Distress Signals Read online

  ‘Ah, yes,’ I’d say. ‘My dreams. What’s the current exchange rate on those, do you think? My phone bill is due.’

  ‘Well, you also have a gorgeous girlfriend. Who believes in you. Who knows you’re going to make this happen. Who has no doubt.’

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘None whatsoever. Can we get take-away? I’m starving.’

  ‘But you’ve no evidence. And I think the take-away is closed.’

  ‘That’s what belief means, Ad. I mean, really.’ A poke in the ribs. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be a writer or something?’

  I joked about it, yes, but the truth was it got to me. I’d been trying to make this writing thing happen for years. Fantastical dreams were fine in your twenties, but I was thirty now. When even I had started to wonder if I should let my fanciful notions go, talking about them with people who had already moved to the Real World made it harder to convince myself that, no, I shouldn’t. Not yet.

  I started making excuses, coming up with reasons to stay in on Saturday nights. I was tired. I was broke. We were broke because of me. Whatever my story, Sarah would nod, understanding, and our conversation would move on to deciding between a box-set re-watch or tackling our Netflix queue. Sometimes she went out with the girls and I was glad she did, because I wanted her to do what she wanted and those nights typically won me a few weeks’ reprieve. We still went out together every now and then, but eventually our go-to pub had a new name and our go-to club had closed down. I no longer recognised the songs that won especially loud cheers from the crowd when the DJ played them, and had no clue as to why we were all suddenly drinking out of jam jars with handles on.

  But that was before. Now, things were changing.

  Finally.

  ‘I bet it’s like turning eighteen,’ Sarah said as we manoeuvred around each other in the bathroom, getting ready. I was already dressed; she was wrapped in a bath towel. ‘From the moment you can produce ID, nobody bothers to ask for it.’

  ‘So tonight no one’s going to go, “But what do you actually do?” because for once I actually want them to?’

  Oh, me? I’m a writer. Screenplays. Yeah, not doing too bad, actually. Just made a sale. Major Hollywood studio, six figures. For a script I wrote in a month.

  ‘Exactly.’ Sarah was putting on an earring, fiddling with the back of it. ‘They all know already anyway. You were on the cover of the Examiner, remember?’

  I moved behind her, met her eyes in the mirror over the sink.

  ‘And,’ I said, ‘the back page of the Douglas Community Fortnightly.’

  ‘And that advertiser thing you get free in shopping centres.’

  ‘That was the one with the very good picture.’

  ‘That wasn’t of you.’

  ‘It was still a very good picture.’

  Sarah laughed.

  ‘So who’ll be at this thing?’ I asked. ‘Anyone I know?’

  We were going to a going-away party. If the pubs and clubs of Ireland had worried that austerity would damage their trade they needn’t have; there were enough pre-emigration shindigs these days to keep the industry afloat all by themselves. That night it was the turn of Sarah’s colleague, Mike, who was heading to New Zealand for a year.

  ‘Susan will be there. James – you met him before, didn’t you? And Caroline. She’s the girl we ran into the night of Rose’s birthday. You know Mike, right? Don’t think you’ve met the rest of them . . .’

  While Sarah was saying this, I wrapped my arms around her waist and rested my chin on her shoulder, savouring the fruity smell of some lotion or potion as I did.

  There was no long fall of blonde hair to move out of the way. Just that afternoon Sarah had walked into a hairdresser’s and asked for it all to be chopped off. That morning, the ends of it had been tickling the small of her back. Now it was clear off her neck. The cut had exposed more of her natural warm-brown colour, and I think it was this that made her eyes appear bigger and bluer than they had before. She also seemed more grown-up to me, somehow, and there was something incredibly distracting about all that exposed skin . . .

  I pressed my lips against the spot where her neck met her left shoulder.

  Sarah said she’d decided to get the haircut on a whim, that she’d just decided to do it after seeing a picture in the salon’s window as she walked by. But a week from now, I’d learn that she’d made an appointment with the salon a week earlier.

  ‘Just don’t abandon me, okay?’ I murmured.

  I was expecting one of Sarah’s trademark eye-rolls and a sarcastic remark. Maybe a reminder that I was now, technically speaking, a big-shot Hollywood screenwriter and could surely hold my own in conversations about Things Adults Do instead of standing on the periphery, smiling at the right moments but otherwise only moving the ice-cubes in my drink around with a straw. Or perhaps Sarah would point out that I didn’t need to go to this thing, that it was a work night out, that she’d been going by herself until I’d moaned about spending the night before she left for nearly a week home alone, prompting her to – eventually – say, fine, tag along.

  But instead she turned to face me, wrapped her arms around my neck and said: ‘I would never abandon you.’

  ‘Well, good. Oscar night will be stressful enough without having to find a date for it.’

  I kissed her, expecting to feel her lips stretched into a smile against mine. They weren’t. I moved my mouth to her jawline, down her neck. There was a faint taste of something powdery, some make-up thing she must have just dusted on her skin. I brought my hands to her waist and went to un-tuck the towel.

  ‘Ad,’ Sarah said, wriggling out of my arms. ‘I booked a cab for eight. We don’t have time.’

