Pack Up the Moon
Page 17
“John?”
I looked around the room suspiciously.
“John? Are you here?”
I’m losing my mind.
I got back into bed and stayed there for the rest of the day.
* * *
As anticipated, Christmas Day passed off uneventfully. I didn’t mention my tangling with a rapist to my parents, fearing coronary attacks. Instead I told them that I had fallen while drunk. My mother ranted for twenty minutes, my father laughed and Noel rang, managing to bail me out of trouble even from a distance. It was good to hear his voice. I missed him and wished he were home. He was happy, having a ball, and I was happy for him. Our parents were so delighted to hear his voice that they didn’t dwell on his broken promise. We didn’t have long to talk. Dad had taken up most of the call talking about the weather.
“Call me when you get home,” Noel said and gave me a number before hanging up.
I couldn’t wait. The day was long. I was bloated. My mother insisted that we watch The Sound of Music and it was never-ending.
I got home after eight. I pulled out the number and called Noel.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said defensively.
I couldn’t believe he could sense trouble from a million miles away. And the truth was that I was bothered. My encounter with scum had left a bad taste in my mouth.
“Tell me,” he said.
So I told him my sad and sordid tale.
He didn’t interrupt until I finished. “You’re a modern day Good Samaritan,” he said.
I laughed. “If Good Samaritans kick people’s heads in, then yeah, that’s me.”
“Well, I did use the term modern,” he noted.
I smiled. “You’re not angry?”
“You did what you had to and it worked out. I’m proud of you.”
I wasn’t about to tell him my theory about John. I wanted him to stay proud as opposed to him fearing for my sanity.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’m great. Not kicking heads in, but living and it’s really great.”
I laughed, genuinely happy. “I miss you,” I said, not being able to help myself.
He told me he missed me too and I wanted to reach out and touch him.
“When are you coming home?” I whined.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“Are you still a priest?” I asked.
Silence.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“OK. I love you,” I said.
“I love you too.”
“How’s Seán?” he asked.
Suddenly I felt sad. “He’s leaving for London. He’s going to be an editor of some magazine over there.”
Silence.
“Maybe he needs something to stay for,” he said.
“That’s not up to me,” I replied.
“Maybe.” Then he added, “John’s been gone a while.”
I knew this but didn’t know why he had suddenly said that.
“I know,” I said.
“Happy Christmas, Emma!”
“Happy Christmas, Noel,” I replied.
I put down the phone and opened a bottle of wine.
“Happy Christmas, John,” I said and took the bottle to bed.
When I lay down, I was drunk. Unable to sleep, I lay there in the stillness and I wondered if John could see me. Was it possible? Was heaven a place from where he could look down whenever he wanted? Could he still touch me? It frightened me to think that he was somewhere, knowing that sometimes I forgot to think about him for a whole day or week or month, knowing that the pain in my heart had dissipated. And although I still missed and loved him, I had to look at his picture to really see him. What if he knew that I couldn’t remember the sound of his laugh? What if he knew about …?
I would rather he just slept. Noel would have said it was God’s way, His plan, and that life goes on. I felt like a traitor. Maybe he didn’t want me to get on with my life, maybe he wanted me to love him until death reunited us, and maybe he did send me down that lane. Did he? Did he want me to help that girl or was he sending me a sign. Noel said once that I thought of death as a punishment, but he saw it as a gift. Noel thought everything was a gift. If someone punched him in the face he would have thanked him. I asked him once if he really believed that he had all the answers. He told me he didn’t. He just believed. That was the problem: I didn’t know if I wanted to. I fell into a drunken sleep, only to wake to my doorbell.
Doreen bustled past me. She had a boxed fruitcake in her hand.
“Thanks,” I said when she put it down on the counter.
“Let me look at your face,” she ordered.
She took her time examining my swollen eye. “How’s your hand?” she asked.
“Good.”
I flexed it to show her how well I was doing. I made tea. Doreen preferred tea – coffee made her edgy.
“Seán called me,” she said. “I’d no idea I was living next door to Walker Texas Ranger. He’s worried that you’ve lost your fucking mind.”
I wondered why he’d called Doreen.
“He called you?” I asked.
“Of course he did. Everyone knows how great I am in a crisis. I worked on the Samaritans Help Line for a year, you know. I’ve heard it all.”
I laughed. “There’s nothing to hear.”
She smiled. “There’s always something to hear, love,” she corrected me knowingly.
I told her I had no intention of chasing anymore rapists down alleyways.
“That’s not what I’m worried about.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “It’s time to move on,” she said out of nowhere, but I instantly knew to whom and what she was referring.
“There’s nothing to be concerned about, Dor, really. I have moved on,” I said, looking at the counter.
