Only We Know (5 page)

I’ve not been there long before
there’s the honk of a car-horn followed by a resounding cheer. Karl takes my arm.
‘She’s here,’ he says, pulling me outside just in time to see my bride
arriving on the back of a pick-up truck with lilies in her hands.

There’s a tremor in the smile, a
lowering of the eyes: a mix of shyness and nerves that’s not like her at all. For
a moment, I’m taken back to that night in this club, sitting at a piano, when I
first saw her, standing at the entrance. Above the din, through the miasma of smoke, I
was so aware of her, trying hard to concentrate on the music while she wove her way
through the tables until she found
a seat. My
eyes sought her out as if she were drawing me to her through the shadows. I
couldn’t wait to finish the set, pull up a chair next to her and begin a
conversation. When I closed the lid of the piano and stepped away, when I went up to her
– surprising even myself – a beer in each hand, and offered one to her, she accepted it
as if our conversation had started long ago. She smiled at me, nervously, unsure. We
began to talk, and it felt to me as if we were picking up where we had left off, even
though we had never met. That was how easily we slipped into it, how natural it
seemed.

I experienced a strange, easy comfort in
Lauren’s company. I didn’t feel I had to try to impress her. We’d both
travelled around the world, estranged from the rest of our families. I guess we shared
the unanchored quality that brings drifters like us together.

When I held her in my arms that first night,
it was as if meeting her was more like a slow remembering that, deep in my bones, I knew
her well, that I had known her all along.

She was scared by how rapidly we were
falling for each other. I was too. But she didn’t pry or push or question me.
Lauren’s own vulnerability meant I knew somehow that she wouldn’t try to
prise me open, as others had wanted to, until I surrendered to her the things I kept to
myself.

‘Are you ready?’ I say to her
now.

‘Ready,’ she says nervously.

There is no altar. Instead, Murphy stands by
the piano, waiting for us. He clutches an old prayer book in his trembling hands. After
some prayers, come our vows.

I say mine, then look at Lauren.

Murphy asks: ‘Do
you take Nicholas to be your lawful wedded husband?’

The words catch in her throat. Someone makes
a joke, something like ‘no regrets now’ and she says, ‘I do,’
and I feel sudden relief.

We eventually sign the register and there is
a cheer. Karl picks up his saxophone: the room fills with the caramel tones of
‘These Foolish Things’.

‘Okay?’ I ask Lauren.

‘Okay,’ she answers, laughing.
She smiles in happy disbelief. I take her in my arms and kiss her. I want to tell her I
can’t believe it either, but that it feels so right.

Across a stretch of grass, a few kids are
riding an ostrich. We have drifted outside where the sun has risen higher in the sky. I
sip a beer and feel a lightness come over me. The rest of the band members have taken
out their instruments: they cluster around Karl – Bill on double bass, Philly on
trumpet, Pierre on the drums. Another friend, Sam, is filling in for me at the piano.
‘Can’t have you working on your wedding day,’ Karl had said to me,
with a broad smile that, for an instant, resembled my brother’s.

And even though I haven’t invited him,
I miss him. In fact, ever since the summer when we left Kenya, I’ve missed him.
Even if, ever since, Luke and I have felt awkward around each other. As if, after
everything that had happened, we simply don’t know how to act in each
other’s company. There’s no malice in our estrangement, just a deadening in
the closeness we once had.

So, today my happiness is tinged with regret
– the pure note of my wedding day slightly off-key. But I relax into
the evening as best I can and watch my wife, who has not
stopped dancing, her hair and dress swirling about her as she gives herself to the
night.

‘When will it be my turn?’ I
shout over to her, my inhibitions loosened by beer and love and all this goodwill.

She blows me a kiss.

I want to thank Murphy for doing the
honours, but can’t see him anywhere. A cake appears and there are cheers. Someone
has placed a single candle on it. Karl thrusts the knife into my hand and beckons Lauren
over. She scoops up a mound of icing and smears it over my cheek. Then she kisses me
passionately.

I’m already looking forward to our
honeymoon on Île Sainte-Marie.

‘What are you thinking?’ she
asks me.

‘I’m hoping the bike is up to
the drive to Mozambique.’

‘As little luggage as possible,’
Lauren reminds me.

I pull her to me, whispering: ‘When
can we get out of here?’

‘Soon,’ she says, and I feel the
erotic charge between us again – something so compulsive it feels out of our control,
like an improvised jam gone wild.

