Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind

by Deirdre Shanahan

  He took a breath and plunged down and down, cut open the cold darkness of the water. He heard his heart. Pressure compacted in his head as he counted seconds like years. The depth was deafening. Holding his breath in the slip of the echoing silence, he slid through, gave himself to the water. It soothed and swayed over his body.

  Harjit. His khaki jacket over him. His dark hair slicked over his forehead. A girl pushing forward and saying, ‘Leave him. You’re supposed to leave them.’ A cold, alarm snaked in his veins. Harjit had shifted. A murmur of movement. Someone said, ‘You’re supposed to put them in recovery position.’

  Torin bounced up, water slipping off, his eyes full of it, gushing down. Dizzied, he shook his head. Slicks of hair in his eyes. Being in the water was wild and dangerous, even if it was colder than he had known. Waves roared in his ears while the salt taste exploded in his mouth. He made for the pier and pushed himself up. Pauley swam to the side; Shane was still out there.

  Torin and Pauley sat with their legs dangling over the edge. The early morning was misty. Shane swam in, ran up the stone steps and along the quay to Pauley, grasping his waist.

  ‘Come on.’ Shane pushed Pauley towards the water.

  ‘Oi. Leave off.’ Pauley kicked back.

  Shane pressed down on Pauley’s head with his thick hands. An easy target, slighter built than Shane, Pauley was slow to anger but when it pitched in, it showed. Shane laughed, his broad face open with delight.

  ‘Give us a rest,’ Pauley yelled.

  ‘Haa haa!’ Shane danced barefoot up and down to the end of the pier where he stopped, balanced off the edge and jumped in. He was a bobbing, exuberant face until he swam strongly back and pulled himself up.

  If Shane tried anything, Torin would sling him one, shove him in the water.

  ‘Let’s dive again,’ Shane demanded.

  ‘You know what I’d like to do?’ Pauley said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dive off over there.’

  Torin followed Pauley’s gaze to a huge, grey rock.

  ‘It’s high.’

  ‘That’s why I wanna do it,’ Pauley shouted, running to the head of the pier. ‘You get a buzz.’ He jumped in and swam far out to where the sea was preened and glossy.

  Torin’s heart turned. A flick. A murmur in the big silence. A trick of the light and Pauley’s ribs were whispers. He was a lone figure among the waves, swimming near the face of the rock. He pulled up on it, was an insect crawling; his hands skimmed for holds in crags. Half way up on a ledge, he crept higher, drew in air as if to strengthen himself. A large gold cross on his chest glinted as he raised his arms. The tattoo around the top of his arm squirled a ring of thorns. He stretched up on the balls of his feet, his long arms aloft. In a flip, his thin legs were up. A flash of blue from his underpants against the open sky. He was semi-circling. Legs and arms in the fragile light. His body would break. He spooled into the air, coming down in a swirl. The expanse of sea was empty and he was gone, dunked deep into the heavy water. Torin could barely breathe. He missed a heartbeat. But Pauley hit the water, spliced it into circlets growing smaller. He bounced up, among scales of waves. A collar of thick foam spumed. An angular face bobbed up, smiling.

  ‘Hey, you all right?’ Pauley shouted, waving his arms.

  Torin followed the voice.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, as if nothing was worrying him.

  ‘Coming in?’

  ‘Not there.’ He turned to the side of the pier where it was shallower. He was as likely to go diving off a huge rock as go to the moon. Shane swam back. Torin said nothing. He did not want to sound too impressed but he wished he could dive as well as they did.

  ‘There they are.’ Pauley tugged him to one side and pointed into the sea.

  ‘Those bits of metal?’

  ‘Oyster beds. Sacks with seeds lie on the frames.’ Pauley edged into the shawl of light foam thrown on the sand. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  ‘Won’t we get caught?’

  ‘There’s no one round. They leave this lot unguarded. They deserve to lose it,’ Shane shouted, running towards them.

