The Story of Before (16 page)

He was right. Much as I didn’t want to believe him, there was something behind what he’d said. I could sense it.

Mam came flip-flopping out to the door in Dad’s slippers, a tea towel in her hand. ‘Where are the others?’ she wanted to know. ‘I’m after doing a huge pot of mash.
There’s enough to feed an army!’

Shayne’s face lit up. ‘Mash!’ he said. ‘Me favourite.’

They exchanged a glance and I knew what was coming next. Only someone completely heartless could’ve ignored him.

‘Your . . . your mammy’s away, isn’t she?’ Mam asked, smoothing down the front of her apron. ‘Come on in, then. You can have a bit of decent food for a
change.’

None of us said anything about what had happened in the graveyard. But we knew it was more than a little funny that only an hour since Shayne had shouted the F word in front of Father Feely, he
was sitting at our table asking Mel to pass the tomato sauce. Dad was far less chatty than usual. I got the feeling he wasn’t happy that Shayne was there. He only opened his mouth to fork
food into it or to tell us off over things he normally ignored. He asked Mel three times to stop talking with his mouth full, told Sandra to stop daydreaming and eat up, and even asked me to take
my elbows off the table and said my hair was in my food even though it clearly wasn’t. Mam said nothing but I could tell she thought Dad was going over the top. He was definitely a bit edgy,
and kept glancing at Shayne as if he was afraid of him.
Would you forgive yer da anythin’?
I couldn’t get the words out of my head.

There was silence for a while, and I picked through the bones in my piece of fish, hoping for a distraction of some sort so that Mam wouldn’t realize I wasn’t actually eating it. Kev
was almost a year old now and full of mischief, especially at mealtimes. He banged his spoon on the tray of his highchair and sent a lump of mash flying through the air. We all laughed, except Dad
who wagged his finger and told him he was a bold boy. Kev just smiled and did it again. This time, a dollop of tomato sauce hit the wall with a splat, leaving behind a dripping splodge of red. I
imagined the man in the tree had been shot and that blood was oozing out of the wallpaper. Dad was about to give out but Mam got in first. ‘It’ll wipe off,’ she said. ‘No
damage done.’

A few more minutes of silence followed. Then, the doorbell rang. Dad jumped in his seat, slamming his knife and fork down on the table, in anger as much as in fright. Mam said it must be Mrs
Shine, collecting the church money, and asked me to run out with the envelope. I was more than happy to leave the table, knowing my fish would be cold by the time I came back, giving me an
excellent excuse not to eat it. Mrs Shine always kept me at the door for ages. Apparently I was the same age as her beloved niece, Nuala – a fact, it appeared, she found fascinating and she
was forever asking me questions so she could compare the two of us. I opened the door, ready to be bombarded. But instead of Mrs Shine’s anxious eyes, I saw the pale, rigid lips of Mr
O’Dea and, beside him, the flushed and flabby face of Father Feely.

‘We see young Lawless’s bike in the driveway,’ Father Feely said, all breathless, like he’d just climbed a mountain. ‘We take it he’s here?’

We’d no choice then but to tell Mam and Dad what had happened. According to the others, Father Feely had insisted on bringing David home after Shayne and I left the
graveyard. They said he’d run off – Father Feely could run? – to get his Morris Minor, so that the ‘injured child’ wouldn’t have to walk ‘all the
way’ to Hillcourt Rise. David had been allowed to sit in the front and had given them his queen’s wave as the car choked and spluttered down the road. (Father Feely’s driving was
well known around Kilgessin – Bridie said he’d destroyed the engines of three cars in the last ten years.) Passing the O’Deas’ house on their way home, the others had seen
the Morris Minor parked in the drive and Father Feely looking out the front room window, wiping his blotchy face with a handkerchief.

Dad said there was no point in all of us traipsing over to the O’Deas’. ‘If Eamon O’Dea wants Shayne to apologize, then I suppose I’ll have to go over with
him,’ he said, with more than a trace of annoyance in his voice. ‘But there’s no point in everyone’s evening being ruined. You lot stay here and finish your tea.’

‘But Dad,’ I said, ‘we’re all witnesses.’

