Ahoy for Joy (15 page)

The two women hadn't seen each other for many years. After school they had attended different universities, but had maintained a healthy contact by exchanging letters and occasionally meeting up with each other when they were both visiting home during the holidays. However Grietje had met a young man and gone off to live with him in Amsterdam. Over the years that followed correspondence became less and less and finally dwindled out the way it sometimes does even with the best of friendships as lives move on in different directions.

Grietje had recently split from her partner, as she called him, they had never married. He had informed her in a shock message that he had found someone else and after over twenty years together, was off to build a new life. Apparently he hadn't been happy for some time. They had no children, just some property to sell and the proceeds to share but otherwise the ‘divorce' had been quick, cold and eventless.

They smiled at once as they recognized each other, hugging warmly. They had been good friends, protecting each other through those delicate formative years and the sense of belonging, of closeness and of friendship was still present in the two women though now both in their early forties.

After the initial smiles and mutually admiring comments of how good they both still looked, they went for lunch at a fish restaurant in the centre of town where Grietje had made a reservation. The waiter showed them to a table outside on the raised terrace that overlooked the courtyard and the little 16th century church that still defined the centre of town. It was a rather grander establishment than Anna was used to with tables covered in starched white linen laid with two sets of cutlery and glasses at each setting, the restaurant rather optimistically having prepared with the most profligate of customer in mind. Occasional light wafts of garlic and herbs swirled around mixing with clinks of glasses and happy chatter. It was June, but the sun canopies were not yet raised and the sun shone brightly casting moving shadows over the pair as the trees waved in the light wind.

The waiter smiled approvingly at the two smartly dressed women, responding positively to Grietje's mild flirtations as he took their order causing the two to giggle playfully as they sipped the chilled Prosecco they had ordered as an aperitif.

“So, it's been how long? At least 15 years,” Grietje answered herself.

“Yes, I think the last time was before Esther was born and she's fourteen now,” added Anna.

“My, how time flies. And Cees, is he well?”

“Oh yes quite well” replied Anna enthusiastically. “You know him, he's happy as long as he's making some great contribution to mankind. He's been working on some drug, a designer drug he calls it that will no doubt make us all live longer and happier lives!”

She paused a little while pondering her next remark. “So things didn't work out with Rik?”

Grietje sighed out loud. “No. After 20 years he decided he didn't want me. Ran off with some bimbo half his age with tight skin and firm breasts.
Bitch
!” The two friends sniggered briefly, for want of a better reaction to Grietje's obvious discomfort. “Actually, she's lovely. I met her a few times. Well that was before I knew what they were up to. At least, I can see the attraction, apart from being a marriage wrecker that is.”

Anna smiled sympathetically. Grietje had always been the more adventurous of the pair and had been popular at school. Anna had even been a little jealous of her easy manner and convivial personality. She had a lovely knack of being able to make people, especially the boys, feel good about themselves.

Grietje lifted her glass. “Mothers batten down the hatches, get your sons inside, Miss Chaos is back in town! Actually,” she paused a moment, blushing a little. “Do you remember Karel van der Klaas from school?”

Anna smiled, nodding expectantly.

“Well, we've been sort of liaising on the internet recently. We got together through one of those
school reunion
type websites. It seems he was married to another of the world's ample supply of emotional train wrecks. Anyway, she took off. Went to live in Africa somewhere with this bloke she met on the internet. Crazy! Anyway, he thought he would give it a try himself, the internet that is, not running off to Africa,” she smiled once again, “and hey presto, he found me!”

“Together?”

Anna noticed her friend reddened a little easier than she remembered.

“Well, yes. I hadn't really thought to define it that way, but yes,
together
. We met up in Amsterdam a few months back and it seemed to go well and we've seen each other several times since. Then we went on a short holiday together to Venice, not that the location mattered much.”

She leaned across the table beckoning her friend closer and whispered, “more of a major bonking session really. We hardly left the hotel room!”

Anna's gasp quickly turned to a shy titter as her friend, whose language always seemed a little devoid of euphemism, smiled coyly back.

“He still lives out this way and I am a bit fed up with Amsterdam now, so I thought, well, why not. I'm single, he's single. After all, we did go out a bit at school. It didn't last of course. Well we were young. Anyway, I thought, life's not much fun on your own is it? “

Grietje looked a little sullen, then collected herself once more.

