When You Wake up and Scream

"You attract death?" she spluttered. "How on Earth do you do that?"

Conán shrugged.

"I don’t know. When I was little, Ma's boyfriends were always overdosing, and Ma was never there. It was always me who saw them die or found them dead. That happened three times. And you saw last night, too." Conán said the words effortlessly, with no hint of awkwardness so as not to arouse Naoise's suspicions.

"I think that was probably coincidence, Conán, and your mother just used the facts against you to scare you."

"'Perhaps she did? But I certainly think there's truth in it. Why else would all those things happen? Why else would a mother hate her own son?"

"She didn't hate you."

"She wished me dead!"

Naoise's eyes widened.

"Well, I suppose when you put it that way …"

"You know what she used to do to me when I was an infant and I cried? She used to hold the pillow over my face. When I got older, she used to hold my head under water. I quickly learnt not to show any emotion, and that's why I come off weird now. I was just told not to cry, not to complain, not to laugh … I just got on with what needed to be done. I've only started laughing recently, and it's still a weird thing to do."

Conán saw that Naoise's eyes were filled with tears. He looked at her, confused. She met his gaze and her eyes filled up even more so that she had to look away from him.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked her.

"I'm just … I don’t know. I guess I just feel sorry for you."

"Why should you? You don't know me. It didn’t happen to you."

"I know it didn't, but when I think back to my own childhood and I have all of these happy memories and my parents were always there for me, and then in another part of the same city there's you literally being dragged up by someone who couldn’t care less about you. It just seems dreadfully unfair, that's all."

"Naoise," it was the first time he had said her name properly, and not stating it to annoy her. She looked up at him properly again. "You don't have to feel sorry for me. You're too nice for your own good. What's happened has happened and it's my sorry lot to have to deal with it. You're lucky. Just don’t forget that, and you'll be doing me a favour."

Naoise managed a smile.

"I suppose. You have to make the best of what you've got, don't you? But you're a brave guy, Conán. Not a lot of people would come out of the other end. I mean, as a child you would just accept it, I guess, and get on with it and think that this was your life. But as a teenager, well … you know. You would know that there were other options."

"Like suicide."

"Exactly."

"I'm not pretending that I never thought about it. I always used to think about it, since I started high school. But I knew that was what she wanted, and I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of being rid of me. I wanted to annoy her. So I hung about and decided that perhaps I wanted to live after all. I ran away at sixteen, though, and became a street kid. It was better than living with her, anyway, and she had got herself a boyfriend who I knew was going to end up murdering me if I hung around."

Conán didn’t tell Naoise the other reason why he had decided to live – the fact that he wanted to kill his mother in later years.

"Whatever keeps you going, I guess." Naoise managed a smile, and so did Conán.

"So, you say things were great for you, eh? Tell me about that and we'll hear something cheery for a change."

"Well, I wouldn't say great, but they were compared to your upbringing. The worst thing that would happen in my household would be one of my sisters stealing my hairbrush or Mummy not letting me out to play or some other monstrosity."

Conán laughed.

"How did you cope, Naoise, you poor soul?"

"Well, you know, it was a struggle." Naoise giggled. "But we got by."

"You had brothers and sisters?"

"Yeah, there were a few of us. There were five girls and three boys in my family."

"Wow." Conán whistled.

"Things were a bit crowded, but you know, we were used to it. The three lads were the eldest, and then Da got lumped with five daughters to look after as well as having my mother as a force to be reckoned with."

Conán grinned.

"I feel sorry for him. If I'd have been him I would have hid in the pub until you had all gone to bed."

"That's what he did on some nights! But he knew if he were to come home too late Mummy would be waiting for him in the doorway, brandishing a wooden spoon or some other kitchen utensil and shrieking at him. It was always a laugh to watch. Half of the time, my poor father didn't know whether he was coming or going."

"Sounds like fun."

"Fun for Mummy, maybe! But no, most of the time she was fine and dandy. You would have to be firm, wouldn't you, with eight children to look after? Mummy was the backbone of the family, really – if she were ill or had to visit her own mother or a sister or whatever, the whole house would be in pieces when she got back, and Da would be sitting in the living room with a bewildered expression as though he had just survived a nuclear explosion."

