Thirteen Stops

by Sandra Harris

  This time Michael was ready. “It’s from my wife Melissa.” His voice was firm and there was pride in it. “You knew her once as Melissa Creighton. Now she’s my wife, Melissa Redmond. The package is from Melissa Redmond.”

  STOP 12: HARCOURT STREET

  Becks and Barry

  Becks got on the Luas at Charlemont, making sure first to tap her Leap card against the machine. She’d be getting off at Harcourt Street. She’d fallen into the habit of taking the Luas to Harcourt Street nearly every lunchtime now to meet Barry and have lunch with him. She could have walked (it was nearly quicker), but she loved the Luas. It didn’t make her feel queasy like the buses always did. She hated the buses.

  “Please move down the tram,” the automated female voice was saying as Becks boarded the train.

  She and Barry had more or less the same lunch hours, which was handy. Even though Becks was one of those people lucky enough to be genuinely happy in their job, she loved having lunch dates with Barry to look forward to every day. He’d missed a couple of those lunchtimes lately, pleading pressure of work, but he’d promised her that he’d definitely be there today. They were going to go to that new coffee-and-paninis place round the corner from the Luas stop, and Becks was planning to tell him all about the unexpected coup that Linklater’s Publishing Company had managed to recently score. Becks, fiddling with her long light-brown ponytail like she was always doing (“Can’t you ever leave your feckin’ hair alone for one minute?” Barry had said to her once in mock-exasperation), thought about that coup now while the Luas sat in traffic at the lights. Traffic was heavy today but then it nearly always was, at this time of day and so close to the city centre.

  She’d been manning the front office by herself a few days ago, when a man had walked through the doors of Linklater’s Publishing Company carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper. He’d been adamant that he would put the parcel only into the hands of Mr. Linklater himself. Just then old Mr. Edmund had emerged from the back room in person and the stranger had introduced himself as Michael Redmond, the husband of a former employee of Mr. Edmund’s from before Becks’ time called Melissa, or Melissa Creighton as she’d been back then.

  “Of course I remember Melissa,” Mr. Edmund had said warmly. “She was always one of my most talented employees. She did the most exquisite illustrations for some of our children’s books. Most of them are still in print and still quite popular. We were all sad when she left to have her baby, and then thrilled when she decided to keep up with some of her illustrations at home. And how is dear Melissa, Mr. Redmond?”

  That was the sad part. Melissa had died of cervical cancer only a few days before. Her last wish had been that her husband Michael should take a parcel of some of her writings round to Mr. Edmund of Linklater’s Publishing Company, and so here Michael was now with the parcel in his two hands, presenting it to old Mr. Edmund as reverently as if it contained the Crown Jewels.

  “And you say you have no idea what’s inside here?” Mr. Edmund had asked with curiosity, adding when the younger man shook his head: “I must say, I’m intrigued.”

  Becks, who worked as Linklater’s receptionist and first reader after Mr. Edmund, made coffee for the three of them and turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED on the front door of the offices, since it was lunchtime by now anyway. Then she’d taken the coffee into Mr. Edmund’s inner sanctum, where he and the man called Michael Redmond were already poring over the pages from the parcel. It was a collection of some fifty or sixty beautiful poems, more than enough for a slim published volume, mostly on the theme of the death of a child (“We were so very sorry to hear about what happened to little Eugenia, such a pretty child,” Mr. Edmund had said with genuine tears in his eyes), but also about what it was like to be dying, first slowly and then much more swiftly, too swiftly, of cervical cancer.

  “This won’t exactly be the book that people will buy one another as a cheering-up present,” Melissa herself had commented wryly in a note attached to her writings, “but I’m hoping it might touch the people who have themselves been affected by these things.” She’d added that the book, if Mr. Edmund saw fit to turn it into such, was to be dedicated to her husband Michael and her daughter Eugenia, now an angel in Heaven. She’d accompanied her collection of writings, entitled Flowers for Eugenia, with some of the most gorgeous little illustrations Becks had ever seen. She knew that old Mr. Edmund liked them too, more than liked them, judging by the appraising glint in his eye. He may have been pushing eighty but his eye for what would sell and what wouldn’t sell was still unerring. Becks, who’d been with the company for nearly five years now, had nothing but respect for the old man’s business sense.

