The Story of Before

by Susan Stairs

  ‘Well . . . all right then. But ten minutes at the most. It’s freezing out there and we don’t want you coming down with a bad cold if we can help it.’ She stroked Kev’s back and he threw his arm out to the side, whacking Auntie Cissy’s knee. She half opened her eyes and swivelled them from side to side, then closed them again, mouthing what looked like ‘Bertie, Bertie’ with her thin lips. ‘And we’ll have tea and cake when you both get back,’ Mam said, smiling.

  Once outside, I scanned the whole of the estate, along the path past Bridie’s, down one side of the green and across to the other. There wasn’t a soul around. The cold stung my eyes and made them water. It dried my lips and hurt my ears and crept into every part of my body. I shoved my hands right down in my pockets as I walked. The sky was alive with stars. I couldn’t make sense of the amount of them. I stood for a moment and threw my head back to get a better look, nearly toppling backwards I got so dizzy. I was about to cross the road and go around the corner when I saw a movement in the distance up ahead.

  It was Dad.

  Running up the path from the direction of Shayne’s house.

  I quickly slunk into a gap between a lamppost and a wall, breathing in to make myself as thin as possible, and hid there while he passed. I watched him slow his pace as he neared our house, then stop to catch his breath, leaning forward and putting his hands on his knees. I slipped out from my hiding place and, as he began to walk, followed behind him all the way to our front door.

  ‘Where were you?’ I asked. He spun around, nearly dropping his keys.

  ‘For fu— Jesus, Ruth! You put the heart shaggin’ crossways in me! What are you doing out here?’

  ‘Getting a breath of air. Like you.’

  His eyes were jumpy and his face was all red.

  ‘Were you running or something?’

  He poked around at the lock, his hands kind of shaky, finally getting the key in and opening the door.

  ‘Well?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, what? What is it you want now?’ He raised his voice. ‘Just this once, could you cut the questions and let a man go about his own business on Christmas Day? I don’t have to answer to you or anyone else.’ He flung his coat over the banisters and went into the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. Mam came out of the sitting room, patting her hair back into place and having a good yawn.‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  I had hundreds of things in my head, but I couldn’t say them. It was like trying to eat toffee without making noise – just sucking on it and waiting for it to dissolve, when all you really wanted to do was get your teeth into it and chew and chew and taste the flavour in every part of your mouth.

  ‘I don’t know, Mam,’ I said. ‘I just don’t know.’

  The days that followed grew even colder. The temperature fell further each night and Mam said she’d heard we might be in for a bit of snow. Auntie Cissy agreed and said she wouldn’t be surprised if we were in for more than a bit, she could feel it in her bones. She started to fret over Thomas, her cat, concerned that the neighbour who’d promised to feed him wouldn’t bother to bring him in at night and he’d freeze to death.

  ‘He’s all I have left now,’ she said, as if we didn’t rank at all.

  Mam said whoever heard of a cat freezing to death? Didn’t they always find themselves somewhere warm to sleep? But Cissy couldn’t be convinced and said she kept having visions of him frozen solid on her windowsill, his fur all stiff with ice. So she packed her case and Dad drove her home. She wanted to leave Bertie’s cage with us but Mam said we’d no use for it and sure she might want to get another budgie at some point in the future, so she may as well take it home. ‘That bird could never be replaced,’ Cissy said, horrified. ‘I don’t know how you could even think it, Rose.’ As she bent to kiss each of us goodbye, we noticed she’d pinned the cat brooch to her blouse.

  The next night was New Year’s Eve. That was when the Big Freeze started. Auntie Cissy had been right; it was more than just a bit of snow.

  I had no real reason to explain the way I felt when we looked out at the blizzard from Mam and Dad’s room. My mind was a jumble of suspicions I’d no way of knowing how to prove. I’d no idea if they even made sense. But it was as if the snow was trying to silence me, to lull me into believing that everything in Hillcourt Rise was pure and perfect and trouble-free. I thought I’d suffocate under its thick, heavy layers if I didn’t tell them then.

  ‘Something bad’s going to happen this year.’

