A Week in Winter(15)

On the days when the Atlantic storms battered the house and the rain came in horizontally, there were old lofts to be cleared out, furniture to be shifted, woodwork to be painted. The old outhouses were dealt with by a couple of builders who were kept busy hacking out and making good. Rigger worked for them, carrying bricks and stones and wooden planks. He chopped wood for the fires and cleaned the grates out every morning, then poured fresh water and breakfast for Gloria and made tea for Miss Queenie.

She was a nice old thing, away with the fairies, of course, but no harm in her. She was interested in everything and would tell him long stories about the past when her sisters were alive. They would have loved a tennis court, but there was never the money to make one.

‘Your mother was wonderful when she was here. We really missed her when she left,’ Miss Queenie would say. ‘Nobody could make potato cakes like Nuala could.’

This was news to Rigger. He didn’t ever remember potato cakes at home.

Rigger had a bedroom behind the kitchen where he slept, exhausted, for seven hours a night. On a Saturday, Chicky gave him his bus fare, the price of a cinema ticket and a burger in the next town.

Nobody ever spoke of why he was there, or the fact that he was in hiding. There was little time to make friends around the place and that was good too, as far as Rigger was concerned. The fewer people who knew about him the better.

And then he heard the news he had been waiting to hear.

Nasey phoned him with the details. Two youths had been arrested for the theft of meat from the butcher’s shop. They had been before the court and had been given six-month sentences.

The Guards had watched Nuala’s house for several weeks, and when there was no sign of Rigger, and nobody knew where he had gone, the matter was dropped.

‘How did they catch them?’ Rigger asked in a whisper.

‘Someone pointed the Guards in the area of the Mountainview Estates and there they were, as bold as brass, going from door to door selling the meat.’

Rigger knew that the ‘someone’ must have been Nasey, but he said nothing. ‘And your own job, Nasey?’

‘Is still there. Mr Malone sometimes sympathises with me on the fact that you ran away. He even told me that you might be better off out of Dublin.’

‘I see.’

‘And maybe he’s right, Rigger.’

‘Thank you again, Nasey. And about my mam?’

‘She’s still in a bit of shock, you know. She had been so looking forward to you getting back from that school, counting the days, in fact. She had such plans for you, and now it’s all over.’

‘Ah no, it’s not all over. Not for ever, it’s not. I can come back now that the others are off the streets, can’t I?’

‘No, Rigger, those fellows have friends. They’re in a gang. I wouldn’t advise you coming back here for a good while.’

‘But I can’t stay here for ever,’ Rigger wailed.

‘You have to stay for a fair bit more,’ Nasey warned.

‘I miss my mam writing to me like she did up in the school.’

‘I wouldn’t say she’s up to writing to you. Not yet, anyway. You could always write to her yourself, of course,’ Nasey said.

‘I could, I suppose . . .’

‘Good, good.’ Nasey was gone.

Maybe Miss Queenie would help him write to his mother.

She was indeed a great help, telling him things that might interest Nuala: how this garage had been sold, the O’Haras’ new houses – which were going to make them millionaires – had now lost all their value and were like white elephants with no buyers. Father Johnson had a new curate who was doing most of the work in the parish.

Rigger didn’t know whether his mother found any of this interesting as she never wrote back.

‘Why do you think she doesn’t write back to me?’ he asked Miss Queenie.

The old lady had no idea. Her pale blue eyes were troubled and sad on his behalf as she stroked Gloria on her knee. It was strange, she said, Nuala had been so proud of him and even sent pictures of his christening and his First Communion. Maybe Chicky would know.

Nervously he asked Chicky, who said crisply that he must have an over-sunny view of life if he believed that his mother had got over everything.

‘It wasn’t easy for her to ring me in the middle of the night. We hadn’t seen each other for twenty years, and she had to tell me that I was the only person on earth who could help her. She can’t have liked doing that. I would have hated it.’

‘Yes, I know, but could you tell her I’ve changed?’ he begged.

‘I have told her.’

‘And why doesn’t she write back to me, then?’

‘Because she thinks it’s all her fault. She doesn’t really want to get involved with you again. I’m sorry to be so hard, but you did ask.’

‘Yes, I did.’ He was very shaken.

By now Rigger had actually become interested in this whole mad plan to turn the old house into a smart guest house. The rough work and clearing of the ground had all been done; it was time for rebuilding. Real contractors would be brought in on the job. He looked on in amazement as the plans for bathrooms and central heating were laid out on the kitchen table as Gloria batted them from one side to the other. He knew there were meetings with bankers and insurance brokers, that designers were planned in the future.