In bed I laid my head on his warm heaving chest, felt his heartbeat beneath my cheek and his breath on the top of my head. I felt loved and secure and thought everything in my life couldn’t possibly be any more perfect and wonderful. Before he fell asleep, he whispered to me to remember that feeling. At the time, I thought he was referring to us being together, but as the night slowly moved on for me and the niggling returned, I knew he had meant for me to remember the feeling of walking away and the reason that led to that decision. I needed to hold on to that, store it in my memory and call upon it whenever the moment raised its ugly head.
I was restless that night. I only meant to go back downstairs and tidy my belongings away. And then when I had done that, I only meant to go out into the wet night to search my car. But then when it wasn’t there, I forgot the feeling that I’d tried to hold on to while in Gregory’s arms and Gregory’s bed.
He woke up alone that morning and it pains me to imagine his thoughts when he felt around the bed and his hand rested on the cold sheets. Meanwhile, as he was asleep in his bed pretending in his dreams that I was alongside him, I had returned to a cold bedsit to find my toothbrush still in its packet, lying on the table. For once I got no solace from finding. I was emptier after finding the toothbrush than I had been before. It seemed the more things I found when I was with Gregory, the more I lost inside. I was alone in bed at five in the morning after leaving the warm bed of a man I loved, and who loved me. Of a man who would, as a result, no longer take my calls. A man who after thirteen years of wanting to learn all there was to learn about me had finally given up and wanted to know me no longer.
For a while, I gave up on him too until I became too lonely, too tired, and my heart became too sore from pretending I cared more about a whole series of nothings with nobodies rather than a single episode of something with somebody. I told myself that morning to hold on to that feeling, to remember the foolishness of leaving warmth to walk alone in the cold, the ridiculous loneliness of leaving something for nothing.
He took me back on one condition. That I recognize my problems and attend a monthly meeting of a group called the OCA. The first thing you learn while in OCA is that you can’t be in OCA for anybody else but yourself. It was a lie from the very beginning. Every extra month I attended the meeting was another month spent with Gregory, a happier Gregory, who was content knowing I was taking steps, twelve to be precise, to recover. He pretended to himself again because it was obvious to everyone that there had been no change in my behavior. I knew in my heart that I wasn’t the same as the others in the class. I felt it absurd that he would think I was among the likes of those who scrubbed and cleaned themselves for hours at night before going to bed until they almost bled, and hours in the morning before going to work. Or the woman who made tiny slits with a blade on her own arms, or the man who touched, counted, arranged, and hoarded every little thing that came into his path. I wasn’t like them. My dedication was confused with obsession. There was a difference. I was different.
Years and years of going to the meetings and I was still the same as the twenty-one-year-old who sat on the concrete steps opposite Dr. Burton’s office building every week, with my elbows on my knees, chin rested on my hands, watching the world pass by as I waited to cross the road.
Every single time, Gregory crossed over for me and met me on my side. I realize now, I don’t think I ever met him in the middle. And I don’t think I ever once said thank you for that.
But I’m saying sorry now, I shout it a thousand times a day from this place that he can’t hear me from. I say thank you and sorry and I scream it through the trees, over the mountains, pour my love into the lakes, and I blow kisses in the wind, hoping that they will reach him.
I went to the OCA meetings every month. I went because every month that I was there I knew it was another month of deserving to be with Gregory.
I missed it this month.
39
After returning from an afternoon rehearsal at the Community Hall, Bobby and I sat around the pine table with Helena and Joseph in their home. Wanda sat opposite me, her head of messy black curls just about visible over the table, and her arms pulled up in a giant effort to clasp her hands together, imitating how I was seated. Joseph had just announced that the council had called a meeting for tomorrow night, which for reasons known only to the others around the table was a cause to become quiet and allow an atmosphere of impending doom to fall over us.
I don’t know why, but I found the day-to-day running of this place comical. I didn’t and couldn’t take their world and their issues seriously, however important they were. I hid my smile beneath my hand as I watched them worriedly looking at one another. I was completely detached from the problem, thankful that whatever was happening was happening to them and not me. It was as though their problems weren’t mine because I was an outsider of my own choosing, and I would do my utmost to remain in that position. Anything to avoid having to deal with the harsh reality of settling here. There seemed to be very little choice involved in that reality. So my feeling while I sat at the table was that my time here would be too short-lived to have to care about whatever it was that affected their world. Their world, not mine. Nobody had spoken for a while so I tried to break the frosty atmosphere.
“So what’s such a big issue that would cause a meeting to be called?”
“You,” Wanda said perkily, and I could tell her legs were swinging under the table from the way her shoulders rocked.
A chill went through me. I chose to ignore her, annoyed that a child was allowed to sit in on our conversation without being silenced, annoyed that she had transformed me from black sheep to piggy by snatching me from the outside where I felt comfortable and plonking me right in the middle of the equation. I looked to the faces around the table, still glancing worriedly at one another but still not speaking. The only one willing to look me in the eye was Wanda.