We dance then to the jittery rhythms of the
Benga band, which has come on now. Everyone is watching, dancing alongside us. I feel
their gaze on me and soon enough I exit the dance-floor, leaving Lauren to it. I walk to
the bar where Karl and Murphy are talking. Karl is telling some story, but the older man
seems despondent, disinterested, nursing a glass of wine, acting less like a priest and
more like a jilted blind-date.

‘Hey, my main man!’ Karl says,
wrapping me in his
warm, solid embrace.
‘A drink for the groom!’ he shouts to the barman.

Three whiskeys are lined up in front of us.
We drink deeply, and return our glasses to the counter.

Murphy sighs. ‘I’m sorry,’
he says hoarsely. ‘I’m very tired. I’ll go to bed now. We can talk in
the morning. And congratulations to you, Nick, and to your lovely wife.’

‘Thanks, Jim. And for the
ceremony,’ I say, then remember something. ‘But before you go, you never
said what that phone call was about.’

Karl has moved away, his attention hooked by
the sway of a young woman’s hips. I watch as Murphy briefly closes his eyes, a
small gesture that indicates the depth of his fatigue.

‘Leave it until tomorrow, hmm?’
He scratches his forehead, glancing about the room as if for the nearest exit.

‘Jim,’ I say softly, taking his
arm.

He turns to me. I see at once the
seriousness of it. All day, it’s been at the back of my mind, but now it comes to
it, when I see the worry on his lined face, the fear in his eyes, I find myself drawing
back.

‘It’s Luke,’ he says.

‘What about him?’

‘It was Julia who called earlier. She
was wondering if you’d heard from him, spoken to him …’

I think of the cufflinks, his note,
be
happy
… ‘I don’t understand.’

He takes a handkerchief from his pocket, and
dabs his brow. ‘Nick. It’s your wedding night.’

‘To hell with that, Jim. Just tell me
what’s going on.’

He tells me about a party in Dublin, about
Julia going to
bed alone, about how the next
day she discovers Luke has disappeared, leaving his phone, his wallet and keys behind.
It’s only when he tells me about Luke’s office, about the broken glass and
the blood on the carpet that a germ of fear rises in me.

‘Is he dead?’ I ask, the word
like a cold, hard stone in my mouth.

‘I pray to God he’s all
right,’ he says simply, but his answer angers me.

‘You should have told me, Jim,
straight after you got the call –’

‘Nick, I was trying to protect
you.’

The light in the bar is too bright. Its
harshness makes Murphy appear older than he is. I ask him again what he knows.

‘I don’t know,’ he says –
again and again.

With the music blaring and the whole stretch
of the day behind him, Murphy appears tired to the bone. ‘Please, I don’t
want you to worry yourself over this,’ he says, his hand on my shoulder.
‘Not tonight. Let’s not jump to any hasty conclusions. It may all be easily
explained.’

It’s been a long day. I let him go.
For a moment, I sit by myself, absorbing the shock of what I’ve learned. Night is
drawing on. Somewhere far from here, my brother is lost and alone. The thought brings
with it a great roll of sadness and regret. Something else too: the painful tug of the
past.

‘There you are,’ Lauren says,
taking my hand, her voice inflected with breezy American optimism. ‘Come
on,’ she urges, dragging me into the cooling air outside.

Twilight. The musicians are teetering on the
brink of
collapse. If they were a train, they
would have slipped the tracks. The lights from houses and hotels shine in a blur of
light. Without warning, a stream of gold and green fireworks lights the sky, bringing
the guests outside. Many are cheering. Lauren is so beautiful that I want to freeze this
memory of her in my mind and hold onto it for ever.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Murphy
slipping away. Only he and I know, for now. He turns, catches my eye and mouths,
‘Sorry.’

‘Luke Yates is dead,’ Reilly
says.

For a moment it all falls away – Reilly, my
surroundings, even the throb in my head seems to still itself for that instant.

Then Reilly speaks again: ‘At least,
that’s the rumour.’

‘What?’

‘His wife came home yesterday
lunchtime and found the house had been broken into, blood everywhere, no sign of her
husband. She hasn’t seen him since the night before.’

‘Missing? But not dead?’

‘Well, there’s no body yet but
–’

‘Jesus, Reilly! That’s not the
same thing at all!’

A wave of nausea comes over me, and I put a
hand to the counter to steady myself. I feel light-headed, overwhelmed.

