The Girl Who Couldn't Smile (18 page)

As the map was being completed there was great
competition
for materials and art equipment, and the children were constantly snatching odds and ends when they thought their owners weren’t watching, or forcibly removing them if they were. Julie was particularly vulnerable to such assaults.

Unfortunately, even with our best intentions, we could not keep her under scrutiny every single second – and the moment our eyes were elsewhere, the opportunity was taken.

Julie had been using a pot of bright purple paint to colour the flowers in a window box of the flat above the supermarket. Rufus wanted purple paint to finish off a car he was placing on the roadside near the pub. He could, of course, have waited the fifteen minutes it would have taken Julie to finish, but patience had never been Rufus’s strong suit. Without a word, he walked up, took the paint from her hand, and went back to where he was working. Julie looked
surprised for a moment, then went to take it back. Rufus pushed her over. Julie began to wail.

And Tammy stepped in.

It all happened very quickly. She walked briskly over from where she had been working and punched Rufus straight in the forehead. He keeled over backwards and Tammy caught the paint pot as he went down. She helped Julie up and handed her the purloined item, patting her gently on the head before going back to what she had been doing.

It was the beginning of a new role for Tammy as Julie’s stalwart protector. I had known her to help Gilbert from time to time, but I often thought that had more to do with the piercing cry he could emit when upset – Tammy comforted him or came to his assistance to stop him screeching. She had never expressed any interest in Julie before, yet over the next week barely a day went past without her rushing to the smaller child’s aid. Very quickly the other kids started to leave Julie alone, or even to ensure that she was all right, such was their fear of Tammy’s ire.

‘What do you think it means?’ Tush asked me one evening, as we watched Tammy leading Julie out to the bus, the two girls hand in hand.

‘If I weren’t so hardened and cynical, I’d say Tammy has made a friend,’ I said.

‘But why Julie?’

‘She’s little, quiet, needs looking after – I’d say that, other than Gilbert, she’s the least threatening kid in the crèche, wouldn’t you?’

‘Why would she want someone who isn’t threatening? Everyone else here is scared of her.’

‘If, as we suspect, Tammy’s problems are about being rejected, well, which kid is least likely to reject her?’

‘Julie,’ Tush admitted.

We watched the pair climbing up the steps of the bus, Tammy, tiny as she was, helping the even littler Julie.

‘Kind of sweet, though, isn’t it?’ I asked.

‘You soppy git.’ Tush laughed, and went to clean up.

We hung the map in the entrance hallway. Though it was nowhere near as accurate and artfully done as the equivalent in Drumlin, I thought it a thing of remarkable beauty. The kids adored it. I made a point of popping around to all the shopkeepers and businesses in the village to tell them it was completed and on display and, to my delight, a good many dropped in to see their premises immortalized in poster paint, bits of wool and lollipop sticks. The children took great pride in explaining how they had gone about creating their
particular
representation of the shop, pub or office, and then we offered our visitor a cup of tea.

My favourite aspect of the map, though, was seeing how the children used it. I hadn’t intended this – it happened naturally.

One Monday I noticed that Gus, Arga and Milandra were missing. Hearing little voices deep in conversation, I followed them to the entrance hall. There the three were, leaning against the wall, gazing up at the map.

‘We wented into the supermarket first,’ Gus said, pointing at Mulligan’s on the wall, ‘then I asked my mammy if I could have a cake, so she tooked me into Kate’s and she had a cup of tea.’

‘I go Kate’s too,’ Arga said. ‘My daddy like cake with
carrot
in it.’

‘Carrot cake,’ Milandra said. ‘You call it carrot cake. I think it’s shit.’

‘Shit bad word,’ Arga said matter-of-factly. ‘Carrot cake bad cake.’

‘I never been to Kate’s,’ Milandra said. ‘I might ask my mammy to bring me one day.’

‘Kate’s café is nice,’ Gus said. ‘Kate is big and fat and her belly shakes when she laughs.’

‘Kate give nice hugs,’ Arga said.

‘Nice hugs,’ Milandra said. ‘It’d be good to get one of those.’

‘Time to come in for breakfast and news,’ I said. Then I added: ‘But there’s no rush. Take your time.’

