No Way to Say Goodbye

by Anna McPartlin

  “Did you hear what I said? I’m moving to Cork!”

  “You hate Cork.” She heard herself sounding childish.

  “It’s not a choice. She’s going to take the kids. If we don’t make a go of it, she says she’ll go back to Holland. I can’t lose my kids. I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re weak,” Penny said, with a trace of anger.

  “Yes.”

  “You make me weak,” she said, softening.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s really over.”

  “Yes, it is,” he said.

  Oh, God. She closed her eyes. Sinéad O’Connor’s version of Elton John’s “Sacrifice” played around them; she hadn’t been able to escape Sinéad lately.

  And suddenly they were dancing, holding each other tight under a half-moon, moving in circles that symbolized their relationship, both afraid to let go, both willing the song to continue while silently their insides tore.

  When the song ended Adam reluctantly returned to the party, leaving Penny to get into her bed with a bottle of vodka.

  It was after midnight when Mary found herself in the part of the forest she rarely visited. Just once a year, on 19 March, and that was enough. She’d brought a teddy she’d picked up two weeks previously before she’d allowed herself to lose track of time. She carried Ben’s favourite cloth, and a flashlight to navigate her way through the darkness. The tree stood tall and strong, aside from the broken limb, which had been amputated long ago. She took out the cloth and began to wipe the plaque bearing the name of her son, in the place he had died but, more importantly, the place where he had lived, laughing on the makeshift swing. A swing that every child in town had swung on at one time or another, until 19 March 1999 when the limb had given way, catapulting Mary’s baby high into the air before gravity pulled him back to earth in such a way that he’d landed on his neck, snapping it instantly. She laid the teddy by the flowers her father had put there earlier that day. At least he could rely on you, Dad.

  She touched the clean plaque tenderly, then looked around to make sure she was alone. It was cold enough for the mud beneath her to crystallize and she could see her breath forming a trail in the night air. She stood with a hand up each opposite sleeve, shivering despite her many layers of clothing. “I can’t believe it’s been six years,” she said.

  “It seems like only yesterday,” came a whispered reply from the darkness.

  Mary weed herself a little. “Hello?” she asked, in a voice that suggested mild hysteria.

  “Is that you, Mary?”

  The voice was muffled but more distinct and coming from behind her. She turned quickly and pointed her flashlight in a take-charge-while-shitting-it manner that reminded her of Dana Scully in The X-Files circa 1993 before Dana’d lost the weight and was still a sceptic.

  “Hello?” she said again, scanning the foliage with her flashlight, which was of little use because her eyes were closed.

  “Mary, girl, if you don’t help me up I might freeze to death.” The voice was suddenly familiar.

  “Tom?”

  “I can’t get up,” he said, from the ditch that hid itself behind a large rhododendron.

  Mary parted the bush to reveal Tom on his back, much like an upturned turtle, too drunk to negotiate his way onto his feet. She sat him up. “Jesus, Tom, you nearly killed me with the fright!”

  “Sorry, pet,” he said sheepishly. “I just thought I’d call upon our boy on the way home and mistook that bush for a chair and the rest, as they say, is history.” His skin was frozen.

  “How long have you been out here?” she asked, worried that her son’s paternal grandfather would fall victim to pneumonia.

  “Not long,” he said, patting her shoulder.

  “I’ll take you home,” she said.

  “In a minute,” he said.

  “OK.”

  She’d always been fond of Robert’s father, and he and his wife had been good to her and Ben. For a while they had even felt like family, but when Ben had died, Tom’s wife, Monica, couldn’t bear to stay in the town that had robbed her of so much. They had moved to Spain where they spent most of their time, only visiting Kenmare once or twice a year. It had been five years now since they’d gone and in that time Mary and her child’s grandparents had drifted apart.

  Tom wasn’t a drinker. In fact, he had been a Pioneer of Total Abstinence up until Robert had died. After that he took a drink each year in his memory and when Ben joined Robert he did the same. So, twice a year Tom drank and even then he could only manage three pints before he was helpless.

