B07F3S1H9W

by Eoin Brady

  “Yeah, it’s probably a good thing you never opened that letter,” Hayley said, looking up from the end of the blog. “If I thought this was about me …” Hayley shook her head. “This is harsh stuff. Funny, mind, I’ll give you that. I’ve never read anything like this from you that wasn’t in a private message.”

  “It’s designed to be harsh and it was effective. Remember that photographer in America? He got the message. I have to tell Diarmuid. You should have seen his face the morning he was leaving.” Shade looked at the drone video recording again. Diarmuid alone on the pier waving at her. “How do I find him?”

  “Your blog got you into this mess, why not use it to clear it all up?”

  “Do you think he’d be reading my blog after finding that? That cheeky fucker, he read my blog, he promised he wouldn’t.”

  “Might find him if you go through your most recent mean comments,” Hayley said.

  “Besides, what could I write?” Shade asked. “I know him a week and that blog is a business. It’s not for personal use.”

  Hayley gave her an odd look.

  “Hollow Ways will be monitoring everything I do on it now. ‘How to shake a holiday fling’ is interesting to a wide audience, and unusual enough to bring back the attention of old readers.”

  “Let me finish this tattoo. I’ve wine at home. We’ll skip dinner and order pizza.” Hayley drained the remnants of her bottle.

  “Wait a minute. What good would it do if I did find him? What’s the purpose after I tell him? If I do get in contact with him I’m hardly going to be all, ‘Yeah, I know you read my blog post, that one about my holiday flings. Yep, not about you, about the guy before you. We good? Oh we are? Yeah, no, I don’t actually want anything. Just clearing it up.’ It’s for the best you know, that he thinks me cold.”

  “A bitch likely.”

  Shade ignored her. “No protracted end to things, cut and done.”

  “Yeah, you’d be doing him a favour. I could only handle you in small doses if this is how you are all the time. Now lie back down, some of us have work to do. We will find him and you can decide from there what happens. Would have been a lot easier had you kept the damn letter,” Hayley added in a mumble but started the gun again before Shade could remark. “We’re not looking for him because you need a relationship in your life. He seems like somebody that you’d want to know. For the next while at least, every time you think back to that island it will be of him and the ‘what if’? So, what if you tried to clear things up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And you never will unless you try, so you may as well.”

  Shade was careful when putting on the borrowed dressing gown, letting it slide down over her new tattoos. I will let him know that the blog post was not intended for him. That’s the least that I can do and the most I’m willing to. I’m working for Hollow Ways now and I won’t wait for somebody.

  Shade pushed her laptop onto Hayley’s sitting room coffee table, knocking empty pizza boxes and cans to the floor. Her phone rang, waking Hayley up. She stretched and languished back on the couch. “Have you been up all night?”

  “Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú?” the voice over the phone said.

  “Hello. How are you? I was on the island a few days ago and I got the number for your place,” Shade said. She was confident that her voice did not reek of the desperation that had kept her awake.

  “Are you looking to rent it? We’re a bit full up over the next few weeks with the summer season but I can have a look for you if you’ve dates in mind that you want me to check.”

  “No, no, I’m okay thank you, I’m actually ringing about some of your guests that stayed with you last week. The group that put the play on. Do you remember a man by the name of Diarmuid? He played at the bar and stayed in your accommodation. I have his fiddle with me and sure didn’t he go off with the address and number I was to use to send it to him.”

  The man over the phone said nothing forcing Shade to go on. “I could send it on to you but if you have no interest in covering shipping to him I can send it – I owe him a few pints, this should cover it. Would it be possible to get his contact information from you?”

  “I don’t know about that now, I can’t be giving out that kind of stuff.”

  “I understand. That’s not a problem. I can give you my information to give to him if you’d like.”

  “Hold on a moment. I have my date book here and the group that stayed here was paid for by a woman. No mention of a Diarmuid. I know the chap you’re on about though; black hair, quiet.” Shade waited with bated hope. “The name I have is Katie. Does that do you any good? If you give me your details I can send them on to her.”

  Shade gave out her number through gritted teeth and then hung up.

  “Do you want some coffee?” Hayley asked.

  “Well I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep so yes, I’d love some.”

  “What’s the story then? All good?”

  “Not in the slightest. Remember the woman, Katie, I told you about? She was the name under the house.”

  “The woman from the first night?” Hayley asked.

  “And the last.”

  Shade flicked through her journal to the information on the play, she pulled out a leaflet. “She’s part of An Bealach Glas Theatre Group.”

  Hayley took it off her and read the title. “The Terminal Velocity of Rain – sounds pretentious as fuck. Any good?”

  “No – not great.”

  Shade typed the address into the computer, the featured post was about their run of plays and stories by young Irish playwrights, titled ‘Stories from Under the Dolmen.’ Katies was in many of the pictures. She found her name and came to her social media pages. She scrolled through the extensive friends list, she was on her second cup of coffee before she got to the end of it. There was no sign of Diarmuid. She would have to message Katie.

