Wednesday's Child

by Shane Dunphy

  ‘It’s a fucking miracle it hasn’t happened before now. I’m guessing that you pissed Libby off so much that she tried to go straight for a while just to show you. How have things been going with Gillian?’

  ‘Really, really well. We had something of a breakthrough earlier this week.’

  ‘There you go. She must have told Libby. Mammy has taken her to get her away from you. Gillian is her property, you see. If she opened up to you, even a little bit, that’s a part you have and Libby doesn’t. That’s more than she can tolerate.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘My thoughts precisely.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘Well, you could ring around the refuges, see if they’ve showed up there. That’s where they usually go. Libby has been barred from a lot of them because of her absurd behaviour, so it probably wouldn’t be too hard to find her. But my advice is to sit tight. They always surface eventually.’

  ‘So I do nothing.’

  ‘Try it. I bet you’ll be good at it.’

  I resisted the urge to find them. It was not easy. I regularly pulled over the Yellow Pages and turned to the phone numbers for the Women’s Refuges, the receiver in my hand and my index finger poised to dial the first number. But I held firm and trusted that Andi knew what she was talking about – though she assured me she rarely did.

  To my relief the call came a week and a half later.

  ‘Shane, is that you?’

  ‘Gillian! Where the hell are you?’

  She told me the name of the town they had gone to.

  ‘What happened? Why’d you run off like that? I’ve been really worried about you!’

  ‘Can you come and get me? Mammy’s drunk all the time and goin’ with men. She’s had me begging on the street for money for the booze. I don’t like it here. I want to come home.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll be there by lunchtime. Stay where you are. Will your mum take off if she knows I’m coming?’

  ‘I won’t tell her.’

  ‘You will, Gillian, but that’s okay. I’m on my way.’

  The drive took me two hours. I rang the refuge and told them who I was, getting them to ring my office to confirm I was authentic so I would be allowed in when I got there.

  The refuge was about a half mile outside the main part of town, in a quiet, residential area. A frightened-looking woman let me in and ushered me into the front office.

  ‘Thank God you’ve come.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked, worried now.

  ‘They’re … oh God, I don’t even know how to say it. That woman …’

  ‘Libby?’

  ‘She’s very difficult. I don’t think we’ve ever had anyone like her. She tried to bring men back here three times, and got very aggressive when we wouldn’t let her in with them. And these were not nice men, Mr Dunphy. They were … gentlemen of ill repute.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘She has been extremely uncooperative. We would have had her removed if it weren’t for the child. But the child, Mr Dunphy! She has become very distraught. I wonder if we should call a doctor for her. Or a psychiatrist.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘I don’t know! You’re the social worker.’

  ‘I’m not a social worker. I don’t mean it like that. What’s she doing?’

  ‘Come with me.’

  I was brought down a long corridor that ran the length of the building. The place had a clinical quality I didn’t like, all white walls and disinfectant smells. Gillian and Libby were in a room at the very end of the passage, as if they had been tucked as far away from the general population as possible. Libby was flushed and reeked of alcohol. She was sitting in front of a portable television set and barely acknowledged me. But my gaze was drawn to Gillian. Even though she had only been gone for ten days, the impact of that time sat heavily on her. I immediately regretted my decision not to look for them. Gillian had lost a lot of the weight she had gained. She was filthy and dressed in what looked like articles from a charity shop: ill-matching, garishly coloured clothes and an ugly, outsized pair of platform shoes that she tottered about on ridiculously. I was embarrassed for her. She had just started to take pride in her appearance again.

  What struck me most about Gillian, though, was her face. There were scratches down both her cheeks that I guessed were self-inflicted, and she had an expression of such fear and anguish that I had to fight the desire to go to her and just hold her, hug away all that anxiety and unhappiness. I felt terribly angry with Libby. Fuck you, I thought. We were doing so well. But you just couldn’t leave well enough alone. You couldn’t just let her be.

  I didn’t beat about the bush.

  ‘Libby, I’m taking you and Gillian home.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to go?’ she retorted.

  ‘Gillian wants to.’

  ‘Gillian wants what I tell her to want. Isn’t that right, Gill?’

  Gillian looked like a startled animal and jumped at the sound of her name. She was pacing the room as if it was a cage. As I watched, she wrapped a strand of hair around her fingers and wrenched it out in a clump.

  ‘See? She doesn’t want to go anywhere with you.’

  ‘For the love of God, Libby, will you let me bring you back home? Who’s looking after the dogs?’

  ‘I left them enough food.’

  Gillian had begun to whimper as she paced, still ripping at her hair. Several patches of scalp were noticeably bald, and some of these had open sores where she had continued to pick at herself even after all the hair was gone.

  ‘Please Libby, I’m asking you nicely.’

