There had been times when she’d had to fight to keep loving him. Fight with herself. Times she had to fight against all those feelings of having given up her life, her ambition, the promise of a career, all the other paths she could have chosen, shrinking the woman she might have become to fit his world, his moods, to fit herself into his idea of who she was, who she should be. Times, she realised now, when she’d had to deny her very self. And all that time Kathleen and him had . . .
Alison spooned the soup listlessly into two bowls, set them on the tray and slapped the ladle down hard on the counter top. Her eyes burned with want of sleep, with the strain of having read and re-read those words, their gentle slope cloaking the serrated blades behind them that had cut and dug and gouged her out, returning her to the fold of William’s arms, opened and emptied, wordless, tearless, numb. She had rested her head on the pillows, eyes wide, as William digested each page, then silently folded the letter neatly back into its envelope, set it on the bedside locker. With only his eyes speaking, he had drawn her to him, his whole body and soul entering her so urgently, filling her with his balm. She had clung to him then, the raw, exposed depths of her greedily, hungrily gripping him as if her very sustenance depended on it.
Hours of silent, transcendent embrace had brought the dawn and sleep for William. Alison had risen then, taken the letter and, page by shredded page, had flung it in the empty fire grate and set it alight before taking the dogs and walking, numb and aimless, along the cliff top for what seemed hours. Without taking notice of her direction, she had found herself at Tra na Baid, on the edge of the cliff above that clump of rocks where Sean’s boat had gone down. She could see its ghost now, heaving and dipping, hear the thump of the torn hull against the rocks. The sea was calm, sleepy, barely kissing its frothy lips to the base of the rocks. The sea had had its fill. And so had she. She slipped the wedding ring from her finger and, eyes dry, drew her hand back over her shoulder and cast the ring to the water’s depths. ‘It’s over!’ The words found their way through her tightened lips as she tossed back her head and turned for home.
She wished she hadn’t burned the letter now. Wished she could read it one more time, pick out the clues that should have shown her the real Kathleen. Jesus! All the stuff she had confided in that bitch! Stuff about her and Sean: the moods, the rows, the drinking, the sex or rather the lack of it! Had they laughed about it together, laughed at her while they lay naked in Kathleen’s bed?
‘Alison?’ William moved slowly towards her, his arms stealing around her shoulders.
‘Oh, William, you shouldn’t be . . . ’ She hadn’t realised she was crying until the wetness of her cheek touched his. ‘I was just going to take this down to . . . ’
‘Hush, sweetheart, I’m fine.’ His voice was so soft in her ear, so beautiful. She closed her eyes, let the dam inside her finally crumble. William’s hand found her hair, kneaded the back of her head, her thin frame shaking against him, every vibration reverberating through the very root of his heart. How could he leave her now, like this? Now, when every last bit of comfort and companionship had been stripped from her. How could he add his leaving her to all that? He couldn’t. His fear and desperation, his wretchedness and unbounded love swelled in his chest, spilled up into his throat. Whatever it took he would muster every last bit of strength in himself, every last ounce of diminishing life, and he would fill her with it, fill her and carry her those last few steps to herself, to that place that she had all but reached. His eyes closed with his deep in-breath, his arms folding tighter around her. Alison had it in her to do it. He knew she had. And he would help her to know it too.
‘Let’s sit.’ He pulled away gently from her, led her by the hand to the table. The sun through the patio door made a halo of her red hair, emphasising the pallor of her small face. And those eyes – the deep devastation haunting them when they met his, he felt his heart physically tighten, strain, crack.
‘Talk to me, Ali.’ His hands found hers across the table, his thumb instinctively seeking out and soothing the exposed, indented skin on her ring finger. Her eyes, pooled with tears, searched his.
‘Why?’ The whisper trembled on her lips and she bit them back.
* * *
‘Look, if she hasn’t made contact in the next few days, then I’ll go and talk to her.’ Standing behind her chair, Rob bent towards her, squeezed her shoulders and Kathleen allowed her head to rise, fall back upon the cushion of his chest.
