by Shane Dunphy
‘I waited. There is a terrible madness in that family, almost as if the evil in them couldn’t allow them to function any more, like it was rotting them from the inside. I saw as the two old ones and their son came more and more under its control, and then I gathered my courage and I paid them a visit. I was mortally afraid, but I knew that I had to act. They were all sick the day I went, babbling and gibbering like monkeys. I told them I wanted Connie to do some work for me, get things from the shops and suchlike, and that I was afraid in the house because of break-ins down the village and wanted her to stay overnight with me sometimes. I said that I’d give them a few bob from my pension the odd time to make up for it. They were so far gone that day, they would have agreed to anything. Connie began spending a lot of time at my house. When Mick came banging over a week later, I smiled and told him that sure, hadn’t he given me permission to have her. You see, they all suffer from the sin of pride, too. They don’t like remembering the episodes when they aren’t in control. Don’t like it at all. And so we became friends, young Veronica and I. But like you said, I couldn’t protect her all the time. They still got to her.’
‘They brought us on trips sometimes,’ Connie said. ‘Instead of the visitors coming to us, we’d be brought to them. A car would come and one or both of us would be put into it and we’d be taken somewhere and it would happen. When I started going to Mrs Jones, it happened less and less, because I made sure I was hardly ever there. It got so’s I only slept at home if Mick was staying somewhere else, and Daddy was gone so mad he was only a danger to himself. But I suppose it must have been eating me up some way, because I was always in trouble. I would just get mad for no reason, and I’d hit people and shout at my teachers and I couldn’t concentrate. I got moved from school to school, and the guards were at the house a lot because I robbed things in town every chance I got. They never charged me – I think they felt sorry for me. One day, when I was ten, I was going to get the bus home from school when I heard a shout, and there was Mick in a car with two other men. He told me to get in, so I did. There wouldn’t have been any point in running away. They’d have caught me.
‘They took me to a house and kept me there for a long time. I lost track of time. Night, day, it was all the same. Men and some women, all the time wanting … wanting me to do things. Bad things. Worse than usual. I don’t remember much of it.
‘Then Mick was there, and he told me that if I didn’t get my act together and stop drawing attention to the family, this was how it could be. Not just now and again, but for good. This could be my life. And he meant it, every word. He made me learn a story to explain where I had been, and dropped me home. I was good after that. They never heard a peep out of me at school, and you’d be surprised how being scared focuses the mind. My work improved.
‘It still happened after that. It didn’t stop, but you see, we’re getting too old for them now. That’s how it works. Nobody told me, but I know. I worked it out. Geraldine told me that it stopped for her when she got to be like a woman, and Denise is like that, and I nearly am. It won’t be long now. Y’see? It’s not so bad, when you think about it.’
I thought I would vomit. A sheen of sweat beaded my forehead and I found the air too close to breathe in the room. It was worse than I had dared imagine. I wanted to scream, to run over to number eight, smash the door in and beat them all until they were nothing but a red mess.
Connie smiled at me. She actually smiled.
‘So there’s not really much to worry about.’
Mrs Jones nodded and gazed at me with those eyes that were too young for a woman of her years. I tried to stop myself from trembling, and wondered desperately what I was going to do.
I sat outside the O’Gorman house, staring at it. I had been calling several times a week since Gillian and Libby had gone again, but no matter how much I blew the horn, the place remained implacable and unresponsive except for the slavering of the hounds. It was late evening and there wasn’t a light on in the place. Dusk had descended, but I felt the need to sit in vigil for some reason.
I believed that I had let Gillian down, that I had failed her. If she was in there, I wanted her to know that I hadn’t given up on her. So I stayed, listening to the night-time sounds and feeling sorry for myself.
Things had gradually begun to fall apart and I was powerless to prevent their continued descent into dysfunction. I knew that I had lost all focus after Max McCoy’s death. But, if I were honest with myself, it had started before that. I had become far too involved in the three ‘big’ cases on my books, to the utter detriment of the others I was supposed to be involved in. I told myself that I was directing my time according to greatest need, that I was prioritising, but I wasn’t so sure any more. The children I dedicated myself to were the ones who had nobody else. The kids in residential care or in the youth project had many other workers to depend on. If I didn’t see them for a few weeks, there would be plenty of other people to pick up the slack – that’s what I told myself. But my absence from these other cases had become more and more constant and my superiors, as well as the other staff involved, were far from happy. I protested that I was spread too thinly, had many cases in crisis, that there were always flash fires that needed putting out. The problem was, I couldn’t believe the excuses that night. I wanted the tougher cases, I craved the challenge. I needed to feel I was on the edge, flying by the seat of my pants.