I reckoned the work that was going on out there was just as important.

It was a Saturday in early December. I fancied getting out, listening to some good music and having a few drinks. I also figured that a change of scene wouldn’t do any harm. I called Lonnie.

‘How’d you fancy heading to Dublin for the night? Have a few pints, catch a gig, maybe?’

‘Sounds like a plan. You driving?’

‘I can do that.’

‘Maybe I should get the bus, then.’

Dublin was a-bustle with early Christmas shoppers. I booked us rooms in Brooks Hotel on Drury Street. Justin Townes Earle, son of the great Steve Earle, was playing in Vicar Street and we managed to get some last-minute tickets. The gig was wonderful: Earle is a tremendously talented singer-songwriter and a brilliant guitarist who takes his craft very seriously. He was in flying form. Taking to the small stage alone with his guitar, he treated us to more than two hours of his songs of lost love and hard living, and threw in plenty of stories about his exploits while under the influence of far too many chemicals for one man to have imbibed and still be alive.

When the gig was over Lonnie and I repaired to a nearby hostelry to have a few beverages before turning in for the night.

‘That kid is one cool cookie,’ Lonnie said. ‘What a life.’

‘He’s something all right,’ I agreed. ‘He’s ten years younger than me, but he’s certainly covered a hell of a lot more ground.’

Lonnie favoured bottled beer, and he was sipping some kind of American stuff that I thought tasted a bit like fizzy water and had about as much kick.

‘Makes me feel like a bit of a sissy,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’m more than forty, and what have I got to show for it?’

‘Shit, Lonnie, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You’ve got a house with no mortgage, a job you love – don’t tell me you don’t – and a girl who happens to think you’re pretty damned amazing. That’s not a bad place to be, if you ask me.’

‘Will you stop going on about Tush?’ Lonnie said. ‘That’s never going to go anywhere.’

‘Why the hell not? She’s into you – and I know she is because I asked her – and you’re into her. What more do ye need?’

Lonnie drained his bottle and went to the bar for another. When he sat down he looked out of the window at the people milling back and forth on Dame Street. ‘This is the first time I’ve been in Dublin since I left that school I told you about.’

I hadn’t known that. ‘Welcome back, then.’

He laughed. ‘Guess how many girlfriends I’ve had.’

‘I’m no good at guessing games,’ I said.

‘Humour me.’

‘Okay – five?’

‘Lower.’

‘Three?’

‘Lower.’

‘One?’

‘Lower.’

I blinked. ‘Oh. I’m sorry, man.’

‘I am, quite literally, the forty-year-old virgin, only I’m actually more than forty. I’m fucking pathetic. Tragic. How am I ever going to approach a girl like Tush, who has
everything
going for her? She could be with any guy she wanted.’

‘She wants
you
, Lonnie. That’s the thing. Why can’t you just accept that and be happy? You’re being given a real chance here!’

‘I don’t know. Every time I try to imagine us together as a couple, it just doesn’t fit. What would people say?’

I almost choked on my Guinness. ‘Am I fucking
hallucinating
? Lonnie Whitmore worrying what other people might say about him?’

‘I don’t mean
people
– I mean, like, her parents and that. Can you imagine me being brought home to meet Mum and Dad? They’d have a heart attack.’

‘See, this is your problem,’ I said. ‘You over-think
everything
. She’s not talking about marrying you, mate. She just wants to go out for a bite to eat, have a drink, maybe, see a movie. Would it be so weird for you to let your guard down and just have some fun once in a while?’

‘Maybe it is,’ Lonnie said. ‘Maybe I don’t know how.’

‘Well, you’d better learn fast,’ I said. ‘Because life is going to pass you by, and you’ll still be stuck in your little house on the mountain, with it falling down around your fucking ears, all by yourself. How do you like the sound of that?’

‘Millie would still love me,’ he said.

‘She really
isn’t
the smartest dog in the world,’ I agreed.

Making the map had achieved what we’d hoped, and given the children of Little Scamps a feeling of place and a sense of belonging. They were, without doubt, and for the first time, a unit. Christmas was to cement the new status quo in ways I could never have foreseen.

