When I am older, I am going to find the highest bridge in the world and I am going to sit right at its edge so that I can see for miles and miles of water below and no one is going to stop me. Not Dad, not Simon and definitely not Mum.
Today is another one of ‘those days’ when Mum is having a lie-down and Marilyn is having a sleepover. This is not good news because when Marilyn stays over to make sure Mum is okay, it means that Dad won’t come home for a few days. I know this because Mum was meant to make us chicken drumsticks but now Marilyn is making them downstairs and it’s past six and Marilyn is meant to go home at five.
I have a tummy ache. I better go and eat my dinner.
*Note to Lucy Harte: Find the tallest bridge in the world. (Bring Henry… maybe.)
Chapter 12
I am sitting on my bed munching toast and reading Lucy’s diary as the rain pelts down outside and for the first time in a long time I feel warm, cosy and… safe. Yes, I feel safe here in this little apartment I never thought could feel like home.
I hear the hum of traffic from outside but I can honestly swear that the real world and what is going on out there is of no interest to me at this time. I am engrossed. I am right back there with Lucy on that bridge and I can feel her breathe in and out and lap up the peace and quiet that she got when she went to her little runaway place.
I can feel the knots in her stomach as she worried so much about her mother’s drinking that she had to hide away and wait for it to subside, only to go home to find her mum hiding in bed, her father gone and this Marilyn lady filling in the gaps of her parenting.
I’ve never thought of bridges as a thing of passion but I love how she saw them in the most simplistic way – a thing that gets you to the other side of somewhere. A place to sit on top of the world. A place to escape from all your troubles.
I open up my laptop and Google the Tarn Valley region of France and for the first time I see the huge viaduct that stretches across the river. At 343 metres high, it is known to sometimes sit in the clouds, which is bound to feel like the top of the world, for sure! My eyes widen at the prospect of actually going there, just like Lucy had hoped to one day.
My phone rings and instead of avoiding it like I normally do, I smile when I see that Flo is calling me for an update. For once, I am ready to talk about something positive instead of dwelling on all the usual shit that has masked the real me for too long.
‘I am so bloody insanely jealous, is it wrong for me to say that?’ she asks. ‘I just think this could be the best thing that has ever happened to you. It’s so exciting and my life is so boring, but you deserve this, Maggie! You so deserve it!’
I hear Billie in the background making his usual random aeroplane noises and I can just picture Flo trying to hear me over his drone, blocking one ear with her finger and concentrating.
‘Don’t be jealous, not yet anyhow,’ I reply to her. ‘I haven’t done anything with it yet. Oh, Flo, she was such a little sweetheart and so endearing and so, well, she was real, you know? This is making her real to me.’
I can hear Flo gulp on the other end of the phone.
‘Did you just gulp?’
‘I did just gulp. Oh, I am thrilled for you, Mags,’ she whispers. ‘Billie will you be quiet!’
She doesn’t whisper the second part of her sentence. She screams it so loudly I have to pull away my phone from my ear.
‘So, now you’ve perforated my eardrum –’
‘Sorry!’
‘It’s okay, I have another one. Anyhow, I’ve been looking up the tallest bridge in the world so that I can go and visit it for Lucy and it looks like a really beautiful place in France. I’m going to go there soon and – is Billie okay?’
There are weird sounds coming down the phone now and I’m not sure if Flo is still listening to me.
‘Yes, yes,’ she says. ‘He’s just pretending to be a walrus. It’s his latest phase. All good. Anyhow, back to you and Lucy. So, France, Maggie? Wow-wee! When are you going?’
I flick through Lucy’s little notebook as I speak to my best friend.
‘I’m not sure. I don’t know where to start with all this, to be honest,’ I tell her. ‘There are about ten things in this book that I want to get through but the tallest bridge is just the one she started with. It’s a lot to take in. I swear, I can’t believe Simon left this all with me.’
