Chapter 30
Henry texted.
Still okay for sail this evening? Got cold feet?
I was working in the office in the hotel, going through some of the plans Tara was sending on.
It was impressive how much work she was doing, and with so much energy.
The kind I used to have. I wondered if my heart was still in my company.
Perhaps I would never find the same enthusiasm of the old me.
Only if we sink! What do I need to bring?
Nothing! Just yourself. I’ve packed some food and supplies. Jules is bringing crisps. He doesn’t believe humans need much more to survive than crisps.
A man after my own heart.
Glad you’re coming.
So am I.
And bring your swimsuit!
Wouldn’t it be too cold? And in the dark?
I changed into it, under my shorts and T-shirt, but I didn’t think it would actually happen.
Not when there could be sea monsters and all sorts of unknowns in the sea at night.
But the sailing part I was looking forward to, because I knew nothing would go wrong if Henry was in charge.
The evening was still bright when I left the hotel and met Lucy standing outside.
‘You’re going to be freezing,’ she said, pointing at my shorts and T-shirt and my cotton cardigan. ‘Don’t you have anything warmer? A fleece? An old horse blanket? Some foil you can wrap yourself in like a festive fowl?’
I laughed. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s a really warm evening.’
‘The irony that we are selling the warmest jumpers knitted by elderly womankind and you’re in a wispy cardigan.’
‘This cost me a fortune,’ I said. ‘Designer. Very expensive.’
‘Nice but not made for warmth and being out at sea.’
‘We’re hardy, us Dalys,’ I said. ‘Honestly. I’ll be absolutely fine.’
We walked to the marina, the light of the day fading into evening.
‘So, Ellie is coming. And Jules, and Cormac. He’s just back from London. We’ll fit into two boats, I’d say, Henry’s and mine.’
At the marina, the two boats were tied up in their usual places and Henry and Jules were hauling bags and boxes onto them. The sky was darkening rapidly, and only a string of outdoor lights lit the wooden planks of the jetty.
Ellie and Jules turned and waved when they saw us.
‘Hello!’ called Ellie. ‘How’s it going?’
Lucy gave them a quick wave, before jumping onto Maeve.
‘Kerry-Anne, this is Cormac, Jules’s brother,’ said Ellie. ‘Cormac, Kerry-Anne. She’s on holiday here.’
Cormac was tall, his torso like an upside-down triangle, a T-shirt stretched across his chest. He shook my hand. Hard. I must have winced because Ellie laughed.
‘You wouldn’t think he works in an office, would you?’ said Ellie, approvingly. ‘He should be in construction.’
‘Or a nutcracker,’ I said.
‘Yes!’ agreed Ellie. ‘A life-size one. Cormac could just stand there and crack them in his hands. You’d be very busy at Christmas, Jules.’
He was laughing. ‘I really need to tone down my handshake.’
‘You really must,’ said Ellie, her eyes lingering for a moment on his biceps.
‘Is everyone ready?’ called Henry, standing in the middle of Brendan, his leg on one of the seats, the boxes and bags stacked at the front and at the back of the boat, while Patch sniffed around. Henry smiled at me, giving me a wave.
‘Is it windy enough?’ I asked.
‘Quite windy,’ he said. ‘We don’t want too much. We’re not racing.’
‘Nothing stops him,’ said Jules to me. ‘Try saying no to Henry. I once told him that I couldn’t afford the flights for our post-exams trip to Alicante and so we hitchhiked the entire way.’
Henry was laughing. ‘Cost us €22.50 to get there.’
‘Except we arrived four days into the trip. We only had two days with the rest of the gang.’
‘But without me, you wouldn’t have had those two days,’ said Henry.
Lucy was already in Maeve and Ellie stepped in beside her. ‘Take my bag,’ she said to Lucy.
‘What’s in it?’
‘Cake, flask of tea. And my knitting.’
‘Your knitting?’
‘You never know when you might have a moment to spare. I’ve already graduated to pearl stitches. Honestly, I’m really getting into it. Betty said I’m a natural. She’s giving me and Matty lessons in how to make a scarf.’
‘Push us off, Kerry-Anne,’ said Lucy, ‘and then throw me the rope.’
‘I thought I was going to be on Henry’s boat,’ I said.
‘Girls together,’ said Ellie. ‘We’ll have more fun.’
‘But we’re fun too,’ insisted Henry. He shrugged at me. ‘I suppose I can’t commandeer you.’
I wished he would. I wanted to be commandeered, someone to claim me, to want me. But I was being silly. It was just a sail and, anyway, Lucy was already readying her boat. ‘Untie the rope, push us off,’ she ordered. ‘And then jump on.’
