We walked on a bit more and went down a lane I’d never been down before. It led us out on to the ‘metals’, which was a lane running from Dalkey to Dun Laoghaire.
We had to cross an old railway bridge to get onto the ‘metals’. The bridge scared me. It looked so old and rusty I was sure it would crash to the ground as soon as we stepped on to it.
‘Hurry up,’ Mammy hassled. She was already in the middle of the bridge. ‘Hurry up!’
I trod as lightly as I could and edged my way along. When I reached the middle where Mammy was, she pointed over the edge.
‘Climb up there and see if you can see any trains coming,’ she told me.
I could see if a train was coming by looking through the wire mesh on the bridge. I didn’t need to climb up, and I was too frightened to.
‘No, Mammy,’ I said, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘Please, Mammy, no. I don’t want to. I’m frightened I’ll fall.’
I stood my ground and didn’t go up, so Mammy grabbed the laundry bag from me and we carried on walking, turning left up a side road that led us up into Dun Laoghaire town, where we ended up at the Christian Institute.
It was an old red-brick building, and Mammy had told me that, years ago, it used to be a library and she went to dances there with Daddy when they were dating.
She walked up the steps of the building saying she wondered if she could still see the dance floor through the window. She made me look through a side window, but I had to lean over to see in, and my stomach hurt. I turned to tell Mammy my tummy was hurting and saw a police car driving towards us. It was slowing down, and I knew it was going to stop.
‘Mammy,’ I hissed. She was peering though the big front gates of the Institute.
‘Mammy, the police are here.’ The car was pointing towards Dalkey, and pulled up in front of us. There were two policemen inside.
‘Are you all right, ladies?’ one of them asked.
‘Yes, Officer. We are just on our way home from visiting relatives,’ Mammy answered, before turning on her heels and walking off in the opposite direction to Dalkey.
I started to walk off in front of Mammy and she pulled me back.
‘Walk on the outside of the pavement near to the road,’ she said. ‘And keep the bag between us.’
‘Where are we going, Mammy?’ I asked. ‘What are we doing?’
She told me we were going to see a furniture shop that belonged to a friend of Daddy’s.
We passed by the old cinema house called the Adelphi, which had been boarded off. Mammy told me she went to the cinema with Daddy when they were courting. ‘Look through the fencing to see if the cinema has been knocked down yet,’ she told me. I was relieved now that Mammy wasn’t angry with me. She was reminiscing, as I’d heard her do so many times. I knew it wasn’t really like any other night, because we had the bag, and the baby was in the bag. But I didn’t want to spoil Mammy’s mood. It was better if she was remembering the ‘good old days’, as she called them. I felt less afraid.
I wondered how long I would have to walk for. My tummy was knotted up with pain and each step made me wince, but I kept going and didn’t grumble.
We turned left into Corrig Avenue, then right into a dark lane way. Mammy told me this was Lee’s Lane, and that the furniture shop was up there.
Soon she stopped outside a shop that had wire mesh on the windows.
‘Look inside at the furniture,’ Mammy told me. I tried, but it was pitch-black in the lane way, and darker still inside the shop.
I sensed Mammy slip away. When I turned round, she was walking off into the night. I felt afraid of being left there all alone, but I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood still.
Moments later, I was relieved to see her rushing back. She was breathing heavily and telling me to hurry up, because we had to go. I felt her take hold of my arm. She was marching me out of the lane now, into the light of the street.
I could see better now, and I realized Mammy wasn’t holding the laundry bag any more.
‘Mammy! You’ve left the bag in the lane way!’ I cried.
‘Shall I go back and get it for you?’
‘No, Cynthia. Keep walking. There’s nothing in there we need.’
But I knew my baby was in the bag, and I knew she had left her in the lane way. I didn’t want Mammy getting mad though. I didn’t want her to shout or hit me. But at the same time I didn’t want to leave my baby all alone.
I rushed off into the blackness before she could stop me.
I saw the furniture shop and turned left into another part of the lane, the part where I guessed Mammy had run off with the bag.
There was a gateway in front of me. I looked in the alcove, and there was the bag, wrapped up tightly.
I recognized it and knew I had to look inside.
Opening the bag carefully, I saw my baby’s body and wanted to touch her, but before I could reach out to her Mammy was snatching the bag away from me.
‘Put that down and come with me!’ she snapped, dumping the bag back in the alcove and dragging me out of the lane.
‘I’ve seen the baby in the bag!’ I sobbed. ‘Let me go, Mammy! I’ve seen her. I’ve seen my baby in the