She reached out and held my face in her hand and looked into my eyes.
I couldn’t escape her.
“Where’s the girl I used to know? Where’s the girl with the smile that could melt the hardest of hearts? I know you’re in there somewhere, behind all that pain and guilt.”
I wanted to cry. She held my face. Something cracked inside and I gave voice to the feeling I’d run from all these months.
“It’s my fault! If I hadn’t gone back inside!” Tears burned in my eyes.
She looked at me hard. “Listen to me, young lady, there’s no such thing as ‘if’. You can’t change what happened. It was never up to you.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t want me to go back inside.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“He told me to leave it – he just wanted to go home.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“He’d be here today.”
“No! He wouldn’t.”
I pulled away. “Why?” I cried, matching her tone.
“Because, Emma, it was meant to be,” she said calmly.
I shrank back and we stayed silent for a while. She took my hand and rubbed it, allowing me to absorb the facts. I did but she didn’t know the full story.
“Dor, I don’t feel him in my heart anymore. It hasn’t been even two years and I can’t feel him. He deserves better. I hate this.” I was crying.
She softened. “Let me ask you this. If it was you who died, wouldn’t you want him to carry on, to be happy?”
Of course I would, she knew that. I nodded.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I loved him!”
“And he loved you,” she said.
I sobbed and nodded and she smiled.
“It’s time to let him go, love. Holding on just hurts both of you,” she said gently.
“Dor?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he can see us?”
“Probably, every now and again. It must be very frustrating for him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he has moved on.”
* * *
We were on our way to Kerry. Tom drove, Clo was in the front and Seán and I were in the back. I was happy to leave Dublin, happier to be sitting beside Seán. Being close to him made me feel safe.
It was a long drive. After five hours of sitting, we pulled into a long winding driveway lined with trees. We couldn’t help but be impressed. The house loomed large; the porch light gleamed in the distance. Tom honked the horn. Anne and Richard stood waiting for us. My arse hurt. So did Clo’s – she keep lifting her ass off the seat, rubbing it and saying, “Christ!” a lot.
Seán jumped out of the car first. He and Richard hugged. Clo and Anne danced around together wildly. I stood back smiling. Tom stood back with me observing.
“Richard, Anne, you remember Tom,” I said.
I realised instantly it was a stupid thing to say. They had spent an entire weekend in Paris with him after all. Anne made a big deal about my eye as we made our way into the house. She asked if I was OK.
“Just glad to be out of the car,” I replied.
Richard grabbed my hand. “Hey, Rambo!”
I smiled.
Anne couldn’t wait to be filled in.
“But I told you everything on the phone,” I said, despairing.
She stopped filling the kettle while I looked around her kitchen, which was the size of my entire house.
“Emma, a story is only a real story when it’s told face to face,” she said.
“Since when?” Clo enquired.
“I want to hear everything,” Anne ordered, ignoring her.
“She punched him in the face.” Clo talked as though she was there and smiled. “And she kicked him in the nuts.”
“It was more of a squeeze,” I corrected.
“Who’d have guessed you were so vicious?” said Anne and they both nodded at me approvingly.
Seán watched us in silence; he was definitely not as impressed as the others. I was glad of it, as I had no intention of ever repeating the performance. Richard appeared from the sitting-room.
“How’s the poor girl?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said.
Although I wasn’t sure that was the case. I had only spoken to her mother once briefly on the phone. She thanked me and said that she was taking her daughter away on a holiday, which didn’t necessarily convey that the girl was fine, but I was hoping for the best.
Tom and Seán found Richard’s Playstation, so we didn’t see the lads for most of the night. Anne, Clo and I sat in the kitchen drinking wine and looking out onto a beautiful stone patio, which looked onto a river. It was pretty breathtaking. Clo and I were in heaven.
“This is some place,” Clo commented.
Anne smiled. “Yeah,” she agreed before changing the subject.
We knew she wasn’t totally convinced about living in Kerry, but looking around it was difficult to sympathise. Clo put on a CD. Anne asked how Leonard was.
“Yesterday, I caught him trying to swallow his toy mouse,” I replied.
Clo laughed and told Anne that the week before he had managed to get into my fridge and mangle everything in it.
“That’s so weird,” Anne said.
“Tell me about it. He managed to suck down three lamb chops and half a bottle of white wine!”
Anne thought I should take him to a vet. Clo disagreed and defended his healthy appetite.
Anne was disgusted. “There’s nothing healthy about a cat sucking down three lamb chops with a bottle of wine.”
“Half a bottle,” I corrected.
She gave me a dirty look before asking if he was fat. He was nearly two years and he shared the same dimensions as a medium-sized dog.
“He’s big-boned,” I said.
Clo backed me up. “It’s just his breed,” she offered.
