Taken Away

by Celine Kiernan

  I tiredly closed my eyes. Oh.

  Dad was talking. ‘. . . sometimes curiosity gets the better of people. It’s . . . everyone makes mistakes, son. We just need to know . . . ’

  I squeezed the doctor’s hand again and let go. ‘No,’ I said. I wanted to say more, but I was so bloody tired. I couldn’t, just couldn’t, find any more words.

  There was a small moment of stillness, then a hand patted my shoulder and the two men were gone. They had a long and whispered consultation on the other side of the door. I heard my ma quite clearly saying, ‘You are not making that boy leave this room.’

  Eventually, I remember Ma taking my hand and pulling me into a standing position. She got me to peel off my cords, and she dragged my jumper up over the top of my head. Between them, she and Dad helped me to bed. I caught a glimpse of Dom as I staggered across to the bunk. He had finally stopped shaking, and he was propped up on a small mountain of pillows. He passed from my sight as Dad helped me up the ladder. I could hardly hold my head up.

  I crawled into bed, flopping onto my stomach with a numb and smoky exhaustion. The bunk swayed like a ship; the room revolved slowly around me. My pillow was cold. The blankets were warm. I began to plummet downwards. I was losing my grip on things. I pulled myself back. No! I couldn’t do that; I couldn’t leave Dom.

  Something scraped the floor in the corner of the room, and I tiredly turned my head to see. Dad was sitting by the window in a chair he must have brought up from the kitchen. The sky was a hot blue behind him, the window open against the smell of vomit and disinfectant that had filled the room. It was late morning, maybe later. Dad’s face was in shadow, and he was sitting staring at Dom. He must have felt me watching him because he suddenly switched his gaze to me.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Patrick.’

  I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I answered him as they were closing. The pillow seemed to be swallowing the right side of my face. ‘What for?’

  ‘You told me Dom was sick. I’m sorry I didn’t listen.’

  I wanted to tell him that there was nothing he could have done, but I was already gone.

  SIX DAYS LATER –

  A CONVERSATION ABOUT SKA

  THE RECORD HISSED out dead air as the song came to an end; I didn’t even have to look as I reached across and flipped the little lever that raised the play-arm and lifted the needle. I let it hover there while I finished the sentence I was writing, then turned and carefully positioned the needle so that it was back at the beginning of the same song. I’d wear a hole in the record if I played it many more times in a row. There was a blast of static as needle hit vinyl, and then the smooth sounds of Toots and the Maytals drifted out to fill the warm air.

  Outside the sun was blazing in a clear blue sky, and all the windows were open, a cool breeze sighing in from the sea. The TV was flickering away in the corner, the sound turned down. It sat on the same kitchen chair that Dad had brought up the night Dom had nearly died. Or the night he came back from the dead. I still wasn’t sure what way to think of it.

  Dad was in Dublin. Justin had had some kind of emergency at the print shop and Dad had had to run up last night. He’d be back tomorrow. Ma was in the kitchen; I could hear her talking to Dee. The old biddies were due any minute now. They were going to take Nan for a walk, and James Hueston had arranged to join them and bring Dee out in her buggy. Pretty soon downstairs would be filled with the twittery sound of old ladies trying to outdo each other in sweetness and concern, and Dee would be squealing and asking questions and bossing everyone about. But for now, it was just the quiet murmur of voices and the warm smell of dinner cooking.

  ‘Sweet and Dandy’ worked its summer rhythm on the air and I caught myself staring out the window, my head bobbing slightly in time to the music. I sighed, looked at the story I was trying to work on and scratched out the line I’d just written. The page on my knee was covered in scratched-out lines. In fact, only one paragraph remained unmarked. I read it over, my pencil clenched between my teeth: ‘The green lasers hissed through the damp air, leaving thin trails of steam in their wake. Carlos felt them hit his back. There was no pain, but they flung him from his feet and threw him forward into the shining wall of his ship.’

