It was dinner time at the Appletons’ circa 1994 and I was about fourteen.
“Yuck!” said Adam when my mother put a plate of congealed chicken, mushy broccoli and wet, sloppy potatoes in front of him (right before he proceeded to eat it anyway – he just had to get the point across).
I sidled across the table and said, “Did you say yuck? That reminds me of the yucca brevifolia. Do you know what that is?”
“One of those stupid cactuses you’re always on about,” Adam muttered as he got up for a steak-knife for his rubber chicken.
“A cactus? Any old fool can have one of those,” I scoffed. Adam used to have one on his windowsill years ago. “You’d need to go to the US to see a proper Joshua tree. There’s a Joshua tree national park in California, imagine that! There’d be some amazing ones there. Of course, you’d also see them at the side of the road if you were driving through the Mojave Desert. It’s the Joshua tree’s special habitat.”
“Have we got someone in from bloody National Geographic for dinner today?” Dad said as he sauntered into the room, sniffing the air suspiciously to suss out today’s servings. He threw an eye at Adam’s plate, threw his eyes up to heaven, then adopted a resigned look. Hunger was the best sauce, after all.
“Well, if you ever find one of them yokes,” he said, “cut off a few branches and throw them into your mother’s dinners for a bit of flavour, like those cinnamon sticks she threw into that stuff that made us all sick.”
Dad still wasn’t the better of Mum’s attempt to be cosmopolitan by cooking an Indian dish.
“You’re encouraging her to do something that glued us all to the bog for a week?” Adam said through a mouthful of broccoli stalks. “It was those feckin’ sticks that did the damage, I’d put the house on it!”
“Ah, anything would help at this stage. And don’t you go putting my house on anything. Bad enough that herself out there in the kitchen tries to burn it down every few months.” He turned to me.
I was expecting him to follow up with a reference to how I actually did burn down his house all those years ago, but he spared me the ignominy. “I’ve seen some quare-looking trees down by Madden’s shed – are you sure one of them isn’t a jostler?”
The slagging would always continue along these lines – oh yes, everyone wanted their two cents’ worth of slagging – but I wasn’t for turning when it came to something I was interested in. Usually, my barrage of facts would wear someone in the group down – usually Mum, even though she was the last to join in, but her burst of energetic jokes at my expense usually weren’t matched by much stamina – and the radio would be turned on, at which point a new discussion would start up about which channel we should listen to. Discussion being a euphemism for argument, naturally. I smiled at the memory; they were the best of times.
“Are the trees telling a joke only you can hear?” Colm had spotted my smile. When I told him what I’d been thinking about, a strange look passed across his face.
“Are you close to the rest of your family?” I asked Colm. I hadn’t mentioned his parents’ death since he told me about it. The time had never been right. And yet, I felt I should say something. Maybe this was my segue . . .
“No.” He stared away. Something in the tone of his voice made me too afraid to ask any further questions.
I had to admit, I was curious about his family situation. I would have thought that the death of his parents would have drawn him closer to his siblings – if he had some. But surely he’d have aunts and uncles? Wasn’t he close to anyone? I had more sense than to ask any more questions and antagonise him, though – not now that Colm had let his wall down by a few bricks.
I was still shocked that he’d asked me to come on his desert drive at all, to be honest. It was weird. He was someone that people were drawn to, and yet the closer they came, the more he retreated. The combination of his ruddy hair and soft accent seemed to really work for him with the ladies in Vegas, but although he flirted with them, he would only take it to a certain point before running for the hills – or the desert, to be accurate. I was just surprised that he was bringing me along for the run.
My stomach growled, so loud that even Colm heard it.
“Time for lunch,” he said, walking back towards the car.
Hungry and all as I was, I still didn’t relish the prospect of getting back in the car and driving until we came across a service station. But we didn’t need to. Just as I reluctantly began to trail after Colm, he whisked his backpack out of the car and walked back towards me. He sat down, unzipped the bag, and started pulling a cornucopia of goodies out of it – bread rolls, hard cheese (most likely smelly, both from the heat and naturally), crackers, crisps, candy (d’you hear me, with my ‘candy’? You’d swear I was a local), cans of Cola that were probably at boiling point now, but who cared, and even a big check rug to put the whole kit and caboodle on. How he had fitted it all into the rucksack, I couldn’t imagine – it was like a magician’s hat, producing more and more every time he put his hand into it, even though it looked empty from the outside.
We didn’t say a word for about ten minutes straight as we tucked in relentlessly. As soon as there was no food left to devour, I broke the silence.
“Have you done a lot of travelling?”
“I suppose. I went InterRailing around Europe for three months after I left college, then I moved to London and got a job as a photographer. Then the company I was working with asked me to relocate to South Africa for six months. Of course, I jumped at the chance. Then I did the year in Oz thing, which meant that I got to spend some time in South East Asia on the way back. I did a good bit of travelling all over Australia while I was living there, and New Zealand too. I’ve had stints of working in different parts of North America – never anywhere near here though – and I spent a year working in South America as well.”
