There's No Place Like Here (34 page)

That didn’t go down well.

“Please, Ms. Shortt,” Grace said worriedly. “I suggest the best thing for you to do is to leave the hall and retrieve the watch. Jason will accompany you.” A man dressed in a black suit, lean and slenderly built, with a posture so perfect it could only have come from the army, arrived at the end of my row. He held his arm out toward the door.

“I don’t know this man.” I grasped at straws. “I’m not going with him.”

Grace looked confused first, and then wary. “Well, you have to bring the watch to us whether you like it or not, so who would be the best person to accompany you?”

I thought quickly. “The man beside me.”

Bobby jumped to attention.

Grace strained her eyes to see, there was a flash of recognition, and she nodded. “Very well, they will both go with you. We will move on with the session while you’re gone.”

The Dutch representative took to the stage to talk about the plans for more mills, but nobody took any notice of him. All eyes were on us as we walked down the long aisle of the hall. People who stood at the back parted for us and we were swallowed up through the huge doors. Once outside, Bobby gave me big eyes, not wanting to speak in front of our companion.

“We have to collect my watch from Bobby’s shop,” I explained calmly to Jason. “He was supposed to fix the clasp for me.”

Bobby nodded, finally understanding.

We arrived outside the door of the Lost and Found shop, the brightly colored odd socks decorating the front. It was dark outside now, the village like a ghost town with everybody in the Community Hall waiting for me, waiting for news of whether it was possible to leave Here or not.

“I’d like to wait here for Bobby.” I stopped walking and stayed on the veranda looking out to the black forest. Jason didn’t say anything, but stood back with his hands joined before him and waited with me.

“What are you, secret service?” I teased, looking him up and down. He didn’t smile, just looked away. “
Matrix
bad guy? Man in black? Johnny Cash uber-fan?” He didn’t answer. I sighed. “Are you here to make sure I don’t run away?” I asked him.

He didn’t answer.

“Would you shoot at me if I did?” I said smartly. “Asking you to accompany me,” I tutted. “What do they think I am, a criminal?” I turned to him. “Just for the record, I don’t appreciate you being here.”

He stared straight ahead.

Bobby interrupted the uncomfortable silence, banging the door behind him. “Right, got it.”

I took it from his hand and examined it.

“Is that yours?” Jason spoke for the first time, studying my face.

It was silver with a mother-of-pearl face but that’s where the similarities ended. Instead of a linked bracelet it was chunky, instead of a rectangular face, this was round.

“Yep,” I said confidently. “That’s my watch, all right.”

Jason took it in his hands and wrapped it around my wrist. It was hugely oversized even for my wrist. “Bobby,” Jason said, rubbing his eyes wearily, “get her another watch. One that fits, this time.”

We both looked at him in surprise.

“
That’s
what I’m here for,” he said smartly, returning to his spot on the veranda.

Bobby quickly headed back to the shop and Jason called after him, “Oh, and make sure the clasp is broken. You said you weren’t wearing it because it was broken, right?”

I nodded, still silent.

“Well, that shut you up,” he said, looking back out to the forest.

Jason, Bobby, and I walked back quickly to the Community Hall in silence, me holding the watch tightly in my hands. Just before Jason pulled open the door, I stopped him.

“What happens now?” I asked, anxiety building up inside me.

“Well, I assume you go in there and…” He thought aloud about it and finally shrugged his shoulders. “And lie.” He pulled the door open and thousands of faces turned to look at us.

The Dutch representative’s speech immediately went quiet and Grace Burns moved forward to the microphone. Anxiety was written all over her face. Bobby and Jason stayed at the door, Bobby nodded encouragingly and I began to walk forward up the long aisle to the stage at the top. If I hadn’t been so uneasy I would have laughed at the irony of it. Gregory would have done anything to get me up the aisle, and his gift of the watch had finally succeeded.

I reached the top and handed the watch to Grace. She studied it, but I questioned how on earth she was to know whether it was my watch or not. It all seemed so ridiculous. It was all an act. To make those who were unsettled here feel more secure so they wouldn’t rise up and demand to find a way out.

