Stepping Forward
By Paul Carroll
Published by Paul Carroll at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Paul Carroll
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public
domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.
For an old friend, who showed me there’s more to life than just existing.
With thanks to Emma, for her support;
Fiona, for her enthusiasm;
Rebecca for her wisdom;
And my Ninjas, for the madness.
In loving memory of my grandmother, Nina Carroll.
Table of Contents
SEPTEMBER 12TH 2011, 11:38am – MEATH
The sunlight was cold, given the time of the year. The house was only really picking up from the nightly chill that had spilled across the country, the fire burning away some of the summer’s supply of turf. The family dog was snuggled on the floor in the heat, bathing quietly indoors, away from the frostbitten air. The kettle was boiling in the kitchen, letting out a roar and a whistle at the same time, its contents as troubled as the atmosphere in the house.
Tara Darcy let the phone ring through for the third time, before hanging up. She expected this. Not just because of the time, but because her son never answered his phone to her when she needed him to. Her eyes looked up to the ceiling. Everything else was quiet, but the kettle and the crack of the flames. With shaking hands, she called again, just as the kettle calmed down. One more try, before she made the tea.
Ten seconds ringing. Fifteen. Twenty. It stopped. A hissing noise. “Alright?” came the disgruntled voice of her youngest son, away in Boston once again. Always away in Boston. Tara didn’t know what to say. No, that was entirely true. She knew what to tell him, but she didn’t know how to say it. But she had to stay in control. She couldn’t cry down the phone to him, she couldn’t try reason with him, she couldn’t try empathise with him.
“Come home, Alan,” she told him bluntly. She heard him swear, and she knew he was going to argue with her. “I’m telling you now, come home.” An order. It was an order. He’d refused her before, and he’d called her a bitch before, and he’d been sorry. He was always sorry when he refused her.
“What happened?” he asked her. “No one...”
Tara shook her head. “No, no Alan... it’s not like that. I need you to come home. There’s... there’s someone in your room.” Too vague. It was far too vague. She knew that, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him everything. She needed him to listen to her, first. She needed him to hear the concern in her voice.
“It’ll take hours to get back!” he told her. “And that’s assuming I get a flight. Call the guards, or something.” She heard him move to hang up the phone.
“He’s back!” she yelled down the phone. She heard the contemplated ‘who’ before he could even speak it. “He’s back... And he’s in your room. You need to talk to him, Alan. You need to bring him home.” She was surprised to find herself crying. “Please, just come back to us.”
“He’s back...” Alan whispered. “Holy shit...”
SEPTEMBER 12TH 2011, 6:42am – BOSTON
Alan’s housemates were stirred by the noise. Clothes being flung into a bag, zips being done and undone, sealed and unsealed, and everything closed again. They’d heard the shower, too, and thought nothing of it, until the noises began. They heard a few swears, and they’d heard a few cheers, and moans, and things they couldn’t put words to. They’d heard his phone ringing, and they hated that he’d kept the volume on, Place Your Hands ringing out into the house several times that morning.
“Al!” one of them called. He burst into the door. He was far too awake, too alert. Something had happened. “What the fuck, man?” There was the bag, and the suitcase, and his clothes on him, his most comfortable clothes, not the stuff he wore to work. There were his sunglasses on his head, resting in a dark nest of hair, and the mix of emotions locked behind his eyes. “Where are you going?”
Alan looked at the bag in his hand. He was really doing it. “I’m going home,” he announced. He didn’t realise it, at first. He was ready to go. He was ready to run back home, and he might have done, too, if it was possible. Or, he’d have driven his car, if he had it, if it wasn’t back in Meath. It’d be worth it, if his mother was telling the truth. He hoped it would be worth it.
“What happened, Alan? Who rang you this morning?” A shrug. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”
“Why the fuck do you think I came out here in the first place?” Alan asked him back. “Too much shit back home. But, it’s over. I can go back. I have to. My ma’d kill me if I didn’t go back, now. That was her. It’s over...” Only that his housemates knew what had happened did that make sense. Only that they knew why he had decided they go back to Boston was he making any sense right now. It was over.
“Where was he?”
“I’m fucked if I know,” Alan said to him, almost laughing. Almost. “But he was in my bedroom when my ma called. He’s at my house!” It was far too early for this news, but at least he could get back home before the day was done. It wasn’t entirely bad, and he wasn’t entirely hung-over. He might even still be a little drunk, and once he got some food into him at the airport, he’d be fine. He’d have to be, or the flight would be hell. Too much going through his mind without the alcohol from the night before joining it.
A brief hug. He almost didn’t see it happening. “Call us when you get home, when it’s all sorted, yeah? Maybe come back out.” Alan shook his head. “No?”
“When it’s sorted, I’m staying out there. Been gone too long, man. I might still be able to get back into college. They’ll understand, I’m sure. Everyone knows what happened.” Everyone knew, alright, but no one could explain it. No one could truly say exactly where he’d been, or why, after all this time, he was back, and in a house in Meath he’d never once seen before, let alone visited.
It was time for Alan to get answers. It had been far too long since he’d heard anything but ‘come home’, ‘what happened’ and ‘when are you going to start telling the truth’. He’d lost count of how many times he’d told someone to fuck off.
