the hog off the back of all her work!’

  ‘I’d say a place like that would be worth a fair bit now.’

  ‘Ah, God help me, Pat, I looked it up last week on the internet—’

  ‘Did you google it?’

  ‘I used Firefox. Sure, I had no choice. Wasn’t that what you made me put on my bloody machine?’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, it’s what came up when I hit the yoke anyway. And it’s not the point. I found the price of the house, Pat, and d’you know how much he’s asking? Two million!’

  ‘Go to God!’

  Mary took a gulp of her cappuccino. ‘Two million sterling. Offers In Excess Of. That’s the kind of money my Hanna added to that house over the years. And will she see a penny of it? Not one cent.’ Exhausted by outrage, she sat back and glowered at the fountain, where birds were fluttering round the statue of St Francis.

  Pat absentmindedly reached for a piece of Mary’s shortbread. ‘Wasn’t that what she said when they fixed up the divorce, though? That she wanted to go her own way and she wouldn’t take a penny?’

  ‘But she was out of her mind that time, Pat. I told her. I said she’d regret it. And if she hadn’t married that pup in the first place, she could’ve been working herself all those years, building up savings and earning a decent pension.’

  ‘Ah, sure, she’s young yet.’

  ‘We were all young once. She won’t always be.’

  ‘And is she wild upset?’

  Mary slapped the flat of her hand on the table. ‘Sure, how would I know, girl? I’m only her mother. She’ll say she’s not, anyway. I do know that.’

  Pat wrinkled her nose. ‘Isn’t she settled down in Maggie’s place, though, Mary? And hasn’t she a grand new man?’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘Well, maybe she’s not bothered about the money. I mean, she’ll have enough to get by, and she’s happy. And aren’t you fierce lucky to have her and Jazz in Finfarran? God, I’d give a fortune to be that way myself, now poor Ger’s gone.’

  ‘Holy God Almighty, I’m surrounded by total eejits! What matter if she isn’t bothered about the money? Who gives a toss what she said when they were divorced? This is about justice, Pat, and decency. I don’t care what Hanna wants! I’m telling you what she’s owed!’

  Chapter Thirty

  When the guard came in with a mug of tea Rasher was in despair. It was after five o’clock and it felt like the end of the world. For a while, when they’d frog-marched him out of the library, he’d thought that maybe things would turn out okay. The two librarians had followed them, and Rasher had heard Máiréad telling Nugent to calm down.

  ‘We’re perfectly capable of dealing with any problems on the premises, Sergeant. And it would have been courteous if you’d reported to the desk, instead of just marching in.’

  Rasher had held his breath. His arms had been twisted behind his back and Nugent’s hand was on his neck, pushing his head forward.

  ‘We were responding to a call from a member of the public.’

  ‘I know. But Mrs O’Brien herself was the problem, and you’d have found that out if you’d spoken to me first.’

  Gussie had started making a racket then, because Gracie had appeared behind Máiréad on the steps. Nugent had ignored them and simply raised his voice. ‘It’s my job to act in the interests of public safety. I did what I saw fit.’

  ‘What you actually did was make matters worse.’

  Rasher had felt Nugent’s hold slacken and, for a minute, he’d thought the bastard might back off. Then he’d caught sight of the guard, who’d been clutching her own arm. He’d heard an awful crack when she’d hit the floor, and now she was leaning on the squad car, looking sick. That was when he’d known he was screwed.

  Nugent had shoved him into the squad car, making a show of protecting his head and actually hurting him more. The last thing he’d seen through the car window was Gussie rearing up to put his paws on Gracie’s shoulders, and the two of them standing there on the steps, like a couple of lovers, hugging.

  At the garda station, Nugent had made a big fuss about getting someone to take the pint-size guard to A & E. She had perked up a bit by that stage, and was saying she’d be fine. But Rasher guessed Nugent wanted her gone, so his own version of events would be the one down in black and white. From the look on her face, he’d had a feeling that she might have thought so too. Another guard took her away, though, saying he’d drive her to the hospital. So that had been that.

  By then, all Rasher could think about was that he was due on a shift. There was a clock on the wall behind the desk sergeant, and he could see that, if they’d let him go, he might just make it back to The Royal Vic by four o’clock. Then Nugent had announced that he’d had to intervene to stop an assault on an officer, and that a member of the public had given in evidence that Rasher had threatened her and called her an oul bitch. The triumphant look on his ugly face, as the desk sergeant filled the form in, had told Rasher he hadn’t a hope in hell.

  When they’d shoved him into a cell he’d broken down. His back and his shoulders were killing him, and his chest still felt like he’d been hit by a truck. But it didn’t seem like his ribs were cracked so he’d probably just end up covered in bruises. Set against the possibility that the guard’s arm had been broken, that wouldn’t count for much in front of a judge. Anyway, it didn’t matter if they did bang him up. His job was banjaxed now, and without it he was homeless, so, with nowhere to go, he might as well be in jail. There was no way they’d take him back into the halfway house. Martin had warned him what would happen if he fell foul of the police.

