Carry Me Down (11 page)

At the end of school the next day, Kate bumps into me when I’m taking my coat off the rack in the corridor outside our classroom. ‘Whoops,’ she says. ‘So sorry.’

‘That’s all right,’ I say.

‘I’ve heard all about you,’ she says. ‘Brendan’s told me.’

I try to put my coat on, but it falls from my numb fingers.

‘The smell of urine makes me feel sick,’ she says. ‘It puts me off drinking my milk. I’m already squeamish about milk and your smell just puts me off my milk even more.’

I’m hurt and I’m curious. I’ve never heard the word squeamish before, and it swims in my head.

‘Do you know what surreptitious means?’ I ask.

‘No, but I bet you don’t either,’ she says.

‘I do,’ I say. ‘It means in secret. The day I wet my pants, I was breaking a world record for not going to the toilet. I was doing it surreptitiously.’

I have an itch in the back of my throat, the kind of itch that threatens to turn into an uncontrollable cough. This is probably because I have lied. It will be good to learn to lie without my body doing anything bad to me.

‘You?’ she laughs. ‘How hilarious.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say.

I walk away.

But I can barely manage it. My legs, like my fingers, feel numb.
The sound of my shoes on the floor is odd, one shoe making a louder noise than the other. My steps are out of rhythm; the stride on my right side is longer than the stride on my left.

I hold my breath and wonder if I might fall over. I want to lean against something. I have lost the knack of walking. I hold my breath until I’m out of the school grounds, until I reach the first tree at the start of the laneway. My heart is hurting. I walk quickly, then stop.

It’s a bright, clear day and the birds seem to know it. I look around and pay attention to the trees. I pay attention to the clouds between the trees. I turn three full circles like a discus thrower and throw a stone as hard as I can at the sky.

It’s a good, strong throw.

I wait for the sound of the stone, but it doesn’t come back down – at least, I don’t hear it land – and I stand in the laneway, puzzled about where it might have gone. And still the stone doesn’t land, and I smile at the sky.

By the time I arrive home, I’m not as sad as I expect to be. I go to the living room; there’s nobody there. I go to the kitchen; there’s nobody there either. Granny isn’t in her room but she has a fat, white candle lit on her dresser. She must be saying a novena. That was what she meant about having nine days of patience left. The novena will take nine days. But what is she praying for? For my father, praying that he’ll get a job? I will tell him when he comes home. I sit at the kitchen table and wait.

When my mother comes home, she goes straight upstairs to her bedroom. It’s night-time and when I see my father standing in the kitchen doorway, I realise that I’ve been sitting in complete darkness.

He comes to me and puts his hand on my head. ‘I’ll make you some sausages for tea,’ he says.

‘Where have you been?’ I ask.

‘Working,’ he says as he turns on the lamps.

‘Where? What work?’

‘Let me make these sausages and then we can watch the idiot box together and we can talk. All right?’

‘Granny is saying a novena so you’ll get a job. It must have worked already.’

He throws his head back and opens his mouth and keeps it open and his head thrown back. This is his way of laughing without making any sound.

‘Why are you laughing like that?’ I ask.

‘Is laughing a crime now?’

‘No.’

‘Just as well, because I’m in the mood for it.’

He tousles my hair and smiles at me.

‘Where’s Mam?’ I ask.

‘Upstairs. Bedroom. Leave her in peace.’

‘I want to talk to her,’ I say. ‘I have to tell her something important.’

‘Is something the matter?’

‘There’s nothing the matter with me. But isn’t there something wrong with you and Granny?’

He pulls hard at his fringe, tugs the thick hair, using his fingers to pull it down, straight and flat over his right eye. ‘We’ve had a few discussions and we’ve disagreed over a few things, but we’ve made our peace. Anyway, it’s not anything for you to worry about.’

‘I’m going upstairs,’ I say.

‘I said to leave her.’

‘I have to talk to her about something.’

‘John, can you not just leave your mam in peace? You’ll see her soon enough.’

We are silent while he makes the sausages and then he leaves
the kitchen with his plate and goes to the living room. I follow. He sits on the settee and I sit down with him. We each have a plate of sausages; four sausages each.

‘If you’ve anything to get off your chest, you can always tell me,’ he says.

I pick up a sausage and put it back down again. ‘Brendan’s not talking to me,’ I say.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know.’

He eats a whole sausage without chewing, swallows it in three mouthfuls. The chunks of sausage are so big I can see them going down his throat.

‘Have you asked him why?’

‘No,’ I say, looking at my plate.

‘Well if you don’t ask him you won’t find out, will you?’

I don’t want to talk about the day I wet my pants. ‘He’s made friends with the new girl.’

‘Oh. Well then, I think you should make friends with her.’

‘But I don’t think he wants me to be his friend any more.’