SEPTEMBER 12TH 2011, 11:50am – MEATH
He just sat there, on the bed with his bag on his lap, no smile, no frown, just wandering eyes and a head full of ideas and curiosity. Tara almost took pity on him, except... she wasn’t sure. She blamed him for Alan leaving. Everything had been okay. She had been sure of it. And yet here he was, sitting on Alan’s bed, in Alan’s room, far too casual for her liking. She knew his face from the news. She knew his name, because of Alan. She even knew how he took his tea, without having to ask. Alan told her that, too. Alan told her everything he knew about this guy, before he’d left for Boston.
She put the cup down on the dresser and sat down nearby. “He’s coming home.” No answer. “Alan, he’s coming back home from Boston. He’s coming to see you.” Still, silence. “Can you even hear me?” He nodded. “Then-”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said bluntly. His throat felt scratchy. He reached for the cup and she pulled it away. “Please?”
She placed it behind her. “Not until you explain yourself, Carl. What do you mean you don’t who I’m talking about? My son, Alan. The person whose bed you’re sitting on. You know him!” Carl shook his head. His eyes fell to the floor.
His hands opened his bag methodically. He didn’t know why he’d done this so many times, but nothing gave him answers. Nothing looked familiar, and so he was afraid to even touch it. He’d almost dropped it on the floor, except he was sure that it was all he owned. Finally his hand found something thin. He knew, without looking, that that was what he was looking for.
“Is this mine?” he asked Tara. He pulled out a passport. He didn’t know why he had a passport with him. “Is this mine?” he said again, with a little more urgency. She nodded. She assumed it was. It had to be, unless he got one from wherever he’d been. “Carl Doyle. Is that me?” He looked at the picture, then rushed for the mirror on the wall. Tara almost leapt to her feet, too, but she let him stare at himself.
His fingers traced everything, ran over his eyes, through his hair, down his cheeks, searching his lips and his nose and his chin. Everything was exactly as the photo told him and the mirror revealed. This was him. This was his photo.
“Where am I?” Who’s Alan? Who are you, for that matter?”
Tara didn’t know what to tell him. She didn’t have all the answers to the questions she knew he might ask, if he really didn’t know any of things he had already pondered. She moved the cup of tea back to the dresser. “Drink up. You look like you could use it.”
“Please!” he begged her. “Please, I just need answers. Where am I? Tell me that, at least. Tell me where I am.”
“You’re in my house, Alan’s house, in Meath. Do you know where Meath is?” He nodded. “You’re there. When he sees you, when he’s home, we’ll sort out getting you back to your family. He’s the only one who knows, anyway.”
Tara left him sitting there, back on the bed, back in silence. He could hear her crying outside, but he didn’t know what to say. She was a stranger. Alan, whoever he was, was a stranger. Carl was a stranger. Carl in Meath, in Ireland. A stranger to himself. He had his passport and he had his bag of things that didn’t make any sense to him, things he was afraid to touch, and beyond that all he had was his silence.
Carl thought he might cry, for a while, but he didn’t know why. There was just something about the room that got to him. It was perfectly ordinary, as far as he was concerned. It wasn’t too small or too big. It wasn’t dark, neither in colour or by how much light was getting through the window. It just held a very strange feeling in it, like it hadn’t been lived in very much. There were a couple of posters on the wall, which wasn’t strange. There were some CDs piled up next to a stereo, and a hurl leaning against the wall. The bed had been freshly made a long time ago.
“Boston...” Carl whispered to himself. He wracked his mind for something, anything about that place. Had he ever been there? Was he supposed to go there? What was it about Boston that got to him so much? His hands found their way into the bag again. He let it fall onto the bed beside him as he searched, not quite knowing what he was looking for, until, finally, he pulled out a notebook and a pen.
He didn’t look at them properly as he flicked to an empty page. BOSTON. AMERICA. THE US. He scratched out the words. BOSTON. CITY. DARREN SHAN. He paused and looked at the name. Darren Shan? The author? He scratched it out again. Yes, it was a connection to Boston, if only a loose one, if only through a very feint association with the word ‘city’. BOSTON. BAND. MUSIC. “Music!” Carl cheered. That was it.
He turned on the stereo. He didn’t know what was in the machine, but it was loading nonetheless. He figured he’d been lucky the third time around, and put on song three. He didn’t know what it was, what any of it was, as the disk continued to spin, to get ready to play, keeping him silent as he waited.
I’VE BEEN DOWN SO GOD DAMN LONG!
It blared from the stereo. Carl rushed to lower the volume, and hoped that it hadn’t been heard. He left the song playing. He knew it. He recognised it. The Doors. He knew The Doors. That was something, at least.
***
Tara had finally had enough of the quiet. One sudden outburst had erupted from the room, but that was it. That was all there was, and it wasn’t enough for her to worry. Not much more, anyway. She couldn’t handle this. Where was everyone when she needed them? The dog wasn’t much use, asleep, still, under the fire. Her husband was gone, out for the day. Her older children at work. All this on her day off. It was too much.
It was still far too early for Alan to get there. If she knew him, he wouldn’t be on a plane until as late as possible. He’d avoid Ireland with a passion, if he could help it. Sure, there was a chance to make everything better, now, but that hadn’t stopped him coming back late in the day in the past. And that was to sort out his life. That was to make sure he had something to work towards. Now he was off in America, again, back where he’d been three years ago, working and drinking and smoking. And gone.
