My mother was confounded. She felt that I couldn’t move on until the person responsible had paid for their crime. I felt I couldn’t move on unless I let go of recriminations or maybe I felt John and I were as responsible as the mechanic, the driver. We all had our part to play.
The driver did not feel like I did. The driver did not want to leave well enough alone. He needed to communicate. He needed John’s parents and me, the girl who he had watched cry over the dying man, to know that he was so very sorry. He had spoken to John’s mother at the inquest. He managed to shake John’s father’s hand, but I had not gone and he desperately needed closure.
I picked up the letter from the mat inside my front door. It had probably been there a week before I bothered to lean down to retrieve it and the various bills and bloody pamphlets off the floor. I opened the bills and glanced at them momentarily to ensure I wasn’t being ripped off. The bank would automatically release the money so no need to worry about any late payments. I was briefly grateful that the bills came out of my account as changing all the utilities into my name would have been a nightmare. I instantly binned the pamphlets. I opened the cream envelope without thought. I unfolded the matching writing paper without consideration. I read the return address on the top right-hand side of the page without recognition. I had read two lines before my heart jumped and my pulse raced, causing the hand holding the letter to become unsteady.
“Oh God.”
“Dear Emma,
My name is Jason O’Connor and I was the driver who was behind the wheel the night your boyfriend, John Redmond, was killed.”
I folded the page back and sat on the sofa, placing my hand between my knocking knees.
Go away.
I called Clo. She was harassed in work but told me to stay where I was and she’d get to me as soon as possible. I waited. Every now and then I played with the paper in my hand, tempted to open it, but as I did fear took hold and I closed my hand over it, crumpling it like my John would have crumpled upon impact. I wasn’t brave enough. This letter was bringing me back to that night with such clarity I could taste the wine on my breath. I could feel the cold air, the hard ground and John’s bloodied hair in my hands.
I was still sitting in the same spot when Clo let herself in three hours later. She must have seen the terrible effect this unsolicited letter had on me because she didn’t speak. She opened the claw that used to be my hand and took the letter. Then she gently opened it and smoothed it on her leg.
“Do you want to read it?” she asked.
“No,” came my firm reply.
“Do you want me to read it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
“I’ll make tea.”
I nodded, following her into the kitchen like a ghost on roller-skates. We sat at the counter, letting our tea go cold.
“Maybe I should read it to myself first,” she offered.
“No.”
I didn’t want her to have to keep it from me if it was too upsetting. Her own life was hard enough.
“Read it,” I said, although I still wasn’t sure I’d be able for what came next.
“OK,” she exhaled. “Dear Emma, My name is Jason O’Connor and I was the driver who was behind the wheel the night your boyfriend, John Redmond, was killed. I have written to you many times. All of these attempts have ended up at the bottom of a bin. What can I say? What can I say to make your life better? I have nothing to offer except my deepest sympathy and my deepest regret. I know how hard it must be for you to hear from me but I can’t move on. I can’t live my life without telling you how sorry I am. If I could do anything different I would. I’ve gone through that night so many times, over and over again. If I had left home a little later, if I hadn’t stopped for petrol, if I hadn’t gone out at all.
I was married last year, and my wife Denise gave birth to a little girl last May. Money was tight. I knew the car needed a service and I chose the cheapest place. I’m so sorry. If only I had spent the extra money. I see you in my dreams most nights. Your face, your horror, is imbedded in my mind and I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the fear. It chokes me. I’m so sorry. My wife wonders if I’ll ever be the same, but then how could I be? I drove my car and a stranger died. I’m so sorry. I wish I could turn back time, but I can’t. If I could take his place I swear I would.
I’m so sorry. Jason.”
Clodagh was crying. I sat still, absentmindedly stirring my cold tea. It occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about the driver, not even once. I hadn’t thought about what this terrible accident had done to him and his family. So much pain. Clodagh was hugging me and I tightened my arms around her.
“It will be OK,” I heard myself say.
I kept the letter under my pillow for three nights. I read it until the paper was positively grubby. I couldn’t just ignore the man. It was so much easier to ignore him when he was just the driver. Now he was a person in great pain who had as much control or lack of it as I had.
It took me hours to pick the card. In the end I went for the plainest one I could find and inside I wrote two words: “Thank you.”
I posted it before I lost confidence and then I walked away from the post office to meet my brother for lunch.
I didn’t tell Noel about Jason. He was not himself. His eyes were circled, his brow furrowed. I tried to find out what was going on, but he fobbed me off with his standard-issue work excuse. I knew that there was more going on, but having faced one demon that day I wasn’t looking for another one. He picked at his food like a tubby gymnast hoping to lose a few pounds by merely playing with food as opposed to actually eating it.
“Are you sick?” I’d asked early on.
“No. I’m fine. Just tired,” he’d replied.
“OK.” I smiled. If something were wrong he would have told me.
“How’s Seán?” he asked.
“Good,” I lied.
The truth was, he wasn’t doing so well. He had become withdrawn, working too hard, and although his days of impersonating Shane McGowan were behind him, he was still relying on the crutch that is alcohol a little too much for my liking.
