The Mountains Wild

by Sarah Stewart Taylor

  “Did she actually say to you that she had to get back to Dublin?” I asked.

  “No … I suppose I assumed, since she’d said she lives there.”

  “Did she say she might be going walking again?”

  “I don’t think so. She said she’d had enough the day before. And she wasn’t dressed for walking. She did seem anxious to leave. I offered her breakfast but she didn’t have the time. My breakfast is very good, I’m told.” A hurt expression flashed across her face. “She left and I waved and watched her walk down the drive and … that was all. I went back inside to clean.”

  “Mrs. Curran, what about your son? Did he talk to my cousin? Could she have said anything to him?”

  “I told the guards this,” she said. “He never met her. He was working and he had to leave very early. He never saw her.”

  “Are you sure? If there’s anything that could help us…”

  “No, I’m so sorry. And I really should get started on my cleaning.” She stood up and led me back to the front door. The air between us was awkward now. “I’m praying for her,” she said. “I hope you find out where she went.”

  Outside, I stood on the road for a moment, imagining I was Erin leaving the bed-and-breakfast. It would have been morning, warmer, with clouds overhead and the mountains rising behind her as she walked down the drive. There were only a few houses this way and it was so narrow that she would have had to jump off the road if a car came by. There were stretches where you weren’t in sight of a house, and she could easily have been abducted by a car. She’d walked past the lodge and then … what?

  Where are you, Erin?

  * * *

  It was a tedious drive over to Arklow on tiny roads that demanded all my concentration, but it only took half an hour. I was exhausted by the time I parked at the tourist office and I stood for a minute in the parking lot and breathed the river bottom–scented air. The night was still and humid, uneasy. I could feel a headache starting and my stomach felt like it was full of gears grinding against each other. I hadn’t eaten anything since a piece of Emer’s bread with butter at seven a.m.

  Arklow was a seaside town, a river snaking from the sea into the interior of Wicklow. The main drag was festive, Christmas lights already up in some of the shops and pubs.

  I asked about the best pubs and the young guy behind the desk pointed out two on the little map he gave me. The Old Ship and the Harbour. “Oh,” I said, trying to make it sound like an afterthought. “One of my distant cousins supposedly lives here. Deasey? Niall Deasey?”

  The guy’s eyes widened a bit. Apparently he knew about Niall Deasey. “Ah, yeah, he has a garage down Coolgreaney Road. Now, you’d be more likely to find him at the pub this time of the day, mind. Try the Old Ship first.”

  The Old Ship was a busy, low-ceilinged pub, with a band setting up and a teenage barman who barely acknowledged me when I asked for a pint of Guinness. But he slid it across, perfectly pulled, five minutes later and ignored the pounds I left on the bar until I turned away.

  Frank Sinatra was playing, “New York, New York,” and an old guy pulled up to the bar was singing along, too loud, but in a lovely, on-pitch tenor. Everyone ignored him.

  I drank the Guinness then got myself a whiskey and tried not to gulp it as I watched the patrons of the bar and willed Niall Deasey to appear.

  There were a couple of groups of older men, laughing and telling stories, ribbing each other and buying each other rounds. I missed my dad suddenly, missed his easy humor, his smirky grin. A group of teenage girls at the next table over were talking about the young guy working behind the bar. “He was looking down your top, I’m telling you!”

  “Sure, everyone in the place was looking down her top!” said another, and they dissolved in laughter.

  And then the energy in the room changed. It was subtle, but every person in that room was aware that the door had opened and a big group of men had entered the pub. I heard shouted greetings and laughter but I didn’t turn around immediately. Instead, I pretended to drop my sweater on the floor and stooped to pick it up, glancing quickly at the men coming in the door. There was a tall brown-haired guy, powerfully built, not handsome, and a shorter black-haired guy, both of them in their late twenties or early thirties. An older guy came in behind them, white-haired and barrel-chested, and a few younger guys trailed behind. They were mostly dressed alike in black jeans, leather jackets, short haircuts.

