by Tara Heavey
‘I’m sure you are. Someone to cook for you and clean up after you.’
‘Does that mean I don’t have to wash up?’
‘It does not.’
They smiled at one another, both entirely comfortable now. She took a sip of coffee and ran her fingers over the nicks in the table. ‘Did anything happen while I was away?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. Anything. Did anyone call around? Did you see anyone?’
‘You mean, did I see Dad?’
She looked down at the table.
‘He called round one day.’
‘On his own?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he have to say for himself?’
‘Lots of stuff. Sorry mostly.’
She nodded. ‘Is he still …?’
‘He’s still living with Sarah.’
She nodded again, more vigorously, as if she was trying to get the repellent idea to stick inside her head.
‘There’s something else I have to tell you,’ her son added.
‘What?’
‘I’ve started going out on the boat with him in the afternoons.’
‘Have you?’
‘I have. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Not at all. Why should I?’
‘Well, for obvious reasons, Mam. I’ll stop if you want me to.’
‘No, no. Sure, why would you do that?’
‘If it upsets you.’
‘No, Tom. It’s your job. You’ll need to get a bit of money together before you go away in October. And, besides, he’s still your father.’
‘So you’re sure you don’t mind, then?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Definitely?’
‘Absolutely. I don’t mind.’
She did mind. But she knew she had no right to.
Voices floated in from the deck. Tommy and Fiona looked at one another, instantaneously sharing the one thought. But it wasn’t him. The voices were younger and there were several of them. Fiona felt her shoulders relax.
The voices and their owners drifted right into the kitchen. Tommy’s friends, Kevin, Paddy and Tim. Their confident swaggers, their overloud laughter, all ended abruptly at the sight of Fiona. ‘Boys,’ she said.
Kevin was the quickest to compose himself. ‘Dr McDaid. We didn’t know you were back.’
‘You don’t say?’
Paddy was carrying a plastic bag. It dangled self-consciously against his elongated calf. With a marked lack of subtlety, he hid it behind his legs, drawing Fiona’s attention to the fact that it contained a six-pack of beer. He looked excruciatingly uncomfortable. They all did. Was she really that terrifying?
She stood up slowly. ‘A bit early for that kind of carry-on, isn’t it, Paddy?’
She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. ‘Here.’ She held out her hand. Paddy handed her the bag. ‘Now, I’m going to put it in the fridge where it can stay nice and cool for later. In the meantime, why don’t you all sit down and I’ll fix you some breakfast? Kevin, do you take your eggs scrambled or fried?’
‘Fried, please.’ Kevin didn’t have to be asked twice. He sat down beside Tommy and grinned. The other two, slower and more incredulous, joined them.
Fiona busied herself at the stove. She looked back once at her son and saw his happiness. It filled her.
Chapter 40
Tommy went out that night. Fiona didn’t mind. Except she did. She didn’t realize how much until after he’d gone. The house was as quiet as a tomb, the clock ticking into the silence, each tick louder than the last. Eventually she couldn’t stand it any more. She turned on the TV to drown the silence and opened a bottle of wine to drown her sorrows. It felt both reasonable and appropriate.
The TV was slick, the wine slicker. She wondered what Aidan and Sarah were doing, as she had wondered every night since he’d left. Except now they were palpably close again. She could almost hear his heartbeat on the seat beside her. Feel his breath. Except it wasn’t her head on his chest.
So she drank more wine. She knew this wasn’t a wise move, that it was making things worse instead of better. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Just as she couldn’t stop herself raiding the fridge and the kitchen presses. Anything to comfort, to anaesthetize. At this rate, she’d be twenty stone and he’d never come back to her. A fat, raving lunatic of a lush, that was what she was turning into. That was what he had turned her into. Her anger began to build. As did her self-pity.
