William was woken by the hum of the electric shower, the sound of a woman singing just audible above it. His eyes accustomed themselves to the strange room: the dark green walls, the golden drapes, the floral hatboxes on top of the old mahogany wardrobe. His momentary confusion lifting, he smiled as he stretched in the bed, remembering Alison and her kindness. A dull ache and heaviness restricted his left side. He remembered her reading to him last night, her warm kiss on his cheek, the softness of her hand in his. He wasn’t being fair to her, not telling her everything. Lying here in her house, surrounded by her comfort. What would it do to her if she knew the truth?
It was better that he left today, contact Fogarty on Monday and maybe move to Dublin, closer to the hospital. It was pointless putting off the inevitable, fooling himself – especially if it was going to be at Alison’s expense. No, he would leave as soon as possible and she need never know. Alison knew he was a rambler, would think nothing of him upping sticks and moving on again. He threw back the bedclothes, eased his feet out onto the floor. A faint dizziness threatened his balance. He stood up gingerly, knocking the lamp to the floor as he grabbed the bedside table to break his fall.
‘William? William, what are you—’
‘It’s okay, I just moved too quickly. I . . . I need the bathroom.’ His words were weighed with frustration.
When she had settled him back into bed, Alison carried a tray of breakfast to the room. ‘Mind if I join you?’ She smiled, laying the tray on the bed and opening the drapes. William watched the light rain slow-cry down the window pane, the sky beyond low and grey, as if counting down his days. His eyes returned to Alison. She wore that same oversized dressing gown, her damp hair loose over her shoulders. He thought back to the last time he’d seen her wearing it, when she had swayed to Mozart and, later, her brokenness in the bathroom.
‘What are you thinking?’ She placed the tray between them as she sat on the bed.
‘I was thinking of the change in you since the first time we met – the first morning I saw you on the beach.’
‘Oh, that miserable one,’ she laughed, pulling back her hair. ‘I think I’ve finally dumped her.’ She piled marmalade on her toast and took a hungry bite.
‘I sold all the stuff, you know, the nets and pots. Wait till you see the garden – its HUGE!’ She chewed hungrily, swallowed. ‘But wait till I tell you the big news.’ She raised a finger to hold his attention while she took a sip of her coffee. William smiled, warmed by her enthusiasm, by the way her energy charged the whole room. ‘Kathleen was on the phone before seven. She’s getting married, William! Rob proposed last night – and get this: in a hot air balloon, over the harbour, by moonlight! Can’t you just picture it?’ Her eyes danced as she detailed the scene, the champagne, the fireworks that Rob had arranged on the pier when they landed.
William swallowed back the lump that had gathered in his throat, his heart swelling and straining against his chest, as if to free itself from the cage his illness had condemned it to and to soar into the light and the life that Alison painted. She must have seen the change in him then, caught the shadow that dimmed his eyes. She stopped mid-flow, her eyes questioning, fixing on his.
‘You feeling all right? How’s the hip?’
‘Good,’ he nodded, smiling. ‘That doctor of yours is a real healer. I’m really much better. In fact, I was thinking of heading home today. I’ve taken enough of your time.’
‘We had a deal, remember,’ she cut in. ‘You’re here ’til Monday at least and it’s not up for discussion. As for taking my time, I’ve hardly seen you for five minutes.’
‘Yeah, but . . . ’
‘William, the room’s here. It’s empty. Your sleeping in it isn’t bothering me in any way.’
‘But I’m fine, Alison, honest. I . . . ’
‘It’s just one more day. God, anyone would think I was torturing you. Anyway, you weren’t so fine when you tried to stand up earlier on. Now eat. And try to have a little patience?’
They chatted on, Alison telling in excited gushes of Kathleen’s wedding plans, her own progress with the book.
‘For the first time in years I feel passionate about something, driven, you know. I can’t wait to get started in the mornings and toss it around in my head at night. Life has a purpose. I feel alive again, satisfied.’
‘And you look it.’ William smiled at the fire in her green eyes, the animation in her whole face.
‘Thanks for the push,’ she smiled, gathering the tray as she stood. ‘I wouldn’t have started without your words of encouragement.’
