Initially, Helen gamely offered to do the detective work for me – the Jane Marple bit, as she put it – but I told her there was no need. Firstly, as any self-respecting control freak will tell you, either you do the thing properly yourself, or it doesn’t get done. And secondly, whenever you’re cold-calling and trying to find out, let’s just say, information of a sensitive nature, you’ve no idea how much this magic phrase works. ‘Hi there, I’m senior editor of the Post and I’m calling to inquire about …’ Works like a charm every time. When people, and particularly Irish people, realise you’re a journalist, they will open up and tell you absolutely anything, if they think it’ll get their name into the paper. Or better yet, their photo. In colour. For all their mammies and pals to see.
The first part is astonishingly easy. Next day at work, I kick closed the inner door to my office and make the call, being careful to keep my voice discreet, calm and business like.
‘Hello, you’ve reached the Reilly Institute, how may I direct your call?’
A woman’s voice, curt and businesslike. So I explain that I was treated there four years ago and now need urgent access to my patient file. For, ahem, personal reasons. We’re terribly sorry, comes the crisp answer, but I’m afraid we don’t give out that information.
As it happens though, I anticipated this and am prepared for all of this red-tape crapology.
Yes, I fully appreciate that, I tell her, but this is a pretty unique situation. As it happens, I’m about to commission a piece about fertility clinics in the Dublin area and this is all part of the research I’m carrying out for the article, writing of course from the basis of my own personal experience, blah-di-blah. I even tack on, astonishing myself at the sheer brazenness of the fib, that I’d be attaching a full-colour photo of the Reilly Institute, with plugs galore.
Funny how lying through your teeth becomes kind of second nature to you when you’ve worked at the Post long enough. Bit worrying, really.
But it really was that easy. A slight, wavering pause, then a supervisor is called to the phone, so I repeat verbatim the conversation with the carrot attached and we’re away.
My file is reopened and here it is.
Wait for it, his name is William Goldsmith. William Goldsmith. Of course he’s a William, I think a bit smugly, sitting back in my swivel chair and gazing absent-mindedly out the window, in a rare moment of self-indulgence. I like the name William; always have. Sporty, athletic, cultured guys always have names like William I think, suddenly getting a sharp mental picture of Prince William on his wedding day, looking hot to trot in his scarlet army uniform with rows of medals hanging from his well-toned chest.
Best bit of all; he is, or was at least when he filled out all his details at the Reilly Institute, a post-grad student in Trinity College. Then some details I already knew and remembered well, that he’s exactly the same age as me, six foot two, blond, with blue eyes. No address of course, but that I look on as a minor challenge and nothing more.
Jesus, why didn’t I do this years ago?
Never mind Lily wanting to meet him, now I do too.
Right then. Next stop, Trinity College.
I have to sit through another two editorial meetings before I can snatch a quiet bit of alone time to make my next move, itching to get out of there and back to the privacy of my office. Again, I slam the door shut, call Trinity and get put straight onto the registration office. I’m inquiring about a post-grad student by the name of William Goldsmith, I tell them with great confidence. Do you have any forwarding details, or maybe even an address?
I’m put on hold for ages, which allows me more time to drift back into my little fantasy balloon. I’ll bet William is good-looking, the kind of guy you look at and think, yeah, that’s natural selection at work. Bet he’s the kind of guy that otherwise intelligent women lose their thought processes and speech patterns over. Bet he lives in a gorgeous city-centre apartment, conveniently close to college, with amazing panoramic views over the city, where he hosts elegant soirées with everyone talking about the shards of our economy and how exactly they’d go about fixing it. ‘Hi, great to see you, how are your lectures going? Hey, I’m going to William’s for a drink this evening. You know William, William Goldsmith? Of course you do, everyone knows William. He’s just been elected most popular auditor of the Literary and Historical Debating Society ever, in history. Just wondered if you were coming? William’s parties are always the best, you know …’
Could there be a girlfriend or wife in the picture? Hmmm. Possibly. Maybe even other kids too.
But somehow my gut instinct, honed from years of hard-nosed graft at the coalface of journalism, is telling me no. Because let’s face it, leaving a deposit at a sperm bank is hardly the kind of thing guys in long-term relationships tend to do in their spare time, now is it? Unless my antennae are very much off-kilter, I don’t think so. No, I’m thinking, someone as bright and undoubtedly gifted as William (love saying the name over and over, can’t stop myself: William, William, William) probably figured it was an act of selfless humanitarianism on his part to share this tiny part of him with the world. Because don’t genes as rare and special as William’s deserve to be propagated?
‘Sorry to keep you,’ says the warm, friendly lady eventually coming back to the other end of the phone.
‘Not at all,’ I smile, supremely confident that William probably graduated with a first. And might even be lecturing or tutoring there by now, who knew?
‘But I’m afraid there’s a bit of a problem this end.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, but it seems there was no William Goldsmith doing any of our post-grad courses here. Not at any stage in the past four years. It seems we’ve no record of anyone by that name at all.’
Shit, shit, shit. What is going on?
‘Are you absolutely certain? Maybe there’s some kind of mistake?’
‘No mistake, I’m positive. I’ve been through our computer files twice for that period. Nor do we have any record of a William Goldsmith ever studying here. Sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you any further.’
Odd. Why would they have no record of him on computer? But then I quickly snap out of it and think, okay, this is just a dead end, nothing more. A minor clerical error, a bump in the road, a hurdle to be got over, that’s all. I thank her politely, she hangs up and I immediately ask the Trinity switchboard to put me through to security. Because not only is every student required to have a security pass, but I remember from my own college days that no matter who you are, even if you’re working down in the bowels of catering, you can get neither in nor out of the place without one.
Same drill. I slip into my patter of, ‘Hi there, I’m the editor of …’ But if I’m expecting a magical door in the wall to be suddenly swung open, I’m wrong. Instead, it’s slammed shut right in my face with a wallop so violent that it feels like a slap.