  Now the guard who’d come in with the tea asked him if he wanted a sandwich. ‘I could bring you one from the canteen if you want.’

  Rasher felt sick. He was also afraid that he might start bawling. So, he shook his head and said no. The effect on his muscles made him wince, and the guard frowned and asked if he was okay.

  ‘Yeah. No. I’m grand.’

  ‘You’ve a right to be seen by a doctor, you know, if you got hurt in the ruckus.’

  ‘No, I’m fine. Thanks for the tea.’

  ‘Right so.’

  The guard went out and locked the door and, sitting with his hands tight round the mug, Rasher felt hot tears falling on his fingers. What he really wanted was for the door to open and his dad to come walking in. It felt like a million years since he’d died, of a stupid disease that Mum had said was just the luck of the draw. According to her, there was no point in asking, ‘Why me?’

  ‘Nature doesn’t pick and choose, love. People get sick and they die, it just happens. Families are left grieving and there isn’t a reason why. We just have to pick ourselves up and get on with things.’

  She hadn’t, though. She’d taken to the drink, let herself be used, and ended up useless, and Rasher hadn’t realised till now how angry he felt about that.

  In the beginning,
he’d bought into the whole thing about being brave and keeping a stiff upper lip. It had seemed right because Dad had been a bit like that himself. If ever you asked him about the past, he’d tell you it didn’t matter. Life was for living now, and looking back was a waste of time.

  Mum had told him that was because Dad had been an immigrant. ‘When you walk away from all you’ve known, you can’t keep looking back. It’s the kind of choice that takes courage and you have to hoard your strength.’

  Rasher didn’t even know why his dad had left Egypt. The fact that he didn’t know his relations over there didn’t bother him, though. He hardly knew his Irish grandparents either, and Mum’s only brother had gone to Australia before Mum and Dad had got married. So there’d only been the three of them, facing the world together, and that had suited Rasher just fine.

  Dad used to take him to matches in Croke Park, and out to Seapoint Baths. They’d go diving and splashing about like brown fishes while other kids and their freckly dads shivered and watched from the side. Well, not all of them, maybe. But plenty. Afterwards Dad would buy fish and chips and they’d eat them on the way home. That was about the only time he’d said a word about his childhood in Egypt. He’d told Rasher that his own dad used to take him fishing, out at sea in a timber boat with brown canvas sails. But he’d never said whether they’d gone on trips or if his dad had fished for a living. And, by the time it had occurred to Rasher to ask, he was dead.

  It was weird that he hadn’t inherited Dad’s slim hands and long legs. Rasher was made kind of square, like Mum, with hands that she always said were like shovels. Maybe her ancestors had gone around shovelling spuds. Digging his heel into the floor, Rasher found himself sobbing – there’d be buckets of spuds by the sink now in The Royal Vic’s kitchen, and people there cursing him for not turning up to his job.

  The door opened and Nugent walked in, looking grim.

  ‘According to Guard Sullivan, you’ll be wanting to see a doctor.’

  Scrubbing his sleeve across his face, Rasher got his back against the wall. Nugent moved closer.

  ‘Apparently you hurt yourself when we were bringing you in.’

  Rasher’s eyes measured the distance between himself and the emergency button outside on the corridor wall. Deliberately, Nugent went back and quietly closed the door.

  ‘I didn’t say I needed a doctor.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Nugent came back and stood in front of him. ‘Because I wouldn’t want you to have any reason to.’

  Somewhere at the back of Rasher’s mind he could hear his mum’s voice telling him there was never any point in asking, ‘Why me?’ God alone knew why Nugent had taken a scunner to him. It didn’t seem to be about his appearance. What had he said that time he’d cornered him outside The Royal Vic? ‘There’s decent people up and down the length and breadth of this country that never got a handout in their life.’ But Rasher had never wanted to live on handouts. He’d never even thought he’d end up needing a hand up. None of this was his choice.

  Instinct made him keep his head down but nothing happened for so long that he lifted it and looked Nugent in the face. The guy was plain mad. You could see a little tic pulsing in his cheek, and his eyes were like stones.

  They stood there, like a couple of actors in a cop film, and Rasher got a weird feeling that Nugent couldn’t think what to do next. It was like he was playing a role without having read the whole script. There’d been a film Rasher had seen at school, called Schindler’s List, with a bit in it where the commandant of a World War Two concentration camp had been fed the notion that being really powerful meant being able to choose to let people off. For a mad moment, he wondered if Nugent was toying with the same idea.

  Then the door opened a third time and Martin came into the room. Immediately Nugent seemed much smaller. Martin was wearing jeans and a grubby sweatshirt, and his hands looked as if he’d been clearing drains. Sullivan, the guard who’d brought Rasher his tea, had come in behind him, and the guard who’d fallen was just outside the door. It struck Rasher that she was a lot younger than he’d thought.

  Martin asked how he was.

  ‘Fine. I’m grand . . . Look, Martin, I never laid a hand on her. Honest. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I did let a roar at the oul bitch, but I . . . she was threatening Gracie. And they’ll tell you at the library Gracie never did nothing wrong.’

