The Last Night at Tremore Beach

by Mikel Santiago

  “I think so, too,” I answered, “and when I see the way she is with the kids . . . it makes me imagine other things. But I’d hate to make them live through the same thing again, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do . . .”

  He was about to say something else when the phone rang. Leo got up and went to answer it in the kitchen. He came back a little while later.

  “Damn gas company. I don’t think they could be any worse if they tried. Now they’re telling me it’ll be a week before they can get out here, and we’ve been out for two days. Thank goodness it’s summer. Either way, I think I’d better go by Andy’s to get a couple of tanks of gas for the generators. You busy today?”

  I crushed the beer can.

  “Actually, I came over because I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  Leo furrowed his brow for a minute and then smiled.

  “Am I imagining things or did you suddenly get serious on me? C’mon, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  I offered him a cigarette as I pulled the pack of Marlboros out of my shirt pocket. “It might be a while . . .”

  “This does sound serious . . .”

  “I just got back from meeting with the police in Dungloe.”

  Leo matched my gaze. He drank the rest of his beer and took one of my Marlboros.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  The story just poured out of me. It all flashed before my eyes, every detail crystal clear in my memory. The nightmares that had continued. The newspaper at my father’s house in Dublin. Everything that happened the night before. The door banging open, the lights on the other side of the cliffs. The van that nearly ran me over by Bill’s Peak. My tumble down the ravine. The two men and that woman. The gleaming knife.

  I kept waiting for Leo to interrupt me with an observation or a joke to lighten the mood. But quite the contrary. He listened in total silence. His face was all seriousness. Not worry, not fear, not disbelief. He listened as if he were memorizing every last word.

  When I’d finished, only the squawk of the seagulls and the crashing waves broke the silence that had fallen between us. Leo leaned back on the couch with his arms crossed over his chest, completely still. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  “Well . . . what do you reckon about all this?” I said, lighting another cigarette. In less than half an hour, there were already four butts snuffed out in the ashtray next to me.

  Leo sat up. He uncrossed his arms, puffed out a long sigh, and hunched forward with his elbows on his knees. He glanced at the side table which held several pictures of him and Marie.

  “Jesus, I don’t know what to make of it. We thought all this was behind you. But I can see we were wrong. I don’t know what to tell you, Peter.”

  He bummed another cigarette and lit it. I stayed quiet.

  “I know you, Pete, and you’re an honest guy. I don’t think you’re exaggerating or making things up. If you’re telling me this happened, I believe it did—or at least that you truly believe it did. All I can tell you is that no one has driven by Bill’s Peak in the night. There was no van, and no three people parked in front of your house, at least not in the dimension or reality where I live. And no one has hurt Marie. Not that any of that helps you . . .”

  “What if it’s . . . something else,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like some kind of . . .” I looked up at the ceiling, fully aware at how stupid and insane this was going to sound.

  “Premonition?” Leo said, finishing my sentence. He downed his beer and turned to gaze in the direction of the ocean. “Is that what you think?”

  “I know it sounds stupid, but yeah, that’s what I mean. Like something bad is going to happen. Something that threatens all of us. You, Marie, Judie, me, the kids . . . There’s something I haven’t told you about my family, Leo. It sounds a little ridiculous, but my mother believed she had a gift, a sort of sensitivity . . . to things that were going to happen. I feel like the same thing is happening to me, and the lightning only amplified it.”

  Leo looked at me but didn’t say a word.

  God, it really does sound stupid when you say it out loud, I thought during that long silence.

  He got up and paced around the room, rubbing his temples and shooting me a furtive glance every now and then. You could tell he was really nervous. And who could blame him. Ultimately, I was telling him that a gang of killers was going to murder him and his wife.

  “Let’s say you’re right,” he said, finally. “Why do you think I could help?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly. But it feels like this has something to do with Marie. It all started with her . . . and those people who were chasing her. Or that’s the best I can make of this whole thing. Look, the last thing I ever want is to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, but there’s something I have to ask you: Do you think there might be something to this? Is there a reason someone would be after Marie?”

  “None,” he said sharply, and turned around quickly as if he were trying to hide his face. “No. There’s no reason I can think of.”

  I didn’t believe him. And then, it was as if my lips were forming words I never gave them permission to utter. Before I knew it, I asked out loud: “Leo, who is Jean Blanchard?”

  I don’t know what possessed me to say it. But there was no taking it back now. I felt Leo was about to explode. It was as if I’d just lit a fuse.

  Leo stopped in his tracks, his back to me, and stood silently for a moment in the middle of the room. Then he slowly turned on his heels to face me and asked, “Where did you hear that name?”

  His voice was like a distant growl of thunder. I’d never seen him lose control of his temper before.

  I was suddenly overcome with shame. I couldn’t even hold his gaze. And then I told him—I told him everything. How it had happened when I’d taken Jip upstairs during dinner that night and had stumbled upon that rolled-up canvas.

  I didn’t know what he’d do. He might throw me out of his house for snooping and never speak to me again. Instead, he sighed as deeply as a man ever has, as if he wanted to forget everything he’d just heard, and fell back onto the couch, facing me.

