by Eoin Brady
A two-hour drive in Oliva’s jeep brought her to Seljalandsfoss waterfall. She sat on a soft mossy hill behind it in the near ever light of Iceland’s summer sun. She had their songs on a playlist but after an attempt at listening to them she realised she was not ready yet. She read over her notes while in Synge’s Chair, about being stuck in an island of time. It’s not about reaching forward. It’s about connecting with the stowaways that are adrift with us.
She started with “I miss you.”
CHAPTER 22: TEARS BEHIND A WATERFALL
I miss you Island Boy.
I’m writing this to you behind a waterfall in Iceland, so the marks aren’t tears. I wanted to get that across before starting into this. Let me paint a word picture. I’m sitting on a large rock, which is completely green with moss. I’m hiding behind a wall of water that makes it hard to hear my own thoughts, and watching a beautiful sky. I’ll add a picture of what I can see. You’d like it here. I came with the intention of listening to our songs. I took your advice and went somewhere beautiful for the sake of it. Can’t hear a note with the noise of the falls. Not quite up to listening to our songs at the moment either, so it worked out. I’m also hiding from my pregnant, nosy sister who is probably reading this letter right now. If so, get a life, Oliva.
I wonder where we would be now had I not jumped on you out on the cliffs of Inis Meáin. It’s mad thinking back to that morning in Galway watching all those strangers walking past each other, completely blind to what there could be in the crowd. If we never met we’d never remember each other; we would have passed from memory. During my time on the road that’s how life worked; I’ve long got used to it. Find a friendly port and rest there for a while before moving back out to the sea of strangers, likely never to return again. I don’t want that with you. Regardless of how we ended it has made me slow down and think about things I thought no longer needed thinking about.
I’ll be honest with you here, I’ve no idea what you put in that letter of yours; you have no clue how much I wish I had it now. I’ve reread your entries to my travel journal so many times that I read them in your voice. Without having me looking over your shoulder and with some time to write it in, it keeps me up at night knowing that I had a distilled bit of your consciousness in writing and no longer own it. Without it I am full of uncertainty. Do you want something more? Was the letter a goodbye? Was it a plan? What did you see in me? It takes me time to grasp change or even be okay with it. I work at a slower pace than most in that regard.
I suppose if you ever read this you are probably wondering why I don’t have the letter, how could I lose something like that? Wouldn’t it be horribly wonderful if it was because of chance? Chance brought us together and it could separate us. I’d hate it but I could stomach it and adopt that foolish sentiment that “if it’s meant to be it will be”. I despise that line of thought. If you want something to happen don’t leave it up to chance – go and seek it. I’m looking for you. If I find you I’m setting you up on some form of social media. You’re stressing me out with how hard it is to find you. Though thinking about it now, that must be nice for a time, to be invisible to the online world.
Oh right, yeah, the letter was not lost. On my last day in Galway I wandered to that spot where you said, ‘I’m not saying it’ and I dropped your unopened letter into the river and made sure you remained mute. It was impulsive of me but I thought it would help. Seeing how you were the last time we met was confusing and hurtful in a way I thought I’d never let another person close enough to manage. You disappeared on our last day together. I had plans for us. I did not want it to end there. Sure, remember in the photo booth before the concert? I said I no longer wanted to be strangers and that still stands.
I know why you were that way now. You read my blog. You went looking for and found my virtual alter ego, even when you said you wouldn’t. People I’ve talked to about it say that it was a breach of trust, but a minor infraction. The information is public and the lure of it would prove difficult for me to ignore, too. I would have looked, if I’m honest. Are you reading it now? Are you gorging on my past while I’m here starving for a bit of information on you?
You know if this is ever resolved I can predict I will lord this over you indefinitely. That post was not designed for you Diarmuid, it was a general one about romance on the road. It was written to entertain my readers and most importantly, to send a message to somebody who persistently commented and emailed me with the delusion that there was something there that never was. I’ve dealt with creeps and stalkers in the past. This method worked. I can’t begin to imagine how I would have felt in your position. Are you thick in the head? The way we were together should have made you certain that I was not talking about you.
I cannot help but believe there is something to how I feel in your absence. There’s not a day gone that I’ve not woken up and smiled thinking about you and then felt horrible when I really wake up and realise that it can only ever be a memory. Not something to look forward to, which I wish it was.
I miss your laugh. Genuinely think if they recorded it and had it play when people rang in to a helpline it would make a lot of people feel a little bit better.
I want to make to-do lists and plans with you again. I’m going to keep on looking for you Diarmuid, but I’m also taking the Hollow Ways job. I find it so difficult to write up the Inis Meáin trip. It has something to do with the way I process things. When I finish and edit that blog and then post it, it’s over. I don’t want to touch a word of it, alter or edit a single memory. In its place I’ve been planning my next big trip: Patagonia. I’ll be there for some time. Would it have worked do you think if we stayed in contact and ended another way? Would you be okay with my lifestyle? Would I be okay with yours?
So I’ve tried a few different ways of finding you. I hold on to some hope that Katie will help me. If I sent this letter to her would she keep it from you? Would she get a good laugh from it? I will go to her if I must.
