The Boatman and Other Stories

by Billy O'Callaghan

  ‘I know, sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘I’ll make the coffee. If you want, you can sit down.’

  The man looks at her, then, following the dart of her stare, at the pallet and its crumpled sleeping bag. He nods, moves to the makeshift bed and lowers himself in an awkward, careful way, then slumps back against the wall. Across the room, the woman drops into an easy squat, and pours boiling water into each mug. In that position, she has her back to him. Her tabby hair spills in bundled crescents down between her shoulder blades, and her short skirt rides a long way up her thighs. After a few seconds, she stands again and crosses the room to the sleeping bag, carrying the two mugs.

  She holds out a mug for him to take. ‘I hope you’re okay with instant.’

  ‘Instant’s fine. Thank you. Anyway, it’s all I’m used to.’

  ‘I often think that if I ever come into money, the first thing I’ll buy is a decent coffee machine. And from then on, I’ll only ever drink the real stuff.’ She sits down alongside him on the pallet, keeping just apart so that the lengths of their bodies are almost but not quite touching. ‘And the second thing I’ll buy is a bed.’

  The man sips his coffee, and winces because of the heat. Her arm alongside his own is propped up on a raised knee, her skin the colour of pine, her hand bent slack at the wrist, the gesture despite everything beautiful as a slow dance.

  ‘But then,’ he says, ‘after that, you’ll want chairs, then a table, new wallpaper, carpet maybe, a radio, a television. And you’ll find that none of it is that much of an improvement on instant.’

  She stiffens. ‘I might not find that. And I’ll probably sleep a whole lot better. At least then I won’t have to worry so much about cockroaches. That’s why I have the pallet. To stop them crawling into the sleeping bag. No wonder I have nightmares.’

  ‘Does the pallet stop them?’

  ‘No. But I think it helps. It raises me up a few inches. It’s not much, and it’s no guarantee, but it makes some difference.’ She looks at him until he meets her eye. ‘Do you find it warm in here?’

  ‘Warm? No, not especially. It’s not cold, but I wouldn’t say warm.’

  ‘I find it warm.’ She sets her mug of coffee down on the floor, then in a single smooth and clearly practised motion, crosses her arms and peels off her T-shirt. ‘There. That’s much better.’

  He studies the side of her face, illuminated in the lamplight, until his eyes are drawn to her body. But after a moment, he catches himself and looks away. He tastes the coffee, and seems to want to say something but thinks better of it and hides his mouth on the mug’s rim.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ she says, after a few seconds have passed.

  He shakes his head. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I’m starving. I wish I’d thought to eat today. I don’t know what it is, what’s the matter with me, but lately I’ve been forgetting things. I’ll be thirty-three in a month. When you put it into numbers, it doesn’t seem like much. But it’s as if my mind has become too full. Can that actually happen, do you think? Maybe there are things I need to forget, just to free up some space. I find myself slowing down, the way computers do when they’ve been used too much and for too long. I’ve eaten nothing since yesterday. And some days, I don’t think I even notice. Coffee’s the problem. Drinking coffee always gives me an appetite.’

  ‘If you want, later on, I mean, we could go out for something. A burger, a sandwich, something like that.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ she says, then clears her throat and coughs lightly.

  ‘Sure. Good.’ Then, abruptly, he stops speaking, leans forward a few inches from the wall and strains to listen. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen.’ He looks at her. ‘That. Do you hear it?’

  She leans forward, too, her head slightly inclined. ‘What? Cars?’

  ‘No. Not cars. Not traffic. I don’t hear it now. It sounded like . . .’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Like crying, I think. Sobbing. Very quiet. Like a child sobbing. Quiet and far away.’

  ‘Oh. One of the neighbours, I expect. A television. I’m the only tenant on this floor, but a few of the rooms on the floor below are let out, and there are always noises. Or else it’s just the pipes. Sound carries, you know. And this is an old house, and the plumbing’s not worth the shit that clogs it. You’d want to hear it late at night. When everyone’s asleep. Cries for hours, sometimes. If houses can cry then this one takes the top prize. Everyone knows not to flush after eleven, but I don’t think it makes much of a difference.’