‘She’s right, Mick,’ Mam said. ‘At least let’s give the lad a fair chance. From what they’ve told us, it wasn’t exactly black and white.’

Dad grumbled. ‘I suppose so.’

Father Feely and Mr O’Dea hadn’t got into any discussions at our door. They’d simply told Dad what had happened to David and said they wanted ‘young Lawless’ to go
over and explain himself. Then they left, saying, ‘We’ll be waiting for you’, not ‘We’ll be waiting for him’, which made Dad feel like he’d no choice but
to go as well. Shayne said he didn’t mind going on his own, but Mam insisted he should have an adult with him. ‘Sure wouldn’t your mammy go with you if she was here?’ she
said, but I knew full well she didn’t believe that for a second.

Dad, Shayne and Mel led the way across the green. Sandra and I walked behind. The grass on the green had been mown earlier and our toes kicked up sprays of cuttings as we walked. Geraldine came
to her door with Fiona in her arms as we passed. She stood there, her face scrubbed as pink as the shirt she was wearing, not even trying to pretend she was being anything other than nosy. She said
something over her shoulder, then Tracey came running out and sat on the wall to watch.

News of our convoy spread rapidly, and within seconds Nora Vaughan had joined Geraldine on the doorstep. Tracey was summoned to take Fiona and she slid off the wall reluctantly, a look of defeat
in her eyes. Sandra nudged me as she walked up her drive – Tracey’s skirt was caught in her pants, exposing her upper thigh. It was nearly as thin as my arm and the flesh – what
there was of it – had a sort of blue tinge. I watched her take Fiona and noticed how Geraldine’s shirt wasn’t quite as baggy as it should have been.

‘I bet Tracey’s mam’s having another baby,’ I said to Sandra.

‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘Tracey said that after Fiona was born, her mam swore she wasn’t ever having another one.’

It was Tina who answered the door. She didn’t say a word, just stared at us with her big grey eyes, then went into the front room to get her father. He kept us waiting for ages as if we
were kids selling raffle tickets and we’d disturbed him in the middle of watching the news. When he finally came out, he was clearly surprised to see all five of us. ‘In you
come,’ he said, after taking his pipe out of his mouth. His cheeks were sunken – from all the pipe-sucking, I imagined – and he had deep lines at the sides of his seawater eyes.
He didn’t appear to have any eyelashes, and his crinkly ginger hair looked like lengths of unravelled washing line plastered flat across his head. He wore a shirt with little beige and blue
squares, a yellow tweed tie, and an army-green cardigan with leather buttons and elbow patches.

We followed him into their front room, where David sat in a chestnut-brown leather armchair beside the fireplace, holding a strip of bacon against his cheek. Father Feely stood with his back to
the window, his hands flat against the swelling mound of his stomach. He was leaning towards David, speaking in his droning, Sunday mass voice, but as soon as we walked in to the room he stopped
short, straightened himself up and cleared his throat.

‘Children, children,’ he said, smiling and walking towards us with his arms outstretched. He touched Sandra’s shoulder, ruffled Mel’s hair and gave me a wink. He patted
Dad’s arm. ‘Michael. Mick,’ he said, as if he wasn’t sure what to call him. ‘Good of you to bring the lad over.’ He went in close and whispered, ‘I know
the mammy’s gone away. Somewhere foreign, I believe. Glad to know yourself and Rose are there for the lad.’ Dad opened his mouth to say something but Father Feely turned away, beaming
at Shayne and almost shouting. ‘And Shayne! Good lad. How are we now? Anxious to get this over and done with, eh?’ He winked again and his smile grew even larger, making his cheeks
bunch up under his eyes like juicy plums.

Mr O’Dea stood beside David, one hand resting along the back of the armchair and the other holding his pipe, which he puffed on every now and then, filling the room with a sweet smell like
the vanilla essence Bridie spooned into her cake mixtures.

Father Feely clapped his hands, making me jump. ‘Now! Where will we start, Eamon?’ David made a moaning sound and rubbed the rasher over the side of his face.

‘With an apology,’ Mr O’Dea said, his teeth clenched down on his pipe. ‘An unreserved apology.’

‘Shouldn’t we get both sides of the story first?’ Dad asked, his eyes fitting from Father Feely to Mr O’Dea. ‘That’s why I brought them all over. They did
witness what took place, after all.’