Reilly grasps my shoulders and steers me
towards an armchair. ‘I’m sorry, Katie. That was insensitive of me. I had no
idea you’d take it this way. I didn’t think you two were close.’

‘We’re not,’ I say
quickly, trying to cover up the collapse within me. ‘We knew each other as kids.
My folks and his were friends. I knew his brother in college too.’

Uncomfortable beneath his stare, I get to my
feet and mumble something about getting dressed.

‘I’ll
wait for you,’ Reilly says.

‘There’s no need –’

‘You’ll need a lift out to
Dalkey, and you’re in no fit state to drive.’

‘Dalkey?’

He frowns a little. ‘This is a story,
Katie. And you know the guy. You were at that party too, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you need to get out there and find
out what happened.’

Leaving Reilly to survey my book collection,
I stand in the shower and allow myself to cry a little under the ferocity of the hot
jets. Afterwards, I put on jeans and a sweatshirt, grab my bag, and soon we’re
driving towards a village on the south-east coast of Dublin, whose humble fishing roots
have been subsumed by the mega-wealth of the Celtic Tiger.

Reilly’s car – an old Merc – reeks of
coconut. My stomach, still tender from the excesses of the last two nights, rebels
against it. I sit up, tug down the dangling air freshener and shove it into the glove
compartment. Reilly observes this without protest. It is only when I take my cigarettes
from my handbag that he holds up his hand. ‘Sorry, Katie. Not in here.’

‘What’s this?’

‘I quit.’

My eyes widen. ‘You quit?’

‘Three months ago,’ he says, a
grin of pride brightening his tired features.

‘Why?’

‘To get healthy, of course.’

I regard him now,
taking him in properly for the first time in months, and notice a new leanness. He is
slender and fit. The meatiness of his hands and in the bearded line of his jaw remain,
but he looks neater somehow. I say, in a speculative manner: ‘You’ve lost
weight.’

He nods, keeping his eyes on the road, and
bites down on an embarrassed smile. ‘Stop eyeballing me, Katie. It’s
unnerving.’

‘Is it just the smokes, or have you
gone the whole hog?’

‘Cigarettes, alcohol and red
meat.’

‘Don’t tell me – you’ve
also found God?’

He widens his open shirt-collar and flicks
out the crucifix on a chain. Grinning, he says: ‘Jesus loves me, Katie.’

Reilly and I go way back. He gave me my
first job at the paper, and has always been supportive, particularly since he became
deputy editor. We know each other well but only on a certain level. There is something
deeply private about Reilly. Sure, he goes for drinks after work and is always convivial
and warm, yet I’ve no idea whether he has a partner or children tucked away
somewhere, or whether he prefers to live in grand isolation. Rumours have flown around
the office about him over the years, but somehow nothing has stuck, and I can’t
help but think he enjoys the enigma that surrounds him.

I feel light-headed, and try to ground
myself while Reilly talks.

‘I met him once,’ he says now,
‘Luke Yates. Some years back, before he became the great man.’

‘What did you think of him?’

He squints out at the glittering sea as we
drive along the coast road. ‘He struck me as someone who had a great facility for
sounding sincere.’

‘You
don’t think he is?’

He spreads his hands on the steering-wheel
and smiles. ‘Who knows, Katie, what’s real and what’s fake? What about
the brother? What’s he like?’

‘He’s … well, he’s just
different,’ I say quickly, astonished to find myself flustered and hot.

Reilly spots my discomfort, and asks, with
interest: ‘Oh? Is there history there?’

‘God, no! We were like brother and
sister, me and Nick, back when we were kids. And then in college we hung around in the
same group for a while …’ I hear my voice, the uncertainty in it, and cut myself
off. ‘Anyway, that was about a million years ago now.’

‘You’re not that old,
sweetheart,’ he says, and I can’t help but smile. ‘So where is he? The
brother?’

‘Africa,’ I say, and all at once
I’m back sitting in a field of prickly grass, dizzy from the sun, and Nick is
running towards me, helter-skelter across the lawn, water sploshing in the cup as he
skids to a halt and falls to his knees beside me, offering the cup to me, like some kind
of prize, dirt beneath his fingernails, hair falling into his eyes, the shy smile that
he can never seem to erase – it’s even there while he sleeps – and I’m
hearing his voice, low-pitched and gravelly for an eight-year-old, saying, ‘Here,
Kay’, his name for me. No one else has called me that since.