The Choice, page 5
That night, I took it out of the wardrobe and put it down in the middle of the floor. The rattle of the coins made me happy. I had thought about opening it every day for the last three weeks. After we had looked at the jerseys and the tracksuits and the runners in town that day, John and I had gone in to the big mobile phone shop on Henry Street. None of my friends had a phone yet, but I thought that maybe I could be the first. Al kept saying that his parents had promised to get him one for his birthday, but that wasn’t until October, which was after mine. A few of the lads in school had got this really cool one, a Nokia 3210, and they were always showing off in the yard about the games you could play on it and sending each other messages under the desk when the teacher wasn’t looking.
But the man in the shop had shown me an even newer version that had just come out, the Nokia 3310. Once I saw it, I knew I wanted it. Everyone would be mad jealous then. I couldn’t ask Mam and Dad to get it – I knew Mam had her little purple tin, but that money was for when I needed new football boots – so I decided to count out my money to see if I could buy it for myself.
I took a tin opener from the drawer in the kitchen and brought it back into my room. I didn’t want to spend the money. I just wanted to see how much was there and how much more I needed to save. The coins spilled out into a pile on the bedroom floor, like in one of those slot machines in the arcade. One or two tried to escape, rolling over towards the radiator, but I stuck my foot out to stop them. I ran my hand through the top of the little hill, spreading them out and getting ready to count, when I noticed something missing.
It was all coins. There were no notes.
I picked the tin back up and checked it again, hoping they’d all somehow fallen to the bottom and got stuck. There was nothing there. Where had they gone? There was no other way to open the tin, and there were no signs of any marks on it. It was a mystery but I knew the first place I had to look.
John was the only person who knew where I kept the tin. He had seen me put it back into its box in the wardrobe one night, and he’d promised me he wouldn’t say a word to anyone. Kellie had gone out with a few of her friends, and when I burst into the sitting room, John was sitting watching TV by himself.
‘Did you take my money?’ I snapped, turning the tin on its side so he could see it was empty.
‘No,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘What money?’
I stood between him and the TV. ‘All the notes are gone out of my money box. I know you took it. Nobody else even knows where I hide it.’
There was no point in me jumping on top of him and starting a fight. I was strong for my age, but John was a man.
‘Give it back to me, John,’ I begged, more out of desperation than anger. ‘Where is it?’
He blanked me again. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t touch your money.’
If we had just settled it ourselves, everything would have been grand, but I knew John was lying to me. I only had one other option. ‘I’m telling Mam,’ I said.
‘No, don’t, Philly. Wait.’ There was panic in his voice as he got up out of his chair. He knew he was going to be in trouble. ‘I have it. I’ll get it for you.’
But it was already too late. When I ran back out of the room, shouting, he didn’t try to follow me or stop me.
‘Mam,’ I cried. She came out of her bedroom, her arms full of clothes ready to go into the wash.
‘Stop screaming, would you?’ she said. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘John’s after robbing all of my money out of my tin and it’s gone and he won’t give it back to me.’
‘What?’
I repeated myself, except this time more slowly. ‘My money. It’s gone. I opened up my tin to count it because I wanted to see how much more I need to save to buy a phone, but when I opened it all of the notes were gone and it’s only the coins left.’ I brought her over to my bedroom door and pointed at the coins, still in a mound in the middle of the floor. ‘Look!’
The look on Mam’s face changed, as if I’d just told her some really bad news and it had taken her a moment to understand it. She put the clothes down in the middle of the hall and took me by the arm to go back into the sitting room. John was standing where I had left him.
‘Where’s Philip’s money, John?’ she demanded. She didn’t even ask if he was the one who had taken it. She still had a tight hold on my arm, so I could feel her shaking.
John started to speak but the front door opened before he could get any words out, and Dad came in. He had been outside talking to Mags Flynn, who lived next door, when he heard us arguing. He looked at me and John and then, lastly, to Mam. ‘What’s the shouting for?’ he asked her.
‘John’s after stealing Philip’s money from his money box,’ she explained. The room suddenly felt quite small with the four us there, all standing so close to one another. Mam wasn’t finished with John yet. ‘Don’t make me ask you twice. Where is it?’
‘I just took a loan of it,’ he blurted out. ‘I’m sorry. I was going to put it back in the tin before he even knew it was missing. I’ll put it back, I promise.’
Once I knew I was going to get it back, that was all I cared about. I didn’t like how worked up everyone was getting. I just wanted to the argument to be over and everyone to go back to what we’d been doing five minutes earlier.
Mam kept going. ‘Put it back now then,’ she told John, moving aside so he could get past her and go and get it. ‘Go on. Where is it?’
‘I don’t have it right now,’ he said helplessly. ‘I spent it. I’ll get it back for you, Philly, don’t worry.’
Dad hadn’t budged from where he was standing in front of the door, and there was nowhere for John to go. When Dad finally spoke, his voice was loudest of all. ‘What else did you take, John?’
The colour drained out of John’s face. He started fidgeting nervously, rolling and unrolling the sleeves of his track top. ‘What? Nothing. Nothing.’
