I used to have a recurring dream, a dream that I had killed my father. His corpse, with dead, sunken eyes and graveyard pallor, the autopsy stitches livid against his torso, would rise up from the mortuary slab and shuffle towards me, pointing an accusing finger. I would wake, sometimes crying out, always shaking with horror.
I hadn't killed him, of course, and I had a copy of the autopsy report to prove it. For the record, he had been thrashing me with the buckle-end of his broad leather belt, something he'd been doing to me regularly since I was a small girl, and I snapped and kicked him in the belly. I only wanted him to feel for once the pain he'd been dishing out to me since forever. Instead he fell down, never to get up again. His mouth fell open revealing poorly-kept teeth and his eyes stared blankly into the unshaded ceiling light. Having hastily checked for a pulse and finding none, I fled that place with my mother's screams of "
Murderer!
" following me into the rainy night. I was a killer, a fugitive who fled Ireland and made for Liverpool, stowed away on a night-time ferry from Dún Laoghaire. It turned out Daddy's heart was a ticking time-bomb and he could have dropped dead at any time during the past twenty or so years. The pathologist expressed surprise that Daddy had lived as long as he had. It was several years, though, before I learned the truth.
'A good, devout Catholic man' they called him and there were a lot of 'good, devout Catholic men' like him where we lived, brutalising their wives and children, especially when in drink, and confessing their sins on Saturdays so they could take Communion on Sundays. If they confessed their cruelty at all, which seems unlikely as they thought it normal, they probably got away with five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys. Too many of the parish priests were old school as well. Still, I'm sure that in the long run God won't let them off so lightly.
There was another unpleasant recurring dream but I'll come to that later.
It took me a long time to fully accept that not all men are brutes, in fact the majority are thoroughly decent. It was on that ferry, too, that I first learned of the kindness of strangers. I had managed to board by mingling in a crowd of rugby fans heading for a big match in England. There were so many of them that ticket-checking was more-or-less abandoned. I found a small cubby-hole somewhere on board to conceal myself---a sort of storeroom containing cleaning materials---and it was there that a deckhand found me. It looked like I was in trouble, the entrance being too narrow for me to squeeze past him and make an escape.
Tall and skinny with sharp wrinkled features and sticky-out ears, the man looked at me for a long moment then at my pathetic little canvas bag stuffed with a few belongings. "Now I'll bet if I asked to see yer ticket yer'd have a problem," he said, his Liverpool accent thick and strange to my ear, "Runnin' away from home, are yer gel?" I nodded, too frightened to speak.
"Got a good reason, have yer?"
I decided to show him---I didn't have much choice. I rolled up one leg of my jeans to show him the old weals and bruises purple against my skin and the fresh cuts which still oozed blood. The man grimaced. "Christ! Who did that to yer? Yer da?"
This time I managed to speak, a feeble: "Yes."
"The lousy bastard! Okay, I'm Tommy, Tommy McClusky. I don't want to know yer name so if anyone asks me I've never heard of yer. Don't be frightened, gel, but I'm gonna lock this door. I'll be back soon and knock the door three times like this..." he rapped the bulkhead "...so's you'll know it's me."
True to his word, Tommy was back shortly with a packet of sandwiches, a cardboard cup of tea and a can of Coke. "Didn't know which youse'd prefer so I got both. Now I'm gonna lock yer in 'til we get to Liverpool. It might get a bit stuffy but yer only a little 'un so yer won't use much oxygen." He gave a snaggle-toothed grin to show he was kidding and reached to a switch by the door, turning on a dim security light. "If yer need a pee, use one of these buckets. I'll get yer off with the crowds as soon as possible." He pulled out a thickly-folded tarpaulin and laid it on the deck. "Try and get some sleep on that, it's an eight-hour trip."