‘Sorry love,’ says a bored-sounding guy with a twenty-fags-a-day rasp.
‘That’s classified information, that is.’
‘But, you don’t understand,’ I say, trying to keep the pleading note out of my voice. ‘I’m ringing from the Post, we’re doing a feature you see …’
‘Listen love, I’m not bothered if you’re ringing from the White House, I can’t give out private information about anyone who studied here. More than me job’s worth.’
Okaaaay. From my days as a humble hack, I know how to gamble in a situation like this. Bit below the belt, yes, but sometimes … just sometimes, if you hold your nerve and keep steady, you can hit the jackpot.
‘You know,’ I say, quickly scanning down through my desktop computer to see what shows, events, or film premieres are coming up in Dublin. Anything posh or glamorous that’s considered a hot ticket, I need right now.
‘I’d hate for you to do anything you were uncomfortable with, of course,’ I tell him in my most cajoling voice, ‘but you know, if you were to do this massive favour for me, I’m quite sure I could do the same for you. Quid pro quo and all that.’
‘Quid pro wha’?’
‘Say for instance …’ I scroll down the computer screen in front of me. Bingo. Just what I’m looking for. ‘If you were a fan of U2? I’m just saying that here at the Post we get bombarded with all sorts of free tickets and if you happened to know any fans, I’m sure I could arrange two complimentary tickets for you.’
I’m a bit of a dirty player, I know, but there you go. That’s what years of working at the coalface of journalism will do to you. I leave it hanging there, take a deep breath and wait it out.
Still no response.
‘For the opening night, of course,’ I throw in hopefully. ‘VIP tickets, obviously. Where you’d get to meet the band afterwards, it goes without saying. Backstage.’
I’m almost about to tack on, ‘and if you really want, I can probably fix it so you get to spend the rest of the night quaffing Chateau Rothschild with Bono and The Edge up in their dressing room, chatting about what the hell possessed them to try and make Spider-Man into a Broadway musical.’ Because right now I’m prepared to say absolutely anything at all that might just swing it for me.
But instead a bored yawn comes from down the other end of the phone.
‘Wouldn’t go to see that shower of gobshites if they were playing out in me back garden.’
Oh for God’s sake.
Now what?
Then, after yet another excruciating, long-drawn out pause, I’m suddenly thrown a lifeline.
‘Tell you what though, love. If you could swing me two tickets for the X Factor live show in London, then I might just might be able to do something for you. Strictly confidential though, you know what I’m saying? I mean, if I was ever to be found out, it’d be more than me job’s worth.’
‘Of course, this is totally confidential; and yes, I’ll make sure you get all the X Factor tickets you want.’
How in the name of God I don’t know, but sure I’ll worry about that later.
‘Right so. Gimme your number and I’ll get back to you.’
I do what he says, hang up gratefully and head into my next meeting.
Five o’ clock comes and still no news. Half an hour later, still nothing. My phone’s on silent but somehow I can’t prevent my eye from wandering over to it every five minutes, just to check.
Why hasn’t he got back to me yet? How can something this simple be taking so bloody long?
It’s well past half six in the evening before eventually the call comes. I’m down in the depths of the print room going over the first draft of tomorrow’s layout when my mobile rings and the Trinity number flashes up.
‘Excuse me, I urgently need to take this,’ I tell our duty manager, then skip out of there, desperately looking for somewhere I can take the call with some bit of privacy. Which ends up being at the bottom of a deserted stairwell.
‘Well?’ I hiss, like I’m suddenly in an espionage movie. ‘What have you got for me?’
‘You’ll get a right laugh out of this love, I know I did.’
‘Just tell me!’
‘Oh yeah, turns out you were right. There was a William Goldsmith working here in Trinity, not for long mind, just for about six months or so.’
He worked there? I think, mind racing. Worked as what? A tutor?
‘Now I’ve no phone number, but I do have an address for you.’
‘Brilliant thanks, that’s all I need.’
‘But I’ll tell you something love, if your man told you he was a student here, then I can tell you right now he was talking through his arse.’
‘I’m sorry, what do you mean?’
‘Because the William Goldsmith that’s on record here was from the sanitation department. Over in the residential halls.’
‘What?’
‘He was working as one of the cleaners.’
This is fine, this is okay. Not by any means the end of the world. So William did a fairly menial job to support himself, what’s so wrong with that? I mean, I waitressed my way through college and it didn’t do me any harm. And so technically he never actually studied at Trinity per se, but clearly he was drawn towards academia and who knows? Maybe he just couldn’t afford the fees?
Suddenly I feel a huge pang of sympathy for William, getting a sharp mental image of Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting; gifted guy, high IQ, no money for education, but desperately trying to haul himself up by his bootstraps and make something of himself in the world. And if I’m slightly peeved at him for lying on the Reilly Institute form, then I brush it aside. Because everyone tweaks the truth on those things, don’t they? Let’s face it, claiming to be a post-grad Trinity student on a sperm donor application form is always going to make you sound a far more tempting proposition than the fact you scrub down toilets for a living, isn’t it?
So far, I forgive him. So far, I can even understand where he’s coming from.
So far.
As luck would have it, the address I got for him is actually fairly close to our offices. Flat two, number twenty-four Pearce Square, right behind Trinity College and only a ten-minute walk from here.
An hour later, I’m back upstairs in my office, signing off on tomorrow’s editorial and taking a call from Robbie in foreign affairs at the same time, but somehow I’m finding it impossible to concentrate on either. Or to multitask, like I normally would.
It’s just gone half seven now. I’ve got a window of exactly thirty minutes before my next meeting.
I could, couldn’t I? Just slip out of here for half an hour and race up to Pearce Square? I’d be back in plenty of time and sure no one would see me, I’m sure of it.