  I scratched it out. I let my pencil drop to the floor and pushed the copybook off my lap, then laid my head back on the mattress and blew a sigh up at the top bunk. I was sitting on the floor, my back to the bed. The floorboards around me were an untidy jumble of records and unread books, pens and pencils and balled-up scraps of paper. ‘Sweet and Dandy’ was coming to its conclusion. I let it play through and then reached over and lifted the lever. I twisted around and leant my chin on the bed, looking at Dom. He was lying against a small mountain of pillows, watching the TV; that’s to say, his eyes were on the flickering shadows of the TV, but there was no comprehension in them. I flicked a glance at the screen; it was an old black-and-white Tarzan film. Johnny Weissmuller was wrestling a crocodile, his knife between his teeth. He was our favourite Tarzan, the only one of them who looked like he could really bring a lion to its knees. I looked back at Dom.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘you want me to turn the sound up?’

  He didn’t so much as blink.

  I sighed again, and reached over to drop the needle on the Maytals, but something made me hesitate. I looked back at him again. ‘Dom,’ I said, ‘you want me to put the Horslips on?’

  Four days after that terrible night, the doctors finally decided that Dom was out of danger. That was the day Dad had brought up the TV. He had puffed and heaved his way up the narrow stairs with it and spent a good three hours fiddling with coathangers and rabbit ears trying to get a decent signal for us. Finally the snow had cleared to reveal the evening news: some shite about the IR A, which Dad turned over because there was footy on the other channel. He stepped back, really pleased with himself, his hands on his hips. He blew a lock of hair out of his face and grinned around at me. I was sitting in my permanent position on the floor beside the bed.

  ‘There you go, bud. Seeing as how you can’t be wedged out of here with a crowbar.’ His eyes crinkled up into the first natural smile I’d seen in ages, and then his face did a strange twitch as he realised he’d addressed only me. His eyes flicked to the still, white form of my brother in the bed behind me, and he tried to stop the smile from falling away altogether. It just made him look crazy when he tried to hold on to it like that. I felt like telling him to stop; he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  There had been a sudden whiff of cigarette smoke and a soft scuffle on the stairs and James had pushed his way through the door, a big grin on his face. ‘Hello the house!’ he called, and Dad rushed to help him with his burden. It was a square wooden box with a hinged lid – a portable record player. On top was a small stack of LPs.

  Dad had run to find an adapter for the two plugs, and James had winked at me as he set the system up.

  ‘These are all my favourites,’ he said. ‘Extended loan – as long as it takes for our pal here to get back on his feet.’ He gave Dom a smile as natural as the one he’d just given me. ‘Now,’ he said, shuffling through the pile of records, ‘I know you won’t think these will be to your taste, lad, but give them a chance. Nothing wrong with broadening your horizons.’

  He stacked a few albums one on top of the other. The Skatalites, Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, Desmond Dekker. I’d never heard of any of them, and I have to say, I wasn’t too pushed to listen. I was dull and musty, as impervious to everyone as Dom was. But I tried my best to look grateful as Dad returned and plugged the player in, setting it close beside me, and James slipped The Sensational Maytals from its sleeve and put on side one.

  I’d never heard music like it. It was like a blast of fresh air. It made me sit up straight. Don’t get me wrong, I liked music, all sorts, whatever I could get a chance to listen to. But from the minute ‘It’s You’ started to play, I felt – I don’t know how to put it – I remember thinking, I’m home! I found home! That
’s how much I loved it.

  That evening Dad went out and bought two Horslips albums and some Thin Lizzy, Dom’s favourites. That night and for all of the next day, I alternated one or the other with the Maytals. But today? Today, I had just played ‘Sweet and Dandy’ over and over and over. It was like self-hypnosis. I just couldn’t stop.

  But it was time to put something on for Dom. I waited for him to respond to my question – Horslips? Or maybe Thin Lizzy? There wasn’t a chance in hell of an actual answer; still I waited, my chin resting on the blankets, looking up at him without any expectation.

  He’d said nothing but ‘milk’ for six days. Every mealtime, Ma would bring me up a tray of food and she’d kneel down beside Dom, run her hand through his hair and say, ‘What would you like to eat, baby?’

  Dom would slide his eyes to her and whisper, ‘Milk.’

