He did not care.
Slowly he walked, one foot in front of the other, stones breaking through the soft rubber soles of his sandals. He walked until his feet bled. He walked until his sandals disintegrated like his heart. He kept on walking until he reached a place where he would never feel pain again.
Friday night, 8 May 2015 Ragmullin
One
It was the dark that frightened her the most. Not being able to see. And the sounds. Soft skittering, then silence.
Shifting onto her side, she tried to haul herself into a sitting position. Gave up. A rustle. Squeaking. She screamed, and her voice echoed back. Sobbing, she wrapped her arms tight around her body. Her thin cotton shirt and jeans were soaked with cold sweat.
The dark.
She had spent too many nights like this in her own bedroom, listening to her mother’s laughter with others in the kitchen below. Now she remembered those nights as a luxury. Because that wasn’t real dark. Street lights and the moon had cast shadows through paper-thin curtains, birthing the wallpaper to life. Her dated furniture had stood like statues in a dimly lit cemetery. Her clothes, heaped in piles on a chair in the corner, had sometimes appeared to be heaving, as the headlamps of cars passing on the road shone through the curtains. And she thought that had been dark? No. This, where she was now, was the true meaning of pitch black.
She wished she had her phone, with her life attached to it – her cyber friends on Facebook and Twitter. They might be able to help her. If she had her phone. If only.
The door opened, the glow from the hallway blinding her eyes shut. Church bells chimed in the distance. Where was she? Near home? The bells stopped. A sharp laugh. The light flicked on. A naked bulb swayed with the draught and she saw the figure of a man.
Backing into the damp wall, scuffing her bare heels along the floor, she felt a tug on her hair and pain pinpricked each follicle on her head. She didn’t care. He could scalp her bald as long as she got home alive.
‘P-please…’
Her voice didn’t sound like her own. High-pitched and quivering, no longer laced with her usual teenage swagger.
A rough hand pulled her upward, her hair snarled round his fingers. She squinted at him, trying to form a mental picture. He was taller than her, wearing a grey knitted hat pierced with two slits revealing hostile eyes. She must remember the eyes. For later. For when she was free. A thrust of determination inched its way into her heart. Straightening her spine, she faced him.
‘What?’ he barked.
His sour breath churned her stomach upside down. His clothes smelled like the slaughterhouse behind Kennedy’s butcher’s shop on Patrick Street. In springtime, little lambs succumbed to bullets or knives or whatever they used to kill them. That smell. Death. The cloying odour clinging to her uniform all day long.
She shuddered as he moved his face nearer. Now she had something to be more frightened of than pitch-black nothingness. For the first time in her life, she actually wanted her mother.
‘Let me go,’ she cried. ‘Home. I want to go home. Please.’
‘You make me laugh, little one.’
He leaned towards her, so close that his wool-covered nose touched hers and his sickly breath oozed through the knitted stitches.
She tried to back away but there was nowhere to go. She held her breath, desperately trying not to puke as he gripped her shoulder and pushed her to the door.
‘Stage two of your adventure begins,’ he said, laughing to himself.
Her blood crawled as she hobbled into the barren corridor. High ceilings. Peeling paint. Giant cast-iron radiators snatched up her faltering steps with their shadows. A high wooden door blocked her progress. His hand slid around her waist, pulling her body to his. She froze. Leaning over, he shoved open the door.
Forced into a room, she slipped on the wet floor and fell to her knees.
‘No, no…’ She swung around frantically. What was going on? What was this place? Windows sheathed in Perspex kept daylight at bay. The floor was covered in damp heavy-duty plastic; the walls were streaked with what she thought looked like dried blood. Everything she saw screeched at her to run. Instead, she crawled. On hands and knees. All she could see in front of her were his boots, caked in mud or blood or both. He hauled her up and prodded her to move. Rotating her body, she faced him.
He pulled off the balaclava. Eyes she had only seen through slits were now joined by a thin, pink-lipped mouth. She stared. His face was a blank canvas awaiting a horror yet to be painted.
‘Tell me your name again?’ he asked.
‘Wh-what do you mean?’
‘I want to hear you say it,’ he snarled.
Catching sight of the knife in his hand, she slithered and slipped on the blood-soaked plastic before falling prostrate before him. This time she welcomed the darkness. As it glided over the tiny stars flickering behind her eyes, she whispered, ‘Maeve.’
Day One
Monday 11 May 2015
Two
They were at it again. Loud and cheerful. Alto and tenor competing with each other, starling and wood pigeon. Bird shit floated down in front of the open window, just missing the glass.
‘Shit,’ Lottie Parker said; her favourite swear word, the irony not lost on her. She tugged the window shut, making the room even more hot and airless, but she could still hear them. She flopped onto the damp duvet. Another night sweating. She would be forty-four next month, at least six years, she hoped, from the age when she could put it down to the menopause. So it had to be the monster heat.
Her eyes were dry from lack of sleep, and then her phone alarm buzzed.
Go time. Work time.
And Lottie Parker wondered how she would cope today.
* * *
‘Where are my keys?’ she shouted up the stairs half an hour later.
No answer.
Eight bells rang out from the cathedral situated in the centre of Ragmullin, half a mile from her home. Late. She tipped the contents of her handbag onto the kitchen table. Sunglasses – necessary; wallet – empty; till receipts – too many; bank card – lost cause; phone – would ring any minute; Xanax… Help. No keys.
Opening a blister pack, she swallowed a pill, even though she had promised herself not to slip into old habits. What the hell, she’d been awake most of the night and needed a shot of something. It was months since she’d touched an alcoholic drink, so a pill was the next best thing. Maybe even better. She poured a glass of water.
The stairs creaked. Seconds later, Chloe, her younger daughter, stormed into the kitchen.
‘We need to talk, Mother.’
She called Lottie Mother just to antagonise her.
‘We do. But not now,’ Lottie said. ‘I’ve to go to work. If I ever find my keys.’
She rummaged through the detritus on the table. ID, hairbrush, sunscreen, two-euro coin. No keys.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’