Wilderness (2 page)

He left his seat, and Frank sat down beside Sandra.
And, by the end of the concert, they were in love, even though Sandra's boyfriend was sitting right
behind them. She explained it to Frank, later.

“It was the way you listened,” she said. “You leaned
forward in your seat. You really listened. I loved that.
And you have a lovely nose. What was it about me?”

“Everything,” said Frank.

He meant it. He loved everything about Sandra. He
even loved the way she'd coughed when she
swallowed a sweet during one of the quiet songs.

“What about Jason?” said Frank.

Jason was the old boyfriend.

“Ah well,” said Sandra. “He was all right. But I
could never really love a man who says oops.”

Sandra met Gráinne, and they liked each other.
Gráinne was six. Sandra made her laugh a lot, and
Gráinne thought she was beautiful, and she liked the
way her dad looked at her. He laughed a lot too.

And three weeks after that, Frank took Gráinne to
the Bad Ass Café, just the two of them, and he told
her that Sandra was going to move into the house with
them, and how did she feel about that?

“What about Mammy?” she said.

“She lives in New York,” said Frank. “She probably
needed to get away. For a while, maybe. She loves you,
Gráinne, but not me. You can go to New York to see
her. When you're a bit older.”

So Gráinne nodded and said, “Fine.” She liked
Sandra. It would be nice.

And it was. Sandra wasn't much good at cooking
but she was funny and lovely, and she sang a lot. They
went shopping together, and she bought Gráinne
clothes that Frank never thought of – jeans and tops,
socks and knickers. Frank always bought her party
dresses and skirts, and coloury tights and necklaces.
They went driving a lot, the three of them, up the
mountains and to Howth or Malahide.

Then one morning, Gráinne woke up. It was still
dark outside, so she went into Frank's room, to get
into the bed beside Frank. And Sandra was in the bed
beside Frank, both of them asleep. Gráinne stood
looking at them. She was cold. She got into the bed,
beside Frank. He hugged her. His eyes were still
closed. He turned, still hugging her, and she was
between them, squashed between Frank and Sandra,
and it was fine. It was lovely and warm. When she
woke up again it was bright outside, and the bed was
empty, and she heard laughter from downstairs. Frank
and Sandra were laughing.

Then, another day, months later, they took her to
the Bad Ass again and they told her – Sandra told her.
She was pregnant, she was going to have a baby.

“Are you the daddy?” she asked Frank.

Frank was shocked at the question, and impressed.
Gráinne was looking straight at him.

“Yes,” said Frank. “The baby will be your sister
or brother.”

“No, it won't,” said Gráinne.

She worked it out.

“It'll only be my
half
-sister, or half-brother.”

“But it's great news, isn't it?” said Sandra.

“Yeah,” said Gráinne.

But, really, she didn't know what it was, good or bad,
or even news at all. She didn't know what she felt.

The baby was Johnny. And Gráinne loved him, he
was so cute. Sandra was at home all the time now
and, even though she was often busy feeding Johnny
and playing with Johnny, Gráinne loved it. She was
old enough to walk home from school on her own, and
Sandra was always there when Gráinne rang the bell
or went around to the back door and, nearly always,
her dinner was ready, the smell of it filling the
kitchen. She sometimes felt alone, and a few times,
when she went into her dad's room to get into the bed,
he asked her to go back to her own bed because
Johnny was already in the middle and there was no
more room.

“He's a brute,” said Frank. “Look at the size of him.”

But Frank and Sandra made sure Gráinne wasn't
left alone for long. She loved it when Frank got down
on the floor beside her and played. He did it a lot, and
so did Sandra. Gráinne knew that they were looking
after her. They checked her homework, checked that
her clothes were clean, checked her hair for head lice
when the letter came from school.

“Uh-oh, the lice letter.”

“It's the same one every time,” said Gráinne. “The
exact same words.”

“That's not fair on the lice,” said Sandra. “Every
louse is different. Come here, till we look.”