“What makes you say that?” I questioned the five-year-old, taking the fact that nobody had corrected her as either because it was the general consensus or they were ignoring her because she was bonkers. I hoped for the latter.
“From the way that everyone was staring at you when we walked from the Community Hall to here.”
“That’s enough now, sweetheart,” Helena said gently.
“Why?” Wanda looked up at her grandmother. “Didn’t you see how they all stopped talking and made way for her? It was like she was a fairy princess.” She revealed her gummy smile. Yep, bonkers.
“OK.” Helena patted her on the arm to signal her to stop. Wanda was quiet and I could tell her legs were still.
“The meeting is being called about me.” I absorbed this. “Is this true, Joseph?” I very rarely, if at all, got nervous for anything and, at the idea of this, curiosity was the only emotion that stirred within me. And yet it was still mixed with the bizarre feeling of thinking it was all very cute and twee. A funny little happening in a funny little place.
“We don’t know that it’s about you.” Bobby leaped to my defense. He looked at Joseph. “Do we?”
“I have been told nothing.”
“Do people regularly call meetings about new arrivals? Is that normal?” I asked. I squeezed the stone that was Joseph, for water.
“Normal.” He threw his hands up in the air. “What do we know of normal? What does our world and the old world, the world who thinks it knows it all, really know of normal?” He stood up and loomed over us.
“Well, do I need to be worried?” I asked, hoping now that he could at least reassure me.
“Kipepeo, one never needs to be worried.” He placed his hand on my head and I felt his warmth soothe my pounding headache. “We will be at the Community Hall at seven P.M. tomorrow. We shall test our understanding of normality then.” With a small smile he drifted out of the room. Helena followed him.
“What did he just call you?” Bobby asked, confused.
“Kipepeo,” Wanda sang, her legs swinging wildly a
gain.
I leaned into the table and Wanda momentarily looked startled. “What does that mean?” I asked rather aggressively, but I was anxious to know.
“Not telling you.” She pouted and crossed her arms across her chest. “Because you don’t like me.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course Sandy likes you,” Bobby said stupidly.
“She told me she didn’t.”
“I’m sure you misheard her.”
“She didn’t,” I explained, “I told her directly.” Bobby looked shocked, so I made an attempt to wave the white flag. “Well, tell me what kipepeo means and I might like you.”
“Sandy!” Bobby exclaimed.
I shushed him. Wanda mulled it over. Slowly but surely her face began to crumple. Bobby kicked me in the leg and I leaned forward. “Wanda, don’t worry about it.” I tried to soften my voice as much as I could. “It’s not your fault that I don’t like you.” In the background Bobby tutted and sighed. “If you were ten years older, it’s very possible that I could like you.”
Her eyes lit up. Bobby shook his head at me. “What age will I be then?” she asked, kneeling excitedly on her chair and leaning forward on her elbows on the table to get closer to me.
“You’ll be fifteen.”
“Nearly the same age as Bobby?” She was hopeful.
“Bobby is nineteen.”
“Which is four years older than fifteen,” Bobby explained politely.
Wanda seemed delighted by this and gave him another shy gummy smile.
“But I’ll be twenty-nine when you’re fifteen,” Bobby explained, and I saw her face fall. “Every time you get older, I get older.” He laughed. He was confusing her fallen face with a lack of understanding and he continued. “I’ll always be fourteen years older than you, you see.” As I watched her face falling along with the penny in her mind, I signaled for him to stop.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Your heart can break at any age. I think that’s when I started liking Wanda.
I hated going to sleep in the place they called Here. I hated the sounds at night that drifted into the atmosphere from home. I hated to hear the laughter, I wanted to block my nose to the smells, close my eyes to the people wandering in from the woods for the first time. I was afraid each noise would be me, I was afraid each sound would be a part of me forgotten. Bobby and I shared that fear. We stayed up late into the night talking about the world he had left behind: music, sport, politics, and everything in between, but mostly we spoke about his mother.
Jack returned to Mary Stanley’s house after leaving Dr. Burton at the OCA meeting. Once again angry words had been shared between them, the doctor firing threats of stalking charges and everything he could think of to make Jack back off from his search. After wandering around Dublin city for the afternoon, he had left a voice-mail on Gloria’s phone telling her he wouldn’t be home for another few days; that it was complicated but that it was important. He knew she would understand. He had postponed his trip to Leitrim to visit Sandy’s parents after being warned off by Dr. Burton. Instead, he hoped to share his thoughts and concerns with Mary before he moved on with his search. He needed to know whether to continue or not. He needed to know if he was chasing his own shadow, whether there was any purpose to him searching for Sandy if those who knew her well weren’t concerned.
Mary had welcomed Jack to stay with her for another night and they sat in her living room once again watching a video of Bobby performing in his sixth class school play, Oliver. He noticed Bobby had an unusual laugh, a loud chuckle that came from deep inside him, causing everyone around him, including the audience, to smile. Jack found himself with a grin on his face as Mary turned off the tape.
“He seemed like a happy lad,” Jack commented.
