Maker of Footprints

by Sheila Turner Johnston

  “You’ve taken your tree down,” he said.

  She stood by the window. “It was crap anyway.” She sipped her tea and wrapped her fingers round the mug. “I thought you were in London.”

  “I was. I came back.”

  “So you’re not a ghost then.”

  He felt down the length of his arm thoughtfully, then declared, “Not yet.”

  She stood in front of him, curious. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I wished you here.” He grinned. “And you answered your phone earlier.”

  “That was you? How did you get my number?”

  “Dianne’s phone. I got it ages ago.”

  She sat down on the sofa and leaned forward, elbows on knees, propping the mug below her chin. “What do you mean – you wished me here?”

  “I wanted to see you, so I wished.”

  She sat back. “Well, I seem to have popped out of the lamp for you.”

  They were silent for a minute. She was puzzled. There was something odd about this. “Is Dianne back too?”

  He set the mug on the floor and saw her cereal bowl. “No, she isn’t. Did I interrupt your breakfast?”

  “I didn’t feel like any.”

  He looked her up and down. “Love the gear. Not quite as nice as the dress you wore for the party.” He looked at her feet. “The slippers would match though. As for the hair style,” he winked, “pure Knightsbridge.”

  “Funny man,” she said, scowling.

  He seemed to tire of this and sprang to his feet. He paced the room, seeming to Jenna to fill it, to expand its walls, to make the air crackle with electric energy.

  “I want to go to Rossnowlagh.” He stopped in front of her.

  “And I want you to come with me.”

  “Rossnowlagh? Don’t be an idiot. That’s the other side of the country. That’s the Atlantic side, Paul.”

  “I know where it is. If we don’t stop, and we go now, we’ll be there before lunch.”

  She stood up. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I’m off people, particularly men.”

  He held his arms wide, his enthusiasm engulfing her in a tide. “Pretend I’m a Martian.”

  “Called Fred, I suppose.”

  “If you like.”

  “A Martian called Fred? Nope, can’t do it.”

  “I’ll paint myself green.”

  She shook her head. He put his hands up to his temples, one finger extended above each ear. “Antennae?”

  “You really want company, don’t you?”

  “I really want yours.”

  Her temper snapped. “You want! You don’t always get what you want.”

  He dropped his hands and she saw temper begin to ignite in him also. “God, you are grumpy this morning.”

  She waved a hand and turned away. “Well, look who’s arrived in my living room at the crack of dawn – a married man demanding that I accompany him across the country just because he wants it.”

  He raised his voice, impatience in every syllable. “Oh, be a devil for once in your life! Dig a hole and bury your halo.”

  She spun round. “Well, that’s not a hole you have to dig, is it?” she shot back.

  “No, it’s not! What’s the point of a halo? It’s just another damn thing that needs polished. Stop sounding like a granny. What are you – twenty-four going on eighty?”

  She stabbed a finger at him. “So what are you? Twenty-nine going on three?”

  There was a sudden silence as they faced each other in the middle of the room.

  He raised an eyebrow. “I bet you never had a row like that with Adam.”

  She noticed his mouth again, noticed how it tilted naturally upwards ever so slightly on the right. “No, I never did.”

  The smile tilted further to crease his cheek and crinkle tiny lines round his eyes. “That’s a bad sign. No sparks.”

  Now she was following the line of his nose, up to the wide bridge between his eyes. His black lashes fringed his lids as he looked down at her. In a sudden rush, she realised what she must look like. She pulled the robe across her body and tugged the belt tight again.

  “I can’t take off with you, Paul. It wouldn’t be right.”

  He was silent for a moment, then he reached down to the far side of the chair and lifted the envelope he had been carrying when he arrived.

  “I brought you a present.”

  She took it and opened the flap. It was a photograph. She pulled it all the way out, speechless. It was a close-up shot of a robin, its eye touched by a point of light as it looked straight at her from its perch on a twig. Its feet curled round the twig, its toes clenched in little bunches at the end of firm, sturdy legs. The red of its breast fluffed and bled into the creamy white feathers of its stomach and brown wings were folded straight and strong, down to the proud slant of the jaunty tail. Paul had set the focus to bring the bird into sharp relief against the softly blurred branches of the barren shrub.

  She sat down, cradling it, studying every detail. She looked up. “That’s the robin…?”

  “The very same. I got that picture because of you.”

  “He’s beautiful.”

  He hunkered down in front of her. “So much of this world is beautiful. We just have to see it.”

  It was the shapeshifter who was before her now, morphed into thoughtfulness, his humour and his anger both melted away. She was silent for some minutes, slipping into his mood, feeling that deeper parts of herself could rise and be safe.

  “But betrayal is ugly,” she said quietly. “Hurting is ugly. Realising you aren’t loved is ugly.”

  “That’s the ugliest of all,” he said, soft. He pushed himself upright and paced to the window, thrust his hands in his pockets. Finally, with his back still to her, he said almost to himself, “You must get out of here today.”

  “There’s no point.”

  He swung round and came back to her. He took her arm and pulled her up and out into the hall. “Go upstairs. Have a shower, wash your hair, put on your warmest clothes and then come with me to Rossnowlagh.”

