The Carnival at Bray

by Jessie Ann Foley

  “Bad night?”

  Maggie nodded, and the tears spilled over and splashed on the counter. She wiped them away with her finger, went to the payphone, and dialed the number of the Quayside.

  An hour later, she sat, duffel bag on in her lap, at a bench at Connolly Station. When the train from Bray pulled up and she saw Eoin’s dark head ducking through the crowd, she opened her mouth to call out to him but instead dissolved into tears again. She collapsed into him, the warm detergent smell of his sweatshirt reminding her of home, of chores, of her mother.

  He took her to get something to eat, and it took every ounce of Maggie’s self-control not to devour her entire breakfast with her bare hands. Meanwhile, with gentle questions, he got the story out of her. She told him about Kevin’s letter and her mother’s confession and her night out with Ashley and Ehi.

  “I have to get those tickets back,” Maggie said. “It was supposed to be my pilgrimage.”

  “Tell you what,” Eoin said, forking a tomato into his mouth, “why don’t we stay in Dublin for another day? We’ll scour the city for these two. If we find them, I’ll go to Rome with you. Just like your uncle said.”

  “But even if we do find them—then what?”

  Eoin shrugged. “We kick their asses and steal the tickets back. No bother.”

  “But what if they’ve already sold the tickets?”

  “Then we kick their asses for the simple satisfaction of it, and we go home avenged!”

  “But what if we try to kick their asses and we end up getting our assed kicked?”

  “Who’s gonna win in a fight—a couple runaways with fucked-up families and nothing to lose, or some rich California princess and her hippie boyfriend? I know who I’d put my money on.”

  “I don’t know, Eoin. That hippie boyfriend was about six foot three.”

  Eoin rolled up his sleeve and flexed his forearm.

  “That may be true,” he said, grinning, “but only one of us was a champion under-twelve boxer in the Bray Athletic Club who retired, undefeated, before his thirteenth birthday.”

  Maggie laughed. “Well, that is pretty impressive,” she said. “But what if we somehow actually find the two of them—and we manage to kick their asses, and we get the tickets back? Then what? How the hell are we supposed to get to Rome?”

  “Listen, Maggie.” Eoin leaned over their breakfast plates. “You came this far, didn’t you? You wouldn’t have run away in the first place if you didn’t believe you’d get there somehow.”

  “I know.” She put her hands over her face. “But part of me just thought Kevin would, like, show me the way somehow. I swear, sometimes I forget that he’s actually dead—real world dead, not angel-in-a-fairy-tale dead—and that he can’t help me anymore.”

  “Well, why don’t you let me pick up where he left off?” He put his hands on hers and gently pulled them away from her face. “I’ve been working at the Quayside since I was fourteen. The only thing I ever spend my money on is Shoot! magazine and the odd visit to the chipper. I’ve enough for two plane tickets and then some.” He pointed his fork at her. “But: you have to promise me that if we look for this Ashley girl and we can’t find her, you’ll get on that train with me tomorrow and come home, before your missing-person mug is splashed all over the cover of the Irish Times.”

  Maggie twisted her napkin into a tight band.

  “I don’t want to take all your money.”

  “You’re not taking it. I’m going with you. I’ve always wanted to see Rome. And that’s if we find them. It’s a long shot.”

  “But what about school?”

  He shrugged.

  “Concert’s on Tuesday, right? Today’s Sunday? Say we find these two scumbags and we get on a plane tomorrow. We see the show, we fly back Wednesday, we miss three or four days of school, we catch hell for it. I guess you’ve just gotta ask yourself—would it be worth it, the trouble we get in, for this chance?”

  Maggie threw her napkin on the table. “To me, it would be worth anything.”

  “Well, it’s settled, then.” Eoin wiped his last bit of toast through his eggs. “Search Dublin, find thieving American blonde and her African accomplice, kick ass if necessary, get tickets, head to the airport. No bother at all.”

  When they returned to the hostel, the Slavic girl was at her station, watching her eternal TV program.

  “There’s going to be two of us tonight,” Maggie said.

