Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind

by Deirdre Shanahan

  ‘Me heart.’ The man leaned towards her. ‘I’ll sing you beautiful songs. I’ve been aching for you all the time since I first took a look at you.’

  ‘I can get my own songs.’ She struggled to get out of his grasp.

  ‘I can do nothing to please you. What’s happened? You doing a line with some other fella?’ He smoothed down his jacket.

  ‘I don’t want the bother of any man.’

  ‘You didn’t mind the good meals I gave you. Come on. What’s got into you, darlin’? We could have great times. What do I have to do to convince you?’ He pulled her close and traced the shape of her face with a finger. ‘You’re a sweetheart. Wherever I am, I’m thinking of you.’

  ‘Leave off.’ She pushed him.

  A U2 song clanged to an end. Torin rose, relieved there was a chance of other music. He jabbed in a different selection. Stone Roses. An old song. Gritty chords straining, lashed. He needed to drink up and get out so he pretended to read the beer mat, flipping it back and forth. ‘Drink fills the void.’ A blade like an Indian scimitar, decorated with squirls and leaves on the handle. Harjit had shown him one his father owned. A ceremonial sword, Harjit had said. Torin could do with one to slash through the man’s crap.

  ‘Come on. A dance for old time sakes. Put your head here. Don’t fight the chance of a good time, Caitlin.’ He pulled her forward while she tilted back

  His eyes were darkly on her. What was worse was the way his body softened to hers. They moved slow as night, streamed dark as rivers. The man rubbed his cheek against hers though she pulled back. He swept around slow and firm. His hand was tight as a belt upon her.

  ‘What are ye starin’ at?’ He turned in the slice of a second. ‘Mind your own business. Don’t be looking the way a cat’d be looking at a mouse.’

  He was old enough to be her father. Torin was sick at the thought. The man had yellow teeth and his skin was grey. Jeans hung off his thin frame. His bony head looked too large. She untangled herself from the hold and walked towards the bar.

  ‘I’ve things to do. Work. Some of us have to. Some of us don’t mind it doing it,’ she said.

  ‘Come on.’ The man pressed after, stretching his hands down her back, folding into the movement of the song.

  The air was tense. Torin wanted to leave but he didn’t want not to see her. He rose to turn off the selection even though he feared the man might raise a fist.

  ‘You think I’m a sack of spuds?’ She jabbed the man’s chest. He laughed and pushed onto her. ‘Get offa, you druchtin.’ Her nails scrawled his face.

  He let go of her with one arm and patted the reddening cheek. ‘You’ll have a good time. Just the two of us, like before.’

  She leant over the counter, stretching for a tea-towel and whacked him with it.

  ‘You b—! Stoppit,’ he screeched, raising his arms to protect his head. ‘You’re no good but for cursing.’ He brushed his cheek, wiping off blood. ‘Ah, you’re a tough one. Always were.’

  ‘Leave her alone.’ Torin shivered, while wanting to land the man one.

  ‘What did you say, matey?’ The man said the last word in a jaunty, taunting manner, squaring up. His nostrils full of hair, flaring.

  ‘Get off her,’ Torin said.

  ‘Christ. What kind of place is your accent from? London?’ His breath was thick with the fever of drink. ‘The big city. With the big shites. Why don’t you fuck off back there?’ He lunged, attempting a blow. Torin dodged low and the man hit a chair. He rubbed his elbow. ‘Little eejit.’ He glowered. ‘Friend of yours is he?’ He turned to her. ‘Ah, you’re as bad as the rest. Taking a good look but no good to anyone.’ He turned away.

  ‘So bugger off.’ Torin opened the door wide.

  ‘You little fast one. I might’ve known it was all I’d get from you,’ the man shouted over his shoulder.

  The double doors slammed shut behind as he left. It was quiet with the depth of his absence.

  ‘Thanks. He used to come in a lot. He bought me a meal a couple of times in the hotel. Then he stopped. S’pose I didn’t do what he wanted.’ She sat awkwardly on the edge of a stool, pulling down her skirt and smoothing her hair back.

  ‘Which was what?’ He did not want to hear but he had to. If whatever there was between her and Sheridan stood between them, he had to know.