Tara wasn’t stupid. She knew why he left, every single time she knew why he left. She knew why he came back, too, the last time. The last time, he’d had something to come back to. An old dream. An old wish. Something he’d always wanted. Tara knew that, he knew that, his girlfriend, bless her, knew that. Carl, upstairs, knew that.
There had been far too much talk about him. Far too much about what he was like, what he said and did, and how he did them. All the ways he helped, and all the troubles he had. All the things that Alan was there for, and all the things that they found out later. Tara was almost sick of it all, except that talking about him had kept Alan there. It had kept Alan at home. And then, just out of the blue, he was gone. He didn’t tell anyone, as far as Tara knew. He hadn’t had a chance to discuss it with anyone. He’d just worked, come home, gone to bed and done that for months on end.
Everything had changed, and Tara had to hear about the person who had done it, the young man sitting on her son’s bed.
AUGUST 25TH 2010, 1:17pm – DUBLIN
Alan worked in silence and in solitude in a shop in the back arse of Dublin. There weren’t many places like this in Dublin, where the customers were the select few that knew what they were looking for, not the people browsing for anything in particular. He didn’t work in a shopping centre, or even in a main town. It was shop, in the technical sense of the word. It was a retail outlet, more than anything else, backed away in an industrial estate just outside of Blanchardstown. It was close enough to home to drive to, and far away from everyone else that he wouldn’t get visitors.
Facebook was constantly being opened, and every time closed in a haste as a customer, or the boss, made their way towards him. He didn’t panic, when it happened, because he could close it very quickly, but it made having any sort of conversation far too difficult. Too many eyes watching him, wondering what he’s supposed to be doing, and why he’s not doing it.
Yet... the site was oddly quiet. None of the usual suspects were online, ready for a chat to get them through the boredom that had conquered the summer, on the site that had all but taken over their lives. Alan was no exception, save for the fact that he wasn’t just, or always bored, due to the fact that he was in work. Always in work. Seven days a week, all day, no break. That was how he liked it. He needed the cash for college, or he’d never get through his second year.
“Alan, I’m going on my break,” his boss announced. “Keep an eye on that till.” That was it, then. That was the time to do no work. With the boss on his break, Alan had time to take one of his own, without actually leaving the floor. And there it was – Alan online, and none of them there. At all. Sure, most actually got out during the day, but there were a few that seemed almost glued to their computers. Carl Doyle being one of them. And, to make things weirder, not a single text from him. In three days. That wasn’t like Carl. Carl was always online, there for a chat and wondering, in his paranoia, why Alan couldn’t stay three seconds, whether or not he was ignoring him or running away from him.
“Little self-conscious bastard,” Alan mused. From months on the frontline of battling Carl’s demons, Alan had surmised that his friend had too much time on his hands, too many worries, and not enough alcohol. And now he was silent. If there was reason to believe that Carl was actually doing something, which wasn’t entirely likely, then Alan wouldn’t have worried. But he’d said nothing the last time they spoke that suggested he had plans, or that anything was wrong. Generally speaking, if there was anything wrong with Carl, he told Alan.
Generally speaking, though, Carl had a habit of keeping quiet. As the summer went on, Carl stopped revealing everything that was wrong with him. He told Alan he was going through ‘morning crazy’, and left it at that. No further details followed, nothing at all to indicate what might be going through his head, and nothing at all to show that he was getting better or worse. He promised he’d be better when they got back to college, though again he never said why.
They had a deal. The pair of them, they had a deal. They would talk when something got them down. Carl did a lot of the talking, as the shift in his social life took a dramatic hold over him. Being alone didn’t suit him. Alan was used to it, so it hadn’t gotten to him. Every couple of months, he’d told Carl. Every couple of months he got a bit down himself. Carl had made him promise to talk when he needed to. Too much had happened for Carl to remember, and he was too far away to notice when Alan stayed quiet. Silence happens. It happens, and Carl wouldn’t always notice. Not if Alan had anything to do about it, anyway. He was a curious one, Carl. He was always asking questions and noticing things he shouldn’t when it suited him. Every story Alan told him had been said to be for another day, but Carl had picked up on that one.
Maybe silence wasn’t so bad, then. Maybe Carl was doing something with himself, and not just wallowing in self-pity, worrying about what people thought about him the whole time, and driving himself crazy by not letting it go. Long phone calls at bad times with Alan usually sorted him out, or suggestions of songs to listen to. Alan was good at those; he could talk for Ireland if he needed to, and everyone would listen, and he always knew what song someone should listen to to make them feel better. Every time with Carl he seemed to be right. That’s what he was told, at least.
No, Carl was fine. He wasn’t getting himself into any sort of trouble, or he’d have sent a text asking for a phone call, no matter the hour of the day it actually arrived, even if it was half one in the morning. Alan was worrying over nothing. He almost laughed at himself for that, worrying when he told Carl not to. It all hits the fan eventually, after all.
He’d check in with him later, to make sure he was okay. Just a casual Yola, and that’d be it. Grand job, no worries.
AUGUST 25TH 2010, 12:43pm – DUBLIN
The city centre was alive. More so than usual, with college students on the prowl for housing and the new academic year getting closer and closer. So when Carl struggled through the crowds with his bag hanging around his neck, he wasn’t surprised to find that he had to keep his hands held on to it protectively. He wasn’t alone, which was a nice change from his usual habit. He had Daniel and Sarah there with him, smiles on all their faces.
