‘Shut up,’ Elizabeth said harshly, throwing her purse at him but letting her smile show. ‘Oh, look,’ she was distracted by a shooting star, ‘what’s going on up there tonight, I wonder.’
‘It’s the Delta Aquarids,’ Ivan said as though that explained everything. Elizabeth’s silence made him continue. ‘They’re meteors that come from the constellation Aquarius. The normal dates are the fifteenth of July to the twentieth of August but they peak on the twenty-ninth of July. That’s why I had to take you out tonight, away from streetlights.’ He turned to look at her. ‘So yes, all of this was just to get you on your back.’
They studied each other’s faces in comfortable silence until more action above diverted their attention.
‘Why don’t you make a wish?’ Ivan asked her.
‘No,’ Elizabeth said softly, ‘I’m still waiting for my Jinny Joes wish to come true.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Ivan said seriously. ‘They just take a while to process. You won’t be waiting long.’
Elizabeth laughed and stared hopefully up into the sky.
A few minutes later, sensing her sister would be on her mind, Ivan asked, ‘Any word from Saoirse?’
Elizabeth gave a single shake of her head.
‘She’ll be home,’ Ivan said positively.
‘Yes, but in what condition?’ Elizabeth said uncertainly. ‘How is it other families manage to hold it together? And even when they’ve problems, how do they manage to keep it from the rest of the people in their neighbourhoods?’ she asked in confusion, thinking about all the whispers she had been hearing over the past few days about her father’s behaviour and her sister’s disappearance. ‘What’s their secret?’
‘See that cluster of stars right there?’ Ivan asked, pointing upwards.
Elizabeth followed his hand, embarrassed to have bored him with talk of her family so much that he’d changed the subject. She nodded.
‘Most meteors from a common meteor shower are parallel to one another. They appear to emerge from the same point in the sky called “the radiant” and they travel in all directions from this point.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Elizabeth said.
‘No, you don’t see.’ Ivan turned on his side to face her. ‘Stars are like people, Elizabeth. Just because they appear to emerge from the same point doesn’t mean that they do. This is an illusion of perspective created by distance.’ And as if Elizabeth hadn’t quite understood the meaning he added, ‘Not all families manage to hold it together, Elizabeth. Everyone moves in different directions. That we all emerge from the same point is a misconception; to travel in different directions is the very nature of every being and every existing thing.’
Elizabeth turned her head and faced the sky again, trying to see if what he said was true. ‘Well, they could have fooled me,’ she said quietly, watching more appear from the blackness every second.
She shivered and wrapped her shawl around her tighter; the sand was getting cooler with each passing hour.
‘Are you cold?’ Ivan asked with concern.
‘A little,’ she admitted.
‘Right, well, the night isn’t over yet,’ he said, jumping to his feet. ‘Time to warm up. Mind if I borrow the keys to your car?’
‘Not unless you intend driving away,’ she joked, handing them over.
He retrieved something from under the table once again and brought it to the car. Moments later music was softly drifting through its open door.
Ivan began to dance.
Elizabeth giggled nervously. ‘Ivan, what are you doing?’
‘Dancing!’ he said, offended.
‘What kind of dancing?’ She took his extended hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.
‘It’s the soft-shoe shuffle,’ Ivan announced, dancing expertly in circles around her on the sand. ‘Also called the sand dance, you’ll be interested to know, which means that your mother wasn’t so mad wanting to do the shuffle in the sand after all!’
Elizabeth’s hands flew to her mouth, tears filled her eyes with happiness as she realised he was fulfilling yet another of her and her mother’s intended activities.
‘Why are you fulfilling all of my mother’s dreams?’ she asked, studying his face and searching for answers.
‘So you don’t run away like she did in search of them,’ he replied, taking her hand. ‘Come on, join in!’
‘I don’t know how!’
‘Just copy me.’ He turned his back and danced away from her, swinging his hips exaggeratedly.
Lifting her dress to above her knees, Elizabeth threw caution to the wind and joined in dancing the soft-shoe shuffle on the sand in the moonlight, laughing until her stomach was sore and she was out of breath.
