Page 92 of The Elements

And he does. Simply collapses onto the grass, as if his legs have given way beneath him. He presses his knees close to his chest and wraps his arms around them, his head buried low, as if he’s trying to make himself appear as small as possible.

“Why did you never tell me any of this before?” he asks eventually, his voice so quiet that I have to struggle to hear him.

“You were too young. It’s not the kind of thing you can talk about to a child.”

“My grandfather,” he says, looking up, tears forming in his eyes. “He did things like that?”

“He wasn’t your grandfather,” I tell him. “Other than in a purely biological sense. He was just a man you never met who married a woman you never knew and fathered a daughter who gave birth to you.”

“So my grandfather.”

“You know grandfathers,” I insist. “You know lots of your friends’ grandfathers. They’re different men. Good men. Kind men. Brendan Carvin was not one of them.”

“What if anyone finds out?” he asks, his voice cracking. “My friends. People at school.” He hesitates for a moment. “Girls.”

“No one will,” I promise. “He’s dead now.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to him?”

“A heart attack, I was told. So trust me, this isn’t something that anyone will ever associate you with. You don’t even share a surname.”

“Did he hurt Mum?” he asks, and I shake my head.

“He didn’t abuse her, if that’s what you’re asking. But your aunt, Emma, yes. He raped her. Repeatedly.”

“And then she drowned.”

“She took her own life,” I say.

He turns his head to the right and vomits onto the grass, quickly and violently. There’s not much in his stomach to throw up, and soon it’s just dry heaves. I place my hand on his back to comfort him but he shrugs me off and I step away, allowing him to come to terms with these revelations himself.

Time passes; a lot of time, I think. And then, finally, he rises, takes a deep breath, and looks toward the center of the island. I can read my son well. I know what he’s thinking.

He wants to be with his mother.

“Let’s go,” he says.

The village is even smaller than I’d imagined. A few shops. A church. And, at either end of the street, two pubs.

“Let’s try here,” I say, walking toward the closer one.

We step inside, where we’re met with the eyes of twenty people, all of whom end their conversations immediately and turn to stare at us, like we’re two na?ve strangers wandering across the moors in a horror movie, unaware of the dangers we might face when night falls.

I look around, taking them in, but Rebecca isn’t among them.

In fact, there are no women here at all.

“Let’s try the other one,” I say, but Emmet places a hand on my arm.

“Can we just stop here for a bit?” he asks. “I just… I need to…”

“Of course,” I say. After everything he’s just learned, it’s not unreasonable that he needs a little time to collect his thoughts. He takes a seat at a table by the wall, and the barman walks toward us.

“What’ll it be?” he asks, and in deference to where I am, I order a Guinness. I glance at Emmet, and he looks up.

“Make it two,” he says.

I wonder what the barman will say, hoping that his response won’t diminish my son, but he appears nonplussed and simply nods before returning behind the bar to pour the drinks.

“Another thing for you to tell your future therapist about,” I tell him. “The holiday I turned you into an alcoholic.”

“I don’t think I’ll be calling this a holiday,” he says.

It takes a long time for the drinks to be delivered, the pints sitting on the counter for so long that I think the barman might have forgotten us, but soon he tops them off and brings them over.

I take a sip of mine, relishing the taste.

I’ve never been much of a Guinness drinker, but it turns out that it’s true what they say: it’s better in Ireland.

Emmet takes a longer draft, and it’s obvious that it’s taking all his willpower not to spit it out across the table.

“People actually drink this stuff?” he asks.

“They say it’s an acquired taste. I can get you a Coke if you want.”

He shakes his head and brings it to his mouth again, taking a smaller sip this time. “When in Rome,” he adds.

We drink silently and companionably for a while and I glance around at the pub, which is tastefully decorated and seems like the model for the kind of pre-bought Irish pubs that appear in cities around the world.

Some of the patrons, I notice, are still throwing covert glances in our direction, as if they’re nervous that we’ve brought the Plague with us.

“I get that she went through a lot of shit,” says Emmet eventually. “Vanessa, I mean. But none of that had anything to do with me. So why did she never want to meet me?”

I let out a deep sigh. “Honestly, I can’t answer that,” I tell him.

“I liked her when I met her so I was always surprised that she didn’t want to build a relationship with you.

But things were so troubled between your mother and her.

There was the occasional rapprochement over the years, but they never lasted very long.

It always felt that any peace existed purely to be a foundation for another war. ”

“It seems insane that the closest I’ll ever be to her is when I’m at her funeral. And why is it here anyway? Why did she want to be buried in this crazy place?”

“It’s not a crazy place,” I say, offended on behalf of the island, to which I already feel an unexpected connection. “I know we’ve only been here a few hours, but don’t you think it’s sort of beautiful?”

