by Oliver Sands
And then, there she was. Those same brown eyes under a haughty brow, blonde hair tied back in a no-nonsense ponytail, the beginnings of a smile which never fully bloomed or reached the eyes. Dervil Sneddon. Breeda looked up at the woman towering over her, a warrior in a leopard print kaftan. Neither woman spoke at first, and Dervil’s expression seemed to be one of mild bemusement.
‘It’s Breeda, isn’t it? How are you?’
The voice was cool – deeper and plumier than at school – but strangely accented now too. With perfect timing a bead of sweat ran down Breeda’s forehead from under her cycling helmet and hung at the end of her nose. Breeda did her best to ignore it and tried not to think of the state she must look.
‘Dervil!’ A forced jollity. ‘I brought you a cake, a little welcome. I heard you’d moved to town. Small world, hey?’
The proffered cake merely elicited a tightening of the smile, and the slightest raising of the eyebrows.
‘Breeda, that is so sweet. But to be honest, I don’t really do cake.’ At this, her eyes flicked towards Breeda’s waist.
‘Oh, right. No problem. I just thought …’
The blonde seemed to momentarily lose interest, and her gaze drifted past Breeda, and to the view in the distance behind her. A fresh trickle of sweat ran down Breeda’s neck and into her blouse. She bit at her bottom lip and dropped her gaze to Dervil’s feet, where a perfect pedi poked out from a pair of open toe strappy stiletto heels. Breeda would kill to be anywhere else but at this front door right now.
‘Was there anything else, Breeda? I’m a little busy.’
The cool gaze was fixed back on the unexpected sweaty interruption.
‘Um—’
‘Well, I must get on. Oh, and Breeda, I don’t do popping in. OK?’
‘Em, OK. Sorry. But Dervil, I just—’
The door closed firmly on Breeda’s face. She blinked, stumbled back a step, then stared at the knocker on the front door. Part of her half-expected Dervil to fling open the door, shout ‘Gotcha!’ and pull her into a joker’s embrace. But the stiletto heels continued their echoey clack down the hallway until Breeda could hear them no more. Breeda turned her back slowly to the door and hugged the cake close to herself. She gazed off towards the village, her body in a state of shock, her mind doubting what had just occurred. The gravel crunched pitiably underfoot as she guided her bike carefully down the steep driveway. Once again Breeda felt the bitter sting of being a twelve-year-old loser. And as she fought to keep the tremor from her lower lip she realised, with no lack of dread, that there still existed unfinished business between Dervil Sneddon and Breeda Looney.
Chapter 13
‘She what?’
‘Yep. She looked at the cake and grimaced. I wanted to deck the bitch.’
Breeda had the phone cradled to her neck. She slammed the kitchen drawer and stabbed at the carrot cake with a fork. She could still picture Dervil’s face, all condescension and tight ponytail as Breeda had stood like an idiot on the doorstep only an hour ago.
Breeda scooped more cake into her face.
‘Yeah, get this Oona. She doesn’t “do cake”’, Breeda air-quoted from the kitchen sink. ‘Like, can you believe it? Stuck-up madam with her stuck-up accent - what is it anyway? Is she Australian now? I reckon the Botox has leaked into her brain.’
Breeda shoveled another hefty forkful of cake into her mouth.
‘Christ, Bree. That really surprises me. Dougie told me she was absolutely lovely when he was up working on the house. But you know what? Well done you for trying …’
Bless Oona. She’d find a positive in a lump of shite.
Breeda nodded through another mouthful of cake. She had tried. She had attempted to build a bridge. But good old Dervil hadn’t changed one iota, even after twenty-five years. Breeda looked out the window down towards the pier. Already the shock at her run-in with Dervil had begun to harden into something spiky – an anger with herself for being such a sap. She took another mouthful of cake – it tasted bloody good – too good to waste on the likes of Dervil Sneddon.
‘But Bree, here’s the thing. Why does she actually dislike you so much?’
Breeda raised the fork to her mouth, then slowly returned it to the dish. It was a good question, alright.
Oona continued. ‘I mean something must have happened, back in the day …’
Breeda put the dish on the countertop and sighed down the phone.
‘That’s the weird thing, Oona. I was harmless at school. You know me, I wouldn’t say boo to a goose. She just seemed to turn on me one day in class. Decided I wasn’t invited to her birthday party, and then it all went downhill from there. But I never did anything to annoy her.’
