This Is How It Ends (17 page)

“Of course she would be. To lose a baby…”

But Bruno couldn’t finish the sentence. Fifty years old and all he could think was how little he knew about life. He felt young and green, like an explorer who has wandered into the midst of a tribe whose customs he knows nothing about.

“To lose a baby…,” he said. And the unfinished sentence was left hanging there. For a moment Bruno thought they could just leave it at that.

But Della wasn’t the kind of person to leave anything unsaid.

Without taking her eye off him she tossed her cigarette end into the bushes.

“Addie’s nearly forty, you know. In another eighteen months, she’ll be forty.”

She was starting to get up from her chair now. There was something businesslike about the way she did it. She stood and smoothed her hands down the front of her dress, stretching her back as if she was yawning.

“
Not
having a baby,” she said, standing there beside the table for a moment, her head slightly tilted to the side as she spoke. “For a woman Addie’s age, not having a baby, it’s a much bigger thing than having one.”

And with that she turned and walked back into the house, leaving Bruno sitting alone in the dark garden.

IMELDA WAS DEFINITELY DRUNK.

Bruno realized that when she started smoking at the table. She lit herself another cigarette before she’d finished the one she was smoking. The old one was still burning away in the ashtray but she didn’t seem to have noticed. Without saying anything, Simon picked it up and stubbed it out. Della reached for the bottle of wine and started filling up everyone’s glasses, even though they were all half full. Addie shot a hand out and covered her own glass, but Della was already pouring.

A few drops sloshed onto the back of Addie’s hand and she licked them off.

She laid her hand back down on Bruno’s leg. Straightaway he covered it with his own.

“So, Bruno,” said Della with a dangerous edge to her voice. “How much longer are you here for?”

Addie tried to remain impassive as she waited for Bruno to answer. She could have killed Della for doing this. But Bruno was the essence of good manners.

“My return ticket is for November fifth,” he said. “The day after the election.”

Addie couldn’t help but notice the way he’d phrased it. Despite herself, she found she was clinging to that little chink of hope.

“If Obama wins,” he was saying, “I’m planning a triumphant return.”

“And if he doesn’t?” asked Simon.

Addie was waiting for the answer when Della barged in.

“Would you
stop
! How many times do I have to tell you, Obama is going to win. Obama
is going to win
.”

Addie could have choked her.

But Della was right, of course. There was an inevitability to it now, a sense of history on the march. Addie felt helpless in the face of it, as if she were sitting on a rock, watching the tide come in. And when that tide went out again, it would take Bruno away with it, leaving her back where she started. She could see herself already, alone on the beach with the little dog. She couldn’t bear to contemplate it.

She snapped her head up and looked around her to see who was talking.

Bruno was explaining something about his job to Simon.

“What I do is kind of specific,” he was saying. “I’m a bit like a guy trying to sell sandbags after the flood. I’m not sure there’s much of a market for what I do anymore.”

“That’s the great thing about being a doctor,” said Simon. “People are always going to get sick.”

T
HE WHOLE WORLD FELL
in love that autumn.

The air was crisp and cold, the sky blue. The trees every color from brown through to gold. American weather, it was as if the glorious East Coast fall was blowing across the Atlantic along with everything else.

Della had a simile for it, of course. She had a whole collection of them.

“Poor old Sarkozy,” she said. “Poor Angela Merkel. They all seem so dowdy now, by comparison. It’s like we all went to the movies in the middle of the afternoon and spent two hours swooning over George Clooney. Then we came home and found the husband sitting on the couch with his beer belly.”

It was like the world had found a new lover. All of a sudden poor, smug old Europe seemed so very down at heel. And America, the butt of the world’s jokes for so long, was shiny and new.

But for once in her life, Addie had backed the right horse.

NEVER HAD BRUNO
wanted anything so much. Never in his whole life had it seemed to him that one thing would make everything OK. That Christmas Eve feeling, the heart pumping with hope. And along with it, the dread of disappointment.

There was this one Christmas, he must have been nine or ten. He’d asked Santa Claus for a bow and arrow. It was his heart’s desire, to possess a bow and arrow. And Christmas morning arrived and Bruno found a long thin package under the tree. His name carefully printed on the label. But inside the wrapping he found not a bow and arrow but a hockey stick. There was a handwritten letter explaining why it had not been possible to get a bow and arrow, why a hockey stick was better. The letter had been signed by Santa Claus.

Even then Bruno realized there was something familiar about the handwriting. The notepaper was exactly the same kind his mother kept tucked away in the kitchen drawer.

Bruno can still remember that feeling. A horrible grown-up sensation, the realization that disappointment is an inevitable part of life. And the lesson he learned from it, that there’s no such thing as magic.

Forty years later and here was Bruno, bracing himself for that feeling again.

“How about we go on a trip?” suggested Addie. “It might be a way of putting in the day.”

And Bruno jumped at the suggestion, anything to fill some time.

“What about Glendalough?” he asked. “I’ve been reading about Glendalough in the guidebooks.”

“Glendalough it is.”

