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“It’s a fifteen-minute walk from here. It’s not safe to go alone,” he protested.
She passed him, her pace as fast as her heels would allow. “Thanks for the pint.”
“Come back, Áine, please! I’m sorry, alright!” The strain in his voice ached her, but she wouldn’t come back. It was all too clear now that the only way forward was without Fionn. And however much her eyes already ached with tears, sobs barely muted by the quickening rain, she knew, for her own sake, this decision could only be considered right.
I have to forget him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kilkenny 2010
Fionn
The one thing this evening that brought Fionn worse discomfort than the wooden pew he’d been stuffed into was the jarring absence of his family. Each row behind was full of the jubilant menagerie of folk waiting for the ceremony to kick off. Waiting for their sons or daughters to mark the end of their childhood and venture safely, with the priest’s blessing, out into their funded world of college or apprenticeship, a gleeful naivety about their well-metabolised form.
The reality of Fionn’s life in comparison, created a weight on his chest, which he was running out of steam to carry. He worried that his most delicate secret had gotten out, and that the hardwood might collapse beneath him. As if God himself had been plotting to make a point of declaring to the congregation that Fionn O’ Rourke was resolutely and pathetically, alone.
He tucked his hands between his knees, hoping it might soften their urge to check his phone for a message; maybe his dad was just running late, or his uncle Joe had gotten off work early and might make an appearance. He even considered his mam buried not twenty feet from where he sat, and the miraculous scenario in which she walked from the rear of thepews, a light shining on her as she took her rightful place among the other parents to boast her proudness.
But Fionn collected himself as a boy not greedy, and so he sought the one thing hewasgrateful for; that at least he was shoulder to shoulder with his well-dressed friends and classmates, rearing in plaid shirts and gelled hairstyles for the night ahead. At least he managed to get this far in life when there were many times a voice in his head told him he’d little point in continuing.
A hush gathered apart from Gerry in the row ahead. “Awh boys, boys, here we fucking go. The sluts are coming,” he said in a hush, pointing out the choir readying to leave the dark hallway flanking the altar.
Fionn clenched his fist to stop himself walloping Gerry across the head, then did it anyway.
Gerry turned, “Who the fu—”.
The stern look in Fionn’s eye silenced Gerry’s rising threat.
He knew Gerry could hear what he was trying to say.
I’d like to see you try.
Gerry turned and Fionn didn’t feel any better. The finality of why he sought to tune out of the entire ceremony altogether just to get through it. Get through it without the urge to cry.
But thenshecame into view sometimein the middle of the first song, somewhere blended into the back of all the smiling faces. Not blended by Fionn’s consideration, though. She stuck out to him—Áine Meaher.
He sat straighter, more rigid and yet somehow more comfortable just in seeing her. She didn’t create the urge in him to cry at all, even after how awful things had gone for them on the riverbank. Instead, all he wanted to do was bashfully smile into the collar of his shirt.
Her hair was much longer than usual, and her eyes were accentuated by something he couldn’t put his finger on, butmade it in a way so that she consumed the audience as one. Looked at them whole as if she was the higher power, taking siege of the church in place of God.
He looked at her for the first time with the conclusion she wasn’t merely pretty, she was beautiful. Not because of the make-up or the hair, and he couldn’t distinguish her voice. So what was it?
Knowing tonight was the last time he’d see her with school being over, unless he got a seat by her at the English exam next week? Although he was starting to wonder what was the point of sitting an exam when it wouldn’t do him much good anymore.
This morning had cemented what September wouldn’t be. Why he wasn’t going to college.
A woman from the SUSI grant system had rung him from his bed after “Failing to get through to a parent or guardian for three consecutive months,” and what quickly became apparent in this conversation was it was his dad’s bank account the grant money would be going into—if he ever filled out the follow-up forms.
Fionn expressed with fingers squeezing the bridge of his nose, that his dad wouldn’t be able to manage six thousand euros in his account. What he chose not to say was his dad would have bet it away no sooner did it come into his grasp. He couldn’t help it. However much Fionn despised him, he knew he couldn’t help it.
The woman in return with false monotone sympathy had saidunfortunatelyher hands were tied and that was that. The system wasn’t created to bend. It wasn’t created for people under twenty-one to have access to it without a parent; it was a crack in the system they hurtled him into with no care for his future. Because poverty wasn’t a trap. Trap would insinuate the victim didn’t suspect what was coming.
Fionn ran his hand across his cheek and down onto his jaw, desperately wondering if maybe he could place a couple of bets himself. Because what he had that his dad didn’t, was intelligence. A good eye for odds and probability. So maybe if he got lucky he’d be able to put a deposit down and commute to IT Carlow up the road. Declan had sent him over a graduation present of exactly €500 in crisp notes inside a card on which was written,
‘Happy Graduation, Fionn.’
It might have been if you were still here,Fionn thought as he dropped the card onto his messy bedroom floor and stuffed the notes into his wallet.
