We stood in a miserable shivering huddle in the middle of her tiny shop, water literally pouring off of us. She looked at us over the old man’s shoulder. ‘What happened?’
We glanced at each other and came to a mutual decision.
‘He fell in the sea,’ I said.
‘And youse rescued him? You little angels, youse! God bless youse, lads! God bless your hearts.’
‘Wuh wuh . . . we wanted to buh . . . bring him home to his fam fam family . . . ’
‘James doesn’t have a fambly!’ cried the girl.
I don’t think Dom even heard her. He was shuddering in great jerking spasms now, his arms wrapped around himself. I began to feel sick, I was so cold. My head felt like someone had driven a metal spike from temple to temple. I started to sway on my feet.
The shop woman looked alarmed. ‘Don’t be worrying about James now, lads. Sure, doesn’t he just live three cottages down? Sarah and I’ll get him all fixed up. Have youse far to go? Will I phone someone for youse?’
‘Wuh wuh . . . we’re uh up by the huh huh huh . . . ’ I tried.
‘Hurdy . . . guh guh . . . gurdies,’ finished Dom. ‘Nuh . . . no phone.’
‘Well, run, boys! Run.’
And we did, turning stiffly and shambling out the door on numb legs. She shouted after us as we did our best to sprint up the harbour. ‘Run, boys, or youse’ll catch your deaths! Run and don’t stop ’til youse get home!’
‘WATERLOO’
OUR WATERLOGGED ENTRANCE into the kitchen froze Ma and Dad into slack-jawed shock. We took full advantage of their momentary paralysis to stutter out the phrase that undoubtedly saved our skins.
‘O-old man f-fell in sea . . . we p-p-pulled him out.’
Ma blinked, twice. Then she gripped Dad’s arm.
‘Get them out of those wet clothes,’ she said, and bolted up the stairs.
Dee peered through the sitting-room doorway, her mouth and eyes delighted little ‘O’s of wonder. Dad dithered from foot to foot while we just stood there, flooding the floor and shuddering helplessly.
Finally Dee pointed and said, ‘Bom ’n’ Pap all wet, Daddy.’
That woke him. ‘Yes. Yes. Shite.’ He was over with us then, stripping us of our wet clothes, flinging them into a dribbling heap by the door.
Ma clattered down the stairs, arms full of towels. Dad pulled off our socks. We were too cold to do anything but lift our legs for him one at a time as he peeled the wet wool from our icy feet. The towels were huge, and warm and fluffy. They smelled of plastic shop-wrappers. One of them still had a tag on it. Ma ripped it off with a grimace.
As they towelled us down, Ma and Dad pushed us into the sitting room and up to the fire. All this time, Dad was giving us the third degree on what had happened.
Ma kept muttering, ‘That poor old man. That poor old man. Was he a bit touched, love? Was he wandering? Is that why he fell in the sea?’
‘Dunno, Ma.’ Dom’s head was wagging to and fro as she chafed him dry. He was staring blankly into the fire. I knew how he felt. It was all I could manage to stay on my feet and let Dad dry my hair. I think we’d used the last of our energy just getting home.
Ma was really fretting over the old man. ‘Oh, I hope he’s alright. What did that woman say, Dom? Did she know him? Was she kind? Lift your foot, love, let me get these dry socks on you.’
Dad handed me my pyjamas. It was only half-two in the afternoon, but I didn’t object. There was nothing I wanted more than to slip into warm flannel and curl up by the fire.
‘Poor, poor old man,’ said Ma. ‘Poor old man. Do you think he’s alright, Pat?’
‘I think he had a bit of drink on him, Ma. I think that’s why he slipped.’ My words were thick and slow. My eyes kept shutting themselves. I leant on the mantelpiece, soaking up the heat. Dom was somewhere to my left, on the sofa. Dee told him to: ‘Open up your eyeblibs, Bom!’
Dad spoke softly to Ma. They were standing by the door, I think. ‘I’m going to check on the old man, Olive.’
‘Thanks, love!’
I think the boys should go to bed for a while.’ ‘
‘I’ll give them an extra blanket. Mind Dee for a minute while I get them upstairs, will you?’
