The Leaving

by Gabriella West

  She waved at me as she walked off, painfully it seemed, the heels of her shoes cutting into her ankles. As I watched her go I felt my throat tighten. I swallowed furiously. I wouldn’t get upset, I wouldn’t care. She was abandoning me, but the real leave-taking had happened long before. This was just the ritual goodbye. I had to go through with it, for form’s sake, otherwise she’d feel guilty about not saying goodbye to me, and God knows I couldn’t let her do that.

  I closed my eyes. The sun was caressing me, relaxing me. It was all over now, and I had done my best. But I had the uneasy sense, which I couldn’t shake, that I had not done very well at all.

  * * *

  My parents had been subdued since Stevie’s visit, but quietly affectionate, both to each other and to me. On the morning after the final exam my mother pressed some money into my hand.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “You’ll need money, won’t you, to buy some new clothes? I thought since you were going into town ... “

  “All right. Thanks, Mum,” I said, and she looked pleased.

  As I sat on the bus I thought of Stevie, of Ron, of Jeanette, of myself. Inconclusive thoughts. I stroked the money. I would put it into my bank account, I decided, where I already had some tiny sum put away, perhaps a hundred pounds. It would come in handy. I didn’t want to buy clothes, but I did want to have some feeling of self-sufficiency, being able to “get by.” I was uneasy about the London plans, especially now that my parents were packing me off there so complacently.

  I had seen Ron the day before too. He’d touched my leg with his foot outside the gym. Not roughly. I’d flinched anyway. “Well, see you in London then, I suppose,” was his comment.

  “You must have hoped that I’d changed my plans,” I said. A stony look came into his face immediately.

  “I haven’t changed mine,” he said.

  “Did you enjoy Stevie’s visit?” I asked, with a touch of mockery in my voice.

  “Oh yeah. Did you?”

  “As much as ever.”

  He nodded, and seemed about to say something. He looked at me intently for a moment. Perhaps he’d guessed that I knew about Stevie’s infidelities. It wasn’t as if he hated me for that, but as if he had no wish to make any connection at all with me. He had chosen long before not to enlist me as an ally. Now he couldn’t, whether he wanted to or not.

  “Well, see you,” he said. As he walked off I realized that I hadn’t asked him when he was leaving for London, and Stevie hadn’t told me. It seemed better that way. I could almost imagine that it wasn’t true, that we weren’t going to all be living together in one flat, having to see each other every day, having to make polite conversation.

  It was unthinkable. I couldn’t understand how Stevie expected it to work.

  * * *

  At 1 o clock I stood on O’Connell Bridge as planned, resting my elbows on the dingy grey stone parapet, my back turned towards the people rushing by. The Liffey, as if exhausted, flowed sluggishly towards the sea. I looked down into its thick green waters, which smelt of beer and sewers, wondering if it held any life. You never heard of people fishing in the Liffey. You did hear of men tumbling in as they staggered along the quays late at night, after the pubs had closed.

  Something told me Jeanette wouldn’t show. As the minutes passed, I became sure of it. I’ll give her an hour, I thought. It hurt, to think she’d quite likely be an hour late. And she’d have some wonderful excuse. Although perhaps I wouldn’t find it wonderful now.

  No, I basically didn’t like her now. I sighed, and tried not to think of her. It was easy. My mind was naturally blank nowadays. It had absorbed all the information it could. My classmates had that look too, that glazed, overwhelmed stare. We had all been worked to death.

  A tap on my shoulder. I turned around quickly, then gasped as I looked into a guy’s face. It was Jeff, Jeff Blake. His hair hung wild and matted on his shoulders. His eyes were red. It seemed as if he’d slept in his clothes.

  “Cathy,” he said, his voice hoarse and strained, “Hi. I wanted to say goodbye. I know you’re off to London soon.”

  How did he know? And why, above all, did he care? My memories of Jeff were not particularly good, but somehow, as I looked at him, a protective feeling came over me.

