Shiver the Whole Night Through (15 page)

‘Sure,' I said. ‘We'll see. I mean I'm pretty busy right now.'

‘Of course you are. As I say, whatever you want. Good luck to you, Aidan.' Kinvara depressed the door handle and stepped into the shop, his final words trailing out behind him like a lace veil: ‘We might even let you behind the wheel of that old Jag for a test drive. I know your dad enjoyed it when he took her out  …  ' He laughed roguishly and was gone.

This guy really was too smooth  …  If Bond ever gets tired of the 007 gig, M, we've got a ready-made replacement over here. He's even got the debonair hairstyle and everything.

Walking home with my little surprise for Mam, a thought came to me, totally unrelated, out of nowhere. One of those tiny bursts of electrical energy in the brain which seem to spontaneously create themselves from nothing.

I recalled Sláine saying she'd contacted me because I appeared lost to her, the first day she saw me in Shook Woods. It occurred to me that, while this was true, it was only part of the truth. Sláine took pity on the lonely boy poking around the forest by himself, yes – but she was also lonely. Despite what she said about a new life, and old emotions not applying to her any more, I think she was lonely. She wanted company. A friend, a human being to touch, literally and figuratively.

And there was something else – this unsolicited thought wasn't finished with me yet. I knew now – not suspected or wished, but
knew
– that Sláine had fallen in love with me too.

The revelation should have filled me with joy. Instead, I was sort of numb inside. Where was she where was she where was she. The words repeated in my head like some hellish mantra. No message, no sign, no contact, no
her
. That wasn't like Sláine at all. Yes, I was worried.

I told myself it was unwarranted, I was overreacting, things would be fine, it'd only been two short days, she'd come back soon  …  I half-believed it. I made myself believe it, enough at least to squash that worry down to the bottom of my stomach and pretend it didn't exist, for a little while anyway. I sighed heavily, my breath blowing out in front like a cartoon speech bubble, and trudged home.

Wednesday arrived: Day Three of a World Without Sláine. Still no sign. I lay in bed as the clock moved past half-eight in the morning, staring at the ceiling, where a spider remorselessly crawled towards a fly trapped in its web. Good for you, spider. At least one of us is going to feel happy today.

Her timing, I reflected bitterly, could hardly have been worse. Not only did I miss Sláine for her own sake, but I also had this apparent breakthrough, the McAuley letter, and she wasn't around to help figure out what it might mean.

Aaargh
, this was excruciating. I didn't feel depressed, but I was tense, and concerned for her whereabouts. I lurched out of bed, sleepwalked to school – gotta keep up appearances, and I'd missed two days – and sleepwalked through those seven hours. Teachers taught, my classmates chattered, the bell sounded several times, a car engine noisily died in the school car park, and I hardly noticed any of it.

Funnily enough, I did notice one thing that day. It came to me with a clarity that was almost shining – it sort of knocked me off my feet when I realised it. The bullying had definitively ended for me, and didn't look like resuming even though the new, confident Aidan had been partly subsumed into old, nervous Aidan once more. I'd become ‘normal', it seemed, somewhere along the way, and normal I had stayed in the eyes of my peers. No more hate mail, no dog shit through the letter box, no antagonism at all. I was becoming a bit of a wreck with anxiety over Sláine, and it must have shown on my face, in the dark bags under my eyes. But my peers continued to treat me exactly as they had for the last two months, i.e. with a basic level of courtesy and common decency. It didn't exactly help with any of this crap, but it didn't hurt either.

I walked home from school, chewing this over, and
whammo
, a second moment of insight, even more energising than the first: the idea of killing myself never entered my mind now. It hadn't for several weeks, and even then had been instantly rejected. Literally, in the same moment as the notion drifted across my thoughts, I'd shot it down mercilessly. I chided myself for even considering it before. How stupid you were! How stupid and selfish – and self-defeating in all kinds of ways.

That would have just proven their argument, Aidan, that you're weak and spineless and pathetic. If you had killed yourself, they would have won. Do you want that, you idiot? No you bloody well
don't
. So you stay around and stay the course, you little maggot. No matter how hard it gets, or how bad you might think you're feeling, you
will
endure it. You'll stick it out and survive. Got me?

Yes,
sir
, I got you.

No, I wouldn't be checking out by my own hand, soon or at any stage in the future. I knew this as definitively as I knew my name. Maybe Sláine going AWOL had fortified me yet further, somewhere in the heart of my heart – it had stiffened me, put a certain steel in me  … 

‘Aidan.'

I almost bumped into her, lost inside my head. Caitlin. She was standing in front of me on the path; it looked as though she'd been waiting here. She smiled nervously, twisted her hands into one another. She was wearing a woollen beret, red hair spilling over her shoulders, and looked very pretty.

I said nothing. I didn't want to talk to her right now, or talk to anyone; I was preoccupied with Sláine.