I’m rambling now. I guess I wanted to say that I miss you.
Goodbye, for now.
P.S. If I’m completely honest with myself, you are never going to read this letter. Writing it was a selfish method of cleansing you from my mind and the opposite has happened. You are the prominent thought and I only wish you were not a memory that will only fade. When I finish this I have to plan for my trip across Patagonia. I think this will be the first time I’ve started a trip with so little enthusiasm.
All the best,
One of the versions of me (I’ll let you decide which one).
Shade lied in her letter; some of the watermarks were tears.
CHAPTER 23: SHADE’S LETTER
On her way back to her bunk in the freezing cold, Shade stopped to look at the stars. No cloud obscured her view. A meteor skimmed across the atmosphere, dashing away in a scar of light before the shimmering sky, burning into nothingness. Even the thought of heat made her want to scurry back across the loose scree and curl up beneath her blankets but she lingered a little longer in hopes of another. Her breath misted in the night and veiled the stars for a moment.
There was nobody around to pollute the night. She had never known a sky could look so beautiful without decent photography gear. Beneath Patagonian stars her mind was still on the island. One month on and she was only now able to listen to their songs. She was working on the second stage write-up of the expedition. She wrote what she imagined people wanted to read from a solo female explorer, hiking through Chile and Argentina.
It felt like there was hardly anything left to explore in this world. To garner attention you had to either be the youngest to do something or the best at it. She put her headphones on beneath her fluffy hat and pressed play on the Island playlist and endured the cold a little longer to watch the sky. The pink soft skin on her heels, the aftermath of yesterday’s blisters, was starting to form new ones. Getting off her feet sent a wave of comfort up her legs. She knew she would get no more words written on th
e update of her hike. Her camera was full and she had started recording herself speak, she would listen back when she reached the next city and write up the full article.
Her first and, in her mind, fully edited instalment came back from Hollow Ways almost completely altered. She hardly recognised the words as her own. The photos and her name remained the same. She felt lucky to have even that much. Like the little meteor she felt silently transient in Hollow Ways atmosphere, and burned out when pushed.
She took out pen and paper and wrote a letter to Diarmuid. She regularly talked at him. It was unhealthy she knew, though she refused to call it an obsession. Give it another month or two before it earns that label. For now she was content to write letters that would never be read. It reminded her of the first days of her blog, when it had only been for her.
I’m sitting here in Patagonia under the most amazing stars that I’ve ever seen. Each one twinkles! It actually twinkles. There are so many more than I could have ever imagined. Out of everything I’ve seen on this adventure, as amazing as it is, this is by far the most beautiful, it made me think of you.
It’s moments like this that make me so sure about wanting you in my life. When something so wondrous makes me think of us and what we could have, it makes it so clear. I’m not worried about how the future will pan out, only sad that moments go by without you in them.
I’m back in my tent. It’s so cold here. I wish I could have shared those stars with you though. A photo wouldn’t do it justice and I don’t think you’d enjoy that as much as my words. Oh yeah, by the way I’m writing by candlelight at the moment. Can you feel the romance oozing off the paper? That could actually be snot – as I said, it’s very cold here. See!? Romance!
I want you here with me. To hold my hand, to cuddle me, to kiss me. Such beautiful things to do with someone you care about. But we don’t need fancy twinkling stars to create amazing moments. You make moments wonderful with the thought and effort that you put in. I miss the private moments that nobody else knows about. When I wake up in the night in my sleeping bag. I imagine the bed on the island, looking at you sleep. Stroke your hair, kiss until you stir, enough to take back some covers and resume the position of big and little spoons. Your arms around me make me feel so safe and arm.
I dream of you. Not always clearly but enough to know that you were in them. I wake up disappointed at the lack of a good-morning kiss.
My legs are absolutely destroyed by bite marks! What did the bugs eat here before I arrived?
I want to hear your laugh again. I love listening to it.
I can’t get you out of my head. Everything about you, your smell, your touch, your taste, the feeling of your bare skin on mine, the pulse of you in me …
I’m not saying it, Diarmuid. I want to be near you again. Soon. Tonight I hope I dream about you, again. Sometimes they are so vivid that blissfully I forget for a while that it is only a dream. In those we talk with each other like we did on the island, no borders between our minds. Everything gets resolved but when I wake there’s a mild despair knowing it was only my brain fooling me by giving me what I want. Little comfort.
P.S. I’m not saying it.
If I ever do see him again there’s no way I’m giving him any of these letters. Shade read over her words once more then folded the paper with a reverence she had not given to paper since her first concert ticket. She placed it in her journal amongst the other ones. They were starting to build up. Pretty soon if she did not see him the physical weight of the letters would bring the burden she carried into the physical world.
A piece by Yann Tiersen came on and, while listening to it, the memory of Diarmuid slipping and accosting the musician made her laugh. She remembered the conversation they had afterwards along the river, of how he would travel to see only a select few musicians … She drew in a sharp breath and with it, hope.
Shade emptied her backpack, throwing clothes and food rations out of the way until she pulled out her compact travel laptop.