It wasn’t convincing, and Dad repeated himself, slowly and deliberately. ‘What else did you take, John?’
John looked like he was about to burst into tears as he looked in Mam’s direction.
‘Jesus, John,’ she said with a fright. She had been holding on to my arm this whole time but now she let go, pushed past Dad and ran to her room. She was back three seconds later, an open empty wooden box in her hand. ‘Where is it, John? Where’s all my jewellery gone?’
She didn’t wait for an answer. She grabbed her purse from the arm of the couch and she was gone, not wanting to waste a second.
‘Wait, Ma. I’ll fix it,’ John called out.
I went after her. I couldn’t stay in that room any longer. I didn’t want to be near John. I couldn’t even look at him. A million possibilities ran through my head and none of them seemed like good situations. Whatever this was about, whatever trouble he was after getting himself into, him and Dad could sort it out between themselves. They didn’t need me there.
‘Mam, what’s going on? Where are you going?’ I asked as I caught up with her going down the stairs.
She wiped the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I’m grand, Philip. You go on back home.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ I insisted, even though I didn’t know where we were going. Mam did, though. She went straight around the corner and up the stairwell into one of the eight-storey blocks, the one next to where Kev and Al and Shane lived. On the bottom floor, the doors of the lift were covered in stickers and graffiti. It had been years since they had been properly cleaned. Even the sign stuck to the front – Temporarily Out of Order – had torn and mostly fallen off.
Mam went up four, maybe five, flights of stairs, turned left, stopped at the first flat that we came to and hammered on the front door, still clutching her purse in front of her.
‘Whose flat is this?’ I asked nervously as she knocked for a second time.
‘Ssssh. Just stand there beside me,’ she said, and then quickly added, ‘If anything happens, you’re to run and get your dad.’
We didn’t have time to get into the details of what was she concerned might happen. Once she realised no-body was coming to answer the door to her, she turned and left, but we weren’t going home.
We didn’t speak in the two minutes it took us to get to the next block of flats. I’d no idea what Mam was thinking, and so many questions were rattling around in my head that I wouldn’t even know where to start. Again, when we got there, Mam knew exactly which door she was looking for. This time, a man opened the door – not all the way, but just enough that he could see us through the crack.
It was a month since I’d seen him but I recognised him immediately, even without the baseball cap pulled down over his eyes and the big dark duffel coat. He was the guy who had been looking for John that night when we were sitting out in the field.
There was a funny smell from his flat, and I wrinkled my nose. Mam got straight to the point without any introduction. ‘Do you have my jewellery?’ she said, trying to push the door open slightly to see the man fully. It was locked with a chain on the inside, which stopped it sharply.
‘Did my son sell you my jewellery?’ she asked again.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the man said angrily. He eyed me up, standing there by Mam’s side, but if he recognised me, he didn’t show it.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ Mam said, not ready to take no for an answer. ‘I’m not here looking for a row. I just want my jewellery back.’
He moved to close the door. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here,’ he said. ‘I don’t have any jewellery.’
Mam unzipped her purse and started to pull notes out of it. ‘I’ll buy it back from you,’ she said, holding them tightly in her closed fist. ‘I’ll give you whatever money he owes you. I just want my things back.’
The man’s tone changed a bit at the sight of the money in Mam’s hand, but he shook his head. ‘Look, I don’t have it,’ he said. ‘If I did, I’d sell it to you. I’d prefer the money anyway. Jewellery’s no use to me, really, it’s only more hassle. But I don’t have it. He doesn’t even owe me any money at the minute. It must be someone else that has your stuff.’
Mam sank as he shut the door in our faces, like someone was after pointing a remote control at her and pressing the off button. She stood on the landing without moving, all of her attention fixed on the closed door, until I took her hand and gave it a little squeeze to make sure she was okay. She looked at me, the tears gathering in her eyes, and then put the notes back into her purse and slowly zipped it up.
‘Come on, Philip,’ she said as she led me back down the stairs. We walked to the end of the road and she looked up towards the Towers, but then she thought better of it and turned around towards home.
‘Was it all in the box, Mam?’ I asked quietly, afraid to even hear the answer. ‘All of your jewellery, I mean?’
She swallowed hard and nodded.
‘Even your bracelet?’
She didn’t nod this time, but I knew the answer was yes.
Mam didn’t have a lot of jewellery, except for one or two nice necklaces and a few sets of earrings that she loved to take out whenever there was a special occasion. But the one piece of jewellery that meant the most to her was the gold bracelet that Nanny, her mam, had given her when she was a little girl.
Whatever was going on with John, whatever trouble he was in, I couldn’t forgive him for doing this to her.
When we got home again, Dad was sitting in his chair, warming his hands on a cup of tea that looked like it had barely been touched. He didn’t even look up as we came in.
Mam went to sit down beside him, and I went into my room and slammed the door behind me. The whole flat shook with the noise, but the whole block could have come crashing down around us for all I cared. Someone shouted, the kind of roar that you can tell a person has no control over, that they just need to let out, and then I realised that it was me. It didn’t make me feel any better.