  The man is still listening. ‘I don’t hear it now.’

  ‘No.’

  The woman, apparently out of boredom, kicks off her shoes. Cerise-pink leather slip-ons with slim four-inch heels, they clatter across the floor, first one and then the other. The man watches them, then stares at her feet. She notices.

  ‘I have nice feet, don’t I?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My feet. Don’t worry. It’s okay to look. I don’t mind. Some women have ugly feet. Even beautiful women.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I have nice feet. Don’t you think?’

  The man looks, and nods his head slowly. ‘Fine, yes.’

  She smiles at something from another time and place, then runs her hand up the slow length of her thigh, bringing with it, beneath the flat of her palm, her skirt’s hem. He can’t look away. Her flesh, in the lamplight, has a buttery sheen.

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘What would you like to talk about?’

  He shrugs. ‘Anything. I don’t know. It’s not important what we say.’

  ‘I’m not really thirty-three.’

  He looks up at her.

  ‘I’m actually thirty-six. Or thirty-seven. What year is this again? I was born in 19 . . . well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s pretend it doesn’t matter. Thirty-six or thirty-seven. Not much in it. I don’t even know why I said I was thirty-three. Just like I don’t know why I’m saying all this now.’ She breaks into silence, but everything is tight behind the press of more to come. He watches her and she looks back at him. Then she clears her throat again, very gently. ‘Do you know me?’

  He hesitates. ‘I don’t know. I know someone like you. Or, I did. Once upon a time.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  His gaze drifts across the floor again. One of the shoes, the left one, has settled on its side, its cavity gaping towards him. The other has managed to land upright, and lifted by its heel seems to tower above its companion. A pair still, but somehow no longer compatible.

  ‘Tell me about her. Describe her to me. Did she have long hair? Green eyes? Did she whisper things to you in bed? Tell me,’ she says, reaching out, taking his hand and laying it, very gently, on her bare thigh. ‘Did she feel like this?’

  As if in reflex his fingers spread and his hand shifts and settles of its own accord a comfortable and more compelling half an inch higher. He sighs. ‘She looked like you. Yes.’

  For several seconds more they remain this way, the man staring at his own hand high up on the woman’s thigh, his little finger touching, resting against, but not pressing, the still-hidden lace of her panties, the woman looking with a kind of wonder at the side of his face. With neither of them having moved perceptibly, they’ve drawn very close, and he can feel her slow exhalations against his cheek and the skin beneath his ear. Then he turns and meets her eyes, and as if there is nothing else for them to do they bow to one another in a kiss.

  * * *

  ‘Nick?’

  He is sitting in a small, clean office dominated by wood, the large mahogany desk in front of a window made dusky by three-quarters-drawn venetian blinds, the walls cloaked corner to corner in shelves of leather-bound books. There is enough light to see, though not to scour, and its source is not immediately apparent. Across a short empt
y span of timber floor, a frail-looking man, elderly, sits on a straight-backed chair, his legs crossed tightly at the knee and his hands twisted together in a prayerful grip. A therapist with almost thirty years’ experience, retired now apart from the few cases that continue to interest him. Nick registers the cap of white hair and the equally white, meticulously shorn beard, and also the blue-grey suit worn in a casual way, without its tie and with the throat buttons undone.

  ‘Nick?’

  He lifts himself a little, as if coming to, straightening his posture in the leather bucket chair that seems to have been specifically designed for slouching.

  ‘Yes, sorry. I wish I could answer. That’s what I wish for more than anything. But it’s so hard to say.’

  ‘How often are you seeing her now?’

  ‘Twice a week. I’d like it to be more, and there are times, when we’re together, that I never want to leave.’

  ‘But?’

  He closes his eyes. ‘Don’t make me say it.’

  ‘I won’t,’ the older man says. ‘But, Nick, if you ever really hope to get past this, sooner or later you’re going to have to.’

  The seconds gather and turn awkward. An unseen clock is ticking in jerks. Nick glances towards the door and, keeping his eyes averted, clears his throat.

