Taken Away (30 page)

MY MEMORIES OF
that night are like snapshots: clear and sharp moments of what I know was a much longer time.

They thought it was food poisoning. They thought it was the flu. They very briefly thought it was meningitis. Theory after theory was proposed and discarded in rapid succession. The longer Dom remained unresponsive, the more puzzled their guesses became. The room emptied and then filled, and emptied again, and filled. I was pushed further and further back 'til I was standing against the wall, wedged into the corner by the dressing table.

I remember a doctor, young and stern. He wanted me to leave the room. He kept glancing at me and saying, ‘You go on outside now and wait downstairs.' I remember wordlessly shaking my head, my back pressed to the wall, my eyes glued to Dom. I remember the doctor got very angry. Eventually he stood up and flung his stethoscope down onto the bed. It bounced and clattered to the floor just as my ma came in. She gaped at him as he strode past her, and gasped as he grabbed me by the arm.

‘Listen to me, you stupid boy!' He was hissing into my face, but I couldn't concentrate on him. My eyes slid past him, and I tilted my head so that I could look at Dom. The doctor shook me. ‘If you don't leave this room
now
your brother will die, do you hear me?' He had more to say, but my ma came up behind him and actually whacked him on the head. He dropped my arm like it had burnt him and ducked away from her, a look of absolute shock on his face.

She didn't say a word, just stood there, her eyes glittering, her mouth a quivering line. She stared the doctor down. Then she raised her hand and pointed at the bottom bunk where my brother lay, still and pale in the shadows. The doctor held her eye for a moment, his cheeks two hectic flares of colour, his hand to the back of his head. Then he blushed a deep, deep red and dropped his eyes.

I got to stay in the room.

They panicked when Dom began shivering. He shivered and shook like someone had dragged him from icy water. His hands clawed up into hooks. His knees drew up to his chest. They thought for the longest while that they would never get him warm.

Morning had just started to paint the windows when my dad came running up the stairs and burst into the bedroom. I remember him making a strange sound when he saw Dom, a half wail, half shout. I remember Ma starting to cry once she saw Dad, as if she'd been waiting until he arrived. I remember him spinning suddenly from where he had been kneeling beside Dom and scanning the room with frantic eyes. It took him a long time to see me; I think I had become part of the wall by then, a shadow in the corner. Dad found me, though. His eyes locked on me, and he made a quiet growling noise far back in his throat and leapt to his feet. I don't know why, but I thought he was going to hit me. He didn't – of course he didn't – he grabbed me instead and hugged me tight to him and rocked me like a baby.

They couldn't figure out the damage to Dom's fingers and toes. They thought maybe they were burns. ‘If I didn't know better,' the young doctor said, ‘I'd say he had frostbite.'

Then they found the damage to my hands and the damage to Dad's hands. They began to wonder if it was some kind of rash. Meningitis came back into the conversation.

I remember the doctor examining the split in Dom's lip. I remember him glancing over at my bruised jaw. I saw his eyes flick to my poor dad, and a look of disgust crossed his face. Thankfully, Dad had his attention fixed on my mother at the time.

There was brief talk of a mystery virus. The word ‘quarantine' began to crop up. There was a suggestion of bringing Dom to Cherry Orchard Fever Hospital. My mam asked what they'd do for him there that they couldn't do here. The doctor didn't have a particularly good answer. Dom stayed with us.

I recall another doctor, an older man with dark, kind eyes and a Jewish face, kneeling on the floor in front of me and taking my hand. When had I slid to the floor? I couldn't remember. The doctor wagged my hand from side to side a little, to get my attention. I looked into his eyes. I remember thinking,
That's what Dom's eyes will look like when he's old.
Dad swam into view beside him, and he was staring intently at me. I think it was very early in the morning, but I can't be sure because the room had that aquarium feel to it that things get when you're very tired.

‘Patrick,' the doctor said, ‘I want you to answer me truthfully now, yes?' He had a strange accent, like a German accent or something.

Dad was looking at me over the doctor's shoulder. He said, ‘We won't be annoyed, son. We just need to know.'

I looked blankly at them both.

