The Gamal (40 page)

Fate is a funny blah. Little did the father know that he made a great night for three slugs cos he couldn’t keep his food on the table, let alone on his plate. You’d wonder what insignificant twists of fate in the universe make or break the lives and living times of all of us. Did these paragraphs that you’re reading now about the three slugs and the soggy little piece of green bean make someone miss a bus to take them to a place where they would have met the love of their life? Or did someone read it while crossing the road wondering what in the name of God I was rambling on about only to get marinated on to the front of a truck? Is there stuff that’s not even imaginable to us that dictates our fates? Unimaginable things same as these sentences are unimaginable to the three slugs. What can we imagine? What can’t we?

Anyhow. On I walked. I was thinking about how much they deserved this new start. This new horizon. No limit isn’t it?

Horizon

N. 1. place where earth meets sky; the line in the furthest distance where the land or sea seems to meet the sky 2
astron
.
; circle on apparent sphere of sky; a circle formed on the celestial sphere by a plane tangent to a point on the earth’s blah.

Horizons

Npl. range of experience; the range or limits of sb’s interests, knowledge, or experience [14thC. Via Old French
orizon(te)
from, ultimately, Greek
horizon (kuklos)
, literally meaning ‘limiting (circle)’, present participle of
horizein
‘to limit’, from
horos
‘limit’.]

Listen to this. On the telly there a young lioness killed a monkey and brought it up on a tree to where the hyenas couldn’t get at it. Next thing a tiny baby monkey comes out from under the dead monkey. Was clinging to its mammy the whole time even when its mammy was being killed and dragged up the tree by the lioness. Anyhow this was the first big kill for the lioness cos it was only young and the only thing it killed before this was squirrels. So instead of eating the baby monkey doesn’t it play with it for about half an hour. Next thing it ate another little bit of its mother and went to sleep for itself. The baby monkey died of cold without its mammy. When I saw that it made me think of a part of my story so in I came to write it down and now I can’t remember why it made me think of part of my story. Damn. Maybe something to do with liking people or something. Dunno. Yeah. Maybe that’s it. Threat isn’t it? I wonder what has threat to do with liking somebody. Maybe that was it but I’m not sure. Or what has food got to do with being nice. Eating someone isn’t being very nice to them. Another programme fella was talking to an Aboriginal woman who was telling him how her ancestors survived on the miserablest bit of land you ever seen. Scorched it was. Long ago a girl got shipwrecked and the tribe looked after her cos she looked like the chief’s daughter who had drowned three months earlier. Otherwise they’d have eaten her like they did with all the others. Your man asked the woman how they could have eaten them and she just said it was their culture like it was just some fucking dance she was talking about. Your man just nodded. Yeah. As if hunger didn’t come into it. That definitely has nothing to do with my story. Sorry.

So anyhow I’m walking. Thinking I was. Not about the cannibals or the baby monkey. That was just now. I was thinking about signs. Signs I might have seen. I might have seen signs. Flags. Or something less even. I’ve noticed less. The smallest things. Indicators. That my stupid hungry brain made me forget about. The look someone had on and they forgetting themselves or the ugly clenching of their teeth and furrowed brows and the angry or ugly things they might have said or nice things they might have said that had ugly motives and ugliness is only ugliness cos it’s what someone who kills you would look like. Said nothing though all that time. But I was going to talk now. I was going to talk now. And I started thinking about all the good people that they could be friends with now that they knew that gang weren’t really their friends. People you don’t know about cos they weren’t part of the story up to now. But there was millions of them in Ballyronan. Fierce decent nice people. And people that liked Sinéad and James. Good people. They were just after getting in with the wrong gang isn’t it?

Cos Ballyronan is mostly nice people. Like Sheila Hayes who rescues animals from the pound and gives them a nice home. Nice for animals. Not people. Too many animals. Peter Craig and his wife are fairly nice too. I’d say they’d definitely never kill anyone on purpose or want harm to come to anyone even. Down a bit on the same road you have the O’Briens. They’re farmers. One of the sons walks with a limp cos his foot got caught in a combine harvester when he tried to kick a piece of wood that was jammed in it. But the O’Briens are fierce nice too.

The O’Connors, the Crossroads live near them. At the cross. They’re nice too even though they never admitted that they won four million in the Lotto even though everyone knew it was them cos they hired a Securicor van to bring the money back from Dublin. Patricia Reardon seen Bill O’Connor, the father, get out the van in Bishopstown and a neighbour of Alice Cronin’s sister in Midleton is a security guard and he knew the driver of the van that went to Dublin for the money and she told my mother that he didn’t say it wasn’t the O’Connors of Ballyronan when he was asked. Then the O’Connors disappeared for two weeks to Donegal and came back with a tan and no one ever got a tan in Donegal in the history of the sun. But they’re nice in fairness. I’d be nice too if I’d four million but they were even nice before all the money.

This is the rest of what happened so. When I arrived up the top of the lane to the castle it wasn’t much different from the way it is now except it’s maybe gone a bit shabby now. No sign of life though, which is fair enough for six o’clock in the morning but there was no big old Volvo out the front either, and it was there the night before and we going out. And the owner of it was in bed and we leaving. James’ father was an early to bed early to rise kind of fella. His mother would paint until late. I wondered where James’ father was gone at this ungodly hour cos the garage wasn’t open until half seven. I know cos I worked there sometimes washing cars long ago. Pound a car. Next thing anyhow is I see the lights on around the house like it’s evening time.