  Startled, she shook her arm free. “Don’t give me orders.”

  He turned back into the sitting room. “And leave the halo on the bedpost.”

  Jenna stood alone at the bottom of the stairs. Somewhere at the core of her there was a tingle of life, a touch of interest, a tiny thrum of excitement.

  She stuck her head round the door. “It’ll take more than three hours to get there.”

  He was fiddling with the TV remote. “So hurry up,” he said, still fiddling.

  She swung round again and scampered up the stairs, losing a slipper on the way.

  16

  JENNA FOUND IT inexpressibly strange to be beside Adam’s brother, in an unfamiliar car, on the long road west. There was more traffic on the road than she expected but, unlike Adam, Paul made no impatient remarks, no sudden moves.

  A tetchiness still clung around her.

  “You’ll not get petrol today. You won’t have enough to get there and back.”

  “I’ve a full tank.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything when I answered the phone? You got me out of bed.”

  He glanced round at her. “Because I didn’t want you to say no. It’s easier to say no on the telephone.”

  “So you came round and bingo! I’m here.”

  “It wasn’t quite as easy as that. I’ve changed my mind. You don’t always do what you’re told.”

  She folded her arms across her seat belt and looked out her side window. “Not any more, anyway.”

  A few miles further on, she said suddenly, “I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

  It annoyed her that he merely carried on driving and didn’t reply.

  “Adam’ll be looking for me,” she said.

  They reached a long straight and he moved up a gear. “Do you care?”

  Five minutes later, she replied, “He’ll ring my mobile.”

  “Turn it off,” he said i
nstantly.

  Five minutes after that, she did. He smiled slightly. That annoyed her too.

  By the time they reached Fermanagh, the day had brightened into windy, crisp sunshine. They passed a roadside cafe and noticed it was open. Paul swung into the car park.

  “Coffee break? There won’t be many chances.”

  She sat opposite him. “Why Rossnowlagh? Why do you want to go to a freezing beach in the middle of winter?”

  He was sitting forward, stirring his coffee. He flicked a glance at her and away again. After a moment he said, “Something happened to me there. I need to revisit it.”

  “So where do I come in?”

  She thought he would never stop stirring, round and round and round. A frown gathered and then he answered slowly, “I don’t know, but you do, somehow.”

  “But you said you wished me here? You must have a reason.”

  He lifted his cup and sat back, stretched his arm across the back of the seat beside him. Now, his eyes danced with mischief. “But Jenna, it’s OK not to know. Isn’t that what you said?”

  They had crossed the border into Donegal when she asked, “You will tell Dianne about today, won’t you?”

  He slowed behind a tractor. Bales of hay were on a scoop behind it, winter fodder for animals still outdoors. “Maybe.”

  They wound down the narrow road between the sand dunes, past the shop closed and shuttered for the winter. Caravans squatted in lonely parks, cream and green and curtained, beneath the dull gorse hills behind. A large hotel fronted the sea, tall and grand, with a long glass lounge edging the narrow car park on the landward side.

  Jenna sensed a tension in Paul as they neared the coast. She couldn’t have explained how she knew; it just circled him. He pulled up at the side of the road beyond the hotel, and switched off the engine. As the sudden quiet snapped round them, neither of them spoke. Paul lowered his window and the incessant sound of the sea spilled into the car, the air salty on the tongue. He turned round.

  “By the way,” he said, “I’m not twenty-nine.”

  “What are you then?”

  “Twenty-eight and three hundred and fifty-one days.”

  She did a quick calculation. “So your birthday’s the fourteenth of January.” She frowned, searching her memory of conversations with his mother. “But that’s the day your father died last year.”

  He patted the steering wheel. “Considerate of him, wasn’t it?”

  “Correction then. I should have said this morning that you’re twenty-eight-and-three-hundred-and-fifty-one-days, going on three.”

  He raised a hand in acceptance. “That’s better!” He pulled his woollen hat down over his ears and opened the car door. “Now let’s go walking.”

  The wind had blown sand into every crevice of the land, piling it in small drifts in the corners of the road, little pieces of seaweed peeping through the surface of it. She was wearing a new coat, cream with fur round the hem and cuffs and at the edge of the hood. It was a Christmas present from her mother and she hugged it round herself as they walked along the narrow roadway towards the ramp down to the beach. When she had appeared in it this morning, her hair shining from the shower, Paul had said only, “You’ve spoiled my picture. I always think of you in denim.”

  They walked down onto the beach and Jenna felt as if the bickering on the journey down had purified murky air, deposited them both on this golden arc of sand, clear-headed. It was all right now. The day was packaged by the sounds of the sea. As they set foot on the sand, she looked up at Paul, happy. He caught the look and said, “I thought you were grumpy.”

  “Not any more,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And that’s OK!”

  She laughed aloud and began to run. “Race you to the water!” It was wonderful. He passed her easily and stood, feet apart and hands on hips, just out of reach of the nearest wave, waiting for her, teasing. Even as she ran, the sight of him, long coat battered by the wind, face alive and dancing in the cold sea air, the foam of the breakers crashing behind him, burned itself effortlessly on her mind. If this were Adam, he would probably catch her now, swing her round. But then Adam wouldn’t dream of crossing Ireland to spend New Year’s Day racing along a freezing beach beside the Atlantic.

