The Girl Who Couldn't Smile (22 page)

‘I can stay in the crèche, Daddy?’

‘You sure can,’ Dale said. ‘When you’re big enough, we’ll talk about a school for you. Shane here says you’re real smart, and we gotta get the right place for you.’

‘’Kay,’ Tammy said.

Dale carried her home. He was exhausted, but I knew better than to offer to take a turn with her. He needed to shoulder the burden of his daughter. I wasn’t going to deprive him of that privilege.

Lonnie and I were walking Millie on the mountain near his house. It was a beautiful crisp, cold afternoon. I had allowed him to talk me into having dinner at his place, which meant enduring the horrors of his cooking. But I was feeling magnanimous, and figured I could always get take-out on the way home if things were really dire.

We followed the slope of a hill up to one of our favourite places, a peak upon which a small stone circle had been erected some time in prehistory and from where the surrounding countryside could be seen in all directions.

‘Who would have thought Tammy would be such a chatterbox?’ Lonnie said. ‘It’s been kind of hard to get a word in around Little Scamps the past few weeks.’

‘She’s making up for lost time, I suppose.’ I laughed.

‘That’s for sure.’ Lonnie leaned his back on a stone pillar. ‘Do you think her dad’s going to step up to the mark, now?’ he asked. ‘Be the kind of father she needs?’

I put my hands into my pockets against the cold. ‘I hope so. They both had a terrible fright when they realized how close they’d come to losing one another. It brought each of them out of their shells. Tammy started talking, Dale started
caring. It won’t be easy for either of them – they’ve learned not to trust, not to value, one another. They have a hell of a lot of unlearning to do. But I think they might make it.’

I looked east, towards the sea and the location of Tammy’s rebirth. It was a peculiar memory, that night – beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

‘There’s something I want to talk to you about, mate,’ I said.

‘Out with it,’ he said.

‘How would you like to take over managing Little Scamps?’

He chuckled drily. ‘And where are you going?’

‘It was only ever supposed to be temporary,’ I said. ‘I’ve loved my time with the kids, but I don’t see myself working in early years for the rest of my life. And there’s no use saying I’ll wait until this group moves on – they’re too wide a spread of ages. There will always be other kids coming on stream. I think the time is right. Things are running really nicely.’

In fact, I didn’t want to leave. I loved the children, I had come to cherish the staff as friends, and I thought I was learning to become a good crèche worker. But I knew my departure would give Lonnie the chance he needed to flourish. He would never truly spread his wings while he was in my shadow – I was the last of the people who had stuck him on a slide to examine him like some sort of bug. If he was ever to shrug off his past, I had to go. Little Scamps was wonderful, but it was an opportunity he needed much more than I did.

‘Why ask me?’ Lonnie wondered. ‘Why not Su or Tush?’

‘They didn’t want it when I arrived. They don’t want it now. Anyway, you have a natural flair for the work. This is your area, Lonnie. You’re really, really good at it. Little Scamps is where you’re meant to be, I think.’

He watched Millie stalking a pheasant that had just come
out of the brush. The bird watched her crawling along the ground, biding its time until she was nearly upon it, then exploded into the air in a flurry of copper-coloured feathers.

‘Tush and I are thinking of moving in together,’ Lonnie said.

‘Wow. Big step.’

‘I met her parents the other day.’

‘How’d that go?’

‘They were … polite.’

‘Oh. Not good, then?’

‘They didn’t run screaming,’ he said. ‘It was sort of funny hearing them trying to find other ways of saying “little” or “small”. You’d be amazed how often those words crop up in an average evening.’

‘I’m sorry it didn’t go better,’ I said.

‘They might become accustomed to it,’ Lonnie said.

‘They might.’

‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘I expect they think I’m some kind of phase she’s going through, and that she’ll grow out of me.’

‘Tush is a fairly down-to-earth sort,’ I said. ‘The fact that she’s even considering moving in with you is testament to the fact you are
not
a phase.’

‘I thought that,’ he said. ‘But I was a little bit afraid to say it.’

We wandered towards the band of trees on the other side of a fire break.

‘I don’t know if we’ll make it or not,’ he said.

‘You’ll have fun trying, though,’ I said. ‘And if you get your heart broken, well, that’s no worse than anyone else has to put up with when a relationship falls asunder.’

‘But if I don’t …’ he said.

‘If you don’t,’ I said, ‘you get the best thing in the world.’

We followed the treeline until it joined a narrow path that would bring us back to Lonnie’s small house.

‘I found out what happened to Angelica,’ Lonnie said.

‘Really? How’d you do that?’

‘Sister Helen, the nun who works with Tristan sometimes, she helped me. It actually wasn’t difficult. Don’t know why I didn’t do it before.’

