by Finn Óg
“Not for you, you eejit. For me.”
Sinead, stunned, was slowly stacking it up. Her twin, who abjectly refused to allow anyone close, was offering her inner sanctum to a man she had just met.
“I’ll just sort a few things and put on some fresh linen.” She walked off.
“Really, darlin’, that’s not necessary—”
“Call me darling once more and you can sleep on the street,” came Áine’s inadequate defence as she vanished.
Min turned to Sinead, shaking his head, “I really can kip on the couch.”
“Take it as a compliment,” she said. “She obviously wants you to have a comfortable bed.”
“Aye,” was all he said, looking at the empty space through which Áine had travelled.
Sinead’s shoulders tightened as a line of worry developed for her twin. “Is there anyone at home you need to call, a wife or girlfriend?”
Min smiled, understanding immediately. “No, thanks anyway, there isnae a woman waiting for a phone call.”
“A man, maybe?”
Min laughed at that. “I may be in the navy, Sinead, but I dance at the other end of the ballroom.”
Sinead allowed herself a smile and fleetingly imagined a different, happier life bundled into one extremely unlikely outcome. Min unwittingly shattered the thought.
“We’ve made a lot of assumptions,” he said, staring at Áine’s bedroom door.
“How do you mean?” Sinead asked, thinking he was about to elaborate on his lack of a love life.
“About Sam, about Dominica. It often happens when you’re desperate. You grab onto the skinniest of threads and you pull. But really, we havnae a clue whether he’s even in that part of the Caribbean – or if he’s gone to the West Indies at all.”
Sinead looked down at her hands, suddenly fighting an almost overwhelming urge to weep. She sucked her tongue onto the roof of her mouth, unable to respond. Min realised his mistake.
“Sorry, love,” he began, “I sometimes forget who I’m talking to.”
Sinead shook away the apology as unnecessary. “You’re right,” she said softly, and rose to head for her own bedroom. “Night, Min.”
Sinead lay on her bed and listened to the murmur of Áine and Min. She heard a clink of a glass and the two of them moved into the living room. She could imagine them looking out over Dublin, getting to know one another a little better. She was still awake three hours later when Áine’s over-exaggerated foot placements crept through the room. Áine didn’t even undress, just threw back the covers and clambered in. Within minutes Sinead heard a gentle snore from her sister and rolled over.
It was pitch-dark when she woke, dragged, again, from her sleep by the pain of her mistake. Her dream bore different characteristics but it came down to the same thing: she had let him go. Her decision, and the consequences were hers to bear. Her imagination had conjured Sam and Isla on a beach with someone else, dark and beautiful, playing in the surf, laughing. She’d woken when the woman took Isla’s hand to lead her up the sand. The darkness in the room made her loneliness and her ache worse. Only once before had she felt her heart physically hurt within her body. As quietly as she could she sniffed back the tears and the loss.
Áine never could sleep well for long with drink in her. She lay, stone-still, and listened to her sister sob as silently as she could. She knew that this was very likely a nightly occurrence, and while it frustrated her, it upset her too. She waited until the sniffling stopped and Sinead’s breathing regulated, then as quietly as someone quite pissed could manage, she crept from the room.
The way forward seemed so clear to her. She told herself she would do the same if she were sober. She punched in the code to her office keypad, and her arms reached out and flicked the systems into life, drawing up the information. Her fingers were slightly sluggish on the keyboard, but muscle memory helped her crack back into the environmental agency’s staff gateway. Within five minutes she had found a country code, a number and scribbled it onto a Post-it. She slid the phone her sister had brought from the convent into her pocket and wobbled to the front door, making her way down in the elevator. Two blocks of apartments up the street, she switched the phone on and held it aloft, searching for a Wi-Fi signal that didn’t require a password. Frustrated, she connected to Dublin’s city bubble and began punching the number for Daniel Joseph into WhatsApp, overly careful to ensure the fug of drink wasn’t making her forget any important steps. Áine smiled as she was treated to an image of a man in a tiny circle – a handsome, rugged face with the wake of a wave in the background. She tried an internet call.
