The Gamal (39 page)

—OK. Carry on.

—Well anyhow. According to Dinky anyhow, the Rascal was given the impression that Eileen wouldn’t mind a bit if the Rascal went and taught her a lesson.

—Just a moment now. What exactly did Dinky say that Rascal told him?

—He said that the Rascal half jokingly suggested that he should go out to the toilets and teach Sinéad a bit of manners. Or put a bit of manners on her, that’s the phrase he used. According to Dinky anyway.

—Carry on.

—And then Eileen said that she’d hear nothing if he wanted to go out to her. The Rascal asked her again just to make sure and Eileen said if he went out and had his way with her that she wouldn’t hear a thing. Like that she’d let him. She was very drunk and called her a tart and then the Rascal said to her that he’d go out to the toilets so to see if she needed a hand. Said he’d Eileen’s full blessing.

—Ladies and gentlemen, this may be a little too unpleasant for some people to stomach so if anybody would like to leave the court, please feel free to do so now. Take a drink of water there for yourself, and take your time.

—Well. (
The witness became emotional here.
)

—It’s OK, take your time. Would you like a break?

—Ahm. I think so. Just for a minute.

—Very well. We’ll take a twenty-minute break now. Could the jury be back here at 2:50 please. We’ll adjourn now so for twenty minutes for a bit of fresh air.

The judge nodded at his registrar to look after the witness and I suppose to make sure he would be where nobody could get at him. He didn’t need to be worried because the guard who wasn’t blushing any more went to the witness stand to take him in behind to some room in behind the court someplace. There was a sickened kind of silence all around the court. Some women had tears in their eyes. Nobody at all seemed to be talking.

Outside you had the sun shining on us all like some kind of a sick joke. People looked to the sky for some kind of an explanation for what they’d heard and what they knew they were about to hear in twenty minutes. Cigarettes were smoked, a few drags at a time, as if a triple hit of nicotine would help somehow. The savvy streetwise journalists were no different from everyone else. Standing in huddled silences staring at the ground. Thought people would look at each other but most people didn’t have the stomach even for that. Like they associated people with how Sinéad suffered because it was at human hands isn’t it? And like they were ashamed of themselves as well even. For having the selfsame human hands.

I seen two of the journalists though looking at someone. And Detective Crowley was looking at someone. And so was some motherly-looking woman of about fifty that I never seen before. They all looked at someone. And it was at the same someone they all looked. And that someone was me. I was sitting on the steps of the courthouse, the tips of my fingers met at my brow, my hands were covering my face. Could see enough though, in the weird slits of the world in between my fingers. Net curtains. Can see out but you can’t see in. My father and my mother sat at either side of me and my mother rubbed my back. I know it was my mother because my father would never do that.

I’ve all the lights off here. Just a candle for Sinéad and the laptop screen and me against the darkness. And the odd bluebottle that comes for a read. Doesn’t last long with me around. Dunno what purpose bluebottles serve but they give some purpose to newspapers anyhow isn’t it? Finding it fierce slow work, this at the moment. I’d do anything else bar read what I have to read now. And this is probably my fifth time trying to get this part of the story over and done with. Sends me down it does. Way down. Dubh. The shakes first usually. Tears then. Vomiting. Then bed. Two weeks the last time. In bed like a baby. Dr Quinn just puts me on glorified sleeping tablets. Says it’s important that the brain takes it easy, in order to recover. Like you have to keep the weight off a broken leg. Says I must keep the weight off my brain. And not to write the heavy stuff until I’m ready cos it would weigh me down too much and the brain mightn’t be ready to be dealing with it yet.

The court looked the same as before. But it felt heavier and the air was thick and it made it hard to breathe.

—So whenever you’re ready so.

—Well. This is how Dinky put it anyhow. The Rascal went out to Sinéad. Sinéad screamed and he caught her by the hair and banged her head off the wall. Then the Rascal said she was putty in his hands after that. Dinky said the Rascal said that if they’re willing it takes the fun out of it.