  There was something about them, an encircling energy. They walked in like they owned the bar, their bodies challenging the space, their eyes wary and darting. I knew what Sean saw in them at the Raven.

  I was betting that the tall brown-haired guy was Niall Deasey. There was something about him that told me he was the boss. Everything was revolving around him. He was the center. The shorter black-haired guy resembled him in some undefinable way, the eyes maybe, or the shape of their foreheads. The older-looking guy and the younger guys all stood around for a minute waiting for their pints and chatting with the barman.

  I tried to stay calm, sipping my whiskey and then turning slowly in my seat so I could get a view of them. One of the younger guys had blond hair flopping over his forehead and innocent blue eyes. That’s my guy, I said to myself. I can get that guy to talk to me.

  I caught his eye and he lingered for a moment before blushing and moving on. A few minutes later I caught him looking again. I played with my hair and met his stare before arching my back a bit and draining my whiskey. I was betting that if I could get him to want to buy me a drink, I’d get myself within spitting distance of Niall Deasey.

  Frank moved on to “It Was a Very Good Year” and I waited a few minutes, then got up and headed for the ladies’ room. It was a tiny closet at the back, the toilet and sink crammed in against the wall. I didn’t actually have to go, but I sat on the toilet and counted to sixty, then got up, washed my hands, and slipped out into the dark and narrow hallway.

  Bingo. He was coming out of the men’s room and it was easy to bump into him as I went by and then turn, smiling, apologetic.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “No, you’re fine. No worries.” He gave me a smile and put a hand on the small of my back to steer me out of the way of an older woman coming through toward the restrooms. I stumbled a little. I’d had a few drinks now on my empty stomach.

  “I like your jacket,” I said. He was cute. I smiled up at him.

  “You American?”

  “Yeah. You can tell from the accent, huh?”

  “You over on holiday?”

  “Well, I have a lot of family here. In Dublin, but our grandmother was from Wicklow and so I wanted to see what it was like.”

  “And what da ya think of it?” he asked politely. He was nervous; his right hand kept going up to tug his earlobe.

  “I like it so far, but we’ll have to see.” I tried to say it flirty, with a little innuendo in it, but he just blushed and looked away again.

  “I need another drink,” I said, gesturing to the bar. “Do you…?”

  “Ah, sure, of course,” he stammered. “What are you drinking? I’ll get it for you.”

  “Guinness, please.” A Guinness might help slow things down.

  He nodded and I followed him up to the bar, where his friends had been watching us. Deasey wasn’t there, though. He must have gone somewhere while I was in the bathroom. I gave them polite smiles, but I knew this depended on them egging him on a bit, so I looked back up at the blond guy in what I hoped was an adoring way.

  “I’m Maggie, by the way,” I told him when he handed me a fresh pint, the bubbles still rising from the bottom toward the head.

  “John,” he said quietly.

  “You American?” the guy with the black hair asked.

  “Yeah,” I told him. “This is my first time in Arklow.”

  “What do you think of it? Bit of a tip, eh?” He had an English accent, not an Irish one, and I remembered Bernie saying something about Niall Deasey’s father an
d London. I nodded and he looked back at John.

  “That’s my uncle Cathal,” John said.

  “Are you English?” I asked Uncle Cathal.

  The question seemed to piss him off, but he forced a grin on. “I’m Irish as these fuckers. I just talk like the Queen of England on account of being raised there,” he said. “Where are you from?” He checked me out and I feigned nervousness, looking away and then down at the floor. I wanted him to think that I had an innocent schoolgirl crush on John. “New York?” he guessed.

  “Outside New York, Long Island.”

  “One of the lads went out to East Islip, now,” the other young guy told me. “That’s Long Island, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s not far from where I am.”

  There was a television mounted above the bar and a soccer game was playing. They all kept glancing up at it and John groaned when a goal was scored. “You like football?”

  “Yeah.” I had a long drink of my pint and he did, too, as though taking his cue from me.

