‘What rustle?’
‘The rustle of the summoned dead.’
‘You’re cracked, Shane.’
‘Am I? Don’t tell me you didn’t see them chasing in mid-air after the car?’
‘Are you on drugs or what?’
‘Surely you saw them, Joey, pressing against the car, beating on the glass. It was you they were there for – not trying to claim you, but to protect you. All those dead souls, frantic with worry for you. Only an extraordinary love could have summoned them. It was your father’s love; I could see him among them.’
‘Stop these lies now, Shane. I’ve had enough of your mind games.’ I was so annoyed that I wanted to punch him, yet I was also weirdly intrigued.
‘I have known extraordinary evil,’ Shane replied, ‘so I can recognise extraordinary love. I can’t believe you didn’t see him through the windscreen, his hands trying to slow the car, desperate to keep you safe. Our mad drive summoned him and he’s still here, right behind you. I know because I have the power to see the dead. Don’t bother looking around, because you obviously don’t. But here’s your chance to say the things you always wanted to say to him, Joey. This time he will really be able to hear.’
I wanted to call Shane a liar and a spoof, but out there in that dark wilderness, looking across at the lights of Blackrock, I didn’t know what to believe any more. Or maybe the thought was just so tempting that I wanted to believe him. Because Shane’s earlier manic energy was gone; he looked drained as he spoke again, ‘I never meant to frighten you on the bridge, Joey, but my only way to summon him was to drive at that speed. I was bringing you to your gig, the gig you always dreamed of playing. Be honest: if you had a choice between playing the biggest venue in Europe or playing for your dad alone, you’d play for him here and now.’
Shane patted my shoulder and walked off through the darkness. I said nothing to him. I said nothing to anyone, because how could I when there was no one around? There was just the wind and the sea and the distant lights of my birthplace. But then – maybe because I needed to fill that silence – after a time, I spoke. I didn’t know who I was addressing, just that I found myself saying things I had always wanted to say, words I could never utter to a living soul because they were too naked and confused to make any sense. But these were my true emotions: my expression of love for my lost dad, my sense that I could never fill his shoes or fill the aching void that seemed to still exist in my mum’s life.
When I ran out of things to say, I picked up that stolen blue guitar and began to play, simply for myself, because who else was out there? I sang every song I had ever written and I sang them better than I had ever sung before. Finally, when I had no songs left, I just sat there in the dark. Then, from nowhere – though of course they had to come from inside my head – I heard words spoken. That was sweet playing, Joey; you’re going to be fine, son. I didn’t look up, but it felt like a weight had lifted off my shoulders.
Almost immediately, there was a sudden whoosh of flame. I looked around and realised that Shane had set the stolen car alight. Perhaps he did so to destroy any trace of our identities or maybe he meant it as a beacon to guide me back to him. But that burning car amid the sand dunes seemed like a funeral pyre for my father. I sensed that I would be all right, that we were saying goodbye to each other, letting one another move on. I felt eerily calm. Putting down the stolen guitar, I walked back towards Shane. When I reached the burning car we shook hands and raced through the dark to get off the island before anyone could catch us. As we crossed the wooden bridge, the tide was coming in, the water glistening so oddly in the moonlight that it felt like running through the landscape of a dream.
NINETEEN
Shane
August 2007
On the night they visited Thomas’s house, Shane once again dreamed that water was about to engulf him. But this time, whispering voices populated his dream. When he woke, there was silence in the duplex on the site of the old convent on Sion Hill, but his heart beat so loudly he was certain it would wake his parents in the next bedroom. Shane longed to tell his dad about meeting the old man who had known his grandfather. Back in Sallynoggin, he had discussed everything with his dad on long evenings playing soccer together on the green opposite their old house. But Shane decided it was wiser to say nothing now, because his parents would be angry with him for breaking into that old dairy and would make him promise never to go back. Thomas was a disturbingly lonely figure, but during the next three days, Shane could not explain his overwhelming desire to return to that house.
