The Playground (26 page)

Mum was sitting on Addie's bed. She had taken off her shoes and her legs were crossed at the ankle. Her toes were wriggling about in pop socks that looked too tight for her feet. Her handbag with everything that she needed for the evening – reading glasses,
Rough Guide to the Galapagos
, diary, mobile phone – was just below her, on the floor. Addie was snuggled up beside her in her new brushed-cotton pyjamas, the ones we couldn't afford from Avoca, pink with little kittens chasing balls of wool. Mum's arms enveloped her grandchild and their fingers were intertwined. Her cheek was resting lightly on Addie's head and as she sang her little song out of tune, the two of them swayed from side to side. Addie's eyes were squeezed shut; on her face a sleepy smile. The room was warm and clean, the air filled with Mum's favourite perfume, the lamplight, buttery-coloured and soft.

Neither of them had noticed that I was watching. This was how they always sat before a bedtime story but tonight something told me to notice, told me to be grateful. Told me to always remember.

‘Go on now, pet. You'll be fine. Just support her. The poor woman. Now off you go. Oh no, wait, let me give you that card.'

Although she had never met her, Mum had heard enough about Belinda and Billy from me and had read enough about the tragedy, to feel it appropriate that she write to her. She bent over from where she was lying to fish the card from her handbag. There was a hole under the arm of her M&S cashmere cardigan.

I put the card in my coat pocket and promised her I wouldn't be late; she was catching a flight to Lima at noon the following day.

‘Kiss and a hug.' I embraced my little girl.

And then her mantra whenever I was going anywhere.

‘Love you, you're my best friend, have brilliant fun!'

*

The wind was wild that night, buffeting against the windows, whirling down the chimney, sending icy draughts through the flat. Dylan Freeney, beautiful Dylan, was smiling, in his school uniform, on the front page of the
Wicklow Times
on the hall table. Beside him was a grainy shot of Billy Flynn and a smaller photo beneath of Juliette Larson, looking much younger than she was. Dylan had been stabbed in the heart and had died immediately. Billy Flynn was uninjured and in custody for murder. There was another photograph below their faces, of the park. Yellow police tape surrounded the cordoned-off playground.

I took the tray of cyclamen, now brilliant pink and blooming, from the table and closed the front door behind me, pulled up my hood, and set off across the square.

Street lights came on around the neighbourhood. It was getting
dark, people were going indoors. A black sweep of starlings searched for somewhere to perch for the night. I gave a wave to Mr Norman who was out on his front porch, reinstating a toppled bay tree, his comb-over perpendicular in the wind. He raised one hand in a salute, turned and went back indoors.

There had been some changes to the square since Dylan's death: Irenka moved out just after New Year's. Donal had been offered a new, permanent position in London. They had had a yard sale and a small going away party, both of which we'd missed. All Irenka had left me was a list of local emergency numbers and some books on childcare.

Nathan's house had been finished and stood proud, its name, ‘Little Wave', wedged in the new lawn; a bright and shining thing in an old neighbourhood. It would take a hundred years to blend in; a youngster surrounded by Victorian grandeur. I supposed I would meet his family soon, now that the house was ready to receive them. Poor old Pamela had passed away, before getting her tattoo, leaving just Edie in the big house. And Arthur from the Cherry Glade had given up going outdoors. He'd abandoned his cart – ‘too risky out there', he said. He'd bought a portable TV for his room, his eyes too tired to read Westerns, and now he was bedridden in his own small, and ever-contracting, world. The few visitors he had knew to bring him Guinness.

A bald man I didn't recognise was standing outside Belinda's house: huge belly, Manchester United polo shirt, faded denim jeans. He was smoking, looking around him, shifting from one foot to the other to keep warm.

‘Are you after Belinda?' he asked, stubbing his cigarette under his shoe.

‘Yes. I'm a friend of hers.'

‘Give us a second,' he said, stepping inside, pulling the door closed.

‘Will you tell her it's Eve?' I called after him. ‘Addie's mum. From the library.'

*

I handed her the tray of pink cyclamen. ‘I wanted to give you back these.'

‘Ah, Eve. You're very good.'

I went inside and we hugged in the hall. She was trembling. I could feel her ribs beneath her skin. She wouldn't let me go. I rubbed her back, my nose buried in her sweater.

‘It's just such a mess.' She pulled away from me, pressed her fingers against her eyes, squeezing them tight. She couldn't meet mine. She invited me in.

The bald man pressed himself against the wall, holding his hands on his chest to let us pass.

‘This is Derek, by the way. The other half.'

