In a Moment Read online

  Her blood ran cold. She hadn’t known it was a hit and run. Jesus Christ. She thought about Paul: his crashed car, his wounded forehead and most likely broken leg and his reluctance to get them seen to. No, she told herself. Don’t be silly. Stop over-reacting, putting two and two together and getting twenty-two. Paul wouldn’t do that. He might be capable of a lot of things but he would never crash into another car and leave the scene of the accident. Would he? No matter how many times she tried to suppress the thoughts, they kept popping up again like one of those pop-up games that the kids had when they were babies that no matter how many times you hammered down the shapes, another blasted one would always pop up again. The doubts kept niggling at her and for some reason she just had a bad feeling about all of this. She really hoped she was wrong.

  Almost on autopilot she got up and went to collect Chloe and Kyle. She walked past the wreck of Paul’s car. She stood momentarily and surveyed it. It was damaged but not nearly to the same extent as the wreckage of the other car that had been on the news. There was no way it had been Paul’s car. Sure he had driven it home. If it had been Paul’s car, it wouldn’t have come out of the crash with just a crumpled front bumper. She felt better as she drove away. She would talk to Paul about exactly what had happened. She was sure it was nothing major but she would have to broach it with him. She needed to make the point that, if he was driving under the influence of drink or worse still drugs, even if he had a lucky escape this time, he mightn’t be so fortunate next time. He was going to have to cop himself on.

  * * *

  Chloe and Kyle hopped into the car and immediately started chatting to her, Chloe regaling her about how high the jumps were and Kyle about how he had scored the winning goal. They were both buoyed up and excited and she wanted to hug them close. She knew they were at that age where their childhood innocence would soon disappear. She wanted to keep the fragments and savour their excitement at small things for as long as she could because, as she had seen with Paul, in the blink of an eye they would grow up.

  When she pulled up in the driveway and they saw Paul’s car they both looked to her for an explanation.

  “Oh, I think he just hit off something last night.”

  They both looked confused by her brief explanation but knew by her tone that they shouldn’t push it any further.

  When Paul finally got up the twins had gone to bed. Jean was glad because at least it would allow her to ask him without them overhearing. He hobbled into the kitchen, barely able to walk, his face etched visibly with pain at every movement.

  “Have you any painkillers, Ma?”

  “Sorry, love, only Paracetamol and I think you need something stronger than that – look, I really think we need to get that leg looked at.”

  “Not now. Just leave it, yeah?”

  “But, Paul, you could really do serious damage. What happens if it doesn’t set properly or if that wound gets infected? Jesus, you could get septicaemia in that!”

  He was about to argue back but he let out a groan of agony instead. “In the morning,” he said with a grimace.

  * * *

  The next morning, on their journey to the hospital, Paul became increasingly agitated and wound up. She put it down to the pain but when he kept telling her what to say and what not to say, the niggling worries about that hit-and-run on Newtown Road began to bother her again. He told her that she wasn’t to mention anything about a crash; he had just fallen over at home. And she was to say it happened only last night, she wasn’t to mention anything about Friday and if anyone did ask her where he had been on Friday night, she was to say that he was at home with her.

  She looked at her son, deep into his blue eyes, and she knew.

  38

  Jean was thankful that she didn’t have to lie to anyone at the hospital because she wasn’t sure if she would be able to do it. No one had batted an eyelid at their circumstances and whatever story Paul had spun them, they believed it and assumed it was just your run-of-the-mill domestic accident. Although the sweat was pumping out through her pores, Jean sat shivering in the waiting room. She rubbed her arms to get warm and tapped her feet. How could he do that? A baby had died. And a man was seriously injured. That poor family torn apart because of her son. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. What the fuck was she meant to do now? Paul was her son, her firstborn baby, but he had gone too far this time.

  When he came back out to her with his leg in a plaster-of-Paris cast, balanced on crutches with his bandaged forehead, he smiled at her. It was the first time he had smiled at her in years. Just days ago she would have begged the gods up high to let her son smile at her but now, under these circumstances, it made her feel ill. She could have sworn there was a tinge of relief in it – she wanted to go up to him and wipe it off his face. Slap his face hard and scream at him. How could he have done that?

  They walked in silence back to the car. The news came on the radio and said they were still looking for witnesses to the crash. They were appealing again to anyone who knew anything or anyone who might have seen a white car in the vicinity. Paul leaned forward and turned it off. They both sat listening to the squeak of the wipers going back and forth.

  “It was you – wasn’t it?” Jean turned to him.

  He didn’t answer her but he wouldn’t make eye contact with her. That was all the answer she needed.

  When they got home, Paul went up to bed. She busied herself in the routine of making a snack for Chloe and Kyle but she couldn’t stomach anything herself as the worries kept on circling around and around in her head. What should she do? On the one hand, she knew she should report him to the Gardaí. Somebody had died. But he was her son. She couldn’t be a traitor to her own son, could she? She was the reason he was like this. It was her fault; he had a difficult upbringing and she needed to take her share of the blame on board.