“You suppose? You could do a sideline in writing Lonely Planet guides after all that!”
He grinned. “What about you? Have you travelled much?”
“Most of my travelling has been done in Europe, really. I studied French at college, so I lived in France for four years. I taught English in a college near Paris. I guess asking you if you’ve ever been to Paris is a stupid question?”
“No, not at all. I’ve never been there.”
“Did France do something to you to be left out of your InterRailing route?”
“It wasn’t. I went all over France, actually – Lille, Nancy, Lyon – sorry to mention the war, I know you don’t want to hear anything that sounds like his name at the moment – then down the coast to Marseille and Nice, then across to Toulouse and over to Bordeaux from there.”
“But not Paris.”
“No.”
There had to be some story there. Nobody went all over France without going to Paris! I decided to let it drop, though. He obviously didn’t want to explain why he’d boycotted the capital city – and, to his credit, he hadn’t pushed me on the Leon issue earlier.
“You must have really loved Paris to have stayed there for four years,” Colm said.
I shrugged. The truth was that I had sometimes been very lonely there. But at least it wasn’t home. At that time, I had needed to stay as far away from home as possible.
“So is there anywhere left that you want to visit?” I was eager to change the subject.
“I’ve always fancied visiting the Galapagos Islands. Random, but if they were good enough for Charles Darwin, they’re good enough for me. And I’ll never get tired of visiting New York, no matter how many times I go there.”
“True. I love New York myself. Who doesn’t?”
We spent another while talking about various places we loved, until Colm eventually looked at his watch. “What time is this dinner Lindy has organised for you?”
“Six.”
“Let’s head back now so. We wouldn’t want you being late for something so important, would we?”
“We totally would. I’m sick of the
sight of that woman’s face.”
“You’re not the only one.” We both laughed. It was nice to have someone to share my dislike of Lindy with, terrible and all as it was to admit to that.
The drive back was full of convivial chat and banter, with Colm raving on about how great Pink Floyd’s album The Wall was and how sorry he was that he hadn’t brought it on this trip. He managed to pull me into his nostalgia buzz and we ended up discussing our favourite Bosco presenters back in the day, best and worst 80s adverts, and which 80s year showed the best movies on Christmas Day (seriously – he was able to name the feature films that were shown each year – the guy was one oddball). Colm was technically cheating on the 70s by such blatant adulation of the 80s, but I allowed him the transgression just this once. And it was a relief not to have to talk about Leon for once, terrible as it sounds. Much and all as I wanted to find him, I was really fed up of saying the same thing over and over again.
Before I knew it, we were back in Vegas. I was sorry that we were. Even sorrier when we had to return the car. I turned my back as I watched Colm hand over the keys – it was too painful. Still, though, I took solace in the fact that a day I’d expected to be hard work had actually been so much fun.
Everyone has a self-destruct button, but some people know how to not press it. I’ve never quite mastered that technique.
When we got back to the hotel, the words in my head that had been trying to gain a voice all day came tumbling out as I said goodbye to Colm at his bedroom door.
“Tell me one thing, Colm. The person I’ve been hanging out with all day is not the person I’ve come to know over the last few weeks. I see flashes of someone very different, but then you go back to being the person I first got to know. So which one of you is real?”
He fixed me with a glare. I returned it. Which was all very well in theory, but I was dealing with someone here who could seriously glare. The look went on and on. I was sorry now I hadn’t looked away in the beginning, but it was too late to back out now.
When he finally opened his mouth, I expected an old-Colm type of barb – but what he said was far, far worse. “Why did you have to ruin a lovely day?”
I opened my mouth to protest my innocence, but realised there was no point. He was gone again. Whatever bridge we’d built today had crumbled, and he was back behind that wall of his. I stomped off down the corridor before I said something else that I’d regret. This was typical of Colm. He had ruined the best craic day I’d experienced since . . . well, since the night with Leon, which wasn’t a day, so technically, he’d ruined the best craic day I’d had in years with his mood swings.
I headed straight for the minibar when I got to my room. A day in the desert is dehydrating work. And, who knew, the alcohol might give me the wisdom to interpret what the hell had just gone on there . . . but, as I flopped on the bed with a Coors Light, I knew I already had the answer. Yet again, I had touched a nerve, but this time it had been rawer than an abattoir. And, if I was honest with myself, I really wasn’t angry with him at all. On some strange level, I understood him.
I’d been right about one thing, though – it had been only a matter of time before we’d had a row. Usually, being proved right made me feel great. So, I waited to feel great. It didn’t happen. Somehow, I had known it wouldn’t. Still, I’d managed to keep my mouth shut about what I’d found out about Colm, and that was something. Although, if today’s performance was anything to go by, I was living on borrowed time before I blurted that out too.