The doctor squeezed my hand. Normally I wouldn't have liked that. Normally I would have jerked my hand away. But, right then, it was okay that he was holding my hand; it was more than okay. I gently tightened my grip to let him know I was listening. The doctor nodded and smiled his kind smile. ‘Did Dominick take anything he shouldn't have? Any kind of drugs?'

I tiredly closed my eyes.
Oh.

Dad was talking. ‘. . . sometimes curiosity gets the better of people. It's . . . everyone makes mistakes, son. We just need to know . . . '

I squeezed the doctor's hand again and let go. ‘No,' I said. I wanted to say more, but I was so bloody tired. I couldn't, just couldn't, find any more words.

There was a small moment of stillness, then a hand patted my shoulder and the two men were gone. They had a long and whispered consultation on the other side of the door. I heard my ma quite clearly saying, ‘You are
not
making that boy leave this room.'

Eventually, I remember Ma taking my hand and pulling me into a standing position. She got me to peel off my cords, and she dragged my jumper up over the top of my head. Between them, she and Dad helped me to bed. I caught a glimpse of Dom as I staggered across to the bunk. He had finally stopped shaking, and he was propped up on a small mountain of pillows. He passed from my sight as Dad helped me up the ladder. I could hardly hold my head up.

I crawled into bed, flopping onto my stomach with a numb and smoky exhaustion. The bunk swayed like a ship; the room revolved slowly around me. My pillow was cold. The blankets were warm. I began to plummet downwards. I was losing my grip on things. I pulled myself back.
No!
I couldn't do that; I couldn't leave Dom.

Something scraped the floor in the corner of the room, and I tiredly turned my head to see. Dad was sitting by the window in a chair he must have brought up from the kitchen. The sky was a hot blue behind him, the window open against the smell of vomit and disinfectant that had filled the room. It was late morning, maybe later. Dad's face was in shadow, and he was sitting staring at Dom. He must have felt me watching him because he suddenly switched his gaze to me.

‘I'm so sorry, Patrick.'

I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I answered him as they were closing. The pillow seemed to be swallowing the right side of my face. ‘What for?'

‘You told me Dom was sick. I'm sorry I didn't listen.'

I wanted to tell him that there was nothing he could have done, but I was already gone.

SIX DAYS LATER –
A CONVERSATION ABOUT SKA

THE RECORD HISSED
out dead air as the song came to an end; I didn't even have to look as I reached across and flipped the little lever that raised the play-arm and lifted the needle. I let it hover there while I finished the sentence I was writing, then turned and carefully positioned the needle so that it was back at the beginning of the same song. I'd wear a hole in the record if I played it many more times in a row. There was a blast of static as needle hit vinyl, and then the smooth sounds of Toots and the Maytals drifted out to fill the warm air.

Outside the sun was blazing in a clear blue sky, and all the windows were open, a cool breeze sighing in from the sea. The TV was flickering away in the corner, the sound turned down. It sat on the same kitchen chair that Dad had brought up the night Dom had nearly died. Or the night he came back from the dead. I still wasn't sure what way to think of it.

Dad was in Dublin. Justin had had some kind of emergency at the print shop and Dad had had to run up last night. He'd be back tomorrow. Ma was in the kitchen; I could hear her talking to Dee. The old biddies were due any minute now. They were going to take Nan for a walk, and James Hueston had arranged to join them and bring Dee out in her buggy. Pretty soon downstairs would be filled with the twittery sound of old ladies trying to outdo each other in sweetness and concern, and Dee would be squealing and asking questions and bossing everyone about. But for now, it was just the quiet murmur of voices and the warm smell of dinner cooking.

