Shiver the Whole Night Through (2 page)

I walked past. Caitlin: she pronounced it ‘Kate-lin' in the American style, not ‘Cat-leen', which is how the original Irish name sounded. That had always annoyed me about her; it seemed so dumb. A name travels across the Atlantic and gets misheard over there and comes back and we start using the new, wrong version for some reason.

It's stupid, getting worked up over something so small. I couldn't help it. Anyway, it was pretty much the only thing I'd disliked about Caitlin Downes, and you're allowed one thing, right?

Kate-lin, Cat-leen, however you pronounced it: the girl who broke my heart and kind of ruined my life.

It had happened earlier that year, on a Sunday in July – the fourteenth, which I remember because, one, that's Bastille Day, and two, it was three days after my seventeenth birthday. It's amazing how your emotions can swing so violently in just seventy-two hours: perfect happiness to the depths of misery.

For once we'd been having a half-decent summer, warm and dry most days. The little rain which fell was light, almost pleasurable on your face. And the day of the carnival incident was a scorcher, as though part of the Mediterranean had relocated to our small town on the Irish west coast.

The carnival. Those two words still have the power to send chills up my spine. No, that's not it: they make me feel sick in my stomach. Make me want to throw up.

They'd arrived in town midweek, a small outfit run by semi-dodgy geezers but they seemed all right. You probably wouldn't trust them with the keys to your house, but the rides were safe and the games weren't rigged too much. They travelled around the country all summer, pitching up for a few days in towns along the way. Dodgems, roulette wheel, ring-tossing, the usual.

Barney McFarney's Big Bumper Funfair: the name I'd remember till the day I died. Which, all going to plan, wouldn't be too long coming.

I don't know if Barney McFarney was his real name or something cutesy they dreamed up to sell the carnival. What I know is that he had a son called Francis: about eighteen, handsome, with shining-brown eyes and dark skin. All the girls thought he was gorgeous. I heard one say he was like how she imagined Heathcliff from
Wuthering Heights
. His personality was that mix of edginess and little-boy-lost sensitivity that drives teenage girls nuts. Looking back, I'm not surprised Caitlin fell for him. If I were her, I probably would've done the same. But that didn't make it hurt any less.

We'd been going together for five months. She first kissed me at the Valentine's disco, out of nowhere; I was so surprised and delighted, I had a big dumb smile on my face for a week. Caitlin Downes actually fancied
me
. I couldn't believe it.

I wasn't the ugliest troll in the world, but I wasn't quite in her league either. I was a nerd, one of those quiet guys you're unaware of until one day you realise they've sat next to you for two years and you barely know their name. I was only noticed when someone noticed they never noticed me. I'd kissed a few people but never had a serious girlfriend.

Caitlin was a babe. Auburn hair, fierce green eyes, ski-slope nose.
Great
legs. So much of a babe, in fact, that other kids couldn't believe she was really going with a geek like me when they heard about it. I fell for her, hard and fast. I thought she felt the same. Turns out I was wrong.

We'd got serious quickly, spending a lot of time together. We talked about all sorts of things – Caitlin opened up to me in a way I imagined she didn't, or couldn't, with her friends. She mostly hung out with a group of catty, nasty assholes. We made plans – not long-term but that summer, or next year. We wondered if we should go to the same city for college, or would a long-distance relationship be doable. We shifted all the time, whenever we could.

We even came close to doing
it
, once or twice. I wanted to, I think she did too, but we were young and immature; whatever else happened, I'm glad we didn't. That would have made what followed even harder to bear: deeper intimacy making for greater betrayal.

That awful day, Black Sunday as I think of it, Caitlin cheated on me with the boy from the carnival. Francis, with his bloody Heathcliff face and wounded rebel image. She shifted him in a meadow outside town, as the afternoon sun beat down mercilessly. Meanwhile stupid, innocent me was at a match with my father.