  Niall Deasey—if my instinct was right and that’s who he was—still hadn’t come back, and I was just about to order another beer for John when I felt the energy in the pub shift again.

  It was fear that entered the room. Not abject fear, but the subtle undercurrent of the possibility of danger. Niall Deasey sauntered in and came up to us and said, “Who’s this, then?”

  “This is Maggie,” Cathal said. “She’s from New York. She and Johnny have been making friends.”

  “Is that so?” He smiled and shook my hand. “Niall Deasey.” He was nearly six feet and he had a body that held power. His brown hair was cut short, showing off his broad skull and thick neck. His eyes were pale blue, intense. He searched my face for a moment, a quizzical look on it. He was confused. And that meant something. Because there was no reason to be confused here. He’d just met me. Unless he hadn’t just met me. Unless he wasn’t sure.

  His eyes narrowed a little bit, still perplexed, and then he wiped the look right off his face, just erased it like it had never been there. And that told me something else. That told me he’d done this before—recognized someone, but pretended not to. It told me what kind of person he was and what kind of people he was involved with. I remembered Uncle Danny once telling me that there are two kinds of people: people who live in their own skin and people who wear their skin like a costume. He told me and Erin that we should always look out for people who didn’t live in their own skin.

  As I got older, I figured out what he meant. There were people who had an agenda. You felt it as soon as they looked you in the eye. It was a wariness, a way of keeping part of themselves protected.

  Niall Deasey had it.

  I finished my drink and immediately there was another one there. The men told stories. They laughed and kidded each other. I tried to go slow, but Uncle Cathal said, “Isn’t your pint all right?” and winked at me as John kept nudging it closer. The pints snuck up on me and suddenly I realized that I was good and drunk. I didn’t care, though. This was it. This was my chance.

  “Do you follow the football?” one of the other young guys was asking. He swam in front of my eyes, his head splitting in two and then coming back together.

  I heard the door of the pub open, was aware of the cold air sweeping in.

  “Football?” I could hear myself slurring a bit. “Sorry, yeah.”

  “You okay there?” John asked. “You want to sit down somewhere?”

  “No. No. I’m good.” I took a deep breath, trying to get myself together.

  I turned to John and tried to enunciate. “I’m going to Dublin next. Where should I go there?”

  Suddenly, Niall Deasey was in front of me. He was studying me, looking me up and down. “What did you say your name was again?”

  “Maggie.”

  “Have I met ya before?”

  “Do I look familiar?”

  “A bit.” He stared at me some more.

  I became aware that the band had started warming up. There were Christmas lights strung above them and each one looked incredibly bright, with a little halo of light around it. “Oh, they call it puppy love,” someone was singing. John looked so embarrassed, I was worried he was going to run away, so I leaned in a little bit closer and said, “What’s your favorite movie?” I carefully enunciated each word so I wouldn’t slur.

  “I liked A Few Good Men. Did you see that?” He seemed happy to have a topic of conversation. “Jack Nicholson’s brilliant.”

  “Yeah, it was great.”

  “‘You can’t handle the truth!’” he said in what I thought was supposed to be an American accent, though it sounded more Australian.

  “That’s good,” I told him. “You’re good at that.”

  “Johnny wants to be a movie star, don’t you, Johnny?” one of his friends called back and he put his arm around me and ignored them.

  “He wants to go to America,” someone else said.

  “Well, you should call me if you come to America,” I said, but he was looking at me strangely. I stumbled back. The room was turning slowly, like a strobe light. I could feel a wave of nausea rising up through my throat.

  “I’m getting some air,” I said. I rushed out the front of the pub and stood on the sidewalk for a minute. A couple of deep breaths helped. Everything stopped spinning for a minute.

  The door opened.

  I leaned against the outside wall of the pub. It was rough and cold. I closed my eyes to make everything stop spinning. But someone was standing in front of me.

  Niall Deasey.

