Lily Poole

by Jack O'Donnell

  ‘Can you tell her I love her?’

  ‘You can tell her yourself.’ Jack beckoned with his head in the direction of a hedge. ‘She’s just over there. But you better hurry. Any time I get close—’

  He broke away from John, dashing the last few yards, heavy, clattering steps as if scattering pigeons.

  ‘Where is she now?’ John scuttled to Jack’s side, his eyes scanning the hedgerow.

  ‘She’s here,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve got her by the hand.’

  John bent down and peered, but he couldn’t see her. He reached out to the side of Jack, patted the air around the privet, but felt nothing. ‘Ask her whit happened that day?’

  ‘She’s not daft. She can hear you, just as well as I can hear you and she said you look really old.’

  John laughed. ‘That sounds about right.’

  Jack cocked his head, listened to what Ally said and repeated it. ‘She said you’ve to take her hand and she’ll show you what happened.’

  ‘I would, but I cannae see her hand. I cannae see any part of her. I cannae feel any part of her. Ask her if Mum’s alright?’

  ‘Come round this side and take her hand and ask her yourself,’ Jack swivelled sideways, his arm out like a flag pole and his hand cupping air.

  John’s stomach clenched, his throat choked and he bit back bile. He felt the stupidity of it all, his life a sham, full of don’t knows and make believe. He chuckled, but without humour. Hands were funny bones, just as likely to slap you as to tickle, so many separate pieces, all ­different. He took a stab at it, fingers fluttering and feeling about for something. He felt faint and himself dissolving into air.

  Ally was a revelation standing between them, limply holding Jack’s hand and his. Bawling like a kid, his legs went soft and he pulled her close to him, lifting and squeezing her into his chest. He plastered her cheeks and face with sloppy, salty kisses.

  She put up with it for a minute before her head reeled back from him and accused him, ‘You left me alone with lots of bad men.’

  St Stephen’s school bell rang. John knew the implausibility of that. Bulldozing and the planned construction of new houses on the land had been stopped because of a squabble about asbestos. The shell of the main school building was all that was left. Yet the insistent ringing was as much an unmistakable part of his early childhood as Kellogg’s cornflakes.

  ‘Hurry, or I’ll be late.’ Ally squirmed out of John’s hands and stood on the pavement between them, looking quizzically from one to another. She nipped in front of them, her feet skipping towards the sound of the bell. They caught up with her in the midst of a sudden blizzard.

  The yells and yips of school children, penned behind the old-style iron railings, was a ragtime of playground noise. Ahead of them, John recognised the lollipop man in his waterproof suit. He stood in the middle of the road, the pole as immovable as his peaked hat, blocking a Hillman Minx, engine tickling the air, as kids ambled across the road. Ally’s legs worked like a filly in a wide-open field; she sprinted past the tree and jumped off the safety of pavement and kerb and onto the road fifteen yards from the school crossing.

  ‘Hi, hi,’ The lollipop man shouted in his usual grumpy manner, but she waved good-naturedly at him, safely on the pavement. He didn’t look across as they passed in front of him at the school gates.

  In the playground John swerved round a tiny boy in short trousers and black shiny shoes, whooping as he jumped into a puddle, water splashing onto his boots. ‘You better watch you don’t get your feet wet, or you’ll get a bad cold,’ John warned.

  ‘Sorry.’ The tot looked up at him, a snail-trail of snot running sideways from his nose and finding a path to his mouth, before he turned and galloped away from them on an imaginary horse.

  The janny meandered past, going in the same direction as them. Ally flew up the four stone steps and into the main building where the youngest pupils’ blocks of classrooms were situated. She took the side door into the cloakroom. Further along the corridor a teacher’s heels could be heard tapping, walking away from them. Duffle coats, blazers, balaclavas and anoraks hunched together on the hook of metal pegs and cut-down frames that kept them from trailing on the stone floor. The cast-iron radiators on the wall clicked out heat which spread its net among the homely smell of damp clothes. Ally tried to worm her way out of her anorak, but the zip stuck. She panicked and tried pulling it over her head. The second school bell rang longer, a more insistent tone signalling school proper had started and playtime ended. Before John or Jack could help, the janny stuck his head in the door. Behind him children were lining up in crocodiles outside. He watched her wrestling with the anorak and darted up beside her.

  ‘Wait a wee sec.’ The janny patted her head through the quilted material. She stopped struggling, the adult voice reassuring her. He tugged at the zip on the anorak, his hand hesitated before his fingers sneaked up under her dress.

  ‘Hey,’ shouted John, swinging for him, but his fist swept through the janny, punching air.