I hadn't wanted to go but he insisted – he thought we should spend more time together, so fine. We drove to the city and stood on the terrace, getting fried in the heat, crushed by the crowds. Then we returned home and Podsy was waiting for me at the front gate. He looked nervous but willing to say what he had to anyway, which I'll forever be thankful for. Podsy's always been a good friend.

‘Aidan,' he said, gulping, waiting until my father passed on inside. ‘I heard something about Caitlin.'

‘What? Is she all right?'

‘Uh  … 
she
is, yeah.'

Meaning, but
you
might not be when you find out what happened.

I still hadn't clicked anything was wrong. I frowned at him. ‘Well, come on. Let's hear it.'

‘She got off with yer man from the carnival. The son. You know the guy, kinda greasy-looking. Everyone's saying it. I wish I wasn't telling you this, but you've a right to know.'

Straight away, I knew it was true. I didn't bother asking questions or trying to convince myself Podsy was wrong – I
knew
. In my guts, in the very heart of me.

I think I actually went into shock then. The violent shock of it, like a cut that came so fast I almost forgot to bleed. But I felt the cut. Felt the pain. Like someone had driven their hand through my breastplate and torn my insides to shreds.

I fought the urge to vomit as my head started lifting off my body and rising slowly into the air. I was gone, floating away, headed for space. Only me and that cold moon, out there in the darkness.

I think I said thanks to Podsy. Then I stumbled inside, lay on my bed and cried until dawn broke, and for a long time after that.

Incredibly, things got worse from there.

For the first few weeks after Black Sunday, I had to listen to all sorts of sleazy rumours: they'd had sex, she was pregnant with his child, she'd done it with his friends, he'd paid her, he hadn't paid her and she only did it because she'd do it with anyone – anyone except me, clearly.

I put up with veiled jibes and sideways smirks, skin prickling in shame and self-consciousness. I knew everyone was laughing at me, and the fact they were laughing at Caitlin as well didn't console me. I didn't want them laughing at anybody, I wanted things back the way they were.

I'd see that goddamn carnival out the window of my room until they shoved off a few days later. I even had to go there one evening with my kid sister Sheila, because my parents were too busy but she'd been promised. I managed to avoid eye contact with Francis/Heathcliff all night but it was horrendous.

I tried to pretend this wasn't happening as I struggled to make sense of it, to deal with it.

She didn't apologise. That was one of the hardest things to suck up. Caitlin basically ignored me from then on. I'll be kind and assume she was too embarrassed to speak with me, to explain or say sorry (if she felt sorry, I don't know). Certainly, it would have been excruciating for both of us. Whatever the reason, we haven't exchanged one word since.

She refused to take my calls, didn't reply to texts or emails; she'd literally turn and walk in the other direction if she saw me coming. After a while, I stopped trying and gave up on her and me.

But even
that
wasn't the worst part.

For some mysterious reason me, not Caitlin, became the target of mockery. She got a few good-natured slags from her pals, but they
were
good-natured; no intent to hurt. I got the impression one or two were even jealous that she'd bagged Francis.

From early August, though, he was forgotten, by her and everyone else it seemed; unfortunately,
I
wasn't. By the end of that month she was going with someone else – Caitlin moved on while I was trapped in a vicious circle created by someone else's deeds.

A relentless barrage of ridicule and abuse started rolling over me about a fortnight after it happened, and didn't stop. I was openly jeered in the street, the shops, the community centre. Both girls and boys would shout things to me, vulgar jokes, absurd accusations.

I was a faggot, a retard, a wimpy girl in disguise. I'd told Caitlin to shift the guy so I could watch or take photos; I was a perv and voyeur. The fact that she'd cheated with a carnie made it worse, bringing out people's snobbishness as well as their vindictiveness. ‘Even a knacker is better than you!' I heard that more than once.

