The Living (24 page)

‘
Shut up
, you stupid woman! You'll land us both in even deeper trouble!' His voice was a fractured whisper.

‘Are you OK, pet?' A woman was leaning out of a car window. ‘D'you need a lift somewhere?'

I looked at her, dumb. She was blonde, petite, the passenger in a car driven by an older man. She was gesturing at the car door behind hers.

‘I …' What was the right thing to do? Was it more foolish to take a lift from total strangers or to stay here with Matthew? A few
long seconds passed. ‘I'm all right, thanks very much,' I said.

‘Are you sure, now?'

‘Yes, thanks,' I said, and the car moved on.

Matthew was staring at me. Again, he took my arm.

I ripped his hand off me, twisting out of his grasp, and I was running again. Running. When I did not hear him follow, I looked over my shoulder to see him walking slowly back the way we had come.

I
PAUSED TO RECOVER
my breath, bowing all the way over to ease the pain in my side. My tights were shreds, my right foot bleeding where the blister had burst. I stood up and looked around. Miraculously, there was the Starbucks where I'd met Nicky Fay. So at least I knew the way back to the hotel.

Without money or phone, I had nowhere else to go.

One step at a time, I made my way there. As I approached the glass façade I saw for a split second the doors exploding out towards me, cruel shards plunging into my flesh, piercing and slicing me.

Nothing of the sort, of course. The lobby was its own bright, plush self. The thick carpet felt heavenly.

I went to the desk and requested a new key card. The receptionist listened to my story, asked me a few questions about the choir, and to my immense relief, consented to give me a new card.

The lift doors closed on me, and I shut my eyes. My throat and head hurt. I shivered violently. I felt strung out, grazed, disconnected. Skinned. Ice crystals forming in my heart.

Thankfully, I encountered nobody in the corridor.

I stumbled into my room – our room – and shut the door, leaning against it for support. Again, I wanted to run – run to the station, get on a train, go home. I escaped into the shower instead, undressing slowly, feeling as though I were peeling my bones clean. The water was like an assault – I was so cold – but gradually I thawed and began to enjoy the warming prickle in my fingers and toes.

I couldn't think about Matthew at all.

He was standing by the window when I came out into the room again. He turned as he heard the bathroom door.

I roared.

‘It's OK,' he said.

I stared at him. The world rushed in at me from all sides, crashing and heaving and resolving to one absurd circumstance: he was holding my shoes. My strappy, pinchy, sparkly evening shoes, splattered with mud, dangled from his hand.

‘You went back for those?'

‘Thought you might miss them.'

I stood paralysed for a long time. Eventually mustered a whisper. ‘Thank you.'

We were silent as statues, staring at each other from either side of the wide bed.

He was still in his coat. My heart thumped.

‘Do you have …' I couldn't say it. I took a deep breath and gestured instead.

He gave a heavy sigh. ‘Yes, I do.'

I glared at him, and at last my voice returned. ‘Tell you what. I'll go back into the bathroom and get dressed, and when I come out, there will be no …
gun
… in evidence. Capeesh?' I moved to my suitcase and fished out some clothes, hugging the bundle to my chest as I went back into the bathroom.

I dressed and came out again. Matthew was in shirtsleeves, sitting on the armchair by the window. I hitched myself up on to the bed and looked at him.

‘Where is it?'

He indicated his rucksack.

‘Did you bring it with you from Dublin?' My eyes were burning now, but my head was clear. Droplets of cooling water escaped from my hair, down past the collar of my shirt.

Matthew shook his head. ‘It was issued this afternoon.' He looked away.

I sighed. As usual, the minimal answer to my question. Now it had an entirely different significance. One little piece of information had changed everything. I had the sudden sensation of
missing
Matthew, mourning him, as though he were not sitting here, four feet away from me. And perhaps it was as simple as that: perhaps the pain I was feeling came down to the banal fact that I'd been sleeping with a stranger all this time.

I did my best. ‘So … you were working today?'

He nodded. ‘They only told me yesterday.'

