The Story of Before

by Susan Stairs

  Mam frowned and switched off the hoover. ‘What do you mean, “who’s minding us”?’

  ‘Babysitting,’ I said. ‘You are going out tonight, aren’t you?’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘No secrets with you, are there? And it’s not Cissy, by the way. We’ve decided to let you mind yourselves for a change.’

  ‘Mind ourselves?’ I said, grinning. ‘You mean . . . you’re leaving us on our own?’ I could hardly believe it.

  ‘You needn’t get too excited,’ she said, waving the hoover tube at me. ‘We’re only going down to The Ramblers for a quiet drink. I think I deserve to escape for a couple of hours now that Kevin is on the bottle.’

  I could’ve thought of better places to escape to than the smelly old Ramblers. Dad had taken us in one Sunday after mass. We’d perched on the rickety barstools, swigging warm Cidona straight from the bottle. Old men with flat caps and gaps in their teeth drank pints of Guinness in grubby alcoves of the bar, throwing remarks at each other across the stinking, yellow fug that passed for air. I didn’t like the place at all.

  Halfway down the stairs I stopped. ‘What if he wakes up?’

  ‘I’ll leave a bottle just in case,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to cope. You can sort out who does what among yourselves.’ She made it sound easy. I groaned as I pictured us trying to ‘cope’. She pretended to lash out at me with the tube of the hoover. ‘Go on away with you,’ she said, trying to sound cross. Then she turned and switched the machine on again, her bum wiggling from side to side as she attacked the carpet once more.

  Outside, everything appeared grey. There was little difference between the colour of the roads and the walls and the sky. Since summer had ended, the place had taken on a sort of settled stillness that hung over the houses like a damp blanket. It was cold. I fastened the tusk-shaped toggles of my brown duffle coat and pushed my hands deep into its pockets. I thought about pulling my hood up but I’d taken out my weekday plaits and I liked the way my hair was all rippled, flowing over my shoulders and down my back. The wet grass on the green made my shoes slick and shiny, as if I’d spent ages polishing them. I stopped for a moment, lifting each foot and twisting it left and right to admire the effect.

  ‘Mmm, what nice shoes you have my dear . . .’ It was David, appearing out of nowhere again, clicking his wristband open and shut. ‘All the better to kick you to death with.’

  My insides jumped but I took a deep breath and managed not to show him that he’d scared me.

  ‘Ha ha. Very funny,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you, kind lady. So appealing that my humour is appreciated.’ He came up close to me. ‘And what’s this, pray tell?’ he said, flicking at my hair with his long, slender fingers. ‘Why, I think even Rapunzel herself would be jealous.’

  While I was glad he’d noticed my hair, I didn’t care for the way he touched it, as if it was tainted with an infectious disease. I stepped away, eyeing him up and down. He was smiling but I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny or not. I got the feeling he was acting, pretending to be something he wasn’t. In one of Mel’s Strange But True books, I’d read about people who burst into flames without matches or fire being anywhere near them. For some reason, I could imagine that happening to David. There was something strange going on inside him and it made me uneasy.

  ‘And where is Rapunzel off to this fine morning?’ he asked.

  I hated the way he was speaking. Like he was in some kind of stupid play.

  ‘Nowhere,’ I said, beginning to walk away.

  He followed after me. ‘Nowhere? A most intriguing answer, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not really.’ I squeezed the snake in my pocket. I had to think of some way of getting rid of him. ‘Actually, I . . . I . . . I’m going down to the Lawlesses’.’ I began to run.

  ‘Well then!’ he said, breaking into a kind of trot. ‘I shall accompany you. I wish to speak to Master Lawless myself.’ He kept up with me as I sprinted along towards Shayne’s house. ‘And what has you calling on them at this early hour, pray?’

  I pushed open the gate and gritted my teeth. ‘I . . . I just want to see how my dad’s getting on. See if he needs any help. He’s painting their kitchen.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said, tapping on the door. ‘I heard. The mysterious case of the disappearing snake.’ He gave me a narrow, sideways glance and I swallowed hard.