I had notes pushed through the letter box – shit that my mother saw, which really killed me. I got sent hateful emails. A Facebook page was set up called ‘Aidan Flood is a dickless loooooser', although it was taken down quickly; someone's parents must have seen and complained. I even had a rock thrown through my bedroom window one night, with a blurry photograph of Caitlin smiling across at Francis wrapped around it.

To this day I don't know how or why it went like this. Why the hell was I getting all the grief? I'd done nothing wrong. Not that I wanted Caitlin derided or scorned either; I hated all that ‘she's a slut' junk. I didn't want anything to happen to her, only that she'd get back with me and try to move on from it. At that point, I was still willing to try. To forgive, I think, if she'd given me the chance.

For whatever reason, the hive mind decided to pick on me, and like I say, I can't explain it. Maybe it was collective revenge for my cheek in going with a girl like Caitlin in the first place. Maybe it was the orchestrated masterplan of some unknown weirdo who bore a grudge. Maybe it was conscious, maybe not.

Maybe it was simply my turn. Or blind chance.

The funny thing is, I hadn't been bullied particularly up till then. Yes, I was a nerd, but so were lots of kids. Since childhood I'd been more or less left alone. I got the odd belt on the playground and was slagged from time to time for being poor or skinny or whatever, but nothing serious.

Now, though, it was serious. It was unrelenting, and soon escalated into physical attacks.

John Rattigan was the ringleader, unsurprisingly. He was a violent animal anyway, and probably held no more ill will towards me than any other victim – Rattigan wasn't choosy about who he bullied. But that didn't stop him decking me at least once a week, and others followed.

I had my head scraped along a wall and forced down into a urinal. My schoolbag and books were destroyed several times. I was punched, kicked, had half my hair sheared off. I lost three teeth from three separate blows, one with the top end of a hurley. I couldn't see properly out of my eye for a week after someone threw chemical powder in it, something stolen from the school lab.

On it went. Mostly verbal bullying, sometimes physical. The physical assaults hurt, but the other stuff really tore me apart. I felt so foolish and humiliated all the time, my self-esteem gone through the floor, my existence starting to seem pointless.

I didn't fight back. Even if I was naturally brave, which I wasn't, I wouldn't have retaliated. I couldn't. It was too much, almost overwhelming. Like trying to stop the Atlantic tide.

Not every kid was involved but lots were, if not most. Christ, even the ones who got bullied themselves found a target in me. I really was at the bottom of the food chain. Almost everyone turned on me and rejected me, except Podsy. He proudly, publicly, remained my friend. He got picked on too for that, but Podsy stood tough, he stayed true to himself.

In fairness, Tommy Fox wasn't really a part of it either, nor was Sláine McAuley. She'd left school by then anyway, but even before she always seemed somehow distant from other students in school, more mature; she hadn't much to do with them. Sláine kept to herself.

Caitlin didn't try to stop the bullying, but to her credit, didn't join in either. That was something, a small something. It wasn't her fault really; she'd caused it but she wasn't behind it, as such  … 

Still. It was as if, when she shifted that boy, she suddenly realised just how out of her league I was, and actually, yeah, her friends
had
been right when they asked what the hell she was doing with a yoke like me. She couldn't get shot of me quickly enough.

I didn't bother telling my parents about any of this. I didn't want them to worry. Besides, part of me, a little wormy voice in my inner ear, insisted I was getting what I deserved anyway. Why else would it be happening? Because I was a worthless speck of dirt, and that's what they got: a fist in the mouth or a head full of disdain.

So how's that for a double whammy: I had my heart broken and was turned into the biggest asshole on the planet, all in one wonderful summer. The teen movie from hell, and I was stuck in the starring role.

Finally, by some point in September, I'd had enough – and wanted it all to end.

School went on as usual that Monday: the day after the bridge, and not jumping, and waking to find out about Sláine lying dead in Shook Woods. The teachers told us that funeral arrangements would be announced as soon as possible – I assumed the Gardaí would want to autopsy her body beforehand. They have to, don't they, when someone is found dead in unexplained circumstances? During afternoon Irish class I stared out the window and tried to guess what Sláine had died from. Hypothermia, maybe, if not something in her system, something she'd swallowed.