‘No, you did it yourself. This is yours, Alison. Your dream. Your passion.’ His eyes held hers, that same feeling rippling through her again, that sense that his eyes were licking her soul.
‘I’ll just take these back to the kitchen.’ She bowed her head to hide the colour rising in her cheeks.
Dressed now, she returned to the room with books and a radio. She handed him a small whistle. ‘Call if you need me – I won’t be far away, so don’t think of trying to escape,’ she smiled, leaving the room.
When the rain lifted in the afternoon, Alison left her writing and went out into the garden to make a start on her rockery. She mapped out a space running across to the hawthorn tree from where you could see the rocks at the curve of the bay. At the tree’s base she dug a small, deep hole. Back in the house she selected her favourite wedding photograph and another of herself and Sean with a newborn Hannah. Hannah still hadn’t retuned her call. The temptation to ring her had been so strong this morning but she had stuck with Claire’s advice and held back, giving Hannah the space she knew she deserved.
She wrote their names and the dates on the backs of the photographs, placed them in an old tin moneybox of Hannah’s and sealed the lid with tape before wrapping the tin in a double layer of cling film. Returning to the garden, she placed it in the hole beneath the hawthorn and pressed the moist earth tight above it. She carried the stones from the kitchen: grey, mottled, pink, striped, black – each with its own story and love of the sea – and placed them on the newly turned earth, leaving space for plants that she would choose for their colour, their wildness and strength.
The rain returned now, big, heavy drops like the tears of a god. Alison looked out towards the sea and as she did she caught a movement at the other side of the ditch. She recognised the blue corduroy cap. Joe. How long had he been there, watching? A finger of red anger uncurled inside her. This was her private space. A special, sacred time. ‘Joe!’ He sprang from behind the ditch and took off like a hare towards the road, one hand gluing the cap to his head. She smiled after him, her anger softening. Joe had been one of the constants in her and Sean’s life together and maybe it was fitting that he was here to share today as well. She remembered the stories Sean had told her of their childhood. Denied a place at the local school, Joe would follow the others there each morning – a bag filled with old newspapers and two prized books on his shoulder – and every morning the door would be shut against him. The laughter when he’d appear at the window, knocking until the master would lose his temper and chase him away. Joe would sit patiently on the wall at the gate, waiting. Waiting until they would pour out at three o’clock and he could follow them home, never tiring of the teasing and the bullying that bought him a place in the crowd.
Sean had always had a soft spot for him – and for the elderly mother who lived with him in the old coastguard’s cottage. God, how Joe had idolised Sean! She smiled, remembering the way Joe would pull himself up to his full height when Sean would praise the way he’d gutted a mackerel or salted the bait. How his eyes would twinkle when Sean gave him his ‘wages’ at the end of the week. She had loved that in Sean: that gentle, almost fatherly love, that kindness that, no matter what his own mood, Sean never failed to shower on Joe. She brushed the rain and the tears from her face. Poor Joe, he’d probably felt Sean’s loss more than anyone else. All those mornings she had opened the back door to find him sitting there, waiting: ‘Is Seany back yet?’ His eyes would never meet hers and she had always felt that he knew something more, felt that he blamed her in some way. And she had turned on him for it. Roared and ranted at him one morning, pinning him to the wall and forcing his eyes to meet hers as she screamed in his face that he would never see Sean again.
The wet earth cloying at her boots mimicked the tug at the root of her heart. She knew she had wronged him. Vented her own anger, her own suffering and guilt on the poor lad. He had never come close to her after that, no matter how she tried to entice him, and as time moved on she had given up trying. As the rain drove her indoors she vowed to try again, try harder to put things right with the child-man that Sean had always watched over.
* * *
After supper William showered and for the first time in days felt something like his old self again. Later that night as he lay on the couch, candles bathing the sitting room in their half-light, he felt a keen awareness, a heavy regret for all he had missed out on these last years through his fear of attachment, his resolve to never again suffer the loss of someone he’d given his heart to. Soft shadows danced the walls, mimicking the lick and curve of the flames in the open fire. Alison, cross-legged on the rug before him, her head bent in a mixture of concentration and shyness, read from her poems. Her hair curtained her face, the soft curls tumbling to kiss the page in her hands. He smiled to himself at the way she would half look at him to gauge his response, at her girlish lack of confidence. She was beautiful. Beautiful. Not just the face, the long, slender body, but the whole of her: that whole contradiction of vulnerability and strength, pain and passion.
