The Girl From Yesterday (2 page)

I stood up. She watched me, her eyes wet, her face accusing.

‘You’re a coward,’ she said, no anger in her voice now, just pain.

‘I know. I never pretended to be anything else.’

‘Yes you did. You let us think you knew it all.’

‘If that’s true, I’m sorry.’

I began to back towards the door in an undignified shuffle.

‘Not as sorry as I am,’ Tush said, and then I was at the door, then outside in the cool air. I started the engine of the Austin and did not look back.

I had no plan, had not really thought about where I might go. I let the road lead me, and simply drove. When I got tired, I stopped and took Millie for a walk along the hard shoulder for a bit. When I got hungry I had something to eat, but mainly I travelled, watching as the landscape got more rugged and more grey the further west I went.

My first night on the road I got a room in a small B & B that didn’t mind dogs, and rose the following morning before seven and slipped away. It was pleasant enough weather, in the middle of August: not quite blazing sunshine, but it was reasonably dry and I made good speed, arriving into the small town of Garshaigh around lunch time on my second day. I pulled up outside the only hotel, a place called The Grapevine, and sat back, stretching my shoulders. Millie was splayed out in the back seat, having somehow contorted herself into a position that did not look even remotely comfortable. I often marvelled at how her spine seemed to be able to twist effortlessly into any convolution. I clicked my tongue and she opened one eye, surveying me ruefully.

‘Let’s see what this place has to offer,’ I suggested.

The dog sighed with a tone of unveiled contempt and rolled over, showing her back to me, her paws tucked under her now.

‘Suit yourself,’ I said, and got out, leaving the greyhound to her slumbers.

Garshaigh was an average Irish country town. It took me ten minutes to walk the main street from end to end (I knew I had left the burgh when I found myself back out in the countryside again), and I counted six pubs, a post office, a tiny chemist that seemed to cater for the needs of humans and animals alike, myriad clothes shops, many of which looked as if they had been warped into the present from the 1950s, a reasonably sized supermarket, a decent-looking café, a small newsagent and a second-hand bookshop that looked like it could keep me occupied for a while.

A brief perusal of a notice board erected for the few tourists who may stop on their way to somewhere else informed me that Garshaigh was one of the most westerly towns in Ireland, an old Norman stronghold that had once been of tactical significance because of its proximity to the coast.

One of the most westerly towns in Ireland
. I read the line again. I couldn’t really flee any further. I had basically run out of land. The idea pleased me in a twisted kind of way.

I strolled back to the hotel and booked a room, informing the middle-aged woman behind the reception desk that Millie would be joining me.

‘We don’t usually permit dogs, sir.’

‘Usually?’ I raised an eyebrow.

‘We might be encouraged to make an exception.’

I nodded, casting a quick eye about me – the place looked as if it hadn’t been redecorated in about thirty years, and I had a suspicion that I might be the only guest. But I smiled in as charming a way as I could muster.

‘I see. Would there be a particular sum of money that might induce such an exception to be made, d’you think?’

‘Why don’t you suggest an amount, and we’ll work from there?’

Thirty euro per night ended up settling the matter, which hit my pocket pretty hard, but wasn’t as much as I had expected. I went back out to the car and physically hefted Millie out onto the pavement. She made a great show of stretching and yawning, letting me know in no uncertain terms that she was not happy about her change in situation, but I tried to ignore her accusatory glances. I was fiddling about in the boot when I heard a trundling sound, and, looking up, saw a chubby, blond-haired man in a wheelchair stopping beside me.

‘D’you need a hand with your bags?’ he asked. ‘You can just rest one across the arms of the chair and I’ll bring it in for you.’

‘Thanks, but I didn’t bring much,’ I said.

‘I’m Jeff,’ he said. ‘Jeff McKinney. I work in the hotel. Live here too, so I’m always around if you need me.’

‘Well, I’ll holler if anything comes up,’ I said, ‘but right now I can just about manage on my own.’

He hung about as if I might say something else or perhaps offer him a tip for the services I didn’t require. When neither of these things was forthcoming, he rolled off in a disgruntled kind of way.