Feck it anyway. Don’t think about it, don’t overanalyse it, don’t debate it, just GO. Think of Lily. Remember I’m doing it all for her.
Decision made, in a flash I grab my bag and coat and slip out the office door down to the lift. Everyone seems to have their head buried into a computer screen, so no one even looks up at me or as much as throws me a second glance. Anyway, it’s not like I’ll even be gone that long anyway. Because I only want the answer to a handful of simple questions. Who is he? Where does he come from? Why did he leave Trinity after such a short time, where did he go afterwards and most importantly, what is he at now?
Okay, so maybe more than a handful of questions, but there you go, old journalists’ trick. Saying ‘can I just ask you one thing?’ then sneaking in another fifteen questions and hoping no one will notice.
One thing is for certain, the answer is only a stone’s throw away from here and I know myself well enough to know that it’ll consume me until I’ve completely laid the whole thing to rest. Mind racing, head pounding, I slip my raincoat on and have just made it through the security barrier inside the main door of the Post, one hand on the revolving doors all set to make my escape, when suddenly from behind a voice stops me.
‘Eloise? Surely you can’t be leaving this early, can you?’
Shit, shit, shit.
I don’t even need to turn around to know who it is. There’s only one person I know who speaks in that snivelly, nasal twang.
And there he is, right behind me, Seth Coleman. Looking me up and down like he always does, the unblinking, lizardy eyes taking everything in.
‘Course I’m not leaving, Seth,’ I force myself to half-smile. ‘Just stepping out for … emm …’
‘You’re going OUT?’ Seth says, deliberately stressing it that way. ‘As in, OUTSIDE the building? What on earth for?’
Ahem, good question. Can’t say for coffee, we already have Starbucks in here. If I say personal reasons, sure as eggs he’ll start spreading it around that I’m in the throes of a breakdown and am sneaking off to see a psychiatrist on company time.
Think, think, think …
‘Highly confidential,’ I eventually say, trying to sound as brisk as possible. ‘Can’t possibly give you a name. And you know me, I wouldn’t dream of revealing a source, not under waterboarding. But for safety and security reasons, we’ve got to meet on neutral ground.’
OK, now it sounds like I’ve suddenly morphed into Bob Woodward in All The President’s Men, about to meet Deepthroat in some deserted underground car park.
‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,’ Seth sniffs, whipping a monogrammed white hanky from his breast pocket and wiping his long, bony nose with a flourish, a mannerism of his that, quite irrationally, drives me up the walls. I mean who in this day and age still uses linen hankies anyway?
‘Couldn’t you simply have assigned this lead to one of the dozens of reporters still in the building, who’d only relish a new story?’ he asks, eyebrows arching skywards. ‘It’s not as though the editor has time to run around chasing up every single lead that lands in here. Surely your skills would be put to far better use elsewhere?’
‘Thanks for your concern,’ I snap back at him, sounding rude and not even bothering to conceal my waspishness. ‘But my source would meet me and only me, in person, and frankly I’m not prepared to discuss the matter any further.’
Nosey, slimy git … Who does he think he is anyway? Telling me how to do my job?
‘Well, I’ll see you back here for our next news conference in half an hour then,’ he throws back at me, still sounding unconvinced, as I turn on my heel and stomp off.
Imagine Seth Coleman going to a sperm bank, I find myself furiously thinking as I belt my raincoat tight around me and stomp down the street. Jesus, and some poor misguided woman unwittingly giving birth to his child?
Doesn’t even bear thinking about.
It’s freezing cold, wild and windy and takes me the guts of about ten minutes to get to Pearce Square, just off busy, bustling Pearce St, only finally clearing itself of rush hour traffic now. The address I have is for number twenty-four, and I find it easily enough. Small, corporation two-up, two-down redbrick, a nothing-special kind of house in an identical terrace of houses just like it, with no ornamentation of any kind to be seen, not a bedding plant or a window box in sight, nothing.
I press the doorbell and wait. And wait. Press again, still nothing. I wait a bit more, then glance anxiously at my watch and decide I’m only wasting my time and might as well get back to work before I’m missed. I’m just about to admit defeat and head back, when an elderly woman in a headscarf battling against the wind and pushing one of those tartan wheelie shopping trolleys that old ladies love so much shuffles by, notices me, then stops dead in her tracks.
‘Are you looking for Michelle, love?’ she asks, sounding genuinely concerned about me, looking as out of place as I do in my little black power suit and briefcase in the middle of a residential corporation estate.
I must look like I’ve come to foreclose on a mortgage.
‘I’m sorry, did you say Michelle?’ I ask. Michelle? Some girlfriend of William’s, maybe?
‘Yes, that’s the owner of number twenty-four. She rents out rooms for a few extra quid, cash only, sure you know yourself.’ Then suddenly, she clamps her hand over her mouth, like she’s only just realised the full import of what she’s said and is now desperately trying to claw the sentence back from out of thin air.
‘Ah here … You’re not by any chance from the Inland Revenue are you?’
‘No, no I’m not …’
‘Because when I said she only takes cash, I didn’t really mean it the way it came out, honest to God I didn’t …’
‘It’s absolutely fine,’ I reassure her and she looks so petrified that I nearly want to smile. ‘I promise you, I don’t work for the tax office, but what I’m actually trying to do is trace someone who used to live here … who might even live here still …’
‘Lot of tenants came through here, love.’
‘Yes but you see, there’s one in particular …’
‘Michelle’s the best person for you to ask then. But you’ll never get her home at this time.’
‘Do you know where I might find her?’
‘Course love, she’ll be in work by now. She always starts early, round this time. You should get her there.’
‘And where’s that exactly?’
‘The Widow Maguire’s pub. Only ten minutes down the road from here. Michelle does a lovely chicken and chips in a basket, you should give it a try if you haven’t had your dinner yet.’