For the first time since losing Helene, William felt a connection, a deep longing stirring inside him. A yearning that he hadn’t been ready to allow himself to feel, to offer himself to. Until now. Now, when it was too late. His whole being ached to reach for her, to hold her, to love and shelter her delicate beauty. He knew he didn’t have the strength to resist her much longer. When he left in the morning, he would make arrangements for the move to Dublin as soon as possible. She had had more pain in her life than many could bear and he couldn’t – he wouldn’t – be the cause of another hurt that would tear open the wounds that had only so recently begun to heal.
‘Will? What did you think?’ She smiled up at him, her brow furrowed.
‘Can you read it again?’ Lost in the torment of his own feelings, he had hardly heard a word.
She began again, her soft lilt knifing his soul.
Back to the sea
You feel it wash over your weathered soul
Its hypnotic roar drawing from your heart
whispered memories of a little girl
who was part of this place
Part of summer evenings
when shoals of silver sprats
danced round the root of Gully’s rock
to kiss your jiggling toes
Part of the spray and the foam
that winter-dashed the high slip walls
and sent seagulls sideways gliding
towards nooks in the copper stained cliffs
It played with you too
leaving its salty kiss on your lips
that you could savour it, late at night
in your high mahogany bed
safe under blankets and coats
the wind wrestling with the thatch above
stirring moss-stained mice
from the thick memory walls of your home
while your dreams bore you off
out on the cradle waves
your spray tightened cheeks spattered
with the blood and the scale
and the smell of the catch
Today again, the foamy fall
and the spray washing back like banshee hair
The wind mimics her death cry and knives
the surface of a mackerel backed sea
of grey on greyer grey on black
The cliffs and the stacks stand stern
never turning their heads
from the sting-slapping sea
with her belly of secrets
They scan the horizon
dream the return of the man
who was king of this place.
‘You know, for someone who curses the sea, you seem to have a great affinity . . . no, a great love of it.’
‘The great love-hate relationship,’ she smiled, and sipped her wine. ‘I suppose you can’t live beside it for so long, share so much with it, without coming to know it, to respect it.’
‘Well, it’s certainly inspires your work.’ He sat up on the couch. ‘You have a wonderful talent, Alison, never forget that.’
Her eyes smiled into his and he locked on them as if his very sustenance could only be drunk from their depths. He cleared his throat. ‘Now, this old man needs his bed.’ He stood to go to his room, to be alone with his thoughts and his longings. With the fears that lay waiting in the darkness.
* * *
Next morning, the rocks and clay that Alison had so carefully arranged the previous day lay scattered and thrown about outside the kitchen window. Fury weighing her step, she silently cursed the dogs as she strode towards the garden. The hole beneath the tree was freshly dug out, and empty. Would Tim have managed that? Then she saw the footprints in the wet clay. Prints of a man’s large shoe. Cold fingers of fear brushed the back of her neck. Someone, some man had been out here in the dark last night while she lay sleeping. And the dogs hadn’t even alerted her. She hadn’t slept that heavily, conscious that William might call her during the night.
‘Problem, Alison?’
She swung around at William’s call from the kitchen window. He could see her confusion, the tension tightening her mouth.
‘Oh, it’s just Tim!’ She walked towards the window. ‘He’s gone and undone all the work I put in yesterday.’ From the side of her eye she saw the little tin box, opened and empty, lying on the yellowed grass nearby. ‘It’s nothing, just a wasted day’s work,’ she smiled. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’
William was dressed and shaved and looking a lot brighter. She stood under the open window looking up at him, the morning sun playing in her hair.
‘Much better, thanks. I’ll be off and out of your way in an hour. Fancy a coffee?’
‘Sure.’ She rounded the house to the back door. He was going home. ‘Would you not think of spending one more night?’ she called, kicking off her boots in the back kitchen. What if whoever it was that messed up the garden came back again tonight? ‘There’s nowhere in particular you’ve got to be, right?’ She ignored the part of her that jeered, contesting that being on her own wasn’t the real reason she wanted him to stay.