I turned my attention back to the boot’s contents. I was beginning to get a sense of how rushed and ill-conceived my flight had been. Right at the back were my precious musical instruments. In front of them were some cardboard boxes into which I had packed my CDs, vinyl, some fairly ancient (and at this stage barely playable) audio tapes, as well as most of my books and some favourite pictures and knick-knacks. I had managed to get my stereo in there as well, and that just about left room for a modest suitcase for a random selection of my clothes. Everything else I had jettisoned.

‘I don’t know if you’d call it travelling light,’ I muttered in the direction of my dog who had buried her nose in a flower bed and paid me absolutely no heed, ‘but we’d better not get invited to any black tie events.’

The room was actually quite nice, and when I had put what few items of clothing I had brought away in the wardrobe I sprawled on the bed, with Millie deigning to sit beside me. The TV only seemed to show one grainy station, so having no other option I watched Angela Lansbury solve a murder that took place during an amateur production of the musical
Oklahoma
– the culprit turned out to be the unpleasant second wife of an old friend of Angela’s – the motive seemed unclear to me, but it appeared that money was involved somewhere. Dick Van Dyke followed, solving a murder in the hospital where he worked. The culprit turned out to be the unpleasant and much younger third wife of the now deceased patient, and this time I could see quite clearly that the motive was money. Feeling smug that I had followed the clues just as well as Van Dyke’s Doctor Sloan, I discovered that the next item on the schedule was Andy Griffith in
Matlock
. I wasn’t sure if I could stomach any more elderly crime fighters, so decided to head out and get a late lunch.

Millie followed dolefully on her lead (she was clearly a closet
Matlock
fan) as I walked the short distance to the café I had spotted earlier. She occasionally stopped to sniff something smeared onto the pavement or to look pointedly at another dog. I paused in my leisurely amble to allow her to acclimatize herself to her surroundings.

The café was pretty, bedecked with flowers and red-check tablecloths, and warm with the smell of freshly baked bread and just-made coffee. The waitress was about my age and pretty in a natural, easy kind of way and, as she scratched Millie behind the ears, she said that she didn’t mind such a well-behaved dog sitting under the table at all. Millie threw me a scorn-filled look:
See? She thinks I’m well behaved!
And slunk over to curl about my feet. I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich (my repast of choice in a new place – it is as simple an item as you could imagine, but I am constantly amazed at the ways people find to make a botch of it) with English mustard on the side and a mug of black coffee. When the food arrived, it was just as I had ordered, and the java was as good as its aroma promised. I decided to hang out for an hour or so.

Later I followed the narrow road that wound down to the coast, a five-mile walk that terminated in a good mile and a half over loose sand and dunes that sloped downhill to a wild, deserted beach. Millie took off as soon as I removed her lead and plunged into the breakers, emerging dripping and shivering. I stood and looked out at the heaving waves for a few moments, realizing for the first time in what seemed like forever that my mind was empty and that I felt absolutely nothing. I walked to the waterline and shed my clothes, caring not one bit if anyone was around, and plunged into the icy water, feeling the first surging wave knock every last ounce of breath from my body. With gritted teeth I forced myself forward until I felt my feet lifting from the sandy floor, and then struck out for the horizon. I swam ferociously for about ten minutes, then stopped and looked back at the shoreline. I was surprised at how far I had gone from the beach. Millie was standing at the water’s edge, her ears standing right up, her tail between her legs. I hung there, suspended in the brine for a few moments, then put my arms by my side, pointed my toes downward and allowed myself to sink. Down I went, down, feeling the ocean boom and roar about me. Space and void opened up on every side. Colours of blue, green and azure shimmered dreamily. As I continued to drift downwards I felt a deep sense of contentment, of belonging.

You could stay here
, a voice seemed to say from the depths below.
There’s no pain, no fear, no anger
.

I was no longer cold, the effort of driving myself through the crashing whiteheads had warmed my muscles, and down in the deep blue, I felt calm, easy.

Then another voice resonated about me.

You let us think you knew it all. That you had all the answers
.

