The Living

by Léan Cullinan

  My phone buzzed. A text message: ‘Can’t talk now. Sorry for everything. See you later. Love.’

  Love?

  A fine time to bring that up.

  I texted back, ‘Hello? CONCERT???’, and after pacing up and down a few times to regain control of myself, dry my eyes, calm my breathing, I headed back to where the others were.

  Whatever Matthew had been so uptight about since we got here, it wasn’t ‘Danny Boy’.

  BACK IN THE rehearsal room, Joan looked at her watch. ‘We’re on in a few minutes.’ She waved to catch the attention of Diane, who was pacing near the door, her clasped hands rising and falling in time with her steps. ‘Should we be lining up?’

  Diane came over. ‘No, we’ve to wait until they send someone. What time is it?’

  ‘Five to eight now,’ said Joan. ‘And’ – she turned to me – ‘there’s still no sign of Matthew?’

  I shrugged. ‘He’s incommunicado. I haven’t seen him since this morning.’

  Diane looked at the floor, took a breath, pursed her lips. ‘He told me earlier that he wouldn’t be at the rehearsal. He said he had to go and meet someone, that it was really important. Oh, god.’ She blinked a few times, and exhaled angrily. ‘I don’t know what to think now.’

  ‘But he can’t just—’ Joan spluttered. ‘That’s outrageous!’

  ‘I know. But, sure, what could I say? I thought it’d be OK. Listen, I’m going to have a word with …’ Diane hurried away towards the London and Belfast conductors who were chatting by the door.

  I hardly noticed her go. There was a roaring in my ears and shock waves running through me. Somehow, despite everything, I had not expected to catch Matthew in an outright falsehood. I felt sick.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Joan’s head was tilted, her eyes sympathetically gathering at the corners.

  ‘No,’ I said, teeth clenched.

  ‘He never said anything to you about having to meet someone, did he?’

  ‘He did not. Bastard.’ Bastards, the whole bloody lot of them.

  Flashes of thought were arcing through the mess in my brain. A Matthew retrospective.

  Here is a man who styles himself a historian but who can deftly probe the inner workings of a computer.

  Here is a man who styles himself a full-time student but who can afford to pay for two on evenings out.

  Here is a man who styles himself my boyfriend but who tells me as little as he can about his personal life, who doesn’t invite me into his flat until it’s an emergency.

  Here is a man, I am beginning to think, with something ugly to hide.

  Diane came towards us again, clapping her hands and waving for attention. ‘Carmina Urbana, I want to do some warm-ups.’

  We shuffled into a rough formation and followed her lead. The stuffy, carpeted room soaked up all we had to offer. ‘Whatever we do on stage,’ Diane pointed out, ‘we’ll sound better than this.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Now, I want to run through “Danny Boy”. Anja, will you sing the melody for us?’

  Anja, confused, looked round. ‘Is Matthew not—’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look like it, at this stage,’ Diane said briskly. ‘Will you be OK, do you think?’

  Anja was speechless.

  ‘Come on, we’ll try it,’ Diane said. She plucked her tuning fork from her jacket pocket and gave the notes. We started too slowly, and the breathing was hard for Anja. She cracked on the top note, and finished the last phrase in little more than a breathy whisper. There was a smattering of applause from the other choirs.

  ‘Now,’ said Diane. ‘You’ll be fine. We’ll take it faster than that.’ Nobody said anything.

  There had to be something I could do about all this. The powerlessness was unbearable. I was fretting about that memory stick again, too. I couldn’t get Nicky Fay’s parting injunction out of my head. My concert clothes had no pockets, but maybe I could bring it on stage. I hurried over to my bag and fished it out. It was chunky enough: I didn’t want to carry it in my hand in case I dropped it. On impulse, I stuck it into my bra, pushed it right in under my left breast. I felt the plastic warm up as I took my place in the line again.