The children were as excited about the approaching
holiday
as any other kids. The walls were hung with posters and images of Santa Claus, reindeer and sleigh-bells, and Arga insisted we get a tree. This was no great difficulty as Rufus’s dad, Bill, sold them from the back of a truck near the south end of the village. We all trooped down and there was great discussion about which was the most appropriate one for us. When the correct one was chosen – a surprisingly poor
specimen
, with huge patches devoid of foliage – Bill flatly refused to accept any payment.

‘Never would’ve sold that one anyway,’ he said. ‘
Sorry-lookin
’ yoke.’

‘That’s why we want it,’ Ross said. ‘It’s just right for us. We’ll make it look better. Wait and see!’

The effort that was put into decorating the tree was
something
to behold. Arga declared that there were to be no
decorations bought, we had to make all of them ourselves. We spent two days making paper chains, baking star-shaped gingerbread cookies, shredding tin-foil into our own glitter and cutting out cardboard angels, Santas and presents for the kids to colour in.

When Gus and Arga, who seemed to be managing the
decoration
process, declared that there were enough adornments on the tree, Milandra noticed that there wasn’t an angel on top. ‘Ya gots t’ have an angel, everyone knows that,’ she said.

‘Don’t got one,’ Jeffrey said. ‘Want … me … draw … one?’

Tammy went to the toy box. She returned with Old Man Bear, the oldest and most beloved toy in the crèche, which Mitzi had once considered decapitating. ‘Look what Tammy’s got,’ Milandra said. ‘Here’s our angel. Can we make clothes and wings for him?’

The kids all agreed that Old Man Bear was, indeed, an ideal angel, and Susan thought she might be able to sew some beautiful clothes and wings for him. Tammy was soon
glowing
with all the praise she got for her idea.

By home-time that evening, the tree had its angel. And it was, without doubt, the most perfect tree for our group.

The Kindness Box was still a weekly feature of the children’s lives – something we now did on a Friday evening rather than every day, but still an item on the timetable to be looked
forward
to. There were usually only three children who wrote notes themselves: Milandra, Rufus and Ross. Gus could manage bits and pieces of writing, but nothing too challenging. Good deeds suggested by the other children had to be scribed by the staff, and after three or four readings of the box’s
contents
, I was able to recognize the etchings of each calligrapher.

It came as a surprise when, one Friday near Christmas, I found a note in a strange hand among the others. It read, in
a very neat but very tiny script: ‘Rufus – for making a lovely card for his friend.’

I read the note to the group, and they applauded Rufus, who smiled and nodded, humility seeping from every pore.

‘Who did you make the card for, Rufus?’ I asked.

‘He made one for all of us,’ Milandra said. ‘We all gots one.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Who wrote this note, then?’

Shrugs and head shakes all around.

‘Someone must have written it,’ I said.

Still no one claimed it.

I never found out who wrote that note – but I did see Tammy sitting in the corner, gazing at a home-made Christmas card. It was only later that it occurred to me that it might have been the only thing anyone gave her that year.

Christmas is my favourite time of year – I’m an absolute sucker for everything that goes along with it. Generally I’m a musical snob, but at Christmas I tune into a cheesy station that plays carols and novelty Christmas pop non-stop, and listen pathologically. I believe that the true smell of
fellowship
and good cheer is the aroma of mince pies baking in the oven. I can’t get enough of it. In the complex world of childcare, however, Yuletide brings complications and
difficulties
. One of the problems wears a red suit and pilots a sleigh drawn by magic reindeer.

The profound philosophical issue Santa poses for some childcare workers is the inherent deception central to his existence. The bitter truth is that there is no merry old elf flying at super-human (or should that be super-reindeer?) speed across our skies delivering presents on Christmas Eve. Many of our children get precious little in their stockings, and I’m always hyper-aware of that when discussing the Father Christmas myth. The expectation Santa fosters can
be undeniably cruel. Yet there is also something irresistibly beautiful about the image. He is the universal personification of goodwill and charity. Some bemoan the loss of spirituality from the Christmas season – I find myself welcoming it. Not the ludicrous, orgiastic spending, but the democracy it
creates
: Santa
should
be non-denominational. Too many children of all races and creeds need him. If that has somehow sped Christmas towards the consumerist hell it has become, then so be it.