  “I’d like to know who the fuck you are.”

  I opened my eyes slowly, forcing them to focus on him.

  “What?”

  “I’d like to know who the fuck you are?” Niall Deasey said.

  “Uh, Maggie. I’m from New York.”

  He leaned in and studied my face and I knew what was happening. He was seeing the differences between me and Erin. And that told me he knew Erin.

  “This is fuckin’ mad, but … I think I’ve—” He stared at me again, then said, “What are you playing at?”

  We stared at each other for a long moment and I realized that this might be my only chance. I had to know, so I looked him in the eye and I said, very slowly and deliberately, “I have a cousin who looks like me. Her name is Erin. Maybe you’re thinking of her. Maybe you met her in Dublin? At the Raven?”

  Something came over his face.

  This is it, I told myself. He knows.

  “Where is she?” I asked him in a low whisper.

  “Why are you here? What the fuck do you want from me?” Niall Deasey said. Lights spun over his head. I could smell the whiskey on his breath. When he grabbed me by the arm and pushed me into the bricks, I felt a flash of pain in my shoulder.

  “Where’s Erin?” I asked him again, shouting now.

  “I don’t know what you’re fuckin’ talking about, but—” Everything was spinning. He let go of my arm and I stumbled away. I was drunk, but coherent enough to know that I had one chance to get it out of him. I swung at him and my fist made contact with his jaw. It took a second for me to realize what I’d done.

  “What the fuck?” He went for me, getting me by the shoulders, and I could see and feel his anger. He was about to lose it. He narrowed his eyes and said, “You little bitch—”

  Music came through an open door. The streetlights spun. Erin. Is this what it was like? Is this what it was like to look up and see violence in someone’s eyes? When did you know?

  Erin?

  Erin?

  Suddenly, someone was pulling him off me and I looked up to see Roly and Bernie standing there. “Let’s leave it,” Roly was saying in a low voice I could barely hear. “We’re the Guards and we’re willing to let you go back inside that pub if you just walk away right now.”

  Niall Deasey looked up at Roly, surprised, but he nodded and stepped back, turning and heading back into the pub.

  “Don’t let him go,�
�� I yelled at them. “What are you doing? Where is she?” I screamed after Niall Deasey as he disappeared inside, and Roly and Bernie led me away into the night.

  Early fall.

  We’re sitting at the kitchen table when Uncle Danny calls. My mom answers the phone, tucking it under her chin while she brings a plate of chicken cutlets over from the stove, the long curly cord snaking across the linoleum.

  “No, she’s not here. I’ll ask Maggie. Hang on, Danny.” She puts the plate down in front of my dad and holds the phone at her side. “You see Erin today, sweetie? Danny says he just got a call from her guidance counselor that she wasn’t at school, but he hasn’t seen her.”

  My dad looks up. He’s holding his gin and tonic and I can smell the clean silvery smell of the gin from across the table.

  I shake my head. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

  “And she didn’t say anything to you?” My mom presses the phone against her leg so Uncle Danny can’t hear.

  “She doesn’t talk to me,” I whisper. My mom does something with her eyebrows.

  “Hey, Dan,” she says. “Maggie says she didn’t see her today. Did you see her this morning?” She nods, murmurs something into the phone. My dad and I both have our heads up, listening. “Okay. Yeah, do that. Maybe Maggie can call around. Let us know if you want me to come down, okay?” She hangs up the phone, coiling the cord back in its spot in the corner.

  She sits down and pushes the cutlets over to me. “She told him she was sleeping at Jessica’s last night, but he just called Jessica’s house and her mom said Erin hadn’t been there.“

  My dad raises his eyebrows and serves the chicken.

  “Can you call some of her friends?” my mom asks me. “Who else does she hang around with?”

  “I don’t know. Lisa? Jessica?”

  “Should I call them?” My mom already has the phone book down and is flipping to the T’s, looking for “Tyler.”

  “No, I’ll do it.” My mom calling them is worse than me doing it.