Chapters (43)
- Pronunciation
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Acknowledgments
Everyone’s sitting smiling at me as I leave, and I wave happily at them. The lady who is always trying to make me undress and get into that damned bath doesn’t look too pleased. Like she squatted down on the moor for a pee and sat on a thistle. Ha! I want to say. Serves you right. But I’m not sure what came out in the end. Sounded like Donald Duck. Who said that?
It’s cold outside, and that rain takes me back. All those solitary days out on the land with the beasts. I used to love that. The freedom of it. No more pretending. Just me and the rain in my face. The young man tells me to be sure and say if I need a pee. He’ll stop anywhere, any time, he says. Well, of course, I say. I’m not likely to pee my pants, am I?
We seem to have been driving for a very long time now. I’m not sure if I maybe slept for a bit. I look at the land passing by the window. It hardly seems familiar at all. Not sure if it’s the grass bursting through the rock, or the rock bursting through the grass. But that’s all there is. Grass and rock over all the hillsides.
Oh, and now, down there in the distance, I see a beach. You wouldn’t believe a beach could be that big, or the ocean that blue. I remember seeing a beach like that once. Biggest beach I ever saw. Much bigger than Charlie’s beach. But I was filled with so much grief and guilt that I hardly noticed. I was driving Donald Seamus’s old van. Peter was still in the back, wrapped in the blanket I took from the bedroom to carry him down to the boat.
Mary-Anne and Donald Seamus were dead to the world. It seemed that nothing would shake those two out of their sleep once they got their heads down. It’s just as well, because I was in a panic that night, and still weeping. And I suppose I must have left blood everywhere. But I was hardly in a state to care.
By the time we got to Ludagh I was a little more controlled. I had to put a face on it for Ceit’s sake. I can remember looking in the wing mirror of Donald Seamus’s van, and seeing her standing there on the jetty in the dark, watching me go. And I knew, even then, that I would never see her again. But I had her Saint Christopher around my neck, so she would always be with me. One way or another.