A non-committal noise came down the phone from Oona, a sly encouragement for her friend to engage in more self-reflection. A memory clambered up from Breeda’s vault now - a difficult one that she’d never choose to revisit. A difficult one because it involved poor old Father Green.
*****
The day that Breeda had been escorted out of Father Green’s office by Mrs Shields, the tongues had wagged like never before. Breeda had spent a free class hiding in a toilet cubicle, but it had been impossible not to overhear the cruel words that flew about each time the girls entered the bathroom. She could handle the lies they spread about her – her name was mud, after all. But Father Green…? Their self-righteous hatred stunned Breeda into a kind of paralysis that afternoon. And in French class the next day, Dervil had oh-so-cleverly even started referring to Father Green as Père Vert. The vicious moniker had instantly taken off, and the man’s tainted status was sealed. There were barbs about Breeda too, of course. Even an innocent discussion on French food had Dervil tripping over herself to comment on how Brie was smelly, and it spread easily. The sniggers had rippled through the class, but the teacher was oblivious – or as Breeda suspected – willfully ignorant.
And there was worse to come. Father Green was to be transferred – that was how things were done in those days – and had naively come over to the Looney house to say his goodbyes to Breeda. Breeda had been staring out her bedroom window – devoid of friends, and homework finished – when she’d caught sight of him coming down the road. He’d rested his bike against the front wall and had been walking up the front path when Breeda’s mother had flung open the door. Breeda had listened from her bedroom as Margaret launched hysterically at the poor man. All ‘how dare you show your face here’ and ‘you should be locked up!’ He’d tried to calm her, saying he’d just come to say goodbye, and to thank Breeda for all her hard work. Breeda had struggled to hear his exact words, but she could grasp the defeat in his voice. Back at her window, she watched him close the gate behind himself, and rest his hand on the handlebars of his rickety old bike. He looked broken, his shoulders slumped, his face collapsed and hanging with defeat. He must have sensed something at that moment, for he turned and looked up towards her. For a reason, that to this day Breeda could never fathom, she stepped back from the window. Maybe she felt the weight of guilt that everyone else should have been feeling at that time. She stood rigid behind the curtain, her eyes tightly closed, and held her breath. And suddenly she did feel ashamed. She could snap out of it and do the right thing – run down the stairs, out past her protesting mother, and catch up with him. She could tell him it was all OK, and sure aren’t people awful, and keep in touch Father, and don’t let them get you down. But when she did eventually open her eyes again, he was already disappearing around the corner, his black socks in his black sandals, pedaling him away from this hell hole.
*****
Back in Breeda’s kitchen, Ginger bumped into her calves, hoping for a scrap of whatever was in the abandoned cake dish. Breeda blew her nose into a tissue and looked up at the clock. The cradled phone was beginning to seize up her neck.
‘Jesus, Oona. Look at the time. I’ve a cat that needs feeding, and I think I need to get to bed myself. I’m cream-crackered. Chat tomorrow?’
‘Alright so. Have a good sleep, my crazy friend.’
‘Thanks, love. Night night.’
Breeda hung up and spooned a tin of cat food into Ginger’s bowl, then rested her bum against the countertop. The cycling had left her with a satisfying ache in her glutes and thighs. A good night’s sleep was on the cards.
She grabbed the shiraz from the window sill and emptied the remains into her favourite wine glass. Turning her back to the window, she took a generous sip. Carrot cake and red wine: the supper of champions.
Her eyes felt tired, and her gaze drifted slowly around the kitchen. She sucked half-heartedly at a small piece of chopped carrot still stuck between her teeth. What a headwreck the past twenty-four hours had been. The blackness on Main Street, Myra’s mix-up in the pub, the stupid business down at the pier (her face reddened at the thoughts of Mad Paddy Byrne), the birthday card, Nora, Dervil. She found herself shaking her head at the whole madness. It was like she was off kilter with the universe, two steps too far to the left.
