Distress Signals

by Catherine Ryan Howard

  She’d packed light, she said. It was only going to be four days.

  That afternoon, at 4:18 p.m. Irish time, she sent me a text message assuring me that she’d landed safely and had made her way to the hotel. She’d collected a schedule of the conference and it was going to be an even busier and more demanding affair than she’d been expecting. I wasn’t to worry if she didn’t manage to call or text much, she said. I was just to get writing and stay writing. She’d see me on Thursday.

  The last line of her text message read:

  I won’t even get to see Barcelona! :-(

  If I’ve learned anything these past couple of weeks, it’s this: the most effective lies are the ones that are almost the truth.

  Moorsey didn’t come to the talk.

  I spoke for about an hour to a class of a hundred or so Film ­Studies students who’d packed into a lecture theatre in the basement of the Boole Library. Row after row of eager faces, Apple products and slogan T-shirts. En masse, they looked like they could eat me alive.

  I smiled nervously at the wall at the back of the room while some professor or other introduced me. I’d never done anything like it before, but as soon as I started talking and realised that I was, in their eyes, the only one with the information they needed, I started to relax. Individually they may have phrased their questions in slightly different ways, but essentially they all wanted to know the same thing: how had I come up with an idea for a screenplay and written it down and secured an agent and made a sale, and done it all from my little desk in Cork?

  ‘The short answer,’ I’d quipped, ‘is one decade and the Internet.’

  That got a good laugh. I made a mental note of it. I’d definitely trot that gem out again.

  Afterwards, a man who said he was the course convener – whatever that meant – asked if I’d be interested in coming back for a practical screenwriting session.

  ‘We want to take full advantage of this,’ he said. ‘Having a Hollywood screenwriter right here in Cork!’

  I fished a grubby-looking business card out of my wallet and told him to call me any time.

  I made another mental note: get new business cards.

  ‘I dropped out of here, you know,’ I said, still riding a wave of confidence.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Three weeks, I lasted. One of them was Freshers’ Week.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘2001.’

  ‘What course?’

  ‘English.’

  The next line was supposed to be Maybe you’ll go back someday. That’s always the way this conversation went.

  But this guy said, ‘Well, third-level education isn’t for everyone. You must be thrilled though. After all your hard work.’

  I admitted that, yes, I was thrilled. Thrilled and a little overwhelmed. I said it was as if I’d spent my whole life insisting on the existence of an invisible friend and now, suddenly, everyone else could see him too.

  The convener looked confused.

  ‘Well, thanks for today,’ he said, reaching out to shake my hand, ‘and best of luck with it all. We’ll be in touch.’

  Mental note no. 3: retire the invisible friend analogy.

  I pulled out my phone as I crossed the Quad, heading through the campus in the direction of Western Road, where I’d left the car. Drops of moisture landed on my screen as I checked for missed calls or new text messages.

  There was still nothing from Sarah.

  I’d sent her two messages last night and one earlier today. Why hadn’t she replied?

  I thought back to what I’d sent her: inane updates about the finale of a TV show we watched and my observation that the coffee she’d brought home on Saturday from one of those giant discount German supermarkets actually didn’t taste too bad, and I tried to see them as Sarah would: evidence that I wasn’t writing. She was well aware I had a procrastination problem. Her not replying might just be her not encouraging me. And she was busy; she’d told me she would be. But had she got the messages in the first place?

  I opened WhatsApp and typed a quick message to her.

  ...As soon as I pressed Send, a single checkmark appeared next to my message. After Sarah read it on her end, there’d be two. That way I’d know that she’d seen it, at least.

  There was a text message from Moorsey, saying he couldn’t get off work but that he was having his lunch in Coffee Station if I was free to join. I checked the time: just gone one o’clock. I texted him back and said I was on my way.

  Moorsey – Neil was his actual name, Neil Moore, but even his own mother called him Moorsey and he wouldn’t respond to anything but – had done everything right that I’d done wrong. I’d known him since secondary school, where he’d studied hard to get maximum points in his Leaving Cert and an award for the highest marks in Physics in the whole of Ireland. We’d both gone straight into University College Cork but he’d lasted the full four years and graduated with a first, then got some big job with the Tyndall Institute. Something to do with nanotechnology, although, typical Moorsey, he’d tell you it was mostly entering numbers on spreadsheets all day long, boring really. He’d bought a sensible house (two small bedrooms in a commuter town, price slashed because the estate was unfinished) and a sensible car (a people carrier, second hand) before I’d even managed to leave my childhood bedroom. My parents loved him, loved using him as the standard I should have aspired to. Moorsey and I joked that he was like the son they never had.

  But I’d always been happy for him. He deserved it; he’d always worked hard. Moreover, he’d always listened intently while I rambled on about screenwriting books and McKee seminars and the latest batch of rejection letters that, as per Stephen King’s instructions, I was keeping impaled on a nail hammered into my bedroom wall.

  Since the script sale though, something felt off between us. I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t made it to my talk, nor that my consolation prize was a limited block of time in which conversation would be hampered by the chewing of food.

  I found him sitting inside the window of the cafe, a Coke and a card saying ‘23’ on the table in front of him, the card angled towards the waiting staff.