‘Great, thanks so much, you’ve been really helpful.’
‘Not at all love. They’ll be delighted with the extra bit of business.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Oh, health and safety closed them down a few weeks back. Something about mouse droppings in the kitchen. But I’m sure it’s all sorted out by now.’
Lovely.
As if on cue, the heavens start to open and of course I can’t get a cab, so I’m like a bedraggled, drowned rat by the time I find the pub and burst in out of the lashing rain. It’s a Thursday night so the place is fairly busy, though the clientele seems to be predominantly male and with an average age of about seventy-five. A real old-fashioned man’s drinking bar.
Like in a Western, the minute I step through the door, soaking to the skin and clutching a soggy copy of today’s Post as a makeshift umbrella, all eyes turn to me and unless I’m very much mistaken, the whole place gets that bit quieter. Gravelly voices drop to whispers as they all take me in, looking utterly out of place as I must.
Aware that time is ticking and that I need to get back to the office ASAP, I steel myself and approach a bosomy, middle-aged woman with a spiky, gelled-back haircut behind the bar, who’s ostensibly wiping beer glasses as she takes me in from head to Prada heels, clearly wondering whether I’m from the Health Board and am now about to flash a scary looking ID badge in her face and demand to see the insides of her toilet cisterns.
‘Excuse me, are you Michelle Hughes, by any chance?’
‘Who wants to know?’ she says guardedly, eyes slit, arms folded, fully prepared for trouble.
I give her the whole hi-there-I’m-from-the-Post spiel and tell her all I’m doing is trying to track down a tenant that was traced to her house, one William Goldsmith. My subtext of course being that I’m one hundred percent, absolutely nothing to do with either the Health Board or the Revenue Commissioners and have no comment or quibble whatsoever to make on whatever under-the-counter business dealings she has going on the side.
‘William who? No, definitely not, never heard of him,’ she snaps and just like that, it’s conversation closed and back to wiping glasses.
‘Oh come on, you must remember something; anything at all would help me. Tall guy? Probably fair-haired? Blue eyed? Working not far from here, in Trinity?’ I plead with her. Then just in case there’s some reason she’s afraid to open up to me, I tack on, ‘Look, I’m not any kind of official or anything and no one’s in trouble here. I just need to find him, that’s all. Please. Anything you can tell me would be a huge help.’
There’s something in the half turn away she does that makes me think … Yes! I might, just might be onto something here.
‘Well, now I come to think of it, I did have a fella who looked a bit like that lodging in the house about two or three years ago, yeah,’ she says, a dim spark of recognition in her eyes as she turns back to me. ‘He’s long gone now but I do remember him; quiet fella, kept himself to himself, always with his nose stuck in some book.’
‘Yes, yeah, I’m sure that’s him,’ I say excitedly. Don’t even know why except that in my mind’s eye William struck me as a bookworm. God knows, Lily certainly is and she can’t even read properly yet.
‘But that name you gave me, it’s wrong.’
‘Sorry?’
‘William … whatever you said, whatsit.’
‘Goldsmith?’
‘No,’ she says, flinging a tea towel over a broad shoulder and racking her brains. ‘At least that wasn’t what he called himself round here. The fella I’m thinking of had a different name … Billy, Billy something …’
‘Billy O’Casey is who you mean, you eejit,’ says the barman barging into our conversation, a moustachioed, improbably suntanned guy in his mid-fifties, who if not for the Dub accent I’d only swear was Italian.
‘That’s it! Thanks Tommo,’ says Michelle, playfully pucking him with her tea towel. ‘Billy O’Casey, God how could I forget that name? And I’ll tell you something else too; that stupid fecker just upped and shagged off without paying me my last month’s rent.’
‘You think that’s bad?’ says the barman. ‘Do I have to remind you about the size of the tab he ran up in here?’
Next thing, an overweight guy with what looks like two arses trailing behind him saunters in from having had a cigarette and pulls up his seat at the bar.
‘You all talking about Billy O’Casey?’ he butts in. ‘’Cos I’ll tell you something. If I ever as much as set eyes on that fella again, I’ll rip the bleedin’ head off him.’
‘So how much does he owe you then?’ asks Michelle, suddenly all interested.
‘Best part of two hundred euro, love. I won it in the darts tournament here and he was quick enough to ask me for a lend of it. Course that was around the same time he did his disappearing trick and I never saw or heard of him again.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Useless fecker.’
‘Gobshite.’
‘If he ever shows his face in here again, I’ll kick his arse all the way back to Darndale …’
‘You and me both.’
Right then, this could go on for quite some time, so I step in.
‘Sorry about this, but I’m in a bit of a rush and was wondering if any of you knew where he went?’
‘Are you mad?’ says the overweight guy. ‘Sure if I did, I’d be straight after him to get my money back, wouldn’t I? Then I’d beat the crap out of him. In that order.’
Okay, I think on my feet as I race back through the rain to the office for my next meeting. So he’s not a misunderstood, down-on-his-luck tortured genius who put up with a menial job in Trinity just so he could hover around the fringes of academia.
No, instead he’s a fly-by-night who absconds without paying rent, runs up bar tabs he doesn’t pay and borrows cash he never bothers to give back. With a highly annoying habit of changing his name to boot.
You know something? The more I hear about Lily’s father, the less curious I am about him and the more urgent it becomes for me to somehow track him down. To see exactly what it is that I’m dealing with here, and – once a control freak, always a control freak – maybe even see if I can troubleshoot the problem in some way before it’s too late.
Because there’s no doubt about it; Helen’s right. If I don’t do it now, the day sure as hell will come when Lily will. And it would just stab me to the heart if she were ever to find out her dad was some drug addict strung out on methadone, who spent his time sleeping in doorways and park benches. Which frankly, is where my instincts tell me this modern day Greek tragedy is headed.