It was horrible, whatever happened, too depressing to dwell on. I felt sorry for her and hoped it had been quick. And I wondered why she'd done it. She had everything to live for, as far as surface appearances went. Sláine's life was seemingly going along great. She was beautiful, vivacious, popular, clever  …  happy? Apparently not.

When school ended I retrieved my jacket from the cloakroom – for once, it wasn't ripped or scrawled with swear words in Tipp-Ex; I didn't have to fish dog shit or cigarette butts out of the pocket. In fact, nobody seemed to notice me at all. Small mercies, silver linings, et cetera.

Even Rattigan ignored me as I walked towards the main gates. He was too busy sniggering with his pals, making a foul comment about how he'd still ‘give it' to Sláine McAuley even though she was dead. Rattigan said, ‘I'd want to get a move on – she'll be getting cold quickly. Getting a bit stiff!'

Disgusting bastard. I never wanted to smash someone in the face so much. Needless to say, I didn't. I kept my head down and thanked God or Sláine or whoever that I wasn't the centre of attention. I let it go.

But Tommy Fox didn't. He stomped over to Rattigan's group, fury on his handsome face, hands trembling as he clenched and unclenched them. I thought, he was in love with her. It was as clear as the dawn, this terrible light all over his face.

He grabbed Rattigan and spun him around, snarling, ‘Take that back. Say sorry and take it back or I'll break your ignorant head in.'

Rattigan started in surprise, then regained his composure and pushed Tommy in the chest. ‘You'll what now?' He turned to his friends. ‘Hear that, lads? Foxy Lady wants a scrap.'

‘Take it
back
, you scumbag.
Now
.'

Rattigan smiled viciously and pushed again. Tommy didn't move. Rattigan went to slap him. Tommy caught his hand and bent the fingers back. Rattigan yelped and squeezed Tommy's ear. They both looked in pain but neither was backing down.

I'd never suspected Tommy had this kind of courage. Maybe he didn't, maybe he
couldn't
act differently. Maybe love drove you to recklessness.

One of Rattigan's mob hissed a warning about a teacher approaching. The two released their grip on each other. Rattigan was flustered and angry, muttering about what he'd do to ‘Foxy Lady' the next time they met. Tommy didn't say anything. He looked desolate. If possible, his face was even paler than earlier.

I realised I was staring at them when I heard Rattigan bark, ‘What're
you
looking at, you weasel? Want some of that, do you?'

I muttered, ‘No,' and scurried off. This time, there was no mocking laughter in my wake. There was only silence as I walked away, not yet knowing where I'd go.

I shivered a little as Shook Woods loomed ahead of me. I'd gone there straight from school; I didn't know why. Something told me, go to the forest. It was as though the wind switched direction and pushed me that way.

Shook Woods. The name came from the Irish word
siochta
, for frozen. I don't know how it got called that. The climate here is mild, like most of western Europe; it doesn't often drop below zero. The Frozen Forest sounds like something out of a German fairy tale, yet it stood a bare mile outside our town. It had previously been known by a different name – Dark Woods or Forest of Dusk or something, I couldn't remember exactly.

You can see it from up the mountains on the far side of town, spreading out over a hundred square miles like a dark blanket. Rising and falling, following the curve of the land over low hills. Small by Canadian or Russian standards, but to us it was massive. It was planted centuries ago by the local lord of the manor; the State took control after Irish independence in the 1920s, but apart from basic maintenance it was pretty much left it to itself, standing there, silent, mysterious. The forest was mainly pine, a few deciduous trees interspersed throughout, like inappropriately cheerful interlopers at a funeral. Those endless rows of tightly packed conifers, reaching to the heavens and blocking out the light down on earth.