  “Jean Blanchard is a name I haven’t heard in a very long time, a pseudonym Marie used to use years ago to sign her paintings. The last time she used it was to sign the portrait you found by accident—a painting of our only child, Daniel.”

  The name resounded in the air between us. His words knocked the wind out of me.

  “Your . . . son?”

  Leo looked up at me. The pain in his eyes made me regret everything I had said. I sat in stunned silence. I couldn’t even bring myself to open my mouth to say I was sorry. What an imbecile I’d been.

  “If he’d lived,” he started to say, “he’d be about your age, now. Maybe a little younger. But he died before his first birthday, and the agony was so thorough that it nearly drove us insane. We named him Daniel. He was born premature in Brazil in 1972. The doctors said his heart was not developed fully. He only lived for three months, like a butterfly, like an angel visiting us on earth. I only saw him smile once, from inside that incubator-prison, which is all he ever saw of the world. But it was enough to remain etched in our minds forever.

  “Marie painted that portrait during the depths of her depression, but she’s never been able to part with it or hang it. Sometimes at night, she’d unroll it and just sit there, looking at it. She’d smile at it, whisper sweetly to it. She said she felt like she could speak to him. I was really worried. I decided to get a job as far away as possible from there. That’s how we ended up in the Middle East, and, eventually, in Southeast Asia—trying to get away from that terrible memory. We never tried again to have kids. It was something understood between us. Time passed, and we got used to being alone, just the two of us. I guess we never were able to overcome the fear that it might happen again.”

  “I’m so sorry, Leo,” I said. “I’m so sorry to have stirred up such
painful memories.”

  “It’s okay, son. I don’t know whether it’s your brain or God talking to you, but I appreciate you coming to me if you thought there was something I needed to know. But honestly, it’s knocked me flat.”

  He didn’t ask me to go, but I understood he wanted to be alone.

  I can’t believe this is how I repay you for inviting me into your home, for being my friend, Leo. By digging through your belongings and dredging up such old and painful memories.

  I left their house feeling queasy. I wanted to turn around, bang my head against the door, and beg his forgiveness.

  EIGHT

  “I THINK I’m losing my mind, Judie. I want to go see that doctor.”

  It was around 8 p.m., and we were hanging out in the kitchen of the Houllihan’s hostel. We’d already had dinner, and the children were in their bunks, Beatrice reading Twilight and Jip playing Angry Birds on the iPad. Judie had invited us to spend the night far away from the house that still gave her goose bumps. And I was infinitely grateful. All afternoon, as we ran errands around town and attended a meeting to finalize the details for movie night, I’d tried to put on a good face for the sake of the kids. And I’d done it mostly without a problem, until I was alone with Judie, washing dinner plates, and I couldn’t hold back anymore.

  “What a shitty day this has been. I made a fool of myself down at the police station, and what’s worse, I think I hurt one of my best friends.”

  Judie knew immediately who I was talking about.

  “I went over to talk to Leo. In hindsight, I simply went there so he could tell me what I wanted to hear: that I’m not crazy and that there’s a reason why all this is happening to me. And all I managed to do was open some very old wounds. I made him talk about something deeply painful, and I admitted to rifling through his things the night we went over with the kids.”

  Judie gave me a dumbfounded look.

  “You didn’t . . .”

  “It was almost an accident, the way it came out. But yeah, I did. I stumbled upon a couple things that were hidden on a bookshelf. Something was drawing me toward it, to look in there. . . . Actually, I think there’s something you should know about my family. About this weird ‘ability’ that runs in the Harper bloodline.”

  While we washed dishes, in just above a whisper I told her about my mother, the Aer Lingus accident, and about the voice I heard the night of the storm, before leaving the house. About Jip and his incident over by the rocks, and how he could “feel” when something bad was going to happen. And that’s when I realized I had been acting exactly like my dad. Hoping that it would simply go away if I didn’t talk about it.

  “So now you know. And you have every right to think I’m out of my mind,” I said.

  “Maybe you’re not as crazy as you think,” she answered.

  I asked what she meant, but she raised an index finger to her lips and told me to follow her. We walked by the room with the bunk beds and saw Jip fast asleep, the iPad fallen to the floor by the bed. In the bunk above him, Beatrice was propped up on a pillow, reading with a small flashlight, absorbed in her book.

  We descended the stairs in silence. Downstairs, besides the front door, there was another door that connected to the store. Judie opened it, and we walked through the shadowy space, amid miniature lighthouses, model boats, and shelves filled with second-hand books until we reached the back.

  “I wanted to make sure they can’t hear us.”

  “Hear what?”

  After you told me about your dream the other night, I decided there’s something you need to know. But first, I need you to tell me the story again.”

  She sat down and opened the small box where she kept her stash of weed.

  “Judie, I’m not sure that I should. I’ve screwed up enough with my friends today. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  “I’m asking you to, Pete.”

  Okay, I said, and I described the scene again: her, with her hands and feet bound, inside the resonant chamber of my piano, in a pool of blood, begging me for help. A man was coming to hurt her.

