Little Boy Lost

Lonnie had never heard of disability activism yet, he was, in his own peculiar way, quite proud to be a dwarf. He was aware that people found the way he looked funny, and he understood that he was unusual in a world that values blandness, but nevertheless, he learned to love himself. He made a point of going to the shops, of going about his business in the small town close to where he lived, and even though people still stared and mocked him from time to time, he was a big enough person to realize that the problem was not his, but theirs. It is a grave pity that so many of those ignorant people could not understand that basic truth.
Beth Singleton left Drumlin – and Tristan Fowler – several years after the events described in this book. She went back to nursing, and on the odd occasion our paths cross, she always reports that she is very happy.
And maybe she is.

Annie is still around. I see her from time to time, and she always makes me smile. The pain of her experiences with Charlie are long forgotten. She finds the world too rich a place to waste on such sadness.
The question the police asked when we discussed Annie with them is a common one in the case of people with learning disabilities: how can someone who is technically just as bright as most ‘normal’ people be intellectually disabled? The reality is that Annie is quite an intelligent young woman, and a very gifted artist. Yet the way she experiences the world is very different to the way you or I do, and she has difficulty with many things – not least being communication.
I often wonder if the term ‘disability’ is an appropriate way of thinking about people like my friends in Drumlin at all. I really believe they are just different. And I have always thought that difference is something we should celebrate rather than hide away or try to mould into an image of conformity.
Yet Annie is another person for whom the world is just too difficult a place. She is more at home on her mountain, in the fields and the woods and the high places. And even that is disappearing. I have, of late, come to think of her as an endangered species whose habitat is being gradually eroded by developers and builders. There is a large housing estate not a mile from her home now, and a factory is to be built later this year where her woods are situated.
Lonnie continued to attend Drumlin, more as a member of staff than as a client (the lines are often blurred, as sometimes seemed natural there) until his death, as a result of a congenital heart problem, at the age of forty-two. Of my friend I can say that he took life on his own terms and did not look back. He died a contented and well-loved man.

The appropriate answer to: ‘Are you my girlfriend/boyfriend?’ is ‘No, I like you very much, but I am your friend.’ It is simple, truthful and in no way open to misinterpretation.

Afterword

Little Boy Lost is a book about new beginnings. It recounts a time in my career when it felt very much as though I was learning to be a care worker almost from scratch, when every step forward seemed painstaking and ridiculously difficult. Yet it was also a time of inexpressible joy. Tristan Fowler, or at least the man upon whom I based him, remains a dear and loyal friend to me to this day. He has taught me more about acceptance and the true meaning of integration than anyone else I have ever known.
I say without any shame that when I ran away to the country, I was completely broken. Drumlin and the amazing people there put me back together again. That all their stories are bittersweet should not be a sign of any kind of failure on their part or on anyone else’s. Life is just like that.
I know that some readers will consider it, particularly during these times of economic crisis, deeply foolhardy to wish to work on a voluntary basis when money is being laid on the table. You will have to take my word that, at that time in my career I really did not believe that I would stick the job on offer for more than a few weeks. I felt something would happen to send me running again, and I would then be letting these people, whom I already cared a great deal about, down. I could not stand the idea of carrying more guilt around with me. Volunteering seemed the best option. By signing nothing and promising less, I was not tied, either legally or morally. It was as much as I could cope with.
Dominic never came out of the psychiatric hospital where he was placed after the incidents described here. He died there as a result of a severe epileptic seizure. I think of him often with deep sadness, but also great fondness. He was a gentle, sweet-natured, wonderful person, who was simply too trusting for this world.
Reading this book and seeing the number of occasions where Dominic became violent, I expect some of you are questioning my calling him ‘gentle’, and that is understandable. You must remember that Dominic was operating, to all intents and purposes, at the level of a toddler. Children are physical – when a baby does not want a toy or to eat his dinner, he throws that item out of the pram or away from the high chair. Dominic responded to adversity in a similar way. He had no concept of his strength or of the fact that a table might do some damage if you happened to be in its flight path. He never meant any harm by his actions. He was locked away because of the terrible fear that the roller-coaster of emotions he was falling prey to were becoming too much for him to cope with.
I miss him greatly. He was as true a friend as I have ever had.

