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Chapter 33
Thursday, June 2, 2016
THE WIND IS WHIPPING dead leaves all around the park. Conor and I stand there just staring at each other for a moment and then he seems to remember the boy and he says, “Adrien, you take Mr. Bean,” and he looks back at me and says, “Maggie?”
I don’t know what to do. I can’t hug him. I nod and say, “Conor ...”
“I’m surprised to see —” he starts.
“It’s good to see you. I don’t quite know what to say. You look just the same. I would have known you anywhere.” “It’s good to see you, too.”
His hair has thinned back toward his crown and it’s half gray, but his eyes are the same and his grin is, too, and the stooping lean of his shoulders and his thin face. His voice.
“I ... Look, my son is ... Let me walk him home and maybe we can ... Do you have time for a cup of tea?” He’s very flustered now. The boy is holding the dog’s leash and Conor looks at him and says, “Adrien, this is an old friend of mine. Maggie, this is my son, Adrien.” His voice is practically shaking. The boy shakes my hand. He’s tall and thin, but he doesn’t look much like Conor. He’s fairer and his face is rounder, his eyes blue. Bláithín Arpin.
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“I’ll walk home with you and Beanie and then Maggie and I will go and have a chat,” he says.
The boy nods and we all walk out of the park together and toward the main road. I can’t resist looking at Adrien. Conor’s son. “Why don’t I meet you there?” He points to a bakery and coffee shop on the other side of the road and I nod. “Ten minutes,” he says. “The house is just up there.” I watch him go, my heart pounding, a strange metallic taste suddenly filling my mouth.
I order a coffee and ask to use the bakery’s bathroom.
In the mirror over the sink my eyes look lined, bruised. My hair is crazy from the wind and I comb it as best I can. I soak a paper towel with cold water and wet my face, then dry it. I chew some gum and spit it out and put on lipstick, then rub most of it off. It’s a little better, not much. With my coffee, I stake out a table by the window. It’s five minutes before he’s back. I see him coming down the street and I feel my whole body seize up, adrenaline running through my veins. I pretend to be looking at a newspaper someone left on the counter so he won’t see me watching him.
And then the door is jingling and he’s there. “Hello,” he says. He’s wearing a black wool overcoat, a green-and- brown tartan scarf.
“Hi.”
“Will I get you a tea?”
“I’ve got coffee.”
“Okay. Hang on, then.” I stare down at the newspaper while he’s gone. The one time I look up, he’s leaning over the counter, ordering, handing the money over.
And then he’s here, sitting down and shrugging off his overcoat and I can smell him, soap and deodorant and the outdoors. “You look exactly the same. I’m just ... It’s very strange seeing you again,” he says. “I’ve seen the stories the last week or so. About the remains in Wicklow. Are you here as part of the investigation?”
“I am. As you probably saw, it’s not Erin, but there may be some developments in her case, too.”
“I’m so sorry. I heard about the search in Wicklow and it brought it ... it brought that time back.” He looks away and drinks his coffee, then sets it down and looks back at me. We’re staring at each other. We can’t look away.
“When did you get here?” he asks.
“What? Last Thursday, I guess. It’s so strange to be back. My old ... Erin’s old neighborhood. It’s all so different.”
“It is. I forget sometimes. But it must look so different to you. All the new buildings. It’s grand, I think, lots of different languages, different people, different countries. Half of my son’s schoolmates come from somewhere else. We’re a better country for it, that part is grand. It was the end of something, you know, when you were here, the nineties. I sound like a proper oul’ fella, don’t I? How are you?”
“Good. I’m a detective with a big police department on Long Island. Suffolk County. I investigate homicides across the county.”
He looks away, waits, then grins sheepishly. “I knew that, actually. I saw a story a few years ago, about that case. About what you did. I recognized your name and I wondered.
There was a picture, so ...” He shrugs. I feel a little thrill. I wondered. But I don’t want to go there. I change the subject. “What about you?”
“I’m a professor at Trinity. I teach history and write. I’m just off a sabbatical but it’s nice to be back.” I could admit that I know, too, but I don’t. I don’t want him to bring up Bláithín Arpin.
Quick, before I second-guess myself, I say, “To work on your opus on chickens in Irish history, I imagine. I’ve been waiting for it, you know. Checking the bookstores every year.”
He laughs. “There are just so many of them. It’s taking me an awfully long time.”
“What are you really working on?”
“Twentieth-century Irish political history, mostly.”
“Is Adrien your only child?”
“Yes, he is. What about you?”
“I have an only, too. Lilly. She’s fifteen. She’s amazing.”
“I’m sure she is.” He smiles and I remember everything about his face, the way his upper lip is thinner than his lower lip, the way his nose is an elegant line running uninterrupted from his forehead, the lines from the sides of his nose to his mouth when he smiles.
I’ve finished my coffee and so has he. We stare at each other. We don’t say anything. Outside the plate-glass window, I can see the wind whipping the trees. “I have so many things I want to ask you,” he says finally. “But I need to get back to Adrien. Might we ... Might I take you to dinner? Tomorrow evening, maybe?”
“Yeah, yes,” I say. “Here, I’ll give you my number.” He hands over his phone and I put myself in his contacts. “I think you have to dial something first.”
Outside, we stand on the sidewalk for a long moment, just staring at each other. “I’ll see you,” I say finally.
“Yeah, I’ll ring you,” he says. Something crosses his face, distress, sadness. I wonder if he’s thinking about Erin. We walk off in opposite directions. I get back to the hotel and don’t remember anything about the walk back.
Chapter 34
Friday, June 3, 2016
ON THE MORNING NEWS, they report that gardaí are continuing the search for Niamh Horrigan in Wicklow.
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