by Eoin Brady
She published the post then searched directions to the Róisín Dubh on her map. She zoomed out until Inis Oírr was on the same screen as the pub. It was nice knowing that there was somebody looking forward to meeting you. She bought an inexpensive razor in the shop. During the cycle across America she did not have much time for landscaping. She had only shaved her legs when the hair grew long enough to cause drag from wind resistance. Shade put her phone off to enjoy the lack of what had become an overwhelming extra sense.
They spent the rest of their time together in the spa working on travel blog names for Laura. She thought it only fair considering Laura now had to return to the B&B alone and face that man again. They drank a pint together before parting, Shade waiting for her flight and Laura the ferry. Musicians took out their instruments in the packed garden in front of the pub and played, drawing a crowd. So far the top contender for the name of Laura’s blog was “Give me money, please” but it was a bit too on the nose for it to work well. Shade left her the task of coming up with one.
The flight to Connemara Airport lasted no more than ten minutes. A coach brought her the rest of the way to Galway. As the distance between them decreased her anxiety grew.
Traffic slowed the bus to a stop near the Spanish Arch beside the River Corrib. One passenger requested to jump off and the rest joined him, leaving Shade alone. She stayed on until the end, wishing the driver would keep going. She strolled back through the city, the same route that the bus had taken. She acquired a new fondness for the red traffic stop light, anything that would slow her progress. When she finally stood outside the venue there was nothing left to do but to walk in. It was empty.
Shade peeked around the corner. The fire was lit. Leaning further she spotted an empty pint glass sitting on a table but stepped back. She ordered two Guinnesses at the bar, grateful for the precious time it took for the drink to settle before the bartender topped it up.
When she stood at the entrance to the snug Diarmuid turned so fast that he gave his nerves away. He beamed at her. Seeing that smile made her anxiety vanish, replaced by a prickling in her gut and the sensation of being hollow.
“You’re a sap,” she said.
He moved over and took the fresh pint she had brought for him. “I wasn’t sure you were going to come. Me there on the ferry this morning looking back at the island thinking, ‘She won’t see that until it’s too late.’”
“I was on Inis Oírr when I noticed it.”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to change your plans so much.”
“It was only a day trip, plus the new place I’m staying at has a corpse on the kitchen table. I was only too happy to come to Galway for the night.”
“Is that a type of saying on the Chanthams? If so it’s lost on me.”
“No there was an actual lifeless body on the kitchen table. She was set up for a wake.”
“That’s grim.”
They both drank.
She kissed him to get it over with and out of the way but the desire to do so again was not sated. “So what is your plan? I’ve not booked a room for the night, thought I’d meet with you first. Your letter wasn’t exactly clear on the details.”
“Yann Tiersen is on here in a bit. Have you had anything to eat yet? I don’t think there will be anywhere fancy open after the show apart from the usual fast food fare. I sorted out accommodation too. I’d hardly invite you out without having that in order.”
“Do you travel much for music?”
“For a select few musicians, yes. Now that I’ve the means to, I try never miss a show of my favourite musicians when they’re in Ireland. If I drink too much tonight I’m likely going to throw my music notation underwear up at the stage.”
“The next few rounds are on me then,” Shade said. “One less item of clothing to contend with tonight.” She let that sink in. Diarmuid looked out the window though he could not hide the sly smirk on his face.
“I’ve booked us into a hotel. Separate rooms.”
“Two rooms?”
“I did not want …”
“Don’t you dare say you did not want to be presumptuous. There are expectations as this point.”
They both took a drink and stared at the fire.
“I like your hat,” he said, to get conversation going again.
“Sarcasm?”
“A little. If I give you something do you promise not to pinch my cheeks?”
“The fact you have to ask me not to suggests that I must. No, I won’t make that promise.”
“Okay, suit yourself.” He returned to his pint.
“Fine, go on, what is it?”
Diarmuid hesitated before picking up a small box that lay nestled between his feet. He placed it before her on the table.
Shades hand rose towards his cheek.
“Quit your messing and open it.” He laughed and swatted her hand away.
Shade ripped open the packaging. Inside was a string of live Forget-Me-Nots woven along twine to make a delicate bracelet. Already they had started to wilt but so had her heart at the gesture. It was only going to survive the night, but the memory would linger much longer.
“I had a lot of spare time,” he said when she looked at him.
He put it on her arm and she modelled it for a few photographs. “How do I look?”
“Like a child with a very fancy daisy chain. Sort of clashes with all the other colours you’re wearing.”
“You said come as you are.”
She dragged him by the hand into the photo booth beneath the stairs and drew the curtains. There was only one small seat inside so they squashed together.
Shade poured coins into the machine.
“I want to stop this game,” she said. “These photos are going to be the last ones of us as strangers.”
A warning light flashed above the screen and they posed. After a few awkward seconds a click sounded signalling that the first picture had taken.
“You are getting to know me.”
