The Gone Book, page 18
‘So, nice day?’ says Mrs Chung, looking straight at me. Eyes like lasers.
‘Great. We went swimming – didn’t we, Conor?’
She’s eyeballing me so hard I have to look down at my burger. ‘What happened between you and Mikey?’
I know she’s still staring, though I don’t look up. I give a tiny shrug. I can hear Conor chewing.
‘Tell me.’ Her voice is low.
Another little shrug from me. I pick up the burger and take a bite from it, never raising my eyes to hers.
‘I know there’s something up, Matt. I know it in my waters, so you might as well tell me now before the shit hits the fan.’
This time I look up and meet her eyes – eyes like tweezers pulling stuff out of you. ‘We had a fight, that’s all.’
‘About what?’
‘About me surfing all the time – that’s all, I swear.’
‘Make him do scout’s honour, that always works,’ says Conor through a mouthful of chips.
‘I don’t believe you.’
I shrug again. ‘It’s true.’
‘We’ll see, Matt. I’ll get it out of Mikey. The truth.’
I take a drink of water. ‘There’s no truth. Nothing happened.’
‘Do you think Rocky’s OK?’ Conor asks, as he dips a giant chip into ketchup. ‘He’s collecting me tomorrow. My dad is. I want to see Rocky.’
I watch as he dips another chip and blinks twice at it before he eats it. I hope Dad hasn’t forgotten. I hope he hasn’t forgotten the dog. And one other thing niggles at me. Conor actually wants to go home. He wants to go home with Dad.
Our mother is so glammed up I don’t recognise her at first. She’s wearing a short black dress with heels and a shimmery necklace. Her hair is up but with bits falling down on purpose. She smells lovely, like Brown Thomas, and she hugs us both but not too close in case we mess her up. Taylor is in bed and Ruby’s banished to the garden.
‘There are treats in the fridge and Taylor’s fast asleep since seven. It’s like she knew we were going out and we needed time to get dressed – such a doll.’ She beams at us and Rod comes in to the kitchen. His hair is all gelled the way Jamie used to do his before he became a shit. He’s wearing really nice jeans and a Hollister T-shirt. A peach one that doesn’t look a bit girly on him.
‘Hey dudes, thanks for babysitting,’ he says, and then he puts his arms around our mother and she pulls him real close, not a bit worried that he’ll mess her up. I push Conor into the sitting room. He flicks on the telly. They’re giggling in the kitchen like two teenagers. I turn up the volume on the telly. It’s an ad – one for bottled water with rapids and volcanos. Conor is glued to it.
Our mother walks in and puts a baby monitor on the coffee table in front of me. ‘See you later – and you could turn down the sound on the TV.’
Conor and I stay glued to the ad. He turns up the volume. We grin at each other.
‘Popcorn?’
Conor nods, never taking his eyes from the telly. I go to the kitchen and put the popcorn in the microwave. It takes me a few seconds to recognise the face at the patio doors. A face so freaked out I just know the shit has finally found a target.
Jamie.
I want him to go away. To just disappear out of my life. I blink, a Conor blink, and I wonder if that’s why Conor does it. If he blinks hard enough the shit will be gone? But Jamie’s still there, his face ghost white, his eyes huge in his head. He points at the lock.
I walk over to the door, Ruby scampering behind my legs, like she knows crap is coming too.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ I say as he slides in the door. He’s all hunched up, hands in pockets, face like somebody terrified the living shit out of him. Jeepers Creepers face.
‘Man, what’s up?’ I ask again. The air smells buttery from the popcorn. Jamie sinks into a chair and puts his head in his hands. ‘Are you OK? There’s pizza in the freezer and rolls and ham and … there’s popcorn …’
He starts to cry but it’s not like crying or sobbing. It’s more like a wail, like something a ghost would do. Fuck. I don’t know what to say or do. And the worst thing is I don’t want to know.
‘What happened?’
Jamie looks at me now, straight into my eyes, and I want to cry too. He shakes his head. ‘I am so fucked.’
‘How do you mean? Fucked as in drugs?’
Another desperate shake of his head. ‘I’m a dead man walking. I am so fucked that I might as well die now. Save myself the fucking pain. Oh God, I am so dead …’ He starts crying again, laying his head on the table and just wailing softly. It’s almost like a chant, like the Muslims on telly after a bomb blows up their neighbourhood.
‘How? What happened exactly?’
