Barefoot Over Stones

by Liz Lyons

  ‘Well, they are in his uncle’s place in Aughasallagh until Sunday. Alison is coming back here for a few days and Dan is going on to Dublin to sit his last exams. Maybe we will run it by Alison when she comes home in case she hates the idea but I doubt she will. She just wants to be with Dan.’

  ‘That’s a good idea, love. You know, I was talking to Hugh Lalor today and our friend Con Abernethy’s name came down in conversation. Seems he hasn’t wasted much time since Dan’s mother died in helping himself to some female company. According to Hugh, and his sources are normally fairly reliable, Ciara’s younger sister is back on the scene and a few others are beating a path to the house as well. Would you not think that he could let Mary be dead a decent amount of time before he starts that racket again?’

  ‘Well, you know I don’t think an awful lot of Con Abernethy. I know the Lalors say he is lovely but, honestly, have you ever heard the pair of them say a bad word about someone who has influence, power or rakes of money? Sure Rena made excuses for him having a teenage girlfriend when I quizzed her about what Ciara had said about him. Apparently it was his wife’s entire fault for being difficult. He ticks all the Lalor boxes but not any of mine. I really don’t know where Dan was got at all because Mary was a bit of an old boot and Dan is so nice and thoughtful and treats Alison like a queen. She was lucky to meet him.’

  ‘Well, I think he was the lucky one actually. Sure our Alison is the best in the world!’

  ‘You are a big old softie, Richard.’

  ‘Ah, sure I know but where is the harm in that? She’s my daughter and I’ll never stop looking out for her.’

  Dan was struggling with revising for his last set of exams. His mother was dead barely a month and he just couldn’t seem to get his head round anything. At his mother’s funeral he had met his uncle Jack, who had offered him his cottage near a beach in Kerry for studying or for holidays. Dan had thanked him but he had no intention of taking up the offer. The flat in Dublin was where he intended to do the last of his preparation, close to the libraries for last-minute dashes, close to friends for support and, crucially, a couple of miles from Alison who had decided to stay on in her own flat for a couple of weeks after her own exams to keep him company until his were finished. That had been the plan until he and Ciara had stupidly messed around in the kitchen in Leachlara. His head had been silently imploding with pressure every day since. He was sure Alison would notice the change in him soon but that was probably his own guilty conscience. Alison was as she always was, it was he who couldn’t see past the possibility that Ciara would tell Alison what had happened and that she might assume him guilty because he hadn’t had the guts to confess to a stupid drunken mistake.

  Ciara had got herself a summer job as a tour guide in Trinity and so there seemed no possibility that she would just go off for the summer and leave them alone. Any time they had met Dan had made an effort to act normally but when Alison was busy or popped out of the room to get something Dan found himself on the receiving end of Ciara’s derisory smirks. She was enjoying torturing him, loving the fact that with one word to Alison she could rattle their world. He thought about talking to her but realized that it was Alison he should speak to and that he couldn’t face right now. Uncle Jack’s cottage in Aughasallagh for a week or ten days occurred to him then as a useful stopgap. He would ring his uncle and tell him to leave the key at Daly’s pub for him. He would persuade Alison to come with him. They could take the train to Leachlara and pick up his mother’s car from the house. It had been one of a few specific bequests to him along with her beloved silverware and nearly thirty thousand pounds, secreted from a very surprised Con, in a bank account in Thurles. From there it would be two hours’ drive at most to Aughasallagh. He would lose a full day’s studying in the process but it was better than failing the exams and that was what would happen if he stayed in Dublin waiting for Ciara to open her mouth. The cottage would be quiet enough to do some worthwhile study and Alison could be with him and away from Ciara until he had finished his exams. Then he could talk to her. He would make her understand that the sight of his father with Leda the night of his mother’s funeral coupled with too much drink had made him do something stupid, but that it really didn’t mean a thing. It was just a kiss and a drunken fumble, he told himself when doubt swelled from the pit of his stomach and threatened to strangle his ability to breathe. He hoped that all the years they had spent together would count for something against a stupid slip-up – even if his slip-up involved Alison’s closest friend.

