I look through similar searches that were done during Roly’s original review of the disappearances. They’d tried to get a sense of the cars that had passed nearby on the days Teresa and June went missing, but nothing had come of the query.
Someone even did a search of traffic or parking tickets given to anyone remotely connected with any of the investigations, just in case it threw something up. In fact, it threw up a lot. I scan the list of persons of interest or witnesses. Eda Curran got a parking ticket in Wicklow in 1998. Bláithín Arpin got a ticket for speeding in Glendalough in October, 1993, and another in 1997. A truck that was still registered to Niall Deasey’s garage got a ticket for illegal parking near where June Talbot was taken in 2006, but it turned out Deasey had given the truck to a nephew. In 1999 and again in 2004, Conor Kearney got parking tickets on Morehampton Road, in Donnybrook.
Conor Kearney.
I stare at the black forms of the words on the page. “I’m packing it in,” I tell Griz. “I need to sleep for a few hours. Let’s come back in the morning.”
26
1993
If Roly Byrne and Bernie McNeely had found anything on Niall Deasey or the American guys, they weren’t telling me about it.
It got colder. Uncle Danny’s mental health was deteriorating. My dad said he’d started bursting into tears behind the bar. I tried to stay busy while I waited for word. One afternoon, I ran all the way out Ringsend Road, where there was a park and walking trails heading out toward a lighthouse along the coast in the distance, and the two red-and-white-striped smokestacks I’d been spotting from afar since I’d arrived in Dublin. In front of me was the sea. The tide was out and the sand stretched forever, wet, dark ripples reaching for the water. Sandymount Strand. I walked fast in the sand, out into the indeterminate nothingness. There were several people walking out here, a couple with a dog, a few single figures against the milky white sky. I kept walking.
Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount Strand?
The ground was gentle folds, pocked with shells. I picked them up, salmon pink cockles and little scallops, tucking them into the pocket of my running shorts. I felt better, peaceful, suddenly and inexpressibly full of joy. There was something about the sight of the two candy-striped smokestacks against the sky that cheered me. The landscape was familiar. It was like I’d been here before, not just once, but thousands of times. I raised my arms to the sky and turned around, my eyes closed, feeling the wet wind against my face. My skin felt extra sensitive, my nerves taking in every little bit of stimuli: the breeze, changes in temperature, the sound of cars and buses shifting, a voice shouting to my right. I touched the back of my hand, where Conor’s thumb had rubbed small circles.
Conor.
And then, as though I’d willed him into being, when I opened my eyes he was walking toward me, a huge grin on his face. He was wearing his blue sweater and dark jeans and leather boots. His hair was damp, curling around his ears.
He stopped ten feet away. We stared at each other.
“Are you all right, then? Is this what Americans do, come to the beach and like, I don’t even know what you’re doing there, modern dance?”
I laughed. “I went for a run and then I was just—let’s say I was communing with Sandymount Strand. Into eternity.”
“Ah, communing. That sounds suspicious.” He glanced down along my body and I was conscious suddenly of my bare legs, my arms and shoulders under my sleeveless shirt.
We began walking back toward the park and when he started around the path toward the Poolbeg Lighthouse, I fell in next to him, my whole body floating with joy. I tried not to smile, to giggle. He’s here. I thought of him and now he’s here! And he’s walking with me. He could have said he needed to go. But he didn’t. It means something. It must mean something.
“I didn’t realize it was so warm today,” he said. “Or did you actually exert yourself so hard you sweat? That’s very un-Irish, you know. You should be careful jogging around here. Someone might think you robbed a bank.”
“I did get some funny looks. I should be careful. The Guards may be on their way.”
A gull called, very near, and we glanced at each other, and then we started as a cloud of small black birds rose and swooped over the sand, then settled down again.
“I’m—”
“What—”
We laughed and he said, “Pardon?”
“What are those birds called?” I asked him. “The little ones.”
“Sandpipers, I think,” he said.
“You don’t sound very certain.”
“Sandpipers!”
“That’s right, own it.”
He laughed. We walked in silence for a minute, then he started to say something, turning to me and opening his mouth and then swallowing and turning away. He looked miserable.
“What were you going to say?”
“Oh, just that—” He stopped walking. “Look, I’m sorry about the other night. I … had a great time with you. I like … talking to you. A lot. But I—The thing—” Finally, he stammered it out. “I’m—I have a girlfriend and I shouldn’t have—well, I guess that’s the thing. I have a girlfriend.”
“Oh.” I looked up at him. “So, you and Erin, there was nothing going on between you?”
He blushed. “No. That’s not … We were … just friends. That’s all.” He looked away. He was so uncomfortable I could feel it hanging in the air between us.
“What’s her name? Your girlfriend?”
He hesitated. “Bláithín.” Blah-heen.
“Did Erin meet her?”
He rolled his eyes a little. “Yeah, that didn’t go so well. Bláithín got really stroppy about it.”
“Is it serious?”
“Yes.” He looked away.
“Shit.” I said it without thinking. “I think I really like you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I was thinking about you when I opened my eyes and saw you. That has to mean something, right?” His eyes were wide, shocked.
It was desperate. And honest. I had never said anything like it to anyone before. But there was something about him, and the place, and the air on my bare skin, and the little dark birds whirling in the sky, and Erin missing, too, I guess. I felt stripped down, incapable of pretending. The wind whipped at my skin, tiny drops of rain like needles on my cheek. I was completely exposed. It felt like the wind could carry me away.
“I—” He met my eyes and looked away. For a moment I thought he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “God, I love talking to you. And I—Well, I’m just sorry.”
Talking to you. That’s it. That’s all he likes.
I started walking again and he followed.
The silence was better now, not exactly comfortable, but not so charged as it had been just a few minutes ago. I felt light-headed and fragile and somehow clean.
“Do you know what that is?” he asked after a few minutes, pointing at a spot on the path.
“What?”
“It’s where Gerty MacDowell flashed your man Leopold Bloom in Ulysses.”