Free The Way We Were by Sinéad Moriarty

needed to get going. It would be best to call later anyway, when the girls were home from school.
    Ben put the necklaces on his bed and grabbed a small backpack with a digital camera, wallet, laptop, mobile phone and his passport. He followed Declan down to the car.
    The vehicle Declan had sourced was a very old, very battered Fiat, which he proceeded to drive like a maniac.
    ‘Christ, where did you learn to drive?’ Ben asked, clinging to the ceiling grab handle.
    Declan grinned. ‘My older brother taught me. He’s a total nutter – he’s written off four cars.’
    ‘That’s very reassuring,’ Ben said. ‘Don’t you have to do driving tests in Ireland?’
    ‘Technically, yes, but my uncle Tommy is one of the examiners, so I passed even though my three-point turn took about ten minutes and I knocked down a fella on a bike when I was coming out of the driving centre.’ Declan roared with laughter.
    ‘Perhaps I should drive?’ Ben suggested, as Declan swerved to avoid knocking down yet another innocent cyclist.
    Declan shook his head. ‘Just relax. I’ll get you there safely. I’ve never crashed.’
    ‘Really?’ Ben was shocked.
    Declan lit a cigarette as he narrowly avoided an oncoming car. ‘Well, not officially.’
    ‘What does that mean?’
    ‘It means I may have had a few bumps along the way, but not exactly owned up to them.’
    ‘You mean you crashed and drove away?’
    ‘In a way, yes.’
    ‘But that’s … completely … just … well, wrong.’ Ben was taken aback.
    ‘Keep your hair on, Ben. Where I grew up in Dublin rules weren’t always obeyed.’
    ‘What part of Dublin are you from? I’ve been there lots of times with my wife Alice – she grew up just outside the city.’
    Declan flicked his cigarette out of the window. ‘I doubt you ever went to my neighbourhood. I grew up in Ballymun. Six kids, three-bedroom flat, single dad.’
    ‘What happened to your mother?’ Ben asked.
    ‘She fecked off with a Polish plumber and we never saw her again. My dad can’t hear Poland mentioned without flying into a mad rage. He was disgusted when the European
Football Cup was held there. He even refused to watch the Irish team matches and he loves his football.’
    ‘Gosh, I’m sorry to hear that. Did you ever hear from your mother again?’
    ‘No. My sister Carol tracked her down when she was eighteen. She saved up for ages and we all gave her a few quid so she could fly to Poland. We told her she was mad, but she’s an only girl and she really missed having a mother. When she got to my mother’s house after travelling for thirteen hours, my mother opened the door, told her to feck off and slammed it shut in her face.’
    ‘Your poor sister!’
    ‘You don’t know our Carol. Instead of falling down crying, she got a big rock and flung it through the front window where my mother’s boyfriend was sitting watching telly. It nearly hit him too.’
    Ben laughed. ‘What did your mother do?’
    Declan lit another cigarette. ‘She came running out and shouted at Carol. But what she forgot was that Carol had sixteen years of pent-up anger and resentment rattling about inside her. So Carol walloped her across the face, told her she was a waste of space and left. The poor girl came back gutted, so we had a “funeral” to cheer her up. My brother Eddie made up a little coffin and we put our mother’s photos into it and burnt it in the kitchen sink. Then we drank a load of booze and said, “Good riddance to the old hag.” Carol felt better after that. Dad was thrilled that we all now knew what a complete cow our mother was.’
    Ben was almost speechless. Declan’s family sounded completely insane and yet there was something very touching about the way they had rallied around their sister. ‘Did it help?’ he asked.
    ‘I think so. Carol hasn’t mentioned her since.’
    ‘How old were you when your mother left?’
    ‘Four.’
    ‘God, that’s young. It must have been hard.’
    Declan