by Eoin Brady
I’m Not Saying It
Eoin Brady
For Manon, the main character in my life.
Are you smiling?
I hope you are. Now and always.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1: THE LETTER
CHAPTER 2: ONE WEEK EARLIER, INIS MEÁIN
CHAPTER 3: THE DÚN
CHAPTER 4: ISLAND BOY
CHAPTER 5: ARE YOU SMILING?
CHAPTER 6: ESCAPE BY ANY MEANS
CHAPTER 7: A TRUTH
CHAPTER 8: A LIE
CHAPTER 9: A CURIOUS MOON
CHAPTER 10: THE BODY
CHAPTER 11: FORGET-ME-NOT
CHAPTER 12: I’M NOT SAYING IT
CHAPTER 13: ONLY ROOM FOR ONE
CHAPTER 14: A DREAM COME TRUE
CHAPTER 15: HOW TO END A ROAD ROMANCE
CHAPTER 16: THE STAGE BURNS
CHAPTER 17: LAST DAY
CHAPTER 18: THE SAME MOON RISES
CHAPTER 19: HOW I QUIT MY JOB TO TRAVEL
CHAPTER 20: FORGET-ME-NOT
CHAPTER 21: ICELAND
CHAPTER 22: TEARS BEHIND A WATERFALL
CHAPTER 23: SHADE’S LETTER
CHAPTER 24: DUBLIN
CHAPTER 25: NOTHING LEFT TO SAY
CHAPTER 26: TURF FOR THOUGHT
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About the Author
Acknowledgements
Copyright
CHAPTER 1: THE LETTER
“No stranger ever leaves this island.”
At the end of her only sentence, the cursor blinked, an obnoxious silent klaxon, goading Shade for more words. Staring at the glacial white of the near empty document was beginning to give her a headache. Holding down the backspace key, she deleted half an hour’s worth of work – redemption from such a clickbait opening that would better serve as the blog post title. Besides it’s a lie, isn’t it? He’s a stranger to me, still.
Taking out her phone, Shade pinched the map on the screen and flicked. In an instant, the narrow city streets of Galway lost all identity to the county, the country and then the world. If only life were as easy as that – perspective at a flick. Inis Meáin, middle and least visited of the Aran Islands, no longer existed in the macro view. A small serrated heart-shaped rock, four kilometres long and a little over half that wide. She couldn’t even see it on a map and yet it was the location of her most recent “What if?” That will be the title of my memoir: “What if?”
Seven days, that’s all it took to fall in … infatuation. She would not think it, could not. It had only been a week after all and it was over. Well, it would have been if not for his letter, a small piece of the dream she had brought with her into the waking world. To her surprise, it had not dissolved in the cold cynicism of reality.
I’m not saying it. The thought came in his voice. She looked at the letter sitting across from her and wondered if he had written what he could not say. It lay on the table, so unassuming, and yet she was sure that hidden inside were more questions than answers. The sides of the envelope were peeling, worried and frayed from moments when temptation had almost bested her. Without even opening it, the letter asked her, “What if?”
“I want to share something with you …” she typed.
Her mug was cold to the touch. Tilting it over she saw only a small dirty puddle remained at the bottom, a dried-up well of inspiration, though she doubted any amount of caffeine could help her regain focus. She divined her thoughts over the course of the last unproductive half hour in the stratification of stained coffee rings. Those close gaps were when her self-control waned and she had come close to opening it. That chasm near the bottom, that was after she had lost herself in memories of him. The one thing she could say with definite clarity was that she needed more coffee.
Large glass jars brimming with teas covered the counter top. The fragrances mingled into a comforting, sense-suffocating aroma. Quaint, mismatched chairs sat students seeking sanctuary from the weather, or their morning lectures. Pedestrians walking past the café became smears of colour across the fogged up glass. Steam from boiling water condensed on one side, cold lashing rain ran down the other. If you come to Ireland expecting rain, you won’t be disappointed. She took a note of that on her phone for later use.
Shade ordered a berry tea along with her coffee. When it arrived at the table she lost herself in the ritual of its preparation. Hot water poured over desiccated leaves, steam rising up from the cup like a gossamer-stranded feather. Red diffused from the leaves until not a single drop of water remained untouched. In her haste to try it, she burned her mouth.
Using the edge of her spoon, she pushed the letter behind her laptop, hiding it from view. She opened her journal to find inspiration – dog-eared pages covered with hurried notes and snippets of stolen conversations from her most recent adventure, a cycle across the USA, that she would weave into her blog. Hard to believe that three months of thoughts and three thousand miles fitted so snugly in her bag. It looked as weathered as she felt. When full she would post it back home to an empty house, where it would age further in its packaging.
She ran her thumb across rough perforated edges from pages torn out – the only memories she had ever omitted, the notes they wrote each other. He has them now. Knowing that there was something of her out in the world that she could no longer curate made her anxious. The whole last week of memories were documented within but for the first time she felt no desire to share any of it. These were her own, private and still quite sore. How do I extricate him from it when it reads like he’s on every page? I can’t think of the island without thinking of him.
