Chapter 62
Chapter Sixty-Two
I ’d seen Maggie Ryan three times since I’d been home. It was like she’d been manifested into my life since Niall’s confession. I had tried, for the first time in my life, to visualise Mr O’Callaghan’s hard penis and Maggie Ryan sucking it because I wanted to see if I could remember. I imagined the video camera, the cupboard under the counter, Niall pushing me in and not letting me out – but I wasn’t sure if what I was seeing was real or just because I’d been told it was.
It must have been there, somewhere locked inside. I hadn’t told anyone about it, I couldn’t do that to Niall, or to Mrs O’Callaghan. I would tell Una at some point but for now I was going to keep it to myself, apart from Mairéad. I was definitely going to tell Mairéad. She’d spent so much time trying to make me better; she deserved to know what I had found out.
I came to the conclusion that what had happened with the cupboard and Mr O’Callaghan and Maggie Ryan hadn’t given me OCD. But it had triggered it. I believe it was always there, lying dormant, waiting to come out.
I personally think my brain is just wired that way and that something had to set it off. And if it wasn’t Mr O’Callaghan and Maggie Ryan’s homemade porn, then it would have been something else.
And as it turned out, Mr O’Callaghan’s penis had given me some peace. It had freed me from the questions that swirled in my head and given me some – not all – of the answers I’d been searching for over the years. It hadn’t cured me of my OCD (that was for me to do) but it had helped me.
So thank you, Mr O’Callaghan’s penis – for always showing up, even when I didn’t want you to. And thank you Jack for being a liar. And thank you Shaun-did-everything for showing me that I should always trust my gut. And thank you Carmel, for proving that. And thank you, Maggie Ryan, for being, well for just being Maggie Ryan.
Mairéad sat down at my kitchen table. I’d made her a cup of tea and put it in the same mug I always gave her – the one with the fairies blowing the dandelion seeds from its stalk. It was mine from when I was younger. I kept it at my grandmother’s house for when I’d visit her, not because of OCD or anything like that. It was because I liked to keep a little bit of me there when I wasn’t.
My grandmother always said that blowing the seeds off a dandelion made a wish come true. When she died I used to find as many dandelions as I could and wish that she’d come back, but of course she never did.
Mairéad had a cold. She told me when she rang the doorbell, and usually I would have sent her away, but she looked so downcast I didn’t have the heart to do it. Instead, I watched Mairéad from the safe distance of my kitchen sink. When she took out a tissue to wipe her nose, I looked out of the window and focused on anything but her. The old piggery across the lane that probably should have been knocked down before it fell on someone, the flowerpots that used to burst with wildflowers when my grandmother lived here, Slievenamon, in all its wonderful glory. I kept my sanitiser in my pocket – usually it would have been on the table. Mairéad must have noticed but she didn’t say anything.
‘I want to tell you something, Mairead, but you can’t tell anyone.’
Mairéad looked at me with a frown.
‘You know I’d never do that – unless it involves something that puts you or others in danger,’ she said. ‘Does it?’
‘No.’
‘OK then, go on.’ She took a sip of her tea.
‘Well, I don’t really remember it, but Niall said something happened when I was younger – to both of us actually.’
‘OK.’ Mairéad looked serious.
‘He said that when I was eight, he locked me in a small cupboard under the shop counter.’
‘Right, why did he do that?’
‘Because we’d snuck into the shop to steal biscuits and Mr O’Callaghan came in with another woman – Maggie Ryan from the village, the one I’ve told you about.’
‘The phone-sex lady?’
‘That’s the one. Anyway, he came in with her, and she gave him a blow job. We saw it – at least, Niall did, and I must have seen Mr O’Callaghan’s penis too because it makes sense, doesn’t it, seeing his penis all the time in my head? And then because Niall didn’t want me to see it, he pushed me into the cupboard and I was crying, but he wouldn’t let me out and I had to be quiet and count to ten again and again until they left.’
‘God, Pearl,’ Mairéad stared at me. ‘And you don’t remember it?’
‘No, I don’t think so. But I did have a weird flashback when I got stuck in a cave in New Zealand, all I could hear was Niall telling me to be quiet and to count to ten.’
‘It makes sense.’ Mairéad pondered. ‘Poor Mrs O’Callaghan, and poor Niall.’
‘I know. I don’t think Niall ever forgave him.’
‘Gosh. Why did he tell you all of this now? Why not sooner?’
‘He didn’t want to risk his mum finding out again – they were having an affair, Mr O’Callaghan and Maggie Ryan, and she knew about it but thought it was over.’