Then they took Gráinne to the Bad Ass again, and
Tom was born soon after. He was cute too, but Sandra
was mad busy, and Johnny was very jealous. He
climbed and pushed his way on to Sandra's lap when
she was feeding Tom. He threw his food across the
kitchen. He dumped it on top of his head. He did
anything to get Sandra to look at him. There wasn't
much room for Gráinne. But Frank always kissed and
hugged her first when he came home, even though,
sometimes, Johnny bit his leg while he was hugging
her. And he often took her out for special times
together. They even went to Paris for a long weekend.
It was OK, living in that house, growing up with Frank
and Sandra, and Johnny and Tom. Gráinne was happy.

Then she was a teenager and suddenly, it seemed,
she was unhappy and unfriendly, and silent and loud
at the same time. She spoke to no one, but slammed
the doors. She turned her music up loud, talked
loudly to her friends on her mobile phone, telling
them how stupid her family was and how she hated
them all. It was teenage stuff, Frank and Sandra knew,
but it was hard. Especially for Frank. He felt guilty
and, sometimes, angry. She was like this because he was a bad father – there was something he wasn't
doing right. Other times, he decided she was just a
selfish wagon, like her mother, and the sooner she
grew up and got out of the house the better. And then
he'd feel guilty again. He was the selfish one. She was
a teenager; it was a phase she was going through. It
would end and they'd be pals again.

“Fancy going to the Bad Ass?” he said one Friday,
when he came home and she was by herself in the
hall.

“No,” she said.

“Just the two of us,” said Frank.

“Like, wow,” she said, and she went up the stairs.
He felt her door slamming. The whole house shook a
bit.

“You're not my mother!” she roared at Sandra. More
and more often.

It was rough.

“It'll only last a few years,” Sandra told Frank, even
though she'd just been crying because of something
Gráinne had said to her. “I was like that myself when
I was her age.”

“Yeah,” said Frank.

But he didn't sound convinced.

He stayed out of Gráinne's way. He didn't
interfere, and he hoped she was doing OK at school.
He hoped she wasn't being stupid when she went out
at night, on the weekends. He always stayed awake until she came home, but always in bed. He didn't
want her to think that he was spying on her. The next
day, he always asked her how she'd got on, and he
never looked too closely at her eyes or tried to smell
her breath. He kept his distance and respected her
independence. But it was hard.

She was caught mitching from school, and
suspended for two weeks. She was caught shoplifting.
Mrs Fallon, from the shop at the end of the road,
didn't phone the Guards, but it was awful. Frank
apologized, and thanked her, and bought loads of
things he didn't need or want.

Gráinne left school two months before the Leaving
Cert exams. She wouldn't go back.

“You can't make me,” she said.

And that was the really terrifying bit: she was right.
They couldn't make her. They just had to hope she'd
be OK, that she'd calm down and become Gráinne
again, their Gráinne.

But, for now, she was a different Gráinne. A
monster, a big, horrible kid. A terrorist. It was after she
threw the cup at Sandra that Frank suggested that
Sandra and the boys needed a break.

He wrapped the broken pieces in some newspaper.

They could get away for a while, he said. It would
be good for them. It might even be good for Frank
and Gráinne to have the house to themselves. Like
the old days.

“Like the
good
old days,” said Sandra. “Before I
arrived.”

“Ah stop,” said Frank.

“No,” she said. “I won't.”

She was still shaking. The cup had just missed her
head. She looked at the coffee stains on the wall and
on her blouse. She took off the blouse and soaked it in
cold water. Frank put the newspaper into the bin and
wiped the wall.

“I'm not going anywhere,” said Sandra. “And what
about the money?”

“We'll manage,” said Frank. “We can do without a
holiday in the summer.”

“No,” said Sandra, finally. “She's not going to push
me out of my own home. It
is
my home.”

“I'll talk to her.” said Frank.

“Give me a break,” said Sandra. “Just shoot her.”

It was quiet enough for a few months. It wasn't too
bad. They all kept out of Gráinne's way, and she kept out
of theirs. The days got colder and shorter. Sandra came
home one day and found the three of them, Johnny,
Tom, and Gráinne, watching the telly. They were all on
the couch, long legs and arms all over the place. It was
the sweetest thing she'd seen in a long time. But Gráinne
saw her looking at them. She took back her arms and
legs, stood up, and walked out of the room, past Sandra.
Black eyes, black lips in a sneer that would have been
funny on someone else's daughter – stepdaughter.

