Stay

by Aislinn Hunter

  He’d expected more from the top—more than the view of the sea, the grey stretch of it. He’d expected something monumental. The two of them clambering up after each other, racing towards a grass and mud peak. “Ever since I was a girl I’ve wanted to climb it.” His mother reaching for his hand and starting down.

  He doesn’t hear the first knock.

  “Dermot, let me in.” Abbey’s knuckles against the wood of the door, raw and red from the cold. The road, the beach, everything had gone dark since she started walking. “Dermot!”

  Her head is throbbing at the temples, her neck’s still sore every time she swallows; the cold goes right through her. It’s close to midnight. Other than the ride to Barna, she’s been on foot.

  “Dermot!”

  Abbey’s voice comes to Dermot the way sound travels through a tunnel, distilled and faraway, until the pitch of his dream subsides and he can hear her clearly. In two strides he’s at the door, opening it, her pinched face in front of him, arms crossed over her chest, backpack at her feet. He wants to touch her, to cup her face in his hands but instead he stands back, lets her go past him, has a sense that he should be angry although he isn’t sure why. His hand still on the latch, holding the door open. Abbey heads through the front room without a word. Goes into the bedroom. And for a second it’s as if time has rolled backwards, transporting them into some old, unresolved argument. Where had they left off? Dermot tries to nail it down, figure out what part of it they’ll go forward from now. The proposal? The tug-of-war before she left for Canada? The day she first moved in? As if the past two weeks never happened. Behind him, Abbey turns on the light in the bedroom, pulls the second blanket off the bed, wraps herself in it.

  Dermot rubs his face, his eyes, with his hands. He can hear Abbey in the bedroom moving around. When he looks up, she’s standing in the doorway watching him. Then she goes over to the dresser, opens her drawer. Empty, he thinks. She took everything with her. She throws the blanket back onto the bed and walks around the corner into the bathroom. After a minute Dermot moves away from the door. Thinks, this is all going wrong. Unsure of what to do about it. He wants to say something to Abbey about her being home, but he doesn’t. Instead he stands there bewildered, watching her from behind as she turns on the immersion switch, starts taking off her clothes. It occurs to him then that maybe she’s come back to pack her last few things, that tomorrow she’ll leave him. So he walks out of the room and sits on the couch. Gets up again and opens the far cupboard to find a bottle. The sound of the water running through the pipes.

  Between the Cottage and the Bay

  DERMOT stands beside the bed watching Abbey sleep, the covers pulled up to her chin and balled around the one fist. He’s been watching her a while, the way she opens and closes her mouth, turns and nestles the pillow. He’d gone for a walk, made it as far as St. Éinde’s. Sat on a pew holding a bottle of whiskey in both hands, willing himself not to drink it. When he’d come back to the cottage, into the bedroom, he thought she’d wake up, but she didn’t. So he stands by the bed wondering if he should get in.

  Abbey opens her eyes in the dark room and waits for them to adjust. She isn’t sure how long she’s been sleeping or if she’s even slept at all. Slowly the room comes into focus, and looking up, Abbey sees Dermot standing there in the dim light, still in his sweater and jeans, the smell of smoke clinging to his clothes. He’s watching her, his body swaying a bit. “Is it you?” he asks.

  Abbey slips her hand out from under the blanket, touches his palm, pulls at his arm until he sits on the mattress beside her. Moving over to the far side of the bed, Abbey makes room and Dermot lies down, puts his back to her, his boots clapping together on top of the blanket.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” he says. The peach scent of her shampoo on his pillow. The spin of the room starting to slow. Abbey puts her arm over his chest, her forehead against the back of his neck. “Would you believe it,” he declares, turning his head in her direction, “we’re finally away.”

  In the morning Abbey wakes up to the sound of Dermot dragging one of his clothes boxes out from the closet. Then there’s a thwap from the other side of the room as he airs out an old pair of pants.

  Abbey sits up, her back stiff from carrying her rucksack from Barna. She stretches and the blanket slips down off her shoulders. Dermot smiles at seeing her bare breasts. “I know you,” he says. He’s at the window, the shadow of the white beam bobbing up and down his face. “I thought you three were for Canada,” he nods at her chest.