Tush’s words echoed in the murk, accusing, filled with hurt and regret. I covered my ears but the voice was coming from inside me, too, and in a great motion I kicked and shot towards the distant surface, a trail of bubbles streaming behind me. It seemed like hours before I broke into the air with a roar. Under the impassive sky I lay on my back, gulping oxygen in sobbing gasps. Through the sound of the sea and my own crying I heard Millie barking, calling me back.

I bought a bag of dry dog food and bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey in the grocer’s and took them up to the room. As my canine friend enjoyed her evening meal I switched on the electric kettle the hotel thoughtfully provided and made myself a hot toddy. On TV, Father Dowling, as played by Tom Bosley, was investigating the murder of a charity fundraiser. I strongly suspected that his much younger wife might be behind it, but didn’t want to tell the meddling priest how to do his job.

‘D’you think Sister Steve is good-looking?’ I asked Millie.

She didn’t seem to really care. I took a sip of my drink. It tasted like another sip might be needed, and soon.

‘Well, I do,’ I said. ‘Here’s to you, Sister.’

Tracy Nelson, who played Sister Steve on the show, didn’t seem all that interested in my opinion of her attractiveness, but the night was young and I had absolutely nothing else to do.

Two more hot Bushmills brought me through Father Dowling, which, to my delight (the drunker I got, the lower my standards as regards entertainment went), was followed by an episode of
Columbo
in which William Shatner, a particular favourite of mine, starred as a radio talk-show host accused of killing a colleague. Shatner seemed to have it all pretty well sewn up, but I had a suspicion that the rumpled Peter Falk might just find a way through the carefully laid trail of clues and minor mistakes that seemed to be suggesting that the former Captain Kirk might not be as innocent as he claimed.

By the time Columbo sprang his trap, I was so drunk I had stopped following what was going on at all. Millie was snoring gently, head resting on my leg. I must have dozed off because suddenly I realized that the room was dark and an episode of
Quincy
was now running on the television. I fumbled around for the remote control to turn the set off, but couldn’t seem to find it. I struggled to get up to look for it, but somehow only managed to end up sitting on the floor. I stayed there for a bit, looking about me in a befuddled way.

‘Jesus, look at the state of you,’ a voice said.

I squinted stupidly and followed the sound of the voice, trying once again to get up, still unsuccessfully.

‘I think you may give that up as a bad job,’ the voice spoke again, and this time I saw Lonnie Whitmore perched on the room’s only chair – squatting on his haunches on the arm of the chair as he had a habit of doing.

‘Hey Lonnie,’ I slurred. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘Aw, we were never ones to stand on ceremony,’ Lonnie smiled.

He was wearing a pair of deep orange dungarees with peppermint blue, diamante-encrusted Converse high tops and a shirt so purple it hurt my teeth.

‘What’re you doin’ here, Lonnie?’ I asked, struggling to form sentences.

‘I came to check up on Millie,’ my dead friend said. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be in a fit state to look after her.’

‘Whaddaya mean?’ I said, a little more sharply, ‘I always look after her right properly.’

‘You came close to abandoning her on the beach today.’

I lowered my eyes at that.

‘I on’y went for swim.’

‘Where were you swimming to, you pathetic git,’ Lonnie barked back, ‘fucking America?’

I cast about for the bottle and found it on the edge of the bed.

‘Want a drink?’

Lonnie shrugged and was suddenly sitting beside me. I hadn’t seen him moving, but then it was turning into that sort of night. I poured myself a glug, and then realized that I didn’t have another glass.

‘You’ll have to use th’ bottle,’ I said, passing it to him.

‘I’m surprised you’re bothering with the facade of a glass,’ Lonnie muttered, taking a swig.

‘My mammy brung me up right,’ I retorted.

We drank in silence. Millie stirred, but settled again instantaneously.

‘What’re you going to do, Shane?’

‘Get more drunker.’

‘I mean tomorrow. And the day after that.’

I sighed deeply and looked at him from the corner of my eye. He didn’t look like a ghost. Do ghosts drink whiskey? Do they wear severely clashing, day-glo-coloured clothes?

‘You are fucking demised, Lonnie,’ I said accusingly. ‘You had a goddam heart attack.’

‘Death is relative,’ Lonnie said sagely.

‘What the hell does that mean?’ I asked.