I felt Ma take my hand, and she led us up the stairs like sleepwalkers. It was horribly cold once we stepped away from the fire, and I started to shiver immediately. But my bed was warm, because Ma had put hot-water bottles in it. She tucked an extra blanket around me as soon as I lay down. I heard her do the same for Dom, the bunks creaking as she stood on my bed to reach his. I felt the brief caress of her hand in my hair before she left.
‘I’ll wake you for the Eurovision.’
The door whispered shut, and Ma crept away down the stairs.
I DON’T THINK I SLEPT; I never quite lost the sense that I was right there, in my bed. But the world seemed to drift away for a while, leaving just the sound of my breathing and Dom’s breathing and the lovely heat of the hot-water bottle at my feet.
After a while, I rose to the surface just enough to know that I needed to move. I rolled onto my back, instantly comfortable again, eyes closing. The blustery wind of earlier had escalated and there was a proper storm blowing outside. Something rattled its way from one end of the garden to the other, and the windows knocked rhythmically in their frames. The TV aerial on the roof creaked and groaned, and to my drowsing mind it felt like I was deep in the belly of some wooden ship. I listened contentedly, smiling. I was just beginning to wonder why things were so quiet in the kitchen when a voice in the bunk above mine whispered, ‘The bad man is here.’
I opened my eyes and stayed very still.
That wasn’t Dom. That wasn’t his voice!
The wind groaned through the eaves, a low monotone. A spattering of rain peppered the window. It was so quiet downstairs. No TV. No radio. I couldn’t hear Ma and Dad. I couldn’t hear Dee. It was just me, floating alone inside the noise of the storm – and someone who wasn’t Dom, whispering.
‘If we’re not careful, the bad man will find us. He’ll take you away and we—’ The urgent flow of words halted, as though the speaker was listening for something. The gale rushed past the windows in a sudden irritated shhh.
I tried to make no noise.
I tried not to breathe.
If I turned my head, I would be able to see the dressing-table mirror. I would be able to look. There was no night-time gloom now – the top bunk would be lit up, clear as the rainy grey twilight that filled the room. All I had to do was look.
But I didn’t turn my head. I just couldn’t.
And then it came again. That whisper: a sharp, fearful hiss. ‘Do you hear him?’
The bunk above me creaked: the distinctive sound of Dom sitting up.
My eyes got so big it felt as though they might roll out of their sockets. My hands cramped into fists in the blankets. I was staring, staring, staring at the bunk above me. Waiting.
Then I heard my brother’s voice: quiet, inquisitive, uncertain.
‘I don’t hear anything,’ he said.
Dom! Oh God! Dom! Who are you talking to?
I opened my mouth to say something when that stranger’s whisper came again. ‘But he’s here. He’s here all the time. He wants us. He’ll hurt us! We must be careful.’
Dom answered, his voice low now, nothing but a whisper: ‘Is he here now?’
‘Oh yes. I think so.’
Right above my head, Dom shifted. I could imagine him drawing his knees up and hugging them to his chest: the classic pose for Dom when he was frightened. ‘You’re scaring me,’ he said softly.
‘Don’t be frightened. I’ll take a look, shall I?’
More creaking. But not above my head! No. Not where Dom was sitting. This creaking was at the foot of Dom’s bed. Something was sitting at the end of Dom’s bed!
I shifted my terrified gaze in that direction. I could hear something up there, crawling towards the ladder. Something was going to lo
ok over the edge. It was going to look over the edge of Dom’s bunk.
My fear was panting its way up my chest, into my throat – was building itself up into a scream.
I was going to scream. I was going to scream right now.
A small, pale hand grabbed the edge of Dom’s bunk. Little fingers curled around the mattress. I could see the indents in the fabric where they gripped tight. There was a pause, as though it was frightened to look, and then a small, pale, dark-eyed face cleared the edge.
It was a boy. Maybe ten years old. White face. Dark, dark eyes, underscored with deep lines, surrounded with purple shadows. His cheeks were hollow and filled with shadows. He scanned the gloom of my bunk with fear, his white lips compressed. It took a moment for him to register my presence. Then his eyes jumped to mine. I flinched, terrified by the certainty that we’d done this before: me looking up at him; him looking down on me – a solemn-eyed boy of ten, untouched by the wind and rain.
