by Tara Heavey
Where the Love Gets In
TARA HEAVEY
PENGUIN IRELAND
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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First published 2010
Copyright © Tara Heavey, 2010
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book
ISBN: 978-0-14-195741-8
Contents
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part II
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Part III
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Part IV
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
To Fran and Frank
Prologue
Sarah squeezed her temples as if she was trying to force the noise out. But still the effect was brutal. Her daughter’s screams. The constancy of chaos. She couldn’t stand it. She had to get out of this place. But where to? Was there any such thing as escape for the likes of her? She felt guilty for even contemplating it.
And then she thought of the place in the west. That’s where they’d go. Mitch could foot the bill. God knew, he owed them. And it would give her head the space it needed, give her body the time to heal. Give her daughter one last chance.
Part I
Chapter 1
The blue roared in Tommy’s ears as his feet were knocked out from under him. Nature’s washing-machine had him on spin cycle as the foam surged and bubbled over his head. Gasping for breath, he righted himself and retrieved his board. He glanced around for his father. Aidan was several feet away, spitting out water and smoothing back his hair. The two looked at each other and grinned.
This was the closest Tommy ever felt to his father. Not for them the soccer match, the hurling pitch. Why would it be, with the Atlantic on their doorstep? He lay face down on his board and, using his hands, paddled over to his father. ‘The size of that one!’
Though they bobbed alongside each other, he’d had to shout – even now, when the water was relatively still. Aidan nodded and smiled back, evidently still out of breath. Then he, too, lay on his belly and they started to drift. Tommy was alone again, allowing the swell to carry him further out. Blue above him and all around him – his entire universe a great, glittering ball of blue. The sun sparkled on his head and he closed his eyes.
What was that?
Nothing.
He closed his eyes again. Drifted.
This time his eyes shot open. Definitely something. Tommy sat up and straddled his board. He looked around for his father. Aidan was further away from the shore now – out of shouting range. A shadow passed under Tommy. He froze. Something was swimming beneath him. Now around him. Several feet away, a dorsal fin sliced through the water. Tommy heard a strangled cry, which must have come from his own constricted throat. His whole being quaked with panic, as he began to paddle furiously towards the shore. Getting closer now, he half swam, half ran as his feet connected with the ocean floor. He searched wildly for Aidan.
‘Dad! Dad!’ His voice sounded shrill, childish. And at least half of it was carried away on the wind. ‘Get out of the water, Dad!’
He gestured at Aidan, standing as he was now up to his waist in water, gazing out to sea, as if hypnotized by its invisible, unknowable depths.
Finally, Aidan was looking at him, shouting something he couldn’t quite hear and gesturing urgently at the water. He could just make out his father’s face.
There was no fear in it. On the contrary, it was filled with happiness.
Tommy watched as a massive wave gathered momentum behind his father, so small and insignificant-seeming in front of it. His eyes widened as the wave reached critical mass because there within it, riding the wave, part of the wave – surfing the wave – was a dolphin.
They were home now. Their wetsuits peeled off and discarded on the deck, like second skins. Fiona would kill them when she found them there. But for now she was blissfully ignorant, leaning against the kitchen counter, waiting for the toast to pop. She was listening intently to her son’s account of what had occurred, her arms folded tightly across her candy-striped dressing-gown. Aidan could read the intense enjoyment on her face. He could taste its bittersweet nature because it matched his own.
So far, their shared love of the ocean had got him and his son through the worst of adolescence, but seldom nowadays was Tommy so animated. At seventeen, he tended to affect an air of sang-froid. It was only at times like these, when he forgot himself, that the façade crumbled and they glimpsed the boy he used to be. It was a rare and precious sight.
‘What a load of crap,’ said Alannah.
‘It is not!’ Tommy half stood up out of his chair, rigid with indignation. ‘Tell her, Dad.’
‘It was a dolphin, all right.’
‘Really?’
‘How come you believe him and not me?’ said Tommy.
Alannah ignored him and addressed their father. ‘Did it come right up to you?’
‘I just said it did, didn’t I?’ Tommy was becoming increasingly irate.
‘She did. Dad touched her, didn’t you, Dad?’
‘Did you?’
‘Well, my fingers brushed against her.’