“Pity Alan’s working,” Sarah said to them. “It’s not the same without him.”
“I know what you mean,” Carl muttered. “Been a bit shit, really, compared to May. I don’t give a fuck that we had exams, that was the best month for getting to hang out with people properly.” Carl wished he didn’t swear so much. It was a habit he’d picked up in trying to live his life according to Alan’s philosophy: people, fuck ‘em; problems, fuck that! A very simple idea, really, that required only to stop caring. He was aware, of course, that by worrying about swearing he was breaking the rules.
Carl kept him hand on his bag. He had had an idea, a crazy idea that never quite worked itself out. He’d put together a package for it, anyway, and insisted on bringing along in secret, just in case. He didn’t feel safe with it there, hiding away in the shadows. He’d have to mention it soon.
“We could go surprise him at work,” he blurted out. He hadn’t meant to. He’d wanted to be a little more subtle about it all, maybe work it casually into the conversation, or at least give Dan a chance to speak his melancholy at not having his best friend around. Carl was sure that Alan was definitely a best friend to them all.
Sarah looked at him with a laugh ready to burst out. “What, get the train out to him?”
“Sure, it’s only twenty minutes away,” Carl told her. “I know how to get there, I think,” he said confidently.
“Did he tell you, or what?” Dan asked.
Carl almost laughed at that. He almost lied, too. “No, I’m just a freak who figures these things out.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the calls. “Okay, it’s gone now, but a while ago he called me when he was in work. He told me he was in work. I checked the number on Google. It was a crazy morning. It made sense to do this back then.” He was panicking already. He shoved the phone away and made his grip on his bag even tighter. “Besides, he has the link to their website on his Facebook. I noticed it ages ago.”
“Will he mind?” Sarah pondered. “I mean, he won’t get in trouble, will he?”
They’d been heading towards the Spire. That suited Carl’s plan, if it went ahead. Dan wanted to speak up, Carl could tell. He encouraged him to voice his opinion. “If we go, Carl has to say it was his idea.”
“Well it was,” Carl said with a shrug. “Do you really think he’ll care?” Dan didn’t answer. “It’s settled then. To the train station!” He announced it too loudly, and a few passers-by gave him a startled look. Alan’s philosophy... he reminded himself of Alan’s philosophy. In Carl’s mind, of course, Alan’s philosophy and the package in Carl’s bag led to a train of thoughts he couldn’t quite ignore, which is to say he began to think more about Alan the closer they got to the train station.
He might freak out. He hadn’t wanted Carl to ring his house, ever. He wasn’t allowed to talk to his mother. That was a rule. He also wasn’t allowed to get him a birthday present, the date swiftly approaching, or send him emails filled with concerns about everything from family matters to morning crazy. Rules governed their friendship. But they were understandable things; Alan didn’t always get along with his mother; Alan didn’t like that he was ‘approaching thirty’; and Alan got too worried when Carl sent him strange emails, then vanished for the night, meaning anything could happen.
For all his philosophy, Alan worried too much about what Carl would never do. He worried that Carl might perform an act so horrendously stupid he mightn’t even get a chance to regret it. In short, Alan worried for Carl’s well-being, to the extent that Carl had to keep far too much private. He almost felt guilty about it, except that he was only doing what he was told – don’t send an email, write it down on paper or ask to talk.
Morning crazy, though, had a way of only happening when Alan was asleep, or working later that morning. Carl couldn’t burden him like that. He’d already done too much to raise alarms. He had to make up for it all.
He barely noticed that they’d arrived at Connolly Station. Dan and Sarah had been talking the whole way there. Carl had slipped into silent thought, again. He couldn’t let them know, if they hadn’t already noticed. An idea from his morning crazy was about to work itself out. He gripped the bag even tighter as they made their way up to get their tickets.
SEPTEMBER 12TH 2011, 12:45 – MEATH
Tara finally succumbed to the mounting worry, and opened the door. Music was playing just loud enough to hear – The Doors, Riders on the Storm. Carl was in the middle of the room, spinning around in a circle, eyes half-closed in a daze, head swaying around and around. He didn’t notice her standing there, watching him as he let the music take over.
She bit back the urge to shout at him to turn it off, to turn off the stereo that belonged to her son who she’d feared she would never see again. She just watched him spin in circles, until, when the song finally ended, he crashed onto the bed, panting for breath, a smile creeping onto his face. That was when she made to leave the room, before he could see her, and when he called out, “I’m sorry.”
The door clicked shut behind her. She couldn’t deal with that. It was too late for sorry, far too late. She leaned back against the door. She could hear him sitting up, but that was it. He didn’t make his way towards her. He didn’t move from the room at all, and hadn’t done since he got there. He hadn’t checked to see if she was alright, or asked more about Alan, about where in Meath they were, or if it was even okay for him to stay there.
“Why The Doors?” she asked him. She didn’t notice herself entering the room. “Why did you play The Doors? Why them, of all the CDs in this room?” He shrugged. Of course he shrugged. “He said he got you in to them.”
Carl looked her in the eye. He didn’t know whether or not to believe her. She could see that on his face, the uncertainty that was inside him. “When?” he asked her. “When did he get me in to them?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. He said it was the movie.”
