Creature of the Night (14 page)

My ma was just in the door. My good mood left me the
minute I seen her. You couldn't move in the kitchen for
plastic bags. Every one of those cost her fifteen cents out
of her dole. We'd only been in the house for two weeks
and she already had ten million of them stuffed in under
the sink. It was the same in the flat in Dublin. Fluke used
to say if my ma ever bought a proper shopping bag we
could all go and live in Ballsbridge.

I pushed past her, dragging my bike through her
shopping because I couldn't be bothered to go through
and open the front door for it. She came after me.

'I got your bike lock,' she said. 'And your charger
for the iPod.'

I came back. She started looking in the bags.
Dennis was sitting on the floor, trying to make the dog
eat an onion.

'I got you a T-shirt as well,' she said, pulling it out
and handing it to me. 'In Moore Street.'

I couldn't believe it. She still thought I was into Lara
Croft. I chucked it behind me on to the stairs. The bike
lock was useless as well. It was one of those ones with a
code number. You could cut through the wire on it with
a scissors.

'Where did you get the money for all this stuff?' I said.

'It's Friday,' she said. 'I got my dole yesterday.'

'You must have spent it all, then,' I said.

'I did,' she said. 'And this cost a small fortune.'

She threw the iPod charger across at me. I looked at
it and threw it back at her.

'That's the wrong kind, you stupid cow.'

'How can it be the wrong kind?' she said.

'It's the one that goes into a computer,' I shouted at
her. 'In case you haven't noticed, we haven't got a fucking
computer. How am I supposed to use that?'

'Well I didn't know,' she said. 'I went miles to find
the right shop, and then it was the only one they had.'

I ran upstairs and threw myself on the bed. She
always ruined everything. How could any mother be so
totally, totally useless? And what were we supposed to
live on now for the rest of the week? She could run up
more of a bill at the shop for food and stuff, but what
about my twenty euro?

I heard her mobile ring downstairs but she didn't
answer it. Then mine rang. It was her sister, Carmel.

'What do you want?' I said.

'I want your ma. Is she there?'

'Why don't you ring her if you want her?' I said.

'She won't answer, that's why. Put her on, will you?'

'What do you want her for?'

'Just put her on, you little bollix!' She sounded
really upset.

'What's it about?' I said.

'It's about money,' she said. 'When is it ever about
anything else? I had another money-lender banging my
door down ten minutes ago. That's a hundred and
seventy she owes me now and I can't afford it. I can't
fight her fucking battles for her!' It sounded like she was
crying. 'Do you know what those bastards are like?'

'Didn't she give you anything yesterday?' I said.

'How could she give me anything yesterday?' she
said.

There was a nasty silence, while I realized my ma
hadn't stayed with her last night. She must have stayed
with Maura or someone. She never even told her own
sister she was going up.

'Was she in Dublin yesterday?' Carmel said. I could
hear she was beginning to go hysterical.

'Hang on,' I said.

I went down and handed the phone to my ma.

'Who is it?' she said.

'It's Carmel.'

She shook her head and pushed the phone back
at me.

'Take it,' I said.

She went into the toilet and locked the door. I put
the phone to my ear. Carmel was screaming abuse down
the line. I hung up.

My ma was upset. She didn't talk to me while we had
tea. She kept telling Dennis to stop singing and stop
kicking the table and stop spilling the salt and messing
with the sugar. Afterwards he wanted to feed Roses to
the dog. She took the tin away from him and picked four
of them out.

'If you're a very good boy you can take these to bed
with you,' she said.

Then she put the tin up on the high shelf above the
fitted cupboards where he couldn't reach it.

He went to bed early with his Roses. After he'd eaten
them he wanted to come back down again but my ma
wouldn't let him. While we watched the TV we could
hear him up above our heads, shouting at Jimjam bunny
and telling him he was bold. My ma thought it was
funny, but it didn't put her in a good mood.

'I don't know how the money-lenders found
Carmel,' she said to me. 'How could they? I never gave
them her address or nothing.'

'Don't be stupid, Ma,' I said. 'Those fellas know
everyone and everything. And if they don't, they have
ways of finding out. They'll probably come after you
down here even if Carmel doesn't tell them where
you are.'

'Oh, don't say that, Bobby,' she said. 'I couldn't
stand it. I'd top myself if they started coming down here
after me.'

'You should have just stayed there and paid them,'
I said. 'You should save some money instead of going
mad every Friday.'

'Yeah, right,' she said. 'And you there with your
hand out every second day. When it isn't in my purse.'

She stared at the TV, but she wasn't seeing it.

