Home Boys (13 page)

‘Hello Colin, sit down.’ He motioned to a pew at the back of the church. Colin did as he was told. He didn’t know anything much about this man, except that he was to be feared. ‘And Mrs Lyons, perhaps you would like to close the door.’

Colin heard the solid thud of the door swinging back against its frame, and the room darkened slightly as his escape was closed off. He noticed Father McBride standing over him now, holding a black bound book beneath his crossed-over hands, which sat comfortably where a fatter man’s stomach would have been.

‘Now Colin, Mrs Lyons here tells me you’ve been having some dreams. Is
this true?’

‘Everybody dreams,’ Colin replied.

‘Father,’ Mary barked at him from behind the priest.

‘What?’

‘You call a priest Father. It’s polite.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘Now not all dreams are the same Colin, that is the thing. Tell me, how did you feel, when you came into this church today?’

It was a trick question, that much was plain. There was a right answer and there was a wrong answer, but Colin, who was beginning to sweat, and could barely think of any answer at all, had only the truth available.

‘I suppose I felt a little uncomfortable.’

‘Look at him now Mrs Lyons. The boy is beginning to sweat. You did right to bring him here.’

Colin looked past the priest towards Mary. She was less frightening and perhaps his only hope. He thought of screaming, so that Dougal might hear and come running, but he was too frightened to dare.

‘Mary, what’s happening?’

‘Just relax Colin. I’ve brought you here so Father McBride can help you.’

‘Colin.’ As he spoke Father McBride opened his book at a page marked by a long red tassel. ‘You have the devil in you, and we are going to pray now, and help you be rid of him. That’s good isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean? I don’t have no devil.’ Colin looked desperately to Mary for support. ‘I don’t know what you mean. They’re just dreams. Tell him Mary. I want to go.’

Colin tried to stand but Father McBride had stepped forward, so the only way out was through him. Slowly the priest reached out his hand and Colin felt a cold palm against his forehead.

‘Mrs Lyons, you will need to help me lay the boy down. You
may need to hold him.’

It was too much. Colin struggled to break free but Father McBride was on his shoulders and Mary’s full weight followed quickly, pinning him with a force he could never resist.

‘It’s the devil fighting us now Mrs Lyons,’ Father McBride said grimly. ‘Join me in
prayer, and we will ask God to set this boy free.’

Above him Colin could see the eyes of Mary’s fat face close over. Behind her, he caught glimpses of a mournful Christ behind the altar, half naked and dying upon his cross, blood dripping from the thorns which surrounded his head. Colin closed his eyes and said a prayer of his own, trying to block out the priest’s foreign words, which were building steadily toward some horrible climax.

Please
God,
these
people
are
crazy.
Don’t
let
them
hurt
me.
This
is
supposed
to
be
your
place.
Don’t
let
them
hurt
me.

Colin said it again and again, but the priest’s words were growing louder and there was no ignoring them. He felt new hands on him now, the cold bony grip of Father McBride, long fingers searching each side of Colin’s temple, feeling for something, he was sure. And they found it, a nerve on each side so exposed that when the pressure came Colin had no choice but to convulse with the pain of it.

‘He’s going Father. Look you, it’s happening.’

You
bastard,
Colin wanted to shout, but the pain was too great and all he could do was cry.
You
bastard.
You’
re
a
trickster.
You’
re
doing
this
to
me.
You
’
re
doing
it.

Again and again he twitched, and prayed, this time that the pain would end. He almost blacked out and barely registered when the chanting died away and the fingers moved from his
head. He could hear noises as if from a distance, the low murmur of conversation between priest and parishioner, shyster and unwitting accomplice, and beneath that the low rumble of sobbing, the sound of his own pain.

Then he was standing, helped to his feet by Mary, who hugged him, and told him it was for his own good. He wanted to say something, he wanted to explain, but Father McBride was standing there, ready to tell them the devil hadn’t properly left, if need be.

Dougal asked him what had happened on the way back, but Colin refused to say a thing. He sat, and stared at the dust behind them, and thought of Veronica, which was the only thing that could make the anger in him subside.

