Page 24 of The Elements

Today, I leave the island.

I pack my suitcase and, although I’ve bought no new clothes or souvenirs during my stay here, it seems fuller than when I arrived.

Walking around the few small rooms that have been my home this last year, I make sure that I have left nothing behind me, before writing a note for Peader Dooley, whoever he might be, thanking him for allowing me to rent his cottage, and placing it on the table.

As I stand in the center of the living room, I wonder how much I have changed in the time that I’ve spent here.

I feel more at peace, certainly. When I first took the train from Dublin to Galway, and then the ferry across to the island, I was frightened of discovery; now, I’m less concerned, as the media has inevitably moved on since Brendan is more than a year into his sentence.

I daresay there have been other scandals in the meantime, scandals to which I am oblivious.

Other women fleeing the misdeeds of the men they trusted.

When I hear the sound of a car pulling up outside, I assume it is Mícheál óg ó’Ceallaigh, who I have asked to collect me, and I feel only a small sentimental sadness as I lock the door behind me, placing the key under the flowerpot as instructed, and make my way toward him.

Only, to my surprise, it is not Mícheál óg sitting behind the wheel, it is Luke.

“I canceled your taxi,” he tells me when I open the door. “You don’t mind, do you? I thought you might prefer a friendlier face on your last morning. Mícheál óg’s would curdle milk.”

I smile and feel an enormous sense of gratitude toward him. We said our goodbyes already, two nights ago, but what harm to say them again.

“Thank you,” I say, settling into the passenger seat and buckling the belt as he drives over the gravel and down the makeshift road. “This is very good of you.”

How lucky I was to have met him! We were a mutual convenience that worked out splendidly. We never bothered to discuss what our relationship is, or was, or might have been. We just enjoyed every minute of it.

“I hear he’s already got it rented again,” says Luke as we drive along. “Peader, I mean.”

“The cottage?”

“Sure enough. The rumor is that it’s some actress escaping Hollywood after a breakup with her fella.”

“Good Lord. And I suppose you’ll head over to say hello?” I ask, teasing him, and he laughs, even blushes a little.

“Well, it’s good to be neighborly, isn’t it?

” He turns to smile at me, then we both dissolve in silly giggles.

I adore him and want nothing from him. We want nothing from each other.

Which was why what we shared was perfect.

“So, what’s next for you?” he asks, and I shrug my shoulders, for I’ve been asking myself the same question over the last two weeks, since I decided it was time to leave, and I still haven’t arrived at a satisfactory answer.

“I have to pack up the house,” I tell him. “It went sale agreed a few days ago so I’ll box up the things I want to hold on to and get a man with a van to take what’s left to the charity shop. After that, I need to find somewhere to live. And, I thought, get a job.”

“What sort of a job?”

“Whatever will keep me busy. The thing is, Luke, I’ve never worked. And I’m only fifty-three. I want to be out and among people. To have some fun. I haven’t had much fun in my life. It never seemed like a priority. I feel ready to change that. We had fun, didn’t we?”

“Plenty of it.”

“And I’d like some more.”

“So you’ll stay in Dublin?”

“Probably,” I tell him. “But who knows? You’re welcome to visit if you want,” I add tentatively, and he turns to me and smiles, as if to suggest that he’s grateful for the offer but no, that’s not something he’ll be doing.

I’m not sure that I’d even want him to. He wouldn’t belong there any more than I ever belonged here.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, and, as on the first night we met, when he first advised me to be careful of the water, there’s nothing patronizing in his tone.

“And you?” I ask. “You’ll stay here?”

“I will,” he admits. “Sure, I’m too old to move now.”

“Luke, you’re twenty-five,” I say, rolling my eyes at such defeatism. “You have your entire life in front of you.”

“I know, but, well, I’m happy enough here. I fit in.” He nods in the general direction of the bigger island that gives us our identity. “I’d be a fish out of water beyond.”

We pull into the dock and he places the car in neutral, pulls up the handbrake, and takes my right hand in his left, before lifting it to his mouth, kissing it gently, and releasing it.

“Right then, Willow Hale,” he says. “Shall we get moving?”

We climb out of the car and, as he retrieves my suitcase from the boot, I notice Ifechi standing by the platform that leads to the waiting boat.

It’s not the regular ferry, but a smaller one that can be specially booked when you need to travel outside of the scheduled hours.

I smile in his direction. I’m glad he came to see me off.

“I didn’t make a convert out of you,” he says when I approach him, and we shake hands, somehow nervous of hugging.

“I’m afraid not,” I reply. “But you did your best and that’s what counts.”

“Will you come back to see us again?”

Luke places the suitcase on the ground next to me and looks up, interested in the answer to this question.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I must put all of this behind me now.”

“But you won’t forget us?”

