The Story of Before (23 page)

When we came close to the lane that led to the shops, I noticed tracks criss-crossing the area in front of the trees. Whoever had left them had come from the far side of the green, walking over
and back in a looping figure of eight. As we got nearer, I saw a small, dark shape against the white ground, lying not far from the base of a tree. I left the others and ran over, curious to find
out what it was.

Long before I reached it, I noticed the blood. The footprints that came towards it were clean, but the ones that led away were coloured with smudgy splats of red. I slowed down, shielding my
eyes from the flashing rays of yellow-white sunlight that sliced through the leafless trees. My steps joined the upper arc of the eight, following the tracks until they arrived at the shape.

As far as I could make out, it was a blackbird. Its coal-black wing feathers splayed out like a fan, twisted and broken by a deliberate, forceful stamp. Its once plump stomach had been crushed
flat, sending its guts bursting out over the frosted earth in an oozing, mangled mess. Keeping my eyes down, I followed the bloody track lines that led away from the scene of death. The red
staining faded slightly with each step until, as the footprints reached the edge of the green, it disappeared completely. Right opposite the O’Deas’.

I crossed the road to the path and heard the soft, sweet tinkle of David’s piano drifting out over the silent estate. Through the window I saw him, bent over, his head swaying from side to
side and his hands rising up and down in slow, graceful waves like a pair of swans diving underwater. I stared hard, wishing my gaze was a red hot beam that could pierce the glass and bore a hole
right into his brain. But he kept on playing his airy tune, deep in concentration. Then he suddenly stopped and swivelled around on his stool. I could tell from his face that he knew what I’d
seen. He gave me a weak sort of smile before turning back to play.

I walked slowly back to the others. Mel couldn’t understand why I was making such a fuss. ‘Won’t you be eating dead bird for dinner tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘With
roasters and bread sauce and everything?’

‘But that’s . . . that’s not the point,’ I said. ‘At least there’s a purpose to killing a turkey, isn’t there?’

‘I’d say that blackbird was already dead before someone stamped on it,’ Sandra said. ‘Birds always die when the ground is hard, don’t they?’

‘But who’d do something sick like that, anyway?’ Mel asked.

‘There’s only one person round here sick enough,’ I said. ‘You can hear him now if you strain your ears.’

Sandra swerved the pushchair into the lane. ‘David? David O’Dea? You think so?’

‘Can’t think of anyone else.’

‘Sure it could’ve been anyone,’ Mel said. ‘Forget about it.’ He ran ahead of us. ‘Come on! We’ve money to spend!’

What had David been thinking about when his foot came down on the bird’s body? And how could he just smile and wave at me knowing what he’d done? David O’Dea wasn’t just
strange; David O’Dea was sick.

Sandra and I agreed we should buy Auntie Cissy a present in Sheila’s Fashions. Mel said he’d contribute but wasn’t going into a ladies shop so he’d wait outside and mind
Kev. But he warned us not to be more than five minutes or he’d pull out of the deal.

Because it was Christmas Eve, Sheila actually had a few customers in the shop when we went in. Dolly Flynn, who ran the bingo in the parish hall every Thursday night, was there, trying to decide
between two equally awful outfits. Sheila was trying to convince her to buy both.

After a scan of the display cases, we spotted a small gold brooch in the shape of a cat. I was sure Auntie Cissy would love it but Sandra wasn’t convinced. She argued for a few minutes but
then we saw Mel making signals through the window and she gave in. We quickly paid for the brooch and almost knocked each other over running for the door. I got there first and pulled it open,
throwing myself through.

Straight into Bridie’s batch-loaf bosoms.

She scowled down at me, her nose glowing red from the cold. ‘Well! Of all the . . .’ She turned to her companion. It was Mona O’Dea. ‘I don’t know, Mona. Manners
don’t cost anything, do they?’

Mona clasped her handbag to her chest. ‘They were free the last time I checked, Bridie,’ she sniffed.

I was about to open my mouth to apologize when the two of them elbowed Sandra and me out of the way and barged into Sheila’s, muttering under their breath. Sandra’s face was pink
from embarrassment. I could feel my own cheeks heating up too, but not from shame – from anger. I might as well have been some stranger, some brat Bridie had never seen before in her life.
She knew perfectly well it was an accident. If it’d happened a few months ago,
she’d
have been apologizing to
me
.

