by Tara Heavey
‘Is she really worth it, Aidan?’
‘Yes. She is.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘And is it true what they’re saying?’
‘Is what true?’
‘That she’s dying.’
He nodded.
‘Aidan, I don’t know how else to put it, and forgive me if I insult you, but what are you getting out of it?’
‘I get to be with her. And know that she’s safe. Being looked after.’
‘But I hear tell the sister’s arrived.’
‘Jesus. Is there nothing you don’t know?’
‘Word gets around. You know how it is.’
‘Her sister’s here for a week and a half. She lives in the States. What else are they saying about us?’
‘What are they not saying?’
‘Just give me the general gist.’
‘Well. There’s a lot of people have sympathy for Fiona. Especially the women.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘You’d want to keep well away from the women of this town.’
‘Don’t I know it. Your one in the Melting Pot wouldn’t serve us the other day.’
‘Ah, I wouldn’t mind her. She’s an awful hatchet head, that woman.’ He took a sup of his pint. ‘But then again. There are others who never had much time for Fiona.’
‘Like who?’
‘Ah – I’ll not mention any names. But, you know, those who think she was always a little too far up herself, looking down on the locals, us ignorant bog warriors, that kind of thing.’
‘Is that what they thought? I had no idea.’
‘Not everyone, mind. Just an element. And those people, they see you as one of their own. You’re from here so they side with you.’
‘I don’t think they’re the kind of people I want taking my side.’
‘Trust me, Aidan. You need all the friends you can get right now.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
They drank in companionable silence. It felt good to Aidan, the male company. He didn’t realize how much he had missed talking to a man. Even if he wasn’t exactly bringing good tidings. The household he was living in felt one-sided. He and Sarah and Maia – and now Helen. All that oestrogen. At home, he’d always had Tommy to balance things out. Tommy, who was now home alone, with no father to balance things for him. With no one. He’d go and see him and make everything all right. He had to try. Had to find a way back to his children.
Chapter 33
Sarah and Helen were sitting up in bed together, regarding their toes. ‘You have Gran’s feet,’ said Sarah.
‘You mean the shape?’
‘No. All shrivelled up and wrinkly.’
‘The cheek of you.’ Helen nudged Sarah with her shoulder, not as hard as she would once have done. Sarah laughed her familiar laugh. Impish. She was back in the role of pesky little sister again. It was fun to feel irresponsible for a change.
‘Do you have many memories of Gran?’
‘Of course. I was nineteen when she died, remember. You’re not that much older than me, you know. You just look it.’
‘There you go again.’
They grinned at one another.
Sarah took a sip from the mug of water she was holding. It had been her favourite mug for coffee, but she didn’t seem to have much of a taste for coffee any more. Many aspects of herself that she’d taken for granted, identified with, were falling away, which made her wonder who she had been all along. ‘Remember how Mammy used to be embarrassed by her?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Poor Mam. Forever trying to be something she wasn’t.’ As the words came out of her mouth, she wondered how much of her time on earth she had squandered trying to be something she wasn’t. The thought made her shiver and she linked her arm through Helen’s for comfort as much as warmth. She had noticed a tendency to do this of late. She had an intense longing for physical contact, human warmth, as if she was holding onto life itself. ‘What do you make of Aidan, then?’ Best to change the subject.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know? He’s lovely.’
‘What do you want me to say? Tell you how cute I think he is on a scale of one to ten?’
‘Cute! You’re such a Yank.’
‘Stop.’
‘But you are. How long have you been over there now?’
‘Twenty-one years.’
‘Half your life.’
‘When you put it like that …’
Again, an uncomfortable thought. Sarah had lived what she had assumed was roughly half her life. Turned out that was it. She could feel Helen thinking the same thing. She laid her head on her sister’s shoulder. ‘Hand us another piece of that sponge.’
‘Okay.’ Helen did so eagerly. ‘We’ll get crumbs in the sheets.’
‘I guess things like that don’t matter any more.’
The two women bit into their respective slices and chewed thoughtfully.
‘You know,’ said Sarah, ‘it’s amazing, when you get right down to it, how little actually matters at all. Maia, do you want some more cake, darling?’
Maia lifted herself out of her game in the corner and approached the bed, arm outstretched, eyes eager and saucer-like. She grabbed the cake offered to her and returned immediately to her game.
‘Say thank you, Maia.’
‘Say tank you, My.’
The words were delivered through a shower of cake crumbs and the two women laughed at the miracle of her response.
‘Let’s get up,’ said Sarah, abruptly swinging her legs over the side of the bed. ‘I’ll have time enough to be lying here.’
The following day was uncompromising in its magnificence. Sarah was sure of it the second her eyelids flickered open. She moulded her body against Aidan’s until the rhythm of his breathing was interrupted and he was awake.
She loved the first moment of his consciousness. The eyes, first dazed and slightly bloodshot, then coming into focus. Then the expression of pure love and joy when he realized where he was, who he was with. He would pull her in even closer and nuzzle his face into the nook where her neck met her shoulder. His beard would tickle and she would squirm, but towards him, not away. And they would lie there, breathing each other in. There was no better start to the day.