‘Thanks, Alison, but honestly, I’m fine. I can rest at home today, plus there’s some stuff I need to get on with.’ His face was still drawn, his weight loss showing in the way his shirt hung at the shoulders.
‘Anyway, I can’t get too accustomed to these comforts. You’re spoiling me.’ He poured the scalding water into the mugs and turned to bring them to the table. The limp was more pronounced than ever and Alison could see the wince in his face when his left side bore his weight.
‘You’re tired of my company already?’ she teased.
‘Alison, never!’ He sat the mugs on the table and, taking her in his arms, hugged her tightly. She closed her eyes and drank in his closeness, his freshness and warmth, the feeling of absolute comfort and security that washed right through her. He buried his face in the thickness of her hair, a deep sigh laced with longing escaping from the depths of him: a longing for all he had never had with her and yet could still feel its loss. He pulled away gently, his hands still resting on her shoulders, eyes searching hers, his lips burning to touch the bow that arched and parted hers.
‘Alison,’ his voice was heavy and hoarse, ‘dear, sweet Alison. What would I have done these past few days without you?’
She didn’t speak, reading more in his eyes than his words or his thanks could ever say.
‘I’ll miss you,’ he sighed, giving her shoulders a tight squeeze before turning to sit, not trusting his heart or his tongue to hold their silence.
‘Then you’ll at least wait till this afternoon?’ She busied herself sugaring her coffee. ‘I want to go up there first, check that everything’s okay for you.’ The determination and authority that had driven her words in the past few days was replaced by a dull resignation.
* * *
Alison’s jaw dropped and she stopped mid-stride. Along the side of the camper, bright red paint trickled like blood from the thick, ugly scrawl above. She moved nearer, her step hesitant. ‘Git Out Git Out’ repeated itself again and again along the length of its side, on the door and windows, the paint splashed about on the steps and grass. It must have been done last night, the rain clawing red tears from each letter. She stepped around the back. The generator was upturned and thrown near the gorse. Alison hauled it back into place. Along the back of the camper ‘SEANY’ screamed at her in a large, childish scrawl. She shook her head in a mixture of temper and understanding. Joe. This was his work. It had to be. He was the only one who ever called Sean by that name. If she caught him, she’d have his tonsils! She touched the paint. It hadn’t quite dried but she would have to make a start on it soon before the sun made it stick. She drove back to the house, where she’d left William reading in the sitting room.
‘Just popped back to get a few bits and pieces,’ she called from the hall. She filled a basin with cloths, sponges and a bottle of turps. In the bedroom she threw on an old T-shirt and her gardening jeans. On her way back out she popped her head round the sitting-room door. ‘Just going to . . .’ He lay on the couch sleeping, the open book resting on his chest. Alison tiptoed in and covered him with a throw before scribbling a quick note to say she’d be back for him at four.
Two hours later she sat on the scrubbed step of the camper door and lit a cigarette. Her arms and her neck ached, her hands raw and tight from the water. She would kill Joe when she caught him. What if he comes back and does it again tonight, she thought. That would be all William would need to run him out of the place. Not that he seemed to need any more prompting, she sighed, drawing heavily on her cigarette. Her mind returned for the umpteenth time to their embrace this morning. Had she imagined the desperation in his sigh – in the way he’d held her so tightly? How his eyes had misted over when he’d whispered how he’d miss her? A niggling voice whispered at the back of her mind. He’s going away. Away from here. Away from you. She stamped out her cigarette and began to scrub at the remaining paint with a renewed energy. He’s leaving here, he’s leaving you. The little voice sang with every stroke of her arm, the waves crashing in contempt to the shore below. Alison clenched her jaw. She scrubbed and scrubbed till the camper shone like new in the afternoon sun. She would come back again later, she decided. She’d make some excuse to William and she would catch that little bastard if he came back again and march him straight home to his mother.
Happy that the generator was working and that the windows and door were secure, she whistled for the dogs and headed for home.