‘Maybe you’re feeling a little bit more confident in matters of the … er … heart,’ I suggested.

‘She went back to Poland soon after I left the school,’ Lonnie said. ‘She died about five years later. They think it might have been linked to the malaria. She did have it and never fully recovered from it, you see. Poor thing.’

‘How do you feel, knowing that?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. I talked to Tush about it.’

‘Good,’ I said.

There didn’t seem to be much more to say than that.

And two men and their dog followed the woodland path back to an unimaginative, though actually quite tasty, dinner of Cumberland sausage and roasted Brussels sprouts.

Tony came to see me shortly before I left Little Scamps to return to work at Drumlin. He was waiting outside the building as I locked up, looking remarkably unkempt for a man who was usually so dapper.

‘Tony, if you’re here to have another shouting match, I’m not interested,’ I said.

‘I would just like to talk,’ he said. ‘I do not want to fight with you.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s go get a cup of coffee.’

Kate’s café was a short walk away, and we sat by the window.

‘What can I do for you, Tony?’ I asked.

‘Felicity has left me,’ he said. ‘Or, more accurately, she threw me out.’

I sipped my coffee – Kate, as well as giving nice hugs, made a mean cup. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said.

‘You didn’t know?’

‘I did not. Felicity doesn’t exactly volunteer information, and Milandra has made no reference to it. She seems as happy and relaxed as she has been of late.’

Kate bustled over to see if we were okay. ‘Can I get you anything else, gentlemen?’

‘I’d love a slice of carrot cake,’ I said.

‘And you, sir?’

Tony shook his head and Kate went to get my cake.

‘What is it with you people and vegetables in cakes?’

I just smiled. I’d had the reaction I was after. ‘You still haven’t told me what you want,’ I said.

‘I want you to make sure Milandra starts school in September.’

‘You know I’m leaving Little Scamps,’ I said.

‘Yes. But you can see to it before you go.’

I nodded. ‘I can do that. Why the change of heart?’

Tony looked utterly dejected. It was hard for me to feel sorry for him. I could see no reason why he had behaved so badly towards me. As far as I was concerned, he was in a situation of his own making.

When he didn’t answer, I said, ‘I looked up the meaning of
ôkùnrin ábökùnrinlò.’

Tony gazed at me dolefully.

‘It means “homosexual”,’ I continued. ‘Tony, for such a smart man, you aren’t very original. I’ve had idiots calling me that since I started working with kids. It’s a lousy word to use as an insult, anyway – first of all, if I
were
gay it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, and if I weren’t, you must know that someone in my line of work will have encountered people of all persuasions and had no problem with them. You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to get to me.’

He didn’t say anything for what seemed like an age. Then: ‘Milandra seems happy.’

Kate brought my cake. Despite Milandra and Arga’s reviews, it was very good.

‘Your daughter
is
happy,’ I said. ‘She’s clever, sensitive, warm and content. She is a valued member of the crèche, and of this village. You should be very proud of her.’

‘I am,’ he said.

I had some more cake. It had cinnamon in it. I like cinnamon. ‘It took me and my friends quite a long time to get her to a place where she could function alongside other people,’ I said. ‘I think some good work was done at home with her, too. I don’t know how much of that success is down to you. I suspect not too much. I think your lovely wife was instrumental, though.’

‘I want to explain something to you,’ Tony said, leaning in close.

He had bags under his eyes, the look of a man who had lost a lot of weight quickly, weight he could not afford to lose.

‘I’m listening,’ I said.

‘You do not understand what it is like to grow up in poverty.’

I thought I might be able to mount a pretty good argument to that statement, but decided to keep my mouth shut for a bit.

‘Where I come from a child has to fight,’ Tony said, ‘fight for every single morsel of food, every article of clothing. Every accomplishment is hard won. When I was six years old, I saw a friend of mine, a boy who was only ten, killed for his shoes. His murderer was barely twelve.’

There was other chatter going on in the café, but I couldn’t hear it any more. It was just me and Tony.

‘I am here, talking to you, because my parents taught me to be fierce. To never give in, to trust nobody but myself. Those skills have stood me in good stead my whole life. If I did not have them, I would be dead.’

I nodded. Felicity had explained as much that evening back at the crèche.

‘I swore to myself long ago that, if I ever had a child, I
would teach him or her those skills too, so that if they ever found themselves in such dire need, they would be able to fight, as I did.’

‘But did you not also swear that your children would never
be
in those circumstances?’ I asked. ‘You worked hard to rise above the awful place you grew up. You educated yourself, got a job and clawed your way to the top. You were lucky enough to marry an Irish girl whose family is well off, and you are now a man of means. Even if you lost your job in the morning, if by some ill fortune you had to sell your house and get a smaller one, if you ended up on social welfare – if all of that happened, Tony, and it would be terrible, you will
never
be destitute again. Milandra will never have to live rough or fight for scraps with other street children.’

