Taken Away

by Celine Kiernan

Ma regarded James Hueston thoughtfully. The house moved around us with the storm, shifting and sighing. Dee’s breathing was a gentle, steady undercurrent, and the Aga ticked quietly in the background as the fire in its belly began to die down. Ma nodded. She looked down at Dee, and nodded again. ‘I think any person who believes in the afterlife must automatically have a belief in ghosts, Mr Hueston.’ She gave the old man a very direct look. ‘But I think it’s more likely that a person’d find themselves distressed by their memories than by any supernatural spirit.’

  James Hueston chuffed a little breath out his nose. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I been distressed by my memories for most of my life then, missus. And for most of my life, they’ve been just that: memories, bad dreams of things that already happened. I can deal with that, so I can. But recently . . . ’ He paused and took another compulsive drag on his cigarette, as if to stop himself talking; stubbed it out, and ran a hand over his eyes.

  I leant forward. ‘Recently, Mister Hueston?’

  He didn’t look at me, just reached for another fag and lit it. He blew a long, grey blast of smoke out of his nose and came to a decision. ‘Recently,’ he said, ‘they’ve been more like hauntings.’

  ‘Yes!’ I cried.

  Ma and James looked sharply at me.

  Shamie,’ murmured Dom, and they turned to look at him. ‘

  He was slouched lazily against the table now, watching the old man from under drowsy lids. He stretched his arm towards James Hueston a little, his palm up as though he wanted the old man to take his hand. The name Shamie bumped something in my memory, tugging at my chest. James Hueston smiled at Dom, sadly – fondly almost – and there was a moment of intimate connection between the two of them that made my stomach tighten. Ma frowned at them with wary uncertainty, and I willed her to back away, to remain an observer for just a moment longer.

  ‘Aye,’ breathed the old man. ‘I were called Shamie once upon a time.’

  Dom’s eyes sparkled with amusement, and he began to hum softly under his breath. I didn’t recognise the tune, but it was pure vaudeville, a real Nan special. James Hueston smiled in recognition of it.

  ‘Oh aye!’ he said happily. ‘I remember that!’ He began singing in a quiet baritone: ‘I’ll be your little honey, I will promise that, said Nellie as she rolled her dreamy eyes.’ He grinned and began nodding his head in time with the song. Dom joined in the words, their two voices blending sweetly as if they were used to singing together. ‘It’s a sin to say so, Mommy, said the bird on Nellie’s hat. Last night you said the same to Johnny Wise.’

  The two of them laughed and Dom sat back in his chair, the picture of relaxed delight. My attention was firmly on my ma, who had a confused, suspicious look on her face.

  ‘Where did you learn that song, Dom?’ she asked sharply.

  I leapt in, drawing her eyes instantly to me. ‘Nan taught it to us, Ma. Mister Hueston was singing it when we first met him on the harbour.’

  She regarded me with narrowed eyes. I could practically hear her running Nan’s back-catalogue of songs through her mind. There were hundreds of them, from vaudeville to jazz to musical; I imagined them like cards flipping on a roller-index in her mind: ‘If You Knew Susie’, ‘Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree’, ‘Sally’, ‘My Old Man’. James Hueston’s voice intruded on her thoughts, and she turned her attention to him, still frowning.

  ‘I spent a lot of time in this kitchen when I were a lad.’

  Dom nodded in happy recollection, a loopy smile on his face. He was starting to worry me. No, if I was honest with myself, he was starting to infuriate me. If there hadn’t been such a tangle of feet under the table I’d have kicked the legs off him.

  Wake up, you bloody lunatic, I thought fiercely. Stop drawing Ma’s attention to yourself!

  James Hueston went on talking, looking around the kitchen as he spoke. ‘I were great pals with the two boys who lived here. They were . . . I suppose they were like brothers to me. And their mother . . . ’ He paused a minute, then flicked a glance at my ma. ‘My own mother died when I were three, missus. Nancy Conyngham were like a replacement, you know? Until I were nine years old, I spent more time in this kitchen than I did in my own house.’ He grinned at her; it was a sunny memory for him. She smiled back, softening. ‘Fran and Lorry and I went to school together, ate together. Very often shared the same bed. You know, I can quite honestly say, they were the best years of my life.’

  ‘Fran and Lorry,’ I whispered.