There's always been something eerie about Shook Woods. The whole town, actually. As far back as Great Famine times, the English authorities believed it cursed. They called it the Frozen Place, or Death's Shadow. They wouldn't even say its name, and to this day we don't usually use the proper name either; we just say ‘the town'. Sometimes the sense that something was
off
about the place could be almost physically felt. (Though other times I assumed this was just how every disaffected, over-imaginative kid feels about their home town. Get me out of this hell, quick.)

But the forest – that was Ground Zero for spookiness; that was the epicentre of our unnameable dread. As kids we were afraid to go there after night fell, or even anywhere nearby: the forest was murky, deep and black. It was scary. You didn't know what went on in there, under the silver moon, and didn't want to know.

One version of the folklore had it that the trees were enchanted, alive. Other versions said monsters lived under the forest bed, in endless networks of caves. Monsters with hideous pits where their eyes should be, four sets of jagged teeth and an unquenchable appetite for human flesh.

Those were just fairy tales and, even for children, not believable. More plausible and unnerving were stories of medieval serial killers and their forest dumping grounds. Stories of witchcraft and devil worship, weird ceremonies in the depths of night. Stories of people turning to cannibalism during the Famine, murdering and eating their own children.

To a kid,
those
were properly scary.

Running through these legends was one theme, a feeling which persisted to this day: there was something not right about that forest. Something cold and strange. Maybe even evil  … 

Right, yeah. ‘Evil.' Whatever you say, weirdoes. Shook was spooky but nothing more. There weren't any devils in there, and the only monsters that existed came with human faces and spoke the same language as me.

I reached the mouth of the forest, a road leading in, surfaced with tarmac for the first three hundred yards, a dirt path after that. Just enough of a thoroughfare for forestry workers to gain access if they needed to, not that they did very often.

Two picnic benches stood out front, with an informational sign and rubbish bin – I knew for a fact nobody ever actually picnicked here. The place didn't exactly give off a welcoming vibe. My nose picked up the sweet, sappy smell of the pines. Sharp but not unpleasant: a nice, zingy smell, like the juice of citrus fruits, or the tea tree oil face wash my mother used.

I looked up the path and tried to remember if anyone at school had said where exactly Sláine's body was discovered. Then the wind sort of pushed me again and before I knew it I was walking, right into the black heart of Shook Woods.

It
was
dark in there, though my watch told me it was only four in the afternoon. The trees appeared to lean in and over you, obstructing the weak November light. I knew this was an optical illusion – they were mostly conifers, standing straight as an arrow – but when you looked up, they really did seem to crowd around you, glaring down, shoving each other aside for a better view of the little human below. A cluster of crows rose from the top of the tallest one, fluttering into the air like a splash of ink. Rooks, maybe, or ravens. A murder of crows, wasn't that the proper term  …  ?

I turned back to the main road. It was visible from here. I sighed with relief – that was the real world, out there. I felt still connected to it, physically. The forest couldn't take you while you could still see the road  … 

I laughed and rolled a cigarette. Yo, crazy thoughts, get out of my head. They're just stupid trees. The worst thing that could happen here would be leaving the path and losing your bearings, or staying too late and tripping in the darkness.

The ember of my cigarette flared in the wind and I shivered again.

I walked on, and after a few minutes saw police tape around a tree, marking the area off: Do Not Enter. The tree was a monstrous thing, gnarled, ancient-looking. Unlike most of the plants in Shook, this wasn't evergreen but deciduous, possibly oak – I never could tell the difference.

It stood off the path, ten yards in. I tossed my cigarette, put down my bag and hiked over. There was no indication that something terrible had happened here – except for the tape, you'd never suspect. The body hadn't made a shape in the ground. The leaves and dirt weren't scuffed up.

It was just  …  a tree. A place. A boring spot of ground. Except  …  a place where the worst thing in the world had happened to one girl.