  Jack lunged across to help and his arms swept through the man. ‘Am I dreaming?’ he asked John, his voice soaring.

  ‘Nah, it’s a fuckin’ nightmare and we’re the ghosts hauntin’ it.’ John tried once more, clutching at the janny, but his hands grasped nothing but despair.

  The janny pulled Ally’s hood further up and over her head like a sack and guided her out into the main corridor. ‘We’ll need to get a pair of pliers for this,’ he explained to the girl in a strained voice, his head flicking from side to side, checking out if there was anyone listening.

  He bundled her past the glazed stare of the statue of the Virgin Mary and took the little-used door out into the playground. Keeping close to the wall underneath the windows of the gym, his hand dug into her shoulder, pushing her head down and her body close to him. He walked so fast she had to run beside him to keep up. Jack and John, unmanned, pushed on beside them.

  The janny spoke out of the side of his mouth in a reassuring and cajoling tone. ‘I think I’ve got a pair of pliers in the boiler room.’ He nudged her down the first few steps, and his clattering feet followed behind her, the smile slipping from his face as he searched for his keys. He shoved her inside. She stumbled and fell on the spill of coal for the boilers. One last look behind him before he banged the door shut and unbuttoned the top button on his trousers slashing his zip down. ‘Scream all you want. I’ve got a few friends that will be along later. We love that kinda thing. Nobody can hear us down here. Just us. It’ll be a little home from home.’

  John gulped tears of rage and frustration. Jack clamped his hands over his eyes and tucked his head against the older man’s shoulder, using his body as a post to hold him upright, and to screen him from what was happening to Ally, but it couldn’t prevent him hearing. When it was finished, the janny forced a feathered shuttle-cock into Ally’s mouth, gagging her with a bandage and handcuffed her to the boiler.

  John gently unpicked the boy’s fingers which clung to his arm. He crouched down trying to comfort Ally. From the terror lurking in her eyes, he knew she was in hell.

  ‘Stay with Ally,’ John told Jack. ‘Even though she can’t see us, maybe she’ll sense somebody is close by that loves her. That’s all we can hope and pray.’

  John stalked impotently behind the janny’s back as he locked the boiler room door behind him.

  The janny whistled as he climbed the stairs, emerging into a windblown playground. He bent over and caught an empty crisp packet, holding it out, showing it as an exhibit to the lollipop man.

  ‘Mucky buggers,’ the janny said. ‘Doesn’t matter how many times you tell them. Never put anything in the bins. Might as well talk to yourself.’

  The lollipop man fell into step with the janny. ‘You’re right there. The problem is they’re spoilt rotten. And they get everything done for them.’ A perplexed look crossed his face as he turned towards John, but John’s outstretched hand passed through both the Stop sign and his wet raincoat. />
  John tagged on behind them. The lollipop man parked his sign against the wall in the corridor leading to the janny’s office. He peeled off his waterproof and hung it on a peg, and plonked his hat on the one next to it. The janny made a show of depositing the empty crisp packet in a plastic bin. Then he slunk away to stick the kettle on. A two-bar electric fire had been left on, making his office snug, but filled with a mismatched table and chairs.

  ‘You want tea?’ the janny asked the lollipop man.

  ‘Nah, I’ll get a full breakfast with my Maisie.’ The ­lollipop man edged into the room. Sinking into the plush chair, he kicked off his wellies, his arthritic hands feeling around beneath the chair for shiny brown brogues. He looked directly at John, standing beside him. ‘Thought I heard something there.’

  The janny laughed. ‘Place is falling down. Better watch that, Charlie, or you’ll end up in the funny farm.’

  Charlie sniffed, stuck his feet into his shoes. ‘You’re probably right. Just got a funny feeling. Something’s not right. Got that in the war sometimes.’ He lurched up out of his seat and walked through John.

  The janny waited until he was sure that he had left before he sidled into the hall. A phone hung on the wall. He picked up the receiver and dialed. John stood behind him and heard the whirr and click of the phone being connected and begin to ring.

  ‘Chief Inspector Allan,’ the disembodied voice on the other end of the line said.

  ‘It’s me,’ said the janny.

  ‘I thought I asked you not to contact me here.’

  ‘Just to let you know, we’ve caught a little lamb.’

  ‘I told you to hang fire for a while.’ Chief Inspector Allan spoke in a clipped and commanding tone.

  The janny was unperturbed. ‘Couldn’t help myself, too good an opportunity to miss. And fresh little fleece as white as snow, as fresh as fresh can be.’ He smacked his lips together. ‘Tender. Just the way you like it.’

