Stolen Child (19 page)

Joy

Polar is missing. This time he’s not spinning around in the washing machine. Her mother says, ‘He was in rag order, Joy. I’ll buy you a new teddy for Christmas. Stop making such a fuss.’

Joy finds him in the bin. Tea bags and baked beans have soaked into his fur. One eye is missing and his mouth is stuffed with something horrible that smelled like the cabbage she refused to eat for dinner yesterday. She holds him under the shower but the stains won’t come out and the stuffing keeps falling into the bath.

‘Effing cow,’ says Polar. ‘She’s trying to kill me. I
hate
her guts.’

She wants to ring her father and tell him but he’s in the middle of an ocean earning money to do lots of things to the house because her mother says it’s a mausoleum.

‘What’s a mausoleum?’ Joy had asked Granny when she came to dinner last Sunday.

When Granny said it was a grave, Joy became frightened there were ghosts in the house.

‘No ghosts,’ said Granny. ‘Just a difference of opinion on what makes a house into a home.’

She left soon afterwards and didn’t hug Mammy. She never does any more, not since Joey.

Joy shakes Polar and feels her anger rising. It’s a hot, fuzzy feeling. She can’t think straight with it.

‘You threw Polar into the bin,’ she shouts.

Her mother looks up from the nature table. Yesterday, they went on a winter walk and gathered cones and branches of holly and ivy. Today, for home-school, they are going to make a Christmas scene, but Joy flings the cones on the floor. They bounce like balls. When one of them rolls against her foot, she crunches it to bits.

Her mother grabs her arms and forces her to stop. ‘Polar was filthy,’ she said. ‘Full of filthy germs. You’re forever sucking his ears or putting his hands into your mouth. It’s disgusting. You’d swear he was the only toy you have.’

‘He’s my favourite,’ she sobs. ‘Fix him. Make him better again.’

‘I can’t do that, Joy. You’ve had him since you were a baby. You’re a big girl now. Six years of age and you want to play with a baby toy. What about all the beautiful soft toys we’ve bought for you? They’re sitting in rows on the bottom of your bed. That’s not where they should be. Polar has served his time. We can bury him if you like. Have a special funeral in the garden.’

Joy looks at Polar. She wants him to say something really rude and disgusting. He might even say, ‘Fuck off.’ She shudders and waits for him to speak. But he’s like a rag, all limp and dripping and his head is hanging like a dead flower.

‘Fuck off,’ she says to Mammy. ‘Fuck…fuck…
fuck…
off.’

Her mother slaps her face. Just like she slapped Joey. That’s what Joey felt, stinging and scorching, and dots dancing.

‘I can’t take this any more. You’re more trouble than you’re
worth.’ Her mother puts her hand to her mouth. Joy thinks she’s going to be sick but she turns her back and walks from the kitchen. She slams the back door behind her and runs down the garden path. Joy watches her from the window.

One side of Joy’s face feels really big. She touches it and grimaces. Is that what Joey did when her mother hit him? She grimaces again. Her mother doesn’t come back. Joy waits and waits. It’s so long now, nearly an hour. Maybe she’s run away. Polar lies on the nature table and stares at her from one eye.

‘Where do you think she is?’ she asks but still he can’t speak.

She runs from the house and out the front gate. It will be dark soon. Everything is brown and dead, the bracken and the grass and the bare branches. With all the leaves gone, she can see the cottage now. Daddy’s ancestors used to live there. Some day he’s going to leave the rigs and build a hostel there for the people who want to visit the Burren to see the butterflies and flowers.

Joy runs past the cottage then stops. Something moves behind the branches. She returns and pushes through the hedge. Her mother is kneeling on the grass. Her hands are joined like the statue of Holy Mary in the church.

‘Mammy…’ she whispers.

Her mother looks up and there are tears all over her face and dripping off her chin. Joy forgets the pain in her face, and Polar too, and can think of nothing except how much she loves her mother.