  ‘It’s a relief to go. To be able to just get up and walk away. To abandon her. Is that what you want to hear?’

  ‘It’s not a question of what I want.’

  ‘Every time I go to her, I set myself on staying. And still, the moment comes when I just can’t be around her. I despise myself for pulling back. Because she needs me, even if she doesn’t know it.’

  ‘We’ve talked about this. The way you feel is natural, this need to be there for her and at the same time wanting to just run and hide. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. But it is confusing, and acknowledging that much is an important step. The problem is that, when it comes to extreme trauma, the aftermath is unpredictable. It’s not an exact science. Everybody responds differently and heals at his or her own pace. You can’t expect too much at once.’

  Nick clenches a tissue in one fist. There’s always a box ready, in case he needs to cry, but tears only tend to come at smaller hours, spilling out from the corners of his eyes when he is lying alone in his big double bed, when the walls built to separate years’ worth of memories crumble in on one another, bringing forgotten moments leaping back to life.

  ‘She has no past,’ he says, talking as much to himself as to the old man. ‘Her mind has built this new reality. And it’s her act that’s the hardest to take.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This prostitute business. It’s as if the thought of me throws a switch in her head. I know that as soon as I’m out the door the front comes down. For a while I struggled with that, but I’ve watched her, just to make sure. And I’ve had her watched. There’s no one else. But when she sees me, she becomes this, I don’t know what to call it. This other person. She even dresses the part, and turns hard, cruel, in a way she’s never been.’

  ‘She needs a shield,’ the doctor says. ‘It’s actually less surprising than you might think. A part of her craves you, craves the intimacy, and her mind has to deal with that, and to punish her for such wants. It’s guilt, fear, shame. She’s doing it because she needs to suffer.’

  ‘What gets me most is that she knows me. I’m sure of it. Twice a week, either when I come to her place or when we meet somewhere, she smiles at the sight of me. For a second I get a glimpse of how she used to be. She lights up, but as quickly as it happens, it’s gone. She kisses my cheek, but she has never spoken my name. Not once. Not since, well . . .’

  Again, the silence, and underneath, the clock, ticking.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘That’s one of the things I long for now. Stupid, I know. You wouldn’t think it’d be that big a deal. But just to hear my name in her voice would mean something. Whenever I ask her, though, she looks away. We make love, and I try to believe that will awaken something. I keep hoping it will. In the dark, that close, that connected, it feels the same as always. But it feels different, too. Sometimes, after we’ve finished, she cries. Sometimes, in the middle of everything, she turns her face away from me. She seems to be able to surround herself with silence. Like a shell. And no matter how hard I beat at it, it won’t crack. I’ve begged her, I’ve shouted at her. But she doesn’t even seem to hear me. It’s like her body is reacting to me, but the rest of her, the part of her that matters most, is far away.’

  The older man’s expression is difficult to read, caught in some tight neutrality, but there’s a hint of softness evident.

  ‘And there’s something else,’ Nick says. ‘I don’t know how to explain this, but I never use her name either. It’s not that I don’t want to, because I do, all the time, but it won’t come out of me. It seems that I’m holding back, too.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now, what?’

  ‘How about saying it now. Her name. Here. For me.’

  Nick just stares at him.

  ‘Even if you can’t say it to her, it might do you good to get it said.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘What, Nick? What don’t I understand? Tell me what I’m missing.’

  ‘Her name’s not the issue. It’s the gulf that’s opened up between us. I can say her name, just not to her.’

  ‘So, say it now. For me.’

  The bones of his jaw feel tight. He sits motionless in the chair but looks ready to tear the room apart, to kick holes in the wall.

  ‘Lucy.’ His lips move but there is no sound at all.

  The older man leans forward.

  Nick clears his throat. ‘Lucy,’ he repeats, with more force. ‘There. You happy now?’

  ‘That’s good, Nick. You might not think it, but it matters.’

  ‘No it doesn’t. Let’s not fool ourselves.’

