Seafra

Coyote and I stand in front of his parents’ house. My eyes sweep over the sash windows and stone walls and a sense of nostalgia surges through me. Memories float through my head-my aunt yelling, my uncle working in the garden, Coyote and I sneaking out of the house through the window at night. Hale bringing girls to his bedroom and his mother going mad because of it.

“It’s quiet,” I say. “Like fucking deadly quiet.”

“And empty,” Coyote says. “Like fucking deadly empty.”

“You think Hale will come to join us this time?”

“No, he definitely prefers his big glass house filled with half naked bodies. He hates this place.”

“Well, it’s his loss.”

We visit this house two-three times a year, when we need solitude to charge our batteries. Coyote has been nagging me to buy something in the mountains, but so far, we haven’t decided yet. Hotels, Hale’s place and Alice’s place are our shelters to crash in.

Coyote puts the key into the lock and turns it with a rasp then pulls the door handle and kicks the door open. The cool smell of damp settles in my nostrils.

“It needs airing,” Coyote says, switching on the light.

“And a good dusting.”

We put our bags on the floor in the hall, roll our sleeves up and tidy up the house. Coyote brings some food from the local grocery shop. We cook, eat and go to the burial ground around the medieval chapel. The bench under the crown of the old oak offers us a view over the entire village. The old mill works by the bottom of the hill as the visitors move across it like ants.

I sigh and a sense of loss surges through me. Hale and Coyote’s parents died in a car crash two years ago. They were cremated and buried in the town fifteen minutes’ drive from here, but Coyote and I visit this graveyard to reminisce about them.

“They’d want me to help Hale,” Coyote says.

“You heard what that psychologist we saw six months ago said. We have to leave him on his own otherwise, he won’t wake up.”

We’ve tried a lot of things, threats, pouring out alcohol into the sink, leaflets, swearing, silence.

Coyote’s jaw muscles twitch. “Leaving like leaving the band?”

“I don’t know. I like singing, but I’m tired with all the shit that comes along with fame.”

“I don’t know.” Coyote puts his elbows on his thighs. “The money is good.”

“Yeah, the money is good, but the life coming along with this money isn’t. I like small pubs with a small audience.”

“Me too.” His eyes wander off to somewhere in the distance. “We could buy a small pub and we could be business partners.”

“We could.”

Coyote kills a mosquito feeding on his forearm and stretches his legs out, crossing his ankles.

“I was thinking, Coyote.”

“When were you thinking? Like now?”

“Earlier in the house. I was thinking, you know, that there was some fucking higher purpose for Eavan to appear in my life.”

“Fucking hell,” Coyote says and looks at me with concern. “You okay?”

“Listen to me and don’t interrupt me.” I inhale deeply and huff out. “I want something different in life. I thought I would sing with the band for a year or two more years max then buy that small pub of my dreams or something.” Coyote’s face sharpens and he gives me his full attention as I continue, “I don’t want more shit in life from now on. No sex, no weed, no alcohol.”

“No beer?” Fear flickers in Coyote’s glance.

“Beer will be fine I guess. My point is that Eavan made me think. I will probably never see her again, but I want someone like her. Maybe if I’m well-behaved, someone like her will appear in my life.” Maybe some higher being will even bring Eavan back to me if I’m well-behaved. “If I throw the bad stuff out of my life, there will be room for the good stuff.”

“Well said,” Coyote says.

“I want to grow old with somebody nice, you know. Like Tony and Nicole.”

“Me too.”

“You won’t find somebody nice if are standing in the shit reaching up to your neck. The odour will scare away every nice person.”

“So from now on no shit?” Coyote says and nods several times.

“No shit. Beer?”

“Yes. ‘Monopoly’?”

“Beer and ‘Monopoly’.”

We rise from the bench and walk towards the house. Coyote enters it first and goes straight to the kitchen as I visit the bathroom. We settle ourselves in the living room on the floor, four cans of beer on the coffee table, the Monopoly spread between us.