  That was what I said.

  Not that I thought warning them would change anything; I just felt I needed to let them know. And if they’d pushed me on it, what would I have said? What clues could I have given them to try and make them understand? There was nothing concrete, no one thing I could put my finger on. But that night, the last night of the year, I sensed it was more than the snow that was freezing us out. We were never really meant to live there in the first place. The only reason we came at all was because of Kev. If it wasn’t for him, we’d never have moved. We’d still be living on the South Circular in the house where Dad had been born. And if Kev was the reason we came to Hillcourt Rise, what would be the reason we’d leave?

  SIXTEEN

  Because of the snow, David’s departure for Clonrath was delayed. Every school in the country had extended their holidays. While the rest of us were delighted and wanted the Big Freeze to stay forever, he went around wishing the snow would hurry up and melt. Boarding school, he claimed, was something he was actually looking forward to. Despite Tracey and Valerie blaming me for David being sent away, he himself seemed weirdly relieved to be going, as if some sort of weight had been lifted from him. He became less serious, more relaxed. I saw him at mass the Sunday he finally left and noticed he’d left his coat unzipped and the top button of his shirt undone.

  On my way back from Mealy’s one evening with Kev, I met Shayne. Though Mam had told me dinner was almost ready, and not to be long, I stopped to talk to him. There was something I had to ask. I needed to start clearing things up if I was to make any sense of the bad feeling I’d been having. I hadn’t mentioned anything about seeing his mam with Dad in The Ramblers. It felt safer to keep it secret. But I had to find out if Dad had been telling the truth about his ‘breath of air’.

  We stood at the top of the lane. He had that faraway look in his eyes, only this time it seemed he was more unconnected to his thoughts than usual.

  ‘Did anyone call to your house on Christmas night?’ I asked, watching his face closely.

  He took a while to answer. ‘Christmas night? Um . . . I dunno. Can’t remember. Why?’

  ‘It’s just that . . . well, my dad went out for a walk and I saw him running back from the direction of your house and I thought maybe . . . well . . .’

  His gaze became more steady. ‘Oh, yeah . . . Christmas night. Yeah . . . I remember now.’ I saw his pupils shrink. ‘Me ma went to the door. Yeah . . . she thought it might’ve been me uncle Vic.’

  ‘But it was my dad?’

  ‘Yeah . . . yeah . . . yer da . . .’

  ‘What did he want? Did you hear what he was saying or anything?’

  ‘Nah. Had me music on, didn’t I? Me ma let me use her record player, ye know, ’cos it was Christmas and all.’

  ‘Oh. So you don’t know what he wanted?’

  ‘Me? Nah.’ He bit his thumbnail. ‘I could . . . ask me ma if ye like?’

  ‘No! No. It’s OK. It . . . it doesn’t matter,’ I said as I wheeled Kev on towards home.

  So. My suspicions had been right. Dad had called to Liz on Christmas night. Who did he think he was fooling? ‘I needed a breath of fresh air . . .’

  I knew it. I just knew it.

  And the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that this was part of the something bad I’d told the others about. Whenever I thought of Dad and Liz, I got that awful stinging-nettle feeling that crept through me like a rash. I knew I’d have to tell someone soon – Mam, the others
, Father Feely, even. I wouldn’t be able to stop the bad thing happening if I didn’t.

  School was as boring as ever when it started up again. The only good thing was Aidan Farrell was out for a few days. Geraldine had squeezed Farrell number eight out into the world the night before we went back (a boy – Brian) and Tracey and Aidan were left in charge while their mother was in hospital. I saw them at the door one morning, while Clem cycled off to work – Tracey with Fiona on her hip and another Farrell hanging off her leg, and Aidan with a potty in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other. When he saw me looking, he stuck his tongue out and gave me the two fingers.

  It was easier to pass the O’Deas’ house now that David was gone. It didn’t feel half as creepy as it had before. But in some ways, it was as if his absence was more noticeable than his presence had been – the way you notice the hole a missing tooth leaves far more than you ever noticed the actual tooth. His piano tunes had been part of the air around Hillcourt Rise, and not hearing them was kind of strange.

