Taken Away (12 page)

Whatever the reasons, this was probably the least considerate of their unscheduled drop-offs. It was barely half-eight on a Saturday morning, for God's sake!

Ma threw her dish towel into the sink. She held her hands up on either side of her face, her fists clenched, and released a grit-toothed ‘urrrgh!' of frustration. Then she slammed her palms down on the counter and gripped the edge tightly.

In the nine months since Nan's freefall into senility, Dad's three half-sisters and four half-brothers had minded her for the sum total of three weeks between the lot of them. And never, ever, for more than two days at a time. This last week had been the longest Ma had gone without having to take care of her mother-in-law, and it had taken our home burning to the ground for Dad's family to offer even that paltry assistance.

I watched my ma hunch over her hands. She was breathing deeply, trying to quell her sudden rush of anger. She was gathering it into herself, shoving it down somewhere unseen. I imagined it simmering away inside her, never quite extinguished, never quite exposed, and I had one of those bright, rare moments of awareness when you see someone familiar in a new and startling light.

As the big engine sound pulled up outside the garden wall and died, I thought of Dad's family. I thought of their big cars and their stay-at-home wives and the money they all rolled in. I thought of our little house, and how Ma and Dad had moved Dee back into their room so that Nan could have Dee's room to herself. I thought how Ma and Dad didn't go to the pictures on a Friday night anymore; how Ma had given up her night class, how she brought Nan to the bathroom three or four times a day, how she bathed her, how she hadn't hesitated to take her in. I thought about how she sometimes answered the same question over and over and over again, all day long. (
What's for tea, Olive? What's for tea? What's for tea, love? What did you say was for tea?
) I thought about how gentle Ma was with Nan, and how shocking her statement in the kitchen had been. (
I think I hate her, Dave.
) Because Ma had never, ever – not
once
– spoken impatiently or in haste to Cheryl in all the time she'd been in our care.

I had accepted all this. I had taken it all for granted. Because I had assumed this was what women did; that it came naturally. Now, sitting at the breakfast table, looking at my mother and realising how much she had given up, I felt sick suddenly at how under my radar she was most days.

I searched for something to do or say.

‘Will I make a pot of tea, Ma?'

No!' she snapped. She paused a moment and then added a ‘little more gently, ‘Thanks, love.'

The latch rattled, and Ma glared through the window as the gate opened.

Oh. It wasn't Conner. It was Martin. I felt myself relax a little bit. Of all Dad's siblings Martin was the one least likely to breeze in and act the overlord. He was only eight years older than Dad; he had been only three when his father married Cheryl. The rest of Dad's family were the same generation as most of my friends' grandparents. They'd never had much time for my dad. Most of them had already moved out and started families of their own by the time he arrived on the scene. I think they considered him a bit of an embarrassment: the squalling brat their father had conceived late in life with a woman most of them considered to be a housekeeper at best, a gold-digger at worst.

Of all of his brothers and sisters, only Uncle Martin had shared any kind of childhood with Dad, and, I must admit, I sorta liked him. He was kind to Nan, when he was around, and though he still spoke in that high-falutin' manner, he was capable of holding an actual conversation rather than giving a continual series of lectures. He was an interesting man, actually, and a genuinely nice guy. He came through the gate carrying Nan's suitcase, and I saw Ma's shoulders soften slightly at the sight of him.

‘Your dad's upstairs lying down with Dee,' she said. ‘Go and tell him that Nan is here.'

On the way up the stairs, I heard Ma open the door and her curt greeting of, ‘Martin.'

Then Uncle Martin's cultured voice, straining against the weight of the suitcase: ‘How are you, Olive? She's asleep in the car.' The rest of their conversation was reduced to murmurs as I rounded the turn in the stairs and went up to the landing.

Dad was awake, Dee asleep beside him in the bed, her head in the crook of his arm. He looked up from the pillow and gave me a weary smile as I peeped around the door. ‘They're here,' I whispered. He sighed and nodded, and I left him to it, closing the door as quietly as I could so as not to disturb Dee.