The envelope which had managed to avoid Nora’s fireplace that morning was poking out from behind an overripe banana in the fruit bowl. Breeda picked it out and turned it over in her hands. Was her poor mother really that loopy that she’d have written a birthday card to Breeda pretending she was a dead man? Sitting at the table she took another sip of wine and stared vacantly at the banana in the fruit bowl. Breeda pictured how Nora had been that morning. There’d been a kind of wariness about her. She held up the envelope to her nose and inhaled deeply. Then she stroked it gently against her cheek, hoping her senses could bring forth the truth of the matter. The paper was bone dry now, the only evidence of this morning’s rain in the car park a subtle warping. The writing, if anything, seemed even more faint than before, and the postmark over the stamp was illegible. Breeda looked at the top corner of the envelope again, squinting closer in the twilight gloom of the kitchen. She stood quickly. The chair clattered behind her, and she lunged for the light switch on the wall.
How had she missed it?
The little red stamp, so obvious now that she’d spotted it. The side profile of Queen Elizabeth II. The envelope hadn’t been posted in Ireland. Breeda sat back down at the table and stared blankly at the envelope. There had to be a simple explanation. It could have been posted in Northern Ireland. But Breeda knew her mother had been paranoid about setting foot across the border, even if it was only up the road; Margaret had been terrified of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The blood swooshed in Breeda’s temple as she searched for some logic. And Margaret definitely hadn’t been back over to England since they’d moved to Donegal. Breeda reached for her phone and scrolled to her Aunt’s name. Nora would know what to say. She’d tut and sigh at Breeda’s silliness, make sense of it, and tell her that she was being ridiculous. Breeda noticed a tremor in her hand. Her finger wavered over the dial button. Then she slowly placed the phone back on the table. Her mother hadn’t written that birthday card. Nora was lying to her.
Breeda skulled the wine and thought back to Nora that morning, ripping up the card and casting it in the fire, a cold and mask-like quality about her face. A chill ran over Breeda’s body and she stared at the envelope again. She grabbed her laptop from the kitchen counter and sat it down on the table beside the envelope. The browser waited patiently. She hovered her fingers over the search bar while her teeth played with her bottom lip.
The Dunry Examiner, that was it.
She typed the words into the search bar, then stopped. It still wasn’t too late. There was still time to stop the whole thing – to pretend she’d never found the card – and put her trust in Nora. She still had the opportunity to sweep the whole silly episode away into the dark recesses of her mind. The cursor blinked expectantly, but the envelope drew Breeda’s eyes back, and she ran her fingers softly over the faded handwriting.
Her poor father could be out there somewhere, believing that his own daughter wanted nothing to do with him, not bothering to write to him even once over the years. Her foot jiggled on the floor.
It mightn’t be too late.
She allowed the briefest little flutter of excitement to travel up into her chest where it danced and tapped at her heart.
He might still be alive.
She took a deep breath and hit the Enter key.
Chapter 14
A staircase loomed up in front of Breeda. It looked familiar, yet alien, each step covered in a slick and shiny tar-like black. She stepped her left foot onto the first stair and felt a warm squelch as her bare skin sank into the sticky darkness. Something up ahead called to her, but the space was dark and gave nothing away. She forced her right foot onto the next stair, and gripped the banister, slowly climbing, each stair sucking and unwilling to surrender. She knew this place, but not like this. The voice again, called her. Breeda felt movement on her ankles and looked down to the darkness underfoot. A writhing mass of brown and pink worms was spilling down from the upper stairs and slopping onto her feet. She looked behind her, but the lower stairs had vanished now, leaving a nothingness in her wake. She turned her focus to the top stair and pushed on. When she reached the landing, she saw a low light from under a door. The door opened silently at her touch and she knew where she was. The crucifix on the wall. The single bed with the fusty bedspread. This was Nora’s spare room. Breeda lay on the bed, the springs creaking under her weight, and looked up at the crucifix hanging above her head.
Someone was watching her from the doorway. She turned her head, but the stranger’s face was hidden in the gloom. It was a man. Someone she knew but couldn’t recognize. He took a step towards her now and she tried to lift her head, but her body was heavy and pulled her down onto the mattress. She stared at him, the face constantly changing, the features washing in and out to form a thousand permutations. For a split second his face seemed to settle and become Mal Looney. But just as quickly the eyes changed, then the shape of the chin, and Breeda found herself looking at Brian. He swaggered towards her and sat on the side of the bed, stroking her hair. He smelled of curry and cigarettes and had a cold sore on his lower lip. He leaned in to kiss Breeda, and she struggled her face away, left then right, her head like a dead weight on the pillow. He took her chin in his hands now, and when she looked at him again, he was no longer Brian. A pair of green eyes smiled down at her. She knew this man, yet she didn’t. But she felt safe nonetheless, sensed goodness in him.
