by A. S. Kelly
“But she’s—”
“No, she’s at home, we’ve got a few hours,” he adds, looking at his watch.
We cross the street and walk around the block to get to the back door of the pub. Aaron pulls out his bunch of keys, selects one and opens the metal door, making a gesture that we should good in.
“When?” he asks me, immediately closing the door and leaning his shoulder against it.
“Yesterday afternoon. I ran into her by chance and—”
“Cut the bullshit, Liam.”
I nod and let out the breath I was holding.
“Are you in contact with her? Have you spoken with her?”
I shake my head while I lean against the wall.
“Are you following her? Are you by any chance stalking my sister?”
I can’t lie.
“I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
Aaron sighs roughly while massaging his forehead with his fingers.
“How long has this been going on?”
“For a bit,” I say vaguely. I don’t want any blood to spill here, what’s more if he hit me I wouldn’t be able to react. Because it’s what I deserve.
“Liam,” Jay intervenes, afraid that things could take a turn for the worse. He knows our history together and that between Aaron and me there are too many unresolved issues. “We haven’t seen you after—”
“I know.” I close my eyes and brush them with my hands.
“You’re a disaster,” he adds sincerely. “We thought you were in London. Yeah, well, we followed your successes—”
“Let’s not exaggerate,” Aaron interrupts. “You’re not that famous here. Not more than we are anyway.”
I grin just a bit and shake my head.
“Why are you doing it?” he asks in a strained voice and with evident frustration on his face.
“I can’t help it.”
“It’s a bad fuckin’ situation. She doesn’t remember anything, Liam. Nothing! She barely remembers who I am, who they are—and so…” His voice breaks and I understand he needs a few minutes to swallow his rage and calm down.
“Liam,” he says after a pause, as if to find the force to continue. “After the coma, we didn’t think she was going to come out of it and when she started to show the first signs of improvement, we understood right away that she would never be like she was before. She’s not the same girl you knew.”
Rain
I love music, I could spend the whole day listening to it and humming along. Music helps me relax, to be calm and to find my inner peace. It brings me to a faraway place made only of light and intimate sounds, that I feel on my skin like real emotions, as if I were really living in those moments when I hear those notes and those words.
Aaron says I’ve always liked music but that now it’s almost become an obsession for me.
Listening to music helps me to keep my mind sharp in a healthy way and it’s not invasive. The words enter my head via my heart: I listen to them, taste them and re-elaborate them and am able to memorize so many words. Words which I would otherwise not be able to remember.
I stay for hours in my room sitting by the window with my i-Pod always on, looking at the sky suddenly changing shapes. I observe the clouds that chase each other light and quick, that cause intense, pain-producing drops of rain to fall that hurt the trees, the flowers and that blind your vision, that soak you and freeze you, and yet they have a completely different effect on me.
The rain is the only thing I can remember.
The water that runs over my helpless body, that caresses me and slides down my face, that keeps my mind anchored in reality, that regales me with the only thing I know to make me feel again.
To be alive.
All the rest is a big black hole in which my life was swallowed up one rainy night at the end of summer two years ago.
I woke up in a hospital bed, they told me, because obviously I’m not able to remember what happened. I started to form my first words about two months later, but for phrases it took another six months. Now—by my good luck, they say—I can express myself rather well, but they doubt there will be much improvement beyond this.
Sometimes, when I speak with a stranger, I understand how pathetic I must seem. How I stutter or get blocked up or don’t remember what I wanted to say. I’m sure I seem pretty stupid. In those situations I prefer just to keep quiet, smile and continue on my way, limiting my contacts with strangers and sticking with people who know my situation; even though they look at me with pity and compassion, they don’t make me feel the weight of my being me.
They told me I used to be really different from how I am now, that I was a good teacher, that the kids adored me and that I had friends—although I couldn’t tell what they’re doing now. I’ve seen very few people since I got out of the hospital, I’m always with Aaron or the guys. I don’t even know if I had a boyfriend or a special friend. Seems I was reserved regarding my personal life, but I imagine if I did have someone special back then, he wouldn’t have abandoned me in a moment like that. Or maybe he would have.
I’m not the same person, I don’t have memories, I don’t have a life, a future. Guys don’t approach me, at least not with serious intentions. It’s happened a few times with new clients at the pub, but as soon as I open my mouth they lift their heels and go the opposite direction.
I imagine it’s too difficult to have a relationship with someone like me, that remembers very little of her past, speaks with difficulty and who could meet you one day and forget your name the next. Someone whose movements are uncoordinated and suffers public tremors of her arms and legs, which she is unable to control, and that can be really embarrassing. Someone with a ten centimeters’ scar on her forehead that’s visible from meters away. A girl who lives with her brother and his friends, and must be reminded every day of things like when her birthday is, what time to take her medicine. People who put out the fire for her when she forgets to do it, and who call the local shops to warn them when they know she’s heading out. Yeah, I know all these things. I’m not so stupid that I’m not aware of them.