  “Jeff, what have you been up to? You look dreadful.”

  He chuckled unsteadily. “Jaysus, you’re overreacting a bit, aren’t you? I went on a piss-up last night, of course. What else can you do on the final day of the Leaving?”

  I nodded. I supposed he had gone out with most of the class. I hadn’t known or been invited, but I probably wouldn’t have gone.

  “Do you think you did OK?” I asked this cautiously, not sure what his answer might be.

  He shrugged. “Well, I didn’t get into Trinity, I’ll tell you that. No, I’m going to America! I got a green card.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  He rubbed his eyes and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, offering me one. I took it automatically.

  We lit up. “I saw your friend Jeanette last night,” Jeff said, coughing. “She was having a rare old time. Dancing with a sailor.”

  I winced, then smiled in spite of myself. Suddenly we both laughed. It seemed like we were laughing not at Jeanette, but at ourselves.

  “Was Susie there?” I asked.

  He groaned. “Don’t talk to me about Susie.”

  I realized what a sore topic I’d brushed against. I hadn’t meant to. “Sorry. Well, I don’t see her any more either.”

  “She’s a bitch,” Jeff said gloomily, “and so is your friend Jeanette.”

  “Well, trust me to choose them!” I said. His mood was so dark that I felt positively sunny by comparison.

  “I mean, you can’t rely on women like that. They just want to get off with you and move on to the next better thing.”

  I didn’t want to ask if he’d ever got off with Jeanette. I stared across the bridge, following the path of the river until it wound out of sight.

  “I hope you have better luck with Americans,” I said finally, not looking at him.

  “Good luck to you too, Cathy.” Our eyes met and he forced a smile. “I always liked you.”

  I stared. “I thought you despised me. Me and my brother.”

  “No, you’re both different and that’s...” he searched for a word, desperately earnest. “That’s cool.”

  I bit my lip, still staring at him. Suddenly he moved off, disappearing quickly into the crowd of people streaming past. I turned back to the river, shaken. Who was Jeff? Well, it was too late to know now. Underneath all that bluster and silliness, there’d been a nice person all along. But why was he so tortured? Perhaps none of us will recover, I thought. Who knows what Jeff had gone through? Rejection upon rejection on a personal level and then also rejection on the institutional one. He knew he’d never get to college. At least I probably would.

  Maybe it was then that I decided that I would not go to university in Ireland. That somehow I had chosen to leave, and that going to England was only the first step on a larger journey. I passed the gates of Trinity all the time, but it occurred to me that although everyone had always assumed I would go there, I had little desire to. On the other hand, I had no idea what I really wanted.

  As I thought this, I glanced up and saw Jeanette standing before me. She was dressed in the same clothes she had worn the day before, but all her makeup was gone. She was quite pale. Her eyes had dark shadows under them and she fixed them on me pleadingly.

  “Sorry I’m so late. I’m really sorry. I haven’t been home at all. I’m wrecked. Let’s go for a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  “Did you have fun with the sailor?” I said in distant tones. Jeff’s bitterness was infectious. And I, after all, had so much more reason to hate her.

  She looked as if I had slapped her. “No, you’ve got that all wrong.” She said this with an attempt at humor still, as if sure she could win me
over somehow.

  “Well, you’ve been out all night. I suppose you’ve been fucking somebody.”

  She turned her head quickly, dissolving into tears. I watched her, in shock myself. Oh no, I thought. What have I done?

  She leaned against the bridge, her hands over her eyes, her shoulders quivering. It was as if she were absorbing strength from it. I stood still, not knowing what to say. There was no connection between us any more. If I’d put my arm around her, it would have felt strange to me. And I couldn’t. I had nothing to give her now, no comfort. No warmth.

  I wanted to walk off. I knew that, and yet I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to make that final gesture.

  She pulled her hand away from her eyes and glanced at me almost warily. Then she spoke, sounding defeated.

