Second Sight

by Aoife Clifford

  ‘Do you believe in karma?’ he asks the sky above us.

  I’ve run too many court cases to think that karma exists – the world is more random and unfair than that – but I don’t say this aloud. Instead I remind Donal that Paul saved that woman, which surely cancels out whatever he had owing. Donal doesn’t look convinced and I wonder how large Paul’s debts are.

  He stops talking and we both lie there, staring at the blue sky. A white cockatoo tumbles high above us and Donal falls asleep. He looks so peaceful that I frown at the noisy office workers, even the ones wearing novelty hats, who walk near us as they reluctantly head back to their salt mines in the sky.

  Watching him sleep, I think about karma. The problem is that this punishment doesn’t just affect Paul. It has hurt his son, his brother, his family and his friends. Even though I only have a walk-on part in the drama, it has left its mark on me, too.

  Every contact leaves a trace, especially Donal Keenan’s lovely warm hands. I gently slip my hand away, guiding his next to his side.

  The bag vibrates under my head. My phone has been on silent and there are a million calls from work. A garbled text message comes up on the screen. It is from Tony and includes the word ‘immediately’.

  Tony and I sit across from each other in the room with the patchwork curtains. Doctors and nurses are rushing about and Donal has been whisked away. I’ve tried to find out exactly what is happening, but because we’re not relatives the nurses stonewall me. All we know is that Paul is in surgery. I try to imagine what it must be like for Donal. What if it was Tess being operated on? Perhaps blood ties are like invisible ink. When the situation heats up, suddenly they appear.

  ‘It’s been ages,’ says Tony. My memory of him is of someone strong and silent, but this middle-aged version is much more talkative. He keeps looking at me with anxious grey eyes until I pull out my phone, using it as a shield, and text my PA that I’ve been delayed.

  I ask Tony if he thinks I should leave but the visibly pale look on his face insists the opposite.

  ‘Do you know Paul well?’ I ask.

  ‘Years,’ he answers, eager to talk. ‘Through Donal actually. I met him travelling in Ireland. Kept in touch on and off. He rang to let me know Paul was coming to Australia, I told him to visit us in Kinsale and Mum offered him a job.’ His face falls. ‘God, I’ve got to ring her and tell her what’s happening.’

  ‘Maybe wait until we know more.’

  ‘I can’t believe Luke would do this,’ he says. ‘I had just got him some work. Things were looking up.’

  ‘What work?’

  ‘Caretaker at The Castle for the developer, to make sure there were no squatters while they got their plan through council. His property isn’t too far away so it made sense for him to keep an eye on it.’

  ‘Isn’t your mum running for council now? I saw posters of her.’

  ‘She’s desperate to be mayor. Been wanting to do it for years, but Dad thought pubs and politics don’t mix. But after he died last year, she can do what she wants. Sold The Castle too. You must have heard about that?’

  ‘Sad it’s being knocked down.’

  ‘Had been running quite a good functions business out of it for a few years but it got ruined in the fire.’ His hands start to shake and he notices me noticing, and pushes them hard onto his knees. ‘There was substantial structural damage.’

  It seems to me that the fire and the police investigation might have done similar damage to Tony and suddenly I feel happy that Rob Eslake’s report puts him in the clear.

  ‘It’s for the best then.’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. She’s using the money to bankroll the town’s legal action against the electricity company,’ he says.

  ‘All by herself?’ My conscience takes a direct hit. I have tried hard not to think about how much this action is costing the other side.

  ‘I don’t know how she manages it but she does.’ He hesitates and then to my surprise, he says, ‘Eliza, you know that New Year’s Eve on the beach when we were kids?’

  In an instant, old embarrassments are dredged up and my cheeks begin to warm.

  ‘I didn’t want to leave, you know. Just I’d promised my Dad . . .’

  ‘Forget it,’ I say. ‘I was out of line. Too many drinks, I guess.’

  ‘No, really.’ He leans forward, earnestly apologetic, but we are saved by the door opening and then Donal comes in and our words disappear. There are men who cry easily but I don’t think they’re Irish. I can’t even look at his face – the pain is too naked. Instead, my gaze hovers somewhere between his Adam’s apple and his sternum. He asks me if I want to see Paul.

