When Your Eyes Close

by Tanya Farrelly

  Call you tomorrow. N x.

  At least she knew that he was all right. She read the short message several times as though the words might change or give her some clue as to what was going on in his mind. She wondered briefly why he’d signed off with his initial. It wasn’t something he normally did. Nor was the single kiss characteristic of his usual effusive messages, punctuated with kisses after almost every sentence. But then the message itself was a mere one line.

  Michelle closed the message, put the phone on the seat next to her and started the engine. Wherever Nick was and whatever he was doing he clearly couldn’t or didn’t want to speak to her. His message had been of little consolation, save the fact that it confirmed he was alive, but that came with its own anxieties – namely that his feelings for her might have changed.

  Michelle took a deep breath and tried to still the chaotic thoughts that raced and circled in her mind. She would go home, take a shower and try to concentrate on a book or a movie, anything that might distract her from the negative feelings that Nick’s absence had caused her. She knew that to dwell too long on a fear was to fulfil the prophecy – whatever was going on with Nick right now, she told herself it probably had nothing to do with her. He would talk to her when he was ready. The last thing she wanted to do was to push him into anything he wasn’t ready for. She had to prove that she was the antithesis of everything his ex-wife had been.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Nick

  Nick woke in the night to the sound of a woman’s voice in his ear. He flailed blindly for the lamp and knocked over a glass of water on the bedside locker. When he finally found the switch, the light dispelled the auditory apparition, but failed to slow his racing heart. The voice had been distinct, angry, but what bothered him most was he hadn’t caught the words that the woman had said – and yet somehow, he knew her voice: it was Rachel’s.

  Sweating, he sat up and threw back the covers. Rachel, the woman from his dream; why was it that she seemed so real to him now? He got out of bed and pulled on his jeans. His hands were shaking badly, and a pulse throbbed in his left temple. Had he been dreaming before the voice had woken him? He didn’t remember. He just remembered the voice so close to his ear that he’d jumped.

  Downstairs, Nick switched the kettle on. He gripped the counter wishing that he’d not poured out the half bottle of whiskey that he’d had in the press two days before. The prescription that the doctor had given him lay on the living room table. He’d been prescribed Valium and Librium, drugs whose names he was familiar with but had never anticipated having to use. The doctor had said there would be withdrawal symptoms, but he hadn’t expected to feel this bad. The drugs would have helped to ease the tremors, and now with trembling hands he made a mug of coffee, heaped in four spoons of sugar, and wished that he’d heeded the doctor’s advice to have the script filled right away.

  Nick took his coffee into the living room, and rummaged in his coat pocket for his cigarettes, but then remembered he’d smoked his last in the car after his appointment – his only immediate means of self-medication gone. He sat back in his armchair, sipped the too-sweet coffee. Bars of light filtered through the venetian blind and bathed the room in the orange hue of the streetlight. It fell on the painting that Michelle had bought him for his birthday the previous month, a print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

  Michelle. He was glad she couldn’t see him like this. She didn’t even know he had a drink problem, or if she suspected it, she’d never said. He was rarely drunk. Over the years his body had developed such a tolerance that he’d had to drink more and more to feel the effects. Michelle drank, too, but one glass of wine and she was more than a little tipsy. She hated the taste of beer and he suspected that she only drank wine to be sociable.

  Nick picked up his phone and scrolled through her last few messages. She’d said that she hoped everything was all right. If only she knew how not all right things were. He knew she’d stick by him, he wasn’t afraid of that, but why should she have to? They’d only been seeing each other for eight months and he didn’t expect her to take on the burden of his illness. He knew it was going to be awful, the abstinence and the unbearable wait for a donor to be found – for someone else’s ill fate to determine his continued existence.

  He thought about the length of time it might take to find a suitable donor, if they found a suitable donor. The doctor had been frank about that. Type O negative was the rarest blood group. He had to face the facts. Apart from that there were the horror stories portrayed in the media: patients who died while on the transplant list, all because there weren’t enough people carrying donor cards. He hadn’t had one himself, had never even thought about it before he’d found himself in this bind. He hated to admit it, but Susan had been right. He’d screwed up his life.

  When he’d met Michelle, he thought that things were turning around, that maybe he had a chance at real happiness, but now he couldn’t bear to break the news to her, to drag her into his self-made mess. The thought of letting her go was agonizing, but how could they plan a future when he couldn’t be sure that, for him, such a thing even existed? She deserved so much more than that.

  Nick gulped the last of his coffee, winced at the accumulation of sugar at the bottom of the mug and thought he might be sick. The caffeine had momentarily eased the thudding in his temple, but his hands were shaking worse than ever and he wondered how he was going to get back to sleep. He remembered an all-night pharmacy that he’d seen a couple of kilometres away and wondered if he was fit to drive. Then he picked up the prescription, stuck it in his jeans pocket and pulled his leather jacket on. He needed those tablets badly.

  Outside, the rain was still coming down. Nick ran to the car; he started the engine, set the wipers on full speed and drove out of the housing estate. He was shivering, but his skin felt hot. It was almost 2 a.m. when he pulled into the shopping centre car park, which was empty save for two cars he imagined belonged to the pharmacy staff. Shivering, he cut the engine and stepped into the wet night.

