The Marble Collector: The life-affirming, gripping and emotional bestseller about a father’s secrets

‘Sabrina,’ my supervisor Eric warns from the office behind me.

‘I see him.’

I make my way to Mr Daly at the steps. I reach into the water and grab him under his arms and pull him up. He is so light he comes up easily, gasping for air, eyes wild behind his goggles, a big green snot bubble in his right nostril. He lifts his goggles off his head and empties them of water, grunting, grumbling, his body shaking with rage that I have once again foiled his dastardly plan. His face is purple and his chest heaves up and down as he tries to catch his breath. He reminds me of my three-year-old who always hides in the same place and then gets annoyed when I find him. I don’t say anything, just make my way back to the stool, my flip-flops splashing my calves with cold water. This happens every day. This is all that happens.

‘You took your time there,’ Eric says.

Did I? Maybe a second longer than usual. ‘Didn’t want to spoil his fun.’

Eric smiles against his better judgement and shakes his head to show he disapproves. Before working here with me since the nursing home’s birth, Eric had a previous Mitch Buchannon lifeguard experience in Miami. His mother on her deathbed brought him back home to Ireland and then his mother surviving has made him stay. He jokes that she will outlive him, though I can sense a nervousness on his part that this will indeed be the case. I think he’s waiting for her to die so that he can begin living, and the fear as he nears fifty is that that will never happen. To cope with his self-imposed pause on his life, I think he pretends he’s still in Miami; though he’s delusional, I sometimes envy his ability to pretend he is in a place far more exotic than this. I think he walks to the sound of maracas in his head. He is one of the happiest people I know because of it. His hair is Sun-In orange, and his skin is a similar colour. He doesn’t go on any traditional ‘dates’ from one end of the year to the other, saving himself up for the month in January when he disappears to Thailand. He returns whistling, with the greatest smile on his face. I don’t want to know what he does there but I know that his hopes are that when his mother dies, every day will be like Thailand. I like him and I consider him my friend. Five days a week in this place has meant I’ve told him more than I’ve even told myself.

‘Doesn’t it strike you that the one person I save every day is a person who doesn’t even want to live? Doesn’t it make you feel completely redundant?’

‘There are plenty of things that do, but not that.’ He bends over to pick up a bunch of wet grey hair clogging the drains, which looks like a drowned rat, and he holds on to it, shaking the water out of it, not appearing to feel the repulsion that I do. ‘Is that how you’re feeling?’

Yes. Though it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t matter if the man I’m saving doesn’t want his life to be saved, shouldn’t the point be that I’m saving him? But I don’t reply. He’s my supervisor, not my therapist, I shouldn’t question saving people while on duty as a lifeguard. He may live in an alternative world in his head but he’s not stupid.

‘Why don’t you take a coffee break?’ he offers, and hands me my coffee mug, the other hand still holding the drowned rat ball of pubic hair.

I like my job very much but lately I’ve been antsy. I don’t know why and I don’t know what exactly I’m expecting to happen in my life, or what I’m hoping will happen. I have no particular dreams or goals. I wanted to get married and I did. I wanted to have children and I do. I want to be a lifeguard and I am. Though isn’t that the meaning of antsy? Thinking there are ants on you when there aren’t.

‘Eric, what does antsy mean?’

‘Um. Restless, I think, uneasy.’

‘Has it anything to do with ants?’

He frowns.

‘I thought it was when you think there are ants crawling all over you, so you start to feel like this.’ I shudder a bit. ‘But there aren’t any ants on you at all.’

He taps his lip. ‘You know what, I don’t know. Is it important?’

I think about it. It would mean that I think there is something wrong with my life because there actually is something wrong with my life or that there is something wrong with me. But it’s just a feeling, and there actually isn’t. There not being something wrong would be the preferred solution.

What’s wrong, Sabrina? Aidan’s been asking a lot lately. In the same way that constantly asking someone if they’re angry will eventually make them angry.

Nothing’s wrong. But is it nothing, or is it something? Or is it really that it is nothing, everything is just nothing? Is that the problem? Everything is nothing? I avoid Eric’s gaze and concentrate instead on the pool rules, which irritate me so I look away. You see, there it is, that antsy thing.

‘I can check it out,’ he says, studying me.

To escape his gaze I get a coffee from the machine in the corridor and pour it into my mug. I lean against the wall in the corridor and think about our conversation, think about my life. Coffee finished, no conclusions reached, I return to the pool and I am almost crushed in the corridor by a stretcher being wheeled by at top speed by two paramedics, with a wet Mary Kelly on top of it, her white and blue-veined bumpy legs like Stilton, an oxygen mask over her face.