  She watched the other two innocently eating their tea, oblivious to the dilemma she was faced with. She opened a bottle of wine and they looked at her – she rarely drank but she needed something now. The heavy noise it made as it filled the glass calmed her. The stress was taking its toll; she was only in her thirties but she felt in her eighties. She wished she was that age – at least she would be close to death’s door.

  Why did this have to happen? Why her son? He had a tough enough life as it was and just as she finally felt she was getting through to him! If she let him down again, that was it, his life would be over. He would probably get a long jail sentence: driving under the influence, dangerous driving, failing to stop – the list of possible charges was endless. He would probably get life imprisonment. No judge would have sympathy for him. They would look only at the black-and-white hard facts of the case. They wouldn’t care if he was bullied in school or had a tough childhood or that his dad had walked out on him when he was small – none of that would matter in a court. This was the one time in her life that she could do something to protect him. But on the other hand a baby had died. A baby! She thought back over all the times where she had failed him: letting his dad walk out like that, the bullying in school, maybe she had been over-reliant on him, he’d had to grow up too quickly, he didn’t have the childhood that the other two had. Every mother was hardwired to protect their child. The protective instinct was present as soon as he had been placed in her arms. No matter what, he was still her son, he always would be. Her mind was made up; she wasn’t going to let him down again. She couldn’t do that to him.

  39

  It had been Aido’s birthday. He had a free house for the weekend, so they were heading over there for a session. They all sat around the living room drinking from tins of beer.

  “All right, boys!” Paul came through the door, grinning at the lads.

  “Jesus, where the fuck were you?”

  “Patience, J, patience – all good things come to those who wait. Did your ma never tell you that?” He piled his tray of cans on top of the rest.

  “Here, dish it up the fuck, would you? We’
ve been waiting long enough!” J was irritated.

  Paul took a small bag full of white powder from inside his jacket and threw it onto the table. J sat forward and immediately started untying it.

  “Hold on a sec, what do you say?”

  “Cheers, Paul.”

  “Louder.”

  “For fuck’s sake – Cheers, Paul!”

  “That’s better – after all I do for you! I thought the pigs were onto me.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “There was a copper car behind me most of the way back here, so I pulled in to a garage but he kept on going.”

  “Ha, ha!” laughed Aido.

  J proceeded to tip some of the cocaine onto the glass coffee table. He measured it out with a card before chopping the powder into individual lines, using the card to even them up. He took a fifty out of his pocket, rolled it up and began snorting up his nose before passing it on to the rest of the lads.

  They knocked back tins and snorted line after line of cocaine until eventually they could no longer feel the insides of their noses. Paul was starting to feel good about himself. The stereo was pumping out the lyrics of Dizzee Rascal. He paraded around the living-room floor like it was him on stage. He stepped over the legs of the lads who were sprawled around the floors as he waved his arms and synched his lips to the music. He knocked over a half-drunk can that had been sitting on the floor and watched as it spilled out, forming a foamy pool across the carpet. He stepped over it and kept on dancing.

  “Here, give us some more of that Charlie, J!” Paul said as he plonked down on the sofa again.

  “Fuck off, you, get yis’er own!”

  “What the fuck are you saying, and me after buying it for you?” Paul’s eyes grew wide and angry.

  “I’m only buzzin’ off, ya’ muppet ya! Here!” He slid the bag of white powder over to where Paul was sitting.

  They sat around all night, drinking tins and hoovering up the last of the cocaine until the sun started to come up outside. Some of the lads had started to doze in their chairs. Someone was snoring in the corner. But Paul wasn’t feeling sleepy; on the contrary he had never felt more alive. He was feeling thirsty but there was no drink left. The stereo was still blaring away and the room reeked of stale beer.

  “Here, who wants a race to the shops? C’mon, me and Aido against J and Noel!”

  “You’re on!”

  They went outside into the cool morning air in their T-shirts but they didn’t feel the chill. J and Noel got into one car, while Aido got into Paul’s passenger seat. When he turned the key in his ignition, the rest of the song from where the CD had stopped last night started up again but the beat was too fast and too loud now so he lowered it rapidly. He lit a cigarette and put it between his lips, then reversed at speed out of the driveway so the tyres screeched. He could see some of the neighbours coming to their windows to see where the racket was coming from. He gave them the finger out the car window and made the engine rev even louder.

  He drove along with the window down, letting the chilly morning air into the car. The lads were following behind and as soon as they got out of the estate they tried to take him on the outside. He swerved across the road to block them. Aido turned the mirror around to see them and started laughing. When the road widened, he moved to the left but when J went to overtake again, he moved out right across the road to block him. But J bounded back to the left, managed to undertake him and moved ahead. Paul pressed his foot to the floor to catch him. They came up to a bend and Paul went up the inside. It was tight. He didn’t know if he was going to get through. Aido looked over at him but there was nowhere else to go. His car was inches from J’s wing. At the last minute, he got through. J swerved to the right, into the path of an oncoming driver who swerved to avoid them both.

  “Fuck, that was close!” shouted Aido.