  He stood in front of the plaque, with his hands knotted in prayer. Mary stood back and allowed him his moment.

  “Mary,” he said, swaying.

  “Tom,” she responded.

  “Do you think he ever looks down?” he asked, eyes brimming.

  “I know he does,” she said kindly.

  “You do?” he said, perking up.

  “They all do,” she said, taking his arm and guiding him down the path that would lead him home.

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you see them?” he asked conspiratorially – he knew about her cryptic dreams.

  “No,” she admitted, “but sometimes I feel them around me.”

  He nearly stumbled on a root but she caught him in time and steadied him.

  “I don’t,” he confessed, and a tear escaped. “I’d love to,” his voice shook, “one last time – just to see them both one last time.” He tried to collect himself.

  “You’ll see them again.” She smiled sadly. “I know they’re waiting.”

  He wiped a tear from her cheek. She hadn’t even noticed she was crying. “Some say you’re a bit of a weird one,” he said, smiling at her, “but I’ve always thought you were lovely, just lovely.”

  She laughed at his honesty.

  He squeezed her arm and they walked on together.

  It hadn’t been the visit she’d expected: it had been nicer.

  Sam enjoyed a late meal courtesy of his reluctant neighbour and then, by the light of a log fire and a small reading lamp, he opened the book that led him to a place called Deptford. There, he basked in magic, murder and intrigue, and he didn’t have to think about the mess he’d made of his life. He didn’t worry about the people he’d trodden on or the lives he’d had a hand in ruining. Most importantly, sitting in the half-light, lost in another man’s world, he didn’t have to address what he’d done and why he’d done it. He could pretend that his life to date had been one long accident and that he was better now. The ghosts that had haunted him were silenced – at least for the time being.

  5. Looking down

  It had been a long, hard night and, if Mary was right and those who had left this world sometimes looked down from the skies above, they must have seen that respite was necessary. From a distance these five souls would have seemed wretched in their own quiet way, and looking down, they would have wept to see what had become of the children the five had once been: Sam, the American boy who had been so full of promise, now hiding terrible secrets that would hold him hostage, clean or not; Penny, alone and covered with vomit, hugging a bottle instead of the man she had lost to unfulfilled ambition; Ivan, the cheeky chap, a father of two at twenty-four and terribly alone in his thirties; Adam, the boy who had dreamed of being a hero only to mess it all up; and Mary, born unlucky, once luminous but now dulled by pain.

  In this world, Mary had been tested more than most, born to a dead mother, her father wailing and traumatized. He hadn’t picked her up for six months but once he did she would be loved like any other child by a doting father. And although she’d felt her mother’s absence, it was mostly in her teenage years, and her auntie Sheila was always on hand to provide the necessary feminine influence. Auntie Sheila was her father’s brother’s wife and Ivan’s mother.

  Mary’s teenage life was promising. She had a father who was wrapped around her little finge
r. She had a best friend in Penny, who shared her life at a boarding-school in Dublin. And when she came home, her older cousin Ivan was waiting with all his attractive friends lined up to hang out with the two glamorous girls who were at school in the capital. She was popular, attractive, quick-witted, curious and infectiously giddy. She loved photography, was a dab hand with a paintbrush and intelligent too, winning praise in most subjects. It was thought that she could be anything she wanted to be once her mind was made up. And at sixteen it was: she would move to New York City and become a photo-journalist. She would study photography and imaging at NYU, using the money her mother’s family had left her to pay for her dream. In the meantime, she had given her heart to Robert Casey the first time he smiled at her.

  They had got together six months later at a party in her cousin’s house. He had guided her into the toilet under the stairs. They had kissed under a blue light on a white porcelain toilet while inhaling lavender. Meat Loaf was playing in the background and a queue formed outside, with teenagers banging on the door and pleading for the sake of their bladders. A little over a year later they lost their virginity to one another on a patch of grass under a summer moon where the forest met the water, which was lapping in the distance as they experimented with rubber. When she left for school their teenage hearts would break and promises were made. When she returned, they made up for lost time, desperately in love, the education system ensuring a burning fervour. Mary was passionate then. She was wild and free, believing the world to be some sort of giant playpen.

