They cleared the car of old paper and shook out the cushions.
‘I’ll go up by the shops a while,’ Torin said. He might see Feather one last time.
She was over at the far side of the field, tethered at a blue horsebox along the ridge of the green, one of a number in a row. She looked restless, uneasy. And then, with the crack of an engine swerving along the street, she broke free of the rope, ran into the crowd on the green, hurled herself in. Thudding in blind panic, her big muscles kicking, she set a pushchair flying. A baby’s wail gathered with the gasp and cry of the crowd as they fragmented and drew to one another. The girl in the flowery skirt screamed. The pushchair lay on its side, the wheels spinning.
Torin shied away, sickness in his gut. With energy only to leave the place, he staggered backwards. At a distance, when he did not fear he was seen, his step quickened. Hot with the stink of sweat and alarm, he ran. Ran until all breath was out of him.
Dizzy and faint, he walked up the street, following the trail of terraces leading away from the main square. He sat on a bench outside a church to get his breath back. He needed a drink. Anything to settle his head, to relieve the fear. He went into a bar. A gaggle of men burst around the counter, blocking the place, suffocating the entrance. A man with a beard declared that the mother of the child who was hurt on the green was from Cashel, and wasn’t it a great pity?
‘Weren’t you with the fella’d sold the horse?’ a rosy-faced man jabbed at Torin.
He shook his head in fear a word might slip.
‘Someone like yourself,’ the bearded man joined in.
Torin’s fingers fluttered on his glass. He needed to get out of the place. He put down his drink and edged from the counter.
‘… broke her foreleg with the force of it,’ said another man.
‘The bastard of a man, selling an animal doing no one any good,’ a gruff voice barked.
Either it was the drink or the hour, but the mood was dangerous. You could cut it. Torin had to clear off but he must not hurry. A man with bulging eyes looked him full in the face. ‘You wouldn’t want anything to do with a creature like that?’ the man growled.
Torin couldn’t breathe and his legs ached. He needed to go.
As he crossed the green a man in a dark coat, carrying a large bag, walked towards a crowd. A second later Torin realised: Feather. They were putting her down. He pushed through the crowd as elbows poked in his sides. He got near enough in to see Feather lying, dull-eyed. Quietened. The man opened the bag and stroked Feather’s head. The needle sunk and blood flowered on her brown coat. She tensed. Her limbs shuddered in a spasm. She was alive and, with a jerk, was not.
She slumped. Her neck collapsed. Her eyes were open but she could not see. Her legs shivered and folded in. She passed out of reach, trapped in a deep pause of sleep on the straw. Her mane was still in its tight plait, with a strand of red running through which Torin realised his grandad must have threaded.
4
He lay on the sofa bed while his mum sat at the table with a cup of tea and an opened packet of Bourbons. She played with a teaspoon in her cup while flicking through a magazine, probably searching the horoscopes for her sign, Aquarius.
‘When are we going back?’ he asked.
‘Back? Back where?’ She turned a page and popped a biscuit in her mouth.
‘London. Home. You know.’ He pushed a dirty tee-shirt into the plastic bag they took to the laundry room.
‘When I’m ready.’ She ate another biscuit.
‘We’ve been here a couple of months,’ he snapped.
‘You don’t want to rush away,’ his grandad said, eating a slice of toast.
‘You’ve seen your dad. Why can’t we go?’ Torin whispered.
‘We’ll hit the road in a while.’
‘I think I’ll head back.’
‘You will not. You don’t know what’s going on over there. Besides, I need you.’ She was pale, with grey bags under her eyes and her forehead furrowed.
‘What for?’
‘To…’ She shrugged. ‘Keep an eye on things. Be here, with himself. Wait a while and we’ll be back together and I can sort out a flat. It’ll be easier for both of us if you’re along with me. We’re likelier to get a bigger place.’
She rose, rummaged in her toilet bag and smoothed beige cream on her face. When she put on make-up, he could not tell if she was ill. But something about her was different, and it wasn’t her face. Her voice. Strained, harsher. Drink, he supposed. She had never learnt to limit it and must have been out the previous night. She was lined and her skin seemed paper thin. She pushed away the magazine, searched through her handbag and found three bottles of tablets.