'I'm sick of having no money,' she said. 'I might get
a job if I can find someone to mind his lordship.'

'Don't look at me,' I said.

'I wasn't,' she said. 'I wonder if Margaret Dooley
would do it.'

'I can just see that,' I said, thinking of Margaret
chasing around after Dennis in her spotless kitchen.

'She can't have much else to do,' my ma said, 'now
that her own are all grown up. Maybe she would like to
have him.'

'Ask her then,' I said.

'I might,' she said. 'But I'll have to find a job, first.'

As I went up to bed I thought about putting milk
outside the window again, but I didn't want my ma to
see me doing it. Coley's grandma told her to do it, after
all, not me. It was her lookout if the place got filled with
spooks and goblins. But when I was going off to sleep I
kept thinking about my tobacco tin and wishing I hadn't
left it out there. The bowl was still out there too, and
both of them were empty.

I woke to the sound of an almighty crash. I ran down the
stairs, but this time my ma was there before me, blocking
the kitchen door. I looked in over her shoulder. There was
a chair knocked over and Dennis was standing beside it,
rubbing his knee. The tin was on the floor with a big dent
in the side, and the Roses were scattered all over the place,
sparkling like Christmas on Grafton Street.

Dennis was terrified. My ma flew across the room
at him and he was screaming: 'It wasn't for me! It
wasn't for me!'

I turned away. I didn't want to see what was
coming. But I couldn't help hearing it, and I couldn't
help feeling sorry for the poor little bollix. It wasn't his
fault, after all. It wasn't him who gave her a taste for the
Roses.

The dog ate most of the Roses in the night and then
puked. Its puke was all full of bits of silver paper. My ma
cleaned it up and put the ones that were left in the bin.

'He'll have to go,' she said. 'We can't keep him
when he does things like that.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'You should send him to live with
his da.'

'I meant the dog,' she said, but she laughed.

I didn't. 'I think we should get out of this house,'
I said.

'What's wrong with this house?' my ma said. 'I
thought you liked it.'

'Why did you think that?' I said. 'I never wanted to
live down here in Culchieville. I want to go back home
to the lads.'

'Well we're not going back,' she said. 'We're starting
a new life and it's working out great.'

'It's not working out great,' I said. 'There's all this
fucking mad stuff going on in the middle of the night.
This place is haunted or something.'

'Don't you dare say things like that to me!' she said.
'You know how scared I get.'

'Well you should be scared,' I said. 'I'm fucking
scared myself!'

She reared up and stood over me. 'It's that little
bastard in there,' she said. 'But he won't get up in the
night again if he knows what's good for him.'

He probably wouldn't either, after the belting she
gave him last night. He'd probably wet the bed and get
it in the neck for that instead.

'It's not just Dennis,' I said. 'Can't you get that into
your thick head?'

She put her hands over her ears and sang '
Girls just
want to have fun
' at the top of her lungs.

After my dinner I biked up the road to Dooleys'. I wasn't
looking for work and I certainly didn't expect to knock
any craic out of Holy Coley. But there was nothing to do
and there was nowhere else to go. I was bored out of my
brains at home.

Coley wasn't there anyway, and nor was PJ. But
Margaret said: 'Matty's here, though. Why don't you go
and see what he's doing?'

He was working on the Land Rover again. 'You
must be Bobby,' he said when I went into the lean-to.

'And you must be the grease monkey.'

'That's me,' he said, holding out a hand. I shook it
and came away with sump oil rubbed into my blisters. I
looked under the bonnet of the Land Rover. There was
still a lot of loose bits in there.

'I'm all ready to fit the new gasket,' he said. 'You
came along at exactly the right moment. Want to give me
a hand?'

'I don't mind,' I said. 'What do you want me to do?'

'I just need a bit of muscle,' he said. 'Coley is
supposed to be helping me but he's got that old supermarket
job. I think he only does it to get out of the farm
work.'

'Doesn't he like farming then?' I said.

'Coley?' Matty said. 'Sure Coley's the brainbox
out of all of us. He'll be a solicitor, that lad, you'll see.
Loads of money and no fun. Wouldn't suit me at all.'

'Me neither,' I said.

He leaned into the engine again. 'There's the
valves,' he said. 'All cleaned up and two new springs
fitted. Now we just have to get the head back on. I had
the gasket there a minute ago.'

He found a flat packet on the wing and peeled
something out of it, and laid it over the top of the engine
block. It was brilliant the way it fitted exactly over the
lines.

'What does it do?' I asked him.