But I had also, for whatever reason, come to care deeply for these children: for Connie, Gillian, Victor, Ibar and Cordelia. It had gone beyond professional detachment. They called to something deep inside me and I had no choice but to respond. I was at the point where I had to admit that it was having a negative effect on the rest of my life. I was going down and I was pulling everyone else down with me. I had talked to Josephine about it – I’d had no choice, she had called me into her office and asked me what the hell was going on with me – and she had been characteristically supportive while giving me a proverbial kick up the arse at the same time. I needed, she told me, to wind up these cases as quickly as possible, and direct my attention back to the other less dramatic ones. And maybe I would benefit from that counselling we had discussed before. I baulked at this suggestion, my natural arrogance feeling that I would work it out for myself in the end.
The tip of my cigarette glowed red in the shadows, and somewhere in the night a fox barked, followed by the scream of a vixen. I pushed the self-indulgent thoughts aside and turned my attention back to the gloom-soaked building before me. There was only one thing for it: I had to get a look inside. The real challenge was: how was I going to get past the Hounds of the Baskervilles? I picked up my mobile phone and rang a number. I didn’t know how to get past the mutts.
But I knew a man who did.
‘You look awful.’
‘Yeah. I know. Things’ve been … challenging … of late.’
‘I worry about you young people. You need to take some time off. Have some fun. There’s more to life than this, you know.’
‘Soon. I’m planning on taking some time soon.’
‘I hope so. I shall check.’
‘I know you will.’
‘This is what you want. It works. I used one myself when I was doing family casework across the water. You press this red button and it emits a sound, undetectable by the human ear, but quite unpleasant for our canine friends. They won’t be able to come within twenty feet of you. You just need to make sure you have a full battery pack in it, because if it gives out while you’re within range of the dogs you’ll be in a bit of bother, won’t you?’
‘I’ll make sure.’
‘There has to be easier ways to make a living, don’t you think?’
‘You’ve been doing it for thirty years. You’re not in any position to talk.’
‘Ah yes, but I’ve learned from my mistakes, you see. I know when to shut off. I don’t think you do.’
‘I’ll have to remind you to give me the recipe for that.’
‘I think it�
��s something you need to learn for yourself, Shane.’
‘In that case the lessons have already started.’
‘Make sure you pay attention. You will be tested later.’
The machine was as big as a paperback book and a deep grey. On one end was a torch, on the opposite a gauze covered dome. A red button was embedded into one side, a blue into the other. The blue was for the torch, the red for the dog-deterrent. I checked that the batteries were in place and stepped out of the car. The two dogs at the front of the house looked up, but made no move or sound. They were getting used to me by now and were less agitated at my presence. Of course, if I placed one step onto their territory, that would change rapidly. I walked past the posts that had not had a gate hitched to them in many years. The two dogs out front looked at me with what could only have been surprise (dog faces are sometimes hard to read) and stood up. I knew this was a warning. They were saying: ‘Okay now. That’s far enough.’ I took another step. That was it. They immediately exploded into noise and motion. I raised the box and pressed the red button.
The result was not instantaneous. I thought that the dogs would yelp and fall to the ground, trying to get their paws over their ears to block out the terrible noise, but they didn’t. To my great distress, they continued to run until they came to within a few feet of me, and then stopped, shaking their heads as if an insect were buzzing around them. Then, whining and sinking low to the ground, they slunk down to the far corner of the garden. I heaved a sigh of relief and took my finger off the button. They looked pretty cowed, and I didn’t want to cause them any more discomfort than I had to. I ran down to the house and peered through the window.
The pane of glass was thick with grime on both sides. I took a tissue from my pocket, spat to moisten it and made an island of transparency in the muck. I heard a growl as one of the dogs regained some composure and began to crawl towards me. I gave them another burst.
The inside of the house had never been tidy or clean, but it was now a chaotic jumble, with tables and chairs overturned, cupboards hanging open and flies buzzing here and there in great clouds. I moved to another window and repeated the exercise of creating some visibility. There appeared to be no signs of human life at all, and there seemed to be faeces in clumps on the floor. Then I spotted Rex curled up on one of the armchairs. It seemed that Libby had given him free roam of the house and he had taken full advantage of it. I climbed over the boards and got around the back, which was really only a narrow passage between the rear wall of the house and a tall hedge of brambles and blackthorn. There was no evidence that Libby or Gillian had been there in weeks through these windows either. I made my way to the car and sat in. They weren’t home. They hadn’t been in a long time.
‘Shane?’
‘Gillian? Yes, yes, this is me. Where are you? I’ve been worried sick about you!’
‘I’m on the road back from Dublin. Shane, I’ve had enough of this. I don’t want to live this way any more. I’m sick of it. I want you to help me. I’ll … I’ll go back into care. Just come and get me. I’ll go wherever you say.’
I couldn’t believe it. I had not even started having conversations about care with Gillian. We had never got that far. It seemed that whatever had happened in the couple of months she and Libby had been on the road had prompted Gillian to make the leap all by herself. I silently raised my fist in the air. This was the call I had been waiting for. This was what all the work had been about.