  ‘Fran and Lorry Conyngham,’ echoed James Hueston.

  Dom had become very still, leaning back in his chair, his arms sprawled on the table. His eyes were focused on nothing, his breathing slow and deep. Still smiling faintly, he looked as though he were peacefully asleep with his eyes open, and I knew that Francis was remembering. He was far away, reliving the memories of the short, happy life the old man was describing.

  Ma’s eyes were on James Hueston; she was concerned for him. Like Dom, the old man was far away, walking the private halls of his childhood. But he had already come to the end of his happy memories, it seemed, and my stomach did a slow flip as the sunshine drained from his face.

  Still smiling contentedly, Dom glanced at James. The old man’s wretched expression stole the smile from my brother’s eyes. Dom swallowed and pulled himself up, sitting straight in his chair, as if to fully face what came next – as if to brace himself for the truth. He waited, the light glinting off the polished surfaces of his snow-white cheekbones. His eyes became so dark that no light reflected from them at all. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to ask the question I knew was expanding in his chest, so I did it for him.

  ‘The boys who lived here,’ I said. ‘They were murdered, weren’t they? They were murdered by a soldier.’

  The shock on the old man’s face was almost amused. ‘My God, lad! What a thing to say. Murdered! What on earth made you think that?’

  Dom and I traded a confused look. We were both lost. I turned beseechingly back to James Hueston.

  ‘What then?’ I asked. ‘What happened to Francis?’

  He died,’ said James. ‘

  His eyes searched mine, trying to fathom my weird questions. Then he turned to look searchingly at Dom, and it hit me like a truck. James didn’t understand! All this time I thought he’d known that this was Francis, right here in front of him, but he hadn’t. What, then, had he seen in the garden when he’d asked, Do you know what’s wrong with your brother? What was it he had been going to tell me?

  ‘When I were eight,’ said James, ‘poor Fran died of diphtheria. He were ten years old. It were awful. An awful, awful death.’ He shuddered. ‘You know that disease, missus?’ He looked at Ma and she nodded sadly. James Hueston closed his eyes. ‘Poor Fran,’ he said. ‘He were a lovely lad. Kind, full of divilment. What a death.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dom, ‘oh.’

  ‘What . . . what does it do to you?’

  ‘Ah, Pat!’ Ma shook her head in distress. ‘Don’t.’

  But James Hueston tried to explain, holding his throat as an illustration. ‘It chokes you, lad. Your throat swells up inside, and you choke to death.’

  Choking. So it hadn’t been asthma at all. Dom had been choking.

  Dom was absolutely distraught now, his whole face working for control, his lightless eyes glittering with tears. ‘Shamie,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, Shamie, don’t say that.’

  James Hueston frowned. I saw something starting to dawn in his face. Then he suddenly sat bolt upright, straight as a rod, and I knew he’d got it. Whatever it was James Hueston had started off thinking about Dom, now he’d got it. His eyes grew rounder and rounder as my brother nodded slowly, staring at him.

  Ma cleared her throat, all her attention on James Hueston – all her concern focused on him and the distress he was showing. ‘So,’ she ventured, ‘if you were around when the Conynghams were children, you must have known my mother-in-law.’ It was clear from the tone of Ma’s voice and her too-bright expression t
hat she was trying to change the sadness of the conversation and bring James back to happier times. He dragged his attention to her, only half his mind on her question, his eyes owlish.

  Beg . . . beg your pardon, missus?’ ‘

  ‘My mother-in-law; she would have been Cheryl Byrne back then. May Conyngham said . . . ’

  ‘Cheryl Byrne? Jesus, missus! Do you mean Lacy? Lacy is your . . . ?’ James snapped his eyes to Dom, then to me, examining us. Dom was nodding again, empathising with his confusion. ‘Oh God, I see it now!’ he exclaimed. ‘Their hair! Their eyes! And sure, your husband was the image of Cheryl! How could I not have noticed that?’ He became utterly speechless for a moment, his hands making little disbelieving movements. ‘Cheryl . . . but sure, she left after the war. She went . . . she disappeared into Dublin. They said she married late . . . some old man with a big family. Had herself a child with him . . . that must be . . . her boy is your husband?’ He looked at Ma as if she needed to reconfirm the facts for him.

  Ma smiled and nodded. ‘That’s David,’ she said.