I hear myself say ‘No way!’ as they push by me.

When I get into the small lifeguard office I see Eric, sitting down in complete shock, his shell tracksuit dripping wet, his orange Sun-In hair slicked back from the pool water.

‘What the hell?’

‘I think she had a … I mean, I don’t know, but, it might have been a heart attack. Jesus.’ Water drips from his orange pointy nose.

‘But I was only gone five minutes.’

‘I know, it happened the second you walked out. I jammed on the emergency cord, pulled her out, did mouth-to-mouth, and they were here before I knew it. They responded fast. I let them in the fire exit.’

I swallow, the jealousy rising. ‘You gave her mouth-to-mouth?’

‘Yeah. She wasn’t breathing. But then she did. Coughed up a load of water.’

I look at the clock. ‘It wasn’t even five minutes.’

He shrugs, still stunned.

I look at the pool, then at the clock. Mr Daly is sitting on the edge of the pool, looking after the ghost of the stretcher with envy. It was four and a half minutes.

‘You had to dive in? Pull her out? Do mouth-to-mouth?’

‘Yeah. Yeah. Look, don’t beat yourself up about it, Sabrina, you couldn’t have got to her any faster than I did.’

‘You had to pull the emergency cord?’

He looks at me in confusion over this.

I’ve never had to pull the cord. Never. Not even in trials. Eric did that. I feel jealousy and anger bubbling to the surface, which is quite an unusual feeling. This happens at home – an angry mother irritated with her boys has lost the plot plenty of times – but never in public. In public I suppress it, especially at work when it is directed at my supervisor. I’m a measured, rational human being; people like me don’t lose their temper in public. But I don’t suppress the anger now. I let it rise close to the surface. It would feel empowering to let myself go like this if I wasn’t so genuinely frustrated, so completely irritated.

To put it into perspective here is how I’m feeling: seven years working here. That’s two thousand three hundred and ten days. Eleven thousand five hundred and fifty hours. Minus nine months, six months and three months for maternity leave. In all of that time I’ve sat on the stool and watched the, often, empty pool. No mouth-to-mouth, no dramatic dives. Not once. Not counting Mr Daly. Not counting the assistance of leg or foot cramps. Nothing. I sit on the stool, sometimes I stand, and I watch the oversized ticking clock and the list of pool rules. No running, no jumping, no diving, no pushing, no shouting, no nothing … all the things you’re not allowed to do in this room, all negative, almost as though it’s mocking me. No life-saving. I’m always on alert, it’s what I’m trained to do, but nothing ever happens. And the very second I take an unplanned coffee break I miss a possible heart attack, a definite near-drowning and the emergency cord being pulled.

‘It’s not fair,’ I say.

‘Now come on, Sabrina, you were in there like a shot when Eliza stepped on the piece of glass.’

‘It wasn’t glass. Her varicose vein ruptured.’

‘Well. You got there fast.’

It is always above the water that I struggle, that I can’t breathe. It is above the water that I feel like I’m drowning.

I throw my coffee mug hard against the wall.

My neck is being squeezed so tightly I start to see black spots before my eyes. I’d tell him so but I can’t speak, his arm is wrapped tight around my throat. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I’m small for my age and they tease me for it. They call me Tick but Mammy says to use what I have. I’m small but I’m smart. With a burst of energy, I start to shake myself around, and my older brother Angus has to fight hard to hold on.

‘Jesus, Tick,’ Angus says, and he grips me tighter.

Can’t breathe, can’t breathe.

‘Let him go, Angus,’ Hamish says. ‘Get back to the game.’

‘The little fucker’s a cheat, I’m not playing with him.’

‘I’m not a cheat!’ I want to shout, but I can’t. I can’t breathe.

‘He’s not a cheat,’ Hamish says on my behalf. ‘He’s just better than you.’ Hamish is the eldest, at sixteen. He’s watching from the front steps of our house. This statement is a lot, coming from him. He’s cool as fuck. He’s smoking a cigarette. If Mammy knew this she’d slap the head off him, but she can’t see him now, she’s inside the house with the midwife, which is why we’ve all been turfed out here for the day until it’s over.

‘Say that again,’ Angus challenges Hamish.

‘Or what?’

