Heart Stopper

by R J Samuel

  “They still call that bridge the New Bridge despite the fact that it’s been there since at least the mid-80s, about 25 years or so. I guess its real name is too much of a mouthful, Quincentennial. Celebrating 500 years of Galway. Me, I don’t believe in history.”

  Reyna laughed. “You can’t not believe in history! It isn’t something that can really be disputed, it happened.”

  “Yes, but we can never be sure exactly what happened, can we? Depends on who tells you about it. It just seems that all history is bad, everyone always fighting. Show me a place with no history of fighting and I’ll bet it’s probably full of animals rather than humans.” She rubbed a little pebble loose from the boulder and threw it into the river. “I try not to study the history of any place where I’ve lived, India, America, Ireland. I try to see them with blank eyes, a blank canvas, undiluted by the centuries of hatred. Michael gets so frustrated with me, he loves history, but then he can see the good that’s happened. Me, I can’t see it. And I don’t want to get involved in it, all that hate.”

  “I have to keep believing that it’s not all hate. Leo and Catherine were good teachers in that sense, they believed in compassion, in sending out love. They said it was the only thing that could work. My grandfather, on the other hand, is always warning me about people. Daniel said once that he was not always like that, that he had changed, became withdrawn after what happened in New York.”

  Priya wanted to say something, to warn Reyna about Valerie, but the words stuck in her throat and they were silent as they watched a branch struggling in the moving water. Reyna seemed as reluctant as she was to talk about the research, about the deaths, Daniel, Valerie, the reasons they had met.

  Reyna asked, “Have you moved a lot?”

  “Yes, this is the longest I’ve stayed in one place. Even after my parents moved to Galway, there was a lot of travelling. Before that, my grandparents in India brought me up. So, citizen of everywhere, but nowhere to call home.”

  “But you’re an Irish citizen, aren’t you. And you’ve lived here a long time. Surely you consider this home.”

  “The closest thing, I guess. And I find myself relating to the Irish more than any other race. But, I’ll never be Irish to them. Not at first, when they see me first. Do you know, I studied and paid a fair whack in college fees, and worked and paid taxes, but then the boom came in the last ten years and things changed. When the refugees and asylum seekers arrived, I was taken as one. The assumptions, the lumping into any stereotype, made my blood boil and I had this speech all worked out about my contributions to this country but I realized no-one was interested.” Priya laughed. “That speech was so good too, but I condensed it into this perfect glare which I threw out at anyone who mistook me for a refugee which unfortunately now meant that they felt smugly confirmed in their belief that I was an unwelcome, and now also unfriendly, leech that didn’t speak English.”

  Reyna looked horrified and Priya rushed in, “Don’t get me wrong. There have been so many changes here over the last while, I think the Irish are just besieged and bewildered. And I love this country, deeply. It has given me so much. I wish it could be happy.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. The sharp blare of an annoyed driver sounded loud. Priya glanced over her shoulder at the building that housed the research company. She was conscious that if Valerie looked out through the glass she would see them. There was no movement in the office.

  Priya asked, her tone level, “Did you enjoy the tour?” She saw Reyna glance at her.

  “Well, I saw a lot of equipment. Which wasn’t much use to me. But I did manage to get a hold of the financials from the Research Company. Thank you for coming in. I know it was hard. When did you find out about the deaths and heart attack?”

  Priya told her about the typed links and gave an account of the searches she had done and the phone call.

  “I would never have found out about them if Daniel hadn’t typed out the links. I couldn’t get through to you. Sorry about that,” Priya gestured with her head towards the building, “I certainly set the cat in with the vultures then, didn’t I?”

  Reyna grinned. “You certainly did set the cat amongst the pigeons there. Valerie was flustered and I get the feeling she’s not a woman that is easily thrown.”

  “Do you think she knew? About the deaths of those women, the heart attack. Before I said anything?”

