It Could Never Happen Here, page 30
‘Don’t you think that was strange?’
The wind caught the tail of a roll of blue satin and she grabbed it just before it went sailing out of the boot and across the car park.
‘I think I made it clear I thought it was all very strange,’ replied Christine.
‘It was the best possible outcome,’ said Beverley matter-of-factly. ‘That barbarian is no more, and my daughter doesn’t have to be subjected to police interrogation and neighbourhood gossip over something that was entirely not her fault. It’s always the victims that suffer. At least this way, justice was still served.’
Christine continued to stack the material, doing her best to keep it apart from Conor’s mucky hiking boots that had been living in the boot for several months.
‘Anyway. I’m talking about Arlo and Nuala Patterson,’ said Beverley, lowering her voice. Orla and Rodney Smith were heading for the car beside Christine’s.
‘Can’t wait for the show tomorrow!’ enthused Orla.
‘We’ve been watching the film in preparation,’ added Rodney.
Nuala had sent the parents home, but she hadn’t told them why. Only the few who’d been present in the workroom knew about Seamus’s death and that there would be no show tomorrow, or at all. Beverley nearly had a fit when Nuala told them the plan – ‘The TV producers are already in town!’ – but even she accepted there was no way around it.
‘It’s not based on the film, you ignorami,’ she muttered now after the Smiths shut their doors and started their car.
Christine slammed the boot. She was jealous of the Smiths. She was jealous of everyone who had already left this car park and who hadn’t been bound for life to Beverley Franklin over a deeply uncomfortable secret.
The sound of the boot shutting focused the other woman’s attention. ‘Don’t you think it’s strange that Arlo and Nuala, of all people, were in cahoots?’ said Beverley. ‘They usually go out of their way to ignore each other. And you couldn’t blame Nuala for that. Imagine your child was in a horrific accident and you have to risk meeting the people associated with it every time you walk down the street?’
‘What’s your point, Beverley?’
‘Why did Arlo go to Nuala for help? And why did Nuala give it so readily?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Christine. As surprised as she’d been to see Beverley and Arlo chatting civilly, she’d been even more taken aback to find Nuala apologising to the boy. There were rumours out of Aberstown Garda Station after the crash, inconsistencies in the forensics reports, heavy suggestions Charlie hadn’t really been driving that night, that he was covering for his son. They were only ever rumours, nothing she could report. But still, if there was even a possibility that Arlo had been the one to injure her son, how could Nuala be so civil to him?
‘I can’t think of a single reason for it,’ mused Beverley, as Christine opened the driver’s side of her car. ‘It just doesn’t make any sense.’
..................
‘Everything looks perfect,’ said Arlo, as he and Nuala stood at the back of the auditorium, surveying the impeccably straight rows of chairs, and the picture-perfect cornfield that occupied the entire stage. There was bunting streamed around the perimeters of the hall, and a huge banner hung from the vast ceiling: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
‘It really does,’ agreed Nuala, her hand hovering over the light switches a moment longer. Everything was ready to go for opening night. ‘Pity we won’t get to put any of it to use.’
She brought her fingers down and the hall plunged into darkness.
He kept pace as they made their way down the corridor, their footsteps echoing softly. The faint murmur of the last few stragglers travelled in from the car park. They were the last to leave. He pushed his way through the side foyer and out into the blustery night. He held the door for the principal.
‘Thank you,’ he said, as Nuala turned back to lock the door and the tails of her coat whipped around her.
‘You don’t need to thank me.’
He wanted to say that he missed talking to her, but embarrassment stopped him. It hadn’t even been a year, but he felt so much older, too old for those kinds of declarations. Everything was different now.
The wind whooshed around them and Nuala squinted against it, pulling her personal keys from her pocket now and clamping her fist around them. ‘I owe your family,’ she said, catching the hem of her coat. ‘I told you I’d never forget that. I’m just glad to have the chance to start paying you back.’
43
••••••
EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER
Mike was the one who snuck in the alcohol.