The next time I saw Annie was three weeks later. Lonnie and I were walking on the mountain, a habit we had come to treasure. We crossed a field of silver-frosted grass, and there she was, dancing across the frigid ground to a tune neither of us could hear. If she saw us, she gave no indication, and passed across our line of vision, heading for a cluster of ash two hundred yards to our left. In a minute, she was gone.
‘She looks better,’ Lonnie said.
He had gotten a haircut, and was wearing a baseball cap, a leather jacket and jeans. He looked good, too.
‘What happened to her will take time to heal,’ I said, ‘but I think she’s in the right place for that healing to occur. This is where she loves, and I don’t think her dad will ever again leave her unsupervised like he did.’
‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ Lonnie said. ‘How could he have known what that bollix was after?’
‘You’re right, I know,’ I said. ‘I’m still sore over it all, I suppose.’
‘That’s okay,’ Lonnie said. ‘You love her, too.’
‘We all do,’ I said.
‘Yeah.’
We continued our progress over the icy, rocky earth.
‘So how are you doing these days?’ I asked.
‘Up and down,’ Lonnie admitted.
‘And today?’
‘Mostly up.’
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
‘No jokes about that? “How high up can someone like me actually get,” maybe?’
‘Naw,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have made those gags in the first place.’
‘I gave back in spades.’
‘It wasn’t kind,’ I said. ‘You deserved better.’
He patted me on the arm. ‘We were both learning, I reckon.’
‘Learning what?’
‘How to be friends with one another,’ he said.
The field ended in a line of blackthorn trees, beyond which the land opened up like a picture book. We could see for miles in every direction.
‘Drumlin isn’t the same lately, is it?’ Lonnie said, as we drank in the view. ‘Since everything happened.’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘But Tristan said to me, a year ago now, that the world doesn’t stop at the door of the unit. I suppose it just decided to stop waiting on the mat and came on in.’
‘It was kind of magic there for a while, though,’ he said. ‘We had some fun.’
‘We’ll have more,’ I said. ‘We’ll just have to start over.’
‘Do you want to?’ Lonnie asked.
‘I don’t have anything better to do,’ I said.
‘Me neither.’
And we started to walk back to the warmth of the cottage.

It was a sedate and solemn group at news the following day.
‘Where Dominic?’ Max wanted to know.
‘He is in a hospital, at the moment,’ Tristan said. ‘He is a little bit upset, and when he was in the police station he had quite a severe seizure. His mum and dad both thought it might be better for him to stay there until he was feeling better.’
Beth said nothing. Her eyes were red, and she kept sniffing and wiping at her nose.
‘Where’s Sukie?’ Ricki asked the next question that was on everyone’s mind.
‘Sukie won’t be coming back to Drumlin,’ Tristan admitted. ‘She feels that she doesn’t really fit in, and she’s resigned from her job here.’
‘Miss Sukie,’ Max said, sighing.
‘I miss Dominic,’ Ricki said.
‘I miss Annie,’ Glen said.
‘Where is Annie?’ I asked Tristan, when news was over and I had a moment with him by myself.
‘William called for her early this morning.’
‘How did he know she was with you?’
‘The police told him,’ Tristan said. ‘Apparently he turned up at the station looking for his daughter in the middle of the night.’
‘What brought him there?’
‘God knows,’ Tristan said. ‘They told me that he was in quite a state. Seemed to think she was hurt, or something.’
I nodded. It made as much sense as anything.
‘How’s she doing, then?’
‘Better now she’s with her father.’
‘Did you tell him about Charlie?’
‘I didn’t have to,’ Tristan said. ‘He informed me that the gentleman in question had moved on, and would not be coming back. Whatever that means.’
‘Tristan, I couldn’t give a damn.’
‘My sentiments precisely.’