“No, he’s not,” Noel said, while attempting to loosen his collar.
“What do you mean?”
“He came to see me last week. I think he needs counselling.”
“You think everyone needs counselling.”
My brother was like Oprah: he believed in communication. I don’t know why – he certainly didn’t learn that behavioural pattern at home. Noel went on to tell me that Seán had visited him at home. Father Rafferty had let him in and he had waited there watching Sky News and debating whether the world was nearing its end for an hour and a half, before Noel had made his entrance. They had retreated upstairs and Seán had admitted that he was depressed or at least he thought he was. He put this down to the fact that he couldn’t seem to enjoy anything: work, eating, sleeping, sex. I noticed that although Seán was comfortable mentioning sex, he hadn’t mentioned that he was drinking to excess. Noel told me about their little visit because he felt that I was the only one who could help.
I wondered. I was useless. He disagreed.
“He really cares about you. You need to talk to him.” I thought I already had.
* * *
I met Seán in the park, my idea – no alcohol. He looked better than he had in months although the light that once brightened his brown eyes was still nowhere to be found. We sat on a bench dedicated to an old man who had paid for the installation of the pond. I didn’t beat around the bush because, although it was summer, it was way too cold.
“I want you to go and talk to someone.”
“What?” He was laughing as though nothing was wrong.
I wasn’t in the mood for messing. “You need to talk to someone. Better again you need to stop drowning your sorrows.”
“No, I’m not!”
I was in no mood. “Listen, Seán, you can say what you want, but we�
�re all worried. Clo, Anne, Richard – and you know Richard, he doesn’t notice anything – and Noel.”
“You spoke to Noel.” His tone was cool.
Shit, I shouldn’t have included Noel.
“No!” I said with mock horror, then added as innocently as I could, “Have you been speaking to him?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Piss off!”
He looked at me with curiosity. “Piss off?” he repeated, intrigued.
“Yeah. Piss off!” I said emphatically.
He laughed.
I didn’t find the situation so amusing. “Oh, that’s funny. Yeah, it’s all funny. You’re falling apart and it’s a real laugh.”
He stopped laughing and moved to a defensive stance. “What the hell do you want from me?” he asked, but as soon as he made the query, it was obvious that he did not want my response. He was, however, going to hear it.
“I want you to take your head out of your arse and I want you to face up to the fact that John is dead and there is nothing that you or I or anyone else can do about it. And you drinking your face off for the rest of your days and giving up, well, that’s fine. But know this, your friend John, he would give anything to be here sitting on this bench looking at those stupid ducks swimming in circles and he wouldn’t piss whatever life he had left down the toilet like you are doing.” It was a mouthful and Seán was startled but I wasn’t finished. “Now, you can get help or you can piss off because the rest of us need you. We need to you to be well and happy and strong like the old Seán because we need him back.” I was crying again. I didn’t even notice because crying in public was no longer alien.
We sat in silence for a long time. He played with his scarf, an old college one that he dug out every winter.
“I’m not an alcoholic,” he said.
“Prove it,” I challenged.
Silence. Then, “OK. I’ll see someone.”
I took his hand in mine and it was icy. We walked out through the arched gateway and onto the busy street, still holding hands. By the time we hugged and parted at the end of the street his hand was warm.
I walked home and lay on my bed with Leonard, the lost kitten who nobody was looking for, now my growing companion. I fell asleep to the sound of his purring, hoping against hope that, if I could never have John back, at least the old Seán would return.
Seán did go to see someone. I can’t tell you what they talked about because that would remain forever between them. He stopped drinking for a while just to ensure that he could and, when he went back to it, it was only socially. He began to find the acceptance that the rest of us had managed despite ourselves and it wasn’t long before he returned to brighten us like he used to.
Anne had other problems. She had tasted death and now she craved for life. She admitted she’d been upset that day in Bewleys’, when she had taken the pregnancy test. Her reaction to the white window was vastly different from mine. While I had cheered, she had mourned. While I had celebrated what I never had, she had grieved. Another blow so soon. Richard was blissfully unaware of the cause of his wife’s distress. He put it down to her missing her friend like he did and it would never have occurred to him to ask.
Anne and I had met in English class. We found ourselves sitting together on the second week and after that it was just habit. We were alike, as both of us weren’t particularly sure what we wanted from life, both of us falling into an arts degree hoping that at some point along the line we’d find our path. When she met Richard he became her direction, like John was mine. It was nice to have someone around that wasn’t career- or goal-oriented. As much as I loved Clo we never shared that ambition that burned so brightly in her. Anne was a homemaker. You could see that the first time you laid eyes on her. She was a Benetton-jumper-and-silk-scarf-wearing-Rose-of-Tralee-homemaker. Richard was in economics, but he came across as the literary-tweed-jacket-leather-patch-and-jeans-professor type. They fitted, like a well-bound book. Their only problem being that now, after six years, they found themselves on different pages.