* * *
Claire was right. Again. She couldn’t really blame Mum, could she? Hannah sat on the steps of Claire’s gallery and scanned the crowd for her aunt’s red jacket. She tucked her knees under her chin, folded her arms round her calves. She wouldn’t dare treat Claire like that: slamming doors, the ‘whatever’ treatment, filling her with lies and then making her feel guilty when she caught you out. It was easy to make Mum feel guilty, Hannah knew. Knew that she had worked on it too. Claire would send her packing if she tried any of that on her. But Mum had put up with it. Put up with Nan and the hospital and everything – imagine Claire doing that every day. Fat chance!
She lowered her head, her thick black curls screening her face. She swallowed back the burn that heated her chest and closed her eyes to block out the memory of that night, of P O’N – she could no longer even think his full name, never mind say it! Why had she ever bothered with that loser? And what else was Mum to think after all that stuff with Kathleen and Jamie and everything. Poor little Jamie, she had always considered him her little brother. Some big sister she’d turned out to be, standing behind that eejit, letting him roar like that. She pictured Jamie’s face, the tears springing from his eyes. She hugged herself tighter. She would make it up to him, bring him back one of those dinosaurs she had seen at the market on Little Lane. Funny, she had thought of Jamie the moment she saw them that day.
And she would ring Mum tonight, she sighed, lifting her head. Like Claire said, Mum had enough on her plate with Nan and all without her adding to it. She glanced at her watch. Five forty-five. Claire had arranged to pick her up after work, but she was late. Again. She looked up the street, pictured Claire tottering towards her on her five-inch heels, shopping bags swinging – though she was supposed to be uptown at a meeting all afternoon – all flushed and breathless with apologies.
Her eyes wandered over the crowds milling along the footpaths, each with a face like they were setting off on some mission to save the world. A young couple, hand in hand, jerked backwards out of the horn blast of a black taxi. A gaggle of Spanish students, like ducks in their yellow T-shirts, marched behind their guide up the steps beside her. She touched her hand to the spot where the sun scorched the base of her neck, pictured the beach at Carniskey, the surfers skimming the waves.
‘Hey, Hannah!’ Harry, a college student who also had a summer job at Claire’s gallery, loped down the steps towards her, his blond fringe dancing.
* * *
William waved her off just after seven and returned to the sitting room to lie down on the couch. He felt weak, exhausted all the time, but while Alison was about he had done his best to pretend he was back to some kind of normality. He shifted on his back till the pain eased in his hip. Alison’s spirits seemed to have lifted after her chat on the phone with Hannah but she had seemed a little distant with him all evening. The edge was missing from her humour and whenever she spoke it was as if she was preoccupied, bothered by something else entirely. She was probably exhausted, and who could blame her, all the extra work he had put on her and then that damned generator kicking up and Alison having to haul it to the garage for repair. No wonder she seemed a bit out of sorts; she’d probably be glad to see the back of him in the morning when the generator was fixed.
He closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander back again to this morning. He hoped he hadn’t offended her, that she hadn’t felt hurt or rejected. He could almost swear that she burned for that closeness as much as he did. It was there in her eyes, in the full and open invitation of her lips. It had killed him to turn away, to snap the magic, the unspoken yearning between them. But it wasn’t him that she needed. Alison needed to know, to recognise, that she was coming alive herself, and not to confuse that feeling with loving him.
Besides, it would have hurt her more if he hadn’t pulled away. Their absolute separation in a couple of months’ time would surely destroy her. And he could never die in peace were he to leave behind that legacy of pain.
He had done his best to hide his disappointment when she told him she was going out tonight. He had barely seen her since this morning and when she told him that he had either to spend another night with her or sit in darkness in the camper, his heart had lifted at the chance of one more evening alone with her. But another part of him was glad that she was spending a few hours with Kathleen, getting involved in her plans for the wedding, looking forward. It was just what Alison needed. She had spent long enough in the past.
* * *
Alison had parked at the beach and walked the steep track to Tra na Leon so Joe wouldn’t know she was there. She sat now on the narrow bed in the camper, staring into the eyes on the drawing in her hand. She felt a strange affinity with the charcoal image, recognised the pain, the isolation, the deep searching that William had captured so brilliantly in Helene’s eyes.
A low muttering outside startled her. She sat upright, holding her breath. She could barely make out the low singsong words:
‘We’ll have a good one this year, Seany
Back with us this year, Seany . . . ’
Joe. She knew it! She rose softly, flicked on the light and burst out through the door.
