The Escape

by C. L. Taylor

  When Sean originally said he’d give us a lift I was so relieved to get off the verge I didn’t give the car a second thought. But last night I barely slept for worrying about it. It was Helen’s car, not mine. What if someone vandalised it or got it started and drove it off? What if someone reported it to the police and they knew I’d been driving it?

  ‘There’s milk over there,’ Mary says now. She points at a sideboard on the other side of the room. ‘And juice and cereal if you want it. I’ll be back shortly with your coffee and breakfast.’

  She leaves the room before I can thank her. A couple of minutes later she returns with a coffee which she places wordlessly in front of me. Ten minutes after that she enters the room with two plates in her hands.

  ‘Two breakfasts.’ She places them in front of me and Elise.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No bother.’

  I expect her to leave the room again but she doesn’t. She goes over to the sideboard and opens the cupboard. She takes out a packet of cornflakes and fills the plastic cereal dispenser. Then she does the same with the rice crispies.

  ‘First visit to Ireland?’ she asks as I cut up Elise’s sausage and bacon into small bits.

  ‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘But it’s been a long time since I was last here.’

  ‘You’re on holiday then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mary says nothing and the silence hangs heavily in the room. She isn’t done asking questions.

  ‘Will your husband be joining you?’ she asks, keeping her tone light. ‘I only ask because I do have a room with a double bed and a single but I’d need time to prepare it.’

  ‘No. It’s just me and Lee. I’m widowed.’

  Mary stops wiping down the sideboard and grips the edge, as though steadying herself.

  ‘You could travel the world and you couldn’t escape grief,’ she says softly. ‘You’d have to cut out your own heart to be free of it.’

  There’s a ring on the third finger of her left hand but I know she’s widowed, Sean told me as much in the car. I can see the pain in Mary’s eyes. Pain I caused by lying to her. Why didn’t I just tell the truth?

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I stand up and cross the dining room. ‘I’ve upset you.’

  ‘No, no.’ She stands up straighter and backs away. ‘I’m grand. You go back and finish your breakfast. You don’t want it getting cold.’

  ‘But …’

  She shoos me away. ‘Do you have any plans for today? It’s not due to rain until later, if you’re wanting to take the little one to the beach.’

  I have distant memories of playing on the beach with my cousins, of the three of us searching for shells and peering into rock pools. But it’s not my fond memories that draw me out of Mary’s B&B and down the road towards the shore. And it’s not about whether Mary thinks I’m strange for driving all this way and then holing myself away in my room for half a day. This is about Elise. She deserves a normal childhood, or as normal as I can make it given the circumstances. She needs to feel the wind on her face and the sand under her feet. She needs to run and play and squeal. I’m her mother and it’s my responsibility to show her the world and explore it with her until she’s old enough to do so herself.

  I’ve barely been out of the car since we left Cardiff, other than to walk around the ferry, enter a B&B, or when the car broke down. After years of telling myself that something awful would happen if I left the house, three utterly terrifying things happened, one after another. Paula threatened me, twice, and a strange man chased me through a shop. But I didn’t hyperventilate or have a panic attack. I shouted and I shoved. I ran and I hid. It was real danger that I was responding to, not imagined. Sweat dribbled down my back and I thought my heart was going to beat itself out of my body but I didn’t faint or collapse. I didn’t die.

  If I can survive an experience like that then I can take my daughter by the hand and I can lead her down a street I don’t remember. I can show her the sea for the very first time. If I can do this, then I can do anything.

  We reach the bottom of Main Street within minutes. On the left are rocks, pitted with tiny pools of seawater and separated from a field by a high stone wall. On the right the beach stretches as far as the eye can see. Elise squeals with joy the second we set foot on the sand. She’s bundled up in one of Ben’s old winter coats. A grey beanie covers her head and she’s wearing a pair of Transformer wellies. It’s raining lightly and there’s a strong wind, but it isn’t the weather that takes my breath away. It’s the look on my daughter’s face. Her eyes are shining and her skin is flushed with excitement. It took every ounce of determination I have to step out of Mary’s front door and walk down the street but I did it. I walked out of the door and I made it all the way to the beach. My lower back is clammy with sweat and I must have wiped the palms of my hands on my jeans countless times on the way here but it was worth it just for the look on Elise’s face. Nothing bad is going to happen. I mentally repeat the mantra my CBT counsellor taught me. I am in a safe place. Although maybe I’ll stop using the mantra. Nowhere is safe.