‘I’m sorry, Joy. I’m so
so
sorry.’ Her mother holds out her arms and Joy runs into them. She almost knocks her mother to the ground because she’s still kneeling, her blue dress wet from the grass and the dead flowers.

‘Don’t put my name in the Judgement Book,’ Joy cries. ‘I don’t want Holy God to know I said “fuck”.’

‘I won’t tell him.’ Mammy is still sobbing and, in between, whispering, ‘You must never come here again…it’s dangerous…Hug me…kiss me…love me.’

They bury Polar in the flower bed under the kitchen window. Her mother sings ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ and says, ‘He was a good and faithful bear. May be rest forever in peace.’

In the summer she will plant a rose bush over his grave and Joy will remember him every time a rose blooms.

Joy has no time to be really sad because Mitch Moran drives down the lane the next day with something very special in his car for her.

‘He’s weaned from his mother,’ he says. ‘And he’s yours if you want him. Miriam tells me you’ve had a sad funeral for Polar.’

The pup lies in a basket in the back seat. When he sees Joy he jumps against the window and scrabbles his paws on the glass. He’s black and tiny, like a little splotch. And that’s what Joy will call him.

‘Can I have him, Mammy? Can I?’ she shouts.

She nods and opens the back door. Joy is surprised at how really pretty her mother looks when she smiles.

Carla

The new Millennium came and went. Despite the dire predictions, no planes fell from the sky. Toasters did not burst into flames. Nor did computers crash and bring about a global economic collapse. A pool of calm had settled around Carla and she clung to its order, rising at the same time every morning and working in her apartment until lunchtime. In the afternoon, she spent an hour catching up on emails, checking details with the person whose memoir she was ghost-writing, and speaking on the phone to Frank. She worked on her laptop for a further two hours then went to the gym where she exercised and swam with the same discipline.

Her apartment was surrounded by office blocks. Glass bee-hives of activity. From her balcony she watched men and women at their desks. She envied their camaraderie yet knew she would hate the enforced closeness, the closed gossip of the water cooler, the tedium of waiting for five o’clock. But was she any better in her self-imposed isolation, ghost-writing the lives of other people?

Frank’s ambition was to publish the uncomfortable books, the memoirs that no one else wanted to handle. At the start
of each new commission, as Carla became familiar with the author and the manuscript, she was gripped by fear. The stories she encountered were so ragged, so personal, how could she possibly do justice to them? Then gradually, so gradually she was aware of it happening, she slipped inside the other person’s skin. It was a comfortable place to be. For months she soaked up their emotions, their thoughts, saw the world through their eyes. With each book she felt a little more of herself slipping away. She had become a true ghost-writer, ephemeral, insubstantial. When once the books were written, proofread, and sent to the printers, when it was too late to change a word or a comma, she emerged slowly and reluctantly into her own reality.

She awoke one morning after she had spent the night with Lizzy Carr and tried to grasp back that reality. But with the phone ringing and reverberating through her head, it was already too late.

‘Carla, can I ask you a personal question?’ Janet demanded.

‘If I can find my head, I’ll be able to answer you.’ Carla groaned but Janet was in no mood for jokes, nor was she offering sympathy.

‘What exactly are you doing with your life?’ she asked.

‘Minding my own business.’

‘Not when your face is plastered all over the papers. Your father is horrified by that photo. And not, I might add, for the first time either.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Have you seen the papers this morning?’

‘Hardly. I was fast asleep until you rang.’

‘I’m amazed you got to bed at all. Why do you insist on attracting the most unsavoury publicity every time you appear in public?’

‘I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Mother. I discovered
long ago that today’s news makes an excellent bin liner for tomorrow.’

‘You won’t be pleased when you see this one,’ Janet warned. ‘And I sincerely hope Frank Staunton is not lying beside you listening to our conversation.’

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

‘Then I suggest you get to the nearest newsagent and clue yourself in.’

