The Visitors (27 page)

A month ago, around the middle of July, Una sent a brief e-mail. She was visiting Chicago for a few days in August. She gave the dates and the name of her hotel. Might I come and see her? I wrote back that I would, and wrote no more. Over dinner that evening I told Emma an old neighbor from home was visiting Chicago in early August, and I’d like to visit him. Emma said the timing was perfect. She’d visit old college friends in Pittsburgh.

Friday morning. August fifth. Emma dropped me off at the train station. We kissed and said we’d see each other on Sunday evening. I boarded the train. Emma drove on to Pittsburgh. A little over five hours later I walked out of Union Station, headed across the bridge then down past the shops on the Miracle Mile. Una’s hotel was a few blocks northeast of there. The man at the desk rang her room. He put down the phone, told me the room number and the floor. I scribbled them on an index card. When I looked up he smiled and said she’d been expecting me to arrive sooner.

I walked along corridors of fat carpet, past flowers in vases on small round tables before oval mirrors. I knocked on the door. No answer. Knocked again. I pulled the index card out of my pocket. The right door, but the wrong floor. Three more up.

The door was ajar. A breakfast tray on a stand in the hall. A bagel on a plate. A folded white napkin. I tapped the door with my knuckles. She said to come in. I pushed the door in, stepped across the threshold, but did not shut the door. A large room. A stalwart bed, with all sorts
of pillows piled high. She was standing at the window, next to a floor lamp and a leather armchair. Her back was to me. The light inner curtain was drawn. The heavy outer one was pulled back. Her shadow was on the inner curtain. The blurred outline of the tall buildings surrounded her. She was as tall as they were.

—I expected you sooner, Jim.

She did not turn. Her arms were folded.

—The train was late, Una. And I walked from the station.

—You know this city, Jim.

—I’ve brought students on day trips to one of the museums. So few of them see what’s so beautiful about Cézanne’s apples.

—I heard about you being a secondary school teacher, Jim. Do you like it?

—I do, Una. But how are you?

—Fine, Jim. I spent a few days in Boston with Kevin’s ex and his two girls.

—I guessed you were there, I said.

—The two girls look like him, Jim. One is a bit mad. She was caught with hash or grass in school, but they’re doing all right. His ex is very gracious. And I was treated like a terrorist at the airports. I could not abide living in this country, Jim, but Kevin’s ex asked about you. I told her I was going to see you. She wishes you well. She thinks of you fondly.

—I met her the day after it happened, Una. She told me her plans for the cremation. She said that’s the way Kevin would have wanted it, but she would hold off on the ceremony to give all of you a chance to fly over. She invited me to fly back for the ceremony. Offered to pay for the flight, but I told her it was best left within the family—

—We understood that, Jim. She and I drove down last week with the two girls to where we dropped my brother’s ashes high above the wide river. Seven years ago this week, Jim, if you can believe it. The train went by like it did on that day. A mile-long train from end to end. The ex and I knelt on the rock and said prayers. So did the two girls. I left flowers there. Wildflowers I went and picked.

—You met Deirdre.

—I did, Jim. The ex arranged it. Deirdre is so fond of you.

—We keep in touch.

—She said you help her out with college.

—Deirdre needs no help from me.

—She says how lucky she was to meet you.

—We hit it off. Deirdre is the best.

—Oh, Jim, Tommy keeps telling me that Kevin and I brought all this trouble on the family and everyone else has to pay the price. He says we’re the fault of Seamus—

She pressed her right hand flat against the window. I thought she was crying. I was about to go over. She took her hand away. She wasn’t. I stayed where I was. She folded her arms.

—I’m sorry about it all, Una. I don’t know what else to say.

—I know you are, Jim, but Tommy says Kevin and I could never get enough. He says we wanted what we didn’t have, what others had that we didn’t need, and we just went and helped ourselves to it. But Tommy would have become a priest, only our father made so much fun of him over it. I think Tommy’s still bitter over it.

She undid her arms and turned from the curtains and switched on the floor lamp. I put my hands in my pockets and looked down when the light came on. Then I looked back up and pulled my hands back out. She was looking over at me. The father’s eyes. No lipstick. The face lovely, but bonier. The hair straight, tightly cut, neatly parted to the left. A tight black suit and white blouse.

—How is your family, Jim? Sorry I haven’t asked.

—Where should I start, Una?

—Your sisters, Jim. I remember them, and the younger brother who’s away.

—Australia fits Stephen. It’s like he was born there. Hannah rang two weeks ago to tell me Coleman Daly had died.

—The man at the Junction, Jim. My father never liked him.

—Hannah says he was dead in the house for a few days before
anyone found him, but his funeral was the biggest she’d attended in a long time. And Tess is living with an English painter she met at art classes a few years ago. He was her teacher. They’ve moved to the Galway coast. Tess paints and works part-time in a restaurant. She’s having an exhibition next summer. Emma wants to go over for it. I haven’t made up my mind yet. But you’re still in London, Una . . .

—For now, Jim, but I’m moving to Berlin in a month. I’ve bought a place there. It’s a big loft. Very nice. But I can’t sell the house I built at home. You can’t sell anything there now. We’re back down in the doldrums again, but I never even finished building the house, Jim. I only saw the plans. I thought it might be a lovely surprise not to see it till it was finished. I’ve no idea what I was thinking.

—Una’s mansion of many rooms, I said.

—Is that what they call it there, Jim?

—So Hannah says.

