Wednesday's Child (2 page)

‘Joe, we’re here.’

He stirred painfully and sat up, the hair on the back of his head matted and tangled.

‘Okay, boy. Let’s see what the story with this crowd is.’

He moved to open the door.

‘Listen Joe,’ I said, catching his arm. ‘Are you up for this?’

He looked at me in surprise, his wide, bloodshot eyes a sharp contrast against the pallor of his skin.

‘Oh aye,’ he said, heaving himself out of the car.

The estate looked like something from a war-zone. Two gardens had burnt-out cars outside them. One house had a front window boarded up. There were several children playing out on the small, sparse green, all of them with the blank, desensitised look of the abandoned. The houses themselves were three-bedroomed bungalows, built box-like with the
pebble-dashed walls that all local-authority houses of the period seem to have. As we moved around the car towards the open gateway to the house, the group of children gathered around us at a safe distance. I noted two small boys, both blond, with the familial likeness of brothers. They were dressed in threadbare tee-shirts and ill-matching shorts, and were filthy. With them was a little girl with dark pigtails and a red gash down the side of her left cheek. She looked to be about five years old, and had with her a child of indeterminate gender who was barely out of infancy, and who observed us with slack-jawed speculation, a black finger jammed up its right nostril and a slime of drool covering its chin.

I dragged my attention back to number eight as the sound of unintelligible shouting came from within, the garbled words being screamed by a hoarse, deep-voiced woman. Joe stumbled against me, his breath ragged gasps now. He muttered something I could not hear. I wasn’t interested in trying to decipher his ramblings any more. There were more immediate concerns at hand.

As we approached the front door, it was opened by the largest woman I had ever seen. She stood around 5' 11'', a good half-inch taller than me, and just slightly shorter than Joe, but it was her girth that was the most striking. I was stocky, but she dwarfed me, and she had incredibly muscular arms and shoulders. She was wearing a grey tee-shirt and a shapeless tartan skirt. But what was most frightening about her
was her face. She exuded a kind of insane rage and her eyes blazed with an unquenchable hatred for real and imagined slights visited upon her by the world in general. Her hair was a mess of grey and black and it sat on the top of her huge head in a topography of knots and tangles that seemed to mirror her inner turmoil perfectly. I put her age at mid-fifties, but she could have been anything from forty to seventy. I realised that I had stopped in my tracks and was simply staring at her. Joe was slumped onto my shoulder again.

‘What?’ she bellowed, her whole body clenching with the force of the scream, her biceps bulging. ‘What do yiz want here? Get the fuck away from my house!’

I was speechless. I was suddenly aware that Joe had raised his head and was looking at her with half-lidded eyes.

‘Hello, Mrs Kelly. We heard there was a bit of a row goin’ on. We wondered could we help at all?’

She glowered back at him. He had a half-smile on his round face, which dripped with perspiration from the strain.

‘Could we …’ he had to catch his breath, ‘could we come in for a wee while, Mrs Kelly? Just to talk, like?’

She grunted and stepped back inside the darkness of the hallway.

The first thing that hit me was the stench. The house reeked of stale cooking fat, cigarette smoke and
shit. The hallway was so gloomy that I couldn’t make out much beyond a pile of what looked like old clothes against the wall. The hall was in an L-shape, and there were five doors leading off it. The woman pushed open the first door to the left, and we moved into the living room. The room was a simple rectangle, with a bare floor covered in tiles of a colour totally obscured by dirt. There was an ancient suite of furniture around the periphery of the room which had probably once been beige but was now a dirty brown. A large and new-looking television was in the corner, and the glowing embers of a fire were in the hearth. The fireplace itself was covered in about an inch of dust and ash, and was cracked and broken. In one of the armchairs sat a young woman with flaming red hair, smoking. An overflowing ashtray was balanced on the arm of the chair, and her gaze was focused on the television, which was showing
Richard and Judy
in a peculiar, orange tinge. Beside the young woman was a baby’s pram. Mrs Kelly pushed me from behind and I staggered towards the couch. She deposited herself on the armchair in front of me and fumbled for a cigarette from a box of Majors.

‘Mrs Kelly, my name is Shane Dunphy. I’m a community childcare worker and I’ve been assigned to your family. I’m here to help in any way I can.’

She struck a match and set fire to the tip of the cigarette. She grinned at me, which was almost more frightening than her previous fury.

‘I don’t think you can help me at all, young fella.’

‘You seem very upset.’

She laughed, billowing smoke in great clouds over me.

‘Well let me tell you this then, you little fuckin’ bollix. I need to pay me electric bill or they’re goin’ to cut us off. I need to pay me gas bill, or they’re goin’ to cut that off. I need to buy coal for the fire and I need to buy food for the table. Can you reach into your fat-arse pocket and help me now, Mr Fuckin’ Health Board?’

I cleared my throat and looked at Joe, who was apparently asleep beside me. He muttered something and shifted restlessly.

‘I’m not here to offer that kind of help, Mrs Kelly. But I can give you some advice on how to get some help. The community welfare officer—’

She was on her feet and nose to nose with me so fast I didn’t even see her move.

‘I fuckin’ spoke to the community welfare officer yesterday mornin’, you stupid fucker! He said he can’t help us any more! He says that a month or so with no electric will do us no harm! He says that every time the bills come in we get in trouble!’

Her breath reeked of tobacco, sour milk and bile. As she shouted, her spittle rained on me like bitter hail. I blinked and tried not to seem as scared as I was.