Caitlin shuffled some more and finally said, ‘Um, are you, like  …  ? Is everything all right? You weren't in school yesterday.'

‘Yeah?' I said absently. ‘You noticed.'

She laughed nervously. ‘Yes, I  …  I noticed. Aidan, what's wrong?'

I looked at her, properly. A welter of conflicting feelings suddenly bubbled up inside me, like a pot of stew boiling over: irritation, tiredness, apprehension, boredom, awkwardness, physical desire, maybe some residual anger or loathing for this girl and what she'd done to me. A sprinkle of pity, wherever that came from.

I said, in a soft and weary voice, ‘You know what's wrong, Caitlin-with-your-stupid-incorrect-pronunciation-of-your-own-name? Nothing, that's what. Or nothing I'd want to discuss with you anyway, no offence.' I moved past her and walked away. ‘Thanks for asking, though. I'm going home now. See you around, maybe.'

That evening I sleepwalked – yes, again – through dinner and conversation with my parents, and possibly even sleepwalked through an hour of homework, which is a pretty impressive achievement in its own right. Around eleven I schlepped downstairs for a bedside glass of water and my mother was sitting at the kitchen table, wrist thickly bandaged, plonked heavily on the wood. Dammit, the gift. The bell figurine, I'd forgotten to give it to her. I said, ‘Hang on a second,' then briskly tiptoed upstairs and retrieved it. Mam took the package with an expression of happy surprise. I flopped onto the chair opposite and said, ‘'S nothing. Just a little pressie – cheer you up after your fall. How is it anyway?'

I pointed at her wrist. She said, ‘Ah, not too bad. Still sore but they say it should be fine in a few weeks. This looks very nice.'

She wrestled with the wrapping but it was awkward, her movements clumsy on that side, so I opened it for her. I held up the bell and said drolly, ‘Ting-a-ling.'

My mother gasped and gave a lovely smile – it took twenty years off her. That made me happy.

‘Aw,' she said. ‘Aidan, it's perfect. Aw, you shouldn't have.'

‘Nah, seriously, it's nothing. I got it in that place, you know the little curiosity shop there off the square? Actually the lady, Meredith, the owner? She said say hello to you and Dad. So, uh, hello from Meredith.'

‘Oh, yes. A real lady, she is.'

Mam began hauling herself off her seat. ‘Would you like some tea, pet? I find it's good for sleep. You look tired, you need to sleep.'

‘Sit down, I'll get it.'

I filled the kettle, water drumming against metal like an equatorial monsoon, and set it to boil. My mother fired up a smoke and held the packet back to me.

‘Go on, sure. You might as well do it in front of me.'

I took a Silk Cut – a change being as good as a rest, and all that – and lit it. Silence for a few minutes, oddly calming, just the loudening hiss of the kettle and our soft smoky inhalations. I made her tea, none for myself, and sat. More silence. More calm. This was nice.

Then Mam broke the surface of that calm, shark's-fin-style, by saying, ‘Is everything all right, Aidan?'

I replied, guarded, ‘Uh  …  yeah?'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I think so, yeah. Sorry, what  …  ? Yes, Mam, everything's fine.'

‘Because you know you can tell me if it's not. Don't you?'

Like hell I can.
‘Sure.'

‘Anything at all that's bothering you, you can say it.'

Yeah, I can see that working out well.
‘Uh-huh.'

My mother sipped her tea for a long moment, watching me. I pretended to be fascinated by a comical postcard on the fridge.

‘It's funny,' she said. ‘When you're in the middle of something, especially if it's bad, it feels like the biggest thing that could ever possibly happen. Then a while later, when you get some perspective on the whole thing, you realise, oh it wasn't such a big deal after all.'

Right. Where was this leading  …  ?

‘And when you're a teenager, I mean,
everything
feels like the biggest thing that could ever happen. It's all very dramatic and exciting at that age.'

Okaaay  … 
I muttered, ‘Uh  …  I guess so.'

‘You know, Aidan, people come and go. Into our lives, I mean. And you're very young. There'll be a lot of people in your life. You're so young, you're only a child still.'

I saw her smiling at me, kind and melancholy, out the corner of my eye. My discomfort was sliding towards embarrassment as Mam went on. ‘All I'm saying is that nothing is ever as bad as it seems. A broken heart, say. We're never really broken. We're just  …  waiting for someone to make us whole again.'

Ugh. That humorous postcard was getting ever-more interesting. I kept my eyes fixed on it.

‘I'd my heart broken once,' she said. ‘This was long before your father, now. A boy called Tiernan. Beautiful, he was. Dark hair, dark eyes, just
gorgeous
 …  like someone you'd see in an old picture. I thought I loved him. Heh. I thought he loved me too.'