Chapter Twenty-two
My phone rang at half seven that evening. Lindy. I hoped I wasn’t going to be subjected to another round of Colm-grilling. It wasn’t as if I would be much help to her – I certainly didn’t know how to handle him or to act around him, if what had gone on earlier was anything to go by. It was my second call of the day from her – mercifully, she’d rung at twenty minutes to six to tell me that the dinner at six had been cancelled. It was perfect timing, as I hadn’t even begun to get ready yet. Of course, that meant that Colm and I could have spent more time spinning in the desert instead of rushing back, but I should probably be thanking my lucky stars that we hadn’t had the time to do that. If I’d opened my big mouth at the start of our journey home, asking Colm who he really was, I’m pretty sure he would have turfed me out onto the side of the road. I still wasn’t sorry I’d asked, though. He’d got away with the whole split-personality thing for long enough.
“Hi, Lindy.” I tried to make my tone suitably busy. I’d make up what I was busy doing as soon as she asked me. I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.
“What’s the deal with the emails?” she said without any preamble.
“What?”
As soon as I asked the question, I realised what. Her words could only mean one thing – there’d obviously been another email from Go Home. Damn it – I’d meant to check up on the email inbox last night! I should have known workaholic Lindy would check email over the weekend! But why had it been sent to the Looking for Leon account and not my personal mail?
“I’m going to read something out to you, and when I’m done you better tell me what’s going on. It’s a reply to a mail you sent to this person from your own email suggesting that they send you on their phone number. They’ve CC’d the Looking for Leon email address in their reply, before you ask.” She cleared her throat, as if she was about to do a reading at Mass.
“‘There is no point in us speaking or in me putting you in contact with Leon. He will never tell you to your face that he doesn’t want you because he’s too much of a gentleman to hurt your feelings. He’s hoping that you’ll just go away and leave him alone eventually. You need to listen to me when I say that you are causing so much trouble, and’ – this next bit is in capitals – ‘you need to stop it straight away before you cause any more hurt!’ Back to lowercase now – are you with me? ‘Believe me, this is not what Leon wants or needs right now. If you don’t have any respect for yourself, then I ask you, please have respect for Leon. If he means as much to you as you’re telling the world he does, then do that much for him.’”
I cringed. Hearing Lindy read out that Leon didn’t want me was even worse than reading it myself.
“What’s the story? This person has obviously contacted you before – why haven’t you told me about this?”
“Because I didn’t want you making a huge issue out of what’s probably nothing when you could be focusing on more useful things instead.”
I filled her in on the letter and the previous email as briefly as I could get away with.
“It’s probably his ex-girlfriend,” I ended. “Leon told me all about her, and it sounds like she’s not over him at all.”
“Or maybe he wasn’t over her – why did he bring his ex up in conversation while he was chatting you up? They could be back together for all we know, which would pretty much throw this happy ending we’re looking for right out the window.”
“No way. The only reason I know about her at all was because I asked him how someone like him didn’t have a girlfriend, and he told me that he wasn’t long out of his relationship with Germaine. Believe me, he was so over that relationship – there wasn’t a spark of enthusiasm in his voice when he spoke about her. It sounded like that relationship completely drained him.” And then he’d said that nobody had caught his eye since he’d broken up with Germaine – until that night. Cue lots of bashful grins and cheeky smiles from both of us.
It already seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Hmm.” Lindy didn’t sound convinced.
“Or it could be just some random nutter who’s bored and looking for someone to hassle,” I said.
“Here’s another theory. Maybe it’s someone that Leon has asked to email you. Maybe they’re telling the truth – he wants you to just crawl into a hole and die.”
“Yes, Lindy,” I said through gritted teeth, “I had considered that possibility too, but thanks for bringing it up all the same.”
“It
could even be Leon himself. Maybe he finds it easier to tell you to go away if he refers to himself in the third person.”
“I don’t think he’d be that cowardly,” I said.
“You think, but you don’t know. You have to admit that you really don’t know a hell of a lot about him when all’s said and done. If you did, you wouldn’t be over here looking for him.”
I decided to ignore her comment – a statement like that could only serve as an incitement for an argument.
After a few seconds of silence, Lindy spoke again. “This person could well know where Leon is, but if they do, let’s hope their motivation is to stop you from getting to Leon for their own selfish purposes and not because he really doesn’t want to see you. After all the time I’ve put into this, I want a knockout ending to this story.”
“And maybe even a bit of happiness for me too?”
“Yeah, yeah. Even if you do get it together, you’ll probably break up within a few months because of the distance or some crap like that – but the main thing is that we get things to the point where you’re in a position to break up in the first place. Agreed?”
“Well, no –”
“Whatever. Now listen, if you get any more of these, you let me know, okay? You need to keep me informed about this sort of thing. It doesn’t sound like the person is willing to give too much away, but the more contact we have from them, the more hints we’ll potentially get. I’m going to go now and have a think about the best way to handle this.”
“I don’t know if there’s much we can do if this person isn’t willing to put me in contact with Leon,” I said.
“You said yourself that the person behind this could be a nutcase who’s just taken a dislike to you. I’m sure you realise that you can come across as very annoying sometimes, so it’s an extremely real possibility that your personality has provoked someone. If you wake up in the middle of the night with some freak plunging a knife into your heart, your last thought will be that I was right. Now, let me go and have a think about what I can do to prevent that from happening.”
[2014] Looking for Leon Page 21