  Nugent had turned round and was staring at the two guards in the doorway. Rasher could see the young one looking nervous. Then Sullivan threw her a look and she kind of relaxed.

  Martin looked from Nugent to Sullivan. ‘Will we drop this now, or do we take it upstairs and do it by the book?’

  Nugent’s face went dead white, like a piece of blank paper. Then, to Rasher’s amazement, Sullivan jerked his head at the girl and they walked away, leaving the door open. Nugent didn’t move. Martin stepped in front of him and, taking Rasher by the shoulder, propelled him into the corridor and up a flight of stairs. There was a security door between the upstairs landing and Reception, and the desk sergeant released it without looking up from his screen. Feeling as if Martin’s grasp had somehow made him invisible, Rasher found himself outside and walking down the street.

  Martin took him to a café and ordered more tea. Before they sat down, he said Rasher had better go into the Gents and have a pee. ‘I’d say you want one. You won’t have managed to squeeze much out with your man Nugent glaring in through a bloody hole in the door.’

  Actually, the thought of Nugent spying on him hadn’t occurred to Rasher, but Martin was right, he was bursting. While he was in the Gents he scrubbed his blotchy face with cold water, telling himself he’d keep his cool, whatever happened next. Now that the fear of Nugent was behind him, he’d had time to be scared of what Martin might do to him. But, almost more than that, he wanted to hear how Martin had known where he was.

  ‘That was Gracie.’ Martin shoved the tea at him and told him to put sugar in it. ‘She turned up at the house with Gussie and said you’d got yourself nicked.’

  ‘Jesus, she must’ve put her skates on.’

  It was a good couple of miles from the library to the halfway house, and Gracie moved at a snail’s pace because of all the bags and her dodgy feet.

  ‘Máiréad drove her over.’

  ‘The librarian did?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know her. She doesn’t know me.’

  ‘She’s got eyes in her head, and she saw what happened.’ Martin tipped sugar into his own tea and shrugged. ‘Anyway, I know Nugent. Mad as a rat. So I thought I’d better come round and spring you before you ended up dead.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Nah. I’d say today might not go unnoticed, though. He’s getting a reputation for being violent.’

  ‘You said if I got myself arrested, you’d find me and kill me yourself.’

  ‘That was if you’d stuck your hand in a till, not if you’d met a psychopath.’

  Rasher was about to laugh. Then his face fell. ‘I’ve stuffed things up properly, though, haven’t I? If I hadn’t gone and got involved, I wouldn’t be out of a job.’

  ‘Ah, not at all, boy. We’ll fix that as well.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You stuck your neck out for Gracie. Leave this one to me. I’ll find a way.’

  And he did. Rasher could hardly believe it. There was a ghastly twenty minutes or so, when he stood out by the wheelie bins while Martin was inside talking to Pussycat Bow. And another five when he could hear Anton roaring. Then he was back up in his room with the white sheets and the check duvet cover, with instructions to get a few hours’ sleep before starting a night shift.

  Once he was alone, he found his hands shaking, and it took ages to get his things off and roll into bed. But, with the duvet pulled over his head, he realised that something had changed inside him. Back in the cell, he’d recognised how angry he’d been with Mum since Dad had died. Chucking that six-pack of beer at Fergal, an
d the laptop into the mirror, had sort of been ways of hitting out at Mum herself. And being angry with Mum was kind of a substitute for wanting to shout at Dad. It was like he’d felt that Dad had gone and left them alone on purpose, when the truth was that he hadn’t had any choice.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Botticelli obviously hadn’t called carnations gillyflowers. The Italian word for them was garofano, though, and the old English name was gillyflowers, so that was how Aideen thought of them. When she’d explained the dress to her aunt Carol, she’d found it for her online.

  ‘It looks like it’s got three layers to it. There’s an overskirt she’s tucked up to hold the roses she’s scattering. And one or two underskirts, see, and they’re all embroidered. The hems and the sleeves are finished with lace, or something heavy like cotton crochet maybe? Would that be right?’

  Carol had said she’d embroider enough fabric for a single overskirt, with some left over to add a few swags. ‘It’d take miles and miles to make it just like the painting.’

  ‘Oh, I know! The painting’s only a starting point. I don’t want a copy.’

  ‘Well, that’s good.’ Carol had flashed a grin at her. ‘Because, if you did, I’d still be embroidering by the time I was drawing my pension.’ Yesterday she’d texted, asking if Aideen fancied dropping round to take a look. By offering to get up early and do the trip to the cash-and-carry, Aideen had got Bríd to agree to her taking the afternoon off. ‘I won’t leave till after the lunchtime rush.’

  ‘I’ve said it’s fine. Don’t worry. Make sure you take photos.’

  ‘We decided to go for lots of wine red, and dark stems, not too much pink.’

  ‘I know. You showed me the colour samples, remember? So did Mum, actually.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, it’s just that I’m all excited. She says she’s got a good few yards done.’