I entered our room just as quietly, expecting Dom to be asleep in the top bunk. It brought me up short to see him standing by the wardrobe. The heavy wardrobe door was open, revealing the long mirror within, and Dom was gazing at his reflection with a strange kind of concentration. Frowning, he traced the contours of his face in the glass as if working out a puzzle in his head.

I thought of that child leaping into my brother and my momentary fear that it had possessed him. With a dry feeling in my throat, I closed the bedroom door and stood with my back against it. Dom didn't notice me at all, raptly engrossed as he was in examining his own reflection.

As I watched him, he closed his eyes, took a long deep breath and held it. He stood there a moment, one hand resting on his expanded chest, the other on the mirror. Then he released his held breath and his whole face lit up with delighted surprise. He opened his eyes, breathed in, released it again, and gave himself one of his sunny grins.

‘Well,' he said to himself. ‘How about that?'

‘Dom?' I asked.

Slowly, as if his thoughts were miles away, Dom turned his head. He gazed at me blankly, and then his eyes widened with sudden comprehension.

Oh!' he said. He looked at me, then back to his own reflection, ‘then at me again. As if registering for the first time our identical faces. Then he smiled at me – the same broken-hearted, adoring smile that I'd seen on the face of the goblin-boy – and I felt myself press harder against the wood of the door.

Lorry!' he said. ‘Look how big we are!' He spread his arms ‘as if to demonstrate our recent spurt of height and breadth. He lifted his hands and flexed the fingers, marvelling at their length. Then he clenched a fist in front of his face and grinned at it with savage glee. ‘Look at us!' He shook his fist. His face was full of love, and fierce, protective triumph. ‘Look how strong we are! No one can
ever
take you away now!'

My left hand crept across the surface of the door and closed around the reassuring globe of the handle. I could feel my pulse beating in my wrist. In my throat. In my temples. The urge to scream, to simply let go and scream, was so strong that I clamped my free hand over my mouth. My tears ran between my fingers and I tasted their salt on my lips.

Whatever reaction Dom had expected from me, this obviously was not it. He took a step towards me, his face filled with anxious concern.

‘It's alright now,' he assured me. ‘There's no need to be afraid anymore.'

‘Dominick,' I whispered, my hand curled beside my mouth like a frightened old lady's. ‘Please. Stop messing.'

At my use of his name he paused, his hand still held out as if to comfort me, his head tilted. Then his expression changed, his hand withdrew and he took a small step back. I saw fear begin to rise in his eyes as he took stock of me again. As he perhaps saw me properly for the first time – as he realised I was not who he thought I was.

His mouth formed a question that never came. My grip on the doorhandle tightened.

‘Dom?' I said.

Then the handle turned beneath my hand and I was shoved forward slightly as the door was pushed from the outside. I stifled a little shriek of surprise. Dom's eyes snapped to the door. There was a moment's pause and then Dad's voice, muffled, came through the wood: ‘Boys? Can I come in?'

I met Dom's eyes and moved aside on numb legs as Dad shoved the door open against my weight. He peered around the doorjamb at us, obviously puzzled at my blocking the way.

‘You alright?' he asked.

I nodded, my eyes not leaving Dom, who was staring at our dad as though he were some frightening stranger.

‘Dom!' said Dad. ‘You're up! Good. You feeling better?'

Dom nodded creakily. His eyes were bigger than ever, filling his face.

Dad looked him up and down. His mouth twitched. ‘Alright. Get dressed, will you? And come on downstairs. Your uncle Martin's here with Nan.'

‘Yes, sir,' whispered Dom.

Dad cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Sir?' he said dryly. ‘Well. That's different.' He glanced at me. ‘Don't dawdle, Pat, okay?'

He shook his head as he shut the door. I heard him say ‘sir' to himself, and he chuckled as he made his way down the stairs.

I put my back against the door again and stared at my brother. Though my heart was still tripp-trapping like an over-wound clock, Dad's arrival had changed something. I now realised that I wasn't alone. One shout, one heavy bang on the floor, and my dad would come running. I belonged here. That thought gave me a thin thread of courage.