Then the news came. Gráinne's mother, Rosemary,
was coming home.

“Oh, God,” said Sandra. “How do you know?”

“Her mother phoned me,” said Frank.

“I don't want to meet her,” said Sandra.

“Fine,” said Frank. “We can work that out. No
problem.”

“For good?” said Sandra.

“What?” said Frank.

“Stop being thick, Frank,” said Sandra. “Is she
coming home for good?”

“Oh,” said Frank. “I don't know. Her mother didn't
seem to know.”

Sandra stood up, and sat down, and stood up.
Frank tried to hug her, but she sat down again as his
arms went out to her.

“I've changed my mind,” she said. “I'm going away.
Me and the boys. I can't stay here.”

And the day after that, she came home in the rain
and told the boys the good news.

 

 

She sat on her bed. Her eyes were closed. Her arms
were wrapped around her knees. Her knees were right
up to her chin.

She could hear them. Talking about her.

She couldn't. Her music was all she could hear. But
she
knew
what they were saying about her. Down in
the kitchen. She could hear them. They hated her.

They hated her. And she hated them.

 

 

There were things they had to get. Thermal
underwear – long-sleeved vests and long underpants
down to their ankles – gloves, special socks, hats, scarves.

“What about skis?” said Tom.

“No,” said Sandra.

“What about a canoe?”

“Nope.”

The shop was full of outdoor adventure stuff.
Canoes hanging from the roof, and tents all over the
place. But all they were buying was socks and gloves.
Johnny picked up a mountaineering hammer.

“What about one of these?”

“Each,” said Tom.

“No,” said Sandra. “Put it back.”

“We might need them.”

“Put – it – back.”

“We might.”

“Put. It. Back.”

Johnny and Tom had been outside the back door
when they heard the cup hitting the wall. Johnny had
his hand on the door handle. They stayed there. They
were both a bit scared. Johnny waited to hear more
from inside, but there was nothing. He looked at Tom.

“OK?”

“OK.”

They went in, Johnny went first. Their mother was
at the sink, in her black bra, the one that used to be
new. They noticed that the wall beside her was wet
and very clean.

“I spilt bloody coffee on myself,” she said.

“Oh,” said Johnny. “Can we watch telly?”

They weren't allowed to watch telly on school days.

“OK,” said their mother.

And they knew for definite that something was
wrong, and they went in and watched
Complete
Savages.

“My mother's going to take me away from this
dump,” Gráinne told them.

“Cool,” said Tom. “I'll get your room.”

“No, you won't!” Gráinne roared, and she slammed
the door.

“What's her mother called?” Tom asked Johnny.

“Rosemary,” said Johnny.

“Do you think she'll really take her away?”

“Hope so,” said Johnny.

They knew that things weren't completely OK. But,
as far as they knew, they were going on their holidays
to Lapland, in northern Finland, and that was all.
They were going to a place with snow and reindeer
and huskies and snowmobiles.

Their dad drove them to the airport, and it was
typical early-morning adult talk, all the way.

“Will you have to wait long in Manchester?”

“No.”

“Grand.”

“An hour, I think.”

“That's not too bad.”

“No, it's fine.”

He didn't come into the airport with them; he had
to get to work. But he got out of the car and hugged
them. It was kind of sad that he wasn't coming, but
Tom was happy they were going with just their
mother. It was special, and she was always a bit
crazier when their dad wasn't around. She'd let them
run up the down escalator if it wasn't too crowded,
and push each other on trolleys. But not this time;
they had to go straight to the departure gate after
they'd checked in. And then they were in the plane
and in the air, and down again, in Manchester Airport,
and straight to the next plane and in the air again.
Nothing happened, except Johnny had to open his bag
for a security man who searched inside and found no
guns or weapons.

They had to wait for an hour and a half in Helsinki
Airport, for the plane to Lapland, and Sandra went to
the toilet three times.

“For a smoke,” said Tom, as they watched her cross
the wide corridor.

“Yeah,” said Johnny.

“What's in the women's toilets that isn't in the
men's?”

“Don't know. What?”

“Women.”

“Thick.”

“Muppet.”

“Thick.”