“How do we know it’s her watch?” one person shouted out, and I rolled my eyes.

“Her name is engraved on the back!” someone shouted, and my blood turned cold. There were only a few people who knew that. I looked immediately to Joseph, but from the look on his face I knew it wasn’t him. He was looking angrily at Helena, who was looking even more angrily to…Joan. Joan sat in the front row with a red face, beside the man who had shouted out. She must have overheard. She looked apologetically to Helena and me. I looked away, not knowing how to feel, not truly knowing what any possible outcome could be.

“Is this true?” the representative looked at me.

“I assure you it’s true,” the man shouted out again.

My face said it all, I’m sure.

She turned the watch over to look for my name at the back. She seemed pleased. “SANDY SHORTT is engraved on the back.”

There was a loud sigh and more talk within the audience.

“Sandy, thank you for cooperating. You may leave now and enjoy your life here with us. I hope people will be more welcoming toward you from now on.” She smiled warmly.

Stunned, I took the watch, unable to believe that Bobby had managed to engrave my name in such a short space of time. I quickly walked back down the aisle while people clapped and smiled at me, some apologizing, others still not convinced and probably never would be. I grabbed Bobby by the hand and led him out of the hall.

“Bobby!” I laughed once we were a safe distance away from the Community Hall. “How the hell did you manage that?”

Bobby looked horrified. “Manage what?”

“To engrave my name so quickly!”

“I didn’t,” he said in shock.

“What?” I turned the watch over. A clear metallic back stared back at me.

“Come on, let’s get inside,” Bobby said, unlocking the door to the shop while looking around him uncertainly.

In the shadows there was a noise and Jason stepped out.

I jumped.

“Sorry to startle you,” he said in his robotlike tone. “Sandy.” Emotion slipped into his voice and his body loosened as he stepped into the light of the porch. “I just wondered if you knew my wife, Alison?” he asked awkwardly. “Alison Rice? We’re from Galway. Spiddal.” He swallowed hard, his aggressive appearance softened and vulnerable, concern written all over his face.

Still taken by surprise at his sudden appearance, I ran the name through my mind a few times. Not familiar with it, I shook my head slowly. “Sorry.”

“OK.” He cleared his throat and straightened up, the hardness returning as though the question had never passed his lips. “Grace Burns wanted me to tell you that she requests a meeting with you in her office first thing in the morning.” And he disappeared back into the darkness.

46

J
ack felt the anger pumping through his veins. The muscles in his face twitched as they jumped around under his skin, psyching themselves up for the big fight. He tried to control his breathing, control his temper. His back teeth felt like they’d been ground to the bone on the drive there. His cheeks were hot, and throbbed along with the rest of his body. He clenched and unclenched his fists while walking through the crowded Limerick city pub.

He spotted Alan sitting alone at a small table with a pint before him, a stool sat in front of him waiting for Jack. Alan looked up and waved, a smile stretched across his face, and in that face Jack could see the ten-year-old who used to drop by to their house every day. He prepared to fire himself at Alan but stopped. Instead he diverted to the toilet, where he stood at the sink, splashing water on his face, panting as though he’d run a marathon. It was all he could do to stop himself reaching out and wanting to kill Alan himself.

What had he done? What on earth had Alan done?

47

T
he week that Jenny-May Butler went missing, the Gardaí came to LeitrimNationalSchool. We were all especially excited because it was rare that our principal graced our humble selves with his presence, particularly in our classrooms. As soon as we caught sight of his stern, accusing face, butterflies fluttered in everyone’s stomachs, each of us instantly hoping we weren’t in trouble even though we knew we’d done nothing wrong. But such was his power. Our main reason for excitement was due to him disrupting our religion lesson to whisper loudly into Ms. Sullivan’s ear. Loud whispering in the classroom by teachers always meant something important was happening. We were allowed to abandon our studies that morning and told to line up in a single file at the door with our fingers on our lips. For teachers, our placing our fingers on our lips didn’t usually have the desired effect, the finger not being a suitable silencer as it was indeed a finger, not a zipper, and it was, more important, our own finger, which we had the ability to remove at any stage. But that day when we entered the school hall, none of us said a word, because at the top of the very unusually silent room were two members of the Gardaí Síochana. One woman and one man, dressed head to toe in navy blue.