  “Ten pounds a person,” the girl looked up from the TV and examined Eoin with interest. “Fifteen if you want sheets and towel.”

  Eoin reached into his pocket and slapped twenty-five pounds on the counter. “The lady will be needing some sheets. Me, I’m fine without.”

  “Eoin, you really don’t—” began Maggie.

  He held up a hand.

  “Please don’t question me when I’m being chivalrous.”

  Upstairs, the bunk Maggie had slept in the night before was still open.

  “So,” Eoin said, flopping across the bare mattress, “you have any idea where these arseholes might be?”

  “Well,” Maggie said, sitting down beside him, “Ashley said they were going to be in Dublin for a couple more days, and then they were leaving for Scandinavia. So I know they’re still around. Last night, we all hung out near this gazebo in Saint Stephen’s Green.”

  “Right so. We’ll have a look there. But first, let’s do a little detective work.” He stood up, gave her his hand, and helped her up from the sagging mattress.

  Back in the lobby, he leaned over the counter and grinned at the Slavic girl.

  “Hi there,” he said. “Ukrainian?”

  “Polish,” the girl said peevishly.

  “Ah! That was my next guess. Name, please?”

  The girl rolled her eyes, leaned over, and switched off her TV program.

  “Grazyna.”

  “Grazyna! Lovely name. Well, I’ll cut right to it, Graz. My name’s Eoin, and this is my friend, Maggie.” Maggie raised a hand in greeting. Grazyna nodded. “We were wondering if you remember a couple that stayed here last night: blond American girl and a big African lad with a guitar?”

  “Yes, I remember. I see them leave very early this morning.” Grazyna began to pick at one of her acrylic nails.

  “Any idea where they might have gone?”

  “Why you want to know?”

  “They stole my stuff,” said Maggie.

  “Cholera jasna!” Grazyna said, abandoning her nail. She shook her head. “They seem so nice.” Then, she added, “Nora Barnacle’s is not responsible for lost and stolen items.”

  “We know that,” Eoin sighed impatiently. “Do you know anything else about them? We don’t want to cause trouble or nothing; we just want to get the stuff back.”

  “They stay here couple days. Every time they go out, they bring guitar with them. Maybe they’re buskers. Try Grafton Street.”

  The afternoon had turned dismal—a sudden thunderstorm opened the sky and people hurried to their destinations under tented newspapers. Maggie and Eoin stopped in Penneys, bought a cheap umbrella, and slogged their way to Grafton Street, where pedestrians marched purposely ahead with sopped shoulders, certainly not in the mood to stop and throw change into a guitar case. The only street performer they could even find was a scruffy-looking mime, whose face paint was running onto his collar and who stood waiting out the storm in the doorway of an AIG bank. At first, he stayed obnoxiously in character when they asked if he’d seen a blond American and an African with a guitar, shrugging exaggeratedly and putting a finger to his lips. Finally, Eoin gave him some change and he dropped the act.

  “Sure, I know those two. They’ve been playing in front of Boot’s for the last week or two. Haven’t seem ’em today, though. Ain’t a very good day for it, anyway.”

  They thanked him and left, wandering around the street for a while, peering into shop windows in search of the thieves. Nothing. Eventually, they ducked into a pub and found a quiet table ne
ar the fireplace where they could dry off. Eoin helped Maggie out of her soaking jacket and hung it on the grate to dry. A girl came over with menus and they ordered soup, brown bread, and tea.

  “We’ll never find them,” Maggie sighed. “I don’t know why I was so sure we would. In a city of a million people! You must think I’m insane.”

  “I thought we would too,” Eoin said. “I just had a feeling. We’ll stake out that gazebo tonight. If that doesn’t work, at least we can say we tried.”

  The girl brought the soup and bread, and Maggie poured the tea.

  “It’s absolutely vile outside,” she said. “Nobody’s going to be hanging around in the park tonight. They’ll probably go to a pub, and there are, what, like a thousand pubs in Dublin? Impossible.”

  “Well, it’s worth having a look anyway on our way back to the hostel,” said Eoin, dunking his bread into the steaming soup. “Once I get an idea in my head, I like to finish things.”