  “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be something they would be aware of necessarily. Maybe TechMed. As she said, it could be a coincidence when you think of the number of checks that are done every day and this happened over, what, seven years. I’ll try to find out more tomorrow at dinner.”

  Priya got up off the boulder and swept the sand off her trousers. Her movements were rough.

  Reyna touched her arm. “It would have been nice if you could have come too.”

  “I couldn’t have sat down to dinner with that… woman. Though I might have, just to annoy her. Can’t let Michael down though.”

  Reyna got up too, and they walked back down the path to the car park. They stopped at Reyna’s car.

  Priya said, as she turned to leave Reyna, “I promised your mother I’d speak to her at the end of the week. Maybe Sunday? I’ve got that concert tomorrow and you have dinner. I still have a lot of stuff to go through, but I’ll definitely have a better picture by then. I’ll work on it for the rest of the day and tomorrow.”

  Reyna nodded. She seemed to want to say something, but she got into her car without another word.

  Priya wanted to ask Reyna to come back with her, to sit out, talk, to spend as much time as possible with her before she left. But, Reyna was married. And in Valerie’s sights.

  ∞

  Priya stood in the car park looking after the car as Reyna drove away. She heard the slick of tires behind her and the ruby red Jaguar slid up alongside her.

  “Can I give you a lift somewhere?” She couldn’t believe Valerie was actually being civil. To her. After what Valerie had done to her life.

  Priya shook her head. She pointed to her own car. Valerie did not take her eyes off Priya’s face.

  “Get in Priya, we’re going to have a little chat.” Valerie’s voice was quiet, but determined.

  Priya stayed where she was. She had kept the anger she felt at this woman at bay by refusing to think about her, by restricting contact with her to the absolute bare minimum. She turned to leave.

  Valerie leaned her head out slightly and said, “Do you think about Kathy these days? Or is it all Reyna now?”

  Priya stopped. She felt the pierce of adrenaline and her fists clenched. She took a deep breath and turned to walk away.

  Valerie’s voice was louder now. “Do you still think Kathy was the innocent martyr?”

  Priya stopped and turned back around to face Valerie. The words spurted out. “She was a lot more innocent than we were.”

  “If you’re so sure of that, then you’ll have no problem hearing what I have to say, will you?” Valerie reached across the front seat and opened the passenger door.

  Priya hesitated, but the urge to know, to learn more about what had happened proved too strong. She’d never been able to talk about it to anyone, certainly not Valerie. She made up her mind. She’d hear her out. Even death-row prisoners were given a chance to confess.

  Priya walked around the car and sat into the passenger seat as Valerie revved the engine. The car jerked forward and Valerie raced it out of the car park. Neither woman spoke as they moved through the traffic. Priya realized they were heading towards her house in Barna. She couldn’t be in the house with this woman! Not after what they had done there.

  “Not the house.” Priya said. She crossed her arms.

  “Wasn’t going there.” Valerie smiled. Another driver tried to cut her off as they exited the roundabout, but she pushed the powerful machine through the gap before the other car.

  They turned off before Priya’s house, at the road leading to Silver Strand beach. How appr
opriate, Priya thought. She’d confessed to Kathy here, as they’d sat in their car facing the sea. The wind had been howling, battering the car, shaking it on its wheels. And inside, in the darkness, Kathy had screamed at her, pounding the dashboard, her fists leaving indentations in the hard plastic.

  Valerie pulled the car into one of the many empty spaces in the parking area. It was deserted and there was only one figure walking the beach bent against the wind, a raincoat pulled closed despite the watery sun, the King Charles spaniel leaping around in circles, hairy waves of fur lifting and falling.

  The engine ticked as they sat there. Valerie now seemed reluctant to speak which was so unlike her that Priya felt a twinge of trepidation.

  After a few minutes that stretched between them like the pulling back of a stringed bow, Valerie spoke.

  “Gerry doesn’t know anything about what happened between us. I want it to stay that way.”

  Priya turned to her. “Did you bring me out here to warn me off spoiling your happy little marriage?”

