The Missing Link (4 page)

Oggy licked her face then looked back towards
the
street and sniffed the air. The smell of frying was drifting around them from an early morning café somewhere nearby.

‘What do you do for breakfast round here?’ said Oggy.

‘Breakfast?’ said Tina. ‘What breakfast?’

‘Pity about you,’ said Oggy, and set off at a trot along the street.

2

DESPITE HIS DELIGHT
at being on the bus, Danny was exhausted from battling with the sedative, and went out like a light as soon as we started to move. He was slumped against the window and every time we went over a bump his head rattled against it. I managed to drag a bit of his
banky
out of his clutches and stuff it under his head. It didn’t make any difference to him but it did, at least, stop people from staring.

I was too hot in my jacket but I couldn’t take it off because of Darling, who also seemed to have gone to sleep. Now that the excitement of the moment had passed I was beginning to get frightened again. What would Mom and Maurice do when they found we were missing? Would they go searching the fields behind our street and the woods beyond? Would they think something awful had happened? Would they call in the police?

And the thoughts that came after that were even more scary. Because what was happening couldn’t be real. I was in a bus with my loopy stepbrother, heading towards some unknown place where his mother might, or might not, be waiting for us. I tried to remember what I knew
about
her, but it wasn’t much. She was rich, Maurice said, as well as mad. She had come into some colossal inheritance from some American relation and she and Maurice had set up home in Scotland, where they worked together on some kind of research. But then it was confused. Something had happened to Danny. Maurice had taken him away from his mother and gone back to live in Ireland. What was it Maurice had said? Her crazy dreams mattered more to her than what was real.

The words spooked me. Because now, here on this trundling bus, real was becoming dreams. There was a talking starling in my pocket. The impossible was happening. If I wasn’t mad then the world was, and I didn’t know which was worse.

3

OGGY, MEANWHILE, HAD
found a little shop doing a strong trade in morning papers. He sat at the door as though he were waiting for his owner, and if anyone noticed him they said things like, ‘Ah, how sweet’ and ‘What a good dog’.

It was the ideal shop for Oggy. The bread was near the door on a tall, narrow set of shelves. It was only a question of being patient and picking his moment. It came when a bit of a queue developed at the counter and there was no one near the door. Oggy was in and out like a flash, and he didn’t wait around to find out if he had been seen.

‘You’re a star,’ said Tina, as they shared the loaf. ‘I thought you’d run out on me.’

Oggy’s mouth was full and he didn’t reply. Besides, there were people around now, and it was too risky.

‘Not talking to me, eh?’ said Tina. Oggy gave her face a crumb-sticky lick.

‘Eeugh!’ said Tina. ‘Gerrroff!’

A man with a suit came up to the door with a bunch of keys.

‘Clear off, now,’ he said. ‘We’re opening for business.’

‘I’ll set my dog on you,’ said Tina.

‘Will you?’ said the man. ‘I’ll set the police on you, so.’

Tina packed up the last of the loaf and moved a couple of feet away from the door. Then she rummaged around in her big, cloth bag and pulled out a large piece of rain-softened cardboard. It had been torn unevenly from a box, and on one side was printed ‘Kello Ri Kri’. On the other side, Tina had written: ‘I Am Homeless Please Help’. As Oggy watched, she found a stubby pencil, crossed out ‘I Am’ and scratched in ‘We Are’.

‘There!’ she said, holding it up for Oggy to see. He looked around in embarrassment and scratched his ear with a hind leg.

‘Come on,’ said Tina. ‘Let’s go and see what we can get.’

4

I FELL ASLEEP,
too, and strange bits of dreams came and went, but none of them were stranger than waking and discovering that it was all still happening. As we pulled into Busaras, I woke Danny. He was calm and clear-headed.

‘Oh,’ he said, his face lighting up with pleasure. ‘We’re here.’

Sometimes I envied his carefree attitude towards life. At his best, Danny was probably the happiest person I had ever come across. I wished I could share his excitement, but I couldn’t. All I could think about was how to get to a phone and call Maurice without giving the game away and causing a tantrum.

As we waited for everyone to get off the bus, Darling began to stir in my pocket. I was surprised to find that I was glad. She had been ominously still.

‘Can I come out?’ she whispered.

‘Not yet,’ I whispered back. ‘In a while.’