  “That’s one of the things I like about you,” Maggie smiled at him. “I’m the same way.”

  After their dishes were cleared, the two of them sat in front of the fire, steam rising off their wet jeans. Later in her life, Maggie would always remember the coziness of that meal and Eoin’s faith in their adventure. They were two near-orphans; fathers gone, mothers estranged, sixteen and seventeen years old. But as they finished the last of their tea, the need for words between them dropped away, and they were silent together, in the contented way of people who know they are no longer alone.

  They left the pub just as the streetlights were winking on along Dawson Street and headed toward the gates of Saint Stephen’s Green. The park rustled with dripping leaves and the shadows of urban animals. Maggie led Eoin to the gazebo, which stood white as a streetlamp next to a pond that even the swans had abandoned. The ground was littered with the remnants of the night before: wet cigarette butts, bottle caps, a trampled, muddy square of grass where Ehi had spread the blanket. Eoin squatted down and picked up the sodden burnt end of a joint. He held it out to Maggie.

  “This is all from yesterday?”

  She hung her head. “I never smoked weed before. It was stupid. I shouldn’t have let myself get so messed up. I shouldn’t have made it so easy for them.”

  Eoin flicked the joint into a puddle.

  “Why’d I have to be so stupid?” She kicked a bottle cap, and it plinked into the pond. “Those tickets were the last thing he ever did for me, and I messed everything up.”

  Eoin put an arm around her shoulder and lifted the umbrella over their heads. “We’ll see the show when they come to Dublin,” he said gently. “I know it’s not the same. But we’ll do it.”

  Huddled under their umbrella, they came out of the park and walked toward Kildare Street. Up the road, the gas lamps of the Shelbourne Hotel glowed in the rain. The windows, iced in marble scrolling, leaked light and privilege onto the sidewalk.

  “This is the kind of place Ashley said her father likes to stay at,” Maggie said, peering into the gold-pillared lobby.

  “Snooty bitch,” Eoin muttered. He stopped short on the wet street. “Wait a minute!” He pointed. “Is that—?”

  Maggie gasped and grabbed his arm. “Holy shit.” Framed like a portrait in the picture window between two red baroque curtains were Ashley and Ehi. They sat together in high-backed velvet chairs, drinking from thick crystal scotch glasses: toasting, she supposed, their cleverness.

  Maggie broke into a run, past the valets and the luggage racks.

  “Maggie, wait up!”

  Eoin’s gym shoes slapped on the pavement behind her as she shoved open the glass double doors to the lobby. Inside was such a shimmering fairy tale palace—so unlike any place she’d ever been in her entire blue-collar life—that she nearly turned around and walked right back out. Pinpricks of soft light glowed off crystal chandeliers, vases overflowed with cerulean puffs of hydrangea. A patterned marble floor was polished to a mirror shine. There was even a narrow yellow carpet that stopped abruptly at the eastern entrance of the Lord Mayor’s Lounge. Follow the yellow brick road.

  “Have you got a plan?” There was a faint pant in Eoin’s breathing.

  “No,” Maggie said. “Just stay with me, okay?”

  She took a deep breath and opened the lounge door. The room bustled with a well-heeled cocktail hour crowd—men in suit jackets and women in stiff velvet and heavy eye makeup. The carpet was Oriental plush and the bar counter was studded with silver bowls of almonds and sesame sticks. Elaborate three-tiered trays of tea sandwiches stood in the middle of the high-top tables and classical music piped from hidden speakers in the ceiling. Ashley and Ehi sat together by the window, laughing and clearly pleased with themselves for being young and bohemian in the midst of this starched crowd. Maggie marched up to them and stopped between their pink velvet chairs. Ashley, who was putting her glass to her mouth, flinched. A small “oh!” escaped her lips. She set the glass down.

  “Chicago!” she said brightly, recovering herself. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought you said you preferred cheap hostels, cheap beer, and strangers to places like this.” She heard the swish of Eoin’s track pants as he came up beside her.