Then they were up again, their third flight in one
day. Johnny had the window seat.

“It's not fair,” said Tom.

“I'm the oldest,” said Johnny.

“So?”

“Shut up.”

“Now, now, lads,” said Sandra. “You can swap
halfway.”

But they didn't, because the plane began its
descent while they were still arguing – they were less
than half an hour in the air. They could see big snow
at the side of the runway. And the snow, small
mountains of it, the deep tyre tracks, the whiteness,
and the airport lights made them forget about the row
and everything else. There was only the next six days.

There was a man standing at the arrivals gate with
a sign,
WINTER SAFARIS
, held to his chest. Sandra and
the boys walked up to him.

“Winter safaris?” said Sandra.

“Winter safaris,” said the man. “Yes. Come, please.”

They followed the man through the tiny airport to a
minibus. It was right outside the exit. He opened the
rear door, and took their bags, and shoved them in with
other bags. Then he opened the side door and stood
back. They got in, and there were three other people in
there, at the back. Sandra, Tom and Johnny squeezed
into the seat right behind the driver's seat, and the
driver slid the side door behind them, and disappeared.

They sat there for half an hour, watching their
breath and saying very little.

“Cold?”

“Yeah; no.”

Tom looked back at the three people behind them.
The one in the middle was asleep, and the other two
were whispering to each other, across the sleeping
woman's face. They were a boy and a girl, in big
padded clothes and hats. They leaned over the
sleeping face and kissed, and Tom stopped looking.

They heard the rear door being opened, a grunt,
and the door slammed shut. Then there was a blast of
very cold air. The driver's door was open and he was
getting in.

He looked over his seat at them.

“Apology for lateness. I must see a man about a
dog.”

And then they heard it.

A bark.

There was a dog in the back. They looked. The
woman still slept; the other two whispered. Johnny
couldn't see the dog. But it barked again, and let out
a howl. And barked again, and stopped when the
driver started the minibus.

“Welcome to Lapland,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Sandra.

“You are welcome.”

“How long is it to the camp?”

The driver shrugged, and took a big right turn that
sent the boys pushing into Sandra, and they kept
pushing long after the driver had straightened up,
Johnny into Tom, both of them into Sandra, until she
told them to stop. They were excited again now that
they were moving, and they could see lines of trees
made fat with snow – joined by snow, as if the trees
were holding hands – and house lights shining across
fields of snow that hadn't been touched yet.

They drove slowly through a town the driver told
them was called Muonio. They passed a long, flat
building.

“Last school before the Arctic Circle,” he said.

And another.

“Last hospital. . . Last supermarket.”

He turned right and stopped in front of a row of
wooden houses, and got out. The door behind them
slid open and the cold slid in, and the woman who'd
been sleeping smiled before she stepped out. Johnny
heard her chatting to the driver. They laughed, and he
heard the rear door – the boot – open and close, and
the driver got back in and started the minibus.

“Soon,” he said.

Another left, a right, and the driver stopped again,
in front of a two-storey building. This time, he didn't
get out. The boy and girl picked up rucksacks and
shopping bags. They pushed on the side door. Again,
the cold came in. The boy and girl climbed out. They
heard the boot being opened.

“Students,” said the driver.

He nodded at the building.

“College. They learn to be guides.”

He nodded to the back of the bus.

“Not very good, I think. They cannot find skis.”

He got out of the bus and grunted his way past
their window to the back. They heard scraping and
banging – no barking – and the boot was slammed
again. The driver came back the other way, so he
could shut the sliding door.

“Very soon,” he said as he climbed back in. “Long
day.”

“Yes,” said Sandra.

They were off again, slowly, to the end of the street where there was just darkness ahead of them. He did a
slow U-turn, and they went back past the little college
and the two students struggling towards it, covered in
bags and skis. A few more turns, and the town was
behind them. They were on a straight road, streetlights
for a while, then gone. And trees, in lines beside them,
pushed low by the weight of the snow, branches out,
holding hands, keeping the minibus safe on the road.

The trees were gone now on the right side, and they
saw a long black gap that the driver told them was the
river.

“Sweden,” he said. “Other side.”

They passed a bridge and, halfway across it, the
border checkpoint. The lights were out, the
roadblocks down.