‘Let’s take the dinghy out,’ she mumbled into his neck.
He pulled away slightly so he could look at her. ‘This morning?’
‘Yes. I want Helen to meet Star.’
‘Your wish is my command. But not yet.’
He pulled her back into his warm fuzzy closeness and she privately agreed. Not yet.
It was as if God had laid on the day especially for them. Here, have this special bonus day at the end of your life. It was Sarah’s day, but the others got to share. And she wondered if they saw the colours as vividly, as poignantly, as she did.
They were out now, bobbing along on the open water, the breeze carrying and shunting them along. It felt absolutely right to be there, as if they were in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. It was seldom in life that everything drew together in such perfection. Perfect perfection. Sarah glanced from sister, to lover, to daughter. The three people most precious to her on this earth. All gathered together on this tiny little boat. She imagined a gigantic wave, a freak tsunami, gathering suddenly from the ocean’s depth and consuming them so they could all go together. So she wouldn’t have to travel alone into eternity. But she knew this was selfish and not her true heart’s desire. Some pieces of her had to go on. They could be her representatives on earth.
‘What?’ said Helen.
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You’re looking at me funny.’
‘Sorry – there she is.’
Sarah’s finger shot out and they all followed its direction, Aidan with his camera. But she was gone already.
‘Keep looking. She’ll resurface.’
Sure enough, s
everal seconds later, a few feet from where she was first spotted, a perfect silver arc broke the water and disappeared again, as if it had been a momentary mirage.
‘Oh, yes.’ Helen jumped to her feet and literally rocked the boat.
‘Sit down!’
‘Sorry.’
Star came closer to the boat, so close that they could hear the sigh of her blowhole. Sarah had learned to treasure that sound and value it above any other. Life’s breath. In. Out. Whether it was Aidan’s breath in the bed beside her, her daughter’s butterfly breath on the back of her hand when she checked her at night-time, or animals’ breath. The other day Sarah had gone for a walk in the countryside. It was a slow walk. She was out gathering foxgloves. Her last time. The thought had caused her to shed a few tears. She came across a clump at the entrance of a field. A group of horses stood there, regarding her solemnly. Then one by one they came over, all six of them. Lacking titbits, she had fed them handfuls of grass, which was lusher and greener on her side of the gate. She had stayed for a while, feeding them and stroking them and hearing them breathe. So comforting. Big animals were best for this, she had discovered. They had the best breath. Cows weren’t bad if you could stand the stink. And she liked the sound they made when they munched the grass. She thought a dog would be good. A big old dog. But she had yet to try that one. And then there was Star. A mammal in a world of fish. Living exclusively in the water, but needing the air above it to survive.
‘You know the way we started out in the water?’ She directed this at Helen.
‘How do you mean?’
‘You know how we were once fish, then developed legs and crawled out of the ocean onto land?’
‘Speak for yourself. I was never a fish.’
‘You know what I mean. Evolution.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, dolphins did the opposite. They once lived on land but they went back into the sea.’
‘Really?’ Helen looked at Aidan for confirmation. She was coming to regard him as an expert on all things oceanic.
‘She doesn’t believe me. Tell her, Aidan.’
‘It’s true. Dolphins and whales. Well, dolphins are whales, really. They’re the only mammals that went back in. Permanently, that is.’
‘Really? What did they look like when they went back in?’
‘Nobody knows.’
‘Tell her about the flippers, Aidan.’
‘What about the flippers?’
‘If you look at a dolphin skeleton, the flippers are made up of five individual bones. Like the fingers of a hand.’
‘And their tails,’ said Sarah. ‘They’re like two legs fused together with flippers for feet.’
‘Stop,’ said Helen. ‘You’re giving me the creeps.’ She shivered in the hot sun. ‘My God. What are they?’ She leaned over the side of the boat and said loudly into the water, ‘What are you?’
In an explosion of droplets, Star launched herself out of the water and, in a breathtaking stunt, flew through the air to the other end of the boat before disappearing again, drenching them all.
‘She heard you,’ said Sarah, once she’d stopped laughing.
‘Holy shit!’ Helen wiped her face with her hands and smoothed back the hair that had been plastered onto her forehead.
‘We’ve been ignoring her for too long,’ said Aidan. ‘She doesn’t like that. Typical woman.’
‘Did you get her?’ Sarah said to Aidan, gesturing to his camera.
‘You must be joking. She’s way too quick for me.’
Smiling at him, Sarah stood up in the boat, expertly placing her feet so that she and everything else remained balanced. She lifted her wet T-shirt over her head and discarded it. Helen averted her gaze from the blank space at the top of her sister’s swimsuit. She glanced briefly at Aidan. He didn’t appear to notice.
‘Did I mention,’ said Sarah, ‘that dolphins have extraordinarily large brains? Much bigger than ours?’
‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ said Helen. ‘Men have bigger brains than women and they’re far more stupid.’
Aidan laughed.
‘I’m going in.’ Sarah was peeling off her tracksuit bottoms.
‘You’re going in?’ Helen looked horrified.
‘Exactly what I said.’
‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ said Aidan.
‘Best I ever had.’