The next time Gino disappeared he didn’t say anything; just swung out of his hammock, pulled on a jersey and his trousers and walked out the door.

‘You know where he goes don’t you?’ Colin accused his friend, when the sound of Gino’s boots on the stones outside had drowned beneath the crashing of waves.

‘Course I don’t.’

‘I bet he’s told you, when you’re out on the boat together.’

That too had become routine now. It was a busy time and Dougal and Gino had become regular crew, while Colin was left behind to clean nets and do as Mary asked.

‘He hasn’t, and I haven’t asked.’

It was stupid, the way Colin was feeling, he knew that. Gino still talked to him whenever they were together. Colin was included in their games of cards and although there were times
Gino and Dougal would share a joke he couldn’t understand, it was nothing so unusual. Nothing to be bothered with. But he was bothered, that was the thing. He was bothered and whatever the worst was, he wanted to know it.

‘He’s said he doesn’t want me on the boat though hasn’t he?’

‘Of course he hasn’t.’

‘He has.’

‘I’m telling you he hasn’t.’

‘So why haven’t I been asked then?’

‘I don’t know do I? It’s not my job to do the asking.’

‘So what does Gino say, when you ask him about it?’

‘Why would I ask him?’

‘I bet you do.’

‘It doesn’t matter what Gino says.’

‘See, I knew he said something. Come on, tell me.’

‘I don’t want to. I don’t want to tell you.’

‘You have to.’

‘No I don’t.’

‘Blood brothers.’

‘Blood brothers have secrets.’

‘Do not.’

Colin rolled quickly in the dark, trapping Dougal’s wriggling frame under the coarse wollen blanket before he had a chance to escape. He crawled forward, pinning Dougal’s shoulders beneath his knees.

‘So tell me, what does Gino say?’ Colin asked the squirming darkness beneath him.

‘It’s nothing. It’s just he says Mary wants to keep a close eye on you. He says she’s got plans for you.’

‘What plans?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t say. I don’t think he knows. It’s just talk. Get off me will you?’

‘What plans?’ Colin leant his weight forward, forcing the bones of his knees down into the soft tissue of Dougal’s shoulders.

‘Get off and I’ll tell you.’

‘That’s a promise then. You can’t go back on a promise.’

Colin rolled back to his side of the lumpy mattress and waited.

‘It’s just Gino’s theory. I don’t know, he might just be telling stories. He says it’s Mary. She wants to keep an eye on you. She thinks you’re special, you know, because of the dreams. She thinks you were sent here or something.’

‘That’s crazy. She must be crazy.’

‘I know that. What happened in the church?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Thought blood brothers didn’t have secrets,’ Dougal said, but he left it at that, same as he did the other three times he’d asked that question. Blood brothers.

‘Didn’t hurt you did I?’ Colin asked.

‘Course not. You couldn’t even if I let you.’

They were quiet then, for a minute or more, but Colin knew Dougal wasn’t thinking of sleep. He was easy to read that way, his breathing changed.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘You know how I said I didn’t know where Gino goes?’

‘I knew you did.’

‘No, I don’t. But I want to know, and I was thinking, probably we could find out.’

‘He could be anywhere,’ Colin replied, but he liked the idea of it, him and Dougal setting out on an adventure, spying on
their older friend. Where could the harm be in that?

‘I saw him once, when I went out to the toilet, and he’d just left. He was walking to the crack in the rocks, you know, where I showed you. I’m sure he was.’

Colin knew the place. It was half a mile up the coast. There was a split in the rock face, a crack not much higher than he was, and narrow enough that you’d have to squeeze to get through. It didn’t look like the squeeze would be worth the effort, but Dougal had tried anyway, and they’d found an opening wider than their hands could reach, with clear sky above it; a hidden corridor of rock where two huge lumps of earth had settled one against the other. They’d been there twice more, once with food they had stolen from the sheep station homestead, further up the coast, and another time just to talk.

‘You saw him going in?’

‘No, but I saw him walk towards it. Straight towards it. It’s the only thing there.’