Or nothing. Angus wouldn’t touch Hamish, older than him by only two years but infinitely cooler. None of us would. He’s tough and everyone knows it and he’s even started hanging out with Eddie Sullivan, nicknamed The Barber, and his gang at the barbershop. They’re the ones giving him the cigarettes. And money too, but I don’t know what for. Mammy’s worried about him but she needs the money so doesn’t ask questions. Hamish likes me the most. Some nights he wakes me up and I’ve to get dressed and we sneak out to the streets we’re not allowed to play on. I’m not allowed to tell Mammy. We play marbles. I’m ten but I look younger; you wouldn’t think I play as well as I do, most people don’t, so Hamish hustles them. He’s winning a packet and he gives me caramels on the way home so I don’t tell. He doesn’t need to buy me off but I don’t tell him that, I like the caramels.

I play marbles in my sleep, I play when I should be doing homework, I play when Father Fuckface puts me in the dark room, I play it in my head when Mammy is giving out to me, so I don’t have to listen. My fingers are moving all the time as if I’m shooting and I’ve built up a good collection. I have to hide them from my brothers though, my best ones anyway. They’re nowhere near as good at playing as me, and they’d lose my marbles.

We hear Mammy bellow like an animal upstairs and Angus loosens his grip on me a bit. Enough for wriggle room. Everyone tenses up at the sound of Mammy. It’s not new to us but no one likes it. It’s not natural to hear anyone sound like that. Mattie opens the door and steps out even whiter than usual.

He looks at Angus. ‘Let him go.’

Angus does and I can finally breathe. I start coughing. There’s only one other person Angus doesn’t mess with and that’s our stepdad, Mattie. Mattie Doyle always means business.

Mattie glares at Hamish smoking. I get ready for Mattie to punch him – those two are always at it – but he doesn’t.

Instead he says, ‘Got one spare?’

Hamish smiles, the one that goes all the way to his green eyes. Daddy’s green eyes. But he doesn’t answer.

Mattie doesn’t like the pause. ‘Fuck you.’ He slaps him over the head, and Hamish laughs at him, liking that he made him lose his temper. He won. ‘I’m going to the pub. One of you come get me when it’s out.’

‘You’ll probably hear it from there,’ Duncan says.

Mattie laughs, but looks a bit scared.

‘Are none of you keeping an eye on him?’ He gestures to the toddler crouched in the dirt. We all look at Bobby. He’s the youngest, at two. He’s sitting in the muck, covered in it, even his mouth, and he’s eating grass.

‘He always eats grass,’ Tommy says. ‘Nothing we can do about it.’

‘Are you a cow or wha’?’ Mattie asks.

‘Quack quack,’ Bobby says, and we all laugh.

‘Fuck sake, will someone ever teach him his animal sounds?’ Mattie says, smiling. ‘Right, Da’s off to the pub, be good, Bobby.’ Mattie rustles Tommy’s head. ‘Keep an eye on him, son.’

‘Bye, Mattie,’ Bobby says.

‘It’s Da, to you,’ Mattie says, face going a bit red with anger.

It drives Mattie mad when Bobby calls him Mattie, but it’s not Bobby’s fault, he’s used to us all calling Mattie by his name; he’s not our da, but Bobby doesn’t understand, he thinks we’re all the same. Only Mattie’s first boy, Tommy, calls him Da. There’s Doyles and Boggs in this family and we all know the difference.

‘Let’s get back to the game,’ Duncan says as Mammy screams again.

‘He’s not allowed to play unless he takes his turn again,’ Angus says angrily.

‘Fine, he will, calm down,’ Hamish says.

‘Hey!’ I protest. ‘I didn’t cheat.’

Hamish winks at me. ‘You can show them.’

I sigh. I’m ten, Duncan is twelve, Angus is fourteen and Hamish is sixteen. The two Doyle boys, Tommy and Bobby, are five and two. With three older brothers I’m always having to prove myself, and even when I’m better than them, which I am at marbles and they can’t stand it, then I have to work even harder because they think I’m a cheat. I’m the one who teaches them the new games I’ve read about in my books. I’m better than them. They all hate it but it drives Angus mental. He hits me whenever he loses. Hamish hates losing too but he’s figured out how to use me.

We’re playing Conqueror, me, Duncan and Angus. Angus wouldn’t let Tommy play because he’s the worst, he’s so bad he just ruins the game. When my older brothers aren’t around I teach Tommy how to play; I like doing that, even though he’s diabolical. That’s the word Hamish uses for everything. I use my worst marbles, just the clearies for him, because he chips them and everything. Tommy’s sitting on the steps away from Hamish. He’s afraid of Hamish. Tommy knows that Hamish and his da don’t get along so he thinks he has to defend his da when he’s not there. He’s only five but he’s a tough little shit, scrawny and pale like his da too. The lads call him Bottle-washer because he’s so skinny and wiry.

