Cold Eye of Heaven, The (28 page)

‘Ah Granda, yes, I remember. I remember it all. Come on, we better get a move on.'

‘Well, now it's your turn to nurse her.'

‘O great.'

Granda scoops up a long breath of air. ‘You see, son, if you get yourself interested in things then you can you start working out the plan of your life – know what I mean?'

‘I am interested in things.'

‘Like what?'

Farley looks down at the trunk, the labels at their haphazard angles. Singapore. Hong Kong. Malaya. ‘Travel,' he says, ‘I'm interested in seeing places.'

‘Good. Now
that's
good. But you have to find the
wherewithal
to travel, you know. You can't just take off like a bird. You have to work towards finding the means and the ways – hope you know.'

Granda sniffles up the last three steps. Bash. Bash. Bash. They stop on the landing and he puts his hands down on his thighs and hangs his head for a minute. Snuff-brown snot falls from his nose and Farley pretends not to notice. He looks through the window over Granda's bent back; the leaves on the red beech jiggling on the branches. The big wall behind it. Then he looks at the trunk again. It's been sent from Hong Kong ahead of the girl. The girl's name: Vida Singleton. And he wonders what a girl with such a name could look like and how come she was born so lucky.

Granda takes out a hanky and ruffles it over his nose. ‘Fourth bed on the right did you say?'

They drag the trunk through. Along the rows of beds other trunks stand like headstones. They reach the fourth bed and Granda sits on the end of it. He seems a bit shook.

‘It's a sad time, son,' he says. ‘A sad time for us all.' And he begins to cry again.

‘Would you like a rest, Granda?'

Granda nods.

‘Will I go on so?' Farley says.

Granda nods.

‘Will I give you half an hour say? Will I see you outside Sister Martha's office then, after you have a little rest?'

Granda nods again, then lays his head down on the striped ticking of Vida Singleton's naked pillow.

He finds her weeding plots in the little graveyard on the hillock. He stays at the entrance and looks at her for a while. She seems so calm, kneeling on a cushion, stooped over a grave. Her skirt is clipped Bo-Peep style at the side and two puff sleeves sit high on her arms so he can see her wrists and the shape of her bare arms as far as her elbows. She keeps flicking her veil back over her shoulder as if it's hair. He stays still, barely breathes in fact, but she knows he's there anyway, because without turning around she asks if he would be kind enough to pass her a trowel from the box by the gate. She takes it from him without looking at his face, then just holds it in her right hand while her left hand plucks and fingers the soil. She asks if he likes school and he says no, not at all.

‘We all have to do things we don't like,' she says serenely.

She has a mole, he notices, on the side of her face, dark like a beauty spot. And something about the mole makes him afraid of her. His stomach feels queasy, sweat greases his palms.

‘Now you ask
me
something,' she says

‘Like what?'

‘You know, a question. I asked you if you like school. And you answered. Now your turn. You ask, I answer. And what with all the questions and answers threading between us, we can make a conversation in no time.'

The way she said
threading
. Her tongue plotting the word through her teeth.

Farley says, ‘Alright then, where are you from?'

‘Ayrshire. That's Scotland in case you don't know. Where are you from?'

He looks back over his shoulder and says, ‘Down the road.'

She gives a small laugh. ‘Down the road? How old are you?' she asks him.

‘Fifteen. How old are you?'

‘You should never ask a lady her age,' she says with a soft upward glance.

‘You're not a lady, you're a nun,' he says.

‘That's not a question. You're supposed to ask me a question.'

‘What's your name?'

‘They call me Concilia. And I'm not a nun. I'm a postulant.'

‘What's that?'

‘It's not your turn,' she scowls. ‘You're supposed to wait your turn. You look a lot older than fifteen.'

‘Do I?' he asks.

‘Yes. I had a brother who died in the war but nobody cares a
jot
about him.' She smiles again. ‘I suppose you shave and everything?'