Jamie looks up at me and wipes snot and tears from his face with the sleeve of his hoodie. ‘You should fucking know, Matt. Mikey shopped us.’
‘Not you, just Hammer and he stole –’
‘You haven’t a clue, have you?’ he shouts, banging his fist on the table and making the vase of roses shake. ‘They took all the gear. They found it in the car.’
‘But he’ll get out on bail and …’
Jamie shakes his head. ‘None of that matters. What matters is we’re playing with the big guys and we lost their gear and we don’t have three grand to give them. We’re dead men walking – simple as that.’
The vein above my left eye gives a little tremor. I feel sick and the buttery smell is not helping. Now I see it all. I see all the shit that I spent the day not looking at.
‘They hauled Hammer in, got him in the car when he came out of Centra – I’d gone for a piss in SeaWorld – and they hauled him in and stripped the car and he’s gone to Limerick in a fucking squad car and I’m dead. They’ll have heard already and they’ll kill me, man.’
‘They might give you time to sort it out?’
Jamie laughs. A horrible bitter laugh. ‘Do you know what these people are? Time? They’ll kill me and they’ll go after you and Conor if they have to.’
‘I want my dad.’ Conor is standing in the doorway, blinking at us. His voice is calm.
‘Conor, look, just go back into the living room. Here, I’ll get the popcorn and you can watch a movie and …’ I jump up and run to the microwave and pop the door. I dump the popcorn into a bowl and push it into Conor’s hands. He’s staring and blinking at Jamie, who’s leaning into his hands again. Conor lets the bowl slip. There’s an almighty crash as it hits the floor and popcorn flies everywhere in a white cloud. Ruby yelps.
‘I want my dad. He stops all of this. He stops the crazy stuff. He does.’ Conor looks at me, his eyes spilling huge fat tears. ‘He stops all the stuff, Matt. He doesn’t let it come into the flat. He does, Matt, he does.’
‘Conor, Dad’ll be here tomorrow. Go into the living room, put on a movie. I’ll –’
‘Shut up. I hate you.’ Conor marches out and bangs the door hard. My head hurts, the fucking dog barks.
Jamie groans. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he says, then belts the table again. This time the vase gives up and falls, spilling water and red roses all over the floor. The vase rolls along the table and stops at the edge.
‘This is so fucked up, Jamie. Why did you let Hammer steal the board in the first place? If that hadn’t happened, then –’
Jamie pounds the table again and the vase plops onto the tiles and smashes into a million pieces. ‘Are you thick? Hammer never stole the board or the stupid dog. He was comatose last night. He never took the board. And if he had, Matt, I’d have killed him, made him bring it back to you. Don’t you believe that?’
I shrug. ‘He was looking at it with Mikey the other night, he … he …’
‘It wasn’t him.’
‘Then who did it?’
Jamie sniffed and wiped his snotty nose again. ‘No idea. But it wasn’t Hammer. And now he’s done for a shit load of gear and I’m dead because the gear is fucking gone.’
‘Jesus Christ. Look, maybe we can get the money.’
Jamie laughs. A tight, mean laugh. ‘From where? From Dad. Not fucking likely. Mam?’
‘I’ll ask her.’
Jamie looks at me. ‘Really? Do you think she might give it to me? I’d pay her back eventually – I’m done with this shit anyway. It’s killing me.’
‘I’ll ask when she comes home.’
‘They’re, like, loaded, aren’t they?’ Jamie seems brighter, happier, hopeful even.
‘Well, Rod’s got a huge job in the bank – she told me about it the other day – real big noise, so they’ve got money. I mean, she doesn’t seem short, does she?’
Jamie gave me a tiny smile. ‘Do you think she’d help me?’
‘Actually, I think she will. Let’s get this place cleaned up and I’ll ask her as soon as she comes home.’
We’re almost finished the cleaning when the screaming starts. We both look at each other in confusion and then I remember Taylor. I go up to her bedroom, dreading going in. I stand outside, hoping that the screams will stop and she’ll go back to sleep. No such luck. I open the door and stumble into the room. There’s a nightlight casting a haunting shadow of patterns across the ceiling. No wonder she was screaming.
‘Taylor?’ I whisper.
The screams quieten.
‘Taylor?’ I say again. This time they stop altogether. I lean over the cot and lift her out. She snuggles into my chest.
‘Daddy, I scared,’ she says.