  Forcing air into my lungs, I walk into the hospital room. It’s all too easy to remember the panic of seeing my dad for the first time after his accident but I force myself to concentrate on what’s happening now. Paul is lying on the bed. He is still hooked up to beeping machines because most of him is still alive. Apparently he had a seizure, or so I gather from the little Donal says. In time they will know exactly what went wrong but his brain is dead and there is no getting around that. I think of my father in the nursing home who lay in a hospital bed just like this one and whose brain is damaged but still functions just enough. Part of me had wanted the ability to turn him off, to end his suffering. Now I am being forced to see exactly what that means.

  Maybe karma does exist, just never in the way you expect it.

  A doctor comes in and stands next to Donal, one eye on us, one eye on the machines.

  ‘My mother’s not home,’ Donal says. ‘They’re trying to find her now.’

  ‘Take all the time you need,’ the doctor says. She nods in a kind but professionally detached sort of way and then heads off, leaving us with Paul who is not fully dead but is definitely not alive either.

  ‘They want to know if we will donate his organs,’ Donal tells me.

  There is something so coldly pragmatic about this. It’s one thing to tick a box on your licence when it’s all hypothetical and never going to happen to you. It’s quite another when someone is lying in front of you, all ready to be divided along dotted lines like those posters at the butcher.

  ‘I haven’t a clue what Paul would want so Mam can decide. She’s probably still thinking he’s going to be OK, thanking God for sparing him.’ His voice is bitter. ‘They asked me if I wanted a priest but I knew he wouldn’t. Paul was never a hypocrite.’

  Donal tells me about the doctors’ shopping list: both lungs, two kidneys and a liver. He makes a small, sad joke about that last one being sub-par because Paul likes a drink, an activity Donal is thinking about in the present tense. The body snatching extends to his pancreas, his heart and an eye. Only one, because they suspect the cornea of the other was damaged in the attack.

  This is the moment when my world begins to dissolve.

  ‘Don’t start,’ he says, ‘or I’ll be crying as well and we don’t want that.’

  ‘He saved her. That woman. He saved her when none of us were brave enough to try. It means something.’

  ‘It does,’ he answers quietly. ‘It does.’

  I look back at Paul and imagine the news reports and headlines. They’ll call him a saint or an angel, something his brother seems reluctant to do. When I think of Luke Tyrell I turn to ice. He’s a murderer now.

  Donal gives me his hand to shake as I leave but it reminds me too much of sitting in the park so I hug him instead and his body quivers with a contained sadness. We are interrupted by a nurse, who brings in the green hat and tries to give it back to him.

  ‘I’m afraid we need to clear the family room for someone else,’ she explains, an apologetic look on her face. ‘A bad car accident.’

  Donal holds the hat by the rim and stares at it, then thrusts it at me and asks if I can look after it for a bit. ‘I can’t deal with it right now.’

  And I think of all the decisions he has made and the ones that he still needs to make and take it.

  7
<
br />   New Year’s Eve 1996

  Tony

  ‘Say hello to your aunty,’ Janey called out from the kitchen. Tony stuck his head through the door. His mother was in a better mood now. He had heard her on the phone earlier getting stuck into someone about a delayed pick-up. Pat Fulton wasn’t his real aunty and he didn’t know why his mother thought that just because she was best friends with someone, he had to pretend they were family.

  ‘Aunty’ Pat sat in the kitchen, having a cup of tea while Janey ironed.

  ‘Here you are,’ Janey said, pulling a shirt off the board and handing it to him. Tony put it on over his singlet. It rubbed hot against his skin.

  ‘Look at my baby.’ His mother put a hand up to his cheek, the bangles on her wrist tinkling. She didn’t even reach his shoulder now and that was with heels on. ‘Shaved and everything.’ He rubbed his face where she had patted him. There was the bump of a pimple on his chin and he hoped it wouldn’t erupt tonight.

  ‘Give us a kiss, then,’ said Pat, beckoning to him from the table. It was the only kiss she was likely to get, thought Tony. Everyone in town knew that Pat was in love with Mick Carmody and that Mick wouldn’t know she existed except for the fact she answered his phone and made him cups of tea.

