The Story of Before (8 page)

‘Just outside for a while,’ I said, directly into her ear as I clambered past and tried not to get tangled up in the flex.

‘Don’t go far. Kevin’s due to wake soon and I want you to keep an eye on him while I wash my hair.’

Mam usually washed her hair at night-time when she had a bath. She only washed it in the morning if she wanted to put it in curlers for the day, and that only meant one thing.

‘Who’s minding us?’ I shouted. ‘Please don’t say it’s Auntie Cissy.’

Mam frowned and switched off the hoover. ‘What do you mean, “who’s minding us”?’

‘Babysitting,’ I said. ‘You are going out tonight, aren’t you?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘No secrets with you, are there? And it’s not Cissy, by the way. We’ve decided to let you mind yourselves for a change.’

‘Mind ourselves?’ I said, grinning. ‘You mean . . . you’re leaving us on our own?’ I could hardly believe it.

‘You needn’t get too excited,’ she said, waving the hoover tube at me. ‘We’re only going down to The Ramblers for a quiet drink. I think I deserve to escape for a
couple of hours now that Kevin is on the bottle.’

I could’ve thought of better places to escape to than the smelly old Ramblers. Dad had taken us in one Sunday after mass. We’d perched on the rickety barstools, swigging warm Cidona
straight from the bottle. Old men with flat caps and gaps in their teeth drank pints of Guinness in grubby alcoves of the bar, throwing remarks at each other across the stinking, yellow fug that
passed for air. I didn’t like the place at all.

Halfway down the stairs I stopped. ‘What if he wakes up?’

‘I’ll leave a bottle just in case,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to cope. You can sort out who does what among yourselves.’ She made it sound
easy. I groaned as I pictured us trying to ‘cope’. She pretended to lash out at me with the tube of the hoover. ‘Go on away with you,’ she said, trying to sound cross. Then
she turned and switched the machine on again, her bum wiggling from side to side as she attacked the carpet once more.

Outside, everything appeared grey. There was little difference between the colour of the roads and the walls and the sky. Since summer had ended, the place had taken on a sort of settled
stillness that hung over the houses like a damp blanket. It was cold. I fastened the tusk-shaped toggles of my brown duffle coat and pushed my hands deep into its pockets. I thought about pulling
my hood up but I’d taken out my weekday plaits and I liked the way my hair was all rippled, flowing over my shoulders and down my back. The wet grass on the green made my shoes slick and
shiny, as if I’d spent ages polishing them. I stopped for a moment, lifting each foot and twisting it left and right to admire the effect.

‘Mmm, what nice shoes you have my dear . . .’ It was David, appearing out of nowhere again, clicking his wristband open and shut. ‘All the better to kick you to death
with.’

My insides jumped but I took a deep breath and managed not to show him that he’d scared me.

‘Ha ha. Very funny,’ I said.

‘Thank you, kind lady. So appealing that my humour is appreciated.’ He came up close to me. ‘And what’s this, pray tell?’ he said, flicking at my hair with his
long, slender fingers. ‘Why, I think even Rapunzel herself would be jealous.’

While I was glad he’d noticed my hair, I didn’t care for the way he touched it, as if it was tainted with an infectious disease. I stepped away, eyeing him up and down. He was
smiling but I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny or not. I got the feeling he was acting, pretending to be something he wasn’t. In one of Mel’s
Strange But True
books, I’d read about people who burst into flames without matches or fire being anywhere near them. For some reason, I could imagine that happening to David. There was something strange
going on inside him and it made me uneasy.

‘And where is Rapunzel off to this fine morning?’ he asked.

I hated the way he was speaking. Like he was in some kind of stupid play.

‘Nowhere,’ I said, beginning to walk away.

He followed after me. ‘Nowhere? A most intriguing answer, don’t you think?’

‘Not really.’ I squeezed the snake in my pocket. I had to think of some way of getting rid of him. ‘Actually, I . . . I . . . I’m going down to the
Lawlesses’.’ I began to run.

‘Well then!’ he said, breaking into a kind of trot. ‘I shall accompany you. I wish to speak to Master Lawless myself.’ He kept up with me as I sprinted along towards
Shayne’s house. ‘And what has you calling on them at this early hour, pray?’

I pushed open the gate and gritted my teeth. ‘I . . . I just want to see how my dad’s getting on. See if he needs any help. He’s painting their kitchen.’