  ‘Oh, moving in with him. To some house he had up the country. I always forget he’s likely to turn up and then he does. I should know by now.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘He was telling me how the house has lots of land with a river running through and great sweeping trees to the side of it.’ She kept glancing towards the door.

  ‘Sounds good. If you want it.’ He struggled to be enthusiastic.

  ‘I don’t. And I told him. He said he can do foundations, bricklaying, plastering, electrics, the lot, and will I go with him? Will I hell! He’s old. The face of him, puffed up in places, wrinkly in others. Anyways, I don’t want to live in a house.’

  She gathered glasses with a sharp fury, running her cloth quickly over the tables. Her movements were stiff and awkward. He wanted to say, it doesn’t matter. I know you’re glad he’s gone. I am. He can’t touch us. It’s over. But she worked steadily, as if used to intrusions.

  The man reminded Torin of one of his mum’s boyfriends from years ago, that one of her friends had described as a ‘toe-rag’. He had taken off to Salford, leaving her desolate. She stopped eating and did not get up in the mornings until after three weeks, she started back to her cleaning job and she was his mum again, slumped in the armchair late in the evening after the jobs, gone in the mornings when he left for school. Talking of men she had met, men whose charms dazzled her and for whom she fell.

  When Caitlin finished washing glasses in the machine, she emerged from behind the counter.

  ‘My shift’s over. Breen’s seeing to the barrels. I can be off. I can leave with you.’

  ‘Good. Let’s get out of here.’

  She grabbed her jacket and bag. The door swung behind them, glittering with light on the stained glass. Petals twirling was all he could make out, like his mum’s tattoos. Rich and dark.

  They reached a junction where two run-down garages competed for business and the mechanics hung around outside, wiping their hands with blackened rags or rolling tyres towards a car.

  ‘I hate going back. Delia’s got dirty clothes in the bath, soaking. I used to wish she’d be ill or struck down if I prayed hard enough.’ She looked skywards. ‘Whoever’s up there, I don’t mind who answers. I’m not fussy. The best times are when she’s out of the way, gone to bed early. You’d need to in the winter because the night’s so cold it’d cut a person. But I’ll get my own place one day. And I’ll not rely on luck from an old piece of dried shamrock in a saucer or the tooth of a cow going for slaughter on St. Bridget’s day. And I won’t be waiting for an old lag to take me, either. Sometimes, I fear I might hit her. The way she’d look at me, it’d make my heart split.’

  The strength of her voice reached him, but she didn’t look as if she would hurt any creature. The network of narrow streets led the main road, which opened to fields on one side and warehouses further down.

  ‘Where can we go?’ she asked.

  ‘You wanna see where I live?’ He was not going to take her to the house. Not where the others would take over and talk, making him look like an idiot. Not where Shane would meet her and talk his arse off. If he had to show her somewhere, he would have to go to the site, even if it meant meeting his mum. And if his grandad was there… Well, he had to hope she might be won over by him and his chat.

  They walked under a sludgy sky the couple of miles beyond the town, past shops, offices and a run-down showroom which sold second-hand cars. In a field, cows bundled together under the trees.

  ‘A good-looking horse.’ She pointed to
Feather.

  ‘My grandad’s.’

  ‘You ridden her?’

  He shook his head and laughed. ‘I couldn’t. Wouldn’t know how.’

  She walked towards the gate, where she lifted the latch and went through. Feather strolled over towards them.

  ‘Hello, beautiful girl.’ She patted Feather’s nose and stroked the sheeny chestnut coat. ‘D’you think I could get up on her back?’

  ‘Now? Don’t you need a saddle or something?’

  ‘I managed without, the times we stopped in places with horses.’

  ‘If you want.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Help me on, then.’

  Feather neighed and nuzzled. Her nose was moist and her long lashes came down as Torin held onto the rope and hefted Caitlin on. She pulsed her legs against the sides of Feather and moved off in a steady walk. Feather livened, trotted, her coat glowing quick as a flame. Her step became a gallop as Caitlin took to the outer reaches of the field. She rode, leaning close on Feather’s neck while the length of rope ran in her hands. Torin was dazzled that she knew what to do, yet feared that if she rode for too long and too furiously, Feather might become restless and spring her off.

