Stay

by Aislinn Hunter

  Settling

  SEAN walks over the rise in the back field and heads towards the cottage. If Dermot’s in he’ll ask him something about the fence, about payment, maybe ask him for a first installment. But what he really wants is to see Abbey. The past three days, since the fight on the beach, he’s been thinking about her. And this morning, up at the house to collect the wheelbarrow and the wire, she was out in the garden watering the plants. Saw him and said hello.

  When Sean enters the back yard he sees that Dermot’s clothes are up on the line now—three pairs of men’s pants, a white shirt, some underwear, a sweater. The line sags with the weight.

  Knocking on the door Sean goes over what he’ll say. Shoves his hands into his front pockets. After a minute Abbey answers. She’s wearing a tight red shirt and jeans. There’s a bruise on her neck he hadn’t noticed. An old bruise turned yellow.

  “Hiya.” Sean looks down at the floor.

  “Hi.” Abbey hesitates, unsure why he’s there.

  “Is Mr. Fay here?”

  “No, Dermot’s in town.”

  “I wanted to ask him about the fence.”

  “He’s due back in an hour or so.”

  The two of them stand there a second and then Abbey asks, “Do you want tea?” Turns to go to the kitchen.

  “Thanks.” He steps into the cottage, closes the door behind him. Something savory is cooking on the stove.

  “I’ve got black tea and …” Abbey reaches for a tin in the cupboard above the sink, her shirt lifting at the back. Sean watches the swathe of her bare skin shift above the top of her jeans, “… lemon.”

  “Yeah, grand. Lemon. Can I use the loo?”

  “Sure. Over there.” Abbey points around the corner. Sean takes his jacket off and drops it on the floor by the door, heads through the front room, rounds the corner and closes the door behind him.

  “Fuck off.” Sean looks at himself in the bathroom mirror and says “fuck off” three times to his reflection. He runs the taps and puts cold water on his face. A sunburn under his eyes, over his forehead. The nose peeling.

  When Sean comes out of the bathroom Abbey is standing at the sink looking out the window. The kettle is whistling. Stepping behind her, Sean reaches out and turns off the burner. When the tea’s poured Abbey sits down at the table and Sean takes the seat across from her.

  “How’s the fence coming?”

  “All right.” He slouches down in the seat. Drums his fingers on the edge of the table.

  “So what kinds of things do you like to do when you’re not building fences?”

  Sean lifts his right shoulder up, an exaggerated I-don’t-give-a-shit gesture.

  “Do you like music?”

  “Yeah. Ska mostly.”

  Abbey takes a sip of her tea, burns the roof of her mouth. “Do you speak Irish?”

  “Yeah. Fuckin’ hate it.”

  “That’s too bad,” she smiles. Sean’s sitting across the table with a tough look on his face.

  “Do you speak French?” he thrusts his chin at her.

  “Un petit peu.”

  For the next half hour, it works this way between them. Abbey asks Sean a question, studies his face, and then after he answers her, with one word or two, she asks him something else, something more personal, until he starts telling her things he doesn’t talk about with anyone. And Abbey’s interested, wonders how his mind works, what it’s like to grow up on the coast in Ireland with six brothers and sisters and two parents. What it’s like to know almost everyone in the village. She tells him about Ontario when he asks, about a whole childhood spent in front of the TV. Confesses that she couldn’t name a bird or a tree to save her life but she knows the plot of every episode of “Charlie’s Angels” that aired in the 1980s. Sean telling her how his father’s always riding him to get his shit together, his mother pawning Mary off on him when she’s too busy with the baby. Every now and again Sean kicks the heels of his Docs down on the rug under the table, and then aware that he’s doing it, both legs nervously bouncing up and down, he looks up at Abbey and stops. When he asks her what happened to her neck, she tells him. Then she gets up and takes the tea cups away, starts wiping the table.

