The Story of Before (25 page)

I’m not sure how long I was asleep, probably no more than half an hour, but when I woke up, Dad’s chair was empty. ‘Gone out for a breath of fresh air,’ Mam whispered
when I asked where he was. Cissy was still dead to the world and Kev had joined her. He lay curled in a ball on the couch beside her with his bum in the air and his hair still sticky with bits of
Christmas pudding. ‘He said he wouldn’t be long.’

The others were playing with the present Uncle Con had given us – some board game with question cards and counters and very complicated-looking rules. When he saw me awake, Mel asked
really nicely if I’d like to play, but I wasn’t fooled by his burst of Christmas goodwill. It was just a trick to try and lure me in. It’d make him feel so much better if he could
cheat his way to beating both his sisters.

I couldn’t remember Dad ever going out on Christmas Day before. Once he sat down in his chair after dinner, he usually only got up to get another bottle of beer or to go to the
bathroom.

‘Did Dad say where exactly he was going?’ I asked Mam.

‘I told you. He’s gone out for a bit of air. He’ll only go around the green, or to the bottom of the hill and back.’

I felt like asking her if she was sure, and how did she know he wasn’t going around the green and down to the bottom of the hill by way of the Lawlesses’ house? If Bridie
hadn’t decided at the last minute to visit Dick’s brother and his family on their farm somewhere in County Meath for a few days, I could’ve told Mam I was slipping out to wish her
a happy Christmas and then had a good look around for Dad. Mam didn’t know how far downhill my friendship with Bridie had fallen. If I’d told her, she’d only have brushed me off
in a ‘don’t mind her, she doesn’t mean anything by it’ kind of way.

‘My head’s a bit stuffy,’ I said. ‘Can I go round the cul-de-sac for a few minutes?’ It was better than nothing.

‘Well . . . all right then. But ten minutes at the most. It’s freezing out there and we don’t want you coming down with a bad cold if we can help it.’ She stroked
Kev’s back and he threw his arm out to the side, whacking Auntie Cissy’s knee. She half opened her eyes and swivelled them from side to side, then closed them again, mouthing what
looked like ‘Bertie, Bertie’ with her thin lips. ‘And we’ll have tea and cake when you both get back,’ Mam said, smiling.

Once outside, I scanned the whole of the estate, along the path past Bridie’s, down one side of the green and across to the other. There wasn’t a soul around. The cold stung my eyes
and made them water. It dried my lips and hurt my ears and crept into every part of my body. I shoved my hands right down in my pockets as I walked. The sky was alive with stars. I couldn’t
make sense of the amount of them. I stood for a moment and threw my head back to get a better look, nearly toppling backwards I got so dizzy. I was about to cross the road and go around the corner
when I saw a movement in the distance up ahead.

It was Dad.

Running up the path from the direction of Shayne’s house.

I quickly slunk into a gap between a lamppost and a wall, breathing in to make myself as thin as possible, and hid there while he passed. I watched him slow his pace as he neared our house, then
stop to catch his breath, leaning forward and putting his hands on his knees. I slipped out from my hiding place and, as he began to walk, followed behind him all the way to our front door.

‘Where were you?’ I asked. He spun around, nearly dropping his keys.

‘For fu— Jesus, Ruth! You put the heart shaggin’ crossways in me! What are you doing out here?’

‘Getting a breath of air. Like you.’

His eyes were jumpy and his face was all red.

‘Were you running or something?’

He poked around at the lock, his hands kind of shaky, finally getting the key in and opening the door.

‘Well?’ I asked.

‘Well, what? What is it you want now?’ He raised his voice. ‘Just this once, could you cut the questions and let a man go about his own business on Christmas Day? I don’t
have to answer to you or anyone else.’ He flung his coat over the banisters and went into the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. Mam came out of the sitting room, patting her hair back
into place and having a good yawn.‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

I had hundreds of things in my head, but I couldn’t say them. It was like trying to eat toffee without making noise – just sucking on it and waiting for it to dissolve, when all you
really wanted to do was get your teeth into it and chew and chew and taste the flavour in every part of your mouth.