Anticipation model Carla Kelly and radical publisher Frank Staunton enjoy an intimate moment in Kim’s Cave.

Back in her apartment, dark glasses discarded, Carla moaned and dragged herself back to bed. She stared at the ceiling and tried to project last night onto the white surface. She had no memory of being photographed. But that was not her main concern. Frank Staunton, she shuddered, and pulled the duvet over her head. He was the last person she would have expected to see in a nightclub. Now that she remembered, he had seemed equally surprised to see her. He was accompanied by an author. Carla tried to recall her name, something American, Samantha…no…Savannah, that was it, an American author named Savannah, who was promoting her book in Ireland. She talked a lot about post-modernism and Carla had been just as eloquent, considering she had had absolutely no idea what they were discussing. Wine and tequila had turned her into a literary bore, moaned Lizzy Carr, and she had dragged Frank up to dance.

He had danced stiffly, only his shoulders moving, and Carla could remember quite clearly how his expression moved from mild embarrassment to alarm as Lizzy’s dancing became more exuberant. Savannah continued to talk about
objectivity, nihilism and deconstruction. She agreed with Carla that Robert Gardner was the ultimate post-modern shit to give birth to a son – well, he didn’t give birth, that would be
too
post-modern, said Carla. It was that bitch Sharon who had had his baby and was, right at that moment, drinking champagne, well, probably not at that
precise
moment because they were on the other side of the world, but that didn’t change the fact that all men were shits, untrustworthy post-modern bastards, except Frank, who was a darling and good in bed, said Carla, just to see Savannah’s face, and when he came back to the table, Savannah said, ‘I believe you’re a stud in bed, Frank, five stars from Carla here,’ and Frank bent down to say in his precise, polite voice, ‘I think I’d better take you home, Carla.’

Carla remembered the taxi ride and dropping Savannah off at the Westbury Hotel and walking with Frank, well, maybe not walking, she remembered Frank supporting her into the elevator, and the elevator doors sliding closed, just like her mind slid closed on the same instant. This morning she was looking down into a black pit of amnesia. How many brain cells had she killed last night? Billions, probably.

She emerged from under the duvet when the phone rang again.

Lizzy assured her she had done nothing wrong like dancing on tables or flinging her shoes at the DJ.

‘But what about Frank?’ wailed Carla. ‘What did I do to him?’

‘Frank the stud, you mean. The five-star guy?’

‘
Tell
me.’

‘Well, after he dropped Cassandra—’

‘Savannah.’

‘Whatever. After he dropped her off at the Westbury
and me at my apartment, you said, “Home, James, and don’t spare the horses. I fancy a good ride tonight.”’

‘You bitch! I didn’t.’

‘Would I lie to you?’

‘Oh, God. Lizzy, I’m going to be sick. I’ll talk to you later.’

After Carla emerged from the bathroom, she prowled around her apartment, terrified she would find a tie or an odd sock or two wine glasses sitting intimately on the draining board. She checked the bed, relieved when the second pillow looked smooth enough to suggest it had not supported her boss’s head throughout the night.

Her five-star boss. She slumped to the edge of the bed and buried her face in her hands.

Frank Staunton, who had treated her with kid gloves. Never by word or deed had he implied that he thought of her as anything other than an efficient and reliable ghost-writer. And she had kept him at the same distance, until now…Could she really have called him a stud? Yes, she had. She remembered every word of that free-whirling conversation, as if her mind was flying loose, scattering words at random. But her conversation with Robert was just a jagged memory, retaining only one fact. A son.

He was weeping when he told her, and she had wept too, her voice too choked to do more than wish him well. Lizzy had phoned shortly afterwards and had insisted a night on the town was in order. Lizzy was funny. She made Carla laugh. And that felt good. Almost as good as not caring. And better, infinitely much better, than living in limbo.

‘Just remember,’ said Lizzy when Carla rang her back. ‘A hangover is occasionally necessary to make us appreciate sobriety. I wouldn’t worry about your boss. From the look on his face last night, I’ve a strong suspicion he’d be more
than happy to prove you were right when you called him a five-star stud.’