  Bringing Feather back, she jumped down. ‘Beautiful girl.’ She stroked Feather’s side, her long fingers spreading over the dark coat.

  They reached the bare strip of land beside the site where two little girls shoved and pushed each other and tumbled in a heap, squawking and laughing. ‘Sally at the bus stop, one, two, three,’ they chanted, starting another game. Three plastic crates dug into the ground. He wanted to say, I didn’t always live in a place like this. I lived in a nice flat, once. Well, not nice. But not as bad as this. It was flats where we weren’t allowed to kick a ball against the walls and lifts which roared at night and bins overflowing with rubbish.

  A collie sniffed the green plastic bag of rubbish his mum had put out. The revolving washing line was buckled and his grandad’s horsebox waited forlornly to be repaired.

  ‘This is it.’ He put the key in the door. It was quiet and he wished hard that no one was in, and no one was.

  Inside, he cleared magazines off a chair and pulled his mum’s clothes from the bed into the wardrobe, already bursting and the door not closing tightly. Two pairs of trousers fell against the bin and a pile of dirty clothes splayed on his bed.

  ‘Your mum’s?’ She picked up a pair of silver shoes with tiny straps around the ankles. A silvery flower glowed on the front. She slipped her feet from chunky, mucky boots into dainty shoes with silver bows. The impression of her toes was visible.

  ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead with her if she wore them out.’

  ‘The heels are crazy.’ She took them off and lifted a thin layer of fabric from a dress hanging up, her fingers visible underneath. ‘Mmm. Beautiful.’ Silky purple slid like water. Red fabric flowed, rich and dark. A V-neck plunged and fabric flowers clustered at the centre. She fingered the petals, stroked them. ‘I’d love clothes like this, even if I never wore them.’ She lifted a dress balancing on the door of the wardrobe and held it out. The neckline curved in a heart; the sleeves were cut past the elbow with seed pearls at the edges. She took it off the hanger and smoothed it over herself. ‘This is lovely. Oh.’ She folded back the fabric, showing the underarm inside mottled with the trace of dried sweat. ‘It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t show outside.’

  ‘I don’t know why she brought these. She won’t need them.’

  ‘You mean there’s nowhere nice to go around here?’ She kicked against a bag stuffed under the sofa bed. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘More of her stuff.’ He kicked the plastic bag under the bed. ‘But we’d better head off.’ If we don’t want to meet her, he could have added.

  His mum had too much stuff. She had stumbled along on platforms and on the boat with two fat cases on tiny wheels but he had no idea the amount of clothes in them. The red dress drew him, but the sweat and stains were embarrassing. He might have shown off too much of her. Made her look mad or odd or both.

  He shoved a packet of chocolate biscuits into his pocket and they left. Vans and cars were parked close to each other and the ground was muddy. A woman hung out clothes on scrabby bushes. White and green blouses blew, billowed fat stomachs. Trousers draped and little girls’ dresses danced.

  ‘I’d better be getting back. I’m expected and I can’t face another row with Delia.’

  He saw her off the site, walking up the road to where she could catch a bus.

  ‘I’ll be fine the rest of the way.’

  ‘Okay, see you.’

  ‘Bye. See you,’ she said.

  Empty, he headed back but there was nowhere to go to. He walked past the site into town, as if seeking where they had started from.

  In a man’s fashion shop he riffled through rails of expensive stuff, clothes he would never wear anyway. But he knew the music in the background: a garage mash by Trojan Index. Marcus’s brother had played it at a party, a celebration for a video one of his mates was an extra in. They had bunched in the tiny kitchen on the twelfth floor and looked down over the balcony, out of their heads. It was a wonder no one had tipped over and landed on the pavement. He slipped out of the shop, past racks of tee-shirts for fifty quid and vests costing even more.

  The internet café was open, the shop window showing the screens. He went in and sat at a screen under the humming strip lighting. He scrolled sites and messages for news. ‘Ripthestreets’ would tell. Marcus’s mate had started it. Torin clicked in. A photo of the park they used to roam around. The scuffed football pitch and worn-out play area for kids. The dark blue roundabout they used to ride. Another shot showed the canal at the back of the flats. On either side, beyond strands of tall grass, blocks of flats and houses rose by the railway line, a liquorice-black streak against the dusky horizon.