He feels his face flare up. ‘It's not your turn,' he says stiffly and the smile slips off her face. He looks away, mortified. After a moment he returns with an answer to her question: ‘Sometimes. Sometimes I shave.'

‘
What?
I can't understand what you're saying, all this mumbling and muttering and—'

‘Sometimes.' His face is so hot now that his skin is ready to crack.

‘Sometimes,' she repeats with a quiet, cruel sneer that makes him dislike her. She begins stabbing the soil of the grave with the trowel.

‘Did you bring my newspaper?'

He takes it out of his pocket and lays it down beside her.

‘Did you tell anyone you were bringing it?'

‘No,' he says.

‘Good. I read all sorts of things in your papers. Horrific things, you know. No wonder they don't let us read them in here. Do you know what I read in the last paper? I read about this wee baby who burned to death in his pram. Did you read about that?'

‘No. No I didn't.'

‘A candle left on the shelf above, dropped into the pram in the middle
of the night. Can you credit that? Not the mother's fault, the judge said. Well, who's fault was it then, that's what I'd like to know?' Her voice is lifting. Anger.

‘I don't know,' Farley says.

‘That wasn't a question. I know you don't know. Honestly!'

Farley waits a few seconds and says, ‘Anyway, I have to—'

‘Aye, away you go, wee boy.'

‘So long then.'

She speaks so quietly now. ‘If you tell anyone we've been speaking or that I asked you to bring me a newspaper, I'll say you tried to rape me.'

‘
What?
'

‘I'll say you tore my clothes off and tried to kiss me and then you tried to put your thing into me. That's what I'll say. They will easily believe me. Because even if it's
not
true it's what you really want to do. So in the eyes of God you are in fact a rapist.'

He stares at the back of her head trying to come to terms with her words. Then he turns and begins to run.

He runs back down the slope of the field but before he gets to the boundary fence, has to stop because he can't breathe. He's crying now; the tears, hard and angry and sore as if he's crying hailstones. It feels as if they're ramming up against him before pushing through his skin. He stands under the trees and waits for it to pass. After a while he feels able to pull himself together and begins to briskly walk. He has to get off the convent grounds, the thoughts of running into one of the nuns. Or Wiggy. Or Jimmy Ball. Or anyone at all. And the thoughts of walking down Knockmaroon Hill with Granda half-buckled beside him. Or sitting amongst old men for the afternoon, choking on their smoke and their stupid horse talk. If he hurries back to Gran's he can tell Jackie he's not feeling well and send him back to meet Granda on his own. If he hurries back to Gran's she might still be out buying her Saturday messages and he can sneak into the bedroom for a lie-down, no questions asked. He will not think about the woman in the graveyard, the walk on the rain-coated street, the colour of her hair. He will not think about anyone or anything,
just how to get back to Gran's and hide there and never think about or come near this place again.

Farley leaves by the side gate and stays by the wall where the ground is still slippy and there's less chance of bumping into anyone. He's stopped crying now and feels he may never cry again, but he doesn't want to see anyone because he's afraid they will guess, the way people always seem to recognize shame. He stays by the wall until it stops shielding the convent and becomes part of the Guinness estate. The ground here is flooded, small impassable lakes of old rain and the only way past them is to veer away from the trees. The light broadens. A racehorse springs into view coming from the direction of Castleknock Gate; the horse's legs bunching and unbunching in a slow, tight canter. Farley stops and lowers his head, in case the rider is one of the lads from the stables. He thinks about taking cover, but it's all open space here, bar a few scrawny sapling trees, tottering like cripples in iron braces. He feels like running back, or diving into a ditch. But in the end it doesn't matter, because the horse points itself towards the Fifteen Acres and the rider, hands pushed down, head lowered, is preoccupied with staying on his mount.

They have left an archway of daylight behind them. Farley sees another shape there. A figure. This time he doesn't try to hide but moves towards the figure, recognizing more and more of it, as they come closer to each other.

By White Gate's Lodge they both stop.