‘Children, I think it’s safe to say,’ said Mr O’Dea, ‘make the most unreliable witnesses. David has told me what happened.’

‘But is David not a child himself?’ asked Dad.

Mr O’Dea scowled. ‘Violence speaks for itself, Mr Lamb. Take a look at my son’s face.’

‘And don’t forget, I was a witness to the incident too, Michael. Mick,’ Father Feely said. ‘I saw what I saw. Young Lawless landing a punch to David’s cheek and
using profanities I never thought I’d hear in a sacred burial ground.’

‘But do you not think we should hear what went on before that?’ Dad said. ‘Wouldn’t that be the Christian thing to do? Hear all sides?’

Father Feely scratched his nose. He walked over to the fireplace and took a silver-framed photograph from the mantelpiece. It was a picture of David, aged about three, dressed in a sailor suit
and sitting stiffly on a big wooden chest. ‘You’re correct, of course,’ he said, looking at the photograph. ‘We should always endeavour to get to the . . . truth of
things.’

Sandra said that, really, Valerie, Tracey and the twins should tell their sides of the story too, but Mr O’Dea said we’d had quite enough witnesses to contend with already and,
besides, he didn’t want the twins involved any more than was necessary in the ‘whole affair’, as he called it. Tina had disappeared after she’d opened the door and Linda was
nowhere to be seen.

While the others recounted what had happened, I looked around the room. It had a sort of dull, museum feel, as if nothing had been shifted in years, and the air was fuzzy with dust. Most of the
contents were made out of things that had once been alive: two leather armchairs and a matching couch with buttons pressed deep into its back; a zebra-skin pouffe with star patterns made from what
looked like tiny white bones stitched into its sides; and in the middle of the dark, wooden floor – so shiny it was like you were walking on glass – was a long-haired sheepskin rug.

David’s piano stood near the window. I walked across the room and stood beside it. Its lid was closed and the wood was polished to a high gleam, like the floor. On the top, faded dried
flowers were arranged in a fan shape in a big pink seashell. And beside it, under a round-topped glass case, was a stuffed, open-beaked, yellow-eyed blackbird.

‘And would that be how you remember things happening?’ Father Feely was droning. ‘Hmm?’

‘Ruth,’ Dad said. ‘Father Feely’s talking to you. Is there anything you want to add? Or have the others covered everything?’

The others had covered everything all right, but they might as well have been talking to the sheepskin rug. Eamon and Father Feely said nothing when Mel and Sandra explained what David had said
about Liz. They simply chose to ignore it. It wasn’t fair. David couldn’t be allowed to get away with
everything.
I ran my palm along the smooth coldness of the piano and lifted
the lid.

‘Well . . . there is one thing,’ I said, fingering the ivory keys. ‘David didn’t break his wrist by accident. He flung himself from the tree on purpose. To get out of
taking part in the piano competition.’

David jumped up out of the armchair and flung the rasher to the floor, where it landed with a splat. ‘I did not!’ he said. ‘Don’t listen to her! She’s lying! Why
would I do that?’ He stood before his father, his face as clear and angelic as it was in the sailor suit picture, except for the purple bruise on his right cheek. ‘You know I
wouldn’t do something like that! I’d been looking forward to that competition for so long. I’d practised for months! I was expecting to do really well. I was sure of a placing.
I—’

‘What in the name of
God
is going on?’ It was Mrs O’Dea. She breezed in from the hall, her heels clicking across the wooden floor. She bent down to pick up the piece of
bacon and Father Feely told her what I’d said. ‘And you expect me to believe that piece of utter
non
sense?’ she said, laying the rasher carefully on the desk beside the
door. She went over to the window and, although it was still bright outside, she drew the gold velvet curtains, fussing with the ends of them, pulling them in and out until she was satisfied with
the way they sat on the floor. ‘Well?’ she said, widening her small, dark eyes and breathing loudly through her long, thin nose. Her black backcombed hair sat stiffly around her head
like the brim of a witch’s hat and when she leaned down to turn on a lamp, the bulb, through its green satin shade, gave her skin a scary, emerald hue. She looked a lot more like the Wicked
Witch of the West than Liz Lawless did.