Strange Sally Diamond(39)

26


Peter, 1980


As we drove out of the front gate, Dad said, ‘Right, calm down and think. Think!’ He was talking to himself. Fifteen minutes later, we parked directly outside the Allied Irish Bank. I had seen advertisements for it on the television. ‘Wait here,’ he barked at me. I had no intention of going anywhere. Dad was a long time and when he came back to the car he said, ‘Bitch! I had to get the manager. It’s my money. I’m entitled to take it all if I want, and no jumped-up little bitch is going to stop me.’

Next, we drove down a side street and pulled up beside a building. There was a door on the street and, beside the door, there was a brass plate which said:

GLENDALE DENTAL PRACTICE

TEL. 809915

CONOR GEARY

B. DENT. SC

DENTAL SURGEON



This was where my dad worked. I wanted to go in with him but he ordered me to stay in the car. A few minutes later, he came out with some files and a framed certificate. He dismantled the frame and threw it in the garden of an adjacent house and rolled up the certificate, opened the car boot and put it into the suitcase. I didn’t dare ask any questions.

We swerved away from the kerb and drove off this main street to a coastal road. He parked the car down on the pier and then we got out. Seagulls swooped low over our heads. He pulled a cap out of his pocket and put on a pair of glasses. I had never seen either before. ‘Let’s go to England,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll think about how to get passports.’

We walked together and he smiled and nodded at every second person we passed, even women, pulling his cap lower every time. We walked ten minutes over to the ferry port and stood in a queue. I stood at a distance, afraid to touch anyone, but he yanked me towards him and gripped my hand. At the top of the queue, he bought two second-class tickets to Holyhead. I knew from geography books that Holyhead was in Wales. But I wasn’t going to challenge Dad on anything. He was so tense. His grip hurt me and his jaw was clenched tightly.

I should have been excited. We were going abroad, for the first time ever. But it definitely didn’t feel like a holiday. We were running away. But for how long? And who were we running from? Didn’t Dad want to report the burglary to the guards? Dad always snorted at them on television. We watched Garda Patrol every week. He would laugh at them and call them ‘incompetent lazy fools’. I tried to understand but my thoughts were scrambled. We boarded the ship and climbed what seemed like endless flights of stairs until we were outdoors on the deck.

‘What’s this town called, Dad?’

‘Dún Laoghaire. Take a good look at Ireland, lad, it will be a long time before we ever see it again.’ The anger was gone, and I could see his eyes glistening behind the clear lenses of his spectacles. Was Dad going to cry? Like a girl?

It was freezing on this deck, in the middle of March. Everyone else was huddled inside. Finally, the foghorn blew and the ship edged out of port, slowly at first and then picking up speed after we exited through the granite piers, one on either side, like outstretched arms, pushing us out to sea.

‘We’re going on our own odyssey,’ he said, sadness in his voice.

‘Dad.’ I felt ready to ask him now that his anger had abated. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening. Why are we going, so suddenly?’

He put his head in his hands. ‘We have to. That’s all there is to it. That burglar. If he were to tell anyone her name, people would come and take you away. They would put their hands on you, and you would die. I’m doing this for you.’

‘But why would they take me away?’

‘She’s so crazy, she thinks I kidnapped her. Do you think that burglar isn’t going to tell someone? The guards might believe her or they might believe me, but one thing is for sure, I wouldn’t be able to stop them putting their hands on you, and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. We’re going so that I can save your life. Your condition is so rare that most people don’t believe it or understand it. Remember when I showed you the photos of the Boy in the Bubble? That’s where you’d end up, if you were lucky, if they didn’t kill you first.’

He lowered the spectacles and looked me in the eye. ‘Do you understand?’

‘I do,’ I said solemnly. I remembered the story of the Boy in the Bubble. He was younger than me by a couple of years and his disease was so bad that the air could kill him, so he spent his whole life in a chamber in a hospital. Dad told me that my disease was similar, only that my death would be worse if I got infected. My dad loved me enough to run away to keep me safe.

‘But once they discover that she’s mad and dangerous, we can go home?’

‘Maybe it’s time we broadened our horizons. Don’t you want to see the world?’

I nodded enthusiastically.

‘Good boy. Now will we go down and get some food? We haven’t had any dinner. Stay close to me.’

I can’t remember how long the crossing took. Maybe three hours? I was tired by the time we arrived, but then Dad said we had to get a bus to London. We waited in a cold bus station, stamping our feet to get warm. I was too tired to be excited now. I had never been on a bus before. I revived a bit when we climbed up the steep steps. We found seats in the middle of the bus. It was too dark to see much outside. I fell asleep once we were in motion and barely noticed my surroundings when we stopped for a toilet break. It was approaching dawn when we entered London, but it was so big that it was almost another hour before the bus turned into a vast dirty-looking building. The sign at the entrance said ‘Euston Station’.