by Shane Dunphy
‘I take it they were not amenable,’ Ben said grimly when I reached him.
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ I panted, as the first bottle of urine shattered on the ground just in front of us, exploding with the smell of ammonia. ‘Tilly and the kids are in there, though, as far as I can tell.’
The police had already begun to line out, getting in a defensive formation. ‘Keep behind the shields, you two,’ Brophy barked. ‘We’re going to make straight for the Currans’ trailer. If they’re not there, we’ll split into two columns. Mr Tyrrell, you go with the left flank, Mr Dunphy, you stay with the right. Possible bolt holes have been identified, and we’ll search each one systematically. Are we clear?’
‘Perfectly,’ Ben said. ‘There’s no need to shout.’
‘I’m sorry. I hate these fuckin’ Section 12s,’ Brophy admitted.
‘We’re not big fans of them ourselves, Detective,’ Ben said. ‘Shall we get it over with?’
Shields held above us, we advanced quickly through the gates. As soon as our line began to move, the shouts and jeers became louder and shriller, and the shower of projectiles fell thicker and faster. A boulder that looked as if it must have been thrown by King Kong crashed into us, almost knocking several of the gardaí backwards.
‘Jesus! Do they have one of those giant fuckin’ catapults or somethin’?’ a young officer in front of me muttered.
When we were several yards inside the halting site, the mob got braver, running over, throwing things at closer range, hitting out with iron bars and sticks. The armoured gardaí moved into a loose circle to protect Ben and me. I found that I was sweating profusely, despite the fact that it was very cold and sporadic bursts of rain had begun to fall. A pony whinnied in fear beside us, bucking in alarm. With a throaty roar, a huge man rushed the group from the left, a hurley in his hand. He crashed into the shields on Ben’s side, and the force of the attack sent him through the gap between the men. I heard Ben swear as the giant collided with him, the two of them hurtling into me. I fell against the police on my own side, who pushed back, and the whole tangled mess of us staggered precariously. I tried to hang on to Ben, afraid that if he fell, we’d be in serious trouble. Ben, for his part, was desperately attempting to push the huge man away from him. The hurley was swinging all about, and connecting occasionally, accompanied by a furious string of invective. Suddenly, I felt another lurch at the front. Several men had charged from that direction. The shields were no longer offering any protection; a bottle whizzed past my ear and landed directly on the head of our burly antagonist. He went down in a shower of glass and did not rise.
The gardaí were fighting to keep us together, but we were badly outnumbered. To my relief, I saw the Currans’ shabby caravan just ahead. We came up tight beside it, surrounded now on all sides by a leering mob. I reached for the handle and pulled, fully aware that we could have Gerry and his brother to the front of us, as well as the spitting, shouting army behind.
The door swung open, and I dashed straight up the steps. Inside, it was dark and bitterly cold. Tilly sat on the couch facing me, Polly, who was six months old, on her knee and the next oldest, the eighteen-month-old, Jimmy, on the rancid carpet at her feet. That left three children – Becky, who was three, Benjy, who was eight, and Milly, who was ten – unaccounted for. Her husband and brother-in-law were nowhere to be seen.
‘Hurry the fuck up,’ I heard Brophy shout from outside.
Tilly looked at me with huge, terrified eyes. ‘Don’t take my babbies,’ she choked, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks.
‘Come with me,’ I said urgently. ‘I want to help you – all of you.’
‘Gerry is my husband,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t leave him. No man would touch me again.’
‘He nearly killed your son,’ I said, casting a look over my shoulder at the mayhem outside the door. ‘Does he hit you too?’
‘Only when I makes him,’ she said, clutching the baby to her breast. ‘He’s not bad. He’s not!’
‘Shane, we have to be on our way,’ Ben called to me.
‘Come with me, Tilly,’ I implored. ‘There’s no other way out of this. We can teach you to look after the children, help you with money, get you somewhere nice to live, with electricity and hot and cold water and a decent kitchen –’
‘Noooo!’ she screamed. ‘Leave us alone! You can’t take them!’
In two quick steps Ben was in the room. He went straight to Tilly and, ignoring her protestations, prised the child from her. The baby began to wail, reaching out for her with its stubby, pocked arms.
‘Take the other kid and come on,’ he said calmly and, with the distressed baby, ducked back into the deepening dark outside.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at the distraught woman. I simply grabbed the tot on the floor and rushed after Ben. I was too slow, though, and as soon as I turned she grabbed the back of my long coat. ‘No, my baby, my baby.’ She was verging on hysteria, repeating the words again and again. She fell to the floor, wrapping her arms around my legs.
The child, Jimmy, began to scream and thrash about, confused and frightened. I wrenched myself away from her and followed Ben, holding the infant.
The gardaí seemed to have had some success in dissuading our adversaries from their efforts; there was only a scattered group remaining. Ben handed me the younger child and with two of the police walked briskly over to the larger trailer that stood adjacent, where Tilly had been earlier that morning.