His eyes were huge. ‘I love my daughter,’ he said.

‘I know you do.’

‘I have wronged her.’

‘You made a mistake,’ I said. ‘It’s not too late to fix it.’

He looked out of the window at the village street. Spring was coming in. It was still bright. ‘You should not leave Little Scamps,’ he said.

‘I have another job,’ I said. ‘I was on loan.’

He stood. ‘I am going to try and persuade my wife to have me back,’ he said.

I held out my hand, and he shook it this time. ‘Good luck,’ I said.

‘What will you do?’ he asked.

‘I think I might have another cup of coffee,’ I said.

I watched him walk across the road to where his car was parked, then pull out into the narrow road and drive away. I knew I should go home, but it was warm and friendly in Kate’s. The cook laughed behind the long counter, and a waitress smiled and winked at me as she went past. I suddenly
felt very alone. Lonnie and Tush would be sitting around the little table in his kitchen, by then, probably having an
early-evening
drink. I didn’t feel like going home to sit in an empty house.

I finished my second cup of coffee and went to my old Austin, got in and drove until the dull reverberations of the road numbed me, and I went home to my dog.

I came to early-years work – with pre-school-aged children in crèches and playschools – with a lot of prejudice. Like many people, I was guilty of associating the hugely important work carried out in our childcare facilities with babysitting, and failed to recognize the wealth of knowledge and research done by committed and courageous staff in such settings. Much of this knowledge forms the basis of the academic texts I had studied while training to be a child-protection worker. I now understand just how vital a part of the social-care pantheon early-years work is, and am proud to have been a part of it.

The Girl Who Couldn’t Smile
does not feature any sexual or physical abuse. None of the parents I describe in its pages are really bad people – they are often doing their best with the hand Fate has dealt them, trying to cope with the legacy of their own childhoods. They are not wilfully neglectful of their children – they usually don’t know any better.

The types of stories I recount here are, in reality, the sort most crèche workers deal with on a daily basis. The things the children say, the games they play, the activities they engage in are characteristic of those carried out in crèches and pre-schools all over Ireland, the UK and further afield.
For instance, we really did make that giant map of the village, and the children really did use it to explain their activities over the weekend to one another. Interestingly, I recently ran into Rufus, who is now a happy, healthy young man in his late teens. He no longer lives anywhere near Brony, and told me that, when he thinks of the village and the time he spent there growing up, it is that map he sees in his mind’s eye. It came to symbolize his time at Little Scamps.

Many of the children I worked with in those days I never saw again. I would love to know what happened to Julie and Ross. I often think of Gus and his magic crayon, and hope the pair of them are doing well.

I did come across Mitzi several years later, although I scarcely recognized her. She was singing with a folk group at a concert to raise money for a local Irish language school, and was remarkably slim and lithe. She seemed to be well liked by her peers, and performed a solo that was
heart-meltingly
lovely.

Jeffrey left a year after I did to go on to a mainstream primary school where, with a classroom assistant to help him, he still struggled academically. His mother told me he was happy, though. I lost track of him after that.

Gilbert remained in special-care settings for the rest of his childhood, and is still in one, as far as I know. His particular difficulties made it impossible for him to adjust to life in ‘normal’ society. His parents employed an army of psychologists and therapists to try to ‘cure’ him, but to no avail.

Arga continued to have behavioural problems for several years, and remained at Little Scamps until she was eight, but eventually managed to make the transition to mainstream school. By then she was speaking English fluently and could read and write very well. She will be doing her Leaving Certificate this year.

Milandra left Little Scamps that September as planned, and excelled in her new school. Felicity and Tony were reunited and are still together. A teacher who had worked with Milandra informed me that she had rarely worked with a child who demonstrated such empathy with and compassion for others.

Dale and Kylie really did try to build a relationship with Tammy, and while the path was a rocky one, they made some progress. While Tammy never did go to a school for children with exceptional ability, she did go to one of the better local primaries, where a special subsidy helped pay for her books and other educational equipment. Sadly, Tammy was always attracted to trouble, and was excluded, then taken back but excluded again (this time for good) before she was twelve. I believe her educational career was patchy after that.

I heard from a social worker two years ago that she had come across Tammy in a unit for young offenders. She was involved in an educational programme there and was amazing her teachers. Unfortunately, she ran away consistently before they had a chance to get her through her exams. Some behaviours are very hard to change.

As I wrote of my friend Lonnie in
Little Boy Lost
, he died of a heart attack a year after the events of this book.

Tush was with him to the end.