‘Ah yes,’ he said, tapping on the door. ‘I heard. The mysterious case of the disappearing snake.’ He gave me a narrow, sideways glance and I swallowed hard.

‘Ye’re here bright and early for a Saturday, aren’t ye?’ Liz said to David when she opened up. She held a brown and orange striped mug in one hand and a thick slice of
well-buttered toast in the other. She yawned. ‘Don’t think he’s even awake yet. Go on up anyway.’ David took the stairs two at a time and she watched after him before
turning to me with a cold look in her eyes. ‘Yer Dad’s busy,’ she said, chewing her toast noisily. ‘Do ye want me to give him a message or what?’

‘I . . . uh . . . I just wanted to ask him if he needed any . . . help.’ I tried to look past her into the kitchen, hoping Dad might see me at the door. She took another bite and
frowned.

‘Help, is it? Sure, isn’t yer brother here to help him?’ She wore a white bobbly jumper with a row of red hearts across the chest and a low rounded neck. The kind of jumper you
were supposed to wear a blouse under. A dribble of tea had left a wormy brown stain down its front, and a line of toast crumbs had collected in the crease between her bosoms. ‘Go on,’
she said, slurping from her mug and nodding in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Ye can go in and say hello, I suppose.’

She led the way into the kitchen. Her jeans were rolled up at the ankles and her feet were bare, showing purple-painted nails that curled over the tops of her toes. The place smelled of
cigarettes, rotten vegetables and disinfectant. The door to the front room was open and I glanced inside as I passed. The seat cushions from the brown couch were all out of place, as if someone had
been searching under them and not bothered to put them back properly. On a low coffee table in front of the fireplace, glasses with various levels of dregs stood around a big brass ashtray
overflowing with twisted butts.

‘What’re
you
doing here?’ Mel asked when I stepped into the kitchen.

Dad was leaning against the countertop, smoking, and drinking tea. He straightened himself up when he saw me and stubbed his cigarette out in the sink. He didn’t even have his overalls on.
‘Something wrong?’ he asked.

‘I came to see if you needed any help, that’s all. I thought you’d have started by now.’

‘Just about to,’ he said, tipping his head back to drain his mug.

‘And we don’t need your help,’ Mel said, prising open a paint tin with a knife. ‘You’d only be in the way.’

Liz gave me one of her no-teeth smiles. ‘Well! That was a wasted journey, then. I’ll see you out so.’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I . . . I really need to go to the toilet.’

‘Sure, can’t you run on home and go?’ Dad said. ‘You’ll be there in two minutes.’

‘But . . . I’m bursting. I really need to go now.’

Dad looked at Liz. ‘I’m sorry, is it all right if she . . . ?’

‘Go on!’ she said, with a false
little laugh. ‘Top of the stairs.’ She followed me out to the hall, then lowered her voice: ‘Ye’ll be able to have a good nose around while ye’re up there.
That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?’

I felt like pulling the snake out of my pocket, flinging it at her and telling Dad he didn’t have to paint her kitchen after all. Why had I felt the need to say I’d thrown the snake
away anyway? When Liz had called to the door, I could’ve admitted I had it. But there was something about her that sort of forced me to lie, as if it was what she expected. Producing the
snake might’ve made her like me, and I realised now that I didn’t want her to.

All the bedroom doors were open, and none showed any signs of life. The first had a big double bed with lacy pillowcases and a plum-coloured velvet headboard. Clothes and towels were tangled up
in balls and tossed all over the floor, and the scuffed toe of a cowboy boot peeked out from under the fringes of the bedspread. In the next room there was a small unmade bed, a huge white wardrobe
with oval shaped mirrors on the doors, and a black plastic chair piled high with a tower of yellowing magazines. I presumed this was Shayne’s room, as the third bedroom was stuffed almost to
the ceiling with cardboard boxes and junk. The bed was visible, but only just. But if the room with the white wardrobe was Shayne’s, why wasn’t he in there? And where was David?
Confused, I began to look around the landing.

Then I saw it: a narrow, twisting, uncarpeted staircase that led towards the ceiling. Shayne’s room was in the attic.

Before I’d thought about it, I found myself on the top step, staring at the words ‘Go Away’ that were carefully written in green marker on the door. I could hear the low buzz
of mumbling coming from behind it and was trying to make out what was being said when David opened it up. His face didn’t register even mild surprise.