The children, close together now in my arms, seemed to be a comfort to one another. I squatted down on the grass and began to rock and sing gently to them: Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Daddy’s gonna buy you a mocking bird. They hiccoughed and sobbed but watched me, wide-eyed, the tears making pale tracks down their dirt-stained cheeks. I could still hear Tilly screaming in misery in the caravan, and, with my elbow, pushed the rickety door closed. And if that mocking bird don’t sing, Daddy’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.
After much knocking and a declaration that the police were outside, the door of the big trailer opened. Gerry stood silhouetted against the light, three-year-old Becky in his arms.
‘Ye can’t have ’em,’ he shouted at the gathered police, Ben and me. ‘Ye’re on my turf now. These are my people, so they are. Ye’ll not take my wains, not never.’
‘We can and will,’ Ben said. He spoke so quietly, I could barely hear him. ‘Now, please don’t make this any more difficult than it has already been.’
Without warning, Gerry, from his elevated position on the caravan steps, kicked Ben squarely in the jaw with his mud-caked boot. Ben keeled over backwards, landing with an audible thud on the frigid ground. There was a roar of approval from the crowd still around us, and the police rushed Gerry as one. I put my arms around the children tightly and kept singing: And if that diamond ring turns to brass, Daddy’s gonna buy you a looking glass.
‘For the love of God, don’t hurt the youngsters,’ I heard Ben cry above the shouts of the crowd and the barking of the dogs and the bellows of the gardaí.
The children had stopped crying now, and were leaning into me and against one another. Their breathing had become deep and regular, the fear and the unhappiness of the day pushing them remorselessly towards sleep. I continued to sing, as much for myself as for their benefit. The melody of the old lullaby seemed to act as a force field, insulating us from the fury and insanity of our surroundings. And if that looking glass gets broke, Daddy’s gonna buy you a billy goat.
Gerry Curran burst through the gauntlet of struggling gardaí and irate travellers and made a lunge for me. Still singing, I tried to angle myself so that he would land on my back. Brophy, a look of grim determination on his face, rugby-tackled him and held him in an armlock on the ground. I cast a look down at Polly and Jimmy, to see how they were coping with the sight of their father being so roughly handled. To my relief, both were sleeping. I continued to rock them and sing as their father was cuffed and led away, and Ben a
nd a young garda carried Becky out of the trailer, while Milly and Benjy followed dejectedly behind Ben. No one came near us, even those who had been so aggressive moments before seeming to realize that the only ones being hurt now were these exhausted, fragile innocents.
Eventually Ben came up to me. He was mud-spattered and an enormous welt was already coming up on his jaw where Gerry had kicked him.
‘Let’s get these two to the van,’ he said.
I stood and handed Polly to him. ‘What about Tilly?’
‘What about her?’
‘Well, we can’t just leave her here like this.’
He looked at me and sighed. ‘Go on. Give it one last shot. But we need to move, Shane. The children are our primary concern.’
I passed Jimmy over to him and went back into the foul air of the cramped trailer.
Tilly was lying on the floor where I had left her. She did not move or speak. I sat down on the grubby carpet and took out a cigarette. ‘Do you mind if I smoke, Tilly?’
She didn’t answer.
‘I’ll take it that you don’t.’
I realized as I sparked my Zippo that my hands were shaking badly. I closed my eyes, trying to wrest back some control. ‘Would you like a cigarette?’ I asked her, my eyes still closed. I felt my breathing start to regulate, and opened them.
I thought she was going to stay silent, but after a long pause she muttered: ‘What happened to my Gerry?’
‘The cops took him. I’m sorry.’
‘And my babbies?’
‘They’re in a police van, outside. We’re going to take them to hospital tonight, and then on to a residential unit tomorrow. If you were to come with them, though … well, after you get checked out by a doctor, you could all go to a refuge until we can sort out somewhere for you to live.’
She lifted her head and looked at me, pain etched into the dark lines on her face. Her eyes were red from crying, tears still running down her cheeks as if something had ruptured inside her. I suddenly realized that she wasn’t much older than me. Life had not been kind to her, however. She was already old, despite her years.
‘I can’t go, don’t you see that?’
I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t. Tell me.’
‘I’m a traveller. I was born on the road. I’ve spent me whole life on the move, had all me wains that way. I can’t live in a house. I don’t know how.’
I reached over and put my hand on her shoulder. ‘That’s okay. No one is saying you have to stop being a traveller. We can probably help you to get a decent trailer, one big enough for you and the children. You can’t keep living in this one.’
‘You’d do that?’
‘Yes. There would have to be conditions, though. You’d need to stay put for a while, because the children are going to need some medical treatment. They’re all too skinny, and the headlice and the psoriasis have to be taken care of. And you’ll need help too. I’d like to keep visiting, and we’ll probably send someone – a traveller, mind – to help you deal with the children. I mean, there’re six of them, and that’s a lot for anyone. There’s no shame in having a little help.’
She laid her head back on the slick, greasy floor. ‘You say it like it’s so easy. To hand me life over to someone else. But then, why wouldn’t you? Sure, isn’t everythin’ easy for people like you?’
I sat in the bitter darkness of the ruined caravan, after what had been one of the most difficult, draining days of my life, anger and resentment emanating from the prone woman like a physical thing.