Each morning, he met Geraldine as usual outside the library, but the easy familiarity between them was strained. They felt burdened by having sworn to keep Thomas’s secret. They spent their time whispering and wondering what to do next. They hated to imagine anyone dying, but wanted to respect Thomas’s wish to be allowed to do so alone. Yet Geraldine could not sleep with the thoughts of the pain Thomas might be in. Her gran noticed the change in her as she went into Geraldine’s bedroom to turn off the light.
‘You’re very tense,’ she said, ‘is anything wrong?’
Curling up in the bed, Geraldine imagined Thomas lying alone on a damp mattress. She had seen little food in his house, and she worried that he might not have money to buy any.
‘Do you mind if I take some food from the kitchen?’ she asked. ‘Just a few tins of soup and juices and that.’
Her gran stroked her hair. ‘Fire away, if it’s for a good cause. Is it for a sale-of-work?’
Avoiding the question, Geraldine asked her gran, ‘Do I look like my mum?’
‘Yes, especially when you smile. But at times you remind me of my own mum.’
‘And your mother’s maiden name was Fleming?’
‘That’s right.’ She leaned over Geraldine. ‘You look stressed. Is there anything you want to talk about?’
Geraldine wasn’t used to keeping secrets from her gran. It was a horrible feeling.
‘No,’ she lied. ‘I just want to go asleep, Gran.’
The next day, Geraldine raided the kitchen and filled an old pillowcase with food that she thought an elderly person might like. She asked Shane to meet her at the entrance to Castledawson Avenue after dinner. However, Shane’s parents had such a row that it was dusk before he had patched up an uneasy truce between them and could safely slip away.
When they reached the old house, he suggested knocking at the front door, but Geraldine said that Thomas would not answer. So they climbed over the back wall and forced their way down the slope. Soon they were peering in through the basement window. It looked frighteningly dark in there, but Geraldine was determined to deliver the food. At least when she tried to sleep tonight, she would know that Thomas was not hungry.
They scrambled in through the window. Geraldine wanted to call out to Thomas, but felt unable to break the silence that seemed to weigh down on them as they left the kitchen and climbed the steps up into the hall. The room where they had encountered Thomas was empty. Everything was gone except for the bare mattress. Perhaps Thomas had checked himself into a hospital. Geraldine felt relieved to no longer be burdened with his secret. But Shane experienced an unfathomable disappointment, as if he had been summoned here by a sense of destiny he could not explain. They went back out to the hallway and Shane suggested that they explore upstairs. At the foot of the main stairs, he shone his torch up into the darkness. But it looked so frightening that neither of them seemed able to take the first step.
They hesitated, uncertain of what to do next. Then they were startled by a sudden smash of glass at their feet. Geraldine screamed and gripped Shane’s hand. He switched on his torch. Neither of them knew what to expect.
TWENTY
Joey
November 2009
It was three a.m. when I got home from Bull Island, but I knew Mum would still be waiting up, reading a thriller from the library. I had to knock because I realised that I had left my key in my schoolbag in Shane’s. Our house had not ch
anged much since I was small. The rooms had been repainted several times, and last summer Mum had splashed out on a new sofa and carpet. But, essentially, the rooms seemed frozen in time since my childhood. This made our home feel like a haven where I would always be safe. Mum was more than just my mum; previously we had been too close to have secrets. But now, standing before her as she opened the front door, I felt robbed of the comforting sense of being safely home, because while I didn’t want to lie to her, how could I tell her the truth about what I had been involved in tonight?
I knew Mum must have sensed this, because she said, ‘I don’t like what he’s doing to you.’
‘Who?’
‘Your new friend. It’s like he’s trying to draw you away from me. Every time you come home after being with him I can see his influence subtly changing you.’
‘Mum, you know you can’t pick my friends.’
‘Nor do I want to pick a fight with you. I always knew that one day you’d grow up and I wouldn’t be part of your life in the same way again. Just don’t hide things from me, Joey; it’s the loneliest feeling in the world to have someone lie to you.’