  ‘Anthony’s heading to the beach with Mick’s youngest tonight,’ Janey said, as if reading his mind.

  ‘It’s not just her,’ he said quickly. ‘Plenty of others.’ Eliza had told him about it when they’d been working at a function out at The Castle, and somehow Janey had found out. His mother always found out.

  ‘She was making eyes at him instead of doing her waitressing,’ she told Pat. ‘And he’s been smiling ever since.’

  ‘Boss know?’ asked Pat. Pat Fulton was an unsworn civilian – ‘a bloody filing clerk’, his father said, but Tony thought she behaved more like the police than the police themselves, telling everyone what to do all the time, acting like she was the one who kept the station running.

  ‘Better watch yourself,’ she said, scrutinising Tony. ‘Mick would arrest anyone who looked sideways at those girls, especially Tess.’

  ‘Spitting image of her mother,’ said Janey. ‘I look at Tess and all I can see is Helen. No wonder Mick wants to keep her under lock and key.’

  Everyone knew Tess was beautiful. She was way out of Tony’s league, but he’d heard plenty of boys say what they’d like to do to Tess Carmody and they didn’t seem bothered about her father.

  ‘Breast cancer’s a terrible disease.’

  ‘I know. Twelve years last March Helen died,’ Pat said, like she had been counting the days.

  ‘About time Mick got married again,’ said Janey, nodding at her friend. ‘Help him with those girls.’

  ‘Poor Eliza,’ sighed Pat. ‘Didn’t inherit Helen’s looks, and then there’s her eyes as well.’

  Eliza might not be as pretty as Tess but Tony thought she was a good laugh and had guts as well, standing up to his father that night when he’d refused to pay her.

  ‘She might not look like Helen but she got her brains,’ said Janey. ‘She’ll go places, that Eliza.’

  Tony knew that was directed at him. Janey didn’t think he was smart enough to inherit the business and was already looking to match him up with someone that could. ‘Mind you, don’t mention her to your father.’ She waggled the iron in his direction. ‘He’s still furious about the breakages.’

  Janey had his life planned out for him as though he had no say in it. He stood there, silent, waiting to be dismissed. Talking only made the whole thing drag out longer.

  ‘Both lovely girls. Not the type that end up passed out drunk on New Year’s Eve,’ said Pat.

  Janey nodded. ‘You know I had young Dave Deasey from the footy club in here asking for us to donate the drink for that paddock party. Not even offering to pay for it at cost. I sent him away with a flea in his ear.’

  ‘Mick would ban it outright if he could,’ said Pat.

  ‘You heard anything about it?’ Janey asked Tony. Her mouth wrinkled as her arm pushed the iron back and forth. He shook his head slowly just like his father had told him to if his mother started prying. Wes was letting them hold it on their property out of town but his mother still didn’t know. When she found out, there would be fireworks to rival the ones going off tonight.

  ‘Maybe it’s been cancelled,’ his mother said doubtfully. ‘Anyway, don’t worry about checking The Castle tonight. You take the night off and enjoy yourself. Won’t be anyone out that way.’

  Being unofficial night watchman had been his summer job because Wes was worried about all the equipment getting nicked. He’d even given Tony a shotgun to keep up there. ‘Just shoot it over their heads if there’s trouble. That’ll scare them off.’

  ‘All the money that’s been sunk into it,’ continued his mother. ‘Pub mortgaged to the hilt and we couldn’t even manage a booking for a New Year’s Eve party.’

  ‘It’s those landslides. Coast road was closed this afternoon as well,’ says Pat.

  ‘Can’t blame the weather,’ said Janey. ‘It’s too far out of town. Everyone knows it – other than Wes. He’s nearly sent us broke wanting to play Lord of the Manor.’

  Pat clucked her tongue. ‘Something will turn up.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Janey, giving her friend a conspiratorial look. ‘Got a call from the real estate agent before Christmas.’ The iron started beeping and she deposited it at the end of the board. ‘Developer’s expressing interest.’