The biggest issue I have with Kris Kringle, however, is my oath never to lie to children. About anything. This came to a head at Little Scamps as December wound towards its
inevitable
conclusion. Susan pulled me aside as I was laying out the breakfast things one morning, looking anxious.

‘I got a call from Jeffrey’s mother last night,’ she told me. ‘Apparently Mitzi told him there was no Santa during the bus ride home. He was very upset, but she’s managed to talk him down. We’re going to have to have a word with Mitzi. If the news gets out, we’ll have a riot on our hands.’

‘Mitzi’s been a lot better lately,’ I said. ‘I’m sort of
surprised
at her.’

‘In this instance, I blame her parents,’ Susan said. ‘Fucking hippies are so right on, they don’t even want to observe Christmas. When I called them about it, they informed me that, as far as they’re concerned, the season of goodwill is all a capitalist scam, designed to anaesthetize the masses.’

‘They’re entitled to their opinion,’ I said. ‘They might even be right.’

‘You can’t go around wrecking every other kid’s childhood because of some wacky left-wing nonsense you’re enamoured with,’ Susan snapped, and went to get the cereal bowls.

The conversation began almost as soon as we had sat down for breakfast. Jeffrey was in high dudgeon, obviously
feeling badly treated. Mitzi was uncharacteristically in a foul mood too. She usually hid her darker emotions under a sickly blanket of simpers and smiles. Not today.

‘Me talk,’ Jeffrey said, raising his spoon as soon as we were settled.

‘Go ahead, Jeff,’ Tush said. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Mitzi hurt me,’ he said.

‘Did she?’ Tush said. ‘Mitzi, do you want to tell us what happened?’

‘I did nothing,’ she said, looking quite hurt herself. ‘You say such bad things, Jeffrey the mongoloid. Bad, bad words.’

‘That’s a bad word, Mitzi,’ Tush said. ‘We do not use words like that at Little Scamps.’

‘You. Fat!’ Jeffrey said, jabbing his finger at her. ‘Tell me no Santy.’

This last statement caused furore. All the children started speaking at once. I had to bang my spoon against my juice glass to get some order, and even then Gus continued to shout at Mitzi.

‘Gus, you have to wait your turn,’ I said. ‘Jeff is speaking now, and Mitzi deserves the chance to tell her side too.’

‘Her tell me no Santy,’ Jeffrey said again. ‘Make me cry.’

Mitzi was playing with her breakfast. She had lost a lot of weight in the past few months and, though still overweight, was nowhere near the size she had been when I’d first met her. Her overall conduct had improved considerably, too, the casual sadism more or less disappearing. It was as if her instinctive musical flair had given her an identity – she didn’t need food to lift her spirits any more.

‘Mitzi, did you tell Jeffrey that?’ I asked.

‘My mam and dad say that,’ Mitzi said. ‘They say, “Mitzi, we don’t go for that crap.” No Father Christmas. No presents. Christmas Day same as any other.’

‘And it is quite all right for your mam and dad to believe that if they want to,’ I said. ‘But Jeffrey’s parents believe something different, and it’s also fine for them to celebrate Christmas and enjoy it in their way.’

‘There
is
really a Santa, isn’t there, Shane?’ Gus asked, looking at me with such worry and apprehension that I was frozen to the spot.

Here was the question, the one I had been dreading. To lie or not to lie.

‘Well, isn’t it nice to think so?’ I said carefully, hating myself for using such cheap news-speak.

‘My older brudder tolded me there wasn’t no Santy, and my mam shouted at him good,’ Gus said sadly, picking up his toast. ‘But I wondered about it since then. What if there isn’t?’

‘What do you want to believe?’ Susan asked him. ‘In your heart, what do you think is the truth?’

‘I think it’s true,’ Ross said. ‘I even think I heard him once, the sound of them bells. I was half asleep, ’cause I tried to stay awake to get a look at ’im. Think I nearly did, too.’

‘I went to see him in the toy shop,’ Milandra said. ‘He smelt of cigarettes. I don’ tink it was the real Santa.’