Darndale … the barman mentioned something about Darndale …
By Wednesday, I’ve run about fifteen searches on a Billy or Bill O’Casey from Darndale, and the database that we use in the office – bit like the one police use – throws up no less than fifty-nine men with that name, all with a Darndale address. A thin lead, but hell, it’ll just have to do me. I narrow down the search a bit by adding in his age, and that suddenly cuts it down to a more manageable three. One is a hairdresser who’s been running his own business in Coolock for the past fifteen years, so I discount him immediately.
Which only leaves two.
By Thursday, with further shameless use of the office database, I have addresses. And by Friday, two full free hours to spare in my schedule – a minor miracle for me. (The result of further shuffling around of meetings and one out and out whopper of a lie to Rachel at reception; I told her there was ‘someone I have to meet in person, back in an hour.’) Please God, they’ll all assume it’s some super-shy source that I’m gently coaxing into going on the record in some top-secret, soon-to-be-released story that I think so worthy of my attention, it’ll pay dividends by quadrupling our sales.
Even though the traffic is mercifully light, it still takes almost half an hour to get to Darndale which, be warned, ain’t posh. The main street is full of pubs, bookies and chippers … The shops that don’t have metal hoarding sprayed with graffiti pulled down over them, that is. Nor are there any cute neo-Victoria urns with bay trees flanking elegant doorways here, and not a four-wheel drive to be seen. No two ways about it; I’m not in Kansas any more, Toto.
The first address I have is for Primrose Grove, a vast, sprawling social housing estate which makes me feel like I’m driving straight onto the set of a Roddy Doyle novel come to life. Kids running round the place everywhere, playing soccer on the road, then screeching at me and thumping on the bonnet of my car while I gingerly try to drive through a gang of them without running over their ball. I even see a heavily pregnant women pushing a buggy while sucking on a fag at the same time.
Now it’s not that I’m easily intimidated – I cut my teeth as a junior reporter trawling through far worse hellholes than this, let me tell you, and I lived to tell the tale. It’s just that I’m suddenly aware of how much I stand out in my brand new car, wearing my uniform of black Reiss suit, black Gucci shoes, black glasses, black shirt, black tights, black everything – including a matching black soul, if you’re to believe the vast majority of my work colleagues. But looking round me now, I realise the smart thing would have been to do what I used to on assignments like this years ago; gone undercover in a bra top, a pair of sprayed-on jeans and wheeling a buggy while sucking on a fag. If I’d really wanted to blend in, that is.
Takes me ages and a lot of U-turns to finally find the number I need, but finally I hit on the house I’m looking for and thank God, there’s a car with a taxi plate on it parked right outside. Which means, with a bit of luck, that there’s someone home. I hop out of my car and ring the doorbell. And wait. Sounds of the TV blaring from inside the front room window beside me; some daytime TV show, Cash in the Attic or similar.
I ring again. Wait. And again. Then suddenly start wondering about what in hell I’ll say to him if he’s home and opens the door to me.
Hi there, you don’t know me, but I’m the mother of your child? Ehhh, no, don’t think so. Hi there, approximately four years ago, did you by any chance go to a sperm bank and leave a deposit? Because in that case, have I got news for you …
Have I really thought this through? I suddenly start to fret as beads of inconvenient worry sweat starting to leak right down to my ribcage. Because all I know about this particular Billy O’Casey is what I got on the office database. I know what his social security number is, I know that he’s got four penalty points on his driving licence and I also know that he once got out of jury service on account of an elderly relative he had to take care of.
Me, who’s famous for having plans and more plans and five year plans and plans within plans. Now here I am, standing on a total stranger’s doorstep feeling like I’m carrying the third secret of Fatima and I haven’t the first clue how I’m even going to phrase what I have to say to him.
All I know is that the conversation I’m about to have with him is bound to come as a shock. God almighty, he’ll probably think I’m here to demand maintenance money and back payments on three years of child support. But on the principle that I’ve come this far and have precious little to lose, I give the door one last and final hammering. Still nothing, just the sound of some TV show going on about a vase from the nineteen fifties that’s now worth a life-altering eighteen euro. I’m just about to turn on my heel and leave when an upstairs window is opened from right above me and I hear a man’s voice yelling down.
‘Ah here, what’s all the bleedin’ racket down there?’
I look up and see a guy about my own age with his head half stuck out a bedroom window, wearing just a vest and not much else.
‘Ehhh, sorry to bother you,’ I yell back up at him, ‘but I was wondering if you could help me?’
‘What, like now? This minute? Give us a bleedin’ break, would you? I’m not long off my shift, I’ve been out in my taxi since two this morning, love …’
I know I’ve only got a moment before he snaps the window shut and heads back to bed, so I go for it.
‘I’m looking for a Billy or Bill O’Casey. Any idea where I can find him?’
‘You’re talking to him.’
‘I’m sorry, you’re Bill O’Casey?’
‘Yeah, what’s it to you?’
Okay, in that case this is absolutely, definitely not him. No DNA test required here, this is one hundred per cent not Lily’s Dad.
‘Emm … Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No problem at all, my mistake entirely. I’m terribly sorry to disturb you, but I’m afraid I’ve got the wrong address. My own stupid fault, please forgive me, so sorry to have disturbed you …’ I mumble up at him, backing out of there and inching towards my car.
‘Does that mean I can go back to sleep now?’ he growls back down at me sarcastically.
‘Yes of course, and apologies again …’
I hope back into the car and reverse out of there, feeling deflated, but not defeated. Not yet. A text comes through from Helen, anxious to know how I’m getting on, so I call her.
‘Well?’ she says hopefully, having to raise her voice over the sound of Lily bashing away at the piano in the background. Then as soon as she realises Auntie Helen is on the phone to me, I can hear her asking in her little-angel voice, ‘has she found my daddy yet? Is he coming to see me soon?’