‘He sounds like a really sweet guy,’ says Flo. ‘And, believe me, there are few of those around, from what I can see.’
A sweet guy, unlike Jeff…
I allow Jeff, for just a fleeting second, to enter my mind and then I shut him out again and turn my attention back to Lucy and my conversation with Flo. I haven’t told anyone apart from Simon about Jeff’s baby news and I am not up to telling it just yet.
‘You’re sounding more like the old Maggie already,’ she says. ‘And you’re not even drunk.’
I could take that the wrong way, but she is right. I am not even drunk. I have not had a drink since Simon left. And, best of all, I hadn’t even noticed until she pointed it out just now.
‘Ah, Flo, I’m still a bloody wreck, but I’ll get there,’ I whisper down the phone to my best buddy.
I look across at Lucy’s notebook. Just the sight of it gives me great comfort and, strangely, it’s like companionship, like I am not alone.
I hear Flo gulp again, which means she is worried again. I wish I didn’t make the people who love me worry so much.
‘You get back to your list and all of your amazing, exciting planning. Go back to Lucy Harte and let her innocence and ambitions mend your soul. You deserve it, pal.’
We say our goodbyes and I put the phone down and lie back on my pillow. Flo is right. This is a new beginning for me and something I would never have imagined in my whole life. Lucy Harte and her little diary are presenting me with a glorious opportunity to make things better. Her red notebook lies beside me on my pillow and I open it again and read her tender handwriting, which almost speaks to me, begging me to hurry up and start where she left off.
Lucy
~ July 1995 ~
We are in Donegal in Ireland, where it is raining and raining and raining, but who cares about rain anyway. We are staying in a little cottage on top of a cliff and across the beach there are rows and rows of caravans and nothing really else but it doesn’t matter because I have two new secrets…
My first secret is this…
I, Lucy Harte, am In. Love. Yes, L.O.V.E!!
Secret number two is who I am in love with (Simon or Henry if you are reading this, stop right now!)
Well, his name is Tiernan Quinn, he is from a place called Galway in Ireland and I am writing this from my little bedroom, where I can see him play football with my brother outside in the pouring rain. Tiernan and his family are staying in the cottage next door and my mum and his mum have conversations in the porch that go something like this:
‘Isn’t the weather just so awful?’ (My mum.)
Yes, isn’t it just so shite!’ (His mum.)
I like his mum.
So as I write this, Tiernan is playing football wearing a black biker jacket and ripped jeans. He looks like a rock star even in the rain. Oh, and he sounds like a rock star too because he actually plays guitar. Swear to God, he actually does!
Here are the reasons I love Tiernan Quinn:
1) He has dark spikey hair and I like dark spikey hair
2) He plays guitar
3) He says bad words
4) He has a (fake) tattoo – more on that later
Simon brought him in here yesterday and I nearly peed my pants because he said ‘shite’ in front of my mum and she was horrified. She says his family would need to wash out their mouths because they swear a lot. My mum thinks people who swear a lot are crude and ignorant, but I think it’s a bit funny.
Henry was being a right pain when Tiernan was here and he kept asking me to play cards with him, which made me look like a big baby when all I really want
ed was to talk to Tiernan, but then when Tiernan asked my name I realised my voice wouldn’t even work and Henry had to answer for me. Henry said I was ten but I am not ten, I am ten and a half! In fact, I will be eleven in November!
That was last night and I haven’t stopped watching him since I got up this morning. It is now tea time, so that’s a pretty long time to be watching him play football in the rain but there isn’t a lot to do here so I’m not missing much.
Dad is taking ages to get chips in the village and Henry thinks he must have gone to Chip Land or somewhere, but there is no such place as Chip Land. I know exactly why he is taking so long. Anything for some peace from Mum, who is… anyhow back to Tiernan and how I fell in love with him …
His hair was wet from the rain when he came in here last night and Mum said he would catch his death of cold.
She nearly passed out when he replied.
‘Will I shite!’