He shrugs, but I can tell that he doesn’t wholly disagree.

“I can’t remember the full story,” I explain.

“Rebecca explained it so long ago. But after her husband’s trial, Vanessa came here—I don’t know why; to recover maybe?

—but it became important to her in some way.

Maybe it healed her. She’d lost a daughter, remember.

And, one way or another, she’d lost a husband.

The entire foundation of her life had been ripped apart.

All those years of marriage. All the secrets.

She told me about it herself, when we met. ”

“What did she say?”

“That the first thing she did when she came here was to change her name. Remember, she’d been through a very public scandal.

Her husband was well known in the media world through his associations with the Swimming Federation and the Olympics and so on.

She didn’t want anyone to connect her with the things that had happened.

Willow was her middle name and Hale her maiden name, so that’s the name she adopted.

She might have only spent a year here, but I think she considered it to be the most important of her life. ”

“But no one will be able to visit the grave.”

“The islanders will.”

“And her husband? What’s his name? Rick?”

“Ron. And I have no idea. You’ll meet him later, I expect.”

“Did you meet him?”

“Again, very briefly.”

“And what was he like?”

“He struck me as a decent man.”

The barman passes by, throwing a few logs on the fire, and when he walks past us again, I stop him to ask whether he knows a woman named Rebecca Carvin.

“No one by that name living here,” he tells me.

“She’s visiting for a few days,” I tell him. “For a funeral.”

“Ah, that’ll be Willow’s funeral,” he replies, blessing himself. “Try the old pub. End of the street. I saw them all heading that way earlier.”

“Right, thanks,” I say.

“I knew her a little,” he adds before walking away.

“Rebecca?” I ask, surprised.

“No, Willow. She used to come in here for soup and a sandwich at lunchtime. She had a right go at me one day when I was pouring out my troubles to her. I can still see her, sitting across from me, giving me hell about what she called the endless selfishness of the middle-aged man who does what he wants and leaves his wife to pick up the pieces.” He pauses for a moment, and I notice him glance at the fourth finger of his left hand, rubbing it slightly with his thumb.

“She set me straight that day, I’ll tell you that. I never forgot it.”

I’m not quite sure how he expects me to respond to this, but before I can think of an answer he has moved on.

I make my way toward the bathroom and throw some water on my face, looking myself directly in the mirror, like a character in a film.

When I return, I nod to my son and we stand up and leave.

It’s still warm outside, despite the setting sun, and as we make our way along the street, we attract more curious eyes.

A teenage girl passes us and I notice how she looks at Emmet appreciatively, an unknown, handsome, tanned boy in her small community, and he offers her a small smile in return.

I need it, because I’m growing increasingly nervous, my stomach churning in anxiety about the reception we’ll receive when we arrive at the old pub.

When we reach the door, I pause and take a deep breath, as if I need to summon all my courage to push it open. Before I can commit to the moment, however, Emmet places a hand on my arm and I turn to look at him.

“Dad,” he says.

“Yes?”

He hesitates.

“Just to say. I know this has probably been the world’s worst fortieth birthday.”

“You’re not wrong there.”

“But…” And here he avoids my eyes, looking down at the ground beneath our feet.

“You’ve been a great dad.” He bites his lip, embarrassed, and says the words that I’ve spent my life longing to hear, a phrase without the word too at the end.

“So, just to say… I love you. And I’m glad you brought me here. ”

I tell myself not to ruin the moment by hugging him like a maniac. Instead, I simply nod and mentally record the moment, which I know I will relive many times in the future.

Then we push the door open and step inside.

This pub is filled with people, music, and conversation. I look around, and it doesn’t take long for me to notice a table toward the rear, where the big, burdensome body of Ron is sitting, sipping a large whiskey. He’s wiping his eyes.

Next to him, dressed immaculately, her hand on his arm, is Furia.

And opposite them both, speaking animatedly, is Rebecca.

She happens to glance in my direction, then frowns, as if she doesn’t quite recognize me. It’s not dissimilar to my own reaction all those years ago when I discovered her in that apartment building in Sydney, her brain taking a moment to catch up with the reality before her.

It’s only when our son steps out from behind me that she puts both hands to her mouth in astonishment.

She stands up slowly, leaning on the table to support herself, before making her way across the floor to greet us.

I remain where I am, allowing Emmet to approach her first.

They meet somewhere in the middle, and he takes the initiative, wrapping his arms around her, hugging her close to him, and she embraces him in return.

It seems obscene, like a voyeur, to watch any further, so I turn away, but not before seeing how she has buried her face in his shoulder, her tears mixing with his.