The stranger climbed onto the bed and Breeda guided his body onto hers. She felt his weight rest on her, and she gently eased her legs apart, letting the man settle into the warm shape she created. Her hands trailed smoothly down his back, and cupped his arse cheeks, her fingertips playing with the thinness of his yoga shorts. A slow and rhythmic thrusting had started up between them, a wordless dance that Breeda was hungry for. She felt his hardness push against her, enter into her, and she gripped his shoulders as she gave herself to him. The bedsprings creaked, and the whole bed shifted under the crucifix. She could hear a noise from next door – Nora, stirring from her sleep. Slippered feet shuffled in the next room. Nora was coming. Breeda raised her feet high in the air and used the back of each foot to drive the man even deeper into her. She needed this. Their speed increased. She could hear Nora’s door.
Nearly there, nearly there.
Breeda looked back at the man’s face, but the features were starting to swim again. It didn’t matter. She pushed against him, their rhythm perfect. Nora’s footsteps were at the door. But she didn’t care. Breeda had arrived. She arched her back and …
Breeda woke up, fierce waves of pleasure pulsing through her core. Her skin was damp, her breathing heavy, and as she lay there in her own bed she gave herself over to it. But even fully awake, something continued to thrust at her groin. She grappled for the lamp switch. Ginger sat at the hot space between her legs, rhythmically kneading her with two front paws. Ecstatic purrs resonated in the air.
‘Get off!’
Breeda pulled her le
gs up and shoved the cat off the bed with her heel.
‘Fuck. Fuck, fuck.’
She watched the cat’s retreating bum, its tail in the air, a study in indifference.
‘Sorry, Ginge!’
Breeda shook her head and sat cringing in a shameful confusion for a moment, realising that her sex life had just reached a new low. She exhaled slowly, swung her legs gingerly over the side of the bed and squinted at the clock. It was nearly midnight. She’d make herself a hot milk and hopefully get back to sleep. As she pattered down to the kitchen, she tried to remember the various elements of the dream, but already they were darting from her consciousness. Breeda poured some milk into the saucepan and tipped a little bit into Ginger’s bowl. The cat looked at her afresh, its unglamorous eviction from the bed already water under the bridge. Breeda ran a hand gently down Ginger’s spine as the cat lapped happily at the milk.
‘If only humans could be as forgiving, hey Ginge?’
Breeda unlocked the back door to let in some night air. It was still and cool and welcome on her clammy skin, and she stepped out into the back garden. The stone pier down below was deserted, the trawlers out again for their nightly catch, and Breeda remembered her silliness down there last night and felt a lump in her throat.
In the background she could hear the faintest trace of music. She walked slowly along the back of her house, trailing her fingers along the whitewashed wall, to where it joined with the Feeley house. A warm orange glow was coming from Finbarr’s kitchen window. Breeda stood back in the shadows and looked in at her neighbor as he played a haunting slow air on his fiddle. The lit fireplace in his kitchen cast long shadows of the fiddler and his bow on the walls and ceiling, and as Breeda leaned in a little closer to the window she noticed a look of pure sadness on Finbarr’s face.
Breeda had heard about Finbarr’s wife. A few months ago he’d opened his heart to Margaret on one of his visits to her bedside. He’d sat with Margaret’s thin hand in his own stocky fingers and spoke in a low and considered tone about his own experience with sickness and loss. Breeda knew that a man like Finbarr wouldn’t uncork his aching heart very often, so she’d kept herself busy downstairs in the kitchen, curbing her own curiosity, and giving her neighbor and her mother the space they needed. Later, after he’d gone home, Margaret had filled Breeda in on some of the details. Her name had been Ellen. A young Canadian nurse who had been hitchhiking along the West coast of Ireland when one day fate had brought them together. Finbarr and Ellen had enjoyed seven years together, and it was only when they’d started trying for a child that cancer decided to lash its cruel claws into her. When at last it took Ellen from him, Finbarr could no longer face life on the farmhouse they’d together called home, and so he’d ended up moving next door to the Looneys.