  IT WAS AFTER eight now, and every second seemed to drip away in slow motion. Our formation had grown uneven before the door opened at last, and the apologetic young man from last night entered the room. He raised his voice, and the murmur of chat died away. ‘Hello, everyone? Hello. The audience has been seated, so if Carmina Urbana would like to follow me …’

  We trooped after him down echoless corridors towards the stage. The backstage area was a mess, full of cables and screens and bits of wood. The steps up to the stage itself looked a little rickety. We stood in a double row, trying not to fidget. We could hear ourselves being announced, the cadence of the woman’s speech unmistakably Northern Irish.

  The applause began, and Diane windmilled her hands at Tom, who was leading. The men filed onstage, followed by the women. I stumbled as I mounted the steps, caught the hem of my skirt in a shoe buckle, then had to hurry after Val so as not to leave too large a gap. I was hot and cold and miserable – and still seething with rage.

  Diane’s name was announced, and she strode out on to the stage, head held high. She had taken off her jacket to reveal an expanse of glittering blouse. The blaze of the footlights swallowed everything else. I tried not to squint. My mouth and throat were dry.

  As Diane situated herself in front of us I took a look out at the audience. I wondered what it might be like to be attending such a meeting, as the representative of your country. The psychological armour you’d have to wear. The necessity of presenting only the pre-arranged and approved face to your counterparts from other countries.

  Perhaps it wasn’t like that at all. Diane gave us our notes and raised her hands.

  The first chords of ‘Danny Boy’ suffused the auditorium, and I knew it was going to go well. Something had clicked into place between five minutes ago and now. We were attuned to each other, moving together as deftly as a shoal of fish. Anja acquitted herself honourably in the first verse, and the rest of us began to croon our way through the bridge.

  And then there was a crash, and I looked round to see two uniformed police officers come pounding up the steps on to the stage. Our lush harmonies tumbled into ragged silence. The officers wore high-visibility vests. One made for the lectern at the side of the stage, while the other went straight to Diane and began to speak urgently to her.

  ‘I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the officer at the lectern. ‘This is an emergency, and we’re going to have to cut short this evening’s performance. This is not a drill. Please proceed calmly to your nearest exit. Leave the building as quickly as you can, and assemble on the plaza opposite. You’ll be shown the way.’

  On stage, we were milling around in confusion. ‘What’s going on?’ Anja demanded of me. I shrugged at her, indicated the police officer, who was again talking to Diane. The officer was young – not much older than me, with dark hair scraped back from her face in a pony tail.

  Diane raised her voice. ‘All right, listen,’ she called, above the murmur of questions. ‘We can’t go back to the room. We have to go across the stage, out the side exit and round.’

  The police officer began to herd us towards the opposite side of the stage from where we’d come on; we formed a more or less orderly queue.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I heard Anja ask.

  The officer hesitated. ‘We’ve had a warning,’ she said. Her voice was scratchy, as though she had grit in her throat.

  ‘A warning?’

  ‘A bomb warning.’

  That shut Anja up. I found myself wanting to giggle. I was probably in mild shock. I felt remarkably unafraid.

  And then I remembered Matthew.

  He could be anywhere, I told myself. He could be miles away, doing something completely different.

  It didn’t help, this attempt at mental discipline. He could be trying to contact me right now,
and my phone was in my coat pocket in that room, along with my handbag. At least I had Nicky Fay’s memory stick.

  We had crossed the stage and were hurrying along an anonymous corridor, indistinguishable from the ones on the other side. My shoes, not built for haste, were really beginning to hurt me. I could not erase from my mind the idea that my phone was ringing, ringing, Matthew trying to get in touch, to tell me what was going on. Explain.

  Love, he’d said.

  I was grasping at straws. Not even. Raindrops, maybe. I stumbled along with the others, hearing the hiss and crackle of the police officer’s walkie-talkie, her answering description of our location and trajectory.

  Matthew wouldn’t be phoning me, would he? There was a bomb scare, and he wasn’t here. And he’d been on edge ever since we’d reached Belfast. He must have known about this in advance.