‘It’s already been over a week.’ Her eyes burned under their heavy lids. ‘She won’t come, Rob. I knew she wouldn’t.’ Her sigh rose from her hollowed-out depths. ‘And who could blame her?’
‘She’ll need time, Kath, you know that. Time, and lots of it. It’s a lot to take in, and especially in the state she’ll be in with William. But she has to be told about Sean. And now, before he—’
‘I know.’ Her hand reached for his. How could he still love her? How could they start out their new life together like this? She knew it had all been too good to be true. What man would want to wait around through all this, through what was supposed to be the happiest time of his life, torn apart and flung in pieces around him? Had she not paid the price of her sin with the last eight years? Was she expected to go on paying forever? Had she not done her best to make up to Alison, to Hannah? Was her crime bigger than her, than her life? Had she become it?
‘Rob?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For still loving me.’
He moved from behind her chair, took both her hands and, raising her up towards him, folded her close in his arms. ‘How could I not love you, Kath? The sweetest, kindest, most loveable creature that ever walked into my life.’ His hand stole down her back, rested on the cheek of her bottom. ‘Oh, and the sexiest too, did I mention that?’ He could almost hear her smile, feel it entering him. God, how he wished he could put an end to all this for her. He held her tighter. ‘You’re my girl, Kath, and I will always love you, never doubt that.’
* * *
‘Will, are you sure you don’t want to head back?’ They sat at the very end of the pier, William in his wheelchair, Alison on the bollard beside him. She’d noticed how he’d begun to shift in his seat, the shake in his hand as he secured the rug around his hip. And that sea breeze had gotten cooler as the evening wore on.
‘I’m good, Ali. Just to feel that breeze, taste the salt on my lips, it’s wonderful.’ He had tightened the rug around his lower body to cover the tremor in his left leg and hip. He knew it wasn’t wise to sit with his weight on it for so long, but Alison needed this. She needed out of that house, she needed space, air, room to think.
‘Will?’
‘Yes?’ Her gaze was lost somewhere, out over the ocean, the breeze dancing her loose curls around the exposed arch of her neck.
‘Why don’t I hate Sean for this? Why is it Kathleen? I mean . . . I mean, he was in it as much as her and . . . ’ Her words trailed away as she turned to face him.
‘Is it because Kathleen is here, flesh and blood, easier maybe to direct your anger at?’
‘Maybe, yeah, but I think it’s something more.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I don’t love him, William.’ She turned her whole body to face him now. ‘I don’t care.’ She took a deep breath. ‘This summer. You. I never knew what real love was, Will. You showed me. You showed me what it means to be yourself. To have the space and permission to be yourself. Truly yourself. And to be loved for being that very person. I never had that with him. I thought loving someone was pleasing them, almost living for them. It’s not, is it?’
William shook his head, his eyes and his silence encouraging her to go on.
‘All the years I wasted, hiding in my grief – and the years before that too, hiding behind him. And now Kathleen, her letter. Oh William, what I’ve done to Hannah – to myself. And all for nothing!’ She could feel the white of her anger begin to froth and bubble again. ‘I should have left this place, I should have listened to Claire and Hannah. I should have left the whole damn lot of them. Why didn’t I see? What kind of a deluded fool had I become? What kind of a moron who couldn’t see that her husband had long ago left her – long before he died! Jesus, all the years I’ve wasted on him, all the tears and the torture, and for what? All for a lie!’ She bent her head, squeezed the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb. If this headache lasted much longer, her head would split open.
‘It was real, Alison. All of it. Your hurt, all the heartache . . .’
