by Shane Dunphy
‘I hears him calling us,’ Micky said. ‘He shouts “Micheál! Micbeál!” and I goes out and there he is, down by the ditch.’
‘Do you hear it like that too, Bob?’
‘No, he calls to Micky.’
‘Do you not hear him calling then?’
‘No, but I sees him when we goes out there. I loves my daddy.’
‘Boys … do you know your daddy is dead?’
This may seem a terribly blunt statement, but a primary rule in childcare is that you are always truthful with the children you work with. I wanted them to see that, from my point of view at least, their father was not there. The boys stopped making the castle they had been building in the sand-tray I had brought over and looked at me solemnly.
‘No,’ Bobby said with firm resolution. ‘You see, Shane, that was a mistake. Daddy told us he wasn’t ready to be dead. They made a mistake.’
‘Weren’t you ever at his grave?’
‘No.’ Micky shook his head vigorously. ‘There idn’t any grave, cause he’s ain’t dead.’
And that had been the end of the conversation on that matter. As far as both boys were concerned, their father was very much alive and well.
I watched the drama unfolding outside with rapt fascination. I had absolutely no idea how the hallucination worked. I did, however, know one thing for certain: they were seeing something. Of that I was in no doubt.
My mobile phone rang.
‘Yeak.’
‘Hi, Shane. Ben here. Could you swing by the Henrys as soon as possible? Mina has done a bunk again.’
‘No problem. I’m just about done here anyway.’
Dirk Henry sat in his study behind a huge oak desk, a glass of whiskey in his hand and a cigar smouldering between his teeth. He had come home from work to meet me, so he was dressed in an immaculately tailored grey suit. He was not in a good mood.
I don’t know what he did for a living. He had snorted at me that he was involved in finance. I thought that that was a pretty broad field of endeavour, but kept the opinion to myself.
‘We did as you suggested, Shane, and operated the alarm system.’
‘And?’
‘It worked. She has not escaped from the house.’
I waited, saying nothing. Dirk was obviously used to chairing meetings, and he had a flair for the dramatic. I knew that a punch line was coming, and I gave him the opportunity to deliver it in his own time.
‘She ran away from the workshop this morning.’
It made sense. If one avenue of escape was cut off, Mina was always going to look for another one.
‘You didn’t think to inform the workshop that she maybe needed to be watched?’
Dirk’s eyes narrowed. ‘I would have thought that was your job,’ he said very quietly.
I shrugged. Dirk was probably used to having employees tremble when he squinted like that and lowered his voice. But I wasn’t his employee, and men in suits have rarely frightened me. I stood up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To look for your daughter.’
‘Where the hell are you planning to look?’
‘Well, I’m going to begin by going over to the workshop to see if anyone there had any ideas, seeing as there seems to be something of a shortage of them around here.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that I want to begin looking for Mina, and that I’m not prepared to sit around here any longer while you make yourself feel better by showing me how tough you are.’
I left him chewing on that, and went out to the car, feeling quite pleased with myself. Which probably made me just as childish as him.
Community workshops for people with special needs all look alike, built to the same basic design. I think they’re supposed to appear welcoming, but to me they all seem like factories, and there is nothing welcoming about that. Workshops are supposed to be about something called industrial therapy. That’s supposed to mean that people can receive healing or personal development through work. I spent some time in a workshop once, on the floor, just like one of the ‘trainees’, as they call the individuals with disabilities who work there. I had been offered a job as a supervisor, but first wanted to see what it was like from the trainee’s perspective. I asked if I could do a week putting together industrial cables, which was what the particular room I was supposed to be supervising made. The manager looked at me as if I had just sprouted a second head, but agreed. I lasted for one day, by the end of which I thought I was about to go insane. I never took up the job. I could not stand over asking anybody, special needs or not, to do something I was not prepared to do myself. Since then, I have always thought that industrial therapy just means cheap labour.
‘Mina came in this morning as normal,’ Brendan, the manager of the workshop, told me.
