The Story of Before (14 page)

Then I froze.

In the dark, shadowy corner by the wardrobe, something moved. I was sure of it.

My eyes were inches away from Kev’s. I tried to look up without lifting my head, without whatever – whoever – it was knowing I’d seen. But Kev grabbed my hair and yanked
it hard. I pulled against his grip, wincing at the pain, trying to see into the corner. But it was no use. He wriggled about, twining my hair even tighter through his sweaty fingers.

I reached in to prise his fists open. My face was faming now. Only seconds had passed though it felt like forever.

I was almost free from his grasp. I jerked my head back.

At that instant there was a scuffing and a scrambling and the last glimpse of something bolting out the door.

It was a body. A person. Someone.

Someone had been there all the time. Someone had been watching Kev. Watching me.

Fear held me back for a moment. Then anger took over and I whipped Kev from the cot. I held him close and went out to the landing.

The window at the top of the stairs was wide open.

I scanned the flat roof of the garage, my ears straining for some sort of sound: the thump of feet hitting the ground or the noise of footsteps on the driveway. But only silence hung in the
air.

I knew what had happened. Whoever had been crouched in the corner watching Kev was the person who’d climbed up Uncle Frank’s ladder. It would’ve been easy to get in through the
landing window from the garage roof. The latch was broken and Mam was forever asking Dad to fix it.

Who was it? What did they want? What did they want with Kev? They were there to scare him.

To scare us.

Dad had said it was Shayne. But he was only guessing. He hadn’t seen enough to be certain. It might’ve been him. But it might not. What would’ve happened if I hadn’t gone
up to check on Kev? If I’d left it even a few seconds later?

I squeezed Kev tighter. He struggled against me. My eyes stung and a wave of dread washed through me. The same dread I’d felt when Kev had gone missing from outside the shop. When David
had . . . David. It could’ve been him.

I sped downstairs and pushed open the sitting room door, bursting to tell what had happened. But something about the scene that met my eyes made me stop. Mam was poking at the coal, sending
sparks up the chimney, her face all gold and soft in the firelight. She smiled when she saw me, winking at the open tin of Quality Street that sat on the floor beside her like a box of precious
jewels. Dad was stretched out in his favourite chair, another glass of whiskey in his hand and his feet resting on a cushion he’d placed on the coffee table. Mel and Sandra were kneeling
beside the couch, heads bent over something on the floor. As I stepped closer, I saw that the box of Dinky cars had been opened and not only was Mel playing with them, he was allowing Sandra to
handle them as well. And there was a cartoon on the telly.

I handed Kev to Mam and she snuggled her face in his neck. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them. Not now. Probably not ever. It was bad enough that Dad had fallen and could’ve been
seriously hurt. I didn’t want there to be any more upset. Kev was safe. There was no harm done. I wasn’t going to mention it to anyone. I didn’t want to think about it again. I
curled up on the rug in front of the fire and I didn’t say a word.

I wondered often about that night and who it might’ve been in the room. In the weeks and months that followed, I studied Shayne and David’s faces closely whenever I
saw them, hoping for some telltale sign. Sometimes I was sure I could detect a glimmer of guilt in Shayne’s eyes if I happened to mention Kev’s name, but it was hard to tell. Other
times I could swear David’s actions were a cover for some sort of shame. But I was just guessing. Every move he made or word he uttered seemed to be an act, so it was impossible to know.

David went to Grangemount, the secondary school a couple of miles away. Each afternoon he had to do at least an hour of piano practice when he came home and Shayne would usually wait for him on
the green. As spring turned into summer, and the evenings grew brighter, there was rarely a day when I didn’t see them together. Most boys David’s age wouldn’t have been keen to
hang around with someone in primary school. But David was strange anyway, so no one questioned it.