My father has already finished his sausages. ‘Are you going to eat yours?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘I think you should talk to Brendan.’ He scratches his chin. ‘I think you should talk to your friend and not go running to your mother.’

I make a sausage stand upright and use it to push another one over on its side.

‘Do you agree?’

‘I agree,’ I say.

I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’m sick of the way he changes in the middle of a conversation. He can do what he likes from now on. I know what I want to do.

‘Time for the news,’ he says. ‘Shall we watch it together?’

* * *

We watch the news together, in silence. There’s a policeman on the news and he says: ‘The suspect allegedly tore at the victim’s night skirt and asked her to undress but the female did not comply with this alleged request and the evildoer’s intentions were quite clear.’

Without looking at me, my father says, ‘I love the way the guards talk. They’re always trying to sound intelligent and end up sounding brain-damaged.’

‘I s’pose,’ I say.

‘You
suppose
, not you s’pose.’

Crito jumps onto my father’s lap and my father pushes her off. ‘I’ve had just about enough of that cat’s dander,’ he says.

‘What’s dander?’ I ask.

‘The stuff that gets up my nose. I hate stuff that gets up my nose.’

He laughs then, like a madman, and gets up to take a cigarette out of the box kept on the mantelpiece. He sucks at the cigarette as though it is a burning sweet, as though he has to get to the end of it as quickly as possible to receive his reward. He rarely talks while he smokes. He prefers to squint and look at the fire. Let him. I leave.

My mother still hasn’t come downstairs and it’s nearly nine o’clock. I go to the kitchen and fry another six sausages and I bring them up to her with some bread and a bottle of tomato sauce.

She’s sitting up in bed, wearing a cardigan over her pink shop coat.

‘Room service!’ I say. I put the plate on her bed and she laughs.

‘Six sausages! You sausage!’

‘Do you want them?’

‘No, you have them. I’m too tired to eat.’

‘Are you going to sleep now?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’

‘Where’s Da been?’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday and today.’

‘Working. He’s got himself some odd jobs.’

‘Does that mean everything is normal again with Granny?’

‘It will be soon,’ she says. She closes her eyes.

‘Will you turn off the light on your way out.’

I didn’t know that I was on my way out.

She turns over and doesn’t look at me. The room smells of farts.

I feel embarrassed for her.

My father doesn’t come downstairs for breakfast. I ask my mother where he is and she wipes her hand along the side of my face. ‘He went on the early bus to Wexford to talk to his old boss.’

‘Again?’

‘He’s still trying to sort out a few things,’ she says.

‘But it’s three years since he stopped working,’ I say.

My granny lowers a rasher into her mouth the way a zookeeper lowers a piece of fish into the mouth of a sea lion. ‘He’s doing the things a man does,’ she says. ‘He’s getting his nose out of the books and he’s getting off his bony backside.’

My mother stands up and goes to the window. She’s counting to ten to control her temper the way she taught me; I can see the fingers of her left hand tapping out the numbers on her thigh. She’s wearing pink lipstick, a long pink woollen skirt, a white blouse and her hair is out. She looks beautiful and she knows I’m staring and does nothing to stop me. When she’s finished counting she comes back to the table and smiles at me.

‘Another lovely day,’ she says. ‘Fine and fresh and crisp.’

‘Who wants a game of backgammon?’ asks Granny. ‘John?’

‘There’s not enough time.’

‘You’ve got ten minutes. How about a few quick hands of blackjack then?’

‘OK.’

My mother starts whistling and Granny gets the cards from the dresser and deals.

On the way to school I think about last night’s dream in which Ripley found out about my gift for lie detection. I was living with him in his big house in America and it was as though I was his son.

I could see every one of his small, crooked teeth. I said, ‘Even though you have small and crooked and buck teeth you are still famous,’ and he smiled and put his arm around me and we walked together down his driveway towards his convertible sports car.

Because I can’t do an American accent very well, not even in dreams, Ripley had to mumble when he spoke to me, and because he was mumbling I couldn’t exactly understand what he was saying, but I felt sure he was telling me that I’d be famous one day soon.

There was only one bad part in the dream. The roof of Ripley’s car was made of cardboard and, as we drove along the highway together, the cardboard buckled and warped and seemed to want to break off.

When I told Ripley I was worried about the roof, he turned to look at me and his teeth were suddenly straight and big. He didn’t look like himself any more. I woke up then, and blamed the last part, the bad part of my dream, on the noises in the hallway outside my room; the noises of my father and Granny arguing.

At twenty past nine, Mr Donnelly comes into our classroom. For a few minutes he tidies things on Miss Collins’ desk, takes things out of her top stationery drawer and puts them back in. Then he speaks.