‘Sweet and Dandy' worked its summer rhythm on the air and I caught myself staring out the window, my head bobbing slightly in time to the music. I sighed, looked at the story I was trying to work on and scratched out the line I'd just written. The page on my knee was covered in scratched-out lines. In fact, only one paragraph remained unmarked. I read it over, my pencil clenched between my teeth: ‘
The green lasers hissed through the damp air, leaving thin trails of steam in their wake. Carlos felt them hit his back. There was no pain, but they flung him from his feet and threw him forward into the shining wall of his ship.
'

I scratched it out. I let my pencil drop to the floor and pushed the copybook off my lap, then laid my head back on the mattress and blew a sigh up at the top bunk. I was sitting on the floor, my back to the bed. The floorboards around me were an untidy jumble of records and unread books, pens and pencils and balled-up scraps of paper. ‘Sweet and Dandy' was coming to its conclusion. I let it play through and then reached over and lifted the lever. I twisted around and leant my chin on the bed, looking at Dom. He was lying against a small mountain of pillows, watching the TV; that's to say, his eyes were on the flickering shadows of the TV, but there was no comprehension in them. I flicked a glance at the screen; it was an old black-and-white Tarzan film. Johnny Weissmuller was wrestling a crocodile, his knife between his teeth. He was our favourite Tarzan, the only one of them who looked like he could really bring a lion to its knees. I looked back at Dom.

‘Hey,' I said, ‘you want me to turn the sound up?'

He didn't so much as blink.

I sighed again, and reached over to drop the needle on the Maytals, but something made me hesitate. I looked back at him again. ‘Dom,' I said, ‘you want me to put the Horslips on?'

Four days after that terrible night, the doctors finally decided that Dom was out of danger. That was the day Dad had brought up the TV. He had puffed and heaved his way up the narrow stairs with it and spent a good three hours fiddling with coathangers and rabbit ears trying to get a decent signal for us. Finally the snow had cleared to reveal the evening news: some shite about the IR A, which Dad turned over because there was footy on the other channel. He stepped back, really pleased with himself, his hands on his hips. He blew a lock of hair out of his face and grinned around at me. I was sitting in my permanent position on the floor beside the bed.

‘There you go, bud. Seeing as how you can't be wedged out of here with a crowbar.' His eyes crinkled up into the first natural smile I'd seen in ages, and then his face did a strange twitch as he realised he'd addressed only me. His eyes flicked to the still, white form of my brother in the bed behind me, and he tried to stop the smile from falling away altogether. It just made him look crazy when he tried to hold on to it like that. I felt like telling him to stop; he wasn't fooling anyone.

There had been a sudden whiff of cigarette smoke and a soft scuffle on the stairs and James had pushed his way through the door, a big grin on his face. ‘Hello the house!' he called, and Dad rushed to help him with his burden. It was a square wooden box with a hinged lid – a portable record player. On top was a small stack of LPs.

Dad had run to find an adapter for the two plugs, and James had winked at me as he set the system up.

‘These are all my favourites,' he said. ‘Extended loan – as long as it takes for our pal here to get back on his feet.' He gave Dom a smile as natural as the one he'd just given me. ‘Now,' he said, shuffling through the pile of records, ‘I
know
you won't think these will be to your taste, lad, but give them a chance. Nothing wrong with broadening your horizons.'

He stacked a few albums one on top of the other. The Skatalites, Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, Desmond Dekker. I'd never heard of any of them, and I have to say, I wasn't too pushed to listen. I was dull and musty, as impervious to everyone as Dom was. But I tried my best to look grateful as Dad returned and plugged the player in, setting it close beside me, and James slipped
The Sensational Maytals
from its sleeve and put on side one.

I'd never heard music like it. It was like a blast of fresh air. It made me sit up straight. Don't get me wrong, I liked music, all sorts, whatever I could get a chance to listen to. But from the minute ‘It's You' started to play, I felt – I don't know how to put it – I remember thinking,
I'm home! I found home!
That's how much I loved it.

That evening Dad went out and bought two Horslips albums and some Thin Lizzy, Dom's favourites. That night and for all of the next day, I alternated one or the other with the Maytals. But today? Today, I had just played ‘Sweet and Dandy' over and over and over. It was like self-hypnosis. I just couldn't stop.

But it was time to put something on for Dom. I waited for him to respond to my question – Horslips? Or maybe Thin Lizzy? There wasn't a chance in hell of an actual answer; still I waited, my chin resting on the blankets, looking up at him without any expectation.

He'd said nothing but ‘milk' for six days. Every mealtime, Ma would bring me up a tray of food and she'd kneel down beside Dom, run her hand through his hair and say, ‘What would you like to eat, baby?'