‘Real?’ Her head shot up, her green eyes ablaze. ‘I’ll tell you what was real! I lay in bed at night waiting for him to come home. Searching inside myself for some way to reach him, to help him feel my love. I lay awake wondering if there was something wrong with me, whether I was enough.’ She pushed herself up and marched to the edge of the pier, turned again to face him. ‘And all that time he was in another bed. Fucking my best friend! That’s what’s real, William, whether I like it or not.’ Her hands rested on her hips as she marched back towards him. ‘Well, I’m done with the childish notion of Sean Delaney the loving husband, the childhood sweetheart, the lost love. He was nothing but a selfish, cheating coward and the bastard can rot in hell!’ A laugh erupted from her then, causing her to bend in two as she reached his chair. ‘I don’t care any more, William. I’m free.’ She threw back her head and shouted the words to the cliffs. ‘I’m free!’
William’s silent tears trembled under the kiss of the breeze.
* * *
Alison angled the rear-view mirror, pressed the cold pad of a thumb beneath each eye. Despite the concealer, the brush of blusher on her cheeks, she still looked exhausted, worn out. She checked her watch: 4.50 p.m. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back on the headrest. Another ten minutes before she was due to meet Kathleen in the bar. She would rest her eyes. She was damned if she was going to let Kathleen see the agony she had put her through.
She had chosen the popular bar-cafe in town as a meeting place, knowing that it would be busy with the after-work crowd, that she would contain her anger rather than risk making a public scene. It was William who had insisted that she do this. If it had been her choice, she would have never again as much as looked at the side of the road that Kathleen Collins walked on! In the turmoil of the past week she had forgotten that part of the letter – another reason why she shouldn’t have been so hasty to burn it. She wished she could have read it again before meeting Kathleen now, read it and known exactly what she’d said, been more prepared. William remembered that it had referred to some information around Sean’s disappearance that Kathleen wanted her to know. Now, three years later? Well, if she’d had information like that for over three years and kept it to herself, there was no forgiving her. However bad the affair was, to be that cruel as to hold something ‘vital’ – William was sure that was the word she had used – that would be the cruellest and most unforgiveable act imaginable. But what could it be? What could she possibly know that no one else did? It wasn’t that she was intimate with Sean at the time; if anything, going by her letter, they were enemies. So he couldn’t have confided anything in her, could he? Well, she’d know soon enough, she thought, opening her eyes and shaking the tiredness from her head. Her hand searched in her bag for the little pump bottle of Rescue Remedy. She opened her mouth, shot three quick bursts onto her tongue. She checked her watch again: 5 p.m. ‘Okay, let’s do this,’ she instructed herself. She took a deep breath, pulled back her shoulders and stepped down from the jeep.
Out of nowhere a lump the size of an apple lodged in Kathleen’s throat as her eyes caught Alison slip through the main door. She clasped her hands tightly under the table, her palms hot and clammy. Her tongue sought the groove in her lip. Oh Jesus! Should she smile, wave, do nothing? Alison caught her eye then, held it as she moved slowly, haughtily, across the short distance of floor towards the corner table. She looked taller than usual somehow, almost threateningly so, Kathleen thought, swallowing against the lump.
‘Oh Alison, thank you for—’
‘I’m not interested in any small talk.’ The scrape of the chair on the tiled floor as she pulled it out to sit echoed the sharpness in her voice. She was glad to sit, for a moment she thought her legs were going to give from under her. ‘Or apologies or explanations.’ Her confidence rose with her anger, as she looked Kathleen square in the eye. Eyes that were circled with lack of sleep. Well, good enough for her, Alison remarked, her eyes moving to Kathleen’s mouth, the way it twitched under her gaze, and all Alison could see was that mouth pressed to Sean’s, those eyes locked on his. Her stomach twisted and she swallowed against it, took a deep breath through her nose, imagined it fanning her anger. ‘You said you had something to tell me about his disappearance. What is it?’