  ‘Give it some time,’ the therapist says. ‘Small steps. But you have to understand that your marriage will either get better or it won’t. You may need to check your expectations. I know it’s hard to hear but what’s past really might be gone. And sometimes, what we have now is what there is. What’s most important is your recovery. Yours and Lucy’s. The question you have to ask yourself is, can that be enough for you? You can hope for more, even pray for it, if that helps you. But don’t assume that it’ll work out. Because you can’t. The truth is, nobody knows. Not the doctors, not me, not a priest.’

  The tissue in Nick’s fist is turning damp. He wants to close his eyes, or lower them to something easier, but it’s as if they need the sting of pain.

  ‘I sometimes think that if I could only sit her down and talk about it, I’d make her understand. If she could just look at me the way she used to, and not be afraid to let me see her, I’d happily deal with the rest.’

  The therapist removes his spectacles, finds a handkerchief in his jacket pocket and begins to carefully wipe the lens. ‘In an ideal world, a frank conversation would help you both,’ he says finally. ‘You’d sit and talk and in that way begin to heal. But if that were to happen, if Lucy could ever be honest with herself about it all, she may not respond as you hope. The shock to her system could be immense, and that’s something you’d need to prepare for. At the moment, she’s hiding. You think you’re not, and that you’re okay, but you’ve bottled an awful lot up yourself. Even here, to me, you’ll admit to certain things, mistakes, but you keep them at a remove. That’s all right, that’s how we survive. But you’ll feel it, when the skin starts to come off. You blame yourself for what happened, but it would be very different if she started blaming you. You think you know pain, and you do, but this would take it to a new height. And there’s no guarantee you’d find that easy to bear.’

  Nick leans forward and tries to think. But he’s tired, almost worn out. With effort, he steels himself for what’s to come.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘I’ll take
that pain, if I need to. Hers and mine, both. It’s not even a choice. Because we can’t go on like this.’

  ‘No,’ the therapist sighs. ‘I don’t suppose we can.’

  ‘The challenge is getting her to see the world as something more, something better, than the fantasy she’s built. But when I try to speak about anything important, she looks right through me. If she’d only listen, I’d tell her that none of this was down to her, that it wasn’t her fault. I’m the one who had her on the road that night. We can cut it a dozen ways, but there’s bones in that fact. It was me. My selfishness, my fault. I could have got a lift, or called a taxi. But no. Even if she was the one who offered, I accepted. And I didn’t have to. So I’m to blame. For everything.’

  ‘Nick.’

  ‘No matter how far back you trace the pieces, I’m the one who put it all in motion. I’m the cause. I’m to blame. And I wish I could just tell her. I wish I could lift that from her, you know?’

  ‘Nick, it’s natural to feel that way. But believe me when I tell you it’s not what she wants to hear. It’s likely, in fact, that she can’t hear it.’

  ‘When I start saying it, I almost can’t stop. It’s like vomit. And it does me a kind of good, but afterwards all I have left is emptiness. Because they’re only words. And really, it’s just a thing to say. Because what do I know about it? I mean, it wasn’t my head against the windscreen.’ His voice begins to crumble, his breath tightening to musical notes in his throat. ‘And it . . . wasn’t me who . . . who, had, to, hear the . . .’

  Nick’s face collapses, and the therapist catches a glimpse of the devastation before the mess is gathered into cupped palms. He waits without speaking or moving, waiting for the tears to abate.

  * * *

  Days later the woman, Lucy, is alone on a park bench backed by a slope of grass and scattered alder saplings. It is still only April but summer has begun to show itself early, the air already thick with heat and the sky the sort of unblemished azure that encourages stasis. Ahead, a broad but shallow river bends to within twenty feet of her, and she watches it in a kind of trance.

  This afternoon she has made an effort. She has on a modestly short light green cotton dress, with string-like shoulder straps that emphasise the shapeliness of her collarbones, shoulders and upper arms, and she sits with her legs snugly crossed and her right arm stretched along the top of the bench’s uppermost rung. Everything is in bloom. With her hair knotted up into a casual ponytail she looks young, almost girlish. Beside her on the bench, a dog-eared paperback book lies face down on its open pages.