THE TEMPTATION

                MARTIN TREANOR



                        Copyright © Martin Treanor 2007







                                ONE



“I had only seen her twice before - one time trying to hoop a rubber ring over the puppy’s nose at the summer fair - another time dressed in a satin lilac dress, with flowers in her hair, as Anne Denham’s bridesmaid - and then I saw her, sitting on the ground, propped up against the corner wall of ‘The Toy Factory’ toyshop, dressed in a white ballet tutu - with a severed head in her lap.



For an eight year old girl and budding shop-a-holic, the windows along Main Street could be an absolute torment, all illuminated and brazenly posing the delightful temptations within. ‘Bob’s Shoes’ had shoes, so many shoes - cool shoes, not so cool shoes, shoes for mummies and daddies, and shoes for kids - Tina was eight and not a kid any more - but most of all ‘Bob’s Shoes’ had a shiny black pair with the big buckles and stitching around the sole; they were super.

‘J.P. Harrison’s’, the baker, had cakes - in the window there was mostly bread but, if you got real close and screwed your eyes up a bit, you could see past the wheaten farls and soup rolls, into the shelves filled with meringues, chocolate éclairs, layer cakes and Tina’s all time favourite; caramel slices.

‘Bryant’s Stationary’ had stationary, cool pink paper, coloured pens, even that one that had all the four colours in one, you pressed down a different button to get each one out – her mate Suzie got one for her birthday – but Suzie always got stuff. ‘Global Electrics’ in the main, wasn’t that great – all toasters and fridges and things – but it did have a few endearing features like a Mickey Mouse clock, and a tea set thing that meant you didn’t have to get out of bed; and how cool was that.

But although all the brightly lit windows along Main Street had the uncanny and magical power of keeping Tina absorbed for hours on end, the pride of the bunch and the one which she reserved her special fondness for was ‘The Toy Factory’. Owned by Barney Mc Millen and his wife, the toyshop was tucked away on a corner at the top end of the road - with a door front so narrow, if you didn’t know it was there, you would walk straight past - every time Tina’s youthful eyes set on the doorway draped with myriad of plastic things - too numerous to count - it was as though the lights had gone out down the street behind her. Others might not see it and walk straight past, but for Tina it was the only place on earth - it was Eden, it was paradise; it was an eight year old, apprentice shop-a-holic’s Nirvana.

Tina waved to her mother, who was talking to Mrs. Lavery about how the sump (whatever that was) just dropped out of the car as Pat came over Givney’s Hill. Her mother waved back and, when Tina pointed to the toyshop door, she mouthed “okay” and returned to the sump and hill story.



It wasn’t often that Mam would drive into town, rarer still that she would bring Tina along. Tina was only seven the last time she’d been there and that was a lifetime ago. Back then they had done most of the shops, she’d gotten shoes (the reason for the trip) but not cool buckled ones, just plain old boring school shoes, she’d gotten a pack of colouring-in pencils (which partially made up for the shoes) and Mam even bought caramel slices for after her dinner - but, because of said dinner, her trip to ‘The Toy Factory’ was cut short, she didn’t really get past the door - never mind getting a good look around. She was determined that today she would settle in and indulge herself in her fantasies, maybe make her Christmas list early.

She’d heard the priest talk about ‘The Pearly Gates’ on Sunday during Mass and if they ever looked like anything, they must look like the doorway she was about to step through. The entrance was festooned with dozens of bags, some filled with badly cast green soldiers with hairy plastic bits on the edges, some with cowboys and indians. There were three ‘Super Agent’ spy kits, that came with a sucker gun, bags of miniature plastic cars, all told there were many great things, mostly geared to boys but Tina didn’t mind; ‘The Pearly Gates’ were only the start of heaven - all the great girly stuff was inside.

She went in.

The room opened before her with shelves covered in all sorts of wonderful things, plastic dressing dolls, dolls that went to the toilet themselves, dolls that cried; and that was just the dolls. There were toy prams, a ‘Tiny People Kitchen’, parasols, dressing up dresses, sparkling ‘Little Princess’ tiaras, crowns and rings - none of it quality but to Tina, aged eight, quality in itself. If she had a whole week to stay here she couldn’t take it all in, but she’d learned the last time to get in, focus and then when Mam comes to go home, at least she’d have absorbed something.