  In another layer of my mind I was still strangely calm. I found myself wondering about the statistics. How many bomb warnings resulted in explosions? Of those, what proportion caused injury or death? How many emergencies had this particular police officer had to deal with in her career to date? She seemed practised – almost blasé.

  She’s thinking, bomb scare, schmomb scare, same old story – why can’t they be a wee bit original for a change?

  At a peace summit, too. How ironic. I laughed out loud without meaning to. Lost my balance, shouldered into the wall. Used it to hold me up for a few steps. I couldn’t stop laughing. Some of the others were turning to look. Diane frowned. Joan hurried over, picked me off the wall and hooked an arm under my shoulders. ‘Thanks,’ I whispered, tears in my eyes. We stumbled on together.

  At last we reached the outside, through a squeaky glazed door beside a roaring vent. Our guide directed us to the right, along the side of the building. The cold air woke me up, and I was able to relinquish Joan’s support. I squeezed her arm in thanks, and she moved back to walk with Val. We all hurried after our police officer, who was making fast for the front of the building. Without coats, in our delicate evening wear, the sopranos and altos were soon shivering.

  The plaza was black with people. Officials shouted blurred instructions through loudspeakers, and there was a general movement away from the building and along the street. The way was punctuated by uniformed figures in fluorescent bibs, gesturing with torches. Parked police vehicles still had their roof lights flashing, head- and tail-lights ablaze. My breath glowed red, white, blue.

  Carmina Urbana quickly lost its momentum and its group integrity, and became just some more of the hundreds of people hurrying towards the assembly point. I was afraid of falling behind, so I tried to keep Diane’s blouse in sight, and Tom’s wayward curls. I felt panicky now – fell victim to a grim procession of thoughts about all the things that could go wrong.

  Such as the building beside us blowing up, for a start. We were far too close to it. I fought the urge to barge into the crowd, lay about me with fists and feet until I’d carved a path to safety.

  Joan looked back to catch my eye and give me a thumbs-up. Beyond her I could see the police officer who had led us out, turning to come back our way. She asked Joan and Val a question and leaned in to hear their answer.

  I’d come to a bottleneck and had to pause. I looked back at the building we’d left – the foyer still warmly lit, with people milling about inside.

  Among them, a familiar figure. My heart stopped. Surely I’d imagined it. Then he turned round, and I saw him clearly.

  It was Matthew.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, automatically, as I turned and pushed my way back through the stream of people.

  Some of them probably tried to stop me. I paid them no attention. I didn’t understand what they were saying.

  He’d got delayed, innocently, and had hurried to the concert hall hoping to be in time to join us on stage, had arrived just as the building began to be evacuated.

  No, that didn’t fit. He had said ‘sorry’, and ‘love’. There was something bigger going on.

  I was panting his name, in soft little screeches almost under my breath. I reached the door, where a large man in a fluorescent jacket turned to bar my way. More people were coming out every second, shouldering their way past him.

  ‘I have to!’ I said.

  ‘Madam, will you please go to the assembly point.’ He stood across the entrance, blocking even my view. I craned to see inside.

  ‘I have to get in!’ I was openly crying now: fat, hot tears rushing down my cheeks, cooling quickly in the night air.

  ‘I’m sorry, everyone has to get out.’ He folded his arms, looking genuinely apologetic.

  I couldn’t see Matthew. People were coming out another door. I patted the man on the arm, to reassure him that it was going to be all right, and made for the other door.

  Saw him in the crowd on the plaza.

  I was crossing the current now, which was even more difficult. I dodged between people, desperate to keep Matthew’s head in view. For a few agonizing seconds I lost him, then spotted him again, moving diagonally across the plaza, away from me.

  There was a clear patch between us. I ran for it.

  He tensed like a wrestler when I flung my arms round him, threw me off and spun round, his face stretched into a grimace of rage and determination.

  When he saw me, he froze. ‘Cate!’ His voice was a wheeze of shock.

  All the things I wanted to say came crowding to the front of my mind, jostling and howling and clamouring to be spoken first. I stood there, silent, crying.

  ‘Oh, Cate. I’m so sorry,’ Matthew said. He raised a hand to his forehead.