  There was a breathy whisper of sound from him, and he sank back in his chair. He looked very fragile to me just then, with the light blaring down on his thin old face. The flesh under his eyes and around his jaw seemed too loose and too pale. He looked as though he’d just been punched in the stomach. For a moment I wondered at how all this might affect someone of his age. Then I felt guilty, because despite the impact this was obviously having on him, I still wanted to grab the front of his shirt and shake him ’til all the answers fell out.

  ‘Who’s the man?’ I demanded. ‘Who’s the soldier? What happened to Lorry?’

  Ma looked at me as if I had two heads, but James’s attention had slid past us, to the doorway of the sitting room, and I don’t think he’d heard me at all. His mouth fell open, and he rose slowly to his feet.

  ‘Lacy,’ he breathed.

  I’m so glad you’re here, Shamie. Laurence told me you had ‘come home, but I wasn’t sure I’d get to see you.’

  Nan was standing on the threshold, the tartan car-blanket held around her shoulders like a shawl. Her long white hair had come loose in shining waves around her face, and she looked utterly changed. There was something girlish about her; she was barely recognisable.

  Ma made a move to go to her, but she was pinned down under Dee’s sprawling weight. I half rose from my seat, alarmed. Nan was so thistledown-looking, so fey! It felt like she might just float off if I didn’t catch her quick. Dom beat me to it. With one of those alien gestures of courtliness, he stood and pulled his chair out, gesturing for Nan to take his seat. Nan didn’t acknowledge him. She had eyes only for James Hueston.

  The two old people stood for a moment gazing at each other, and for that moment the house was completely still – no sounds of the storm, no noise from the Aga, nothing. It was as though everything had paused just for them; as if their years of history had earnt them one perfect bubble of calm.

  Then James Hueston pushed his chair abruptly backwards and strode around to Nan. All the time he was rounding the table, Nan held his eyes with this – this gentle look on her face. He stopped very close to her; then he hugged her, inhaling as he did so, her hair, her soft, powdery scent. Nan laid her forehead on his shoulder, and for a moment James held her close, her hands trapped against his chest, her hair falling forward across his arms.

  Shamie,’ she whispered. She pulled back so that James had to ‘hold her at arm’s length. ‘You shouldn’t wear your uniform,’ she said. ‘It’s not safe. They’ve been spitting on the poor boys getting off the boats.’

  James looked down at his ordinary brown jacket and cord trousers and laughed bitterly. ‘It’s a bit late to be finding that out now, Lacy darlin’.’

  She put a hand to his cheek, deeply sympathetic, so very tender. The rest of us may as well have been spectres for all the two of them noticed us. Our eyes hopped between them, from one to the other and back, but we’d faded like wallpaper into the background of their existence.

  ‘Did you have trouble when you got here, Shamie? Were people cruel? There’s been such awful things said . . . ’ Her lips trembled for a moment, and she bit them and ducked her head, her hand still on his cheek. She patted his face, without looking at him, and he pulled her back in, his chin on the top of her head. He stroked her hair and stared blankly at the wall behind her.

  ‘I can’t say I expected it, Lacy,’ he said. ‘I can’t say I did. There were . . . It were all very different when I got home. I were still the same lad – still an Irish lad – but all some folk seemed to see was the uniform.’

  ‘They’ve been so cruel,’ she said. ‘The whole family. The whole damnable lot. I wasn’t certain I could bear it. At times I felt that I was going mad. If it hadn’t been for Jenny . . .She stayed such a good friend—’

  ‘May wouldn’t see me,’ he interrupted. The words came out under pressure, bluntly, as if he was telling a dark secret for the first time. ‘I waited for her on Church Street. She spat in my face.’

  Dom gasped at that and whispered, ‘No.’ The thought of his sister spitting in Shamie’s face was obviously too terrible for Francis to contemplate.

  ‘I think I’m going to go to Dublin,’ whispered Nan, her eyes open, her forehead resting on James’s chest. ‘I think I’ll disappear.’

  James Hueston pushed her back and held her away from him so that he could look at her. He was angry with her, frustrated. ‘I looked for you!’ he cried. ‘When I came back from the war. I couldn’t believe you’d left. Lacy, I had a picture. A photograph. For you. I had his things. Why didn’t you wait? Why didn’t you leave word for me to find you?’