Carl pulled out the notebook again. He didn’t explain it to her. She just watched him writing down words on the page. She made her way towards him to see what he was writing. THE DOORS. MOVIE. JIM MORRISON. T-SHIR---
He fell to the floor, gripping the sides of his head with both hands, the notebook and his pen rolling from the bed to the floor. He let out a scream, balling up next to the bed, struggling to stay in one place, his face going red. Streams of tears ran from his eyes, splashing to the floor. Tara kept her distance. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know whether or not to grab him and keep him still, in case he injured himself, or whether she should call the ambulance.
No. Not the ambulance. She couldn’t bring him out of the house, or Alan wouldn’t get a chance to talk to him. Alan wouldn’t even believe he had been there. And just as she was resigning herself to let him suffer, Carl stopped. He wheezed for breath, coughing, panting, beads of sweat on his brow, clung to his fringe.
“May 2010,” he said with a hoarse voice.
Tara left him alone on the floor. She didn’t see him again until she placed a glass of water next to the door. Then she was gone, back downstairs to the dog, the fire and the silence.
***
Carl didn’t know why The Doors had had such a big effect on him. He didn’t know why he had spun around in circles, and he didn’t know why he’d been able to associate them with a t-shirt that he couldn’t remember. No, he could remember it now. But he couldn’t remember the face. He couldn’t remember Alan’s face, if it was Alan that had worn it. He remembered seeing Jim Morrison’s face on a wanted poster, and that was it.
May 2010. He remembered that it had been May 2010. He couldn’t remember anything else from that month except for The Doors and the t-shirt. His eyes fell on the wardrobe. He couldn’t hear any movements in the house, so he got up off the bed quietly. Treading softly across the carpeted floor, he reached out for the handle. His hand was shaking. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t care to reason with himself. He just grabbed a hold of the handle and pulled the wardrobe door open. Then the other one, without looking inside. He took a step back. He almost fell to the floor.
Two t-shirts and a Meath jersey. That was it. Two t-shirts, and one of them being Jim Morrison looking out at him. Carl sat back down on the bed, staring at them. The wardrobe had been cleared out. Alan... she had said it was Alan’s room. Alan in Boston. Alan who he couldn’t remember.
Everything here was Alan’s. The bed was Alan’s. Carl felt strange for sitting on it, now. He slid to the floor, taking the bag with him, gathering up the notebook and the pen and forcing them inside. He sat in the middle of the room. The door led to the rest of Alan’s house. The CDs were all Alan’s. The posters on the walls were Alan’s. The few items left in the wardrobe were Alan’s. The hurl against the wall was Alan’s.
But there was no Alan. There hadn’t been an Alan in a long time. Carl didn’t know why he knew that, but he could tell. Alan hadn’t been home in a while. Something had made him leave. Something...
JUNE 21ST 2011, 8:21am – MEATH
Journals. Dozens of them, all in the back of the car. Hundreds of pages of history no one wanted to read. Alan kept every last detail of his life in there. His life, and everything about Carl that he knew. Everything he’d been told, everything he’d assumed, everything he’d figured out. He couldn’t bring them with him. It wouldn’t do, to bring the past with him. So he’d put them all in a box he took from work and he sealed it up. He couldn’t get to them now if he wanted to.
His bags were packed. A half-battered suitcase and a hold-all. That was it. That was all he needed to leave. Most of his clothes were in there. A couple of things were in the wash. Morrison was left hanging up by himself. He couldn’t bring that one back to America. Not Morrison. Ancient history. He had to stay behind. He reminded him too much of Carl.
And that was it. He was going to get rid of the diaries, leave them in a safe place, then come home and catch a ride to the airport. No turning back, no regrets, no worries. He’d say goodbye to the one person who mattered, then he’d leave. She’d try to stop him, because she’d miss him. She missed him all the time. She didn’t get to see him, with all the trouble going on around him. Every time she saw him she said that. Every time she said how much she missed him, and how much she wished none of this had ever happened.
He felt the same. He missed seeing her, but at the same time he couldn’t see her. She wondered too much what had happened. Everyone did. Alan wasn’t too sure himself. That didn’t happen very often. Generally speaking, Alan knew what was going on. People spoke to him about what happened. People trusted him with information. But this was different. No one had answers this time around. No one could explain what had happened.
Before he knew it, he’d reached her apartment. He called her from outside, his boot open and ready for him to carry the box upstairs. She answered, wondering what he was doing calling at that hour, wondering why he needed her to open the door, wondering why he had a box he needed her to keep safe, but to never open. Ever.
She hugged him straight away. Before he could lift the box out the car, she hugged him. Her blonde hair fell over her face and got in the way of his. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she asked him accusingly. “You’re running away again.”
“I can’t stay here,” he said to her quietly. “Too many memories, and too many questions being asked. Claire, I don’t have a clue what happened that day, but people are still asking me.”
“And leaving the college wasn’t enough to get away from it all?” she snapped. “Running away from your dreams wasn’t enough for you? Now you have to leave me, too?”
He pulled her away from him, to look her in the eye. “I’m not leaving you, Claire. I’m leaving the country, but... Nothing will happen. I promise. One day you can move out there, too. We can just live the American dream, or something.”
“I have a job here, Alan. I’m happy here. My family are here. My friends are here. I can’t just run away from all that, because I’ve nothing worth running from. I can’t just leave for you, Alan.” She ran the back of her hand over her eyes, wiping away the tears. “You’re coming home. You’re not allowed stay over there.”