We sat on the floor in the middle of the hall with the other fourth classers. Up at the front were junior and senior infants. The older you were, the further back you were allowed be. The sixth always coolly took their places in the back row. Very quickly the hall was filled. The teachers lined up against the walls on the outside aisles like prison wardens, and every now and then clicked their fingers with an angry face at someone who was whispering or who was trying to make themselves more comfortable on the cold and slightly dirty gym floor, but who was seen to be fidgeting too much.

Our principal introduced the two guards to us, explaining that they were from the local garda station and were here to talk about a very important issue. He told us that we would be asked questions by our teachers later in class about what they had said. I looked over at our teachers when he announced this and noticed a few suddenly straightening themselves up to listen. Then the male garda began talking, he introduced himself as Garda Rogers and his colleague Garda Brannigan, and while he slowly walked the width of the front of the room with his hands behind his back, he explained how we shouldn’t trust strangers, how we shouldn’t get into their cars, not even when they tell us that our parents have told them to collect us. That made me think of refusing to get into my uncle Fred’s car on Wednesday afternoons when he collected me, and I almost laughed out loud. He told us that we should always speak up if we notice someone getting friendlier than they should. If someone approaches us or we witness anybody else being approached, we should tell our parents or teachers straightaway. I was ten years old and I remember thinking about when I was seven and I saw Joey Harrison being collected by a weird man at school. I told my teacher at the time and she reprimanded me because it was his dad and she thought I was being rude.

Also, for those of us at ten years of age, almost eleven, this safety talk was old news, but I supposed that particular safety talk was especially for the five- and six-year-olds who sat in the front rows of the hall picking their noses, scratching their heads, looking at the ceilings. A front row of little grasshoppers. At that point I had no desire to join the guards. It wasn’t that day’s free lesson in safety that set off my ambition; it was the odd socks. I also knew the talk was because of Jenny-May’s disappearance that week. Everybody had been acting weirdly about it all week. Our teacher had even left the classroom in tears a few times whenever her eyes fell upon Jenny-May’s empty seat. I was secretly delighted, which I knew was wrong, but it was the first week of peace I’d gotten at school for years. For once I didn’t feel Jenny-May’s balls of paper hitting my head as she blew them through a straw, and whenever I answered a question in class I didn’t hear sniggers behind me. I
knew
that a really terrible and sad thing had happened but I just couldn’t
feel
sad.

We said a prayer in class every morning for the first few weeks after she went missing, for Jenny-May’s safety, praying for her family and praying that she would be found. The prayer got shorter and shorter as the weeks went by, and then suddenly one Monday, when we came back after the weekend, Ms. Sullivan just left out that prayer without mentioning a thing. Everybody’s desks were rearranged in a different shape in the room, and
bam!
, everything went back to normal. I found that even weirder than Jenny-May going missing in the first place. I spent the first few minutes of that day looking at everybody reciting their poems like they were crazy, but the teacher chastised me for not learning the poem I had spent two hours learning the night before and she picked on me for the rest of the day.

After Garda Rogers had finished his safety talk, it was Garda Brannigan’s turn to talk more specifically about Jenny-May. She spoke in softer tones about how, if anybody knew anything or had any information about something they saw over the last few weeks or months, they should go to Room Four beside the staffroom, as she and Garda Rogers would be there for the day. My face burned because I felt like she was talking directly to me. I looked around, in paranoia, feeling as though this entire event had been staged just for me, to confess all that I knew. No one looked at me oddly, apart from James Maybury, who picked a scab on his elbow and flicked it at me. Our teacher clicked her fingers at him, which had little effect, as the damage had already been done and he wasn’t afraid, nor did he care much about clicking fingers.