  After Sean goes back to the fence, Abbey walks around the cottage waiting for Dermot to come home. She picks Dermot’s sweater up off the couch, puts it on a shelf in the bedroom closet. She does the dishes from tea, washes the plastic cutting board. Throws out last week’s Irish Times which was still occupying the far corner of the big table. Then she runs her hand along the front of the bookshelf in the bedroom, trying to find something to read. Back in the living room Abbey touches the frayed wool blanket on the couch, the petals of the iris Dermot brought in two days ago. She picks up the photo on the side table then sets it down, happy to be settling in again. And when Dermot comes home, he puts his arms around Abbey and heads into the kitchen, tests the chili and tells her, with tomato sauce on his chin, how wonderful it is. He pulls two bowls and two glasses down from the cupboard, opens a bottle of wine. Turns the radio on to music. Proclaims lunch. And for a minute or two, for an hour, everything is perfect between them.

  All that afternoon, Dermot stays in and watches Abbey move from room to room as if she is a product of his imagination, a quirky manifestation out of his control. Just when she is standing in a square of sunlight, her hand to the window, just when Dermot is struck by the simple beauty of the image, Abbey will turn and laugh, say that Flagon is out in the yard chasing a gull, that it’s close and she almost has it. It amazes him that she is so much a woman and then sometimes a girl; the way her face opens in amazement at things she’s never seen. After lunch they had gone for a walk to the beach and talked about her father, and talking about him made Abbey feel better. Dermot had made a joke about ghosts, had opened the door after coming home, had stepped across the threshold before her, saying he was checking to be sure the cottage was clear. And if he is here, Dermot reasons now, if by chance Frank is watching, if he’s not just some byproduct of Abbey’s grief, let him look at this woman, let him see her as Dermot does. Let him see her the way the dead should see the living, as something apart from themselves. Dermot has his own superstitions, has seen his fetch come across the field to call him father. Everyone haunted by something.

  Around three, Dermot pulls Abbey into the bedroom to make love. She rolls her eyes, says “not this again” and he isn’t sure if she’s joking or not. But time is ticking and Dermot can hear it. He remembers Bonaventure. The Franciscan insisting that every instant of time is a beginning of the future even as it is a terminus of the past. The act, Dermot thinks, of being stuck in the moment before the hand of the clock moves. And Siger of Brabant, a favourite of Lasalle’s: “Potentiality precedes act in duration.” Dermot mulling it over as he lifts Abbey’s shirt over her head.

  Later, when he’s kissing her—one breast then the other, then the yellow bruise along her neck, the two of them laughing—he feels an elation, feels outside of himself in a way that is oddly tactile. As if he’s standing there watching his body with hers, anticipating the feeling that’s to come, thinking this is what happiness is. His happiness, hers, theirs together. As if she’s pulled him out of himself, the way she kneels at the foot of the bed, teases him with her mouth. But in the middle of it, just as enters her, he feels her body tense up. Pushes himself up on his hands, wondering if he’s hurt her.

  “Are you all right?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Tell me. Did I hurt you?” His left arm quivering so that he has to roll off her.

  “It’s Billy McKay.” Abbey puts the palm of her hand over her eyes.

  “What?”

  “My father walked in on me and Billy in grade eleven, and pulled him off me.”

  “Abbey, what are you talking about?”

  She sits up. Puts her hand on Dermot’s chest. “I just spaced out. For a second I thought we’d been caught. That Frank had walked in on us.”

  “You and m
e, or you and Billy?” He swings his legs over the side of the bed.

  “You and me.”

  “I’m for a drink.” He looks over at her but she shakes her head no. Then, naked, he walks across the room, heads into the kitchen.

  Later that afternoon when a water glass falls to the floor and no one is in the kitchen, when the radio loses its station for no reason, Dermot will look up at the ceiling and shake his head. Abbey picking up the glass shards in the blue plastic dust pan, tuning the radio back to RTE.

  “C’mere.” Dermot pulls Abbey into his arms and she kisses his neck. He takes her right hand in his and they start dancing to the bluesy music that’s playing. Dermot waltzing Abbey around and into the kitchen, trying to get her to follow his lead, laughing when she trips over his feet, hits her elbow on the fridge. They start again and move from room to room, stepping over Flagon’s bowls on the kitchen floor, over the furled edge of the living-room rug. Watch this, Dermot thinks, turning Abbey in circles. Watch this, Frank Gowan. The woman your little girl has become.