  Dear Katie.

  We met on Inis Meáin recently. I’m trying to get in contact with Diarmuid. If you could help me out I would appreciate it.

  All the best,

  Shade.

  Over an hour passed before a reply came.

  “What do you want with him?”

  Short and blunt. Bitch.

  “I’ve lost the letter with his contact information and I’m trying to reach out and find him.”

  I don’t even know if there is any way of contacting him in the letter. I hope nor does she.

  Katie saw the message immediately but waited half an hour before replying. Shade could see she was online the entire time. Is she talking to him?

  “I have no way of reaching him myself. I’ll be sure to let him know you were trying to get in touch”

  Shade was starting to lose her patience but she had to be civil to this woman.

  “Do you know when he will be back?”

  Shade showered and dressed and was on a bus with Hayley heading out for breakfast when she got the next reply. Katie had copy-and-pasted her last comment and sent it again.

  Shade wanted to explain everything to this woman but knew it would be pointless. Katie was no friend to her.

  “My only lead to finding him wants me nowhere near him. How can you be alive today and leave no digital footprint? My granny has put more up on the internet and she only shares pictures of birds she likes.”

  “I don’t know what else we can do, Shade,” Hayley said. “You did all you can, keep your eye on your messages, he’ll call.”

  “Would you?”

  CHAPTER 21: ICELAND

  Near constant daylight in Iceland meant that Shade had gone too long without seeing the moon. I’m alone. But she could not brood on it, because when she walked into her sister’s house in Reykjavik she was attacked a few feet inside the door. Her niece hurtled head first into her stomach knocking the wind from her lungs.

  “Mammy Shade’s home! What did you get me Shade?”

  “Get off me, Mina. You can have some of my stuff if you let me go.
”

  “Oh, Shade, you’ve arrived just as I was about to start the hoovering,” Oliva said.

  Shade wrestled Mina off her and peeked into the sitting room. Cartoons played on a large television that was blocked by a blanket fort. All the toys were on the couch. Olivas toes stuck out from the end of the blanket fort. A book rested on her baby bump.

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll do that Olly,” Shade said in a deadpan tone of voice.

  “You wouldn’t mind would you? So nice of you to offer.” She turned the page without looking back at her.

  “Come on in and see the pillow fort, Shade.”

  “Sorry Mina,” Oliva said. “The password has changed.”

  “Mammy no!”

  “You didn’t ask before you left. You know the rules. I’d like to help you out but then Daddy won’t give either of us ice-cream, you know how he is.”

  “Will you stop making me the bad guy for f… for my sake,” Kristof said from the hall.

  While Oliva was pregnant he kept abreast of the chores. Shade reckoned that Oliva would likely have another child after this one because of the house cleaning exemptions she was getting. Since Shade first arrived at their home after London, Kristof was finding any reason to avoid being home. He kept mumbling something about the office as he hurried past Shade and out the door, his jacket already on. He always seemed to forget she knew he worked freelance and the house had been his office for several years now.

  Shade distracted Mina by sneaking her some ice-cream before making two cups of tea. Oliva glanced at the number of the page she was reading before snapping the book shut. “So are you starting to miss Ireland yet? I was literally just about to say ‘home’. Yep, there’s the sour face I was expecting.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if you and Kris giving me the suite for a few days was some form of luxuriant therapy.”

  “I love you and all but not that much. They don’t allow children in the Suites. I expect you to babysit next year while myself and Kris visit,” Oliva said.

  “That’s fair. I really enjoyed it. The food was amazing and it felt as far removed from society as you can get while still having working toilets.”

  “Well I wouldn’t know what you thought of it considering you haven’t put up a blog on it yet. It’s nearly a week. What’s keeping it? That’s not like you.”

  “It’s proving harder than I thought,” Shade said.

  “The place does leave an impression on you. So any headway in your search for Island Boy?”

  “I haven’t been looking for him.”

  “You’re a fine liar but I browsed your internet history.”

  “Ollie I don’t miss living with you. How Kris stands it is beyond me.”

  “His porn tastes make vanilla exotic.”

  “You’re actually disgusting, I feel sorry for your children.”

  “Mina’s already more competent with technology than I am. The only way I know what she’s up to is when I get a bill for some phone game micro-transactions. That’s the business to be in. Her college tuition went straight into those child-friendly slot machines.”

  “Life is moving online these days. Nothing wrong with it. I’ve kept friendships up with people from across the world; you can chat with anybody whenever you want, without delay,” Shade said.

  Without missing a moment Oliva said. “Oh, so what other excuse have you for missing my calls?”

  “Your personality.”

  “It will never replace in-person communication.”

  “No, of course not. What I’m saying is good luck getting a letter to me, or a messenger pigeon.”

  “Without technology I’d not get your drunken messages which I’m so fond of,” Oliva said.

  “Never said everything about it was perfect.”