It would stab you right to the solar plexus, it really would. My heart aches with an indescribable pain just wondering what’s going through the poor child’s head right now.
‘Shhh darling, let me talk to Mummy for a minute.’ I can hear Helen soothing her and giving her big mwah, mwah kisses on her tiny head.
Ordinarily I’d get another stab just at hearing this, usually one of pure jealousy, to my shame. That someone else was mothering Lily right now, while I’m stuck like a gobshite on a housing estate in deepest Darndale, on a possible fool’s errand.
But not now. Not when the person I’m doing all this for is Lily.
Besides, I’m now working to a clear-cut plan. Because who knows, maybe I can help this guy, whoever and wherever he is? Give him some kind of leg up in life, so that when the day inevitably comes when Lily does get to meet him, he can be someone she’s actually proud of, with a job and a car and a mortgage and healthcare and a pension plan. Not some flake who changes his name and skips off without paying back money he owes. I haven’t exactly done a huge amount of good for other people in my life, but there’s no reason why that can’t end here and now, is there?
And there’s something else too, something that’s really taken me by surprise. Because tedious as this is; rough, even scary as it is; somehow doing all the plodding footwork is reminding me of another lifetime ago, when I first started out as a rookie reporter and was constantly sent off on humble doorstepping jobs like this. Long, long before I started fast-tracking my way up to the glorified heights of the editorial suite on the executive floor, that is.
Most journalists look down their noses on and despise that kind of work, but it’s seen as a sort of apprenticeship; necessary flames you’ve got to walk through before you get to sit behind a cushy desk and bash out stories from there. And in the weirdest way, I hadn’t quite realised how much I missed those days, which almost seem carefree now when I think back. The sheer adrenaline rush of chasing down a story, of trying to coax people into going on the record, of racing back to pass your story by your editor before the deadline, then the thrill of seeing it in print with your name attached, up beside an ‘additional reporting by’ tagline.
Course back then, like just about every other hack in town, I’d gripe and whinge about the interminably long days and even longer freezing nights spent shivering outside housing estates where I was waiting on some suspected drug baron to either fall in the door drunk (whereupon I’d smile sweetly at him, shove a tape recorder under his nose and get whatever incriminating statements he slurred on record), or sometimes even better, an off-the-record interview with a wife or girlfriend, many of whom liked to say far more than their prayers and would happily jabber away to me, blissfully unaware that it would all appear in print the next morning.
But when I cast my mind back and compare it with the treadmill of stress that my life is now, I think, ahh, those were the days. Didn’t know I was born. Sometimes it’s not being at the top that’s the truly joyous part of success, it’s getting there.
‘No sweetheart,’ I hear Helen tell Lily soothingly down the phone, ‘no chocolate fudge till after you’ve eaten up all your pasta, good girl. Eloise, are you still there? Sorry about that,’ she says, her voice less muffled as she comes back to me. ‘So what’s happening where you are? Any sign?’
‘No go,’ I sigh, ‘forget it, I’m out of here.’
‘What do you mean? Were you not able to find Bill O’Casey?’
‘No, I found him alright. But he’s the wrong guy.’
‘How do you know? Did you ask him? Was he the right age and height and eye colour and all that?’
‘Oh yeah, he ticked some of the boxes alright, but trust me, he’s definitely not Lily’s father.’
‘How come you’re so sure?’
‘Not that difficult to work out really. Because he’s black.’
And now with the clock ticking against me, I’m down to my last and final lead. And if this doesn’t work out … then that’s it. I have no Plan B. Another address in a Darndale housing estate, all of which seem to be inappropriately named after flowers. Primrose Court, Tulip Drive, Rose Gardens … and the one I’m looking for is Daffodil Terrace.
By far the worst one yet. At least the other estates didn’t have burnt-out cars abandoned on the side of the roads; I even have to inch the car past a mattress dumped right in the middle of the street. There’s a green in the middle that all the houses centre around and I’m not joking when I tell you it looks like a fly-tipper’s idea of a paradise dumping ground. No kids paying soccer in the streets here; they probably all reckon it’s too dangerous, even for them.
I speed up a bit, anxious to do what I came for and get the hell out of here fast. All the houses are identical apart from the graffiti that’s sprayed along most of them and with a sinking heart, I finally find the one I’m looking for. I pull up, park, then trip up the driveway and knock at the door in the most non-threatening way I can.
Subtext; trust me! I am neither a debt collector nor someone who’s come round to repossess your furniture. I Swear!
This particular Bill O’Casey I know least about of all. No social security number, which is odd, in fact no records of any kind whatsoever. Like he’s just a vague shadow of a person, almost as if I’m chasing down a ghost. I mean, who doesn’t have a social security number in this day and age?
Not a long wait, then Hallelujah be praised, I’m in luck. The door opens and an old, old lady, almost bent double with arthritis, is standing in front of me, with parchment-thin skin and hair the exact colour and texture of a Brillo pad. In fact she looks so frail that I immediately feel guilty for having dragged her all the way out to the front door and half want to steer her back inside, wrap her in a nice warm blanket and plonk her down in front of the daytime soap operas, then make her a big mug of Complan.
‘Have you come to read the meter?’ she asks in a feathery, wispy voice, as the smell of the house hits me in the face; Lily of the Valley perfume mixed in with something else, almost like a combination of damp and that antiseptic that you get in hospitals.
‘No, I’m so sorry to disturb you …’
‘Meals on Wheels?’
‘I’m afraid not. I’m actually looking for a Billy O’ Casey and I was told that he lives here. I don’t suppose you’d have any idea where I could find him?’
‘Speak up, will you?’
‘Sorry … Do you know where I can find BILL O’CASEY, by any chance?’
‘Who did you say?’
‘BILL O’CASEY.’