Mike was always chancing his arm, and he was a demon for the drink. He had his dad’s spirits cabinet watered down to nothing. Luckily for his son, Mike Roche Senior still treated his body the way he had when he played GAA. But some day he would open the mahogany sideboard in his study and wonder why his eighteen-year-old bourbon-barrelled Jameson was now the colour of well-hydrated piss.
When Charlie got chatting to someone at the bar before the gig started, Mike pulled his two friends up from their seats. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re going to the jacks.’
‘I’m not going to the jacks with you,’ said Leo, shaking him off.
Mike winked at Leo. ‘I’ve got something that’ll make it worth your while,’ he said, whipping one side of his jacket open to reveal a brief glimpse of a Sprite bottle containing a liquid too dark to be Sprite.
‘Where’d you get that?’
‘Big Mikey’s stash, of course.’
‘Your auld fella has nothing worth taking any more,’ said Leo. ‘We’re just drinking our own diluted muck at this stage.’
Mike rolled his eyes. ‘It’s a new bottle, Leonardo. Gerry Regan wants his son on the senior team; he dropped this into my dad during the week to sweeten the deal.’
‘I’ve seen Ralph Regan trip over his feet walking down Main Street,’ said Arlo sceptically. ‘He hasn’t a chance of making the team.’
‘A total no-hoper,’ agreed Mike, patting his breast pocket. ‘So, you know this stuff has got to be good.’
There was one other lad in the bathroom, using the urinal. Mike nodded at him – ‘A very good evening to you, sir’ – then he pulled his friends into the last stall after him.
‘I’m not going to bum fuck you, Leo,’ said Mike, catching the look on his friend’s face. ‘And I’ll do my best to restrain myself with Arlo, too. He’s got a girlfriend now, so I suppose that means he’s taken.’
‘Arlo hasn’t got a girlfriend,’ scoffed Leo. ‘Unless you’re talking about his right hand.’
‘She’s a secret,’ said Mike, climbing up on to the toilet cistern as the other two squeezed in and stood with their backs against opposite stall walls.
‘You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?’ said Leo. The tight quarters meant his face was about ten inches from Arlo’s. ‘Who?’
‘Nobody. I don’t have a girlfriend.’
‘Your fucking face, Arly, it’s on fire,’ he laughed. ‘Who is she? Do I know her? Of course I know her. Is it someone from school? Rachel Grogan? Kathy Fleming? Who?’
Mike took a generous swig of the whiskey before proffering it forward. ‘Gentlemen?’
Arlo shook his head. ‘I’m driving, remember?’
‘Why won’t you tell me who she is?’
The bathroom stall was too small to look anywhere but at his friend. ‘It’s nobody.’
Leo turned to Mike, who was taking a second swig. ‘Do you know who she is? Is it someone from school?’
Mike stopped swirling the whiskey around his mouth and swallowed. Then he gave a wide, mischievous grin and nodded.
Arlo threw him a look and mouthed, Shut up.
‘I don’t know any more than that, though,’ said Mike. ‘Now, does anyone else want this or am I going to get wasted on my own? Leo, here.’
Leo took the bottle, then he held it out to Arlo. ‘You have it. You’ve something to celebrate.’
‘Thanks, but I have to drive us home.’
‘I’ll do it. I’m a better driver than you, anyway.’
‘You’re not insured on the car,’ said Arlo, eyeing the bottle. He felt giddy with the excitement of his secret romance and the fact that he was about to watch one of his favourite artists play live with his two best friends and his dad.
‘Do you think Charlie’ll give a fuck?’
They all knew the answer to that.
‘All right, cheers,’ said Arlo, taking the bottle. Leo wouldn’t be offering him anything if he knew his mystery girlfriend was Ella Franklin. But as it was, he was looking at Arlo in a way he never did, with something approaching respect.
Arlo brought the bottle to his mouth and threw it back.
Leo liked Ella. Everyone at school knew that. They’d kissed once and Leo said they were taking things slow, but that was about two years ago. They’d been friends since they were kids, though less so lately. Arlo also liked her, a lot. But he didn’t do anything about it because Leo was his best friend and he’d made his intentions clear, and also because, as Leo liked to remind him, he was a wimp. Then one day, about a month ago, she caught up with him after school. She walked in the wrong direction, in the rain, just so she could talk to him. That was when she told him she liked him too.