  “No such luck.”

  Dermot starts putting on his jeans, looks up at her. That’s when he sees it, the brown welt around her neck.

  “Jesus, Abbey. What happened?” His hand lifting her chin. Two fingers lightly touching the bruise.

  “A psychopath at work.”

  “A customer?” He’s angry. Looks around the room.

  “A cook. It’s okay, I pressed charges, they picked him up, he isn’t allowed near me or the restaurant.”

  Dermot lifts her chin again, touches her neck. She flinches even though he can tell she’s trying not to. “You should have phoned.” Angry about it, that it could happen, that he wasn’t there.

  Later, when Dermot is kissing her chin, he realizes he has remembered exactly the slope from her lips to her neck. He kisses her ear lobe, the spot behind her left ear, goes along her hairline to her forehead. He stands up and from the edge of the bed he pulls her pajama bottoms down, kisses her thighs.

  Abbey has chills all over from his touch, from the cold in the room. She pulls up his sweater, Dermot bunching his shoulders close. “Christ we need a heater!” Laughing, they get themselves under the covers and Abbey can feel Dermot undoing his belt, pushing down his jeans, hooking his finger over the top of her knickers. When he leans down on top of her, Abbey kisses his shoulder, then down the slope of his arm. She says his name over and over in her head, Dermot Fay, Dermot Fay, Dermot Fay and she touches him, his grey hair, his shoulder blades, the soft cant of his back.

  Lying in bed Abbey starts to explain what happened, why she’d stayed away. Dermot, putting his clothes on in the doorway, says, “you’re here now,” longing for that to be the end of it. But Abbey’s afraid it’ll start all over again. That if she keeps what’s been bothering her to herself, Frank will come between them.

  “Either I’m going crazy or he’s really here.”

  “Here?” Dermot sits on the edge of the bed, trying to sort out what she means. He looks at Abbey and around the room; the corner crammed with the boxes he’s hauled out from the closet, books lining a shelf above the window.

  “In my head, at McDaids, at Ange’s. I don’t know. Getting Dan to come after me.” Abbey pushes her face into her palms, not sure if it’s the saying of it or how stupid it sounds that makes her want to cry.

  Dermot looks at the top of her head. “There’s no one here but us.”

  “I know. I know.” And then, “I’m losing it, Dermot, really I am. I just keep thinking about him. And about my mother—” Abbey looks up at Dermot, her face pinched and red. “And the other night, with Dan, for a half second, in the middle of it, I thought it was my father,” the words punched out, “trying to get back at me for leaving him.”

  “Abbey.”

  She’s shaking her head, doesn’t want to listen.

  “Abbey, it’s all right.” Dermot tries to pull her to his chest. “The man just died. It’s a way of grieving.”

  “No, it’s not.” Her nose congested and her eyes welling up so that Dermot puts his hands out, takes her face in his palms, smooths his thumbs over the skin under her eyes.

  “Is that what all this has been about?”

  Abbey nods.

  “Since you’re back from Canada. All this time?”

  Abbey nods again, tries to burrow back into his chest, all the smells that comfort her mingling there in his sweater, a burl of wool tickling her nose.

  “Come here.”

  Sudd
enly it’s clear to Dermot—the reason for her uneasiness, the restlessness since the funeral. They’d been so settled in the weeks before, and she’d said more than once that she didn’t want Dublin, that a job in Galway would do.

  Dermot cradles her head in the crook of his arm and he rocks her, looks at the ceiling then down at her hair, saying, “You’re crazy, you know.” His one hand tucking her hair behind her ear as he’s seen her do a thousand times. “And you’re with me, which proves it.”

  When Abbey comes out of the shower Dermot is in the yard talking to someone—short sentences, as if answering or asking questions. Abbey takes an old pair of Dermot’s jeans off the pile he’s pulled out of the box, puts on her jumper then takes it off, grabs a t-shirt from his drawer to wear under it. She slips her arms through the wide sleeves and throws her boots on. Out the front door the sky is clear. The sun is out and as soon as she’s outside, Abbey is warmed by it. Overhead crows caraw, passing in between the cottage and the bay. Abbey steps round the corner of the house and Dermot stops talking, has just said “fortify—” the word hanging there, a boy with dark hair facing him, a mess of shovels laid out on the ground.