  Nan ran her fingers down his jacket, counting buttons that weren’t there, straightening a lapel that didn’t exist. ‘Ah, Shamie. He’s gone. And soon you’ll be gone. What use are photographs to me?’

  ‘What do you mean, I’ll be gone?’

  She looked into his eyes, and there was my nan. That straightforward, no-nonsense look. ‘You won’t stay to take this abuse. Not after all you’ve been through. Not James Plunkett Hueston. To hell with them and their narrow world. I give you a month, and you’ll be off, to make a life for yourself!’ She gave his nose a cheeky tweak, and he ghosted a smile at her.

  ‘You’re not wrong on that,’ he said. ‘I went back to England within the year, joined the merchant navy, and then the RAF. I saw the world, Lacy.’

  She tilted her head at him and brushed his hair back. ‘Tell me you’ll have a great life,’ she whispered. It was as though he’d never spoken; she was far away, in another world, another time, gazing up into a young man’s face, their whole life ahead of them. ‘Tell me you’ll have the wonderful life he never got.’

  James swallowed and said nothing, just kissed her forehead – a lingering kiss to seal his lips – and then pulled her in to rest his chin on her head again.

  They stood that way for a long while. Eventually my ma spoke, quietly so as not to break the connection between the two old people. ‘Mr Hueston?’ she said. ‘Were you sweethearts? Cheryl and yourself? Were you in love?’

  James Hueston didn’t stop stroking my nan’s hair, but his eyes shifted to my brother. Stop looking at Dom! I almost shouted it at him. Ma’ll get suspicious! Sure enough, Ma followed the old man’s eyes with a puzzled frown.

  Dom was still standing with his hands resting on the back of his chair like the world’s most patient maître d’ waiting to seat a customer. He and James Hueston gazed at each other across the top of Nan’s head. Dom’s expression was tragic, a bleeding wound, every conflicted twist and turn of Francis’s thoughts and emotions running across his polished-marble face like cloud-shadows on a hill. He was staring across the yawning gap of almost a century to the friend Francis had once loved; the friend who’d lived. A friend who knew the secrets that Francis perhaps no longer wanted to hear.

  ‘Are you alright, Dom?’ said Ma.

  I got to my feet. ‘I think Nan needs
to sit down, Mister Hueston. She can have Dom’s chair.’

  James guided Nan to the chair and got her seated, tucking the car-blanket around her shoulders. She participated only on the most surface level, already miles away again. Dom stood behind them, looking as though he might fade away any minute; like he might just let go of the chair and slide to the floor. I shot a glance at Ma. She was frowning at him – squinting as if trying to see him through a fog. She had gathered Dee into a tight little hedgehog shape on her lap and was holding her very tightly. Her expression said, What’s going on?

  James Hueston turned his honest face to her, and she latched onto his words as if they were a life raft – gratefully allowing herself be distracted from the shambling wreck of her son.

  ‘Lacy and I weren’t sweethearts, missus. She were always the little pal of my heart, but we weren’t never that way with each other. No, when we were teenagers, Lacy were engaged to my best friend. That is, she were engaged to Francis’s brother, Lorry.’

  LOST AGAIN,

  AFTER SO LONG RUNNING

  AT FIRST I THOUGHT he meant – what? Some kind of child bride? Some weird Victorian arranged-marriage type deal? And then, God help me, way too slow, it hit me. Lorry hadn’t died. Lorry hadn’t died at all. He had grown up. God damn it, Lorry might even still be alive!

  ‘Cheryl was engaged?’ Ma was utterly astounded. ‘Cheryl?’ she repeated.

  ‘My Lorry?’ whispered Dom.

  James Hueston’s eyes began to drift to Dom again.

  ‘Mr Hueston,’ I said loudly, ‘maybe you should sit down? You look shattered.’ There was more of a command than a request to my voice, and I pulled back my own chair and offered it to him. He gave me a long, level look, and I tried to drill holes through him with my eyes. Stop looking at Dom! I don’t think I blinked for about fifty seconds. Then James Hueston rounded the table, purposely keeping his eyes off my brother. He only flicked a brief glance at Dom as he sat in his chair.

  It’s very cold, isn’t it?’ said Nan. ‘That’s because of Francis. ‘Laurence says he’s killing poor Dom.’