  I looked at my watch. ‘I suppose I should take it as a compliment that you think that.’

  ‘Funny.’ An eye-roll. (There it was.) ‘Can you grab Mike’s card? I think I left it on the coffee table. I’m nearly done here. I just have to get dressed.’

  I turned to leave.

  ‘Oh, Ad?’

  I stopped in the doorway.

  Sarah was in front of the mirror, twisting to check her hair. Without looking at me, she said, ‘I meant to tell you: the others aren’t exactly delighted about me being the one to get to go to Barcelona. They’ve all been milking it with their honeymoons and their maternity leave but God forbid I get to have a week out of the office. I mean, it’s not like I’m off. I’m there to work. Anyway, I’ve been trying not to go on about it, so . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I won’t bring it up.’

  I smiled to myself as I crossed the hall into the living room. Honey­moons and maternity leave. Now that I’d sold the script, we could finally start making our own plans instead of being forced to watch as the realisation of everyone else’s clogged up our Facebook feeds.

  But first . . .

  I collected Mike’s card from the coffee table, then dropped into my preferred spot on the couch. It offered a clear line of sight to my desk, which was tucked into the far corner of the living room and so, crucially, was only a few feet from the kitchen and thus the coffee-maker.

  A stack of well-thumbed A4 pages were piled on it, curled sticky notes giving it a neon-coloured fringe down its right side. I got a dull ache in the pit of my stomach just looking at it.

  The rewrite. I had to start it tomorrow. And I would. I’d drive straight home after dropping Sarah at the airport and get stuck in, make the most of the few days and nights that I’d have the apartment to myself.

  Sarah emerged from our bedroom, wearing a dress I hadn’t seen before.

  The money from the script deal hadn’t arrived yet but, since I’d learned it was on its way, I’d been melting my credit card. Sarah had supported me for long enough, paying utility bills and covering my rent shortfalls with money she could’ve been – should’ve been �
� spending on herself. That morning I’d sent her into town with a gift-card for a high-end department store, the kind that comes wrapped in delicate tissue and in a smooth, matt-finish gift bag.

  ‘This is just a token,’ I’d said. ‘Just a little something for now, for tonight. You know when the money comes through . . .’

  ‘Ad, what are you doing? You don’t know how long that money is going to take to arrive. You should be hanging onto what you’ve got.’

  ‘I put it on the credit card.’

  ‘But you might need that credit yet. I really wish you’d think before you spend.’

  ‘Look, it’s fine. We’ll be fine. I just wanted to . . .’ Sarah’s mouth was set tight in disapproval. ‘Okay, I’m sorry. I am. It’s just that I don’t want to wait to start paying you back for . . . For everything.’

  She’d seemed annoyed. Disappointed too, which was worse. But then, later, she’d come home with a larger version of the same bag, and now she was twirling around to show me the dress that had been inside it: red and crossed in the front, the skirt part long and flowing out from her hips.

  ‘Well?’ she asked me. ‘What do you think?’

  She looked beautiful in it. More beautiful than usual. But with the new hair, not quite the Sarah I was used to.

  ‘Nice,’ I said. I pointed to my jeans and my dark, plain T-shirt. ‘But now I feel underdressed.’

  ‘Change, if you want to.’

  Our buzzer went. The cab was here.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘Let’s just go.’

  Aside from the clothes Sarah was wearing when I drove her to the airport the next morning, that red dress was the only item I could tell the Gardaí was missing for sure.

  Cork International Airport, all eight gates of it, is perched on a hill to the southwest of the city. Each year it reportedly begins nearly one out of every three days shrouded in thick, dense fog, the kind that delays take-offs and hinders landings and which once, a few years ago, contributed to a fatal crash-landing on the runway. In other words, it was a terrible place to build an airport. Ask any Cork­onian about this and they’ll mutter something about how the airport’s planning application must have come clipped to a bulging brown envelope stuffed with cash.

  On that Sunday morning the skies were clear but dark clouds waited on the horizon, threatening showers later in the day. Typical August weather for Ireland: warm enough to be muggy, with the ever-present threat of torrential rain.

  It was a ten-minute drive from our apartment to the terminal’s doors. Sarah was at the wheel.

  ‘I could be coming with you,’ I said to her as the car passed through the airport’s main gates. ‘I could put the flight on the credit card, stay in your room.’

  ‘It’s only supposed to be me in there.’

  ‘Who’d know?’

  ‘The hotel, and so would work once they received the bill. In Spain each guest has to hand over their passport so the front desk can make a copy. Every guest’s name has to go on the register.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I think Susan told me.’

  ‘We could sneak me in.’

  ‘You need to work.’

  ‘I could work while you do.’

  ‘Adam,’ Sarah groaned. She looked over at me to see if I was being serious.

  ‘Relax.’ I held up my hands. ‘I’m just joking.’

  We’d already talked about me going to Barcelona, back when Sarah had first found out that she had to go. But the only way to not get her into any trouble would’ve been to book another hotel room just for me, and there was no way we could afford to do that. A week later, I sold the script. But selling it meant I had to rewrite it, and the rewrite was due just after the Barcelona trip. So now I didn’t have the time to go.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s just . . . Well, you know. The flight.’

