‘I just saw a wee pub called The Sherlock. And then I remembered that I’d checked up on it in the Ballymun school library.’
‘You win,’ he says, and he pats her leg and they smile at each other.
We stop at a pub for something to eat and so my father can rest from driving and we sit in a booth near the back. The food comes from the kitchen to the bar through a service hatch. I like it that I can see the white sleeves of the person holding the plates but not his head.
There’s a good smell of burnt chops and I like the heavy cutlery and the big plates. My father smokes. He lights one cigarette from another. My mother goes to the bar and gets three fizzy drinks. We sit for a while without speaking.
A little girl walks in and out of the bar and leaves the door open. Her brother gets up and closes the door after her and the people sitting nearest the door complain each time she leaves it open. I hate it when people leave doors open and cause draughts.
But this is almost exactly what happened when we stopped at the hotel near the Wicklow mountains on the way to Dublin. I’m sure of it! There was a little girl there, too, who left the door open and her brother had to get up and close it after her.
My heart is thumping so hard I can feel the blood in my teeth, and I’m very nervous, but I have to speak. ‘What’s going to happen?’ I ask.
‘Well, we’re going home now, and your granny will be very happy to see you,’ my father says. ‘But first I have something for you.’
He gives me a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. I unwrap it. It’s a cap, the kind of stupid cap farmers wear.
‘It’s yours,’ he says.
‘Why?’
My mother and father look at each other, wanting the other to say it.
‘To stop your scratching,’ says my mother. ‘At least until your head heals and you get out of the habit.’
‘I don’t want to wear this.’
‘You’ll wear that hat,’ says my mother. ‘You’ll wear it all day, every day, until I tell you not to.’
I put the cap on my head and I feel like a fool. It’s a soft brown cap, not a hat, not quite a beret. I don’t know what to call it. I take it off and look at it. ‘This is stupid. I haven’t even been scratching,’ I say.
‘You’ve been scratching that hole in your head non-stop since we left Ballymun,’ says my father.
I didn’t know. ‘Where did you get it from?’
‘It was your Uncle Gerald’s.’
‘Why did he give it to you?’
My mother laughs and looks happy, pleased with herself. ‘He didn’t,’ she says. ‘Your father found it yesterday down behind a chair and it was covered in fluff and cobwebs. So he took it.’
I put the hat on and then I realise what I have done: I have brought her back. I have brought her back. She is better now.
My grandmother is waiting outside the cottage when we arrive; standing on the doorstep, her hands on her wide hips. She’s dressed in blue from head to toe and this usually means a special occasion. Blue jumper and cardigan and skirt and pale blue stockings and blue shoes.
I get out of the car first and walk towards her. I want her to be glad to see me and I had hoped she might be standing outside by the road, smiling, holding Crito in one arm, the other ready to hold me. But there is no sign of Crito, and her hands stay on her hips. She doesn’t move towards me.
‘Hello,’ she says. ‘You had a fine day for the drive.’
‘Hello, Granny,’ I say.
‘Smart hat,’ she says.
She stays where she is, on the doorstep, looking at me. ‘Aren’t you going to help your poor mammy and daddy with all those big, heavy cases?’
I go to the trunk and take out the last case, a small red one.
‘You’re big, enough and bold enough now to offer a helping hand.’
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
I was thinking: thinking that I would like a better welcome home. But I don’t deserve it. There’ll be no understanding of what I have done. I will be given no forgiveness; there will only be forgetting.
‘Better get you inside and unpacking,’ she says. ‘And I’ll make us all something to eat.’
I go to my bedroom, close the door, and check under the mattress. The Gol of Seil and the money are still there. I’m very relieved to see my things: nobody should know where I keep them and what I do with them should be up to me.
I sit on the floor and make my decision. I probably won’t keep the money and I might not keep The Gol of Seil either; it’s full of mistakes of learning, mistakes of the past. If I find a way to return the money and get rid of The Gol of Seil, everything will be normal again. There’ll be nothing in my way of setting things right.
At tea, we are all in our old places at the kitchen table, and we eat runny stew with more carrots than meat and mop it up with thick brown bread. Crito sits by my feet and when I lean down to stroke her I realise that she is fatter than she was when we left. I lift her and put her on my lap so that her face is near my belt buckle. She seems to remember who I am and curls into a ball before closing her eyes. Nobody tells me to put her back on the floor.
‘Crito’s purring is really loud,’ I say. ‘She must be happy to see us.’
‘She must be,’ says my grandmother.
‘Are you, too? Are you happy to have us back?’
‘Of course I am,’ she says without smiling. ‘It’s good to have you home.’
‘And it’s lovely to be here,’ says my mother. ‘I so missed being here.’
My mother’s cup shakes in her hand and I wish it wouldn’t. I do something I haven’t done since before Christmas, since before my father lied about the kittens. I take a Digestive biscuit from the packet and dip it into my tea. And I count aloud, to test how long it takes for the biscuit to dissolve and fall into the tea. I take another one, and remove the biscuit the moment before it breaks.
‘Five seconds,’ I say. ‘A record.’
I laugh, and they watch this thing I used to do at the table after meals, before Ballymun, and I do it now because I think it is something they will remember; a bit of how I used to be. I will show them I’m the same boy.
My grandmother seems pleased and holds her cup up over her head. ‘Slàinte,’ she says. ‘Here’s to being home.’
‘Slàinte,’ I say, standing up. ‘And Hip! Hip! Hooray!’
36
I wake in the night. My arm is numb, as though all of the bones have been removed. When I lift my arm, it is limp and dead, like a chicken’s neck after it has been broken. I’m scared that it may be paralysed as punishment. I get out of bed and turn on the light and keep moving my arm, hoping it will come back to life. And I chant the Our Father.
My mother comes in. ‘Why are you up?’ she asks.
‘My arm was paralysed or something. I couldn’t feel it.’
‘And now?’
‘It’s still numb. I don’t understand.’
She smiles. ‘It’s asleep,’ she says. ‘That’s all. Your arm has gone to sleep.’
‘But it feels like it’s gone.’
‘Don’t worry. It’ll come back.’
I sit on the bed, rubbing my arm. She stays by the open door.
‘Da doesn’t say much,’ I say. ‘He’s gone all quiet.’
She takes a deep breath and looks down at a spot in the carpet somewhere between her feet and the end of my bed. ‘He’ll talk again. Just leave him be.’
‘But he was reading last night. That’s good, isn’t it? And you’re happy again. That’s good too, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
She looks at me for a long time, and I look back. I’ve stared at her eyes before but this time is different. She stares at me as though she has never seen me before, as though she is nervously meeting a stranger. I want her to come closer but she steps away.