He was a beefy man with a large paunch and the huge shoulders of a body-builder. We sat in his tiny, stuffy office, overlooking the floor of the workshop.
‘How’d she run off?’
He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with a grubby-looking handkerchief. He was sweating profusely.
‘Security has never been much of an issue here, Shane. Our people just don’t run away. Most of them are actually afraid to go outside on their own. In general they lead fairly sheltered lives, so the door is never locked. No one ever told me that Mina was a flight risk. If I’d known …’
‘I’m not here to point the finger of blame, Brendan. That’s kind of a pointless exercise at this stage. The horse has bolted.’
‘Yeah, well I feel bad about it.’
‘You’ll be more careful next time. Could be something you and your people need to develop some policies on, eh?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Would you say Mina’s happy here?’
Brendan looked at me blankly. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘Do you think she enjoys her time here – doing the work, being with the people?’
‘Well, I think so. She’s never complained.’
‘Do you get many complaints from the trainees, Brendan?’
‘Well … um … no, I s’pose not.’
‘Who does Mina hang out with? Does she have any particular friends?’
‘Have you ever worked with special needs, Shane?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you’ll know that they don’t really have friends. Not in any real sense. They’ll latch on to members of staff, have favourites that way, but they tend not to develop close relationships with one other.’
‘That has not been my experience.’
‘Oh, well, it’s what I’ve seen.’
‘Thank you for your time. Can I go down to the floor and chat with a few of the trainees? They might know something that could help.’
‘Yeah, no bother. You’ll not learn much, though.’
I smiled without humour and went down the flight of metal stairs to where the trainees worked. The workshop was divided up into different sections. There was an area that did screen-printing, a facility that packaged plastic bin-liners, one that made synthetic clothes lines and another that produced craft-work – various knick-knacks and oddments. Mina worked in this last section, so I made my way across the large room to where I had been told her work-station was. The atmosphere of the place was pleasant enough. It was light and airy and there was a buzz of conversation along with the clang of machinery. The craft department was cordoned off from its neighbouring section by a wooden partition. I introduced myself to the supervisor, who told me her name was Ellen. She had a Northern accent and was a pretty, dark-haired woman in her early thirties.
‘Do you mind if I chat to the guys here, and see if anyone has any idea where Mina’s run off to?’
‘Aye, that’s fine. We’re dead worried about her. I only noticed she was gone when we came back from tea-break. It’s not at all like her. She’s such a conscientious wee lass.’
‘Any thoughts yourself as to where she might have gone?’
/>
‘Jesus, no, none at all. She’s a quiet girl really. She never says a whole lot.’
‘She hasn’t mentioned anything out of the ordinary, something that made you stop and think?’
‘No. Sorry. Sure, have a chat with the lads; they might be able to help.’
‘Could you introduce me?’
‘Of course.’
Ellen walked to the centre of the work area and held up a hand. The people working at their desks all put down the pieces they were busy with and looked up.
‘This is Shane. He’s here to ask ye about Mina, who, as you all know, has gone away without telling anyone where she was heading. Shane would like to ask each of you if you have any thoughts on where she might have gone to, seeing as how you’re all her friends. So please do tell him anything you think will help.’
The trainees looked warily at one another and returned to their work.
There were six people in this section. Some said that they knew Mina well, while others said they had barely spoken to her. After forty-five minutes, I was ready to give up in frustration. The last member of the team was a man in his forties, Hughie, who seemed to have a slightly more severe learning disability than his colleagues. He wore thick eye-glasses with black plastic frames, and he looked directly over my shoulder as I spoke to him, never at my face. He rocked quite violently during our conversation. I got the impression that he was rarely at ease, and that I was adding greatly to his discomfort. I decided to keep the conversation as brief as possible.
‘Hughie, do you and Mina ever chat at all?’
‘What? Me and Mina? Oh, yeah … yeah … we’re good friends, me and Mina. Good friends we are.’
‘Has she ever told you about places she likes to go?’