Anne gave us both another one of her patented dirty looks. “Emma, bring that poor cat to the vet,” she said in a tone reminiscent of Doreen.
I nodded my head in defeat and had to admit my cat had a problem. I briefly wondered if I was a bad mother.
All of a sudden Anne was giggly and explained that she wasn’t used to drinking as she and Richard had been following a strict diet, which included no alcohol consumption, for the past two months.
“Why?” Clo asked, shocked.
“To increase our chances of having a baby,” Anne whispered even though the lads were in a sitting-room about four miles away, in what Clo described as the west wing.
Clo thought about it for a minute. I smiled because I knew what she was thinking. “Funny, I thought most women got pregnant after a decent meal and a few Bacardi Breezers. Or is that just me?”
I choked on my wine. Anne was silent for a minute before noting, “That’s a good fucking point.”
We laughed for twenty minutes. Seán arrived in victorious. He had beaten Richard at Time Crisis.
“Really? How boring,” Clo noted before grabbing his arse.
He told her she hadn’t a clue while getting a few beers from the fridge. Anne was still laughing.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Booze,” came her reply.
Clo and I laughed stupidly.
“Right so,” he said and left.
We were halfway through a second bottle of wine and Anne was slumping.
“It’s shoo good to have you,” she slurred.
Clo and I smiled. This was the first time we’d been together in months and she was right, it did feel really good.
Richard showed us to our rooms while Anne was having difficulty finding her own. We all said goodnight. Five minutes later there was a knock on my door. It was Richard.
“We didn’t really get a chance to talk,” he said.
I hated when people said this to me. There was a tone that wasn’t difficult to recognise. The tone that told you a lecture was on the way.
“I know what you’re thinking and I haven’t come to give you a lecture.”
Yeah, right.
“I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” he said smiling. The smile didn’t fool me.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Good,” he said. Then came the dreaded, “But I was thinking …”
Right on cue.
“It wasn’t the safest thing in the world, you know, attacking a rapist. Some would say it was a bit mad.”
He was looking at the floor. I followed his eyes. The floor was marble.
Nice.
“I don’t have any plans to do it again.”
He smiled. “Good.”
He proceeded to tell me how upset Seán had been.
“Really,” was my jaded reply.
“Yeah,” he responded.
His smile faded. “He really cares about you.”
My face reddened. “I know,” I replied.
“Do you care about him?” he asked accusingly.
“Of course.” I was taking umbrage.
“He said he’s going to London,” he continued unabated.
“It’s a good opportunity,” I said, sitting down, still hoping he’d leave.
“And that’s what you told him?” he asked.
“Yes.”
We were both getting pissed off.
“If you have any feelings for him, and we all know you do, I suggest you pull your head out of your ass and tell him.”
I couldn’t believe it. Cheeky bastard! “Kerry is making you mean.”
“I call them like I see them and we all know I don’t see much,” he said smiling. He headed towards the door while I sat there dumbfounded at his sheer nerve. He turned. “Hey, can we keep this little conversation between ourselves? If Anne knew I spoke to you, she’d kill me. Goodnight.” He winked at me. “I do love you, Em, but sometimes you’re blinder than I am.”
Not really – your wife hates her new life.
He was gone.
I lay down but I couldn’t sleep. I kept think
ing about him saying that everyone knew I had feelings for Seán. Clo had never said anything. She made jokes but then she made jokes about everything. Anne hadn’t mentioned it either. Maybe Seán knew. I blushed. I was twenty-eight, in a dark room on my own and I was blushing.
“Jesus, I really need to talk to Clo.”
Clo and Tom were asleep. It was just gone one in the morning. I knocked on the door and let myself in. Tom moaned.
“Tom,” I whispered.
He turned in the bed, still sleeping.
I walked closer. “Tom,” I repeated.
He was still in the land of nod.
“Damn,” I whispered. I can’t believe they are asleep already. I moved closer again and shook him.
“Tom!” I called into his ear.
He shot up in the bed.
“I’m up, I’m up,” he said, looking around, realising it was pitch dark. He focused blearily on my crappy dressing-gown.
“Christ, Em, what time is it?” he asked rubbing his eyes.
“I’m really really really sorry but this is an emergency. Could we swap beds?”
“What?” He sounded surprised at what appeared to me to be a perfectly reasonable request.
“I really need to talk to Clo,” I begged.
He looked over at Clo, passed out and dribbling.
“She’s asleep,” he noted.
“I know just how to wake her. Really, this is an emergency. My room is two doors down on the left.”
“OK,” he agreed, beginning to sense the urgency of my situation.
I smiled and waited for him to exit the bed.
He sat looking at me.
“What?” I asked getting irritated.