‘I don’t know, Mam,’ I said. ‘I just don’t know.’

The days that followed grew even colder. The temperature fell further each night and Mam said she’d heard we might be in for a bit of snow. Auntie Cissy agreed and said
she wouldn’t be surprised if we were in for more than a bit, she could feel it in her bones. She started to fret over Thomas, her cat, concerned that the neighbour who’d promised to
feed him wouldn’t bother to bring him in at night and he’d freeze to death.

‘He’s all I have left now,’ she said, as if we didn’t rank at all.

Mam said whoever heard of a cat freezing to death? Didn’t they always find themselves somewhere warm to sleep? But Cissy couldn’t be convinced and said she kept having visions of him
frozen solid on her windowsill, his fur all stiff with ice. So she packed her case and Dad drove her home. She wanted to leave Bertie’s cage with us but Mam said we’d no use for it and
sure she might want to get another budgie at some point in the future, so she may as well take it home. ‘That bird could never be replaced,’ Cissy said, horrified. ‘I don’t
know how you could even think it, Rose.’ As she bent to kiss each of us goodbye, we noticed she’d pinned the cat brooch to her blouse.

The next night was New Year’s Eve. That was when the Big Freeze started. Auntie Cissy had been right; it was more than just a bit of snow.

I had no real reason to explain the way I felt when we looked out at the blizzard from Mam and Dad’s room. My mind was a jumble of suspicions I’d no way of knowing how to prove.
I’d no idea if they even made sense. But it was as if the snow was trying to silence me, to lull me into believing that everything in Hillcourt Rise was pure and perfect and trouble-free. I
thought I’d suffocate under its thick, heavy layers if I didn’t tell them then.

‘Something bad’s going to happen this year.’

That was what I said.

Not that I thought warning them would change anything; I just felt I needed to let them know. And if they’d pushed me on it, what would I have said? What clues could I have given them to
try and make them understand? There was nothing concrete, no one thing I could put my finger on. But that night, the last night of the year, I sensed it was more than the snow that was freezing us
out. We were never really meant to live there in the first place. The only reason we came at all was because of Kev. If it wasn’t for him, we’d never have moved. We’d still be
living on the South Circular in the house where Dad had been born. And if Kev was the reason we came to Hillcourt Rise, what would be the reason we’d leave?

Because of the snow, David’s departure for Clonrath was delayed. Every school in the country had extended their holidays. While the rest of us were delighted and wanted
the Big Freeze to stay forever, he went around wishing the snow would hurry up and melt. Boarding school, he claimed, was something he was actually looking forward to. Despite Tracey and Valerie
blaming me for David being sent away, he himself seemed weirdly relieved to be going, as if some sort of weight had been lifted from him. He became less serious, more relaxed. I saw him at mass the
Sunday he finally left and noticed he’d left his coat unzipped and the top button of his shirt undone.

On my way back from Mealy’s one evening with Kev, I met Shayne. Though Mam had told me dinner was almost ready, and not to be long, I stopped to talk to him. There was something I had to
ask. I needed to start clearing things up if I was to make any sense of the bad feeling I’d been having. I hadn’t mentioned anything about seeing his mam with Dad in The Ramblers. It
felt safer to keep it secret. But I had to find out if Dad had been telling the truth about his ‘breath of air’.

We stood at the top of the lane. He had that faraway look in his eyes, only this time it seemed he was more unconnected to his thoughts than usual.

‘Did anyone call to your house on Christmas night?’ I asked, watching his face closely.

He took a while to answer. ‘Christmas night? Um . . . I dunno. Can’t remember. Why?’

‘It’s just that . . . well, my dad went out for a walk and I saw him running back from the direction of your house and I thought maybe . . . well . . .’