On telly last night they had advertised a game, a board game (she couldn’t remember the name - she would ask) where the family bids on each others furniture and stuff. It was 19.95 ‘retail’ - a star around the retail; that meant she couldn’t afford it herself, so she would have to work on Mam. She would promise the earth, be a good girl, help with the washing and maybe even walk the dog. Of course she would do the eye-lash thing and Mam would cave in; she always did. She looked up on the shelves, searching for the game, if it was on telly; it had to be there - that was the way things worked. But it wasn’t, there was ‘Monopoly’ and ‘Cluedo’ and ‘Buckaroo’ and ‘Operation’ and all the others but not that one from telly last night - where the family bids on furniture and stuff.

Her heart sank, it was a devastating blow - here she was in a paradise on earth and they didn’t have the one and only thing she truly desired. Dejected and nearly all the way down in the pits of despair, something twinkled in the corner of her eye. Down at floor level, below the counter, between the ‘Frankenstein’ masks and face paints.

She went over and pulled out a small box. About two inches - by an inch - by three tall, with the picture of a well on the front and gold stars bursting out from it, like fireworks. She read the writing, ‘THE WISHING WELL’ - ‘Make a wish and your wish will come true’.

It was as though someone had shot an arrow straight through her ‘If there was anything in the world you could have?’ zone. It was great, it was super, it was cool and super-cool all at the same time and it gave you anything you wanted. She was going to open the box and have a peek but Mam had told her about that - she would ask the man.

She looked to behind the counter, Mr. Mc Millen wasn’t there; she would have to make her enquiries and have the deal all but closed, before Mam would come in. That’s just the way things worked; more than anything, you had to do your groundwork.

She went to the hatch at the end of the counter and looked through a door into the back room - she could see that there was a fire burning in the grate but, other than that, no sign of anybody. It was at that point that she realised that the whole shop was in darkness, the only illumination was the daylight from the street. In her total absorption in all things spangley and bright, she hadn’t noticed but, here she was, standing in darkness, surrounded in treasures, all alone with the best thing in the universe practically welded to her hand. Then Mam came to the door.

“Come on out of there, Tina - we have to make tracks.”

“Yes Mam but…”

“But nothing Tina. I have a million and one things to be doing today, so come on, out with you. I have to get the dinner started and anyway, get out of there, you’ll get your good clothes all dirty.”

“Yes Mam but…” Tina started, a little confused but focused on the task at hand.

“Tina!” Mam said, in a way that Tina knew the game was up.

For the second time in as many minutes her heart sank, this time all the way. She went to put ‘THE WISHING WELL’ down, resigned to leaving without it, never knowing when she might return. Another fantasy destroyed by the necessities of ‘dinner’. But something pulled at her, an urge, something she had never felt before and without really thinking about it, she slipped the box into the top of her skirt and pulled the bottom of her blouse down over. With a tiny pang of guilt, she took her mothers hand and left the shop - taking a quick glance behind then moving on.



Tommy Gillan was working himself up to a pint by the time he got to the corner. He only had to empty the two bins, give the pavement a quick sweep and then that was him done for the day. There was a glass of ‘the black stuff’ with his name on it down in ‘The Railway’ and it was more than calling to him.

He bagged the contents of the bins, gave a quick sweep and was about to set everything back on his trolley when a rat, the size of a cat, ran out from under the doorway of the toyshop. It startled him a bit but disgusted him more.

“It’s about time someone pulled down that ould derelict building.”



                                TWO



At dinner, Tina was deathly silent. Her mother was well aware that she could get a bit moody, now and again - but, in general, Tina was so bubbly as to be hard work. Normally she had the attention span of a goldfish, the energy of a jackrabbit and the imagination and enthusiasm to go with it. So bearing witness to a silent Tina was a rare and pleasant, but deeply troubling scenario.

