No Way to Say Goodbye (5 page)

Her dad pulled up a stool. “I hear he’s American,” he said.

She returned his smile. “Who is?”

“Your new neighbour.”

“How the hell –” She didn’t bother to finish – very little happened in Kenmare without her father hearing about it.

“I know things,” he said, tapping his nose. “Have you met him?”

“No,” she said.

“He has money,” he told her, watching her from the corner of his eye.

“Really,” she said, in a tone that suggested disinterest.

“Unmarried.” She ignored him. “He’s alone.”

“Aren’t we all?” she said, becoming irritated.

“So it’s all to play for,” he concluded.

“How do you know so much about this American?” she asked.

“Mattie Moore was in first thing this morning. It seems Jerry Letter took a lift with the American last night. Mattie says he was quiet enough.”

“Jerry or the American?” She got up to wash her cup, turning her back to signify that the conversation was nearing its end.

“You know well enough. Jerry will lead the rosary at his own funeral.” He was resigned to his daughter’s ways but secretly wished she’d show some interest in anything other than work and that feckin’ dribbling dog.

Lunchtime was hectic. They ran out of leeks – Jessie, waitress and general factotum, had forgotten to reorder them. Mrs Lennon waited fifteen minutes for an omelette, then received one smothered in tomatoes, which she’d specifically asked them to leave out: an allergy made her head swell to the size of a small country. Fiona, their latest part-timer, dropped a trayful of monkfish, causing near-hysteria in Pierre, who tore a strip off her. She burst into tears and ran out of the kitchen mumbling something about the money not being worth it.

When Pierre attempted to give Jessie shit, she roared, “I forgot the leeks, so I forgot them! Live with it!” As a fifty-year-old mother of four she wasn’t about to have some jumped-up tourist tell her what was what.

“Jessie, he didn’t mean anything,” said Mary, acting as peacemaker for the second time that day.

“Marie, she can’t forget – the ticks are there to show her!”

“Is he calling me thick?” Jessie asked, knowing that he was referring to the ingredients tick-box, which had been designed especially so that she wouldn’t forget key ingredients.

Mary was annoyed now. “Jessie, get a grip.”

Jessie backed down, and Mary walked out before they could start another argument.

It was shaping up to be one of those days. Her dad wasn’t much help, having abandoned his post in favour of joining his friends Patty Winslow and Con Moriarty – the latter had received his starter with his main course. He’d been eating there for twenty-five years so he ate it as a side dish, suggesting he could start a trend. Patty was reading aloud about an incident in the House of Lords and was clearly annoyed – she was banging her fist off the table every few minutes and mumbling about “injustice”. Although she had retired to Kenmare fifteen years ago and had never returned to her home town in Kent, she only ever read the English papers, followed English politics with ferocity and had had the BBC before anyone else in town.

Mary’s dad and Con were far too busy enjoying their old friend’s frustration to notice or care about the chaos around them.

It was after seven when she got home, glad that she wasn’t working the bar that night and praying for sleep. A flashy red sports car was parked outside. This irked her for no reason other than it reminded her of her unwanted neighbour. Although the rain had finally stopped it was cold, so she lit a fire and looked through her music collection, searching for something she could disappear into. Nirvana seemed to suit her mood. She lined up their albums. She’d start with the MTV unplugged session before moving on to
Nevermind
followed by
In Utero
. She turned the sound up so that she could hear it in the kitchen and was cooking when the doorbell rang. Cobain was singing loudly about a dirty bird and she was absorbed in the melody as she chopped an onion. It was Mr Monkels’s bark and his steady pacing at the door that alerted her to a visitor. She wished whoever it was would go away.

Penny stood outside, shivering and jumping on the spot.

“Hey, you,” Mary greeted her, when she opened the door. She was always happy to see her – being with Penny was as easy as being alone.

“Can I come in?” Penny asked, as though she needed to, and followed Mary to the kitchen. “You’re cooking,” she said, stating the obvious, and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

“Shepherd’s pie – are you hungry?”

“No food. I’m on day five of the heartbreak diet and I’m starting to see results.” Penny sipped from the can.

