‘Is this a boys’ home?’
‘Yes, it’s a boys’ home. Let’s get you inside and see if they have the bed ready yet.’
There is a room for me at the end of the long, dark hallway. We come to a yellow door with a brass number 84 on it and we go inside. The social worker turns on the light, which flickers for a moment before working. It’s a small room, with a round yellow rug — the same yellow as the paint on the door — in the middle of the floor, a narrow bed that is low to the ground, and there are racing cars on the wallpaper. The bed doesn’t look big enough for me and, although I prefer to sleep flat on my back, I’ll probably have to curl my legs up during the night.
‘So, this will be your room for a few days,’ says the social worker. ‘Leave your bag in the cupboard and come with me to the interview room.’
I sit on the tidy bed. It’s white, like a tablet, made tight, the sheets tucked in all the way under the thin mattress. There are three blankets in a neat pile on the end, orange, green and brown.
‘What for?’ I ask.
‘You’ll be interviewed by the housefather, just for a minute, and in the morning you’ll be back with the guards.’
‘I feel sick,’ I say.
‘That’s understandable,’ he says, as he fastens the button on his sleeve. ‘What’s happened is probably starting to sink in.’
‘No, it’s not. I just feel sick.’
‘All right, I’ll get you some aspirin, but we need to go. The housefather has got out of bed especially and we don’t want to keep him up all night.’
‘OK.’
The two guards who came to our flat are in the interview room and they sit in chairs against the back wall. The social worker pulls a chair out from the table and points at it. I sit at the table and then he disappears, or so I think, until I realise that he is standing behind me.
The room has nothing in it except the table, four chairs, a heater and some toys for small children: rings that fit over plastic sticks, and plastic shapes that fit into plastic holes. Somebody has tried to force a triangle into a square hole.
The housefather comes in. He is old and skinny, and he has messy black and grey hair. He sits opposite me at the table and holds a pen over a pad of writing paper.
‘Good evening, John,’ he says. ‘My name is Mr Keating.’
‘Hello,’ I say.
He hands me a key and tells me it’s for the cupboard in my room. The key must be made of plastic: it weighs no more than a cube of sugar. There are chocolate biscuits on the table but I don’t want them. I feel hungry and full all at once, like there’s too much air in my stomach.
Then we are silent and he looks at me. ‘You’re scratching your head quite a bit,’ he says. ‘Are you conscious of doing that?’
I wasn’t, but there’s no way now to hide the blood on my fingers.
‘Does that not hurt? Does it not hurt to make your scalp bleed?’
‘Not really. I just scratch because it’s itchy.’
‘There are better ways to stop an itch.’
I shrug.
‘Do you feel the pain now? In the place where your head is bleeding?’
‘No.’
He looks over at the social worker. ‘Would you like me to get you a tissue or some cotton wool?’
‘No. It doesn’t matter.’
More silence.
‘I hear you think of yourself as a bit of a lie detector? I hear you can tell when people are lying?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know a little of that subject myself. Did you know that there are other people in the world who can do this?’
‘Yes. I’ve read about them.’ I tell him a little of what I’ve read about the wizards, how they score between ninety and one hundred per cent in tests.
‘Did you know that most lie detectors develop their super-sensitivity to emotion early in life? And this heightened sensitivity is often due to unusual childhood circumstances?’
I enjoy being spoken to as though I am an intelligent adult, but I don’t get his point. ‘So?’ I say.
‘Well, John, many people who claim to have this ability to detect lies have extremely irritable mothers, or alcoholic fathers, or some other force or presence in their early life that is, or was, unhealthy, unnatural, unpleasant or extremely upsetting in some way. Does that ring any bells, John? Did you have an upsetting experience?’
He is wrong. ‘I feel sick,’ I say.
As I move to stand, the chair falls out from under me. And that is the last thing I remember of my first night in the Parnell Square Home for Boys.
* * *
When I wake, the social worker and the housefather are standing by my bed. The room is stuffy and, although it must be morning, the curtains haven’t been opened and it is still dark.
‘We came to wake you,’ says the social worker. ‘But you woke yourself. How did you sleep?’
‘Good,’ I say. ‘Fine.’
‘You’ve missed breakfast,’ says the housefather as he opens the curtains. ‘It’s eleven o’clock.’
I sit up and an insect lands on my face, and then on my arm. The room is hot and infested with midges. I’ve never seen midges inside. They shouldn’t be here.
‘Get dressed. We’ll wait outside.’
I dress in the same clothes I came in and go out into the hall.
The housefather folds his arms across his chest. I do the same. But I feel stupid, unfold them, and lean my shoulder against the door.
‘Your mother is coming for you later this afternoon. She came to get you at nine o’clock and was waiting for you but she didn’t want us to wake you. And your father will be here on the afternoon train, but first you need to come with us to the interview room. Then you’ll have some lunch.’
‘If my mother is here, why can’t I see her?’ I ask.
‘She was here but we sent her home for some rest. She’ll be back later this afternoon. We need to sort out some paperwork first. We need to sign your discharge papers.’
‘Does that mean I’m leaving?’
‘Yes, but let’s take care of that business somewhere other than in the corridor.’
They sit at one side of the wobbling table and I sit at the other. The housefather does all the talking. I don’t have any thoughts about anything much except my nervous stomach.
‘Your mother says she doesn’t want to pursue any charges against you. She hasn’t been to bed. She was with the guards most of the night, and came in here this morning.’
I stare at him.
‘We need to sign you in, and this must be done quite formally, since you were unfit to sign anything last night.’
‘But why should I be signed in when I’m about to be signed out?’
‘Can you read?’
‘Of course I can read.’
‘Then read this, and if you agree to it, sign it, and then you’ll be free to go home with your mother, if that’s where she’d like to take you.’
‘Back home?’
‘Looks like it,’ says the housefather. ‘And you’d better stop rubbing your face. It muffles your words and you’ll end up with acne vulgaris.’
‘Acne vulgaris is …’ offers the social worker.
‘I know what it is.’
The two-sided discharge paper says that I was taken ‘involuntarily into the custody of the Department of Justice’ and that I am being ‘discharged by order of the same’; today’s date, a few names, something about ‘indemnification against damage to property’, and that’s about it.
I’d like to keep it as a souvenir.
‘So I can go now?’ I ask. ‘Back home?’
The social worker clears his throat. ‘Well, you can see your mother and I’ll be sitting in with you in the family room for a few minutes, just to be sure everything is ship-shape.’
‘Oh.’
* * *