  “You’re right—I’ve been mad for the last few months. But if you think I’ve enjoyed it—”

  “Well, why do you do it then?” I demanded. “How do you think it’s been for me hearing all these horrible stories about you? I can’t take it any more. I don’t want to know what you did last night.”

  “It wasn’t all that bad,” she said with a wry smile. “Actually, I can’t remember most of it.”

  “Oh, that’s convenient.” I glared at her and she stood looking at me helplessly, as if she simply didn’t know what to do. She seemed drained, almost lifeless.

  “Well, goodbye.” The words tasted good on my tongue.

  “I’ll write to you,” she said in a small voice.

  She was letting me go. How strange, I thought as I stepped away from her. People really do. For so long she’d been in control, for so long I’d been passive. Now here I was, walking away, and she.... I looked back. She was still there, leaning against the bridge watching me, a hopeless look on her face. But now I’d gone too far and her face had blurred. I turned and walked on, a queasy feeling in my stomach. I wished she hadn’t come at all, had just stood me up. Now I had to feel that I’d hurt her, that I’d broken her somehow. But no, I thought. She’d done that herself. Hadn’t she?

  * * *

  I stood by the door of my room. There was really nothing to see. My posters were still on the walls, my books on the bookshelf, but the space looked deserted already. I had never liked the room much. It had always seemed like a little cell to me, with its white walls and single bed. I could have painted it any color I wanted, but had chosen not to out of apathy. It had stayed characterless all my teenage years, and that was a pity, but I hadn’t actually ever felt sad about it until now.

  I closed the door and wandered over to Stevie’s room. My mother would go in once a week and dust, but his door always stayed closed. I poked my head in, feeling a pang to see how much had disappeared. He had taken a lot away with him this time. There were almost no books now, a few records stacked neatly, the stereo system gathering dust.

  One day Mum will have to go in and put everything in boxes, I thought. And then the rooms will be completely bare. Maybe they can rent them out to students, or something...

  I wouldn’t be back for a long time. I knew it as I went listlessly down the stairs. My bags were waiting in the hall. My parents came fussing out of the kitchen. They had insisted on taking me to the boat. Since we all had trouble with goodbyes, my father talked nonstop about London, what a great city it was, how he had once decided to emigrate there and then had had to stay in Dublin because his father died, and on and on. Even in the car, with me sitting in the back seat and my mother completely silent, he continued on this theme, saying the English were actually very fair and decent people, hard to get to know, but they wouldn’t cheat you, and the fact that Stevie had done so well there spoke for itself, didn’t it? I shrugged, staring out the window at the rain-soaked streets flashing by, listening to the soothing rhythm of the windshield wipers.

  “Will it just be yourself and Stevie in the flat?” my mother asked suddenly, jolting me. I thought wildly for a moment and said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  She nodded, staring at her hands, which were clasped in her lap.

  “Well, who else, then?” my father said in a jovial voice.

  “Er—someone who we both know from school, a friend.”

  They accepted this, it seemed, but the quality of the silence had changed. It no longer seemed peaceful to me. I just wanted to get away from having to answer these kind of questions, having to guard my tongue. And they’d made me think about Ron, that I was doomed to be around him for as long as he and Stevie were together, and that could be a considerable time. He must feel the same way, I thought, except I would always be Stevie’s sister, nothing could change that. Yet Ron could turn him against me, I mused, and perhaps he will.

  The cold rain spattered us as I hugged my parents goodbye, and walked up onto the ferry. I turned back to look at them. They waved, I waved. I could see my father put an arm around my mother and she leaned into him. My last image of them was of this semi-embrace, half looking upward at me, half turned inward towards each other.

  * * *

  The air was very clean and fresh up on the top deck. I shivered, though, as I turned to my book. It was Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. I had just started reading her and was fascinated by the fluidity and subtlety of her style, the mysteriousness and complexity of her characters. I enjoyed her world of elegant women and courtly men, though I knew I would never fit in there. Perhaps she hadn’t either. What I loved about the book was the sense that Clarissa, though outwardly a conventional upper-class married woman, was not like that at all: one of her most intense memories was of being kissed by another girl in a corridor of an English country house late at night. The girl had just walked towards her, naked, and kissed her. Nothing was said. Nothing happened afterwards.