‘What did it feel like?’
Aidan leaned back in his chair and appeared to consider the matter. ‘Smooth,’ he said finally. ‘She was smooth, with a hardness underneath.’
‘Why do you keep saying “she”?’
Father and son smiled at each other.
‘I don’t know,’ said Aidan. ‘That’s just the impression I got.’
‘Me too,’ said Tommy.
‘Do you think she’s still there?’ said Alannah.
‘She was gone when we were leaving. Otherwise we’d still be out there.’
‘Well, I’m going out tomorrow morning – oh, no, I can’t.’ Alannah dropped her face into her hands. ‘I’ll be back in Cork.’
It was the first time she’d expressed dismay at returning to college.
‘I’m going out again in the morning.’ Tommy was gloating.
‘Oh, no, you’re not.’ It was the first opinion Fiona had offered since the discussion had begun. ‘You’ve got school.’
‘I can go before school.’
‘You have exams coming up. Do I have to remind you again? I don’t want you getting distracted.’
‘I won’t, Mam. I can swim and study at the same time.’
‘Won’t your books get wet?’ said Alannah.
‘Oh, shut up.’
‘Stop it, you two. You’re behaving like a couple of children.’
Which was, thought Aidan, exactly what Fiona wanted them to be. As did he, if he was honest with himself. He knew he should relish the prospect of spending more time alone with his wife, once the kids had finally left home, but one thought and one thought alone prevailed.
What would he and Fiona talk about then?
As it turned out, Aidan was the one who went out the next morning. Guiltily, after Tommy had left for school. He liked the idea of being on his own in the water with her.
Why ‘her’? It didn’t make sense.
The sea was quieter this morning, the sky a softer blue. Even after the Atlantic had taken his father he had never lost his love of the water. Out there nothing mattered but the waves, each hungrier than the last, relentless and unstoppable, unchanging but ever-changing. Embracing. He lay on his board and paddled until he was just out of his depth, then waited. Not for waves this time. He had his camera with him, determined to capture her wildness. He rode the swell as if it were an old, familiar horse.
He didn’t have long to wait. She swam underneath him at first. Then circled him several times. The same pattern as before. Aidan had to fight down rising panic. Could she tell? He had read that a dolphin could ‘see’ the adrenalin coursing through a person’s veins. And there was something undeniably frightening about being with a wild animal in its natural habitat. Her swiftness, her agility, so superior to his own. If she wanted to, she could knock him off his board and pin him to the ocean floor. But, luckily for him, she didn’t seem to want to do that. What she wanted to do, or so Aidan thought, was to satisfy her curiosity. Check him out. She was swimming on her side now, as if to get a closer study of him. He looked her in the eye. And it was at that moment that fear turned to wonder.
Slowly, so as not to startle, he extended his left arm, stretched out his fingers, anticipating her next move. Sure enough, following her pattern, she circled him to his left. He brushed against her. Or did she brush against him?
Her skin felt like silk stretched tautly over pure muscle.
He wondered how he felt to her.
So closely had he been paying attention to the dolphin that he’d forgotten to watch the sea. A large wave loomed above him, ready to cascade. He rapidly turned his back to it and his board to the shore. As he did so, he saw that the dolphin was within the wave, directly behind him. Christ, she was going to plough right into him. How many pounds of pure muscle?
Aidan braced himself for the onslaught as the wave crashed over his head and he was propelled to shore, as if from a catapult. But nothing more dramatic than that happened. He righted himself and looked all around. Of course. She had avoided him easily, with a mastery of water, her natural element, that was alien to him even if he had spent half his life either in or on it. People used to joke that it wouldn’t surprise them if he had webbed feet. But this creature made him feel awkward and ungainly.
He’d communed with dolphins before – of course he had. Further out to sea they would ride the bow wave his boat created. But he’d never got up close and personal before. Not like this.
He waded back in again, swam, then was on his board once more and paddling. Sure enough, she came up to him. He fancied she was welcoming him back. Joyously this time, swooping all around, so rapidly and so impressively that he was sure at times he was sharing the water with three dolphins. Could she be in so many places at once? Yes, she could. He was beginning to think she could do anything.
