Lost & Found

LOST & FOUND

  Aonghus Fallon

  Copyright 2016 Aonghus Fallon

  Afterwards, Cormac wondered. Had there been any other little differences? Tiny clues that everything wasn’t as it was supposed to be? Like that shoe-shop on the corner of Parliament Street, for example?

  Strangely enough, he didn’t feel any inclination to go back and check.

  He’d finished work and been heading down Dame Street, on his way to catch the Luas home. It had been dusk, each shop front suddenly a blaze of light, just like the buses which rumbled monotonously past. The pavement had been crowded with people – Thursdays tended to be busy.

  What had he been thinking about? The new ad campaign for Connolly and Co., initially. Then him and Maureen. Things hadn’t been great between them. If it hadn’t been for the girls….

  And then what? What had he been thinking about afterwards? Because Cormac had a sneaking suspicion this was important. Because how else had he suddenly found himself standing in front of that metal door, in an alleyway just off the quays, a door that shouldn’t have been familiar at all, but which was suddenly as familiar as the lines and whorls of his own hand? Every scratch and dent and piece of illiterate graffiti?

  Painting. Had to be. Because this was the door to his studio. Already he could feel that familiar warm glow of an anticipation as he reached into his pocket to take out his keys.

  Only to realise as he was about to do so that this was nonsense. He hadn’t painted in years. And he’d never rented a studio in his life.

  And suddenly it wasn’t true. None of it.

  But he couldn’t stop staring at that door, knowing for a moment that it had been true. Even as he stepped back, then reluctantly turned away, he reached up to massage the back of his scalp. A familiar stubble met his finger tips. Yet, for a second, just for a second, he’d expected to touch a ponytail.

  Standing in the tram as it swayed and shook and rattled on through suburbs hidden by the evening gloom, he mulled over what had happened.

  Maybe everybody had a similar experience, sooner or later. A moment when your brain, usually so reliable, running smoothly and evenly on its tracks for year after year, took an unexpected detour, or had to stop while some cow was moved off the line.

  Maybe.

  Maureen’s body was hard and unyielding when he hugged her, and her eyes didn’t meet his. They stared over his shoulder, dark and cold as a winter’s night. Some row they’d had that morning, a row he’d already largely forgotten. Rose and Bridget were great, though: scrambling up onto his lap and hugging him. Asking him how his day had been.

  Rose was quiet and serious. She rarely smiled. That had bothered him at first, but she was actually a really sweet kid. A day-dreamer.

  Bridget was another matter entirely. A feisty little redhead with a mind of her own. Bridget could twist him round her little finger.

  His daughters. They made everything worthwhile just by being themselves.

  Then he glimpsed Maureen, sitting at the end of the table, arms crossed, watching the three of them together.

  Maureen had only ever been pretty at best. Ten years had eroded much of that prettiness, but sometimes – like now, her face in repose, a Spanish, almost Egyptian cast to her features – he could see what had first attracted him to her.

  Of course it was more than that. Maureen could be a contrary bitch but just looking at her was enough to remind him all over again just how much she mattered to him.

  Exactly how much was made clear a second later, when he saw her face thaw. The sudden warm glow which filled him, the intensity of it, nearly took his breath away.

  Things were going to be OK.

  Later though, lying in bed after making love to his wife, feeling safe and secure in his own house, his family asleep, Cormac rested his head on his hands and stared up at the bedroom ceiling, hidden in the darkness, and asked himself one simple question: would you go back?

  And suddenly his whole body had been covered in a fine dew of perspiration at the very idea.

  He exhaled slowly, reluctant to acknowledge what this actually meant: that he was scared. Scared of what might have happened. Of standing in front of that door again, of reaching into his pocket and finding the keys to a studio that didn’t exist.

  To a life that didn’t exist.

  Ranelagh. A week later. He’d just finished classes for the day – he was a teacher in a small girl’s school. Now he was en route to a pub in the city centre to meet some old college friends. It was a chilly but fine evening –

  A teacher?

  His phone rang. It sounded wrong. And when he took it out, it looked wrong. Or did it? He didn’t recognise any of the names on it, not even the name of the woman trying to contact him.

  Some sixth sense stopped him answering. Even as he put the phone away with trembling hands, he saw there was practically no traffic. A strange, eerie hush hung over the city. People bustled past him, all wearing long overcoats and hats – or caps – of the same dark colour, their expressions unreadable and unfamiliar.

  Why did he suddenly feel like a stranger in his own city?

  He found his way back somehow, but one image still lingered in his mind; an image of the people he’d been supposed to meet. He could still see each one clearly in his mind’s eye. A bloke ten years younger then him, with a round, ruddy, cheerful face, brown eyes and a dark crew-cut: his best friend. A fat woman with blonde hair. A tall, cynical chap with a beard. Just like he could remember what his best friend always said in greeting – How’s it going, Me Bold Segosha?

  Only their names eluded him.

  If he’d actually turned up in that pub, he’d have known their names and their histories. He was certain of this. But that would have meant crossing a line, and maybe – the fear was as irrational as it was convincing – maybe never coming back. He wouldn’t even remember making that choice. The kids would have been completely forgotten.

  Forgotten because they had never existed.

  An alleyway off O’Connell Street, littered with rubbish. Steam poured out of vents. Dark, dirty walls covered in fire escapes loomed on either side of him. The air was filled with the cries of gulls and the distant murmur of traffic. His clothes were tattered and filthy. He pulled his ragged fleece closer to him, stared down at his manky shoes, and wondered, as he shuffled forward, how much longer he could survive.

  He could see O’Connell Street waiting for him at the end of the alleyway, bathed in a burst of winter sunlight. Again, something struck him as not quite right: enough to make him stop in his tracks.

  Yeah. The street suddenly seemed like a faded, dilapidated copy of itself, complete with battered old cars that looked as if they’d been remaindered from some 70’s detective show. Even the signage –

  It happened three more times. By then he was slowly developing a theory: that the present had a past as full of possibilities as its future. A hundred different back stories, changing constantly to suit the needs of the moment – maybe with certain iterations occurring again and again, like the theme in some symphony, iterations influenced by what people wanted, or what they worried or wondered about. The city centre was a focal point. So many people, so many possibilities.

  Each iteration left a faint, ghostly echo in its wake. What everybody dismissed as unfounded fears or day dreams, he suspected.

  Only what made him different?

  He didn’t know. He only knew that Rose, Bridget and Maureen existed in just one iteration. Remembering them had helped him find his way home on all five occasions.

  He and Maureen had been students when they met, both still in their first year at art college. He couldn’t remember how it had started – a bit of banter as they queued in the canteen, he thought. Soon they were inseparable
. One thing had led to another and Maureen had been pregnant before the end of the academic year.

  He’d actually been dead chuffed.

  Looking back on it, he realised they’d both just been kids: totally unprepared for married life and the complicated business of rearing a family. Still, they’d done their best. They’d had their fair share of ups and downs. There had been days when neither of them spoke a word to one another. Then something would happen, some unexpected moment of tenderness on his part or hers, and it would be as if they’d never argued at all.

  The one thing he secretly regretted was not painting. He’d switched over to Communications after Maureen had got pregnant, which was how he’d ended up working for an advertising agency. He was a parent. He had responsibilities and he was determined to fulfil those responsibilities. Only he’d lost some vital piece of himself in the