  The fact that her characters were not raw, flesh and blood types did not bother me, for I hardly existed on that level either, I knew. That was perhaps what drew me to her most, that I could recognize myself in these men and women without having the uncomfortable feeling that I lacked something vital. Many of her characters seemed to think that they did too.

  I looked up after a while and realized that the coast of Ireland had disappeared. It was strange to be alone in the middle of the Irish Sea, well known to be the most radioactive sea in the world. It looked fresh, choppy, empty. I stood at the side of the deck and watched as the boat cut a swath through the waves. I was joined by a lone seagull, who seemed to glare as he perched on the rail beside me.

  I had done this voyage once before, in second year. Susie O’Sullivan and I had gone to Stratford-on-Avon on a school trip with a few other girls from our year and some third and fourth years. I remembered so little of it, just the feeling of not being as well dressed as the others in the group, Susie alternately ignoring me and being nice, skating in an ice rink in Manchester and having a boy come up and lace my boots up for me, the sudden respect then in the other girls’ eyes, an older girl offering to skate with me and having to explain that I had eczema on my knuckles. But she had taken my hand anyway and said, “Oh, I had that too once.” And one girl had asked me on the bus if I knew what a 69 was and I hadn’t known. So Susie, coming to my rescue, had said rather snottily, “It’s a sexual position.” We were about 13.

  That trip had been a strange experience. We were just on the threshold of adolescence, and the others had seemed so much wiser, more knowing. But I could see the older girls looking at us with a certain mingled pity and envy. We were still playful children in some ways, and I had felt secure in that, in still being innocent, in not knowing what a 69 was, in not caring much once I knew. But to Susie of course it had just been another sign of my deadly naiveté.

  And now here I was, four years later. As I looked at the faces of the people around me, most older than I, students, a few travelers from other European countries, some working men and women, some middle-aged and elderly people, I found it hard to identify with any of them. They all seemed to be on this boat to England for a purpose, even it was pleasure, but for the
majority it was that they were visiting family, returning home, or seeking work. I couldn’t say what I was doing except leaving. Escaping. Going away. And everyone was in little groups, huddling together, either couples, or clusters of friends. As I watched them covertly I tried to imagine myself in one of those little groups, but I couldn’t.

  I began wandering down below. It was hard to walk with the ground shifting under your feet, patches of moisture everywhere. Outside was too cold and inside was hot, crowded and noisy. Everyone was drinking tea out of plastic cups. It took me a long time to buy food, and once I had done so I stood rather uncertainly looking around. I was faintly queasy and yet very hungry.

  I sat down by a window, put my food down on the plastic table and began to eat. Three young women who had been behind me in the queue came staggering up. One had an Australian accent. I watched the tea slop in and out of my cup rather dispassionately. The boat was rolling. People groaned and a child started wailing.

  “Mind if we join you?” the Australian woman said. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, tall, with long brown hair and a jolly, open face.

  “No,” I said. I didn’t mind, though it felt claustrophobic to be hemmed in. Still, I wanted to sit by the window.

  The other two, I soon discovered, were an American with large glasses and a plump, suspicious face and a French girl who seemed quite miserable. She stared down at her yogurt sadly. The Australian woman introduced herself and the other two. Her name was Chris. She had only bought herself a soft drink at the bar, and she pulled a loaf of soda bread and a knife out of her rucksack and began cutting it with great gusto.

  “I love Irish soda bread,” she said to me. “Want some?”

  I thanked her and said no, but felt flattered. She began to butter her bread and plaster it with jam.

  In between bites, she talked about her travels in France and England, and her adventures in Ireland, where she and the American had been biking through Kerry. They had met up with the French girl at a youth hostel in Dublin. She had been raped, Chris suddenly said, quite casually, and they were taking her to London for an abortion.