‘Jump on? As in while the boat is moving?’
‘You’d better be quick!’ She grinned as she pulled on the engine which juddered alive, and then somehow I pushed the boat away and jumped aboard.
There was a moment when I thought I wasn’t going to make it.
I was mid-air, below the oily, murky depths, inches away from the side of the boat, and I thought I was either going straight down, or I would hit my head and be brained to death.
But then, somehow, my feet were inside the boat, and I crumpled aboard.
From his boat, Henry raised an eyebrow, smiling. ‘You’re a long way from corporate Boston now,’ he said.
‘Well, it is a holiday,’ I said, but I had no more time because I had to coil the rope around my arm, just like he’d shown me how.
‘Shall we follow you?’ called Lucy to him.
‘We’ll go together,’ said Henry.
The two boats puttered out of the mouth of the harbour, the wind barely perceptible, and then as we moved into the open sea, the moon appeared from behind a cloud, like a light being turned on.
Lucy dropped the sail and the light breeze whooshed us along, not fast, like the other day, but as though we were being given a push in the night.
‘To the island!’ called Henry.
‘WHOOOO-HOOOO!’ Jules was standing in the boat, hollering into the night, as the two boats zigzagged their way across the bay.
Ellie was trailing her hand into the water.
She had moved to the front of the boat, out of the way, because it seemed that I was to do the sailing, as Lucy told me what to do.
But because of the lack of wind, everything was done at a manageable pace, the tying of ropes, the moving from side to side, the ducking under the sail, it gave me time to work out what we were doing and why, and when we tightened the rope just a little bit more, it filled more fully with wind and off we shot.
There was an easy vibe between us all on the two boats, the sail was slow and casual, and at one point, we passed so close together, Cormac passed across a bottle of wine, its cork wedged back in, and glasses, and then Jules threw over a large bag of chips.
‘Truffle flavour,’ he shouted. ‘To die for.’
The sea was calm, the moon bright, making the sea shimmer and sparkle, and eventually, we came to the island, where we tied up at the old pier and scrambled ashore, carrying supplies, a rug, some boxes, a large cooler.
Ellie had her knitting bag. ‘Have to keep it safe,’ she said.
‘What if the boat sinks, and all my hard work goes down with it?’
At the beach, Henry made a fire, lighting driftwood until we had a small blaze, feeding it with more wood, until the flames were high enough to throw larger pieces on.
At Granny Annie’s beach house, Johnny and I used to make fires when we were teenagers, and we’d spend hours out there, in the dark, watching the sparks fly in the night sky, talking about our lives and how on earth we were both going to survive puberty.
I had frizzy hair, Johnny had spots, and neither of us could even imagine being in any way successful or even attractive.
Henry produced a large flask of coffee, which he handed around, pouring a liberal serving of Irish whiskey into it, and then unwrapped a parcel of sandwiches. ‘Ham and mustard,’ he said. ‘The Irish national dish.’
We lay back, looking at the stars, and I kept my eyes fixed upwards, wondering which of the stars was Caitlin.
‘Native Americans believe that the sky was created by a rabbit and there isn’t a man in the moon, there’s a rabbit,’ said Ellie.
We all looked at the moon. ‘It could be a rabbit,’ said Lucy. ‘And I love the idea of a rabbit being responsible for the universe. It makes it all so less patriarchal.’
‘Why are you assuming it is a female rabbit?’ asked Cormac. ‘It still could be a very patriarchal rabbit?’
‘But rabbits aren’t macho,’ said Lucy. ‘You don’t get rabbits being all territorial. They are sweet and delightful. I used to have one when I was young. Called Roger, naturally. God, he was so lovely, wasn’t he, Henry? Remember Roger?’
‘How could I forget,’ said Henry. ‘Roger kept trying to escape. I don’t know what you were doing to him, but he didn’t want to stick around. He was like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, always trying to find a way through the fence.’
I stared up again at the sky, thinking of Caitlin, and felt tears in my eyes, which I quickly wiped away.
She would have loved this, I thought, all of this strange non-vacation to Ireland and all these awesome people I’d met.
That was the thing with death, it was almost for those still living, because we had to try and have a good life, because the person who had died was no longer able to.
Except, what they don’t talk about is how guilty you feel when things are nice, like looking up at a beautiful moon and seeing the face of a rabbit, or eating a ham sandwich or drinking coffee with too much whiskey in it.
I had to be happy, I thought, I had to be happy for Caitlin. And I was. I really was.