Authors: Joe Murphy
And like we’ve rehearsed it me and Seán go, ‘Nothing,’ at the exact same time.
Da has a jacket in his hand and he slings it on over his
shoulders
and zips up the front. He’s still looking at us suspiciously and his eyes are little slivers of bright glass under his frown and he says to Seán, ‘Did you ring your Da?’
Seán nods quickly like he has a twitch or something.
Da goes, ‘What did he say?’
Seán looks at the lino and he’s going, ‘He says I’m going to get a kick in the hole when I get home.’
Da grunts a horrible little snort of satisfaction at this and then he goes to herd me and Seán out into the hall.
He’s doing this and I’m saying, ‘Da, we can’t go to Dr Thorpe’s. He’s after killing someone. I saw him. Why don’t you believe me?’
Da’s behind me now and he’s shoving me in front of him like a snowplough nosing along a dirty ball of slush. He’s looking at me trying to face him over my shoulder and he says, ‘Don’t be stupid. After all the trouble he’s gotten you into lately, you expect me to believe a cock-and-bull story like that? Give me a break. If you’ve done any damage to Dr Thorpe’s roses you’ll work your arse off to make up for it.’
Seán’s hurrying along in front of us. He looks at me with his wide, flat eyes and I can see my own fear reflected in them.
Da’s shoving me in the back and he’s going, ‘Not another word out of you.’
Since Da lost his job we’ve had to cut back on stuff. He
hardly
ever goes out anymore and he does most of the shopping in what he calls
Poundshops
. When I was little Mam and Da used to get me packets of green plastic soldiers and cap guns out of these
shops. Now Da gets our toilet roll and shower gel, our toothpaste and our washing up liquid. One of the other things that
happened
when Da lost his job was that he couldn’t afford the car. So he sold it. We walk everywhere now and if we want to go to Wexford or Dublin we get the bus or the train.
Because we don’t have a car, Da’s marching us step by step back the way we came. We go down the hill and cross the
concrete
slab of the New Bridge and then up past the Castle. The Castle’s windows are these rectangular, white, double-glazed things so out of keeping with the streaming green of the old stonework that it’s almost obscene. The windows are wet-slick in the light from the street and because they’re elongated and the rooms beyond are black-dark they look mournful. Like the
building
is crying. We’re past the Castle and into the Market Square and then we head on up past the towering spike of the Cathedral.
With every step I’m more and more afraid and I can hear Seán start to make his moaning noise but really low down in his chest so that the sound is more a vibration. It’s as if fear and confusion are radiating off him like static.
A couple of times I try and talk to my Da but every time he says, ‘I’ve had enough out of you. That’s enough.’
And once, hard and bitter like his voice was something squeezed from a crab apple, he goes, ‘As if we haven’t gone through enough without you sneaking around people’s gardens.’
Dr Thorpe’s isn’t the same as when we left it. For a start, the heavy black gates are open and they sit unmoving and cold at the end of the long, curved grooves they’ve scarred into the
brickwork of Dr Thorpe’s driveway. Another thing that’s different is that there’s a squad car parked at the top of the drive and Dr Thorpe’s front door is open. The light from his house makes a bright puddle of his porch and in the light I can see Dr Thorpe with his fused crest of hair, and standing in front of him is the big blue-black silhouette of a guard in full uniform, shirt and stab vest and hat. Against the light the guard is nodding at something Dr Thorpe is saying.
Da pulls up short when he sees the squad car and the guard and he grabs me by the collar and he goes, ‘Did you ring the guards? You did, didn’t you? That’s what the two of you were doing in the kitchen looking like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouths.’
He looks at the guard and at me and then he looks at Seán and he goes, ‘What in God’s name did you do that for? They’ll have you for trespass or something. Fuck’s sake.’
He starts to walk up the driveway way quicker than he should. He’s not quite running but it looks like he wants to so that it’s like he’s doing that speed walking thing from the Olympics. It’s the most inelegant thing in the world. This would be funny except for the fact that he’s jabbing me in front of him and Seán’s
following
along behind like a stray puppy.