“Hardly. You’re afraid of spiders, you like music and you’ve a romantic soul.”
“Do you have a pen handy? You’ve given me my epitaph.”
“I’m being serious, Diarmuid.”
A second picture took without warning. “They designed these feckin’ things to get you looking your worst,” Diarmuid grumbled, then smiled at the camera in case it caught him off guard again.
“Diarmuid, please.”
“Fine. Which Shade would you have me know? The woman from your blog or the one who wears her memories on her skin?” Diarmuid left the booth after the final photo, leaving Shade to sit there alone. How’d he mean that?
“How did you mean that?” she said, following after him. He was glaring at the group of four that had taken the snug. “You have thoughts on my tattoos and job that you want to share with me?”
“It seems like a tattoo of ivy would have been more appropriate. It’ll cover and smother you.”
“Some are a first kiss, others a last. Most of them are just tattoos. Not one of them, though, is any of your business.”
The strip of photos printed from the booth. In the first one Diarmuid looked worried. In the second one they were both ready with silly faces. The final one Shade was looking straight at him, he was not smiling.
“What do you mean? Meet which Shade? That’s a bit presumptuous of you considering you’ve never read my blog. Why would it be any different than the person you’ve met?” Shade already knew it was but he did not and it bothered her that he would assume as much.
“I told you I don’t like being presumptuous. Shade, I’m sorry. I meant no harm. I meant since I’ve known you …”
“Which hasn’t been all that long.”
“… since I’ve known you, I’ve not seen you go twenty minutes without writing something down or taking a photo. It’s like you’re always trying to frame things into what they’re not.”
“Are you worried I’m doing the same with you?” she asked.
Diarmuid blanched at her directness. She gave him a look that prompted further explanation. He put up his hands signifying an end to the discussion.
“You watch. I can go the whole evening without being on anything.”
“This is not a criticism. I don’t know you well enough to make any and I reckon if I did, I’d have the good sense not to. I was saying that you’re always attached to something. There’s always a divider. Today it’s a camera and the other day it was your notebook. You edit the past while plotting the future.”
“It’s my job.”
“This has got a bit too serious for my liking,” Diarmuid said.
“You don’t think I’d tell you the truth?”
“I’d get the truth your readers do. You brought your work with you this evening.” He nodded at the camera around her neck and the notepad strapped into her rucksack.
“The only reason I know you didn’t bring your work with you is because I can assume you’re no florist.” She dangled the bracelet he made for her in the air. Some petals had already fallen off. “I’ll be as honest with you as you are with me.”
The doors into the main venue hall opened and people started milling through to nab the best seats. Shade could see how restless he was and put the conversation on hold. “Remember what you said after the play? Kick shins, do what you must to get ahead of the crowd.”
“That’ll have the opposite result here,” Diarmuid said.” It’ll likely end up with us turfed out on our ears.”
Once seated Diarmuid struggled back through the crowd to get them drinks. When he returned, Shade had taken her jumper off; she wore a loose tee shirt underneath.
The technicians were still warming up the equipment on stage, which muffled their conversation. It was as much privacy as they were likely to get in the middle of a crowd.
“So why don’t you want us to be open with each other? What are you hiding from me?” she asked.
“Everything.”
“All right then, if I have to be the first to do everything in this – between us.” She turned and pulled down the back of her tee shirt revealing vines of Forget-Me-Not’s swirling around a ring of roots. On the top of her right shoulder blade was a sliver of a crescent moon. “Pick a story.”
Diarmuid scanned her back and arms. One tattoo stood out against the rest – a ring made of tree branches and roots. “What’s the wooden circle about?”
Shade turned to look him in the eye. “That’s a ring of oak and apple trees, but that’s a novel. I said a story. Choose a flower.”
Diarmuid chose one at random, his finger pressing into her flesh. Then the music began.
CHAPTER 12: I’M NOT SAYING IT
Laughter had made Shade light-headed. When she looked at Diarmuid tears ran down her cheeks. He was slow to join in but he could not help but laugh at her reaction to the photograph.
“It can’t be that bad, come on, let me see.” He sounded doubtful.
She handed him the camera, only letting go of it once he wrapped the strap around his hand. She leaned against the railing along the Corrib and tried to relax.
“Oh Christ.” Diarmuid said, sending her into another fit.
“He looks so disgusted. I swear it was an accident. Somebody must have spilled beer on the stage. I put my hand on it as the photo was being taken and slipped.”
“Your hand slipped and happened to land on the musician’s arse?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d consent to deleting that picture?”
“Did you get consent from him before this happened? We’ve got another addition to that book of awkward memories you were talking about. You can even see the mortified look on your face.”
“Aside from that, what did you make of the music?” Diarmuid said, trying to change the subject.
“Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with me. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much.”
They walked slowly along the path between canal and river, meandering through the city back to their hotel. “Look at the stars,” Shade said. “Nothing like they are on the island are they?”
