Impspired Issue 38

Keel

October 2015The sky is bruised. Sea spaghetti is combing the shoreline like a school nurse preying nits on scratched heads. It is mesmerising. Like you. We are at the top of the incline, looking across to the mainland. The white rain has lifted and Knocklayd is showing off in the distance. You have taken off your patterned raincoat and aphid like insects are stinging the grass.         ‘Kevin asked me te marry him.’          We are seventeen and planning to leave the island and travel the world. A week ago, we lay in this grass, tracing the map in the back of your journal, our fingers lingering on the places we are going to see. ‘Whit’s that about?’ I’m waiting for you to laugh.                    ‘Love, obviously. You wouldnae get it, Enoch. You’ve no even had a boyfriend.’         We know why. You said I didn’t need to explain myself. If I chose to, I could writhe in pain, but I relax my shoulders and nod. You’re right, I’ve never had a boyfriend, but I do not need to have held a man to know love.          A tiny rock pipit has landed on a stone beside me. I turn, wondering if you can see it too, but you’re lost in the split ends of your hair. The bird is still there, curious in the way she is watching me. I meet her eye, and she opens her black bill as if to speak. She changes her mind and takes flight, disappearing off the coastal path and down the cliff. I wonder what it would feel like if you and I were soaring alongside her.         ‘That wis awkward. Whit did ye say?’ I’m smiling. Kindness will have followed your silent loathing, so Kevin didn't feel slighted by your rejection.         ‘I said aye. I told ye it wis love, didn’t I?’         Your words engulf me and for a moment I teeter on the edge. You are looking out to sea, and I search for what you’ve found. The waves are churning, creatures haggling beneath the frothy facade. Years ago, sailors believed that dense forests of sargassum were monsters, capable of disappearing entire ships and crews.           ‘Ye did, Helen. Dae ye still have time for a swim?’          You are from land, but I am from water. I’m already on my feet, tearing at my clothes. I need to feel the sea burn my face. You say fuck it and even though you hate it, you join me, in your underwear, swimming around the wireweed.                          October 2024We didn’t realise you had vanished until it was too late. We couldn’t stop you. Or save you. Your silence was, and still is, unbearable. The Police came and went, their enquiries stretching to a few days, their interest waning long before they left. You weren’t in danger. You left of your own volition, and we shouldn’t be wasting their time. But a week or so later, a fisherman drinking in our local changed the landscape. At first, he was passive, dipping his foot into the stream of theories abounding the bar. And then he went with the flow, sweeping into centre stage, holding a secret about you on the tip of his tongue.          The night that lassie disappeared? I saw a wummin leave.           We paused and waited and I drew closer, desperate to be within reach of eyes that might have seen the outline of your face. If he was glass, I would smudge my reflection.          An' ah'll tell ye whit, he added, ah’m no sure she wanted tae be going anywhere.               The man carried on, drinking our attention, his throat swallowing the satisfaction. Seeking shelter from the wind enroute to Donegal, he berthed in Rathlin. Later, when the sea was calm, he was cleaning the deck when he saw a woman on the pier. He recalled how he had leant over the stern and called out to her, asking if she needed help. I tried to interrupt his monologue and find out the last words that you might have said, because I knew it was you, but he cut across me, telling me she turned her heid in the other direction. Apparently, you walked to a man and a vessel at the end of the pier. This infuriates me. I would have stopped and decked this fuckin idiot, and now that I think about it, so would you, if you were being yourself. I left without asking what the man looked like. I’d already worked it out. Sixteen hours after you left, we realised Kevin’s brother John was missing too. Perhaps it was a coincidence, I mused, without serious intent, while the truth mocked me with quiet determination. I stiffened to the facts, recalling the times I wished my former husband dead, mostly, but not exclusively, when he had hammered me to the brink of my last breath. Can I still yearn for John’s death when he is with you? Yes. I think I can.         Scottish Martin had mentioned the name of the vessel so I tracked the Seas The Day. There’s an app for everything. Now I know the route you took, and I wonder if you ‘chose’ the sea because every trace of your journey would linger. Are you telling me to look for you? I keep looking. The boat voyaged from Rathlin to Whitehead, and then, as if in a change of mind, charted back up the Antrim coast to Carnlough. Is this a clue? The vessel remains there, abandoned like me. But where are you now, Helen Lennox, and why did you go? The note was pitiful. Sorry. I will explain. You didn’t even bother to attach your name.          You fuckin hate small boats. But even more, you despise the violence of the tides in the dark of night, so I can’t understand why you chose such an incongruous time to leave. I continue to use ‘chose’ with trepidation, even though the Police insist there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. Did you willingly leave me for him, or did he steal you from your senses? Perhaps you love him enough to have abandoned me; even though you know who he is and what he did. Or. You do not love him and you are wondering why I abandoned you; because I know who he is and what he did.  January 2025The night of the long shadows on the pier is constantly on my mind. The sun and moon continue to pirouette around the ghostly transaction, and I wait. It has been a hard road to get to January. You are still gone. Everyone is still uneasy. Scottish Martin has sailed away, yet local ears stay tuned to hushed conversations as theories pass between households. But gossip on this scale is unsustainable. Old habits have returned. Errands must be run. Lives must be lived.         