I let the others go into Mealy’s while I waited outside with Kev. I’d lost any desire for sweets. Bridie may as well have punched me in the stomach. And Mona O’Dea – I
was sure the tin of coconut macaroons was left open on the counter whenever
she
called round. They were welcome to each other. They were blind to almost everything going on around them. They
only saw what they wanted to see. The truth about David was plain and simple but they chose to pretend he could do no wrong. I knew what he was really like. My mind was in tune with these things. I
took my time and looked for clues to the truth. They stumbled about, missing out on the most obvious hints.

Walking home, I told the others we should bury the blackbird, but they didn’t agree. Sandra said wild creatures die all the time and no one goes around burying them. Mel shook a box of
wine gums under my nose and said he’d better things to be doing than kicking bird guts into a hole. And then Kev started to moan because he wanted more chocolate than we were prepared to put
in his mouth and that made them walk even faster towards home. But it didn’t seem right to leave the poor thing lying in the open with its insides squirting out all over the place, so I told
the others to go on without me and, ignoring their mocking, ran back across the crunchy grass to the scene of death.

When I got there, I began searching around for something I could dig a hole with. It had to be sharp, able to cut through the hardened ground. I bent down and lifted the bottom branches of a
bush. Scrabbling around among the crisp packets and sweet wrappers, I found an empty Coke bottle. I struck it against a rock but it just bounced off, sending a tremor up my arm. I gripped it
tighter and tried again. This time, the base of it broke away, leaving me holding a sort of glass scoop with a nicely jagged edge.

I pictured Bridie’s face in my head as I stabbed at the earth and gouged out lumps of frozen dirt. Puffy white clouds of my breath rose up in the air as I worked and though I knew I
must’ve looked strange, I carried on. It wasn’t long before I attracted attention.

‘Yuck.’ It was Valerie, with Tracey in tow. ‘What did you do to that poor bird?’

I breathed out a long sigh. ‘Nothing. I’m just burying it.’

‘Looks like you slashed it open with that bottle,’ Tracey said. ‘Its guts are all over the place.’

I looked up at them. ‘I found it like this, OK? Someone stamped on it. Can you not see their footprints all across the grass?’

‘Sure that could’ve been you,’ Valerie said.

‘And why would I do that?’

‘’Cos you’re weird, that’s why.’

‘No weirder than you.’

‘Ha! That’s funny.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘That’s really funny. I’m not the one down on my knees in the freezing cold burying a dead crow on
Christmas Eve.’

‘It’s a blackbird, if you must know.’

‘Whatever it is, it’s weird,’ Tracey said. ‘Everything you do is weird. You’re a weirdo, Ruth Lamb. A weirdo.’

‘Me a weirdo?’ I said. ‘I wasn’t the one leaving sheep’s heads on people’s doorsteps at Hallowe’en, was I?’

‘Can’t take a joke, can you? It was hardly the end of the world.’

‘I always knew it was you,’ I said. ‘Even though you swore it wasn’t.’

Tracey sniffed and looked away.

‘You think you know everything, don’t you?’ Valerie said. ‘Always poking your nose into other people’s business. And because of you David’s going away
now.’

‘Don’t be so stupid. That’s nothing to do with me,’ I said. ‘I only told him the truth. And what do you care, anyway?’ I stood up, as much to stretch out my
legs as to look them both square in the eye. ‘You should be pleased. You’re always saying how much you can’t stand him. You only pretend you don’t like him when really you
fancy him like mad.’

‘I do not!’

‘You do too, Valerie Vaughan! And so do you, Tracey!’

Tracey took a few steps closer. ‘Well, if you can say we both fancy David O’Dea, then we can say you fancy someone like –’ she rolled her eyes in her head as she searched
for a name – ‘like . . . Shayne Lawless!’