‘That explains a lot.' I looked at him. This was a man I knew,
after all. A man with whom I had felt more at ease than with most people. A man I had begun to trust, a little – to love, perhaps, a little. I breathed. I waited.

He said, ‘Cate.' He stopped. ‘I can't tell you any more. I'm sorry. I can't. I shouldn't have told you as much as I have.'

A blankness in my mind. A grey hole, expanding, almost blurring my vision. We sat motionless in the gratingly dim light from the bedside lamps. I was cold and tired, and my damp hair was starting an ache in my shoulders. More than anything else I needed a long walk, in daylight, on my own. Time to think, to draw towards each other the edges of this awful grey hole and see how they might fit back together.

‘I'm sorry,' Matthew said again, and I heard his voice as if from far away. He reached across the bed to touch my arm.

I did not respond. Dispassionately, I noted the crack in his voice.

When Matthew's phone buzzed in his pocket I almost yelped. The sound was an attack.

‘Hello … No, I'm back at my hotel … I'm here with Cate Houlihan … Look, it's not a – oh … OK, then.'

He ended the call and sighed deeply. To the wall, he said, ‘I have to go out.'

To the wall, I nodded once.

As he furtively retrieved the gun from his rucksack and strapped the holster around himself, then put on his coat, I gathered together the energy I needed. ‘Matthew.' There was nothing left over to animate my voice. ‘Will you do one thing for me, please?'

‘Anything I can.'

‘Take your stuff with you. Find somewhere else to sleep tonight.'

N
EXT MORNING
I left the ruins of the night behind and struggled downstairs, where I joined Donal, Linda and Anja at a breakfast table, eating silently and barely listening to their conversation. They did not ask me where Matthew was.

Diane and Joan moved from table to table, letting people know that the expedition to retrieve the choir's belongings from the Waterfront would start from the lobby at ten o'clock.

As we sat waiting for the stragglers, it became clear that a good night had been had by many. Although most of the women had found themselves in the same position as me – bereft of money and phones after the evacuation – several of the men had had the luck to carry their things in their suit pockets, and they had bankrolled the rest. Drink had been taken. Eyes were bloodshot, heads sore. Debts were argued over in a good-natured way; ribald remarks were passed on the subject of payment in kind. The atmosphere resembled the rowdier sort of school trip. My attention washed in and out, and I was very grateful that nobody was trying to engage me in conversation.

At last we set out for the Waterfront. I succeeded in walking alone most of the way; the rest of the time I was with a group of basses who did not feel the need to include me in their talk. Without my coat, I was soon shivering. On arrival, we were ushered to the back of a long queue, which snaked round the entrance area
and almost spilled out on to the plaza. I recognized some people from the other choirs.

‘How are you?' Joan's voice made me jump. She and Val were behind me.

‘Oh, fine,' I said. I nodded, biting my lips together. ‘I mean. Not remotely fine. So, yeah.'

‘Did Matthew show up in the end?' Val asked.

‘He did, yeah. And then I told him to go away again.'

‘Oh, dear,' said Joan. She lowered her voice. ‘Are you all right, Cate? I mean, do you need any help? You know you can come to us any time.'

‘Thanks.' I sighed. ‘It's all a bit of a mess, really.' I looked at the two of them. They were on the other side of that gulf, and I had no way of reaching them.

Val said, ‘You know, it only just occurred to me there, as we arrived, that we never even got to sing that bloody peace anthem.'

‘I know,' Joan said. ‘After all that.'

‘I was even beginning to like it,' said Val. ‘OK. Slightly. What? Sue me!'

When Carmina Urbana finally reached the head of the queue, Diane stood with two police officers, vouching for each member of the choir. Once we were all identified, another officer escorted us to the backstage room.

It was strange to see it looking just the same as it had before. I felt as though it ought to be different, as I was. My coat and bag were where I'd left them.

As we walked back to the hotel I fished out my phone and looked at it. Seven missed calls. Tingle of misery. I'd check them later.

I fled to my room the minute I could and sat for ages before I deemed myself ready to face the phone again.

Eventually I took it out and looked at it.

Froze.

Seven missed calls, but not from Matthew. Four from Ardee. Three from a private number.