‘What ones are you on?’ his grandad asked.
‘Some damned kind. I don’t know but the pains raddle me.’ She took two from a bottle and threw them into her mouth. ‘I don’t think those doctors know what they’re doing.’
‘What did they say last time?’ He sat at the table and slurped from his mug.
‘That I should go to the Marie Curie Hospital, wherever that is.’
‘The other side of town. I’ve heard you’d get great care. They must have good nurses. Anyone who goes in is well looked after.’
‘You make it sound like Marie herself is there, but I never did like them places.’
‘But it might do you good to try there.’ His grandad swept up a rind of bacon in a curl and slipped it in his mouth.
‘Whatever way I am, work has to be done.’ She took his grandad’s plate off the table and put it in the sink. She washed and stacked cups and plates on the drainer. She opened the fridge, putting away the milk along with the scraps of bacon, two dried sausages and half a black pudding. ‘Torin, have you taken the bread, for there’s only two slices?’ Sitting on the stool, she put on her shoes. ‘You greedy lad. I haven’t money to be buying food for you and them monkeys down in that old house.’ She rose and brushed her hair.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘Only out.’ She twirled in front of the mirror, angling her face side to side for a good look. ‘Meeting Joe. Goodbye. Bye, Dad.’
She leant over her father and kissed him on the top of his head.
‘Will I see you later?’
‘Of course. I’ll be back.’ The door flicked back as she left.
The pair. Him and her. They had each other. He should get back to London. He had nothing here. He rose, flung his jacket over his shoulder, pushed out after her and called, ‘I’ll see you too, Grandad,’ as the door snapped shut.
He passed the Mercedes whose back tyres were let down. Two women from the green trailer were chatting as they hung clothes on a line. No cloud in the sky. Only sheer, blinding light as he left towards town.
In London, his mum used to go out without explanation. Out for the night. Coming back in the early hours. As if he did not live with her or belong to her. He had to get away from here. Could not see what drew her. Though she was right, London was too uncertain. And he hadn’t heard from Marcus in a couple of weeks. Anything could be going on. The fear was like drums beating, never letting go, a rhythm he might hear from a flat in the summer at home when the low beat of a sound system hung over the roofs.
The shore was clumped with wind-blown grasses. The old house was in sight but he would avoid it, going the long way round at the back of the fields.
The tide was out. He clambered over rocks. In the distance, a couple were walking. The woman turned. His mum. And Joe. She sat on a boulder while his attention was solely on her. Torin was struck by how innocent and girlish she looked. She stood and they walked towards the waves. Joe’s trousers were rolled up. His mum gathered in her dress, revealing chunky thighs. They walked separately and drew together. Their bodies merged with the waves. His mum cried out in delight, dancing in the water. She leant forward a
nd dabbled her hands in. She jumped little steps and walked towards the shore, bending to scan the sand. A trail of seaweed draped from her hand as she showed a cluster of shells to Joe.
She moved with ease and lightness, made splashes flicker against her skin. She was alert and lively. She had never been like this with him. Never so free or content, but caught in worries about whether she had the next cleaning job, enough money for rent or food or a trip to the pub. Joe’s dog ran, scattering shakes of drops. Joe threw a stick and the dog ran into the glittering waves, splashing back. Joe and his mum belonged to each other in a way he had never seen her with anyone before.
Torin made his way past boats, to the old house. Dared himself to approach, see if anyone was around, though he’d scarper if he came across Shane. It was deathly quiet and he did not know if this meant no one was in, or they were there but were zoned out, stoned beyond heaven and hell. He listened for Shane’s voice, or the music he played. He waited for breathing and peered through the window. Nothing. No sound.
‘Hi. What you doing here?’ Pauley sat up and rubbed his eyes from sleep.
‘Hi.’ Torin pressed at the door. Dry wood flaked under the worn seal of paint.
‘How you doin’?’ Pauley stumbled into the light.