She hatched a plan to go over there. March up to their front door – it was no longer merely hers – hammer loudly on it, demand entry. Tell them what was what. Deliver a large piece of her mind. Yet her mind was becoming more befuddled by the minute. More sozzled. Not worth delivering to anybody. She lay backwards on the couch and the ceiling spun. Oh dear. Never a good sign. She hauled herself up and wove her way through the lower part of the house and out of the back door. Fresh air was what she needed. Or did that make you even more drunk? Drive the alcohol deeper into your veins? For the life of her, she couldn’t remember. Dr McDaid was firmly off duty.
She stood unsteadily on the deck for several seconds. She knew it was officially chilly out, that she needed a jacket, but she couldn’t feel the cold. So, what the hell? She devised a plan to combat climate change. If everyone remained drunk all the time, no one would need to turn on the heating. Brilliant! Even half cut she could save the planet. Except maybe she was fully cut by now. She kicked off her slippers and left them on the deck. She descended into the sand, bare-footed and bare-armed. Bare-souled.
The night felt beautifully cool on her skin, the breeze like a waterless waterfall. Refreshing. The wind blew the clouds across the moon, at times revealing, at others concealing. And the stars disclosed themselves in clusters. Fiona stumbled along in the sand, telling herself that its uneven texture was making her walk like that. But soon she was out of the soft, the deep, and onto the hard and flat. Any further stumbling belonged to her and her alone. She was still clutching the bottle of wine. She’d only just realized it. She must have ditched the glass somewhere along the way. Hopefully in the kitchen. It was a good one. Part of a set. They’d got it for their wedding. Hah. She’d make sure she smashed it when she got back in.
Every so often, she’d take a swig of wine. Trickles would flow from the side of her mouth, like blood. She wiped them lustily with the bare skin of her forearm. How fortunate, she thought, that she didn’t have a sleeve. Nothing to stain. Skin just washed clean. She knew the thought was irrelevant, but she had it anyway. Oh, fuck. She wasn’t alone. Someone else was on the beach. Two someones. Walking hand in hand. Walking towards her. She hid the bottle behind her back like a bold child and tried her best to look sober. She walked in an imaginary straight line along the sand, as if a garda had stopped her car and was testing her sobriety. She held her head high as the couple approached.
‘Evening,’ she said.
‘Hi, Dr McDaid.’
It was a local girl. She didn’t remember her name. She didn’t recognize the boy – although he might have been a child she’d known who had grown up. She’d had that experience a few times of late. She felt them eyeing her curiously as they walked on by, hand in hand. She slyly passed the bottle from her back to her front. A few seconds later she heard the girl’s high-pitched giggle.
‘ … drunk …’ The wind carried the word to her.
Laugh all you want, bitch, thought Fiona. Laugh while you still can. Only a matter of time before he dumps you, cheats on you. In no particular order. Then you won’t be so smug.
She took another swig. She supposed it would be all over town tomorrow. Dr McDaid sozzled and wandering pathetically on the beach. Pathetic and alone.
She had reached the sea now. She stood on the division between water and land. Then she crossed the line into the ocean. This cold, she could feel. Like sticking her feet in a bucket of ice. A thrill travelled up through her body and she felt newly exhilarated. The sea was
rough, exciting, the waves giddy. She rolled up her trousers as far as they would go and waded in further. She balanced herself with her arms, the bottle in her left hand. She took another swig. Almost gone now. Further she went – up to her pelvis. The waves were roaring in her ears now. Deafening her. If she were to scream, no one would hear. Not the smug, innocent couple. Not anyone. She tried it. Long, lovely and loud. It felt good. She did it again, lifting her arms above her head and stretching her fingertips out as far as they would go. And screaming. At the top of her lungs. Now that was what she called therapy. She should start prescribing it. Good for whatever ails you. Then she got the fright of her life. There was something moving in the water beside her. Something dark and shadowy and sleek. Before she had time to back off, a cloud lifted away from the moon, illuminating everything. A silver arc rose and fell before her in the water. Fiona exhaled as relief flooded her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she yelled. ‘Don’t you ever sleep?’