‘Oh, you make me smile so much, Ivan,’ she gasped, collapsing on the sand later that evening.
‘Just doin’ my job,’ he grinned back. As soon as the words had left his mouth his smile faded and Elizabeth detected a hint of sadness in those blue eyes.
Chapter 30
Elizabeth allowed her red dress to slide down her legs, gather at her ankles and then stepped out of it. She wrapped a warm bathrobe around her body, pinned her hair up and climbed onto her bed with a cup of coffee she had brought from upstairs. She had wanted Ivan to come to bed with her tonight; despite her earlier protests she had wanted him to take her in his arms on the sand in the cove right there, but it seemed the more she felt drawn to him, the further he pulled himself away.
After they had watched the stars dancing in the sky, and then they had danced on the sand, Ivan had withdrawn into himself in the car on the journey home. He had asked her to let him out in the small town, from where he would make his own way home, wherever home was. He had yet to bring her there or introduce her to his friends and family. Elizabeth had never before been interested in meeting the others in her partners’ lives. She felt as long as she enjoyed their company, whether or not she liked the company of those who surrounded him was irrelevant. But with Ivan she felt she needed to see another side to him. She needed to witness his relationships with other people so he could become a three- dimensional character to her. That was always the argument old partners had with Elizabeth and now she finally understood what it was they were searching for.
Elizabeth had watched Ivan in her mirror as she drove away; intrigued to know what direction he would walk in. He had looked left and right down the deserted streets that were empty at the late night hour, began to walk left in the direction of the mountains and the hotel. After a few steps he stopped, turned round and walked in the other direction. He crossed the road and strode confidently toward Killarney but halted suddenly, eventually folded his arms across his chest and sat down on the stone windowsill of the butcher’s.
She didn’t think he knew where home was, or if he did, he didn’t know his way there. She knew how he felt.
On Monday afternoon Ivan stood at the doorway to Opal’s office and chuckled as he listened to Oscar ranting to Opal for a steady ten minutes. As amusing as he was to listen to, they’d have to hurry their meeting along because Ivan was due to meet Elizabeth at 6 p.m. He had twenty minutes. He hadn’t seen her since the Delta Aquarids viewing on Saturday night, the greatest night of his long, long life. He had tried to walk away from her after that. He had tried to leave Baile na gCroíthe, tried to move on to someone else who needed his help, but he couldn’t. He didn’t feel drawn to any other direction other than Elizabeth and it was stronger than any other pull he had experienced before. This time it wasn’t just his mind that was pulling him, it was his heart too.
‘Opal,’ Oscar’s serious tones floated out to the hallway, ‘I desperately need more staff for next week.’
‘Yes, I understand, Oscar, and we’ve already arranged for Suki to help you in the lab,’ Opal explained gently yet firmly. ‘There’s nothing more we can do for now.’
‘That’s simply not good enough,’ he fumed. ‘On Saturday night millions of people viewed the Del
ta Aquarids, do you know how many wishes will come shooting in here over the next few weeks?’ He didn’t wait for an answer and Opal didn’t offer one. ‘It’s a dangerous procedure, Opal, and I need more hands. While Suki is extremely efficient in the administration area, she is not qualified in wish analysis. Either I’m helped out by more staff or you’ll have to find a new wish analyst,’ he puffed. With that he stormed out of the office, past Ivan and down the hallway mumbling, ‘After years of studying to be a meteorologist I get stuck doing this!’
‘Ivan,’ Opal called.
‘How do you do that?’ Ivan asked, entering the office. He was beginning to think she could see through walls.
She glanced up from the desk, smiled weakly, and Ivan took a quick intake of breath. She looked very tired, with dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. She looked as if she hadn’t slept for weeks.
‘You’re late,’ she said gently. ‘You were supposed to be here at 9 a. m.’
‘I was?’ Ivan asked, confused. ‘I only called in to ask you a quick question. I have to rush off in a minute,’ he added quickly. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, he sang in his head.
