Creature of the Night (8 page)

That night Jimjam bunny forgot to wake Dennis and I
woke to the sound of my ma screaming at him and the
bedsprings screeching as she shook him. He was
whimpering and sobbing and saying sorry, but sorry
was never good enough for my ma, I gave up sorry five
years ago.

She left Dennis sobbing away to himself and came
into my room.

'The mattress is soaked,' she said. 'I forgot to put
the cover on it.'

I could see the cover in my mind's eye, a yellow,
stinking, plastic thing, lying in the corner of the sitting
room under a pile of socks and T-shirts.

'He wasn't supposed to be sleeping with me!' my
ma said. 'What am I going to do now?'

'Turn it over,' I said.

'It's gone all the way through,' she said. 'How can a
fella that size have so much piss in him?'

All I wanted was to go back to sleep.

'Stay in here if you want,' I said. 'I'll sleep in the
little room.'

I don't know what she did in the end. The next time I
opened my eyes she was bumping around in the kitchen
and Dennis was complaining about the eggs again. I
turned over and pulled the duvet over my head.
I couldn't face a day that had absolutely nothing in it at
all for me to do. But I had to get up in the end, and it
was every bit as bad as I expected. I wished I'd let PJ
throw us out. I couldn't believe I'd been so stupid.

I was never so bored in my life. I set up the Xbox
but I was even bored with that. I smoked half the fags
I took from my ma. I wandered around inside and I
wandered around outside, but nothing I did would make
the clock move any faster. It just seemed to be stuck.
More than anything I wanted to get off my head. It was
way too long since I'd had a drink, and I had no gear of
my own – it was always Beetle got that. Twenty times I
made up my mind to get on the road and start hitching
back to Dublin, and twenty times I changed it again.

I bent over backwards to keep out of my ma's way.
I knew if she got across me there would be serious
trouble, the mood I was in. So if she was inside I went
out and when she went out to the village with Dennis I
went in. And somehow I made it through to the end of
the day without hitting her or Dennis. In the evening PJ
phoned and said he'd be down for me the next morning.
I thought again of trying to make a run for it, but I didn't
know where to go. I felt trapped. If I'd had a gun I would
have taken hostages and demanded a helicopter out of
there.

I went to bed as soon as it was dark, but I couldn't
sleep for ages. Just lay there listening to the fuzzy sound
of the TV down below, and re-living the best times with
the lads, and trying not to think about tomorrow.

But eventually I did go to sleep, and the next thing I
knew Coley Dooley was banging on the front door.

His da was outside, waiting on the tractor. While I
got dressed Coley boiled the kettle and washed out a cup
and made me a tea bag and a peanut-butter sandwich. It
wasn't until I was outside sitting on the trailer with
Coley that I even stopped to think.

I was willing to bet Coley never tried to drink a cup
of tea on a trailer. It bumped all over the place and the
tea slopped all over my legs and burned my knees. More
of it went on the floor than in my mouth. Coley, as
usual, kept laughing. He looked like he'd been up for
hours, scrubbing his rosy cheeks in the shower. I
wondered why I'd come out with him, instead of telling
him to fuck off and leave me alone. I'd just got up and
gone out on some kind of automatic pilot. Like with
Coley and his grandda that other day – going with the
flow.

But at least I was going to get another go of the
chainsaw. PJ had taken the day off from his office to get
us started, and he drove us out to a patch of forest at the
foot of the mountain. They let me have first go of
the saw. Coley hauled trunks and branches over and PJ
split the logs and tossed them on to the trailer. But I
didn't last ten minutes with the saw. I loved using it and
I didn't want to stop, but my bad shoulder just couldn't
take it. The weight of the saw put too much strain on it
and the vibrations sent shooting pains up into my neck.

I turned it off and put it down.

'I can't do it,' I said. 'I hurt my shoulder in the
accident.'

They both looked at me. I knew what they were
thinking.

'I did,' I said. 'And I cut my head.' I felt the place.
The bump was nearly gone but the cut was still there,
with a big, crusty scab.

'Feel it,' I said to Coley. 'Go on.'

His hands were big and square but his fingers were
gentle. He made a face.

'I'll do that,' I said to PJ. 'What you're doing.'

He handed me the axe. I could tell he didn't want to
give it to me. My shoulder still hurt but I was able
to arrange things so I could take most of the weight of
the axe in my right hand, and chucking the bits up in the
trailer was no problem.

PJ took over the chainsaw, but every now and then
he had to stop to take a call from the office. Coley acted
like his secretary, minding the phone and stopping him
when it rang because he couldn't hear it over the noise
of the chainsaw. When that happened I would run out of
bits to split, and then I would go over and help Coley
haul timber, using just my good arm.

I don't know why I did that. I was always telling my
ma I was too sick to go to school. I could have used the
shoulder as an excuse to scab off, but it was a bit like
with the lads, I suppose. You couldn't show scared or
weak, like. You were up there with the men or you were
nothing. I didn't want Coley to think I was a girl, even if
I thought he was.