“You’re telling me what to do, then?” he asked her. “You’re going to force me to come home, are you? You’re going to make me have to face everything all over again? What if I don’t want to come back?”
She slapped him. She couldn’t help herself. He didn’t react. He didn’t get angry with her. He didn’t threaten to hit her back. “Three months. You can have three months. That’s the summer. You can spend the whole summer over there, but then you have to face up to everything, and you have to live your life. You’re dwelling on this too much, Alan, and I can’t handle it. You’re...”
Being selfish. Being a child. He knew what she wanted to say to him. He knew it, because he’d been told it before. He was running away from it all, because that’s what children do. They don’t like something, so they run away from it. And Alan was being a child. He wasn’t accepting the consequences of his actions like an adult. He was just being that same child that Claire had fallen in love with in the first place.
“Three months... and what if I can’t come home?”
She made to slap him again, but she stopped just short. She pulled him in to a hug. “Just stay in touch, please. Don’t forget that I’m here.” They didn’t have to say anything else after that. Standing there, in the growing heat, was enough. She understood him better than anyone else. She knew why he was doing this, and why he’d done it all before. “Now, where’s this box, Alan?”
He pointed at it in the back of his car. Far too big to be there, really, and far too difficult to get in and out, but there it was. Looking at them. A great big piece of Alan’s private life, just staring at them from the back of his Polo, all sealed up with duct tape, his name scrawled on the side of the box in thick, black marker.
“That’s everything. The whole lot. Everything from America, and everything afterwards. Take care of them, yeah?” She nodded, and kissed him on the lips. Gently, softly. “And don’t read them. No one’s allowed to read them.”
She nodded again, and he kissed her on the lips, open mouthed. And he wanted to keep doing it, to keep kissing her and to keep holding her, but he had to carry the box upstairs, then leave. He had to get away soon, or he’d never go, and he’d always be trapped with that box there to hold him back. The box, the apartment it would sit in, the girl he’d known and loved his entire adult life.
He was driving away before he knew what had happened. He’d kissed her a bit more, hugged her a bit more – and it had been a great hug – and he’d wiped away her tears, while holding back his own. Then he was gone, and he wouldn’t see her again. He didn’t know if he’d be back in three months or thirty years, if he’d come back in a seat or in a coffin, or if he’d even make it back at all.
Alan didn’t tell her goodbye.
SEPTEMBER 12TH 2011, 2:10pm – MEATH
Who was Alex Green? His name was there, on a book in Carl’s page. Carl knew the name. He knew it, and he thought that he knew the man. But he wasn’t in any way a significant person in the world. He wasn’t a rock star, or an actor, or a footballer, or a politician. He was a nobody, and his life story was in Carl’s bag. Carl knew every detail of it.
He held the book in his hands. His name was on the cover. His name shouldn’t have been on the cover, looking at him in plain text, like he was of some importance to the creation of this book. He wasn’t a biographer. He knew that himself. He wasn’t a biographer. He didn’t feel like a biographer. He was just this person on the floor of a stranger whose name had been said far too much without much explanation as to how he knew him, or who he really was.
There was no biography of Alan in this bag. There were peculiar mentions of him in a second notebook, but that was it. And even then, even those references, weren’t enough to construct an accurate image of this person in his head. He had nothing to tell him how he actually met Alan, or whether or not it was the same Alan in the notebook as the one whose room he sat in now.
There were no details of anyone in this bag but Alex Green. Alex Green had an interesting, if not crazy, life. Alex Green was a nutter. He had to be. And Carl’s name was on a book about him. Carl knew a nutter. That was it. Carl knew someone crazy.
“Who are you, Alex?” Carl muttered. “Who are you?”
He pulled loose his phone. He’d found it in his pocket, so he assumed it was his. But it wouldn’t turn on. The battery seemed to be dead, or the phone disagreed with him. Judging from the disagreeing camera in the bag, and the equally disagreeing iPod, he assumed that all the power was gone from them. None of them would switch on, and he didn’t have a charger for any of them.
He didn’t remember ever buying them. He didn’t remember ever switching them on. He didn’t know what numbers were on his phone, what songs were on his iPod, whose picture he had taken with his camera. He didn’t know if he cared. He should have cared, he knew, but he didn’t know if he did. Sitting there, on Alan’s floor, in the middle of a life he knew nothing about. Four walls of anonymity.
His legs fell asleep as he sat. The seconds ticked on by with dreadful length, a thousand creaking moments hung in the air of the room. The place was tired and lonely, a dungeon on the top floor of the house. A cage. A trap. No way out, not until... not until Boston. And...
Carl scrambled for the notebook again. He needed to figure this out. He had to figure it out. BOSTON. ALAN. CAGE. COLL-
The pen whacked against the wall this time, as Carl tumbled over. Alan, locked away in the room to make sure he went to college. Alan, trapped here until he went to Boston, but trapped because he went to Boston in the first place. Alan, a prisoner in his own home. And Alan, still without a face.
The headache lasted longer than before, and it hurt even worse. Carl had to bite into his sleeve to stop himself screaming out loud. He crawled across the room to retrieve the pen. The notebook was torn. He’d almost pulled the spine apart.
ALAN. MORRISON. MUSIC. MILEY CYRUS.
“Miley Cyrus?” Carl muttered. Then it hit him. Right, dead smack in the middle of his forehead, Miley Cyrus. Not the singer, Miley Cyrus. Someone else. Someone he felt he knew. He didn’t know her name, not her real name, but he knew why he remembered her. Alan had given her that name.
