The Story of Before (35 page)

Mam managed to keep upright until Kev’s coffin was lowered into the ground. Then her knees kind of gave way and Dad had to grab her and stop her from falling into the grave. I think if he
hadn’t, she wouldn’t have cared. She’d have let herself be buried alive. I won’t ever forget the sound she made. Not ever.

The days that followed were the worst. Everything was turned upside down. Auntie Cissy offered to have the three of us and Dad wanted us to go. But Mam said she wouldn’t
be able to bear the house without us. Even though she said that, she acted as if we weren’t there. She lived in some sort of in-between world and took to staying up for most of the night and
sleeping in snatches during the day. I’d come into the kitchen and find her slumped with her head on the tray of Kev’s highchair and she’d spring up in fright when she heard me,
her eyes wild with fear and her hair stuck to her head with sweat.

At night, the lights were left on and all the doors were kept open, and we’d hear strange sobs and all sorts of shuffling and moaning. We’d come down in the morning to find plates of
cold scrambled eggs and hard toast on the table that she’d made hours before. And in the evenings, she filled the bath with warm water and bubbles and sat on the lid of the toilet for ages,
with a towel in her hands, just staring into space.

On Easter Sunday, we broke our chocolate eggs into pieces and melted them in the fire. The thought of them made us feel sick. Even Sandra, who’d given up sweet things for Lent and had been
looking forward to breaking her fast, wasn’t tempted. Mel seemed to take the greatest pleasure in the task, smashing his eggs with his fists and stamping on the boxes till they were flat.
When Dad came in and saw what we were doing, all he said was to make sure we didn’t leave too much of a mess.

We discovered later on that Shayne had been charged with Kev’s murder on the day of the funeral. Dad had cut the piece about it out of the
Evening Press
and kept it in his wallet. I
found it when Mrs Shine called for the church dues the following Friday and he asked me to take the fifty pence myself because he was doing the washing up and his hands were wet. I didn’t
think Mrs Shine should be calling at all. It didn’t feel right, and I said as much to Dad. But he said something about life going on and her only doing her job. She didn’t mention Kev;
she probably hoped the pained expression on her face was enough. But seeing as it wasn’t any different to the one she usually wore, I couldn’t tell. She did ask how Mam was and went off
on a ramble about some cousin of hers who’d lost a son in a farming accident, but I wasn’t in any mood for her and closed the door before she’d finished.

I sat on the stairs after she’d gone and read the words on the small rectangle of newspaper. ‘Youth on Murder Charge’, it said. It didn’t give Shayne’s name, just
called him ‘a fourteen-year-old youth’ and said he’d been ‘charged at a special sitting of Kilgessin court with the murder of twenty-one-month-old Kevin Lamb of forty-two
Hillcourt Rise, Kilgessin, on Sunday last’. It said he was to be ‘remanded in custody to St Patrick’s Institution to appear before the District Court again on Thursday’.
That was over a week before. I wondered what had happened. I folded the piece of paper up and put it back in Dad’s wallet. There was no use in asking him; I knew he wouldn’t tell.

Father Feely called round the next evening and said we should try to get back to normal, that we’d feel a lot better if we followed our old routine of school and work and going to mass on
Sunday. Dad told him it was good of him to call but, if he didn’t mind, we had our own way of doing things, thank you very much, and there wasn’t much point in us going to all the
trouble of settling into our old routine when we weren’t going to be around very much longer anyway. That was the first time Dad had said anything about moving. Since I’d always had a
feeling it was going to happen, it didn’t surprise me, but the others were shocked and Sandra started to cry. Father Feely got all red-faced and asked Dad if he was sure he was doing the
right thing, would he not think about it for a while longer, and what about all the good friends and neighbours we’d be leaving behind? Dad got mad then and said not one person had asked how
we were since we’d buried Kev. And none of these so-called ‘friends’ had come round to ask any of us out to play. Father Feely said not to be so hard on people, that it was a
difficult time for everyone and no one really knew what to say, and maybe people thought we’d prefer to be left to grieve and didn’t want to intrude. But how could we stay after all
that had happened, Dad wanted to know. It was because of Kev that we’d come here in the first place, he said. He’d been born the day we moved in, for God’s sake. We’d never
even begin to get over it if we stayed. Father Feely said people were very sorry for what had happened, but no one could’ve foreseen such a terrible event, and if any of us had known things
like the fact that the Lawless lad had been violent to his mother, then maybe some sort of action could’ve been taken sooner.