“So, what have you been up to?”

“Well, not much actually. Cees is fine, the children are fine. Marcus is at University, Johan and Esther are still at school.”

“Don't you have a job?”

“A job? I haven't worked since Marcus was born.”

“Ah, so, you're a homemaker, then?”

Anna paused, figuring this was a new term for
housewife
.

“Well, yes, but I am getting a bit tired of that. The children are older now, they don't really need me. I feel a bit lost, redundant even. Can you understand that?” Grietje nodded, but Anna didn't really wait for an answer and pondered a little more as she gazed across the cobble-stoned square, her thoughts developing as she spoke. “It's about Cees too. I wonder if he might be getting just a little bored with me. When the children were younger, I could always tell him about my day and the things we had got up to and he could tell me about his. Now I just don't have anything to report any more. Also, intellectually, I think I am now suffering, missing out a little. It's like my mind has stagnated and I don't know how to jolt it into action again. Also, it's been so long since I worked, I really don't even know how to go about it. I don't know about computers and all that sort of thing, I just don't think anybody would employ me.”

Grietje raised her eyebrows and held her gaze in a sort of mock incredulous look.

“Well, that
was
quite a speech! For God's sake Anna, anyone would employ you. You have a first class degree in English literature. You can learn to use computers in about a week, then join the rest of us who perpetually still don't know what we're doing! You must be able to use the internet?”

“Well, yes, OK, I can look up the weather and so on and do emails, but it's just everyone seems to use jargon today that I don't understand.”

Grietje chuckled. “Still the same old Anna. Really, you always spent so much time fretting that you couldn't do things, then you would get much better marks than anyone else at school.”

Anna smiled a polite acknowledgement of her friend's flattery while the discussion continued in her mind. “Cees isn't that keen. I guess he just likes being looked after and frets that I won't be home to make his dinner.”

“Well bollocks to that! Let him make his own dinner for once. Who's he to tell you if you can have a job or not?”

Anna smiled once again. “I know, but he does provide for me and the children really very well and I like being there for him, really I do. Also, we have a good relationship and I don't want to compromise that.”

“No but still, it's good to have a bit of independence though.”

Anna nodded.

“So, tell me. What ever happened to that boy you used to write to all the time back at school. You know, the English guy. You were quite sweet on him as I remember.” Grietje smiled knowingly, looking closely at her friend. Then she set her glass down with a firm thud. “Poems! He wrote you poems! I remember now. Oh dear, Anna, I do recall you were just a little bit in love with him!”

Now it was Anna's turn to blush. Her friend always spoke more openly, more freely that Anna might herself and it was the term love, her love, Anna's love for anyone other than her husband that had caused her a little discomfort.

“Oh it just petered out. You know how these things go.” Momentarily her face took on a pensive mood and she paused briefly slowly pulling her soft lower lip through the measured grip of her teeth. “He was Irish actually, not English,” she emphasised, as if it made any difference. Her thoughtfulness didn't last and she went on, looking up once more at her friend.

“Are you staying with your parents? How are they? My mum says she sees your Dad around now and again, doing the shopping.”

“Oh they're fine. Getting older of course. Mum has arthritis and can't get around much, hence Dad is out doing the shopping. It does make me laugh a little. I don't think he had ever even been in a supermarket until a few years back, now he is an expert on the selection of produce and the available bargains which he insists on recounting at home, seemingly oblivious to how completely boring he is being! They manage OK. Funny seeing old people together, they know each other so well.”

Grietje stopped talking and sat thinking for a moment. Anna watched her closely. She could see the little grin she knew so well develop in her friend's features. While Anna would pause to ensure the words she planned were correct and appropriate, a similar pause from Grietje tended to indicate impending gossip or mischief. “So did you stop writing to him or did he stop writing to you?”

“Who?”

Grietje smiled openly, teasing her friend, but didn't answer.

“The Irish boy?”

Suddenly, Michael came to her mind once more. Today was the first she had thought of him in many years and she smiled inwardly to herself.

“Did you ever hear from him again?”

“No, Never.”

“You don't know what happened to him then?”