The day after I confronted Charlie, Dominic almost killed a man.
I was in the unit, setting up the chairs for news, and running through the songs I was going to do for our music session later that day, when I heard screaming coming from outside. At first, I thought it was someone playing and paid no heed, but the urgency and pitch of it seemed so consistent that after a minute or so, I went out to see what was going on. What I saw was almost too horrific to countenance.
Dominic, who was roaring at the top of his voice, had a man by the scruff of the neck with one hand, and was beating him repeatedly with the other about the head and face. Sukie was screaming (despite the fact that Dominic’s bellows were louder, hers were at a higher register, and seemed to carry further), and trying to stop him beating the by now unconscious figure, but she was making no progress.
It took me a few seconds to take it all in, and realize that, if something was not done quickly it would be too late for the object of Dominic’s wrath. I did the only thing I could think of: I ran across the yard, jumped up on the low wall, and threw myself bodily at Dominic. Luckily, I caught him off guard, and he, I and the poor bloke he’d been pummelling crashed to the ground.
‘That’s enough, Dominic,’ I shouted as I pulled myself to my feet. ‘No more!’
‘Sukie my girlfriend,’ he said, his voice hoarse and thick with tears. ‘She mine, okay?’
Tristan had been roused from his office by the commotion, and was pulling the bloodied man aside. Beth had the first-aid box under her arm, and I could hear sirens in the distance.
‘What happened?’ I asked Sukie, my eyes still on the giant who was sitting on the ground, crying and rocking.
‘He was only kissing me goodbye,’ the girl said. I could tell she was on the verge of hysteria.
‘Boyfriend?’ I asked.
‘No, not really,’ she said. ‘I met him at a nightclub last night. He stayed over at my place. Dropped me to work.’
‘Sukie. Is. My. Girlfriend,’ Dominic said again. ‘He not her boyfriend, okay?’
‘Shut up!’ Sukie shouted at him. ‘You shut up, you fucking freak! I am not your girlfriend! I never was and I never will be.’
Dominic began to cry harder. I went over and put my arms round him, and tried to comfort him, but he was inconsolable. Tristan went with him in the police car when they took him away.
‘My daddy picking me up at four o’clock, Tristan?’ he asked as the door was closed.
‘Maybe not today, Dominic,’ Tristan said.
‘I ’fraid, Tristan,’ Dominic said urgently: ‘I wants my daddy, ’kay?’
I turned away, my eyes blind with tears, the story Annie had told on my first day at Drumlin coming jarringly back to me. If Dominic was ever lost, he was then. And it didn’t look like this lost little boy would find his happily ever after.

‘I thought she was your friend,’ I said. ‘William told me you understood her better than anyone.’
‘Ah, she’s okay,’ he said, taking a great swallow of poteen. ‘I mean, she’s fuckin’ easy on the eye, man, you can’t deny that. You’ll forgive a lot when a woman’s got a shape like that, y’know what I mean?’
I think he expected me to agree with him. I just stood there, feeling sick, rage building in me with such ferocity, I thought I might actually go mad.
‘She’d be always huggin’ and kissin’ me, and sure it was no bother to cop a sneaky feel. She never noticed. Had me hands all over her, I did.’
He was drunk, and getting drunker by the minute, taking in the poteen like it was water.
‘And I bet you got tired of that, didn’t you, Charlie?’ I asked. ‘It’s all well and good putting your hands on a girl, but it’s like looking at a beautiful place through a dirty window – you’re only getting a small part of the experience.’
‘Now you’re talkin’,’ he said. ‘Here I was, I’ve got this fuckin’ babe right in front of me – and she’s a shaggin’ retard, man. She’s rubbin’ her tits in me face, more or less, and she doesn’t even know what it’s doin’ to me. Now, I tried to tell her, tried to explain, but I might as well have been talkin’ to meself.’
‘So you thought you’d show her.’
‘Learnin’ by doin’. Exactamondo, my good man.’
‘Charlie fuck,’ I said.
‘That’s it. And she fuckin’ loved it.’
I walked over and poured myself a drink.
‘Help yourself, man.’
‘She loved it so much,’ I said, downing the burning fluid in two gulps, and pouring another, ‘that when you were done, she came to me in tears, so upset she could barely speak. She enjoyed it to such a degree, all she could tell me about was the pain of having you in her. Oh, you did her a real service, you sick bastard.’
Charlie laughed at that.
‘Wanted to have a pop at her yourself, did you, compadre? Oh, she was always talkin’ about you. You could have been in there, buddy.’
I grabbed him, then.
‘You need to get your filthy hide away from here, and never come back,’ I said. ‘Right now. Are we clear?’
‘Fuck you,’ he spat back at me, not even struggling. ‘I know a good thing when I see it. I’m not goin’ anywhere.’
‘I’m telling William,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where he is, but I’ll find him. When he knows, he’ll tear you limb from limb.’
‘I’m family. He’ll believe me.’
‘Annie is more family to him than you are, you fucking scumbag.’
‘She’s retarded, arsehole,’ Charlie cackled. ‘No one will take a word she says seriously.’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘I take her seriously.’
He roared with laughter at that.
‘What are you going to do? You’re a fuckin’ nurse or somethin’ on the centre’s payroll. If you so much as toss my hair, I’ll have you sacked.’
I hit him square in the forehead, and caught him again on the cheekbone before he hit the floor. They were two good punches, and he lay, amid the spilt booze and broken glass, wondering what happened.
I stood over him, feeling better than I had all day.
‘You can’t get me fired,’ I said jubilantly, ‘I’m a volunteer.’