“The loser is going to clean the pool,” I say.

“You always lose.”

“I fucking never lose. You always lose.”

“The loser will also give a half of his monthly earnings to a charity that supports cancer research.”

“As always,” I say.

“Maybe we should be greedier. Did you think about it?”

“Maybe.”

“If we were greedier, we would be happier with the shit in our life.”

“I think I prefer to be poorer and unhappy.”

Eavan

The car lamps floodlight the trees we pass. The rain taps against the roof as the windshield wipers emit a hypnotising sound. This sound brings memories to my head.

My mother’s hysterical voice. “They are our daughters.”

My father’s harsh voice. “I had no other choice.”

“You coward.”

“You fucking stupid cow. What do you want me to do? Hang myself?”

The squeal of the brakes. Ruby’s cry. My mother’s cry. Silence then heavy breaths.

My fear and helplessness.

My desire to die.

I move in my seat and correct the blanket around Ruby. She’s fast asleep, her breath steady. I glide my palm over her cheek and she shudders in her dream.

“How much longer?” I ask.

“About an hour,” Jack says from the driver’s seat and corrects the rear-view mirror.

The lights of the cars passing us in the opposite direction blind me. Jack changes gear and the engine roars as the car outruns the truck.

We’ve been driving for six hours and have stopped twice to pee and eat.

“You will like it there,” Jack says.

“I have no other choice but like it there.”

“I’m trying my best.” There is a hint of anger in his voice.

“I know,” I say gently.

He is tired so I fall silent, not to evoke any argument between us. The pause is filled with Ruby’s snoring then I listen to the sound of the raindrops tapping a monotonous song that makes me feel suffused with a sense of loss.

“You haven’t been very talkative today,” Jack says.

“Maybe I have nothing important to say.”

Jack inhales sharply. “I told you not to socialise, not to make any connections.”

“Yes, you told me.”

“So, listen to me.”

“I always listen to you.”

Jack growls as I turn my face and stare at the objects we pass, a pub, a high wall of an estate, a church. Historic houses made of stone, a supermarket. We turn into a narrow road, guarded by two walls of vegetation. A fog surrounds us like it’s alive, magical.

My thoughts travel to Seafra. He must have waited for me at the Randell’s in the morning. I couldn’t call him even though I wanted to.

Sadness strips me of energy. It must be like this. It had to be cut in the very beginning before I felt something.

My fingers travel to my mouth and I glide them over my lips. I yearn for Seafra’s kiss, crave his voice whispering into my ear and his skilled fingers on my body. He knows how to touch a woman. Of course, he knows. Women crowd in his life, throw themselves at him.

I would have been one of them; I would have been forgotten after just one sex.

This realisation doesn’t evoke my negative emotions though. I can’t afford to be even a one night stand for anybody.

Seafra wanted to eat breakfast with me. Me? He’s a rock star. Not the most famous one, but still a star. They don’t eat breakfasts with some unimportant people like me. Warmth washes over my heart. I think he can be really nice and normal, but I guess I will never know. Jack is taking us to another hole where Ruby and I are going to rot in solitude.

“Are you hungry?” Jack asks.

“No.”

“I need to stop anyway to piss. I can buy you a sandwich at a petrol station.”

“Sure. I’ll have a sandwich. Buy one for Ruby as well.”

Ruby straightens and yawns. “Where are we?”

“Only ten miles left to reach our destination,” Jack says.

“I need the toilet,” Ruby says and covers me with the blanket.

Five minutes later, Jack turns into a petrol station and stops to fuel the car as I help Ruby attach her prosthetic legs. Jack helps her get out and offers her his elbow as they walk to pay and use the toilet.

I take my phone out of my bag and choose Seafra’s number from my contacts. My hand trembles. I can’t. I fucking can’t.

I throw the phone back into the bag and lean back.

Prison would be more bearable. In fact, I’m living in prison even though there are no walls around me.