JP

If things had been different, we would never have come to Ireland.

If we had never come to Ireland, none of this would have happened.

If, if, if.

It was both their faults. Mum and Dad.

Mum was in a psychiatric institution for months after she had Charlie. When she came back, she was never the same.

Dad must have thought that when she came home everything would return to normal. He’d go back to his routine of working hard during the day and having a few drinks with his mates at night. She’d be able to cope with us. Normal service would resume.

It wasn’t like that though. At the end of the first week, Dad came home one night to find Mum cutting up all his trousers at the kitchen table. I was sitting on the sofa with Charlie in my lap. Even as a baby, you could see Charlie was going to end up looking like her namesake, a tiny Kylie with blonde curls and the face of an angel. The complete opposite of me. I was the spit of Seamie – a black-haired, dark-featured, sullen-looking thing.

Mum snipped away and muttered under her breath. A cigarette hung out of the side of her mouth, its ash falling on to the discarded material.

‘What are you doing?’ Dad’s mouth fell open when he arrived at the door to the flat and saw what she was at.

‘I know, Seamie,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I know what you’ve been getting up to with that hussy downstairs. Do you think I don’t see these things? All that time I was away, you had her – a tart – in my bed and minding my children. My children.’

‘Rose?’ Dad choked. ‘The woman who helped me hold this family together while you were in the fucking funny farm? The bleedin’ nerve of you, Betty.’

He spotted me and Charlie.

‘Why in the name of Jaysus are the kids still up? It’s nearly midnight.’

‘They wanted to see their father when he came home from the pub. If you didn’t stay out so late drinking, they wouldn’t be still up. If you earned proper money, maybe we could live somewhere nicer and I would get better. If you …’

She was still going when Dad packed us off to our room. I heard the fight continue through the paper-thin walls and then Mum started crying and Dad’s voice went quieter and I knew he was trying to make her happy.

That night, it worked.

‘Betty, why can’t you believe I want everything to be okay, my lovely girl?’ I heard Dad say in between the hushing and the soothing sounds. ‘Don’t you remember how we used to go dancing when it was just the two of us, and we’d stay out all night? I’ve only ever had eyes for you, girl. You know that.’

Mum sobbed quietly and then started to talk, and soon they were laughing and things were okay again.

But even I knew Mum was getting worse, not better.

The next time she left, she went for good.

She couldn’t have timed it worse. Dad, unbeknownst to her, had taken a job that morning up in Northampton. When she locked the door behind her that night, she must have assumed he’d be home late, as always. But he didn’t come back until the following evening.

‘Where’s Mummy gone?’ Charlie asked me the next morning. She’d wet her bed, something that happened a lot now she was three and no longer in nappies. Mum had taken her out of them, saying she was big enough to be toilet trained, but she’d forgotten to do the training part.

‘Dunno,’ I said, trying to be the little grown-up so she wouldn’t be scared. I changed her out of her pee-soaked nightie and made us bowls of Rice Krispies. I was eight; old enough to know something was up, especially when I couldn’t open the flat door.

We ate our breakfast in front of the telly and I tried to keep Charlie entertained for the day and not get too panicky myself. I thought she was all right. She was used to me taking care of her anyway. But that afternoon she started to cry.

‘What’s wrong, Charlie?’ I asked.

‘I’m afraid.’

‘Why are you afraid?’

‘Has Mummy left ’cos of me?’

‘Why would Mum leave ’cos of you?’ I said.

She wiped the snot that had rolled down on to her lips with the back of her hand, her chubby cheeks puffy and red.

‘She gets angry when I do a pee-pee in my bed. I try not to, JP. It just comes out of me.’

I shook my head.

‘No, you silly boo. Mum loves you. How could anybody be annoyed at you? She’s just gone to get something.’

‘Will she and Daddy fight when she comes home? I don’t like it when they shout.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Me neither. But if they fight you can come sleep in my bed, okay?’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

I held her hand and we watched more TV, snacking on whatever I could find in the presses.

When Dad got home that night and found the door locked from the outside he knew Betty was gone, but he still checked every room in the small flat. He couldn’t believe she’d left us. He couldn’t believe she’d left him again, and this time it wasn’t even because she’d checked into hospital. She’d just gone.

He brought us down to Rose the next morning and asked her to watch us for a few days while he went off looking for Betty.

‘I can’t keep doing this, Seamie,’ she hissed. ‘I’ve three of me own. Look, I’ll take ’em for a couple of days but, love, you might want to think about sorting something full-time. Betty could be gone a while. It’s not good for ’em to be always shifted from pillar to post, and they’ve already seen too much for kids their age. You’re just lucky that she never tried anything funny with Charlie, after what happened to John Paul.’

‘I know, Rose. I know. Jesus, I need a drink.’

‘Seamie, be careful now,’ Rose said. ‘Have a drink, but just remember – you’re all these mites have.’

Dad cursed again and muttered that he didn’t need a lecture. He stomped off down the balcony and Rose watched him with a worried look in her eye. I held Charlie’s hand tight. She was all I had, really.