‘Them ones in the shops ain’t real,’ Gus said. ‘Even I know that.’

‘Him real!’ Jeffrey said, almost hyperventilating with fury. ‘Mammy says!’

‘You know how we decorated the tree?’ I asked.

Nods.

‘And you know how we’ve been singing carols and Christmas songs? And they make us feel so good and happy? Even Mitzi?’

More nods.

‘And how we’ve read lots of Christmas stories and poems?’

All eyes were on me.

‘For me, Christmas is about those feelings. It’s a time when people are all just a little bit nicer to one another. It’s a time when we all want to be with our families and the people we love, and when we try to think of how we can make those people really happy. And Santa is the person who we think of when we feel that way.’

‘Christmas is baby Jesus’s birfday,’ Milandra said. ‘My daddy said.’

‘Yes, it’s the time we celebrate Jesus’s birthday,’ I said. ‘And any of us who are Christian should be thinking about that, too. But I reckon most people, for right or wrong, think of Santa first.’

‘He’s right, y’know,’ Gus said, shaking his head like a little old man.

‘Now, if so many people can act better, and if this time of year makes us do good things, and feel warm inside, then I’m happy to believe in Santa, and in magic,’ I said.

‘So you believe in him, then?’ Gus asked hopefully.

‘I do,’ I said.

And it wasn’t a lie.

I decided to take one last stab at Tammy’s parents. I had drawn a complete blank with Kylie, so I decided to take Fiona Thomson’s advice and see if I might not be able to open up some sort of line of communication with Dale. He was a mystery to me. I had never really spoken to him and knew little about him other than that he had a moderate criminal record. Fiona had said he drank at a pub near the little estate where he lived, so one evening I took a spin out that way to see if I could find it.

As a musician, I’m reasonably familiar with most of the hostelries near where I live, and I had heard of the pub that
had to be Dale’s watering-hole – the Herring Gull – but had never been in there. It was a small, run-down place, set in the middle of nowhere. Dale must have walked the three and a half miles to it from his house – good for sobering him up afterwards, I supposed.

I parked the Austin in one of the spaces outside the pub and went in. It was around seven o’clock and there was only one elderly man sitting at the bar supping from a large bottle of Guinness. The barman, a bearded man in his early fifties, looked up as I entered, seemingly surprised to see a new face. I doubted he got much passing trade – this was a local pub, if ever there was one.

‘I’ll have a Coke, please,’ I said. I noticed a dusty piano in the corner and flipped open the lid. It was reasonably in tune.

‘Me da left that,’ the barman said, bringing me over my drink. ‘Hasn’t been played in years.’

‘Mind if I keep myself amused for a few minutes?’ I asked. ‘We always had an upright piano at home when I was
growing
up, and I miss it.’

‘Can you play?’ the barman asked. ‘Every now and again one of the lads has one too many and starts clattering the keys, and it sounds bloody awful.’

I played a gentle sequence of jazz chords. ‘That good enough for you?’ I asked.

‘Play on, young man,’ he said, gesturing at the instrument. ‘As it happens, there’s no one to disturb in here just now, anyway.’

I’m not really a piano player. We did have an old Hohner upright in the living room when I was a kid, and I taught myself to vamp chords and knock out the odd melody, but it would be stretching the truth to say I’m accomplished. I enjoy messing about on the keys, though, and can usually get something approximating to music from my efforts.

Ten minutes later the barman came back with another Coke. ‘On the house,’ he said. ‘You’ve a nice touch.’

‘Thanks.’ I grinned.

‘What brings you in here, if you don’t mind my asking?’ he ventured. ‘We don’t get a lot of strangers, particularly of a Monday night.’

‘I’m looking for someone, actually,’ I said. ‘Guy by the name of Dale?’

‘Dale Seavers?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He’ll probably be in for one or two soon enough. Friend of yours?’

‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘What’s he up to, these days? He working?’

‘No. And it’s a damn pity,’ the barman said. ‘He’s a
talented
mechanic. There isn’t a car on the road he can’t take apart and put back together again better than what it was.’

‘That a fact?’

‘It is. You sit tight. He’ll be in. Do you know “Sonny”?’