Miley Cyrus. He liked her. They were good friends. Where was she in all of this? Where was Miley Cyrus in this whole madness? She wasn’t there, making sure he was okay, making sure he didn’t do anything stupid. She wasn’t getting in touch...
Neither was Alan, though. Alan hadn’t done anything to try to talk to him. Alan in Boston, running away from home. Alan who liked Jim Morrison and gave people names and played hurling. Alan, whose mother was downstairs.
Carl drank deeply from the glass of water. It stung his sore throat. When it was gone, and his throat hurt even more, Carl felt himself feeling choked. Nothing in the water, no. He’d seen it placed there, and he’d seen how friendly she was, if only a little bit too worried. He’d seen how clear the water had been. No, it wasn’t the water. It was the room.
Carl couldn’t help it, but he began to cry. He couldn’t explain it. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t do anything, but let himself cry. Maybe, he theorised, something had happened. Maybe that was why he couldn’t remember anything. Maybe he was crying because he couldn’t remember anything. The human mind was a more complex thing than he understood, and it was his own mind that was driving him insane with thoughts and questions and curiosities, worries and doubts plaguing him, and the realisation that alone in this room, he was just as trapped as Alan had been. He needed to run away, but he had nowhere to go. He had no home.
JUNE 21ST 2010, 11:13am – DUBLIN
Claire kept the box in her bedroom. It sat there at the end of her bed, a sheet draped over it to hide it from view. She wanted to open it up, to read what she knew was inside, but she knew she shouldn’t. Even if it was just to remind herself of everything about Alan, even if he was only gone a couple of hours, she knew he would take great offense if she read the journals. She didn’t know how many secrets he had kept in those journals of his, how many things she didn’t tell him, or how many things he wrote about other people.
It was his business, not hers. She couldn’t invade his privacy like that. She couldn’t even ask to. He’d told her not to open the box, and so it would remain closed. Closed, sealed and secret. Just like Alan, himself.
Maybe it wasn’t all bad. Maybe he just didn’t want her to read it because he hadn’t written it for anyone but himself. Maybe he didn’t even know why he wrote it, and so he couldn’t let anyone read it. It would have been like her going out with only half her makeup on, the right side done, and nothing on the left.
Too private. Too secretive. Too much like Alan. She couldn’t keep seeing the box every day, not if he was gone for more than three months. And if he was? If he did run away for longer than that? What then? Could she dump him over the phone with thousands of miles between them? Or by text? Could she even dump him? Could she manage life without him? Money wasn’t the issue in it all. It was just Alan. She couldn’t go on without Alan.
“Just come home,” she whispered to the box, as if Alan would hear it no matter where he was. “Just, please... come home, Alan.” As if Alan had intentions of coming home. “Please... it wasn’t your fault. You know that!” As if Alan was listening.
***
Alan refused a call from his mother. He refused another from his father, then his mother again, both his siblings, even his neighbour, and from work. He refused a dozen calls in three minutes, then switched off his phone, the last image he saw being a photo of himself and Claire at a wedding.
The airport was busy. The airport was always busy. His bags were kept close to him as he got his ticket to Boston, three friends with him, each with their cases around them, each ready to take the plunge into the States once more, working with a glorified bucket all day on a building site, drinking all night until they couldn’t feel feelings anymore, waking up in a daze to struggle to the bucket and doing it all over again, every single night, until another Irish person would show up, someone they knew – and they knew a lot of people – and then there’d be a change, and they’d go out somewhere a little more classy than a pub or a club they’d been to three times in the past week, and they wouldn’t remember any of it.
They had their plans, and their ways to avoid plans. They had all they needed in the States. Alan had even found the same house they once lived in and secured it for as long as they needed it. Once they paid the rent on it, they were sorted. They wouldn’t eat much because they’d be smoking. They wouldn’t have trouble getting work, because they were Irish and they could carry things. They would live like shit for all they cared, because they’d be out of the house most of the time.
At weekends they’d be like tourists and do all the things they already did in the past. They’d go to neighbouring states and make eejits of themselves, and they’d take a thousand photographs before going out to get pissed. They’d rent a car and not care what sort of trouble they got into as they drove all over whatever city they ended up in, and they’d hitch rides back home in the back of a pickup truck, abusing the locals if they wanted to, laughing, screaming and reverting back to their younger days.
Alan never planned to go home. He’d never planned to go back to Boston to live this life, either. He’d wanted to run away to Toronto, but that was where he’d planned on holidaying, not where he planned on running away to. And Carl had talked to him about one day going. Carl had encouraged him to do the things that made him happy. Toronto... he’d go there, one day. He would. He promised himself that. He’d work, and he’d make sure he didn’t piss away all the money, and he’d go to Toronto for a week. Or two. Then he’d come back to the shit hole in Boston, the fabulous shit hole full of memories, and he’d live the rest of his life having done the one thing that he really wanted to do.
He’d never be a professional man. He was okay with that. He could get away from all of that, if he had to. He might never settle with anyone, because he promised Claire he’d come back to her. He promised her he wouldn’t do anything over in the States with anyone else. So he’d be lonely. So what? He’d been lonely before. He’d paid people to drink with him, too, and that hadn’t been good, but it had been company.
