by Tim Buckley
“OK,” I said, and I had no energy left for shouting. “OK. I’ll go. I’ll go home.”
I walked slowly and turned as I got to the corner of the house. The birds had stopped singing, the crickets were quiet and the sea had stilled.
“I love you, Emily,” I said, into the silence.
***
The drive back to the airport was a blur of thoughts and images bouncing round my head like pinballs. I had no reservation and I had no idea when the next flight left, or even if there was another flight, but I just wanted to get the hell away from there as soon as I could. I wanted to get away and, at the same time, I didn’t want to leave. The girl at the ticket desk told me there was one flight left to Perth, but it wasn’t leaving for a couple of hours. I bought a ticket and went straight to the bar. There was a stag party at a big table in the corner throwing back shots and down-in-ones so I made my way to the far corner and sat down with a beer. I had a couple more before my heart stopped thumping and I could really think straight and by then I felt like forgetting about the flight and settling in there for the night. I was pretty sure the boys would let me join the stag party, maybe I should just get a ticket to wherever they were going. But they were getting louder and leerier and I was just getting tired and slowly older.
I tried to gather up the events of the day and to put them in some sort of order so that I could make sense of them and maybe even figure out what to do next. But no matter how I arranged them on the corkboard in my head I couldn’t see any way to make all of this better. Even the beer wasn’t helping. At last, my flight was called so I picked up my jacket and made my way to the gate. One of the increasingly motley stag crew in a King Shagger T-shirt stopped me on the way out.
“Here, mate – do us favour, get a piccy of us, yeah?” he slurred, thrusting a mobile phone into my hand. He ran back to the table and they all lifted their glasses and cheered, slopping beer all over the floor and each other. I took the picture and King Shagger ran back over.
“Cheers, mate,” he grinned, handing me a shot of tequila. “Here you go, from the groom! Got any advice for the poor bastard?!”
I drank the shot and waved at the fellow wearing only an oversized nappy who could only have been the groom.
“You know what, mate,” I said, “I don’t. I really don’t.”
I checked the board for my gate and wandered slowly over. I got to the gate and I was about to sit down when I heard her voice behind me.
“Hello, Wilde,” she said almost in a whisper, and I swung round to see her standing there, her bag slung over her shoulder.
“Emily…” I said, but my mouth couldn’t catch up with the questions racing through my head.
We looked at each other for a moment, then she broke the silence.
“I’m sorry, Wilde,” she said, so softly that I could hardly hear her. “I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was just a surprise, that’s all, seeing you there.” She paused and looked into my eyes so that I was lost for a moment in hers. “But I’m glad you came.”
I dropped my bag and threw my arms around her, holding onto her until I was sure she wasn’t some beer-fuelled mirage.
“How…” I started, but gave up because I didn’t really care. She was here, and that was all that mattered.
“There was only one more flight to Perth tonight,” she said, reading my mind. “I guessed that you’d be on it.”
I pulled back from her and looked into her eyes.
“What made you change your mind?” I said.
She shrugged and stared back into mine.
“I don’t know. You did come all this way, after all…” she smiled but sadly and pushed my hair gently away from my eyes. “Never mind that, how did you find me?”
“Karl tracked your laptop.”
We stared at each other a few moments more and then she put her arms around my neck.
“It’s good to see you, too,” she whispered, and I held onto her as though she might disappear again if I let her go.
31
It was the morning after the night before in McDaid’s and, when I woke, Emily’s side of the bed was already empty. I listened for sounds from the kitchen or from the living room but the flat was quiet as a crypt. Even the neighbours and their screaming baby were lying low. I thought for a moment that she might be gone to work, to try to smooth over the ructions of the day before, but then I saw her bag hanging off the end of the bed and she would never go to work without that.
I knew that she would be furious still that I had questioned her and that in her mind I’d failed to support what she had done. But I wasn’t too happy, either, at her reaction. Honestly? Yes, I did think she was wrong. Not because we needed the money – my tax bill wasn’t her problem and I figured I’d find the money like I always had done. I wasn’t even angry with her for doing what she did. I might not agree, but she had every right to tell them where to stick their job and to do it with as much drama as she saw fit. No, what pissed me off was that she had stormed out. What pissed me off was that she was angry with me for even questioning that she had thrown away a good deal without any idea as to what she might do next. It might not have been her dream job, but Dublin wasn’t exactly overflowing with positions for someone with her résumé and she’d only got where she was after a year of being miserable playing shopkeeper. Yes, I did think she was wrong to do what she had done, but that wasn’t what pissed me off. What pissed me off was that I wasn’t allowed to think so.
It was all starting to hurt my head again, so I got up and got myself together, picked up my laptop and left the flat. I stopped at the newsagent to get the paper and a lottery ticket and a packet of chewing gum and then I went to Angelo’s for a coffee. Angelo does the best coffee in town in the best café in town, perched on the edge of the sea looking north over the bay to Howth. I often went there to write when I got bored or lonely at home but as often as not I just sat there sipping too many Americanos and watching the ferries and freighters enter and leave the port.