They threw the dog in the car. As they drove, Bruno read out bits from the
Lonely Planet
.

“…the epitome of rugged and romantic Ireland,” he read. “A deeply tranquil and spiritual place.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been there,” said Addie. She couldn’t picture it in her mind. But when they arrived it did seem a bit familiar. The round tower and the elevated graveyard, she had a vague memory of running around among the headstones, a school trip maybe?

The familiarity increased as they drove through the village. The cramped hotel on a tight corner, the metal sign for the tearooms, the sign swinging in the breeze. The vast car park, almost empty today. A few hawkers selling leprechaun T-shirts and key rings with sheep on them.

Addie felt a rising discomfort as they drove along the narrow tree-lined lane towards the lakes. She had a sudden desire to turn back. She was worried that this had been a bad choice. She was afraid it wouldn’t be right. On this day of all days, it had to be right. If it wasn’t right, it would be a bad omen.

As she swung the car reluctantly into the car park, all her energy was focused on fighting off this sense of impending disaster. Like a teenager introducing a new boyfriend to her embarrassing parents, she was possessed by a horrible, disloyal shame.

She stopped to take a ticket at the barrier, protesting silently at having to pay to park here, in her own bloody country. Her sense of outrage was compounded by the presence of a chip van in the middle of the car park, its striped awning propped open, a few forlorn wooden benches set out on the tarmac in front of it. As soon as Addie stepped out of the car she was assailed by a smell of rancid cooking oil.

“Looks like we have the place to ourselves,” said Bruno cheerfully as he set his backpack on the bonnet of the car and started pulling a jumper out of it.

Addie stood and watched him in horror.

“Tell me that’s not an Aran jumper.” It wasn’t clear if she was talking to herself or to him.

He couldn’t hear her anyway. He was halfway into the jumper already. He had his two arms through, the next minute his head popped out the top.

“Nice jumper,” she said sarcastically.

But the irony was lost on Bruno.

“Do you like it?” he asked, looking down at his own chest.

And he looked so handsome in the jumper, with his wide-open face and the beard and the glowing eyes, he looked so happy and so entirely unashamed of himself, that Addie hadn’t the heart to pursue it.

“I do,” she said, smiling. “I do like it.” She went round the back of the car to let Lola out.

As soon as the hatchback swung open, Lola dropped down onto the ground. She spun around like a compass finding its bearings. Then she was gone, tearing off in a straight line towards the gap in the trees. She must have been able to smell the lake.

Addie locked the car and then she and Bruno set off after her, bumping against each other as they made their way up the narrow path.

THEY TOOK THE PATH
along the edge of the lake, walking in the dark shade under the trees. Pinecones and needles underfoot. A light breeze whipped ripples on the surface of the black peaty water.

They were holding hands as they walked. There was so much between them today, all of it unspoken. Addie could think of nothing but the return ticket, she kept having to chase it out of her mind. She would have died rather than mention it. And Bruno was preoccupied too, a decision lurking around the edges of his mind, a decision he had yet to make.

Lola was weaving along the path ahead of them, her nose to the ground like a Hoover.

All of a sudden Bruno stopped walking. He stood and watched her.

“Have you noticed her limping?”

“No.”

The way she said it, it was a question to herself. Already there was a defensive note. Have I noticed her limping? Maybe she’s been limping and I haven’t noticed.

Bruno called Lola over to him. He crouched down and put his arm around her. Then he rolled her over onto her side, cradling her front paw in his hand as he bent down to examine it.

Addie was standing behind them, peering over them, trying to see what was going on. But her view was blocked by Bruno’s back and shoulders.

He was hugging the dog’s little body to him with one arm. With his free hand he was cradling her paw. She had her head turned to the side, her eyes wide and desperate. Bruno was bending right down over her. It looked like he was licking her. Addie was baffled.

The next thing, Bruno let go of the dog, taking his hands away suddenly as if he were dropping something that was sure to shatter when it hit the ground.

Lola leapt up. She righted herself, standing there for a second to take stock of her situation. She was tilting a little on her four legs. Then she was off, scrambling up an embankment, sending a small avalanche of dusty clay down in her wake. Bruno raised himself to full height, and as he did so he plucked something out from between his teeth, holding it up in front of him with pincer fingers for Addie to see.

“Oh shit! Did she really have that in her paw?”

Addie reached out to take it from him, placing it in the palm of her hand so she could study it. It was a giant copper-colored staple, one of those things they use to seal cardboard packaging. It had Lola’s blood on it.

Addie felt sick to the stomach just looking at it.

“Oh, Bruno, the poor little thing. I wonder how long it was there?”

And Bruno put his woolly arm around her and told her not to worry. The dog was fine, just look at her, she was absolutely fine.

But Addie couldn’t shrug it off like that. She was sorry for the dog, she really was. She couldn’t bear to think of her in pain. But she was troubled too. She was upset that she hadn’t noticed anything. I’m so bloody self-absorbed, she was thinking. Thanks be to God Bruno noticed. And she couldn’t help but think, he’s a better person than me.

