The Marble Collector

11

When I opened the box of marbles, I opened up a can of worms.

I don’t know if I sensed it when I looked at them, when I held them in my hands and my eyes scanned the inventory, but I knew it when I saw the way Dad’s face changed as soon as he set eyes on the bloodies. And it’s confirmed even further by learning of the messiness my family created simply by the decision of where to store boxes. I don’t know what to do next. It’s the moon, I’ve too many thoughts, can’t process them all at once. Breathe.

Once outside Mickey’s office I call Mum, fuming inside.

‘How’s Miss Marble getting on?’ She laughs at her own joke. ‘Did you see Mickey Flanagan yet?’ I hear the anxiety in her voice and I wonder if she’s afraid of me discovering her lie.

‘Which of Dad’s brothers didn’t want you to store the boxes?’ I ask.

She sighs. ‘Mickey told you. Oh, love, I didn’t want him to tell you.’

‘I appreciate that, Mum, but if I’m going to find these marbles, I need the truth?’

‘You’re really going to look for these missing marbles? Sabrina, love, is everything okay? With you and Aidan? Are you still going to counselling?’

‘Yes, we’re fine,’ I say, as if on autopilot. I should never have mentioned the counselling to Mum, now she thinks everything I say and do is a result of our couple counselling, which I’m going to for Aidan’s sake. I’d be perfectly content not to bother. But I’ve been saying that a lot lately without really thinking about it. Are we fine? I change the subject back. ‘Tell me what happened with the boxes and Dad’s brothers.’

She sighs, knowing she has no choice but to address it, and as she speaks I hear the anger. Not at me but at him, at the situation last year. ‘Angus called me, but it was really all of them that had the problem. They’d heard we’d been around at Fergus’s apartment. They didn’t want me with his belongings. They were fine with you having them, but I told them you had no space. You know the rest.’

I try to picture Angus. I was never particularly close to my uncles and aunts, I never saw them much because Dad didn’t. While growing up I saw them at the odd family event but we never stayed long, Dad was always uptight, somebody would always say something to annoy him and we’d leave early. Mum never protested, she hated his family events too, somebody would always end up in a fight, a drunken cousin flipping over a table of drinks in a fight with a girlfriend, or sisters-in-law who couldn’t keep their sharp tongues to themselves. There was always drama at a Boggs-Doyle event and we rarely went. We spent most of the time popping in, or as Dad would say, ‘Let’s show our faces.’ That’s all he ever wanted to do with his family, show his face. Perhaps that’s all he did with us too, because who is this man I’m learning about?

Angus is the oldest of the brothers, a butcher, so not the one with a van. I think Duncan has the van, but that’s not to say they weren’t all in on it. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them all. I haven’t been dragged to a family do since I was eighteen, and I didn’t invite them to my wedding. Aidan and I had a small one in Spain with twenty guests.

Do I really want to visit Angus to ask him what happened last year? Why didn’t you want my mum to store Dad’s things? Did you want them for yourself so you could steal Dad’s marbles? What a ridiculous line of questioning. And do I really blame the brothers for not wanting Mum to keep their brother’s things? They were absolutely right and I only see that now. At any moment Mum could have decided to throw them on a bonfire, fuelled by wine and a bitter memory of something Dad did to her to make her life a misery, even though she’s now happily remarried.

‘Did you know about him having a marble collection?’ I ask her again, firmly. ‘Did you pack them away in his apartment?’

‘Not at all. I told you that yesterday.’

There is enough annoyance and hurt in her voice for me to believe her.

‘And if I had come across them when we were packing them up, I would have thrown them straight in the skip,’ she says defiantly. ‘A grown man with marbles, honestly.’

I believe her, but it makes me wonder what she came across in the apartment that I didn’t, that she considered not worth keeping. Maybe she wasn’t the right person to help me out at the time. And why am I only thinking of all this now? Guilt is eating away at me. I was busy, I was stressed, I was worried. I should have handled it all better. Perhaps I should have invited his brothers to join us, see if there was anything they’d like, from his past. Perhaps that’s why they were angry with Mum, I didn’t include them in anything. I just took over, thinking I knew everything there was to know about him.

‘Mum, have you remembered what your marble fight with Dad was about?’ I refuse to let that one go. I know she was holding out on me and I need to know as much as I can right now. No more secrets.

‘Oh, I can barely remember now…’ She goes quiet for a moment and I think that’s the end of her answer, when she suddenly continues. ‘We were on our honeymoon, that much I remember. He went wandering off on his own, like he always did, no explanation, then came back after spending months’ worth of our savings on some ridiculous marble.’

I slide the inventory out of the folder as I’m driving, keeping a close eye on the road. I cast my eyes over the list.

‘Was it a heart?’