We smiled at each other. He offered his hand as I went to embrace him. We ended up doing neither and both.

‘I'll give you guys a minute. Tea?'

I nodded. ‘Thanks, love,' Belinda said.

‘He's been brilliant,' she whispered, as if not to jinx it, pushing the door closed behind her and settling into her seat.

‘Don't know if you've heard but Billy's on remand at a detention centre at Wheatfield Prison. It's over in Clondalkin. We're selling up and moving to the North Side. We need to be closer to him.'

I could hear Derek's voice coming from the kitchen. He was speaking to someone on the phone, repeating the same information about Billy that Belinda was telling me, only a few seconds behind her, like an echo. How many times had they had to have these conversations in the last two weeks?

‘We?' I asked and gave her a small smile.

‘You'd never think this sort of crap would bring people together but somehow it has. He's the only one who understands what I'm going through. For the rest of my life it will be like that. And sure we can't stay around here; it's not fair on Mimi or on poor Juliette.'

‘Juliette's doing much better now, isn't she?'

‘Thank Christ. Frank's been amazing with her. And God only knows what hell he's going through himself. I saw Mr Larson up in Tesco this morning. Didn't he turn around and go straight back up the aisle as if he hadn't seen me? I'm having people cross roads to avoid me. Can you imagine the carry-on there'd be in the library if I stayed? All those kids, they're broken-hearted, though not about Billy I know. He was always an outsider, never part of any gang or group. It used to break my heart at school when they were told to pick a partner and no one ever wanted to be his. And when he'd come home with a bloody nose or a torn shirt because he'd been set upon and had fought back. At the playground he was always the wrong age. Always too young for the other kids or too old. But sure, you and I were always outsiders here too, weren't we?'

Derek came in at that moment with the tea and a plate of Jaffa cakes.

‘I'll leave yous to it,' he said. He squeezed Belinda on the shoulder, told her he was going for a lie down.

‘Eve, he stabbed that poor lad three times in the chest.' She tucked her hands into the sleeves of her sweater, shuddered, began to cry.

Juliette had told me it all, curled up on the sofa in our sitting room, chewing the sleeve of her hoodie, trembling and hyperventilating like a child, mascara staining her cheeks. She'd said Billy had called over to see me that evening. He hadn't expected her to be there. Dylan had told him to clear off and Billy'd lost it after that. He'd
head-butted him, spat at him, she'd tried to get between them, to separate them. That's when Dylan had run to the park. Juliette had seen Billy run after him, climb onto the railings, yank at the loose spike and jump down into the playground, but she hadn't seen anything after that; she'd run home and back to her dad to get help.

‘God, it's so hard.' It was all I could say, the best I could come up with. I leant over, rubbed my hand on her sleeve.

‘I'm all right. I'll have a smoke in a few minutes. I just keep thinking what was it he felt? What was in his head to make him do such a thing? I suppose I'll never understand. You know he was very loving, very funny when he was a kid. I remember summers down in Kerry, up to his neck in sand. He was a very generous, kind child. And he was so protective of me when Derek and I split and then even more so with my illness. My only child. My funny, unique little boy.'

She broke down. I hugged her. She couldn't speak for several minutes.

‘Three detectives called to the door on Christmas morning. You know the way everyone says they just knew? Well, I didn't. I mean they've been here so often to do with Billy. I know them all by name, for fuck's sake. Garrett, Donal, the little blondie one. Anyway, so I just thought it was the usual messing. Thought they'd give him a warning. He'd been very agitated that day, couldn't stay in one place. He was so jittery. He couldn't sit still. He went upstairs and had a rest and then was down again a minute later. I was so stupid! I thought he was hungry. I brought him out for lunch.'

Neither one of us had the courage to say what we had both suspected – that Billy had come to our flat on Christmas Eve to see me, to hurt me or perhaps even to hurt Addie. He knew that I knew the truth about what had happened on the night of Addie's birthday.
He had never been a hero before in anyone's eyes. He had been loving it and so had his mother and I could have ruined all of that.

We moved outside, I rooted in my bag for the card from Mum. I don't know what it said but her words or the sentiment made Belinda weep. ‘Much appreciated. Will you tell her thanks?'

I promised I would. I hugged her again and got ready to go.

‘It's just so awful seeing him in there, Eve. He's so fractious with me. There's nothing we can talk about. I can't talk about the sea, the mountains around here, nature, any of that – all the things he loved about home, about Bray. I can't talk about the outside world at all, it would just be too mean, too cruel when he can't see it for himself. And we don't want to talk about the case. So what does that leave us with? Not much. Nothing really. Not a thing.'