  Valerie smiled. “I don’t think anything is going to spoil my ‘happy little marriage’. Unlike yours.” She ignored the look of shock on Priya’s face and continued, “What did you tell Reyna? Did you tell her about your ‘little indiscretion’?”

  “Little indiscretion! Is that what it was? Valerie, what we did was, was, … I don’t know how you can be so flippant about it. You pursued me, right under their noses, and we were all friends and those two people did not have a clue what we were doing. In the bathroom of a pub while they’re chatting at the bar, in our bed! Don’t you feel any guilt?”

  “Guilt is such a waste of time and emotion.” Valerie turned in her seat to face her. “My little Priya, I have to say you were fun. You were so reserved, proper… so honest. How long did that last, what, two weeks?”

  Their words were echoing off the inside of the car and Priya could feel every jab.

  Priya said, “At least I felt something for you. I didn’t do it as some kind of screwed up game.”

  “You mean you convinced yourself it was okay because you felt something apart from just wanting to have sex with me. At least I’m honest about it. The sex was good, wasn’t it Priya?”

  Valerie was facing her, her eyes the usual weapons. She put her palm against Priya’s cheek and turned Priya’s face towards her, the soft caress controlled. Priya stared into Valerie’s eyes. The pupils were black voids in the sea of brown, the gold glittered. She had felt the lure of those eyes and her life had fallen into a black hole. She had loved this woman.

  Priya’s voice was a whisper between them. “I didn’t just convince myself that I felt something for you. I did. At the time. I would never have cheated on Kathy otherwise. And I told her and ended things with her.”

  Priya shoved Valerie’s hand away and turned to the sea outside. Why was she excusing herself to this woman?

  Valerie cleared her throat. She said, “Yes, Kathy was very upset about your infidelity. Funny that…”

  “Funny?!” Priya consciously unclenched her fists. She understood now that Valerie played games. Said things to get a reaction, to push her opponent off balance. She calmed her voice and said, “If you think that’s funny, you have a sick sense of humor.”

  “Strange, then. Or what would you describe it if you knew that I had her too.”

  The words landed, but Priya couldn’t figure them out through the gathering cotton-wool daze in her mind. The walker on the beach had turned and was walking back; she could see the earnest face of the spaniel, its heavy ears drawing a straight line pointing back the way it came.

  Her voice came out. “Had who? Kathy?”

  “She was actually not as difficult to get as you were. With you, well, you were always struggling with guilt. With her, she enjoyed it. She felt guilty too, but that was later.”

  The wind died down suddenly. The sun beat down through the quiet and Priya could hear the thrum of the waves. The walker had one of those tennis balls on a throwing stick and she had loosened the raincoat and flung the ball off its spring and down the beach. The spaniel raced after it.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Valerie laughed. “You’re actually like Gerry in a lot of ways. You just can’t believe anyone could do anything wicked.” She whispered the last word.

  “Kathy wouldn’t.”

  “Do you remember that time we went to the Skeff? I think Michael was there as well as the four of us.”

  Priya remembered. She had gotten into a discussion with Michael and Gerry about the economy. Priya and Michael had tried to convince Gerry of the approaching crash in the property market, of the abuse of power by the political leaders. It had been a playful atmosphere even though the argument at times was heated. Then the heat had been turned up even more as the discussion turned to the War on Terror. She tried to remember where Valerie and Kathy had sat. She couldn’t picture them there.

  Valerie said, “You guys were having this boring discussion. Kathy and I were not.”

  Priya closed her eyes. Her mind escaped into the details of that afternoon. They had sat upstairs. She could see the pattern on the sofa chairs, the red cream stripes behind Michael’s shoulders as he leant forward to emphasize a point. Gerry leaning back and chuckling at something, his sleeves rolled up, the pattern on his loosened tie matching the ornate carvings on the wall. She could see the gleaming wooden floor stretching out in front of her. She could feel the warmth of the fire blazing behind her, the brick-lined fireplace with the chunky mirror hung above it. She could hear the voices of the two men in front of her and the cheers of a crowd coming from the large-screen TV perched in the corner.