“No. He just stopped writing. I don't know why.” Anna paused once more, hoping Grietje would pitch in and move the conversation on quickly, but there was silence. “Well maybe I do. The last letter I wrote to him…” Anna's voice tailed off as she remembered back, long ago, so very, very long ago. She swallowed. “Well I more or less said I loved him.”

Anna's unusual candour surprised her and she blushed. It was a warm, soft vulnerable blush that was so part of her personality. Her friend looked back at her searchingly, now sympathetic.

“Ah, and you think he took flight. Maybe the ball fell out of his pen! Or more accurately he caught a major dose of commitment phobia and couldn't actually manage the gigantic task of letting you know. Bloody typical. Men!”

Anna opened her mouth to reply, but Grietje went on, “I do remember. You were upset at the time. Actually you changed just then, back then. Maybe you didn't notice it but I did. I was your friend and I could see it. The harsh reality of love.” She pouted sympathetically.

“I just grew up. That's all,” replied Anna matter of factly. “Maybe it takes a little blow now and again to let us understand the world. Understand reality. What do you mean,
changed
?”

Grietje, sat back a little in her seat and left an uncharacteristic pause as she quickly digested the mild agitation in her friend's response. “Well, you never dated anyone at school for a start. There wasn't a boy in class who wouldn't have been delighted to walk out with you but you brushed them off. You brushed them all off.”

“Well, there wasn't anyone there I fancied.”

“The
Ice Princess
they called you.”

“
What
, exclaimed Anna,” now irritated by the way the conversation was going.

“The ice princess. That's what the boys at school called you. They said you were cold. And you were cold. I remember it well. Come on Anna, you were a little elusive. You must admit that.”

Anna just stared. Maybe she wanted the conversation to end there, but it didn't.

“I think some of them liked that a little. After all, not everyone is after the party girl, but nobody really got through. In the end, they just gave up. Don't you wonder what happened to him?”

Who
?

“You know who. The Irish boy. What was he called again?”

“Michael,” said Anna quietly.

“Yes, Michael. I remember now. Of course we met him on that trip to England with Geert and his friends. He was with those weird religious kids with the funny uniforms that camped up the hill from us. I remember now. Have you googled him?”

“What? Googled? No of course not. Why would I do that?”

“You can find most people on the Internet nowadays. Usually quite quickly. That's how I found Karl. He sends his love by the way,” she interjected casually. “If you know what school he went to he's probably there on some sort of alumni site or whatever.”

Anna bit her lip in the way she often did when she was thoughtful or pondering her answer to a difficult question.

“It was a long time ago,” she said at last. “He's probably married with kids and so on just like me. What's to be gained? Nothing.”

She sighed concluding her thoughts on the subject, but a seed had been planted and it planned to grow.

On the way home, Michael came to her mind once more. Maybe it would be nice to find him, to send him an email. To send her greetings at least. Maybe even find out what happened. It had been an abrupt end to the correspondence that had at first been so plentiful.
Grietje was right
, she admitted to herself, she
had
been upset at the time. Did it change her? Well, yes, if she was objective and dropped her natural defences, it had changed her a little.

She wondered how he had turned out. How he was getting on with life. She didn't love him now, it had just been one of those adolescent romantic ideas when
passion whisks you up in a breath of warm air and leaves you shaking with excitement
, but it wasn't real. She had always described it like that. Love was just an illusion, a fantasy that children have, not a real emotion. She loved. Yes of course she loved. She loved Cees, she loved her children, but pure romantic love, the sort of love that sweeps you off your feet and has you swooning in ardent delight, that was a fantasy that belonged in fairy tales and novellas, not a practical aspect of the modern world.

Still her thoughts toyed with her mind.
Maybe there was no harm in having a look
. Unexpectedly, she felt a little flutter of excitement but it wasn't to last. He hadn't come looking for her, she suddenly noted, rather startled at her inclination to reserve her emotions, as if they were teenagers once again, hiding their feelings to protect their own vulnerability. She pondered a little further and the question vexed her mind a little more.
Why hadn't Michael dropped her a line? Why hadn't he sent a little message to say hi?
He would surely be more Internet savvy than her.
Everyone
was more Internet savvy than her. Why hadn't he come looking for her?