I’d been writing that book for the best part of two years, since even before I’d met Brendan and before Brendan had pitched my first novel to Round Tower. It was about the fragility of life – about a young girl whose parents are murdered by a gang from whom her father borrowed money and who flees the scene of the murder to hide, homeless, on the streets of Dublin. I loved the story and I loved the girl and I loved the sense in it that life is a cruel game of chance that we are destined ultimately to lose. But I just couldn’t get the story out. Every time I thought I’d got it, another inconsistency appeared; or a plot twist turned out to make no sense; or my leading man was too weak or too arrogant or too flippant or too dull. I’d started and scrapped what felt like a hundred versions, but still I couldn’t get any further than chapter two. Round Tower were waiting for a first draft that was already late and I just couldn’t see how I was going to get it done. So I sat there for a few hours and drank too much coffee and watched the ships go by. Then I packed up, said arrivederci to Angelo, who’s actually from Ballybrack, and made my way back to the flat.
Brian the accountant called me while I was on the bus home. I stared at the phone for a few long moments before answering, eventually deciding that Brendan’s wrath if I didn’t get this sorted was a far more forbidding prospect than a few minutes of Brian’s pregnant pause-filled disapproval.
“So look, Wilde,” he was saying, his nasal monotone crawling as slowly as the bus through the rush-hour traffic in Ballsbridge, “I’ve had a chat with an old colleague of mine who works at the tax office and I explained that there’s been a small misunderstanding. He agreed that if you go in there this week and work out a payment plan, they won’t take any further action and we can put all of this… unpleasantness… behind us.”
The “plan” it appeared, involved me paying in instalments for ten months, which would take me neatly up to the deadline for the
next year when I could start paying all over again. Mind you, next year’s taxes assumed I was going to earn anything this year, which wasn’t looking likely.
“But this week, Wilde,” he said, “it has to be this week.”
“Sure, Brian,” I said, in my serious voice, “that sounds great. Great. I’ll drop in this week, no bother. And thanks, Brian.”
All of which left me facing a year of handing over what little disposable income I had left to the Revenue.
Back at home, I set about working on chapter three but I couldn’t concentrate. So I got out a pen and a piece of paper and a calculator and tried to work out how I was going to pay the taxman his monthly pound of flesh and still have enough money to live. The way I saw it, if I wasn’t going to owe him any more tax for this year then surely I should be allowed to pay what I owed over two years? I thought about calling Brian with the idea but felt sure that, if it was an option, Brian would have thought of it already. And I couldn’t face any more of Brian’s silent tutting – even when there was no sound from the other end of the line, I knew Brian was tutting away to himself.
It was getting late and the autumn evenings were already closing in. I gave up on the calculations, made a cup of tea and switched on the TV instead. I’d been flicking around for anything to put me in a better mood when, after three or four trips through the channels, I stopped dead in my tracks. I back-pedalled to the news but it was already over. I jumped up and ran over to my laptop, frantically searching the internet. I found what I was looking for, and fell into the chair. It was true. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. I’d seen it without really seeing it while I was channel-zapping past the end of the news, and it was true.
There was the sound of keys in the front door. Emily came into the kitchen but I could barely tear my eyes away from the screen.
“Wilde,” she said, “we need to talk. I’m sorry, I…”
Without looking up, I waved a hand at her to come over and look at the computer.
“Wilde, listen to me…”
“Come here, Em, just come here.”
“No, Wilde, I want to say…”
“Emily,” I said, softly but firmly, “I swear, you are not going to fucking… believe… this!”
She looked at me, perhaps wondering if I’d been drinking.
“Wilde,” she said, “what is it?”
“It’s the Lottery,” I said, in a whisper. “We’ve won the fucking Lottery!”
32
I called Nathan first thing next morning to see if there was any news about Stevie. There was, but it wasn’t the news I’d been hoping for.
“I went round there yesterday morning, then again last night,” he said, his voice sounded tired. “The doctor told me the bang to his head is worse than they thought. He has a haematoma, some bleeding on the brain.”
He paused but I could tell there was more to come.
“They’ve put him in a coma, Wilde,” he said. “He’s going to be here for a while, looks like.”
I closed my eyes at my end of the line and leaned against the wall.
“Shit,” I said, more to myself than to Nathan. “Any luck tracking down his family?”
“Yeah, his folks live near Darwin, Robbie found their number on Stevie’s phone. He has a sister too, but she’s working in Sydney. Robbie called his folks yesterday and they’re coming down, should be here later today or tomorrow, I think.”
“We should put them up, Nate. They should stay with me.”
He thought about it for a minute, although I think he’d probably been thinking about it already.
“This is going to sound callous, mate,” he said, “but I think you might want to keep your distance a little bit. No reason we can’t be supportive, but don’t go where you can’t get back, you know what I mean?”
“Not really, Nate, no…”
“Look, he’s going to be in hospital for a while, there are going to be costs. And some ambulance-chasing lawyer is bound to get wind. Stevie’s a good lad, but there’s a fair chance this might get grubby over money. I don’t know his people, I don’t know their circumstances, but dollar signs have an effect on even the best of folks.”
