Pack Up the Moon (8 page)

pamphlets off the floor. I opened the bills and glanced at them momentarily to ensure I wasn’t being ripped off. The bank would automatically release the money so no need to

worry about any late payments. I was briefly grateful that the bills came out of my account as changing all the utilities

into my name would have been a nightmare. I instantly binned the pamphlets. I opened the cream envelope without thought. I unfolded the matching writing paper without consideration. I read the return address on the top right-hand side of the page without recognition. I had read two lines before my heart jumped and my pulse raced, causing the hand holding the letter to become unsteady.

“Oh God:’

“Dear Emma,

My name is Jason O’Connor and I was the driver who was

behind the wheel the night your boyfriend, John Redmond, was killed!’

I folded the page back and sat on the sofa, placing my hand between my knocking knees.

Go away.

I called Clo. She was harassed in work but told me to stay where I was and she’d get to me as soon as possible. I waited. Every now and then I played with the paper in my hand, tempted to open it, but as I did fear took hold and I closed my hand over it, crumpling it like my John would have crumpled upon impact. I wasn’t brave enough. This letter was bringing me back to that night with such clarity I could taste the wine on my breath. I could feel the cold air, the hard ground and John’s bloodied hair in my hands.

I was still sitting in the same spot when Clo let herself

in three hours later. She must have seen the terrible effect this unsolicited letter had on me because she didn’t speak. She opened the claw that used to be my hand and took

the letter. Then she gently opened it and smoothed it on her leg.

“Do you want to read it?” she asked.

“No,” came my firm reply.

“Do you want me to read it?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

“I’ll make tea!’

I nodded, following her into the kitchen like a ghost on roller-skates. We sat at the counter, letting our tea go cold.

“Maybe I should read it to myself first,” she offered.

I didn’t want her to have to keep it from me if it was

, too upsetting. Her own life was hard enough.

“Read it,” I said, although I still wasn’t sure I’d be able for what came next.

“OK,” she exhaled. “Dear Emma, My name is Jason O’Connor and I was the driver who was behind the wheel the

night your boyfriend, John Redmond, was killed. I have written to you many times. All of these attempts have ended up at the bottom of a bin. What can I say? What can I say to make your life better? I have nothing to offer except my deepest sympathy and my deepest regret. I know how hard it must be for you to hear from me but I can’t move on. I can’t live my life without telling you how sorry I am. If I could do anything different I would. I’ve gone through that night so many times, over and over again. If I had left home a little later, if I hadn’t stopped for petrol, if I hadn’t gone out at all.

I was married last year, and my wife Denise gave birth to a little girl last May. Money was tight. I knew the car needed a service and I chose the cheapest place. I’m so sorry. If only I had spent the extra money. I see you in my dreams most nights. Your face, your horror, is imbedded in my mind and I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the fear. It chokes me. I’m so sorry. My wife wonders if I’ll ever be the same, but then how could I be? I drove my car and a stranger died. I’m so sorry. I wish I could turn back time, but I can’t. If I could take his place I swear I would.

I’m so sorry. Jason.”

Clodagh was crying. I sat still, absentmindedly stirring my cold tea. It occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about the driver, not even once. I hadn’t thought about

what this terrible accident had done to him and his family. So much pain. Clodagh was hugging me and I tightened my arms around her.

“It will be OK,” I heard myself say.

I kept the letter under my pillow for three nights. I read it until the paper was positively grubby. I couldn’t just ignore the man. It was so much easier to ignore him when he was just the driver. Now he was a person in great pain who had as much control or lack of it as I had.

It took me hours to pick the card. In the end I went for the plainest one I could find and inside I wrote two

words: “Thank you.”

I posted it before I lost confidence and then I walked

away from the post office to meet my brother for lunch.