She drew closer to him again, in ever-decreasing circles. Without hesitation this time, he held out his hand and she brushed past him again and again. Then – he must have imagined it. No. There it was. The dolphin pressed her snout into his cupped hand. Aidan stopped smiling inwardly and laughed out loud.
Then she was gone.
He’d forgotten to take a single photograph.
Chapter 2
It didn’t take Aidan long to make up his mind to change his trawler to a dolphin tour boat. Not after it became clear that the dolphin was there to stay. He called her Star because it was as if she’d fallen from the sky like a star. One day the ocean was vast and empty, the next it was effervescent with her presence. And she was a star. Much as he would have loved to keep her to himself, she wanted to make herself known – as if craving human company. First she made friends with the surfers. The regulars, wet-suited – young men mainly. Black and slick, they glided between the waves in increasing numbers. She drew a crowd wherever she went.
And she was definitely a she, according to the German marine biologist who had taken up residence in the bay not long after her. Something to do with mammarian slits – it was hard to be sure: the woman’s accent could be so obtuse. And it was clearly the same dolphin every time. She had a particular nick midway down her dorsal fin.
Aidan had taken to looking things up himself – books and the Net – until he’d become, he fancied, quite the expert on bottlenose dolphins, although this was not something he tended to broadcast.
Star made friends with the swimmers next – those hardy enough to brave Atlantic waters in April. In the cove, where the waters were calm, her dorsal fin visible and Jaws-like, terrifying the natives at first, then delighting them. She seemed to favour women, although Aidan liked to think that she recognized him. Why wouldn’t she? He swam with her every morning.
It was fortunate that he wasn’t a man affected by derision because his idea of converting his trawler was met with plenty of it. Mainly from the men he fished with and had known his whole life. Not from Fiona. He had told her over dinner one night.
Her chewing slowed to nothing and her mouth gaped, slightly unattractively. ‘You’re what?’
‘It’s a great opportunity.’
‘For whom exactly?’
‘For everyone.’
She swallowed her mouthful and put down her cutlery. He watched her fold her arms and cross her legs. The vertical line between the brows on her intense little face deepened. He remembered a time when it had appeared only occasionally. Now it was a permanent fixture. Not that he could talk.
‘But she could be gone tomorrow.’
‘She could. But I don’t think so. I think she’s here to stay.’ Aidan picked up his fork and began eating again.
‘You can’t possibly know that.’
He shrugged. ‘Not for sure, no. But sometimes in life you have to take a calculated risk. You married me, didn’t you?’ He flashed her a smile, knowing he could win her over. She didn’t exactly smile back but her features relaxed a little.
‘Would the initial outlay be big?’
‘No. A lick of paint and a lot of elbow grease. You could help if you wanted. Keep down costs.’ He grinned at her now.
‘Oh, no. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me onto that smelly boat. Wild dolphins even.’
‘Fiona, it’ll be great. No more smelly boat. No more smelly me. Something new and different. A proper family business. The kids could help out in the summer and,’ this was the clincher, ‘if I don’t do it, somebody else will.’
She leaned forward, her legs twisted around each other, her forehead against a bridge she made with her fingers. He watched her line deepen again as she took it all in – processed the information.
‘But fishing’s been in your family for generations. How can you give it up just like that?’
‘It’s not “just like that”. I’ve been looking for a way out for a long time.’
‘Have you?’
Had he? It was the first she’d heard of it. And she used to be privy to his every thought.
‘Yes. There’s no future in it any more. Nothing to pass on to Tommy. Over-fishing has seen to that. And I don’t want to be part of it now. Part of the rape of the oceans.’
‘Isn’t that a bit overdramatic?’
‘No, Fiona. I don’t think it is. Not any more. I was thinking I’d stay fishing for the next few weeks and when Tommy’s off for the long weekend we’d get the boat cleaned up in no time.’
She sighed. Deeply and with exasperation. ‘All right, then. You have my blessing. We both know you’re going to do it anyway.’
He leaned back in his chair and raised his arms to her. ‘Come here to me, cailín maith. You won’t regret it.’
‘I’m regretting it already,’ she said, as he came around to her side of the table and bear-hugged her. ‘Get off me, you big eejit. You can do the washing-up.’ But she was secretly pleased. It had been a while since he’d hugged her. ‘There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,’ she said.