“Can we go across to Sweden one of the days?” said
Tom.

“Yes,” said Sandra. “Why not?”

“Cool.”

“Sweden.”

“Two countries.”

“Three,” said Johnny. “England as well. Manchester
Airport, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Cool.”

The driver slowed down, as if he was searching for
something in the trees, and then he turned right, and
they saw that they were on a road that had been well
hidden. The trees on the left weren't there any more and the hotel was. They liked it immediately. Johnny
smiled at Tom, and Tom smiled back.

“Coo-il.”

It was a low, long wooden building that seemed to
be hiding in the snow. It was surrounded by smaller
buildings, some lit, some dark, all like something built
for a film. The minibus swung into a wide space – a
car park, maybe, but no cars. There were banks of
thick snow on each side of the hotel door, and
untouched snow all around them, lit by high lights that
made it brighter than any snow they'd seen before.

By the time the driver pulled open the side door,
Johnny and Tom were shoving each other to be first at
the snow. Sandra heard, then felt, the crunch of the
snow under her boots. It wasn't as cold as she'd
expected. It wasn't really cold at all. She followed the
boys to the back of the minibus. The driver opened
the door, and stepped back to lift it. And they stepped
back to avoid him. They moved from behind his back
and looked – no dog. He pulled out their bags. Still no
dog. He put the boys' bags on the ground.

“Hey, mister,” said Johnny. “Where's the dog?”

“Dog?”

“The dog you put in at the airport.”

“Got out in town,” said the driver. “Met a lady dog.”

He laughed, and handed Sandra her bag, and, she
thought, he winked.

“Come on, lads,” she said.

The boys were up to their knees in snow, wondering
where to start.

“Later,” said Sandra. “Let's see what the room's
like.”

“Ah.”

They went inside, to the reception desk.

“Coo-il,” said Tom.

There were knives for sale, in a glass cabinet
behind the counter. Their granddad used to show
them the blades on his Swiss army knife when they
went to his house on Sundays. But these knives were
different. They were shining steel, nothing hiding the
blades – they were dangerous even to look at.

“Can we've a knife?”

“Each?”

“No.”

Sandra was filling in a form for the woman behind
the counter.

“We'll pay with our own money,” said Johnny.

“No.”

They tried to see the prices on the knives. There
were little tags attached to the handles with pieces of
string. They leaned across the counter, but Johnny
could get further because he was taller than Tom, and
his body and jacket pushed Tom back. And, suddenly,
Tom was angry. Tom was growing too, but he could
never catch up with Johnny, and this always
happened – he ended up in second place, in the back seat, with the smaller potato, the broken toy. He could
feel tears climbing to the eyes, and that wasn't fair
either, because Johnny would start laughing at him.

He hit Johnny. He slapped his back. His hand
bounced off Johnny's jacket; it couldn't have hurt him.
But the noise was like an explosion, and it made
Sandra jump. The pen she was holding skipped across
the paper. She had to get between Johnny and Tom
before the fight got going.

“Stop that! Now!”

She was embarrassed, and that made her angry –
because she hated being embarrassed, and she hated
herself for being embarrassed.

“Do you want to get us thrown out?” she said.
“Before we even get in? Well?”

“No,” said Tom.

“Well?”

“No,” said Johnny.

“So, stop.”

“Sorry.”

“Yes, well.”

She got the key to their room and led the way. The
floor was stone; the doors they passed were big and
wooden. The corridor was nicely dark. There were
lights, but they couldn't see them. Sandra stopped at
a door, and they saw now that the key was huge, like
a key from a film with pirates or prisons in it. She
unlocked the door, and then a strange thing – the door opened outwards. They had to step back, and then go
into the room.

“Wow!” said Sandra.

She loved the room. It was huge, and almost dark.
The main bed was as wide as a field. And the bunk
beds were even bigger. There was space for the boys
and every friend they'd ever had. The whole place was
wood, just nicely warm and—

“Hey!”

Johnny found it, beside the toilet. A sauna.

“God,” said Sandra.

She sat on the bed, and lay back – the most
comfortable, warmest, coolest bed she'd ever been on.
She closed her eyes. This was all she'd wanted.