She just turned away so she was facing the other direction: if I couldn’t see her tears, then maybe I would forget they were there. I wasn’t so easily dissuaded.
‘Come on, Annie. You and I are too good friends for me to fall for that one.’
I gently turned her back round, and held her there. Sometimes, because I saw her every day, and worked alongside her, I forgot just how beautiful she was. Even with tear-streaked cheeks and a runny nose, she was lovely.
‘Did you have a row with your dad, sweetheart? Is that it?’
She shook her head.
‘Not Daddy.’
‘What is it then?’
In a single motion, Annie collapsed against me, sobbing uncontrollably. It was as if her spine had suddenly been removed and she could no longer support herself.
If this had all been happening in a movie, I would have swept her up in my arms and carried her to a chair, but in real life, things are never as simple as that. Even though she was a slender creature, she still presented a fairly severe dead weight, and I kind of dragged her, still leaning against me, to the library corner and deposited her unceremoniously onto a beanbag.
Beth always ensured that there were plenty of tissues and baby wipes all over the room, as our group was rather prone to accidents involving the entire array of bodily fluids, and I grabbed a handful of tissues and brought them over to the girl, who was now making quite a racket. No one came near us. Getting upset was part and parcel of the Drumlin experience. Everyone did it from time to time, and the need for personal space was always respected – most of the group knew that you needed room to have a really good cry.
When Annie had settled a bit, I tried again.
‘Annie, do you want to tell me what’s up, or would you like me to get Beth or Millie? Sukie, maybe?’
Annie shook her head. ‘Shane friend. Good friend,’ she said.
‘Yes, I am your friend,’ I said. ‘You’re my oldest friend in Drumlin, aren’t you? If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have come here at all.’
‘L’il Liza Jane,’ Annie sang through her tears.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s what we sang, isn’t it?’
She covered her face with her hands, and cried again for a time. I just sat there. Sometimes, saying nothing – just being there – is the best thing you can do. I felt Annie would tell me what was wrong when she was ready. I would just have to wait until she had gotten enough of the pain out of her system to be able to find the words.
Suddenly she looked at me and said, ‘Charlie fuck.’
I blinked. I am well used to expletives. I work with people who often experience extremes of emotion, and swear words tend to be part and parcel of how they communicate their experiences. It is not unheard of for me to use the odd four-letter word myself. But I had never heard Annie swear, and I found the word ugly coming out of her mouth.
‘Did you have a fight with Charlie?’
Annie shook her head. ‘No. Charlie fuck.’
I felt a pit opening up inside me, and a terrible coldness beginning to creep up from my toes. ‘Did Charlie hurt you, Annie?’
She nodded. ‘Hurt inside of me,’ she said, placing her hand low on her abdomen. ‘He say it “fuck”. He say it good. Be like love.’
‘But you didn’t want him to,’ I said quietly. ‘Did you?’
‘No want,’ she said. ‘Charlie my friend. Walking and laughing and singing. Not like that. He was in me.’
And then she was crying again.
Tristan looked grim.
Two officers from the local garda station – a male and a female – sat opposite us in the small office at Drumlin. Beth had made up a kind of makeshift bed in the kitchen, and Annie was asleep. I wanted to kill someone, but I was trying to keep it together. Me losing the run of myself would not help anything.
‘We go through the correct channels,’ Tristan said. ‘There is nothing to be gained by going off half-cocked.’
‘Ms Kelleher is twenty-seven years old,’ the male guard was saying. ‘But you say she is intellectually subnormal.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yet on the file you have just shown me, it says that she has an IQ in the low–average range.’
‘Those tests are not always a useful measurement,’ Tristan said. ‘Annie has what you might call a non-specific form of mental handicap – her functioning is very high in some areas, while it is like that of a small child in others.’
‘And she maintains that this cousin of hers raped her?’ the female guard asked.
‘She did not use those precise words,’ I said. ‘But she was quite clear that what happened did not occur with her consent. I am not sure she is even capable of giving consent.’
‘Yet she has a normal IQ,’ the male garda said again.
‘Are you going to investigate this matter or not?’ Tristan said sharply. ‘I have a very upset young lady on my hands, and there is no doubt in my mind that she has been sexually assaulted.’
The two gardaí looked at one another.
‘We’ll see what we can do,’ the woman said.
There was no way to contact William Kelleher.
‘They don’t have a telephone,’ Beth said. ‘Any time we need to get information to him, it’s by post, or we send letters home with Annie.’
‘He probably knew damn well what was going on with that perve,’ Valerie said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘He loves Annie. There is no way he would allow this, I can promise you that.’
‘What are we going to do then?’ Beth said. ‘She can’t go home.’
‘She can stay with me until we hear back from the police,’ Tristan said. ‘The spare room can be made up.’
‘I’ll come too,’ Beth said. ‘She needs to have people around that she knows, just now.’
Tristan nodded. He looked tired and pinched. ‘That would be good, Beth.’
My phone rang at around eight that night.
‘The police called,’ Tristan said, when I picked up.
‘And?’
‘They said that there is no sign of William out at the old house. They did encounter our man Charlie, who swears that he never touched Annie, although he says she tried to have her way with him.’
‘That is so fucked up.’
‘I know.’
‘So what’s going to happen?’
‘Probably very little. I wish we could reach William.’
‘Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I said and hung up.
The door to the underground room was open and I went down it and through to the body of the house proper. The first room I came to was a kitchen, which was full of foul dishes. A smell of rancid milk pervaded.
‘William? William, it’s Shane.’
No answer. I flicked a light switch, which looked like it might have been fitted in the nineteen thirties, but it didn’t work. I moved on to the next room, which was where William and I had talked and drank. Charlie was there.
He was sprawled on the couch with bottles of William’s home-brewed liquor scattered about. He was dozing when I came in, but woke when he heard my footsteps. Long and skinny, he had dirty-brown hair, and ears that should have been clipped back when he was a child. He wore filthy jeans and a checked shirt which was open to the waist, showing a scrawny, hairless chest.
‘You’re Charlie,’ I said.
‘So?’
‘I’m Shane Dunphy. From the Drumlin Unit. I work with Annie.’
‘I know who you are,’ he said. ‘She’s told me all about you.’
I laughed bitterly. ‘She’s told me all about you, too.’