  Paul’s heart was thumping; the adrenaline was rushing through his veins. J was chasing close behind him now, sitting on his bumper. He zigzagged to the left and right, J trying to overtake. They bounded left then right and left again. They came up to a wider part of the road and J moved out to the other side so that they were neck and neck, taking up both sides of the road.

  “Here we go! Woo-hoo! Floor it, Paul, c’mon!”

  He pressed his foot down on the accelerator. The wind coming in through the window filled his ears from the speed. Their car moved marginally ahead before J’s caught up again.

  “C’mon, Paul! C’mon!” Aido was roaring in his ear. “C’monnn!”

  His foot was to the floor but J’s car shot ahead, Noel raising his fingers in a mocking L-shape to them as they passed.

  The trees whizzed past as he tried to catch up. He tapped his jittery fingers on the steering wheel. They came up to a crossroads with a stop sign. J drove straight through, he wasn’t stopping. There was no visibility right or left and Paul hesitated instinctively, his foot coming up off the floor. Then he accelerated out onto the junction at precisely the same moment that a silver Volkswagen came through from the right. He spun his wheel and swerved but it wasn’t enough and he braced himself for the impact, waiting for the bang. Then came the sound of crumpled metal as he careered into the rear left-side wing of the other car. Their car skidded along for what seemed like an age but it was probably only seconds before they slid into a ditch and next thing he saw was a grass verge outside his windscreen.

  Paul sat in the seat, too stunned to move, his whole body shaking uncontrollably. His chattering teeth felt as though they were banging off his brain.

  “Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ!” Aido kept repeating. “Jesus fucking Christ!”

  “Shut up!” Paul shouted back at him. “Just shut up!”

  Automatically he put the car into reverse, a savage pain shooting up his left leg as he did so, but it wasn’t moving. C’mon. He tried again with heavy revs but he was wedged up onto the bank and the wheels were just spinning, going nowhere. C’mon the fuck! He knew they only had minutes before the police would be here.

  “Get out and push!” he roared at Aido who did as he was told and hopped out of the car.

  As Aido used all his strength to push the car down off the ditch, he revved the engine. In the distance they could hear sirens. Paul revved the engine harder, battling against the pain in his left leg. The sirens were getting closer but his car wasn’t moving.

  “C’mon, Aido!”

  He watched as Aido’s face turned purple from exertion until at last the car started to budge. Aido jumped back in as Paul put his foot to the floor and they screeched out of there. His car was rattling and pulling to the left as he drove. He glanced back in his mirror to where the crash had happened but he couldn’t see the other car, just the road blackened with curved tyre tracks.

  40

  Jean tossed and turned all that night. She tried to justify her decision, she tried to tell herself that it was the right thing to do, but it still didn’t sit easy with her conscience. She told herself that she was doing what any mother would do but why then did she feel so physically torn apart? She wished she could just be morally weak like so many people on earth and look after her own first and let everyone else sort themselves out but then an image of the dead baby would come into her head, just staring at her, and she would start to sweat and her resolution didn’t seem so right any more.

  She thought back to when Paul was born and wondered, if she had known then what she knew now and how he would break her heart, would she do it all again? How does an innocent bundle who snuggles in your arms, depending on you to answer its every need and filling you with pure joy, grow up into a person that you still love and adore but do not necessarily like? How does that happen? It was hard to believe that an innocent newborn would ever be capable of any wrongdoing; could it be that a life of hardship was already mapped out for them? How she wished that he could have just stayed that tiny sleeping bundle in her arms, never having to grow up and face the big bad world. The sad thing was that he was still only a ch
ild; he was only seventeen years of age with his whole life ahead of him.

  She thought of Paul at the same age that the baby had been, six months old, laughing and clapping and starting to express his personality with new high-pitched gurgles. She had to get out of bed and run to the bathroom to be sick. The cool tiles were a welcome relief as she sat on them, her back resting against the bath-tub, the room illuminated in silver moonlight. She stayed there all night sobbing. She knew that in the morning she would have to do the most difficult thing she had ever done.

  * * *

  At first light the next morning she rang the Chief Superintendent in Newtown Garda station and told him everything she knew. As it all spilled out, her heart felt as though it was being twisted and wrung out with guilt. She knew she had a few minutes before their world was to be shattered apart. She opened the door to Paul’s bedroom and watched him breathing. She walked over and sat down on the side of the mattress and stroked his hair, the skin on his cheek smooth under her fingertips. His eyelids flickered momentarily, registering her touch, but then relaxed back to sleep again. It had been so long since she had touched him; she wanted to remember every piece of him. She could hear the rain pounding on the roof outside, hopping off it in staccato beats. She sat stroking his face until the doorbell sounded and it was time. She took a deep breath and left the room, racked with painful guilt for what she was about to do to her own son.

  Her greetings to the Gardaí were monosyllabic. They went into the kitchen and they took her statement. She told them the whole story from the beginning, what she knew of it anyway. They asked her for his car keys and she watched as they drove the car up onto a pick-up truck to take it away as evidence.