I wasn’t sure how deep their friendship ran, though. One afternoon, I saw them wrestling, rolling around on the grass. They might have been play-acting but it was difficult to tell. Some
of the punches they were throwing seemed fairly hard. And another day, not long after we got our summer holidays from school, they had a stick-fight in among the trees, grunting and lunging at each
other until Shayne flung his weapon down and stormed off on his bike, pedalling down the hill with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

Later that evening, I saw them swinging out of a cherry tree on the green, laughing and joking, so I guessed that whatever had happened between them earlier had been forgotten. Then Bridie came
out of her house and trotted up the path towards them, waving an oven glove and shaking her head. ‘Get down out of that, the pair of you!’ she shrieked. ‘You’ll snap those
branches! Go and find some other tree to swing out of!’ She stood waiting for them to obey. ‘Did you hear me? Off you go now. Off!’ They slid to the ground and ran off towards the
shops, David in front and Shayne trying hard to keep up.

The next day, the news of what had happened was all over the estate. They’d found another tree to swing from all right: the huge copper beech that stood in the middle of the churchyard.
Though it was enormous, it wasn’t a difficult tree to climb. Its branches began barely two feet from the base of the trunk. Once you stepped up, there were plenty of places to get a footing
and you could find yourself high above the ground in minutes.

It was Bridie who told me. She was beside herself, seeing as she was the one who’d told them to find some other tree to swing from.

David had fallen and broken his wrist.

That, she said, was the end of the ‘prestigious piano competition’ he’d been practising for since the start of the year.

‘Will his wrist not be healed up before the competition?’ I asked. I was sitting in her kitchen, enjoying tea and coconut macaroons.

She gave me a look. ‘It’s tonight, dear. The competition is tonight.’

‘Oh,’ I said. I thought about it for a moment. ‘He was a bit silly climbing trees the day before a big competition, wasn’t he? He should’ve known something like
that might happen.’

‘Maybe, dear. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all that Lawless lad’s idea in the first place. Poor David is at his beck and call. Morning, noon and night.’ I
wasn’t as sure about that as Bridie seemed to be, but I didn’t say anything. David could do no wrong as far as she was concerned. My opinion wasn’t going to change her mind. She
sipped her tea. ‘Of course, what can you expect when she’s off out gallivanting with that new fancy man of hers? Not a care in the world and no idea where that lad is from one end of
the day to the next.’

The ‘new fancy man’ had been on the scene for a few months. ‘Uncle Vic’, Shayne called him. He drove a maroon Mercedes with a sunroof and tinted windows and had
gold-rimmed glasses like the ones Kojak wore. I’d spotted him in Mealy’s one evening buying a box of Milk Tray and forty Silk Cut. He smelled of leather and spicy aftershave.

‘And I suppose you’ve heard the latest from that quarter?’ Bridie continued, carefully placing her cup back on its saucer. ‘About the holiday?’ She knew from my
face that I hadn’t. ‘Herself’s heading off to Spain on Friday, if you don’t mind. With the fancy man. And leaving that child all alone in the house for the week.’

‘Shayne?’

She nodded. ‘On his own. No adult supervision.’ She pushed the biscuit tin closer to me. ‘Where would you hear the like?’

I took another coconut macaroon. I thought about Shayne being able to do what he liked for a whole week. But I didn’t feel jealous. Not at all. I just felt sorry for him.

We were all out on the green that Friday afternoon when Liz left. She stood up in Vic’s car as they drove alongside us and stuck her head out through the sunroof, waving
a white straw sun hat and shouting something none of us could make out. Valerie said it sounded like ‘Adios’ but I doubted it. I couldn’t believe Liz knew even a single word in
another language.

Shayne had been out for the past half hour, circling around us on his bike. He didn’t even look up when Liz and Vic drove by and I wondered if any form of goodbye had taken place between
them. Had Liz given him a great big bear hug and left a list of do’s and don’ts sellotaped to the fridge? Had her eyes glittered as she showed him the week’s worth of frozen meals
in the freezer and pushed a wad of notes into his hand? And when she’d lovingly placed a pile of freshly washed and ironed clothes in his wardrobe and put clean sheets on his bed, had she
looked around his tiny attic room, then rushed downstairs and flung her arms around him, telling him she’d phone every day without fail? I almost laughed out loud at the scenario I’d
imagined. She’d probably left barely enough food in the cupboards, the place in a mess, and a parting instruction that the house be clean and tidy on her return.

