Finding Alison

by Deirdre Eustace

  I know you won’t be able to stand the sight of my face after reading this but I want to ask you please to meet me one last time. There is something vital (and I use that word for good reason) about Sean’s disappearance that you have to know. I have no real proof but I know I’m right. I’m not prepared to put it in a letter but it’s something you need to know right now. Please try to put aside your anger just for an hour, that’s all I ask. You need to hear this, Alison. Please, I’m begging you, just hear me out.

  Kathleen.

  She dropped the pages to the table, rubbed her tired eyes, checked her watch. It was 1 a.m. How many drafts had she written since Rob had finally convinced her that this was something she absolutely had to do? Rob had been lying in the back garden the previous evening when she had come back from Alison’s. She had stumbled out onto the patio, near hysterical under the weight of her secrets: the scalding guilt as she had tried to console Alison, the depth of Alison’s gratitude – and then meeting Joe on the way home. She had stopped to pick up milk and Joe was sitting eating an ice cream on the shop windowsill. Although the evening was warm, there was nothing unusual in seeing Joe with a hat on, that corduroy number never left the side of his head, at least until now. Her heart literally stopped as she walked up to him and saw the black knitted hat, the stitching on the tail of the dolphin motif missing. There was no mistaking that hat and she remembered so well how Alison had described it to the guards when she was detailing what Sean was wearing the night he went missing. When she’d asked Joe where he got it and he told her he’d found it on the floor of the van belonging to the man ‘that stole Seany’s gear’, her legs had barely carried her to the car. The bastard! He was alive! And he had bought all his own fishing gear back, made all that pretence of sending that guy Tom from Donegal to fetch it!

  Rob had pressed the brandy glass into her shaking hands, had urged her to drink, to breathe, to talk to him. She’d seen his eyes fight to check his anger as she recounted again that telephone call at Alison’s, how her gut had told her it was Sean Delaney at the other end. Rob had pleaded and persuaded, convinced her that despite what Alison was going through with William, she had to be told and told now. Told everything before Sean turned up on her doorstep. Dear Rob, he had even tried to persuade her to let him go with her to Alison’s right there and then. She had sobbed uncontrollably, hating herself, her guilt, knowing that the moment she had dreaded for so many years had finally arrived. She would have to tell Alison and yet she knew that she would never in a million years – not even if Sean Delaney was standing there right in front of her – be able to stand herself in front of Alison and watch her face, watch her whole body crumble as the words of her so-called ‘friend’ struck, stabbed and shredded her to pieces. The letter seemed her only real option, the option of a coward she despised, but she knew it would be the very most and the very best she was capable of.

  She folded the pages now, slotted them into the envelope. She wasn’t happy with it, knew even if she sat and rewrote it another hundred times she would never be happy with it. How could Alison, how could anyone ever understand, ever forgive what she had done? Nobody had lived in her heart then, nobody would ever know how much she had adored that man, how she would have given her very life for him.

  She wiped a silent tear from her cheek, pressed her wet finger to the seal of the envelope. Although writing the letter, confessing, was the hardest and most humiliating thing she had ever had to do, it had brought her a kind of peace that she had not known since that very first night Sean Delaney had come to her bed. Nobody else might be able to see things from her point of view, to ever understand, but writing the letter she had finally allowed herself to look at who she was, who she had been then. And for the very first time she had felt a little understanding for herself, a little compassion hidden in the darkness below the shame and the guilt. Yes, what she had done was wrong. It was foolish, selfish, stupid – all those things – but she hadn’t done it with any malice or ill-intent. Her crime had been falling in love with someone she shouldn’t have and allowing that love to blind her to all sense and reason. Rob understood her. Rob forgave her. Maybe it was time she learned to forgive herself.

  She slipped her jacket from the back of the chair, fished in the pocket for her car keys. When Alison awoke in the morning, the letter would be there in the hall, waiting for her. She took a deep breath and stepped out into the night.

  * * *

  Alison awoke with a start, William’s arms tight around her, his body spooned to hers. The bed, the whole room was like a hothouse. Careful not to disturb his precious and hard-got sleep, she kissed his hand and, ever so gently moving his arm from around her, she slipped out of the bed and opened the window. All was so dark: so dark and quiet and still. Was that what William was heading towards – no light, no sound, just nothing? A shiver coursed her naked body and she hugged her arms about herself. She licked her lips; her mouth felt so dry. Bending to retrieve her robe from the floor, the silence was suddenly torn open by the gun-burst of gravel disturbed on the drive. A visitor, at this hour? Her mind quickly sprang back to the night of Sean’s disappearance and she swallowed against the dryness in her mouth. She fought in the darkness to find the sleeve of her robe, finally forcing her arm in past the belt in her hurry from the room.

  The sensor light above the front door shone on the back of Kathleen’s car moving swiftly down the drive. Kathleen? She turned on the hall light and checked her watch. Almost 2 a.m. Maryanne! Oh Jesus! Kathleen had obviously been on the nightshift and . . .

  Then her eyes fell on the fat buff envelope on the floor at her feet. Brow creased, she bent towards it, the slant of Kathleen’s hand calling her name from its face.

  Seventeen

  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 th
e 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.