‘No, Tilly,’ I said quietly, ‘everything is not easy for people like me. Circumstances can often prove to be very difficult indeed.’
When she finally came with me to the van, she sat among her children in silence, barely casting a glance in my direction. It would be a while before she could bring herself to speak to me again.
2
The rain, accompanied by some golf-ball-sized hail, came down with such a fury I wondered if God had finally had enough of us and decided to finish the job. I stood in the lobby of a dying shopping mall on the outskirts of the city, my collar turned up against the cold, and wished I had a cup of coffee or maybe something stronger. It was 10.30 in the morning, and the weather forecast for the day promised unpleasantness without respite or apology. I lit a cigarette and cast my eyes over the virtually empty car park. Behind me in the echoing, warehouse-like space, a few desultory shoppers were pushing trolleys, while store managers desperately tried to stay afloat for one more day.
Just as I was about to give up hope, a small red Japanese hatchback with a huge fin on the rear turned in the gate and pulled up next to my Austin. I recognized the driver immediately, although I hadn’t seen her for ten years.
I had been to college with Roberta Plummer, and I had not liked her. This probably said more about me than her, for she had been studious and reserved, while I had, at that stage, been less than attentive to my academic pursuits and more attuned to the social aspects of the college experience. We had never exactly clashed, but had managed to navigate the three years of our degree without ever really talking to one another.
She was short and plump in a pleasant kind of way, dressed in a very conservative trouser suit and tan trench coat. Her hair was cut just as it had been when I’d known her, long with a thick fringe, and I saw none of the grey that peppered mine among the black. In fact, if you ignored the few pounds she had gained, she hadn’t changed a bit.
She smiled as she saw me, and approached with her hand extended. ‘Shane, thanks so much for coming.’
‘Roberta, you look well.’
She didn’t return the compliment. ‘Let me buy you a cup of coffee. There’s a place inside that’s not bad.’
I suspected that was a euphemism but kept the thought to myself.
We sat at the back of the empty café. She was right: the coffee was not bad at all, and I felt some life returning as the warmth began to seep back into my limbs.
‘I was surprised to hear from you,’ I said after several moments of dead air. ‘What have you been up to?’
‘I manage a crèche not far from here. It’s called “Little Tykes”. Have you heard of us?’
‘The name’s familiar.’
‘You work for the Dunleavy Trust, I hear.’
I nodded.
‘You were involved with the Walsh boys last summer.’
‘Yes.’
‘Micky Walsh was with us, for a time.’
I nodded again. Micky and Bobby Walsh were two children I had worked with the previous summer. Their father had been murdered in a gangland shooting, yet his two young sons told their mother and teachers that they continued to see him at the end of their garden, and that he was instructing them to act out in ever more violent and disturbing ways.
Roberta looked out the window. Whatever was on her mind, she was taking her time. I took a cigarette from the pack and lit it. I didn’t really want one, but it was something to do. I was thinking about giving them up. Maybe I could cut down. I’d heard that cold turkey was the best way to do it, but I wasn’t convinced.
‘My mother died when I was ten years old,’ Roberta said.
‘I’m sorry.’
She waved off the sentiment, seemingly vexed by it. ‘She’d been sick for as long as I could remember. My father was the only real parent I’d known. Mother was always just a presence in the upstairs bedroom. It was cancer.’
‘Yeah, I lost my own mother to it the year we graduated.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
That surprised me, but I made no comment. We were getting to whatever it was that had moved her to call me, and I was curious.
‘When I was seventeen, my father remarried. Cynthia, her name was. She was a wonderful person. A lot younger than him, but sweet and warm, and she was the mother I’d never had. I adored her almost as much as he did. They were married a year when she became pregnant, and suddenly I had a brother, Clive. Do you have siblings, Shane?’
‘Brother and a sister.’
‘I bet you’re the eldest.’
‘I am,’ I said, wondering what had given her that impression.
‘It was strange at first. Up until then, my family had been my parents and me. Now there was this other person to think of. But it was sort of nice, actually. I had a brother. I had to get used to calling him that, you know. Brother. Felt odd. But I liked it.’
‘Happy families.’
‘Yes. I moved out, as you know, to go to college, and immediately after graduation I went to work in London for a time. Aside from going home for holidays, I made my own life. I rang home regularly, and got letters and emails, but I was removed, I suppose, from what was happening. It was all over, really, before I even knew what was going on.’
‘What?’
‘Cynthia had become very ill. Cancer again – a rare form, incurable. There had been some warning signs, but the doctors hadn’t noticed them. Thought she had an inner-ear infection. She died last year.’
‘Jesus, Roberta, I’m sorry. That really sucks.’
‘Yes. It does.’ She was silent again for a while.
‘Um, Roberta. Why did you ask to meet me?’
She blinked and looked back at me. ‘Oh. Yes. Well, it’s about Clive, of course.’
‘Your brother.’
‘Yes. You recall I said that I hadn’t been as involved with the family as maybe I should have been? Well, when I went home for the funeral, I realized immediately that something wasn’t right with Clive.’
‘He must have been devastated, Roberta. What age was he? Twelve, thirteen, maybe?’ She nodded briefly. ‘That’s a really bad age to lose your mother.’