  Moorsey was an Irishman straight from Central Casting: fiery-red hair, skin so pale it was bordering on translucent, a spill of freckles all over his face. Today he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with the molecular structure of caffeine on the front of it. (Not that I’d recognise the molecular structure of anything. He’d worn it – and explained it to me – before.) Whenever I began to worry that I was still wearing the same kind of clothes I had when I’d dropped out of college, that I didn’t own the tailored blazers, inexplicably tight jeans or expensive-yet-scuffed-looking brown shoes I saw all the other men my age wearing, I thought of Moorsey and felt better.

  And tried not to think about the fact that he had a PhD.

  ‘I ordered for you,’ he said as I sat down. ‘A club.’

  ‘Perfect, thanks.’

  ‘How did the thing go?’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘I was really nervous before it started but, actually, once it got going, I was fine. I was good. I was funny.’

  Moorsey blew air out of his nose in a lazy laugh, but said nothing.

  ‘They wouldn’t let you out of work?’ I asked.

  ‘No, sorry. We have this big deadline on Friday. A project’s due.’

  ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Next time.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  There was a beat of silence then, broken by the clink of ice-cubes in Moorsey’s Coke as he took a sip from it.

  Another conversational dead-end.

  I asked after Rose.

  A few months ago, Moorsey had finally found his balls and made a move on Rose, Sarah’s best friend. We’d all known each other since college, and Sarah and I had known that Moorsey li
ked Rose for about that same amount of time. I thought it was great they were together.

  ‘Rose is fine,’ Moorsey said. ‘Actually, I have some news. We’ve, ah, moved in together.’

  ‘Have you? Wow.’ In all the time I’d known Moorsey, he’d never lived with anyone besides his parents and his younger brother. This was a big deal. Things must be getting serious. ‘Wow,’ I said again.

  ‘So you’re wowed, is what you’re saying?’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  Moorsey shrugged, embarrassed. ‘Couple of weeks ago.’

  Couple of weeks ago. That stung but I didn’t let on. Why hadn’t he told me sooner? I hadn’t seen him much since then, but we had talked. Texted. Why hadn’t he mentioned that his first-ever serious girlfriend had moved in with him?

  Come to think of it, why hadn’t my girlfriend told me the news, seeing as she must have known too?

  ‘Moorsey,’ I said, leaning forward. ‘Have I been a total dick lately?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have I been a dick? About the screenplay thing?’

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Trust me when I say I’d let you know if you were.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I sat back again.

  ‘Why do you ask? Did someone say something?’

  ‘No, it’s just . . .’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I thought maybe you were annoyed with me.’

  Moorsey snorted.

  ‘Jesus, Adam. You know, I think the stress of Hollywood is getting to you. It might be time to move out of LA. Get a place on the coast. Santa Monica, maybe. Then we can stalk Jennifer Lawrence together, like we’ve always dreamed.’

  I laughed.

  ‘Okay, okay. Sorry. Maybe the stress is getting to me. They sent me notes, you know? After the sale. Honestly, there were pages and pages and pages.’ I hadn’t said this aloud to anyone yet, but now I pushed out the words that had been running around inside my head for more than a week. ‘I wonder why they bought the script at all, because it seems like they want everything in it to be different. To be honest, the thought of it . . . I’m struggling to even get started.’

  My phone beeped with a text message.

  ‘Mum,’ I told Moorsey as I read it. ‘She’s made a batch of curry and wants to drop some of it over tonight so I don’t starve to death while Sarah’s away. Great.’

  ‘I love your mother’s curry.’

  ‘Feel free to come and collect it then. I’ve been avoiding it since she started adding peas back in ’98.’

  ‘You remember the year?’

  ‘It was a traumatic time.’

  ‘Why not just tell her to leave them out?’

  ‘She thinks they’re her signature ingredient.’

  ‘But I’ve seen peas in lots of—’

  ‘I know, I know. I don’t want to burst her bubble.’

  A waitress appeared with our sandwiches. I ordered a coffee from her.

  ‘Where is Sarah?’ Moorsey asked. ‘Rose said something about her being away with work . . . ?’

  Later, replaying this conversation in my head, I’d recall how he’d looked out the window as he’d asked me that.

  ‘She’s in Barcelona. At a conference.’

  ‘Nice. You didn’t want to go too?’

  ‘I couldn’t. I have the rewrite.’

  ‘How’s she getting on?’ Moorsey asked his sandwich.

  ‘Actually, I don’t really know.’

  I picked up my club and started pulling out the chunky tomato pieces, eyeing my phone on the tabletop while I did. Still no new calls or text messages. By now, I hadn’t had any contact with Sarah for nearly a whole day.

  When I looked up again, Moorsey was looking at me questioningly.

  ‘She knows I need to write,’ I said. ‘She’s trying not to disturb me.’

  When my phone rang late on Tuesday morning, the sound jerked me from a deep sleep. I’d been up until four-thirty, trapped in a cycle of checking Twitter, admonishing myself for checking Twitter and then staring at my script on screen until I gave in and checked Twitter. This had gone on for hours until, finally, I’d crawled into bed, defeated.

