Friday reading

The police and the priest begin the hunt for Deborah but a visit from her friends underlines her absence.

28 May 1980

When you weren’t home by midnight we called the Gardai who turned up big and blue and bored. The first of several visits. The longer you’re gone the more information they need. On one of the later visits we were each interrogated alone across the kitchen table.

  I was fingered as the last one to see you and as knowing more than I let on. The Sergeant was very interested in your satchel.

  Where did you leave it?

  On the wall outside the shop.

  Weren’t you afraid it would be stolen?

  Would you steal someone’s schoolbag?

  He didn’t laugh. Instead he tried another tack, putting down his pen and going all soft and confiding. Told me he knew this sort of case, that I could trust him. I felt like saying that my Ma always told us to run a mile from any fella that said we could trust him but decided against it.

  I know nothing, I said.

  Would you say your sister was happy? Was she worried about anything? Boyfriend trouble? Or any other kind of trouble? You know what I mean.

  Not that I know, I shrugged. Anyway what does ‘happy’ mean?

  His expression darkened and he inhaled slowly. I knew that look, it was the same one the teachers have when they can’t get us to stop messing in class. Then, with a sigh he picked up his leaky biro again and said, If you don’t mind, I’ll ask the questions.  

  Well I did mind. I had told him all I could.

  You’re a selfish lassie, he said finally. Your parents are worried sick, thinking your sister might be lying dead in a drain or something.

  So why aren’t you out looking for her? I wailed.

  You’d want to watch that mouth of yours. I could book you for obstructing the course of justice.

  I bit my tongue when I felt a fit of the giggles coming on.  

  He gave me a suspicious look and said, I’ll come back when you’re in a more cooperative mood.

  I looked down at the table and mumbled, Just find her. Please.

  We’re doing our best, he pushed back his chair and heaved himself up out of it. Standing over me he said in a soft voice, I have a daughter your age and if anyone harmed a hair of her head I’d kill them.

  I shut my eyes to stop my tears.

Next step was the poster. We chose the picture and wrote the description but even so it was shocking to see how it advertised our helplessness and made you into both a stranger and a public image. Who looks so closely at passers-by? On a busy street I might even walk past you. Of course there was a row about your butterfly. Ma and Da were against mentioning it. Said it might give the wrong impression, although I wasn’t sure what impression that would be. Slutty, Ma said. Vulgar, said Da.

  Anyway she was wearing long sleeves, Ma said.

  Yeah but what if someone took her clothes off? I asked.

  Ma disintegrated.

  Da patted her back and shot me a killer look, saying, Don’t upset your mother.

  I pointed out that it wasn’t me who had done a runner.

  In the end the butterfly was tacked on to the list of distinguishing features.

  For all I know you’re standing in a railway station or a shop somewhere looking at your missing self.

Then the Church had to get in on the act. Soapy Sloane came around and Ma licked his arse like it was made of sugar. (That’s all we need now – if she turns charismatic I’ll be the next one out the door.) She even had the nerve to say you once thought of becoming a nun on the missions. Wha? I nearly choked on my fig roll. Soapy was delighted and scurried off to check the convents.

We were on the telly, a thirty second slot on ‘Crimecall’. There we were, the three of us, jammed onto the sofa in front of the wojus shiny wallpaper (the viewers should have been given a health warning), Ma doing the talking between tissues, me and Da glaring like stuffed tigers. Enough to put you off coming home.

Meanwhile Mrs. O’Rourke drops in every couple of days with scones or soda bread or tarts. Nice one, Mrs. O. Ma has pretty much given up cooking and eating. Da and I have to fend for ourselves or one another, so it’s mostly beans and sausages or cheese and ham toasties. If nothing else your departure is expanding my waistline.

Randy Ron came around one evening and spent two hours mauling Ma and calling her ‘Darling’ in that phony accent of his. Remember how we wondered were they having an affair? Well, he told Ma that he understood how she felt because his wife left him and went off with another man three months ago.

  Ma was having none of it. At least you know where she is, she said. And that she’s alive.

  You should have seen him squirm.

  Eventually the talk turned to the players and Ron started to babble on about doing a tragedy. He could see Ma in one of the great Greek roles, or Ibsen, or even ‘our own Synge or O’Casey’. Never knew those two were Brits. Or maybe he just meant Prods.

  I see you as Juno or Maurya, he drivelled. Or Clytemnestra.

  Who’s she when she’s at home? Ma asked.

  Ron began a rigmarole about how she kills her husband Agamemnon because he had sacrificed her daughter – and there he halted – and said, No maybe Big Maggie would be a better role for you, Darling.

  Fair play to Ma, she kept her cool, (all that stage training pays off sometimes) and said, I don’t think I’ll be able for a show this year.

  As soon as he was gone she let rip. Holy Shite! Has he no cop on? He can shove his tragedy up his arse. If it’ll fit. Thinks he’s on the West End. I’ll show him which end is up if he comes around with any more bright ideas.

  Go for it Masy!! So you’ll be glad to know she hasn’t lost all her fight since you left, and Ron’s definitely not her bit on the side.

Soapy rang to say he’d drawn a blank in the convents. There’s a surprise. He wondered then would you have joined a Third World agency. Very lateral, Father. Ma said maybe, just to humour him. The pay off, according to her, was that we had to go to mass.

  No way, I said. Besides who’ll mind the phone if we’re all out at mass?

  You can go in the evening, she said.

  I don’t pray.

  Well, maybe it’s time you started, she said in a solemn tone. Maybe it’s time we all went back to the beads.

  Ah, Ma, I whined, it’s too late for all that the family-that-prays-together-stays-together-shite.

  I hope you’re not blaming your father and me for your sister’s disappearance.

  And yes, she did use that pompous tone. Defensive if you ask me.

  No, Ma, I said. I just don’t think praying will make any difference. If God is so good why did he let Deb run off without a word to us?

  I haven’t a clue, she said. But I want her back and I’ll do anything to make that happen.

  Me too, I said.

  Well then going to mass won’t kill you.

  She’ll be packing us off to Medjugorje next.

Your besties came around yesterday evening after school. It was hard to listen to them talk about the exams and where they’d go afterwards. Seeing them here without you made your absence more real. And permanent. There are moments here in the house when we expect you to come in the back door and dump your schoolbag on the kitchen floor and start into a story about what so and so said or did today. Your friends showed us the big empty space where your future should be. At least Dee and Sharon did. Mirror barely opened her mouth and jumped as if she’d sat on a pin when anyone addressed her. What is wrong with that girl? I never really knew why you were so friendly with her. Unless you felt sorry for her. When they were gone Ma took some Aspirin and went to bed. I stayed in the kitchen to polish off the Battenburg cake they had brought.

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