‘Joe O’Sullivan!’ she screamed. He made to run but tripped on the grass, the can of red paint spilling like fresh blood round his head. Alison grabbed him and pulling him up by the shoulders of his coat, sat him on the step of the camper.
‘What are you playing at, Joe? Do you realise the work you gave me today?’ She bent to his bowed face. ‘Joe!’ She shook his shoulders and he began to keen like a trapped and frightened animal.
‘Look at me, Joe.’ Her voice was high with temper. He shook his head quickly from side to side, muttering. She grabbed his chin and forced his eyes to meet hers. His eyelids fluttered nervously over his bead-like eyes.
‘Why did you do it?’
He stuttered, then howled at her, ‘Seany’s comin’, Seany’s comin!’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Joe, Sean is gone! He’s gone, understand? He’s not coming back. Sean is DEAD! HE’S DEAD!’ Alison could see her words strike his face like blows and, realising the strength and venom in her words and her hold, she let go her grip on his chin and shoulder. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, just to frighten him off.
‘Get out of here, Joe. And if you come back again, I’ll march you down to your mother and she’ll get the guards. They came for you before and they’ll lock you up this time. Mark my words, if I catch you up here again, you’ve had it!’ He sat on, the head, still bowed, dancing from side to side.
‘Go on, Joe, get home. I’ll tell no one this time.’
Still half-sitting, he made a sudden lurch from the step and ran for the track. Safely out of reach, he turned and shouted: ‘You mark my words. He’s comin’! Seany’s comin!’ He threw something from his pocket and ran into the gathering darkness. Alison stepped forward and picked up the wedding photo of herself and Sean. She smiled her sadness at Joe’s determination. At his lasting insistence, his genuine belief that Sean would return. And at how the years had never worn or thwarted his love for him.
* * *
The ring of the telephone released William from a hellish dream of burning fields and naked, emaciated bodies piled high along the scorched ditches. He reached for the phone on the coffee table.
‘Hello?’ His voice was hoarse, still wrapped in sleep. ‘Hello?’
The line went dead. He dropped the phone in his lap and ran his hands over his face, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. It rang again.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello,’ a male voice, hesitant. ‘Is . . . is Alison there?’
‘I’m sorry, she’s out at the moment. Can I take a mess—’
The caller hung up again. At least he had chased the nightmare, William sighed, checking his watch: eleven fifteen. Easing himself into a sitting position, he stood and made his way to the window, to the blackness outside that seemed to beckon him.
Sean felt the bile rise and burn inside him. ‘She’s out,’ he whispered, and then, his voice rising, ‘and some bastard is sitting there in my home!’ He punched his fist into the table, sending the glass smashing to the floor.
Tom O’Donnell threw back the bedclothes, swung his legs out onto the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. His heart hammered, beads of sweat gathering on his forehead as the image, clearer than a painting, formed again in the darkness, as it had every night since: the tiny body spread out on the shingle at the foot of the cliff, the torchlight lending the pale skin the luminosity of an angel.
He cursed the day that Sean had come to stay with them, cursed the night he had spilled his past. But most of all he cursed his own stupidity and foolish judgement for showing him that ad in The Skipper. Had he not a whit of sense? He had seen the depth and the darkness of Sean’s pain, should have known to stand well clear and mind his own family.
Sean hadn’t worked in over two weeks and the whiskey bottle had become his almost constant companion. He hardly slept beyond the times his head would hit the table in a drunken slumber in the small hours. Days he’d spend alone on the cliff, looking out beyond the ocean, out to the past and how he might change it. The atmosphere in the house was dark and charged and little Daniel had withdrawn into himself with the confusion and hurt of Sean’s rejection.
Sean had roared at him late one evening when Daniel followed him along the cliff top. Roared at him to go home, that he was a nuisance and he was sick of him following him everywhere like a dumb pup. When Sean returned later with the dark and no Daniel, panic shook the house and within an hour the whole community could be seen combing the cliffs and the strands, torches winking and dancing in the blackness. Just after midnight his mother, who had sat silent and trancelike by the fire for hours, rose without speaking and opened the door, her steps all the time quickening, quickening, till she ran to the small shed at the top of the pier. She tore open the door and the harbour light shone into the cramped interior. And it shone on the small golden head asleep on a mound of salmon nets under the window. Still she didn’t speak, but lifted the sleeping child in her arms, her silent tears unleashed as she carried him home to the warmth and safety of his bed.