However, Tina, eight years old, was experiencing one of those afflictions mostly reserved for adulthood, that primordial killer of all things fun or pleasurable. Desire was a pure emotion, up beat and optimistic - and always came coupled with its’ clever twin, Satisfaction and always made you feel good. But with Temptation came irrational actions, fostered by the want or obsession with something wrong or out of reach - and with those irrational actions came its’ evil partner, the destroyer of souls and the sapper of all enjoyment - Guilt. And for Tina, sitting here at the dinner table, in the knowledge that her temptation, her illicit gain was hiding, where she’d put it, tucked away under the mattress of her bed, the guilt was overwhelming. It wasn’t so much that her soul was destined for an eternity of damnation - the priest had said that’s what happened if you stole things - or was it so much that she had taken something that wasn’t hers. No, for Tina it was the knowledge that, on the spur of the moment, she had given in, without thinking, without weighing up the consequences and it was this that scared her most - that she could be driven by her emotions; that she could give in.

Only once before, in her short life, had Tina given in - it had been two years ago, a short time to others but so long ago as to forget for Tina. She had been pottering about in the kitchen, way too eager and unrealistically enthusiastic over the cake mix on the table, which would eventually become her brother’s birthday cake. In her nosiness, she had knocked everything on the floor.

In response to her mother’s over-reaction and unjustified anger, on the spur of the moment, she’d blamed the cat, quite conveniently licking cake mix from where it had accidentally splashed on its’ paw. Her mother had gone even madder, railroading the cat through the door like a woman possessed - the cat was never allowed in the house again and Tina had felt the guilt. Not so much for the cat but because, in her inability to own up to or, for that matter, even think of something better; she lost grip and just blurted out the first thing that came to her - resulting in another taking the fall and her losing control. She didn’t like that.

So, as she sat here at the dinner table, the source of her guilt called to her from under the mattress of her bed, taunting her - urging her to come to it, to make her wish, to fulfil the role she had inadvertently stumbled into. And she knew that the emotions coursing through her rambling mind were only the start, that she was on her way down a road way too grown up for her and, more than anything, she wanted to go back - back to before, before the toyshop, before ‘The Wishing Well’, before the urge, before the temptation, before the guilt.

It was hours before she plucked up the courage to go up to her room, if the pressure hadn’t been on to get ready for bed, she could’ve quite happily never gone near her room again. It was as though, through association, her room was tainted too. But that wasn’t an option and she stepped lightly through the door and looked in the direction of the bed, as though the toy would suddenly leap out at her - grab her and take somewhere cold, dark and uncaring; somewhere where guilt was normal. But it didn’t, after all it was just a cheap, made in Taiwan, plastic toy - nothing more - nothing less and, sure, she had stolen it but would anyone really miss it, would Mr. Mc Millen really know that she’d taken it without asking, would he really really know that it was gone.

Then, in a flash of inspiration unparalleled in her life, Tina concocted the perfect get out plan. Because he probably wouldn’t miss it, the next time she was in town, she could take it with her, pretend that she’d only picked it up that minute and when Mr. Mc Millen asked did she want to buy it, she would say, “Yes, thank you,” and pay him. It was genius, it was infallible, it was the only way out of it and, better than that, just making the plan made her feel a million times better already. And, in that tender moment, unbeknownst to Tina, she had just taken her first tentative steps onto the frequently walked path of justification and get out clauses and, like many before her, who had found the relief of this, she felt great again. So much so that she went straight over to her bed, took the box out from under the mattress and opened it.

Even though the box was small, it was way too big for the contents inside. When she first put her fingers in to get the toy out, she came up with nothing. She shook the box, there was definitely something in there, she tried with her fingers again and then, coming up short, tipping the box onto the bed. It took a slap on the bottom and something did drop out, but not what she’d expected, instead of the plastic toy depicted on the box - with gold stars bursting out of it like fireworks - all that lay there was a tiny stone ball. On an impulse she shook the box again, nothing else dropped out, she plunged her fingers back in, nothing again, she lifted the box to her eye and peered in, nothing, zilch, notta. This was it, all the temptation, all the guilt, all the fuss; all that for a tiny stone ball that was no good to nobody. Now she really did feel better about herself - someone else had stolen the real one before her and replaced it with a wee stone ball and, feeling all proud of herself, she said out loud, “I betcha they wouldn’t go back and pay for it. No, they’re not all honest like me.”