  Old Mr. Edmund, as he was affectionately known by his small staff, had been running the family publishing business since the early nineteen seventies when his father, Samuel Linklater, the founder of the company back in the twenties, had retired. Now Mr. Edmund and Michael Redmond were carefully examining the exquisitely delicate illustrations, exclaiming and ooh-ing and aah-ing over each one individually. After an hour or so of deliberation on Mr. Edmund’s part, which Becks strongly suspected weren’t entirely necessary because she was fairly certain that he’d already made up his mind, it was decided to put Melissa’s subtly emotional writings into print for readers to enjoy and cherish. A book would be published, dedicated to Michael and Eugenia as Melissa had wished it to be, and all the proceeds would be divided equally between Linklater’s, a meningitis charity and a cancer charity, as Melissa had also requested. Linklater’s would benefit too from the positive publicity and sales. The fact that there were two really worthy charities involved, and that the writer of the book had passed away of a disease that had already taken the lives of hundreds of Irish women, might end up being useful selling points for the book and, if the book sold, the charities, as well as Linklater’s, would benefit. It was a situation in which none of them could lose.

  “You’ll have to do the rounds of the radio programmes and maybe even the telly talk shows,” Becks had told Michael.

  Mr. Edmund had added enthusiastically, “Yes, the more publicity we get for the book, the better. We might even get you to sign a few copies and let people get their photo taken with you at the bookstores. In the absence of Melissa herself, that might well be the best thing to do. The personal touch always goes down well.”

  Becks laughed and clapped her hands with approval, but Michael Redmond had coloured a dull beetroot-red and said, “Look, I didn’t mind at all delivering this parcel for Lissy but I never reckoned on all this other stuff . . . this publicity stuff. It’s just not me. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to do the rest of this without me.”

  Mr. Edmund opened his mouth to say something, but Becks herself forestalled him. She leaned forward and took both of Michael’s hands in hers.

  “Mr. Redmond – Michael, can I call you Michael? – listen, you’ve had a truly terrible time of it. Both your little girl and your poor, poor wife have died of two of the most – the most insidious diseases that we have in Ireland today. Diseases that should be wiped off the face of the Earth and, if I had my way, they would be. If the three of us together promoting Melissa’s book raises awareness or saves even one person’s life who might otherwise have died, isn’t it worth it? Worth putting up with a little bit of embarrassment or people saying for five minutes: ‘Oh, there’s that guy who was on the telly, gabbing about that book?’ Anyway, shure in no time at all you’ll be yesterday’s news.” She released his hands and allowed her words to sink in for a moment.

  Then Michael Redmond laughed out loud, turned to Old Mr. Edmund and said, “Wow, she’s good. You want to hold onto this one, you do.”

  Mr. Edmund laughed too. “Oh, believe me, I intend to, Michael, I intend to.”

  Then they all laughed together and suddenly, and partially thanks to Becks – everyone called her that, even Old Mr. Edmund – Project Flowers for Eugenia was a go, a real go. And the thing was that Becks was being entirely sincer
e in the things she’d said to Michael Redmond – she hadn’t just been buttering him up and soft-soaping him with the stuff designed to bring him over to Linklater’s Publishing Company’s point of view.

  She couldn’t wait to meet Barry now for the first time all week, in person instead of just texting or leaving him a voice message (his phone was never on these days) and to tell him her good news. She hoped he’d be as pleased about the whole thing as she was. She waited impatiently as the packed Luas drew to a smooth halt at the Harcourt Street stop. She looked out the window to see if Barry was waiting for her on the platform, as he sometimes was if he got there early, but there was no sign of him today. Disappointed, she disembarked and threaded her way through the throngs of people who normally got off at this stop.