That night Rose put us to bed head to toe in the flat’s tiny box room. She’d heard nothing from Dad since that morning. She sat on the floor beside us and watched Charlie doze off, then talked to me like I was older than I was.

‘Do you know what’s happened, John Paul? You know your mummy has gone? The silly cow. If she’d just told me, I’d have taken you down ’ere …’ Rose swiped at the tears that had had sprung up in her eyes. ‘The thought of you, up there on your own all night!’ She stroked Charlie’s curls, her soft baby cheek, and swallowed.

‘Is Dad going to find Mum?’ I asked.

She shrugged.

‘I don’t know, son. That’s the God’s ’onest truth. Do you want ’im to find her?’

I didn’t know what to say to that.

‘Sorry,’ she said, misunderstanding. ‘Of course you do. That’s a stupid question. I hope ‘e does. I hope it works out for you all. You’ve had it tough, ’aven’t you, pet?’

It was my turn to shrug. I didn’t think I’d had it tougher than anybody else.

‘What did you mean, what you said to Dad about him being lucky Mum did nothing funny with Charlie after what she’d done to me?’ I asked.

Rose’s jaw dropped. She’d said that right in front of me but assumed it had gone over my head. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like that though, and I’d picked up on it.

‘Ah, nothing, John Paul. Don’t mind me. I’m talking out of school. Anyway, I’m sure Seamie will find Betty and everything will be grand. But until he does, you’ll make sure to ’elp ’im now, won’t you? You be a good big brother for Charlie.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I always am.’

‘Good. Your dad has had it tough, John Paul. Don’t forget it. First having to emigrate and then your mum’s … condition.’

I knew very little about Dad’s background. He rarely talked to us about anything, let alone his life before we came along. I knew he was Irish and that meant he was different from Mum and us in some way. His accent, mainly. In the European soccer championship that year he’d told us we were cheering for the green team, not the white team. But everybody in school was cheering for England and, when he wasn’t around, I was too.

‘You know your poor dad didn’t want to leave Ireland, love. He had to, for work. And then, when he came, some people weren’t very friendly.’

‘You’re friendly,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but I’m one of your own, sweet’eart. The poor’s the same, no matter where you’re from. And my mum was Irish, so I really am one of your own. Anyway, your dad came in the early seventies, long before you were born, and it weren’t a great time to be gettin’ off the boat. Your dad couldn’t get a proper job and ended up doing backbreaking work for a pittance. No guarantee of even getting a day’s labour. You know he grew up on a farm?’

‘No.’

‘Yeah. He did. He was used to seeing the land, outdoors and greenery. And he ended up in a shithole tower block here in East London. Then, when Betty got pregnant on you, she was very ill. That ’appened again with Charlie, and your dad couldn’t even try to work then; he had to go down the dole office every week to get abuse from some slag looking down her nose at him like her own crap didn’t smell. Most other men would have cracked by now. Seamie’s done his best. He’s done his best.’

For all she was praising Seamie, I could see that same worried look on Rose’s face that had been there when she watched Seamie storm off that morning. She sensed something bad was coming.

Dad looked for Mum for weeks. There was no sign of her. It was like the time after Charlie was born again – just the three of us in the flat and having to go to the benefits office all the time for meetings. He started to drink a bit more. He was a lot angrier too.

A few weeks later he phoned his mother, a grandma in West Cork we didn’t know we had. Twenty-four hours later, all three of us were in Holyhead waiting for the boat to Ireland.

I sat in the ferry terminal bar hugging my sister while Dad downed Guinness.

‘It’s the only way,’ he said, half to me, half to the empty glass. ‘We can’t wait for her to come back and even if she does, what fucking use is she? I should have realized years ago.’

‘Are we leaving England?’ I asked.

‘We’d hardly be getting on a bloody boat for any other reason, John Paul,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it. Ireland is better anyway. I should never have stayed.’

‘But what about school?’

‘They do have schools in Ireland. You know the greatest poets and writers in the world come from there? Never let anybody tell you Ireland is not a great little country, lad.’

Dad drank more Guinness, and the hours passed. We were hungry. I was afraid to ask for money. Dad had slipped further in his chair and was muttering to himself. I didn’t think he was that happy to be going back to Ireland at all.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I asked him for a pound for the chocolate machine.

‘I’m not made of money,’ he snapped.

‘But we’re starving,’ I said. ‘You forgot to get us something.’

Dad looked confused, then realized I was right. His face flushed red as embarrassment turned to anger. He was too drunk to think logically.

‘I do my best, you ungrateful little shit. Don’t take that tone with me.’

He made to swipe at me but Charlie leapt up.

‘Don’t you touch my bruvver!’ she yelled, this tiny tot, stamping her feet and making as much noise as only a three-year-old can make. The barman looked up from his paper to see what all the excitement was about. Dad was mortified.

‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘Don’t be getting upset. Sorry. I’m sorry. Here, go buy some crisps.’

He gave me the pound and eyed her like she was some kind of devil-child.

The pressure was getting to Seamie.

The funny thing is, Seamie was a good person to begin with.

No matter what people think, I’ve seen it first-hand. Sometimes, in the right circumstances, even the best of us can just snap.