I didn’t think about what I did next. I just saw her horrible, pathetic face and her dirty little mouth with its curling lips. And although her flesh was covered, I pictured it under her
clothes: chalky and bruised and brushing against me, goosebumped and cold, like the scrawny dead turkeys hanging in Boylan’s window. As her face leaned into mine and she opened her eyes wide
in defiance, I raised myself up on my toes and held the broken bottle to her cheek. ‘Shut up,’ I said, through gritted teeth. ‘Shut up, Tracey Farrell, or I’ll burst your
fuckin’ face.’ She was stunned, I could tell. She tried to cover up with a nervous laugh.

‘I’m straight telling on you,’ Valerie said. ‘You’re in deep trouble.’

‘Tell whoever you like,’ I said, lowering the bottle. ‘I don’t care. Go away and leave me alone. In fact, leave all of us alone. None of us can stand you!’

‘Yeah, well, we hate all of you too,’ Tracey said. ‘My mam says you’re nothing but trouble and everything was fine till you came along.’

‘Well, maybe we’ll just leave. And you can find someone else to blame for everything.’

‘That’s exactly what we’re wishing for,’ Valerie said. ‘In fact, that’d be the best Christmas present ever.’

Tracey was about to add another comment when across the green came the distinctive call of her mother. Clem had reversed the car out of their driveway and Geraldine stood at the gate in her
anorak and woolly hat, ready to climb in. Over the last few weeks, her stomach had grown huge. Farrell number eight would be arriving soon and for Tracey, the prospect of even more responsibility.
She closed her eyes and sighed. I got the feeling that, given the choice, she’d prefer having a broken bottle held up to her face than yet another few hours looking after a houseful of snotty
Farrells.

‘Come on,’ she said to Valerie, linking her arm. ‘Let’s go. There’s a horrible smell around here, anyway.’ She glanced back as they walked off, thinking I
wouldn’t be able to resist throwing another remark their way. But I didn’t give her the satisfaction. Geraldine and Clem drove away when they saw her coming across the green, so if she
was thinking of telling on me, it would have to wait till later on.

I got back to my digging and when the hole was big enough, I used the bottle to push the blackbird’s body into its grave. I covered it with earth and when I stood up, I levelled it softly
with the sole of my shoe. A small, fluffy feather lay on top of the trail of guts left behind on the frosty grass. I stuck it into the grave and it shivered, though there was hardly a breeze. As I
walked home over the whitened green, I found myself wondering if the person who’d held the bottle to Tracey’s cheek and said the F-word could really have been me. It was like it was
someone else; someone I didn’t know at all.

On Christmas morning, Auntie Cissy came down to breakfast fully dressed in her drab ‘Christmas rig-out’ while we were all still in our dressing gowns. She gave
Bertie a handful of seed, then sat at the table fiddling with the neck of her blouse. Dad whistled as he fried rashers and sausages, looking over his shoulder every now and then to ask, ‘Are
you all right there, Cis?’ I felt sad for her. It was the first Christmas in years and years that she wasn’t with Uncle Frank in their own home. Mam had told us the evening before that
no presents would be opened till we came home from mass. That was what Cissy would expect, she said, and we should do our best to make her happy. So we were ready for the earliest mass at nine
o’clock; the sooner we could get it over with, the sooner the ripping of the wrapping paper could begin.

All the way through mass, I kind of knew something was going to be wrong when we got back to the house. I hadn’t a clue what it might be but I definitely felt it wasn’t going to be
an ordinary Christmas Day. I was sorry I hadn’t said as much to anyone on the way home because when we walked into the kitchen and saw Bertie lying lifeless at the bottom of his cage, I
couldn’t very well turn around and say, ‘I told you so’. I knew it wasn’t right that I was more disappointed at my failure to warn everyone than I was at the budgie’s
death but even so, when Mel asked when we were going to open our presents, I told him not to be so selfish.

Auntie Cissy sat crying and wringing her hands, asking, ‘Who’s next? Who’s next?’ Because deaths, she told us, always happen in threes. ‘First Frank, then
Bertie,’ she said, wiping her eyes. Dad said a budgie hardly counted as Number Two, even if you did believe in all that sort of superstitious stuff, and that made her cry even more. He tried
to say he was sorry and it wasn’t that he thought Bertie meant nothing to her, but the damage had been done. She waved him away whimpering, ‘You were always the same, Mick. Insensitive
to the last.’ Mam rowed in then, attempting to make Cissy feel better by siding with her.