  She reached the coffee-and-paninis place before Barry did and found them a comfy booth by the window overlooking the street. Becks loved to sit by the window in places like this or on the Luas and watch the world go by. She was a real people person. She loved meeting the authors (or potential authors) who frequented Linklater’s Publishing Company. Old Mr. Edmund was letting her meet more and more of them lately on her own because she was so good with them, so professional and yet relaxed and friendly, instantly putting them at their ease and thereby making them amenable to accepting any little changes to their books that Mister Edmund as Editor-in-Chief might require of them.

  “What can I get you, love?” said the waiter in the coffee place, coming to her table with his notebook at the ready.

  “Erm, is it okay if I just wait for my boyfriend, please?”

  “Okay, no problem.” The waiter, an Irish hipster with an aggressively ginger beard and man-bun, shrugged. “But keeping you waiting like that? Some boyfriend. You need to seriously give him the elbow, love, and find yourself someone who can get here on time.”

  Becks blushed, mortified. And you need to concentrate on your own business and leave me to look after mine, she dearly wanted to say to the cheeky waiter’s retreating back, but she bit back the retort and pretended to be busy scrolling down her phone. Damn Barry, she thought. He’d been doing this more and more, turning up late for their various dates or missing them altogether, sometimes with the flimsiest of excuses. She hoped with all her heart that he wasn’t losing interest. She couldn’t bear that, she really couldn’t. Becks Jamieson was finally in a good place with her life. She adored her job and dear Old Mr. Edmund too, whom she regarded as sort of a surrogate grandfather. He was so approachable and easy to talk to that you could discuss literally anything with him, and he was surprisingly enlightened for a man of his advanced years.

  “It’s what happens when you get to my age,” he’d laughed when she’d said it to him once. “You realise that life’s too short to keep disapproving of all the things that bugged you when you were younger. You become mellower, more tolerant of your fellow man and this funny old world we live in.”

  So work was going really well for Becks, and her father’s drinking had eased up a little bit too, ever since the doctor had told him straight out that he was going to be dead within the year if he carried on the way he was going. He flatly refused to even consider paying a visit to Alcoholics Anonymous.

  “A load of losers sitting around baring their souls to one another like fools,” he’d sneer whenever Becks tentatively brought up the subject. There were meetings in her local community centre every week, but she no longer believed she was capable of getting him to attend any. The pamphlets she’d brought home after her trip to the community centre, well, he’d chucked them in the bin without so much as glancing at them, hadn’t he?

  The door to the coffee-shop burst open suddenly and Barry came in, all apologies.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said breathlessly. “Something cropped up in the office. Printer jammed and the floor was awash with all these reams and reams of fucking white paper. Myself and another lad drew the short straw and had to clean the place up.”

  Becks tried to smile normally, although she didn’t feel like smiling. It was five to fucking one already and she had to be back in Linklater’s for half-past. And ten minutes at least of the remaining time would have to be spent waiting for a Luas, then the journey back up to Charlemont Luas stop and then high-tailing it back to Portobello. A short journey, admittedly, but it all took time. It all ate into the precious time the two of them had to spend together.

  “Let me get these.” Barry strolled up to the counter to order their coffees and paninis. “The usual okay, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She was disgruntled but unwilling to express her dissatisfaction verbally in case she pissed him off. She was already worried that he might be losing interest in her, the way he’d missed some of their lunch dates lately or had arrived late, on the run and panting, always with an excuse she couldn’t find fault with. Taking a sick co-worker to the company doctor for a sudden virulent bout of food poisoning was something you couldn’t exactly argue with. Attending an impromtu emergency all-hands-to-the-pump meeting called suddenly by the company’s boss wasn’t something you could argue with. The fire alarm going off and no one knowing whether it was a drill or if there was a real fire somewhere in the building wasn’t something you could argue with. None of it was stuff you could fucking argue with, so Becks didn’t even bother trying any more. If he was lying, then he was very bloody good at it. Every excuse he ever offered sounded perfectly plausible.