She felt a shudder run through her. It was a bad feeling, a sick feeling and it wasn't the first time she had felt it. Twenty-seven years ago, she had felt the same. No letter arrived. Michael lived in a troubled place. Bad things did happen. Bad things did happen to real people. Real people with real loved ones.

She felt unsettled once more.
Damn Grietje
she thought. Trust her to dig things up again. Maybe her life was chaotic, with her failed relationship and her new love, but Anna's wasn't. She was settled. She was happy. Why go trawling through the past again? Michael Coglan was history, ancient history and he should stay there.

Grietje was right in the practical sense though. He could probably be found quite easily. Just type his name into Google and see what comes up. Perhaps there was no real reason not to. After all she was not some love struck teenager, she was a happily married mother of three healthy children with a wonderful husband whom she loved dearly. She looked at the laptop sitting on the small desk in the lounge that Cees used, typing reports and sending emails while talking to her and watching the television all at the same time. It always sat there. She used it occasionally herself to find recipes or send an email now and then, although the latter always appeared in his name, his email address and often people weren't sure if it was him or her they were corresponding with. She really should get a job, she thought once more.

She opened the lid and hit the
on
button. The machine powered quickly to life, the whirr of the fans suddenly breaking the silence of the room that must have always been present, but she hadn't really noticed before. The sound was eerie. She looked around and behind herself, nervously as if she was set to commit some sort of crime or betrayal. The feeling unsettled her. She pressed the keys; Control, alt, delete. She was in. The system quickly defaulted to the Google homepage with its familiar logo and empty text box awaiting its latest command. Hesitating a little she typed in his name,
Michael Coglan
. It was easily done. Suddenly she realised she might now find the answer to a question that had troubled her for so long, and she might find out fast. It was simple. It was
too
simple.

She hesitated once more. All she had to do was press the return key. She was face to face with the power of computers, the power of the internet and the endless knowledge it provided, only a keystroke away. She hadn't really thought about it before, but suddenly it seemed overwhelming. Yet, the motivation to look was intense. Already she knew she would do it. Already she knew that the urge to know the truth would overpower any reservations she had about the nature of that truth, but she needed time.

She closed the lid, went upstairs to the bedroom and sat at the dresser. It was the only piece of furniture in the house that was exclusively hers, everything else they shared. Her toiletries were carefully lined up on the little shelf as was her way. Perfumes with perfumes, moisturisers with moisturisers and talcs with talcs. As she sat, she caught the sight of her own image in the mirror. She stared at it for a minute. She looked older today. She thought back to the young girl she was when she had been exchanging letters with Michael. It all seemed long ago and far away, in another time and place, not real, a surreal experience. She picked up the brush from her dresser and slowly pulled it through her hair untangling it as she did and causing a few errant strands to lift and hover jolted into independence with the little static current the movement created.

She opened the third drawer of the unit. It contained mostly her underwear as well as a few personal odds and ends, like some cufflinks from her father and a few loose photographs of herself and her family from when she was growing up. She set these aside. Underneath was a well packed A4 manila envelope, old but in good condition. Inside were Michael's letters. She hadn't looked at them in well over twenty years.

Cees didn't know about Michael. She had never mentioned him. Not that there was much that was private between them, indeed he could easily have looked in the drawer himself, there was nothing stopping him. There was no lock and no key. He could even have read the letters for the envelope was not sealed and it would have been easy to read them and replace them without leaving any evidence behind, but that would not have been like Cees. He was always respectful of her and was in no sense the jealous type. Actually he wasn't that emotional at all really and this had been one of his principal attractions when he came onto the scene.

The letters had been stored carefully in chronological order. She had sorted them this way when she concluded her memory of Michael many years ago. That had been part of the closing process for her. Things had to be archived properly. On top was the still crumpled little poem with the wit and craic. She lifted it gazing at the scribbled text and smiled as she remembered the day when Grietje suddenly pulled it from her bag. Unexpectedly, a warm glow lit inside her and she affectionately stroked the crumpled paper imagining him diligently setting his words to the page.

There was the strange poem seeking cadmium yellow. She had never heard of cadmium as being particularly a type or shade of yellow but she started to read it once more: