Taken Away (25 page)

‘If I could kill you, without hurting Dom's body, I would. You've broken everything. You've
ruined
everything.'

‘I only jumped to get away from the man,' he said, his voice thick and muffled.

‘Shut up.'

Oh God, it was Lorry. Lorry was here all this time.' ‘

His breath broke up again into ragged little sobs, and he lost control for another moment. I let myself topple over backwards into the sand and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes, listening to him cry.

I mean it, Francis. Shut up, or so help me God.' ‘

‘I wuh . . . wanted to protect . . .I.. . .I can't remember . . . I can't remember if it was you or your brother.'

‘It was DOM!' I yelled, rolling onto my elbows to face him. ‘It was DOM, you stupid bastard! Can't you at least remember which of us you
killed
!'

‘I wanted to
protect
him. I jumped in front of him, I tried to cover him with muh . . . with my body.' His teeth were bared, and his hands fisted up by the sides of his face in a physical effort not to break down. He stared at me with eyes that showed white all around the iris. He was raw, as raw as I felt. We were bleeding all over the place from invisible wounds.

‘Something
happened
,' he said. ‘Something
slipped
and suddenly I wuh . . . suddenly I was in a tiny dark space. It was too hot. There was no air. And we were pressed up against one another, struggling against one another. This other person. I thought . . . ' He scrambled to his knees and put his face close to mine in an effort to get me to understand. Dom's face, his black hair plastered down over white skin, purple bruises under his eyes, the white split in his lip gaping, his eyes as black as pitch. ‘I thought it was
the bad man
,' he cried. ‘I thought he'd got me at last. And I
fought
. . . I
pushed
. Do you understand?'

He tilted his head, his miserable pleading expression an awful parody of Dom, and I had to shut my eyes tight and bury my face in my hands just so I didn't have to see it.

I dropped back onto the sand and rolled over onto my side with a groan.
Jesus, you bastard
, I thought,
can't you at least let me hate you? Can't you give me that much? That I can hate the boy who killed my brother?

I don't know how long I lay there, but I think it was a long, long time. I remember thinking how nice it would be if I just fell asleep there and never woke up. But there was never any danger of that happening. Eventually the cold began to really eat into me, and I began to shiver uncontrollably. My face was aching from tears I didn't know I'd been crying. When I took my hands away from my eyes, I felt the hot tingle of blood rushing back into the compressed skin.

James Hueston had been right – life pushes you on. And right then my body had had enough of lying in the frost and was demanding that I get up and do something about it – no matter how much my heart wanted to lie there and die.

I rolled onto my knees and stiffly pushed myself to my feet. Dom was gone, but his footprints in the sand led into the kitchen. I staggered after him, following him inside and heading upstairs to the room where it had all begun.

MAYBE NOW, IN DREAMS

I STOOD OUTSIDE OUR
bedroom door for what felt like the hundredth time that day. There was no light, only a thin wash of moon filtering though the bathroom window and dying out on the landing. It was nothing more than a milky suggestion of light, enough to trick the eye and fool the brain, and just enough to prevent me missing a step and falling down the stairs. I didn't think I'd ever be afraid of the dark again. It had thrown all it had at me, and in the end it had done its worst. There was nothing left for me to fear.

I put both hands flat against the wood of the door and listened. Nothing. The whole house slept, Francis with them it seemed. I laid my forehead on the blistered paintwork. I'd really worked him over. I'd beaten the crap out of him – out of what was left of Dom. My knuckles were singing high and clear at how much damage I'd done to them. I couldn't imagine how much hurt I'd inflicted on him. I ran my fingers down the door, feeling the pits and cracks that I couldn't see.

If it were me – if Francis had stolen my body and pushed me out into the cold – Dom would have worked something out. He wouldn't have stood around watching as I disintegrated. He wouldn't have beaten the shite out of my body and terrified Francis 'til he couldn't stand up anymore. He wouldn't have sent my ghost away when I came to him for help. He would have
talked
. He would have
worked something out
.

Dom.

I slapped the wood gently with the palm of my hand. I could do this. I could figure it out. If Francis could leap in and push Dom out, then why couldn't Dom do the same? My eyes opened wide in the dark, seeing nothing. I was suddenly filled with hope, and it was better than despair. It stopped the trembling in my legs and arms, and let me breathe. But there wasn't much time. I had no doubt that Dom's body was dying; it might already be . . . I breathed deep and pushed myself off the door, throwing that thought behind me. Dom was out there somewhere, with Lorry. We'd find him. Francis was terrified and probably a bit crazy, but he was no coward, despite what I'd said to him. I knew he would never have killed Dom on purpose. He'd help, if he was able. He'd help. All I had to do was ask.

I shook myself, literally, my eyes open wide in the ghost-light. I took another deep breath through my nose and quietly opened the door.

I didn't see him for a moment, because my attention went automatically to the windowsill, and then to the bed. It was only when I stepped forward and closed the door behind me that I looked down and saw him sprawled on the floor.

I'd seen three dead bodies in my life: Grandda Joe, Grandad Peadar and, long ago, almost too long to recall, Granny Fee. They'd been combed and powdered and dressed in their best, tucked into their silk-lined coffins, their hands laced in rosary-beads, their eyes properly closed.

Dom didn't look like that at all. He looked like something thrown from a car, like a doll dropped from the sky. His legs and arms were loosely flung out, his head twisted so his face was out of sight. He had obviously just fallen to the floor and lain there. God knew for how long. I shuffled around so I could see him properly and knelt down beside him. I sat back on my heels, looking into his face. I could see the dull gleam of his eyes under his heavy eyelids. His lips were half open, dry and cracked. His hair fanned out around his head on the floorboards. His hand was curled in front of his face, impossibly still.

People say that the dead look as though they're sleeping. Well, Dom didn't. Dom looked dead. He looked absolutely, irrevocably, unmistakably dead. I reached for him, without thinking about it, and snagged him by his shoulder and the front of his jumper, and rolled him onto his back. I pulled him onto my knees, my arm around his chest, his head resting on my thigh. His arm tumbled out of my grip and unfolded loosely, his elbow and then his hand knocking against the floorboards in quick succession.

Knock-knock, who's there?

I gazed down into his inanimate white face, and I meant to just say, ‘Dom?' But something unannounced burst in my head and in my chest. Suddenly I was four years old, kneeling on the floor, clutching my brother to me and yelling through my panic the only word that seemed to be left to me: ‘Maaaam! Maaammyy! Maaaam!' over and over in hysterical, breathy screams.

The door opened, and I presented him to her as though he were a broken toy I wanted her to fix. But it wasn't Ma. It was Nan. She was all white – her long hair, her skin, the long cotton nightie that brushed her toes and tied at her neck. She stuck her head around the jamb first; looked at us, looked behind her; came in and carefully shut the door.

Nan!' I screamed in that high, breathy, almost soundless ‘voice. ‘Get Mammy. Get Ma. Nan, get Ma!'

Nan looked at me a moment with sad eyes and then came over and knelt down beside me. She took my face in her hands, wiping my tears, shaking my head slightly from side to side as she spoke. ‘Patrick,' she said quietly. ‘Shhh.'

‘Nan,' I croaked, my voice nearly gone. ‘He's dead! Look! He's dead.' And I offered her Dom again, his head lolling back into the crook of my arm as I lifted him up to show her. She glanced at him, then turned her whole attention to me.

‘Patrick,' she said again, ‘Laurence says you have to go to sleep.'

I blinked at her, shocked into stillness.

‘You have to go asleep, darling. Do you understand?'

I shook my head. My tears brimmed over, and she caught them with her thumbs, sweeping them to one side without taking her hands from my face or breaking eye contact.

‘Laurence is going to lend you his eyes, but you have to go asleep.'

I felt my face crumple up, and I shook my head again. My tears ran down her fingers before she could catch them. I wanted to ask her to get Ma, I wanted to tell her that Dom was dead, but when I opened my mouth nothing came out but a big choking sob.

‘Patrick,' she said, lifting one hand from my face and laying it on Dom's motionless chest. ‘Laurence says that Francis is still trapped in here. Do you understand?' She patted Dom's chest, and I looked down at him in horror. ‘He can still see us and hear us and feel us. Do you know what that means?'