  Paul took to his heels again just as she reached him. “Snail!” he called over his shoulder, running, running along the rippling lace of the edge of the incoming wave. She trotted after him, imbibing his delight like a sweet tonic, the delight of the child who must still lie deep inside him. His footprints in the wet sand faded in front of her as she followed them, the water rising to make his passage vanish, as if he had never run that way at all.

  Eventually he stopped and waited for her. Beyond him, on the damp surface near the edge of the sea, seagulls and oyster-catchers mingled, searching the sand for food left at the tide’s edge, their reflections keeping pace, wrinkling along the sand beneath their feet. Birds squabbled in the air above the breakers, wheeling and diving, dropping to ride the waves, to rise and fall on the turbulent swell.

  It was impossible for Jenna to keep her hood up against the wind and her hair streamed behind her. This close to the sea, she had to shout as the wind whipped her voice away.

  “This is beautiful!”

  “Look.” He pointed along the sand and brought his mouth close to her ear. “See the patterns the water makes.”

  Over every inch of the sand, lines curved and met, crossed and arched, branched along the beach as far as they could see. She nodded and bent to pick up a shell, shook the sand from it. It was a complete razor shell, open and empty but perfect. She held it up. He took it from her and turned it over. Finally he handed it back.

  She put it in her pocket. Around their feet were mussels and scallops, and random bunches of brown seaweed. She felt his touch on her back.

  “Look, surfers,” he called in her ear, pointing further along and out to sea.

  Indeed there were surfers far out where the swell broke into mighty white froth, line after line of it, racing in to land, bearing with it the men riding their boards, knees flexing, bodies turning to skim across the faces of the waves.

  It was cold! She pulled her hood up and held it tight beneath her chin, fur fringing her cheeks and fluttering at the edges of her vision. She looked round to see where Paul was and caught him looking at her some yards away, half smiling. The wind billowed into her hood and pulled it back, leaving her hair flying again and her nose running. Today she had a tissue, a whole packet of them.

  Paul pulled off his woollen hat and walked back to her.

  “Here,” he shouted, and pulled the hat down onto her head, tucked in her ears and tugged it over her brow. “That hood’s hopeless!”

  “But now you’ve nothing. You’ll freeze!” she protested.

  He walked away, calling something over his shoulder. It was something about not caring. She scuffed along behind him, the hat like hands upon her head, the warmth of Paul’s own flesh within it fading only slowly.

  Suddenly she had to stop. She turned to face the sea. At the horizon, beyond the nearer foam, the steel of the winter ocean touched cream at the sky’s end, rising to the golden edges of clouds backlit by the sun.

  She wished she’d brought her halo. It might be helping now, helping fight the quick twist of mind that said, “I could like this man.” That she could even start along such a route within the privacy of her own thoughts was a revelation to her. She bent her head and pushed at a scallop shell with her toe. She glanced sidelong to where he still walked away from her, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He broke into a trot and aimed a kick at a lump of seaweed, slowed again, stopped.

  Parallel, but too far apart even to shout to each other, they stood still, watching the running waves. The tide was flowing and a wave washed further in than the last, making them both take a few steps backwards. Then Jenna turned slowly on the ball of her foot and went towards him. He t
urned his head and watched her coming. His skin, naturally pale, was rosy in the stinging wind.

  She reached him and he smiled. For the very first time, she hoped he wouldn’t tell Dianne about today. That was bad.

  They turned together and walked in step, away towards the southern arm of the bay, where the hill rose more steeply and some buildings perched beside the road along the cliff top.

  Eventually Jenna said loudly, up towards his ear, “What happened to you here, Paul? You said something happened.” He kept walking, head down. His step lengthened and she had to speed up to stay beside him. “Don’t you want to tell me?” she asked.

  “Not really, no.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  He glanced round briefly. “Why’s it not fair?”

  She put a hand into the crook of his arm and pulled him to a stop. “I came here with you because you wanted me to. I’m entitled to know why.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  He walked away again, the wind flapping his coat and tossing his hair. She ran after him and pulled at his arm again, angry this time.

  “Don’t you dare make assumptions about me!”

  That stopped him. They stood facing each other for a long moment. She couldn’t read his expression but it was bent on her, concentrated, thinking. Then he looked up and around. He put his hand in the small of her back and guided her towards the tumble of rocks and boulders that had been piled between the grass bank and the beach to fight the constant erosion of the strong sea. He walked along until he found one that formed a fairly flat surface. He sat on one side of it and patted the space beside him. She sat down.

  Neither spoke as the breakers raked the beach, flowed closer by centimetres with every wave. A sand martin darted past them, its bobbing flight taking it across the sandy bank and along the beach. Two of the surfers ran from the sea, boards under their arms, their wet suits glistening in the low sun. Several were still far out, jumping and waving, surfing and falling, exhilaration in every line of their bodies. Jenna shivered just to watch them.