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Forklifted!
Not satisfied with just mowing down our fence, the man in the fork-lift truck reversed and came towards me and my toddler as we stood gaping at him through our living room window.
It had been 10 months since we had moved into our new home in Cork, Ireland. We had waited ages while it was being built. It was special, built and decorated precisely the way we wanted it to be. We had finally got the long awaited master en-suite but better than that, the view from our bedroom window was that of the beautiful Cork Harbour.
Everyday, I would drop our two older children to school, Izzy was in Reception, and Adam in Nursery. I would then take Mo the youngest, just 16 months old, back home to enjoy our daily morning routine of poetry reading and puzzle fixing. I had just gotten up to make Mo’s bottle and left her playing on the floor, when I felt the tremor. I wasn’t too alarmed at first after all we were living on a building site and our house was the last fully completed one in the first street of the new exclusive housing estate. I went to the front window and looked out. What confronted me was one of the most frightful sights of my adult life.
A giant fork-lift truck was standing, revving in what used to be our beautifully manicured front lawn, the front garden wall, scattered behind it. The heavy-set man was sitting in its single seat. Life seemed to stop as I looked into his eyes, he was so close to me. Before I could breathe again, he started to reverse and I remember thinking, ‘How can someone lose control of a vehicle so completely’.
Our brick wall had been mowed down in the path of this intimidating machine, and the ground was dented with the tracks of the heavy machinery. As I stood transfixed at the front window, I expected him to drive off in the direction of the building - site. But when he put the truck into first gear, it occurred to me that he had reversed to come back at us. Naively, I was still thinking that he had lost control of the fork-lift.
I glanced at my little Mo still happily doing her puzzle on the floor but I couldn’t move at first, it must have been a matter of seconds before I reacted, but it felt like I stood there forever before I ran over to her and took her to the adjoining room. I then dashed back, as the wheels of the massive fork-lift darkened our large front window, I opened it and screamed “Stop! Stop!” But he kept coming. I slammed it shut again just a split of a second before the two forks of the machine smashed into the upper front wall of the house, and I heard a grinding, cracking sound. It occurred to me in that instant that if they were set any lower, the forks would be crashing into the window and me instead.
The man backed out once more, and again I could see his eyes, I was sure now that he wasn’t out of control but that for some insane reason mowing down this particular house was the single most rational thing on his mind. I frantically waved at him and with surprising calm, kept shouting, ”Stop! Stop.”
He came at us again, this time with the forks set low, systematically mowing down the rest of our front wall and the one between us and our neighbour’s house. He came back again and again, each time faster and with more purpose. At last he stopped for a minute then drove into the lamp - post outside our house before driving away. As I watched him, I felt my body start to shake. I ran outside when he was out of sight to look for someone, anyone, maybe one of the other builders who are always working around the estate. Two of them were calmly walking up the street, but started running towards me when they saw the devastation.
“Did you see him?” I shouted. “Who?” “The man in the fork-lift!” I shouted again. “He did this?” “Who is he?” My voice had begun to falter and I could hear Mo crying behind me. She was standing at the door looking at the destruction on the lawn where she and her brother and sister ran around on light evenings in their pyjamas. I beckoned to her to come to me and held her tightly in my arms, trying to calm myself and willing my body to stop shaking.
Another builder came running up. They know me, I often chat to them in the street. “Did he do this?” He asked. “Did you see him?” I asked, relieved that someone knew who ‘he’ was. “He doesn’t work for us no.” He answered in his strong Cork accent. “He’s mental so he is.” “What’s he doing driving that thing?” I almost screamed at him, holding my forehead and willing it to be still. “He just jumped on it so. He’s always coming round looking for bits to do. He asked me and the lads this morning, I said we were grand so.” “So he just jumped in and drove away?” I asked. Mo had stopped crying now and was trying to get down to go investigate but I held her still. “Yeah he’s mental, he is. He probably didn’t take his med’cine this morning. I’ll go call the boss.”
Two of the builders went off to call the foreman as I walked into our brand new broken house to call my husband at work.
It turned out that the man who took the forklift was known to the police for several misdemeanours, but because of his history of mental illness, couldn’t be prosecuted for any of them. We later heard that he hung around building sites in the area looking for odds and ends to do because he fancied himself a builder.
The building firm whose fork-lift this madman took did all our repairs for free but that day when the top part of our house was nearly lifted off would always stay in our minds. As of Little Mo - now four years old - she doesn’t remember a thing and always gasp in wonder when we show her the picture of herself and the devastation on the front page of the Irish Evening Echo. “Is that me?” She would gush, resting her head on her shoulder and smiling her coy, dimpled smile.
End