‘And what about David?’ Dad said, boiling up because he thought Father Feely was trying to make out he was in some way responsible. ‘Covering up the fact he was pushed out of
that tree? Maybe if he’d said something back then, Lawless would’ve been locked up long ago.’

Father Feely said we had to make exceptions for children; they couldn’t be expected to have the same sense as adults when it came to doing the right thing. ‘Shayne is a most
unfortunate child,’ he said. ‘A most unfortunate child.’

‘What about my unfortunate child?’ Dad said. ‘That . . . monster might be getting locked up but my child is gone for ever.’

‘Maybe we’re all guilty in one way or another for not saying things we should have,’ Father Feely said, looking at me. ‘But life is a test and none of us know what the
good Lord has in store for us. Isn’t that so? Hmm?’

I think Dad might’ve taken a swipe at Father Feely if Mam hadn’t appeared. She sort of floated into the room in her nightdress, carrying the box of photographs from under her bed.
She’d been crying again and she asked Dad why there didn’t seem to be any pictures of Kev. Dad put his arm around her and tried to explain that they wouldn’t be in the box, that
any we had of Kev would be in the sideboard. But it was like she didn’t hear him and she put the box on the table and began pulling out handfuls of pictures, studying each one and tossing
them to the floor. Father Feely coughed and shuffled around a bit before manoeuvring his stomach out the door and into the hall, saying it was time he left us in peace and maybe he’d see us
at mass in the morning. We heard him droning at the front door with Dad for a few minutes while Mam continued flinging photos all over the place. Then she closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.
Sandra and I gathered them up and put them back, not pausing to look at any of them, not even for a second. It was as if they were pictures of some other family, with no relation to us at all.

Dad came back in and Sandra asked him if was true that we were really moving house. He stood looking at her for a moment, like he was trying to figure out exactly how he should answer. Then Mam
woke up with a jolt and opened her eyes wide. She saw the box of photos on the table and took it onto her lap, saying she must have a good look through and see if she could find any of Kev.

‘Yes, it’s true,’ Dad said. ‘I think it’s for the best.’

That night, Sandra and I pushed our beds together but neither of us could get to sleep. We lay on our backs and held hands under the covers and, after a while, we both began to
cry. Mel must’ve heard us as he crept into our room, asking if we were all right. He sat on the edge of my bed in the dark while we listened to Mam moving around downstairs in the
kitchen.

‘Do you think Mam’s gone a bit . . . crazy?’ he asked.

‘Don’t say that,’ Sandra whispered. ‘She’s not crazy. She’s just . . . I don’t know . . . not herself, that’s all.’

‘Do you think she’ll get better?’

‘Of course she will. She still has us, hasn’t she?’

Mel laid a hand on my foot. ‘What do you think, Ruth?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, wiping my tears with the sheet. ‘I think maybe she’ll get better. But she’ll never be the same as she was before.’

‘I suppose none of us will,’ Sandra said. ‘I mean . . . not really.’

‘I hate Shayne Lawless,’ Mel said. ‘He’s a fuckin’ bastard.’

I could almost taste his words in the silence that followed.

‘What’s going to happen to him?’ Sandra eventually asked.

I answered. ‘Locked up. That’s what Dad said to Father Feely.’

‘I hope that’s true,’ Mel said. ‘I hope we never have to look at his stinking face. Ever again.’

He lay down across our beds, curling the end of the eiderdown around his body. Sandra and I moved our legs up to give him some room. The smell of burned toast found its way up from the kitchen
and, after a few minutes, we heard Dad walking heavily down the stairs.

‘You were right, Ruth,’ Mel said, slipping in under the covers. ‘When you said something bad was going to happen. Remember? On New Year’s Eve, when we were looking out at
the snow?’

‘Did you know it’d be this bad?’ Sandra asked. ‘Did you know it’d be . . . you know . . . about Kev?’

‘No! Of course I didn’t!’ I sat up. ‘It was just a feeling. Just some kind of . . . feeling. It wasn’t . . . I mean . . . I didn’t . . . I thought all kinds
of things were happening. All sorts of bad things. But I was wrong about them. I was wrong.’

