Stolen Child

by Laura Elliot

  ‘The political establishment fucked me over well and truly,’ he said. ‘But I’ve enough information in my diaries to fuck every one of them to hell and back again.’

  I heard his anger then, vicious and bitter.

  ‘I’m going to publish and be damned,’ he said.

  ‘Dishing the dirt,’ I said.

  ‘If you want to call it that, feel free. I prefer to call it telling the truth,’ he replied.

  ‘You’ve never told the truth in your life, Edward,’ I said. ‘How do you expect to start now?’

  He threw back his head, laughed loudly.

  ‘You always had a wasp on your tongue, Sue, and motherhood hasn’t swatted it away. She is a darling child. So tall for her age. Who does she resemble? Those eyes…magnificent. Her father’s, I presume?’

  I walked to the edge of the lake and took your hand.

  ‘Goodbye, Edward,’ I said.

  We walked slowly from the park. Your heels winked and mine clicked as Edward Carter shuffled forever from our lives.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Carla

  Four years later

  She sat alone in the most secluded area of the café. Even there she felt exposed. The coffee looked disgusting, tar-black and tepid. She sipped and shuddered, pushed the cup to one side. She should go back to the counter and order a fresh one but she lacked the energy to rise. Two old men in peaked caps sat at the table next to her. They talked loudly to each other and would have looked more at home in the corner of their local pub than this city-centre café with its stainless steel coffee grinders and glass tabletops.

  The midday rush was over. A group of young people entered and settled around a circular table. Trinity students, Carla guessed, as they dropped backpacks and canvas satchels to the floor. They were followed by two middle-aged women with Brown Thomas carrier bags. They looked alike, probably sisters, tanned and bleached and wearing too much gold. Everyone seemed relaxed, interested only in coffee and chat, but Carla saw normality as a veneer that could crack at any moment. The man sitting by the window listening to his Walkman could suddenly materialise into a journalist and shove a microphone under her mouth. A photographer could be lurking behind the tall dracaena, shielded by the shiny green leaves as he waited for her to relax her guard.

  ‘Paranoia is alive and living in your head,’ Robert would say if he was with her. But he was in Australia and no one could tell her to get a grip, get a life, get real.

  Frank Staunton had contacted her shortly after Robert’s departure and asked if she would be interested in ghostwriting a book for Vision Publications. He booked a table in an Italian restaurant. The waiters obviously knew him and they had fussed over Carla, asking her to sample the wine and pasta dishes.

  ‘I know from the work you do with Leo that you’ve an eye for detail,’ Frank said. ‘The libel snags and snares. But you can also write. I need a ghostwriter. I’d like you to take a look at a manuscript that’s been submitted to me. It’s a tough story and doesn’t make comfortable reading. There’ll be publicity when it’s published, controversy and denials. But it’s a true account of one man’s life story. His literacy skills aren’t great and the book needs rewriting. Will you meet him and hear him out, then ghostwrite his story without losing his voice in the transition?’

  ‘What makes you think I’m the right person to do it?’

  ‘It’s about a stolen childhood.’

  ‘Stolen?’

  ‘By the state. There’ll be a lot more stories like this one. Read it and let me know what you think.’

  He was right. Brendan’s manuscript, littered with bad grammar and misspellings, horrified her. After his mother’s death when he was five years old, his father had placed him in care. Sixty years later, he was dying from emphysema and his only wish was to launch his book before he died. Carla worked closely with him, teasing from him the story of physical and sexual abuse that had marked his eleven years in the St Almus Home for Boys. When Screaming in Silence was published she was acknowledged as his co-writer under the pseudonym Clare Frazier.

  Today, she was meeting Frank in the Gresham Hotel to discuss another commission. She was early for her appointment and would have been equally content to sit all day in the café, watching the sun streaming through the stainedglass window and listening to old men scolding.