  The cottage in Aughasallagh was in tiptop shape and that at least gave Alison some slight comfort, because she had been looking forward to a couple of relaxing weeks in Dublin before she had to start looking seriously for a teaching post. There had been the offer of a temporary job in her old school in Caharoe and she would decide shortly if she should take it or not. She knew by her parents’ behaviour on the phone when they opened the letter and told her the news that they were gasping for her to accept the job, but she had another couple of days to work it all out. Besides, a lot would depend on where Dan would end up and he was in no mood for discussing life beyond the exams at the moment.

  She had been taken aback when he had suggested the trip but he seemed set on it and, to be honest, his form was so shaky since his mother had died that she was willing to go along with anything if she thought she would get the old Dan back. Her parents had advised her that Dan would need a lot of support: grieving for a dead parent on top of the extreme pressure of final exams was potentially too much to bear. She was willing to do everything possible for him and that included hiding out in the wilds of Kerry with no company except a doddery radio, a stack of books that she congratulated herself for packing and a chain-smoking boyfriend who was so lost in his own thoughts that he talked only infrequently and rarely sounded at all like he used to. She had mentioned it to Ciara only to be given a rough fob-off. ‘For God’s sake, his mother has just croaked it. Cut the boy some slack.’ Ciara’s reluctant ceasefire on Dan that had started in the last while looked set to continue and that at least was a good thing. The two of them getting on as well as they did would have looked like a miracle to her in the first few months after they had met. If that could happen, anything was possible, she thought.

  Dan discovered that anything was indeed possible when an early morning doorbell ring at the cottage found him staring at Ciara on the front doorstep. Her hair was tousled by the boisterous sea wind and she wore a bright blue T-shirt under a pair of incredibly worn and baggy dungarees. She carried a small knapsack on her back with a jacket rolled up in the straps at its base. She had hitched here, must have, he reasoned, because there was no such thing as public transport in this or any other rural corner of the county. Ciara smiled at Dan but he could not return the favour. She sensed rage and exasperation from him. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand as he always did when he was utterly flummoxed.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, Ciara? How dare you follow us and how in the name of God did you find us?’

  ‘Calm down, Dan. You’ll have a heart attack and, seeing as you are the doctor and I’m forbidden to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on you, it might be better if you didn’t. I came to see Alison. You know, my best friend. Your girlfriend – remember?’

  ‘Who told you where to find us?’

  ‘Well, I have to say I have never given your father the credit he deserves for being an outstanding public representative. One phone call was all it took to get the address out of him. He was in such a hurry to get me off the phone, to attend to other constituents no doubt, that I didn’t get a chance to thank him properly.’ Ciara was enjoying Dan’s discomfort and she paused a while to take in all its glory before brushing past him and heading down the hallway to find Alison listening to bloody Radio 1 again. She, at least, was ecstatic to see her. Dan’s guilty conscience was obviously preventing him from being much in the way of company at the moment.

  Ciara wasn’t quite sur
e why she had to come to Aughasallagh, but she had been compelled to do so. She wasn’t sure if it was just to see Alison or to tell her friend the truth of what had happened the night of Mary Abernethy’s funeral and take the consequences, whatever they might be. Ciara was reluctant to admit to herself that at some level she wanted to see Dan more than she wanted to see Alison. That fact was proving difficult to get her head around and all the way from Dublin, hitching lifts and making conversations with strangers she would not ordinarily give the time of day to, she tried not to think too much about what she had wanted to happen with Dan and how he had rejected her.