We had ham sandwiches and chocolate biscuits and hot
tea from a flask for our break. By the time we stopped
for dinner the trailer was nearly full.

'Many hands,' PJ said and he let me drive the
tractor back along the forest track as far as the road. I
said I knew how to drive it but it wasn't like a driving a
car. There was no accelerator for one thing, just a rev
lever on the steering column. He had to show me and he
gave me a lecture on how to drive safely and it pissed me
off. I hate being told things.

We had a massive dinner in Coley's ma's kitchen. Pork
chops and carrots and mountains of spuds boiled in their
skins. I can't stand watching people eat but Margaret
Dooley hardly took her eyes off me the whole time.

'Growing lad,' she said one time when I looked up
and caught her at it. 'Sure, he's skinny as a whippet,
would you look at him?' And every time after that I
caught her looking she would just smile and push something
at me. Butter, or bread, or more spuds.

Then there was apple tart and pots of tea and more
choccy bikkies. Margaret washed every plate and cup
and spoon as it came off the table. I never once seen a
dirty dish in her kitchen. No wonder PJ had looked
sideways at my ma's one.

I could hardly move after all that food, but we had
to go and unload the firewood. I threw it off the trailer
and the other two stacked it neatly in the end bay of the
lean-to. I was finished way before they were, so when
they weren't looking I sneaked off behind the buildings
for a smoke.

I thought they might come looking for me but they
didn't. I heard the regular thud and click of the woodstack
and the mumbling of their voices. When I finished
my smoke I thought of going home. They couldn't keep
me here. They couldn't make me work. There were laws
against slave labour. But what would I do at home?
Watch the afternoon soaps with my ma? Listen to her
whinging on about how useless I was? Wait for them to
come and get me again?

I thought of thumbing to Ennis and trying to rob a
car and get back to Dublin. But if I messed up I was in
serious trouble. Whatever else I did I had to keep my
nose out of the garda station, for a while at least. I knew
some lads who had been to St Pat's. Mick had been there
for six months when he was fourteen, and he always
laughed about it and said it was like a hotel and the
other lads were great craic and had loads of good tips.
But I couldn't see myself locked away and not able to get
out, no matter what the other fellas were like. I'd go
mental.

Maybe that was what went wrong with Mick.

The best plan, as far as I could make out, was to
wait until the weekend and get the fifty euro from my
ma and get up to Dublin and then stay there. Disappear.
That would sort everything. Then PJ would throw her
out of the house and she would have to go back and get
another flat and everything would be back to normal
again. No Mick, OK, but I still had Beetle and Fluke,
and there were other lads from the flats and from school,
so we could get someone else to join us if we needed to.

On my way back to the others I went in to look at
the Land Rover. The bonnet was open and I leaned in.
There was a greasy old blanket thrown in over the top of
the engine, like there had been an accident or something.
I looked behind me and then lifted one edge. Not an
accident, maybe, but an operation. There were bits
everywhere, springs and bolts and big chunks of metal
with peculiar shapes. I didn't know what an engine was
supposed to look like. I thought it was a kind of grey
metal brain that told the wheels to move. But if this was
a brain, it had burst.

'I wouldn't try stealing that,' Coley said, coming up
behind me.

'I wasn't going to,' I said.

'You wouldn't get far in it,' he said, laughing. 'The
cylinder head is off it.'

'Oh.' I shrugged, trying to look like I knew what he
was talking about.

'Matty's waiting on a new head gasket. He says he's
ordered it, but I don't believe him. He says he ordered it
three weeks ago.'

He turned away and showed me another car.

'Vintage Mini,' he said. 'Nineteen-sixty-nine. Great
body on it. Hardly any rust. Worth a few bob. But the
engine is completely useless. Needs a transplant. Matty's
waiting for a suitable donor.'

He pointed to a third car. 'And that's an old Merc.
Does about twenty gallons to the mile. He wants—'

His father called him then, and he was already up in
the cab of the tractor. Me and Coley climbed up into the
trailer and we set off for the woods again, for another
load.

After the second load PJ dropped me home in the car. It
was about four o'clock, so we hadn't done a full day's
work, but it was more than enough for me and I suppose
he could see that. He said to my ma: 'He's not a bad lad.
He'll soon get fit.'

I dropped into an armchair and rested my head on
the back of it. I was exhausted, and aching from head to
foot.

'Did you hear that?' my ma said, wading in through
Dennis's Lego. 'He said you were a good worker.'

He didn't say that. I wished my ma would shut up.
I knew that the next thing that came out of her mouth
would be the wrong thing, and it was.

'Amazing, isn't it? I never thought you had it in you
to be a farmer.'

I turned on her. 'I'm not a fucking farmer, all right?
It's just slave labour, that's all. And it wasn't even his
fucking car I took!'