She lifted the ball from the bed and, in a rage and a release; she threw it across the room, not knowing or even caring where it landed. She took the empty box and dumped it in her wastepaper bin, shouted, “Night-night,” down the stairs to whoever was listening - took ‘Arabian Nights’ from her shelf and got into bed. A day is a very long time in the life of a child and, for Tina; this one had seemed longer than most. She lay in her bed, smarting at her own stupidity, not even properly reading her book; but with the crisis over and all the confusion gone, within minutes, Tina was asleep.



The moonlight cast shadows like spider’s legs over the ground and up the tall grey walls of the buildings and reached out towards her like claws - the claws of the spider, ready to strike, ready to seize her and drag her away to somewhere cold and dark and scary. The walls towered over her, she couldn’t see the tops, just the walls, slimy and wet, dark and horrid - and she felt closed in, isolated, distant from the outside - if there even was an outside. She didn’t want to go on, but could it really be worse than here. Here she was lonely and isolated but then again, she didn’t know what was down there, what lay ahead for her, if she went on. Her decision was made for her when something moved overhead and one of the shadows struck out towards her; she ran.

She didn’t know where she was running to, she just ran. Dirty water and sludge splashed up the back of her legs as she ploughed through the puddles and potholes; she could feel the greasy mucus of decaying trash ooze down her legs, it revolted her but she ignored it, too scared to look back and scared enough to run on. The shadows were gaining on her, she could feel them, coming for her; coming to take her away, but determination and terror urged Tina on down the alley, down towards the pinpoint of light that had opened up at the end.

A rubbish bag seemed to jump out in front, tripping her, and she went over hard on her side, banging her cheek on the concrete. Dazed and confused, she could feel the pain begin in her elbow and down her hip, she tried to move but it hurt, hurt too much. She could taste the blood beginning to well up in her mouth, she’d never tasted blood before, it was disgusting and in the blood she could taste the sludge from the ground; in her mouth, the rotten slime was in her mouth - it made her feel sick. Her nausea distracted her and she momentarily forgot about the shadows that were hunting her, until she looked up. High above on the wall, the shadows had congregated and they grew, black and intimidating, like a hawk ready to dive they hovered, a split second and they would take her. In her desperation, she cried out, “Help me!”

She was standing in a large ballroom, illuminated by torches, colourful pennants and regalia draped down from the walls around her, the walls themselves shined out from their brilliant white marble - the floor was a patterned mosaic of flowers and plants. She looked down and saw that she was dressed in a shining golden gown and although the room was huge, she didn’t feel cold, she felt peaceful, happy…



In the corner of the bedroom, as Tina slept, the stone ball pulsed with a subdued red light - like it had done so many times before.



                                THREE



Tina’s mother hadn’t always been Tina’s mother or, for that matter, Pat Cooley’s wife; back, in her day, she had been Theresa Finnegan. Back, in her day, she had goals, objectives, a mission to achieve something, to be someone. Theresa had been a driven soul, with a future and a purpose. Theresa Finnegan had been a dancer.

When she was five, it was a Saturday, it was mid-afternoon and she was sitting on the living room sofa, flicking channels; the few there were at that time could offer her nothing more than sports (not her thing), black and white westerns (not her thing either) or a show where people took stuff from their houses and a man, in a polka-dot bow tie, told them how much they could get if they wanted to flog them (definitely not her thing). It was raining out, not that a drop of rain ever bothered her, hardly even noticed it but, today for some reason, none of her mates were out either. So with nothing else to do, here she was, sitting on the sofa, clicking around hoping something would jump up, leap out at her and entertain her for the nanosecond she could focus on it. Theresa Finnegan was so bubbly as to be hard work.

So when, in the depths of her monotony and quite out of the blue, she happened on some girls in frilly dresses, prancing about on a stage on their tiptoes - she credited them with deserving an extra moment of her valuable attention; albeit only because it wasn’t sports, westerns or the bloke with the polka-dot bow tie. She had been idly watching for many minutes when, like a slap in the head, it hit her - these girls were graceful, they didn’t move - they glided, they didn’t dance - they floated, they were elegant, they were girly, they were everything she wanted to be. And in that nanosecond she made up her mind that the only thing she would do was - like those girls, like a graceful swan - she would dance. It was only later, when her mother had her enrolled in classes, that she found out it was called ballet - you pronounce the ‘ET’ like an ‘AY’.