  The pharmacist looked at the prescription, asked him to confirm his address and disappeared out the back. One look at him and he was pretty sure the pharmacist could identify a victim of detox. Not only were his hands shaking, he was perspiring too. His hands and face were clammy to the touch. A few minutes later, the pharmacist reappeared. He went through the directions with Nick but didn’t refer to his condition. He didn’t know what Librium was used for apart from withdrawal, but he knew that his mother had taken Valium after the shock of his father’s death, so he supposed these drugs were used to treat a number of conditions. He thanked the man, put the small pharmacy bag in the inside pocket of his jacket and went back out in the rain.

  In the car, he fumbled on the floor until he came across a half bottle of water that had rolled under the passenger seat. He swallowed two tablets and hoped that it wouldn’t be long before they began to take effect. The rain was still teeming down as he exited the car park; the wipers, set on automatic, raced to clear the windscreen. The coffee hadn’t helped; if anything, it had made him feel even more jittery. He thought of the session with the hypnotist – about what she’d said about confabulation. He’d looked it up on the Internet and the definition was just as Tessa had said: a false memory, or pseudo memory, a term that was used in cognitive psychology defined as a recollection of something that had never happened.

  He’d considered what she’d said about some people believing that confabulations under hypnosis were memories from their past lives, and he’d changed his search to ‘hypnosis and past life regression’, laughing at himself even as he did so. If only Michelle could see him now; she loved that kind of thing. He thought of all the times he’d teased her about her interest in the occult. He’d scoffed when she’d told him about her visits to an elderly gypsy lady – even when she’d insisted that the woman had known things, specific things about her family that couldn’t simply have been speculation. ‘And what does this lady do?’ he’d asked. �
�Read your palm, your cards?’ Michelle had told him that, no, the woman simply held your hand and gently rubbed it, that it was as if by touching you that she could access those private recesses of your mind. ‘Of course she can,’ he’d argued, ‘your hand probably jerks every time she hits on something and she just goes with it.’ Michelle had laughed and called him a sceptic. What would she think of him now, making appointments with a hypnotist and reading about regression and past lives?

  Nick was preoccupied with such thoughts when a dark shape suddenly stepped in the road in front of him. He jerked the wheel, thankful there were no cars on the other side of the road. Heart hammering, he pulled into the kerb and checked the rear-view mirror. The man had reached the opposite side of the road and was fumbling with something that Nick imagined to be a sleeping bag. Nick got out of the car, his legs weak, and walked back to the man who seemed ready to bed down in a doorway for the night.

  ‘Jesus, man, are you all right? I could have killed you,’ he said.

  The man looked at him unfazed and continued setting up his bed for the night, a dirty green sleeping bag that looked as though, like the man, it had been soaked through.

  Nick put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a fifty-euro note. ‘Look, get yourself into a hostel for the night, man. It’s no night to be in the street.’

  The stranger looked at him, and at the money in his hand. ‘Are you sure? I wasn’t asking …’ There were tears in the man’s eyes.

  Nick was surprised at his timbre. He didn’t sound like someone who should’ve been in the street. Embarrassed, he thrust the money into the man’s hand.

  ‘God bless you for this,’ the man said. ‘God bless you.’

  Nick dashed back to the car. When he looked in the mirror again, he saw that the man had bundled up his sleeping bag and was walking in a brisk manner in the direction of the city. Only if he were lucky, Nick knew, would he find a shelter for the night.

  Shaken by the experience, along with his symptoms, Nick drove home slowly, absorbed still by thoughts of reincarnation. In his search that afternoon, he’d come across an excerpt from a book called Many Lives, Many Masters, by a Dr Brian L. Weiss, MD, an American psychotherapist. It told the story of how Weiss, a sceptic, had learned to believe in past lives when a patient of his had been accidentally transported to a past life during standard hypnotherapy. Nick had read the two-page extract and then re-read it. It seemed that Weiss’s patient had found herself in a different time and place, just as he had. He’d refreshed his search. The Internet was full of stories of people who claimed to have lived before. Finally, annoyed with himself for even entertaining such a ridiculous idea, he’d closed down his computer. Hocus pocus, that’s all it was. What he’d experienced was a confabulation. It had to be.

  Chiding himself still for his foolishness, Nick reached the house without further incident. He knew that his jumbled thoughts were most likely a further consequence of the withdrawal from alcohol – something that he hoped the medication would help with when it had had a chance to get into his system. In darkness, he climbed the stairs, longing for the oblivion that sleep might bring and trying to put from his mind what might happen at his next session with Tessa. He would phone her to make another appointment in the morning. Regardless of what might happen, he’d need the woman’s help to quit drinking.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Caitlin

  ‘Cait love, come in.’ Gillian stood back, and Caitlin stepped into the hall, shaking the rain from her umbrella before closing the front door. She hadn’t told Gillian what had happened, not yet. Instead, she’d broken down on the phone at the sound of her mother-in-law’s voice, and Gillian had told her immediately to come over, that she shouldn’t be alone, not tonight of all nights. Caitlin had accepted gladly, packed an overnight bag, and driven straight there. All the time the man’s words resounded in her head. David’s alive, he’d said, but who was he, and what did he know? She had to find out.

  ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t talk on the phone, Gillian …’ She stood before her mother-in-law and pulled at her gloves, wondering if she had done the right thing in coming.

  Gillian put her hand on her arm. ‘Has something happened?’

  Caitlin nodded, she couldn’t keep this to herself. She had to confide in someone. And Gillian was the mother she’d never had. They’d hit it off as soon as David had introduced them.

  ‘I got a call just before you rang. It was a man. He said that David … that he was alive. He said I’m not to try to find him … that if I did, it would be dangerous … I don’t know what to make of it. I mean, why now, why today? Whoever he is, he must know something.’

  Gillian’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Did he say who he was? Did he give you any information to go on?’

  Caitlin shook her head. ‘He hung up before I could ask him anything.’

  ‘Have you called the guards?’

  ‘No, I was going to … but then I thought about what he said. I mean, what if it is dangerous? What if David’s alive and something happens to him if we get the guards involved? I don’t know what to do … that’s why I came over … I had to tell someone, do something … I’m not even sure I should be here.’

  Caitlin took off her coat and followed Gillian into the living room where a fire burned, and a soap opera played on the television. Gillian picked up the remote control and put the TV on mute. They sat opposite each other, Caitlin on the sofa and Gillian in her armchair by the fire.

  ‘What did this man sound like?’ Gillian leaned forward, eager for information.

  Caitlin shrugged, trying to remember the voice. ‘I don’t know. His accent was neutral. Definitely Irish; I think I’d have noticed otherwise. His exact words were “David’s alive. But don’t try to find him. It could be dangerous for both of you.” I wonder who he meant … David and me, I presumed – but he could have meant us, couldn’t he? That it would be dangerous for you and me to try to find him. I don’t know what to do, whether to call the police or not?’

  Gillian hesitated. ‘Okay, if what this man says is true, if David’s alive, then he’s not likely to come to any immediate harm. It’s been a year, Cait, and wherever he is, he’s been safe.’

  ‘You think we should call the Guards then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean it could be a hoax, someone who read about David in the paper.’

  Caitlin thought of the calls the guards had received in the initial stages of the investigation. They’d had numerous reported sightings of David, none of which had led anywhere. ‘It would be strange though, no? It’s been months since anything’s appeared in the paper. Why would someone decide to make a call now and not before?’

  ‘I don’t know, Cait. We have to look at all the possibilities. I don’t want to get my hopes up. Not again.’

  Caitlin nodded. ‘Oh, Gillian, I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have even told you, but I couldn’t keep it to myself …’

  Gillian stood up and placed another log on the fire. ‘What about that detective, the one we hired before? Would it be worth getting in touch with him?’

  Caitlin shook her head. ‘No, he didn’t turn up anything last time. And I didn’t get the impression he’d tried very hard either.’

  ‘Okay, I think we should tell the guards then. We can do it discreetly – not call from either of our phones-– but from someplace else. There’s every chance that this call is a hoax, Caitlin, you have to be prepared for that, but we won’t rest easy if we don’t report it. We both know that.’

  Caitlin nodded. ‘I’ll make the call from work tomorrow. No one can overhear me in the office. I’ll tell them our concerns about contacting them. I can’t see that they’ll do very much – we’re not providing them with any new information, but at least I’ll have told them.’

  Gillian sighed. ‘Hope is what keeps me going, the thought that we’ll see David again. But every time I get my hopes up, it comes to nothing and I suffer the same pain all over again. Sometimes, I think it would
be better to accept the fact that David’s not coming back. It sounds terrible, doesn’t it? But I have to get past the suffering – maybe acceptance is the only way. And you … you can’t put your life on hold. You’re a young woman …’

  Caitlin got up, crossed to Gillian and took her hand. ‘Don’t say that, Gillian. Don’t give up … we can’t. Maybe this call will turn out to be something. David’s out there somewhere, I’m sure of it.’ She squeezed her mother-in-law’s fingers, thankful that, terrible as the past year had been, it had brought them closer together. She didn’t know what she’d do without Gillian in her life. No matter what happened, she had to preserve that. ‘Do you mind if I stay tonight?’ she asked. ‘I don’t feel like going home; I don’t think I could face it.’

  David’s mother put her arm around her. ‘You know you’re always welcome, Cait. I’d be glad of the company. You don’t even have to ask. You’ve still got a key, don’t you? Come over anytime, even if I’m not here, you can let yourself in. This is your home too, same as it was David’s.’

  Caitlin nodded. With a lump in her throat, she didn’t trust herself to answer. Instead, she hugged Gillian, then got up and said she’d put the kettle on. In the kitchen, she stood at the sink and looked out at the rain beating against the window. Gillian had unmuted the television and the homely sound of chatter filled the room. She could feel David here in this house, could imagine him coming up behind her, arms wrapping round her waist as he used to do. She almost expected to see his reflection in the windowpane. Christ, there were times when she couldn’t bear it. She took a deep breath to steady herself; this wasn’t the time to come undone, not now.