  “Hello.” Her voice is loud and awkward, and Abbey is aware of how Canadian she sounds.

  “Hiya.” The boy’s voice quiet, like Dermot’s.

  “I’m Abbey,” she says and she feels like a parody, a visitor from another planet, her hair messed up and the front of her neck a blue-brown, Dermot just standing there as if he’s never seen her before, all dressed up in his oversized clothes.

  “I’m Sean.” The boy folds and unfolds his arms. They stand there like that for a minute, Sean with his chin to his chest, glancing up at Abbey with curious eyes.

  “Sean’s building us a fence.” Dermot says this to Sean as much as to Abbey.

  “Great.” She looks from one to the other. A young girl comes around the back of the house then, in corduroy pants and a red plastic jacket. She’s making aeroplane sounds, looping around the rusty pole of the laundry line, and then she stops, says “beep beep” and jumps once, lets go the pole and goes back to the aeroplane sounds, walking with her arms out, fingers and thumbs arrow-straight.

  “Mary!” Sean calls her and she turns around, her arms still out but tilting from side to side, a plane making an awkward landing. She “rreeuuunnns” up to Abbey, the sound coming from the back of her throat. When she reaches Abbey, the girl jumps up and down, says “beep beep” again. Abbey bends down to greet the girl at eye level, notices Dermot is finally looking at her as though everything were normal.

  “Hi. I’m Abbey,” she says to the girl.

  “Are you Dermot’s friend?”

  “I am.”

  “Beep beep.”

  “Beep beep.” Abbey says it back and the girl goes off, her blue eyes open wide and her arms out.

  “C’mon, Mary,” Sean gestures to the field and the girl heads that way, teetering left as she goes. The boy places the shovels into the wheel barrow, picks up the handles, sets off with all the dirt-caked tools.

  “See ya for lunch,” Dermot says and the kid nods, looking back at Abbey after he reaches the beginning of the field.

  Found

  THE camera’s shutter clicks. Pivoting, Michael aims the lens to the left of the area he’s just photographed. He mentally notes that shots 17, 18, 19 are from right to left, documenting the south wall of the pit. Nothing has come up. God knows why he has to be so thorough. He’s lost a week out here on his hands and knees; maybe taken years off his life because he stayed out in the weather. The last two days have sent a flood of rain under the tarp, the run-off coming like a stream down the side of the pit, turning the bottom to muck. On Monday the Bord na Móna lads will be back at it and Michael will be on the sofa at home. He’s already looking forward to the weekend, can feel a chest cold coming on, the beginning of a cough. Una and Gerry were good sports to the end—Una was especially patient, although Gerry’s off-beat humour was its own kind of reprieve. Yesterday Dermot and Abbey came out for an hour before heading over to Oughterard for lunch. Dermot arguably happier than Michael’s ever seen him, and Abbey only back two days.

  Turning to the east wall, Michael rubs his eyelid with his thumb, looks through the camera viewfinder and focuses on the black, chiseled mess of roots and peat. Another twenty minutes of photographs and notes and he’ll be done.

  The first spit of rain starts just as Michael is leaning over the back-panel of the Canon, loading a new roll of film. He hunches his shoulders to keep the rain from getting in. The new roll snaps into place and Michael pulls at the spool of film, lining the end of it up into the slit of the opposite spool. It catches and he closes the back of the camera, looking down as he advances the film to “1.” Then he puts the roll he’s just finished into his right pocket, thinking he’ll label it when he gets to the car. He doesn’t even look up. If he had, he would have missed it—but instead he sees it, just there, jutting out of the east wall of the pit. He keeps his chin down but refocuses, looks again at the spot on the far wall. Dark as wet wood—but he knows it isn’t wood. Michael drops the camera and on his knees rushes over to the peat wall, keeping his eyes on it so he doesn’t lose it. He finds it a meter down from the top of the bog, and with less than a square inch exposed. All this time they’d been digging alongside it.