  ‘What, to knock it down?’ asks Pat. ‘Council will never allow that.’

  ‘Word is they want to make a golf course. It could be club headquarters,’ said Janey. ‘Trying to tap the Japanese market. Even the council would have to say yes to that.’

  ‘Dad wouldn’t though,’ said Tony.

  This annoyed Janey, who grabbed the next shirt with more force than necessary. ‘Haven’t you got something better to do than eavesdropping on conversations?’

  Tony bristled. It was hardly eavesdropping when you were told to come into the room. He slouched towards the door.

  ‘And not a word about it to your father,’ Janey called after him.

  When Tony headed out to the ute he found his father loading it up with several large eskies.

  ‘I thought I had the car tonight?’ Tony asked.

  ‘You do,’ said Wes. ‘You’re taking this out to the paddock party. You’ll get a pretty good welcome arriving with this lot. Keg’s already there but that won’t be enough.’

  ‘But I’ve got other plans,’ Tony protested.

  ‘That shitty little bonfire your mother’s going to? This is the paddock party. It’s a rite of passage. I’d still go if I didn’t have to be at the pub.’

  ‘Some friends are getting together at Crummies.’

  His father looked suspiciously at him. ‘The thing that Carmody girl was talking about when she was supposed to be working.’ Wes had overheard more than Tony had realised.

  ‘There are other people going,’ Tony began, but Wes wasn’t listening.

  ‘Haven’t had another booking since that night, thanks to her spilling desserts on paying customers, smashing full dinners on the floor. She’s nothing but trouble.’

  Eliza hadn’t been solely responsible for the mess but Wes still liked to blame her.

  ‘Besides, you don’t want to be hanging around with kids. Drive these out and make sure you get the eskies back at the end of the night. Free booze was the arrangement. They’re not getting my eskies as well. There’s mixers in here.’ He rapped a knuckle on a lid. ‘For the ladies,’ he added, and Tony could tell by the emphasis that his father meant the opposite. ‘Take one of them back to Bayless Manor for the night.’

  Wes liked to call The Castle this as a joke, except Tony knew it wasn’t really one – more a reminder that Wes Bayless was playing Monopoly with the fanciest estate in the Kinsale area. His mother had started referring to him sarcastically as King Wes in the pub.

 
Tony nodded and Wes slapped him on the back and then, with a wink, pulled out a packet of condoms and shoved it into his son’s hand. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ he said, and laughed. Tony tried to laugh in reply.

  ‘And whatever you do, say nothing to your mother. She’s a good woman, but . . .’

  Tony hopped into the ute and started the engine. When it came to his parents, sometimes it was safer not to open his mouth at all and just let them live his life for him.

  • • •

  Tony put his beer down as fireworks shot up into the air. It was midnight already and he was still here. The night had been a disaster. The girls had got there later than he’d thought they would, Eliza had practically sculled her drinks, and when he’d tried to leave she’d stripped naked. He hadn’t known where to look – she was just a kid after all. Before he knew it she was swimming with Luke anyway. Maybe she hadn’t been that interested in him.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ said Gus, but he didn’t sound that happy.

  Angling his watch towards the fire so he could read the hands, he could see it was five past midnight. It was at least a thirty-minute drive to The Castle and then up the track to where the party was. It was at the southernmost point of the property, as far away from any building as possible. It would be almost 1 am by the time he arrived. Hopefully they’d all be too drunk to notice how late he was. He wanted to wait until Eliza and Luke came back out of the water so he could say goodbye to them, friendly like, and check that she was OK. She seemed a nice person, just a bit mixed up. Maybe it was because she didn’t have a mother.

  That other girl, Amy, kept shooting him dirty looks until Gus said something about nicking Luke’s clothes and she darted over to grab Eliza’s discarded dress and bikini before dragging Grace down to the sea. Grace was upset, though Tony wasn’t sure why. He stood up, brushing the sand off his jeans, and noticed the torch bobbing about. Then the shouting began. All he could see were figures running around in the darkness. Just when he decided he should go see what was happening, Grace suddenly appeared – almost ran into him, in fact – picked up her shoes and then headed off before he could ask what was going on.