She gave him one of Simon’s Oasis t-shirts and he went to the bathroom and got changed and he smiled at me when I said Oasis are cool. He actually smiled. At me! He has a tattoo of a cross drawn on his arm, but it’s not really a real tattoo because it’s only drawn in black marker, but of course Mum thought it was real and said later that maybe Tiernan was a bad influence. She has no clue.
I think we are going home tomorrow and Mum says she will never spend a summer in Ireland again because it is ‘shite’ – only joking, she didn’t say that, but that’s kind of what she meant, so like most lovers, Tiernan and I will probably never meet again.
I hope I don’t go home with a broken heart.
*Note to Lucy Harte: Find Tiernan Quinn and kiss him. Proper Kissing!
** Note to Lucy Harte: Learn to play my favourite song on guitar
I am going to make a start on her list… so I choose the easiest place to start, which, in this case, is to find the mysterious Tiernan Quinn.
I lift my phone and click on to Facebook and search for his name. Of course, just as I’d imagined, there are quite a few people with that name and more than one who claims Galway as his home place.
I do the maths to realise he isn’t a teenage boy any more so that rules a couple of young lads out straight away and I eliminate a few from my investigation. I feel like an armchair detective and it is fun.
I click onto the first one who may match who I am looking for. This Tiernan looks like he is in his early thirties and is from Galway, or at least lives there now, and is in a relationship… with a man. Still. Could be him. I make a note of him and go onto the next one, who is living in Dublin and looks like he plays in a band. His profile picture is of a guitar, so I add him as a maybe. The third and last one who fits the age bracket is an ex-pat in San Francisco and is married with twin girls. Again, it could be him. I don’t think my budget stretches to San Francisco, so I’m kind of hoping the man I am looking for is one of the other two, but, hey, if it is, I can always send him a message and tell him he is cool, which is all Lucy really ever wanted to do.
How’s it all going, Mags?
A message from Simon.
Well, I suppose I have made a start, I tell him. I’m stalking someone called Tiernan Quinn on Facebook. Lucy planned to check him out. Any clues?
I really want more toast, so I walk to the kitchen as I wait for his reply. I am just popping the bread into the toaster when his message comes through.
Ah yes, he replies. He was my holiday buddy in Donegal many moons ago. Ha, I knew she had a crush on him and Mum hated him. Cool lad. Played guitar. Look him up, for sure.
I think it could be the Dublin guy…
I need my laptop to get a proper trawl on his page and see if I can pluck up the courage to message him. But what the hell am I meant to say?
What will I say to him? I ask Simon
Simon replies straight away.
Decide that when you see him.
See him?
Well, yes. Go see him. Facebook messages are a cop-out. Go.
The toast pops and makes me jump. I butter it and a smile creeps over my face. I have loads of old friends in Dublin, so a night or two down there might be good. I’m not going to go knocking on doors looking for some random stranger who Lucy probably met for less than five minutes, but maybe Simon is just trying to give me a nudge to take some new directions in life and have some fun.
I get my laptop and sit at the kitchen table looking at Tiernan Quinn’s page. His page and photos are private, so I can’t tell what he looks like and I’d have to add him as a friend if I wanted to know more, however there is a link to a band page called ‘The Madd Mollies’, so I take a snoop on that page to see what I can find.
They obviously need a new publicist, I think to myself as I scroll down their postings, which are way out of date. There are no great photos to speak of, either, just graphics and quotes and a list of upcoming gigs. Well, at least that’s something. I could be barking up the wrong tree, but it’s not like I have got anything to lose, is it?
Ooh, at last I have an opening… they are playing in Temple Bar in Dublin tomorrow night. I feel a rush of excitement as I contemplate just jumping on a train and going there for the craic of it all. I could stay with my cousin Roisin. She is always asking me to come visit, so why not now? It’s less than a three-hour train ride or I could take the car.