  ‘I can’t get off till six,’ said Chief Inspector Allan.

  ‘Well, you know how quickly lamb goes off.’ The janny laughed down the line. ‘And I’ve still got a few calls to make.’

  ‘You’ll wait, goddammit,’ said Chief Inspector Allan.

  ‘I might have a little nibble first.’ The janny hung up on him. He rubbed his hands together.

  The stench of cigar smoke alerted John to the old man’s presence, before he saw the glow of the tip of his cigar, and the stained uniform of a butcher’s bib. He had a cocksure look on his face, and was perched behind the desk in the janny’s office. He gawped at John, openly dismissive, and basked in the hatred of one that finally knew him. ‘Oh, what a piece of work is man,’ he intoned. ‘Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not—’

  The janny popped his head around the door. He grinned, quickly sliding his arse into a PVC seat across from the butcher, eyeing him like they were old friends.

  ‘Where have you been?’ the janny asked. ‘I’ve been waiting ages for you.’

  ‘Going to and fro on the earth.’ He waved his cigar like an orchestra conductor, listening to music inside his head. ‘Walking up and down in it. A wager lost and a wager won.’

  They howled with laughter at a shared joke.

  John felt a familiar buzzing in his ears and his head jerked away from them. He backed towards the door, bumping against the wall, and crouched down into a ball. He covered his ears with his hands, tried to speak, tried to shout, but was branded wordless by their indifference and their braying laughter. His voice un-spooled into a drawn-out howl and something in him broke. The butcher’s eyes flashing like dangling mirrors shrivelled his insides.

  ‘Over here Sarge.’ Constable Lennon leaned over John.

  John was pursed-up, naked and shivering among broken bricks and rubble in St Stephen’s old school gymnasium. His tangle of hair was matted with snow and his mouth open like a chick catching flakes as they drifted down. Indifferent to the greatcoat Constable Lennon had taken off and wrapped around his shoulders, John continued looking up and searching the cold night sky.

  ‘We better call an ambulance,’ said Constable Lennon. He leaned down, his breath a vapour cloud, as he shouted into John’s face, ‘Whit’s your name, mate?’ He shouted even louder, prodding John’s waxen arm, as an aid to understanding. ‘Have you got a name, mate?’

  John remained mute in his indifference.

  Sergeant Boyle had taken a longer and more circular route across the snowy landscape. He was blowing hard by the time he got to them. ‘Get an arm,’ he said, taking command. ‘We’ll need to lift him.’

  ‘But I’ve called in an ambulance,’ said Lennon.

  ‘We’ve not got time for that. He’ll freeze to death.’ Boyle wrapped his arms around John’s back, feeling under the greatcoat for a hand-hold under his oxter.

  John’s mouth closed and opened like a fish on a line. He jerked upwards trying to escape the officer’s grasp, his nose hitting against Boyle’s chin and splattering a vermilion splurge on his chest, which also dotted the snow. Boyle held on lock tight. John’s body slumped, falling in a dead weight against the policeman’s shoulder.

  Boyle looked across at his colleague, then at the smudge and reddish sheen on the breast of his long coat and reacted angrily. ‘I thought I told you to get him.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was going to do that.’ Lennon tried to make amends by nipping across and helping Boyle. He swung his arm under John’s other armpit.

  The two burly men lifted John like an empty grain sack, his bare feet trailing pale blue as they carried him across the slushy wilderness of the playground.

  ‘If we take him to casualty, we’ll have to wait hours to get seen,’ said Lennon. ‘And our shift’s nearly finished.’

  ‘Well, that’s no’ my fault, is it?’ said Boyle. ‘They keep letting him out of Gartnavel and he’s completely bonkers, paranoid schizophrenic. He lives it. The voices in his head are not his own. Hears and sees things and thinks they’re real. Babbles a whole load of shite about the devil. Doesn’t know if it’s Sunday or Christmas, and can go and howl at the moon, for all I care. Community Care! Those bastards have got a lot to answer for.’ He reached out and pulled open the door of the van.

  ‘You know him?’ asked Lennon.

  ‘Aye,’ said Boyle. ‘You sit in the back with him, so he doesn’t fall about and hurt himself.’ He grinned at his younger colleague’s pissed-off expression, and held his hand out for the keys. ‘I kinda knew his old man, he had a butcher’s shop, drank it all away. Shame what happened to the family. A house fire – started with a burning cigar down the side of the couch. A row of bodies. All wee girls. Not a mark on them; smoke in the lungs. His mother was a good wee woman, but she couldn’t cope. Took an overdose. Who could blame her? Shit happens.’

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