  ‘Ye’re here bright and early for a Saturday, aren’t ye?’ Liz said to David when she opened up. She held a brown and orange striped mug in one hand and a thick slice of well-buttered toast in the other. She yawned. ‘Don’t think he’s even awake yet. Go on up anyway.’ David took the stairs two at a time and she watched after him before turning to me with a cold look in her eyes. ‘Yer Dad’s busy,’ she said, chewing her toast noisily. ‘Do ye want me to give him a message or what?’

  ‘I . . . uh . . . I just wanted to ask him if he needed any . . . help.’ I tried to look past her into the kitchen, hoping Dad might see me at the door. She took another bite and frowned.

  ‘Help, is it? Sure, isn’t yer brother here to help him?’ She wore a white bobbly jumper with a row of red hearts across the chest and a low rounded neck. The kind of jumper you were supposed to wear a blouse under. A dribble of tea had left a wormy brown stain down its front, and a line of toast crumbs had collected in the crease between her bosoms. ‘Go on,’ she said, slurping from her mug and nodding in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Ye can go in and say hello, I suppose.’

  She led the way into the kitchen. Her jeans were rolled up at the ankles and her feet were bare, showing purple-painted nails that curled over the tops of her toes. The place smelled of cigarettes, rotten vegetables and disinfectant. The door to the front room was open and I glanced inside as I passed. The seat cushions from the brown couch were all out of place, as if someone had been searching under them and not bothered to put them back properly. On a low coffee table in front of the fireplace, glasses with various levels of dregs stood around a big brass ashtray overflowing with twisted butts.

  ‘What’re you doing here?’ Mel asked when I stepped into the kitchen.

  Dad was leaning against the countertop, smoking, and drinking tea. He straightened himself up when he saw me and stubbed his cigarette out in the sink. He didn’t even have his overalls on. ‘Something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘I came to see if you needed any help, that’s all. I thought you’d have started by now.’

  ‘Just about to,’ he said, tipping his head back to drain his mug.

  ‘And we don’t need your help,’ Mel said, prising open a paint tin with a knife. ‘You’d only be in the way.’

  Liz gave me one of her no-teeth smiles. ‘Well! That was a wasted journey, then. I’ll see you out so.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I . . . I really need to go to the toilet.’

  ‘Sure, can’t you run on home and go?’ Dad said. ‘You’ll be there in two minutes.’

  ‘But . . . I’m bursting. I really need to go now.’

  Dad looked at Liz. ‘I’m sorry, is it all right if she . . . ?’

  ‘Go on!’ she said, with a false little laugh. ‘Top of the stairs.’ She followed me out to the hall, then lowered her voice: ‘Ye’ll be able to have a good nose around while ye’re up there. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’

  I felt like pulling the snake out of my pocket, flinging it at her and telling Dad he didn’t have to paint her kitchen after all. Why had I felt the need to say I’d thrown the snake away anyway? When Liz had called to the door, I could’ve admitted I had it. But there was something about her that sort of forced me to lie, as if it was what she expected. Producing the snake might’ve made her like me, and I realised now that I didn’t want her to.

  All the bedroom doors were open, and none showed any signs of life. The first had a big double bed with lacy pillowcases and a plum-coloured velvet headboard. Clothes and towels were tangled up in balls and tossed all over the floor, and the scuffed to
e of a cowboy boot peeked out from under the fringes of the bedspread. In the next room there was a small unmade bed, a huge white wardrobe with oval shaped mirrors on the doors, and a black plastic chair piled high with a tower of yellowing magazines. I presumed this was Shayne’s room, as the third bedroom was stuffed almost to the ceiling with cardboard boxes and junk. The bed was visible, but only just. But if the room with the white wardrobe was Shayne’s, why wasn’t he in there? And where was David? Confused, I began to look around the landing.

  Then I saw it: a narrow, twisting, uncarpeted staircase that led towards the ceiling. Shayne’s room was in the attic.

  Before I’d thought about it, I found myself on the top step, staring at the words ‘Go Away’ that were carefully written in green marker on the door. I could hear the low buzz of mumbling coming from behind it and was trying to make out what was being said when David opened it up. His face didn’t register even mild surprise.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Rapunzel herself, come to dangle her hair out the window and wait for her prince to ride by.’

  ‘What the hell’s she doin’ here?’ Shayne asked.

  ‘I fear the fair maiden hath followed me,’ David said. ‘We met out in the meadow, did we not?’