The child quickly recovered from the shock of seeing me. Then his sunken, sick-looking face hardened into loathing and, without taking his eyes from mine, he hissed to the person up above me – to Dom: ‘He’s here.’
The bunk squeaked overhead as Dom shifted suddenly, and I heard my brother gasp in fear. The little white child reached his whole arm over the edge and gripped the middle rung of the ladder as though he meant to crawl down, headfirst. He glared at me and bared his little teeth, and they were black against the snowy white of his lips.
That scream bubbled up inside me and I opened my mouth to let it out.
‘HEY, SWEETHEART. ’
I leapt, my scream nothing more than a soundless rush of air, and Ma drew back in surprise. ‘Did I give you a fright?’ she whispered. ‘Sorry, love.’ She brushed my hair off my face. ‘You know you were asleep with your eyes open? You looked a bit creepy, staring at the ladder like that. Were you dreaming?’
I blinked at her, frozen and disoriented, the blankets bunched at my chin. The storm still gushed and buffeted outside the house. Downstairs, the telly burbled cheerfully and Dad and Dee chattered away to each other.
Ma smiled at me. ‘The Eurovision’s just about to start. D’you want to come on down and watch it?’
I nodded dumbly, not trusting my voice. Ma handed me my dressing-gown and stood to wake Dom. He jolted awake, the bed squealing as he jerked into a sitting position.
‘Who’s there?’ he cried.
Ma laughed. ‘You’re as jumpy as cats, you two! Come on! I kept your dinner, and there’s apple tart and custard for after.’
At the mention of food my stomach contracted and I was overwhelmed by a dizzying cramp of hunger. I heard Dom above me, escaping his blankets in a flurry of urgency. The bed lurched as he leapt from the ladder. ‘I’m starved,’ he said.
Ma said, ‘Hey, watch it!’ as he pushed past her out the door and onto the stairs. They entered the kitchen together, their voices under me now, coming up muffled through the floorboards.
I sat hunched on the edge of the bed, listening as my family moved about downstairs without me. I was shaky and sweating, folded over the emptiness in my belly, too dizzy to move. The hunger in me was as sharp as a pain. My hands were trembling with it, and my head ached so badly that I had to squint in the weak light. I wasn’t sure that I could get my feet under me. The door looked miles away, across acres of bare wooden floor.
Then, above my head, Dom’s bed creaked slyly.
I was up and moving in a flash, staggering out the door on legs so wobbly that I thought I’d fall head over heels all the way to the bottom of the dark steps. Somehow I managed the stairs, clinging to the wall, my knees buckling with every step. I was making frantic sounds in the back of my throat, because I could feel that little child behind me, his black eyes hating me, his little hands ready to push.
I stumbled into the kitchen in a sweat of fear, looking over my shoulder and almost crying with relief. I turned to Dom. He was sitting at the table, grinning. Ma laid our dinners down, and the sight of them blew everything else from my mind. I rushed over and grabbed a spud, cramming it into my mouth before my arse even hit the chair. I groaned at the lovely gravy, the delicious, salty potatoes, the frothy, ice-cold milk. I couldn’t get them into me fast enough.
Across the table Dom was shovelling food into himself, his whole attention focused on cramming down the spuds and chops and forkfuls of buttery turnip. Swallowing without chewing, he paused only to drain almost an entire huge glass of milk, then went on eating.
I lowered my shaking fork, staring at him.
He was delighted with himself: happily, blissfully, ignorantly stuffing his face while I looked on, barely capable of holding it together. It hit me at once that Dom didn’t remember! He had no idea what had just happened, no memory of the little creature that had been sitting on his bed.
Had I dreamt it all? Was that possible?
Finally, Dom seemed to have filled himself; he took one last draining swallow of milk and sat back. Then he grinned at me, patted his belly and belched, loud and long.
‘Nice one!’ Dad called from the sitting room. ‘Neuf points!’
Dom grinned even wider and stretched like a satisfied cat.
‘It’s starting! It’s starting!’ called Ma as the music for the Eurovision swelled up from the telly.
Dom rose heavily from the table and winced, doubling over.