What happened to put me in the headlock was that Angus threw the first marble, then Duncan shot his marble at Angus’s. It hit and that’s why Angus got mad in the first place. Duncan captured Angus’s marble then threw another to restart the game. I hit Duncan’s, captured his then threw another to restart.

Angus threw his taw and missed mine.

Duncan aimed at Angus’s corkscrew, not because it was closer but because I know he could tell Angus was already getting angry and wanted to wind him up. Anyway he missed and it was my turn. I had two targets; I could have chosen Duncan’s opaque, which I don’t much want because everyone has them – that’s marbles that are just one colour – or Angus’s Popeye corkscrew, which I’ve had my eye on for a long time. Angus says he won it in a game but I think he must have stolen it from Francis’s corner shop. I’ve never seen anyone with one like that. I’ve only ever seen a picture of one in my marble book, so I know that his is a three-colour special called a snake corkscrew. It’s a double-twist and has a green-and-transparent clear with filaments of opaque white. It has tiny clear bubbles inside. I found it in his drawer a few days ago and he caught me snooping and kicked me in the balls to let it go. I didn’t drop it though, I know better than to let it get scratched, but watching him play with it hurts more than the kick in the goonies did. He should be keeping it in a box, safe so it doesn’t get ruined.

I decided to do a move I’d been working on and impress them all by putting a spin on my marble and hitting both marbles in the one throw. I threw my taw and it hit Duncan’s opaque first like I planned, then Tommy shouted and they all looked at Bobby who had a snail in his mouth, shell and all. Angus rushed over to grab it from him and chucked it across the road. He opened Bobby’s mouth wide.

‘The snail is missing from the shell. Did you eat it, Bobby?’

Bobby didn’t answer, just waited for a clatter, his big blue eyes wide. Bobby’s the only blond. He gets away with murder because of those blue eyes and blond hair. Even Hamish doesn’t hit him half as much as he wants to. But anyway when they were all busy wondering about where the slug part of the snail went, nobody was looking when my taw hit Angus’s marble as well, which meant that I could capture both marbles in the one throw. They looked back at me to see me holding two of them in my hand, and that’s when Angus accused me of cheating and wrapped me in a headlock.

Free now of the headlock I have to respond to the cheating allegations by trying to repeat the move, which should be fine, I know I can do it, but I can’t when they think that I’m a cheat. If I can’t do it again it proves to them that I cheated. Hamish winks at me. I know he knows that I can do it, but if I don’t win he might not take me out tonight. My hands start to sweat.

Mammy screams again and Tommy’s eyes widen.

‘Baby?’ Bobby asks.

‘Nearly there, pal, nearly there,’ Hamish says, rolling up another cigarette, cool as fuck. Seriously, when I grow up I want to be just like him.

Mrs Lynch’s door opens – she’s our next-door neighbour – and she comes out with her daughter, Lucy. Lucy’s face is already scarlet when she sees Hamish. Lucy is holding a tray with a mountain of sandwiches all piled up, I can see strawberry jam, and Mrs Lynch has diluted orange in a jug.

We all pile on top of the food.

‘Thanks, Mrs Lynch,’ we all say, mouths full and devouring the sandwiches. With Mammy in the throes of it we haven’t eaten since dinner yesterday.

Hamish winks at Lucy and she kind of giggles and runs inside. I saw them together late one night, Hamish had one hand up her top and the other up her skirt, and she’d one leg wrapped around him like a baby monkey, her thick white thigh practically glowing in the dark.

‘That mammy of yours will keep going till she gets that girl of hers, won’t she?’ Mrs Lynch says, sitting down on the step.

‘I’ve a feeling it’s a girl this time,’ Hamish says. ‘Her bump’s different.’

Hamish is serious; for all his trouble he notices things, sees things that none of the rest of us do.

‘I think you’re right,’ Mrs Lynch agrees. ‘It’s high up all right.’

‘It’ll be nice to have a girl around,’ Hamish says. ‘No more of these smelly bastards to annoy me.’

‘Ah, she’ll be the boss of you all, wait’ll you see,’ says Mrs Lynch. ‘Like my Lucy.’

‘She sure is the boss of Hamish,’ Angus mutters, and gets a boot in the stomach from Hamish. Chewed-up jam sandwich fires out of his mouth and he’s momentarily winded and I’m glad: payback for my headlock.

