Star Dancer (8 page)

IT WAS THERE IN THE MORNING PAPER
, the photograph taken at the gymkhana with himself and Suzanne and Star Dancer. And their names, and the name of the stables. All of it.

The gang crowded around Ger, asking questions.

‘Would ye’s get lost. I don’t want to talk about it,’ he told them, but it was no use and he knew it. They wouldn’t leave him alone.

‘Why didn’t you tell us about this, hey?’ Anto kept asking. ‘All those posh fellas at the stables, I’ll bet they’re loaded. You must know some rich people. Why didn’t you take us to meet them? Is this that one you were with at the RDS? Did you ride that horse? Hey, Ger, when can we go riding, eh? When? You holding out on us?’

‘Listen, it’s not like you think,’ Ger said. ‘I had a job, that’s all. At the stables. I couldn’t invite you out there to go riding. I was just working there.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And what else?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘You know what I mean,’ Anto said accusingly. ‘What else were you doing in a place like that? All those rich people. Bet ye picked up a few things, stuck ‘em in your pocket, eh? Stuff they’d never miss.’ He grinned and dug his elbow into Ger’s side.

Ger drew back. ‘I did not.’

The grin grew broader. ‘Sure you did. What did you get? You
going to share it with your pals? I knew we should’ve followed him,’ he said to the others. ‘We should’ve got in on this. Listen here to me, Ger. They need any more lads at that place? Good strong lads, like?’ Anto’s grin had become very crafty.

Ger could feel himself getting angry. ‘Look it, I don’t work there any more!’ he said loudly. ‘I can’t take you there, so forget it.’

‘What d’you mean, you don’t work there any more? Did they catch you lifting stuff?’ Anto sounded envious, as if he admired Ger for stealing.

‘They didn’t …’ Ger hesitated. ‘I mean …’ He looked at their eager faces. They wanted him to be a hero, a thief.

They were his friends, these lads. His only friends. Suzanne wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him any more. Star Dancer probably wouldn’t forgive him either. Horses had good memories. Dancer probably knew Ger had made him sick.

The stables and the life there was a lost world.

Ger looked again at the faces clustered around him. He took a deep breath and said mysteriously, ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘He did!’ Danny crowed. ‘He took stuff and got caught! But he got away! You got away, didn’t you, Ger?’ He sounded admiring, impressed.

Ger gave an elaborate shrug. ‘Maybe.’

‘Will they be after you?’

‘They don’t know where to find me,’ Ger replied. ‘I never told them where I live.’

‘You’re dead cute,’ Anto said approvingly. ‘Nobody ever catches Ger Casey.’

‘Nobody,’ Ger agreed. They were taking him back, accepting
him as their leader again. He was welcome back into their circle because they thought he’d done something dangerous and illegal and clever. ‘I made a fair few quid out of it,’ he said casually, letting them think he had stolen the money.

‘Yeah? How much?’

‘A bit.’ He folded his arms to let them know he wasn’t telling.

They nudged each other. They were very impressed.

But then Anto said, ‘What about the spying? You made all that up, then?’

‘Maybe.’

‘And maybe not,’ Danny decided.

They wanted to believe. They wanted to be impressed. Seeing the picture in the paper had done it. Now they thought he was really special.

I could’ve been, Ger said to himself, remembering what it felt like to ride a horse. I could’ve been. Maybe. But I ruined it.

He hated himself. But the gang would never know. They were looking at him hopefully, expecting him to come up with some exciting idea for a way to spend the day. He made himself jump to his feet. ‘Let’s go,’ he said abruptly. ‘Let’s go and
do
something.’ He set off down the street at a run. The sound of their footsteps behind him told him they were following him once more.

As the days passed and there was no sign of Ger, Suzanne grew more and more worried. She tried to tell herself she was being foolish. Ger was tough and smart, she knew that much. He could take care of himself. He’d probably just got tired of the hard work and scarpered.

But she didn’t really believe that. Ger had loved Dancer, and he hadn’t minded the hard work. He had been proud of what he was accomplishing, and he had been devoted to his riding lessons.

She couldn’t believe he had just thrown it all away.

When she tried to express her worries to Brendan Walsh, the stable manager shrugged them off. ‘He’s no good, that one,’ he said. ‘I’d forget about him if I was you. There are a thousand more where he came from. We were all wrong about him, Suzanne, so just let it go at that.’