If there was a moment of revelation, maybe that was it.

This was a good man she had stumbled across. This was a man who would prize a staple out of a dog’s paw using only his teeth. She took hold of his hand, leaning her head against his shoulder as they walked. She tried to clear her mind of everything but this one moment.

THEY CAME OUT
from under the trees into a harsh light.

Towering over them on either side were mountains. Addie and Bruno were just two tiny creatures at the bottom of the steep valley, the little dog so much tinier still. They stood for a moment, their heads reeling as they took stock of their place in the grand scale of things.

Bruno surveyed the stony path that snaked up the valley. Alongside the path a stream of silvery water made its way downhill.

“Do we go up?”

Addie lifted her head, tracing the path up the rocky mountain. It seemed a daunting climb from here. She spotted a bench up ahead. It was much more tempting.

“Let’s sit for a while first,” she suggested. “My back is giving me a bit of trouble. I’m not sure how far I’ll be able to go.”

Bruno whirled round to study her face.

“Again?” he said. He was all concern. “I didn’t know that was still happening. You need to go see someone about that.”

“I know,” she said. The color was draining from her face and she felt clammy. But she was resentful of his concern. It had nothing to do with him now. Afterwards, she was thinking. I’ll worry about it after you’re gone.

They sat down on the bench. Around them the mountains made a huge, deep bowl. It was a strange sensation, sitting there at the bottom. You felt surrounded. It was like sitting in the orchestra pit of a huge theater. There was a feeling of being watched. Even though there was nobody else there.

Addie swiveled herself so she was lying down lengthways, her head resting in Bruno’s lap.

This could be our last day together, she was thinking. I should be giving him something to remember. If I was Della I’d be leading him back into the woods. I’d be laying my coat down on the moss. If I was Della I would have thought ahead and worn a skirt. I would have taken off my knickers before I left the house.

Just thinking about it, Addie was imagining the sharp stones under her back. She was thinking about the awkward fumbling with buttons, the indignity of his bare bum with his trousers around his ankles. She was hearing voices approaching, imagining strangers stumbling across them in the act. She would never be able to do that. She was too shy. She was too tired.

She closed her eyes and savored the hard wood of the bench against her lower back, the gentle pressure of Bruno’s hand as he stroked her hair. She opened her eyes again and watched the clouds roll endlessly by. The beauty of the place was a roaring noise around them.

“The polls are opening on the East Coast now.” His voice cut through the air like a knife.

His own ballot had already been cast. He thought about it now. One little vote in a vast sea of votes, he had cast it out from the post office in Ballsbridge. He had prevailed upon the lady at the counter to notarize the envelope. No more could he do.

“I feel like I’m on death row,” he said. “I feel like I’m waiting for an eleventh-hour pardon.”

A conversation like a dream, you could say anything you wanted to say, it didn’t have to make sense.

“What’s your death-row meal?”

Bruno didn’t even stop to think.

“Huevos rancheros, black coffee. And a cigarette.”

“Where?”

“I thought I was on death row.”

“No, you’re allowed to say where.”

“Oh. Cabanas Zamas in Tulum, overlooking the ocean. After a swim.”

For once, she said what she was thinking. It flowed straight from her head and out through her mouth.

“I want to go there with you.”

There was a wistfulness to the way she said it, as if she knew it was never going to happen.

And she liked the way he didn’t say anything in reply. This was one of the things she liked most about him, the way he never said things unless he meant them. He never said things unless he knew them to be true.

“You haven’t told me yours,” he said.

“Oh, that’s easy. Pint of Guinness and a pack of pub crisps. Sweeney’s bar in Claddaghduff. After a swim.

“You see,” she said as he leaned down to kiss her, “I’m a cheap date.”

THEY STAYED UP LATE
to watch the election results. They made a big pot of coffee and they settled into opposite corners of the couch, their feet fighting with each other in the middle. They had a quilt to keep them warm, the dog nestled on the floor below them.

Addie was fighting to stay awake. Two cups of coffee but still her eyelids were so heavy, she could feel them shuddering down. She kept having to raise her eyebrows right up into her hairline to winch her eyes open again.

She was so comfortable, that was part of the problem. With her shoes off, she had her stockinged toes nuzzled under the rough denim of Bruno’s leg, a cushion doubled up under her face to smooth out the gradient from the arm of the couch. It was hopeless, she could feel herself falling. She had no power to stop herself.

Bruno was surfing the channels, frantic not to miss anything. He was frantic for Addie not to miss anything. Every time she dozed off he would poke her awake again.

“I’m not sure it’s entirely necessary for me to know which way Maine voted,” she said, her voice slurred with sleep.

But Bruno wanted her to witness every second of this. Already it was clear which way it was going.

He woke her up to tell her about Pennsylvania but she fell asleep again straightaway. He woke her again to tell her about Ohio. She opened one eye, she took in the on-screen graphics showing blocks of red and blue across a map of America. Red for Republicans, Democrats blue. It seemed to Addie that there was more red than blue. She fell asleep again.