“Hallo?” a rich, deep voice answered eventually.
“Is that Daniel Rosseau Joseph?” she said.
There was a moment’s silence. She looked at the clock and vaguely worked out the time difference, wondering what the man must make of the slurred use of his full name on what, for him, was a midnight call.
“What has happened?” he asked, and she could tell he was afraid for someone.
“Nothing.” She tried to shake herself. “Nothing to, eh, worry about.”
“Who is this? Do you know what time it is?” She thought she could listen to his Caribbean lilt for hours.
“I’m calling from Dublin.” Áine closed her eyes in realisation that she had not thought this through. “My name is Áine, and I desperately need to talk to a man called Sam. If you’ve seen him, please, tell him I need to speak to him urgently about Sinead.” There was a long silence. “Hello? Daniel?”
She heard a rattle and a bump but at least the man hadn’t hung up. The noise increased and Áine considered ending the call, fearing that she may, in her inebriation, have precipitated the worst of all outcomes by blundering in. Sinead would struggle to forgive this one.
The phone was muffled, as if a hand had been placed across the handset, and Áine could hear two drones – like conversation. Alarm caused her to hover her thumb over the red button in readiness to end the call.
“Áine?” a breathy voice suddenly burst through her speaker, whispered but urgent.
“Sam?” she said, excitement swelling through her.
“What’s happened?”
“What?”
“Is she ok?”
“Yes, she’s ok.” Áine struggled to get a grip of herself so as not to spook him.
“How did you …? Is this …?”
“Everything is fine. Everything. Do you understand? Everything is ok. Not what you think.” She bit her lip in frustration at her addled explanation, suddenly conscious of her inability to speak sensibly. There was a moment’s silence that she felt the need to fill. “There’s stuff you need to know – things have changed.” She pulled the phone momentarily from her ear in frustration and caught the image of Daniel Joseph on his boat on the screen. “Your fish isn’t on the hook any more.” She screwed her eyes shut at the stupidity of what she’d just said.
“Stop,” he said. “Not on the phone. But she’s ok?”
“Yes, fine, all fine.”
“Ok, ok.” He paused. “But not on the phone.”
The line went dead and Áine realised she hadn’t said the most important part.
9
Min was sitting at the breakfast bar when the twins ambled through into the kitchen. Áine looked like she’d been hit with a digger bucket; Min looked like he’d been out for a run.
“Have you …?” she began.
“Sure, even in lockdown you’re allowed one bit of exercise a day, aren’t you?”
“Unbelievable,” Áine muttered. “Bloody machines, you lot are.” She rattled a spoon into a mug and flicked on the coffee machine.
“Thanks for the bed.”
“No problem,” she said absently, but Sinead could see that there was a dismissiveness designed for her rather than Min – a protective mechanism posing as nonchalance.
“I’ll have to head back to barracks soon.”
Sinead was looking at Áine’s stiffening back,
noting that she poured her coffee before it had percolated. The fizz of the drops hit the hotplate in a mirror of her sister’s temperament.
Sinead tried to brighten the mood. “What else can we do – before you head off?”
“I went for a jog to clear ma heed – to try to think of something. I still havnae come up with anything.”
“There must be some way to get a message to them.” Sinead tried not to sound like she was on the cusp of desperation.
“There will be. It’ll come to one of us. Only it’s not … obvious just at the minute.”
“Maybe this is the way it’s supposed to work out. Maybe he was meant to, just, disappear.”
Áine slammed the mug down, spilling coffee and turning angrily. “D’ye know how much you overthink things?” she barked at her sister. “For fuck’s sake, like.”
“What?” Sinead was startled.
Áine’s head was banging with the after-effects of the whiskey. “He’s there. He’s exactly where we thought he was.”