“Lads, massive session when we get there,” he said to his friends. They were his friends. He knew that. He was going away with friends. Whether or not they stayed was a different story. But he was leaving with them. He’d make new friends, too. American friends. They might live with him, if the others left. He wouldn’t be alone. He’d always have his friends. Most of them, anyway. Most of them that were left.
AUGUST 25TH 2010, 1:42pm – DUBLIN
Sarah and Dan eventually trusted Carl with his sense of direction, when they arrived at Alan’s workplace. They hadn’t believed it, until they saw the Polo there, parked and waiting for him to drive away in it as fast as possible. That was twice in a few months that someone doubted his ability to navigate through unknown territory. Both times someone had said, “I trust you completely.” That was the worrying thing.
“So, do you think we should just walk in nice and casual, or scout out the place and sneak up on him?” Carl asked them with a laugh. “It’s fun sneaking up on him. I’ve done it before.”
“Probably best to just walk in,” Dan said to him. “If he’s angry, at least then we’ll see it before we’re too close to him, and he won’t be able to do anything. Like hit you.” Carl decided that Dan was having a decidedly pessimistic view about the whole thing. They were here to cheer up a mate who worked every day and had nothing to show for it but exhaustion.
“Ah, I’m sure he won’t be too upset,” Sarah said calmly. She was generally sure about a lot of things related to Alan. She’d been filled in on an idea to sneak up on him as he was leaving work before, but that idea was in the past. Well, almost. One thing it held in common with the day at hand was the package in Carl’s bag. He pulled it in closer to himself as subtly as he could muster. He hadn’t yet told them about it. He didn’t think he wanted to.
“Fuck it, let’s go. What happens happens, right?” A collective nod and smile of agreement, and the door was opened. And there he was, standing there behind the computer, not noticing them at first. Until it finally registered with him – here were some people from college, in his workplace, when he hadn’t told them where it was or how to get there. Carl was with them.
“What. The. Fuck?” he muttered. A half-embarrassed half-giddy look was on all their faces. Alan didn’t know what to do. His boss would be back soon. He was always back too soon. And they weren’t stopping. They were getting closer. Were they picking up the pace? “Get out,” he said suddenly. He didn’t know if he meant it.
“What do you mean get out?” Carl asked him. There were three other customers in the shop, none of whom were demanding very much attention. Alan was otherwise alone with them.
“I mean get out,” Alan replied. “You’re not supposed to be here.” That was true, and at the same time it wasn’t. There was nothing that said they couldn’t be there, and he’d never said for them to stay away. He’d never given them that rule. It hadn’t occurred to him that they would actually figure something like that out. While they weren’t supposed to be there, that was only because it was so far out of the way, relative to all the other places they could have gone to.
“We just came to say hi,” Sarah said to him. Carl was grateful. Someone had to take the focus off of him. Alan had a way of getting to someone if he really wanted to.
“It was Carl’s idea,” Dan chuckled.
“You couldn’t have given me any warning?” Alan asked them. “You couldn’t have texted ahead? What if I was on break?”
“You’re never on break,” Carl muttered. “Ever. You said so yourself. No breaks since 2008.” Carl’s annoying habit of remembering most of what was said to him came in handy, sometimes. In defusing the annoyed Alan, though, it didn’t seem to help. “You never said we couldn’t come.”
Alan had to keep himself calm. Carl was an idiot, sometimes. “What if I wasn’t here? What if I was out doing something else?”
Sarah stepped forward again. “I checked Facebook on my phone,” she told him. “We figured that because you were posting things online, you wouldn’t be too busy.” Again, that was Carl’s idea to check. Dan kept his mouth shut about that, though.
It wasn’t working. He was still annoyed. “Just fuck off,” he told them. Sarah and Dan backed away. He knew they would. Carl just went quiet. His eyes looked lost. “You too,” Alan said to him. “Just fuck off and go home.”
“You’re not even happy to see us, then?” Carl asked him. He didn’t know why he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, but once again he realised that he should have kept quiet. “It’s not like you’re going to get in trouble for this.” He knew what Sarah and Dan were thinking. He was thinking it, too. Just get out of this as soon as possible. Stop talking and make for the door. They were already doing it, trying to avoid the situation.
Alan didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if he was happy to see them, or more worried that they were there in the first place. After everything he did to keep their secrets, they go and invade his privacy like this? “Just fuck off, Carl. I’m not in the mood for this.”
Carl shook his head. Sarah and Dan were at the door, now. Waiting for him. Waiting for him to shut up. Waiting for him to walk towards them so they could go back to the city centre. Waiting for him to stop digging a hole for himself. “You always do this,” Carl said quietly. “I mean, not when you’re in work, but you always push people away. You don’t like having them around unless it suits you.”
“Fuck off, will you. You’re just being self conscious again. We’ve been through this already, haven’t we?” Alan replied. “Look, I’m serious, if you don’t get out-”
“You’ll what? Hit me?”
“Don’t fucking tempt me,” Alan snapped, coming out from behind the till. He was shorter than Carl, marginally, but he would take him in a fight.
“Go on, then,” Carl said to him. “Just hit me.” He didn’t know why he said it. The thought had always been there. Just hit me. He’d always had those words in his head, right from the first time he really pissed Alan off. He’d always been waiting for that one time when he’d make it go too far, and Alan would forget about their friendship. He’d hit Dan before, for doing something wrong. Why not Carl too? “Well? Hit me!”
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