He was right, of course. This was business and we couldn’t do anything that might look like an admission of guilt. But he was right, too, that it seemed callous to be talking like this with Stevie lying in hospital in an induced coma.
“OK,” I said, “you’re probably right. I’ll call the insurance company today, see what they can do.”
“Yeah, do that. Sooner we know where we stand the better.”
So I called the insurance company and gave them the details of what had happened, filled out some forms on their website and spoke to a claims assessor. I gave her the details for the hospital and she said she’d have to send out one of their local claims people from Mandurah to speak to Nathan as the registered site foreman.
“But from what you’re telling me,” she said, “it sounds like just one of those things. Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll start things moving and we’ll get this sorted as soon as we can.”
I hung up the phone and went into the kitchen, where Emily was making breakfast.
“I didn’t hear you get up,” she said, slicing strawberries and bananas into a big bowl of muesli. “Who were you talking to?”
“I called Nathan first, to see how Stevie’s doing. Then I had to call the insurance company.”
“How is Stevie?”
I shook my head.
“Not good. He has bleeding on the brain, they’ve put him in an induced coma.”
“Oh my God,” she gasped, putting her hand to her mouth.
“I know. We were all worried about his leg, but he took a really bad blow to the head. Poor bastard’s in a bad way.”
We picked through breakfast in silence, the weight of Stevie’s injuries and of our own unresolved problems wedged between us at the table. I had Emily back and, although she seemed distracted, I think she was at the very least relieved that I’d tried so hard to find her. Even so, we had to talk about it and to find a way to be together without allowing everything that had happened to continue to fester. We had to be in this together, on the same side and pulling in the same direction. I realised that I’d been keeping things from her – not deliberately, but I’d just failed to talk to her about stuff – and that had to stop. I also had to make sure that, whatever the circumstances and whatever the provocation, I never, ever tried to hurt Emily by blaming her for what happened that night. Just as important, that I never led her to believe that I blamed her. I had to forgive her and to forgive her meant that I had to want for her to stop hurting. I had to forgive her without reservation and she had to believe me or this just wasn’t going to work. It was ironic that her leaving might have been just the thing to bring us back together.
“Are you OK, Em?” She’d been staring out the window with something that looked like fear in her eyes. I worried that she hadn’t got fully past whatever had caused her to run away.
“Yes, thank you, I’m fine,” she said, with a half-smile that told a different story. “I’ve been thinking, Wilde. I think we need to make a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Yes. I think that we’ve been drifting along a little bit, allowing circumstances to control us. Checking the website for messages, waiting for the police to call with updates. I think we need to try to take some control of what’s happening.”
“How?”
“Well, the first thing we need to do is talk to Carter. He’s hardly been here, and I don’t believe that they are as busy with this as they say.”
It was true that Carter had been increasingly hard to get hold of and, when we had managed to collar him, he’d brushed us off with trite assurances that they were “doing everything they could” and that we should trust him and his people. We didn’t tru
st him, but there seemed little else we could do.
“So we should go to his office and we should demand to see him,” she said. “We should sit there and refuse to go until he talks to us.”
And so that’s what we did.
***
Carter’s office was in Mandurah and we drove up there that morning, without calling ahead to give him any warning that we were coming. We asked for him at the front desk and the officer called his assistant.
“Can I help you guys?” he said, when he came down to the reception area. He was a young uniform officer who looked like he should have been home doing his homework, but then don’t they say that policemen look younger as we get older?
“Yes, we have an appointment with Detective Carter,” I lied, “at eleven thirty.”
He frowned.
“I don’t think so,” he said, “Detective Carter is out this morning.”
It was my turn to frown.
“No, I’m sure it was this morning…” I turned to Emily. “It was this morning, love, wasn’t it?”
“This morning, yes,” she said, wide eyes staring straight at the boy and in her most alluring French accent. “I am sure.”
“We’ve come all the way from Clovelly, too. Could be our mistake, though,” I conceded with a rueful shake of the head, “we’ve been a bit all over the place, if I’m being honest.”
“Look, I’m sorry about that,” the officer said to Emily, as though I’d left the building, “but like I say, he’s out all morning.”
“Do you know when he will be back?” she asked him.
“Well, he’s here this afternoon, actually. We have a squad meeting at two thirty so he should be back by two.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, eyelids all a-flutter. “It would be such a wasted journey if we couldn’t speak to him. We should come back then?”
“Sure. Come back then.”
I hadn’t seen Emily play the fragile coquette for a long time, not since we had started seeing each other and it became clear that I’d give her anything she wanted and there was really no need for the game. A couple of times over the years when we’d needed a favour or if someone was being unhelpful, her accent would change and her head would drop and she’d look out from under those long eyelashes and problems would be solved. We got bumped up on a couple of flights that way, we got at least one car hire upgrade and I remember getting a St Valentine’s night table at a very chic Dublin restaurant, but there really hadn’t been much call for her alter ego of late. This was definitely the time for her comeback.