I stepped around the pile of coins, still sitting in the middle of the floor where I’d left them, and opened my football bag to check for my boots. They had cost a lot of money when Mam and Dad bought them for me – they were still worth a bit of money, even second-hand – and the thought had crossed my mind for a second as we were walking. They were still there, but the rest of the room felt a bit more empty than usual. And I could tell by the bits that were missing that John was gone.
I was about to go inside to Mam and Dad when I spotted a paper bag sitting on my bed, on top of my pillow. I lifted it down and looked inside, then took out the plastic packet so I could take a proper look.
It was a brand-new Dublin jersey, in my size. The very one that we had been looking at in the shop, the one that I told him not to buy. I didn’t want it now, not after everything that had happened. It made me angry just holding it. I quickly put it back in the bag and pushed it into the back of the wardrobe, where I wouldn’t have to look at it.
It was only then that I noticed the note left with it, still sitting on my pillow. I unfolded it. It had been scribbled in a hurry but it was definitely John’s handwriting:
I’m sorry, Philly. I’ll get you the money back, I promise. Stay out of trouble and be good for Mam and Dad. I’ll see you soon. Don’t worry about me.
Love you bro,
J
8
I was glad when Kellie knocked to see if I was okay. The silence was starting to hurt my head.
‘Mam and Dad told me what happened,’ she said, quietly because everything was quiet. ‘Come inside and sit down with us for a while.’ She left the door open behind her, expecting me to follow.
I don’t know how I long I had been sitting there on the edge of the bottom bunk. It might have been half an hour, it might have been more. When we came home and John was gone, there was no more shouting, no more crying. It was like a bonfire with a can of petrol poured over it: once the match was dropped, everything exploded and ran wild, unstoppable. But now all that was left were the last grey ashy bits and a few puffs of smoke, and the quiet was making me more anxious and uneasy, not less.
My mind was racing. John had definitely been acting strange these last few weeks. While I was on my own, I had forced myself to think about the best possible explanations for what had just happened – for what was happening. But for him to have stolen Mam’s jewellery, for him to do something that would hurt the one person he loved more than anyone in the world so badly, there were only bad options.
And now, as all the pieces of the jigsaw slowly started to fit together in the back of my mind, I knew that even if I’d prefer not to know the truth, I couldn’t run away from it either. I didn’t have a choice. I crumpled up the note that John had left me – I was too angry with him to even think about that – and I went into the sitting room.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked Mam. I was worried about her most of all. Her eyes were red and raw, and she dabbed at them with the tissue in her hand, shaking her head.
‘No,’ she said, although she nearly swallowed it instead of saying it. It killed me to see her so upset. Dad sat opposite her, holding her hand across the table, staring without looking at anything in particular.
‘We thought we could help him to get better,’ she said when she eventually spoke again. ‘We thought he’d be okay. He told us he was doing all of the things he was supposed to be doing, that he was clean again …’
Clean.
Everything changed in one single word as Mam’s voice trailed off. I had been hoping against hope for another explanation – maybe it was one of John’s friends who was in trouble, and his only real mistake was doing something stupid when he tried to help him out – but deep down, I was afraid that it was this.
That it was drugs.
‘What is it, Mam?’ I said, but it barely came out as a whisper.
She looked so tired as she turned to me. ‘It’s heroin, Philip.’
It hit me like a punch. Ballymun had lots of problems and lots of drugs, and none of them were good, but heroin was the worst. Heroin meant havoc.
It meant calling over for Kev or Al or Shane, but having to walk past someone injecting themselves right there in the stairwell, in broad daylight, in the middle of the day, not caring that they were surrounded by kids coming and going and playing.
It meant dirty needles left lying in the grass that Mam had begged us never to go near since we were old enough to walk.
It meant pushers and protests. It meant zombies on the blocks and in the field, barely able to stand or to form a full sentence. It meant mugging people for a few euro, or less, because that was the only way.
It meant overdoses. It meant ambulances. It meant funerals after funerals, men and women, boys and girls, John’s age, younger, gone too soon.
I had seen how it united the people of Ballymun, desperately doing everything we could to keep this wolf from the door. And now here it was, right here in our sitting room.
So when Mam spoke, it felt like a death sentence.
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Kellie had been sitting listening, and then asked the only question that mattered.
Mam paused and took a deep breath before answering. ‘We thought we were doing okay,’ she said. ‘He told me he was off it. I wanted to bring him around to the Brickhouse to see someone, to see if we could get him a bit of help, but he didn’t want to go. He said he didn’t need it, that he wasn’t bad enough to be going around there. I think he thought he could manage it himself. He promised me he wouldn’t touch it for a few weeks and that would be enough, that he’d never go near it again then.’
My heart sank even further at the mention of the Brickhouse. That was what everyone called the drug treatment centre in Ballymun. It was a big old building on the other side of the main road. I had never been inside it, and I never wanted to be. It was a horrible, hopeless place.
‘That place is awful,’ I said out loud without even realising. The people who went there for help all seemed so empty, like they had been taken apart and every bit of life in them had been scooped out. John couldn’t possibly be that bad. We couldn’t possibly be talking about him needing to go there.