‘Yeah … yeah … Mina likes to go … likes to go to the workshop to be with her friends. To be with Hughie.’
‘What about other places?’
‘Likes to go to the Abled-Disabled Club. I go there – Hughie goes there too. We dance to the music and we play games.’
‘That’s nice, Hughie. That sounds like a lot of fun.’
‘Yeah!’ he laughed out loud and his rocking became even more erratic. ‘Hughie has fun at the Abled-Disabled Club! Fun!’
‘Is there anywhere else she likes to go, Hughie?’
‘My daddy brings me for a pint on a Sunday after Mass! Hughie likes to go for a pint. A pint of Guinness and a ball of malt.’
‘I wouldn’t say no to a pint myself right about now, Hughie, I’ll tell you that much.’
‘And Mina goes for a pint in The Sailing Cot.’
The Sailing Cot? The name suggested a waterfront setting, and Garibaldi Street, where Mina and her parents lived, was nowhere near the river.
‘Are you sure about that, Hughie? She likes to go to a pub called The Sailing Cot?’
‘Oh yeah. Pints in The Sailing Cot. Mina says that.’
I said my good-byes and rang Dirk from the car.
‘Have you ever brought Mina to a pub called The Sailing Cot?’
‘No.’ I’ve never heard of such a place.’
‘Have you ever heard her mention it?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. I’ll get back to you.’
I had never heard of a pub with that name either, but the landlord of my local told me that there was a Sailing Cot down on the waterfront, by the docks. When I asked him what kind of a place it was, he looked uncomfortable and said that it wouldn’t be his choice of hostelry, and that he’d be surprised if I liked it. I told him I’d give him a thorough report, and, as early evening began to fall on the city, I headed for the docklands.
I found the pub eventually. It was a small place, halfway up an alley. A swinging sign, covered in grime and soot, depicting a sail-boat being tossed on a stormy sea, hung from two rusty chains at the mouth of the alley. The smell of the tidal river hung heavily in the air, and cranes and fork-lifts moved noisily on the busy docks. On the waterfront, business kept going twenty-four hours a day. I could hear the shouts of the workers, many different accents and languages mingling. This was not a place the Henrys would have ever come to. In fact, I thought as I stood outside the door of the pub, with its cracked paint and ageing posters advertising Sweet Afton cigarettes, that this was not a place I would ever come to. But there I was. So I pushed open the door, paused as the stench of stale beer, cigarette smoke and body odour washed over me, and went in.
Inside it was so dark I had to pause again as my eyes adjusted. There was a small bar facing me, and the rest of the room was divided into cubicles and snugs. An elderly man in a shirt that had probably started out life white, but was now grey, stood leaning on the bar. A cigarette smouldered in the corner of his mouth, a long strand of greasy yellow hair was brushed over his bald pate and he badly needed a shave. I could hear murmurs and muted conversation from the snugs, but the shadows were so deep I couldn’t make out anyone.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ the barman asked, smiling and displaying very few teeth.
‘I’ll have a sparkling water, please. Ice and lemon.’
His smile broadened. ‘A water. For the chap.’
‘Please.’
‘We don’t have ice. Don’t get much call for it.’
‘Warm will be fine.’
He produced a dusty bottle from beneath the bar without ever taking his eyes off me, and then reached behind him and took a surprisingly clean glass from the shelf.
‘Thanks,’ I said, and poured for myself. ‘I’m looking for someone I’ve been told comes in here. A young woman.’
‘Sir, the girls work outside. We don’t allow them in. It’s bad for business.’
‘No, no. This is a friend of mine. A girl with Down’s Syndrome.’
‘Wha’?’
‘Ummm … she’s got a disability … she looks different … y’know.’
‘You mean the mongoloid girl.’
‘Yes! Have you seen her?’
‘Did she come in this evenin’ now? I think she did. Have you looked over in the snug over there? That’s where she usually goes.’
‘Thank you. Does she come in on her own?’
