Girl Unknown(31)

‘She took you to UCD?’ I asked, confused.

‘Yes.’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know. We just sat in the seating area near the Blob. I don’t know how long we were there – an hour, maybe. She told me someone she knew worked there – someone who had once been important to her. The whole time we were there, she kept looking around, as if she were waiting for someone. Then, eventually, it was as if she gave up. We went back to the car and drove away. She never said anything more about it.’

I had the feeling that she was telling me this to make me feel better, but as I sat there, one hand still gripping the steering wheel, I felt an enormous sense of loss. The wasted opportunity, cruel Fate. Of all the hundreds, no, thousands of times I had walked past that very spot … Had I only done so on that day, had I spotted them there together, seen the face that had once been so familiar to me, so well loved, everything might have changed. Everything might have been different.

Perhaps she saw my reaction to her story. Awkwardness came into the car and she pulled the door-handle, a chill air entering the space around us.

‘If it helps at all,’ she said, one foot out of the car, ‘I could tell that she had never really forgotten you.’

She stepped on to the pavement, pulled up the collar of her coat and walked down the darkened laneway. I closed my eyes and breathed in the last traces of her presence. When I looked at the street again, it was quiet, orange pools of light shimmering in the darkness.

I started the engine, pulled the car away, and above the white noise of the engine, emerging from the deep tangle of my thoughts, one phrase shone clear of all others – the thrill of them: I could tell she had never forgotten you.





11. Caroline


‘I think it went well. Don’t you?’

It was almost midnight. Hours had passed since he had dropped Zo? back to her flat, and still David’s voice retained its buoyancy, the same optimism that had imbued the whole afternoon.

‘Yes. I suppose.’

I was in bed already, reading my book, while he moved about the room, changing into his pyjamas, getting out his clothes for the morning. There was an energy about him, as if the day had bolstered his spirit, whereas I felt drained. I tried to concentrate on the words in front of me, but his jittery presence was a distraction. Putting down my book, I watched him fumbling at the back of his wardrobe for something he couldn’t find.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, a note of irritation in my voice.

‘Looking for my climbing gear. Have you seen it?’

‘David, you haven’t climbed in years.’

‘I know. But I thought I’d go down to the sports centre tomorrow, give the climbing wall a go.’

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’ he replied cheerfully, with no indication that he had picked up on my annoyance. ‘It’s probably in the attic.’ He disappeared on to the landing.

For a few minutes I sat there, fiddling with the page of my open book, listening to him overhead. Where had the sudden urge come from to revisit a sport he had long forgotten about? Zo?, of course. I thought again of the two of them disappearing down the driveway into the evening. Ever since his return he had been upbeat, happy in a way I hadn’t seen for a long time.

‘Find your gear?’ I asked, when he came back into the room.

‘Yep. It’s a bit dusty, but not beyond use.’ He set about restoring order to his wardrobe.

‘What was it like?’ I asked. ‘Zo?’s flat.’

‘Oh. I don’t know. I didn’t go up.’

‘I thought you might have. You were gone a while.’

‘Was I? There was traffic.’

‘What’s it like from the outside?’

‘It’s a quiet enough street – a terrace of brown-bricks in Rathmines, behind the swimming pool.’

‘The rent can’t be cheap.’

‘A poky room in a freezing attic, Caroline. I don’t think she can afford much else.’

‘I imagine it’s all incense sticks and posters of Morrissey,’ I said, picking at the corner of my book.

‘Her taste is a bit retro. What was it she told Robbie she likes? The Cure and Massive Attack. I mean, those were from way back in our day.’

‘You make it sound like the Dark Ages!’ I said, the ice inside me beginning to thaw. The way he’d said it – back in our day – reminded me of our shared history, and all the joy that lay within those memories, a joy she couldn’t touch. Putting aside my book, I pulled back the covers and moved across the mattress to where he was sitting, looped my arms around his neck, bringing my cheek alongside his. He reached up, grasped my wrist, and I could feel his face against mine, smiling.

‘I still remember you dancing around a bedsit to the Smiths,’ I murmured.

He laughed. ‘Me too.’

It was nice, the warmth between us – the sudden intimacy. After the day that had passed, it felt fortifying to have him in my arms, his body against mine, as if I were reclaiming him.

‘I must dig out some of my old CDs,’ he said. ‘See if Zo? wants them.’

One mention of her name and the mood between us evaporated. Where I was bathing in the warmth of an old memory, he was focusing on a future neither of us had bargained for. There was a frisson of excitement in his voice. Subtle enough, but I caught it. I could tell how pleased he was with this daughter, taking pride in her originality, her desire to separate herself from the crowd. With the mention of her name it was as if, somehow, she had crept into our room.