‘You don’t have to be alone.’ I felt a stab of betrayal for parroting Shane’s words. ‘It’s not fair to blame your loneliness on me.’
‘Is your friend saying I’m lonely? Is he even starting to colour how you see me? You can be alone without being lonely. The truth is, Joey, I was never willing to settle for second best after your dad died. We had a fiery relationship, but it was never dull. I always knew when he was up to something, though, and it’s the same with you. When you walked in tonight and gave me that guilty smile, you were a dead ringer for him. The world is full of dangers at three a.m.’
‘I wasn’t in any danger,’ I lied.
‘There’s more than one kind of danger.’
‘I wasn’t with a girl or anything.’
‘I would know if you had been because I learned all the tell-tale signs.’
‘Mum, let’s not have this conversation.’ I was scared that my perfect image of my father would be ruined. He had felt so close on Bull Island that I’d forgiven Shane for stealing the car, thinking Shane had orchestrated everything to bring me closer to my dad’s spirit. Now, I had the uneasy sensation that Shane had arranged all this to drive a wedge between my mum and me.
She looked jaded as she headed from her bedroom. ‘I want no secrets while you’re under my roof. Like your dad, you have talent, but like him, you’re also easily led. Take the guitar away from him and he was a bit of a lost soul. He always tried to find his way home but he could be easily led astray. It’s time you knew this. Don’t be led astray, Joey, especially by someone you can’t trust.’
TWENTY-ONE
Shane
August 2007
When Shane shone his torch at Geraldine’s feet in the hallway of the old house, he discovered the shards of an old-fashioned milk bottle shattered on the flagstones. They both wanted to run. The silence was broken by a guilty chuckle overhead.
‘That was childish of me,’ a voice said. ‘But as a boy I always longed to toss a milk bottle over these banisters. My mother would have beaten me black and blue, but I suppose I can risk it now when there’s no one left alive to tell me what to do.’
Shane’s torch lit up Thomas’s face leaning down to gaze at them. The beam was weaker than before, the batteries running low. Shane realised that he really didn’t know whether this man was someone he could trust.
‘You scared us,’ Geraldine said indignantly. ‘We could have been hurt.’
‘That’s true,’ Thomas said. ‘But I did tell you not to come back.’
‘We brought food,’ Geraldine explained. ‘We’re sorry if we’re disturbing you, but we didn’t know if you were hungry.’
Thomas turned his face away and when he looked back down, even though the torchlight was weak, Shane thought he saw tears in his eyes. ‘You’re not disturbing me,’ he said softly. ‘The greatest act of human kindness is to bring food to a hungry man.’ Awkwardly, he wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve and smiled. ‘For that, you deserve a full tour of the house.’ He saw them exchange a hesitant look. ‘It won’t take long, although it seems that my brothers never threw anything out.’
Thomas lit a candle and held it aloft as they slowly ascended the staircase to join him. Geraldine placed the food parcel at his feet and Thomas bent to examine it. ‘Thank you again,’ he said to Geraldine and then he looked at Shane. ‘You’re brave to come back, but your grandfather was also brave. Jack was a good friend to me. One part of me hoped I would see you again; another part of me prayed that you’d forget I exist.’
‘We were worried about you,’ Shane said.
‘There’s no need to worry. The doctors in America kindly gave me six to nine months to live.’
‘How long ago was that?’ Geraldine asked.
The old man smiled. ‘Sometime between six and nine months ago. The tablets keep the worst of the pain at bay, but they are so strong they make me giddy. It means that when I’m not in pain I feel as lightheaded as a boy again.’ He picked up a dusty milk bottle from the row assembled at his feet. ‘Let’s see who can strike the front door from here.’ Leaning over the banisters he flung the bottle. It smashed on the flagstones, well short of its target. He offered Geraldine a bottle.
‘You can’t throw bottles inside a house,’ Geraldine protested.
‘Why not?’
‘You just can’t. It’s … ’ Geraldine searched for the word her gran would use, ‘… irresponsible.’