“Oh no,” I say, extending the handle of the suitcase and shaking my head. “No, I won’t forget you. Any of you. Goodbye, Ifechi.”

Two kisses, one for him and one for Luke, and that’s it.

I make my way along the platform and a man I don’t recognize helps me on board, taking my suitcase and placing it in the rear, in the center, for balance.

Then, as I am the only passenger, he starts the engine, but, before he can leave, a voice from the dock stops him.

I look around, and it’s Evan Keogh, the boy who took his father’s boat out and almost didn’t come back.

He’s running toward us, his mother a few steps behind, a rucksack slung over his shoulder.

“Are you joining us, Maggie?” shouts the sailor, and she shakes her head.

“Not me,” she calls back. “Just Evan.”

Mother and son are locked in conversation now, and I see her putting a bundle of banknotes into his hand, folding his fingers around them. She pulls him toward her, tight, as if she might never see him again, then pushes him away.

“Go on now,” she says, her voice filled with urgency, as if they’re being chased. “Go on now, you, and don’t look back.”

And he follows her instructions, throwing his bag into the boat and leaping in.

“Right so,” says our captain, and, a moment later, the boat pulls away, its stern pointed in the direction of Galway. I watch Maggie Keogh—her expression blends sorrow and relief—until she has disappeared from view.

“You’re leaving, then?” I ask, turning to Evan, who startles a little, as if surprised to be spoken to.

“I am,” he tells me.

“Tell me to mind my own business if you want, but am I right in thinking you’re a great footballer?”

“That’s what they tell me,” he says. “But I have no more interest in it than I do in the man in the moon.”

I’m surprised by his response. I understood that most teenage boys longed for a life in sport. Clearly, he’s different.

“And where are you going?” I ask.

He smiles. The weather is perfect for this voyage, and we make easy companions.

“England, to begin with,” he tells me.

“And what’s in England?” I ask.

“My future. And you?”

“Dublin.”

“And what’s in Dublin?”

“My past.”

“Then leave it there,” he says, and I’m surprised to hear such sensible advice from a boy who can’t be more than seventeen.

“What do you suggest?” I ask.

“Go somewhere no one knows you. Start again. I know who you are, by the way. And who your husband was. I never told anyone, but I always knew. I’ve seen you around.”

“And I’ve seen you around.”

“I was a bit intrigued.”

I laugh. It’s an unusual phrase for a boy his age.

“Were you indeed?” I say.

“Yes,” he replies.

“Well, thank you for keeping it to yourself.”

He nods and looks out at the water. We are safe from it in this sturdy little boat, but I will be happier when we reach Galway.

“Did the island give you whatever you needed?” he asks me after a while, and I have to think about this, because I want to give him an honest answer.

“I think it did,” I tell him. “Now, I just have to figure out how to use its gifts.”

“Don’t go to Dublin,” he says.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s small. And the world is big. Fuck Dublin,” he adds. He seems so excited to be on this boat. He is breathless for the life he’s entering into, and I hope that he will not know pain or betrayal or disappointment, but of course he will, because he’s alive and that’s the price we pay.

We say nothing for a while, occasionally looking across at each other and smiling, but feeling no need to continue with our conversation. Might you have been Zac, I wonder, imagining my ghost-child, the one who might have saved us all, since the living proved so hopeless.

“Do you know anyone in England?” I ask him in time.

“Not a soul.”

“And you’re not frightened?”

When he smiles, his whole face lights up. He is the very sunshine.

“Not a bit of it,” he says. “I’m excited. Do you know the first thing I’m going to do when I get there?”

“What?” I ask.

“Change my name.”

The three of us—the sailor, the boy, and I—remain silent for the final part of our voyage.

The sailor is probably thinking about what he’ll have for his dinner when he turns around, having dropped us off and made his way home.

The boy is looking toward the mainland, anticipating everything to come.

And me, well, I intend to get riotously drunk in the pubs around Eyre Square tonight, on my own, and I will call this the end of the first half of my life.

Tomorrow, I will wake up and begin again.

Soon, lights start to twinkle in the distance, through the mist, and I can hear the sounds of life on the approaching shore.

It’s only another island that I’m approaching, of course, a larger one than the one on which I’ve spent this last year, but it holds the body of my elder daughter in its earth, the worthless bones of my husband in one of its prisons, and the beautiful spirit of my younger daughter in its capital.

And, in a few minutes, it will reclaim me.

Willow Hale.

Vanessa Carvin.

Whatever name I choose.

I can be any woman in Ireland.

The engine dies, and the boat drifts toward the shore.

The sailor throws out a rope to a man waiting on the dock, and he ties it quickly around a mooring post. I’m gathering my things together as Evan makes his way nimbly off the boat, puts his rucksack down, and, a gentleman to his core, reaches out a hand to take my suitcase from me, but I wave it away.

“No, you’re grand,” I tell him. “I can do it myself.”