I carry her downstairs, dreading the second she realises that I’m not Rod. I bring her into the living room. Jamie and Conor are sitting watching a movie. Taylor looks at the two faces and starts to cry, burying her head in my shoulder. Then she pulls back and looks at me and the screams start all over again. Piercing screams that make Ruby hide behind the couch and Conor cover his ears.
‘Fuck,’ I say.
‘Do something to shut her up,’ shouts Conor.
Taylor raises the volume another notch. Then Jamie comes over and takes her in his arms and starts to walk up and down with her, patting her back and just walking and walking and walking. And the screams stop and now they’re just tiny sobs and Jamie tries to sit down but we won’t let him, Conor and me.
‘I’m wrecked,’ says Jamie after about twenty minutes.
‘Keep going,’ says Conor, ‘but don’t walk in front of the telly – I love this film.’
‘Is she asleep yet?’ I ask, stretching my legs.
‘Nope. Every time I think she is and I stop then the eyes open again.’
‘So keep it up,’ I say.
‘Man, she’s heavy.’
I shrug.
The movie is nearly over by the time Taylor falls asleep properly. And Conor and Ruby are asleep too. I throw a rug over them and then go to the kitchen with Jamie in search of food. We find coco pops and a half a carton of milk. We stuff the cereal into our mouths and it reminds me of years ago in the old house next to Chung’s when Jamie and I’d race each other eating cereal. He always won.
We hear voices before the key turns in the front door. Mam’s voice like an excited girl’s and Rod’s voice, deeper, quieter. They stumble into the kitchen, eyes bright, voices giggly.
‘I asked him if he knew, Rod, and he just smiled and …’ My mother’s voice trails off as soon as she sees Jamie.
‘Oh,’ says Rod.
You’d swear Jamie was a disease that had popped in for a bowl of cereal.
‘Jamie called – lucky he did. He was the only one that Taylor’d go to when she woke up – for nearly three hours,’ I say.
My mother doesn’t look at me. She busies herself making tea. Jamie’s just sitting there like a stray dog. My anger volcano rumbles and the vein over my eye twitches. A silence falls in the kitchen, except for the tea making. Rod throws Ruby into the garden and she whines now at the door, standing up on her hind legs like a human trying to get back in.
‘I’d like you to leave, Jamie.’ My mother’s voice is low and calm.
Jamie sits there, frozen to the seat. My vein is dancing now.
‘We talked. Rod and I talked and we feel you’re not in the right place to have a relationship with me.’ She keeps her back to him while she says this. Rod leans against the doorway, looking at his nails. I know that trick. The nail trick.
‘Please give me some space, Jamie. Maybe down the road …’
‘You’re a fucking bitch, do you know that? A fucking bitch is all you are and you shouldn’t be allowed to have children – space? You had four years of space you f–’
‘Stop it,’ shouts Rod. ‘This is what I told Lucy tonight. This shit has to stop. This is my family and I will not have any more of these bust-ups and upsets and robbery.’
‘Robbery?’ says Jamie. ‘I didn’t rob anything.’
Rod glares at him. ‘You did. You guilt-tripped your mother until she handed you money and it’s over. No more. Leave her alone.’
Mam’s pretending to wash the dishes but I know she’s crying. Her shoulders are shaking. Jamie stands up slowly, looks at me as if to say I told you so. I told you the hope wouldn’t last. I told you that the long fingers were flexing themselves, waiting to pounce. I told you I’m a dead man walking.
‘Have the guts to say it. Don’t let your boyfriend do your dirty work. Have the guts to say it. To his face,’ I say, walking towards her. She flinches as if I’m going to hit her or something. Rod puts up a warning hand to me.
The patio door slides open and Ruby bounds in as Jamie leaves.
The vein over my eye is about to burst.
‘I hate you for that. I hate you and I wish you were dead.’ I whisper this into her ear.
‘Enough,’ says Rod.
‘I agree,’ I say. ‘I’m getting my brother before I leave.’
I march into the living room and shake Conor awake.
‘What’s wrong? Where are we?’ he mumbles, rubbing his eyes. ‘Are we at home?’
‘No, that’s the last place we are. Come on, get up, let’s go,’ I say, dragging him to his feet. I pull him after me into the kitchen. Mam and Rod are hugging and he’s kissing her tears. I almost fall over the stripy beach bag with my Gone Book still inside. Never opened. I pick up the bag and take out the book. She looks over in time to see me drop the empty bag on the floor.
‘Fuck you,’ I say.
‘Stop it right now,’ says Rod.
