Crying in the Dark (26 page)

‘I kinda miss 'er.'

‘Me too,' Larry said.

I looked at Olwyn, who had an expression of horror on her face.

‘Um, I'll talk to Bríd about setting up some access visits, I suppose,' I said.

The bond of blood: it never ceases to amaze me. No matter how abhorrent the abuse, it abides. Vera Byrne, for all her sadism and menace, was still their mother.

She answered the door to me before I even knocked.

‘I knew you'd come,' she said. ‘I'd guess we'll be seein' a lot more of one another now.'

‘What are you up to, Vera?'

‘I'm the innocent victim of years of harsh treatment. You should feel sorry for me.'

‘Cut the crap. You've managed to swing this, but don't think you've achieved a damn thing. I am going to make it my personal mission to see you behind bars, one way or another. The police already have my report. I'll talk to your neighbours in Oldtown, go to the hall of records and find out about your relatives, and speak to them. Every single thing the twins say when I'm with them, I'll write down. I
will
have you.'

‘Oh, careful, now. Statements like that can come back to haunt you.'

‘I don't know what you mean, Vera. It's just you and me here. Do you have a tape recorder?'

She smirked. ‘Not this time. But there'll be others. Just be careful, is all I'm saying. I'm giving you fair warning.'

‘Your children want me to arrange access visits. It's their right, and, seeing as you've been cleared of all guilt, there's nothing I can do to prevent it. But listen carefully. If they become even the slightest bit upset before, during or after a visit, I will pull the plug.'

Before I could move, her clawed hand shot out and grabbed the front of my shirt. I felt her nails scratching and cutting the skin on my chest, and then she was nose to nose with me. Fire danced in her eyes and her hot, rancid breath blasted me full in the face.

‘You don't know what you're messin' with, boy. You will not keep me from seein' my twins, and you will not stop me from gettin' 'em back, either. It won't be long now, 'cause the threat is gone, all safely locked up. And I can play
real nice.
I bet you think I'm so ugly and frightful, no one would ever trust me, but guess what? This afternoon, I'm off into town to buy a lovely dress. Then I'm going to get a facial, and I might just organize a visit to the dentist. I have a medical card and a modest little pension now my man's behind bars. I can afford to treat meself.'

I pulled away from her, but she was stronger than she looked and I had to wrestle her hand off me, cutting myself even worse in the process. She put the bloodied fingers into her mouth, sucking them loudly.

‘When I show up to see Larry and Francey, I'll look like a new woman. No longer under the influence of that brute I married. I can start to rebuild my relationship with them, and we can put all this unpleasantness behind us.'

I backed away from her.

‘I'm not the only one who knows what you are, Vera,' I said. ‘You can't keep the act up for ever. You'll slip, and when you do, I'll be there.'

‘Ah, don't be such a spoilsport. Don't we all deserve a second chance?' she said, and laughing heartily, closed the door.

‘How do I look?' Mina asked me for the tenth time.

‘You look great.'

‘You're a man. You'd say that anyway.'

‘Why do you keep asking me, then?'

‘I want to look really lovely. They wouldn't let him come into the hospital. He hasn't seen me in three weeks.'

She pulled down the sun visor on the passenger side, which had a mirror set into it, and teased a piece of hair.

‘Mina, please believe me, you look stunning. He is a very lucky young man.'

‘Really?'

‘Really.'

I turned onto Garibaldi Street and parked outside the Henrys' house.

‘Now,' I said, shutting off the engine. ‘How are you feeling?'

‘I feel brilliant.'

‘No dizziness or sickness?'

‘None. I haven't had any in a week, Shane. Stop fussing.'

‘Okay. Well, let's go.'

She reached over and hugged me tight for a moment, giving me a kiss on the cheek, then opened the door and got out.

Standing at the front door of the house was Molly. Beside her, wearing a fluorescent green suit with an electric-red shirt and a pink bowtie, and clutching the biggest bunch of flowers he could physically carry, was Jacob. Mina ran to him, laughing and crying all at the same time, and planted a huge kiss on his forehead. He was grinning from ear to ear and flushed with pride and embarrassment. Arm in arm, they walked away together, up the street.

Molly had a handkerchief out and was dabbing at the tears running down her cheeks. Dirk was noticeable for his absence.

