When Your Eyes Close

by Tanya Farrelly

  She grabbed her phone from the bedside table, saw that it was just five minutes before her alarm usually went off. Now she disabled it, pulled on a cardigan and went downstairs.

  ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ Andy was sitting at the table. Before him, a rack of toast and an almost-full pot of coffee. Her place was set with a cereal bowl, a spoon and her mug, the one David had bought her with a cartoon cat on it.

  ‘Figured you wouldn’t have much time before work,’ Andy said, seeing her eye the setup.

  ‘I don’t usually take breakfast,’ she said. Rather than being grateful, his act, of what she would later reason was kindness, made her angry instead. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t David. She just wished so much that he was. ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ she said. ‘I assume you need to get going, so you can let yourself out when you’re done.’ She turned and walked out of the kitchen before Andy had a chance to say anything in return.

  When she came out of the shower, she listened for any sound downstairs. Hearing none, she figured Andy must have left, but minutes later as she dressed for work she heard the surge of the tap, the sound of Andy washing up his breakfast things. She wished that he would just leave, surprised by her resentment – but all his presence did was remind her of all the things she missed since David had gone.

  ‘Caitlin?’ He called her name twice before she answered. She could picture him standing at the bottom of the stairs. It wasn’t his fault, she thought. He didn’t deserve this.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, walking to the bedroom door.

  ‘I’m heading off. If you need anything, just call me.’

  ‘Thanks, I will.’ Relief, as she heard the front door bang behind him.

  When Andy had gone, she went downstairs. He’d cleaned up his breakfast things, but left her place set as it had been. She poured a mug of coffee, it was still hot. She sat at the table, booted up her computer and shook cornflakes into her bowl. On Twitter, she searched for and found the picture that had been taken in the wine bar the previous night. David A had not uploaded anything since, and she sat there staring at the image of herself, looking to one side, her violin case on her knee. Who had taken it?

  She scrolled back, once again, through the few tweets on David A’s profile, tried to think logically about what someone might have to gain by impersonating her husband. She could think of nothing except that they wished to confuse her, to set her on edge. Last night, they’d certainly achieved that goal. She’d been glad of Andy’s offer to stay over, had slept all night knowing that she wasn’t alone, that she was safe from whoever it was that was playing games with her. With that thought came regret about the way she had responded this morning to Andy’s being there.

  She remembered the message she’d received from Dar Bryan. She opened it now. It was short, a simple apology for not having replied … and a few lines to say that he’d appreciated her listening. Nothing to suggest that he was the creep who was impersonating David, but then how could she know for sure?

  Caitlin looked at the clock, gulped down the last of her coffee and put her mug in the sink. She thought of the man who had been at the gig the night before, the one Andy had been suspicious of. Nick, he’d said his name was. She’d had a strange sensation that she knew him, felt the oddest pull towards him. She could understand why Andy was suspicious, but she’d felt no discomfort, had detected no malice in his presence. Instead, she’d wanted him to speak to her, had felt disappointed when he’d returned to his table after exchanging just a few words. Her gut response to him had surprised her. It wasn’t that she felt attracted to him, she hadn’t felt like that about any man since she’d met David, and even less so since he’d been gone. She’d felt something though, an urge to talk to this stranger, who could, she reasoned, be anybody, could, as Andy suspected, be the man who was watching her. And yet, incomprehensibly, she was sure he wasn’t.

  Caitlin arrived late at the office. She sat at her desk and opened her email. There were several articles that had been forwarded to her that needed approval. She’d be stuck there late no doubt, but she didn’t mind. It was better to cram her head with work, leave no space for other things. First, she’d check just one more time. She logged into Twitter, clicked again on David A’s account. Nothing new. She thought about what Andy had said, to follow his profile and see what happened. She hovered the cursor over the button, thought of the message that would appear in the man’s notifications: @CaitlinDavis is following you.

  Click. Now she’d wait and see what he did next.