That evening, driving back from dinner with Gina and Leo she recognised Anita’s distinctive walk. The young girl turned when Carla drew up beside her and peered suspiciously into the car.

‘Ah, jeez,’ she said. ‘I thought ya were me first punter for the night. Bugger off, Carla. You’re ruinin’ me chances.’

‘Why don’t you take a break?’ Carla leaned over and opened the passenger door. ‘Fancy a bite in Naffy’s?’

‘Might as well.’ Anita shrugged. ‘Business is shite anyway.’

‘How’s life treating you?’ Carla asked after Naffy had brought the coffee, and placed a plate of chips for Anita on the table.

‘I need me own gaff.’ Anita stirred four spoons of sugar into her coffee but made no attempt to drink it. ‘The Celtic Tiger is givin’ them punters notions. They want clean sheets an’ all, now.’ She tossed her head back and laughed so loudly that heads turned in their direction.

Since their first meeting, the young girl had flitted in and out of Carla’s life. Some nights she worked the canal, sometimes the docks, or, if she had enough money, she took the night off and spent it with friends. Usually, when she came back to the canal and Carla coaxed her to Naffy’s for a meal, she was bruised and wasted, withdrawing into herself if Carla asked too many questions.

‘I saw ya in the paper.’ Anita tilted her head to one side and stared at Carla. ‘Me friend says you’d a child stole on you.’

‘I did. A little girl called Isobel.’

‘Jeez…that’s rough. Them cops are fuckin’ useless.’

‘They did their best. I’ll find her some day.’

‘Wha’ age is she now?’

‘She’s six and a half years old.’

‘Me sister is tha’ age.’

‘Have you many sisters and brothers?’

‘Five, last time I counted. Could be more now. Me Ma pops ’em like peas.’

‘How long since you’ve seen her?’

‘Mind yer own effin’ bisness.’

Carla shrugged. Every time they met she was treated to the same sudden mood swings and had discovered the only way to pacify Anita was to change the subject.

‘Anita, I made an absolute arse of myself last night.’ ‘Wouldn’t be the first time. Hangin’ off tha’ fuckin’ bridge—’

‘That was then. This is now. I called my boss a stud to his face.’

‘An’ is he?’

‘I haven’t a clue. That’s the problem.’

‘Is tha’ the geezer with the beard in the pitcher?’

‘That’s him.’

‘He’ll be warmin’ yer feet soon.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yeah, really. Ya can always tell by their bleedin’ eyes. Everytin’ else they can hide but not the eyes.’

Anita was growing restless. Her hand shook when she lifted the mug of coffee. The effort seemed too much and she placed it back untouched on the table. Robert would have mingled with young people like her, gained their confidence, elicited information on the network of suppliers ringing their lives. Carla’s only aim was to rehabilitate her. Unwittingly, she had helped Dylan Rae at a crossroads in his life but Anita scoffed at the idea of a rehabilitation centre and grew angry every time Carla mentioned the social
services. She had been through them all and had no interest in going back.

‘You didn’t make that meeting I set up with the counsellor?’ Carla kept her tone neutral but Anita instantly picked up on the rebuke.

‘Fuck off.’ She pulled her mobile phone from her pocket and spoke to someone, her back turned to Carla.

‘See ya then,’ she said and clicked out of the call.

‘It’s me mate.’ She looked at Carla, her gaze unflinching. ‘He wants ta meet me now.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Bleedin’ great.’

‘Don’t go, Anita.’ Carla leaned across the table and gripped her hand, held tight when Anita tried to wriggle free. ‘I can help if you’ll let me. You don’t have to live like this—’

‘Yeah…yeah…that’s what they all say. Tanks for the coffee.’ She walked towards the door then turned and came back to the table. ‘Must be shite to have a child stole. I’m real sorry for ya.’