“They shine brighter the further you are from others. Cold consolation unless you’ve somebody worth watching them with.” He squeezed her hand. “We can see them together back on the island.”
“We won’t get that meteor shower again though.”
“I was just using it as an excuse to see you tomorrow.”
“How many days have we left?” His face fell as soon as she asked.
“Well it’s past midnight now so this is day four. There are three more for you and I’ve got two more left.”
They did not speak for a while as it sunk in how few grains of sand remained to fall for them.
With the cover of darkness Shade watched him. “You were right at the beginning. A week is not enough time to get to know somebody. We all omit our flaws when we meet people for the first time. You are not the man I’d know a month or six from now.”
He looked at her and smiled, and with it the sadness disappeared. “That’s exactly the point of getting to know somebody. Whittle away the façade until there is nothing between you.”
There was an expectant silence, but Shade could not fill it with promises she knew she could not keep.
“Well,” he said, getting his answer by her lack of one. “We knew the end before there was ever a beginning. You have me for two more days.”
If I lived forever, Diarmuid. “Let’s not think on that.”
They went in search of a late bar to prolong the night, slow down time a little bit. Diarmuid gushed about the music and Shade listened, enjoying his passion.
“What is your next concert?” she asked.
“Ludovico Einaudi. I’ve wanted to see him live for years and he’s coming to Dublin soon enough. There’s not a chance I’m missing that one. I missed him in Belfast a few years ago.”
It was an odd feeling being in the moment. Shade usually spent the present worrying about how to live in the future, or documenting the past. At least tonight there was no set destination, beyond him. The night was alive with music and revelry but they still felt disjointed from it.
After the late bar closed they walked back along the river. They stepped out onto a balcony above the rushing River Corrib. The partial moon peered off over the horizon. Shade held his hand in both of hers and wished that her resolve like the sun would rise in full come morning. I would know his story for as long as my own should last but …
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“I don’t know if that’s good. Is it?”
“It is.”
Diarmuid turned away from the river to face her. His eyes parried every glance she made to look away. Her breath caught and stopped, her mouth was dry as he leaned in closer. His hands rose up to frame her face. His touch was cold and full of promise, gentle and caring. The tension that had built between them since that first night in the pub on Inis Meáin was palpable. There was no escaping his eyes and she had no desire to do so. Shade’s stomach lurched under the intensity of his stare.
“I’m not saying it,” Diarmuid said.
“What?” Shade’s smile was slow in forming as it dawned on her what he meant.
He wore a cheeky grin. “It was too perfect a moment not to say anything. The moment expected something of us.”
“What aren’t you saying?”
He kissed her with more passion than he ever had before. Then he walked away, leaving her dazed on the balcony above the dark water, his hand outstretched behind him for her. When she caught up with him he was smiling, and every time she stole a glance at him the smile was still there. She stopped him and pressed her lips against the side of his face, her hand on his other cheek. “Let’s go home,” she said.
Intoxicated by the presence of each other they lost all their inhibitions. Music gave Diarmuid an excuse to touch her and caress the melody into her skin. The thrill of his touch cou
rsed through her nerves, searing each new song with potency. When their song came on they shambled around the room tightly wound in each other’s arms, finding a shared rhythm. As they danced in the dark they each picked at the other’s clothing until there was very little left between them. In the absence of music a rare silence separated them, words would only deepen it. Words anchored them to the real and neither of them were fool enough to let something like reality spoil this moment. Shade knew the end was looming but this felt new, something worth holding on to. Why does it have to end?
His slow delicate touch did not conceal his desire. They kissed and for a time that was all there was. Diarmuid bit her lower lip. Then followed the line of her mouth with his and slowly worked along her cheek. His breath warmed her skin. Shade only realised her arms had gone limp by her sides when he stopped kissing down her neck.
He plateaued and went no further. Well if you need more guidance. “Must I do everything?” Shade walked back into the room into a beam of moonlight that frosted her silhouette.
She took off the rest of her clothes, keeping her eyes locked on his until she stood naked before him. Marbled in the moonlight, statue-like and impervious to flaw, the image of her in that moment etched itself into his memory. She watched his adams apple rise and fall, his mouth open, rapt in her. He took a deep breath that broke the spell, then went to her. Starting from her shoulders his hands glided down her body making the small hairs rise.
Shade removed his clothes, fighting her own desire to slow the moment and take everything from it. She revelled in his response. His breathing ragged, his eyelids drooping and jaw clenched. His lust and failing restraint turned her on more than anything else. Rising from pulling down his trousers she kissed her way up his body; outer leg, hip, stomach and chest. Delighting in the tense muscles following suspenseful moments that lingered between kisses. Her hands ruffled his hair and then rested on the back of his neck until she pulled him to her.
Skin against skin, they fell onto the bed. He pinned her wrists above her head. Diarmuid sucked on her neck and then bit down hard. Shade squirmed, her eyes coming unfocused.