There’s a pause for a moment while she thinks and for a split second her pale grey eyes look sharply at me, while she weighs up whether or not I can be trusted.
And decides no. Slowly, she shakes her head.
‘No, no, I’m sorry dear, you must have the wrong house.’
She goes to close the door, but I move to stop her.
‘Please, it’s very important that I speak to him and I promise he’s not in any kind of trouble. I just wanted to ask him a few …’
‘No Bill O’Casey here love, and there never was.’
‘If you had a forwarding address, or better yet, a phone number?’
‘Have to go, Emmerdale is starting now and it’s my favourite soap.’
Door slammed, end of interview.
It’s at this point I start to get frustrated.
Given the sheer mentalness of the rest of my day, I have to abandon the search here and get back to the office, but throughout all my afternoon and night meetings, the same thought keeps buzzing round my head, playing over and over again on a loop.
That old lady definitely knew something and was covering up. But why?
One thing is for certain, I think as I sit at my desk bashing out a first draft of tomorrow’s editorial: from this point on, I have nothing. Not one more shred to go on. Nothing. Helen calls to see if there’s news and I fill her in.
‘So that’s it then?’ she asks, deflated. ‘We’re at the end of the line, I suppose.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ I tell her firmly. ‘Helen, let me tell you something. Chasing down any lead is always a nightmare, with doors constantly slamming in your face while you hurtle your way from one dead end to another. Know what separates a good reporter from the herd?’
‘No, what?’ she answers automatically.
‘They don’t give up, don’t take no for an answer and most importantly of all, they call in the big guns.’
I’m in too deep here to let this go. Call me an obsessive-compulsive (and believe me, plenty do) but if it’s the last thing I do, I’m tracking down Lily’s dad and I’m going to help him. Okay, so maybe right now he doesn’t exactly sound like a desirable character who I’d ever want her to be around, but Helen is right. The day will surely come, years from now, when Lily will want to know more. And more than anything, I want her to be proud of him when she does meet him – and to stay proud of him. Sure, maybe this guy has a flaky, shady past, but just wait till I get my hands on him. I’ll bring him up squeaky clean. I will be like a sort of female Henry Higgins to his Eliza Doolittle.
I’ll make him respectable, if it bloody kills me.
Then, in years to come, he’ll thank me and credit me with helping him live a normal ordinary life, not one where he faffs round from one address to another, changing names, changing jobs, the works. Whoever and wherever you are, I sent out a short, silent message to the Universe, you have no idea how over this part of your life is. Time for your Act Two, and this time mate, I’m the puppet-master pulling the strings.
As it happens, I do have one last, single ace in the pack. It’s a long shot, but who knows, it might just be worth it. Years, years, years ago, when I was young and struggling with a story, I always had a Plan B. Namely, one Jim Kelly – a stringer who used to work as a freelance for a number of papers, but now that he’s semi-retired you’ll often see his name popping up as an ‘additional source’ on TV investigative documentaries and whistleblower shows.
Jim I know of old; everyone does. He’s a wizened, senior hack of the Marlboro-smoking, vodka-drinking-during-working-hours school, who cut his teeth working undercover primarily on crime stories and was hugely instrumental in bringing down more than one underworld boss. Rumour has it that one high profile drug trafficker, now serving a stretch in a maximum security prison, has a price on Jim’s head – to such a worrying extent that police have apparently offered Jim a place on the witness protection programme.
Stout heart that he is though, he told them where to shove it and continues on with his work regardless.
Soon as I get a spare minute, I call him and fill him in on what I need.
A long-drawn-out cough, then wheezily, he comes back to the phone.
‘I’m not promising anything,’ he says in his throaty voice, ‘but I’ll do what I can.’
Gratefully, I give him the thin scraps of information I have and I can hear the scratch of his pen off a notebook as he takes it all down. Jim’s the best in the business. If he can’t find this guy, then no one can.
‘One thing,’ he growls before hanging up.
‘Yeah?’
Without him having to say another word, I know what’s coming next and mentally steel myself.
‘Why? Why this guy? What’s he to you?’
I sigh and try to make my answer sound as flippant as possible.
‘Jim, can we just say that it’s for personal reasons?’
The week goes by in such a blur of meetings, deadlines and conferences, that I barely have time to give the whole thing another thought. The only time this impinges on my consciousness is whenever I call Lily for one of our little chats during the day and she’ll say, sweet as you like, ‘Mama, Mama! I’m having the best time EVER with Auntwie Helen and I never want another nanny ever again! I want her to live with us forwever!’
‘That’s wonderful, pet, but you know Auntie Helen will have to go back to Cork soon, and Mama’s going to have to find another minder for you …’
‘NO! NO other nanny! I only want Auntwie Helen FORWEVER!’
I sigh deeply and mark this under the mental file, ‘to be dealt with later’.
‘AND you know what else, Mama?’
‘No bunny, tell me.’
‘I know what I’m going to wear when I get to meet my daddy! And I leawned a new tune on the piano to play for him! AND I drawed a picture of me and him too!’
‘Well you know sweetheart,’ I tell her gently as I can, ‘we’re all doing out very best to find him, but maybe he doesn’t live here any more. Maybe he’s moved to another country,’ I tell her, desperately trying to shield her from disappointment. But of course, she’s not even three yet. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word disappointment.
‘You’ll find him Mummy,’ she tells me proudly. ‘You can do anything! You’re like Superwoman ‘cept only better!’
Thursday afternoon and still no word back from Jim, not a progress report, nothing. I text him and get a curt message back saying, ‘BACK OFF AND GIMME A CHANCE, WILL YOU?’
Fair enough. Tail between my legs, I meekly do as I’m told.
The weekend comes and goes, and still nothing. Then, just as I’ve abandoned all hope and am wondering how in hell I’ll break it to Lily, Jim calls me out of the blue the following Monday afternoon.