But she couldn’t. There was a stubborn streak in Suzanne O’Gorman.

Besides, she had another reason for wanting to find Ger. When Star Dancer had been over his colic for a week, Anne decided it was safe to start jumping him again, very easily and carefully at first.

And Suzanne realised Ger had taken the magic stone away with him in his pocket. It was gone with him wherever he was gone.

‘I don’t think we should begin jumping Dancer again yet,’ Suzanne told Anne. ‘He might have a relapse.’

‘Nonsense. The vet said he could go back to normal exercise as long as we don’t overdo it. And that junior event is coming up faster than you realise, Suzanne. You need to practise. I’m not worried so much about the dressage phase, but the two of you have a lot of work to do over fences if you’re going to be ready.’

‘I know, but …’

‘No buts about it,’ Anne said briskly. ‘I’ll let you wait one more day if you like, but after that we start back with the cavaletti work and then with the fences.’

That night Suzanne tried frantically to recall anything Ger
might have told her about where he lived. But there was nothing. She picked at her dinner. Then she went to her room and sat on the edge of her bed, staring moodily at the horse pictures on the walls without really seeing them. The newest one was a clipping from the newspaper, with the photograph taken the day Dancer got colic at the gymkhana.

Suddenly Suzanne’s eyes opened wide. She got up and went to peer more closely at the newspaper article. Of course! The man who took notes had asked all sorts of questions, including their addresses.

There it was, in fine print in the caption below the picture: Suzanne O’Gorman, daughter of Declan and Phyllis O’Gorman of Stepaside, with her horse Star Dancer, who is kept at High Hill Stables. Also shown is Ger Casey of Morton’s Court, Dublin.

Suzanne ran to the sittingroom where she found her mum reading a magazine and her dad watching the telly.

‘Daddy, where’s Morton’s Court?’ she asked excitedly.

Without looking up from her reading, her mother said, ‘Don’t bother your father, Suzanne. You know he likes to see the nine o’clock news.’

‘But this is important!’

Mr O’Gorman half turned in his chair to look at her. ‘Morton’s Court, did you say? I don’t think I … ah sure, aren’t those the old council flats on the way to the electricity works, out towards Irishtown and Ringsend somewhere?’

‘How far are they from the RDS?’ Suzanne wanted to know.

‘A couple of miles at least, I’d say.’

‘But a person could walk from Morton’s Court to the RDS?’

‘They could, of course. Why, Suzanne?’

‘Morton’s Court is where Ger Casey lives.’

Mrs O’Gorman put down her magazine. ‘In those old council flats? But they’re practically derelict, some of them! Didn’t I read in the papers not long ago that they were due to be demolished?’

‘I need to go over there, Daddy,’ Suzanne said earnestly. ‘I need to find Ger.’

‘That’s on the other side of the city, Suzanne. What’s so urgent about it? Why do you think you have to go all the way over there to find the lad?’

‘Because he hasn’t come to work at the stables for days and I’m worried about him. He might be sick or something.’

‘Did Brendan Walsh ring him?’

‘Ger didn’t leave a phone number, and we couldn’t find one through Directory Enquiries because we didn’t know what name the phone is listed under.’

Mr O’Gorman shot a quick glance at the news, then looked back to his daughter. ‘I think it’s best you let the stable manager sort out his own employee problems, Suzanne.’

‘But … it might be my fault Ger isn’t coming to work. He might think I’m mad at him. But I’m not. Not any more. And I need to tell him.’

Mr O’Gorman switched off the telly. ‘I think you’d better explain the whole thing to us, my girl,’ he said firmly.

Suzanne obeyed. She felt like she was betraying Ger when she told how he had given the ice cream to Star Dancer, but she wouldn’t lie to her parents. She just didn’t bother to mention the magic stone. It would sound silly, she realised. Silly kid’s stuff. Parents got old and forgot there was such a thing as magic.

When she had finished explaining, it was Mrs O’Gorman,
surprisingly, who said, ‘Suzanne’s right. I think that boy should be found and told he has nothing to worry about. Anyone can make a mistake. There’s so much to learn about horses and he’s only been around them a short time. I think he’s done brilliantly, really.’

Suzanne’s face lit up. ‘Oh, thanks a million, Mum!’