  And that’s what he’d get. That’s all he’d been living on: glasses of milk. Ma would hold the glass for him, and he’d drain it in a couple of swallows and then lay his head back, his thoughts turning inwards again, and nothing else would get any response from him. I don’t think he was ignoring us. He just simply didn’t notice we were there. Even his rare trips to the bathroom were nothing but expressionless trials of physical endurance, the shuffling journey there and back enough to drain him of what pitiful energy he had.

  ‘Hey!’ I pucked him gently through the covers. ‘Lizzy or the Lips?’ He didn’t look at me. I sighed and turned to the player. ‘Alright, so, one more listen to Sweet and Dandy and I’ll put on The Táin.’

  We listened through to the end of the song once more, and I wearily lifted the record from the player. ‘Here we go,’ I said. ‘Let’s switch to the sound of a million hairy men stamping their feet.’

  I was carefully slipping the record into the dust-sleeve, trying to hold it only by the edges, when a thin, pale hand touched my arm. I jumped and nearly dropped the album. I spent several dodgy seconds juggling it from hand to hand, still trying to hold it only with my fingertips. When I finally got it back in the sleeve and my heart back in my mouth, Dom was almost grinning. Almost. On anyone else, it would have been the merest hint of a smile. On Dom, right then, it was the sun coming out.

  I tried not to overreact. For a minute I just sat there, trying not to let my eyes fill up with tears, trying to think of something okay to say.

  I finally decided on, ‘Hey.’

  He gestured tiredly at the record, the vaguest movement of his hand. ‘Like that one,’ he whispered. ‘’S good.’

  I held the Maytals up, my eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘Yeah? This fella?’

  He nodded, ‘’S good,’ he said again.

  I jumped enthusiastically to my knees and pulled the record from its sleeve again. Dom hissed at my clumsy pawing of the vinyl.

  ‘Careful!’ he whispered.

  I rolled my eyes as I slipped it back on the player, side two this time. ‘You think the last song was good, listen to this one.’ I carefully dropped the needle and ‘54-46 (That’s My Number)’ began its jumpy upbeat groove. I grinned at him, my head bobbing in time, willing him to love it. ‘Heh? What you think?’

  His eyes lost focus as he listened, and his head nodded. Gradually the music seemed to infuse him. He began tapping time with his fingers.

  ‘Well?’ I said, dropping to my arse, laying my arm casually along the bunk.

  ‘’S good,’ he said again. It seemed to be the limit of his vocabulary. ‘Like it.’

  We listened through the song, and then to ‘Oh Yeah’ for a few minutes. Then I jumped up and put ‘Broadway Jungle’ on for him.

  ‘This is great,’ I said. ‘It’s not as old; you can hear a real hard edge moving in . . . ’ I let him hear a few bars and then just started talking, telling him all the things James had told me about the Rude Boys and ska and the beginnings of reggae. He nodded and made the occasional murmur of interest, but mostly he just bobbed his head and tapped his hand to the music.

  I was telling him about the heatwave in 1968 that led to a whole new form of ska, and he was chuckling at the thought of the musicians being just too hot to play as fast as they used to, when I looked up and saw Ma standing in the doorway. For a minute I couldn’t understand what was wrong with her. We’d fallen so deeply back into our usual groove that I couldn’t fathom the huge tears in her eyes, the fingers pressed to her lips. And then I realised: I was sitting talking to Dom. I was having a conversation with Dom. I slumped back against the bed, and Mam and I shared a shaky smile of disbelief.

  She cleared her throat into the cupped palm of her hand and wiped her sleeve across her eyes.

  ‘Pat,’ she said, her voice remarkably steady, ‘would you like anything to eat?’

  I grinned at her. ‘I’d love a boiled egg, Ma. You want a hand?’

  ‘No, love. You’re alright.’ She looked uncertainly at Dom, hesitant to ask the question that might confound her hopes. ‘Dom?’ she said, and I saw her swallow down hard when he turned an enquiring face to her. ‘Yuh . . . you want anything to eat, love?’

  ‘Milk?’ he rasped. She bit her lip and nodded. She turned to go. ‘Ma?’ She turned back to him, and he grinned a ghost of a cheeky grin at her. ‘Can I ’ave a rasher sandwich?’