‘I’m not sure you’re strong enough.’
But she didn’t hear him. She was already diving in, the cold hitting her body like a gigantic slap. And all was quiet.
Star was with her immediately. Sarah could feel her joy. Joy. That’s what I would have called you, she thought. They stared at each other for several seconds, two underwater creatures, sharing the moment. Then they emerged together, bursting into the air, Sarah gasping for breath, Star rising and falling like a wave. Sarah smoothed back her hair and laughed with abandon. She turned to find the boat. It was several feet away. Helen and Aidan were hanging anxiously over the side.
‘Are you okay?’ her sister called.
‘Never been better. Come on in. The water’s fine.’
‘No, thanks. I’ll just watch.’
And the two sisters settled into the roles they’d inhabited their entire lives. Helen, the elder, standing on the sidelines, observing wild, young Sarah as she took all the risks.
Sarah couldn’t hear them now, but she felt she could.
‘She’s not well enough.’
‘I know she isn’t.’
She swam further out. Sarah and Star. Sea and sky. Taking turns to swim on their backs, on their fronts. Echoing each other. Mirroring one another. Had she ever known such ecstasy as this communion with a wild animal? They were the same. Touching each other frequently. Part of each other. Playing together.
Sarah glanced at the boat. It was further away than ever before. Aidan and Helen were more relaxed now, she could tell. They were no longer watching her constantly. They were talking, merely glancing at her every now and then. She relaxed, lying on her back, letting the sun’s rays bathe her entire body, relishing the sensation of Star swooping below and around her.
She was almost in a trance when her left leg cramped and went into spasm. She panicked, tensed and her rigid body sank. She flailed dementedly with her arms, kicked her good leg and managed to get herself upright, her head above water. She coughed and spluttered and looked all around her for the boat. Aidan and Helen were totally oblivious to her, deep in conversation. She tried to cry out but her leg spasmed again and all she got was a mouthful of salt water as her head sank below the surface once more. She fought her way up, spitting and gasping. Suddenly she was aware of a presence beside her. The dolphin had positioned herself immediately to Sarah’s left, where she remained, perfectly stationary. Sarah draped herself over Star’s body and burst into tears. She waved towards the boat.
It was Maia who saw her first. Her little girl stood up and pointed. Sarah couldn’t hear the noises she knew she would be making, but the others could. She waved again, and thought of the poem ‘Not Waving but Drowning’. Would they know? Beside her, Star breathed evenly. Then she saw Aidan turn his head towards her. As if in slow motion, he stood up in the boat and, without stopping to remove a piece of clothing, he dived into the water. She watched him swimming towards her, closer and closer, a dreamlike sequence. And then he was upon her. She held out her arms and he took her.
Star circled the boat until the humans were back on board. Then she raced off, like a silver arrow shot from an invisible bow.
The fear was gone now. They were back home and Sarah was propped up in front of the computer screen, wrapped cocoon-like in her duvet. It was Aidan who had mummified her in this way. She’d had to wriggle at first to allow her arms to reach the keyboard. He had wanted her to get into bed and rest. Her loved ones were forever trying to get her to rest – as if she wouldn’t have enough time for that. Her bed held less and less appeal with each passing day. She associated it with
defeat. And while she did feel weak after the incident in the water, she also felt a kind of elation. She had cheated death. Albeit temporarily. This battle was hers. She also felt an intense curiosity that demanded to be satisfied. She was searching for stories similar to her own of humans being saved by dolphins. What she found astounded and delighted her – tales from ancient times to the present day.
There was a recent story of four New Zealand lifeguards who had been out training when a pod of dolphins suddenly approached at great speed. They herded them together and began circling them, slapping their tails against the water. At first the swimmers thought they were being attacked but the dolphins did nothing except nudge them back to shore. Later they discovered that a great white shark was submerged a few feet away and that the dolphins had formed a protective circle. She liked that. Then there was the Japanese soldier who had fallen off his warship during the Second World War. His comrades had believed him lost but he was washed up alive several days later, saying that a pod of dolphins had surrounded and protected him, supported him when he was tired and helped him to get to land.
She read on. There were legions of stories. She was drawn to the word ‘psychopomp’ and zoned in on it. It came from the Greek, meaning ‘guide of souls’. The ancients believed that dolphins accompanied and guided the souls of the dead on their journey across the cosmic sea. And the Etruscans of ancient Italy had depicted dolphins carrying souls to Elysium, the Islands of the Blessed. From time into eternity. She felt elated.
Aidan came into the room. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Good. I feel good.’
‘I came to see what you wanted to eat. Helen’s making lunch.’
‘I’m not that hungry.’
Aidan bent down behind her and gripped her upper arms, as if emphasizing how thin she was becoming. ‘You’ve got to eat something, Sarah.’
Did she? Did she really? She had less and less interest in food and only ate to please Aidan or Helen. The process was automatic now, a robotic bringing of food to her lips and swallowing it. ‘I’ll have a cheese sandwich.’
‘Good girl. I’ll go and tell her.’ Aidan bent down and put his arms around Sarah, laying his head against hers and hugging her from behind. A protective circle.