Did dolphins sleep? She had no idea. Her mind grasped at a half-forgotten conversation she’d had with Aidan. Something about dolphins shutting off one side of their brain at a time as they slept. That was it. They had to stay semi-awake because they were conscious breathers. Not unconscious breathers like humans. It occurred to Fiona now that if she had to breathe consciously, she most likely would have stopped three weeks ago, the pain of living having seemed so great at the time. Truth be told, it wasn’t that much better now.
The creature continued to swim around her, just as she had swum around Aidan, Sarah and Maia. Which reminded Fiona, who hurled the bottle at Star.
‘Fuck off, you bitch.’ She was yelling again, slurring her words, wavering unsteadily. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, she would never have come. And none of this would ever have happened. It’s all your fault you – cow!’
She felt ridiculous. Was ridiculous. Knew herself to be, even in this drink-sodden state. Imagine throwing a bottle at a dumb animal. Imagine throwing it into the sea where it could wash up on the shore, smash against a rock and cut some child’s feet. She sometimes came across broken glass on the beach and it never failed to incense her. And now, here she was, just as bad as those people who left glass around. Worse.
She moved further into the sea. Further away from the shore. She had to get that bottle back. She wouldn’t be responsible for a child hurting itself. She was waist level. Now chest level. The water was rougher out here, the waves more insistent. Logic non-existent. She was aware of a dorsal fin to her left, travelling straight towards her, making her panicky. The speed was uncanny, right up against her now, her heart in her mouth as the dolphin nudged her, before turning abruptly and swimming in the opposite direction. And there was the bottle, bobbing up and down alongside her. It was a split second before she realized that Star had brought it to her. Well, she reasoned, she was a bottlenose dolphin. The thought made her laugh. But as she opened her mouth, she let in sea water. Lots of it. Fiona went under.
Panic overtook her as she fought to the surface. She emerged, coughing and spitting. She had to get out. She wasn’t a strong swimmer and the water was treacherous. Suddenly sober, she knew this to be madness, but was she too late? She could no longer feel the ocean floor. She looked to shore. It was further away than she had imagined. Fiona began to swim, her arms and legs ineffectual against the drag of the tide. A wave crashed gigantically over her head and she was pulled under. She felt helpless against the force of the water. Felt weak. And then the most frightening thing of all happened. She thought about giving up. Of not fighting any more. Of letting the waves do with her as they wished. Take her where they may. She would submit. Yield. Go with the flow of the ever-changing ocean.
She felt her body go limp. An extraordinary sense of peace washed over her. The peace of God that surpasses all understanding. These words ran through her mind. Was this it? Was this what death felt like? Was it her time? The irony wasn’t lost on her. But she was only forty-four. This couldn’t be her time. She struggled, breaking the surface of the water with her head, drawing in life breath. She began swimming again, harder now, against the full force of the ocean. It was useless. She was losing. One final push. She felt tears in her eyes. Salt water. This couldn’t be it. She couldn’t let it be.
Gathering her final resources, Fiona sliced at the water with her arms, kicked ferociously with her feet. And just as it was falling away from her, her strength diminishing to nothing, something came up beneath her and propelled her forward. Fiona flew towards the shore, flailing helplessly, until she felt the sand beneath her feet again. Dry land. Terra firma. Blessed relief. She stumbled forward, desperate to be out of the water. When she’d cleared it, she fell onto the sand, panting heavily between coughs. She turned and looked back out to sea. Nothing.
But she knew there had been something.
A few days after her drunken swim Fiona went back to work. After that escapade she knew she needed work to anchor her. For her first day back, she put on a trouser suit. She was feeling vulnerable already: why add to it with a skirt?
