Lily Poole

by Jack O'Donnell

‘Had to. Sign of respect.’ She pushed his outstretched fingers away. A green Hillman nosed out of the path, almost skimming them so they tucked their bums in and stepped closer to the grave. The car rattled on the shoulder of the exit and chugged onto the dual carriageway with a string of other cars backed-up behind it.

  ‘That’s funny,’ said John. ‘The Poole family. They’ve got the same second name as you. Whit’s the chances of that, eh?’ He drew his finger casually down the list of names interred in the plot. His eyes oscillating back and forth, finger tapping, and drawn to the final name, one he had become familiar with, Lily, Gone But Not For­gotten. ‘And that girl Lily died the same day as our Ally was born. I’m ninety-nine per cent sure, but I’d need to ask my mum. Jesus, the chances of that are about a ­million to one,’ He turned to check where the hired car was. Many of the cars waiting in line had taken a detour, and a different route, along another row of graves. Janine gave him a searching look, but said nothing.

  ‘Wait there and I’ll give you a lift.’ His voice rose and he smiled encouragement. Her face was shiny clean by Janine’s standards. No make-up. ‘You’re coming to the do, aren’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. You need to come.’

  He watched cars speeding past them, gaps opening up between them, until, last of all, the priest’s jalopy crawled out through the iron gates. He told her his secret, ‘I saw you the other night, standing at the window, looking out at the stars.’

  ‘Did you?’ she said. ‘I’m thrilled to smithereens.’ She walked away from him, her heels clicking on the tarmac.

  ‘Hing on.’ He easily caught up with her. She slapped his hand away. The limousine slowed and stopped beside him. The passenger door opened and his mum stared out at him. She patted the empty seat beside her and he found himself filling it.

  ‘Jump in,’ he shouted at Janine.

  She shook her head and kept clumping along, without turning back or looking at him.

  Mary followed her son’s gaze as the car passed her. ‘That’s a strange girl that.’

  ‘She looks trouble,’ said Auntie Caroline.

  The do after the funeral was held in St Stephen’s Church Hall. White-linen-covered tables were set out around the perimeter of the wooden floor that John had played football on when he was younger. The glitter of the silver ball above the mourners’ heads was on standstill, waiting for Friday night disco lights to revive it. Women from the chapel committee had done them proud, ­ferrying back and forth with industrial-sized tea and coffee pots, plying the tables with sandwiches and ­sausage rolls, smoothing things out with remarks concerning what kind of fillings were best. They even provided plates of cakes and chocolate biscuits for the kids. Men’s ties loosened and then were shoved in their pockets, belts slackened. A nip of whisky. That was their lot. They stayed on after the sandwiches, talking about football. Women’s shoes were kicked off tortured feet, buttons popped, and they had a confab about their kids. A vodka with coke or lemonade. Enough to wet their whistles and help them on their way.

  Mary did the rounds, thanking everybody for coming. Jo, at her elbow, listening in, being told what a big girl she was getting, managed a nervous smile.

  ‘It’s a terrible shame,’ was the common refrain.

  Whether they were talking about his da or his sister, John was unsure, but he said nothing. He was with his aunties and their kids, stuck in a seat near the toilets, a can of orange juice in front of him. While he was making chit-chat with his Auntie Caroline, he glanced over at the stage and the emergency exit, to his da’s mates at the makeshift bar – a plywood hut in the corner of the hall. They supped cans of Pale Ale, but that was better than nothing. They leaned, lounged, hunched, smoked and drank with raucous laughter and looked as if they were plotting for the world to end.

  Bobby Rodgers broke away from the group and cut across the Guild’s dance floor to where John was sitting.

  ‘A few of us are goin’ to the pub for a few jars. We’d like you to come wae us.’

  Auntie Caroline shook her head across the table, warning him that he should be sensible. Bobby smiled and kidded on that he had not seen it.

  ‘Ah cannae,’ John said.

  ‘Too good for us?’ he chuckled.

  ‘No, it’s no’ that. I’ve got to keep an eye on my ma,’ John groaned. ‘And I’m pratted.’