Min looked at Sinead. Sinead looked at Min. They both looked at Áine.
“We can’t be sure of that,” Min said gently. “It’s a bit of a wide arc. Likelihood is he’s in South America, bumping round rogue states, far out of the reach of British extradition treaties.”
Áine seized upon their dithering and made her confession “He’s not,” she growled. “And you know how I know? I spoke to him last night.” She leaned back on the counter and crossed her arms in an aggressive stance. Min and Sinead stared open-mouthed.
“You what?” Sinead’s neck stretched forward, appalled.
“Well, feck it, anyway, Sinead. Ye pair were going to noodle around for ages, just like you did when you should have got on that bloody boat before they left. Instead, you got your priorities all bollixed about. I heard you last night—”
“Áine,” Sinead warned through a clenched jaw, imploring her not to go further in front of their guest.
“I did, and I’m sick of it. Your moping around, you being so upset. So, yeah, to hell with it – I rang him.”
“Who?” Min asked.
“Daniel. I got the number from his work’s back end and I rang him, and within two minutes I was speaking to Sam.”
There was a stunned silence for a full ten seconds.
“And what did he say?” Sinead’s eyes were enormous, suddenly wet and full of fear.
“Hang on.” Min’s authority suddenly surfaced. “Be clear. You rang him on a phone from this flat?”
“Course not.”
“Talk me through what you did,” Min said calmly, but with a hitherto concealed sternness.
“Am I a child?” Áine snapped.
“Just explain,” he said firmly.
“We have a phone. Sinead got it from some hooker at the refuge—”
“She wasn’t a—”
Áine held her hand up to halt the interruption. “The phone is a pay-as-you-go, loads of credit and disabled for all but internet calls. I walked towards the city centre, hooked onto the town Wi-Fi and used an encrypted service to make a call.”
The corners of Min’s mouth turned down and he gently nodded his approval. “Fair enough.”
“What did he say?” Sinead cut in, patience exhausted.
“Very little, actually.” Áine could not abandon her hostile stance. “But I tried to tell him he was in the clear.”
“You didn’t?” Min said.
“I bloody did,” Áine turned to face him, “cos what’s the point in finding him if we can’t do anything about it? Like eating soup with a hammer.”
“Bloody hell,” Min muttered.
“What will he do?” Sinead asked Min.
“I’ve no idea,” Min said.
“What would you do?”
“Well, I’d either stay put or go to sea.” He looked at Áine’s now-turned back. “Depends on what you said, exactly.”
Áine held her forehead and tried to quieten the pain. “I told him he’s off the hook and everything is ok.”
“And what did he say?” Sinead asked.
“He said, Not on the phone.”
“Then what did you say?”
“I said you were ok.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“He asked about me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what?”
“Then he hung up.”
Min was unaccustomed to his advice being disregarded. At first it stirred an irritation in him just short of anger, but he rapidly altered his thinking. Of course, the women weren’t military, and Áine’s actions couldn’t be thought of as insubordinate. He quietly reminded himself that he was out of Arbroath. Nonetheless, he was preparing to leave within fifteen minutes.
“You travel light,” Áine said.
He didn’t know her well, but could see her sheepishness. He looked at his little ruck. “Aye, well, don’t need much, and I’m on a bike.”
“Oh?”
“Aye, it’s at the convent. Sinead—”
“She drove. I know. She’ll drop you back.”
“Aye,” he said, looking at her.
“Will we see you again?”
Min thought about what to say for a moment too long, spurring her to speak.
“I fucked up,” Áine said. He could see she was angry only at herself now. She sighed, turned from the hallway and marched towards her office. Min looked at her and failed to grasp one sensible or useful word to throw at the pleasant sight of her retreating transom.
“Right, so.” Sinead appeared with a rattle of keys, noticing the look of despondence on his face and closing her eyes in familiar irritation as the control room door slammed. Min shrugged.
