A car beeps from behind and startled, Jamie jumps into action. The car in front is on the ferry, we’re holding everything up. A fella I don’t know is wildly waving us on. Jamie and I used to guide the cars onto the ferry. It’s drive on, drive off, not complicated. Only room for two rows. Then we’d take turns to handle the money. Eight euro one-way. Twelve euro round-trip. It hasn’t changed. It hasn’t even been a year, what was I expecting. As soon as Jamie has parked, I get out of the car. I stand at the chain, and watch Reenard’s Point getting further away, then when we’re halfway across to the island, I move to the far end and watch as we get closer to Knightstown pier. A perfectly clear day, on the other side of the island Skellig Rock in all its glory would be in sight, endless breathtaking views, views that I grew up with but never grew tired of. The Royal Valentia Hotel dominates the pier, the white building there since the 1800s, the red clock tower in its prominent position, the town clock, a meeting place for pretty much everything.
Pops’ grandparents moved to Valentia Island to work on the transatlantic cable station that opened in the late 1800s. I was reminded throughout my childhood of how, when the cable was pulled ashore from Valentia to a tiny fishing village in Newfoundland called Heart’s Content, my grandfather was responsible for the first successful message from Queen Victoria to the US president after the treaty of peace was signed between Austria and Prussia. Only the wealthy could afford to use the cable at one dollar per letter, payable in gold. The island was a prosperous place then, between the cable station and the slate quarry, but too much competition from satellites saw the cable station close in 1966. Out of work, Pops’ family left the island to move to what we call the other island. Ireland. When I was born, Pops came home.
As we near the pier, those who left their cars to breathe it in get back inside to prepare to leave the ferry. I tear myself away and get back in the taxi feeling a rush of exhilaration.
Wish I felt like that coming home, he remarks gently.
I’ve always liked this part, even doing it ten times a day.
I know. I remember. That’s why I’m surprised you left.
I had to.
He grunts then starts the engine and follows the car in front. Two more minutes and I’ll be out of the car.
I’m sorry I left, Jamie, I say.
He looks at me in surprise and says, I understand why you did. I did at the time. I’m not sorry you left, he says, I’m sorry how you left. No warning. Just, you know.
Yeah.
I’d stuff planned.
What kind of stuff.
Stuff for us.
I didn’t know.
He looks away angry, jaw tightening. And you didn’t ask me to come with you, he says. I’d have come with you.
You hate Dublin, I say. You hate Dublin people.
I loved you.
I don’t say anything. It’s not a surprise. He said it all the time. Wasn’t afraid of it. And wasn’t embarrassed to say it. He was always too good for me. Loved me more than I loved him. He said it all the time, as if trying to convince me. I believed him, but every time he said it, I felt a little less for him. Like one of those fellas outside restaurants on holidays. Come in come in, I do you good price. The more of a good price they do, the louder they call, the fancier their gestures, the less you want to go in. You hear the desperation. Assume the food must be crap. You’ll go somewhere else. To the busy popular one where the fella barely looks at you when you enter and makes you wait for a table.
He pulls up outside the house and I get out. He does too but leaves the engine running, one foot in the car, the other out, leaning against the roof.
Look I’m only here until Monday but do you want to meet for a drink over the weekend, I ask and look at him. I should have some fun while I’m here. Maybe that can make up for the way I left.
I’m going out with Marion, he says, out of nowhere. Well not nowhere, it was from somewhere to him but nowhere to me. Plucked from his arsehole, it feels like. I’ve a good mind to shove it back in there.
Marion. My best friend. Marion and Jamie, two of my five. Pops my third, but really my first.
Marion and I were in the same Montessori together, we went to separate schools because I had to board, but we remained best friends. I haven’t heard from her in a while, she was supposed to come to Dublin a few months after I moved but we couldn’t make it work for different reasons. Life being irritating. Phone calls turned to text messages. Text messages became less common, but she’s still my best friend.
I can’t help it: I smile. It’s a nervous smile. The one I do if I hear terrible news like someone has died, and I can’t take the pressure of my face having to be serious, the pressure of how I’m supposed to act. If I was a doctor I’d smile when giving a cancer diagnosis. If I was a pallbearer, I’d smile all the way up the church aisle. At a play, I laugh at the quiet awkward bits. I’m that person. No synchronicity at all between events and my expression. Non-verbal malfunction, maybe that’s what the Garda interview report said. Maybe they couldn’t have me showing up to a victim’s family house at three in the morning with a grin on my gob. Sorry lads, you lost your daughter.