Barefoot Over Stones (21 page)

The weather was balmy and beautiful on the Friday night and they stayed on the beach long past dusk, huddled at a high corner where the lapping tide could not reach. Dan had brought a bottle of wine, crisps and cheese from the house. It was a sure sign that he was planning to wrench as much freedom from the night as possible. He had managed to chill out a bit, relaxing a little because he was finally getting to grips with his exam preparation and with every passing day it seemed less and less likely that Ciara had come to spill the beans. Their normal topics of
conversation resumed: animated banter about politics, films they had seen and books they had read, and when Alison rose to go for a walk along the peace of the darkening strand to clear her head she left them engaged in a heated debate from which she had long tuned out, her head made fuzzy by the free-flowing wine. Even though she loved the sea the sound of its lost whispers at night always made her a little maudlin. She moved to the far side of the beach, intending to climb up and walk back along the rough grass-topped dunes that lined the strand where it met the green lushness of the fields. Darkness began to fall a little quicker than she had expected so she quickened her pace. She could hear the rise and fall of their voices below her, a familiar sound but the details unintelligible. She moved stealthily, wanting to make them jump out of their skin by appearing from where they would not expect. Moving closer, their words became clearer, but their tone was so serious she felt she was eavesdropping and her heart pounded a little. Bewildered, she stood rooted to the spot.

‘I thought you were coming to make trouble between me and Alison.’ Dan had thought it better to clear the air once and for all between himself and Ciara.

‘Oh, I thought about it, believe me, but she won’t hear it from my lips. I know Alison. She wouldn’t forgive or forget. You’re getting off the hook because I couldn’t face hurting her. You should tell her that you messed around with someone though. Just don’t say it was me, for God’s sake, or she would have our guts for garters!’ She laughed but clearly Dan did not enjoy the joke.

‘What happened between us that night was just a drunken mistake and it meant nothing. It was just stupid. We were drunk, so let’s forget it.’

‘Well, thanks for dismissing it out of hand, but don’t forget, Dan Abernethy, it was you who made the first move the night of your mother’s funeral. You kissed me, remember? And what’s more you seemed to enjoy it, or are you trying to block that bit out to salve your conscience?’ Ciara’s ire was rising at Dan’s guilty attempt to wipe the slate clean but it was tempered with a resurgent desire to reach across and touch him. Fumbling with the straps of her sundress, Ciara did her best to reason with herself. She was not going to do something reckless here just because she had the chance, but the harder she tried the more she found she could not take her eyes off him, stretched out just inches away from her and oblivious to the effect he was having.

Dan’s discomfort at Ciara’s unwillingness to make light of the incident and move on was evident. He was conscious that Alison would not be much longer, as darkness was well and truly falling and she would be thinking of going home. He had to bring the conversation to a halt. ‘I don’t remember the details, Ciara,’ he said dismissively. He got up on his knees to gather their things in preparation for returning to the cottage.

‘Well, maybe I should remind you,’ Ciara said as she moved close enough to touch him. She put her hands on his waist and stretched up to her full height to kiss him passionately on the lips, arching her body against the length of his.

Dan jerked away, wiping his mouth and pushing her hands off. His expression was one of pure disgust mixed with disbelief at her stupidity. ‘God’s sake, are you mad in the head? Get the message, will you, I don’t fancy you! Never have and never will. Now get the hell away from me. Ali will be back any minute and she doesn’t need to hear a word of this shit!’

He hadn’t noticed Alison standing above them on the high dunes, her slight frame blending into the newly settled darkness. She was shaking but her voice was steady when she spoke. ‘Too late for that, Dan, I am already here.’

They went back to the cottage separately, Dan doing his best to catch up with Alison, who didn’t know which one of them she wanted to hit harder or if she was ever going to stop crying. She could hear Dan pleading with her to wait up, that he could explain and that it was all a big mistake, but she ran as if her life depended on it. Ciara lingered at the beach, collecting the enamel cups that they had drunk the wine from and emptying the remains of the bottle on the
sand. She bagged their rubbish carefully and picked up Alison’s jacket from where she had left it. Daly’s had rooms above the shop and she decided to call there on the way to the cottage and see if she could arrange one at short notice. Someone in the bar would help her, because she absolutely could not stay in the same house as Dan and Alison tonight. While she was there she decided to have a pint to steady her nerves and give them a chance to talk.