I looked back at her. My eyes felt like they were going to bulge right out of their burning sockets; my mouth was open in gasping sobs that I couldn't contain. She put her hand back onto my cheek, cradling my face as if to hold me together.

‘If we get your ma, it's all over. Understand? Dom will still be dead and Francis, poor Francis, will be buried inside this body. Francis will be put in a coffin and buried. Do you understand, darling? Tell me you understand.'

I stared into Nan's face and nodded. I understood.

‘Alright, love,' she said. ‘Now you have to go asleep. Can you do that?'

I shook my head, my eyes brimming over.

‘But you have to. Laurence says that you have to go asleep and he'll lend you his eyes. He says you know what to do. He says Shamie will help you.' She searched my face. ‘Do you know what to do, darling? Because I'm just the messenger. I don't have anything for you but the message.'

‘Yes, Nan.' I whispered. ‘I know what to do.'

She wiped my tears one more time and kissed me on the forehead. Then she bent and looked into Dom's dead face. ‘Fran,' she whispered. ‘Hold on, darling. Lorry is coming.' And she kissed him too, and swept the matted curls back off his cold forehead.

She ruffled my hair as she got up and left without looking back at us, closing the door carefully behind her.

I didn't think anymore. I had no thoughts left. I just pulled Dom up into my arms and pushed backwards with my legs 'til I was sitting with my back to the wall. Dom's limp body lay against my chest, my legs sprawled out on either side of him. I settled him so that his head rested in the crook of my neck, and with my free hand, I rooted numbly in my trouser pocket 'til I snagged the last of Nan's little green sedatives. I dry-swallowed them, lint and all.

Then I lay my cheek against the top of Dom's head. His cold curls pressed against my mouth and snagged in my damp eyelashes as I hugged him tightly and waited for the drug to take hold.

FALL TO FOG

WHEN I WAKE UP
, I don't remember where I've been.Then I recall the trenches, the slide off the duckboards, the cold swallow of the mud. I scream and open my eyes. There is a gentle light illuminating me, and I realise that I am clean and dry. My scream turns to a relieved laugh, and I look around for Jolly and Shamie. I'm sure they must have saved me from my muddy grave – but they are not here.

I am swaddled in warm dry fog, and the air is kind with the scent of hay and fresh-baked bread. All around me move the dim shapes of men. Some sit up suddenly, as though shocked awake, and then get slowly to their feet. Others run frantically and then slow to a walk and look around them in wonder. One fellow, off to my left, calls for his mother – that long, desperate battlefield wail – but he stops almost at once, and I hear him laugh, and then he sighs in relief.

I get to my feet and notice that I am dressed in my best uniform. I haven't been this clean and warm and dry in months; I'd forgotten what it was like. I look at my hands and there are no fleabites. I run my hand over my chin and there is no stubble. I inhale the gentle air again and I am suddenly, absolutely happy. There are things I should be worried about, there are things I should remember, but all I need now is to smile and keep walking happily forward.

I stroll at a leisurely pace, swinging my arms. I think,
I would like to have a stick to swat, the way I used to when I was a boy.

And then, just like that, I have one! Hah! It must have been in my hand all along. I begin to swish it to and fro ahead of me as I walk. It makes a satisfying sound in the air. I begin to whistle, and soon I find myself knocking out a pretty good version of ‘The Saucy Little Bird on Nellie's Hat'.

Fran would like this
, I think with a smile.
Maybe I can find him a
stick, too. We can run down to the harbour and see if the boats are in. We could maybe get some crabs for tea . . .

At the thought of Fran, I am halted by an uncomfortable twinge in my stomach. I stop and bend forward at the waist until the discomfort eases. Men stroll past me. There are yet more of them coming up through the mist, an endless parade of men, it seems, all heading in the same direction. A gentle tugging at my heart urges me forward, but I resist it and turn to look back.

It is all grey behind me – a smooth, featureless wall of mist. I think I hear someone back there, calling my name. I think . . . maybe . . . Is it?