  He followed the thread. Going deeper. Into old posts. Delving. Going under. A calendar of what he had left behind. Dates drawing him. Names. No one was ever who they said they were. He clicked on. Going in to the messages. Two people had been online. Babyface and Firecracker. He didn’t know who Firecracker was but everyone knew Babyface knew Big Ian. The round-faced boy who followed after him.

  Firecracker – That boy still in hospital?

  Babyface – Think so

  Firecracker – He’ll get better.

  Babyface – He might.

  Firecracker – You been out and about?

  Babyface – Not much. U couldn’t go no place. Freakish. Only went round my friends in South London.

  His eyes strained as the words stared back. Little hammers hitting. That night all over again. His palms were sweaty on the mouse and kept slipping. His neck was hot with an ache as he leant into the screen, as if he might hide what he read from anyone passing. They had argued over getting a bus to Finchley and which film to see. He had not cared. He did not have much money but they ended up straggling the pavement of the High Road while red lettering glared ‘Stavros’ from the kebab shop. They had waited while he checked his money. They even discussed getting a Chinese from Fragrant Harbour. They were still talking when Big Ian’s gang appeared. Sifting behind. Shadowing. He had thought of scarpering. Next thing, it’s over. Over before it began. He clicked to a link for the local paper and ran through. A headline posted up said the boy who had been stabbed was still in hospital. His condition was worse. The doctors thought he might make a recovery but he was in danger of sinking into a coma. The weapon had yet to be found.

  His heart thudded and he was dizzy. He held onto the table, making himself breathe deeper. He had not meant it to be like this. He pushed through the rest of the paper, pictures of flower shows and kids from a local school showing off their paintings. Nothing else. But he knew as much as he needed. He saw the police closing in. Someone letting his name slip. One of the gang who had stood around. Who had been passed a
knife. Who might have done it. Someone would mention his name and where he was. He shifted in the chair, as seconds slipped out of the box at the bottom of the screen. His breath tightened. His face warmed. If the police did their job right, they would want to talk to him.

  Harjit’s mum had glowed in her flame orange sari. Harjit’s dad, stocky with a dark moustache, had driven past one evening in a dark green ages-old Nissan. But the car was gone. Quick as a flash of light on chrome. Quick as his son went down.

  Time was up. He had no more money. Words were not enough, anyway. The guy behind the counter, in a check shirt and beard, like a student, glanced up.

  ‘See you,’ he called, as if Torin was an old pal. A light shower began as if the rain before was not enough. The world was tumbling and it was difficult to know where to go.

  3

  Because Pauley had to go to his dad’s to pick up trainers and jeans, they called to his house. The pebble-dashed terrace stood in a treeless street. A deep blue Rover stood on a scrubby patch of garden of the house next door, and on the other side a pile of black bags sprawled. A cat or dog had bitten them. The houses faced an old gravel pit made into a lake, absorbing the grey light, where Pauley said he had seen golden plover and teal. Torin followed his gaze to the sky. He could not see the birds and wondered how Pauley knew so many from simply their wing markings.

  Two scrawny black-and-white sheepdogs scrabbled for food on the dry grass at the front. They nipped at each other. A shuffling of feet behind the front door. It opened slowly. The man in the bar. Sheridan. He stood in the hall, glowering. Torin shook in his bones. An unmistakable trail of scratches ran down Sheridan’s cheeks. Caitlin’s fingers. He saw her up close to Sheridan and wanted to run.

  Pauley was already in the hall, stepping over piles of old newspapers and junk mail. The oddness of Caitlin linked to Pauley’s father stuck in his throat. He wanted to know but this wasn’t the place to find out. Avoiding a broken chair, they shuffled past bundles of newspaper and undelivered leaflets clogging the hall along with a bulk buy of baked beans wrapped in polythene. Pauley said his dad had been in the house for years but never got used to being settled. He had only come to live there after his leg was broken one winter. Two electric fires, a bicycle and a cooker were abandoned in a corner. A stench betrayed stale bread and beer. Crumbs were brushed to the corners of the kitchen or crushed underfoot. Up close, Sheridan’s eyes were a dirty blue. Thick black hairs stuck out furiously from his nostrils.