‘She doesn’t want to see you, Shaun.’
Even for someone of Shaun’s diminutive stature Keith was a hopeless barrier. Shaun ducked under his uncle’s arm and ran to the kitchen. His aunt wasn’t at her usual place next to the stove or the sink. A howl floated from the yard outside, followed by the scrabble of claws on the back door. He’d dumped Daphne unceremoniously behind the gate before he pushed his way in here, but he couldn’t let her distress sidetrack him. Keith was now begging him, ‘Leave it alone, Shaun, leave it,’ but he ignored him and retraced his steps, the phrase can’t be true, can’t, can’t be true, can’t a constant, timpani beat in his head. He found Janice in the lounge, staring at the TV, clutching the remote like a weapon. She didn’t look up when he entered, motionless for once–a grounded shark.
‘Did Mam know?’ he asked.
She flicked to another channel.
‘Auntie Janice. Did Mam know?’
Keith hovered at the door, knotting his fingers together like an old woman in a fable. ‘If you don’t get out of here, Shaun, I’ll call the boys to come over.’
Janice finally looked up, distress emphasising the marionette lines bracketing her mouth. ‘Don’t you bloody dare. I don’t want them involved.’ She threw the remote onto the sofa, stood, and with a sideswipe glance at Shaun said: ‘Come on.’ He followed her into the bedroom at the end of the hall. ‘Shut the door.’
It was the last place he would have chosen for this conversation. Janice had taken over his grandparents’ house when they died, and she’d kept it much as it was back then, its Fleur de Lys wallpaper and blue carpet a shrine to outdated decor. It smelled of talcum powder and Keith. There was a pile of clean laundry on the bed, and she began to fold it automatically, leached of her usual energy.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Why do you think? Swore to Eileen I wouldn’t.’
‘So she did know about it.’
‘Your grandparents told her everything when they found out she was planning on going to Galway. She didn’t believe them at first. Well, who can blame her? She loved him. He was always her favourite. She made me and Donny promise that we’d never tell you. She knew you were sensitive and you looked so much like him.’
‘Who was the boy? The one who accused him?’
‘What does it matter now?’
‘Who was it?’
She jumped as if he’d slapped her. ‘Dylan Carey.’
‘Pat Carey’s cousin?’
‘That’s right.’
He couldn’t bring Dylan Carey’s face up with any clarity. All he remembered was a weedy fellow with jaundiced skin who used to hang out on the outskirts of Aidan Sullivan’s gang. Dylan didn’t join in with the taunts they threw at him, and he seemed to recall that Dylan was held back in school, which made him a couple of years older than Aidan and the other thugs. Process, process. ‘And you just believed it? I ran into Pat, he had something against Teddy, he—’
‘Of course we didn’t just believe it.’ A glare–a spectre of old Janice’s bite. ‘They had proof.’
‘What proof?’
‘Sit down. I can’t talk to you while you’re pacing like that.’
He didn’t want to sit; a ball of nervous energy was building inside him. But he did as he was told, dug his fingers into the duvet’s polyester skin.
‘A week or so after your mam was sent off to Dublin, Teddy arrived home from London.’
‘I know this—’
‘Let me tell it in my own way.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Teddy was raging about Eileen, wanted to know where she was. Da wouldn’t tell him, and that’s when Teddy lost it, screamed at them, told them he was gay and that he was going to track your mam down and take her over to London. You’ve never heard so much fighting in your life. Da threw him out, and Teddy went round the town for the next couple of days asking after Eileen. We found out he was staying at the Careys. Him and Pat had a falling out before Teddy went to London, but Teddy had blagged his way into their house. Next thing we know, Teddy’s hammering on the door. Late at night, this was, his face covered in blood, wouldn’t say what had happened to him. Not long after that Iain, that’s Pat Carey’s da, came over. I’ve never seen a man so angry. That’s when it all came out. Iain said that Teddy had been messing with Dylan, and the boy had told a priest about it. Iain was close with Da, they drank together on occasion, and Iain said Da deserved to know what had been going on before he went to the guards. Teddy was yelling and shouting, saying it was all lies, and that he’d never touched the boy. Iain said he had the proof. He said Dylan knew things about Teddy’s… he knew he had a scar just…’ she touched the top of her groin. ‘How would he know that? He knew things about him. Personal things. Iain said he’d also found a photograph of the boy in Teddy’s things. Filthy, it was. Perverted.’
Shaun couldn’t speak.