  ‘You don’t need money,’ he snorted. His big hand patted Auntie Caroline on the arm, tagging her. She looked up at him. ‘I think this good lady will keep an eye on your wee ma.’ He winked, made it seem so reasonable, that she nodded. John’s chair scraped on the floor in his haste to get up and follow his new mate.

  Bobby was first through the door of the Club Bar, his hand on John’s shoulder and a crowd of men behind them. The barmaid, a thin woman with a beehive hairdo, watched them spilling in and grinned with tobacco-stained teeth.

  ‘A pint of your best slops, Agnes, for this young man. And unlucky for some, thirteen half-and-halves for the rest of us.’ Bobby swept his hand out, an introduction to the other men crowding the bar.

  ‘Hing on. Is he eighteen?’ She leaned her head to get a better look at John. ‘He doesnae look eighteen.’

  Bobby pulled out a tenner, put it on the bar and tapped his forefinger against it. ‘That’ll get that. And there’s plenty more where that came from.’ He turned and studied John’s face, who, in the throng, was pushed up against him. ‘That boy’s not eighteen. He’s twenty-one and he’s an American and not used to our crude ways.’

  The barmaid poured half pints of McEwans from the taps underneath the bar. She pirouetted, her arm outstretched as she held a short’s glass up to an upturned bottle of Bells in the gantry. ‘You twenty-one, son?’

  Bobby nudged him.

  ‘Aye,’ John said.

  ‘You don’t sound American.’ She held the glass up to fill it again.

  ‘But does he sound twenty-one?’ a balding man with a flushed face piped in from the back of the crowd, and folk standing nearby started laughing.

  The crew of mourners good-naturedly took over the pub, piling into the corner tables at the long curve of the mock-leather seats, the wall of opaque windows above their heads. Status Quo hits played on the jukebox near the toilets. John was told so many stories about Joey that he swelled up like a bullfrog. It made him think for a minute his da was just outside, waiting to fall in and join the company. He was fed salted crisps and watered-down whisky, which was good for you. When he had to use the loo, he realised he was wobbly on his feet, flushed pink, with puffed-out cheeks, but they seemed to take it in turn to line up and slap him on the back to show how impressed with him they were. He was just like Joey. He was a chip off the old block.

  He found himself wittering on to Bobby about the dreams he had, trying to explain their significance. Janine was a succubus that was draining him, or he was an incubus draining her. He fell into a conversation with somebody else and failed to remember who was who, or what he was talking about.

  Bobby shook his head and gave him some fatherly advice. ‘That kind of stuff’s for old women with hair nets and tarot cards. Only daft women get involved in that kind of shite. Your da wouldnae have liked it.’

  John got the message and was bundled into a taxi home.

  After that, the glop of sick, hemp and the feel of his living room carpet under his cheek were too real to be imagined.

  Day 56

  John thought a hangover was something old fogeys suffered from, but the next morning his neck felt chiselled out of Bridge of Don granite and his head was leaden. He wanted to die, or at least lie in bed with his mum mopping his forehead and holding a bowl out for him to be sick into.

  Instead, she smacked him hard on the back of the head. ‘Ya dirty bugger. Look at the mess you’ve made.’ Her concern was for the carpet, not him.

  He lifted his head to mutter. ‘Someone must have spiked my drink.’

  She clattered him again, harder this time. ‘Th
ey didn’t spike it enough. Get into your bed and out of my sight before I really start on you. As if I’ve no’ got enough to contend with.’

  He crawled slug-like across the living room. Negotiating the door, he monkeyed a few notches up the evolutionary tree into something bipedal. He flailed like a blind man, shoulders banging against the walls, and stumbled into the sanctuary of the toilet where he crouched and grasped the womb of Shanks’ toilet pan for support. Throwing up green bile his stomach worked the miracle of turning lavvy water wine-red. His belly spasmed, but brought only gut pain.

  By mid-afternoon he felt able to sip water and watch telly. His mum gave him withering looks and did everything but poke him with a stick. She had arranged for Jo to stay with Auntie Teresa for another week; whether that was because of his antics he was unsure. Auntie Caroline tutted, but appeared mildly sympathetic. He was glad that her daft friend Gloria hovered in attendance because it meant he had no need to feign an interest in their conversation. A brackish tendril ex-plored the back of his throat and he rushed once more to the toilet.