‘Miss Collins is sick and while she’s getting better you’ll have a new teacher who will be starting today – as soon as he can get here. The new teacher is a nice man from Dublin. His name is Mr Roche and he will be your substitute until Miss Collins is made better and back on her feet.’

Now he stuffs his hands in his pockets.

I stop listening and look out the window.

Mr Donnelly tells us to play outside. ‘And pray for Miss Collins until your new teacher arrives.’

It is another clear day and the sun is out. I walk down by the edge of the playing field and run a stick along the fence. I don’t look back at the school building or to see what Brendan and Kate are doing.

I see Joseph with his horse on the other side of the fence near the road. He’s with another man. I go up to the gate to say hello.

Joseph’s friend says, ‘Would you like a ride on my horse? His name is Zorro.’

I don’t know Joseph’s friend’s name, but he is friendly and shorter and fatter than Joseph. ‘All right,’ I say. ‘Yes, please.’

I go out through the fence and Joseph’s friend helps me on. This horse is sick, and covered in sores, but it is too late to say I don’t want to ride. When I climb on, I can feel his ribs against my calves.

I’m riding along by the edge of the road, with Joseph and Joseph’s friend chatting and joking, and I feel like the world belongs to me. I don’t feel nervous and I don’t mind that Brendan and Kate are playing together without me. I don’t care that I am like Osmond, playing on my own. At least when I talk to myself I do it quietly without waving my hands about and nobody can see my lips moving.

I get hungry after a while. ‘I better go back now,’ I say. ‘I better eat my lunch.’

I get down from Zorro and look at him. I want to stare into
his eyes the way I do with Joseph’s horse, Neddy. But Zorro doesn’t want to stare and he turns his face away. I suddenly feel nervous again, and I wonder if it’s because I can only see one of Zorro’s eyes and I don’t know what the other eye is doing.

‘Thanks Joseph,’ I say. ‘Bye now.’

‘Bye now young John,’ says Joseph’s friend.

‘What’s your name?’ I ask him.

‘Joseph. Same as him.’

‘So long,’ I say. ‘I’ll say hello to Granny for you.’

‘Yes. Bye now.’

‘Be good, so.’

I sit on the bench under Mr Donnelly’s office window feeling happy and begin to eat my jam sandwich. I should have given the Josephs some biscuits and I look up to see if they are still out by the gate.

I see Kate. She is coming towards me, pulling Brendan’s jacket. ‘Come on, Brendan,’ she says. ‘Let’s get his sandwich.’

Kate looks around after she shouts at me. She wants to be watched. Brendan looks down at his feet, and leans in close to Kate, as though for warmth, or in case he falls. And he puts his hand over his nose, the way he does when he’s embarrassed.

Kate stands over me. ‘Have you wet your pants today?’

I put a crust into my mouth and try to chew, but it feels as big and dry as a sock. I push it between my bottom lip and my teeth but the piece of crust gets stuck there.

‘Pants-wetter! I’m talking to you!’ she says.

My penis tingles as though somebody has touched it. I squeeze my thighs together.

‘Get his sandwich off him,’ she says as she grabs Brendan by the jacket. ‘Kick him in the kneecap. Get both his kneecaps.’

Brendan kicks my knee and I let him. I could fight back, but
I won’t. I will act as though they don’t exist. I will watch Brendan as though he were a picture on the television.

After he has kicked me, he staggers and needs to step back to get his balance. And because I don’t react he seems confused. He looks down at his shoe.

I stare at him, and he kicks me again, in the other knee, harder this time. Maybe to show he doesn’t need orders from his master. He’s quite strong, so the kick is hard. I look at him. I look at them both as though I don’t care what they do. My face is blank. I put my hands on my knees and the heat from my palms helps the pain. But I show nothing. I’ll say nothing; like the caretaker.

‘Get it now!’ Kate says. ‘Get the sandwich!’

Brendan takes the rest of my jam sandwich and without meaning to says, ‘Thanks.’ He looks confused, as though he wants to change his mind.

I stand up and walk away.

I go back to the classroom and sit and read my geography book. But after a few minutes, when I turn the page, I see that there’s sticky blood on the end of my finger. I’ve been scratching my scalp so much that there is a small hole in the crown of my head. I scratch it at night when I can’t get to sleep and I dig at the hole, sometimes without noticing, until it bleeds. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should. The hole doesn’t exactly belong to me.

After lunch, Mr Donnelly orders us back inside. He stands in front of our classroom, but he doesn’t speak. He holds the blackboard duster in his hand and it looks as small as a biscuit. He puts the duster down and, when he tries to stuff his hands into his pockets, only the tips of his red fingers fit and the rest of them poke out, squashed, full of blood and shiny. They are red fingers, just like my father’s, but fatter.

Kate stands up and yells, ‘If the new teacher is so late, he should get the cane!’

