The piano playing had stopped. Ian had moved to the violin and was wailing on that when the house phone rang. It was Dad telling us that Helen had opened her eyes. ‘So she’s okay?’
He hesitated only for a split second, but it was enough for me to know that I still wasn’t going to get the 100% certainty I wanted.
‘She’s still very groggy. The effects of the anaesthetic are only just beginning to wear off.’
‘Did she recognise you?’ asked Ian.
‘I think she knew we were there. That’s all we can expect for the moment.’
That would have to do. I climbed the stairs again and Ian didn’t pick up his violin again. Finally, we slept.
Waiting, and the neighbours turn up
When I think back to the week after Helen’s accident, it’s a blur of jumbled, muddled days mixed with some vivid moments of fear. We forgot the date and what day of the week it was. And the time of day became important only because it affected how long it took us to get to the hospital through the traffic. We were wide awake in the middle of the night, or slumped in chairs in the hospital, completely knackered; vampires got more fresh air than we did. We were like a bunch of pandas, our eyes rimmed by dark shadows and about as slow moving. And food. No knives and forks, or plates. No meals. We ate the sort of stuff that comes wrapped in paper or polystyrene boxes. Nothing green, unless you count when I threw a half-eaten cheese sandwich away in the car and sat on it a few days later when it was going mouldy.
It was a week-long nightmare full of recurring monsters. But escape was coming, for although the news each day was never the 100% she’s better that I hoped for, Helen was gradually improving. One day she smiled, the next she spoke. There were setbacks and scares, but her progress was up, not down. Like it sometimes said on my school reports, Helen was ‘making progress’. She had tests done and the doctors said she was unlikely to suffer any long-term brain injury. Even the part of her head that had been shaved began to grow tufts of blonde hair.
After a week, Mum decided I should return to school. I didn’t mind. I’d had the one reason for an unscheduled holiday from the place that no one would envy me for. One day, when we’d rushed to the hospital at midnight because Helen had a high temperature, I’d been drooping in the car on the way home at the time I’d normally have been heading into school. I raised my head and looked out to see some fellas in St Joe’s uniform going by. And I wished I was with them.
I’d texted Abbas and Joe about what had happened, so everyone in school knew my sister had had an accident, but no one said anything to me. The wrong word and they’d be in intensive care.
But I suppose ‘the time of Helen’s accident’ wasn’t over until some of the old niggles returned. For example, Ian shared out the hospital visits with Mum when Dad decided to return to work, even though he was due back in London at his studies by that time. When I asked him whether he’d be in trouble for delaying going back he answered scornfully, ‘I’m not a little nipper! University isn’t school, Bruv.’ Yup, the fake cockney was back and – Hello, normality! – Flimsy McFeeble was getting on my nerves again.
One thing did change though. Suddenly the whole neighbourhood seemed to know us. Cards and notes arrived on the doorstep. Sorry to hear about your daughter’s accident, they’d say and be signed by people we’d never heard of. There was even one from Dimbrook Golf Club, so I guess Andrea knew what had happened. There were little gifts, too, left in the porch: cakes, pies, meals with notes saying you’ll be too busy to cook. No longer did The Haven seem to be in the middle of nowhere. Range Rovers and other SUVs that I’d dodged on the winding roads now pulled into the driveway and burly farmer types in wax jackets would get out and call at the door. They were the women. Male neighbours left messages on our phone, telling us where they lived in the neighbourhood and offering lifts to the hospital, or any other help they could give. Suddenly The Haven was teeming with life – it had become the centre of the universe. Even little kids came round, holding home-made cards with grisly drawings of bandaged patients, or upturned cars. Some of the ones of the car were dead accurate. They even got the colour right, so I guess the site of the accident had been visited a lot before the Volkswagen was towed away.
Mum got quite tearful about it all. She couldn’t wear her dressing gown all day now, even when she had been at the hospital through the night, because visitors appeared at any hour. One day it was a middle-aged man wearing a grubby vest revealing arms so tattooed they looked like Stilton cheese. His gnarled, ugly face was familiar. It was Baseball Cap. He wasn’t wearing his red cap, but was holding it in his hands. Close up, he was older than I’d thought. Mike the barman hadn’t told us what Baseball Cap had done to his wife, but he was the last person I’d expected to see.