  ‘Did ye not read what it says on the door?’ Shayne asked me.

  ‘I . . . I was looking for the bathroom. Your Mam said it was at the top of the stairs.’

  ’Hardly all the way up here, is it?’ he said. His hair stuck out from his head in thick tufts and he wore only a pair of striped pyjama bottoms.

  ‘How come your room’s up here?’ I asked.

  ‘Just is.’ He scratched his chest and stared at me.

  ‘But why don’t you have one of the other rooms? Why is yours up here?’

  ‘I dunno, do I?’ he said, annoyed. ‘Cos me ma got me uncle Keith to make it, all right?’

  I’d seen Uncle Keith once or twice. He wore blue overalls like Dad that hung loose from his bony body, and heavy brown boots with metal heels that clicked as they hit the ground. He had a droopy, untidy moustache and gingery-blond hair that looked as if he’d hacked at it with a blunt scissors in the dark – short and spiky on top and long and straggly, like a dirty dog’s tail, down his back. He was always hauling boxes of stuff into the house from his van, whistling tunes I didn’t recognize.

  ‘You must be able to see loads from your window,’ I said, trying to peer past him. ‘The mountains, maybe? Can I have a look?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please? I have to go home soon. I’ll only be a second.’

  He looked at David, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Shayne said with a loud sigh.

  The first thing that struck me was how secret it felt. How I imagined a nest might feel to a baby bird. This was a place apart, a place that didn’t feel connected to anything; not to the house, not to the estate, not even to the rest of the world.

  Things could happen here. Hidden things. It was in the air; I could smell it.

  The ceiling was painted midnight blue and it sloped on either side like a tent. The window set into it was open, and I stepped up on the tea-chest underneath to have a look outside. Staring out over the place where we lived, I wondered if this was how God felt when he looked down at the world from Heaven. I could see the whole of Hillcourt Rise. To the right was the green, where I spied a few of the Farrells in the care of Aidan, running around with their arms outstretched, bumping into each other on purpose. Their mother was standing at the end of their drive, arms folded, chatting to Nora Vaughan. I saw Bridie on her way back from Mealy’s Mini Market, squeezed into a sheepskin coat and hauling a string bag full of groceries. I saw people in their back gardens, children on swings, dads raking leaves, mams hanging washing on lines. And to the left, way beyond the open fields behind the estate, the Dublin Mountains rose and fell in waves of brown and purple.

  David and Shayne stood out on the tiny landing, laughing loudly in between low whispers. I jumped down from the chair and looked at the narrow bed with its thin brown blanket, grubby, daisy-patterned sheets and white pillowcase mottled with ancient, yellow-brown dribble stains. The headboard was made of chipboard covered with a layer of varnished wood, lumps of which had been hacked away with something sharp. Against it, a single photograph dangled from a curling strip of Sellotape. It showed a much younger, chubbier Shayne beside a smiling, beefy man in a black leather jacket. ‘Uncle Joe’ it said, in scribbly biro on the white border.

  Looking at it made me feel bad that I had the snake. I reached into my skirt pocket and closed my hand around the clammy rubber. I didn’t like the feel of it against my fingers any more. I straightened myself up and turned to leave, but before I did, I swung around and thrust the snake underneath his filthy pillow.

  That night, Mam and Dad came downstairs in a waft of perfume and aftershave while we were watching The Generation Game. Mam spent ages going on about Kev: how often we should check on him, what to do if he woke up, when to give him his bottle. I tried to listen but was distracted by Mel; he was all jumpy and fidgety and kept darting his eyes over to the sideboard where Mam and Dad had said there was a box of Maltesers for us to share. As soon as they left for The Ramblers, he grabbed the sweets out of the drawer and ripped off the cellophane. Naturally, Sandra had a fight with him over them, but she settled down once Starsky and Hutch came on. It was one of her favourites. She’d stuck posters of both cops on our wall, though I couldn’t understand how she found either of them even remotely attractive.

  We had about half an hour of peace and then Kev woke up. Sandra brought him downstairs and tried to give him his bottle but he didn’t seem to want it. Then I took him in my arms and walked around the room, gently rocking him from side to side. Mel sighed loudly every time I passed in front of the telly so I went out into the hall. As I paced up and down, I laid my cheek against his soft, warm head and hummed a tune. He seemed to like that and after about ten minutes he was fast asleep.

