Chapter 5 #4
She and the boys sat in silence. They looked around at the opened cupboards and disturbed drawers, the spaces on the floor where the dining chairs had sat and the bare counter-tops, stripped of all the things that made this room the heart of the house.
‘I think we should lock the doors and windows and all sleep together in my room, like we used to when you were little, Con, and Dec was a baby and Dad was away.’ She tried to make it sound like an adventure.
‘What do you think?’ she managed, thinking that the warm, safe space was the haven they needed.
Connor nodded; with his laptop under his arm, he climbed down from the stool at the breakfast bar, one of two seats deemed either too insignificant in value to take or overlooked by the men who had ransacked their home.
‘But first, we are going scavenging! Let’s split up and take a room each and gather anything we can find that we can carry, and bring it in here to be packaged up. I’m sure those monsters must have missed some things. Who’s up for it?’
The kids, buoyed up at the thought of the activity, ran from the room. Nina leaned on the wall and closed her eyes briefly, trying to steady her pulse. ‘Okay,’ she called out, ‘I’m going to take the dining room!’
Their efforts gathered together a surprising haul: a carriage clock that had been secreted behind a wall of books, a chunky, vintage brass ink well and a silver letter opener, side tables, a large painting from the downstairs cloakroom, and any number of books.
Nina ran her fingers over the objects and felt a slight lift to her spirits that these things would be salvaged from the greasy paws of the bailiffs.
They went from room to room together, checking the windows and locking the doors, doing their best to ignore the bare walls, mantels and shelves now devoid of their ornaments, and the wall lights hanging over chunks of bare plaster where paintings had hung only an hour before.
She simply drew the curtains, as if she could keep the world at bay, as if the damage had not already been done.
The devastation upstairs was harder to take. Bedrooms and studies were usually such private domains that to see the drawers emptied, wardrobes opened, beds pulled away from the walls and the dusty squares where computers and radios used to sit was truly awful.
Declan went to his mum’s room while Connor went into his room.
The sound he made was one that she would never, ever forget.
It was part whimper, part sob, and it was the call of the wounded.
‘Oh no!’ he called out. ‘Oh no, no, no!’ he cried without restraint.
The sight of his refuge, his personal space, so invaded was clearly hard for him to take. Nina rushed to comfort him.
‘Connor,’ she began, taking a step towards him.
‘Don’t touch me!’ he snarled. His lips narrowed and his arm muscles tensed. ‘I hate you! Don’t you dare tell me it’s going to be okay, don’t you dare! I hate you! How could you do this to us? How could Dad do this to us?’
His words hit her like punches. ‘Do you know what, Connor? I know you are angry and hurting, but guess what? I am angry and hurting too! None of this is my choice, none of it. And this feels like the time to remind you that I had no idea of the state we were in, none at all! You think this is fun for me? Watching everything we have built over the years be dismantled in hours? It’s a living nightmare!
’ She felt a now familiar flash of anger towards Finn: if only he had told her, given her a chance to make a plan.
‘And to be honest, over the last few days, I am wondering who got the roughest deal. At least Dad had the full picture, but it’s me left here to deal with all this shit! ’ She kicked the wall.
‘Are you saying you would have preferred to die too?’
Her son’s words stopped her in her tracks.
‘No. No, of course not.’ She stared at her boy, remembering it was her job to try to protect him, and not allow Finn’s memory to be tarnished, knowing Connor’s own self-esteem in part relied on it. ‘I’m sure Dad did all he could to protect us for as long as possible.’
‘But he wasn’t protecting us, was he? He was lying to us! God, he was even suggesting we go to the Maldives for a holiday – how was he going to pull that off?’
‘Maybe he had a plan. I honestly don’t know.’ She shrugged, her words insipid to her ears.
‘Yep, he always had a plan.’ Connor squeezed his eyes shut. It killed her to see her son’s hero lose his cape. Connor opened his eyes and took a sharp breath. ‘Mum?’ He swallowed. ‘You don’t think he . . . ?’ He paused.
The two exchanged a knowing look. The unspoken words ricocheted around the walls like stray bullets.
‘I think we have to plough on, doing the very best we can for Declan. He’s been through enough,’ she whispered.
‘What about me, Mum? What about what I have been through, what I am still going through?’
‘Yes, of course, you too. But don’t think you have the monopoly on hurt and disruption around here, because you don’t.
’ It had felt better when thinking of him as an ally, but he wasn’t, he was her fifteen-year-old son.
‘I am so aware of how this has affected you and I wish with every fibre of my being that you weren’t going through it, that none of us were.
It’s terrible for us all. And honestly, Connor, having those men in our home has felt like losing your dad all over again .
. .’ She let this trail; there was no value in reminding him of the horror when it was still so raw.
‘I feel like I’m going to fall over, I feel like the world is spinning.’ Connor exhaled.
‘Because it is, Con, it is. And all we can do is hold on tight.’ She pictured her precious little marble nestling in the base of her handbag.
Nina crept into her bedroom, restoring drawers that had been pulled wide and shutting the wardrobe doors.
She took the blankets and duvets and made a den on the thick carpet in front of the wide window that gave a beautiful view of the full moon that hung overhead.
There was plenty of room for the three of them to sleep as they slumped down on the floor.
‘It’s like a camping trip,’ Declan managed, with a hint of enthusiasm that Nina envied.
She kissed his forehead. ‘Yep. That’s what we are doing tonight, Dec, camping here on the floor, all of us together.’
‘I liked it when Dad took us camping in Wales, and that goat came into our tent and Daddy screamed.’ All were quiet for a second or so, picturing that day.
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes, love?’ she whispered, her vocal cords taut with fatigue.
‘Did you speak to Dad before he died? Did . . . did he say anything to you?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘No, darling. He was already gone by the time I got to the hospital.’ She gulped as the images of those moments came rushing back.
Nina pictured the sheet-wrapped body on the trolley, remembered the iron smell of his blood that hung pungently in the air.
When she lifted the sheet from his face, she saw the spread of purple bruise that swelled under his right eye, across his forehead and over the bridge of his nose.
This man didn’t look like her husband, not really.
He looked like he had been in a fight. A fight that he had lost. She had gripped the clear plastic bag in her hand that contained his watch, wallet, wedding and signet rings.
It crinkled loudly as she bent over and touched her lips to his cool cheek.
‘I don’t want him to be dead, Mum. I want it to be how it was and I want all our things put back where they are supposed to be.’ Declan spoke loudly now as his tears raced down his face, his chest heaving.
All she could do was hold him.
‘I miss my dad!’ Declan sobbed, ‘I want him back. I don’t like it now, Mum. I want my dad.’ He cried as he fell against her.
She looked over at Connor, who stared, dry-eyed, up into the night sky.