* * *
William couldn’t rest. He rose from his bed and made his way to the kitchen, sat at Alison’s desk in the window. She’d only been gone little under an hour. Fifteen minutes to drive into town, fifteen back – the fact that she hadn’t arrived back meant they must be talking and that could only be a good thing. His smile was sad as he remembered her face as she left, the lengths she had gone to to hide her nervousness from him, to be brave. He knew it was the last thing in the world she had wanted to do, and convincing her had been no easy task, but that part of Kathleen’s letter had stuck in his head. Kathleen had said that what she had to tell Alison was something much bigger than the affair, something ‘vital’ about Sean’s disappearance. Maybe this something was the last thing Alison needed to hear to finally and truly release her from the past, to allow her to cut the ties and move on, really move on. Sure, she had said that she felt ‘free’, that she didn’t care any more, but he knew that part of that was just her own self-protection, her own way of coping with Sean’s betrayal. Still, after her initial almost total collapse when the letter arrived, her strength over the past few days had really surprised him. But then, maybe it shouldn’t have. Look at how she had coped with the news of his cancer and how close the end was for him. Look at how she bucked against the hospital, him, everyone, to take him back home and care for him.
The tears came again now, soft at first and then gathering their strength till his whole body shook with their force. In all his life he had never known such kindness, such love. How could he ever leave her? He rose and walked to the window, leaned his tired body against the frame. He hoped that herself and Kathleen could somehow work things out, in time. Something inside him told him they would find a way. Alison hadn’t mentioned the fact that Hannah and Jamie were sister and brother and he hadn’t wanted to broach the subject, had wanted it to come from her. It was the one positive that had come out of this situation and maybe, hopefully, it was the one thing that would in some way unite Alison and Kathleen again.
Maybe what Kathleen had told her had upset her, he thought now. Maybe she had gone off somewhere to be on her own, to digest it. Hoping, needing to know that she was all right, he felt his whole body straining to hear the sound of her car on the gravel outside.
* * *
‘Alive?’ Alison shook her head slowly, her incredulity pulling her lips into a wide smile. Kathleen had had to repeat the word three times before it seemed that Alison had finally heard and understood it.
‘Like I said in the letter, I don’t have any real . . . any concrete . . . it’s not that I’ve seen him or anything, but Joe O’Sulliv—’
‘Ah yes!’ Alison mocked, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms across her chest. ‘Joe. Sure. Now, why didn’t I think to listen to Joe’s good advice these past three years? What was I thinking?’ She leaned forward again now, her eyes narrowed with menace. ‘What is your problem, Kathleen? Don’t you think you’ve caused enough damage already?’
‘Alison, please! He called your house – when you were in Dublin, he rang— ’
‘Sean. Telephoned my house? And you know for sure it was him? What, did he announce himself?’ Sarcasm sharpened her words.
‘Well of course not, no, but— ’
‘Christ, Kathleen, listen to yourself. What the hell kind of game is this? Is it some pathetic way of trying to wheedle yourself back into my life because if it is I can tell you now there’s not a hope in hell of me ever— ’
‘I know it was him!’ Kathleen raised her voice, not caring now who was listening, watching. ‘I’d know that voice anywhere.’
Alison looked away, couldn’t bear the sight of Kathleen’s pleading face, that pathetic way she had of leaning her whole self into you, giving herself to you – was it any wonder Sean had succumbed?
‘Then why didn’t you say something at the time? Why now? If you were so bloody sure, why wait?’ She gazed out the window as she spoke.
‘I wasn’t, I mean I didn’t . . . I wasn’t certain.’
‘Exactly. And now, when you’ve caused all this shit, when you’ve ripped apart every last shred of memory I had of him . . . ’ She turned her head now, her eyes, their pain, piercing Kathleen’s. ‘Why are you doing this, Kathleen? What is wrong with you? Guilt got the better of you?’ She snatched her bag from the floor, rose to stand. ‘Rob – if he’s still around – needs to get you some help.’
‘Oh Alison, please listen.’ Kathleen, no longer able to check her tears, rose with her, her hand reaching out to cover Alison’s across the table. ‘He’s out there. I know. Joe knows.’