When she reached the cottage she thought seriously about not going in, but she knew she would have to face Alison sooner rather than later. They could sort it out. She would understand, eventually. Dan was right. Stupid things happened when you were too drunk to know what you were doing. No matter how many times she repeated it to herself on the way back to the cottage, though, it never quite rang true.

‘Your bag is packed. There are places you can stay up in the town. I think you should go. Now.’ Alison was standing at the kitchen table, her arms folded defiantly. Her eyes were raw and her face blotchy from the tears she had shed. Dan sat on the couch, his head buried in his hands.

‘Look, Alison, it was just a stupid pissed thing we did, a kiss that shouldn’t have happened. That’s
all
. We can work this out. We’re best friends, for God’s sake.’

Alison shook her head, unimpressed by Ciara’s beseeching expression. ‘Best friends don’t do this to each other. I asked you to mind Dan that night in Leachlara because I couldn’t be there. I didn’t ask you to lunge at him and try to sleep with him. I know you have had plenty of practice but this is a bit lousy even for you, don’t you think? Once wasn’t even enough – you had to try it on again tonight while my back was turned. You are a shameless bitch and I don’t want to see you again, do you understand?’

‘I didn’t lunge at him. Dan, tell her it wasn’t like that!’ Ciara implored.

Dan looked at her, but before he had a chance to say anything Alison grabbed Ciara’s knapsack and thrust it in her direction. It collapsed at her feet. ‘Get out. This is between me and Dan now and you have no place being here.’

‘Alison, please . . .’ Ciara wasn’t ready to leave without sorting something out. Her friend would need time to calm down, but surely then it could be worked out?

Dan rose from the sofa, his long limbs untangling themselves to their full height. He stood near to Alison, careful not to touch her, as unnatural as that felt, because he was fearful his touch would be rejected. He nodded at the packed bag and then to the door.

‘You should go, Ciara. Alison is right: we need to talk. They have rooms in Daly’s or the guest house across the street from there.’

Ciara grabbed the knapsack and her coat from the arm of a nearby chair. She didn’t look at either of them as she left, stifling the desire for a backward glance. Her face was reddening with an anger and distress that she wanted neither of them to witness.

Alison dropped her head to her chest when the door closed, knowing instinctively that nothing would ever be the same again.

You’ll never be the sun

Turning in the sky

And you won’t be the moon above us

On a moonlit
night

And you won’t be the stars in heaven

Although they burn so bright

But even on the deepest ocean

You will be the light

C
AHAROE
2005

The postcards from Cathy and Richard Shepherd wallpapered the fridge, so frequent was their arrival, and the very sight of them made Alison smile. Dan and she had packed them off to France six months before and it seemed as if they had taken to their semi-retirement with gusto. They were working their way through the picturesque villages of Brittany but poor weather, much the same as they had hoped to leave behind them in Caharoe, had persuaded them that further south, where sunshine was guaranteed, might well be where they would buy a place.

Her father had worried about the surgery and leaving Dan to handle a huge patient list on his own. After so many years at the helm of his own practice he was finding it immeasurably more difficult than Cathy to make the break. Freedom for herself and her husband to relax more and see a different life, and freedom for Dan and Alison to turn Michaelmas into something truly their own: these were the things that she had craved and had, with remarkable determination, finally brought to fruition.

‘For God’s sake, Richard, that’s what locum agencies are for and if you get fairly comfortable sitting out on the deck and tasting all that wine sure we can look at hiring someone permanently and letting you and Cathy relax a bit more.’ Dan had reassured Richard over and over again that everything would be perfectly fine in his absence but he knew his father-in-law would still need to be shoved out the door of Michaelmas the morning they were due to depart for France.

