As soon as court is adjourned I tell Joe I’m going to the toilet and I pick up pace until I’m outside, racing down the quays to Tara Street DART station. The sky is dark and mottled and the wind lashes the rain against my bare legs. I turn up the collar of my blazer, but it is poor protection against a day determined to drown me in its sorrows.
As the DART rumbles south along Dublin’s coastline, I’m only half-focused on the swell of the gray-green sea, the broken rhythm of the waves as they hurl their weight onto the shore. In my mind’s eye, I see Tina on that last night, cross-legged on the orange rug as she sucked joylessly on a cigarette and told me about McQueen. How he’d first put his hands on her at age fifteen, kissed her at sixteen and then raped her only a few weeks later. How she couldn’t tell me because it would make it real and she’d lose everything, the promise of a career most kids on our estate couldn’t even dream of. And all I could think about was the betrayal of his hands on her body, that she would let him touch her like that when it was all I’d ever wanted.
Tina will never know why I questioned her story, why I wouldn’t go with her to England for an abortion. She will never understand why I walked out and left her crying and pleading on that orange shag-pile rug. I just didn’t have the guts to tell her how I really felt about her. And no matter how many times I say he killed her, I know it’s not true. She’s not dead because of him. It’s because of me.
In Dalkey, I run through the rain-drenched streets until I reach the seafront. At the edge of Dillon Park, the waves bloom onto the rocks below and I wonder if I’ve made a mistake. The tide is almost in, the rock where we shared our first kiss half-obscured already and Dalkey Island barely visible in the distance.
As I climb down, the wind whipping the rain at my face, my thin pumps slip and slide on the loose stones, and I have to hold tight to the overhang of bristled shrubs. There is no shore below, the usual sliver of sand buried under the rush of the waves, and I lurch sideways until I reach a large boulder and scramble to the top.
That’s when I see her, wrapped in an anorak, bare feet and legs hanging over a ledge in the nearby rockface. I slither down and claw my way across the rocks, scraping a groove down my shin in the process. When I get to her, clothes stuck to me and blood painting a line down my leg, she is silent and unmoved.
I push in beside her and say nothing, our knees touching, our breathing in sync. The sea swells and crests, swells and crests, each silent threat released and restated. A wave breaks below us, the tide creeping closer with every outburst. In five, ten minutes, it will be upon us, forcing us out of here. I shudder with the fear of it, the crippling force of its raw power.
“What’s going on?” I say.
She stares straight ahead, as if she hasn’t seen me at all.
“I can’t do it.”
“Do what?”
“Court.”
My heart sinks and I know I’m going to have to fight for her.
“You’ll have to do it eventually. If you don’t, you could go to prison and, trust me, you wouldn’t like it.”
“I’m sorry.” She bows her head and silent tears fall onto her lap. “For everything.”
“It’s not too late,” I say cautiously. “You can change your testimony. Even if you said what really happened, that would make things easier for me.”
“There’s no point,” she says. “You’re better off if I just disappear completely. The case will fall through without me.”
“What do you mean, disappear completely?”
Her hair falls forward across her face so I can’t see it.
“Shauna, you’re scaring me. Please tell me what you’re talking about.”
The sea sprays onto our bare legs, salt stinging my open wound.
“I have nothing, Lou. I’ve destroyed everything.”
“What do you mean? You have so much—your family, your friends, swimming.”
She pushes her hair behind her ear and I see the hollows of her eyes for the first time.
“Is that it?” she says.
“You’ll be going to college next year,” I say, scrambling for scraps. “That’ll be a fresh start for you.”
She shakes her head as if she doesn’t want any of it.
“And me,” I say, taking her hand, “I don’t want you to … disappear.”
Shauna pulls her hand away and covers her face.
“How can you say that after what I’ve done?”
The sea is at our feet now, the cold water filling my shoes, but I don’t move.
“I know it’s not you, Shauna. It’s everyone else trying to turn you against me.”
“Melissa was only trying to help me.”
“I know,” I say, although the confirmation is crushing. “But whatever you’ve done, we can get past it. It’s not too late.”
“You don’t understand,” she cries, her face obscured by her hands. “Mr. McQueen. It was all my fault.”
The rage rushes out of me, the absolute fury that, after everything, he still has the power to make her believe that.
“Do you know what?” I shout. “He deserved to die. If he was alive, he’d still be raping you and all the others. It was never your fault, not one bit of it. People will understand that. You have to tell the truth, not just for me but for everyone else he’s hurt too.”
“I can’t, I’m sorry,” she says as a wave crashes against our legs. “I ruined everything. I hurt the one person who…”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Nothing matters.”
I reach out my hand, but she jerks it away and then she’s on her feet, teetering on the edge of the rockface before I have time to think about what she’s doing.
“It’s better for you this way,” she says.
“Shauna, no,” I scream, and I grab at her as she pushes off the ledge and plunges into the water.
She swims out into the waves and I’m left behind, paralyzed by the fear of going after her and the terror of doing nothing. Seconds feel like minutes and I stand frozen as my brain tries to calculate the probability of survival for any given action. I kick off my shoes, pull off my blazer, close my eyes and jump.
Under water, time flickers and flares as the shock of the cold tears through me. The silence roars in my ears and all I can do is let go and trust my body to catch the rhythm of the waves. I could swim before; I can do it again. I kick and grasp at the water, lift my mouth to the air, and all I can think is, I can’t let this happen again.
“Shauna,” I shout, but she doesn’t hear and I carry on, thrashing at the tattered sea, pushing through the pain.
I call again and this time she turns, her head bobbing as I wave, and I think I’ve done enough to save her. She knows how terrified I am of the water; she has to see this as the grand gesture it’s intended to be. But it’s not enough. She pulls away, putting even more distance between us until I have no choice but to save myself. With the wind howling and the rain clattering around me I do the one thing that is still within my power.
“Shauna,” I shout, her name ripping through my throat, “I love you.”
The light is fading from the day, and I can no longer see the shape of her in the water.
“I love you,” I roar again and again until the breath is gone from me, and I have to turn back.
I can only hope the sea hasn’t drowned me out, the wind hasn’t twisted my words. I’ve done everything I can and I have to let Shauna make her own decision now. She’s a strong swimmer; she’ll make it back to shore, if that’s what she wants. If her heart hasn’t been gouged to nothing by Maurice McQueen.