The cane is leaning up against the left-hand corner of the blackboard and Mr Donnelly looks at it for a moment before turning to face the window.

I look out the window too, at the playing field, the school gate, and the narrow, tree-lined country road.

It is nearly two o’clock when a man gets out of a taxi at the gate and walks across the field towards us.

He is young – younger than my father – and, although not tall, he looks strong, with black hair to his shoulders. I have never before seen a man with long hair, or a man getting out of a taxi at our school gate.

He looks made of hard materials, steel and iron, not easily broken. Most of the men in our town seem like they are made of sponge cake or leftover turnip, like my uncles, Jack and Tony, who are overweight around the stomach and chin. Their blotchy skin is like turkey stuffing.

Most of the men in our town not only look the same, they act the same too; even my father becomes more like my uncles when he’s with them. But at least my father is more handsome than they are.

The man comes closer and I am full of hope: I have always wanted a smart man for a teacher, a man with mettle and brains, and as I watch him disappear from view I can hardly stop myself smiling.

Mr Donnelly seems confused and wipes the teacher’s desk back and forth with the blackboard duster, as though erasing a mistake.

A minute of silence, and then the man walks through the door and to the front of our classroom. Mr Donnelly puts the duster down and stands next to him.

They speak for a minute or two and then leave the room together. Mr Donnelly ducks his head and shoulders under the doorway and they are gone.

Sister Ursula comes to keep watch. She stands by the blackboard and tells us to read. ‘As quiet as mice,’ she says.

Thirty minutes later, the man returns alone and Sister Ursula leaves without speaking.

‘You’ll call me Mr Roche, not sir,’ he says.

We snicker and fidget and stare.

He walks along by the blackboard.

‘You live in a beautiful town. I bet if you were quiet enough you could hear the boats rub against the pier and the fish burp and the seagulls snore.’

We laugh because Courtown’s sandy beach and Courtown Bay are four miles from Gorey and we cannot hear the seagulls or the boats. This is a lie, a story, told for fun and I like it; I like him.

I watch as Mr Roche moves between our desks, and I can smell him. Perhaps he stood in manure in his walk across the field; it’s the same smell as the farmers who have breakfast at Kylemore’s in town. It doesn’t suit his fancy clothes and posh voice to have this smell on his shoes and I wonder when he’ll notice and clean them.

‘Now, I’m going to have a short quiet chat with every one of you,’ he says and he crouches down at each desk in turn, asking questions in a whisper.

I wait anxiously for my turn, thinking that he’ll soon discover me and know that I’m different. I’ll tell him about my gift.

At Brendan’s desk, Mr Roche crouches down and this time he does not whisper. We can all hear him say, ‘Are you easily influenced, Brendan?’

Brendan shrugs, then Mr Roche puts his mouth against Brendan’s ear.

‘OK, I will,’ Brendan says and then he drops his head and keeps it down, as though looking for an important message written on his desk.

Mr Roche reaches Kate’s desk, but he doesn’t kneel down to whisper in her ear. Instead, he sits on the empty desk behind hers, taps her on the shoulder and says, ‘And who might you be?’

Kate turns to look at him. ‘I’m Kate Breslin,’ she says. ‘I’m an only child from Dublin and my family has taken over a deceased estate.’

‘Well, Kate, I believe you’re the clever one. That must make you feel quite special?’

And then I know it: Mr Donnelly took Mr Roche away to talk about each of us. Now I am sure Mr Roche will realise who I am.

‘Not really,’ says Kate, her voice trembling.

‘Clever or not,’ Mr Roche says, ‘I hope your coffin is airtight.’

He laughs and the whole class laughs with him, because what he has said makes no sense. Even Brendan turns round to show me his laughing teeth.

Mr Roche walks to the front, sits on the edge of the teacher’s desk and smiles directly at me. Although he didn’t come to my desk, I’m sure he knows. I’m sure he will help me.

As soon as I get home, I make a toasted ham sandwich and then I lie on my bed and spend two hours writing another letter to the
Guinness Book of Records
. I’m confident I’ll get a reply this time.

My mother comes into my room at teatime without knocking. ‘Why don’t you knock?’ I say. ‘Don’t I have any privacy?’

She laughs and sits on my bed. ‘Aren’t you a cheeky one? Maybe I did knock and your ears are too full of earwigs to hear.’

She rubs my leg as she speaks.

‘I hate talking about housework, but it’s high time you did some of your chores. Could you please do them without being reminded? You haven’t done the hoovering for a week and you haven’t dusted the mantelpiece either.’

‘Sorry.’

‘All right. You can eat, then. We’re having chops for tea and I’ve made some rhubarb and custard for dessert,’ she says.

And suddenly, even though I haven’t seen my father in two days, I am happy.