Finding Alison

by Deirdre Eustace

  ‘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 he
r 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.