His face was tanned, hair hanging down flatly, as though it had not been washed for days. Torin sat on the ragged plaid blanket draped over a couple of plastic crates, while Pauley re-arranged himself on a mattress, his long legs stretched out.
‘I’m okay. Shane around?’
‘You kidding? I’ve not seen him for days. He’s headed off. Always his own man.’ Pauley flicked open a packet of ham and loaded a slice into his mouth. ‘You can’t go on hiding from him forever.’ Torin kicked a stone. It shot off into an empty can. A dint of a ring and then silence. Pauley was right. Shane belonged here as much as him. More so. ‘Want some?’ Pauley held out the half empty pack.
‘No, thanks.’ Torin shook his head at the lank pink slices, curling at the edges.
Pauley threw the pack into a black bag in the corner. ‘These’ll make you feel good and alive.’ He handed over two tablets.
Torin hoped they might, or else bleed sleep into him. ‘Don’t think anything will.’
‘They’ll help you forget.’
‘What are they?’
‘My dad’s. Keep him sane.’ Pauley laughed.
Torin slugged down the tablets with a can of Coke. A thirst rose, itchy and raw. He needed more drink, any kind of liquid. He finished the tin, kicked it away, lay down and fell asleep.
Late afternoon, he opened his eyes and tumbled off the mattress. A long numbing sense had taken hold. The day had passed without him knowing.
‘Get up,’ Pauley said, looking down, laughing. Shane must have shown up. Or be on his way. ‘You coming?’ Pauley stood with the height of two rods and a canvas bag hanging from his shoulder.
‘What? Why? Fishing?’
Pauley nodded.
‘Now?’
‘This time of day’s best.’
Torin rubbed his eyes. If Shane was not around, there was no need to get up. His head was dizzy. The most he knew about fishing was a person stood on the side of a bank for hours, waiting for something to happen.
‘Okay, mate. Hold on.’
They took a stony track leading outside the town, beyond the bridge, to the slack bank, which tumbled away to the water. In the distance, cattle heaved and settled, clustered like boulders. They passed a ripple of a stream, lapping over stones of rust and lavender. A door lay across, bank to bank. Bushes covered the lower bank and further down, the gnarled roots of a tree and its branches were falling in. Pauley drew to a halt. He sat against the tree and its fingers of dried roots grasping the earth.
‘This’ll do,’ Pauley said. ‘We’ll catch something because there’re plenty of gnats and flies. The fish want to eat. Hunger drives them.’ He set out jam jars of worms squirling behind the glass. Torin sank to his hunkers. Embers of a fire spread on the bank. Pauley said that fish scarper if there’s noise. The water level was low and fish beneath the surface darted like electricity. ‘Ssh. They’ll be frightened.’ He removed the lid from a jar and took the maggot between his fingers, pale and long, and stuck it on a hook. The wriggling shape was stunned. All it could do was hang. ‘Watch after the jar. They’ll like these. Anything resembling food. The little blighters. I’ll get a nice fat brown trout. The maggots and worms took all morning to dig.’ He moved forward and cast out, letting the line drop in a shadow. ‘You can tell ’em by their tail. Plain with no spots. If I get one you’ll see it jump like an acrobat.’
Torin leaned over the bank, touching the water, its flickering waves warm with the fullness of the day that had passed. Pauley stood with a halo of midges swarming the skim of the dark surface of leaves from overarching trees. He was intent, patient, the way Torin could never be.
The line strained out and pulled. Pauley rolled in a fish fighting itself.
‘A lovely wee trout,’ he announced, delight wide on his face as the fish came up in a curve. He splattered it down on the grass and banged it against a stone. ‘Good isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Torin said, unable to fathom the mysteries of the river but impressed. ‘Where’d you get the rods?’
‘In the house.’
‘Your dad goes fishing?’
‘He nicked them.’ The dark came down as Pauley turned to the heart of the river, darkly resting under the spread of tree, shadows underneath.
‘You went fishing together?’
‘He wouldn’t take me if you paid him. Well, maybe then. It was a lad across the street. He gave me the odd meal and took me with him.’