My life is simply methodic: I always do the exact identical things as a routine for fear of becoming confused mentally, and not being able to work my way out of it. I note everything about my daily routine in order not to forget anything. I spend days waiting for the next rainy one to get closer to that person I used to be. To have the sensation of being me, to be tied to a life that no longer belongs to me, and long for the time when I could at least remember the smells associated with my old life.
I wait for the rain, because one day the rain might bring me back to myself.
4
Liam
I return to the hotel after having visited with Aaron and Jay. Same story again tonight, I wasn’t able to stay away from that place, especially after having seen her, after having held her in my arms.
Again.
I grabbed her and lifted her with all of my might, almost afraid of breaking her or knocking the wind out of her. I couldn’t let her go, I just wanted to keep her with me, to convince myself it was real; to sink my face into her neck and breathe her sweet, delicate perfume.
The perfume of life.
So different from the last time when the only thing I could smell was the odor of the rain, the blood and the death that surrounded us.
I felt her heartbeat, her breath.
I felt it.
I felt everything.
She only looked at me for a few instances, with those empty, lost eyes. I thought maybe for a minute she might recognize me—but no. She doesn’t know who I am and maybe it’s better that way.
I followed her from a distance, I’ve spied on her daily activities, I’ve inserted myself like a sticky glob of glue into her life. I’ve studied her movements and her habits until they’ve become my own. I’ve been near her in the only way I can be, because my closeness is not what she needs, my closeness could only push her over the edge and make her suffer again
.
And I cannot permit that to happen.
I slump on the bed and slip off my shoes and lay down without even turning on the lights. I don’t need to see. I don’t need anything.
The emptiness and the silence devour me bite after bite and I let them. I don’t care about myself, I don’t care about anything that will happen to me, I don’t care about anything.
The only thing that matters is that she’s alive.
That has to be enough for me.
Her face comes back to my mind and rests before my eyes. I close them tightly, but she’s still there, tattooed in my thoughts. Her eyes call me and search for me, they beg me and invite me, but I can’t go to her.
I can’t do this to her.
I can’t do this to him.
I press my hands to my face, hoping to erase the memories, the past that returns, always without pity, to remind me that I’m still here, occupying a place that isn’t mine, that I didn’t ask for, that I didn’t want. Not at his cost.
The fact is I can’t do this to myself.
I’m here fighting against my rage, loneliness and depression. Against the knowledge that my life hasn’t been cut short, that it was spared—most of it to be lived yet and I don’t know if I can go on, not alone, not without him.
What else have I got?
A destroyed friendship. All our dreams up in smoke. A life half lived to start over.
What else is there?
My useless existence, wasted, in vain and with which I have no idea what to do.
I wanna let myself go into nothing, into the oblivion. I’d like to not wake up tomorrow morning so that I wouldn’t have to face another day without him. I’d like to not feel an obligation to go there, every night, to see her live, because it’s the only thing that lightens my load a bit, that helps me to keep myself from pulling the plug, that flows the blood to my heart and keeps it living and that lets me hope that, perhaps some tomorrow, at least for her, will arrive.
She. The only reason I’m still here.
She. The only note I want to remember from this melody that scratches my ears and my heart.
Rain
I cannot believe I’m late again. Today I went too far out, giving myself a long solitary walk along the shore, allowing myself some excitement for the looming Saturday and the Bank Holiday this month, which will have everyone out drinking themselves into oblivion.
I decide to double back, cutting through the bay where the fishermen are loading their afternoon catch, hoping that there aren’t already too many people out and about. I quicken my pace as much as I can, but I am tired and I have to sit a minute on a bench and catch my breath. I rest my elbows behind me and stretch my back to look at the clouds that are playing and chasing the wind, the seagulls flying over my head, to enjoy the peace and serenity of this place.
And that’s when I hear it.
The music.
I stand up straight and turn, first right and then left, to try and understand where it’s coming from. Must be one of those street musicians that changes every day, but judging by the voice, I don’t think I’ve ever heard this one.
I stand up and follow the melody until I discover its source: in a sheltered corner, hidden from the recesses of the walls surrounding the pier, there’s a guy with a guitar. He’s wearing a hat that almost covers his eyes above a long unkempt beard. He has tattoos that cover his neck, and has a well-worn sweatshirt and tattered jeans.
Slowly, he lifts his head as if he can sense my presence and my eyes on him, and he looks at me.