  ‘Where were you?’ I was hating my weakness, my descent into snivelling incoherence. My teeth chattered violently.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, opening his arms for me.

  Gratefully, I sank towards him. He folded himself and his coat around me like a blanket, hugged tight. I reached in under his arms, slipped my hands up his back, between the smooth lining of his coat and his cotton shirt. Laid my head against his chest; smelt his wholesome, forthright smell.

  Felt the alien shape under his arm. Something hard, heavy. I drew back, brushing my bare arm deliberately against it. Metal, warm from his body, encased in strong fabric.

  A gun in a holster?

  He realized. He tensed again, his arms like hawsers clutching me. My head cranking back to stare at him, mouth opening to take breath in, to yell.

  And then his mouth closed over mine, before I could think, before I could say a word, and he was kissing me harshly, urgently, with colliding teeth and rigid muscles.

  It was only a few seconds. We drew back, his arms still clasped hard round me, our breaths dampening each other’s faces. I was breathing hoarsely, a geyser of outrage building inside me, just about ready to burst forth.

  ‘How dare you …’ I whispered.

  ‘Cate, please trust me,’ he said – calmly, as though my assent were a formality.

  There was a steady authority in his eyes. He glanced behind me, scanning, scanning with such assurance that it had to be reflex. Years of practice. For my part, I was barely hearing what was going on around me, let alone seeing it. I was aware that we were perhaps the only ones not moving, a pair of standing stones around which the stream of people parted.

  There might be a bomb in the building to my right. I remembered that much.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I heard myself say, again hating the whininess of my voice, the thought that even after all this I was still prepared to turn to him. I drew in breath again to cry out.

  He leaned right in over me so that his lips brushed my ear. ‘Don’t blow my cover,’ he murmured. And my heart thumped hard in my chest. My eyes widened in shock as he withdrew his head and I met his earnest blue gaze. I couldn’t speak. My throat throbbed as though I had been choked, my mouth was as dry as old leaves, and my vision swam with little dots.

  ‘We’ll go together,’ Matthew continued, ‘but don’t say anything until we’re on our ow
n.’

  I began to shake my head, wanting to say no, no to all of this – to erase everything that had happened since we’d arrived in Belfast – or maybe earlier. Clean slate. Start again.

  I gave a crooked nod, and Matthew turned us and began to walk the two of us towards the assembly point, one arm locked tight round my shoulders, fingers gripping my upper arm.

  We were among the last to leave the plaza. We trailed along after the river of people converging on the crowd up the road.

  I couldn’t speak. Tears ran down my face and I felt bruised, as though I’d been knocked down and kicked. If Matthew hadn’t been holding on to me I might have sunk to the ground.

  I paid no attention when Matthew spied the rest of the choir, far off towards the front of the crowd, and began to steer us towards them. For reasons unfathomable I preferred to lean my face into his coat and pretend that the danger lay beyond the two of us. I was shuddering now as much from shock as from the cold. Matthew held on to me, a squeeze of my shoulder every few steps being in equal parts comforting and terrifying.

  Matthew has a gun. Matthew has a gun. Matthew has a gun.

  Guns are for killing. This beautiful man, this man I thought I had a real connection with, was carrying a gun. Some ideal he held, some set of principles, had made him believe that it might sometimes be all right to take a person’s life.

  I couldn’t look at him, the whole interminable time we took to cross the gusty street and worm our way up to the others. I let the tears run down my cheeks unchecked, their salt tracks tightening in the breeze.

  WE WERE ALMOST there. I could see Donal and Linda with their arms round each other, Joan standing with Val. Diane was talking to a police officer with a clipboard.

  I felt as though Matthew and I were on the far side of an uncrossable gulf. We couldn’t reach that happy space, where things were normal and safe, you could trust your friends, and all you had to do to get out of an unpleasant situation was walk away. Walk away.

  The officer who had led us off stage loomed without warning in front of me. ‘Caitlín Houlihan?’ she said. Catchleen. It stuck in her gritty throat.