In another life Pauley could have been a sniper, earned a packet abroad as a soldier. Maybe he still could. There were armies he could join. Groups of men who went out fighting. The silence was heavy. Torin could not do this stuff. No use kidding himself.
‘We’ll go further up. But don’t make a sound and we’ll get a few more of those fellas. And you have a go.’ Pauley held a rod aloft.
‘Me?’
‘Go on. Won’t hurt you.’ Pauley passed over a rod and the spindly weight stretched over the river. Minutes passed. This was useless. Torin could not concentrate. He only did it to please Pauley. A flutter. He heaved up the rod. A fish twisted and turned to free itself from the end of the line. ‘Hang on there,’ Pauley called. ‘Don’t move.’
The fish tugged. Torin stepped back. The fish jumped off and he fell backwards.
‘Sorry,’ he gasped, wiping the taste of dust from his mouth.
‘Shhush. Stand still.’
Pauley picked up his rod, stepped along the bank and continued fishing. In the dusky distance pinpoints of light shone across the river and a van’s engine ran. Three figures shadowed between the trees, voices carrying.
‘What’s that?’ Torin asked.
‘Keep your head down.’ Pauley lowered to his haunches, tugging Torin with him. ‘ Lie low.’ He put his hand on Torin’s shoulder, pressing him to the blanket of leaf mould and moss, twigs and the crinkle of leaves.
‘What’s up? This illegal or something?’
‘It is if you haven’t a permit.’
‘What?’
‘Only a bit more than gathering the oysters.’
‘Bloody hell. Who are they? Gards?’ Torin hissed.
‘No. Guys from the estate. As if we shouldn’t be allowed a few of these blighters. Not like we’re depriving anyone.’
‘What estate?’
‘The Brien family own the river and lakes.’
A door slammed. Someone coughed. Voices rose and laughter fell to quiet, the quiet of lighting a fag. Minutes passed. He had not even liked fishing. The van’s doors opened and shut.
‘They’ve gone.’ Pauley said, rising. He pressed Tor
in’s arm. ‘Just have to be careful. A couple of years ago, a lad got nicked. He was only carrying a bag with three fish over.’
‘Oh, right,’ Torin breathed, not knowing whether to be more alarmed or relieved. This was crazy. ‘You sure they won’t be back?’
‘They won’t. Got three more lakes to check.’ Pauley handed him back his rod and they stood on the river bank.
‘This is so slow,’ Torin shrugged. ‘I might take a walk while it’s light enough, if that’s okay?’ He lay down the rod so it overhung the water. The further away he got from those guys, the better.
‘Hadn’t you down as a quitter. But if you see anything, get back here.’
‘Course.’ Torin shifted off, the leaves softening and twigs breaking underfoot, crisping into the evening. He had disappointed Pauley. But he could not hang around. Especially if he was likely to be nicked.
Upland, a path led towards grey rock which rose boldly, a jagged line dragged across the sky. Evening was darkening. If he had to, if he had to escape out here, he saw how he might do it. Bring a tent. Get one from somewhere. If a person had to hide, this was a good place. Branches and rocks would screen. Far back, his grandad had said, men running from the English had lived among the mountains. They had hidden stashes of guns, watching the roads and passes, eager for the sight of British Army trucks. At one corner his grandad had driven around, he said they had landed shots and lugged half a dozen soldiers.
Eager to get to higher ground where it was light, he crawled up a bank, moving across rocks, and followed the lie of the land. He never had a dad who did things. Even if the most of what Pauley’s father did was drink, he had one. And knew where he was.
Up high, he pushed onto a broad ledge opening out to higher ground. Among gorse, a rush of silver fell against the rock. A hiss and a spill of vapour across stones, glossy with light from the head of water bursting over. His feet struggled on boulders while the river crashed and ripped the air. He leant down, touching the water, and splashed his face. He rose and walked, ranging over spongey grass where heather was flecked with tiny purple flowers. A breeze blew across sunken, mouldered moss so thick it drew in every filament of sound.
Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind Page 15