‘Maybe. It’s dark. We wouldn’t see much.’

‘There’s a moon tonight. Come on, do you want to?’

‘Course I do,’ Colin replied, partly because he was curious to know what it was Gino got up to on these nights, but mostly because of the game of it.

They dressed quickly and crept out into the night. Even barefoot there was no way to stop the stones crunching beneath their feet; so loud Colin was sure the whole village would wake at the sound of it. But no lamps came on and no doors swung open and soon they were close enough to the roar of the undertow to talk without having to worry about their voices being heard.

‘What will we do when we get there?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well we can’t just go in can we? He’ll see us. And what say there’s other people there, and they’re angry? We’d be trapped.’

‘Course we won’t go in. I’m not that stupid. I’ve thought about it. We’ll climb up the side of the rock face. Then we’ll be able to look in over the top. We’ll never be seen.’

So squeezing through the gap to spy on their friend was stupid, but attempting to climb a sheer rock face thirty feet high in the dead of night wasn’t. That was Dougal’s way of seeing the world, and it went well with Colin’s way of following.

Dougal insisted they stop thirty yards shy of their target, for a last checking of the plans.

‘After this we don’t talk again,’ he whispered. ‘So we have to know what happens. We’ll creep over to the rock, there, just where it juts out. That’ll be the easiest place to climb. I’ll go first and you follow.’

‘You can’t look before I do though.’

‘Okay, I’ll wait, and we’ll look over together. Here, like this, I’ll count three, tapping on your head, and on three we both look over.’

‘Then what?’

‘Here’s the rule.’ Dougal had a comic-book important voice for times like these. ‘Whatever we see, even if we see nothing, we have to stay and watch for ten seconds. And then, it doesn’t matter what it is we’ve seen, we don’t say anything. We climb back down and we come back here. And that’s when we talk.’

All set up, almost like he knew what was coming.

‘So what do you think we’ll see?’ Colin asked. ‘We should have a bet.’

‘I think he’s with some of the other men. I think they’re
gambling. Mary doesn’t like gambling, so they have to do it here.’

‘I was going to have that one.’

‘Well I said it first. Say another.’

Colin tried to think of all the reasons a man like Gino might have for slipping away into the darkness, but the truth was so plain he missed it altogether.

‘I think there’s other men too. I think they steal things, and this is where they hide them, and come to trade.’

‘You’re soft in the head. Gino’s not a thief.’

The climb was easier than Colin expected. Half a year before, back in London, it wouldn’t have been that way. He wouldn’t have had the nerve for it, or the strength in his arms to pull himself up, to grip on to crannies while his feet searched for holds. But things change. He followed close behind his friend, his face at the level of Dougal’s white feet, luminous in the moonlight. Then the feet stopped moving. They were at the top. Colin worked his way slowly to the left, then made his way up to his friend’s level. At the top the rock flattened slightly, so they could lean their weight against it and rest their legs. By edging forward only a matter of inches, they would be able to look down into the darkness below. If they were right, and Gino was there, and the moon which was high in the sky was able to penetrate as far as the ground, then below, a matter of seconds away now, was Gino’s secret. Colin felt his heart beating loud with the excitement, and he had to swallow hard to stop himself from giggling. Then came the taps. One, two, three.

The boys wriggled forward together. Colin looked down, desperately searching the eerie blue-black shadows, so that he
might be able to say he saw it first, even though later Dougal would say the same and there would be no way of proving it. Then he saw them, and he wished he hadn’t. He wished he’d never looked, never seen her face, closer and clearer than he had imagined, and whiter in this dead light, against the black of the sand beneath her, and the black of the back of Gino’s head; on top of her, naked, his buttocks pulsing to a rhythm as ancient as the pull of the moon and the answering of the tides.

The pain that wrenched Colin’s gut was older still, so he didn’t think about the rules, he just cried out her name.

‘Veronica!’

‘Colin, Jesus, you weren’t meant to say anything.’

Dougal tugged at his sleeve but Colin was clinging to the edge now and he wouldn’t let go.