Even in crisis Mary found her friend amusing. As she cooked they talked about their day. Mary filled Penny in on the histrionics at the bar and Penny told Mary about her trip to Tralee to report on a local man who had won millions on the Euro lottery. By the time dinner was ready she had drunk three cans. Mary tried to insist that she ate by putting a plate of food in front of her. Penny was afraid to go home in case Adam was there and wondered if she should go away for a week or two, but Mary pointed out that she’d done that before in an attempt to end their affair and it hadn’t worked. In fact, as soon as she’d got home he’d turned up at her door and she was right back where she’d started except for her tan. She was subdued over dinner and Mary knew what was going through her friend’s mind: they’d been down this road too many times for her not to. So they sat, and while Mary ate, Penny drank and Kurt Cobain beseeched someone unknown to rape him.

Penny looked towards the stereo. “Rape me?” she repeated. “Bloody weirdo!”

“It’s a metaphor for self-loathing,” Mary said.

“How is it that I’m the one who went to Trinity yet you’re the one full of shit?”

“It’s a mystery.” She was glad Penny had come over.

Just then Mr Monkels began to bark and head-butt the window.

“Who the hell is that?” Mary said.

Penny sat up, alarmed that Adam might have followed her to her friend’s home. She stayed in the kitchen while Mary went to the door.

“There’s no one here,” Mary called.

“Are you sure?”

“All clear!” It wouldn’t be like Adam to come after Penny, as much as Mary knew he would want to.
Poor Adam, he really did make a mess of everything.

Sam had woken just after seven p.m. He was hungry but not enough to get dressed and venture into the town. However, there was no food in the house and he’d never make it to morning without eating something. He went to the car to find his cell phone. The dog next door had barked, panted and slobbered some sort of welcome and he wondered if he should introduce himself to the occupants of the house – maybe they had a local takeaway menu he could borrow – but he decided against it. He was in a robe, after all, and he wasn’t hungry enough for introductions. Upstairs he took a long hot shower, then pulled on a pair of jeans and a plain T-shirt and went downstairs to the sitting room.

He looked around his new and alien environment for the first time. The cottage was cute. The kitchen could stand to be bigger but the sitting room had great character, with its wide fireplace made out of grey rock, blackened in places by many log fires. A ridiculously comfortable sofa was positioned directly in front of it, and to his left, a large window looked out at the grey hills and black sea.
Funny – the hills were kinda purple and the sea was definitely navy last night
. It was then he noticed that the house came without a TV.
Weird
. The shelf under the coffee-table contained a number of books. He sank into the sofa and began leafing through them.

The Bourne Identity
by Robert Ludlum.
Saw the movie, and the mini series. Matt Damon did a fine job. I never did like Richard Chamberlain.
His mind rambled on, as he debated which book he’d lose himself in.
Birdsong
maybe, although war was depressing and, since he was alone in a foreign nation and had just come off heroin, it might be wiser to choose something more uplifting. He picked up a rather thick book entitled
The Deptford Trilogy
by Robertson Davies.
Hmmm, three for the price of one.
The blurb was interesting: myth, magic, saints, Satan, illusion, reality. It all sounded like his past year. He decided, in the absence of a TV, that he would dedicate himself to reading his first book since high school. But before that he had to eat – his appetite had returned halfway through his marathon shower. He searched the house for leaflets from takeaways, came up empty-handed and knew he had no choice but to venture next door.

Mary was sitting on the sofa. Mr Monkels was sprawled at her feet on his bed in front of the fire. She was drinking a glass of wine Penny had poured for her – she had found a stray bottle of red under the stairs once she’d consumed all the beer. Penny was sitting in the window nursing her drink, watching the white street-lights dance on the black water and absentmindedly swirling the contents of her glass. Nirvana had been replaced by James Taylor, and each girl was adrift in a world of her own until Penny’s voice broke the mood.

“There’s a man out there,” she said, suddenly alert, peering through the curtain. “It must be your neighbour. It looks like he’s going to his car.”

“Fascinating,” Mary said.

“Oh, my God!” Penny said, dropping the curtain and sinking to the floor. “He’s coming to the door and he’s a total ride!”

Mary laughed, thinking she was messing around, but then the doorbell rang and her heart skipped and she felt like a bold child on the verge of being caught. “Get up,” she whispered to Penny.

