But George only poked at the food when she served it up. And even after he had washed himself clear of blood there was a new sullenness to him. The cops came and made notes. They spoke kindly to Maria. Immediately after the squad car left, George said he was going out. She passed the evening uneasily, her eyes half-witnessing the events of the world as they were relayed on the news station, no longer caring about them, because her world had shrunk and she was poor in a manner she would not have thought possible.
She went to bed around midnight. She thought she heard George let himself in sometime during the night, turned over, and then slept deeply, because the drama had tired her out.
The following morning she went in to wake him for school, because it was revision week, the last precious week before the Leaving, but his room was empty; his bed had not been slept in, and when she examined the wardrobe she saw that his best clothes were gone. She rang around the neighbours homes but he wasn’t in any of them. And she thought she could sense the little judgements as she hung up each one and phoned another. He wasn’t at school either.
The police did their best but there was no news. Nor would there be for three weeks. A long text arrived saying that he was well and that she was not to worry. He was working in the midlands with a team of block-layers. There was plenty of work and no nee to go abroad. He would not be returning home, he said. In time, he added, he’d replace the money that had been stolen, but she would have to wait. The text was simply signed, ‘George’.
When she read that, she screamed to herself and jumped up and down like a child in a tantrum, clenching her fists, holding her bare knuckles against her teeth in an attempt to silence the screams, but still they emerged from her throat, high and pitiful.
… And so people may have let their thoughts wander as they sat before the television with Maria, listening to her voice repeating the same thing, over and over.
‘Why did he try to hang onto a tinful of money – no matter how much was in it? Didn’t he know his life was worth more to his Ma than an old tin that would be opened to pay some stupid university fees? My boy, oh my lovely boy!’ she wailed. Occasionally she thought of Jorge, George’s father, and of the seed he had planted on her third night in Spain.
Perhaps every action has a double life, the potential for alternatives. In the end, it is only by paying absolute attention to the heart within our hearts – the invisible one which beats beyond the physical, vital with instinct – that we follow the path destined for us. Because no matter how tragic that path may be, it is better than the needless tragedy we bring upon ourselves. We witness daily, on our television screens, tragedy and needless tragedy alike. Even so, we learn nothing.
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