  She was in no hurry to get back to Dublin because she had packed in the tour-guide job in Trinity. She was absolutely not cut out to deal with tourists. They were all so shagging happy, thinking Ireland was the dearest, sweetest country, all looking for a long-lost great-granny whom their forbears had said goodbye to at the open fire where she sat stirring a pot of stew or pummelling a lump of brown soda dough into submission. She couldn’t be satisfying their need for nostalgia or telling them with a straight face that of course their tour-bus driver was right, there were still a few leprechauns left if you knew where to look. She had more or less decided to head to France or Spain, maybe to teach English, a short course, so she could be out of Dublin, for a while anyway but maybe for good. There was no way she was heading back to Leachlara. That house seemed to shrink any time she went back there, with her parents still living the same excuse for a life. Her father was only happy when he was drunk and her mother was never happy at all but not driven enough to raise so much as a protesting murmur. Her brother was gone now as well. St Con had set him up as an apprentice with a building firm in Galway and the whiff of freedom had seduced him. She couldn’t spend any more time in Dublin looking at Dan and Alison either, their closeness mocking all her failures with men. She had made a move on Dan because she had begun to find him incredibly attractive but maybe also to prove to herself that no one was perfect, Dan and Alison included, and that not even they had it all. Space between herself and Alison after years in each other’s pockets would be no bad thing anyway. She convinced herself that she would have arrived at this conclusion even if she had never touched or wanted to touch Dan. Still, there was no harm in one last long visit, a week together before she hightailed somewhere, anywhere that Dan Abernethy was just a memory, and a new life could begin.

  The weather was balmy and beautiful on the Friday night and they stayed on the beach long past dusk, huddled at a high corner where the lapping tide could not reach. Dan had brought a bottle of wine, crisps and cheese from the house. It was a sure sign that he was planning to wrench as much freedom from the night as possible. He had managed to chill out a bit, relaxing a little because he was finally getting to grips with his exam preparation and with every passing day it seemed less and less likely that Ciara had come to spill the beans. Their normal topics of conversation resumed: animated banter about politics, films they had seen and books they had read, and when Alison rose to go for a walk along the peace of the darkening strand to clear her head she left them engaged in a heated debate from which she had long tuned out, her head made fuzzy by the free-flowing wine. Even though she loved the sea the sound of its lost whispers at night always made her a little maudlin. She moved to the far side of the beach, intending to climb up and walk back along the rough grass-topped dunes that lined the strand where it met the green lushness of the fields. Darkness began to fall a little quicker than she had expected so she quickened her pace. She could hear the rise and fall of their voices below her, a familiar sound but the details unintelligible. She moved stealthily, wanting to make them jump out of their skin by appearing from where they would not expect. Moving closer, their words became clearer, but their tone was so serious she felt she was eavesdropping and her heart pounded a little. Bewildered, she stood rooted to the spot.

  ‘I thought you were coming to make trouble between me and Alison.’ Dan had thought it better to clear the air once and for all between himself and Ciara.

  ‘Oh, I thought about it, believe me, but she won’t hear it from my lips. I know Alison. She wouldn’t forgive or forget. You’re getting off the hook because I couldn’t face hurting her. You should tell her that you messed around with someone though. Just don’t say it was me, for God’s sake, or she would have our guts for garters!’ She laughed but clearly Dan did not enjoy the joke.

  ‘What happened between us that night was just a drunken mistake and it meant nothing. It was just stupid. We were drunk, so let’s forget it.’

  ‘Well, thanks for dismissing it out of hand, but don’t forget, Dan Abernethy, it was you who made the first move the night of your mother’s funeral. You kissed me, remember? And what’s more you seemed to enjoy it, or are you trying to block that bit out to salve your conscience?’ Ciara’s ire was rising at Dan’s guilty attempt to wipe the slate clean but it was tempered with a resurgent desire to reach across and touch him. Fumbling with the straps of her sundress, Ciara did her best to reason with herself. She was not going to do something reckless here just because she had the chance, but the harder she tried the more she found she could not take her eyes off him, stretched out just inches away from her and oblivious to the effect he was having.