  ‘Wouldn’t fill a sparrow’s belly,’ said the man nearest her as he inspected his sandwich. His friend agreed and scornfully dismissed the salad on the side as ‘leftover swill for rabbits’.

  At the next table, the students talked urgently, argumentatively. Their voices forced the old men into silence. They settled their caps more firmly on their heads and left. A young man, older than the students, entered and carried a mug of coffee to the vacated table. His blond hair, cropped tight against his skull, emphasised his angular features. An old-wise face, she thought, comparing him to the students, who – despite their dishevelled hair, ripped jeans and sludge-coloured tops – moved and spoke with the sleek assurance of wealth.

  The man opened a book and began to read. After a few minutes he glanced up and caught her eye. Apart from his gaze, which openly appraised her, he looked neat and unremarkable in black jeans and a T-shirt worn under an open denim shirt. He closed his book and walked towards her table.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ He rested his hand on the back of a chair.

  ‘Yes,’ Carla replied. ‘I do mind.’

  Once she had believed that journalists were her friends, her co-conspirators. Once she had deliberately attracted their attention to gain a brief flurry of exposure and believed, in those silly carefree days as she tossed her flyaway hair and cast alluring glances at the camera, that they were feeding off each other’s needs. She had not known then, as she knew now, that they were waiting to plunder her soul.

  He nodded and removed his hand from the chair. ‘You don’t remember me.’ He did not seem offended when she shook her head. ‘I didn’t expect you would. I’m Dylan Rae. We met one night but—’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t give interviews.’ She attempted to rise but something about his steady gaze held her still.

  ‘In the industrial estate,’ he said. ‘You called an ambulance.’

  Suddenly she was transported back to the circles of burned wood, the shadow that moved within the greater shadows and became human. She had never been able to envisage his face, only the trail of long blond hair and the shock of his body falling.

  ‘I hope I haven’t startled you.’ He sounded nervous. The premature lines around his eyes carried a hard history, yet there was something unspoiled about his mouth. A choirboy’s mouth, she thought, which was an ironic comparison considering the substances he must have smoked or swallowed. He was off drugs now. She could tell by his eyes, dark grey and alert, waiting for her reply.

  She gestured towards his hair. ‘You look different.’

  ‘I am different.’ He laughed and, without asking again, pulled out a seat and sat down. ‘Can I get you another coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’m just about to leave.’

  ‘I want to thank you—’ He studied his hands for an instant. His fingers were long, the nails clipped short. She noticed scars that would probably never fade. ‘I’ve no idea what I took that night,’ he said. ‘In fact, I know nothing about that night except what Nikki told me.’

  ‘Nikki?’

  ‘The ambulance driver.’

  ‘Ah, yes. She drove us both…’ She swallowed, unable to continue.

  ‘Yeah. She told me. She came to see me in the hospital, said she’d scraped me off the ground. Turned out she’d lost a brother from an overdose and decided I was worth saving.’

  ‘She obviously succeeded.’

  ‘She had her work cut out, so she had. Rehab was fucking grim, I can tell you that for nothing. Don’t know how I stopped myself running from the place. Would have too, I reckon, except for you.’

  ‘Me?’ Astonished, Carla stared at him.<
br />
  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded, vigorously. ‘You stepped out of your own agony long enough to help me. Every time I wanted to run, I’d think of you wandering like a ghost through those empty buildings. At least you knew who you were searching for, whereas I hadn’t a clue what I’d lost.’

  ‘Have you found it?’ She struggled to control the rush of tears.

  ‘I’ve been clean as a whistle since I came out,’ he said. ‘Nikki kicked me into shape and persuaded me to go back to college. I’m going to counsel young people. I know all about the shit that goes on in their heads when they’ve lost their way.’

  ‘I’m glad things are working out for you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry they haven’t worked out for you. To lose a child…I can’t imagine how awful that must be.’

  His directness appealed to her. She was used to people shifting their gaze, speaking too fast, avoiding any subject to do with babies.