I didn’t tell Noel about Jason. He was not himself. His eyes were circled, his brow furrowed. I tried to find out what was going on, but he fobbed me off with his standard-issue work excuse. I knew that there was more going on, but having faced one demon that day I wasn’t looking for another one. He picked at his food like a tubby gymnast hoping to lose a few pounds by merely

playing with food as opposed to actually eating it.

“Are you sick?” I’d asked early on.

“No. I’m fine. Just tired,” he’d replied.

“OK.” I smiled. If something were wrong he would have told me.

“How’s Sean?” he asked.

“Good,” I lied.

The truth was, he wasn’t doing so well. He had become withdrawn, working too hard, and although his days of impersonating Shane McGowan were behind him, he was

still relying on the crutch that is alcohol a little too much

for my liking.

“No, he’s not,” Noel said, while attempting to loosen his collar.

“What do you mean?”

“He came to see me last week. I think he needs counselling.”

“You think everyone needs counselling.”

My brother was like Oprah: he believed in communication. I don’t know why — he certainly didn’t learn that behavioural pattern at home. Noel went on to tell me that Sean had visited him at home. Father Rafferty had let him in and he had waited there watching Sky News and

debating whether the world was nearing its end for an hour

and a half, before Noel had made his entrance. They had retreated upstairs and Sean had admitted that he was

depressed or at least he thought he was. He put this down to the fact that he couldn’t seem to enjoy anything: work, eating, sleeping, sex. I noticed that although Sean was comfortable mentioning sex, he hadn’t mentioned that he was drinking to excess. Noel told me about their little visit because he felt that I was the only one who could help.

I wondered. I was useless. He disagreed.

“He really cares about you. You need to talk to him.” I thought I already had.

*

I met Sean in the park, my idea — no alcohol. He looked better than he had in months although the light that once

brightened his brown eyes was still nowhere to be found. We sat on a bench dedicated to an old man who had paid

for the installation of the pond. I didn’t beat around the bush because, although it was summer, it was way too cold.

“I want you to go and talk to someone.”

“What?” He was laughing as though nothing was wrong.

I wasn’t in the mood for messing. “You need to talk to someone. Better again you need to stop drowning your sorrows.”

“No, I’m not!”

I was in no mood. “Listen, Sean, you can say what you want, but we’re all worried. Clo, Anne, Richard — and you know Richard, he doesn’t notice anything — and Noel.”

“You spoke to Noel:’ His tone was cool.

Shit, I shouldn’t have included Noel.

“No!” I said with mock horror, then added as innocently as I could, “Have you been speaking to him?” “I’m fine,” he said.

“Piss off!”

He looked at me with curiosity. “Piss A?” he repeated, intrigued.

“Yeah. Piss off!” I said emphatically.

He laughed.

I didn’t find the situation so amusing. “Oh, that’s funny. Yeah, it’s all funny. You’re falling apart and it’s a real laugh:’

He stopped laughing and moved to a defensive stance. “What the hell do you want from me?” he asked, but as soon as he made the query, it was obvious that he did not want my response. He was, however, going to hear it.

“I want you to take your head out of your arse and I

want you to face up to the fact that John is dead and there

is nothing that you or I or anyone else can do about it. And you drinking your face off for the rest of your days

and giving up, well, that’s fine. But know this, your friend John, he would give anything to be here sitting on this bench looking at those stupid ducks swimming in circles

and he wouldn’t piss whatever life he had left down the

toilet like you are doing.” It was a mouthful and Sean was startled but I wasn’t finished. “Now, you can get help or you can piss off because the rest of us need you. We need to you to be well and happy and strong like the old Sean

because we need him back.” I was crying again. I didn’t even notice because crying in public was no longer alien.

We sat in silence for a long time. He played with his scarf, an old college one that he dug out every winter.

“I’m not an alcoholic,” he said.

“Prove it,” I challenged.

Silence. Then, “OK. I’ll see someone.”

I took his hand in mine and it was icy. We walked out through the arched gateway and onto the busy street, still holding hands. By the time we hugged and parted at the end of the street his hand was warm.