My runners are scuffing off the brickwork and in my chest my heart is palpitating like it’s in spasm. The guards being here is the best thing that’s happened since this crazy fucking evening began. I’m thinking, Dr Thorpe’s fucked now. There’s no way he’s had a chance to hide the body. I’m thinking the guard will want
to do a search or take him down to the barracks for questioning. I’m picturing the interview room, featureless and washed-out, all drab and shaded in grey and old bone. I’m picturing Dr Thorpe being grilled by Bunk and McNulty out of
The Wire
.
I’m thinking, Da will have to believe me now.
And then the guard is turning around to face us and then what I’m thinking is, For fuck’s sake.
This guard with his slab head, his shovels for hands and a meaty roll of flesh like a sausage sitting just above the collar of his shirt. This guard with his thin, joyless mouth, I recognise him.
We’re close enough now so that I can see that Dr Thorpe is smiling, and he goes, ‘Ah, here they are now.’
This all happens just before Seán gets put on his little red tablets. His little red
useless
tablets. This is the first time I meet this guard that a few months later is standing with Dr Thorpe when he says, ‘Ah, here they are now.’
When I get home from training one night this same guard’s sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee. He’s sitting at the table and his uniform is dark in the light and his hat is resting on the counter behind him. His hands are curled around the mug in front of him like he’s trying to warm himself up and between the knuckles of his right hand ceramic letters can be read. They don’t make sense fractured and broken like they are now but I know that under the guard’s hands are the words
I like my job, it’s the work I hate
.
I’m looking at this guard and then I’m wondering, what have I done? My head is spooling through every little thing that might have caused this. Looking at him with his big hands gripping the mug I’m thinking, it has to be the porn I was looking up on the computer. I’m thinking it’s pretty fucked up that typing
huge jugs
into Google can land a guard at your kitchen table.
My Da is standing behind the guard and he’s white white white except for his cheeks. They are haemorrhage red and make it look like he’s wearing Aunt Sally’s make-up. Between his hands a dishcloth is knotting and twisting and unknotting again. His hands are manic and his knuckles are the same white white white as his face. He’s mouthing something at me over the guard’s head but I can’t understand him. I’m standing in the kitchen doorway and I’m staring over his head and the guard goes, ‘If you
wouldn
’t mind giving us a little privacy, Jack.’
He doesn’t turn around when he says this and I know he knows my Da’s trying to tell me something. He doesn’t turn around and he says, ‘I’d rather not have to bring him over to the barracks.’
All the while he’s looking at me. Right at me.
Da leaves and as he’s passing by me he squeezes my arm just above the elbow. He squeezes and lets go but afterwards I can still feel the impression of each of his fingers, the individual imprint of his thumb. My mouth’s going dry and through my mind
reflections
of everything I’ve done to warrant a visit from the guards are pinwheeling again. Everything that we, that me and Seán, could have done. They are splinters of broken mirror.
The guard goes, ‘Have a seat.’
He goes, ‘This shouldn’t take too long. Just a few questions that you can help us out with.’
He’s not from around here and he has the stretched flatness of the midlands in his voice. I’m sitting down opposite him and my head feels full of rattle and jangle. You know the razor swirls of stuff that corkscrew up when you drill into metal? My head feels full of them. My skull is full of swarf. My thoughts are shrapnel. I’m sitting down opposite him and I’m going, ‘What’s the
problem
?’
I’m going, ‘Am I in trouble?’
The guard looks at me for a moment and then he’s finishing his coffee and then he’s taking out a notepad and a pen. He’s
looking
at me and now he’s saying, ‘No, no I’m sure you’re not. If you could just give us some information it’d be appreciated.’
He pronounces his Rs funny. I’m thinking this and I’m sitting at the table and my palms are sweating. I’m sitting at the table and my shirt is starting to stick between my shoulder blades. Seán’s violence, Seán’s odd behaviour, all of this, is a hot pulse in my chest so that what the guard says next doesn’t surprise me. He goes, ‘When was the last time you saw your friend Seán Galvin? And when was the last time you saw your neighbour’s pigeons?’