‘Fuck you too, Rod.’ I drag Conor out the door.
Things are supposed to be better in the morning but it’s not true. The rain arrives for a start. Heavy, non-stop rain pouring from a grey-black sky. Lahinch looks different now. Desolate and miserable. The streets are empty and I keep thinking that tumbleweed should roll down the hill like in Red Dead Redemption.
Conor and I are in the caravan waiting for Dad. His phone is off and I’m praying that he’ll remember to collect Conor. I’ve packed my bag too. Mikey and I are barely talking and I just want to get away now. The shit seems way more concentrated here than in Limerick.
It’s five now and I’m losing hope. We’ve been playing cards, Conor and me. Mrs Chung took the others to the cinema in Ennis. She couldn’t bear the noise of the children and the rain in the caravan. I try Dad’s number again and Conor watches, eyes blinking. No luck. I try Jamie’s number and that’s off too. I should have handled Mam better. I could have coaxed her. Guilted her.
‘Let’s play Snap again,’ says Conor.
I roll my eyes but deal the cards anyway. As we play, he glances out the window whenever a car passes by.
‘You hungry?’ I ask eventually.
He shakes his head and studies his cards.
‘We could get a Chinese? I’ve money.’
‘Where’s Jamie?’ He’s still studying his cards.
‘He’s gone home.’
‘Why’s he a dead man walking? What does it mean?’
Jesus. Fuck.
‘Am, it doesn’t mean anything really. It’s like … he’s fallen out with someone and –’
‘Are you a dead man walking?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve fallen out with Mikey, so why aren’t you a dead man walking?’
Christ. I pull off the go-go on my ponytail and put it back on again. Just for something to do.
‘Well … I’m not –’
Conor jumps up and cards fly into the air. He’s smiling, as he runs to the door. For a second, I think that I’ve sorted him out and then I hear a car horn beep and there’s Dad and Rocky, standing on the deck. Conor hurls down the steps and throws himself full force at Dad. He hugs Conor to him, a real hug, and beams at me in the flogging rain. Rocky joins the love-in, licking any body parts he can. I drag our bags down the steps. Rain empties itself on me as I load up the boot.
‘You coming home too?’ Dad says.
I nod and rub Rocky’s wet snout. His scabby back has cleared up. He looks handsome now. And happy. He tries to give me the paw.
‘I came third.’ Dad high-fives Conor. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ I watch him as he pushes Rocky by the wet arse into the back seat. ‘I’m happy with that. Big race like. So, was Lahinch fun?’
‘Yeah. Grand.’ I sit into the car. It smells of wet dog and sweaty runners and Deep Heat. It smells like home. We pass rows of mobile homes; they look miserable and lonely without the sun. Children’s faces press against the windows, waiting for a break in the clouds. Grey sea and sky roll into each other, broken only by a few white-horse waves in the distance. It feels like summer is over. I want to go home.
It’s like a week since Lahinch and the last time I saw Jamie. It’s Saturday and I stand on the balcony playing God, watching the tiny people and the traffic below me. Dad and Conor are gone to UL swimming and then they’re taking Rocky for a walk along the bank. I’m tempted to call at Anna’s, ask her to come with me searching for Jamie. She has a boyfriend now, some posh lad from Adare.
Mikey – fucking cheek of him. He sends me a text out of the blue this morning.
Wanna go cinema later?
After all the shit he’s caused, he wants me to go on a fucking man-date to the cinema with him? I spit over the edge of the balcony and watch as it plummets to the pavement below. I go inside and close the door. I love this flat now. It’s like a nest, a cocoon away from everything. No neighbours unless you want them. No passers-by. No small talk or bullshit. I go in and lie on my bed. The room is spotless – Dad was on a cleaning spree this morning. I notice something sticking out of my wardrobe. I go over and pull it out. It’s my Gone Book. I was sure I’d left that under the bed. Right under the bed – so far in you had to crawl under to reach it. I take it out and touch it and pray Dad didn’t see it. Read it. I open it up at the last page and search for a pen. I stare then at the blank page. I write one word – Lahinch – and then cross it out. I’ve nothing to say. Nothing at all. I fling the book under the bed and try Jamie’s number again. It rings out. I lie back down on the bed and start dozing. I’m turning into such a lazy fucker lately. I don’t go skating in case I meet Anna and her lovely not angry or scary boyfriend from Adare. My eyes close and I nearly scream when my phone rings.