  When he returned, plonking himself back in the same seat, he watched his mum stumble over the join of the carpet between kitchen and living room. Her wrists were white, fragile as lollipop sticks, and her hand trembled as she passed him a glass of water and an Askitt. He recognised it as a truce, tipping his head back and letting the contents powder the pink of his mouth. She stood by his chair until he had finished swallowing tepid water before turning and taking the glass back into the kitchen.

  He dozed to the theme music of Blue Peter. His fingers shaped and curved into talons. Hand-clutching marked the beginning of a loosening of his body. A moment of extreme clarity and then falling. He dreamed something was above him and he panicked as asphyxiation threshed his body. He tried kicking up and out. But each breath was more hurried, shallower than the last. Life tapered. He was looking through a keyhole. A drumming sound he thought of as rain, but his bones recognised as the weight of soil. His right leg shook. A cut-throat blade of fear cut across him. He clawed his way up and out of hellish reveries, gasping for breath.

  ‘You’ve had one of your visions again.’ Gloria, self-­satisfied, nodded at Auntie Caroline to confirm the truth of what she said.

  ‘What did you see, son?’ Auntie Caroline asked.

  Mary sat on the couch beside her, blinking with tiredness, yawning and half-listening.

  ‘I don’t know,’ John said. The frantic energy his trance had given him leached away and his body went slack. He tilted his head, fingers dragging through his hair and scalp for evidence of the pockmarks of divots, which he was sure had struck him.

  ‘Mocking laughter. I heard mocking laughter and saw men in police uniforms.’ He turned and looked over at his mum to gauge her reaction. She watched him, her pupils like watery moons he was falling into. He wanted to tell her the truth that he could no longer be sure that the laughter was not his own, but a sensation of exaltation flashed through his body as he realised that she already knew. She had always known. There could be no longer be any secrets between them and there never was.

  ‘You need to really listen. Open yourself up to the breath of your fellow man. The breath of life. Those that have gone before.’ Gloria flushed with satisfaction. ‘The future casts a long shadow into the past.’

  Mary brushed imaginary crumbs from her legs before standing. ‘Well, some people have got work to do.’

  ‘You don’t want to find Alison?’ Gloria asked.

  Auntie Caroline leaned forward, eclipsing Mary, but her younger sister held her off with a sharp look, and was quick to reply.

  ‘Don’t get sarky with me, madam. Anymore of your codswallop and I’ll be putting you out the door, personally. I’ve asked God for help. I’ve asked Him till my knees buckled and my fingers fused. You know what I think?’ She looked at her son and shrugged. ‘I think God’s out there and we’re in here. I think we’re cursed. That’s what I think.’ Her voice grew calmer before sputtering and rising again. ‘But I’ll tell you this, lady, if there was a chance of finding my Alison I’d follow the devil straight to hell to do it. I’d give my immortal soul just to speak to her one more time, to hold her one more time, to find her safe.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.’ Gloria’s face flushed a mottled pink and she sounded contrite.

  Mary ignored her and shuffled into the kitchen. The sound of the taps running could be heard, and behind Gloria’s shoulder the hum of the boiler kicked into life.

  Auntie Caroline’s voice was hard and her manner no longer polite. ‘I think it’s about time you left.’

  Gloria shrank into herself. ‘OK.’ She tried a half smile, but it puttered out. Gathering up her cigarettes and the handbag at her feet, she swayed as she stood up. Auntie Caroline, waited to escort her out.