‘Jesus!’ he laughed. ‘How much did I just eat?’
The food in my belly heaved. The door to the stairs, a gaping hole behind me, breathed ice down my spine. This morning, neither of us had been able to remember a thing about our bad dreams. Just like now, we had stumbled downstairs crazed with hunger and stuffed ourselves fit to burst, with nothing but the vaguest recollection of the night before. Even now, I had no clear idea of what last night’s dream had been about – only that it had woken me, left me staring and terrified in the dark, the taste of mud on my tongue, the image of soldiers in my head. Well, here we were again, demented with hunger and, as far as Dom was concerned, with no memory of what had happened upstairs. But one thing was different.
I remembered. I remembered everything.
Because this time I’d been awake. I’d been awake the whole time.
Dom was grinning back at me from the sitting-room doorway. ‘Pat,’ he said. ‘You coming?’ His grin faltered a little and he stepped back into the kitchen. ‘Pat? You’re white as a sheet. Are you alright?’
‘Pat?’ Ma called from the sofa. ‘What’s wrong?’ I could hear her beginning to get up.
I shook my head at Dom, my eyes wide, and held my finger to my lips. The last thing I wanted was to try and explain this to Ma and Dad. What would I say to them?
There was a monster, Ma. A goblin-boy. He scared me.
Dom frowned, spread his hands, questioning: What?
I called in to Ma, ‘I’m grand. There’s nothing wrong with me. Just got a bit of wind is all.’
‘Well, rip a fart then,’ laughed Dad.
‘Dave!’ There was the sound of Ma thwacking Dad with her book, then general shuffling and giggles as she arranged herself on the sofa again and Dee climbed back onto her lap.
‘Come on, lads, first song’s coming on soon.’
I stood up from the table. The floor did a massive ninety-degree tilt under my feet and I staggered. Dom crossed the room in a stride and caught me.
‘Bloody hell, Pat,’ he whispered. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
I took three deep, controlling breaths in and out of my nose and held onto him while I got my legs under me. Then I nodded and he let me go. I didn’t fall over. That was good.
I think I faded him out for a minute, ignoring my surroundings as I tested my equilibrium, because he surprised me by taking my arm again. ‘Pat!’ he whispered. ‘Talk to me!’
Oh Jesus! ‘Talk to me!’ Typical Dom! What the hell was I meant to say? Well, Dom, I’m a bit freaked out because a little white goblin-boy was sitting on your bed talking
to you. Oh and hey, you don’t remember this, but you were more than willing to listen! In fact, you sent it down to take a peep at me! Would you like me to tell you that, now? And while I’m at it, will I tell you how he looked at me while he was getting ready to climb headfirst down the ladder? Will I let you in on a secret? He looked like he wanted to eat me, Dom. He looked just like he wanted to eat me, and you don’t remember this because you were asleep, but I was awake. How’s that? Good? Okay, now let’s go on in and watch the Eurovision, and we’ll finish this conversation when we’ve gone to bed. Where, by the way, I think that little goblin-boy may be living. How’s that, Dom? Glad we had this chat now? Glad we talked things through?
Dom stepped away from me, a strange expression on his face. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he whispered. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
The tone of his voice and the hurt look on his face stopped me cold. I realised that I was glaring at him, my hands balled into fists, my shoulders hunched like a boxer. I straightened. I shook my head.
‘I’m scared,’ I said.
This totally threw him. I could see him doing a double-take and running things backwards in his head to see what he’d missed.
‘I’m bloody terrified,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how I’m standing here talking to you, actually having words come out of my mouth, without crying or screaming or something. But I can’t talk about it now – you’ve got to promise you won’t try and make me, Dom! You’ve got to promise that we can just go in and watch the Eurovision and pretend that everything is alright. Because I just don’t want to have to—’
Suddenly, I grabbed onto his two shoulders like a drowning man clutching a lifebuoy. It was a gesture that surprised even me, and Dom staggered back a little bit in shock. But he managed to keep his feet under him, and he kept his eyes locked on mine.
‘Promise me, Dom!’ I whispered. ‘Promise me you’ll just go in there with me and pretend everything is alright? Promise me. Because if I try to talk . . . ’
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