‘Yeah?’ I asked, blocking the doorway, but Mum came to the door and invited him in. Reluctantly, I stood aside.
‘Heard about youz trouble, missus,’ he said.
If I didn’t know better I’d have said he really was sorry for us. Mum poured him tea and gave him a full account of the accident and Helen’s injuries. He nodded, muttered and mumbled, then left, without ever telling us his name. If I hadn’t recognised him, we wouldn’t even have known where he came from. When we opened the parcel he’d left, it was an old advertisement, in wood, the sort that goes on the wall: Guinness is Good for You.
We stared at it.
Neighbours we never knew we had would call in and if Mum were in, I’d come home to find them sitting in the kitchen with her, or touring the house. They cheered Mum up, even the batty ones, like the old lady who brought grapes and ate them all while talking about the goings-on in The Haven when it had been named something else and an old, faded rock star lived in it.
One day I walked in and there was Frank Lynch sitting at the kitchen table! ‘Ah, here he is,’ said Mum in that way that told me she had been talking about me. In the background, in the other room, Ian was playing something gloomy on the violin. ‘Mr Lynch, this is David. David, Mr Lynch.’
I didn’t know whether to give the dognapper a scowl, or the committee member who had my golfing fate in his hands a suck-up smile. I compromised and sent him a dazzling scowl.
‘This your dog?’ asked Frank Lynch. M was licking his hand.
‘What?’ He’d asked me that before. Trouble was, I couldn’t remember what I’d answered, though I knew I hadn’t admitted M was mine just in case he had been running around biting the heads off chickens. But, what the hell. Mum had probably told him anyway. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘He’s mine.’
‘You do all the walking?’
I nodded. ‘All the walking.’
‘It’s important to walk a dog. Shouldn’t have one unless you’re prepared to put in the legwork.’ This sounded like a pat on the back, though if he wanted my dog for himself, it could be more of a threat.
Ian came in with his violin. His eyes just flitted over Frank Lynch as if he hardly saw him. McFeeble was in serious musical mood. ‘Listen. I’m going to play two versions of this piece I’m composing. Tell me which is better.’
‘Hang on.’ I was looking at the kitten that had followed him in. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Who der yer fink? Mozart. He’s been following me about all day.’
‘No.’ I checked around the place and then looked in the utility room. ‘Ah yes.’ I pointed through the open utility room door. ‘That’s Mozart.’ He was lying peacefully in his shoebox.
‘This …’ I pointed to the kitten looking up at us by Ian’s feet, ‘… is not Mozart.’
Mum, Ian and Frank Lynch stared at the two sleeping kittens. To an idle observer, they probably looked like twins, both long-haired tabbies, but I’d got to know Mozart’s markings well. He had a large white patch on his throat and stripes like a tiger along his nose. This new kitten had a smaller patch of white on its throat, no stripes but white back paws that looked like sports socks.
‘We’re plagued by feral cats around this time of year,’ said Fr
ank Lynch.
‘Oh, Mozart’s brought his little brother in!’ Mum scooped him up. M tried bouncing up to see what she was holding. I lifted him up so he could see. He did not growl, having got used to the sight and smell of kitten.
Mum stroked the new kitten. ‘David, get some milk,’ she whispered.
‘Why are you whispering?’ I asked loudly. This kitten’s reaction to strangers was not to hiss and bare its sharp little teeth as Mozart’s had been. Perhaps, if he and Mozart were from the same litter, he thought this was his natural home. He widened his green eyes and stared at us.
‘Ah, it’s so gentle. It must be female,’ said Mum.
‘In what universe?’ I asked as I put down a saucer of milk. Frank Lynch smiled.
Mum was fussing over the new kitten. ‘Can I name this one?’ I asked. No way was it going to be thrown out. Mozart greeted the new arrival as if he recognised him. They went together like Ant and Dec. Mum nodded.