‘Sandwiches for the racing,' Jackie says, lifting his elbow to show the package under his arm, ‘chocolate and all.' For once he seems cheerful.

‘What are you doin here?' Farley asks him. ‘You were supposed to wait for us to collect you.'

‘Gran had a visitor. The woman from the funeral – with the pigeon hat? Except she wasn't wearing it. The hat, I mean. She's a culchie by the way. And Gran doesn't like her.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I heard her talking. She talks like Master Barry.'

‘No – I mean, how do you know Gran doesn't like her?'

‘Don't know, just do.'

‘I'm going home,' Farley says.

‘Home, home or home to Gran's?'

‘Gran's.'

‘You can't go. You'll just get sent back out again.'

‘Why?'

‘Because of the visitor.'

‘I won't go near them.'

‘I'm telling you, you'll only be sent back out. Here – do you think I look like Da?'

‘A bit. Why?'

‘Nothing. I came into the kitchen while they were talking and the woman said, That's his son isn't it? And Gran says yes and your woman goes, My God, he's the image of him and then she pulls a hanky out of her bag and starts sniffing.'

Jackie waits for a minute. ‘So? Are you comin or what?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Well, I'm not standing here all day, anyway. I'm off,' Jackie says, passing him by. ‘I'm going to win today – I just know I am.'

For a few seconds Farley watches his brother move away. When he reaches the start of the Guinness estate he calls out after him, then breaking into a trot, follows him on the bridle path back towards the convent wall.

HE KNOWS IT'S A
visiting day. Everyone gets clean pyjamas, even the boys who never get visitors, and one nurse goes round tightening all the beds and another goes round combing all the boys' hair to one side. He knows it's nearly three o'clock. The ginger boy has turned the other way letting on to be asleep because he says he hates stupid visiting hour and once in the toilets he told Buddy that he even wrote a letter to his ma down the country telling her if she ever came up to see him he'd give her such a punch in the stomach.

‘To his own ma? Did he say that,
really
?' he asked when Buddy told him, whispering in the dark across their two beds. ‘
His own ma?
'

‘That's what he said.'

‘His own ma.'

He knows it's three o' clock on the dot. All the boys' heads are turned to the door to see who's first in and it's usually Buddy's ma unless she has to go to work selling fruit outside the races. But today it can't be her because Buddy's not even here.

‘Nurse, excuse me, nurse, hey, nurse, comere – where did you say Buddy is gone again?'

‘I told you, he's gone for an X-ray and then to see the doctor – do you not remember me telling you that?'

‘No. I mean I don't know.'

‘Are you feeling a bit tired again?'

‘No. Will he not be back in time for the visitors?'

‘Tea time I'd say now before we see him again.'

‘Tea time? Ah nurse, that's
ages
.'

Buddy's his best pal and his ma is the best visitor ever. She comes into the ward speaking in her sore throat voice and whicking her scarf off her head with her big purple hands. She has lemon-coloured hair and her eyes are grassy green, same as Buddy's. She wears a spotty pinny under her two coats and one jacket, with big pockets low on the front and you can hear the coins jigging inside when she walks along. For the first few minutes she's always freezing then she starts taking off her coats and jacket, pulling sneaky bars of chocolate out of all the pockets on the way and throwing them at the boys to catch or leaving one under the ginger boy's pillow and not caring a bit if it's against the rules. ‘Ah, bugger them oul nurses and ask me big brown barney,' is what she always says and then everyone shouts out laughing.

Buddy is always first to laugh with his mouth wide open. But you can see his eyes are looking all around to make sure everyone else thinks she's funny too.

Things keep going
fizzzz
in his head. They come in, they go
fizzz
and then they melt away again. Gran says it's on account of his tablets.

She's sitting on one corner of the bed now, looking at him with her head to one side. Granda Bill is sitting on a chair on the opposite side. And he's not sure how long they've been there because it feels like only a minute ago since he saw them coming through the door, but it feels too like he might have fallen asleep again.

‘Take your time,' she says.