  ‘Will you fuck off and leave us alone!’ she shouted, turning on me sharply.

  This was just too much for Gillian. She let out a blood-curdling scream and flung herself at the wall as hard as she could, thumping off it with force. She rebounded onto the ground but did not stop. She gathered herself up and rushed at the wall that was adjacent, slamming into it with her head.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done?’ Libby said, reaching over and turning up the volume of the television so that she could hear over Gillian’s screaming.

  For a second I really did not know what to do. I was appalled at Libby’s attitude and sickened at Gillian’s display of self-hatred. Without even realising I was doing it, I reached over and spun Libby’s chair around so that she was facing her daughter, who screamed again and threw herself to the ground this time, smashing her fists into the tiles as hard as she could.

  ‘Look at her, Libby. Look at what you’re doing to her.’

  Libby spat at me, catching me full in the face.

  ‘It’s you that’s doing her, you dirty bastard,’ she hissed and swung the chair back around to the television.

  I wiped the saliva off with my sleeve and turned to Gillian, who was sobbing bitterly now and preparing for another assault at the structure of the building. Just as she was about to launch herself at the wall again, I stepped in front of her and she thudded into me. I was surprised at how hard she hit me, and staggered back with the momentum. She was taken by surprise and stepped back, looking at me with shock and horror. She didn’t stop for long though. Her face crumpled and she bared her nails at me like claws.

  ‘Bastard!’ she howled and attacked me like a wild dog.

  Her nails raked my cheek and she tried to bite me on the face, but I had her by the wrists and spun her so that her back was to me and her arms crossed over her front. She tried to butt her head back at me, but I raised my shoulder and stopped her, and dropped to the floor so that it would be harder for her to struggle. That infuriated her even more, and she screamed and kicked and bucked and spat as hard as she could. Libby turned up the volume as high as it would go. The refuge worker, who had been standing outside the door all this time, came tentatively in.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she shouted over the noise of Gillian’s protestations and Libby’s daytime soap.

  ‘I’m fine. Would you mind
staying until she calms? I need someone to witness that I haven’t hurt her.’

  The woman nodded and stood there, looking very uncomfortable.

  Gillian was pumped full of adrenaline, and it took her forty-five minutes to wear herself out. When I felt her sag, I spoke very gently to her.

  ‘I’m going to loosen my grip now, Gillian. I need you to promise that you won’t go off on one again when I let you go. Can you promise me that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was barely audible.

  I let go of her arms and she slid off me onto the floor in a heap. There were no tears – she had none left to cry. She just lay there, inert.

  I suddenly realised that my left leg had gone completely numb, and I had to ask the woman to help me to stand up. I hobbled around the room for a few moments until the pins and needles subsided.

  ‘Well, are you ready to take us home now?’

  Libby was standing by her chair, the television switched off, with an irritated look on her face.

  ‘Whether he’s ready or not, Mrs O’Gorman, you are no longer welcome here,’ the woman said tersely.

  ‘Get your things, Libby,’ I said. ‘I think you’ve outstayed your welcome.’

  ‘Oh, Shane – they’re in the back garden.’

  Dympna smiled her dazzling smile at me.

  I found the three children huddled under a grove of trees in the large garden. It was a warm spring evening, and we were sitting together on a bench that was suspended from a wooden frame by thick chains, making a kind of group swing. The sun was slowly sinking below the horizon. Ibar crawled over onto my knee and remained there. He was black from rooting in the dirt for millipedes, one of which he had cradled in his cupped hands. All of us were quiet as we watched the red disk dip below the rooftops, bathing us in a golden mist.

  ‘Sunsets always remind me of Mummy,’ Victor whispered, to no one in particular.

  When Cordelia didn’t respond, I said: ‘Why’s that, Victor?’

  ‘Don’t know. Just, when I see one, it always makes me feel kind of sad for her.’

  Cordelia sat up and rounded on her brother.

  ‘Ice-cream makes you feel sad for her, Victor. So does Kylie Minogue, snakes-and-ladders, Domestos and Marmite. You’re so weird!’

  ‘Hey, leave him alone, Cordelia,’ I said, as gently as I could while keeping the reproach in my voice. ‘He’s entitled to his feelings. Okay, seeing as you seem to feel so strongly about it, you tell us what reminds you of your mum.’

  ‘No!’

  A sulky silence followed, during which Ibar held up his latest pet for me to observe.

  ‘Lotsa feet,’ he said earnestly.

  ‘It’s a “millipede”, Ibar,’ I said, knowing damn well that he would not even attempt the word. ‘Mill-i-pede.’

  ‘Lotsa feet,’ he said slowly back at me, looking at me as if I were the biggest idiot he had yet to encounter in his short life.

