A Week in Winter(13)

‘Jesus, Nasey, have you an ounce of sense? They’d beat the side of your head in. Get out. Run. RUN!’

Nasey ran all the way to Nuala’s house and told her what had happened. White-faced, the two of them sat drinking mugs of tea.

‘Even if I don’t tell Mr Malone, he’ll know anyway. He’s not a fool. Who else would have been able to come in and see the lie of the land and suss the place out except those three? And he knows that Rigger is my nephew.’

‘I’m so sorry, Nasey,’ Nuala wept.

‘We have to think what to do with him. He’ll go to gaol over this,’ Nasey said.

‘It’s all my fault. I should have been able to control him. I was too busy making money for him. Saving for an education that he’ll never have.’

‘Stop that. It’s not down to you.’

‘Well, who else’s fault is it but mine?’

‘This is no time to be trying to work that out. We have to hide him. The Guards will come looking for him here.’

‘Could we send him back to Stoneybridge?’ Her face was despairing.

‘But who would look after him there? And I thought you didn’t want anyone to know about him.’

‘I don’t want him in gaol either. Who knows about him isn’t important any more.’

‘None of them would be able to handle him,’ Nasey said. ‘If there was somewhere he could live in and work . . .’

Nuala strained to think of anywhere.

‘Could he work for Chicky at Stone House? Miss Queenie wrote to me not long ago that she was looking for someone to help her.’

‘He’d never stick it.’ Nasey shook his head.

‘He will if he knows it’s that or prison.’

‘Ring Chicky,’ Nasey said.

Nasey didn’t hear the phone conversation. He was out on the street waiting for Rigger to come back. He saw the boy running down the street. Rigger was home. His face was white and his hands were shaking. He was willing to blame everyone but himself.

‘If I go down, Nasey, it will all be due to you. The other lads just threw me out. They won’t let me have any part of what we got. It’s so unfair. I set it up. I gave them the way in.’

‘Yes, you did,’ Nasey said grimly.

‘I told the others you wouldn’t split on us but they don’t believe me. They say you’ll have gone to the Guards already. Have you?’

‘No,’ Nasey said.

‘Well thank God for that, anyway. Why couldn’t you have just backed away?’

‘I did. I ran away as you said.’

‘And you’re not going to tell?’ Rigger looked like a child.

‘I don’t have to tell, Rigger. Mr Malone will know.’

‘Oh my God, it’s Mister Malone this, Mister Malone that. Would you hear yourself?’ Rigger was full of scorn. ‘Aren’t you big enough and old enough to be your own master instead of yes sir, yes sir, three bags full, to him?’

‘They’ll find you even if I were struck dumb and never spoke again,’ Nasey said.

‘Just shut your mouth, Rigger, and listen carefully,’ Nuala spoke suddenly.

He looked at her in shock. Her face was hard and unforgiving. He had never known her raise her voice to him like this before.

‘We’re going to get you out of Dublin tonight. And you’re not coming back.’

‘What?’

‘There’s a truck driver taking his lorry back to Stoneybridge tonight. You’ll go with him. He will take you to Stone House.’

‘What’s Stone House? Is it a school?’ Rigger was frightened.

‘It’s where your mother worked when she was young. It’s where she left from to have you, all those years ago. With all the pleasure and pride that was to bring her.’ Never had Nasey sounded so bitter.

Rigger tried to speak but his uncle wouldn’t let him say a word. ‘Get your things together, give me your phone, tell nobody where you’re going. You’ll be in Stoneybridge by the time they open up Malone’s in the morning.’

‘But you said that the Guards would find me anyway.’

‘Not if you’re not here, they can’t. Not if no one knows where you are.’

‘Mam, is that right?’

‘Chicky is doing me this one favour. She suggested the driver. She’ll keep you for a week to see how it goes. If you get up to any of your old tricks, she’ll call the Guards down there and they’ll have you back here and behind bars before you know what’s happened.’

‘Mam!’

‘Don’t “Mam” me. I was never a proper mother to you. It was only pretending to be a family, that’s all it was, and it stops tonight.’

‘Nasey?’

‘What?’

‘Will you get into any trouble?’ Rigger asked. It was the first hint that he might care for anyone other than himself.

‘I don’t know. That remains to be seen. I’ll tell Mr Malone that I’m very sorry about it, about getting him to let you all work in the yard. Which I am – very, very sorry indeed.’

‘He won’t sack you, will he?’

‘Who knows? I hope not. Years of work. One mistake.’