I walked home and lay on my bed with Leonard, the lost kitten who nobody was looking for, now my growing companion. I fell asleep to the sound of his purring, hoping against hope that, if I could never have John back, at least the old Sean would return.

Sean did go to see someone. I can’t tell you what they talked about because that would remain forever between

them. He stopped drinking for a while just to ensure that he could and, when he went back to it, it was only socially. He began to find the acceptance that the rest of

us had managed despite ourselves and it wasn’t long

before he returned to brighten us like he used to.

Anne had other problems. She had tasted death and now she craved for life. She admitted she’d been upset that day in Bewleys’, when she had taken the pregnancy test. Her reaction to the white window was vastly different from

mine. While I had cheered, she had mourned. While I had celebrated what I never had, she had grieved. Another blow so soon. Richard was blissfully unaware of the cause of his wife’s distress. He put it down to her missing her friend like he did and it would never have occurred to him

to ask.

Anne and I had met in English class. We found ourselves sitting together on the second week and after that it was

Just habit. We were alike, as both of us weren’t particularly sure what we wanted from life, both of us falling into an arts degree hoping that at some point along the line we’d find

our path. When she met Richard he became her direction, like John was mine. It was nice to have someone around that wasn’t career-or goal-oriented. As much as I loved Clo we never shared that ambition that burned so brightly in her. Anne was a homemaker. You could see that the first time you laid eyes on her. She was a Benetton-jumper-and-silkscarf-wearing-Rose-of-Tralee-homemaker. Richard was in economics, but he came across as the literary-tweed-jacketleather-patch-and-jeans-professor type. They fitted, like a well-bound book. Their only problem being that no after six years, they found themselves on different pages.

Meanwhile, Clo found herself in a relationship with her admiring client Mark. He wasn’t married; she had wasted no time in confirming that fact. He didn’t appear

weird like the guy she once dated whose all-consuming hobby was the collection of butterflies; nor was he a stalker, again an improvement on the men she had managed to attach herself to. It was comfortable and he was very sweet to her through all the grieving stuff. After four months it was possible that this one was a keeper. She didn’t boast about it; she was sensitive to the fact that I had lost my love and certainly wasn’t about to shove her new one in my face. Still, she was happy and her happiness had the pleasant effect of rubbing off on me.

We had no secrets. We had built sandcastles together. We’d shared adolescence together, from mud pies to blowjobs to losing our virginity to death. Nothing was sacred from one another. How could we change the habit of a lifetime?

“So what’s he like in bed?”

“Unbelievable.”

“Fuck off!”

“I swear, I came the first night. The first night, Emma! Do you know how long it was before I managed an

orgasm with Des?”

“Six weeks.”

“Six weeks and I’m not saying he was bad. I mean, Jesus, Butterfly Man was bad.”

We were drinking wine on her bed, half watching a video about a string-vest-clad Sylvester Stallone climbing

rocks in the snow.

“He does this thing with his finger. My God, it’s unbelievable.”

I laughed. John used to do a thing with his finger. God, I missed him.

“You know, I haven’t slept with someone that good since Sean,” she continued.

My head jerked involuntarily and it hit hard against

her wooden bedpost. My face flushed red while I steadied my wineglass.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I spluttered, embarrassed and attempting to hide the fact that the one time my two wanton friends

had sexually collided bothered me. I had no idea why my two single friends having sex had upset me, negating the possibility of meaningful conversation. It was definitely better to avoid the subject.

“Are you sure? Your face has gone red.”

I flushed more. This was a problem I’d had since I was a kid: any kind of embarrassment was further compounded by a blood-rush to the head.

“I just hit my head,” I said, knowing she knew the blush better than I did, as she had been on the receiving end of it too many times.

“You hate it when I talk about Sean,” she said after a while.

She was right. I tried to explain my embarrassment away. “It’s just … it’s Sean, you know?”