  The Bridge House

  TUESDAY morning Abbey wakes up to the dull thud of hammers hitting wood at the bungalow next door. The framers are putting in the interior walls. She rolls over and grabs her travel alarm off the window sill, looks at the time. Just after ten. Dermot’s in the kitchen and the house smells like sausage. Abbey has to be at the hotel in two hours to see Aidan. They’ll talk about the kind of work he might want her to do, about her experience. The only cleaning she’s ever done has been after-hours at Gabby’s, end-of-shift stuff at Connor’s. And taking care of her father. Although how emptying a bedpan qualifies her for room cleaning might be beyond Aidan’s comprehension.

  “You’re up, then?” Dermot is standing in the doorway. He’s trimmed his beard and combed his hair. He’s even wearing a shirt with a collar.

  “What time did you get out of bed?” Abbey walks over, goes up on her toes, kisses him.

  “A while ago. Breakfast is almost ready.”

  ——

  After they eat, Abbey gets dressed. She chooses a short green skirt she bought two weeks ago in Dublin and the white blouse she usually wears to work at Connor’s. She slips on her black shoes and puts on some lipstick, checks herself in the bathroom mirror and then goes outside. Dermot is tossing the ball to Flagon, eying the bungalows. He said he’d drive Abbey in, wait by the bridge until she was done. Then he wanted to go into Galway and drop by the bank. Maybe stop at the Brasserie for a pint.

  “Ready?” Dermot kicks the ball one last time towards the start of the field.

  “Yep.”

  “Do you have your work visa?”

  “In my passport.” Abbey taps her shoulder bag.

  Then the two of them get in the car, dressed up for the first time since last November, when Dermot met up with Abbey in Dublin and they went to the Gate to see a Stoppard play.

  Aidan is nice enough. Very Dublin, very congenial. A man in his early forties with two prominent lines across his forehead. Lines, Abbey thinks, you could sink a ship in. He says “I see,” in response to everything she puts forward. Folds his hands. Index fingers tapping each other in contemplation. They sit out in the back garden, and every now and again when she’s in the middle of saying why she wants to work at the Bridge House, Abbey can see his attention drift. His gaze goes from her face to the potted flowers beside her chair and then off to the stone wall at the back of the garden. He tries to deter her with “it’s just part-time” and “the wages won’t be what you’re used to in Dublin, and the tips are minimal if you get anything at all.” But Abbey insists she wants the work. At the end, he looks back over at her and asks, “How long will you stay in Ireland?” And maybe it’s the fact that he seems so sad, that there’s a weight hanging off him, but Abbey tells him the truth. “I can’t really say.” Just then, a woman in gardening gloves comes out the glass patio doors. A tired-looking labourer with a big gut, carrying two large sacks of fertilizer, follows her. He looks once at Abbey then drops his eyes back to the ground. The woman’s gardening clogs slapping up and down against her heels.

  “Aidan, will you mind the desk?” A bee zigzags past her. She fans the air, raises her eyebrows at Abbey.

  “This is Abbey Gowan.” He drops a hand in her direction.

  Abbey steps forward and the woman smiles thinly at her, pulls at the fingertips of her gloves.

  “Aidan—the desk.” The woman turning to examine the geraniums.

  The west-facing bedroom on the second floor is filled with Queen Anne lace and gold tassels. It’s not the kind of room Abbey would have put together but it’s delicate and clean—the type of suite old women love to sleep in. Aidan takes the keys and heads down to the desk, tells Abbey to take a minute and look around. When she comes down they’ll go over the cleaning responsibilities she’ll have. Abbey goes into the bathroom, flicks the light switch on. Small heart-shaped soaps by the sink. Mini shampoo and conditioners. A shower cap. Ice bucket. Four glasses in paper wrap. A bag for sanitary napkins. Ten towels of varying sizes on the rack by the wall. It occurs to Abbey that she’ll hate this job, that slinging food around for tourists is bad enough, but this will be less pay, harder work, maybe even a little lonely. Looking at the toilet she realizes that she’ll be the one responsible for cleaning it, the way she had to clean up after Frank before Doctor Kaplan changed his meds and things righted themselves again. A month of diarrhea and Frank saying “see,” as if that was proof positive that he was dying. He’d taken some pleasure in it, in the look on Abbey’s face as she carried the bedpan from the table where he left it into the bathroom. She’d wash her hands for ten minutes afterwards, telling herself there was nothing she could do. But wanting, the whole time, some kind of a declaration. “There’s been some internal bleeding, but it’s stopped and we can’t say what caused it. The CAT and PET scans don’t show anything out of the ordinary. The lethargy is a concern, but until the tests show something abnormal …” Dr. Kaplan, in his office at the hospital, had been almost sorry, looked at Abbey as if he knew what she was going through, patting her hand as he dropped the folder containing Frank’s medical history into a file cabinet. Abbey walked back to admitting to find Frank on the bed in a hospital gown, grinning. The green curtain had made him look more sallow than usual. Abbey went over to him, watched him swing his legs over the side of the bed, stand up, take his IV with him. Frank saying, “Let’s get lunch at the cafeteria.” The back of his gown open as he started down the hall.