  “Any news?” Barry said breezily, sitting back down at the table.

  “Aren’t you going to even take your coat off?” Straightaway she was irritated. “You look like you’re about to shoot off again at any second, wearing your coat in here like that.”

  “Of course I’m taking my coat off. Look at me taking it off right now.”

  He proceeded to do just that, though she knew full well that he would have left it on if she hadn’t said anything.

  “How’s work?” he said when he was done removing the coat.

  He looked exceptionally handsome today. The dark-blue suit and brown polished lace-up shoes really suited him, and his thick dark hair was slicked back but not too flat to his head. It had a bit of height to it and that really suited him too. He smelled clean too, as he always did. If she wasn’t so annoyed with him, she’d have liked to smell his neck, stroke his stubble and breathe in the scent of his aftershave, some pricey but gorgeous-smelling stuff she’d bought him herself for his birthday.

  She bit back her annoyance and began to tell him about Flowers for Eugenia. Halfway through her story, she stopped.

  “Are you checking your phone?” She knew she should have ignored it but she couldn’t help it. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

  “No, not at all.” His tone immediately told her that he was. “I was just checking to see if – if Marty had the printer back up and running or if he needed me.”

  “And does he?” she said icily.

  “Does he what?” He looked puzzled now.

  “Does he need you back there?” Christ, he could be exasperating at times!

  “Nah, not yet,” he said lightly. “I’m all yours, babes. I’ve got another few minutes anyway.”

  “I’m truly honoured.” She couldn’t help the sarcasm. She watched him as he crammed his turkey, stuffing and ham panini into his mouth and took a huge bite.

  “Ah, come on, Becks,” he cajoled, his mouth full. “I wouldn’t give you a hard time if you had to go and do work stuff. It’s not like either of us would have any choice in the matter, not when it comes to work. You don’t say no to your boss.”

  That was true enough, but Becks was still annoyed at him. “You didn’t even listen to my work story.” Was there even any point in complaining?

  “Sure I did,” he said easily. “The kid had meningitis and the wife had fanny cancer and you worthy publishers want all the proceeds to go to the two charities or something. Good selling points, those. You should run with them for all they’re worth. Make you all a few bob.”

  Her eyes wi
dened at his callous terminology. “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that. There’s – there’s quite a lot more to it than that.”

  “Ah, come on, Becks, lighten up.” He was pulling his coat on again now and pushing away the remains of his panini. Just a few crumbs were left. Their cosy lunch together was obviously over. “You’ve a bloody face on you as long as a wet weekend.”

  She ignored the jibe. Instead she said: “Are you still coming over to mine tonight?”

  “Will your old man be there?” he asked pointedly.

  Becks shook her head. No, her old man wouldn’t be there because he’d be down the boozer as usual. That was where he was every night of the year, except for Christmas Day and Good Friday, the only two days in the whole of the year when the pubs were shut. His being out most nights suited Barry, a typical millennial. Barry had nowhere of his own where they could go to make love. He still lived at home with his parents and a younger brother and sister because he couldn’t afford yet to move out and rent anywhere, let alone buy a place. An accommodating girlfriend living in a big old house with a lush of a father who was out boozing every night suited him down to the ground. Stephen Jamieson was not an obstacle to Barry’s relationship with Becks. Stephen would roll home after closing-time, stinking drunk and smelling like a brewery, crying the whole time for his wife, Becks’ mother. He’d collapse into bed and not show his face until the following day, by which time Becks and Barry would long since have tidied up and left for their respective workplaces.

  “Grand, so.” Barry drained the last drops in his coffee cup and stood up. “I’ll see you around seven, so, okay? Keep it warm for me,” he added with a mischievous grin, bending down to kiss her on the forehead.