But as soon as I got off the bus I wished I had let her out. Because the station was bedlam. There were people milling about everywhere, bumping and jostling carelessly, crowding around the departure gates, mobbing the
information
desk and the ticket counters. Anyone in uniform was surrounded by anxious passengers, but no one, it seemed, was going anywhere.

I locked my elbow up as a shield for Darling, but I couldn’t help Danny, who was having serious difficulty keeping his balance.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said.

As we made slow, painful progress towards the exit doors, a voice came over a loudspeaker above our heads:

‘THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT ON BEHALF OF BUS EIREANN. THERE WILL BE NO BUSES, REPEAT, NO BUSES, UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. WE ARE AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS FROM CENTRAL GOVERNMENT IN RELATION TO FUEL SUPPLIES FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT. UNTIL SUCH TIME THERE WILL BE NO BUSES. REPEAT. NO BUSES.’

The crowds at the doors were the worst. My warding elbow earned me some dirty looks but it served its purpose. When I finally broke free of the throng and walked away from the building, I heard Darling say, ‘Cor, flaming hell. What’s going on?’

I let her out. She flew on to the roof rack of a nearby van and fluffed and fluttered so vigorously that she nearly shook herself off it. She had just succeeded in getting her feathers back in order when Danny caught up with us.

‘No more buses,’ he said.

‘I gathered that.’

‘We’ll have to walk to Dun Laoghaire, so,’ he said.

‘What?’

I was amazed that Danny knew where to go. His mother must have briefed him well. I had to play for time.

‘Right, so, Danny,’ I said. ‘But let’s take a break first, eh? Get some breakfast?’

He nodded enthusiastically, and I peered back through the crowds into the bus station. There was a coffee shop there, but it was crammed with people standing with sandwiches or lining up at the counter. What was more, the queues for the public phones were a mile long. This latest development in the fuel crisis had thrown everyone’s lives out of kilter. Wherever these people were planning to go; home, or work, or holidays; they weren’t going there now. I went back outside and, suddenly, all my anxieties were overwhelmed by a single urgency. I really did need to eat.

‘Come on, Danny,’ I said. ‘Let’s find a café.’

In fact it was nearer to lunch time, but the little café we found did an all-day breakfast and it was just what I wanted. Darling agreed to wait outside on condition that we save her a few toast crusts dipped in tea. As I walked into the warm interior of the café, I was amazed to realise that I had begun to relate to the talking bird as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

5

TINA AND OGGY
were sitting on O’Connell Bridge. They were sharing a grubby blanket to keep out the rain, and the sight of them huddled together behind their Homeless notice was having the right effect on the passing crowds.

Tina pocketed a few of the gathered coins. ‘I’m keeping you,’ she said to Oggy. ‘You’re good luck.’

Oggy put his nose to her ear and whispered into it. ‘I’m keeping you, too.’

Together they watched the pairs of passing feet until one of them stopped, and then another.

‘Hey, Tina G,’ said Mick.

‘Hey, Mick,’ said Tina. ‘Hey, Ronan.’

‘Is that the talking dog?’ asked Ronan, with a sniffling giggle. Each of the lads had a polystyrene take-away cup in his hand, but Tina guessed they weren’t drinking coffee.

‘What’s he saying today?’ said Ronan, taking a swig and swaying, slightly.

‘Bow wow,’ said Tina. ‘What do you think?’

Ronan roared with laughter. ‘Bow wow,’ he squawked. ‘That’s a good one!’ He bent down
and
pushed his face into Oggy’s. ‘Bow wow, doggy,’ he yelled. ‘Bow wow wow.’

Oggy snarled and Ronan snarled back. He was a basket case at the best of times, and ten times worse when he was drinking.

‘Give us a couple of quid, Tina,’ said Mick.

Tina fished out a handful of small coins and handed them over. It was an unwritten rule among the homeless kids, and Mick would always do the same for Tina if he could. But Ronan wasn’t finished. He grabbed the blanket and wrenched it off them.

‘Come out and play, doggy. Bow wow.’

Oggy barked. Mick took Ronan’s arm and tried to lead him away.

‘Come on, Rone.’ He jangled the coins. ‘Want some chips?’

‘Oh, yeah, cool,’ said Ronan. ‘Chips, yeah.’