  It takes two, maybe three strokes of the brush to see it clearly, Michael moving the white calluna roots around with his fingers, his shoulders aching, the knees of his jeans wet right through. It’s human skin. Dark brown and leathery. He can feel it, immovable, the brush skirting its smooth surface, the resistance against the bristles. Carefully he leans against the wall of the pit and with his thumb and finger he digs at the peat on either side of it. He pulls the tendrils of roots away, tugging at them until they break. Leaning forward to be at eye level, he recognizes the line of a hand, palm down in the peat.

  Later, he’ll have no recollection of climbing the ladder out of the pit, of jumping the trench, of rifling through his bag for the car keys, of driving down the road to the phone at the local hotel. He’ll remember shouting for a drink midway into the conversation with the Chief Archeologist at the IAWU; he’ll remember calling Jack Hopkins at the Museum right after. Telling Hopkins this was it. Jack reminding him that they’d have to call the Garda first, that the Garda would meet him down there, that it would take a few days to get all the proper permissions in order before they could do a full-blown dig. Michael saying, “Okay and okay and no, it isn’t animal hide,” saying it again and then pounding the paneled wall behind the phone box when it beeps for more change.

  “I’ll wait at the site,” is the last thing Michael gets in before the phone goes dead on him, before he stands there a minute listening to the dial tone, staring not so much at the receiver, but at the hand holding it.

  Michael drains a pint of Guinness, the locals lining the barstools looking at him with amusement. He is every inch the bog man with his muddy pants, dirty hands, his brown hair plastered down on his head. Michael puts five Euros down on the bar. The barman at the taps gestures with his head that he’ll be right over. Michael shifts from foot to foot, says, “Keep it,” pushes open the oak door to the street, whistling on his way to the car.

  ——

  When the Garda arrive they come down the road that runs beside the light-rail track, their white cars muddy and teetering as the wheels dip in and out of the potholes. While he waited for them, Michael worked off an inch of peat from the middle of the east wall, covered the hand with damp turf and marked its location with an orange flag. Farther along the wall he came upon what he guessed was a knee, its round cap delineated, its skin the colour of a chestnut. He covered that up too, marked it. Michael knows they can’t start excavating until the Garda’s determined whether or not the remains are recent. Then the Bord has to apply to Dúchas for a license, assemble the right group of people for the work.

  Michael stands back and mentally works out the
parameters of the dig. From the look of it, most of the body runs parallel to the pit they’ve already excavated—everything but the shins and feet, which Michael figures end just past the southeast corner of the pit. They’ll have to dig farther out into the turf. Then they can cut a wedge into the wall under the body, cut another wedge vertically from above. They’ll pull the body out onto a gurney, peat blanket and all.

  Sergeant Joyce is in the first car and two inspectors are in the car behind him. There’s the sound of car doors closing. Michael climbs up to the sixth rung of the ladder and watches the sergeant, a well-built man, jump the trench between the fourth and fifth field, his right hand holding onto his baton to keep it from swinging. A minute later he’s standing in front of Michael, looming over the pit. The two inspectors stand on the far side of the trench.

  “Now, what do we have here?” The sergeant takes off his cap and sets it under his arm. He has a mop of white hair, thick brows, a prominent forehead.

  “A body,” Michael says, still standing on the ladder.

  The sergeant looks around. “Where exactly is this body, Dunne?”

  “Here.” Michael points at the flat, muddy peat bank beside him. “I’ve a hand here,” he points to the first orange flag, “and what I think is a knee over here.”

  “I thought we had a body?” The sergeant puts his cap back on, then tips it up off his head, pulls his hair back before setting his cap down again.

  “We can’t uncover it until we can secure it for preservation.”

  The sergeant lifts his walkie-talkie off his belt and says something into it that Michael can’t hear. He turns and gestures for one of the men to come over. The taller of the two inspectors steps over the trench, bridging it. He stands beside the sergeant and they converse for a second before the sergeant goes back to the walkie-talkie. Michael finds himself looking down at the turf wall, measuring the slant of it, as if waiting for it to move.