Five forty-five a.m. I couldn't sleep. I got up, sat in the sitting room, logged onto Facebook. Sophie had changed her relationship status from married to single. Everyone had responded with question marks or concerned comments or kisses. I looked across the square at her house in the darkness, wondering if Mark were still there, if Sophie were OK, or if she were sitting awake, staring out the window, as I was. There was a rattle of wheels on the street below; a lone figure was striding along the middle of the road, pulling a suitcase behind him, on his way to the catch the Aircoach. And walking in the opposite direction, Sumita, head down, runners on, rucksack on her back, coming home from a late night of babysitting. I knew from Belinda that she had made her decision, that she had sent her little girl back to India, so that she could give her a better future.

Teddy bears, Bray Wanderers scarves and Bauhaus T-shirts were still tied to the park railings alongside cards with smudged messages and dead flowers in rain-spattered plastic. Someone had lodged a single child's glove on one of the spikes. A leaflet had been dropped through the letterbox yesterday, suggesting that the playground be renamed Dylan's Park.

I sat on the edge of my bed. When she saw that I'd been crying earlier, Addie had taken me by the hand and had led me to her bedroom, like a little adult. She'd said we should make a card for
Dylan. A green one. ‘That's why because green was his favourite colour,' she'd said, and she'd drawn him as she remembered him: a head with spiky ‘up' hair, no body but long, long legs and huge, outstretched hands. One of his feet was turned in and she did a straight line for his mouth, instead of the smiles she normally gave her stick figures on birthday cards. She'd drawn so many flowers on the inside that there'd been no room left for words. ‘When you look at this card it will make you happy every day, OK?' she'd explained, using little hand gestures as she'd placed it on my bedside table.

I stripped the bed, pulled on jeans and a sweater, grabbed the holdall from the top of the wardrobe, shaking off its layer of dust. I emptied the drawers, stuffed everything in, put the card for Dylan in my back pocket and closed the bedroom door behind me.

Then on to the kitchen. Mum had already done the washing up, as she always did when she babysat. The scent of her perfume still lingered in the air.

I stood on the kitchen table, yanked down the Happy Birthday banner that had hung there since Addie's birthday, since the night of the accident.

I took the origami swans Addie had made with Joy from the mantelpiece in the sitting room, and filled my pockets with all those tiny things that there is never a particular place for: a hairclip, a box of matches, a Sylvanian mole in a waistcoat.

I thumped our bags downstairs, loaded up the car, slammed the boot. Then back inside and up the stairs again. I was running on adrenalin now. I lifted Addie out of her bed and carried her, still asleep in my arms, my hands cradling her head, out to the car. She grizzled for a few moments when I struggled with the straps of her car seat, but she worked on her sucky blanket and settled back to sleep.

I went inside one last time to grab the Happy New Year's card I'd written for Nathan, re-read its coded, flirtatious message, tore it up, stuffed the keys for the flat in its envelope along with a cheque for last month's rent. Addie's scooter was propped up against the wall, we couldn't forget that. I made room for it in the boot.

Then I crossed the road to leave Addie's card for Dylan on the railings of the park along with all the others. I saw his beautiful face, Billy up in the cherry tree, little Ben surrounded by flames, Belinda sitting in her armchair, broken.

I ran from there to Nathan's, dropped the keys through the letterbox, heard them chime as they landed on the marble hall floor he'd fitted for his family, turned and left without looking back.

I got into the car. As I slipped the key into the ignition, a clang of bells rolled down the hill from the Protestant church. Addie stirred awake in her booster seat.

‘Where are we going?' she said, still in half-sleep. ‘Are we meeting Sophie for a picnic?'

‘No, sweetheart,' I said, as the square receded behind us. We passed quickly along the deserted high street.

‘Why don't you like Sophie any more?' she asked, coming round.

‘It's not that I don't like her any more, we're just not going to be friends.'

She was quiet for a moment. ‘Like you and Dada, you mean?' I glanced at her face in the overhead mirror.

‘A bit like that.'

She sat forward in her seat. ‘So you and me are the whole family now?'

‘Yes, we're the whole family now. You, me and Alfie.'

‘But Alfie's gone away.'

‘That's where we're going now. We're going to get Alfie.'

‘Oh, Mama! I'm just going to hug him and hug him!' she said, hugging herself and beaming.

‘And then where are we going with Alfie?'

‘We're going on a big adventure.'

We turned onto the southbound dual carriageway, accelerated into the flow of traffic heading away from the city. I rolled down my window and the car filled with the rush of motorway air.