  Dan’s discomfort at Ciara’s unwillingness to make light of the incident and move on was evident. He was conscious that Alison would not be much longer, as darkness was well and truly falling and she would be thinking of going home. He had to bring the conversation to a halt. ‘I don’t remember the details, Ciara,’ he said dismissively. He got up on his knees to gather their things in preparation for returning to the cottage.

  ‘Well, maybe I should remind you,’ Ciara said as she moved close enough to touch him. She put her hands on his waist and stretched up to her full height to kiss him passionately on the lips, arching her body against the length of his.

  Dan jerked away, wiping his mouth and pushing her hands off. His expression was one of pure disgust mixed with disbelief at her stupidity. ‘God’s sake, are you mad in the head? Get the message, will you, I don’t fancy you! Never have and never will. Now get the hell away from me. Ali will be back any minute and she doesn’t need to hear a word of this shit!’

  He hadn’t noticed Alison standing above them on the high dunes, her slight frame blending into the newly settled darkness. She was shaking but her voice was steady when she spoke. ‘Too late for that, Dan, I am already here.’

  They went back to the cottage separately, Dan doing his best to catch up with Alison, who didn’t know which one of them she wanted to hit harder or if she was ever going to stop crying. She could hear Dan pleading with her to wait up, that he could explain and that it was all a big mistake, but she ran as if her life depended on it. Ciara lingered at the beach, collecting the enamel cups that they had drunk the wine from and emptying the remains of the bottle on the sand. She bagged their rubbish carefully and picked up Alison’s jacket from where she had left it. Daly’s had rooms above the shop and she decided to call there on the way to the cottage and see if she could arrange one at short notice. Someone in the bar would help her, because she absolutely could not stay in the same house as Dan and Alison tonight. While she was there she decided to have a pint to steady her nerves and give them a chance to talk.

  When she reached the cottage she thought seriously about not going in, but she knew she would have to face Alison sooner rather than later. They could sort it out. She would understand, eventually. Dan was right. Stupid things happened when you were too drunk to know what you were doing. No matter how many times she repeated it to herself on the way back to the cottage, though, it never quite rang true.

  ‘Your bag is packed. There are places you can stay up in the town. I think you should go. Now.’ Alison was standing at the kitchen table, her arms folded defiantly. Her eyes were raw and her face blotchy from the tears she had shed. Dan sat on the couch, his head buried in his hands.

  ‘Look, Alison, it w
as just a stupid pissed thing we did, a kiss that shouldn’t have happened. That’s all. We can work this out. We’re best friends, for God’s sake.’

  Alison shook her head, unimpressed by Ciara’s beseeching expression. ‘Best friends don’t do this to each other. I asked you to mind Dan that night in Leachlara because I couldn’t be there. I didn’t ask you to lunge at him and try to sleep with him. I know you have had plenty of practice but this is a bit lousy even for you, don’t you think? Once wasn’t even enough – you had to try it on again tonight while my back was turned. You are a shameless bitch and I don’t want to see you again, do you understand?’

  ‘I didn’t lunge at him. Dan, tell her it wasn’t like that!’ Ciara implored.

  Dan looked at her, but before he had a chance to say anything Alison grabbed Ciara’s knapsack and thrust it in her direction. It collapsed at her feet. ‘Get out. This is between me and Dan now and you have no place being here.’

  ‘Alison, please . . .’ Ciara wasn’t ready to leave without sorting something out. Her friend would need time to calm down, but surely then it could be worked out?

  Dan rose from the sofa, his long limbs untangling themselves to their full height. He stood near to Alison, careful not to touch her, as unnatural as that felt, because he was fearful his touch would be rejected. He nodded at the packed bag and then to the door.

  ‘You should go, Ciara. Alison is right: we need to talk. They have rooms in Daly’s or the guest house across the street from there.’

  Ciara grabbed the knapsack and her coat from the arm of a nearby chair. She didn’t look at either of them as she left, stifling the desire for a backward glance. Her face was reddening with an anger and distress that she wanted neither of them to witness.