Boy in the World. Niall Williams

Dack,’ he said, ‘your driver.’ He thought this almost hilarious and the ball on his lap bounced up and down a few times as the humour found a home there.

      Remembering the man on the road, the boy took the hand cautiously. But at once he found his fingers squeezed warmly and his arm pumped up and down vigorously while all the time Ben Dack smiled. ‘Welcome aboard,’ he said while the boy snapped the seatbelt. ‘You’re in for a smooth ride.’

      The truck pulled out into the road into what was now a steady file of cars.

      ‘Where you off to?’ asked Ben. ‘I’m taking her all the way across the country to Dublin today.’

      ‘That’s where I’m going. To Dublin.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Really.’

      ‘Isn’t that lucky then. By jingo it is. All the way to Dublin. I tell Josie, that’s my wife, lovely lovely Josie, a saint to be married to me and I don’t mind admitting it, don’t mind at all. I tell Josie, I tell her I’m taking the truck up to Dublin again tomorrow, third time in ten days, and each time I’m always on the lookout, you know, for someone. Because there’s always someone isn’t there? I think so, I think so. I do. Someone who needs a lift, someone you can lend a hand to just by pulling over. Just as simple as that, eh?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Because we’re all in this world right?’ Ben paused a moment as if he was reviewing this piece of information just for a second. ‘Yep, we’re all in this world and who knows I might be you one day and you might be me and even, even,’ he raised his right hand off the steering-wheel and pointed at the boy, ‘I might have been you, sort of, I mean I might have been a fellow on the road looking for a lift, you see, and well …’ The idea became a little complicated then so he waved the hand slightly as though erasing it off the board. ‘Well, the main thing is, the main point I told Josie was, kindness to one person is kindness to yourself. In a way, do you see?’

      Trying to keep up with the logic of the point and finding himself somewhere further back in the reasoning than Ben, the boy could only nod.

      ‘Exactly, it stands to reason doesn’t it? Of course it does. Mathematical, sort of actually. And that way, oops.’ A car came shooting down an avenue and out into the path of the truck, but Ben anticipated it and pulled on the wheel and swung them out of the way.

      Although there had almost been a full collision he did not blast the horn or curse, but instead made a little whistle and chuckled. ‘Poor fellow’s probably slept it in, driving half-asleep. He’s absolute awake now anyway.’

      The boy said nothing. He was recovering from the near-crash, and trying to assemble in his mind the pieces of this new situation.

      ‘Where was I? Lost my thought now.’ Ben drummed his fingers on the sides of the steering-wheel, then lifted his right hand and clicked. ‘Yes, that way what one person does for another one is not exactly charity, you see, because it’s not like you’re doing it for them, well you are, you are, but not for them if you see. That’s what I’m always telling Josie, really it’s for yourself, because, because, well, you see, as I say, I could be you.’

      At that, arriving triumphantly at his main point, Ben chuckled delightedly. It was all so clear to him. It was like he had the secret of the world and was so pleased that he, just an ordinary fellow, had figured it out. His cheeks were reddened with pleasure and his eyebrows lifted to the angle of a squat roof. He let the brilliance of his argument shine for a moment and as he did so he placed the very tip of his tongue just between his lips.

      The countryside flew past them.

      ‘Dublin, eh?’ he said after a while.

      ‘Yes,’ said the boy, and after a beat added, ‘thank you for picking me up.’

      ‘Oh not at all, not at all,’ said Ben. ‘I’ll tell you something. I’ll tell you something for nothing. The road is shorter with two. Have you ever noticed that? It is. Absolute gospel. I know this country back and forward. I know every corner of every road I’d say by now. I’ve been on the roads in this country for, what are you sixteen?’

      ‘Yes,’ lied the boy.

      ‘Well all the years of your life then, and there’s not one mile of them I’d rather travel on my own. A place can be lovely, but it can still be lonely. And sitting in this cab mile after mile listening to the radio or singing a little bit – no don’t worry I won’t start, Josie says I’d be second to a crow in a singing contest – is no comparison to having someone for company. So thank you. Thank you for coming onboard. Together the two of us will fly across this country in jig-time, absolute jig-time, whereas otherwise. That’s the thing you see, the same journey right? The same one hundred and eighty or so miles right?’

      ‘Right,’ answered the boy, hoping he wasn’t wrong.

      ‘The exact same journey can be so different. Can be a different thing altogether, and so much so that you might think they were in different countries even. Different lifetimes, say. That’s the thing. That’s the thing to understand in life. I’m talking too much am I? Josie says I talk too much sometimes, you just tell me if I am and Ben Dack will shut right up, shut right up for mile after mile if you just want me to listen. I can listen. You just say, all right?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Good lad, you’re a good fellow I can tell that. I’m a good judge of character. That’s another thing about giving people a lift along the road, you get to take a sample as it were, a sample of life, just a dip in and there you have what comes up. And do you know what the surprising thing is?’

      ‘I’m not sure.’

      ‘No, well, you see that’s because you’re young still, and that’s great, that’s absolute. But the surprising thing is this, hold on,’ Ben swung the wheel and took them round a roundabout and out on the Dublin road where he waved a hand at the policeman who was standing behind his car aiming the speed-gun. ‘The surprising thing is, no matter what you hear said nowadays, no matter what you read about terrible things that happen every day to people and how dreadful things can be, the majority, and I mean ninety-nine and ninety-eight ninety-ninths of people are good. Absolute,’ he said, ‘no question. Good, kind, generous, bread-and-butter people. You know? That’s the truth of what I found in this truck, that’s the gospel according to Ben Dack.’ He laughed at this and the ball rose and fell and he put one hand down to steady it.

      For a time then it seemed that he had reached the end of all that was urgent in him to express and he was quiet. But not exactly still. It was as though the speeches he had made were then replaying in his head and as he watched the road he made a series of small noddings, eyebrow-raisings, head-anglings and even the slightest occasional humming sound in agreement with himself.

      The road ran on. The day that rose was bright with blue sky and white clouds moving swiftly. The boy watched the miles go past. He still had a dull ache in his shoulder. The transfer of light and image on to the windscreen and sometimes up along it flowed as if it was the road travelling over them and not the opposite. As he bobbed gently in the seat the boy kept finding his thoughts going behind him now. He thought not of the way ahead and how he was going to proceed, but instead in his mind he visited the home he had left and imagined the scene of the Master’s discovering the note. It was found by now. What was the first thing the Master would do? The boy pictured him standing, reading it. He pictured a scene of perfect stillness and the Master’s eyes small in their nest of wrinkles while his mind whirred. Would he go directly to the police? Had he already called them? The boy pressed his lips together.

       Are they after me?

      Without intending to, he took a look in the rear-view mirror, but there was only the steady line of morning traffic behind them. Then again perhaps the Master wouldn’t go to the police yet. Perhaps he wouldn’t want to frighten the boy. Perhaps … It was no good, there were too many possibilities.

      Of only one thing the