—Excuse me. Had Teesh said anything at all during all this?

—No. He was dead quiet, far as I remember. Dead quiet. I could just see him nodding the whole time through the glass.

—I see. Carry on.

—Teesh was silent for a good while. Dinky asking him what he thought of it all, and giggling.

High-pitched giggle he has, and fast when he’s excited like a fucking chipmunk.

—See, they’d both seen that James and Sinéad were pretty much finished. They’d tried to make a go of it after he took her back but the lads were kind of mocking him for it that night like, trying to kind of make an eejit of him with smart comments and stuff. But then in came the Rascal with an Afghan scarf around his neck and James went over to him and asked him where he got it and he said Sinéad left it in his car the other night. James tried to hit him but the lads were already holding him back. Then the Rascal started taunting and jeering at James and laughing at him. James just walked straight out of the pub with Sinéad running out after him crying.

So anyhow Teesh speaks then and he says that she must have been half up for it anyhow, cos she went back for more, didn’t she? Then Dinky said she did not. That ’twas he took the scarf from behind the bar one night when Sinéad wasn’t looking and gave it to the Rascal. He said the Rascal despised James and the Kents and wanted to fuck with his head a bit, so he was well up for it when Dinky showed him the scarf. It was all part of the plan. Teesh was stunned. Just kept saying to Dinky, ‘Christ, you’re some operator. You’re some operator.’ Then he went, ‘Put it there boy,’ and Teesh shook his hands. Dinky like, he explained like . . . said he was friends with James until about a couple of years ago when he started to see through him. This is what Dinky says to Teesh like. That he started to see that James thought he was above him and looked down on him and the rest of the locals. That he didn’t really give a shit about anyone but himself and that Sinéad was lucky to be finished with him that he’d only break her heart. Was saying that they didn’t have any loyalty. That that was the difference between them and us.

—What did he mean by ‘them’?

—Ahm. The Kents, I suppose. But he said they had no loyalty because it wasn’t in their blood. They were settlers and would take what they could from you and give nothing back. He said Sinéad had a lucky escape. She’d be a lot better off with her own and he said that she’d come to see that in time. Teesh agreed. Said, ‘Of course she would.’ And that her parents would only be happy that she be finished with him and be back with her own type.

So that’s how the world got to know about what happened to poor Sinéad. In the court. Course I knew all that already cos I’d heard everything that Snoozie heard in the house that night. Just in case you’re confused. It was probably more than a few months after the actual rape happened. And Sinéad and James were back together until this night. Until the thing with the Afghan scarf. And lying on the couch in Snoozie’s house that night I was never so mad and sad. I was thinking about the Rascal. Tomato. Squish. Thinking of the torment of Sinéad made it hard to breath. Thinking of her wronged, pulling on her clothes and running out on to the dark, deserted village streets. Wronged. Going home. Wronged. Alone. Wronged. Snoozie went away up to his room to sleep. Teesh and Dinky had gone up already. I slipped out the front door. I walked and ran and walked and ran again. I’d tell James and he’d comfort her and say sorry for doubting her and he’d take her away to Dublin to start a new life. Like a new song.

Hail, Holy Queen,

Mother of mercy,

Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.

To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve,

To thee do we send up our sighs,

Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.

Turn, then, most gracious advocate,

Thine eyes of mercy toward us.

And in this our exile show unto us,

The Blessed fruit of thy womb Jesus.

O clement, O loving, O sweet virgin Mary,

Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,

That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Sinéad had prayer I think. I hope to God she did anyhow.

The Walk Back

The walk back to Ballyronan was a run mostly. And I was thinking. That the past being a stubborn unmovable fat fucking mountain, this present was the best of all possible worlds. And I was going making it happen. A new present. This was good. I knew that. I knew the truth. Against all the odds the gamal who the whole wide stupid world thought was a fool would save Sinéad and James. Nothing could stop them now. I knew that.