  ‘Caitlin?’ She looked up to see her assistant, Jenny, standing in the doorway. ‘Noelle Travors has withdrawn that article she sent us on near-death experiences. Apparently, she got a better offer.’

  Caitlin shook her head. ‘Right. Next time she sends something, reject it. She’s a pain to deal with, and frankly, I think we can do better. There was an interesting one about obesity in children, run that instead.’

  ‘Right-o. Everything else is on track.’

  Caitlin turned back to the screen as Jenny returned to her desk. New tweets scrolled before her. Her attention was caught by one from Dar Bryan – a retweet of an appeal for a missing man. Caitlin clicked on the link.

  Chris Hoey was last seen leaving his staff Christmas party in the Russell Court Hotel in Harcourt Street in 2012. New CCTV footage had placed Chris talking with a man outside a twenty-four-hour garage in Ranelagh. Gardaí hoped that this new information would jog someone’s memory. They said that they were anxious to talk to the man who’d spoken to Chris on the forecourt that night.

  Caitlin retweeted @darbryan1’s tweet and logged out of her account. What chance was there that anyone would come forward with information? Slim, she guessed. People didn’t want to become involved, didn’t want to be embroiled in someone else’s problem. She knew that only too well.

  For the next few hours, Caitlin worked steadily. She read through articles, approved them or returned proofs to Jenny. She was entirely absorbed when the receptionist, Maeve, appeared at the door, smiling, carrying a bouquet of pink and white flowers.

  ‘Special occasion?’ Maeve said, coming into the office and holding the bouquet out to Caitlin.

  ‘No. Are you sure they’re for me?’

  ‘Yep, the envelope says so.’ Caitlin stood up to take the flowers.

  ‘Will I get you something to put them in? I think there’s a vase in the canteen …’

  ‘Yes, if you wouldn’t mind,’ Caitlin smiled. Anything to get Maeve out of the office. As soon as she was gone, she looked at the envelope. Her name was there in black ink written in a cursive hand, the florist’s probably. She opened it and withdrew the small card with gold-embossed edges.

  For Caitlin – in admiration always … x.

  Seeing Maeve return, she shoved the card back into the envelope, forcing a smile as Maeve fussed with the flowers, positioning them in the vase.

  ‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ she said. Caitlin agreed, knowing that Maeve was hoping she’d expand on that and tell her who they were from. At least she had the tact not to ask. Maeve had only worked for the magazine for six months, but she figured the girls would have filled her in about her circumstances. Everyone loved a good tragedy. As soon as Maeve had exited the office, Caitlin took the card from its envelope again, closed the office door and phoned the number of the florist.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Michelle

  Michelle couldn’t sleep that night after all that Nick had told her. And in the early hours of the morning she rose, sat down at her laptop and typed in the names of John and Rachel Davis. After some scrolling, she found the newspaper story that she’d seen on Nick’s computer and read it again. She had told Nick that it didn’t matter, that it was a different life, that he was a different person, but she wasn’t sure if she really believed that herself. Curious about Caitlin, and whether Johnny might have any other living relatives, she searched for and found a copy of his obituary. ‘Survived’, it said, ‘by his fat
her, Dr Maurice Davis, his mother Celine, sister Lydia, and daughter, Caitlin. John Davis had been waked at his family home and had been removed to Saint Brigid’s Church in Castleknock.

  Caitlin paused. If Johnny’s father had been a doctor, there was the possibility that he had worked at home. A lot of doctors had in those days. She opened a new search engine and typed in the doctor’s name and Castleknock. Instantly, the surgery’s address appeared. Michelle grabbed a pen and scribbled down the details. She then looked at the other sites that the search engine had brought up: Dr Maurice Davis had died in 2010, aged 86. He was survived by his daughter, Lydia. It was a long shot, but there was every possibility that Lydia Davis still lived in the family home.