It’s like this. My neighbours have this pigeon loft built out the back. It’s all unpainted timber and rusting nails with a plastic windmill nailed to the roof to take the bare look off it. Its splintered boards are bleached by the weather so that it looks like something you might find on a beach on a tropical island
somewhere. A beach hut transported into the wet and cold of Ireland and then flecked with scattered gobs of pigeon shit. The neighbours asked a friend of theirs to mind the birds until they come back from a two-week spell visiting their son in England. They come back and their pigeons have all flown the coop. Literally. According to the guard, Mr and Mrs Redmond haven’t seen their pigeons now in days.
This would all be so much so-fucking-what except for Seán. The guard says that they stopped Seán yesterday carrying a pigeon and a string of caps. The ring around the pigeon’s leg had been removed so there’s no telling for sure who the bird belonged to. But the guard says they’re pretty sure they know. What Seán was planning to do with a pigeon and a roll of caps he won’t say and the guard can’t even imagine.
I tell him, ‘I can.’
I tell him that I haven’t seen Seán for three days. Not since school on Monday. I tell him I thought he was sick or something. I tell him that at this time of year a lot of people tend to keep their heads down with study and all. I tell him I texted him earlier but I didn’t get any reply. I’m telling him all this but what I’m thinking is, I hope the guards don’t know about Seán’s other stuff.
The guard writes something down and then he goes, ‘That’s why your neighbours are concerned. Everyone knows that Seán’s a little odd and some of those birds were racing pigeons. Quite valuable.’
He says this,
valable
.
I’m shaking my head and I go, ‘I honestly don’t know, Guard.’
The guard writes something down. And then he goes, ‘I take it you two are close. Good mates.’
He says this not as a question and when I nod he writes
something
down. The way he keeps doing this is starting to make me nervous.
He raises one of his big heavy shovel paws to rub his jaw. The noise it makes is like sellotape. When his hand comes back down he asks did I ever notice anything unusual or threatening in Seán’s behaviour.
I tell him no and his writing hand and pen are doing their thing again. I’m not stupid and I’m getting the feeling that the questions are getting more to the point. I’m trying not to panic and I’m trying not to let the fear show in my voice but I don’t think I can. Especially when the guard starts talking again.
The guard says that they’ve already gone through Seán’s house and they were wondering why a sixteen-year-old boy would keep so many boxes of old toys in his room. The guard says it’s almost like someone was using it as storage space. The guard says that they were wondering why a sixteen-year-old boy would have so many knives.
When he says this it’s like the whole kitchen goes dark and pulls away. It’s like the walls are exploding away from me and the floor’s plummeting and there’s only myself and the guard in the middle of this spinning sphere of nothing. My brain refuses to work and I’m finding it hard to breathe.
The guard is looking at me and looking at me and his pen
stabs the notepad and he goes, ‘Seán took those pigeons didn’t he? At least some of them?’
When old people lose their teeth it’s like their mouth is
suddenly
two sizes too big for their faces. That thing they do when they close their mouth and work their gums against each other, that boneless flexing of the lips is what my mouth is doing now.
From where this comes I don’t know, but now I want my Mammy and Daddy.
The guard is taking this all in and he’s writing something in his notepad, writing in aggressive, hard strokes. His pen is a heron’s beak and it’s jabbing and slashing and his eyes never leave my face and I’m wondering what exactly the guard is writing. And I’m wondering, what the fuck has happened to those pigeons? I’m wondering all this and now I’m thinking that we, that me and Seán, are fucked.
The guard doesn’t wait for my answer and I’m thinking at this stage he’s made his mind up about something. Instead his hand and jaw do their sellotape impression again and he goes, ‘We’ve been asking people living around the Galvins’ some questions as well. Asking them about Seán and what they think he’s capable of.’
He sits there waiting for a response from me but the only thing I can think of is how Seán’s going to hate me for even
talking
to this guard. He’ll never want to speak to me again. To the guard I must look like the way the rabbits look in
Watership Down
when they’re frightened. Frozen. Petrified.
Tharn
.
The guard nods to himself and the sharp rasp of his pen is
loud in the no-noise of our kitchen. He’s nodding to himself and now he’s saying, ‘Do you know that we’re keeping an eye on your friend, Seán? Do you know that you’re the only person he’s ever seen hanging around with? You’re not afraid that he’ll do
something
that might get the two of you in trouble?’