Meanwhile, Clo found herself in a relationship with her admiring client Mark. He wasn’t married; she had wasted no time in confirming that fact. He didn’t appear weird like the guy she once dated whose all-consuming hobby was the collection of butterflies; nor was he a stalker, again an improvement on the men she had managed to attach herself to. It was comfortable and he was very sweet to her through all the grieving stuff. After four months it was possible that this one was a keeper. She didn’t boast about it; she was sensitive to the fact that I had lost my love and certainly wasn’t about to shove her new one in my face. Still, she was happy and her happiness had the pleasant effect of rubbing off on me.
We had no secrets. We had built sandcastles together. We’d shared adolescence together, from mud pies to blowjobs to losing our virginity to death. Nothing was sacred from one another. How could we change the habit of a lifetime?
“So what’s he like in bed?”
“Unbelievable.”
“Fuck off!”
“I swear, I came the first night. The first night, Emma! Do you know how long it was before I managed an orgasm with Des?”
“Six weeks.”
“Six weeks and I’m not saying he was bad. I mean, Jesus, Butterfly Man was bad.”
We were drinking wine on her bed, half watching a video about a string-vest-clad Sylvester Stallone climbing rocks in the snow.
“He does this thing with his finger. My God, it’s unbelievable.”
I laughed. John used to do a thing with his finger. God, I missed him.
“You know, I haven’t slept with someone that good since Seán,” she continued.
My head jerked involuntarily and it hit hard against her wooden bedpost. My face flushed red while I steadied my wineglass.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” I spluttered, embarrassed and attempting to hide the fact that the one time my two wanton friends had sexually collided bothered me. I had no idea why my two single friends having sex had upset me, negating the possibility of meaningful conversation. It was definitely better to avoid the subject.
“Are you sure? Your face has gone red.”
I flushed more. This was a problem I’d had since I was a kid: any kind of embarrassment was further compounded by a blood-rush to the head.
“I just hit my head,” I said, knowing she knew the blush better than I did, as she had been on the receiving end of it too many times.
“You hate it when I talk about Seán,” she said after a while.
She was right. I tried to explain my embarrassment away. “It’s just … it’s Seán, you know?”
She didn’t know.
“When it’s another guy,” I went on, “one I’m not friends with, well, then the graphic images are entertaining but with Seán – I can see him. It’s embarrassing.” I was lying – that wasn’t it, but I didn’t know what was and what I’d said made sense.
“But John was my friend and you still filled me in on the gory details. I don’t get embarrassed.”
Shit, she was right.
“Yeah, I know, but when we met we were all kids. God, if I didn’t tell you about him I couldn’t tell you about anything.”
She was smiling at my inexperience.
“Anyway, I’m a prude. Deep down.”
She laughed. “You are such a prude!”
“Alright, no need to bang on about it.” I was smiling but, deep down, as well as being a prude I was a little disconcerted.
What is my problem?
Chapter 9
The Priest, the Stranger and the Unwanted Child
We hadn’t gone out together as a gang since that night. Anne decided it was time. She decided bowling was an easy option. I wasn’t so sure. I hated bowling. Anything that involved a ball and throwing caused me anxiety, although at least whilst bowling nobody would be actually throwing a ball at me, so I conceded. Clo was delighted, she being adept at pretty
much any sport she tried. Also she felt it was a great way to introduce the rest of us to Mark.
“It’s perfect,” she announced. “Three and three, we can have a match. Girls against guys.”
Mark would take John’s place, filling the gap that he had left. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach, making me want to vomit. It must have been reflected in my twisted facial expression.
“I’m sorry,” she offered, realising what she had said.
“Don’t be silly,” I replied while fighting the urge to throw up. Life goes on and she was right: without Mark the teams would be uneven. She was so excited at the prospect of actually going out with someone long enough to introduce him to her friends, who the hell was I to ruin it for her?
“I’m really happy for you, Clo,” I said.
“I know you are,” she smiled.
“I don’t mean to be a miserable cow.”
“I know you don’t.”
“I bloody hate bowling.”
“I know you do.” She was laughing.
“I’m really crap.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Remember the time John threw a basketball to me in fifth year?”
“It hit you in the face, knocking you out.”
“I ended up with a big fat lip for five days.”
“And your nose hasn’t been the same since.”
“Jesus!” I immediately felt the shape of my nose.
She was still laughing. “Joke, Emma.”
I laughed, embarrassed that I had been so easily fooled. I had wondered often if grief had made me a little thick. This notion had now been confirmed.
* * *
Clo and I entered the bowling alley together; Anne and Richard were already practising in lane two. Seán was buying his dinner, which amounted to a hotdog and a bag of crisps. Clo spent her time clockwatching, wondering where Mark was. It was only five minutes after the stated meeting time, but she was used to being let down and the concern on her face made me pity her. Ten minutes later a man entered and she instantly jumped to her feet, smiling and waving as though she hadn’t a care in the world. Mark. He was attractive in a kind of upper-class-Sampson-haired-thick-neck kind of way. If he’d have bulked up he could have been a gladiator. He waved and pointed toward the café indicating that he was getting a drink. She waved him on, happy to now be able to concentrate on the match ahead.
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