‘I can’t remember the design.’ She goes quiet. ‘Actually, yes, I think it was. It drove me insane that he would spend all of our money on it. We spent three days in Venice unable to eat a thing, I remember sharing a can of Coke one day because we hadn’t the money for anything else. Silly eejit,’ she says softly. ‘But that was your father all over. By the way, how did you know it was a heart?’

‘Oh. I just… guessed.’

I run my finger over Dad’s handwriting: ‘Heart – damaged. Condition: collectable. Venice ’79.’

So it wasn’t Mum who packed up the marbles, or took from them. I think I’ve established she would have wanted nothing to do with them.

Access. I have to think who had access to the boxes. It wasn’t Mickey, it wasn’t his family. There’s no way of me ever really knowing that for sure, but I have to trust him. Access. Contacting the delivery company from last year seems a long shot: Excuse me, did you ever happen to steal some items you were delivering last year? Maybe Mickey is wrong about the marbles not being in the box when they arrived at his house. Maybe they were taken yesterday, and yesterday’s delivery driver isn’t a long shot.

‘Can I help you, Sabrina?’ Amy asks gently as I walk back into the waiting room.

I try to compose myself. The moon made me do it. ‘I received a delivery from Mickey yesterday, from his home to my dad’s hospital, and I was trying to figure out who delivered it. Do you know anything about it?’

‘Know about it? I spent an entire weekend in that garage, unpaid, arranging deliveries. Not my job, but tell that to Mickey.’

My heart leaps a little, feeling a bit of hope. ‘Were the boxes sealed before you sent them?’ I ask lightly, not wanting to offend her.

‘Oh God,’ she groaned. ‘Yes they were and they were very carefully stored, I can tell you that, but don’t tell me something was broken, or missing.’

‘Well, yes, actually something was missing.’

‘Oh, Looper.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Sorry, it’s Looper. The delivery guy. To explain, yes absolutely the boxes were sealed when I got to them, and I was under strict orders not to open them either. Mickey wouldn’t want me seeing in his stuff – yours weren’t the only ones in there, by the way. There was a bunch of stuff that had to go. Old furniture, clothes, all in storage that hadn’t been touched in years, covered in dust. Anyway, I used Looper to deliver them, Mickey’s nephew. He’s had so many complaints, but I have no choice but to use him. Mickey’s trying to help out family, you know how it is. It’s between you and him, I’m afraid, I can’t get involved, but I can give you his contact details.’

‘Yes please,’ I say happily, feeling that perhaps all is not lost. I’m getting places.

‘Do you know your way around here?’ she asks, handing the address over reluctantly.

‘No but I have satnav.’

Amy bites her lip. ‘Satnav won’t even know where you’re going,’ she says. ‘It’s pretty remote.’

‘It’s okay, I have time,’ I say, moving towards the door. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I feel a surge of excitement.

‘Just be careful, he’s not really a people person, and particularly on a day like today -’ she gestures towards the sky – ‘days like today are made for people like him,’ she adds before I close the door.

I drive to the address Amy has provided, and I look up at the sun and wonder if there’s anything in what Amy said. Is today the day we’re doomed? Or is today the day I’ve finally lost it myself, going on a hunt for some lost marbles that I’ve no real proof ever really existed in the first place. Just a handwritten inventory from I don’t know how many years ago. About to approach a man named Looper in the middle of nowhere and accuse him of stealing.

After driving up and down a few random streets, satnav giving up almost as soon as I pass the town limits, much as Amy warned, I find the right place. Looper, a concerning name in itself, lives in a small bungalow, a Seventies-style build, which has been badly maintained and looks completely run-down. The front yard is covered in car parts, tyres, engines, car hoods, random items strewn about the place. There’s a white van on the front drive, beneath it a pair of legs stick out wearing filthy stone-washed jeans and workman’s boots. A nearby radio blares AC/DC. I pull up outside the front gate and can’t get any further as it’s heavily padlocked with a sign saying ‘No Trespassing – guard dogs on duty’, alongside a picture of two snarling dogs.

I get out of the car and stand at the gate wondering if I have finally lost it.

‘Excuse me,’ I call to the pair of legs, loudly. ‘Looper!’

The legs finally move and slide from under the van. A young man climbs up. He’s got long greasy hair that grows from a well receded hairline, despite his youth, is wearing a white vest covered in oil, sweat and grease and who knows what else. He’s more chunky than muscular but he’s tall and big, like an oaf, something that wouldn’t look out of place in Middle-earth.

He stares at me, wiping a tool on his T-shirt, taking me in, slowly, bit by bit. He stares at the car, then back at me and then slowly saunters towards me with the wrench in his hand, as though he’s got all the time in the world and he’s giving great academic thought as to whether to whack me with it. He doesn’t come to the gate, stops a few strides short. He licks a snake-like tongue over his lips as he looks me up and down. Smacking sounds like I’m his next meal.

‘Are you Looper?’ I ask.