Hamish’s green eyes are glowing, he really does look like he wants a girl. He looks like a big softy thinking about it.

Mammy wails again.

‘Won’t be long now,’ Hamish says.

‘She’s doing a fine job,’ Mrs Lynch says, and she looks like she’s in pain just listening. Maybe she’s remembering and I feel sick thinking of a baby coming out of her.

The midwife starts chanting, as if Mammy’s in a boxing match and she’s the coach. Mammy’s squealing like she’s a pig being chased around with a carving knife.

‘Final push,’ Hamish says.

Mrs Lynch looks impressed with Hamish’s knowledge. As the eldest he’s sat through this five times; whether he remembers them all or not, he’s definitely learned the way.

‘Okay, let’s finish this before she comes out,’ Angus says, jumping up and wiping his jam face on his sleeve.

I know Angus wants to prove me wrong in front of everyone. He knows Hamish likes me and just because he’s too weak to hit Hamish, he uses me to get at him instead. Hurting me is like hurting Hamish. And Hamish feels that way too. It’s good for me but bad for the person who treats me bad: last week Hamish punched out a fella’s front tooth for not picking me for his football team. I didn’t even want to play football.

I stand up and take my place. Concentrating hard, my heart beating in my chest, my palms sweaty. I want that corkscrew.

The midwife is screaming about seeing the baby’s head. Mammy’s sounds are terrifying now. The piggy’s being slashed.

‘Good girl, good girl,’ Mrs Lynch says, chewing on her nail and rocking back and forth on the step, as if Mammy can hear her. ‘Nearly over, love. You’re there. You’re there.’

I throw the taw. It hits Duncan’s marble just like I planned and it heads to Angus’s. I want that corkscrew.

‘A girl!’ the midwife calls out.

Hamish stands up, about to punch the air but he stops himself.

My marble travels to Angus’s corkscrew. It misses but nobody’s looking, nobody’s seen it happen. Everyone is frozen in place, Mrs Lynch goes still. Waiting; they’re all waiting for the baby to cry.

Hamish puts his head in his hands. I check again. Nobody is looking at me, or my taw, which went straight past Angus’s, it didn’t even touch it.

I take a tiny step to the right but they’re still not looking. I reach out my foot and push my marble back a bit so that it’s touching Angus’s Popeye corkscrew. My heart is beating wildly, I can’t believe I’m doing it, but if I get away with it then I’ll have the corkscrew, it’ll actually be mine.

All of a sudden there’s a wail, but it’s not the baby, it’s Mammy.

Hamish runs inside, Duncan follows. Tommy grabs Bobby from the dirt and carries him into the house. Angus looks down at the ground and sees his marble and my marble, touching.

His face is deadly serious. ‘Okay. You win.’ Then he follows the boys inside.

I pick up the green corkscrew and examine it, finally happy to have it in my hand, part of my collection. These are incredibly rare. My happiness is short-lived though as my adrenaline begins to wear off and it sinks in.

There’s no baby girl. There’s no baby at all. And I’m a cheat.

‘Sabrina, are you okay?’ Eric asks me from across his desk.

‘Yes,’ I say, keeping my voice measured while feeling anything but. I have just fired my mug at the concrete wall because I missed a near-drowning. ‘I thought there would be more pieces.’ We both look at the mug sitting on his desk. The handle has come off and the rim is chipped, but that’s it. ‘My mum fired a teapot up at the ceiling once. There were definitely more pieces.’

Eric looks at it, studies it. ‘I suppose it’s the way it hit the wall. The angle or something.’

We consider that in silence.

‘I think you should go home,’ he says suddenly. ‘Take the day off. Enjoy the solar eclipse everybody’s talking about. Come back in on Monday.’

‘Okay.’

Home for me is a three-bed end of terrace, where I live with my husband, Aidan, and our three boys. Aidan works in Eircom broadband support, though it never seems to work in our house. We’ve been married for seven years. We met in Ibiza when we were contestants in a competition that took place on the bar counter of a nightclub to see who could lick cream off a complete stranger’s torso the quickest. He was the torso, I was the licker. We won. Don’t for a moment think that was out of character for me. I was nineteen, and fourteen people took part in front of an audience of thousands, and we won a free bottle of tequila, which we subsequently drank on the beach, while we had sex. It would have been out of character not to. Aidan was a stranger to me then, but he’s a stranger to that man now, unrecognisable from that cocky teenager with the pierced ear and the shaved eyebrow. I suppose we both changed. Aidan doesn’t even like the beach now, says the sand gets everywhere. And I’m trying to stay off dairy.