The look in Alison’s eyes could have burned straight through stone as she snatched her hand from beneath Kathleen’s. ‘I’m done listening to your vicious nonsense. I don’t know what kind of a monster you’ve turned into, but stay the fuck out of my life – and Hannah’s.’
‘Joe’s got the cap he was wearing that night!’ Kathleen flung the words after her before sinking back into her seat and watching the door swing closed behind Alison’s poker-straight back.
At the rear of the car park Rob watched from his Volvo as Alison bent in two behind her jeep and, holding back her hair, emptied her stomach onto the grass margin.
* * *
A soft rain had begun to fall as Alison made her way blindly along the headland path at Tra na Leon. ‘Joe’s got the cap he was wearing that night . . . ’ Kathleen’s words echoed like a dark mantra in time with her step. The image of Kathleen’s mouth, her lips forming the words ‘Sean is alive’ seared into her head like a brand. The lips that Sean had kissed while her own had burned with his absence. She slipped off her shoes, sat on the wet grass and swung her legs out over the outcrop. The cove below was hushed, almost meditative. The rocks and the cliff face were draped with a thick, white mist: the furniture of some great god under dust sheets. Smoke and mirrors, Alison thought, her eyes fighting to penetrate the mist. Her whole life, her entire meaning, it seemed, had been based on the quicksand of illusion. Other people’s truth, or lack of it. Did that mean it hadn’t really existed at all? That she hadn’t really existed, that her life had been a lie? William hadn’t stopped reminding her over the last few days that what she had felt, had experienced, had been real, that no one could ever take that away from her. Well, wait till he heard about this.
But she understood what he meant. She knew he was right, in a way. Her truth was her truth. She had loved, she had lost and she had suffered the heartache. Maybe now she knew that she hadn’t really loved, at least not in the way she believed then that she had – neither had she lost in the way she had believed, but the end result had been the same. She was real. Her feelings were real. Hannah was real. She’d hardly had time to consider her daughter in the turmoil of the last few days, and she would have to be told. Hannah and Jamie were flesh and blood, brother and sister. Hannah already doted on him, but how was the poor girl going to cope with this, with her dad . . .
Jamie’s face rose before her now, that beautiful wide smile that lit up his eyes. The exact replica of another smile she had known and loved so well. How had she been so blind? How had she never seen it before?
And then Joe O’Sullivan barged in on her thoughts. Him relentlessly turning up at the house, mending pots, sorting nets, his persistence, his utter insistence that ‘Seany’ would be coming back, then his resentment of William, the way he followed them around, watching. Were those just the ravings of a simpleton, the coping mechanism of a mind too naive to comprehend the absolute finality of death? But she herself had used the same tack, tricking her own mind in the long months she had searched coves and beaches when all rational thought advised that there was no hope of finding him alive. She had kept on hoping too, kept on believing.
Alive. It just couldn’t be possible. And yet when Kathleen had spoken those words it was as if something had clicked into place inside her. Some other truth, that same deep truth that had driven her relentless search when the whole village had labelled her crazy. Something inside her had always been convinced of another truth – a truth she had had to fight so long and so hard to silence.
And then out of nowhere, the memory exploded like a rocket inside her head. Tom O’Donnell, the child in his arms in her kitchen. The little finger pointing excitedly to the photos on the wall: ‘Uncle Sean!’ The way Tom had made for the door, insisting the child was confusing the image with another Sean, a relation, the way he sang out over the child’s words. A coldness gripped her, seeming to come from the inside. She hugged her arms about her shivering shoulders, eyes locked on the shroud of mist lifting from the cliffs, the rain driving in harder now from the mountains.
* * *
‘Alison?’ It was Rob who answered the frantic knocking at the front door. Rob who had slipped his arm silently from around Kathleen’s shoulder in the bed, anxious not to wake her when sleep had been – when it had eventually come – such a welcome break and comfort for her.
‘Kathleen. I need to speak to her.’