‘You're doing the right thing,' I said, coming to stand with her.

‘Will they be all right?' she asked. ‘They have so much stacked against them.'

‘They're not moving to Alaska. Mina's not moving out at all. What they're doing is being a couple, out in the open and without shame. I've had a long talk with Jacob, given him a sense of what happened to her and told him to treat her gently for a while. She might tell him about it herself, or she may not. It's up to her. Where's your husband?'

‘Dirk has found this very hard.'

‘She needs you both. Don't let this tear you apart as a family.'

‘We won't. He's a good man. He's just proud. He loves her so very much.'

‘I know. But he should be showing her, now more than ever. And he has to let her have some freedom.'

‘I think she is free. Perhaps for the first time.'

We stood in the sunshine and watched the two of them disappear around the corner.

‘Do you think they'll make it?' Molly asked me.

‘They already have,' I said.

Benjamin Tyrrell was sitting in my chair when I got back to the office that evening, his feet up on my desk.

‘Your probationary period is up,' he said.

‘I know. School starts back next week. I was wondering when you'd bring it up.'

‘Well,' he said, putting his hands behind his head, ‘I think you did pretty well, despite a few hiccoughs. The Walshes are in good shape. The Henrys are on the road to recovery. The Byrne case is likely to remain open for some time longer, but that was out of anyone's control, and you advanced our understanding of it considerably. Your own little project, Sylvie, was concluded satisfactorily, even if I do say so myself. All in all, a fine couple of months' work.'

‘Are you firing me, or saying that there's a position here for me if I want one?'

‘I do believe I am offering you a job.'

‘I've heard that there are easier ways to make a living.'

‘Naw. This is where it's at. Glamour, excitement, wage packets stuffed to bursting at the end of the week …'

‘I suppose you have my cases lined up already.'

‘Wanna hear about them?'

‘No. Buy me a pint instead. We can talk about them tomorrow.'

He stood up. I held the door as he walked out.

‘Suppose I should get you a set of keys cut.'

‘Suppose you should.'

And I pulled the door of Last Ditch House closed for the night.

My previous book,
Wednesday's Child,
dealt with three, standard child-protection cases. They were all unique and special, and the children involved were all exceptional people, but social-care workers who have read the book have all recognized elements of those stories in cases they have been involved with (in fact, one social worker in a region of Ireland I have never visited, let alone practised in, was absolutely convinced I was writing about one of her cases, despite the fact that I have never met her or the family to which she was referring).

Crying in the Dark
does not deal with the usual. I purposely set out to focus on four cases with details that were slightly out of the ordinary. They are stories I tend to use to illustrate points when teaching, as they each hold a fundamental message about children and how amazingly resilient they are, and about just how strange this work can get. Because it
can
get strange at times.

The story of Micky and Bobby Walsh happened exactly as I describe it here. They really did believe they were meeting their dead father down the back of the garden, and that line drawing I have reproduced is pretty much what they drew for me. All the odd things that occurred in that house did happen. Was I encountering supernatural forces? I have spent years asking myself that question. When someone tells you that there is a ghost in a house, whether you believe them or not, you begin to interpret things in ways you normally would not. I am a social scientist, with several degrees to my name, but I am human, and as open to suggestion as the next man. I am quite happy to believe (and in the dead of the night, this is what I tell myself) that what I experienced were a few freak weather conditions, a wobbly stool and a couple of deeply distressed little boys. As for branches that weren't there scratching at windows, well, all houses have their own idiosyncratic noises, don't they? I've left it open: you decide. Suffice it to say that, after we visited the grave and those two amazing children said their goodbyes, the visitations stopped. Bobby and Micky are two happy, well-adjusted adolescents now, and their house looks a lot less like a shrine than it once did.

Mina and Jacob did not remain a couple (wouldn't it have been lovely if they had), but she is now working in a job she loves outside the workshop system, and has a long-term partner.