The three of them left the jacks and headed back out to the venue. Arlo felt like he was sailing above the crowd. He hadn’t had that much to drink but, as Leo liked to tell everyone, he was a lightweight.
Donovan appeared on stage and they dumped their belongings where they’d been sitting. Arlo waved to his dad at the bar, who lifted his pint in reply. Then they squeezed their way to the front. This was going to be one of the greatest nights of his life. Arlo loved his friends and he loved his dad and it was all very new but fuck it he loved Ella Belle Franklin too.
After the third song, the music stopped and Donovan told a funny story about a misunderstanding with a local taxi driver.
Arlo pulled out his phone.
‘Checking for a message from your mystery girlfriend?’ said Leo, looking over his shoulder.
‘No,’ lied Arlo, for once grateful that there was none. ‘Just checking the time.’
Mike swooned into them: ‘Oh Arlo, I miss you, will you come over and massage me?’
‘Massage?’ laughed Leo, as Arlo joined in. Mike was always fun, but drunk Mike, when Arlo was also drunk, was the best buzz.
‘Oh yes, Ella,’ Mike continued. ‘I’ll be over as soon as the night allows. Leave a light on for me and I will climb the drainpipes of your mansion … Wait, do mansions have drainpipes?’
Nobody answered his question. Leo looked at Arlo like he might lunge for him, but then the music started again, and the crowd carried them all forward.
‘I meant to tell you,’ Arlo shouted over the guitar, but Leo turned and pushed a path away from them through the crowd.
‘Fuck,’ said Arlo, as Mike began to jump and sing along again.
‘Ba baa ba-ba-ba!’
When the gig was over, Arlo and Mike met Charlie back at their original seats. It was a few minutes before Leo appeared. He approached the group and handed Mike his jacket.
‘I was wondering where that was.’
‘All right, let’s go,’ said Charlie, pulling on his own coat. ‘Jesus, but it’s great to have my own personal designated driver now.’ His face was flush from the drink as he winked at his son.
‘Actually, Dad, I’m not gonna …’ Arlo looked to his friend, trying to confirm if he was still willing to cover for him and drive home.
‘Arlo has had a bit to drink, Mr Whitehead,’ said Leo loudly. He never called Charlie ‘Mr Whitehead’.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, he and Mike drank quite a lot of whiskey.’
‘Fuck, Arlo. Seriously? I don’t mind you drinking but how are we going to get home?’
‘I’ll drive us,’ said Leo, still talking in that weird, studied way.
‘Are you sure?’
Leo nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
They hurried to the car, Charlie walking in front with his head bowed against the rain. Arlo tried to speak to Leo, but his friend wasn’t interested.
‘Another one for the road, Arlo?’ said Mike, reaching into his breast pocket.
‘I’m grand.’ Now that things had turned sour the alcohol was making him feel ill. He’d been so excited about the gig that he’d barely touched his dinner.
‘All the more for—What the fuck?’ Mike turned the empty bottle upside down then right way up. ‘I had about a third of this left.’ He patted his other pockets, as though the liquid might just be sitting in one of them. ‘Leo? Did you fucking drink this?’
Leo kept walking and kept looking ahead. He had a hood, but he didn’t bother to pull it up. ‘My best friend just told me he stole my girlfriend, so yeah, I needed a drink.’
‘She’s not your girlfriend,’ said Arlo.
‘Not any more she’s not.’
‘But did you have to drink it all?’ whined Mike.
‘She was never your girlfriend. She told me the kiss was a mistake.’
‘Oh, she told you, did she? Did you have lots of lovely little chats? Did she tell you that she let me put my hand on her tits?’
‘Fuck off, Leo,’ said Arlo, banging against his friend.
‘No, you fuck off,’ he shouted, grabbing Arlo’s arm and twisting it back.
‘Ow! Fucking ow!’
‘Oi! Lads!’ Charlie was jogging back to them, his feet sending a gentle spray up onto the cuffs of his jeans. He looked between them. ‘Ah, Jesus! Have youse all been drinking?’