It was just as well she wore armour because they all came out – the vultures and the voyeurs. They came to gawk at the cuckolded wife. Could you be cuckolded if you were female? She wasn’t sure. She decided to look it up some time, if she could be bothered. But the thing was – the crucial thing was – that it hadn’t been as bad as she’d expected. As usual, the things in life that she’d wasted precious moments worrying about had turned out not to be worth worrying about in the first place. And the one thing she’d never worried about – her husband leaving her for another woman – had come to pass. She was sure there was a lesson in there somewhere. She just couldn’t figure out what it was.
Her mood was buoyant when she left the surgery that evening and it didn’t even dip much when she returned to her half-empty house. Just Tommy and her. Where once there had been four, now there were only two. Soon there would be just one.
A short while ago she would have doubted her ability to cope with such a scenario. But something had shifted in Fiona since the night when she had grappled with death and come out the victor. Now that this second chance at life had been delivered to her, she had no intention of wasting another second feeling sorry for herself. She was no victim and she had proved it. And if she’d had some help in her triumph over the elements … Well, she didn’t go there. Only in her bed, lying awake through the early hours, did it seem possible. In the pure light of day, it seemed ludicrous – a wave had propelled her to the shore. All else was drunken hallucination. In any case, she felt better than she had ever expected to feel again and that was a pretty good start.
Chapter 41
Aidan and Sarah were in the bath. Sarah hadn’t felt up to going out that day, so this was their self-created sea. Aidan had lit numerous numinous night-lights. These were their self-created stars. The bath was tiny and narrow, barely large enough for Aidan alone, yet they managed, sitting face to face, she cradled between his big hairy knees, which rose up out of the water on either side of her like mountains.
Sarah was listless. She appeared to have shrunk into herself. She had been this way since Helen had left. She was sicker too, requiring more painkillers. It was as if the illness had been held in abeyance while her sister was there. As if she had been having a holiday from her illness. Aidan suspected her symptoms to be as much psychological as physical, although the more he observed, the more he became convinced that the two aspects were intertwined, to the point of being indistinguishable.
She was brighter now, however, than she’d been all day. Her features were relaxed. All day long, her face had brightened only when Maia had walked into the room. It didn’t do that for him. Which was good, he reasoned. She had to be able to show her pain, her sorrow, to someone. But it did make him wonder about the nature of her feelings towards him. Did she really love him? Or was she just clinging to him in her hour of greatest need? Was he the only port in this ultimate storm? It was so hard to know – the iro
ny being that they probably wouldn’t be together now if she hadn’t got sick. It was what made every moment they had together so intense in its own bittersweet way. She was staring at him.
‘What is it?’
‘You look tired,’ she said.
‘Do I?’ Did he? He never really considered it.
‘Yes. I’m taking a toll on you.’
‘Nonsense, woman. Sure I’m grand. Big, strapping fellow like me. I can take anything you have to throw at me.’
She smiled. But her smile was weak, sad. ‘I hope so.’
‘I can.’
She sighed then, and appeared to relax a little. ‘It suits you, though.’
‘What does?’
‘Being tired.’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘It does, you know. Makes your features more defined. The lines around your eyes are deeper, sexier.’
He grinned at her and she grinned back.
‘Like when you smile,’ she said.
She placed her hands on her own knees and rested her left cheek against them. The gesture was so childlike, so vulnerable. In his chest he felt such a surge of love for her. As if he just wanted to scoop her up and hold her tight against him. Protect her from everything. Why couldn’t he do that? Well, for one thing, the bath was too small. She lifted her head again, her neck reminding him of a stem. ‘I bet you have lovely lines around your mouth too. Except nobody ever gets to see them.’
He reached up his hand and touched his beard, transferring bubbles onto it in the process. ‘There’s a reason for that.’
‘I know there is.’
He hesitated. ‘You want me to shave off my beard?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s up to you.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Typically female response.’
She merely smiled, watching him with her head inclined. He thought of asking her if this was another one of her dying wishes. But the mood didn’t seem right and that joke was no longer funny.
They both regarded each other seriously now.