If they had lost Daniel that night, he would have finished Sean off with his own hands. Instead, drunk on relief, he had welcomed Sean back into the house, a house now divided and heavy. Ella made it clear by her silence that she wished Sean gone, while Sean tempted the child with sweets, coloured pens, stories, but a wedge of hurt was planted firmly between them, strangling the spontaneity and trust that had once propelled the child towards his ‘uncle Sean’.
Sean’s drinking had worsened after that. Tom could see how it fuelled his torment when the child would pull away from him or answer him without looking in his direction. With Sean drinking later and later into the night, something inside Tom refused to let him rest. He was constantly alert, constantly on watch for something. He could feel what he could only describe as a heavy darkness gathering, approaching, in the same way a storm darkens and looms, pulling the sky and the horizon tighter, shrinking the light. That night with Daniel had been a warning. The whole bloody thing needed sorting, needed ending now, and Tom knew he had no option but to ask Sean to leave.
He heard the crash in the kitchen, groped for his shirt and trousers in the dark, his bare feet light and uncertain on the stairs. He entered the kitchen and switched on the overhead light. Sean squinted in its glare, replaced the telephone receiver with a hurried thump, guilt and confusion thundering his face.
‘Don’t ye think ye’ve hurt her enough?’ Tom’s whisper was laced with anger.
‘I just wanted to hear her . . . ’
‘Ye gave up that pleasure a long time ago when ye left her alone with that wee child.’ He shook his head at the splinters of glass, the pool of golden liquid at his feet.
‘I never stopped loving her, never . . . ’
‘It’s not about ye, Sean!’ Tom caught him roughly by the shoulders. ‘What would it do to her? Have ye thought about that? If she knew that all those years she mourned and searched, ye were ALIVE? Think, man. Think beyond yer own selfishness!’
They talked and argued till Tom’s anger was spent and Sean was sober. They reached a deal. Tom would travel one more time to see Alison, would ask the questions that tormented Sean. And then Sean would leave. Go back on the Spanish boats, go wherever. And forget.
* * *
‘You went to your bed early last night.’ Alison turned from the sink as William stepped into the kitchen. ‘I got back just before twelve – no sign of life.’
‘Well, I figured that once you girls got together you’d be at it till the small hours.’ William, lying awake in the darkness, had heard her come in and go straight to her room. Had half-risen from the bed to knock on her door with the excuse of telling her that she’d had a missed call. Old fool, his head had mocked, leaning back down against the pillows.
‘So, you ready for home?’ she smiled, a forced breeziness in her voice. She was anxious to steer the conversation away from last night. Away from the awful foreboding that had crept into her after Joe had run off. Away from the panicked feeling that something terrible was about to crash in around her, a feeling so real that it chased her down the steep track in the darkness and home to the safe familiarity of her own bed.
‘All set. By the way, some guy phoned last night, just after eleven.’ He scanned her face.
‘Guy?’
‘Yeah. Didn’t get a name or a message, I’m afraid – I told him you were out.’ Her puzzlement looked genuine.
‘Probably some kids messing.’ She dried her hands, folded the towel. ‘There’s been a few of those lately. Anyway, better get going. I checked with the garage, the generator’s fixed and they’ve left it back up.’ She grabbed her keys, the dogs’ heads rising with their rattle.
William turned the key in his door. Since he had come to know Alison, the short drive to the camper had been the first time he had felt any awkwardness, any uneasiness between them.
‘Alison, you shouldn’t have.’ William beamed at the neatness of the camper: the folded clothes, the scrubbed cabinets, the beautiful wild flowers on the table.
‘Welcome home,’ she smiled.
‘What’s this?’ He motioned to the neatly wrapped package on the table.
‘I know you always swore you wouldn’t have one,’
Alison apologised as William unwrapped the mobile phone, ‘but I don’t ever want you to find yourself in a fix like you were last week . . . Show me . . . ’ She held out her hand. ‘I’ll set it up for you before I go, I’ll put in my number and the doctor’s, to start with – you can add others yourself.’ She explained pin codes and puk codes, glad to be in control of something. Glad of the mask for her loneliness.