  Gloria turned back and apologised again. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, son. But you’ve got the gift.’ She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes. ‘If you need my help, you know where to find me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ John felt sorry for her, but also uneasy. He tried not to show it, but with all her meddling, his brain had unrighted itself and left a ­submarine-size hole in the way he felt. But there was a bright side to it, Gloria getting flung out allowed him to sneak past his mum and auntie and spend time alone in his room. He carried a comic book in his hand, but with no thought of reading it, more an alibi he could wave should anyone ask what he was doing. He edged toward the window and his legs went numb from standing motionless. He felt on the wrong side of the glass, as if something alien, something Gloria might have recognised, was inside him, and pushing the furniture about to make space for something life-changing. The reek of putrid flesh made him gag, but a split-second later the night segued into something more recognisable and manageable. His mum’s room was a dark grotto full of the familiar childhood smells of fags and unwashed sheets. Without knowing how he had got there, John found he had picked off the floor a metallic dot. Hardly there. But when he looked more closely it was a fragment of a black-and-white photo of his mum smiling at him and clinging to the picture of a world already gone.

  Day 57

  John went to bed after his mum, limbs heavy with fatigue, but he had trouble sleeping. He eyed with distaste the Christmas-tree brightness of the yellow light shade above his head and the heavy brocade of winter curtains hanging like gaudy flags from the curtain rail. Despite eating nothing more exotic than spuds and beans with brown HP sauce, an aftertaste of bitter herbs clogged his mouth. Clammy skin, oily with sweat, and his heart playing a banjo tune made his eyelids pop open. He sat up sharpish and listened, not sure what for. His thoughts drifted to Janine and he had a wank. His denims were sitting frozen in the chair by the window, waiting for a body, a hanky in the back pocket. Seed dripping from his fingers and palm made him act de­­cisively. He darted to the toilet in his Y-fronts, cleaned himself up, and had a quick pee. Yawning, clock-­watching, time suspended, he ambled back towards his bedroom, but hesitated and stuttered. He found himself standing outside his mum’s room, his breath punched out in front of him.

  It seemed stupid, a stunt from Monty Python, but he put his ear to the door. Then drawing away, he rapped politely with his knuckles. No one answered. He knocked again. Through the wall of his sisters’ room he heard bedsprings groan, weight being shifted. A few moments later a click, a parabola of light, and Auntie Caroline stood framed in the doorway. She tugged her nightgown over any hint of breasts. Her presence gave him permission to press his hand against the door panel. He heard the ball-catch release and hinges squeal as he pushed the door.

  ‘Mum.’ He spoke into the darkness of the room, his voice unsure

  There was no answer. He stood suspended in two worlds, no longer certain if he was in the right house, or if he was dreaming and would wake up in his hospital bed, wondering what all the fuss was about.

  ‘Mum.’ He spoke a little louder, urgency in his voice. A musty smell mixed wit
h cigar smoke made his body tense even more.

  The shuffle of slippers and a deep-rooted sigh. Auntie Caroline stood next to him, steadying him. He felt rather than saw her arm snake past his chest. Time slowed. The light clicked on and he was running. His Auntie Caroline cried out, but he could no longer decipher words; he scrambled to make connections between sentences, but it was as if she had started speaking Igbo.

  He found himself outside, halfway down the street and unaware of his destination – the phone box. Slowly, he became conscious that his feet were sore, speckled by jaggy stones, his nose streamed and his skin shone with rain. He pulled open the heavy door. He was careful with his footing and leaned across to dial 999, the numbers ratcheting in a cone-shaped curve and whirring as the dial returned to the starting point.

  Bubbling tears into the receiver, the calm pool of a woman’s voice reassured him; he wheedled and prayed for them to come quickly, asked the telephone operator to make his mum better, to make things the way they used to be. With a click, the operator was gone.

  Slogging up the hill and back to the house, he positioned himself on the doorstep, the front door wide open at his back, scanning the streets for blue flashing lights, listening for sirens. ‘How long? How long? How long?’ he muttered. His hair in the driving rain clung round his ears like a swimming cap as he blinked the water away and shivered. Somehow he became more and more sure they would not come and less and less sure he wanted them to.

  Keening sirens cut through what remained of the night and he spotted the strobe light turning the corner of Byron Street. The ambulance crew came charging out of the doors of the parked ambulance like action heroes; one tall, the other fat, the tarpaulin stretcher they carried between them was a bridge between words and action. There was the bustle of men asking questions that whirled round in John’s head like helicopter blades: Who was he and where was she? What had she taken? Where was the medicine cabinet? He failed to answer, a ghost in his own life.