‘Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on who’s asking.’

‘Well… I am.’ I smile. A wobbly one.

Looper doesn’t like this hint of a smile, he thinks he’s being made fun of, doesn’t like this, isn’t sure why, doesn’t understand. Confusion makes him feel less of a man so he behaves like more of a grunt. He hacks up a golly, spits it on the ground in clear protest.

‘You’re the delivery man around here?’

‘The one and only. You got a job for me? ’Cos I’ve got a job for you…’ He gropes his crotch and sneers.

I step back, revolted. ‘Are you Mickey Flanagan’s nephew?’

‘Who’s asking?’

‘Me. Again,’ I say flatly. ‘I’m a client. He sent me here.’ He knows I’m here, I will be missed. Don’t kill me! ‘Did you do a delivery yesterday to Dublin for your uncle?’

‘I do a lot of deliveries to Dublin.’

I sincerely doubt that. ‘Specifically, a hospital.’

‘That where you live?’ he sneers, revealing that the few teeth he has are a greenish colour. He looks me up and down, like a cat would a mouse. He wants to play. His eyes are unusual, a murky colour with not much going on in them or behind them. The thought of this man in possession of my dad’s precious marbles makes me sick. I wouldn’t trust this guy with anything. I look around, mostly for help, for a witness in case it all goes wrong, for a rescuer in case Looper does what I’m thinking he wants to do. There are acres upon acres surrounding the house. A burned-out car sits in the middle of one unfarmed field.

Looper follows my gaze to the fields that stretch into the distance. ‘Pain in my hole. Spuds is all it was ever good for. Daddy was a farmer. Them developers offered him a fortune, he said no, says he’s a farmer what else would he do? Then he went and fucking died and left it to me and no one is interested in buying it now. It’s a waste of space.’

‘Why don’t you farm it?’

‘I’ve my own thing going on here. My garage and delivery business.’

Nothing in this yard vaguely resembles a business.

‘Want to come inside? I’ll show you around.’

I look in the open front door and see mayhem in the house, dirty, piled-up, cluttered mess. I shake my head. I don’t want to pass the gate.

‘You brought five boxes from Mickey’s garage to my dad’s home. Some things are missing from the box and I’m wondering if you could… help me.’

‘You calling me a thief?’

‘No, I would like your help,’ I stress. ‘Did you stop off anywhere? Anybody else have access to your van?’

‘I put them in the van and drove them to Dublin. Simple as.’

‘Did you open the boxes? Could something have fallen out?’

He smiles. ‘Tell you what, I’ll answer your question if you give me a kiss.’

I back away.

‘Okay okay!’ he laughs. ‘I’ll answer your question if you shake my hand.’

That’s bad enough, but I’ll play along. I want him to answer my question.

Looper steps forward. Hand extended. He puts the wrench in his back pocket and raises his hand to show he’s weapon free.

‘Come on. If you shake my hand, I’ll answer your questions. I’m a man of my word.’

I look at the hand suspiciously. I reach out and as he takes my hand, he pulls my arm roughly, pulling me towards him and grabs the back of my neck, and pulls my head close for a kiss. His lips touch mine and I’m stuck in that position. I close mine tight, not letting a part of him get into me. I try to move but I can’t, his hand stays at the back of my neck. I lift my hands to his chest to push him away but he’s too strong and I feel panic rising. Finally he pulls back and licks his lips and howls with laughter.

I wipe at my face furiously, wanting to run to my car. My heart pounding, I look around for help, but he’s not coming after me for any more, he’s standing back laughing.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ I say angrily, wiping my lips roughly. I refuse to leave now without an answer, or even better, without the marbles. This will not be a wasted trip.

Looper looks at me, wrench back in hand, amused. ‘I picked up your boxes from Mickey’s, pulled over on the motorway and had a look through them. Nothing good in it so I sealed them up again and drove to Dublin.’ He shrugs unapologetically. ‘Papers and some kids’ marbles don’t do it for me. I didn’t take a thing. I suggest you look elsewhere.’

And I actually believe him. He wouldn’t have the brains to have looked through the inventory. It’s a book and I doubt he’s ever read a book in his life. He also wouldn’t have the common sense to recognise or link the items on the list to the marbles in the boxes. The person who picked the two most expensive items spent time going through the list, and the marbles, not just a quick pull-over on the road. They took the two most expensive, which would have taken time to discover as the list does not go from low to high, it is categorised by the names of the marbles.

‘Was it worth it?’ he winks as I storm back to the car. ‘Did I help?’ he calls after me.

I start up the engine and drive away. Yes, he helped.

Looper didn’t take the marbles. Those marbles weren’t in the box when they left Mickey Flanagan’s house. I’m absolutely sure of that now. And they weren’t in the boxes when they reached Mickey’s house. So I have to go back. Back to last year. Maybe even further than that.