‘Well, if it isn’t Rapunzel herself, come to dangle her hair out the window and wait for her prince to ride by.’

‘What the hell’s
she
doin’ here?’ Shayne asked.

‘I fear the fair maiden hath followed me,’ David said. ‘We met out in the meadow, did we not?’

‘Did ye not read what it says on the door?’ Shayne asked me.

‘I . . . I was looking for the bathroom. Your Mam said it was at the top of the stairs.’

’Hardly all the way up here, is it?’ he said. His hair stuck out from his head in thick tufts and he wore only a pair of striped pyjama bottoms.

‘How come your room’s up here?’ I asked.

‘Just is.’ He scratched his chest and stared at me.

‘But why don’t you have one of the other rooms? Why is yours up here?’

‘I dunno, do I?’ he said, annoyed. ‘Cos me ma got me uncle Keith to make it, all right?’

I’d seen Uncle Keith once or twice. He wore blue overalls like Dad that hung loose from his bony body, and heavy brown boots with metal heels that clicked as they hit the ground. He had a
droopy, untidy moustache and gingery-blond hair that looked as if he’d hacked at it with a blunt scissors in the dark – short and spiky on top and long and straggly, like a dirty
dog’s tail, down his back. He was always hauling boxes of stuff into the house from his van, whistling tunes I didn’t recognize.

‘You must be able to see loads from your window,’ I said, trying to peer past him. ‘The mountains, maybe? Can I have a look?’

‘No.’

‘Please? I have to go home soon. I’ll only be a second.’

He looked at David, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

‘Hurry up,’ Shayne said with a loud sigh.

The first thing that struck me was how secret it felt. How I imagined a nest might feel to a baby bird. This was a place apart, a place that didn’t feel connected to anything; not to the
house, not to the estate, not even to the rest of the world.

Things could happen here. Hidden things. It was in the air; I could smell it.

The ceiling was painted midnight blue and it sloped on either side like a tent. The window set into it was open, and I stepped up on the tea-chest underneath to have a look outside. Staring out
over the place where we lived, I wondered if this was how God felt when he looked down at the world from Heaven. I could see the whole of Hillcourt Rise. To the right was the green, where I spied a
few of the Farrells in the care of Aidan, running around with their arms outstretched, bumping into each other on purpose. Their mother was standing at the end of their drive, arms folded, chatting
to Nora Vaughan. I saw Bridie on her way back from Mealy’s Mini Market, squeezed into a sheepskin coat and hauling a string bag full of groceries. I saw people in their back gardens, children
on swings, dads raking leaves, mams hanging washing on lines. And to the left, way beyond the open fields behind the estate, the Dublin Mountains rose and fell in waves of brown and purple.

David and Shayne stood out on the tiny landing, laughing loudly in between low whispers. I jumped down from the chair and looked at the narrow bed with its thin brown blanket, grubby,
daisy-patterned sheets and white pillowcase mottled with ancient, yellow-brown dribble stains. The headboard was made of chipboard covered with a layer of varnished wood, lumps of which had been
hacked away with something sharp. Against it, a single photograph dangled from a curling strip of Sellotape. It showed a much younger, chubbier Shayne beside a smiling, beefy man in a black leather
jacket. ‘Uncle Joe’ it said, in scribbly biro on the white border.

Looking at it made me feel bad that I had the snake. I reached into my skirt pocket and closed my hand around the clammy rubber. I didn’t like the feel of it against my fingers any more. I
straightened myself up and turned to leave, but before I did, I swung around and thrust the snake underneath his filthy pillow.

That night, Mam and Dad came downstairs in a waft of perfume and aftershave while we were watching
The Generation Game
. Mam spent ages going on about Kev: how often we
should check on him, what to do if he woke up, when to give him his bottle. I tried to listen but was distracted by Mel; he was all jumpy and fidgety and kept darting his eyes over to the sideboard
where Mam and Dad had said there was a box of Maltesers for us to share. As soon as they left for The Ramblers, he grabbed the sweets out of the drawer and ripped off the cellophane. Naturally,
Sandra had a fight with him over them, but she settled down once
Starsky and Hutch
came on. It was one of her favourites. She’d stuck posters of both cops on our wall, though I
couldn’t understand how she found either of them even remotely attractive.