‘I haven’t,’ said Leo, the stoic tone and raindrops hanging at his fringe really adding to the martyrdom.
Arlo and Mike exchanged a look but neither of them said anything. Arlo climbed obediently into the passenger seat of his mother’s ancient Volvo as Leo positioned the driver’s chair and side mirror to his liking.
His dad talked about the gig for a while, but Mike was the only one responding, so he soon gave up. He was dozing in the seat behind Arlo by the time they left the city.
They were about twenty minutes from home and Arlo was just starting to relax when Leo suddenly declared ‘Music!’ and lifted himself from the driver’s seat so he could retrieve his phone from his pocket.
‘I’ll do it, I’ll play something,’ said Arlo, pulling out his own phone, relieved to see both Leo’s hands back on the steering wheel.
Then the rain got heavier.
Arlo’s eyes flicked nervously between playlists and the road. He suddenly felt very sober. He wished he was the one driving.
‘No Guthrie,’ said Leo, as the first chords of ‘Dust Bowl Blues’ filled the car.
‘You’re annoyed at me, don’t take it out on Guthrie.’
‘I’m the one driving and I’m the one you fucked over, so I pick the music.’
‘I was going to tell you. I know you like Ella—’
‘I don’t like her,’ said Leo automatically. ‘She likes me. She’s just using you.’
‘What would she be using me for? This car?’
‘You’re like a practice boyfriend. That’s actually exactly what you are. Someone she won’t mind messing things up with. You’re not threatening. You’ll let her do whatever she wants once she goes out with you. It’s embarrassing really.’
‘That doesn’t even make sense,’ said Arlo, his tone neutral, though he could feel himself going red.
‘You keep telling yourself that.’ Leo leaned forward as Woody Guthrie sang on.
‘You’re being childish now. Slow down.’
Leo sat back, then leaned forward again, foot down, accelerator tearing.
‘Stop, Leo. It’s too wet for messing. It’s too dark.’
‘You’re a wimp, Arly, a pathetic weasel. Do you know that? You’re pathetic.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Like a little limp dog or something. How could you think she likes you? You’re a fucking wimp. You’re deluded. How could you even—’
‘Slow down!’
But it was too late. They were coming around the last bend, right at the ‘Welcome to Cooney’ sign, when the car started to skid out of control. Leo tried to get a grip on the steering wheel, but the thing kept sliding back in the other direction. The car slipped and skated, turning so quickly that it was almost facing fully in the opposite direction by the time it left the road and headed on to the mucky verge. Arlo reached over to grab control – his mom’s steering wheel was loose, unlike the one in the van; he should have told Leo that – but he couldn’t get a grasp on it. He was sent banging into the passenger door, then thrown forward, wincing as the seatbelt tightened against his chest. The car should have slowed on the grass, but there was a slope, followed by a ledge, and the grass was so wet. The car picked up speed as it fell then tumbled and flew full force into one of Cooney’s 200-year-old oak trees.
Next thing Arlo knew it was morning and his dad was calling him for school. ‘Five minutes,’ he said, turning on to his side. Ocastnly he couldn’t turn. Something was restraining him. Reluctantly he opened his eyes and saw that he was not in his bed.
‘Just hang on, okay? I’m going to open the door.’
Arlo turned the only way he could, towards Leo. His friend was breathing fast, muttering something to himself. He turned further again, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, and saw Mike. How was he still asleep? The windows were smashed and the rain was coming in. How much had his friend drunk that he could snooze through that? And who uses a tree trunk as a pillow?
Slowly, then quickly, Arlo got his bearings. His dad opened the passenger door and pulled him out of the car.
‘Dad, Dad! Mike! Stop, I’m all right.’ He pushed his dad off. ‘Mike is … We need to get Mike!’
He moved his hands down over his body. A pain in his chest and at the side of his head, but otherwise he was all right.
‘Come on, quick! Dad!’
‘Stop, Arlo.’
‘What? No. Come on!’
‘It’s too late, Arlo.’
‘I can’t feel my legs! I can’t feel my legs!’