  Michelle went back to bed after her search, managed to catch some broken sleep, and then rose early with two things on her mind. First, she would call Caitlin Davis’s magazine and propose writing an article, and then she would make her way out to Castleknock to see if she could find Lydia. If anyone could tell her what Johnny Davis had been like before the murder-suicide, it was his sister.

  At ten o‘clock, Michelle tapped in the number of New Woman and asked to speak to Caitlin. She was asked to hold the line, followed by the drone of elevator music. The previous evening, as she and Nick had browsed Caitlin’s profiles on social media, she’d changed her plan of writing an article about health and fitness: it was too run-of-the-mill. They probably ran articles about it every other week. Caitlin’s tweets were about missing persons and human rights, so it was far more likely that an article about homelessness would appeal to her. And given recent events, Michelle had a strong urge to write one.

  ‘Hello. Can I help you?’ the voice was bright, upbeat.

  ‘Hi, am I speaking with Caitlin Davis?’

  ‘No, this is Jenny. I’m the assistant editor. What can I do for you?’

  Disappointment. The assistant editor: of course it was too much to think that she’d have got directly through to Caitlin. She probably received hundreds of calls every day, most of them fielded by her assistant. Never mind, it was a starting point. She could only hope that the subject would interest Caitlin enough to enable her to speak to her directly later on. She launched into her proposal with Jenny, who made encouraging sounds and asked if she could put her proposal in writing and send it directly to her. Michelle did more than that. As soon as she started writing, she discovered that it was easier for her to write the article than to sum it up in a few sentences.

  She began by explaining her reasons for volunteering with the Simon Community. She talked about the people she’d met in her years of working with those who’d fallen through society’s cracks, wound up by lamenting the loss of the man who had died outside the government offices, hoped that his tragic death would bring to light the seriousness of the homelessness crisis to a seemingly blind Establishment. She read over her work, satisfied that the article said everything she felt was necessary, that the language was as concise as she could make it. She felt a frisson of excitement as she attached it to the email, which she hoped would satisfy the assistant editor and make its way onto Caitlin Davis’s desk.

  Rather than sit around and wait for a response, she decided to tackle the second thing on her list: she grabbed her car keys and drove out to Castleknock, where she hoped she would find Lydia Davis.

  An hour or so later, as Caitlin turned into the estate, she slowed down to check the address again. A left brought her onto the avenue, and she drove slowly past the row of identical houses, scanning the numbers on the doors for number ten. A middle-aged woman out sweeping leaves from her driveway stopped to lean on the brush and watch her go past. Michelle slowed to a stop. Number ten was two doors down from the sweeper, whose eyes followed her in curiosity.

  Without looking at the woman, Michelle got out of the car and walked up to the front door. The house was well-kept, the owner had made an attempt to make it look different from their neighbours’ by changing what seemed to be the standard front door. They’d had the windows replaced too with brown double glazing adorned with a stained-glass rose in each of the small opening sashes. The person who lived here had aspirations above this old estate.

  Michelle rang the bell and waited for an answer. She’d rehearsed what she’d wanted to say, but still she had no idea how the woman might react to her. Didn’t most people shun journalists, close doors in their faces with a no comment? She braced herself as she heard a noise within, tried to arrange her face into not quite a smile, but a friendly demeanour.

  ‘Yes?’ She knew immediately that the woman who opened the door was not Lydia Davis. She was too young, not much older than she was. Her daughter perhaps?

  ‘Hi, I’m looking to speak to a Mrs Davis … Lydia?’

  ‘I’m afraid you won’t find her here. I’ve been living here for almost ten years. I did get bills in the beginning addressed to someone by the name of Davis, but I’ve no idea where she moved to.’

  Disappointed, Michelle thanked the woman, and walked back down the driveway. Lydia could be anywhere. She could be dead for all she knew.

  ‘Miss?’

  Michelle looked up, startled, to see the woman with the sweeping brush beckon her.

  ‘I couldn’t help but hear … you said you were looking for Lydia?’

  Michelle nodded. ‘That’s right. Do you know how I might get in touch with her?’