I have stayed on the island, to be close to where you were, and your loss digs into my side like a stitch. Sometimes, sleep comes, and when I wake, my body tells me that this will be the day we get you back. My mind spins with the rush and lands on forgiveness. Anything to see you squint into the sun’s glare, or the way you rest your tongue on the crook of your bottom teeth when you’re thinking. Other times my eyes pierce my bedroom ceiling and letter-by-letter outline the words; she is dead. What’s worse is thinking that you died wondering why I did not save you.         But I cannot save you, because I am trying to keep myself safe. The bricks of my house bask in the time they enclosed me inside with John, wishing for blood, for murder perhaps, not caring if it were to be by him or of him.          And yet, you and I know that this place can be beautiful. Don’t we? The air is lighter, like the earth in the front garden. There was a time when planting spuds beneath the shelter of the low stone wall made me content. You’d sit and watch as I carefully extracted small stones from the soil, the saltiness from the air drying the back of our throats.          There were no rigs this year. There was nothing planted. Perhaps I was pruning my abandonment in advance. Do you remember the day I said I was going out to put white Lisbon sibies in the ground and you said, don’t, not today, let’s walk? I didn’t mind. There was a nip in the air, and the earth was cold. But you were cold, too. We walked. And you talked. But you didn’t say what you wanted to say. I know now you had already made a choice. When we reached the tumbledown house to the east, an ash tree was stretching through the upper window, as though it had risen from bed and was admiring the view. You were impatient, shrugging your shoulders, strands of your hair tumbling like autumn leaves.          Why are ye glaring at that? It gies me the creeps.         It’s intriguing. Generations of one family stayed there. I was nodding at the house, encouraging you to look at it. An’ then one day the last person left an’ this heartbroken wee home collapsed. Dae ye never wonder why the story ended? You rolled your eyes, and I laughed at the exaggeration, waiting for your response.         Every story ends, Enoch. We all dae stupid fuckin things, but we need tae live while we have a chance.          You linked your arm through mine. For a second, I wondered if you were dying and didn’t know how to tell me, but I turned and you were smiling. I inhaled your invitation and smiled back. My breath was quickening, perhaps you were trying to choose me an’ you. You encouraged me to keep walking, moving in and out of the space in the conversation you wanted to lead me to and never got to. Looking back I was right. That conversation was your way of telling me you had made a choice. That you were slipping unseen not to me but from me. I keep replaying the scene. My memory is like that now. Tortured. Sometimes though, the window draws me to it. I do not expect to see you wandering up the lane in the afternoon light, but I’m peering hopefully at the dirt track, willing the road to rise and carry you aloft in triumphant return. But I need to stop looking at hollow spaces.                    October 2025Your reappearance was in daylight, the low autumn sun binding to your back as you took your first step on land. You did not look back towards the boat, either with relief or longing, and I wondered if the monster was an illusion.          You are alive.          You are alive!  I tore up the calendar moments after your return, but I continue to watch and wait. I do not know what you came back to, or who you came back for. Flattering myself with the thought it might be me is disruptive. Days and nights have passed, and we are on the beach, meeting for the first time. We are yet to have a conversation, painful or otherwise. You are skimming a stone into the sea. I pick up a pebble and then discard it, choosing to pull you close, to release the lei of words braided around your spine. You sigh deeply, and for a moment I have hope. It is fleeting. Almost as quickly your emotions retreat. The shingle behind us is sighing, releasing water from its clutch. Alongside it, I slowly exhale my dignity.          You press your hand on my face and break free from my embrace, turning to the water. Things are different between us, but I am trying to be compassionate. A sea monster swallowed you whole. Yet, shamefully, I have selfish moments. I am hurt you could not see my frightened reflection in his eyes; that there is light in you when you hear his name. I lean into the wind. Shake my curls. What is the point of revisiting? As we heal, we need to give each other what we think we need and nothing more. I call your name but my voice is not the one I remember. I look up, expecting to see a curlew, but there is only cloud, struggling to keep its form before it turns to rain. The tide in front of us is tenacious, but I am not willing to hold a shell to my ear to shut off its currents. Do I hate you for choosing him (if you did) or do I hate him for hurting you with his hands and his mind (even though you have not shared this version of the story)? And still, I love you. You do not know this, but I found the poem you wrote on your return, posted online with the handle @Knockans, the viewpoint we hung out at as teenagers, planning our escape. Is this section a lifeline? It is easy to muddle the facts,to wonder,even when the answer has serrated edges.Chosen is stolen.          You are striding across the beach and I do not know if you are on my side, or his, or no-ones at all, but I know you are in pain. I find my voice. If he is watching, he will hear.          ‘Dae ye still have time for a swim, Helen?’         I press my finger into the palm of your hand, knowing the skin is thinner there. I guide you towards the wireweed. You lean into my path, tucking your fingers around mine. I search for a happy ending in the eyes that greet me, not knowing if you are curious or repulsed. So much is missing, but what if there is strength in what has yet to be discovered?          As the sea burns, I choose to see a hint of a smile.