‘I’ll ring you later, check that it’s working.’ She moved towards the door.
‘Aren’t you going to stay a while?’ He needed to be near her. To see her, to hear her. But there was a restlessness about her, an almost impatience to be gone.
‘Can’t, I’m sorry. The house painters are due in the morning and I need to get the place sorted beforehand. Anyway, you need to rest. I’ll talk to you later? Bye, then.’ Her eyes never meeting his, she fastened the door behind her.
William sat on the bed and sighed out some of the heaviness from around his heart. He studied the tiny phone in his palm. Bit late in the day to be getting techno friendly, he chided, placing the charging phone back down on the table. He sat on, allowing the emptiness to settle around him. There he was, such a short time ago, talking to Alison about attachment, thinking he had it all figured out. But what he wouldn’t give at this moment to be back in her home. To watch her move around the kitchen, to hear her singing to herself – completely out of tune – when she forgot that she wasn’t alone. Even just to be in his room alone and know that she was about the place. He lifted the lid from the box of charcoal, opened his sketchpad.
* * *
Alison sat in front of the blank computer screen. She’d type up some of the pages she had written over the last few days. She wasn’t in the mood to write anything new and maybe going back over the work she had done would spark her again. God, she missed him. Funny how easily, how quickly she could get used to having someone around the place again. William had just fitted in so seamlessly. There was never any awkwardness between them, no need to fill their silences with small talk. It was almost like he had always belonged there.
William hadn’t felt so, obviously, with the hurry he’d been in to leave, even pretending to be better than he was. And he had seemed so tense and distant on the drive up to the camper, as if he was already away, somewhere else. She sighed into the silence, feeling as if the life had somehow drained from the house. ‘Oh, come on!’ she scolded, flicking the computer to life. Hadn’t she felt the same when Hannah had gone to London? She was lonely, that was all, just missing the presence of another body about the place. And what was it William had said to her, about not attaching yourself, not trusting your fulfilment to somebody else? Her fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard.
The telephone rang and Alison glanced at her watch. Just after ten. Where had the last three hours disappeared to? She took a deep breath. ‘Hello?’ She closed her eyes, willed it to be his voice.
‘Hey, just thought I’d let you know I’ve figured out how to use this thing.’
‘William, how are you feeling? Settled back in okay?’ It felt as if someone had turned on a light inside her.
‘I’m just going to hit the hay. Just wanted to thank you again, Alison, for everything. If there’s anything I can ever do for you . . . ’
She missed him so much, and it wouldn’t be long now before he was moving on, moving out of her life altogether, so why not go for it, she argued, covering the mouthpiece and taking a long, slow breath. ‘Actually, there is something.’ She pulled the newspaper cutting from the noticeboard beside the phone. ‘The Maritime Festival’s on in town at the moment and there’s an open poetry reading on the quay on Saturday night. And fireworks. I’d love to go but I’d never brave it on my own – fancy coming with me? That’s, of course, if you feel you’re up to it.’ She closed her eyes and stretched down the corner of her mouth, trying to ignore the hesitation on the other end of the line, the voice screaming fool! in her head. William bit down on his lip. He had already telephoned Fogarty and arranged to return to Dublin the day after tomorrow.
‘Saturday night?’ he repeated, stalling. Leaving her today had only proved to him how desperately he wanted her, needed her. It had taken every last ounce of resolve to pass the night without seeing her, without hearing her voice. He knew he couldn’t trust himself to be close to her again without . . .
‘Yeah, eight o’clock, but I understand completely if you’ve got . . . ’
‘I’d love to, Alison, I never miss fireworks.’ It was the way she tried to mask the disappointment in her voice that broke him. He’d ring Fogarty’s secretary again tomorrow, arrange to go up on Monday. One last night together, just to say goodbye, and the fireworks would make a perfect parting. ‘But there’s one condition.’
‘Yeah, what’s that?’
‘You have to promise to read a poem.’
‘In front of that crowd? You must be joking!’
‘That’s the deal.’
‘Go on, we’ll talk tomorrow,’ she laughed. ‘Goodnight, Will. Sleep well.’
‘You, too. Goodnight.’