‘True,’ Thomas agreed. ‘But the time to be responsible is when one is a lot older than you are now and a lot younger than me. Finally, this is my house, where no tyrant of a mother can tell me what to do.’
‘I’ll throw one so,’ Shane volunteered. ‘I bet you I can hit the door too.’
‘I’ll expect nothing less.’ Thomas handed him the bottle. ‘Seeing as it was your grandfather who thought up this game. I just needed to wait three-quarters of a century to play it. Molly and Jack used to laugh about what my mother would do if we actually tried this. Go ahead, fill Jack’s shoes.’
Thomas made it sound like a test. Shane hurled a milk bottle that smashed inches short of the front door. He enjoyed the sensation and the thought that somehow his grandfather’s boyhood ghost might be watching. ‘Have a go,’ he urged Geraldine, but she was still reluctant until Thomas placed a dusty bottle in her hands.
‘Last winter I was in a New Jersey asylum,’ he said. ‘Not because I was mad, but you learn to fake madness when your bones are too old to spend another winter sleeping on the streets. An attorney tracked me down to say that I had inherited this property. The site is worth millions as development land. It’s funny – all my life I had time and no money. Now when I finally have money, I’m running out of time. Soon this will be no one’s home, Geraldine, so be irresponsible; break anything you like because some developer will dump all my brothers’ hoarded possessions into a skip and nobody will remember the lives lived here.’
Geraldine flung the bottle over the banisters and gave a guilty giggle when it smashed on the flagstones. She thought of how, in time, everything – even her treasure trove box of mementos – would eventually wind up in a skip; of how everything is forgotten when there is no one left to remember. But she didn’t dwell on such dark thoughts because the throwing contest developed into a frantic free-for-all. It was finally Shane who struck the front door. He bowed as Geraldine applauded and Thomas presented him with a chocolate bar from the food they had brought.
‘My apologies for not having a bigger prize; you see, I will only become rich after I sell this house. But I have refused the solicitors permission to put it up for sale until they are certain I am dead.’
‘How will they know?’ Geraldine asked shyly.
‘Once a week, I phone them when I slip out to buy food and painkillers. They have instructions to break down the front door if they receive no phone call for
three weeks. They will find me dead here with directions for my funeral. They will also find my will hidden away. I haven’t finalised it yet, because I am not sure who to leave my wealth to. Maybe I should leave it to one of you. Why do I feel that you have a secret wish to be rich, Shane?’
‘I didn’t come here for money,’ Shane said, embarrassed. ‘We came to bring you food.’
‘That means a lot to me,’ the old man said, ‘because I have known true hunger. When the taste of hunger gets inside you, you never lose it. I remember once eating berries on the side of the Dublin mountains at dawn when I was sent to collect someone. It was the first thing I had eaten in days. Since then, I have often been hungry for food, hungry for peace of mind, hungry most of all for human company. All my life, I’ve been cursed with a restless soul. So many cities, so many labouring jobs, so many trains and open roads, so many beaches to comb at dawn for anything washed up that I could salvage or save. You can cope with an empty stomach, but the most terrible hunger of all is to go through life starved of human companionship.’
Thomas closed his eyes and Shane could only guess at what loneliness he was remembering. The candle flickered and the boy was afraid that it was about to go out, but when Thomas opened his eyes the flame grew still.
‘My gran will be worried about me,’ Geraldine said. ‘We have to go.’
Thomas nodded. ‘That’s wise,’ he murmured. But as the teenagers made to leave, he slumped forward. Putting both hands to his face, he rocked back and forth.
‘Are you in pain?’ Geraldine asked, concerned.
Thomas lowered his hands to stare at the girl. His eyes looked different than they did a moment before. Shane couldn’t decide if they were wistful or cunning as they turned their gaze towards him. ‘I prayed you wouldn’t come back, young O’Driscoll, but a more selfish part of me hoped you would. I haven’t much strength left and there’s one task I can’t do on my own.’
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