There they are.
I haven’t forgotten them.
Well, it seems that I have not lost all my memories.
Something remains.
I remain there with my mouth gaping open, trying to fit the pieces together, but I lose myself someplace, I don’t know where—some hidden place in the darkness of my mind.
Someone bumps into me, making me change my glance, and saying something not too cute, which wakes me from my trance that has overcome me; but the embarrassment remains, because it’s in that moment that I realize I can’t peel my eyes off of him and look elsewhere.
What I am seeing is mysterious, suffering and inexplicably fascinating; but there’s something else, something more. It runs through me in a second and travels my body from head to toe. It shocks me and shakes me. It makes me want things I don’t have.
Things I can’t have.
That I can’t ever have.
My pride, my ego, my needs, and my selfish ways/Caused a good strong woman like you to walk out my life/Now I never, never get to clean up the mess I made, oh/And it haunts me every time I close my eyes.1
I hear it.
I hear his voice, his soul.
I hear everything.
I sit there in silence, holding my breath, following the movements his tattooed hands make. I’m enraptured by the heartbreaking melody, forgetting completely about work, the people passing by, the holiday, and the sky above us that starts letting down its first drops of rain.
Of the world.
There’s nothing left.
I’m not there anymore.
5
Liam
I haven’t been able to touch my guitar for five months, since that night, when everything fell into total darkness. It sits there, staring at me, judging me, reminding me I’m not able to do anything. And still it was my only friend in those years, and now I can hardly look at it.
It reminds me of my past, it reminds me of Neil and the guys.
It reminds me of her.
It reminds me of everything I don’t have any more.
Frustrated and angry with myself, I grab it roughly and put it in its case, and put the strap over my shoulder. I leave the hotel but I don’t want to drive. I want to get lost in a crowd, see faces, hear things—feel, anything.
So I make my way through the vehicles cutting through the street with no destination in mind, cutting through the park by the bay where the musicians go daily to get noticed. I look for the remotest corner to take cover on the pier a few meters from the lighthouse.
I sit on the stone wall and inhale this new air laden with saline, hoping to stir something in my mind and bring my emotions to life. I set the case down and open it. I take the guitar and try touching it, but the contact with the strings hurts me, delineates me, drops me lead-footed into the dark pitch of my nothingness.
I go to put it back when I see someone walking quickly across the pier. She’s wearing a knee-length dress and red rain boots. Her hair is tied back in a long soft braid that reaches her breast. She sits on a park bench, rests her elbows behind her and lays back a bit, to admire the sky. And a blessed smile forms on her lips.
Nothing. There’s nothing else. Everything around me has disappeared, sucked in by her smile. There’s nothing more beautiful or more important.
I understand in this instant, that I could do anything to see it again and make sure it never stops.
Life. That’s what it is.
Without even realizing it, my hands are back on the chords. My fingers are rigid and cold and the sound that comes out is a bit wooden, but it’s there and I can’t do anything but let it come, hoping and fearing at the same time, that it reaches her directly.
And then she notices me, she looks at me and I am paralyzed. My heart stops in the moment I think she’s recognized me. I decide to look back at her, exchanging glances, even though I know it’s a big fucking mistake.
And there, in her eyes, I forget who I am and who I was.
For a few seconds Liam O’Reilly doesn’t exist anymore, unless it is in the reflection of her eyes.
Then she is distracted, she looks around embarrassed and agitated, and I let her go. I let her distance herself from me and this contact that should not have been but which I can’t let go.
Another error.
I feel her eyes on me again, following me, digging into my soul, asking for that contact again, but I can’t allow it.
I can’t permit myself to do this to her.
So I avoid her lethal glance and go back to looking at my fingers, venting my frustration in the music which once again has not abandoned me, notwithstanding the way I’ve mistreated it, betrayed it and disappointed it.
She’s there and always has been, buried in kilos of shit, chaos and bad choices.
Can I do it?
Can I concentrate again on the music and forget everything else? Can I give up that smile and that look?
I can do without it.
I have to do without it.
I don’t need it and surely she doesn’t need me and what I can never give her.
Rain
I’m still sitting outside Caira with my headphones on, when I feel the cell phone vibrate on the table. I look at the display and see it’s Aaron: it’s then that I realize I’m late again. I get up right away, but my movements are always brusque and I bump into the next table, and I knock over the full coffees the two guys sitting there were drinking, right next to where their laptops were precariously sitting. I observe the dark liquid ooze onto the pavement, and I’m in a catatonic state while the two guys become agitated and start yelling something at me, but I can’t hear it. I stand there, immobile, incapable of movement or of focusing on what’s happening.