I dialled and waited impatiently for the messages to begin. Mum's voice, with an unaccustomed note of urgency. She had left the three voicemails last night, the third one well after midnight. Nothing of substance, just a plea that I phone home as soon as I could.

My fingers shook as I found the number. The phone rang, rang, rang. No answer. No answering machine – I'd grumbled to them about this, and so had Mícheál, but they insisted they didn't need one.

I listened to Mum's voicemails again, in case I'd missed something. My breathing felt constricted, and the sobs came on hard. I threw myself on to the bed, and lay face down, tears trickling. It's just Mum's way, I told myself. She's so useless on the phone. She gets panicked and can't tell the right thing to do.

Such as let her daughter know what the fuck is going on that has her in such a state.

Had something happened to Mícheál or Dad? Something shameful? Mícheál got someone pregnant? Dad embezzled the
club funds? Or had somebody died? Surely if somebody had died, Mum would have found the guts to say it, even to a machine.

I tried Mícheál's mobile. Switched off. I didn't leave a message. His voicemail greeting was too jaunty, too offhand, to invite such a sombre query. I didn't have the language to address him in that way.

I would just have to wait.

The rest of the day was a terrible jumble of hefting bags and milling in lobbies and shuffling in queues and edging along the train aisle and jolting through the improbably green countryside. There was no sign of Matthew at the station, and nobody mentioned him to me. At last we were piling off the train and saying our goodbyes. I took my leave of the others and escaped down the quays.

As I walked from the bus stop to my house, I discovered that I'd missed yet another call. There was a message – and at last a hint of what was going on. Mum said, ‘We're all over in Swords with your Auntie Rosemary – you won't get us at home.' She sounded calmer.

Back at the flat, I spared seconds to tear off my coat before sinking on to the sofa and phoning Uncle Fintan's house.

The phone rang eight times before it was picked up. ‘Hello?'

‘Hello, is that … Mum?' I was momentarily disoriented – it was so unlike her to answer the phone in someone else's house.

‘Caitlín! Oh, thank goodness!'

‘Hi, Mum, yeah, I'm just back from Belfast.'

‘Belfast? Oh, your choir. Of course. I'd forgotten. Listen, did you get the messages I left you?'

‘Yes, I did. What's going on? Is everyone OK?'

‘Well, yes. Everything's going to be all right.' Mum heaved a deep sigh. She sounded exhausted. ‘There's no need to worry. We had a scare. Fintan is in hospital.'

‘Oh, my god – what happened?'

‘He had a heart attack yesterday.'

‘Oh, no! Is he all right? Was it serious?'

‘Well, it was quite serious, yes.' Mum's breath whispered; her voice shook. ‘He's still in intensive care, but he's stable, thank god. They're going to give him a pacemaker. We drove Rosemary home – she's asleep at the moment. I'm making us something to eat.'

Mum released a series of disorganized data that eventually enabled me to piece together the story.

It turned out that Uncle Fintan had been staying in Mum and Dad's house when it happened; Mum didn't quite explain why. He'd been reading the paper in the sitting room with Dad and Mícheál, while Mum cooked dinner, when he had suddenly listed over in his chair. They'd called an ambulance, and he'd reached Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital inside half an hour, unconscious, with about an even chance of making it through the night.

Mum had phoned Auntie Rosemary, who had cut short an evening with her friends and hastened to her husband's side. The night had been a long, horrible ordeal. Uncle Fintan had suffered two further heart attacks in the small hours. Then towards dawn he
had stabilized, and by the time the doctor had seen him on Sunday morning he'd been conscious and coherent, and with a reasonable shot at recovery.

Mum didn't say it in so many words, but she had been phoning to give me the chance to come and say goodbye.

After we hung up, I sat still for a long time. Dusk had been gathering its forces as I'd arrived home; now it had taken hold and was deepening into darkness. I would have to get up soon, go out, drive for an hour or so to the hospital – I'd promised Mum I'd go this evening. My eyes stung, and I had not an ounce of strength in my limbs.

The screen of my phone flashed rudely into the shadowy room.