  Judie had rolled a small joint and lit it as I retold her the story. When I was done, I noticed she looked at me with a strange mix of fear and fascination.

  “It’s incredible, Pete. It really is.”

  “What is?”

  “But everything fits. Especially after you told me the thing about your family. I think it’s about time I told you something,” she said, pausing. “That man, Donald Kauffman? It’s true, he was my professor. But he also was my doctor. He treated me in the past. I was his patient.”

  “His patient?”

  “Yes. There was a time in my life when I needed help. Before I traveled to India, I had a . . .” She stopped again to take hit of the joint and spoke through a puff of smoke. “. . . an accident.”

  I reached out, took her hand, and squeezed it gently.

  “The scars along your side. The nightmares . . .”

  She nodded.

  “It was no motorcycle accident, although I guess you’ve probably figured that out by now. As for the nightmares . . . it’s been years since I’ve spent more than one night with someone. You’re the first. I knew you’d eventually have questions. I figured I’d tell you someday . . . I wanted to tell you. But I was scared. Scared to open up a door I know is going to let in pain.”

  She took a long hit—maybe too long—and offered me the joint. I took it as she let out another cloud of aromatic smoke.

  “You’re one of the few people I can talk to, Peter. It’s been a long time since I’ve told this story, but I think you have a right to know.” She took a deep breath. “There was a man who hurt me. Who really hurt me. He’s the one who injured my side. But that’s just a scratch compared to what he did to my mind.

  “And I still see his face at night. . . .”

  She held my hand tighter without knowing it.

  “It was five years ago. I was working at Princess Grace Hospital as a psychology resident. That’s all anyone in Clenhburran knows about my time in London. But there’s more. The real reason why I left.

  “Every day, I’d go to Regent’s Park to eat my lunch. That’s where I met a man named . . .” She stopped for a second, as if just the name brought back a rush of memories. But she continued. “A man named Pedro. He was Portuguese and he worked at one of the take-out places near the underground station. They served falafel, my favorite, so four days a week, I’d stop in, we’d talk for a while, and then I’d head to the park to sit outside and eat my lunch with a book.

  “I’d been going there for about a month. I noticed Pedro looking at me, and he was smart—cleverer than your average person—and he remembered every detail I’d told him about myself. And I liked him, too. I was single. I’d just broken up with my boyfriend of three years, and I wasn’t looking for anything serious. I wanted to meet people who were fun, and Pedro looked like fun. He had a beautiful smile, and he always talked about his quaint little town in Portugal, about the beaches there, the food, the wine. I liked him even though he wasn’t really my type. And one night, I agreed to have a glass of wine with him. We went to a bar near the park after work, and he insisted on treating me. He didn’t want me to lift a finger and went to the bar for drinks. ‘In my country, the men take care of everything,’ he said, smiling. I felt this rush of romance. It had been so long since I had let someone wine and dine me.

  “We started to drink and talk. Everything was going perfectly, but then I started to feel dizzy and sleepy. I even joked about it when I started yawning. I told him not to think I was bored of his company, but I was probably tired from a long week. He smiled and joked that he wouldn’t take it personally. It was Friday, after all. I had a right to be tired. He told me about another place that was a little more lively, a club just down the street, and thought that might help me get my second wind. We went there and had another drink. But by that point, my eyes were starting to close as Pedro talked about his life, about h
is plans to buy some property in Madrid . . . and in the end he was the one who suggested it might be time to go home. ‘But you can’t take the tube in this state,’ he joked, ‘or you’ll wake up at the end of the line.’

  “My mind got hazy. I was sleepy, the noise of the club was dizzying, and it seemed like I’d gotten drunk too quickly. And for a split second, I thought I was making a mistake getting into a car with this total stranger. But I told myself I was being ridiculous, and I was almost falling asleep when Pedro helped me out of the bar. Just before passing out, I remembered I hadn’t even given him my address. How stupid of me, right?”

  Judie sighed. A single tear ran down her cheek, and she gave a weak smile. I squeezed her hand.

  “Judie, you really don’t have to . . .”

  But she continued speaking as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “He raped me,” she said, pursing her lips. “While I slept. And again, after I woke up, in this horrible place. A windowless room. Later, I learned it was a basement in Brixton. He’d tied me to the bed. Tied my hands and feet, Peter, just like in your dream.”

  “Holy shit . . .”

  I reached for the pack of cigarettes in my shirt pocket. I took the last one and lit it.

  “I was locked in there for two days. And in some way, I’m locked in there still. A piece of me has stayed locked in there forever. I knew there had been others, too. I saw desperate scratch marks on the walls, discarded women’s clothing, stains on the floor that could only have been blood. I knew what was going to happen to me. I knew it instantly. I’d seen his face. He was never going to let me out of there alive.

  “Before he left in the mornings, he’d inject me with something in the arm. Turned out it was heroin. I spent most of the day asleep. When I’d come to, I’d scream as loud as I could—well, as loud as was possible through the gag. I struggled against the leather bindings. I’d pull so hard—I’d amputate my own hand if that’s what it took—and finally one of the straps started to come loose. I used to complain about how thin my wrists were and now they were going to save my life. Ironic, isn’t it?