‘It changed me a lot – the bomb,’ he continues. I feel a shiver run through me. We are strangers in so many ways, our lives and backgrounds so many worlds apart … and yet it seems to me we are looking at each other as if we’ve both finally found the missing piece of a puzzle for which we’ve been looking for ever. ‘It took me a long time to accept it all … and just by being here now I …’
I wait to let him finish.
‘I can’t sometimes … anyhow, I live in England now,’ hesays, as if he’s trying to shake off what is really going through his mind. ‘I guess you could say I ran away from all of this, or at least I tried to. It never really goes away, does it?’
I nod and swallow, understanding exactly how he feels, and I can see that his terror still surrounds him and follows him, no matter how fast or how far he runs.
‘I ran away too, but just to Dublin,’ I tell him.
‘Dublin,’ he repeats, smiling softly. ‘It’s a great city.’
We both take a step closer to each other, a need to be nearer physically that demands no explanation.
‘I’ve been there since I graduated. I work in a hospital now.’
We almost touch, but we don’t. I look at his hands, which once held mine so tightly as we waited in this doorway, and I long to reach out, but I don’t.
‘In the strangest ways,’ I explain further, ‘it helps me to help other people and makes me realize I’m not the only victim in the world. Maybe doing something positive for other people has saved me. I love it there.’
Our eyes are locked and the blur of what is going on further down the street, a whirr of speeches and applause, leaves a constant hum in the background. It’s as though we have found this cocoon again together, our little shelter from the world, and nothing else matters.
‘You helped me so much that day. I always knew you’d do something special,’ he says softly. His eyes sparkle when he speaks, like he is drinking me in, and I too am hypnotized by his presence. I feel his strong, manly bodybeside me like energy, so forceful and powerful. ‘I trained with the Air Force in England to gain some focus and discipline but I realized I’d only buried my internal issues. They couldn’t support me any further and I ended up leaving to get away from bombs and bullets for good. I – I retrained to be a teacher. I teach science to teenagers now.’
‘The Air Force,’ I repeat, unable to disguise my shock but doing my best to, all the same. ‘So you were a pilot? In the Forces?’
He shrugs humbly, but his words choke me. He certainly looks like a handsome military pilot, but his revelation takes my breath away for different reasons and I don’t know whether to run away from him or run to him. I was brought up to believe in Irish unity and denounce British rule, while he has gone on to work in the military, which people of my beliefs see as the enemy. We couldn’t be more different if we tried.
‘Yes, a pilot, but it made me realize, even though I should have already known, that bombs and bullets are definitely not for me. I failed psychology tests as the past caught up with me again. I had to leave.’
A silence follows, and the fact that there are worlds between us hits me once more like a slap on the face. He joined theAir Force. In Britain. It’s a world away from anything I’ve ever known or ever could know, and spells out the huge differences in the way we both grew up, despite living in the same town.
I immediately recall the look of disgust on his father’s face that day when I went to look for him. He’s the son of a church minister, from a very privileged Protestant background, and now an ex-RAF pilot, whereas I’m from a sprawling housing estate, with a Catholic upbringing and political beliefs that doubtless couldn’t be more polar opposite. Our two very different communities are divided by blood-red lines that have remained indelibly fixed for hundreds of years before us – my side of town is made up of people who are Irish and proud of it. The people on his side of town are bound to a union with Great Britain, leaving us separated by a history that runs like a deep dagger wound between us, yet I still can’t help but feel there is this connection, this simmering bond between us that defies all of that.
We are beyond history, we are beyond a bomb. Because of that day and the brief time we spent together, despite those differences, we are bound together in a way that no one else could ever understand and it scares me a little.
‘Are you married?’ I ask him, feeling my stomach flip as I say it out loud. I look at his hand as I ask, noticing there isn’t a ring but that’s not entirely unusual.
He shuffles at my question, and I see and feel the deep pain that surrounds him. Unlike me, he doesn’t seem to hide it so well. There’s a silence in his voice and heaviness in his heart that I’ve learned to spot in others through years of training in the aftermath of personal trauma.
He pauses, as if he has to think of his answer. I laugh a little, trying to let him know it isn’t a trick question.
‘Sorry, yes. I mean no, but I’m getting married next year to Lesley,’ he says as he laughs back, though his eyes, I believe, tell a slightly different story. ‘She’s from Wales but she’s here today. In fact, she’s down there, waiting for me, with absolutely no idea of what that day was really like right here ten years ago. I guess she’s lucky that way.’
His eyes skirt away and then back to mine. He fidgets a bit but his eye contact is intense once again and it draws me in.
‘I understand what you mean,’ I tell him. ‘I know exactly how you feel.’
My lip trembles as the memories of that day wash through me.
‘It’s so, so good to see you again,’ I tell him and, at that, out of the blue, he leans towards me and puts his arms around me, holding me so tight to his chest I can hear his heart beat. He smells so good and I close my eyes as we stay like this, clinging to one another until a lady tries to enter the shop and we come back to reality. I wipe my tears as we move to let the woman past. She looks at us knowingly. There’s a level of empathy in the air today with everyone in this town. So many memories being relived, so many tales of survival and of hope, and so many heads bowed in sorrow at those who aren’t lucky enough to be standing strong ten years on.
‘I think about you all the time, you know,’ he says hurriedly in a whisper. His hands are distracted, as if he wants to reach out to me physically again. ‘I’ve never stopped thinking about you, Kate, wondering how your life turned out, or how you’ve been.’
His words almost take my breath away, and he looks as if he is so relieved to finally get to say them. All this time, all those months and years that have passed and he has never forgotten me, just like I have never forgotten him.
‘I think about you too, David,’ I tell him. My knees are weak and I feel a little dizzy as we stand together on the cobbled pavement. He looks so pained in his expression, as if he really, really cares, but that it hurts him just to be here and to see me again, even though we’ve both thought of it so often. ‘But yes, I’m really good, thanks. I’ve a boyfriend called Sam who lives with me in Dublin. I have a nice life there. We are very happy.’
‘That’s so good to hear,’ he whispers. ‘How’s Shannon? It’s her birthday again today?’