David was holding court under a cherry tree, his broken wrist lying heavy in his lap. The cast was still blindingly white; he’d refused to allow any of us to autograph it. A circle of
girls – Valerie, Tracey and Sandra included – sat around him as he read aloud the words to ‘Hotel California’. He often did that: copied out the words to songs and
‘explained’ their meaning to anyone who cared to listen. He broke off when Shayne came within earshot. His words showed that things were a bit strained between them.

‘I see the Wicked Witch of the West has left us,’ he said, using his preferred name for Liz. ‘How I’ll miss her sweet visage. Would that Mother and Father O’Dea
might fly off to some far and distant land. ‘What a tempting prospect.’

Shayne showed no reaction, save for a toss of his head. I doubt he even understood what David was saying. For him, his mam being away made little difference, seeing as she pretty much left him
to his own devices most of the time anyway. For someone like David, it would’ve been an altogether different story.

‘Now,’ David said, turning once again to his audience. ‘When the words of the song refer to checking out but not being able to leave, what do you suppose that means?’

Aidan Farrell had been watching the group and he began to run around the circle of girls, pointing to his bum and roaring with laughter.

‘It’s when . . . It’s when you can’t do a shite even though . . . even though . . . you’re dyin’ for it!’ he shouted. ‘And you’re
fartin’ like mad! Great big stinkers, like!’

Tracey leapt up, eyes blazing, her face red with rage. ‘Come on!’ she announced to everyone. ‘We’re going down to the graveyard. At least we’ll have some peace and
quiet there.’ She yelled at her brother, ‘Go on home! And you can take them with you!’ She pointed at the collection of Farrells playing in among the bushes. ‘And if you
don’t do what you’re told, I’ll tell Mam what you said.’ Aidan stuck his tongue out but then he slunk off, rounding up his siblings with a branch he’d broken off a
tree.

We all obeyed Tracey and soon we were heading up the lane towards Churchview Park, where a narrow pathway would lead us to the graveyard. Mel ran into Mealy’s for a bag of gobstoppers and
Shayne cycled on ahead, disappearing from view while David led our small group, chattering away like some annoying tour guide. The way he walked annoyed me – each step measured and
deliberate. As if he was on a stage, aware of an audience. Sandra decided to imitate him behind his back, careful not to let the twins see. Tracey’s giggles encouraged her but Valerie
didn’t find it as funny. ‘Be careful he doesn’t catch you,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think he’d be amused.’

‘I’m only messing,’ Sandra said.

‘David’s not someone I’d mess with,’ Valerie said. ‘He can be quite . . .’ She trailed off.

‘Quite what?’ I asked, curious.

‘Well, he’s . . . he’s . . .’ She slowed down, allowing the twins to walk ahead. Then she took a deep breath and looked at the three of us. ‘Promise you won’t
say this back to him?’

‘What?’ Tracey asked in a high whisper. ‘Say what back to him?’

Valerie leaned in close to us. ‘He . . . well . . . he didn’t fall out of the tree. He threw himself from it deliberately. To get out of that piano competition.’

‘You mean . . . on purpose?’ Sandra asked, her eyes wide. ‘He did it
on purpose
?’

‘Ladies, ladies!’ It was David. He’d stopped and turned around to face us. ‘No dilly-dallying now. Keep up with the group.’

‘Sshhh!’ Valerie hissed at us. ‘Don’t let on. He made me swear I’d keep my mouth shut.’

David gave us a big smile when we caught up. Then Mel arrived back, gobstopper in cheek. ‘Wonderful!’ David said. ‘We’re all together again.’

Soon we were walking alongside the churchyard. The branches of the copper beech towered up and out over the high stone wall, making the pathway dark and damp. As we passed under the canopy of
purple-brown leaves, David held his cast out from his body and gave an exaggerated shudder.