No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [64]
“It’s nice, that’s all. I hope you find her.”
“She’s dead. I’m not looking for her.”
“Whatever.” She was laughing now. Eventually she asked if she and Mr Monkels could join him on his quest.
It worked very well. They talked and Mr Monkels groaned and halfway through that first day, when Sam pointed to light streaming through a parting in a cloud, Mary got out her camera and took her first photograph in six years.
It was Sam’s turn to be smug.
“What?” she asked.
“You took what I said to heart,” he said.
“No, I didn’t,” she lied.
“Yeah, you did.” He chuckled, so she pushed him.
After that she took a lot of photos – of Mr Monkels resting at the base of a tree, one of Sam running his hand over the bark and another of him hiding his face from her incessant clicking. A bird swooping low over still water was her favourite, or that was what she would tell people: actually it was one of Sam giving her the fingers. When they’d got back he’d helped her change her spare bedroom into a darkroom.
“Haven’t you heard of digital?” he asked, while he gaffer-taped blackened cardboard to the window.
“One step at a time.” She was grappling with the old black-velvet curtains her auntie Sheila had made for her, long ago.
Now the weather was getting warmer. Today Mr Monkels had refused to budge when Mary had attempted to attach him to his lead. Instead he lay inside the french windows soaking up the heat against the glass.
Mary wished Sam a happy Easter, to which he grunted a response, and teased him about attending a service. He reiterated that he didn’t do Mass.
“Me neither.”
“But you believe in God,” he said, his tone suggesting he thought she was crazy.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t get it.” He took her hand to help her up a grassy verge.
“What’s to get?” she asked, amused.
“With the way things have gone for you, it must have crossed your mind that He may have it in for you.”
He was right – there had been a time when she’d believed that the Almighty was an arsehole, but one day that had changed. “A very wise woman told me once that the world doesn’t revolve around me.”
He arched an eyebrow questioningly.
“She said that those who had gone before had merely followed their own path rather than being a casualty on mine.” She shrugged her shoulders. “We’re all just visiting this world. Some stay longer than others.”
“I hope for your sake you’re not going to be disappointed.”
“About what?”
“What if I told you that I’d died?”
“You died?”
“It was only minutes but long enough for me to know there’s nothing.” He was puzzled when she smiled.
“Ask me about what I remember during my coma,” she said.
“What do you remember?” he asked, playing along.
“Nothing,” she said. “Absolutely nothing.”
“So?”
“So it doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything going on.”
“It’s totally different.” He sighed.
“No, it’s not.”
“I just don’t get why you would believe,” he mumbled.
“Because if I didn’t I’d lose my mind.”
He nodded – that answer made sense to him.
Later, while they were making their way home, Mary returned to the subject of Sam’s death. “Are you ever going to tell me about what happened to you?”
“Maybe some day.”
She smiled. “It would be easier to get a straight answer from James Bond.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t like talking about the past.”
“I understand. Some join the Foreign Legion and others come to Kenmare.”
It occurred to Sam then that one of the things he liked most about Mary was that, although she knew little about where he’d come from, what he did for a living or the terrible mistakes he’d made, she did know him. In fact, she knew him better than anyone else.
It was after three when they arrived at Ivan’s. Auntie Sheila and Mary’s dad were vying for control of the grill. Mary kissed them both, her dad shook Sam’s hand and her aunt told him that if her niece didn’t have such a good left hook she’d steal him away for herself.
“We’re just friends,” Mary told her, for the fifth time.
“That’s what they always say, and then someone gets pregnant,” her aunt riposted, and nudged her brother.
“We’re just friends,” Sam clarified, before Ivan