“Oh, yes.” She nodded enthusiastically, sipping on her coffee. “He was that, indeed. He was always cracking jokes, always acting the class clown and letting his words get him into trouble and his laugh get him out of it. People loved him.” She smiled. “That laugh of his…” She looked at a photograph on the mantelpiece, Bobby’s face a picture of delight, his mouth wide open mid-laughter. “It was infectious, just like his grandfather’s.”
Jack smiled and they studied the photo.
Mary’s smile faded. “I have a confession to make, though.”
Jack was silent, not sure he wanted to hear it.
“I don’t hear that laugh anymore.” Her voice was almost a whisper, as though if she said it any louder it would make it true. “It used to fill the house, it used to fill my heart, my head, all day, every day. How can I not hear it anymore?”
From the faraway look in her eyes Jack could tell she wasn’t asking him for a reply. Then she shook her head as if failing to hear it again.
“I remember how it used to make me feel. I remember the atmosphere just one simple giggle would evoke in a room. I remember people’s reactions. I can see their faces and the impact the sound made on them. I can hear it on the videos when I play it back, I can see it on his face in photographs, I hear versions of it, I suppose, echoes of it in other people’s laughter. But without all those things, without the photographs, videos, and echoes, when I’m lying in bed at night, I can’t remember it. I don’t hear it, and I try to, but my head becomes a jumble of the sounds I’ve made up and the sounds I’ve recalled from memory. But as much as I search and search, my memory of it is missing…” She looked over at the photo on the mantel again, cocked her ear as though listening for the sound. Then her body seemed to collapse into itself as she gave up.
Bobby and I were both tucked up on the couch in Helena’s home. Everybody had gone to bed, apart from Wanda, who had sneaked back in and was hiding behind the couch, overexcited by the fact that her dear Bobby was staying the night in her house. We knew she was there but ignored her, hoping she would get bored and go to sleep.
“Are you worried about the meeting tomorrow night?” he asked.
“No, I don’t even know what reason I have to be worried. I don’t see what I’ve done wrong.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong but you know things, you know too much about people’s families for everybody’s comfort. They will want to learn how and why.”
“And I’ll tell them I’m a hugely sociable person. I move around the Irish social scene talking to friends and family of missing people,” I said drily. “Come on, what are they going to do to me? Accuse me of being a witch and burn me at the stake?”
Bobby smiled lightly. “No, but you don’t want your life being made difficult.”
“They couldn’t possibly make it any more difficult. I’m living in a place where lost things go. How bizarre is that?” I rubbed my face wearily and muttered, “I’m definitely going to need some serious counseling when I get back.”
Bobby cleared his throat. “You’re not going back. You need to get that out of your head for a start. If you say that at the meeting you’ll definitely be asking for trouble.”
I waved him off, not interested in hearing that again.
“Maybe you could start writing your diaries again. It looked like you enjoyed doing that.”
“How do you know I wrote diaries?”
“Well, because of the diary in one of your boxes back at the shop. I found it down by the river just at the back of the shop. It was dirty and damp but when I saw your name written on it I brought it back to the shop and spent a lot of time restoring it,” he said proudly. On my lack of reaction he quickly added, “I promise I didn’t read it,” he lied.
“You must be thinking of somebody else.” I forced a yawn. “There wasn’t a diary there.”
“There was.” He sat up. “It was purple and…” He trailed off trying to remember it.
I began to pull on a thread on the hem of my trousers.
He snapped his fingers and I jumped in fright, feeling Wanda behind the couch jumping, too. “That’s it! It was purple, kind of a suede material that was ruined because of the damp but I cleaned it up as
much as I could. Like I said, I didn’t read it but I did open up the first few pages and there were doodles of love hearts all over it.” He thought again. “Sandy loves…”
I pulled on the thread more.
“Graham,” he continued. “No, it wasn’t Graham.”
I tightly wrapped the fine filament around my baby finger watching my skin squeezing through, watching the blood being caught.
“Gavin or Gareth…Come on, Sandy, you must remember. It was written so many times I don’t know how you could forget the guy.” He kept on thinking aloud while I kept on pulling the thread, wrapping it tighter and tighter.
He snapped his fingers again and said, “Gregory! That’s it! Sandy loves Gregory. It was written all over the inside of the book. You must remember it now.”
I spoke quietly. “It wasn’t in the boxes, Bobby.”
“It was.”
I shook my head. “I spent hours going through everything. It’s definitely not there. I would have remembered it.”
Bobby looked confused and irritated. “It was bloody well there.”
With that, Wanda gasped from behind the couch and jumped up.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, seeing her head popping up between mine and Bobby’s.
“You’ve lost something else?” she whispered.
“No, I haven’t.” I contradicted her but felt a chill again.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “I promise.”
There was a silence. I fixed my eyes on the black thread that kept on coming. Suddenly and completely inappropriately, I heard Bobby laugh loudly, one of his finest, loudest laughs I had heard from him yet.
“The situation is hardly very funny, thanks, Bobby.”
Bobby didn’t reply.