  ‘Some days are more difficult than others,’ she said. ‘On days like today, meeting you, well…it’s good…really good.’

  ‘I’m glad we met. Just in time, too. Me and Nikki are moving to the sticks next week.’

  ‘For good?’

  ‘I want to leave the past behind, make a fresh start. We’ve a kid to think about now.’

  ‘A kid?’

  ‘A little lad. Billy.’

  ‘Sounds like you have everything you need.’

  ‘I walked a hard road to get it.’

  ‘Sometimes that’s necessary.’

  They walked together down Grafton Street and parted when they reached the turn-off into Nassau Street. She shook his hand. His grip was firm and warm. She wanted to stand with him for an instant longer. He too seemed reluctant to leave her.

  ‘I’d better go.’ She half-turned from him. ‘I have an appointment.’

  He bent forward and kissed her cheek. ‘My life began that night,’ he said. ‘I’ve you to thank for everything.’

  ‘I did nothing—’

  ‘You picked me up when you’d every reason to walk away.’

  He crossed the road and rounded the railings of Trinity College. She watched him striding confidently towards his future. When he disappeared from sight, she hurried across O’Connell Bridge, already late for her appointment. Strange twists of fate. Her child had been taken from her and, as a result of that taking, Dylan Rae had found his life again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Susanne

  Six years later

  I almost lost you. It could have happened so easily. All my fault. I dropped my guard for an instant and believed I could be free. I will never return to Dublin…never. I need a fortress to keep you safe. Miriam can think what she likes. They all can. This is where we will remain. But the walls are too thick, the windows too small. I want a conservatory filled with light that will look out over the countryside and alert me to danger.

  Last week Miriam phoned and asked us to call into her studio. For inspiration, she has moved from the sea to the land. ‘The Blind Stallion of Leamanagh Castle’ is the centrepiece of her new collection.

  There’s a story in these regions about a fierce, red-haired woman, known as Maura Rua, and her blind stallion. In the 1600s she lived in Leamanagh Castle and battled as hard as any warrior to retain her lands and property. Her blind stallion was equally spirited, and lashed out so wildly with his hooves when he was released from the stables that she had special niches built into the gateposts where the grooms could leap to safety. This fierceness is what Miriam has captured and turned into glass.

  When we arrived at her studio, the stallion was revolving slowly in a display cabinet. She took it out and handed it to me. The glass hooves were raised in a flailing movement. Each fierce muscle was delicately etched, and the smooth barrel-belly was tense with energy. The stallion’s eyes bulged with awareness, yet were lost in an opaque sightlessness that sensed but could not see the enemy ahead.

  I held the stallion carefully, knowing how hard she had worked on its design, the numerous sketches that littered her studio floor, the many failed attempts before she was satisfied with the finished model.

  You clamoured to hold the horse. To my horror, Miriam took it from me and placed it in your hands.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said calmly. ‘Joy knows it’s precious. She won’t let it fall.’

  To have such faith in a four-year-old child is ridiculous but you, as if respecting Miriam’s belief in you, solemnly inspected the figurine. You stared into the eyes and said, Cross horse. You looked at the frenzied body, the anger that seemed to exude from the thin nostrils and drawn-back mouth, and you repeated, Cross horse…The horse is cross like Mammy.

  Miriam hunkered beside you and said, ‘He’s a very cross horse indeed but your mammy is not cross. She loves you very much and only gets cross when you’ve been a naughty girl.’

  You begin to chant. Mammy is naughty. Naughty Mammy…cross, naughty Mammy. Your eyes raked me from under your long eyelashes, those dark eyelashes, curving over your judgemental eyes. Miriam removed the horse from your grip and placed it out of reach. She pointed through the glass doors of the showroom. ‘Why don’t you go out and say hello to Rita,’ she said.

  She asked me if I would assist her on the stand during the Finest Crafts Fair.