  She had just turned seventeen when she discovered she was pregnant, doing the test in the toilets with shaking hands, an uncooperative bladder and three minutes of concentrated prayer.

  “Oh, bollocks!”

  Panic ensued. She knew the exact moment of conception. It had been the night she’d spent in the boathouse, having snuck past her friends, who were standing around the flames of a barbecue and chatting over her favourite band, Take That, singing “Pray”.

  “Damn you, Take That!”

  They hadn’t wasted time so the condom wasn’t properly positioned. It came away easily but they didn’t notice until it was too late. They had discussed the morning-after pill but agreed that the risk of exposure through visiting a local GP was greater than the threat of reproduction. This proved to have been a mistake.

  It was two weeks before Easter. Penny was stuck at school, working on a project she had avoided for far too long, so Mary had returned home alone. Robert picked her up at Killarney station, proud of his newly acquired driving licence.

  She broke the news on the mountain. He had stopped the car and pulled in dangerously close to the cliff edge. His face had changed colour and his relaxed demeanour had metamorphosed into something twisted. Their conversation quickly descended into screaming and shouting, and he had taken off his seatbelt so that he could face her. He also had plans: he was set to become an architect. They acknowledged that their perfect futures were in terrible jeopardy. After a while, their debate in deadlock, he decided to start the car. Without thinking, he rammed it into first gear, needing to get back onto the road and drive fast to clear his head. He put his foot on the accelerator and the car drove straight over the cliff.

  If you’d asked Mary about the accident she wouldn’t remember anything after the argument, but those looking down from the skies could tell you every horrifying moment. Mary had heard Robert roar and saw him turn the wheel in mid-air. She felt the terrible drop as the car plummeted. She watched the glass in front of her shatter and her boyfriend sail through it, leaving her alone to face the ground below. She braced herself to smash and die. Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry! And then for her there was nothing. A busload of German tourists had witnessed their fall and, in a world before the mobile telephone, the bus driver radioed the depot. The staff there informed the police and ambulance. One of the tourists, a doctor, had insisted on being winched down on a climbing rope to where the boy lay broken, the other tourists and bus driver holding the end, praying they wouldn’t let him fall and wondering where in hell the rescue team were. The boy was dead, the girl far down in the gorge and the doctor’s rope too short. His fellow holidaymakers wanted to pull him up and away from the body but he insisted on staying with the boy until the ambulance sirens could be heard in the distance.

  Mary was cut out of the car. They said it was a miracle she had emerged at all. Both her legs were broken and her left arm had shattered against the windscreen but it had been Robert, grazing the side of her head at 200 m.p.h., who had induced the coma. The car should have crumpled and she should have been dead, but its frame had somehow managed to withstand the impact, and when the rescue team made it down the mountain, they found her unconscious but alive. Later in the hospital her father discovered that not only had his daughter survived against all odds but, unbelievably, so had his surprise grandchild. As Robert’s mother roared and screamed in the background and his father pleaded with the doctor to turn back the clock, Mary’s dad had held her hand and prayed she would survive childbirth, unlike her mother.

  “I don’t care. Do you hear me, love? It doesn’t matter. You’re not in trouble. Just survive. And when you wake up we’ll take care of this baby together. Don’t you leave me now.” He patted her hand, glad she didn’t have to witness his eyes leaking. “Don’t you leave me now.”

  She didn’t wake for three months. Some had given up hope that she would be anything other than an incubator for her baby, but her dad was sure his daughter would return to him, and Penny was sure too, knowing that Mary hadn’t survived merely to sleep. She would come back, and her best friend spent as much time as possible sitting by her side, gossiping and playing her favourite music.