Bad experiences while on the road had always been fodder for her website. It made for a good change to the usual optimistic approach the majority of bloggers took when writing about travel. She had yet to meet a sincere person that said every aspect of life was pleasant all of the time. People had a macabre interest in seeing things go wrong for people that spent their lives wandering the world, especially while those readers were stuck commuting on dark mornings. She knew first hand; she had done it for several years. It was a game she played now, turning bad stories into better ad revenue. Granted, the extra money did little to salve the memory of getting mugged, or the two attempted kidnappings, but she had turned them, made them her own and profitable. It made her blog seem more authentic.
The phone buzzed and skittered across the table. A new thread popped up on her fan page.
“Are you dead?”
She chose to take the high frequency of likes as concern rather than people hoping she actually was. Of course, she expected what followed.
“She could be sick for all we know. It’s not like her to go quiet for so long. She could be taking a holiday.”
The most liked comment in response read: “What would a travel blogger need to take a holiday for?”
Shade held down the phone’s power button. There was only small satisfaction when the screen went dark, but she took it.
In a vain attempt to escape her thoughts she focused on her surroundings. The sound of squeaking shoes on a wet floor, the clatter of cutlery and chatter in the café. She started a quick review of the coffee shop but ended up deleting that too. The piece read like a bad quantity surveyor’s report; her heart was not in it. I do need a holiday.
She closed her laptop in frustration and instantly regretted it. Now the only thing between her and the letter was her stubbornness. Open it and get it over with. Why did he act so strange at the end? The most important question of all could have an answer; who are you, Island Boy? Shade was conscious of the people around her and her own feelings; there was happiness hued with anger but mostly confusion, the type that hurt. Her stomach felt uneasy, her thoughts affecting her body. S
he hated him for leaving her with this choice. She could open the letter and know him, or forget it and stick to the plan. The envelope bulged. How could he have so much to say after so little time? His voice was in there and she was not ready to hear it. Get a grip. She berated herself for letting another person get close enough that their absence caused her such … confusion.
She focused on her breathing until she no longer shuddered while inhaling. She opened her journal to the back pages where she had written down essential Icelandic phrases for her next trip. When travelling to a new country, one of the first things Shade learned in the language was how to say goodbye.
With no sign of the rain letting up, Shade put on her coat, packed away her things and left. The letter, still unopened, nestled in her pocket. Outside, a dark sky made it feel like evening when the day was only beginning. In a few hours she would be above the blanket of cloud in serene blue. Granted, she would soon be right back beneath it according to the forecast for London.
Congested streets rang out with the frantic whumping of windshield wipers, ineffective against the Irish rain, only serving to spray it on pedestrians that were already too wet to care.
Shade took the long route to the bus station, strolling along a canal that spilled into the river. It took a while for her to get her bearings. They had walked this way together. Her pulse kept pace with the rushing River Corrib. She stopped at a balcony overhanging the water. This was as good a place as any to do it. Swallowing did nothing to remove the lump forming in her throat.
I’m not saying it. Oh this is perfect, if you could only see me now, Island Boy, here, with this letter. The romance would not be lost on you. It was impossible to think clearly in this place. Thoughts of him seeped past her half-hearted resolve to stop them. She knew exactly what he was alluding to with his “I’m not saying it.” How could he have anything to ‘not’ say? But even she had to admit that if she had not fallen in … that direction, then she had definitely suffered a severe and uncharacteristic bout of vertigo. But there is a momentum to life. Things go on. There was always going to be another plane to catch.
She took his envelope out of her pocket, hunching over it to keep off the rain. Shade had become a person unaccustomed to familiar faces. That letter meant routine. Change. How many times can you trace the same path across your skin before you draw blood?
It smells of him. She placed the letter to her nose and breathed him in. The wind blew in from the ocean, from the island.
In one quick movement Shade held the letter over the balcony and let it go. It fluttered like a sycamore seed as it fell, disappearing the moment it hit the surface. Regret was instantaneous. She felt like retching but there was no physical outlet that could ease the sensation. She wiped at her eyes expecting tears, but it was only rain.
Will any of these people remember this day as vividly as me? She wondered of those walking by. She felt dislocated from the moment. Each quick, shallow breath brought less nourishment than the last. She wanted to be moving, above the clouds at the front of contrails was where she was happiest. She lingered on the balcony too long. The illusion was beginning to wane, but that was exactly what she was mourning. The rain had been holding out on her. Sensing this was its last chance to impress her before she left, it fell harder.
A swan rafted across the river on the suspicion that Shade was throwing food, but she had no more pieces of him to give. They had begun as strangers, and now that is how they would remain. This was all part of his stupid game: no names, no history, no masks. It seemed so cute and endearing a few days ago. She knew hardly anything about him and that was the worst part; she had never felt so close to another person outside her sister and best friend.
“I’m not saying it,” she said to the swan before leaving for the bus. For the first time since setting out to travel the world, Shade felt utterly lost.
Hooded faces rested expressionless, their thoughts nestled warm in their minds. None of those would light up for her, not like his had. Exhausted from a night spent worrying, Shade slept on the bus until woken at the airport. She scratched dried drool from her cheek. Sleep helped, or was it distance? She decided that the empty pang in her stomach was hunger, something she could remedy.