His gaze became more steady. ‘Oh, yeah . . . Christmas night. Yeah . . . I remember now.’ I saw his pupils shrink. ‘Me ma went to the door. Yeah . . . she thought it
might’ve been me uncle Vic.’

‘But it was my dad?’

‘Yeah . . . yeah . . . yer da . . .’

‘What did he want? Did you hear what he was saying or anything?’

‘Nah. Had me music on, didn’t I? Me ma let me use her record player, ye know, ’cos it was Christmas and all.’

‘Oh. So you don’t know what he wanted?’

‘Me? Nah.’ He bit his thumbnail. ‘I could . . . ask me ma if ye like?’

‘No! No. It’s OK. It . . . it doesn’t matter,’ I said as I wheeled Kev on towards home.

So. My suspicions had been right. Dad had called to Liz on Christmas night. Who did he think he was fooling?
‘I needed a breath of fresh air . . .’

I knew it. I just knew it.

And the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that this was part of the something bad I’d told the others about. Whenever I thought of Dad and Liz, I got that awful
stinging-nettle feeling that crept through me like a rash. I knew I’d have to tell someone soon – Mam, the others, Father Feely, even. I wouldn’t be able to stop the bad thing
happening if I didn’t.

School was as boring as ever when it started up again. The only good thing was Aidan Farrell was out for a few days. Geraldine had squeezed Farrell number eight out into the
world the night before we went back (a boy – Brian) and Tracey and Aidan were left in charge while their mother was in hospital. I saw them at the door one morning, while Clem cycled off to
work – Tracey with Fiona on her hip and another Farrell hanging off her leg, and Aidan with a potty in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other. When he saw me looking, he stuck his tongue
out and gave me the two fingers.

It was easier to pass the O’Deas’ house now that David was gone. It didn’t feel half as creepy as it had before. But in some ways, it was as if his absence was more noticeable
than his presence had been – the way you notice the hole a missing tooth leaves far more than you ever noticed the actual tooth. His piano tunes had been part of the air around Hillcourt
Rise, and not hearing them was kind of strange.

In early February, Dad announced that he’d got some big contract to paint an estate of new houses, miles away in County Kildare. It meant he had to leave really early,
and every morning I woke to the sound of his whistling ringing through the house. He rarely got home before eight. Mam always looked weary when we came down for breakfast. Kev had become a bit of a
handful, whinging and moaning if he didn’t get his own way. He’d started to say a few words, his favourite being ‘no’, and Mam was worn out trying to get him to do what he
was told. I knew she hated the way Dad had to leave so early and wasn’t home till late, and while she did say she was happy he’d got the work, she said she wished it wasn’t so far
away. But I was glad he had to spend so much time away from Hillcourt Rise. It meant there was less chance of him having any contact with Liz. I didn’t care how far the houses were from
anything. The longer it took Dad to paint them, the better.

Bridie stopped me at the gate one afternoon on my way home from school, all fidgety and breathless, to tell me that her daughter, Majella, had got engaged to her garda boyfriend on
Valentine’s Day and the wedding was planned for ‘June twelve months’. If she thought she could pretend that everything between us was all right, she was mistaken. I just said,
‘That’s nice’ and walked off, leaving her muttering something about her crocuses being very late for the time of year.

Shayne didn’t seem to be around as much now that David was gone. Whenever I did happen to see him, he was always in a world of his own, like he didn’t quite know what to do with
himself. I think he felt a bit lost. Despite everything that had happened between them, I suppose he felt that David was better than no friend at all. Some evenings, he cycled round and round the
green with his head lowered and the neck of his T-shirt pulled up over his chin, not seeming to care that he couldn’t possibly see where he was going.

I was heading home from school one afternoon when I saw him cycling towards me on the path. He’d obviously skipped off class early again. Mel said he was doing it a lot lately. Sandra told
me Liz had been called up to the school the first time it’d happened and she’d arrived wearing her knee-high boots, a very short skirt and loads of make-up. She’d spent ages in
the headmaster’s office and after that, Shayne never got in trouble for anything.