‘Alison, you’re soaked through, come in.’ He held the door wide. Her hair, dark with the night’s rain, clung to her head, emphasising the sickly pallor of her face, its only colour the red around her swollen eyes, lending her an almost ghostly appearance.
‘No, I’ll wait here.’ Her light summer dress clung to her shaking body like a second skin. Her feet were bare.
‘Kathleen’s in bed, Alison, she’s sleeping, she’s been terribly . . . ’
‘Rob, it’s okay.’ Kathleen descended the stairs behind him.
‘On the phone – what did he say? On the phone that night?’ Alison stepped through the door towards her.
* * *
Cursing through clenched teeth, Sean staggered from the corner pub, crossed Portobello Bridge and headed left down along the canal. Minding his own business, he had drunk alone at the bar all night. The whiskey hadn’t lifted his depression; if anything, it had deepened it, the buzz and chatter in the pub around him only serving to reinforce the isolation and loneliness that had driven him from his room on Rathfarnham Road.
Why was it him that had been thrown out and barred? That cocky young fucker had been asking for it all night. Sean had seen him, staring, whispering to his friends, throwing that big thick head of his back, each laugh getting louder, egging Sean on. But he hadn’t risen to the bait. He’d held steady. Until he felt the fucker’s pint drench his T-shirt. ‘Terribly sorry.’ It was the way he’d raised his eyebrows when he said it, that mocking half-smirk on his face. Well, he wouldn’t be laughing now, not through that burst lip!
He rubbed a hand across his swollen knuckles. Damn, he cursed, weaving his way towards the canal bench. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention to himself. And now he’d gone and lost the sanctuary of that pub in the evenings, too. Elbows on his knees, he bent forward, his head hanging between his legs. He flexed the fingers of his throbbing hand, shook it as if to shake out the pain.
He knew he’d crack up if he had to spend one more night cooped up in the room – and not a hint or a sign of Alison. He felt the hot bile of impatience rise up through his middle. Resting his back against the bench now, he reached into his pocket for his cigarettes and a flame of hot pain shot from his hand right up to his elbow. He closed his eyes, cursing his own stupidity as he remembered his quick exit from Scotland after a similar but much uglier brawl. Maybe tonight was a sign. Maybe there was no point in hanging around here much longer either. Fuck it! He’d spent long enough considering other people and their feelings; it was time to stand up and be counted, time to claim back what was rightfully his. No more of this waiting around, he would find out once and for all if Alison was still in Dublin. And if she wasn’t, if she had already returned to Waterford like he suspected, then it was back to Donegal for him. Tom owed him. All that good fishing gear he’d got – for nothing! Plus, he already knew Alison and she seemed to get on well enough with him. He’d get Tom to go back down to Carniskey, break the news to Alison and set his going back home to her in motion. Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? He raised himself up slowly on unsteady legs, took a few minutes to reorient himself, then started out in the direction of Alison’s aunt’s house.
* * *
When Rob dropped Alison home, William, by then out of his mind with worry, had insisted she have a hot shower and a brandy. She did as he bid, but not before she had frantically searched out the telephone number of Tom O’Donnell in Killybegs. The call had been answered by whom she presumed to be Tom’s wife Ella and, Tom not being home, Alison had pressed the woman as to whether they had a friend or knew of the whereabouts of a Sean Delaney from the south-east. ‘Certainly not,’ had come the curt reply before the call was abruptly ended.
She lay now, the soft warmth of her curled into William’s arms. ‘How can someone do that, Will? Just walk out of their own life, just walk away from everything, from everyone?’
She had been silent for so long now he had thought that she was sleeping. His hand stroked her still-damp hair. What could he tell her? What comfort could he offer? ‘Who can say.’ His voice was low, laboured. ‘Which of us ever truly knows what’s in another person’s head, their heart.’
‘But wouldn’t it have to be the cruellest mind, the most selfish heart? To do that to people who love you. To just walk away, leave all that devastation.’