‘I’m still waiting,’ yelled Ian. When we had turned to look at him, he repeated, ‘Listen to these two versions of this piece I’m composing and tell me which is better.’ He played a frenzied, jangling, discordant piece of music, worse than bagpipes, the sort of music that used to make great-uncle Albert turn his cap back to front and complain that he had a stomach-ache. Finally, mercifully, it stopped.
‘Okay,’ I said,’ I prefer the second.’
‘I haven’t played the second yet.’
‘Yeah, but it can’t be worse than the first. Therefore, I prefer it.’
‘Philistine!’
I started to say something that Mum would give out to me for when I reminded myself that the esteemed committee member was present. The etiquette of golf had to be respected.
Frank Lynch broke the silence. ‘Anyhow, as I told your mother, the club committee is meeting next Monday.’
‘You mean …?’
‘They will decide about your membership.’ Now I knew why I’d been the subject of conversation. Mum had been talking me up so that Frank Lynch recommended me to the committee. I suspected that all this recommendation stuff was a smoke-screen. It was Frank Lynch who would decide whether I got into Dimbrook or not, Frank Lynch who would launch my brilliant golfing career, or sink it. I offered him a biscuit.
Third nutty neighbour
Sometimes I visited Helen after school, taking the bus across the city and then waiting for a lift home with Mum or Dad – whoever was on hospital duty. The first time I went, Sullivan turned up too. He was back working at school, but he’d handed the rugby training over to McCaffrey – I presume so he would have more time to visit Helen. When I saw him in the hospital he was carrying a huge bunch of red roses, so his ferocious bullet head loomed out of a forest of flowers. He brought Helen gifts everyday, ‘cute’ cuddly toys as well as flowers. I don’t get how they’re meant to make ill people feel better. Now, if they’d let me bring in M and the kittens: that was a show! The whole hospital would be entertained by what they got up to. I’d named the second kitten Tiger, after Tiger Woods, of course. I was dead set on it not being another musician. Ian had objected. ‘I fink Trigger’s a stoopid name for a little cat.’
‘Tiger, not Trigger.’ He was getting it wrong just to wind me up. It was working. ‘I suppose you’d want to call him Beethoven.’
‘Nice one, ’e was deaf! That would be right for that dawg of yours. Judging by the way that mutt ignores commands, I fink ’e could be.’
‘He’s a pedigree. We’ve got papers proving it. He’s not going to obey every stupid order he’s given. That’s what was wrong with the Nazis.’
‘Who are you calling a Nazi?’
‘For pity’s sake, give it a rest you two,’ Mum said wearily.
Now M had two balls of fur to tussle with. They were his pack. No way would they be treated separately. Even if I put down three bowls – two with kitten food, one with dog food – the kittens would wait for M to have his fill, then scramble to what was left, their heads touching as they tucked in. By now, M usually went for the kitten food and left them the dog food. He was their overlord because he was bigger, stronger and fiercer. Yet he groomed them, licking their ears until they were wet and sleek.
I was telling Helen all this when Sullivan arrived. Mum rushed forward and hugged him. The accident had brought on a hugging habit – possibly an addiction. If this went on, she’d have to join Huggers Anonymous. ‘Hello, my name is Elizabeth Stirling and I’m a huggaholic.’ I was back to a strict No Hugging policy. There’s a sign I’d seen in a Dublin shop: Please do not ask for credit as a refusal often offends. I want my own: Please do not ask for a hug as a refusal often offends. P.S. ditto air-kissing. No way was I going to get that close to Sullivan, though since the night of the accident we’d been friendly enough. He had showed he cared, I’ll give him that.
Helen’s face was still a mess and she seemed more worried about this than about her other injuries, even her broken ankle. She was fussing, too, about the way her hair was long one side and short the other. She had even darker circles around her eyes than we had. It reminded me of how I’d looked when my nose was broken the rugby season before last, though her nose still looked straight. She had six or seven cuts on her forehead and around one eye, but they weren’t deep. Mum spent a lot of time reassuring her she wouldn’t have any scars. Helen had got her mitts on a hand mirror, and all the time I was telling her about M and the kittens, she was holding it up to her face.