‘But you weren’t wrong! You said something bad was going to happen and it did.’

‘Yeah,’ Mel agreed. ‘You really must be, you know . . . psychic.’

‘No, I’m not. I’m not. It’s not like that.’

‘You saw that man before, didn’t you? The one in the graveyard. You drew him on the wall the day after we moved in. Where did you see him? Who do you think he is?’

‘I don’t know. I saw him in the park when Mam was having Kev. Remember I went off on my own? He was there . . . watching me. And then when I drew him on the wall, it was like he was
still watching me, even when he was covered up with the wallpaper.’

‘Maybe he was some kind of . . . spirit or something,’ Sandra said, sitting up and cuddling into me.

‘It’s weird you saw him the day Kev was born,’ Mel said. ‘And then the day he . . .’

‘He might’ve been warning you about Kev. About . . . you know . . .’ Sandra said.

‘Maybe. Do you think Kev . . . If we hadn’t moved here, if we’d stayed in the old house, would he . . . ?’

‘But we only moved here because of Kev,’ Mel said. ‘If we didn’t move here, it’d mean he wouldn’t have been born.’

‘So do you think it was all planned out or something?’ Sandra said. ‘That he was always going to . . . ?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, sliding back down into the bed. ‘And I don’t ever want to find out.’

Next morning, Dad announced we were all going to Auntie Cissy’s to stay. Just till we’d sold the house and found ourselves a new one. I was sure I saw some sort of
relief in Mam’s face. She hadn’t wanted the three of us to go, but she seemed happy that we were all going now, together. Dad said he’d thought long and hard about it and he felt
it was for the best. The house could take months to sell and we weren’t hanging around in Hillcourt Rise all that time. He told us we could start packing as soon as we were finished
breakfast. We were going to leave that day. None of us complained. As much as we hated Auntie Cissy’s house, we didn’t mind the thought of going to live there now, and we were used to
the idea after only a few minutes. Dad said to pack everything into boxes, but only to take essential stuff for the time being. Anything else could be kept in the house until we found a new place
of our own.

Mam walked around in her dressing gown, opening drawers and cupboards. She selected the rolling pin, the sugar bowl and a stainless steel teapot that she never used, and asked Dad to
find her something to pack them into. He told her he’d look after it and sent her into the sitting room for a rest on the couch, putting each item back in its place after she’d gone.
When he was sure she was asleep, he asked Mel to help him carry Kev’s cot downstairs and they lifted it into the garage, along with his highchair and his playpen full of toys.

It didn’t take long for Sandra to pack. I think she surprised herself at how little she felt she needed to bring. Nothing seemed to be that important any more. When she was finished, she
left me to it, managing a smile on her way out, saying she didn’t know how on earth I was going to sort through all of my rubbish. Mel poked his head round the door minutes later, saying it
hadn’t been hard. He’d thrown everything he owned into a large box, and chosen to bring with him only a few comics and his collection of Dinky cars.

I decided to bring some books, some markers and a drawing pad. The rest of my stuff I dumped into a tea-chest Dad had given me from the garage, left over from when we’d moved in. I cleared
my side of the wardrobe, my shelves and finally my drawers. The last one was my underwear drawer. After I’d taken everything out, I found the two things I’d hidden there: the tongue
from Shayne’s snake on its bed of cotton wool, and David’s letter torn into pieces. I twirled the red, forked tongue around in my fingers, watching the way the ‘V’ of it
wobbled about. I wondered if I’d never taken the snake or held onto the tongue, would things have turned out different to the way they did? I knew I had no way of knowing, but I
couldn’t help thinking that they might have.

I took out the letter, pieced it together like a jigsaw, and read it again. I’d been so sure it was full of lies, that it was some sort of joke, a twisted tale of David’s that he was
trying to lure me into.

How could I have been so wrong? How could I not have known?

I took out the song words and read them through again. It was true: there was no escape from reality. Then I put them back in the envelope, along with the tongue and the pieces of the letter,
and went downstairs. Sandra and Mel were in the sitting room with Mam. She was awake now, and Dad had told them to stay and keep an eye on her. They sat holding her hands and talking gently about
going to Cissy’s, while she stared into the fire, her eyes all glassy and still.