‘We agreed you would cover for me today, remember?’ Opal said firmly, standing up from her desk and walking round to the other side.
‘Oh, no, no, no,’ Ivan said quickly, backing towards the door. ‘I’d love to help you, Opal, really I would. Helping is one of my favourite things to do but I can’t now. I’ve made plans to meet my client. I can’t miss it, you know how it is.’
Opal leaned against the desk, folded her arms and cocked her head to one side. She blinked and her eyes closed slowly and tiredly, taking an age to open again. ‘So she’s your client now, is she?’ she said wearily. Dark colours surrounded her today. Ivan could see them spreading out from all around her body.
‘Yes, she’s my client,’ he replied less confidently. ‘And I really can’t miss her this evening.’
‘Sooner or later you’re going to have to say goodbye to her, Ivan.’
She said it so coldly, without padding or frills, that it chilled him. He gulped and shifted his weight to his other foot.
‘How do you feel about that?’ she asked, when he didn’t answer.
Ivan thought about it. His heart thudded in his chest and he felt as if it was going to move up through his throat and out of his mouth. His eyes filled. ‘I don’t want to,’ he said quietly.
Opal’s arms lowered slowly to her sides. ‘Pardon?’ she asked, a little gentler.
Ivan thought about his life without Elizabeth and he raised his voice more confidently. ‘I don’t want to say goodbye to her. I want to stay with her for ever, Opal. She makes me feel happier than I’ve ever felt before in my life and she tells me that I do the same for her. Surely it would be wrong to walk away from that?’ He smiled widely, recalling the feeling of being with her.
Opal’s hardened face softened. ‘Oh, Ivan, I knew this would happen.’ There was pity in her voice and he didn’t like it. He would have preferred anger. ‘But I thought you of all people would have made the right decision a long time ago.’
‘What decision?’ Ivan’s face crumpled at the thought of his having made the wrong one. ‘I asked you what I should do and you wouldn’t tell me.’ He began to panic.
‘You should have left her a long time ago, Ivan,’ she said sadly, ‘but I couldn’t tell you to do that. You had to realise it for yourself.’
‘But I couldn’t leave her.’ Ivan sat down on the chair before her desk slowly as the sadness and shock crept through his body. ‘She kept seeing me.’ His voice was almost a whisper. ‘I couldn’t leave until she stopped seeing me.’
‘You made her keep seeing you, Ivan,’ Opal explained.
‘No, I didn’t.’ He stood up and walked away from the desk, angry at the suggestion that anything about their relationship had been forced.
‘You followed her, you watched her for days, you allowed the small connection you both had to blossom. You tapped into something extraordinary and made her realise it too.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he spat, pacing the room. ‘You have no idea how either of us is feeling.’ He stopped pacing, marched up to her and looked her directly in the eye, his chin lifted, his head steady. ‘Today,’ he spoke with perfect clarity, ‘I am going to tell Elizabeth Egan that I love her and that I want to spend my days with her. I can still help people while I’m with her.’
Opal’s hands went to her face. ‘Oh, Ivan, you can’t!’
‘You taught me that there was nothing that I couldn’t do,’ he snarled between gritted teeth.
‘No one else will see you but her!’ Opal exclaimed. ‘Elizabeth won’t understand. It just won’t work.’ She was clearly distraught by this revelation.
‘If what you said is true and I made Elizabeth see me, then I can make everyone else see me too. Elizabeth will understand. She understands me like nobody else has ever done. Do you have any idea what that feels like?’ He was excited now by the prospect. Before it had only been a thought, but now, now it was a possibility. He could make it happen. He looked at his watch: 6.50 p.m. He had ten minutes. ‘I have to go,’ he said urgently. ‘I have to tell her I love her.’ He strode towards the doorway with confidence and determination.
Suddenly Opal’s voice broke the silence. ‘I do know how you feel, Ivan.’
He stopped in his tracks, turned and shook his head. ‘You can’t know how this feels, Opal, not unless you’ve lived through this. You can’t even begin to imagine.’
‘I have,’ she said quietly and uncertainly.