  A strip of an old pier crumbled into the sea. Its steps were breaking away and bricks at the side were dislodged. It jutted out from a cluster of houses with roofs wavy from age. Shane said the fella who looked after the oysters lived there but spent nights in the pub, so he’d be sleeping it off. A fishy stink hung around. Ragged lobster pots, orange plastic ropes and roughed-up buoys slung on the side, but it was a stink he was getting used to.

  They scavenged among black sacks laid out on iron frames, flat as drunks. Shane jabbed in, pulling off oysters, shoving them into plastic bags. ‘D’you like ’em?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve never had one.’

  ‘You hardly will if you don’t go to a fancy restaurant.’ Shane scrabbled among the stones and found a reddish one. He lay down the grey ridged oyster, gnarly as an old man’s hand. He smashed with the stone and the shell splintered in chalky white fragments. Pale as nails and a fine dust. ‘D’you want it?’ He held out the bottom half of the shell where a sludgy grey spit lay.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘You get the taste for them.’ He tipped up the shell, a delicate plate of light, and wiped his mouth with his hand. ‘Wild salty. With a bite you don’t forget.’

  ‘Hey, you cut yourself,’ Pauley said.

  Shane raised his index finger where blood spotted.

  ‘It’s nothing.’ He ran his finger across his lips but the blood came.

  ‘Salt water’ll help,’ Pauley said.

  Shane walked to where the waves ran and dunked his finger, pressing against the skin and the trickle stopped.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go,’ he called and they headed for the road. ‘We’ll get a couple of hundred euros from the hotels for this lot.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Torin asked.

  ‘A good few packs of fags out of it, anyway. D’you mind the time we were in Castleallen, Pauley? We hung around the side of the fountain until we could gather a good handful of coins.’

  ‘Shane and I’ll walk into town. You’ll get a cut of what we get.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He didn’t know it could be this easy but they knew the business. Would cut the deal and maybe he would learn something useful. Whether or not he saw any of the money they made, he didn’t care. He knew where the beds were and could go back and gather his own crop.

  ‘Keep it dark.’ Pauley touched Torin’s lips and tapped the side of his nose.

  They rounded the head of the peninsula. Slithery grey skeins of light on the flat sea were so calm, Torin would never have thought it was deep. They walked along a rough track. A girl led a donkey around the bend. Caitlin. A fall of leather strap dangled between herself and the donkey.

  ‘Let’s go round the other way,’ he hissed.

  ‘Better. She might’ve seen us and we don’t want the oysters wasted.’ Pauley let drop the bag of oysters onto the pebbles.

  ‘Perhaps she hasn’t seen anything? How’d she know what we’re doing isn’t legit?’ Shane asked.

  Torin tensed. She might go to the police. He could be found out, hurled back to London. It would be over. Over before it had begun.

  ‘I’ll sweet talk her,’ Shane whispered. He walked towards her.

  ‘There’s an easier way up there. Not as rough on the poor animal’s feet,’ Shane pointed towards the path.

  Torin shifted out of her view behind a roar of fuchsia clambering on a stone wall.

  ‘I know. But this lad,’ she patted the donkey’s back, ‘likes to be close to the shore.’ She let the rein dangle in a great ‘O’ from her hand.

  ‘He’s a fine animal,’ Shane said.

  ‘He’s past it.’ She stroked the donkey’s grey ears. ‘He likes a bit of a stroll.’ She cocked her head toward
s the field of three chestnut horses.

  ‘You don’t see many around.’

  ‘He’s the last of any from the farm.’

  A fist of rage clenched in Torin’s chest as their voices carried. Why couldn’t Shane leave it? She was the same height as Shane, who stood close. Shane clasped strands of grass from the dunes and offered his palm.

  ‘Thanks,’ she laughed.

  ‘He’s a lovely old fella. Lucky to have such a good-looking one to be taking him out for a walk.’

  ‘Don’t be talking.’ She smiled and led the donkey along the roughened track, turning to pat its neck. Its long ears lay down against soft grey tones as she led it to a field and let slip the rope, setting the donkey free to roam.

  ‘Who’s she?’ Pauley asked.