It took an age to load and while it did she could not settle, a week walking across Patagonia and she had not felt half as nervous at any point as she did right now.
She checked Ludovico Einaudi’s website and found a concert scheduled for Dublin. Her heart was in her mouth but when she read the date she swallowed. It was on in two weeks.
Shade felt a painful hollowness. This is the best lead since, well, his letter. She was not set to finish the expedition for another two months and that was generous considering how long it took her to get this far. Anguish almost overwhelmed her.
No. There’s a choice. Go back the way I’ve come, a week of hard hiking and forsake the road ahead. That said if I do go back to Ireland there’s no certainty he will even be at the concert. It was a chance, but she had to try because it was a chance.
She could forget she ever saw it. Continue on and send her words to Hollow Ways to have them rearrange them to fit in with the rest of their magazine. What does it matter anyway? I’m getting paid and getting my name out there. I started this to work for myself, not have a career tied to the scrutiny of others.
If nothing else I can buy a ticket to have it. Shade went on to the website for The National Concert Hall in Dublin. Regardless of the cold she was sweating, she went through the process of booking a ticket.
SOLD OUT.
The words cut into the screen. It can’t be. She checked every single type of seat from the most expensive to the nose bleeds but nothing was available. Ludovico Einaudi had sold out.
The road ahead in Patagonia had no lure for her any longer. Shade booked flights back to Ireland and set her virtual assistant the task of getting her tickets to that concert. Somebody will get sick, somebody won’t be able to get off work. I’ll get in. Failing that I will stand outside dressed in my Inis Meáin island wear and hope. She ignored the fact that he too might only now have realised that there was a concert, and would be looking at the same “Sold Out” notice. That was a problem for two weeks from now in Dublin, Ireland.
CHAPTER 24: DUBLIN
The cold in Dublin was nothing compared to that of Patagonia. The only clothes she had were colourful ones bought there which made her stand out more than she was comfortable with in the real world. For the duration of the flight a Hollow Ways magazine stared at her from the net pouch on the back of the seat in front of her. The newest edition was on the counter of the store where she bought a sandwich and coffee. She was waiting for somebody at the bus stop to open up an issue. Whatever decision I chose, there would always have been regret for the one I could not. Granted I would not have to see Diarmuid’s face everywhere.
While waiting on the bus transfer to Dublin City she watched the Galway coach depart. It made what she was doing seem soberingly real. Once Shade got her bearings on Dublin through her map she timed the walk between the National Concert Hall and her hotel and then lay in bed for the rest of the day. She was too nervous to do anything else. There was not one new photo of Dublin on her camera. The colourful Inis Meáin Knitwear clothes that she wore the night of Yann Tiersen were lying on the empty part of the double bed. So colourful. Shade cringed.
Surprisingly, the anxiety that she felt had little to do with the decision she made. Do I really feel calm about leaving one of the biggest travel magazines on the planet in the vain hope of seeing a boy I met for less than a week? It kept surprising her that she found no sarcasm when she said that, no matter how many times she thought it.
Oliva and Mina raided most of her wardrobe. Oliva liked to squirrel away clothes that would never fit her, in the hope they would once the baby was out. Her niece had flaunted her plundered clothes without shame; she was too young for that. Oliva on the other hand had none to begin with.
When she had the outfit she wore in the photo booth pictures put together she left Iceland for Ireland. She would stand out amongst the suits and casual wear but at the very least it was a step above holding up a sign that read “WHERE ARE YOU ISLAND BOY?”
&n
bsp; After she had dinner sent to her room she looked out of her hotel window at the people passing through Stephen’s Green. It was impossible to recognise anybody, considering she knew very few people in Ireland. There was still apprehension that she would find a familiar one. Would I recognise my father after so long? She still saw his face in her nightmares but that image was warped by a child’s fear and time, twenty years of it. Could he still be alive? She felt a small bit of self-loathing that he still managed to cause her fear.
Alana her VA managed to get her hands on a single ticket for the concert tonight but Shade worried it was likely fake. I’ll know soon enough when I try it at the door. The hall sat thousands of people. In a moment of despair Shade felt like hiding under the covers for the rest of the night.
Her phone rang. “Hello, Miss Watts is it?”
“Speaking.”
“Ah there you are. Padraig here from Inis Meáin, you stayed in my cottage there a while back.”
“Oh, hello - is everything okay?” Shades mind raced as she tried to remember if she had broken anything.
“Everything’s fine, fine. Listen, I’m getting in contact with you because a chap was looking for a way to reach you. I don’t give out guests details, never been asked for them before. Says he’s a letter for you. I can have him forward it to me if you fancy and send it on to you myself.”
Shade leapt out of bed. “No please! Give him everything. I’ll send you on my information. Thank you for taking such care though.” Shade gave him her details, thanked him, then hung up. She could barely draw breath for the excitement she was feeling. He’s come looking for me, he did exactly what I tried to do. Thankfully I don’t have a Katie barrier in the way. She had not felt this happy in weeks, not since, she realised with a little bit of shock, before meeting him.