  ‘Sea!’ Elise tugs on my hand as she jumps up and down and points. ‘Sea! Sea, Mummy!’

  ‘I know, isn’t it wonderful.’

  I let my daughter lead me down the wet beach, past the large rocks to our left, slick with water or green with lichen or seaweed. As a child I spent hours clambering over the rocks and peering into rock pools with a bucket in one hand and a net in the other. Mum would keep one eye on me and another on the sea, to watch for high tide. One memory that hasn’t faded with time is watching the sea come in with Mum. We were holding hands – I was wearing red woollen mittens and she was wearing soft brown leather gloves. We were up on the road where it was safe, watching as a storm brought the tide closer and closer. I can still see the waves now – swallowing the rocks whole and then smashing against the brick wall at the end of Mr Galway’s garden, surf leaping and spraying over the top. I was mesmerised. I’d never seen anything so terrifying and beautiful in my life.

  ‘Mummy, look!’

  Elise tugs at my hand and gestures towards her right welly as she stomps down into the wet sand. Seawater splashes up and brown sand splatters over her wellies, jeans and the bottom of her coat.

  I glance back at the sign at the entrance to the beach warning that the rocks can become submerged, then check my watch – 9.30 a.m. Mary told us that high tide is around 12.40 p.m. We’re safe for another few hours.

  ‘I can do it too,’ I say and stomp my trainered foot onto the beach. This time we both get splashed. Elise laughs loudly.

  ‘Again, again!’

  I glance to my right. The entire beach is empty. We have the place to ourselves.

  ‘How about we run instead? All the way down to the sea?’

  My daughter’s smile widens.

  ‘OK. Three, two, one … go!’

  We sprint down the beach, Elise’s little legs going nineteen to the dozen as I take long, loping strides to match her pace. As we reach the sea, pink-cheeked and gasping, I give a small tug on her hand to stop her from speeding straight into the waves.

  ‘Let’s jump them,’ I say. ‘Here it comes. Ready, steady, jump!’

  My daughter’s shining eyes don’t leave mine as we jump and jump and jump. We’re both laughing, both gulping down lungfuls of clean, icy-cold sea air. Drizzle still mists my face and the sky is grey. We both squeal as we mistime a leap and the sea crashes over our shoes and wellies, wetting our trouser legs, wrapping the material around our skin. My daughter looks up at me, her bottom lip wobbling, and I scoop her up and into my arms. She clings to my neck, knocking my hood off my head.

  ‘Naughty sea.’ I unzip my coat with one hand and wrap it around her damp legs. ‘Shall we tell the sea off for splashing us?’

  She frowns at me, her eyes glazed with tears, ready to spill.

  ‘Shall we shout it?’ I say. ‘As loud as we can?’

  Shouting isn’t something that’s
normally encouraged, at home or at nursery, so my suggestion has the effect I was hoping for. A smile flickers at the edges of Elise’s mouth.

  ‘Naughty sea!’ she says.

  I kiss her on the cheek. ‘Louder!’

  She gazes down at the waves breaking a couple of feet away. ‘NAUGHTY SEA!’

  ‘That’s it!’

  ‘You say it, Mummy.’

  ‘Only if you say it too.’

  ‘NAUGHTY SEA!’ we shout. ‘NAUGHTY SEA!’

  There is no horizon. No end to the sea, no start to the sky. They are the same shade of grey misted together by the weather. Three weeks ago I would have been terrified by how vast they are and how tiny I feel in comparison but, right now, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful. My hair is clinging damply to my head, my fingers are almost numb beneath my thin, acrylic gloves and my legs are wet, but I feel alive. For the last three and a half years I felt like I was trapped at the bottom of a hole. I could see other people walking past above – laughing, loving and living their lives. Some would ignore me, others would glance down and then walk past. Some people stopped and shone a spotlight into the hole and shouted for me to get out.