Penny did so slowly, and slunk across the room to stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the sitting room.

Mary viewed the front door, feeling a little panicked. This man had been her neighbour for just twenty-four hours and already he was knocking on her door.
Knickers!
The knock came again so Mary opened it.

Penny sighed audibly. She couldn’t believe it – her best friend’s neighbour was a Calvin Klein billboard underwear model, a box-office-breaking movie star, a chiselled god with pretty hair surrounding a beautiful face. Mary heard the sigh and didn’t share her friend’s opinion: instead she saw a bloody annoyance. But there was something about him that even his gorgeous face couldn’t distract her from. It made her anxious yet she couldn’t put her finger on why.

He spoke. “Hi. I’m Sam Sullivan.”

“OK,” she responded. She didn’t mean to sound rude but that had been all she could muster.

He put out his hand. “From next door.”

“Hi.” She shook it awkwardly, wishing he’d leave. She opened the door wider so that her old friend could say hello to her new neighbour but she wasn’t asking him in.

“I was just looking for a menu for a place that delivers,” he said, realizing that his neighbour wasn’t as welcoming as they’d said Irish people were in the Aer Lingus brochure.

The other girl laughed. “Nowhere delivers,” she said.

“You’re kidding,” he said, looking over the first’s shoulder. She shook her head, smiling coyly with one leg behind the other and one arm hanging casually as if she was a teenager on dope or attempting an impression of Bono singing “Maggie’s Farm” at Self Aid.

“I didn’t see that coming.” He was disturbed by this news.

“You can eat here,” the second girl offered. “We have loads. Don’t we, Mare?” She moved towards him and put out her hand for him to shake. “I’m Penny Walsh,” she smiled a winsome smile, “and this is my friend Mary Mackey. She’s friendlier than she first appears. She’d love you to stay.”

Mary smiled, teeth gritted, at the stranger while silently wishing a nasty case of the clap on her friend. “Of course.”

“No, thanks. I’m really tired and not much company,” he said truthfully. Sam was no more interested in making new friends than his reluctant neighbour was.

Mary felt bad. “I could pack it up for you. It’s still hot and you could drop the plate back tomorrow,” she said, moving away from the door. “Just leave it outside, it’ll be fine.”

Sam was starving now and the smell of cooking was killing him. “That would be great, thanks.”

Penny flirted with him while Mary plated the remaining shepherd’s pie and checked the fridge for some sort of dessert. She had a cheesecake but it had been there since the previous Tuesday. “What’s today’s date?” she called.

“The nineteenth,” Sam told her, battling Mr Monkels who seemed fascinated with his balls, which Penny pointed out, to Sam’s embarrassment.

Mary screamed at her dog from the kitchen and, sulkily, he took to his bed in front of the fire, groaning like a cheeky teenager. She emerged from the kitchen with the plate. He thanked her; she told him it wasn’t a problem with her hand on the open door. He left and she closed it quickly.

Penny was shaking her head.

“Don’t,” Mary warned.

“He might be the prettiest man I’ve ever seen in real life. Maybe even a little too pretty. I didn’t have time to make up my mind.” Penny was a little put out that her friend had done everything to get rid of him but push him out of the door. She plonked herself down on the window-seat again, flicking at the curtain for one last glimpse, but he was gone.

Mary remained silent, the American already past tense.
How could I forget?
she asked herself.
How is it possible that I could forget?
How could I not know what date it is?

Penny was still talking but her voice seemed far away. No wonder she couldn’t sleep. The past week was starting to make sense. She needed to be alone. She got up. “I’m taking you home,” she said.

“What?” Penny exclaimed, swirling her wine.

“I’m tired,” Mary lied.

“OK, but I can drive myself.” Penny got up, but after the beers and half a bottle of wine she wasn’t going to be allowed to drive anywhere.

Mary dropped Penny at her house. It was set on a hill overlooking a sweeping valley littered with sheep interspersed with the odd cow, and spotted with clusters of wild flowers. The latter couldn’t be seen at night, of course, but a hint of their perfume hung in the air. Her neighbours were having a party and the music wafted into her garden. She had the key in the door when Adam called to her. She braced herself before turning. “What are you doing here?” she asked.