‘Maybe they think they’re not being cruel.’ He could only offer his own thoughts. ‘Maybe it’s the complete opposite . . . ’ He broke for a moment, recovered the rhythm of his breathing. ‘They might think that what they’re doing is an act of kindness . . . best for everyone.’
‘Like suicide?’
‘Yeah,’ he paused, ‘like suicide.’
He silently cursed his tongue, its distorted and leaden feel in his mouth, how his brain had to chase words that circled like butterflies in his head. ‘It’s a dangerous place, the mind . . . when you sink so low, in your own estimation.’
She was quiet then for a moment, remembering those times, back in the early raw stages of her grief, when she had considered ending it all, thinking that Hannah, Maryanne, everyone would be better off in a world without her. Hope had kept her going then. Hope that she would one day find him. Hope that somehow he would return and all would be right again. A cold fist tightened around her heart. What if he did return, now? What if all those years of praying and hoping and longing were to be finally answered? She moved closer to William.
‘Do you really believe – I mean, Joe and the cap and everything?’ It was the detail of the cap’s motif that had almost convinced her. Almost. But then Joe was clever. Cleverer than most. So his mind might not have developed in the way that was considered ‘normal’, but Joe had developed other skills, other kinds of knowing and coping that were foreign to most. He had the greatest knack of creating his own reality despite the world’s protestations that things were not so. Joe was a true survivor and he held fast to what mattered to him, to his own truth, no matter what was flung in his path. We could all learn a lot from Joe, she thought, picturing him helping himself to the cap from Tom’s van, patiently picking out the stitching from the dolphin’s tail until it resembled exactly the one he remembered so fondly.
‘How would you . . . feel if it was . . . if he was . . . ’
‘Angry, mostly. And a bit sad.’ She turned her face up to look into his. ‘I know I would never even want to begin to understand him, never mind thinking of forgiveness.’ Her smile was slow, sad. ‘It’s over, me and him. Whatever that was, whatever we had. It’s in the past.’ They fell into silence again, each wrestling with their own thoughts.
‘Maybe – if it is true – maybe he’ll have changed.’ He felt selfish, provoking her, teasing her out, but he had to know. Had to know before he went that she was strong enough, that this wasn’t going to defeat her.
‘It wouldn’t matter. He just doesn’t matter. I’ve changed too, William, and I’m never going back to the person I was then. Never. I’m no longer Alison Delaney.’ Rising up on her elbow, she kissed him softly on the lips, her naked breast brushing his chest, sending a tongue of fire coursing through him.
‘Thank you.’ She kissed him again.
‘For what?’
‘For showing me myself. Opening me to myself, my strength, the woman I’d denied for so long.’
‘Don’t thank me, you did that yourself.’
‘I could never have done it without your guidance, without your love.’ She closed her lids to stop her tears from falling. ‘I’ll miss you, William. I’ll miss your love, so much.’
He pressed her head to his chest, held her to him with every last ounce of strength left to him. ‘You’ll be fine. You’re a survivor . . . Poised . . . ready to take on the world.’ He could feel his heart almost physically tear open, every fibre of him wishing, wanting to stay, just even for a few more short months, to watch her, to witness her bloom.
* * *
Sean rested his elbow on the window ledge at the back of the bus, shaded his eyes with his still swollen and blackened hand. His head throbbed from the want of sleep.
He had hardly rested at all in the past week, had taken to walking, tormented, through the streets, the face of Alison’s old aunt constantly before him: the terror in her widened eyes, in the tight clench of her mouth as she watched him from the upstairs window, the phone pressed to her ear, her hand shaking. He had never meant to frighten or harm anyone, never meant to kick in that door, but neither the aunt nor Alison had answered, though he’d rung the doorbell what seemed like a hundred times. And tried the windows. He’d barely had time to scale the back garden wall before the squad car pulled into the drive. Stupid fools announcing themselves with that siren! Still, Jesus, if they’d caught him! He’d been a fool to stay on for the rest of the week. It was only his imagination he knew now, only stupid wishful thinking that had persuaded him he’d caught a glimpse of Alison through the window of a bus heading for town last Tuesday. The stupid ramblings of a tormented fool! He’d let some senseless notion of being near her run away with him, sitting like a dumb statue behind that window, wasting time. Much as he’d been tempted he hadn’t gone near the aunt’s house again for fear of the guards keeping watch. He palmed his cap, pulled it down lower on his forehead. He had been lucky, he knew, but that kind of luck didn’t last forever. He closed his eyes and, as they had all the past week, his own mother’s eyes returned to haunt him now, widened with that same fear, that same disbelief that he’d seen Alison’s aunt.