I threw a few pebbles at his window. Nothing. I looked in the wobbly glass by the front door to see if there was anyone up. I leaned on the big heavy front door and it moved. Fucking thing was open. I went in quiet and up to James’ room. The door was closed so I knew he was in there in a drunken sleep. All rooms with nobody in them in that house had the door open usually. I went in to him quietly but he wasn’t there at all. I checked the library whose door was open like you’d expect in that house. Empty. My heart started getting kind of jumpy then. I remember being annoyed with myself for worrying about nothing. I went down to the kitchen, then out back to see if his father was out in the garden or foosthering in the greenhouse. No. Went up then to James’ parents’ room and I decided there was no use in being a gamal if you’re not ignorant so I knocks on the door.

—Hello.

I did it again. Two more times. Nothing. I opened the door and went into a room that I wasn’t in since the three of us were kids. That time it was so Sinéad could sit at the dresser with the big mirrors and we could be her manservants.

—Yes, m’lady.

His parents never knew I was in there that time and they never found out I was in there this time either cos there was nobody in there. I roared for some sign of life and nothing first, but then I heard someone answer or call out. At least I thought I did. But I was wrong. False alarm. Only a siren or something. A fucking siren? I got cold and goosepimply and weak and I listened hard. Nothing. A bird probably. My mind was at me now. Got angry with myself and I ran and ran and ran. I wanted to have Sinéad and James in front of me now more than I wanted anything ever. He was well frazzled last night after seeing the Afghan scarf on the Little Rascal. Things ended bad between them. Sinéad and James. Last night.

Down the stairs, down the lane, down the road. I ran and I ran and I ran. Fuck nature and fuck the otter and fuck the weather. I ran and I ran and I ran. A car came towards me and slowed down to look at me and drove on. I didn’t know them. A couple. I got to the bridge at Ballyronan and slowed down to catch my breath. There were people at the far side of the bridge. Youngsters, they were. Bunch of sixteen-year-olds and they were crying. I asked them what happened.

—Sinéad Halloran. She’s drownded.

No. No no no no no. No no no no no no. I was on my knees. No no no no no. All I could hear was the girls and the young lads crying. Then a car came. No no no no no. Someone helped me to my feet. No. Detective Crowley.

—Stop it. She’s not dead. She’s alive.

—What?

—They had her covered with a blanket, we seen it, says one of the girls.

—That was in case of hypothermia. To warm her. She’s alive. The fisherman saved her.

I looked up. Detective Crowley was looking straight at me. He had me by the shoulders. With his eyes and a nod of his head and a smile he said he’s sure of what he’s saying and what he’s saying is true and he said it again. The world had threatened to become hell so back to normal was heaven. All the heaven I’d ever want. Sinéad not being dead.

More of Sinéad’s Psychiatrist’s Evidence

—And then you saw her again about seven weeks later. Could you tell us about this please?

—Yes. It was a Sunday morning and I’d been called in to the hospital. Sinéad had arrived in through Accident and Emergency having attempted to drown herself in the Bannow river in Ballyronan.

—On this occasion she was kept in, is that right?

—Yes. She remained with us for a period of nine months.

—I see. Could you describe her condition.

—Do you mean when I saw her first on that Sunday?

—Yes.

—Well, she was in shock. I mean physically in shock and she had mild hypothermia. Her hair was wet and she was pale. Once her physical condition had been taken care of, it became quite clear that she was suffering from severe depression.

—Could you elaborate please and maybe explain her symptoms to the jury?

—Certainly. She had many classic features of severe depression, such as loss of energy, loss of interest in pretty much anything or anyone. Psychomotor retardation was another feature of her illness. This is when someone appears to be functioning in slow motion, so to speak. Her speech, her thoughts, her movements even her facial expressions had a lifeless and slowed-down quality to them.

—Could this have been caused by medication?

—No, she was on no medication at this point.

—I see. Any other symptoms?

—She wasn’t able to sleep without medication. She had no interest in food, but was . . . obliging in eating the bare minimum when the nurses asked her to.

—You were her consultant at this time. How did you find her? Did she open up to you?

—Well. I wouldn’t go that far but she certainly knew I was there to help and once she began to trust me I could tell she wanted to be helped. She felt extremely worthless. She blamed herself for the demise of her relationship with her boyfriend. She saw no future. She believed he wouldn’t ever take her back at this point in time. She was devastated by this and was genuinely suicidal. She didn’t speak at all and when she did it was to know when James was coming to see her.

—You know Sinéad don’t you? Detective Crowley goes then.

I nodded.

—And you know James don’t you?

—Yeah.

—Where is he?

—What?

—Where is he? Where is James?

—I don’t know. He’s not? He didn’t?

I was afraid he went in the river too.

—No. He was here the girls said.

He turned to the girls.

—Where did James go?

—He ran off that way?

She pointed back east towards the village.

—Where was he going?

—Dunno.

—Claire told him Sinéad was dead.

—Shut up. You said it too. Ye all thought the same.

—Jesus. When did he run off? How long ago? How long ago was this?

—I dunno.

—Ten minutes?

—Yeah. I suppose.

—More I’d say, one of the other girls said. Maybe twenty.

—And he ran up towards the village?

—Yeah.

—Did he say anything else?

—No.

—Nothing.

—No, he said, ‘No.’ And then just ran.

—Right.

Detective Crowley got on the car radio then and asked some guard to send another guard to the hospital to keep an eye out for James. He told whoever was there that James’ parents went to the hospital but James wasn’t with them. That they thought he’d be there but he’s not. He said for some other guard to wait with his parents at the hospital and for any other available cars to come to the station at Ballyronan. And to call in all available off duties to do likewise. He had to say that a second time cos whoever he was talking to asked him if he was sure. Then he turned to me.

—Any idea where he might go?