Conán laughed again, picturing it. He already felt sorry for the man and he had never met him.

"So, did you all have names as interesting as yours?" he asked her.

"Oh, yeah, Mummy and Daddy were huge on Irish names. My brothers are Seamus, Sean and Eoghan, and my four sisters are Dearbhaile, Yseult, Eibhleann and Gearoidín. So really, myself and Sean have the two easiest names."

"That's pretty interesting." Conán laughed. "I bet every one of your teachers had fun with that."

"I went to a Gaelschoil, so it wasn't too bad. We had kids with more complicated names than I had. The whole school was brimming with Irish names."

"My school was crap." Conán said.

"Why's that?"

"I was bullied because I didn't have a father and I always looked like a filthy tramp."

"I'm sure that you never looked that bad."

"I did. I'm really annoyed about that, to be honest with you. I mean it's one of thse things that you don't forget, isn't it? You know when you're bullied? They'll call you a name or whatever, and then whenever you hear the word that they called you, you feel embarrassed. It just brings back bad memories that you truly don't want to think about."

Naoise patted his hand sympathetically.

"You need to learn to let it go, Conán. You've got opportunities now. You don't have to live in the past because you have a future."

Conán sighed.

"I just wish that I could make the best of it. I just wish that I could forget the past and start again, you know? I could have made something of myself but I didn't. I was just so eager to get out of that place that I ran away with nothing but the clothes on my back. What if, instead of letting my feelings out through stealing and fighting and getting into trouble like I did, I forgot what was going on by throwing myself into school work? I could have gone to Uni. I could be like you, with the whole world at my feet, but I'm not. I'm me, and it sucks."

"If you dwell on mistakes you'll never get anywhere." Naoise told him. "You don’t want to end up like your mother, do you? Look at the state of her life! Do you want that to be you?"

"Of course not. But it's a vicious circle, isn't it?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, neglected children from dysfunctional families always have a crap life. My mother's childhood was rubbish, too: my grandfather was an alcoholic who beat his wife in front of the children, and there were eleven kids so they were poor and with his drinking habits the kids practically had to dress in rags." Conán shrugged. This may have been shocking for Naoise, but he had grown up with the cold, hard facts. "So when Ma grew up she didn't care either, you know? She made a mistake and I was the result and she hated me, because not only did she not have a family to look after her, she also had a little illegitimate brat to shame her for the rest of her life."

"You shouldn't refer to yourself in such ways, Conán." Naoise said firmly. "It's not your fault your mother slept around, is it? You didn’t ask to be born – it was your mother's fault and she took it out on you because she couldn't admit that she was wrong."

Conán was silent for a minute, taking it all in.

"I suppose." he eventually said.

"Please, Conán, you don't have to dwell on this. I'm not saying it's going to be easy but you can do it. It'll make you a stronger person, and if that thought doesn't help, just picture the look on your mother's face if she saw that you'd made something of yourself!"

Conán managed a wry laugh.

"It would be a great sight, but the old hag died last year."

"Oh." Naoise looked up at him. "Well, I would say I was sorry, but I take it you don’t care?"

"Care? I was thrilled when I got the news."

This wasn’t exactly the truth, but as the news had sunk in Conán had drawn some satisfaction from it.

"Do you mind me asking what happened?"

"Heroin overdose." Conán replied casually. "Just like all of her stupid boyfriends before her."

"There's a lesson to be learned, then. Don't get into all of that!"

"I'd never do drugs. Alcohol, fine, drugs, no way. And heroin … heroin's a bitch of a drug. Did you know she was found dead with the needle still in her arm? That's how quickly it gets you."

Naoise pulled a face.

"Nice. Thanks for that."

"Too much detail?" Conán smiled, and Naoise laughed slightly.

"Just a little."

She pulled out her mobile phone and flicked it up, and then her eyes widened.

"Have you seen the time? Damn, I'd better get back … I have a lecture starting at nine o'clock tomorrow and I have to finish my essay."