Dancing became her single obsession, dancing became her life, for a few years she struggled with her ‘fat thighs’, her ‘huge arse’ (her words), and her feet that appeared, to her, to never stop growing - by the time she was twenty she was sure they would look like two skis. But ever-extending feet or no, every minute she spent at the ‘Finesse’ school of ballet was a passion. Her father had wanted her to do Irish dancing, ‘there was a tradition in that,’ he’d said - but she was caught on the whole fragility and gracefulness of it all.

She had confidence, she had a certain amount of poise, she even had discipline - no mean feat for a girl with a clinical inability to keep focus for more than a minute - but the one single thing that Theresa lacked was ability. She did all the lessons, learned all the moves and even worked twice as hard as the other girls but, truth be told, Theresa just wasn’t good enough.

Anne Marie Mackey was good enough, totally good enough; there were two other girls who were good enough, there were another two who were not so good enough but getting there and there wasn’t one of them who put half the work in that Theresa did. She practiced every day; she read books, watched videos, studied the greats, she even convinced her father to fit a barre along the wall of her bedroom. She persevered, she persisted but her ‘fat thighs’, ‘big arse’, inflatable feet and basic lack of prowess let her down - and that was intolerable. Many nights she would cry herself to sleep for failing a demi-plié or because the other girls were sniggering behind her back – they thought she didn’t know, but she heard them. She heard the bitches - she would show them - she would make them see - but, fact was, she couldn’t; she just would never be good enough and when that realisation came to her, it was devastation.

So that was why she wandered off, that day in town, that was why, head slumped, looking for anything that would cheer her up, an eight year old Theresa walked through the door of ‘The Toy Factory’ in a desperate search for something to relieve her misery.



Tina tossed in her sleep. It was no longer scary, but there was something about all these golden gowns and rich castles that unnerved her - back down the dark alley, where it smelled of rotten things and where the shadows chased her, in some ways she knew where she was, what to expect. Then she’d been whisked away to here, this super place, where everything is great; everything is perfect, but Tina thought it was all wrong - nothing was this good and, in many ways, that scared her more. With that thought, she was back in the alleyway again, with the clawed hand grasping for her - she woke, bolt upright in the bed, soaked to the skin with sweat.

It took her many minutes to realise where she was and with the gradual realisation that she was safe in her bed came a gradual calmness. She lay back on the pillow - too scared to close her eyes but realistic enough to know it was all only a nightmare. So she just lay there, tracing patterns in the shadows cast on the ceiling - shadows, friendlier, but not dissimilar, to the ones in her nightmare. Here too, in her bedroom, away from the realms of dreams and nightmares, they had the same menacing, terrifying quality, as they snaked across the ceiling, creating claws and talons ready to pounce on her. Like the spider’s legs of her dream, they reached out, pulsating in an eerie red glow. But, here in reality, she knew they could do her no harm, she knew they were just shadows; she knew that, behind it all, there was always a logical explanation.

Shadows come from everyday things, she sat up to look, the claws were the legs of her ‘Barbie’, who was, quite shamelessly, lying on her back with her legs upright and akimbo. The spider’s legs were the slats on the windows of her ‘Barbie’ house, where a throbbing red light shone through. That’s all it was, no mystery, nothing scary - just like her nightmare was only a dream (Marian, at school, said that cheese gives you nightmares and there was cheese sauce on the Lasagne she’d had for dinner) - so problem solved, the cheese caused the nightmare and the shadows on the ceiling were made by the light in the corner…

But she didn’t have anything that made a light; a red light, a pulsing red light - in the corner. There was one time she’d had a torch that you could change the colours - but that was broken, and anyway, it was in her drawer. She knew that because she had tried to fix it, took it apart; then, in a fit of frustration at her lack of electrical knowledge, had thrown the whole thing, in bits, into the drawer. No, she didn’t have anything that would have a pulsing red light; Mam had her mobile phone that had a red light when it was charging, Dad had his one too. Maybe Mam or Dad had dropped their phone while they were in here - maybe they were searching the house up and down for it; Dad doing his big heavy breathing snort thing he does when things don’t go his way. That would mean that Tina, when she found it, would be a hero, she would be the bee’s knee’s; she would be the saviour of the day and that meant she would get stuff.