‘Declan,’ Mrs O’Gorman went on, ‘you said you’d some messages to do tomorrow out in Clontarf?’

‘I need to see a magazine distributor out there.’

‘Then why not take Suzanne with you, and on the way back the two of you can see if you can find Ger.’

The next morning, after Mr O’Gorman had finished his business in Clontarf, he drove Suzanne into an area of Dublin she did not know.

This was an old part of town. Amid rows of grimy terraced houses, a few cottages were bright with window boxes, but for the most part the area looked poor. There were some boarded-up shops and a lot of young lads just hanging around, smoking cigarettes and watching passing traffic with bored expressions.

But none of them was Ger Casey.

Mr O’Gorman took a map from the glove compartment and looked at it for a long time, then drove on. ‘There’s Morton’s Court, through there,’ he said suddenly, pointing as he braked.

Up a narrow laneway, Suzanne glimpsed a multi-storeyed grey building with broken windows and limp laundry strung across littered balconies. There were no flower boxes here, just an air of neglect and decay, as if no one cared.

‘Oh Ger,’ Suzanne murmured. She remembered how lovingly the boy had swept the tackroom and polished the saddles and bridles until they gleamed.

‘We’ll park here,’ Mr O’Gorman said, ‘and I can go into that shop over there and ask about your friend. They’ll be sure to know everyone in the neighbourhood, and tell us where to find him. Wait for me in the car. And keep the doors locked, this is the city!’ he added sharply.

With the windows up and the doors locked, it was hot in the car. Suzanne waited, gazing glumly at the council flats. Her father was taking his time. Talking business, probably. He could never go into a newsagent’s without talking about the business.

Suddenly a knot of boys erupted from a laneway and ran diagonally across the road. Suzanne saw them for a moment only, but she recognised the mop of red hair. Forgetting her father’s instructions, she unlocked the car door and jumped out.

‘Ger!’ she shouted, waving her arms. ‘Ger, it’s me, Suzanne! Wait for me!’

But the boys had vanished.

Suzanne cast one quick glance towards the newsagent’s. She couldn’t see her father. By the time she went over to get him, the boys could be far away, beyond finding. So she set off after them by herself, still calling Ger’s name.

With a last exchange of remarks about bad business and worse weather, Mr O’Gorman left the shop. He started across the street to his car, only to see the door on the passenger side standing wide open. No one was in the car. He didn’t even pause to slam the door shut, but hurried up the laneway towards Morton’s Court, searching anxiously for his daughter.

Ever since he stopped going to the stables, Ger had been angry. He
didn’t know who he was mad at, exactly, or why. He was just raging and he wanted to strike out at someone or something. He broke windows, wrote on walls, let air out of car tyres and still the anger simmered in him. He led the gang on one prank after another, each one bolder than the last. They cheered him on, delighted. Even Anto seemed to accept his resumed leadership.

Today he was looking for something new to do. The gang was bored. ‘Let’s go over to the docks,’ Rags suggested.

‘What’ll we do over there?’

‘I don’t know. Something.’

‘Got any money?’

‘You must be joking.’

‘I got some smokes,’ Anto volunteered boastfully. ‘Took ‘em from the old lad while he was asleep.’

The other boys clustered around him. He produced a half dozen battered cigarettes and a box of matches. They gathered behind a wall and lit up, taking deep breaths and coughing.

Ger didn’t like the taste of the cigarette and he didn’t like the choking sensation it caused. For no reason, a memory flashed through his mind of the No Smoking signs to be found over every doorway at the stables.

He spat out the cigarette and ground it beneath his heel on the tarmac.

‘Hey!’ cried Anto. ‘What’d you do that for!’

‘Didn’t like it.’

The others stared at him. No one they knew would admit he didn’t like to smoke. Smoking was tough.

Anto had an ugly look in his eye. ‘You too good to smoke with your pals?’ he asked sneeringly.

‘I just got better things to do,’ Ger replied, changing the subject.

‘Like what?’

‘Come on, I’ll show you.’ Ger trotted off down the laneway with no clear idea where he was going or what he was going to do. But he darted this way and that, to make it more exciting. Something would turn up, it always did. The others followed.

On the road to the shops, Ger spied a shiny car parked at the kerb with one door invitingly open. ‘Look at that!’ He ran towards the car. No one was anywhere near it.