Do people like Karl Devereux really exist? Yes, they do, particularly in the field of youth and community work. I have, in fact, been in community centres completely run by ex-prisoners. This should not come as a real surprise. These men and women have paid their debt to society (personally, I don't believe that prison should be about debt collection, but that's another story), and have life experiences that can be invaluable to young people who may be immersed in gang culture or living on the periphery of organized crime. These people have true insights into the workings of aspects of society the rest of us
cannot have.
I come from a working-class background, but I've never been beaten or abused or starved. Individuals like Devereux – men who choose each word they speak with care, because in prison, a slip of the tongue can get you beaten up or killed – have, and they bring that experience with them into their interactions with young people, and meet them on a level the rest of us cannot.

Larry and Francey were not feral children in the strictest sense of the word, but they certainly had feral aspects (those of you interested in reading more about feral children should have a look at Douglas Candland's book
Feral Children and Clever Animals,
published by Oxford University Press). Their father was sentenced to four years in prison, and he served around a year and a half of that. Their mother never served one single day of a custodial sentence, despite the fact that she was the motivating force behind the abuse, and that all the reports and evidence furnished to the court stated this clearly. Unfortunately, female perpetrators of abuse usually slip through the system, primarily because our society still does not recognize them as a real threat. Men abuse, the accepted wisdom states. Women are victims.

I ran into Sylvie Lambe fourteen months ago, purely by accident. I scarcely recognized her, but she knew me straight away and bounded over, full of confidence and good humour. She is a tall, strikingly beautiful young woman in her twenties now, who has left her past far behind her. My initial reticence about putting her in the care of a religious order was, thankfully, totally misplaced. She now works as part of an outreach programme with the Sisters, and has developed a deep spirituality: when I met her, she was just back from a pilgrimage to Lough Derg. She is still a single mother, but Gloria is a constant source of joy in her life, and the right man, she told me, would have to win over two women. We reminisced about old, darker times, and I was humbled by the fact that she harbours no bitterness. After ten minutes or so she gave me a hug, promised to keep in touch, and was gone into the bustle of the city streets. I knew I wouldn't hear from her until she accidentally wandered into my life again. I was outgrown a long time ago. And that is okay. The work I do is about facilitating growth, and that means charting the trajectory of a life for a time, and then watching it flame away into the ether, creating a new and beautiful course all of its own – strong, independent and free.

Thanks are to due to many people who were instrumental in the writing of this book:

Jonathan Williams, my agent, was once again the first person to read the text, and his editorial comments, support and friendship have been a huge benefit to me over the past couple of years. Jonathan, you have made me a better writer.

All the staff in Gill & Macmillan have been enthusiastic, warm and nurturing: Fergal, Sinéad, Dearbhla, D and everyone else, many thanks.

Darren Giddens, who advised on early drafts, has been my friend since we first happened across one another in a classroom in Waterford Regional Technical College in 1991. Thanks for everything, Darren.

John Connolly, a great writer and a true friend, was good enough to read a first draft and offer much needed support during a moment of doubt. Thanks for your time and encouragement, John.

Andy Irvine, who has been an inspiration to me for many years (for his wonderful social conscience as much as his remarkable musicianship), kindly gave permission for the use
of As I Roved Out.
Cheers, Andy.

This book was written in a variety of locations, mostly during the generous breaks we teachers get during the year. Particular thanks are due to Phil, Ted, Gráinne, Fergus and Edel, in whose home in Meath, closeted away in the living room, I wrote quite a bit of the text and consumed copious cups of tea. My little sister, Tara, and her partner, Gerry, also welcomed me into their Dublin apartment one Hallowe'en, during which time Mina Henry made her first appearance in print.

My students (and there are too many of you to mention), as well as being a constant source of inspiration and friendship, have been so incredibly supportive of me since this whole business began, that I simply do not have the words to express my gratitude. I have received letters and cards from past students, words of encouragement and congratulations at every turn. I don't deserve you all. Thanks.

Deirdre, Richard and Marnie have the job of living with me on a daily basis, a job that becomes quite challenging when I'm reaching the final stages of a manuscript. I love you all, and thank you for putting up with the impatience and moods.

All the children, all the stories described in this book, are real. The experience of working with each of you has enriched my life. Thanks are owed to every one of you.

I wish to dedicate this book to two men who probably had more to do with forming me as a childcare worker, and indeed a teacher, than anyone else. There are liberal sprinklings of each of them in Ben Tyrrell, and they are mentors I return to constantly for advice and wisdom, never going away empty-handed. John and Damien, this book is for you.