‘Jesus,’ Mairéad said.
‘I know. I think he was hoping I’d remember on my own, but I went over to his house to thank him for the woodlice house he made me, it’s on the gate, so that I don’t need to check them anymore?—’
‘I wondered what that was. He did that for you?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s exceptionally kind.’
‘Probably feels guilty about the Mr O’Callaghan stuff. In fact, it all adds up now, all the kind things he’s done for me without so much of a question.’
‘You don’t do that for someone out of guilt,’ Mairéad said, her eyebrows raised. Then – ‘Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do about this, I mean you can’t confront Mr O’Callaghan, and you can’t say anything to his wife. But then what about Maggie Ryan?’
‘I think Maggie Ryan has her own problems, her husband has left her, probably found out about the new card.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘And what good would it do anyway? It’s not really any of my business what she and Mr O’Callaghan got up to.’
‘And Niall? It’s obviously stayed with him all this time,’ Mairéad said. ‘I should imagine that must have been quite traumatic to see his father like that and knowing his mother was being lied to, keeping it a secret all these years, dealing with it on his own from such a young age.’
‘Yes,’ I said, aware that I hadn’t really known what to say to Niall about it.
‘And it must have been hard for him to tell you.’
‘I guess so.’
‘And hard for you too, Pearl. How do you feel about what he’s disclosed?’
I thought about it for a moment.
‘I feel a little lighter, I guess.’
‘That’s good, anything else?’
‘I feel like it makes more sense now, like there was an actual physical reason.’
Mairéad nodded, but didn’t say anything.
‘And I suppose if I’m honest, I do feel a bit pissed off with Niall for not telling me sooner. I mean, it wouldn’t have stopped me having it – it’s not his fault – but it would have been good to know what had triggered it. Maybe it could have been tackled differently, if you’d known the reason, too I mean?’
‘Hmm, possibly,’ Mairéad mused. ‘But actually, I would have given you all the same techniques, all the same visuals. And perhaps as a child you wouldn’t have been able to navigate it all so well? Perhaps…’ Mairéad paused. ‘You wouldn’t have been able to cope with what you saw, maybe that’s why your brain blanked it out, so if Niall had told you back then, it might have made things worse for you, not better?’
‘So, you think in a way that Niall protected me?’
‘I think so, yes,’ Mairéad said.
I thought about what she was saying. It made sense. He was protecting his mother and he was protecting me – why else push me into the cupboard? It was an instinctive reaction, like someone pushing a child out of harm’s way. That’s what Niall was doing; only he was a child too.
‘And what about Niall?’ Mairéad said gently breaking into my thoughts. She always had a way of doing that softly, so as not to intrude or take away from them but to bring me back into the room. ‘How is he coping with it all, do you think? It’s a lot to carry as a child, and as an adult.’
‘He doesn’t give much away, he never has.’ I said at the same time realising I didn’t actually know how Niall was at all.
‘You could always give him my number, if you wanted to?’
‘I’m not sure he’d have therapy. I can’t imagine him having it anyway.’
‘You never know. Sometimes these things have a way of forcing us to admit there’s a problem. It might be a case of timing.’
‘There’s no harm in trying, I suppose.’
‘Good girl,’ Mairéad said with a wink. ‘Anyway, back to you. How about I give you a welcome-home challenge?
‘That depends what it is?’
‘Nothing too strenuous, just something to get things moving in the right direction – you’ve come on leaps and bounds since your trip. Let’s put it to the test.’ Mairéad smiled. ‘In the morning, you have to walk down your stairs once, no matter what pops into your head and get to the salon regardless of red cars. In fact, look out for them.
‘What if I mess it up?’
‘That’s fine, just remember to keep…’
‘Climbing the mountain.’ I finished her sentence and we both laughed.
‘I missed you, Pearl,’ Mairéad said and her eyes glistened.
‘I missed you too.’
There was a beat, but just as quickly Mairéad composed herself and stood up.
‘I best be off, remember to give my number to Niall, sounds like a great guy, one of the good ones.’ She winked.
‘I will.’
I followed her to the door. Her tissue was still in her hand, scrunched in a little ball. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in tight.
‘Thank you, Mairéad, for everything.’
‘It’s my pleasure,’ she whispered back. ‘See you next week?’
‘Definitely.’ I smiled.
I watched Mairéad walk to her car; she stopped to look at Niall’s woodlice box and then back at me with a grin. Then she got in, gave me a beep and I waved until Mairéad disappeared up the New Line and out of sight.