I was thinking about when they’d be accepting some big award. I used to think about that now and again. Sinéad spoke into the microphone and the award in her hand.

—We’d just really like to thank one person. One person who stuck with us from the beginning. Who made us believe. This is for you Charlie.

That’s what was going to happen now. As soon as I get to James and tell him what I heard. He’d be straight over to Sinéad. And the music would begin again. All the shit I’d ever done in my life meant nothing now. Every idiot thing I ever did somehow led to this moment. This. This was my hour. I was crying with joy to be the bearer of such terrible news but brilliant news too. Revelation. James would take her back. It would go back to being like it was supposed to be. I walked. I ran. I walked. I ran again when my lungs would let me again. I floated. I flew. My whole life. My whole stupid joke of a life. Like I’d real value now isn’t it? Sinéad and James I was going to save. All the goodness they’d shown me. All the love. Repaid now a million times over. I dreamed of what James’ face would be like when I told him the truth. This I knew, he wouldn’t hang around. He’d rob his father’s car and race to Sinéad’s house to take her back and to comfort her for the terrible wrong done to her. And he’d apologise to her for doubting her. It was fucking brilliant, I’ll never forget the feeling.

The walk home. And I thinking about their lives. And my life.

Dunronan was on the left, across the other side of the river. I was thinking of their song and how when it’s a famous song you’d have tourists coming to see Dunronan.

—
I loved you.

—
I loved you too.

Half the castle is gone now, like it was bombed by the Nazis but the Nazis never bothered with us. Or maybe they were just too afraid of us. Just time and the weather was what pulled the eastern wall of it down. But the western half of it still looks sturdy enough for another hundred or two hundred or three hundred years.

I could have gone through fields and the woods but I went on the road cos if anyone passed that knew me they’d give me lift. But no one did pass.

But I knew I was free then. I knew Sinéad would go to Dublin now. I knew she’d find a way. And I knew I’d go too. I’d get a job on the building sites and start anew. And I could be their stage manager like they promised. Like they wanted. They’d have missed having me around if I stayed home. I knew that. I cried and I laughed and I cried and I ran and I jogged and I walked and I ran again. Four miles back to Ballyronan. A winding eejit of a road. Obeying the daft youngster meanderings of the river all the way. By its side all the way. Loyal and father-like. There was tears of pain for what happened to Sinéad. Tears of joy for the joy James would bring her when he took her back after I told him all what I’d heard Dinky say last night. I knew their lives would have been shit if I’d never heard Dinky’s dark words. Lost loves for ever. That they met me was good so. May as well have been dead than go on apart isn’t it? I was a hero then. I knew that. A life saver. A double life saver. And just maybe my own as well would make it three. Good going.

The last time I seen an otter was the first time I seen one. Was on that walk home. Couple of hundred yards after Dunronan. Seen the head moving up river and then over to the bank and scurried up the bank on the far side. Like a rat. Only with a lot more distance between its head and its ass. Wish I could get a few pages out of describing it but I’ve absolutely nothing else to say about that otter. Was greyish brownish I think. And wet.

Anyhow on I went. It was a nice morning. That just means it wasn’t raining. That’s nice in Ireland.

Went out the back door there for a smoke just now. Three big fat slugs around a soggy little piece of green bean that somehow found its way out after dinner. Stuck to someone’s shoe I suppose. The father’s a sloppy fucker and he eating. We’ve a fairly big garden. But these three slugs found their way up out of the grass and travelled a few metres on the concrete over to near where the car is to have a suck off this soggy little piece of green bean. How they found it I do not know. Fat little pieces of shit. Still could find a soggy little piece of green bean in a quarter of an acre a lot better than I could have. We mightn’t rate it as a useful talent but still. If you ever lose a soggy little piece of green bean find a slug first. And follow it. Life and death to them I suppose. Other stuff is life and death to us isn’t it?