As Mick steered him away towards O’Connell Street, Oggy stepped away from Tina and gave a few sharp barks at the departing boys.

And that was when Darling spotted him.

She had got bored with waiting for me and Danny and was entertaining herself by teasing the seabirds who wheeled above the river. Like all starlings she was a brilliant mimic, and she was dodging in and out among the gulls, imitating their mournful cries.

When she first saw Oggy she couldn’t believe it, and came whirring down to land on the parapet of the bridge for a closer look. Tina heard the whistle she gave at the same time as
Oggy
did. It went whooshing up the scale and then slid down again more slowly, like someone on a roller coaster shouting:
wheeeeeeee!

Tina thought it was a firework, left over from Halloween. Then Oggy went haywire. He flung himself at the parapet and Tina saw a black bird lift off and hover just above his head, making funny clackety ratchety noises and more of those ecstatic whoops. People on the pavement stopped to stare, and an astonished lorry driver almost crunched into the car ahead.

The dog was bounding and snapping at the bird, which kept just inches above his lethal jaws. Round and around they twisted in a delirium of excitement and then, quite suddenly, the dog sat down and the bird settled on his head.

Every eye on the bridge was upon them and, when they realised that, they slipped off around the end of the bridge and along the quayside, leaving Tina calling uselessly after her dog.

6

I FINISHED MY
breakfast ages before Danny, and I hit on a ruse to give him the slip for a few minutes.

‘I’m just taking these crusts out to Darling,’ I said. ‘Don’t move now, you hear?’

‘Won’t move,’ he said, through a mouthful of black pudding.

I dunked the crusts in tea and slipped out into the bustling Dublin day. A few yards down the quayside I could see a little block of phone boxes, but there was no sign of Darling. I deposited the sloppy bread on the river wall and scooted down to the phones.

Maurice picked up on the first ring. He sounded frantic.

‘Where the hell are you?’ he said.

I was shocked by his tone, and what I had meant to say went out of my head. ‘Out of town,’ was what came out.

‘What do you mean, out of town?’ Maurice said. ‘Where out of town? What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

‘We’re fine, Maurice. We’re …’

‘You’re not fine!’ He was yelling now, and I could hear Mom in the background trying to
steady
him. But he went on at the same pitch. ‘I can’t understand why you’re doing this, Christie! I thought you were responsible. I never should have trusted you!’

I couldn’t believe it. My sense of well-being evaporated, and my residual anger against Maurice surfaced and obliterated everything else in my mind. Or almost everything. Into the red rage an image arose, of Danny’s mother striding away down our street, her back straight and strong; a powerful, mysterious being.

There was an ominous pause, then Maurice said, ‘Christie, listen to me.’ His voice was quieter now, but there was a dreadful urgency in it. ‘You won’t be able to manage Danny, don’t you realise that? He needs me. He needs his medication.’

But Maurice had already made his bed, and I was going to make sure that he lay in it.

I put the phone down. I hung up on Maurice and Mom, left them to their cosy togetherness, turned my back on the life I never wanted and looked out on to the Dublin streets and my unknown, unknowable future.

As I went back into the café and paid for our breakfasts, I experienced a rush of excitement. Like suddenly getting the hang of one of those racing-car video games, I had the sensation of being in control; of knowing I was on the right track after all; of embracing my fate and looking forward to what it might bring.

Danny knocked the milk jug off the table as he struggled to get up, but it didn’t break.

‘You’re all right,’ said the waitress, handing over my change. Magnanimously, I dropped a pound coin into the
TIPS
jar, then followed Danny out into the street.

‘Right,’ I said to him. ‘Next stop, Dun Laoghaire.’

7

DANNY WAS NERVOUS
of the river, and I was careful to keep him on the town side of the road, well away from it. There was no sign of Darling, but as we passed beside the phone boxes she came whirring in and alighted on the river wall. Two men were passing by and she fluttered away again until they were safely out of earshot. Then she returned.

‘I’ve found Oggy,’ she whistled. ‘Come on, come on!’

‘Oggy?’ I said. ‘Who’s Oggy?’

‘Dog,’ said Danny.

‘He was supposed to collect you a couple of weeks ago,’ said Darling. ‘But he got lost. Couldn’t remember the map. Bird brain!’