‘Oh no,’ the barman laughed. ‘Never alone. She has a bit of an eye for the fellas, does that one. I wouldn’t like a girl like that meself now … don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothin’ agin it, but,’ he leaned towards me and whispered, ‘what would the children be like? Would they be handicapped or normal?’
I put the glass on the bar and turned away from him. The bar seemed to be uncomfortably hot, the air too thin.
‘You think she might be over there?’
‘The middle snug. There isn’t goin’ to be trouble, is there?’
‘I hope not.’
The distance to the snug was only about six feet, but it seemed to take me for ever to cross it. I stood at the door of the cubicle and looked in, not knowing what to expect.
The snug was lit by one bare light bulb that was not on a wire; the socket was fitted into the low ceiling. There was a small table in the centre, upon which was a pint-glass with the dregs of Guinness in it, and a glass that contained a short of some kind. There were soft seats on either side of the table, the upholstery worn and the stuffing showing through in places. On one of these seats sat Mina, draped around a man in his late fifties. He was a skinny, angular individual, his chin and cheeks covered in a salt-and-pepper stubble. He wore a dirty blue suit that was far too big for him, under which he had a purple cardigan and a yellow shirt. His hair hung in strands around his shoulders, black streaked with grey. He looked up at me and smiled. The smile made him look cadaverous and predatory at the same time. Mina had not looked at me, although I was sure she knew I was there.
‘I’ve come for my friend,’ I said to the man, fighting to keep the anger from my voice.
We’re all friends, here, Mister,’ the thin man said, kissing Mina on the cheek and wrapping his arm around her, leaving his hand resting on her breast.
‘I wan
t you to take your hands off her and walk out of here right now,’ I said through clenched teeth.
‘And why exactly would that be?’
‘She is a child. Her parents want her home. I don’t believe that she wants to be here with you – and I’m telling you to leave.’
‘She’s no child. Look at her. This is no baby here, Mister.’
I felt bile rising and clenched my fists.
‘She is only seventeen years old.’
‘Old enough, as I understand the law, to make up her own mind.’
‘Mina, come on, we’re leaving.’
I reached out my hand to her, and for the first time she looked at me. Her brown eyes were huge and wet, but I couldn’t read what was in them. The thin man, seeing what was happening, leant around her and kissed her full on the mouth, pushing his tongue between her lips. I rushed at them, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and heaving him away from her. He threw a punch at me, but I had him off balance and the blow went wide, bouncing off the wall. I pulled Mina to her feet and pushed her behind me. She came placidly. The thin man lay on the seat, fury burning in his eyes at having the prey snatched from his grasp.
‘I’ll see you soon, Mina,’ he said, smiling again. He looked at me, and the smile left his face. ‘And I’ll be seeing you too. Watch your back, Mister.’
I shook my head in disgust and led Mina from the snug. Two men were now at the bar – they didn’t look like bouncers, but I had the impression that that was their purpose. The bartender had a decidedly unhappy look about him. There was no muttered conversation. All eyes followed us as we walked to the door.
‘Bye, Mina,’ the thin man called as we left.
I didn’t stop, but walked as fast as I could to where I had parked. Mina was silent beside me, but her pace was quick and she didn’t try to shrug off my arm. I fumbled with my keys (my hands were still shaking) and unlocked the passenger-side door. She got in and sat there, looking ahead, as if in a daze. I walked quickly to my own side of the car and was just about to open the door when I stopped dead.
Directly across the street, about one hundred yards from the alley where The Sailing Cot plied its trade, was a corner where two roads conjoined. On this corner stood a group of four girls. They were dressed in short skirts and strappy tops, all revealing a bare midriff, and each of them wore knee-high boots with high heels. The corner was not a bus-stop, and I didn’t think that they were waiting for a taxi either. Given the area I was in, the time of evening and the dress and demeanour of the girls, it was obvious what their purpose was. What stopped me in my tracks was that I thought I recognized one of the girls. The group was only a few yards away, and there was still enough light to see them clearly, but it had been years since I had seen this girl. I looked again. Yes, it was her!