I was left wondering what sort of reward Tommy McClusky would expect for helping me. The nuns at school had filled us with shocking stories about how men were only after one thing, how they would never do you a good turn without expecting your knickers to come down in payment and if you didn't do it voluntarily they'd force you. They were all the same, one-track minds, no woman or girl was safe from them. Submit to their lusts and you'd be a fallen woman. The only way to avoid the foul depredations of men was to enter a convent and become a nun, a bride of Our Lord, and live your life in cloisters. Some choice! According to the nuns the priests are the only good men---yet recent events around the world have shown that quite a few of the 'good' Fathers couldn't be trusted to keep their trousers zipped with youngsters of either sex.
It was daylight and Liverpool when Tommy came to release me and hustled me to where the crowds were getting off. He'd even scrounged an Irish supporters' scarf from somewhere that he wrapped round my neck. "So's yer'll fit in." He took my hand in his big calloused one and I thought
Here it comes, reward time for the not-so-good Samaritan
. Well, I supposed I could endure it and hope it didn't last long. How wrong could I be, how long before I learned to trust? Instead of trying to get into my knickers, he stuffed a couple of twenty-pound notes into my hand. "It's not a lot, gel, but it should help yer a bit. What're yer gonna do?"
"Get as far away from Dublin as I can," I told him, "I'll make out somehow."
He nodded. "Okay, here's a tip---find the bus station and get a coach down south, maybe the coast. It's the holiday season so it'll be easier to find casual work. Not London, though---the prices of things there'll make yer eyes pop. Now, youse just be careful out there, gel. There's lots of good people an' lots of bad. Just learn to tell one from the other."
On impulse I reached up and kissed his lined cheek. "Thanks, Tommy. Reckon I've already found one of the good ones." I did wonder what my Good Samaritan would think if he knew he'd been harbouring a 'killer'.
When I got ashore I decided that Alannah Bronagh should disappear and opted to call myself Roisin, a name I'd always liked after hearing an old song,
Roisin Dubh
(Dark Rose). As for a surname...? While walking away from the docks I passed a small bakery where I bought a couple of fresh-baked rolls and a coffee. The bakery was called Donavan's and that suited me. Goodbye, Alannah Bronagh, welcome to your new life Roisin Donavan. It was odd, I was streetwise in many ways and yet so innocent in others---I honestly believed that a name change would mean I could never be caught.
* * * * *
I did what Tommy suggested but before finding the bus station I went into a bookshop and looked at a UK road atlas for suitable destinations. I decided on Dover for it was the easiest way to get to France and other European countries. In addition to Tommy's gift I had a small stash of euros, tips for acting as a dealer in illegal card games in Dublin cellars. In Dover itself I slept rough for a few nights before being found by a Salvation Army team. When they were sure I wasn't a junky or an alkie they found me a bed in a decent hostel and arranged a job for me in a local b&b. It was hard skivvying work but the proprietors were kind to me and I got a couple of decent meals a day plus some good tips from guests, especially Americans. More good people and I felt ashamed for misleading them but needs must...
* * * * *
I admit to being a bit of a scamp as a teenager which is one of the things that sometimes kept me away from home for days on end despite knowing I'd get a thrashing when I reappeared. But then, I'd have got the thrashing anyway so might as well do something to earn it. It was one of those nights away that I'd fallen into the world of illicit card games. I watched the men playing for hours, fascinated by the way the cards fell, and found that I had a talent, an almost photographic memory for games. I quickly learned all the major gambling games, variations of brag and poker, pontoon (called blackjack by some) and others. Baccarat and chemmy were too posh for these players although they were only games of chance like the others.
An old fellow called Liam in one of the card schools spotted my ability and took me under his wing, showing me tricks of the trade and giving me a lot of useful advice. He said never to play in the same school for more than a couple of games---while some of the hardened players might be amused by the wee girl winning once in a while, they might not care for me to win too often. Might even wonder if I was cheating. "For the same reason, don't win too big amounts, me darlin'," he instructed, "Sometimes it might be best to ditch a sure-fire winnin' hand so they don't suspect or resent you." His best tip was to volunteer to be a non-playing dealer in exchange for a small percentage of each winning pot. I could shuffle and deal the cards as quickly as any professional and picked up more pocket-money this way than I might have done as a player. And more than once I spent an evening running away from the Gardai when they were breaking up games.