If truth be told Dan was relishing getting the practice to himself and giving it a big overhaul. It was over a decade since he had taken up the junior GP post at his father-in-law’s practice and although Richard had been incredibly supportive (he and Cathy had even moved out to a smaller house on Earl Street so Alison and Dan could make Michaelmas House their own after they got married) he had a niggling feeling that he would always be the minor partner while Richard was still coming in every day. Alison agreed that her parents needed a break from the surgery and that Michaelmas might need a respite from their vigilant supervision too.

‘The place could do with a good shake-up. Some of those
House and Home
magazines in the waiting room are probably fit to move on to the museum in Cork. You should make it your own, Dan, because you have served your time long enough.’

In the end Richard’s common sense prevailed and he agreed with the temporary move to France on a trial basis. Cathy Shepherd’s threat to divorce him if he didn’t get on the ferry probably played a substantial part also.

Con Abernethy visited his son and his family intermittently because Dan resolutely refused to make the trip to Leachlara under any circumstances. He had not been back since the night of his mother’s funeral: nothing had tempted him in the intervening years, not even Con Abernethy’s hangdog expression every time he met him in Dublin or in Caharoe or beyond. He was on such a visit now and the usual whining had begun.

‘I’m getting old, you know, Dan. Soon I won’t be able to travel and you will have to come to me.’

‘Listen, Dad, you might have resigned from the Dáil but you’re hale and hearty enough to zip it around to football matches and race meetings with Columbo and the lads, putting down bets and knocking back the drink. I’d say there’s years of life in the old dog yet!’

‘And what about when I can’t make it to see you and Alison and young Lucy? Will you just leave me in Leachlara to rot away in my old age?’

‘I am tired of telling you to sell that blasted house. We both hate it and it has no sentimental value whatsoever. Sell it and enjoy the money. Some big shot from Dublin would fall on it if it were put up for sale. You could buy a smaller place somewhere closer to us. Alison has even said there is space for you to move in here. We could convert some of the basement into a granddad flat but to be honest my wife’s goodwill runs away with her at times. I can’t really see you up at the Caharoe Senior Citizens’ lunch days or whiling away the hours playing whist at Lovett’s but there are lots of worse places than Caharoe and Leachlara tops that list in my mind.’

‘Your wife, Dan Abernethy, and I hope you know it, is the sweetest woman I have ever met. Imagine her thinking of me moving in here? But I couldn’t leave Leachlara. It’s too late for big changes for me now.’

‘You are right about Ali. She is an absolute treasure and, don’t worry, I remember every day when I open my eyes that she is the best thing that ever happened to me.’

‘You didn’t turn out bad, Dan, do you know that?’

Dan smirked at his father, who was silently congratulating himself for a son well raised. ‘It must have been all those parenting courses you and Mam went on that put me on the right track.’

‘Impertinence is an awful trait in anyone.’ Con did his best to pretend he was annoyed but there was no mistaking the wry smile that played along his lips.

Later, when Alison hauled back the supermarket shopping, Con appeared from the living room, where he had spent the afternoon speculating on racing form, to greet his daughter-in-law back from teaching at the secondary school in Caharoe and his beloved granddaughter home from the primary school on the road out of town where Caharoe drifted into the farmland beyond.

Alison gave him a big hug. Trailing her was a beaming seven-year-old Lucy, helping herself to a punnett of strawberries, her lips and cheeks stained red from her impromptu snack. She offered her granddad the remnants of a few squashed berries from the bottom of the tray along with a welcoming kiss.

‘Yerra, pet, you’re grand. I will keep my appetite for the gorgeous dinner that I know your mother will be putting together for us.’ He winked at Lucy conspiratorially. ‘Have you any idea what she’s making for us, do you?’

‘She’s making enchiladas. She says you probably won’t like it. She says you will say it’s foreign muck and that no one knows how to cook plain food well any more.’

‘Lucy Abernethy, I said no such a thing!’ Alison was mortified and she looked plaintively at Con in an effort to appease him, but his mirthful expression persuaded her he had taken no offence.