‘My mam didn’t want to believe it. Her youngest daughter pregnant from that layabout, and her son caught fiddling with children. That’s what made her sick, gave her cancer. Killed Da too. Iain and Da locked themselves away, and they came to an arrangement. They wouldn’t go to the guards, and it would be buried as long as Teddy went away and never came back. London was too close to home–Iain had family there. Ted agreed to it, of course he did. Better than gaol, and he was always saying he wanted to go to New York. Da took a loan for the cash and he was gone the next day. Your ma would have gone after him, they were that close.’
Now he was grateful he was sitting down. ‘It must have killed her when she found out.’
‘It did. Refused to believe it, couldn’t. She went over to talk to the Careys, and they confirmed it. She looked for Teddy of course. Harder back then without the internet, before everyone flashed their knickers all over twit-snap. She never forgave us for not telling her the truth. Most of all because she’d made Teddy out to be a hero to you. And him leaving like that? She saw that as an admission of guilt more than anything.’
‘And you’ve all been hiding this for years.’
‘We have. Can you imagine what I was thinking when you came over that day saying you were searching for him? And it’s all out now. I won’t be able to hold my head up. The boys know, and Cal with the new baby on the way. And now Donny says Carmel’s gone to her mam’s and she’s taken the kids.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘Donny didn’t tell her about Teddy being… you know. She thought he was sent away because of your mam.’
There was relief that Carmel wasn’t in on all the lies–ever since she gave him the photograph he’d thought of her as a co-conspirator–and it was somehow less lonely knowing that he wasn’t the only one left out of the family’s circle of trust. ‘I was going to go out to America and see him. See where he was buried. How can I go now?’ He’d been half-dreading the trip, but now that it was ripped away from him, the loss of it ached. ‘I’m sorry. I should have come to you before I went to the guards.’
‘You should, Shaun.’ Fatigue weighted every word. ‘I handled it badly. She made us swear we’d never tell you. You weren’t to know. Your heart was in the right place. Makes me shiver thinking that he ended up that way. Whatever he did he was still my brother.’ A sob as abrupt as a hiccup, and then the tears came.
Shaun went to touch her, but she shook her head. Keith, who must have been listening at the door, came in, gestured for Shaun to leave and then took her in his arms.
‘Bollocks he did that. Pat Carey got the boy to say it.’ Johnny roamed the kitchen, smoking furiously.
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Cos he’s a cunt. I’m going to fucking kill him.’
‘They’ve got proof.’
‘What fucking proof?’
‘Dylan described things about Teddy he wouldn’t know unless he was… you know, involved with him.’
‘It’s bollocks.’ Johnny dumped the butt into the sink and screwed a fresh rollie into his mouth. The man was red in the face, and after witnessing first-hand how unpredictable he could be, Shaun instinctively kept close to the door.
‘Janice says there was also a photograph in Teddy’s things. A photo of Dylan. A bad one. Compromising.’
That brought him up short. ‘Anyone could have taken it. Do you believe it?’
‘I don’t know.’ It explained why Donny wanted to keep it under wraps. Explained why his mother stopped talking about Teddy so abruptly. Explained why Teddy agreed to leave for New York. Then again… ‘In the letter he told Eileen not to believe what they’re saying about him.’
‘There you go then. It’s bollocks.’
‘But he would say that, wouldn’t he?’
‘I don’t need to hear this. You’re his fucking family, Shaun. You can’t turn on him too.’
‘He’s dead. He’s long past that.’
‘So you’re giving up, are you?’
‘What else is there to do?’
Johnny’s face shut down. ‘Get out.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. Get out.’ There was no implied threat to this; his voice was thick with defeat and disappointment, which was somehow worse. Johnny turned to the sink. Shaun considered reasoning with him, then decided it was safer to leave. In any case, after his dealings with Janice he was emotionally exhausted, doubted he had the energy to walk home. He collected the dog from Bridie’s lap and hurried out into the street.
His phone trembled. A message from Bobbiecowell. Chris and Rainbowbrite hadn’t posted anything for hours: <just to let you know I’m here for you Shaun if you want to talk. This changes nothing for me>
This unexpected kindness almost brought him to tears, pushed him over the edge. It might not change things for Bobbie, but it changed things for him. He couldn’t shake the sense that he’d been betrayed. Not by Janice, his mother or even Donny, but by Teddy. As if all this time his uncle had been waiting in the wings, watching Shaun going into bat for him, fighting for him, only to have a good laugh at his expense.