  Groggy and disorientated now, I peered at my phone’s screen. The call was from a blocked number.

  I thought: Sarah.

  And: it’s about time.

  ‘Hello?’ It came out as an incoherent croak. I coughed and tried again. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Adam, is that you?’

  A woman’s voice. Older. It took me a moment to place it.

  ‘Maureen. Hi. How are you?’

  I sat up, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and wondered what Sarah’s mother could possibly be calling me for.

  Sarah had only one sibling: a brother, Shane, who lived in Canada and was nine years her senior. If you listened to the conspiratorial whispers of the relatives that cornered me at O’Connell family weddings and squealed, ‘You two’ll be next!’, Shane’s arrival had been purposefully postponed and then Sarah’s had come as quite the surprise. My own parents had taken a different tack: they got married young, had (only) me nine months later and then bided their time until I turned eighteen – or twenty-two, as it turned out – when they got their lives back, duty done. As a result, our two sets of parents seemed to me to be of entirely different generations. Mine were vibrant, strong and active while Sarah’s were quiet, subdued and frail. I wanted to reel mine in sometimes while I felt like hers needed some looking after.

  ‘God is good,’ Maureen said. ‘Yourself?’

  ‘Grand, thanks.’

  ‘How’s the film going?’

  Like all Corkonians, Maureen pronounced it fill-um. I’d taken to saying ‘movie’ instead to avoid embarrassment.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Going well.’

  I’d long given up correcting her and Jack’s misperception that what I was doing was movie-making. Positive-sounding generalities were the way to go.

  ‘Were you doing something yesterday, did I hear?’

  ‘Yeah. A talk. In UCC.’

  ‘UCC? Really? Well, isn’t that great. Good for you, Adam.’

  I smiled at this. Although I knew they liked me – they thought I was nice and kind and well brought up, Sarah said – Jack and Maur­een had always frowned upon my wanting something other than a 9–5 job because, in their minds, those were the only jobs around. As far as they knew, the sole equation that worked was good Leaving Cert + college degree + straight into pensionable job, and they prayed (literally prayed – novenas, mostly) that I would realise this before the hat-shopping began. The script sale then was like a stress-test for everything they believed about how to get ahead in life, and I knew they were struggling now with how to respond to it. Maureen had just paid me a kindness.

  ‘Is herself awake?’ she asked.

  ‘Her . . . Sorry?’

  ‘Sarah. Is she awake? I said to myself she’s probably asleep so I called your phone instead. Are you at home?’

  ‘I . . . I am, but . . .’

  She thinks Sarah is here?

  She’d forgotten that Sarah was in Barcelona and, what, she thought she could be sleeping at home this late on a weekday morning? Maureen was famously forgetful, but still, this seemed odd. Had we graduated from looking for reading glasses that were on her head and circling Tesco’s car park twice to find the car, to forgetting that her own daughter was in another country?

  ‘But, Maureen,’ I said. ‘Sarah’s in Spain.’

  ‘What, love?’

  ‘Sarah’s in Barcelona,’ I said. ‘With work. There’s a conference on, Monday to Wednesday. She flew out Sunday morning and she’s back Thursday lunchtime.’ Remember? I waited for her to say that she did. When there was no sound on the line I said, ‘She didn’t tell
you?’ even though I didn’t think for a second that that could be true.

  Away from the receiver, Maureen said: ‘He says Sarah’s in Spain.’

  A gruff male voice in the background: Jack. ‘What? But, sure, that doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Are you looking to talk to her?’ I said. ‘She has her phone.’

  Maureen, back to me: ‘We’ve been calling it. We can’t get through.’

  A rustling sound as the phone changed hands, then Jack’s voice loud in my ear. ‘We’ve been calling her since this time yesterday. There’s no answer.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure she’s just busy. There’s the conference—’

  ‘First it was ringing and ringing, but now it goes straight to the answering machine. Maureen sent some texts and left a message but she didn’t call us back, so we rang the office just now. The receptionist told us that Sarah’s out sick. Has been since Monday. We presumed she was at home, so we called you. Now you say she’s in Spain?’

  ‘She is.’ I repeated to Jack what I’d already said to Maureen: ­Barcelona, a conference, back on Thursday. ‘It’s a big office, Jack. I’m sure whoever you spoke to had just got the wrong end of the stick. It’s them that sent her there. I can call them for you, if you—’

  ‘You’ve been speaking to her?’

  I hesitated before I said, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Today?’

  I pulled my phone from my ear to check for any new missed calls or messages. ‘No. Not today.’ Sarah had sent me only one text message since she’d landed, and that had come in on Sunday afternoon.

  It was nearly Tuesday afternoon now.

  Forty-eight hours with no communication. Could she really be that busy that in two days she hadn’t found sixty seconds to type me a quick text?

  I opened WhatsApp and looked for the double checkmark. There was still only one beside the message I’d sent.

  She hadn’t read it yet.

  Maybe her phone isn’t working abroad. Or maybe it’s dead and she’s lost her charger. She could’ve forgotten to bring a European plug adaptor and she’s been too busy to find a place where she can buy another one.