  Dermot is at the bridge. Flagon down in the river pawing stones in the shallows.

  “How was it?”

  “Okay. I start next week.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Abbey looks at the trees, skylarks rustling in the upper branches. A dragonfly dipping up and down over the stream. “How long do you think this’ll go on?” she asks.

  “How long will what go on?”

  “I hate him. I really do.”

  “Hate is a strong word, Abbey.”

  “But that’s it, isn’t it? I hate my father but there isn’t anything I can say that he did to deserve it. He never really hit me, not really, he didn’t dump me by the side of—”

  “Ssshhh.” Dermot reaches out and puts his hand on her shoulder. After a minute he says, “Do you remember when we first met?”

  Abbey nods.

  “We were at the Bailey and Angela had introduced us and I was talking about the past and you were hanging on every word that I said.”

  “Well, not every word.”

  “You were.”

  Abbey laughs.

  “And then you dropped your hand on my knee.”

  “I did,” she agrees.

  “A small thing, Abbey. But here we are. Never underestimate how even the simple gestures can change us.”

  Later that afternoon when Dermot comes out of the bank, he sees Abbey waiting for him by the car. Happy to see him, lifting her hand. This pixie girl, this woman who is making a lif
e with him. Abbey, who has grown as strange to him as he has to himself. Her sudden compliance. Her wanting to settle down. The Bridge House job, the afternoons spent lazing around in the cottage with no desire to do anything, go anywhere. Yesterday, she whiled away three hours reading the church-sanctioned version of Kilian’s life and then asked Dermot to tell her the Saint’s verifiable biography. She is still interested in mining Dermot’s head for all the things he knows. Although now, Dermot’s starting to wonder if she’ll grow tired of it. If he tells her everything, what will happen then? When his knowledge has run its course? If she stays, he thinks suddenly, nearing the car, I’ll be the ruin of her. His lethargy catching. The drink, his aimlessness, wearing them both out. Unless he makes something more of himself, then it might work. Still, either way, he might hurt her. But then, there is a comfort in that too. As if causing another’s sorrow is one way to define being a man.

  The Heritage Service

  MICHAEL and Dermot stand at the edge of the pit, contemplating the tarp. After a while Michael walks over to the far side of the excavation, moves back two feet from the edge, says, “We’ll take about fifty centimetres off the top here, then cut a wedge down behind the body and at the same time go in underneath. Pull out the whole shelf.”

  “When’s the license due in?”

  “This afternoon. If it’s in by four, we’ll dig tomorrow.”

  “Has Hopkins come over from Dublin?”

  “He and the paleobotanist are coming in the morning. Jack’s bringing the license. She’s driving up from Clare.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Moira someone. Recommended by O’Flynn.”

  Two hours pass. Michael sits at the edge of the pit with his legs hanging over the side and Dermot walks over to the rabbit warren, watches Tomás mill the field adjacent. Abbey’d wanted to stay home today and Dermot was restless. He knows the excavation will be starting soon. Yesterday, in Galway, there was even talk of it at the Brasserie. The barman had recognized Dermot and asked if he was from Spiddal, and did he know they’d found a body up the way at Maam. It’s a different kind of gossip now, as if finally, after twelve years in the cottage, Dermot belongs. There was a time even four or five years ago when he’d walk to Hughes and not one person driving down the road would raise a hand in greeting. But now he was one of them. Their story was his story. Not like before—he was no longer “Dermot Fay from Dublin.” Now the barman at the Brasserie, seeing him, had asked, “Aren’t you a Spiddal man?” And Dermot, thinking about it, said, “Yes, I am.”