  In early February, Dad announced that he’d got some big contract to paint an estate of new houses, miles away in County Kildare. It meant he had to leave really early, and every morning I woke to the sound of his whistling ringing through the house. He rarely got home before eight. Mam always looked weary when we came down for breakfast. Kev had become a bit of a handful, whinging and moaning if he didn’t get his own way. He’d started to say a few words, his favourite being ‘no’, and Mam was worn out trying to get him to do what he was told. I knew she hated the way Dad had to leave so early and wasn’t home till late, and while she did say she was happy he’d got the work, she said she wished it wasn’t so far away. But I was glad he had to spend so much time away from Hillcourt Rise. It meant there was less chance of him having any contact with Liz. I didn’t care how far the houses were from anything. The longer it took Dad to paint them, the better.

  Bridie stopped me at the gate one afternoon on my way home from school, all fidgety and breathless, to tell me that her daughter, Majella, had got engaged to her garda boyfriend on Valentine’s Day and the wedding was planned for ‘June twelve months’. If she thought she could pretend that everything between us was all right, she was mistaken. I just said, ‘That’s nice’ and walked off, leaving her muttering something about her crocuses being very late for the time of year.

  Shayne didn’t seem to be around as much now that David was gone. Whenever I did happen to see him, he was always in a world of his own, like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. I think he felt a bit lost. Despite everything that had happened between them, I suppose he felt that David was better than no friend at all. Some evenings, he cycled round and round the green with his head lowered and the neck of his T-shirt pulled up over his chin, not seeming to care that he couldn’t possibly see where he was going.

  I was heading home from school one afternoon when I saw him cycling towards me on the path. He’d obviously skipped off class early again. Mel said he was doing it a lot lately. Sandra told me Liz had been called up to the school the first time it’d happened and she’d arrived wearing her knee-high boots, a very short skirt and loads of make-up. She’d spent ages in the headmaster’s office and after that, Shayne never got in trouble for anything.

  He whizzed past me, banging his elbow off my schoolbag and knocking me off balance. I toppled against the wall, scraping my hand, and yelled after him, ‘Watch where you’re going, will you! You don’t own the bloody path!’

  That evening, I took Kev for a walk down to the bottom of the hill to wait for Dad. It was a Friday and he’d told Mam he was finishing up early and would be home in time for dinner. When he saw the car, Kev got all excited. I got in the back and Dad sat Kev on his knee so he could ‘drive’ us home. As we turned slowly into the estate, I saw Shayne sitting lengthways on the O’Deas’ wall with his back pressed up against the gate pillar. He was munching a packet of crisps and held a can of Fanta between his knees. He barely raised his head but I could tell he was watching us.

  We crawled along, Kev all delighted he was holding the steering wheel and Dad going ‘vroom vroom’ into his ear. Shayne lifted his eyes as we approached, but I don’t think he even saw me sitting in the back of the car. His gaze was fixed on Kev – a cold, blank, scary stare.

  Dad was about to say something when Shayne grabbed the can from between his knees, took aim and fired it at the windscreen of our car. It clattered against the glass, sending bubbly orange splashes all over the bonnet. Dad got such a fright that he pushed his foot down hard on the brake and Kev bumped his forehead on the rim of the steering wheel.

  ‘What the . . . ? Christ alshagginmighty!’ Dad shouted.

  Kev screamed, instant tears flooding down his face. Dad gave him to me and I tried to comfort him, stroking his cheek and cuddling him tight. I expected Shayne would hop on his bike and disappear. But when I looked, he was still there, eating his crisps and staring at Kev as he snuggled into my chest.

  ‘I’ll wring his bloody neck,’ Dad said. He waved his fist at Shayne. ‘I’ll wring your shaggin’ neck, you gurrier! Do you hear me?’

  I couldn’t believe Dad was still sitting in the car. ‘Are you not going to get out?’ I asked.

  He shook his head and drove off, breathing heavily down his nose. It was only when we got to our house that he spoke. ‘I don’t want to see you hanging around with him any more.’ His voice was low and even. ‘It’s gone far enough. Stay away from him. That’s an order.’