  She didn’t like flying and knew what rain clouds over the airport meant: a bumpy take-off. I’d been purposefully avoiding the subject.

  ‘How long is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Couple of hours.’

  ‘That’s not too bad. And you’re going straight to the hotel when you land?’

  Sarah nodded.

  ‘Text me when you get there.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She glanced at me. ‘So what were you and Susan talking about last night?’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘When I came back from the bar, you two looked like you were deep in conversation.’

  ‘She asked me for advice,’ I said. ‘Turns out she’s not just all breasts and hair. She wants to be a writer. Who knew?’

  ‘Not me,’ Sarah said. The car pulled to the right, getting in lane for Departures. ‘In all the years I’ve worked for her, I’ve never heard her so much as mention such a thing. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard her mention books. Then, what do you know, my boyfriend makes a script sale and suddenly she’s all over him like a rash, asking for advice.’ A pause. ‘So that was it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All you and Susan talked about.’

  ‘Yeah, pretty much. Why?’

  ‘Just wondering.’

  ‘You aren’t . . .’ I raised my eyebrows and waited for Sarah to look over and see.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean, I know I’m quite the catch now that I can make a living in my underwear and everything, but you don’t need to worry.’

  Sarah parked the car in the Taxis Only lane outside the terminal building, killed the engine and turned towards me.

  ‘Ad, what are you on about?’

  ‘I’m just saying. Jealousy is a terrible thing.’

  ‘What the—’ Sarah stopped, getting it. ‘Yeah. You and Susan Robinson. Right.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Although I suppose women will be all over you now that you’re rich and famous.’

  ‘I think you mean anonymous and poor.’

  ‘You won’t be poor soon.’

  ‘We won’t be. Anyway, this is me we’re talking about. If by any chance any girls make the mistake of being all over me, as soon as I open my mouth they’ll be on their way again. Remember when we first met? What did I start talking about immediately?’

  A hint of a smile tugging at her lips. ‘Star Wars?’

  I glared at her. ‘Star Trek.’

  ‘Is that different?’

  ‘I’m not going to react to that because I know you know that it is.’

  ‘That’s my point. Girls love that crap now. Geeks are in.’

  ‘I think you have to have a beard for that though.’

  ‘Don’t all writers have beards? You could grow one.’

  ‘I know I could, but you’re thinking of novelists,’ I said. ‘And poets. Poets have the best beards. Screenwriters do it clean-shaven. We like baseball caps and the combination of beard and baseball cap is just too much. But maybe I could start to wear glasses or—’

  A horn blew somewhere behind us.

  ‘Shit,’ Sarah said, twisting in her seat to look behind her. ‘Am I parked in the wrong place? I am. Shit.’ She reached into the back seat for her handbag. ‘What time is your talk tomorrow?’

  ‘The one you’re missing? Twelve.’

  It had been a last-minute thing, a request from my university to talk to some of their Film Studies students.

  The university I’d dropped out of, mind you. Apparently all was forgiven.

  ‘You wouldn’t have let me come anyway,’ Sarah said.

  ‘You’d make me nervous. I can only talk in front of strangers.’

  ‘Didn’t you say Moorsey was going?’

  ‘He’s not sure if he can get off work yet.’

  ‘So you can talk in front of him but not me?’

  I shrugged my shoulders as if to say I don’t make the rules. I didn’t want to get in
to my real motivation for inviting Moorsey. It was a test.

  ‘Then you’re just going to write?’

  ‘As much as I can.’

  ‘I’ll try not to disturb you.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said, reaching to take Sarah’s hand. ‘I want to hear from you. I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I mightn’t have time to. They’ve got me booked into I don’t know how many sessions at this conference—’

  A cacophony of angry horn-blowing began behind us.

  ‘Come on,’ Sarah said, letting go of my hand and pushing open the driver’s door. ‘Before there’s a riot.’

  We both got out of the car and met at the boot. I pulled Sarah’s case out for her and set it on the ground.

  ‘What time are you in Thursday?’ I asked.

  ‘One-ish, I think.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  I held her as we kissed quickly, lightly. Behind us, the horn-­blowing grew more enthusiastic.

  Sarah pulled away first. She grabbed the handle of her case and turned towards the terminal.

  ‘Have fun,’ I said.

  Over her shoulder: ‘It’s work!’

  I called after her: ‘Yeah, but it’s work in Barcelona!’

  I got back into the car and readjusted the rear-view mirror until it filled with the angry face of a taxi driver and his extended middle finger. I waved apologetically at him and pulled off.

  Sarah was just a few steps from the terminal doors when I did.

  That morning she was wearing dark-blue jeans, a white T-shirt with navy horizontal stripes and a pair of those cheap, flat shoes women seem to love that must give podiatrists nightmares. She was also wearing a scarf, navy with white butterflies on it, not because it was cold but because she felt cold, what with her newly uncovered neck. A beige trench-coat hung from the crook of her arm. There was a small leather bag slung over one shoulder and she was pulling a cabin-approved, bright-purple trolley case along the ground behind her.