There were three men standing behind Max, Ricki, Elaine, Glen and Dominic. It seems that one, a tall, well-built guy with a Dublin accent, had turned and said, ‘Keep it down there, bud. You’re puttin’ me off me drinks, here.’
Max had apologized and continued with his story.
‘I said turn the volume down,’ the man said again, pushing his way between Ricki and Glen, and poking Max in the chest. ‘Either you shut up, or I’m goin’ to have you sent back to the fuckin’ nuthouse, right?’
The man turned on his heel, and went back to his friends.
‘Fuckin’ spas,’ he had said. ‘Shouldn’t be let out.’
It is hard to determine whether it was this final comment or his general tone of aggression that caused Dominic to see red, but see red he did. In two steps he was beside the loudmouth.
‘You not nice,’ he said, then drew his fist back and hit him. I didn’t see the punch, but I’m told he threw it like a professional with all his weight behind it. The man was lifted off his feet, and landed with a thud flat on his back. By the time he hit the ground, Dominic had returned to Max and the others as if nothing had happened.
Needless to say, we did not see the second half of the show.
No charges were pressed, but we were asked not to bring Dominic back to the arts centre. Jimmy told me afterwards that he thought Dominic was absolutely right to ‘punch that arsehole’. I decided it was probably not appropriate to pass that information along, although I secretly agreed with it.