His mind shot back to February, to his frenzied newspaper searches for reports on the attack in Waterford. It had got enough column inches for him to be satisfied that his mother was still alive, was relatively unharmed. But the reporters had got it all wrong. It hadn’t been an attack. He had never intended to harm her. He had known where she kept the money, had known she had no use for it. He had known it would be enough to buy him that fake passport, a ticket to a new life, a new identity; enough to end the anonymous half-life he had endured since leaving Carniskey; to put down roots, to start again. In that split second when he had turned his head and their eyes had met he knew beyond doubt that his mother had recognised him and that look on her face, her anguished wail that had filled the whole room, had haunted him day and night ever since. He slammed his head back against the headrest now, jerked his mind back to the present. What was done was done, he told himself. There was no changing the past. There was only now. Now and the future. He had control over that and he would use it. He would use it and put things right again, with his mother, with Alison.
His sigh was long, laced with darkness. When Tom had shown him that paper with Alison’s ad, it was as if the gods had intervened and granted him a second chance. He would buy the gear from Alison with the money he had taken and put the guilt of his mother, of everything he had done in the past, behind him. He would be free to start again. But Tom had changed all that when he’d come back from Carniskey, with his talk of the place, of Alison, of how she had searched for him, mourned him. He had never thought of returning to Carniskey, had never even considered it a possibility. But, listening to Tom, he had felt the years burn away, felt like he was back in those teenage days when she would leave at the end of the summer and the whole place would scream with her absence. All the guilt and the loss and the longing that he had kept buried for three whole years erupted inside him. That was when he knew that there was no starting again. Carniskey was his home and back there, with Alison, was the only place he would ever belong.
The bus trundled along the quay. He stared out the window, his thoughts wandering back to the first night he had gone to Kathleen’s bed. He had convinced himself that it was a one-off drunken mistake to be cast to the back of his mind. But it wasn’t that simple. Nothing was ever that simple. Kathleen asked no questions, expected nothing for herself. He could come and go as he pleased, unannounced, no explanations. He had found a place where he could unleash the darkness, the anger and frustration inside him – the parts that he fought to keep hidden from Alison and Hannah. Soon he had sought Kathleen like a drug. His long hours on the sea had provided a perfect excuse and Alison never questioned where he had been so late and so often. Self-loathing swelled in his throat as he pictured her face that last evening as he drove away: her hurt, her frustration, how near she was to breaking. He knew then that he had lost her. Knew that once Kathleen opened her mouth there would be no going back. And that had decided him. He would rather be gone, absolutely, than spend the rest of his days near her, wanting her, knowing that it was his own selfishness and stupidity that had driven her from him.
He whistled a sigh through his tight lips, his fingers massaging the knuckles of his right hand. Three years now and Katheen hadn’t talked. And Alison, Alison was still waiting. Tom would help him, he knew he would – hadn’t he offered as much that night when he’d shown him the ad? The best plan was for Tom to go to Carniskey on his behalf, talk to Kathleen first and make some kind of arrangement about the boy – the money was there, waiting – and in return Kathleen would promise to keep their past a secret. Tom could then go to Alison, prepare her, lessen the shock and make Sean’s return all the easier for everyone. A half-smile pulled at his lips as he closed his eyes, settled back into his seat. The bus swung onto the main Galway road.