She jumped out of bed and, without turning on her sidelight, went to the corner. Down on her knees, she pulled the ‘Barbie’ house to one side but, it wasn’t Mam or Dad’s mobile phone, it was the little round stone. She picked it up, held it close to her eyes, examining it - as it bathed her and the whole room in a warm incandescence, she felt happy, at peace, as though everything she ever wanted was possible. Deep in the illusion of the magnificent things that could be, it was as though she was back in her dream, back in the beautiful shining castle, with brilliant white walls and her flowing golden gown but, this time it felt right, it felt possible; it felt as though it was hers and she deserved it. It felt as though, no matter what she did to get it, that everything was from her and for her; a big wish at eight years old. Then suddenly, as she basked in the delights of enticement, the little round stone throbbed twice with a faint blush; then the light went out.

Tina hurried back to turn on a lamp and, for most of the night, lay on her bed, nestling the little round stone in her hand, willing it to do something - but it didn’t.



Everyone has wishes, everyone has wants - from the day we are born until the day we die, we focus, concentrate, lust and covet things that we don’t and, in some cases, can’t have. This is not just a weakness or, for that matter, a bad thing; it has, in many cases, been the precursor for some of the most heroic, courageous and world changing events and innovations. But, with want comes impatience - it is as though, through the fact that the object of our want doesn’t miraculously appear, it creates an instant and unquenchable craving and that craving creates need, and need creates a mindset - a mindset that means we will stop at nothing to attain it. All well and good, if the mindset is honourable, but a dishonourable mindset is malicious - and there is a very fine line between both.

Tina had a wish, a want, a need, and her mindset was honourable; mostly because the object of her desire was so unattainable, for now, as to make it a distant goal and something she would work towards and someday get to.

When Tina was five, she had been helping her mother clear out the attic - Dad was taking a load of ‘shite’, as he called it, to a ‘car-boot sale’ (whatever that was). Mam had pulled boxes into the middle of the floor and Tina was helping by taking stuff out and putting it into piles for Mam to decide if it should stay or should it go (like the song her Dad was always singing).

She had found a whole bunch of photos; the colour was really weird in them, as though it was really bright; so she reckoned they were old, really old, like before she was born old. There were some of boys and girls she didn’t recognise, some of her father as a kid; she knew it was him because there was another down on the sideboard, from when he played football and won the ‘Junior Cup’. There were some of big people, adults, some of whom she recognised - only they were younger and they looked strange younger, and there were some of places she’d never seen before, like the one with her mother - really young, with short hair - standing in front of a statue of a man on a horse. There was writing on the back, but she couldn’t read yet.

There were some of her as a baby and some of her in the pushchair and one that dropped out to the floor, of a girl in a frilly white dress, holding a bar on the wall and standing on her toes. The girl looked so graceful, so petite, so elegant as to be what the angels, the priest talked about, must look like - and with her ability to wish, want and need becoming beautifully honed - in that instant, Tina wanted to be like her, to be the girl in the picture.

“Mam - who’s this girl?” She’d asked, quite innocently, but filled with the need to know.

Her mother’s response was abrupt and, when she snapped it out of her hand, it hurt her a bit, but her mother just ignored this and stuffed it in her pocket - she knew not to ask anything more. But, as time wore on, it grated at her, she wished, wanted, needed to know - just as she wished, wanted, needed to be like the girl. She didn’t know how, but she would, someday, be like the girl in the photograph.



It had been three years since she’d looked at this photo and, so many times, she had intended to burn it, but it was the last one, a survivor of a bygone time and, although she knew she had to destroy it, somehow she couldn’t bring herself round to it. It was though she was, not so much clinging to the past herself, but that something from the past was clinging to her. Something dark and terrifying, something she never spoke about; nor would she ever again. She knew she should destroy it but she couldn’t, after all it was only a photo; it wasn’t as though it was the real thing.

Theresa folded the photo and slid it back into its’ hiding place behind the clock and put the kettle on for breakfast. Upstairs, as Tina slept, the stone flared in her hand.



TO BE CONTINUED...