I message her to suggest a last-minute visit. I know it is short notice, but who knows? If you don’t ask and all that…
While I wait I move on to my next challenge, which is to find this big tall bridge somewhere in the south of France. I’ve never travelled alone before, apart from on business, and I have butterflies at the very thought of even getting on a plane and wandering around a country where I can’t speak the language. It would be strange to go and not really know what I’m going to do when I get there, but hey, I’m up for anything that keeps my mind occupied and my adrenalin pumping.
Just then Roisin messages me with a very enthusiastic reply.
You beauty! She writes. I will meet you off the train. I’m a jobbing actor with no current job, remember, and it’s dole day tomorrow so I have funds for fun! Call me!
So I call her…
‘Cousin! My God, I am so excited you are coming to the Fair City! What’s the story?’
Roisin, may I add, was born and bred in Belfast but has adapted a Dublin twang as well as their slang after only a year of being there. She is about five-foot nothing, has the maddest throaty voice and short red hair and has done every job under the sun, from waitressing to dog grooming to pub singing, to fund her ambition to be a regular theatre actor. She has lived in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh during the Fringe every year, New York for a short while and is now in Dublin following a stint in a one-act play at the Gate Theatre, where she played a prostitute who fell in love with her client. According to social networking updates, it was her best role to date, but I’m nearly sure she said the same about the last one, and the one before that.
‘I’m going through a bit of a shit time at the minute, as you’ve probably heard,’ I explain. ‘And I just fancy a change of scenery for a night or two. Do you mind?’
‘Do I mind? Do I mind? Maggie O’Hara, you’re like my favourite cousin ever and I know you are having a shit time, so don’t even bother explaining! Just get here and we can have a good old catch-up and a good old piss-up, if that’s what you feel like. Give me a rough time and I’ll be right there at Connolly Station to meet you. And you can stay as long as you like. It’s not the Ritz where I live, but it is cosy.’
I log onto the train timetable online and give her a few options. There are a few trains to choose from early morning till late afternoon and though I may have become used to lie- ins lately, it won’t hurt me to get up a bit early for a change, so I go for one that will get me in for lunchtime.
‘Meet me at 1.15 – is that okay?’
‘Perfect. That’s just perfect and we’ll have great craic. It’s been way too long.’
I say my goodbyes on the p
hone to Roisin and log off my laptop. My head is spinning with all this spontaneity – I used to be so much more ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ type when I was at university, but the past few years with my job and life with Jeff has been, dare I say, a bit rigid and routine. Work, sleep, work, sleep, work, sleep and visiting relatives or shopping at the weekend was as good as it got, but I liked it at the time. Now, all of this last-minute decision to get up and go with no one to answer to and no one to even tell, even if it’s just to Dublin, on a wild-goose chase to find a man I am not even sure is the right one, is just a little alien to me, but I am adamant to go with it and see what it brings.
Lucy Harte, my darling girl, I hope you are guiding me in the right direction.
Chapter 13
I have always loved travelling by train. Maybe it’s the lack of responsibility, maybe it’s the people-watching opportunities or maybe it’s the sheer sense of freedom it gives me since it reminds me of day trips and holidays or going to big national football games and concerts in Dublin.
The railway network in Ireland isn’t very extensive outside of the main city routes so perhaps I love it because it’s a bit of a novelty for a country girl like me.
On the train! See you soon! I text Roisin and I get a flutter of excitement.
Hurry, can’t wait! She messages back and I glow inside.
I have a novel and headphones packed in my overnight bag to keep me company, but I’m almost too nervous to concentrate on anything else right now. So when I find a seat with a table attached, I take out Lucy’s red notebook, but instead of reading her little snippets and thoughts and dreams, I just stare at the front cover and then close my eyes and breathe to feel her near me.
I already feel like my life is changing, just by getting on this train, just by getting away from that apartment and from Belfast, even if it’s just for a day or two.
I take out a pen and notebook of my own. I need to connect with Lucy right now. I need to explain my mission.
The Legacy of Lucy Harte Page 9