I heaved myself out of the chair and pushed past
her. I kicked Dennis's Lego house to bits on my way out.
In my bedroom I lit a fag. I didn't care if she caught me.
What could she do to me anyway? I finished it and
chucked it out the window, then lay down on the bed,
just for a minute, to rest my aching bones.

* * *

I woke at about ten o'clock. My ma was where she
always was but she'd got Dennis off to sleep early. I
don't know what bed he was in.

'Make yourself a sandwich,' she said. 'And make
me a cup of tea while you're at it.'

My hands were all skinned and scratched and sore.
There were dirty sticky bits all over them from the goo
that comes out of the pine trees. I could still smell it on
them. I tried to wash it off with washing-up liquid but
the water was cold and the sink was full of dishes
and the scrubber was buried underneath them somewhere.
I dried my hands on a dishcloth and made the
sandwiches and tea.

'Would you ever do the washing up, you slag?' I
said to my ma.

'I'll do it tomorrow,' she said. 'I been too busy.'

'Too busy doing what?' I said.

'You should try minding Dennis some time,' she
said. 'And in any case I'm exhausted. He's up nearly
every night sleepwalking.'

'Sleepwalking?' I said.

'He keeps having these stupid dreams about a little
fairy woman. He's driving me mental.'

I took my tea and sandwich back up with me and
lay down on top of the bed.

When I next woke it was dark, and there was just the
light from the landing squeezing under my door. I could
hear someone moving around downstairs in the kitchen.
There was a voice, talking in a kind of high-pitched
whisper. Dennis.

Jimjam bunny was on the ball tonight, then. But
who was he talking to? Was there another voice,
whispering as well? My ma?

I turned over, hurt my bad shoulder, turned back
again. The fridge door closed. More whispering. My ma
never whispered. She never cared who she woke up. I
yawned and realized I needed to piss. There was a duvet
on top of me as well as underneath me. It was Dennis's
one from his bed. My ma must have put it over me. I
looked at my phone. It was three o'clock.

I heard the squeak of a cupboard door, a rattle of
crocks, the clunk of something being put down on the
table. A quiet, excited giggle from Dennis.

I sat up, and groaned with the pain and stiffness in
my shoulders and back. I got myself carefully out of bed
and went across the floor. When I opened my bedroom
door I heard the dog flap swing closed and bounce a
couple of times against its frame.

'Dennis?' I called.

He didn't answer. Down in the kitchen I seen that
little green bowl out on the table, and a carton of milk
and a packet of biscuits.

'What are you doing?' I said.

'Shh!' he said. 'The little woman is here.'

He knelt down in front of the dog flap and stuck his
head out of it.

'Come back!' he called out. 'It's only Bobby.'

The rest of him squirmed out through the hole and
the flap dropped behind him.

'Dennis!' I said. 'Get back in here, you little headbanger!'

I heard his bare feet on the concrete, running a few
steps, and his little excited squeak. I reached for the door
key but then I stopped. What if there really was something
out there? The ghost of a murdered child who
cried like a strangled cat? Mick and the axe?

I turned the key and opened it and went out. The
darkness blinded me, but then it softened a bit and I
could see Dennis standing on the edge of the grass with
his back to me.

'Come back in!' I said to him. 'Do you hear
me?'

He turned round and danced back to me. 'She went
under the hedge,' he said, 'and out the other side.'

I reached for him and swung him up on to my hip,
wincing at the pains all over me. He wriggled and looked
back over my shoulder when I carried him indoors.

I said, 'Go to the toilet or my ma will throw Jimjam
bunny in the fire.'

I put him down and he ran off. I was locking the
back door again when I heard my ma coming down
the stairs. She had that undead look that the sleeping
pills always gave her.

'What you doing?' she said.

'Nothing,' I said. 'Dennis had a dream.'

'What's that thing doing there?' she said, pointing
at the little green dish.

'He's just playing,' I said.

'In the middle of the night?'

'Well I don't know, do I?' I said.

She put the milk away. Dennis flushed the toilet and
came out, wiping his hands on his pyjamas.

'What you been up to?' she said to him.

'I seen the little woman,' he said. 'She came in for
her milk.'

'Not that again,' said my ma.

Dennis looked anxiously into her face, trying to
judge her mood.

'She had a blue dress,' he said. 'Way down to here!'
He touched the floor beside his feet. My ma seen the
mud on them.

'Did he go out the door?' she said to me.

'Out the dog hole,' I said. 'He's OK, Ma. Leave him
alone.'

'You're not to do that again, Dennis,' she said. 'Do
you hear me? You're not to go out in the night. Go back
up to bed now.'

He scooted past her and galloped up the stairs on
all fours.

'Are you sleeping in that wet bed?' I asked her.

'I put the plastic cover on it,' she said. 'It doesn't
come through.'

'Oh, yuck!' I said. I could imagine the wet mattress,
festering underneath her.

'I'll buy them a new mattress,' she said. 'Just as
soon as I get the money. I'm going to join the Credit
Union in the village.'

'I hope they know what they're letting themselves in
for,' I said.