A Week in Winter(12)

Nuala wrote back.

When you come home I’ll take you on the train to Stoneybridge and you’ll see it all for yourself. It’s such a long story but it’s going to be easier to tell you all about it than write it down.

By the time he came back from the reform school, Rigger was sixteen and Nuala’s mother had died.

Nasey went on his own to the funeral. Nuala didn’t go. She hadn’t been at all easy when she had gone to see her father buried. She fancied that some of the neighbours looked at her oddly and that the sisters in America were annoyed with her for not coming back more regularly. Her brother from Birmingham had given her a very irritating lecture about it being time she settled down and had a family instead of just running around enjoying herself in Dublin.

Nasey told the family that he did see Nuala from time to time but said no more. He kept to his theory that people should not be burdened with too much information. He brought news from home. Two of the Miss Sheedys had died. Now only Miss Queenie remained.

Then came the news that Chicky Starr had come back from America and was going to buy Stone House. Miss Queenie would live there for her lifetime and they were going to make the place into a hotel.

Nuala remembered Chicky well. They had been at school together. Chicky had married an American called Walter Starr and had gone to live in New York. Nuala had written to her there. Her poor husband had been killed in a terrible car crash.

She would have her work cut out for her if she was to make any kind of a fist of that big sprawling house and turn it into a hotel where people would pay to stay.

Rigger didn’t talk much about his time at the reform school when he came back. He had learned a bit of this and a bit of that, he said. But he wasn’t qualified at anything. They had done a bit of building up in the school: plastering one week, digging another. Nasey said he would try to get Rigger taken on by Mr Malone in the butcher’s shop, but times were hard. People were buying more and more of their meat ready-wrapped in supermarkets.

Signora asked Nuala did she know if Rigger would go back to school. She would give him some lessons to try and help him catch up, but he didn’t want that.

He had had enough school, he said.

Nuala had very much hoped that he would have grown away from his old ways, that he could find new friends and a different way of living.

But Rigger was barely home a few weeks when Nuala realised that her son had indeed made contact with those boys he could find from the old days. Some of them were not around any more. Two were in gaol, one on the run – possibly in England – and the others under the fairly constant and watchful eye of the Guards.

Rigger had been warned from every side about the danger of getting a criminal record if he offended again.

He went out early and came home late with no explanation or description of how he spent his time. One night she heard shouting and running and doors banging and she lay shaking in the dark waiting for the arrival of the Guards with their sirens wailing. But nobody came.

Next morning she was drawn and anxious but Rigger had obviously slept well and seemed unconcerned. She was relieved when he told her that he was going to look for a job.

Nasey was surprised to see Rigger come into the butcher’s shop with two of his friends. Surprised and not altogether pleased.

But Rigger had come to ask was there any casual work going, could they clean up the yard, for example?

Nasey was pleased to see some interest in legitimate work, and he ran to Mr Malone asking if they could have a couple of hours’ work. And to give them their due, they did the job well. Nasey reported it all to Nuala with pleasure. The lads had done the job, got a few euro and gone away well satisfied.

Nuala began to breathe properly again. Perhaps she had been overanxious about nothing.

Two nights later, Nasey was taking his late-night walk and passed the butcher’s shop. He looked up automatically at the burglar alarm and saw to his astonishment that it was not turned on. Never had he left the premises without switching it to ‘Active’. Horrified, he let himself in and heard sounds at the back of the shop from the cold room.

As he went in he saw three men lifting carcasses of beef into a van which was parked in the back yard.

He ran towards them and one of the men dropped a great side of meat and came at him with a crowbar.

‘What are you doing?’ Nasey cried. As the man was about to hit him, from nowhere a voice shouted, ‘Leave him, leave him, for Christ’s sake.’

The blow was stopped and Nasey recognised his protector was in fact his nephew Rigger.

‘I don’t believe it, Rigger.’ Nasey was nearly in tears. ‘You were paid for your work and you came back to steal their meat.’

‘Shut up, Nasey, you big eejit. Just get out of here. You were never here, do you hear me? Just go home and say nothing. No harm done.’

‘I can’t. I can’t let Mr Malone’s livelihood be taken like this . . .’

‘He’s well insured, Nasey. Have some sense, man.’

‘You can’t do this. What are you going to do with the carcasses?’

‘Cut them up. Sell them along the Mountainview Estates. Everyone round there wants cheap meat. Nasey, get out of here, will you?’

‘I’m not going and I’m not going to forget it.’

‘Rigger, either you shut him up or I will,’ one of the others said.

Nasey felt himself being pushed out the door, and he could feel Rigger’s breath hot on his face.