  The woman looked at her keenly. ‘Are you a relative?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s related to a family matter,’ Michelle answered.

  The woman nodded. ‘You’ll find Lydia living out on the old Ashbourne Road. She has a mobile home out there. Doesn’t mix with no one. It’s Bill Thornton’s land, but he doesn’t mind, let’s her stay there. She’s been there near on a decade now.’

  Michelle tried not to look surprised. ‘Can you tell me where it is exactly?’ she asked.

  She listened, attempted to make a mental record as the woman gave her some convoluted directions out to Thornton’s field. She got the general gist, but knew she’d have to stop for directions on the way.

  The young one working in the service station didn’t know anything about Thornton’s field.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ she said, chewing gum disinterestedly as she took the coins for a bottle of Coke that Michelle didn’t want and counted out her change. A man came out from the back of the shop just as she was about to turn away from the counter, and she tried her luck again.

  ‘Bill Thornton?’ the man said. ‘About two miles out the road there. Keep on till you pass the Bell Tower; the house is away over the field, but it’s the first one you’ll come to.’

  Michelle thanked him, took a long swallow of the Coke seeing as she had it, and got back behind the wheel. Before long, she came upon the pub the man had told her about, and shortly after she spotted Lydia Davis’s mobile home in the field. Beyond it, a long way off the road, stood Bill Thornton’s white house.

  Michelle pulled in as close to the farm gate as she could and checked her mirror before stepping out. The place, which she imagined was once all fields, now ran parallel to a dangerously busy road. She pulled back the bolt on the gate and followed a track worn in the grass to the door of the mobile home. As she drew nearer she heard a radio playing inside, but she could see nothing through the net curtains that shaded the small windows. She tapped on the door, stood back and waited. A shuffle of steps and the door was pulled open. The woman who stood before her looked older than she’d expected. She squinted at Michelle with suspicion.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m looking to speak to Lydia Davis?’

  ‘What do you want?’ There was no hint of anything akin to friendliness in the brusque voice.

  Michelle pushed on. ‘I was hoping to talk to you about your brother, Johnny … about what happened in the eighties. I’m writing an article about domestic crimes … what might lead to such terrible events …’

  ‘I’ve nothing to say about it,’ the woman told her. ‘Thought I’d se
en the last of you lot. You just can’t leave it alone, can you?’

  Before Michelle had a chance to say anything more, the woman had slammed the door and gone back inside.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t come to upset you,’ Michelle called through the door. ‘I simply wanted to find out what Johnny was like … I’m not here to judge anyone.’

  Suddenly, the radio was turned up, drowning out her words. Lydia had made her point. There was nothing more to do but leave.

  Michelle hadn’t driven a quarter of a mile when a jangling started up from her pocket. With a glance in the mirror, she swerved onto the hard shoulder and grabbed it before it could stop.

  ‘Hi Michelle. This is Caitlin Davis of New Woman. I’m just ringing to tell you that we really like your article, and we’d like to run it next week.’

  Caitlin. Nick’s daughter. This was her chance. ‘Hi Caitlin. I’m delighted to hear that. That’s great.’ Her mind raced, thinking through what she could say to keep Caitlin Davis on the phone, to persuade her to meet.

  ‘I’ve got some other ideas that I’d like to discuss with you,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes?’ There was interest in Caitlin’s voice. ‘That’s good. I’d like to run a series of articles in the coming weeks. Clearly, you’ve written this from an insider’s perspective and it rings true. It tells people what it’s really like out there on the streets. I wondered if we could do some follow-ups, maybe you could interview people, tell their stories. They wouldn’t have to be named, of course, but to heighten awareness …’

  ‘I’d love to,’ Michelle said. ‘I’d appreciate the chance … I wonder if it would be possible to meet to discuss it? I’m sure you’re very busy, but …’

  ‘No. That would be good. Let me check my calendar, we’ll run with this one next Friday, but we could meet before that … maybe this Wednesday, would twelve o’clock suit?’