I sent up another prayer for Sláine, then turned around to go home – and my bag was gone. I literally jumped in fright. What  …  ? I glanced around: nobody, nothing to be seen, only those impenetrable rows of trees. But my bag, I'd left it right there, directly opposite, a few steps away. Someone had moved it.

I made to walk back to the dirt path, hesitated, started again. I reached the path and looked left and right and
nothing
. My heart rate clicked up a notch. I gulped and felt something without a name tickle the back of my neck. I looked right once more, towards the main road, and finally spotted it resting against a tree trunk, hard to see in the gathering dusk.

I flung the bag over my shoulder and thought it through. I was sure I'd left it closer to where Sláine was found, but clearly I was mistaken. I'd left it here all along. But man, I was
so sure
of where I'd put that bag  … 

Maybe someone was here. Playing a prank, some idiot, one of Rattigan's gang. No, this wasn't their style. They'd be more likely to bury me under the moss floor of the forest. Someone else, a younger kid  …  ?

I looked around and around, knowing I wouldn't see anyone. There was nowhere for them to hide, and no one else here.

I shrugged it off and hit for home, leaving the forest a little faster than I'd arrived.

The rest of the week passed in a blur. On Wednesday I found out what Sláine had died from. On Thursday she was buried. And by Saturday I was preparing to spend the night alone in dark, eerie Shook Woods.

That first day, passing the funeral home on my way home from school, there was already a long line of mourners assembling, waiting to commiserate with Sláine's family. Even at that early hour, not yet five o'clock. Guess it proves how well liked she was. A guy approached the end of the line and respectfully whispered, ‘Who's dead?' I like that, the way we phrase it in Hiberno-English: ‘Who
is
dead?' and not ‘Who died?' Putting it in the present tense seems to keep the person around in some way, keep some bit of them alive through the mysterious alchemy of words.

My father arrived at the dinner table that evening and pulled off his cap. He worked as a mechanic when there was work to be got, and that black knit cap was part of his tool bag as much as any wrench or oil can. He squeezed it, looked at me, looked away. He said softly, ‘They did the autopsy on that poor girl. Your friend.'

I was about to say she wasn't really my friend but didn't bother. Instead I replied, ‘Sláine? What happened to her?'

My father had been doing maintenance work on the Garda fleet of vehicles for a few weeks. ‘Sergeant was saying it at coffee. Says the coroner found  …  nothing. There was nothing unusual in the girl's system.'

My younger brother Ronan leaped in his seat and hollered, ‘Your one, the dead girl? My friend said she was hanging off a tree. Eeugh,
gross
!'

I barked, ‘Shut your face, you little troll.'

My mother frowned and said to me, ‘Please don't use that language to your brother. Ronan, it's not nice to talk like that. You have to show respect when someone dies. Go on, sweetheart. What did the sergeant say?'

My father shrugged and rubbed his eyes. ‘That's all there is. No trace of poison or any other foreign substances. She must have  …  ' He looked at me again. ‘She died of the cold. That's the long and short of it, as far as I could gather.'

I nodded, pushed my plate aside and excused myself – I didn't feel like eating. My mother must have understood; she smiled kindly and said not a word.

The next morning Sláine was buried in an old graveyard on the outskirts of town. The council had built a new place a decade ago, which most people now used, but the odd family continued to lay their dead to rest in existing family plots. The McAuleys had a big crypt up there, a statue of an angel standing guard on top. Protecting the souls of the departed, or whatever it was meant to represent. The graveyard was oddly beautiful, something out of a Gothic horror movie: lumps and hillocks, ancient tombstones, grasses run wild, a discordant choir of crows squawking.

Virtually the whole town attended the funeral, including all school students and teachers. Sláine's family were really decent, respected by everyone, which made it tougher to witness their anguish. Her mother and father cried unashamedly, as did four older brothers and most of her friends. There was a good crowd from university, which was nice to see. They carried Sláine's coffin to the family crypt and lowered her into the ground as her music teacher played ‘Amazing Grace' on a low whistle: a sad and lovely tune, very moving.