  And she could see Valerie coming back from the bar with their drinks, what had she drunk, a Baileys? Priya could feel the stare into her eyes as Valerie handed her the glass, the curls of cream liquor slipping off their cubed ice platforms as Priya sipped hastily trying to hide her reaction. And Kathy, coming back from the toilets, the flush on her face reflecting the heat of the fire.

  No. No, no, no, no, no! There were no other words allowed. If she repeated the word over and over again, she would not have to let in the thoughts. But the knowledge crept into the space between her thoughts and set up home, a squatter she would never remove.

  “She used to call me, after. After you two split up. She wanted more. She didn’t seem to accept it was over. Unlike you. She used to call me and say she was going to top herself. Of course I never went.” Valerie sounded surprised that Kathy would call her.

  Priya thought of all the times she’d gone when Kathy had called, guilt and concern propelling her through the doors to pick up the pieces of the woman she thought she’d shattered. She opened the door and struggled out of the car. The walker and her dog had disappeared. She hadn’t noticed them getting into a car and driving away. The beach was empty. She heard Valerie call, but ignored her and walked down the ramp leading off the concrete promenade and onto the sand. She heard the engine roar as Valerie drove off a few minutes later.

  ∞

  She sat on the rocks for hours and let the wind batter her. The sun and the clouds were still playing the same games. Walkers came and walkers went. Some with dogs, some in couples, all glancing curiously at her especially on their return leg, surprised to see her still sitting there, her light jacket soaked through, her hair sprawled on her skull.

  The movie reel of her mind turned, projecting pictures onto the back of her eyes. The images were over two years old, and the same; her eyes were different. And she saw it. What she would have seen had she not been so blinded by Valerie. The gaps when Valerie and Kathy weren’t with the rest of them, the screaming reaction to Priya’s confession, Kathy’s desperate phone calls after her first ones to Valerie had been ignored. The unspoken request to get back together had not been spoken because it had not been felt. And the woman with who she had spent seven years had mirrored her betrayal, magnified it, and left her with the guilt.

  She walked home as
the light faded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The doorbell was insistent. It scraped through her mind, jangling her nerves. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting on the sofa in her living room, her clothes drying into wrinkles. The lights were not switched on and the growing darkness outside had slunk in further, cozying up to her as the hours passed. There was a full bottle of wine on the floor by the couch, uncorked, but untouched; a glass lay beside it.

  She’d opened the bottle earlier, but decided not to take any alcohol while she was upset. She didn’t like alcohol, in college she’d argued against its over-use, but the last few years had changed many things. She’d tried, but hadn’t managed to drown anything in drink and the last few times she’d had too much, she’d made a fool of herself or worse, ended up with a dead man. She was going off alcohol rapidly.

  She looked at her phone. There were five missed calls from an unknown number. She knew they were from Reyna, but she hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone. For two years, she had done a good job of suppressing. No one at the clinic had seen anything but the mask. The effort of holding it up was draining. She could feel it slipping despite her frantic efforts. And cracks had been appearing since she’d found Daniel, but Valerie had just taken a hammer and smashed holes through.

  The ringing of the bell clamored at the corners of the room. Whoever was at the door wasn’t going away. Then there was silence and Priya felt her body relax. The knock at the window sent her rigid again and she twisted to see a fist poised to rap again.

  Priya got up and opened the door.

  “What’s happened?” Reyna’s face showed her anxiety.

  “I’m sorry. I switched my phone off.”

  Reyna stared at her. Priya summoned up a smile as she turned and walked into the living room switching on the light as she went. Reyna followed.

  “We have more of a problem.” Reyna’s voice was tense, and there was a sense of defeat in it.

  Priya reached down for the bottle of wine. She waggled it at Reyna who shook her head. Priya shrugged and poured herself a glass. She took a long swallow.