  “Are you nervous about the Hollow Ways trial? I mean why wouldn’t you be? We’ve an old issue on the toilet cistern. You find them in dentists’ and doctors’ waiting rooms across the globe and your words are going to be inside a future issue. You’ve barely said a word about it and you’re still here. Now you know you’re more than welcome to stay for as long as you want. It’s just out of character.”

  “I can’t get him out of my head. I want to know what he wrote in that letter. I want to know what he wants.”

  “You want him.”

  She did not deny it. Shade now looked forward to the solitary hours in bed. She found it hard to sleep at first; the blackout blinds still let some light in. There was no moon to comfort her. Sleep always helped, when time seemed to stop and the night waited on you to fall asleep before resetting the world. He came to her often in dreams. She could occupy her mind and ignore him during the day, but in the night there was no hiding from their music that filled the silence.

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Of course there is, if you wanted to. I mean aside from typing his name into the internet what have you actually done?”

  After the second week of living with her family Shade decided that the only way to shake him and the island was to write it out of her system. Being around Kris and Oliva did nothing to ease the growing pang that seeing their familiarity caused. An island of three, a bubble that had become a house, a home and family. Her desires were less rigid.

  She lost herself in a different coffee shop each morning to write up the post on Inis Meáin. She had thought of giving her notes and pictures to her virtual assistant to write up the article. She was more than competent, but this felt like something Shade had to do herself: write and critique, then forget. He was in the words and she felt that they should be hers. Though a ghostwriter would get his ghost from the words.

  Reading over his additions to her island journal she wondered what he could have put in his letter. His handwriting began steady but she could tell as it became nearly illegible by the end of the first night when the drink had hit him and slurred his hand. She wondered what was happening in that quiet pub right now. What is he thinking about? Near the end she came across a ‘to-do’ list they had worked on. Reading it now, the only ticks for a task completed were after her addition of ‘each other’ on the to-do list. She remembered him laughing at that, his tired smile and light kiss. “You can’t call a day productive if all the ticks are on the same thing.”

  Shade put up a half-hearted post on the Inis Meáin Knitwear clothes with a few affiliate links and plenty of pictures from the shoot. It was a fluff piece in comparison to what she should be writing.

  When she read his long list of secret places a thought struck her and with it came a wave of inspiration. I could write a blog post on all the places he suggest I visit. She looked up images of his favourite locations across Ireland. If she could help it she would stay away from Ireland but her virtual assistant could find information. She drafted a message to her VA but reading over it she realised how it would come across if Diarmuid ever read it. He would assume that I was profiting on the intimacy of his shared places. But that’s what I do with everything. She shelved that idea.

  At one point she started to read through the list of top selling erotica authors online. If the pseudonyms were any judge on the creativity of the content of the books, then she was not likely going to spend any money on a fruitless search for him there. She brought up Ireland on her map. You’re there somewhere.

  She almost thought about booking a date in the Suites for the following year. The gesture was romantic but in a year his memory would be a harmless thing, the skeleton of something that was once formidable.

  She only had a few pictures of him; the one of him groping the musician, the Polaroids from the machine in the Róisín Dubh and the one of them silhouetted against the moon before the play.

  “What Shade am I getting?” he had asked when they were in the photo booth. It was a stain on the evening and darkened how she thought he imagined her.

  The “About Me” page of her blog was constructed from answering the most pertinent personal questions. A list of achievements
and links to her social media accounts, the content designed for best engagement, to keep readers on her blog for longer. She gave her audience what they wanted.

  It was easy to send people to the “About Me” page. When she thought of him reading that it made her uncomfortable. I wanted him to get to know me, not read the answers to the most common questions I receive.

  Perspective and time made the woman who threw the letter into the river a stranger to her. I’m looking for closure he’s already given me. What will I tell him if I actually find him? Oh sorry, I lost your letter. You couldn’t by any chance give me a quick summary? Her only consolation from the last time she saw him was that the drone had failed her. It now lay at the bottom of the new port of Inis Meáin. He never need know that her impulse was to crash it into him.

  Posting the photos of them together asking, “Do you know this man?” would be off-brand and an invasion of his privacy. The only solid link she knew she had to him was Katie. Not much hope there if he told her about the blog, which I’ve no doubt he did. If she was still looking at it she would see, but she had proved uninterested in helping.

  She scrolled through social media personal pages for Diarmuid but none of the pictures were of him. How can you leave such a small digital footprint? It’s like he never existed.

  Her niece started scribbling on her skin in marker to copy her aunt’s tattoos. Shade could not remember seeing Oliva so angry. The crying was as good an excuse as any to leave for a while. It brought back too many memories long buried. She knew the new tattoos on her back were for something else but now they would always be associated with Diarmuid. Nobody else need know that.

  Writing always helped to focus her mind. Publishing an edited piece was refreshing, it stored the topic away so she would not have to think about it. Clear things for something new. She brought her notebook and Hayley’s concrete pen with the intention of writing to Diarmuid.