Life lessons and personal revelations, a mother–son heart-to-heart. Save me, Jesus,
pleeeeease
 …  I don't do emotional honesty with my family. I'm Irish, not a Hollywood TV character.

My mother said, ‘And it hurt. I thought I'd die when he broke it off. Went to bed for a solid week! My parents were afraid I was having a nervous breakdown.'

I was actually squirming by now, physically. I stared at the postcard and wished to hell Mam would stop talking, even though I appreciated why she was doing it.

She paused, then said, ‘That girl Caitlin. You know I never put the two of ye together anyway. I don't think she was meant for you – ye didn't fit right together.'

Finally I looked at her. ‘Wha—? Caitlin, what are you on about?'

My mother seemed perplexed. ‘Aren't you  …  ?'

‘What? No. Caitlin?'

‘Yes, isn't that  …  ?'

Ah. Got it. Right situation – sort of – wrong girl. I smiled. ‘No, it's not her. I mean it's not anyone. Everything is cool, swear to God.'

‘Is it?'

‘Yes. The Caitlin thing, it's all over and done with.' I tweaked the truth a little by adding, ‘Sure, I only met her today, chatting after school. It's all fine.
I'm
fine.'

‘All right, well  …  I worry, you know? About all of you.'

‘I know. Thanks. It's grand, honestly.' I stood and kissed the top of her head. ‘Finish your tea, I'm off to bed. And quit worrying.'

She seemed half-reassured when I left. My own anxiety continued running at full steam. I slept badly. The next day I went back to sleepwalking. Same thing Friday. By 8 p.m. I was sitting at my desk again, gazing dully at some textbook, not reading it, only scanning my eyes across the pages, back and forth, like an empty swing in a breeze.

I abruptly shut the book, moved to the window and opened it. A shot of chilly air, like a drug being injected to the heart. It woke me up somewhat. I rolled a cigarette and thought, I need to get some purpose back in my life. For sanity's sake, if nothing else.

Sláine's gone, all right. But it's only been five days. She might come back – she will, goddamn it,
will
, not might – and when she does, you should be ready. There's no point putting everything on pause while you wait. Keep moving forward, it's the only way to exist. So: continue with the investigation. Follow up this McAuley thing. The letter. The cold. Something strange and malevolent which took place in the woods  … 

Gah. I didn't even know where to
begin
. I had nothing, pretty much. Just a handful of whispers and suggestions and possibilities. My head was spinning, a vortex of confusion, and it spun worse when a second stream of thought joined in – those bloody animal attacks or psycho-revenge attacks on my behalf – and then a third stream, the freaky connection between me and the text messages and Clara's mental voices and the girl who dreamed of the devil on her acid trip from hell  … 

Coffee. I'd read in one of the Sunday newspaper supplements that coffee was a good aid to thinking. My parents only had crappy-quality instant that looked and tasted like dust swept off the floor, so I texted Podsy and asked if he'd meet in a cafe in town. Might as well have someone to drink with. Fair play to him, he agreed on the spot. He must have known I needed some company.

As it happened, my nerdy little friend gave me a whole lot more than that.

‘What'd you tell the young fella?'

‘What the what now?'

‘Your little brother,' Podsy said. ‘What'd you say about those night-time excursions? You know, you being Batman and all.'

We sat across from each other in a booth, in a place called Fiver and Dimes, a confused mixture of Irish food and small-town American decor. Podsy had arrived first and ordered coffee. Double-shot Americano for me – he knew what I liked. We let the drinks cool and I tried to remember what excuse I'd given Ronan about sneaking out of the house at all hours.

Then it hit me. ‘Ah. Right. Told him I was birdwatching. Owls and things that only came out at night.'

‘He bought it?'

‘He bought it. God bless the gullibility of youth.'

I smiled, Podsy didn't. Instead he said, ‘And are you going to give me the real reason?'

I winced. ‘Eh  …  no. I can't, Podsy. Sorry, boy, I just  …  '

‘Can't, won't, whatever. Look, 'tis grand – your own private business. But I am curious. And nosy.'

He shrugged, making an end to it there, and blew across the top of his coffee, his wonky little mouth in the shape of a wonky little O, giving him a comical appearance. ‘Hey, did I tell you about what's happening with Hiro?'

I said, ‘Hiro the Hero. With the cool name.'

‘Cool guy too. I told you we've been tracking electromagnetic radiation for SETI, this project I'm involved with.'

I nodded. He went on. ‘You asked me a while ago to let you know if there were any more unusual patterns in the flow. You know, spikes of energy?'

I
had
asked him, I remembered that. And good on him, Podsy remembered too. I felt like a heel for keeping him out of the loop so much about everything. Then again, what exactly was I to say? ‘Okay,
don't
jump to any snap conclusions about this? But I've been in a relationship with a dead girl for a few months. Seems to be going all right so far.' There was nothing I could do; he had to be kept in the dark. Everyone did.