  I had my foot on the bottom step of the stairs when the doorbell rang, loud and long. Kev’s arms few out from his sides and his eyes opened wide. He stared at me for a second then began to scream. Mel came rushing out to open the door, and I wasn’t a bit surprised when I saw Shayne standing on the step.

  ‘Thanks for waking him up,’ I said.

  ‘Who? Me? What did I do?’ he asked, coming into the house.

  ‘You know Mam said not to allow anyone in,’ I said to Mel.

  ‘So what? It’s only Shayne. She won’t mind.’

  ‘Oh yes she will. She said no one.’

  ‘Shut up you,’ he said and Shayne smiled, stuck his tongue out at me and punched Mel on the arm. Mel gave him a playful push and then Sandra appeared, her eyes lighting up. She bit at her bottom lip and went all stupid, as if she’d lost any bit of sense that she had. Kev continued to cry, his face growing redder by the second and I groaned as I made my way upstairs. Mel and Shayne continued hitting each other in a sort of mock fight while Sandra looked on, mesmerized. I was just on the top step when I heard a familiar voice.

  ‘It’s only me! I have something nice for you to share.’ It was Bridie. She stepped into the hall wearing an ivy-patterned apron over her turquoise trouser suit and carrying a doily-covered plate that held a pyramid of deep-pink meringues, each one sandwiched together with a squelch of thick cream. ‘Thought you children might like a few of these,’ she said, waving the plate under Sandra’s nose. ‘Made two-dozen this afternoon, I did. And would you believe they didn’t have caster sugar in Mealy’s? Had to knock into the presbytery and borrow some from Father Feely’s housekeeper. Remind me to drop a plate of them into him before mass tomorrow, Ruth.’ She looked around the hall. ‘Ruth? Where’s Ruth?’

  ‘Up here, Bridie,’ I whispered from the top of the stairs.

  ‘There you are! I should’ve known you’d be the one trying to settle your baby brother. The poor mite. I heard him screaming the place down and I knew your ma
mmy and daddy were out so I—’ She stopped mid-sentence when she realized Shayne was there. She looked him up and down. ‘And what are you doing here?’

  Shayne made a face at her and she stiffened, her bosoms expanding as she breathed heavily up through her nose. I crept quickly to the bedroom and settled Kev back into his cot. I gave him a kiss and stroked his cheek and I knew it wouldn’t be long till he fell asleep again. I closed the door and heard some sort of a scuffle coming from the hall. I got to the top step just in time to see Bridie making a lunge at Shayne. He laughed in her face, ducking out of her way, but his elbow caught the edge of the plate in her hand. She tried to steady it but it was no use – I watched, almost in slow motion, as each and every one of her pink meringues slid off and landed on the floor with a plop. The doily followed, floating gently through the air like a crocheted flying saucer before coming to rest on the bristles of the welcome mat inside our front door.

  Shayne sniggered. Sandra dug her tooth even harder into her lip and cast her eyes up to the ceiling. Mel looked down at the pile of broken meringues and splattered cream, his shoulders slumped in grief at the sheer waste of it all. I understood his despair; we’d been so close to such a plate of treats. Even though they were ruined now, they looked so good: the cream whipped to exactly the right thickness, the broken, crispy shells revealing a sticky, marshmallow-type goo that would’ve been absolutely melt-in-the-mouth divine.

  I wondered who’d be the first to speak. It was one of those moments where no one quite knew what to say. The doily fluttered in the breeze that blew in through the open door, before its movement was killed by the stomp of a big brown shoe.

  It was Dad. With Mam behind him. Home early for some reason, their faces hard and stony even before they fully took in the scene. Dad frowned, his eyebrows becoming one long, black caterpillar. He walked straight into the meringue mess before anyone could warn him.

  ‘What the . . . ?’ he said, lifting each of his feet in turn.

  I shrank back from the top of the stairs, not wanting to be part of whatever was about to happen. But Mam didn’t even ask for explanations. She took one look at Shayne and almost shouted, ‘Get out of here, you! You’ve no business being in our house.’