The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [35]
“I got lost,” answered Finbar quietly.
“Got lost? How the hell did you get lost?”
“I walked back from games. I couldn’t get a bus.”
“Walked back from games? What games?”
“They have a games field away from the school near the power station.”
“Are you gone soft in the head? What do you think we gave you the bus fare for? Is it simple you’ve gone on us? Did you even think for a second about what you were at? Did you? Did you?”
Finbar made no reply. Slowly his father’s anger subsided and was tempered by the relief that Finbar was not in fact Down A Lane With A Knife In His Back.
“Your dinner’s on the cooker,” said Mr. Sullivan gruffly but not without affection.
Finbar put down his bags and hung his blazer on the hallstand. He walked carefully into the kitchen, braced for another barrage from his mother. There was no sign of her. He heard his father rustling the evening paper in the sitting room and decided it was best not to ask him anything. He could guess.
The stew was on low heat and showed all signs of having been there for about three hours. He put as much of it as looked remotely edible on a plate and sat at the table. The tablecloth was gone. He took a newspaper from the pile beside the door and put it under his plate. He knew the signals. His dinner could have been turned off and heated up when he got home. The tablecloth could have been left on the table until he’d had his dinner. But no, these ritual, guilt-inducing symbols, combined with his mother’s withdrawal to the bedroom, were part of the slow punishment of disapproval, disappointment, and hurt that lasted so much longer and cut so much deeper than any beating or shouting. He took one mouthful of the burnt martyr—flavored stew and threw the rest out into the backyard for the pigeons.
As he bolted the back door he sensed someone behind him. He turned to see his father standing against the sink. He looked incredibly tired. Finbar had never seen his father look this way before: tired, worried, and just a little bit lost.
“He took all the money out of the tea caddy,” Mr. Sullivan said softly.
Finbar nodded.
“He could be anywhere.”
Finbar nodded helplessly. He had no idea what to say to this. His father was generally a silent man of decision and action, not a man who asked for advice or help.
“Well, you lock up, like a good lad. I’m going to bed. I have to go to that stupid job at half past six. Don’t stay up late, you have school in the morning,” Mr. Sullivan murmured almost absently before drifting into the hall and up the stairs.
Finbar poured himself a glass of milk and stood at the sink. He shrugged at the pale stars that peeked out of the sliver of sky behind the coal shed. He noticed two new geraniums in pots outside on the windowsill, his father’s latest attempt to brighten the cement-covered yard. He decided it was not the time to tell his parents that games day at his new school was a washout and consisted of picking stones off a newly dug field to refurbish the grotto of Our Lady of Indefinite Duration. But then there was never likely to be a good time to tell them that.
14
Hi! You there, me lad.”
The burly man with the ladder stopped his slow progress across the yard and turned. He stared levelly at Brother Loughlin: “The name’s Matthews, Matt Matthews.”
“Oh! So you’re the electrician?”
“That’s what it says on the side of me van.” Matt gestured to the gate where his two assistants were unloading toolboxes from a battered van bearing the sign Brannigan Brothers, Electrical Contractors.
Brother Loughlin peered at the two other men and furrowed his brow. There was something disconcertingly familiar about Matthews and the men. He turned to question Matt, who was already up on the ladder