‘Where are you?’ he asks gruffly, but then that’s Jim for you. Never any kind of a preamble or a hello-how-are-you, none of the above.
‘In the office.’ Where else would I be?
‘Can you get out of there for half an hour? I need to talk to you, face to face.’
I glance at my watch. Could I somehow find a window to get out of here? I tap on the computer screen to bring up today’s schedule, but I’m totally chocka. I’m about to ask him if I can call him back later and see if I can squeeze something in then, but he’s having none of it.
‘I’ll be in the underground car park off Abbey Street in ten minutes. Just be there.’
Oh Christ, if anyone sees me?
Somehow though, I manage to slip out of the office undetected, asking poor, puzzled Rachel to tell anyone who’s looking for me that I’ll be right back. Her stunned expression at something this unheard of says it all. Like I’ve just told her that I’ve handed in my notice and am now off to start selling copies of The Big Issue on the corner of Tara St.
Sweating and palpitating, heart pounding so that the sound of the blood pumping through my ears almost deafens me, I get into my car and weave my way through the heavy early evening rush hour traffic all the way to the Abbey St. car park.
He must have news for me, he must have …
My mobile is beeping the whole way there, but I ignore it and keep driving, just focusing on the road ahead.
Mouth dry, chest walloping, I eventually get to the car park and mercifully, there’s no queue to get in. I slide the car down the ramp inside, take a ticket and then slowly drive round in circles. Next thing, the passenger door of my car is opened, nearly giving me a quadruple heart attack as Jim jumps in, looking even more wizened and gnarled than I remember him, a trail of cigarette smoke wafting after him.
‘Park over there, in the right, then turn off the engine,’ he barks at me and I obediently do as I’m told. But then, there aren’t too many people who contradict Jim on a regular basis.
Next thing, he’s fumbling round his jacket pocket then producing a battered notebook which he flips open and starts referring down to.
‘Just out of curiosity Eloise,’ is his opener, ‘where in the name of arse did you come across this waster anyway? I mean, look at you. And look at your life. What I can’t figure is, what’s the guy to you? What can a tosser like him possibly have to do with you?’
I look pleadingly across at him.
‘OK if I say “don’t ask”, and let’s just leave it at that?’
He shakes his head, sending dandruff flakes flying everywhere, and gets back to his notes.
‘Well for starters, the fecker keeps changing his name. I traced him from Darndale where he was calling himself Bill or Billy O’Casey, to D.C.U. …’
‘D.C.U.?’ I interrupt. Dublin City University. What is it about this guy and universities?
Suddenly I start to feel an irrational hope. I knew it. I knew we were dealing with a rough diamond here, someone with a thirst for knowledge, wanting nothing more than to pull himself up in the world …
‘– where he changed his name again. This time to James Archer.’
‘Changed his name again?’
‘Yeah, signed up for a creative writing course but then dropped out after only three weeks …’
‘But why would he do that?’
‘For Christ’s sake, let me finish, will you? So that’s about two years ago and then he resurfaces again, but this time he’s calling himself Brown. Robert Brown. Got a job working in a Statoil garage on the Long Mile Road and was sharing a flat with two other guys, let’s just say who are known to Gardai.’
Okay. ‘Known to Gardai’ is not a phrase that you want to hear when trying to trace the father of your child.
‘… And from this point on the search starts to get interesting. So I fished around a bit, asked a few questions, talked to a couple of contacts that I have and it turns out this guy has fallen in with a right shower of messers.’
‘How … Just how bad?’ My voice sounds tiny, like it’s coming from another room.
‘All of them have criminal records the length of your arm, been in and out of remand homes since they were in nappies. Nothing major, not long stretches, but this gang your man is in with, they’ve done time for breaking and entering, shoplifting, car theft, you name it. So I make a few more inquiries …’
‘… And?’ I’m nearly hopping off the edge of my seat now, half-dreading what’s coming next.
‘… And surprise surprise, he’s only gone and changed his name again, which doesn’t make my job any easier. Calls himself Oscar Butler now …’
‘Oscar Butler?’ I can’t help myself from repeating out loud. It sounds so makey-uppy, as Lily would say.
‘I know,’ Jim nods in agreement at me. ‘Some of the places this guy hangs out and some of the gang he’s in with, I’m surprised he didn’t get his head kicked in for going round the place calling himself by a tosser’s name like that. Anyway, he leaves the Statoil garage after only a few months, owing a lot of people he worked with money I might add, and then he goes all quiet. Takes me a full two days to track the fecker down after that, but I get a lead that a mate of this guy’s was involved in a burglary case, and your guy was his driver. Only by then he’s changed his name again …’
‘Jesus,’ I mutter under my breath, slumping my head over the steering wheel.
‘So this time, I talk to a contact of mine who’s in the Gardai. And suddenly I’m onto something. Things start hotting up. So I ask round a bit more and just about an hour ago, I nailed it.’
I look mutely across at him, half-dreading what’s coming next.
‘For starters, his real name is Jake Keane.’
‘And do you know where he is?’
‘Oh yeah, that was the easy part. As it happens, I can tell you exactly where he is, right this very minute.’
Oh God, I think I might need to breathe into a paper bag.
‘Don’t get a shock, OK?’
‘Tell me,’ I say hoarsely. ‘I need to know.’
Next thing Jim’s looking at me kindly, almost paternally.
‘You just listen to me first though. Whatever’s going on Eloise, just take my advice and drop it right here and now. Trust me, it’s not worth it and if you go any further, you’re going to get yourself into a whole lot of trouble.’
‘Please … Please just tell me.’
‘Jake Keane is in prison. Just coming to the end of a two year stretch. And I don’t think you want to know what he’s in for either. But it’s not for having an expired TV licence; I can tell you that for nothing.’
I try to thank him, but for some reason, no words will come out of my mouth.