‘Will ye shut the fuck up? I’m watchin’ this,’ the woman in the corner called at us. I heard another match being struck as she lit a cigarette. I glanced at
her for an instant before turning my attention back to the clear and present danger in front of me, who was now growling like a rabid dog and frothing round the edges of her mouth. I smiled weakly at her and moved back slowly on the couch. Joe was stirring again beside me.

‘Maybe we should just try and stay calm. Maybe I could ring the community welfare officer on your behalf, explain the situation …’

She turned back to her armchair. The cigarette in her hand had burnt down to the butt. I looked over at the redhead.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.’

‘That’s cos I didn’t tell you it,’ she snapped, never taking her eyes off the screen.

‘It’s Geraldine.’ Joe was with me again.

‘Geraldine, I’m pleased to meet you. Is that your baby?’

She nodded.

‘May I have a look?’

I stood up. Joe slid down into a half-lying position without my support, and stayed there. I moved over to the pram, keeping half an eye on the bulk that was now shaking and frothing. I looked into the pram. A baby of maybe three months was lying on a stained sheet, half-covered with a ragged shawl. It was awake and looked at me with large blue eyes. It had been sick, and white semi-digested milk lumps were dried on to the side of its face.

‘Boy or a girl?’ I asked.

‘What?’

‘Is your baby a boy or girl?’

‘A girl. Christine.’

‘May I?’

An indiscriminate shrug met my request, so I lifted the child out of the pram and went back to the couch, where I had to perch on the edge so as not to sit on Joe. The child continued to look at me. It gurgled and waved its chubby arms and kicked its legs. It was wearing a grey sleep suit which had probably started out life white, but which was black at the elbows and bum. I could tell that the nappy was full.

‘I think she’s due a change, Geraldine. I’ll do it if you like. Don’t get up.’

She hadn’t moved or even registered my statement. The changing bag was beside the pram and I grabbed it and pulled it towards me. I found a semi-clean towel on the top of the bag and spread it out on the couch, shoving Joe’s head aside to make room. Christine had a very slight nappy rash, but nothing too bad, and I quickly cleaned her and put on a fresh nappy. The nappies were a decent, named brand, as were the wipes and cream. I washed the puke off her face and freshened her up with the wipes: behind the ears and under the arms, her legs and feet. She seemed well fed and not unhappy. I sat her on my knee and looked back at Mrs Kelly, who was now rocking and swearing quietly.

‘How long has your mother been like this, Geraldine?’

The redhead sighed and used the remote control to mute the television.

‘She went mad last night. The ESB bill came. We’ve no money. She can’t stand the stress.’

I nodded and gave Christine my index finger. She grasped it firmly and pulled at it. Reflexes seemed to be present and correct.

‘There’re a few of you living in the house here, aren’t there? The youngest is fourteen, right? She’s the only one at school. Can’t you all club in and help her? Even if you aren’t working, you’ve got the dole or Lone Parents or whatever …’

She was looking at me with real anger.

‘You people make me fucking sick. You think you know it all, coming here in your big car, telling us how to live our lives. I don’t have the money for the bill. The others don’t have it either.’

I looked back at her unwaveringly.

‘How much is the electricity bill?’

‘It’s not just one bill. There’s the gas as well.’

‘Okay. Bills. How much do you owe?’

A roar broke off my line of thought as Mrs Kelly thundered from the room. The door that she had wrenched open slammed off the wall, puncturing a hole in it that crumbled plaster all over the already grimy floor.

‘I’d say it’s about four hundred euro now.’

‘For two bills?’

‘We owe for the last ones too.’

I nodded. The cycle of poverty. I stroked the
baby’s head and watched as she tried to focus her big eyes on my hand.

‘If you could even pay something off them, they’d make allowances. They don’t actually
want
to cut you off. Give them something to work with.’

She fumbled for another cigarette.

‘Yeah, well fuck you.’ She mumbled around the filter.

‘Geraldine, come on! I’m trying to help you here. I’ll ring them if you want, see if we can’t work this out.’

She was shaking with rage and her cheeks were flushed with the embarrassment of the conversation. I could tell that she wasn’t stupid, and that she had a sense of pride that simply did not belong in this slum. It would be knocked out of her the hard way. It was a wonder it hadn’t been knocked out already.

‘Whatever. I don’t care any more.’

With a thunderous roar Mrs Kelly lumbered back into the living room, this time brandishing a bread-knife.

‘Oh shit,’ I muttered.

She was glaring at me with a savage intensity, her left hand bunched into a fist, her right hand clamped around the handle of the knife. I looked quickly at the blade. It was slightly rusted and far from razor sharp, but it would be enough to do some damage with her obviously manic strength behind it.

‘Now you big bastard!’ she seethed through clenched teeth and a constricted throat. ‘You will listen to me!’

She drew the jagged end of the blade over her arm in a swooping arc, grating the flesh rather than cutting it. She grunted and did it again. The blood came immediately, running in thin sheets down her forearm.

‘Mrs Kelly! Please!’

I quickly placed the baby back in the pram. She didn’t make a sound, unaccustomed to being hastily dropped. I sat back down. I didn’t want to threaten the woman by standing. She growled deep in her throat, and stood there, seemingly for a second unaware of what she was doing, where she was, even of my presence. Geraldine had gone back to her television. She looked mildly upset by the turn of events, but not so much as to lose track of the morning programme. Mrs Kelly slowly drew the blade over the flesh just above her wrist. I watched, my mind working rapidly. She was purposely not hitting the artery. She wasn’t trying to kill herself – yet. I shot a lightning glance at Joe, but he was still out of it. The woman before me was growling again, and continuing to make red, raw grooves in her arm. I could hear the sound of the drops spattering on the floor and pulled my legs away from them.