  I saw her face squeeze up for a moment before she nodded and hightailed it down the stairs.

  ‘Jesus,’ I said, staring at the shut door. ‘I wouldn’t’ve minded a rasher sandwich.’

  ‘You should’ve asked then, you eejit.’

  I looked round at him, and we unintentionally locked eyes. I felt suddenly and almost overwhelmingly emotional. I bit down on my lip and once again felt my eyes fill up. Oh Jesus. This was just great. I was such a bloody sop.

  ‘Your nose is running,’ he whispered.

  He was sunk back into his pillows, very tired again, and solemn. I scrubbed my nose on my sleeve and coughed, not sure where to look.

  ‘Hey,’ Dom said. ‘Put another record on.’

  So I did.

  SURPRISE

  TWO DAYS AFTER EASTER, three days after our miraculous conversation about ska, Dom and I were camped out in the sitting room. We were each of us immersed in our separate activities, both in our own little worlds, paying no heed to anyone. Ma and Dee were out in the front garden with Nan and the two old biddies, sitting in deckchairs and enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.

  I was sitting at the table under the window, my pens laid out in orderly rows, my copybooks neatly stacked according to content. I was working on four stories at once, and each had its own set of copybooks. At the moment, Carlos was dragging himself into a cave on some outlaw planet. He was hoping to find shelter from an oncoming meteor storm. I had other plans for him. I rested my chin in my hand and tried to think of another word for ‘slime’. Nothing sprang readily to mind.

  Dom had commandeered the sofa, his legs covered with Nan’s tartan car-blanket, his markers a technicoloured scatter around him. Sheets of neatly executed comic panels were arranged along the top of the sofa-back, and he was bent over his current page with a fierce look. He was paler and skinnier than I’d ever seen him, but that was okay, because he was Dom. Most definitely Dom. He still hadn’t spoken to me about the grey. Hadn’t spoken much about anything at all, really, since he’d come back – but that was okay, too. I could do the talking for both of us.

  He finished whatever minute detail he’d been hunched over and sat up straight, holding the page at arm’s length and regarding it with an intense, critical eye. I had to hide a smile into the crook of my hand. His face was covered in multicoloured smudges and fingerprints. Messy git.

  He glanced up at me and silently turned the page so I could see it. It was one of his recent, darker pieces. It had one main panel, with only a narrow inset at the top. Four small boys were depicted, engaged in bloody battle with a huge and nebulous creature. The creature was made of smoke, and in its centre glowed a fiery eye that could have been a door of orange flames. Its many tentac
le-like arms were edged with teeth, long and white, shining in contrast to the creature’s smudged body. I flicked my eyes to Dom’s face and back to the drawing. The boys were too small for the heavy weapons they carried, and it was obviously an effort for them to hold them up. Still, the blades were dripping with the fiery blood of the creature, and the boys were fierce and determined. The narrow panel that ran along the top of the page was filled with bright blue: it was a sky of some sort, seen through a narrow window, but clever use of a drop-shadow made it seem to be suspended over the other panel, as if not even part of the same narrative. The sky was background to a row of expressionless adult faces, all looking down at the battle, as if viewing it from another world.

  I swallowed hard. ‘It’s brilliant.’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t mind reading that, when it’s done.’

  He sighed and turned the drawing so he could see it again. He wasn’t happy with it, as usual. ‘Nearly finished,’ he whispered. He draped the page over the back of the sofa with all the others and began ruling out the panel-boxes on a fresh sheet.

  I turned back to my story. Slime, I wrote. Then ooze. I scratched both of them out, replacing them with vile green jelly. Heh. Well, why use one word when three will do? ‘Vile green jelly’ it would be.

  The garden gate rattled and we looked up to see who was coming in. It was the tall old biddy, Jenny. She had to stoop to pass under the apple trees. She was unusually animated, calling out before she’d even come around the corner, ‘Boys . . . boys!’ She paused at the door to catch her breath, her normally stern face all pink with excitement. She gasped and waved her hand about for a minute in an attempt to get the words out, and finally she said, ‘Your mother . . . wants you . . . A surprise!’ And she waved us after her as she hurried back out to the front.