  ‘Seen her around a couple of times. But first of her kind here.’ Shane shrugged and laughed. ‘But she looks the type you’d best not be thinking too much about. A cut above the usual,’ he said, kicking a stone.

  They went down the road in wet underclothes, their outer clothes a bundle in their arms. When Torin looked over his shoulder, Caitlin was sinking into the distance until she was the size of a pebble.

  Templevane: 1

  ‘A lump of a lad sprawled in a heap when he’s here. There’s no knowing what the rest of them lads is up to,’ Eva said, picking up two tee-shirts from the chair. She would take them to the laundry room in the afternoon, when she had gathered a load.

  ‘He’s enjoying himself,’ her father said, rinsing a tea-pot in the sink

  ‘Enjoying himself? I’d like to see him get a job. He could make a bit of money at a supermarket or garage.’

  ‘You said he doesn’t know about cars.’

  ‘He doesn’t. But he could learn. Hasn’t he a brain in his head, even if he never used it much? He could learn something. And something useful. How to mend them. Put on a tyre or some such thing.’

  ‘He’s only young. Look at yourself, Eva. Leaving us with no heed on you. Rushing off and your mother upset.’

  ‘I never meant to.’

  ‘Ah, well. Let’s not rake over the past, since there’s little we can do about it. Have we any bit of bread left or did he eat it all?’ He stretched to the empty plastic bag.

  ‘I’d the last bit off the loaf. I’ll have to get some and other bits from the shop.’

  She grabbed her bag and jacket. No matter the load of food she brought in, it went. She believed he must be coming back from the old house in the dead of night, for he was never around to be seen eating it. It wasn’t her father indulging himself: he was as thin as a bird. The years had clapped nothing on him, not like herself. Torin must be turning up with the other lads and eating it.

  The new air slapped her to a keen alertness. She could do with a flood in her lungs. A rush of cold air into her, waking her up. She could not stay closeted in the tight box of a caravan. The woman in the long trailer swept the front patch of concrete. Two cracked cooking pots held an array of flowers. Lashings of bright pinks and reds. A neat front, her father had said. She would not mind one like it. She could do with the faces of tiny flowers to come out to.

  Feather stood in the field, at a distance. Always a horse around. Her father had amused her as a child with his tales of galloping across every county in Ireland. He had said he had run off with her mother on horse-back, for she had been delighted, caught in his wild imaginings. In their early married life before he could afford the horsebox, the animal walked the road alongside them. She and her cousins rode bareback along the beaches, the wind streaming through them.

  It was a wonder she threw off the blanket of her parents and crossed to England. But it was done. The damage, if any, done. She had been eager to get away. Away to what? Fields and a squat town which had nothing for her. The sea was what she preferred. What she would have run back to, if she could have. At least she had found her father alive and in good form. He was old and growing older. His deep blue eyes were smaller and lost in folds of wrinkles. His best days were over, though he was as stubborn as an old donkey for wanting to be out and about in the pubs with young fellas. But she could not blame him for it was in the blood; wanting of talk and deep need of company. To be out, free of herself. She should have come back before, even if he was happy with days full of new things: TV aerials, garden furniture, vans and cars. But she would make it up, for the years were telling on them both.

  If her mother was alive, she would have seen herself and Torin in the crystal, journeying; a grey cloud shifting over the stream of light or the way a sheep is heard the other side of the hill or a cow knows its young. Her mother would have sensed their footsteps across miles of years. Seventeen or so was a long time. A lifetime. If Torin did the same on her, she would break.

  She left for the shop. A man bent over the engine of a car, tucked up on the verge. His hair flopped over his forehead. He brushed it aside. There had not been talent in that department since she left London. And not such a lot there. No one on the site in the last month interested her. All families. Caught in their own concerns. She eased out the creases on her trousers. Not her most attractive clothes but she had not the same energy to dress up as she used. Perhaps she should have done what Torin told her and kept the hospital appointments. The doctors in England might have cured her, made her better, or at least got her over the damned pains. She never liked them places. They were strange and difficult. An awful smell. And the way the nurses looked at her. She crossed towards the shop. The fella, the way he held himself as he moved around the long brown car, had something. As she passed, he raised his head. She caught his eye but did not speak. Show some restraint, she decided. At least at the start. No knowing where it will lead.