  “Music will bring her back,” she had told Mary’s father, having filled the room with CDs. She gave him a schedule of songs for morning, afternoon and evening listening, divided into weekdays and weekends. It was important he adhere to it, she said, as Mary would not stand for a weekday song at the weekend or a morning song in the evening. Paul Simon’s “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover” was a weekday song, preferably to be played in the morning – afternoon would be pushing it and it was most definitely not to be played in the evening. Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” was another weekday song but this was deemed appropriate for evening, not morning or afternoon. Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” was a weekend evening song, late afternoon would be OK – she’d noted in the margin that it should not be played before four p.m. And so she went on until Mary’s poor dad was fully apprised and entrusted with this weighty task when she was forced to return to school in Dublin to complete her Leaving Cert.

  When she was gone Ivan picked up the slack. Every day after school he’d visit and talk or read to Mary so that her father could take a shower or drink a fortifying coffee. Every day her tummy grew under a hospital blanket and Robert’s parents would call to visit the part of their son that wasn’t buried in their family grave. They’d speak in whispers and Robert’s mother would cry and his dad would insist on shaking Mary’s dad’s hand.

  She came back one Tuesday on a warm June day. It was around half past five. Ivan was reading aloud from The Lord of the Rings while Van Morrison’s “And It Stoned Me” was playing on CD. Her hand had jerked. He ignored it at first as spasms were not unusual. Then it moved again. Her fingers appeared to be searching rather than twitching randomly. Slowly he lowered the book and watched her. Her eyes flickered and blinked and at the same time her mouth opened and breath escaped. He froze and her eyelids peeled apart – slowly, as though they were coming unstuck.

  “Mary?”

  “Iv… zan,” she responded hoarsely, her mouth and throat like sandpaper.

  “Oh, Jesus on a jet-ski! You’re back!” He jumped up and ran out of the room, leaving her to wonder what the hell was going on.

  She could hear him screaming, hailing her return in the corridor, and it wasn’t long before a team of doctors, accompanied by her tearful father, revealed how lo
ng she had been lost, that Robert had perished, she had missed her Leaving Cert exams, and she was just shy of six months pregnant, soon to be a mother. Lying there surrounded by strange, harried faces, looking down at her swollen self, with her boyfriend dead, her limbs uncooperative, and slurred speech braying in her addled brain… lying there disoriented yet painfully aware that the girl who had got into her boyfriend’s car would never emerge… Through the haze of this new reality, her mind settled on Van Morrison’s familiar beat. He spoke of water and prayed it wouldn’t rain all day.

  In contrast to his new neighbour, Sam’s entrance to this world was joyful. He was born to a tired but grateful mother and a proud cigar-toting father, his older brother, then a toddler, inquisitive and keen to stroke his tiny face. His early memories were of train sets, a mother’s perfume, a father’s laughter, a brother’s teasing, but it was his granny who took up most of his head space, she being the one who had raised both boys while their mother worked in her husband’s Manhattan restaurant. Sam’s days were spent accompanying her to the local grocery stores where she’d barter with old friends while catching up on gossip, making the men laugh with her flirtatious wit and the women smile at her kindness. Granny Baskin had moved in with her daughter and son-in-law a year before the birth of her favourite grandchild and just after her own husband had quietly died while sitting on a steel girder thirteen hundred feet from the ground. Granny had often talked of Sam’s grandfather and the day the sky had taken him from her. She wasn’t bitter: he had been in his late sixties, which some considered young, but to Granny Baskin it was long enough for a man such as her husband to be grounded. “He was never meant for this earth,” she’d say. “His head and heart were always skyward.” Then she’d look up towards the heavens and wink as though he was watching.

  Most afternoons she’d collect Sam and his brother Jonah from school and take them to the park so that she could catch up with her old friends playing chess and telling stories, while the birds fed on the scraps they sprinkled about themselves. Jonah would run off with other boys and play football or basketball with any ball they could find, and if they didn’t find one he would run as though he was chasing something invisible. Granny Baskin would laugh and wink at Sam, who preferred to sit by her side and listen to a group of old immigrants reminisce about their homelands, comparing stories of the plight of the old world, each one bettering the last’s tale of woe.