  I tried. I tried. I tried so many times to scramble out to join the rest of the world but the harder I climbed the deeper I fell. When Elise was born she reached a hand into the hole but instead of scaling the walls to join her I pulled her in too. I kept my daughter in the hole with me for two long years and I waited and I waited and I waited for someone to lower a ladder so I could climb out. I didn’t realise there was an escape hatch in the side of the hole. I’d spent so long staring up that I didn’t think to look around me.

  I tip back my head, suck in a cold breath and whoop with joy.

  ‘Mummy!’ Elise presses her hands over her ears and screws her eyes tightly shut.

  ‘Sorry.’ I press my cold cheek against her. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. Mummy’s just really, really happy.’

  Her grip on the back of my neck tightens and her body stiffens in my arms.

  ‘Look, Mummy.’ She raises one arm and points across the beach. I follow her line of sight, to the blue car slowly tracking its way across the sand towards us.

  Chapter 44

  Mary stands quietly in the hallway and listens. It’s 7.15 p.m. and Helen and the child have been up in their room for half an hour and she can still hear the boy crying and whinging. He’d seemed so cheery over breakfast but he’s been upset for the best part of the day. Mary had quite a shock when they’d burst back into the B&B that morning, less than an hour after they left for the beach. The woman looked even paler than normal and the boy was crying. From the way Helen was carrying him over her shoulder, Mary had immediately assumed an accident, or worse, and she’d rushed out of the kitchen, her hands wet with soapsuds and her heart thudding in her chest.

  ‘No, no,’ Helen had said, when Mary asked if she should call an ambulance. ‘He’s … he’s fine.’

  She sounded breathless, as though she’d run all the way back up from the beach. Her red hair was plastered to her head, her trainers were sodden and her coat was undone. The boy still had his hat on but his trousers were wet to above the knee.

  ‘So he didn’t fall on the rocks then?’ Mary had to resist the urge to reach out and touch the child. ‘He didn’t hurt himself?’

  ‘No.’ Helen rubbed her hand back and forth on the child’s back and shush, shush, shushed him but she seemed close to tears herself. She glanced back towards the closed front door. Mary could see the fear and indecision in her eyes when she looked back at her.

  ‘You look scared,’ she ventured. ‘Did something happen?’

  She crossed the hallway and reached for the door handle but Helen cried out before she could turn it.

  ‘No!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There was a car, on the beach, it was heading straight for us so I ran.’

  Mary pressed a hand to the door to steady herself as fear flooded her heart. It was like what had happened to Niamh all over again, only her daughter was all alone when the car gunned up the road towards her. It was like history repeating itself, almost to the day.

  ‘What … what colour was it?’ she stuttered, praying that the car wasn’t a white Ford Fiesta.

  ‘Blue. Quite a small car. I couldn’t tell what type it was.’

  It wasn’t the same car. How could it be?

  ‘Jimmy.’ Mary breathed. ‘Jimmy McCall. His da’s been giving him driving lessons.’

  ‘On the beach?’ Helen still looked like she might jump out of her skin if she heard a loud noise but the fear had faded from her eyes.

  ‘Yes.’ Mary let go of the wall and straightened up. She nearly let her defences slip then. And she doesn’t let anyone see her vulnerable side. She really should close the B&B around the anniversary of Niamh’s death because putting on a brave face is getting harder, not easier. She thought her grief would ease over time but it hasn’t. It’s not as raw as it was the day that Niamh died, but the passing of time brings with it its own pain. The years roll by without Niamh and every February Mary marks what might have happened – she would have started primary school, secondary school, gone to university, graduated, been in her first job. She might have married, had a baby. Grandchildren.