  That Monday, I got the letter.

  Mam handed me the light blue envelope when I came in from school. I think she was as curious as I was to see who it could be from. My name and address had been written with a fountain pen in what Mrs Lally would’ve described as ‘beautiful copperplate script’. I rarely got letters. In my whole life, I’d probably only got a handful.

  ‘I’ll open it in my room,’ I told Mam.

  She was hovering over my shoulder like a fly. ‘Ah, sure open it here. I’ll make us a nice cup of tea while you read it.’

  I didn’t wait around to argue. I took the stairs two at a time, my schoolbag still on my back.

  The letter was from David.

  Written in the ‘beautiful script’ on five lined pages the same colour as the envelope.

  Dear Ruth,

  I’ve been meaning to write for ages but there’s so much to do every day here it’s hard to find the time. I’m writing this during study. Hope I don’t get caught (!) Brother Cornelius is looking down and I’m supposed to be learning my Latin verbs. We have ANOTHER test tomorrow (aaagh). It’s not so bad here though. In fact, I actually like it a lot more than Grangemount. I’ve made real friends too. I share my dorm with two boys from Cork and one from Tipperary and we all get along very well.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about everyone and I have a few things I want to say. Things I probably should have said before but it’s easier to put them in a letter. I know you were blamed because I was sent down here but it wasn’t really your fault. They should have told me before. My parents, I mean. About being adopted. I know how you found out and I know Shayne pretended I already knew (he told me) but I would’ve been sent down here anyway. My parents had been thinking about it for ages. They don’t like Shayne. They were never that happy about us being friends. They were always saying he was bad news and I used to tell them they were wrong. Shayne’s been my friend for all the time I’ve lived in Hillcourt Rise. When we were small we used to pretend we were brothers. He shouldn’t have said he already knew about me being adopted but I think he was upset that you found out about it before he did. I used to always feel bad for him because he didn’t know who his dad was and when he found out that I didn’t know who my real dad was either, he thought that maybe I’d been keeping it a secret from him. I was mad at first when I found out from you about being adopted but it’s OK now. In fact, I’m glad because it made my parents make up their minds to send me down here. And I don’t have to worry about covering f
or anyone when I’m here. Because that’s what I had to do all the time for Shayne. Remember all the stuff about when I broke my wrist? Well, to tell the truth here and now, you were right. It wasn’t an accident. But you were wrong when you told my parents that I did it deliberately. That wasn’t what happened.

  What happened was that Shayne pushed me.

  I was climbing the tree quicker than he was and I called him a fairy or something and he got mad and he pushed me.

  I pretended to my mother and father that I fell. And then when Valerie asked me if I’d done it deliberately, I never denied it and that was how that spread all around the place and I suppose I liked the way that all of you thought I’d done it myself. I know it was stupid to cover for him but he made me do it and I was afraid if I told the truth he’d get into serious trouble and be sent away. And most of all, I didn’t ever want my parents to be able to say they were right about him.

  Mam poked her head round my door. ‘You all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’

  ‘So? Are you not going to tell me who it’s from?’ She was putting on a real cheerful voice like she wasn’t that interested when really she was dying to know.

  ‘David.’

  ‘Oh. I see. That’s nice . . .’ She was waiting for more.

  ‘Just telling me about his new school and stuff.’

  ‘Well? Does he like it?’

  ‘Maybe when I get to read it all I can tell you,’ I said, frowning.

  Her head disappeared and she went back downstairs.

  It’s only because I’m away from Hillcourt Rise that I can see how stupid I was. And I know you think I’m weird and I’m sorry I scared you that day I took the pram from outside the shops, but I only did it because he made me. He said if I didn’t maybe one of the twins might fall into the bonfire or something and I was scared. I just did everything he said. And I always thought that if I told on him, it would just make everything worse.

  I’m only telling you now because I think you should know. Just be careful because he might start trying to do the same thing with you. AND DON’T TELL HIM I TOLD YOU ANY OF THIS. I KNOW I CAN TRUST YOU.