  ‘It’s only three days,’ she said. ‘David will be on leave then and if the two of you could help out, it would make a huge difference. I’m sure Phyllis would be delighted to mind Joy. She’s always looking for an excuse to do so. Think about coming back to the studio,’ she added. ‘Joy will be going to school soon and you’ll have time on your hands. You could consider working on a part-time basis. I’m going to need someone with experience to market this new collection.’

  I held the horse again. This job was created for me. I could imagine the stallion on display, the interest it would create at trade fairs, the gallery exhibitions, the publicity. Suddenly, the walls of Rockrose expanded outwards. The future ran beyond the lane, ran past Dowling’s Meadow and out into the world again.

  At the Finest Crafts Fair, Miriam’s seahorses tinkled, clinked, jangled, and the customers came in their droves to see the blind stallion. The exhibition stand became crowded. Everyone seemed to be demanding my attention at once. I could see David on the opposite side of the stand, hear his laughter as he lifted one of the stallions and displayed it to a customer. The translucent hooves flashed and dashed against the lights as he twisted his wrist this way and that. Something about his laughter alerted me. A frisson of excitement, perhaps, or nervousness, but I was unable to see who was causing that reaction. A customer shook Miriam’s hand and left the stand, leaving me with a clearer view. Carla Kelly swept her long blonde hair over her shoulders and she was smiling at David, her long fingers brushing his as she took the stallion from him. His posture reminded me of the way he had leaned forward on the night she appeared on The Week on the Street, watching her intently as she knelt beside the empty cradle. He had watched her again with that same intensity when her secret was exposed, and, after the programme ended, he had called Josh Baker an exploitative gutter rat.

  My heart began to palpitate, just a flutter at first but building steadily. I slipped into the galley where we kept the chilled wine and coffee machine, and gripped the counter for support. The pain spread across my shoulders. The moment I had always dreaded was about to happen. I would collapse, lose control, open my mouth and scream my secret. Above the boom of my heart, I heard the low rumble of water preparing to burst its banks and I was swept back again to that night, the fields turning to glass as I carried you safely into my world.

  When it seemed as if the noise could grow no louder, the level increased. From my vantage point, I watched a government minister, surrounded by officials and photographers, walk onto the stand. Miriam emerged from the crowd to speak to him. They posed together for the photographers, holding the stallion between them.

  She entered the galley, beckoned to me. ‘Susanne, come and
have your photograph taken with the minister,’ she said.

  The floor shifted. I sat down on a high stool and pressed my head between my knees.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Miriam’s gaze was speculative, flickering with hope. ‘Is everything okay…anything I should know?’

  I straightened and whispered an excuse about a stomach bug, hardly aware of what I was saying. She shrugged and returned to the minister. One of the photographers aimed his camera towards David and Carla Kelly. She turned away and stepped off the stand before her face was framed in the lens. Later, Miriam said, ‘Did you notice who else was on the stand? That poor woman whose child was stolen. She bought one of the stallions. God love her, can’t be easy, never knowing.’

  Today, I called into the studio and told Miriam I would be home-schooling you.

  ‘Thanks for the offer,’ I said, ‘but I can’t possibly take on a job outside the home.’

  ‘Home-schooling?’ She made no attempt to hide her annoyance. ‘Why on earth would you prevent Joy making friends her own age? No wonder she’s highly strung. She’s forever stuck down that lane with only you for company and now you want to educate her yourself. Really, Susanne, I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life. What does David think about this ridiculous notion?’

  It’s unusual for Miriam to be so forthright. I tried to make her understand that you are too sensitive and highly strung for the rough and tumble of a country schoolyard. She bristled, as she always does, if she suspects I’m criticising anything to do with Maoltrán. But I’m staying with my decision. I’ll research the subject thoroughly and devise a curriculum that will keep you abreast of the national one, if not surpass it. It will be a perfect balance of study and outdoor activity, free from the constraints of the classroom.

  ‘I’m committed to home-schooling Joy,’ I repeated. ‘I can’t accept your offer.’