  ‘Mary?’ Helen’s soft voice cut through her thoughts. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, sorry. What was I saying? Driving on the beach has been banned. The council put up signs but everyone turns a blind eye in the winter. It’s the safest way for the young ones to learn. Jimmy’s been at it for a few weeks now.’

  Helen didn’t respond. She stood in the hallway, dripping water all over Mary’s freshly cleaned tiles, with the strangest expression on her face as she hugged the sobbing child to her chest. Mary has had all sorts in her B&B over the years – couples who embarrassed her with their loud lovemaking, businessmen who never said a word other than to complain about the lack of Wi-Fi, hikers, the elderly, small family groups. All her guests had their little quirks and ways – some that made her smile, some that drove her spare – but she’d never met anyone like Helen. She was fearful and prickly at the same time. There wasn’t an air of mystery around her, there was a wall.

  ‘You might want to go and get changed,’ Mary suggested. ‘You’ll both catch a chill if you stay in those wet clothes.’

  Helen had jolted at the sound of her voice then nodded sharply and hurried off up the steps with the child still in her arms. Mary remained in the hallway for a couple of minutes, staring at the puddle on the tiles, thinking, then she snapped herself out of it and went into the kitchen to fetch a tea towel.

  Mary glances down at the basket of toys at her feet. She knows that Ben has his own toys. He was clutching a fluffy grey elephant when they first arrived at the house and she could see an iPad poking out of the top of Helen’s carrier bag. But children quickly grow tired of playing with the same thing day in, day out, and if she surprises the boy with some new playthings it might stop him crying. When Sean got in earlier he told her that the sound didn’t bother him. It bothers her though. It cuts right to the bone.

  She didn’t deliberately set out to follow Helen and Ben at lunchtime. She’d tidied all the rooms, other than theirs, and was having a welcome cup of tea in the living room when she heard the front door click. She rushed to the window and saw them walking up the road, hand in hand. They’d both changed their trousers and the boy was wearing a different-coloured hat. Mary considered her options. The house was now empty and she was free to clean their room. On the other hand the rain had finally stopped and she needed to fetch some fresh bread from the baker’s and a pad of invoice forms from the post office. It wouldn’t take her more than a few minutes and she could still finish her cleaning before anyone got back.

  I’m not spying on them, she told herself as she put on her coat, hat and boots. I’m simply making the most of a gap in the weather.

  It didn’t take long before she found t
hem on Main Road. They’d stopped outside one of the little cottages. With their whitewashed walls, tiny, deep-set windows and thatched roofs, the cottages were always a draw for the tourists. The residents joked that if they charged a euro a photo they’d be rich enough to sell up and buy a big house in Drogheda. Only Helen didn’t have a camera in her hand. She was staring at the house, as though in a trance. Mary hung back, hiding behind a large bush. If Helen looked round she wouldn’t be able to see her, but Mary still had a perfect view from between the leafless branches. She opened her handbag and held it in front of her as though she was looking inside. If anyone she knew walked by she could make an excuse about searching for some stamps or a handkerchief.

  Why was Helen staring at the house? Did she know the Kennedys? She’d spoken to Nora after Mass on Sunday and she hadn’t mentioned that she was expecting any visitors. And all Helen had said was that she was visiting Ireland for a break. Or had she? She’d barely said a word since she’d arrived. That wasn’t unusual in a guest; a lot of Mary’s customers kept themselves to themselves and Mary never pried. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that all was not right with Helen and her son. And that made her nervous.

  She’d quizzed Sean about her new house guest over breakfast but he wasn’t much help. Helen was Irish, not English, he told her. He didn’t know much more than that. Mary hadn’t been surprised by the revelation – she’d had plenty of American guests who claimed they were Irish when actually they were only distantly related – but she wanted to know more. She’d tried to engage Helen in conversation over breakfast but then the young woman had dropped the bombshell that she was widowed and Mary felt as though the carpet had been pulled from beneath her feet.

  There was no point in speculating, she decided as she closed her handbag, straightened her coat and stepped out from behind the bush. If she wanted answers she needed to be forthright.

  ‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ she commented as she approached Helen, still crouched on the pavement beside her son.