The drive was slow despite the absence of traffic. Sinead, without realising it, was delaying Min’s departure while she struggled to get a question out.
“Look, darlin’, just ask whatever it is that’s on yer mind.”
She breathed in, locked her arms against the wheel, and began slowly. “When we first met …”
“You and Sam?”
“No, you and me, in Scotland.”
“Aye?”
“And you and Sam went off in that fancy boat.”
“Uh-huh?”
“I don’t know if you … maybe you don’t want to …”
“Just ask, Sinead.”
“What did you talk about?”
“How d’ye mean?” he said, genuinely confused as to the line of questioning.
“Well, did you … did you talk about what Sam was going to do … with those terrorists?”
“Just be mindful,” Min said, his broad palm out in a calming gesture, before sweeping the air. Sinead admonished herself but was perturbed that a man like Min was still cautious of loose talk in a car with only two people in it.
“Sorry,” she said, shutting up.
“The answer is no. That wasnae really on the agenda. There was something I needed to tell him, but the rest was not discussed.”
“Then what was discussed?” she blurted out.
“I can’t—why? I’m not following what you’re on about?”
“Did you talk about me and him, Min?” she fired it out before it got jammed. “Did he mention anything about maybe taking me with him – or was it all just spur of the moment, something he hadn’t thought through?”
“Ah, right,” the penny plummeted. “You’re worried it was just a kind of a – like, an impulse thing when he asked you to go with him?”
“Yeah. And you’re his closest friend, and he never explained anything – well, hardly anything, and I’m just so fucking confused.”
She could feel Min assessing her turmoil. Swear words did not fall easily from her lips and she felt vulnerable having succumbed to such emotion in front of a man she barely knew.
“Yes,” he said softly. “We spoke about you.”
Sinead’s heart began to hammer and she stared straight-ahead at the road, resisting the urge to look at him. Sh
e waited, her exasperation building at the lack of elaboration.
They turned a corner and were already driving along the walled road that led to the convent entrance.
“My bike’s in that copse over there,” he said.
Sinead couldn’t slow the car any further as they drove into the estate, bumping along a path ill-suited to vehicles. She came to a halt and pulled the handbrake harder than was necessary. She kept looking ahead, making out a motorbike hidden among the trees.
Min readied to leave, his fingers on the handle.
“Am I making a mistake?” she said, as firmly as she was able.
“What d’ye mean?”
“Áine says I know nothing about him – and she’s bloody right.” Sinead was shaking her head, staring without focus deep into the copse.
“He’s no’ easy to get to know, I’ll give you that. But it is worth the effort.”
“What is?”
“Taking the time to find out.”
“There’s been a lot of time, Min.” She eventually turned to face him, before looking back into the darkness of the trees. “Time wasted, maybe.”
“Look, I don’t know how much you know about – you know – before. That’s for you and him to discuss. But if you mean, are you doing the right thing in finding him and sorting it all out?” Min struggled for the right phrase. “Then I’d say, absolutely, darlin’. No question. That man’s full to the lid with demons, but he’s as decent a bloke as I’ve ever known.”
He pushed open the door and Sinead yearned to hug him, but within seconds his head was in a helmet, the bike was rocked backwards and a gloved hand waved as he drove off.
10
Áine wondered who she had damaged more – herself or her sister. There had been times during their childhood when bickering had morphed into long periods of silence – Sinead refusing to be drawn into the vocal arguments Áine was inclined to favour. Instead, her twin would withdraw into maudlin reflection, a type of depression. Áine called it “the gloom”. She’d use the word to their mother – “Sinead’s in the gloom” or “Oul Granny Gloom’s in the house”. She’d dismiss the mood and almost completely, successfully, ignore it. Áine also had a capacity for avoiding repentance, knowing that eventually Sinead would surface and gradually their relationship would right itself without much of a word said in reflection. If it did affect Áine, she simply refused to admit it.