  On the way back, a plastic bag with the milk and bread at her side, he was stretching over the belly of the car. He raised his head and smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

  ‘Hello.’ He brought himself upright. ‘Nice day.’

  ‘It is.’ She capped her hand over her eyes. He was tall. She liked his openness but he was too assured in his manner to be interested in her.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be inside. It’d be a waste.’

  ‘A person’d want to make the most of the good weather,’ she said.

  ‘You must’ve just arrived to enjoy the good weather, for I didn’t see a new trailer beyond.’

  He had a quizzical look, taking everything in. A pungent whiff of oil rose as he wiped his blackened hands on an old rag. A hard worker. His tummy stuck out over the rim of his trousers and a thick leather belt. She should be on her way back to fix a fry-up.

  ‘I’m with my father,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, I’m not on the site but on the road further out.’

  ‘You don’t fancy to live there?’ she asked.

  She would like to have put her arm around his waist, even if his hair was greying, running from the red it used to be, and the skin around his ears wrinkling. A little dog scampered at his feet, with dark, golden eyes; a red collar was around its neck. It wandered and sniffed and lay down near him.

  ‘I do not.’ He bent to stroke the dog. ‘I’d rather be my own man. Head off on the road whenever I want. They’ve made up the sites pretty good though, with all the amenities. No doubt but the women love it better than what it was, with the outside tap and no proper toilets. If we’d them in our day we’d never have been out of the place,’ he laughed.

  ‘I’d say this one isn’t as fancy as some, the way you’d think people were to stay forever.’

  ‘It’d please the Gards, to have us rounded up like sheep. But it isn’t natural for any person to be inside all the day. Did you hear of the young girl in Waterford, settled in a house? And no garden. She went out with a pram and the new baby, walked out into the sea, pram and all.’

  ‘I didn’t hear of that report.’ She shook her head.

  ‘I’d say it
was how the girl had the walls of a house pressing in on her. She went into the waves, lonely as a poppy in a field. I’m the same way. I never could stick that yoke. I’ve nothing against ones who settle but I’m stopped up yonder in a quiet place.’

  ‘King of the road, then?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so. A man who claims I owe him money was after me. I never owed him a penny but I reckoned I was as well to move on.’

  ‘You’re on the run?’

  ‘Not really. I couldn’t hide myself.’ He pointed to the dog. ‘I get a bit of work from time to time. I’m no good at much but I can fix an engine.’ He leant over the bonnet, closing it down and brushing his hands on his overall. ‘Joe. Joe Murphy. What do you say to a drink and I’ll give you the lowdown on these parts?’ He put his hand on her shoulder, a steady weight, as they walked along.

  ‘I will, Joe, thanks. I’m Eva.’

  He made her heart burn with his eagerness, his spirit and talk. And a long time since it ever had.

  ‘Corrigan’s is small but I like it because you don’t get so many coming in.’ He led her to the small pub along the road. If the police were after him for the bother with a bit of money, how much more likely was it that they would know of Torin? Fear stabbed her. She had brought him all the way over but they might still not be safe. She fidgeted with worry.

  ‘You all right, Eva? You’re not tired with the heat?’

  ‘No. Course not. This is grand. Lovely. I’ve been wanting to come into this bar since we arrived.’

  They found a table and he ordered. His stumpy hands touched hers as he passed the glass. He sipped his beer. It was only a little brandy and would not do any harm. Brandy might numb the day. Heal her. The sweet aroma made her head zing. It was what she wanted, to be taken back to where she started and sitting in a bar with a man would help her feel better. He could not have a wife or kids. Or maybe he had and would spill it out, would tell her about the lot of them and how across the years he had little Mary and Johnnie. God help her. She could see it.