  “I did say that, didn’t I?” she laughed, nervously twirling a strand of her long, pale hair. “But it’s our last night in Dublin and we figured we’d treat ourselves. Still a little rich girl underneath it all, sometimes.”

  “Give me my tickets.”

  “I told you,” Ehi cut in. He was glaring at Ashley. He put his glass down on a coaster. It was embossed with the letter S in cursive writing. He looked tired, his face etched with the remnants of an argument, perhaps from earlier that day.

  “What tickets?” Ashley looked up at Maggie and Eoin. “Did you lose something last night? You were pretty fucked up.” She smiled at Eoin, her teeth Wonderbread white. “First-time weed smoker.”

  “Don’t you fuckin’ smile at me,” Eoin growled.

  “Now hold on a minute, mate.” Ehi half-stood.

  “And don’t you call me mate, mate.” Eoin rolled up his right sleeve.

  “Excuse me. Can I get you something to drink?” A man with a trimmed goatee and a tailored pinstripe suit had materialized next to them. He held a clipboard in his hand and wore a brass nametag that said Manager.

  “No, thanks.” Maggie answered him, her eyes never leaving Ashley’s face.

  “Well, unfortunately, this lounge is for paying customers only.” The manager pursed his lips at Maggie and Eoin, taking in their wet clothes and Maggie’s threadbare duffel bag.

  “Fine. We’ll have two of what they’re having.”

  “Glenfiddich eighteen year?”

  “Sure.”

  The manager hesitated for a moment before slipping off toward the bar. As soon as his back was turned, Maggie reached out and gripped Ashley’s arm so hard the tanned skin popped white between her fingers. Ashley’s mouth twisted open in pain and surprise.

  “Jesus. Relax, will you?”

  Maggie squeezed harder.

  “I can scream for help, you know.”

  “And I can break your pretty little nose.”

  “Okay, okay.” Ashley’s voice was small and pouty. “We already spent your money on these drinks.”

  “I don’t give a crap about the money,” Maggie said. Her face was an inch from Ashley’s. She could see the tiny pores along the sides of her lovely nose, the pale lashes tipped in white. She could smell the expensive scotch rolling off her breath. “But I want those tickets back. Now.”

  “I can’t reach them until you let go of my arm.”

  Maggie released her grip, saw the receding imprint of her fingers on Ashley’s flesh. Ashley reached down to the bag at her feet, her eyes darting around the lobby for an escape route. Eoin shifted his weight until he was standing right at the arm of her chair, so that if she wanted to escape she would have get past him. She knew better than to try. She unzipped the green backpack
under her chair. Inside it, Maggie could see a stack of winking silver engraved with the Shelbourne S, and even a few stalks of cut hydrangea from the displays in the lobby. Ashley dug past these items and produced the tickets. Maggie ripped them from her hand and stuffed them down her sweater and into her bra. Then, she picked up Ashley’s scotch glass. It was as heavy as a paperweight. She downed the last quarter inch of the liquor in one gulp. It burned hotly down her throat. She wiped her mouth and looked at Eoin. “You ready?”

  “Yeah.” He was fighting a smile.

  On the way back out to the lobby, Maggie walked up to the manager, who was arranging their two glasses of Glenfiddich onto a tray.

  “You might want to check that woman’s bag,” she said, pointing over at Ashley. “She’s about to make off with some of your fancy nut bowls.”

  They walked out of the lobby and past the window just in time to see the manager stride up to their table and pull the stolen silver bowls from Ashley’s bag.

  “Do you want to watch the rest of the show?” Eoin asked as the manager took Ashley by the arm and waved over a security guard. Maggie shook her head.

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  On the walk back to the hostel, the tickets folded safely in Maggie’s bra, she and Eoin were giddy with victory.

  “You were amazing!” Eoin laughed as they ducked under awnings and jumped from puddle to puddle. “Drinking her scotch like that!”

  “My scotch,” Maggie reminded him. “Purchased with Nanny Ei’s Christmas money. Glenfiddich eighteen year—that stuff is older than we are!”

  “How did it taste?”