‘Gillian, I am really, really pleased. Stay exactly where you are. What’s your number there?’
‘It’s a pay-phone. I can’t see any number on it.’
‘They’re usually on the wall behind the phone, where all the writing and information is. Can you see it?’
‘Yeah. Have you a pen?’
When I got off the phone, I just sat back at my desk, grinning from ear to ear. Finally, something had gone right. Josephine came into the office, a sheaf of paper in her hand.
‘That review for the Kellys … God, what’s up with you? You’re looking happy for a change. Are you sick or something?’
‘Just got a call from Gillian O’Gorman. She’s asked to be taken into care. I’m about to give Gráinne a ring to organise the bed. Isn’t that fucking great?’
Josephine smiled and sat down on the desk opposite me.
‘That’s really excellent news, Shane. I’m dead chuffed for you. It was a hard case to crack.’
‘It was, but now we can put her into a properly equipped unit and get her the kind of help she really needs. I’m going to make that call.’
‘Fair enough. Talk to you later.’
I rang Gráinne Hartigan, who was as pleased as me, and told me to sit tight while she made the necessary arrangements. I got some coffee and was just back at my desk when the phone rang again.
‘Shane, bad news I’m afraid. There isn’t a single bed available just at the moment. We had a couple of emergency placements last night, and we’ve actually got children on camp beds in some of the units. She’ll have to wait for a bit.’
‘She can’t wait, Gráinne. You know what this means. This is the opportunity to help this child. I can’t ring her back and tell her we’ve nothing for her! That would be the end of my relationship with her. There would be no coming back. Gráinne, you told me that you could fix this!’
‘Well, in all fairness, Shane, it was supposed to be a planned thing, with a little bit of notice. I’m not a magician, as much as everyone would like to think I am. I can’t just click my fingers and create a space. I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t believe it! This is so fucked up.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘At a pay-phone somewhere between here and Dublin. What am I supposed to tell her, Gráinne?’
‘You must tell her to go back to her mother.’
A great chasm opened up inside me, an emptiness that I thought would swallow me whole. I was supposed to be the good guy, the one that showed another path. Now I was pushing her right back into the unhappiness she was trying to flee. How much courage had it taken for her to run from her mother and call me? And I was sending her away.
‘Okay, Gráinne. I understand.’
I hung up.
My finger felt like it weighed one hundred pounds as I dialled the number Gillian had given me. Each ring before she answered cut a furrow through my head.
‘Shane, it’s me.’
‘Hey, Gillian.’ I heard the lightness in my voice and loathed myself for it. ‘Gill, I’m sorry, but there aren’t any places available in residential care this evening. Maybe in a day or two. Listen, you need to go back to your mum now, and give me a buzz tomorrow. I swear to you, I will turn the county upside down until I find something for you. I promise you that, and you know I don’t break my promises.’
Silence came down the line in a cascade.
‘Gillian, please talk to me.’
‘Yeah.’ Her voice was tiny and young and beaten. ‘Yeah, that’s okay, Shane. I’ll be in touch. I’m sure Mammy will come home soon. She misses the dogs, of course. Bye now.’
Click.
She was gone. I put my head in my hands and clenched my eyes tight shut against bleak reality. I had lost her. There was no use trying to pretend it wasn’t so. This was nobody’s fault. Gráinne was right – I hadn’t been fair on her – the move was supposed to be planned, and it was ridiculous of me to expect that I could just make a call and have Gillian placed within a few hours. But how do you explain economics and cut-backs and management of resources to a frightened child with nowhere to go?
‘Shit, shit, shit, shit,’ I said, to no one in particular.
I had a cup of tea in my hand, but no stomach for it. Tea, tea, tea. Everywhere I went, people expected me to drink tea. I wrapped my coat more tightly around myself. It wasn’t my leather one, but a long, grey overcoat, not unlike a trenchoat. It was comforting. I hadn’t taken it off in a few days, and found that it made me feel a lot better to have it on. Kind
of cocooned.
Cocoon. Wasn’t that a movie? That guy from the Police Academy films had been in it. Steve Guttenburgh, that was him. His career had sunk without a trace, hadn’t it? That movie had been about old people. You don’t see too many movies about old people, at least none that don’t have Walter Matthau in them. Walter Matthau was a good actor. Was. Had he died? I couldn’t remember.
‘Shane, wouldn’t you think that the McCoys would love it here?’
‘What?’
I was sitting in the kitchen of an old farmhouse in the early afternoon. Zara, a fostering social worker, was with me. She thought that she had identified a family for the McCoys. A couple in late middle age sat before us, looking at me with a mix of concern and impatience. Having been built up as the main worker on the case, someone with a deep insight into these children, I had proceeded to contribute absolutely nothing to the conversation and to very obviously drift. I was finding it difficult to sustain my concentration for any length of time.