  ‘Everything reminds me of her too,’ Cordelia said, her voice thick with suppressed emotion.

  ‘That’s what I always mean,’ Victor said. ‘All those things do remind me of her. I can’t help it!’

  ‘She was always around, you know? We did everything together, so everything reminds me of all the stuff we did.’

  ‘That makes a lot of sense,’ I said.

  ‘She wasn’t just, like, my mum. She was my friend too, you know?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to. It’ll … make me cry …’

  Silent tears spilled from under her eyelids and ran down her cheeks.

  ‘There’s not a thing in the world wrong with crying, Cordelia. Let it come. I think it’s been waiting a long time to.’

  ‘I miss her …’ she said, squeezing the words out, and then the grief came in a tidal wave and immersed her, and she was unable to speak.

  I wrapped my arms around her and Victor, who had gone limp and very quiet, and we sat there on the swing that gently swayed in the cool evening breeze as the sun continued its descent and Ibar looked impassively at his siblings and played with his Lotsa feet.

  After a while Dympna came out. She assessed the situation, nodded to herself and scooped Ibar up into her arms. He went without complaint, holding the insect up for her inspection (‘Ooo, lovely,’ she said. ‘We’ll put him with the others.’). She took Victor by the hand and he allowed himself to be led into the house. I looked down at Cordelia, who had burrowed herself into my chest. My shirt was soaked through with her tears, but I made no comment. She would let me know when she was ready to talk.

  Presently she sniffed and pulled herself away from me. I produced a small packet of tissues from my pocket and handed them to her.

  ‘You came prepared,’ she said.

  ‘Used to be a boy scout.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘You know me so well.’

  ‘You just don’t seem the type.’

  She dried her eyes and blew her nose, then leaned back into me. The sun was gone now, and the first stars were twinkling in the darkening sky.

  ‘Starlight, starbright …’ she said.

  ‘What about the rest of it?’

  ‘I’ve wished so many wishes that have never come to anything – I just don’t bother any more.’

  ‘Maybe your luck’s changing.’

  ‘I’m in foster care. My dad is a drunk and my mother is dead. My brothers are totally insane. I’ve got no friends … in fact, you’re probably the best friend I’ve got, and you’re paid to hang out with me. Hard to see any positive change in that story, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘It’s kind of a grim picture all right, when you put it like that.’

  ‘What other way is there to put it?’

  ‘Well, you’re in a foster placement which is happy to take the three of you. That’s very rare, Cordelia, believe me. You are actually really lucky to be still together. And this is a really beautiful place. Your dad is drinking again, but I think he’s fighting it as hard as he can, and he’s doing that because he loves you and wants you to get back together again. Alcoholism is a disease, Cordy. Just like cancer or any other serious illness. He needs to get better, and when he does, you’ll be back with him. Your brothers are interesting guys. Victor is very intelligent. He just finds it difficult to communicate sometimes. I think that the problems you’ve all had have left him nervous and afraid. Ibar is five. That’s it. He’s dealing with things the way a five-year-old does. The world is still a big, exciting, new place for him. He probably doesn’t really get much of what’s going on. Once he has you and Victor as constants in his life, he’s happy enough. He needs to know he’s loved and safe, that’s all. And yes, I am paid to see you, but tell me: what time is it?’

  ‘I dunno. Around seven o’clock, I think.’

  ‘I finish work at five.’

  ‘So why are you here?’

  ‘I thought I’d go and visit some friends.’

  She hugged me tight for a second.

  ‘Hmm. You sure can talk the talk.’

  ‘It’s not just talk. Tell me about your mum. Was she like you?’

  ‘People said she was.’

  ‘Do you have any photographs?’

  ‘No. Daddy got rid of any we had. He was in a bad way after she died. They were really, really in love.’

  ‘Do you remember anything about when she died?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Want to tell me?’

  ‘Okay.’ Tears in the voice again, but she needed to get this out. She had been holding it in for too long and it was eating her up. ‘Victor and me had been out with Uncle George, that’s my mum’s brother. I don’t know where Dad was. We came back to the flat and he knocked and knocked, but there was no answer. He tried the door then, and it was open. We went in and she was lying there on the floor. I thought she was playing a game,’cause I laughed and went over to her and shook her to get up. But she didn’t move. Ibar was in his crib and he started crying, and then Uncle George
got scared and he said the f word and started to shout. The ambulance came, and the guards came, and we stayed with a woman who lived next door, an old lady. Mrs Coveny, I think her name was. She smelled of wee and she made us eat cabbage. After a while, Daddy came and got us. And we drove for a while, and stopped and we were in a new flat, and we would stay there for a while and then move, and then we got on a boat and came here. He told us, eventually, that Mummy had taken too many pills by accident, and they made her sick and she died.’