‘Are you sure this won’t leave a mark? How about this one?’ she kept asking. She was especially worried about a two-inch gash from her eye to her hairline. By age twelve, I’d had dozens like that.
When Sullivan and the red roses appeared, Mum and I ‘tactfully’ went off to the canteen.
‘All these cuts will heal,’ Mum assured Helen when we got back to her and she was still going on about her face. Someone had sent a box of fudge and Mum was steadily eating her way through the lot. ‘Davy has bigger cuts on his knees virtually every week.’
True, but then nobody, as far as I knew, thought I had beautiful knees. In Classics last year we’d learnt how a woman called Helen had started the Trojan War – because she was so beautiful! One of the Trojan princes took her back to his city, which annoyed her Greek husband. So all the Greeks attacked Troy, besieging it for ten years. Helen’s face launched a thousand ships.
My sister hadn’t launched any ships, but her face and figure had sunk a few eejits. Having lugged Helen of Troy off, I bet that prince regretted it. She’d be in Troy, battles going on all around her, heads being lopped off, cries of anguish from every quarter, and she’d be there with her mirror going, ‘Am I getting any wrinkles? Does my bum look big in this?’
The Monday after Frank Lynch came round, I took the earliest bus I could home from school. The next day I was going to be back training with the B team and I wanted some good news on the golfing front to compensate. The Dimbrook committee could be meeting to discuss my application right now.
I called in at the village shop on the way home, buying some crisps and chocolate. The shopkeeper served me without a word. I went outside the shop, then back in again. ‘That sign above your shop …’ I started.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’ He didn’t exactly strike me as a ‘the customer is always right’ sort of fella.
‘It says McDonnell’s 24/7.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘So, Mr McDonnell, what’s with the 24/7?’
‘My name isn’t McDonnell.’
‘It isn’t? So why have you called the shop McDonnell’s? Oh, I get it! I bet the fella who owned the shop before you was called McDonnell. Right?’
‘Wrong.’ You could see he was getting a whole heap of satisfaction out of saying that. ‘The fella before the fella who last owned the shop was called McDonnell. If we change the name, our customers will be confused.’
‘I think that ship’s already sailed!’ So, finally, I could get back to my point. ‘And what’s with the 2
4/7?’
He raised his eyebrow even higher. ‘Yes?’
‘That means twenty-four hours, seven days. You should be open all the time.’
‘I’ve been here years. You think I haven’t been open twenty-four hours?’
‘Yes, but twenty-four hours one after another – 24/7 means all the time!’
‘Oh, so you think I shouldn’t sleep, is that it? What am I meant to do – wait here in the hope that you’re going to spend two euro?’
I went out, shaking my head. He probably had a berth on Nutters Lane!
Back home, I waited for the phone call. The phone never stopped ringing, but it was never Dimbrook or Frank Lynch. More waiting.
I had started practicing again, sometimes just going into the grounds of The Haven and hitting a few balls there. The grass was tougher than a golf course, but that was good practice for getting into the ‘rough’. I reckon if you can handle the difficult conditions, you’re a winner. The winds that swirl around the place also tested the accuracy of my shots and I had the pond in the bottom field for a water hazard. The only thing missing was a sand bunker. I planned to convince Dad to let me build one instead of a rockery. At least it would be useful. What’s a rockery, after all? Just a heap of small rocks. Ireland’s full of heaps of rocks.
After dark, I’d go to the range, walking past the very spot where we had found Helen’s car. The range had floodlights. Now that we were known in the area, I’d get the culchie nod and questions about Helen from the other golfers. They saw my swing and were impressed. I was creaming it. The sooner I got on a proper golf course, the better. Tiger Woods was playing when he was three, so I’d already lost ten years – the same number those Trojans wasted fighting over Helen.
My Nutty Neighbours Page 7