‘What?’ He viewed her warily with narrowed eyes.
‘I have,’ she said with strength in her voice this time, and crossed her hands across her stomach, clasping her fingers together. ‘I fell in love with a man who saw me more than I had ever been seen in my whole entire life.’
There was a silence in the room while Ivan tried to come to terms with this. ‘So that should mean that you understand me all the more.’ He stepped towards her, clearly thrilled by the revelation. ‘Maybe it didn’t end well for you, Opal, but for me,’ he smiled widely, ‘who knows?’ He threw his hands up and shrugged. ‘This could be it!’
Opal’s tired eyes stared back at him sadly. ‘No.’ She shook her head and his smiled faded. ‘Let me show you something, Ivan. Come with me this evening. Forget the office,’ she waved her hand around the room dismissively. ‘Come with me and let me give you your final lesson.’ She tapped his chin fondly.
Ivan looked at his watch, ‘But Eliz—’
‘Forget Elizabeth for now,’ she said softly. ‘If you choose not to take my advice you’ll have Elizabeth tomorrow, the next day and everyday for the rest of her life. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’ She held out her hand to him.
Reluctantly Ivan reached out to take it. Her skin was cold.
Chapter 31
Elizabeth sat on the end of the staircase and looked out the window to the front garden. The clock on the wall said 6.50 p.m. Ivan had never been late before and she hoped he was OK. However, her sense of anger was rather more active at that moment than her worry for him. His behaviour on Saturday night gave her reason to think that his absence was due more to cold feet rather than foul play. She had thought about Ivan all day yesterday, about not meeting his friends, his family or his work colleagues, the lack of sexual contact and, in the dead of the night, as she battled to find sleep, she had realised what it was that she had being trying to hide from herself. She felt she knew what the problem was: Ivan was either in a relationship already or unwilling to enter into one.
Any niggling feeling she had along the way she had ignored. It was unusual for Elizabeth not to plan, not to know exactly where a relationship was going. She wasn’t comfortable with this big change. She liked stability and routine, everything Ivan lacked. Well, she was sure that now it could never work, as she sat on the stair waiting for a free spirit, just as her father was. And she never dis
cussed her fears with Ivan – why? Because when she was with him, every little fear dissipated. He would just show up, take her by the hand and lead her into another exciting chapter in her life, and while she was reluctant to go with him at times, often apprehensive, with him she was never nervous. It was when she was without him, moments like now, that she questioned everything.
She decided immediately that she was going to distance herself from him. Tonight would be the night she would discuss it with him once and for all. They were like chalk and cheese; her life was full of conflict and, as far as she could see, Ivan ran so far so fast just to avoid it. As the seconds ticked on and it moved into his fifty-first minute of being late it looked as if she didn’t need to have the conversation with him after all. She sat on the stair in her new cream casual trousers and shirt, colours she would never had worn before, and she felt foolish. Foolish for listening to him, believing him, for not reading the signs properly and, even worse, for falling for him.
Her anger was hiding her pain but the last thing she wanted to do was to stay home alone and allow it to surface. She was good at doing that.
She picked up the phone and dialled.
‘Benjamin, it’s Elizabeth,’ she said rather quickly, speaking before she had a chance to backtrack. ‘How would you like to get that sushi tonight?’
‘Where are we?’ Ivan asked, strolling down a darkly lit cobbled street in inner city Dublin. Puddles gathered in the uneven surfaces of an area that consisted mainly of warehouses and industrial estates. One red-brick house stood alone between them all.
‘That house looks funny there, sitting all on its own,’ Ivan remarked. ‘A bit lonely and out of place,’ he decided.
‘That’s where we’re going,’ Opal said. ‘The owner of this house refused to sell his property to the surrounding businesses. He stayed here while they sprung up around him.’
Ivan eyed the small house. ‘I bet they offered him a fair bit. He could probably have bought a mansion in the Hollywood Hills with what they would have paid him.’ He looked down at the ground as his red Converse runner splashed into a puddle, ‘I’ve decided cobblestones are my favourite.’