'Seals the whole thing,' he said. 'Keeps the air out and
the power in. Very important little piece of kit, that is.'

'What's it called again?' I said.

'Head gasket,' he said. 'Have you got steady
hands?'

I held them out to him. 'Steady as a rock.'

The cylinder head was sitting on the wing. Matty
checked it over and brushed the bits of dust off it, then
he took one side and I took the other. It was heavier than
it looked.

'We have to line it up exactly,' he said. 'We don't
want to disturb the gasket after all that.'

My arms were trembling with the weight of it but I
didn't let it drop. I made sure it was lined up perfectly at
my end and we both set it down at exactly the same
moment. He came over to my side to check.

'Lovely job,' he said. 'Now . . .'

He picked up one of those square ice-cream tubs
and took some bolts out of it and handed them to me,
one by one. Then he poked around some more and took
out some washers.

'How is it that you never get the same number out
as you put in?' he said. 'It happens every time.'

He found one more, but that was all.

'You can put those ones in while I go hunt out some
more washers,' he said.

He picked up a socket wrench and fiddled with
something on the side of the handle. Then he gave it to
me. I dropped one of the bolts into its hole in the
cylinder head.

'Washer first,' Matty said.

'I know,' I said. 'I just forgot.'

The wrench only worked in one direction, then
purred when you turned it back. I kept tightening and I
could feel the bolt biting home, and then suddenly the
wrench clicked and stopped working.

'Shite!' I said.

'What's up?' he said. He was raking through stuff in
another ice-cream box.

'The wrench broke,' I said. 'I never done nothing to
it. It just went.'

He came over and looked at it.

'Looks all right to me,' he said. 'Do another one till
we see.'

I forgot the washer again but this time he said
nothing and I remembered it myself, just in time.

'It's working again now,' I said. But then it clicked
again, like something snapped inside it.

'There,' I said. 'See?'

He laughed at me. 'It's a torque wrench,' he said.
'It's supposed to do that. Here . . .'

He took it off me and showed me the handle. 'You
can set it, see? Nearly every nut and bolt in a car engine
has a torque setting. They're all written down in the
manuals. You don't need them after a while, though.
You get the general idea of what needs what.'

I looked at the torque wrench. I was in a hurry to
use it again, now I knew what it was doing. Matty found
two more washers in an old biscuit tin and came back,
but he never took the wrench off me. He let me put all
the bolts in for him.

'Will it go now?' I asked him.

He laughed. 'It'll be a while yet,' he said. 'There's
another bit to do putting in the push rods and stuff.
Then the rocker cover goes on, and that's the engine
sorted. But after that I'll have to get a new carburettor
for her, and a fuel pump.'

He kicked the Land Rover on one wheel, but not
very hard. 'She needs everything, really, the poor old
creature. But that's the great thing about Land Rovers.
There's nothing on them you can't fix if you have a mind
to. And she'll be worth it in the end.'

He wiped his hands on a greasy rag then closed the
bonnet.

'Do you know anything about bikes?' I said.

'Sure, bikes are easy,' he said. 'What needs doing?'

'It's all right,' I said. 'Just the brakes don't really
stop it.'

He stood over my bike and looked at it. 'That was
Tom's one,' he said. 'It was a great bike in its day.'

'It's a great bike now,' I said. 'It's faster than Coley's
one.'

He bent and looked at the brakes. 'You need new
blocks,' he said. 'But we might be able to squeeze a bit
more out of these ones in the meantime.'

He straightened up again and looked at me.

'Are you busy today?'

'No,' I said, and my heart kind of leaped at the
thought that there might be something cool to do with
Matty. 'I've nothing to do at all.'

'I'll tell you what,' he said. 'I'll help you with your
bike if you give me a hand afterwards.'

'Doing what?'

'Clearing up the workshop,' he said. 'It looks more
like a breaker's yard every day.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'I'll do that, no bother. If you help me
with the bike.'

The brakes only took a few minutes. It looked dead
easy. The blocks on the front weren't too bad and Matty
got them working really well.

'But don't go over the handlebars,' he said. 'Get the
back ones changed.' He showed me how to do it myself
and he let me keep the little spanner that fitted the nuts.
I put it in my zip pocket. Then he set about adjusting the
gears and he got it so all ten of them worked, and he
showed me how to oil the chain. Then he turned on his
electric air pump and put air into the tyres until they
were hard as iron.

'Those old tubes won't last for ever, though,' he
said. 'You'd better get a spare one when you get your
brake blocks.'

'How much will that cost?' I said.

'Not much,' he said. 'Bike parts are cheap.'