Dom, on the other hand, seemed suddenly filled with vulnerable confusion. He backed away from me, shaking his head, and raised his hands as if to stop me from speaking. He seemed to want to say something, but couldn't find the words. As he retreated across the room, he managed only a string of broken sounds or syllables that went nowhere.

‘I.. . . ' he said. ‘Wha . . . who . . . ?'

Finally, he backed himself against the wall at the end of the bunk and stopped there, his hands up, his eyes glittering. In the garden, the gate creaked and we heard Dad and Martin's voices as they went to get Nan from the car. From the room across the hall, Dee's sleepy voice began a tremulous calling: ‘Mam? Mam? Maammyyy?'

Dom's fear became more and more apparent as these sounds crowded in. He pressed his fist against his lips in that way Dom had, his eyes darting around the room, as if trying to figure out where he was.

‘Look,' I said. My pounding heart made even that one word shaky.

His eyes snapped desperately to me.

‘Look,' I repeated. ‘You need to get dressed. Can . . . can you remember where the bathroom is?'

He nodded. The unshed tears in his eyes shivered with the movement.

I held my hand out, signalling him to stay where he was. Had he made a move towards me, I think my heart would have burst, or I would have dropped down dead of a brain haemorrhage. Dee's insistent calls were becoming panicked. I heard Ma shifting something in the kitchen and I called down to her, my voice perfectly level and strong, ‘I'll get her, Ma. You're alright!'

There was a moment's silence downstairs, and then: ‘Thanks, love!'

‘Dee?' I called, amazing myself again at how strong my voice was. ‘I'll be in to you now. If you wait a minute, like a good girl, I'll give you a jockey down the stairs.'

After a small pause came a tearful little, ‘Okay, Pap.'

‘Good girl. Just hang on a mo. Okay, pudding?'

‘Okay.'

I hadn't once broken eye contact with the . . . with Dom. My hand was still held up, to keep him in place. Now, I spoke again to him, and a weird calm came over me. I was surprised to find myself rather commanding under its influence. Dom seemed to be comforted by this, and he listened willingly to each of my instructions.

‘You need to go have a wash. Can you do that?'

He nodded, his fist still pressed to his lips.

‘Wash your teeth and comb your hair. Alright?'

He nodded again.

‘I'm going to lay your clothes out, and then I have to go downstairs. You come on down when you're ready and just . . . just . . .
sit in a corner
. Alright? Don't . . . don't touch anyone . . . don't
talk
. . . just
sit
. Okay?'

He nodded and I sidled further into the room, keeping as much distance as possible between us. Without taking my eyes off him, I took Dom's clean clothes out of the drawers and put them on top of the dresser. I looked at him significantly so that he understood they were his. He just stood there, his eyes jumping from me to the door, to the clothes, to the mirror.

Then I edged back to the door, afraid to turn my back on him. I eased the door open and positioned myself so that it stood between us.

‘You're not to come out 'til you've heard me take Dee down the stairs. Do you understand me?'

Another big-eyed nod.

I stood peering around the edge of the door at him: my brother, trembling and terrified, his back against the wall, his hand pressed to his mouth. He looked back at me as though I were his saviour and his damnation all in one. My heart was pounding again; I could feel its frantic rhythm in each breath I took. This was Dom standing here. I didn't want to leave him alone. I
shouldn't
leave him alone. At the same time, I wanted nothing more than to slam the door on him and lock it and run as far from him as possible.

‘Listen to me,' I said. ‘You are
Dom
. Understand? You're Dom.'

He didn't answer me, but before I shut the door he shook his head – a firm and vehement denial that made the tears fly from his eyes.

No
, he was saying.
I'm not. I'm not Dom.

CHERYL AND FRANCIS

MY CALMNESS DESERTED
me as soon as I closed the door, and I began shaking so hard that I could barely stand up. It was the thought of turning my back on him that frightened me the most. What if he decided to go for me? What if his confusion and fear turned to rage, like it had in the night? What if he waited 'til I was on the stairs, with Dee in my arms, and then came after me with his fists flying? What if I turned around and found him standing beside me, the goblin-boy's hungry look on his face?