Time to get lost. She put her headphones on and without thinking pressed play. A long silence made her reach for the phone again but the silence became a haunting echo. The first note hollowed her out, sending ripples across her skin. Every time a piano note played it pressed against her gut, driving the air from her. She pulled off the headphones.
One week ago she stood right there, in a new country carrying a camera with a full charge and an empty memory card. If it were possible and I could reach back in time, would I try and stop myself?
No.
She put the headphones back on. This was an open wound that would scab over, something she would not be able to stop herself from picking at. In time it would heal. She made a deal with herself. I will keep these emotions for our songs and only feel them when I listen to them.
Shade hid her face for the duration of the flight by staring out of the window. She listened to the songs he introduced her to on repeat. One held the memory of him smiling, feeling it against her lips when she kissed his smile. In the melody of another was the weight of his blue eyes on her. They always felt questioning, like he always wanted to know more about her. Tears fell as “what if” became “what have I done?’”
CHAPTER 2: ONE WEEK EARLIER, INIS MEÁIN
“Arrivals” at Dublin Airport would have been empty if not for a few people waiting for friends and family. Where else would people be so disproportionately happy so early in the day? When she could, Shade always tried to be the last one on and first one off a plane. With plenty of time to spare before her bus departed, she found a seat away from the gate and waited. When the other passengers finally caught up with her, she captured the reunions on camera. Unadulterated happiness from the presence of another never failed to make her smile. She tightened a loose strap on her backpack and walked alone to the exit.
A burgeoning hangover had long since replaced the buzz from her farewell drinks in New York City. Two movies and twice as many coffees. Thirteen edited photos. A small but significant dent made in her email backlog. Eight minutes of a vlog prepared and one blog post drafted. It was a productive flight, though she now felt so tired she knew she had robbed that productivity from this new day.
Electric doors yawned open and Shade stepped into Ireland. She shivered in the morning air. She was too young to remember much of her previous time here. Twenty years had passed since she stood here last. There was comfort in the fact it was similar to the countless airports she had walked out of since.
Across cultures and countries one ritual knew no borders – the smoke break. Night shift workers huddled in conversation. Taxi drivers read the new days papers, some chatted in small groups. All glanced towards possible custom coming through the airport.
The moon was only a quarter full, a great eye always looking off somewhere else, a curious moon. She had looked for it on her final night in New York. So far it had been her longest companion on the road.
Buses lined the roadside, bathed in buzzing lamplight. Red lights displayed the Irish names of their destinations. She had difficulty with the pronunciation of basic phrases so decided that nodding and pointing would cause less insult. Her coach, a cross-country double decker, towered above the sickly yellow taxi signs.
“G’morning,” the driver of the Galway-bound bus said once the doors hissed open.
“Morning! A return please.”
“Would you like an open ticket or do you know when you’ll be coming back?”
“One week please.” Once she set out a plan she always followed it through.
He hummed as he worked the ticket machine. Happy people infected her, and she felt a small drop of fatigue fizzle away.
The driver took one look at her large travel bag and printed off a student return. She knew she
was getting old now that being mistaken for a student made her smile. She hid it, fearful he would realise his mistake and charge her the full price. Being forced to buy adult tickets felt like paying for a subscription you never ordered, did not receive and could not cancel.
The warm air inside the bus made her yawn. She forgot about her tiredness when she saw that the front seats on top were empty. A man was already asleep half way down the aisle. She didn’t understand people who did not rush to the front of a double decker. She dropped her bag on the seat next to her and strapped the seat belt across it.
Shade was the last passenger to board before the bus pulled off. They travelled along one of the main grey arteries of Ireland. From here you could go anywhere in the country, but there was always a plan to follow. She watched sleeping Dublin suburbs pass by until the bus snuck beneath the city via the Port Tunnel. Rhythmic flashing lights compounded a hangover that was being upgraded to serious. Or is that jet lag? Fab.
Emerging from the tunnel, the bus drove alongside the River Liffey. Its dark, still water drank in the city’s light that muted the stars above. Shade hurried her camera from one side of the bus to the other, but dirty windows spoiled her shots.
Some workers unloaded fresh stock for stores while others removed the previous days waste – great Sisyphean tasks watched over by a stumbling few in search of any bars that were still open. Shade never stayed out late. She disliked the mini dramas that unfolded beyond a certain hour and blood-alcohol level.
Outside the city limits, houses and shops replaced apartments and offices. These in turn gave way to green countryside that wore the black of night, grey where the moon struck. With only the light of a few passing cars to break up the monotonous view, Shade fell asleep.
It felt like she had only closed her eyes before a piercing sunrise woke her. Warm and beautiful colours melted across the horizon ahead of her. There was a brief moment of confusion and fear when she reached out not knowing where she was. Once she felt her backpack she relaxed. Curtains to pull closed against the morning light were absent at the front. The soft snores of other passengers clever enough to sit away from the front window taunted her. She crept down the aisle to the back of the bus and took a video of the sun behind them.
