The blows rained down. White fists and red-raw knuckles crunching on bone. Shay shuddered at the pummelling to his arms and hands, tossed at his moans for mercy.
Noise was dragging him away from his dream.
Bang. Bang . . . Yang. Yang.
Shay peeled back the sheets and flexed his wrists. They often throbbed with the memories.
The intrusion was the scream of an alarm from outside.
He eased himself out of bed and shook his head, the racket aggravating his tinnitus. He stood up, his feet arcing at the touch of the cold floorboards. He loosened his tight boxers and stepped silently to the window. Opening a blind, he tried to pierce the darkness, but he couldn’t determine the source of the siren.
He curled back into bed behind Lisa, warmed his feet and fixed on her hair. For a moment he expected to see the ripples of long blonde curls. He moved to push them out of his face, away from his nose, like he used to, a few years ago. When his vision focused, it revealed short straight brown hair and a pale thin neck. He remembered the day she arrived home from the salon. He knew why she did it, but never brought it up. Nor did she.
The scumbag grabbed her hair and licked her neck, the fucking animal.
That, and what Shay did afterwards, had landed them here. To this life.
The sense of being fucked over, of being trapped, of trying and failing to get his life – their life – back, scratched at his skull and clawed at his stomach.
The walls and windows began to shudder. The Garda helicopter must be overhead, he thought.
Red lights flashed behind the blinds. He got up and looked out again; a fire tender was coming to a stop. Away to his right was the source of the noise: a car, now ablaze. Thick yellow flames curled into the night.
Ghost and his crew at work again, he thought.
He would see Ghost at the next match, as usual. The boys nearly shat their arses if he even looked at them, they held him in such awe.
I know what Ghost’s game is. Digging his nails into some of the boys. Like Jig.
He strained his neck to try and see the helicopter, it seemed that close. But then the vibrations subsided as it pulled away, towards the canal.
The noise from the car became more tortured, screeching one second, then receding. Two firemen pulled hoses, like long, bulbous snakes, and extinguished the flames with bursts of foam. Massive plumes of smoke puffed up.
Upright on the edge of the bed, he pulled at the skin under his eyes, then glanced down at the thin frame curled tight under the sheets.
He fretted over her reaction, once the sleeping tablet wore off.
‘You see that?’
The morning light pained Shay’s eyes as he blinked them open.
Lisa had her back to him, hands pressed hard against her hips.
‘Yeah, a car went up on fire,’ he said, keeping his tone measured and slipping out of bed. ‘You were out for the count.’
He started at the sight of the smouldering shell, bare and black in the bright morning sunshine.
‘What a lovely thing to have on your doorstep,’ Lisa said, casting a look in his direction. ‘I bet you it will be there into next week before those useless lumps in the council remove it.’
She scrunched up her nose at the smell of molten metal which had infected the room. Shay knew she was being pulled down. His stomach tensed.
‘Brilliant,’ she said.
Shay watched three kids running from different directions to the car, whooping with delight. They circled the wreckage, kicking at it. Another boy, around six or so, emerged screaming, dragging a golf club behind him, the head of it scraping and slapping off the road. As he neared the car, he arced it up over his head and slammed it down on the bonnet, greeted by hoots.
Lisa recoiled at the noise, her face tightening.
‘Why car all burnt, Daddy?’ came a little voice from below.
Charlie had crept past them. Molly followed. They put their hands on the window sill and stood up on their tiptoes.
‘They’re bold boys,’ Molly scolded, pointing her finger at them, ‘they shouldn’t be doing that.’
Lisa turned her back on the window, and the kids. Shay saw the moistness in her eyes as she shuffled towards the door.
‘Listen, Lisa . . .’
Shay wanted to say something more, but couldn’t find the words. Lisa turned, her features tight against her pale skin.
‘What?’ she said.
Shay sensed the kids stiffen, looking up at them.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘What were you going to say? That we’ll be out of here soon?’
‘We will, Lisa. It can’t be much longer, won’t.’
‘Can’t or won’t? Which?’
Shay moved forward to hold her shoulder, to reassure her, but she shrugged him away. The kids jumped now at the banging outside. The hammering was getting more frantic.
‘You’ve been saying the same thing since we were dumped here,’ Lisa said. ‘A lot of our stuff is still in boxes. We’ve nothing up on the walls,’ she said, swinging her thin arms around. ‘We barely have any shelves. We’re half-living here.’
She paused. But he knew what was coming.
‘You said it’d be a year.’
‘I know,’ Shay replied, his stomach clamping. ‘But what can I do? It’s not my fault.’
Her face strained again at the clang of metal on metal.
‘Isn’t it?’