—But I sold off some of the shops in London, Jim, so I’m fine in that regard, but remember that night in Dublin?

—Which night?

—Which one do you think? The last one, Jim.

—I’m sorry about that night. It came into my mind in the train.

—You don’t need people that much, Jim, and I used to think back then that you were always living your life someplace else, but that night I followed you, Jim. You don’t know that.

—I didn’t.

—I tried to find you, and sometimes I think that if I’d found you that night it might all have all turned out in a different way.

—It doesn’t matter, Una. You know it doesn’t. And it wouldn’t.

—You’re right, Jim. Doesn’t. Wouldn’t. But you ran down the stairs. I put on my coat and followed you down. You banged the hall door and vanished so fast. Like into thin air. But I walked up as far as the North Circular, I don’t know why I went that way, I must have looked up there and thought I saw you, but then I came back down and I ended up walking all the way up to Griffith Avenue. I pressed your bell
for a long time, and I came back up Drumcondra Road and walked down the bank of the dark canal. I stayed out walking all night . . .

—But how’s the mother, Una?

—She’s strong, Jim. Tommy and her go to Mass every morning. But I’ve offered you nothing to eat or drink.

—I’m fine. I ate breakfast. And I’d a few doughnuts on the train.

—So are you going to come away from the door or not?

—I’ll come away from the door if you come away from that window.

I turned and shut the door. We sat on opposite sides of the bed. The quilt was covered with drawings of red, yellow, and green leaves of all shapes and sizes. She reached her hand down and gently stroked the leaves.

—It’s so lovely where Kevin’s ashes were flung, Jim. There’s a laurel grove close by. We walked through it. I took photos, and I took one of that long train. And boats going up and down the lovely river. My brother was such a brave man.

—He was, Una.

—No one could best him, Jim. He stood up to things. Stood up to people.

—That he did, Una.

—That man murdered him because he was jealous, Jim. Jealousy was the reason.

—That was the reason, Una.

—So you’re in love with this woman, Jim.

—I’ve never been happier, Una.

—Live with me in Berlin, Jim. You and me. No one else. You don’t need to live here anymore. This is a heartless country. I’m seeing someone in London, but we’re not suited.

The hand stopped stroking the quilt. I reached my hand across and laid it lightly on hers. I didn’t even think twice.

—I’ll go with you, Una.

—We’ll be very happy together, Jim.

—I know we will, Una.

—I miss you terribly, Jim.

—And I you, Una. I’ve never once stopped thinking about you.

We flung some of the pillows onto the floor.

Later we ordered up ribeyes, desserts, a bottle of champagne, and bottles of red wine. We never left the room.

I woke around ten the next morning. Woke to this old ache. One never too far away. One you never put a name to, but connected to there, and to them. And I dressed, packed, straightened Una’s shoes, and did a mediocre job of tidying the room. My hand was on the doorknob when she spoke.

—You’re leaving me, Jim.

—I have to, Una.

—I know you do, Jim.

I looked at my watch.

—A train leaves after twelve, Una.

—Won’t you turn and look at me, Jim?

I shut my eyes and squeezed down hard on the doorknob.

—I want to very badly, Una, but I won’t. I can’t.

—I understand, Jim. We’ll see each other again.

I opened my eyes and turned the doorknob.

—You never know what might happen, Una.

•   •   •

I saw him the moment I stepped out of the cab across from Union Station. He was leaning against one of the pillars. His back was to the street. People moved around him the way a rock diverts water. The worn and soiled backpack. The height, the build, and the stubborn gray hair. I crossed the street, went up the steps, and laid my hand flat on the backpack, like to surprise an old friend. He turned quickly. He was no more than thirty-five. I didn’t know what to say. And so I asked if he needed money. Blurted not asked.

—Fuck you, mister. You’re not from here.

He spat on the pillar then turned and vanished into the station. I
went down to the footpath and smoked two or three cigarettes before I went inside. Then inside I discovered that the train to Michigan was gone, and there wouldn’t be another for some time. But a train to New Orleans was leaving shortly. I eyed the stops. I’d been to Memphis, though not the other places. I wanted to visit Centralia, Illinois. I knew it from the Woody Guthrie song about the mining disaster that happened there in the forties.

My fingers are weak

and I cannot write,

Good-bye, Centralia, good-bye.

What was August like in Centralia? There were monuments to the dead miners to see. Was there a nice river? I’d walk around the town for a few days then get back on the train and head south to New Orleans. Such a shame I’d never visited there. And so I headed to the City of New Orleans platform, but I lost my way and found myself on the California Zephyr platform. This train went through the Rockies and ended up in San Francisco. I’d seen the Rockies once at night from a car window. Sarah was at the wheel, but I’d never seen the Sierra Nevada, Donner Lake, or San Pablo Bay. Those names sounded magical among the rushing strangers, like each one came at me like a javelin. But I somehow managed to purchase a ticket to San Francisco. When I returned from the ticket window, the train was boarding. I joined the line. I remember being eight people away from the man in the uniform punching the tickets. I remember when I was five. And when I was four. And when I was three. At two I slipped out of the line. This big dude behind me muttered something about some folks never being able to make up their darn minds. I looked him in the eye and said that immigrants were like that. Then I went and boarded the train back to that town in Michigan.

I am grateful to the Whiting Writers’ Awards, The Story Prize, Colgate University, the University of Cincinnati, and Ohio University.

And I am especially grateful to Paul Slovak and Leigh Feldman.