Over Our Heads

The Parcel

Some years ago, my girlfriend and I pooled our savings, borrowed a large sum of money and bought an apartment in a new development that had just gone up by the motorway. There were no shops, but lots of ground-floor units whose windows bore ‘coming soon’ notices alongside pictures of even-complected women holding baskets of smooth fruit. An organic supermarket, the smiling estate agent told us, was in the works. A coffee bar was imminent. A gym was on final approach. The apartment had a two-person bath, a zinc-topped kitchen island, power outlets for plasma TVs fixed halfway up the wall. We decorated it with money and restraint and then sat back and waited for the city to come to us.

By the end of our first year, it had become apparent that it never would. Fewer than half of the postboxes in the lobby had names attached and most of the balconies were conspicuously bare of furniture. One night that winter I rode the lift to the top floor and was confronted with an empty hallway, torn plastic sheeting in lieu of windows and a red EXIT sign flickering in the darkness. Spooked, I dived back into the lift before the doors had closed, and was gripped by a terrible loneliness as I watched the floor numbers blinking down.

Then, last spring, Sarah’s company restructured and moved her to London. We skyped each other every night, she jetted back to me on weekends, and I pretended that I was the type of person who could live like that. I didn’t tell Sarah that, in her absence, I was eating most of my meals from a single bowl which, when not in use, I kept upturned in the sink; that I was sleeping late, drinking alone, masturbating with unsettling frequency. When she’d phone on Friday evenings to say she’d landed, I’d run a quick hoover over the place, deodorize my tobacco stink, order Indian food. And when she’d get in I’d watch with nervous discomfort as she pottered from room to room.

One Saturday afternoon, I woke alone and was unable to work out why. I lay, blinking at the ceiling, and turned this anomaly over in my mind. Then it came back to me: Sarah was at a conference in Stockholm. I felt guilty at having forgotten to skype her the previous night, until I realized that she too had neglected to skype me. Then I felt wounded. Still in the sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms I’d slept in, I rode the lift down to the lobby to collect the post from the day before. I opened our postbox and was surprised to find a parcel waiting for me: an amorphous lump, wrapped in brown paper and bound with butcher’s twine. I inspected it, and was saddened to find that it had been addressed to Turlough Lannigan in 3E.

Back in the apartment, I turned the parcel over carefully in my hands. I traced the lines of its handwritten address with my fingers and fought the urge to open it. Then, touched by the notion of people, out there, taking the time to wrap things, write things and send things to each other, I went to my computer and found a florist’s website, where I selected and paid for a bouquet of tulips and entered the address of Sarah’s apartment. It was only when I was outside Turlough Lannigan’s door, the sound of my knock echoing in the empty hallway, that I remembered that Sarah would be in Stockholm for most of the week. My mind played a movie of tulip bulbs planted, nourished, germinating, tended to, growing, blooming, harvested, wrapped in cellophane, bound with ribbon, placed in a refrigerated truck and driven through the streets of a foreign city towards a locked door, while the person for whom they were intended got on with her life, hundreds of miles away.

I knocked again, and as I waited I thought of Sarah, missing her more than I could remember ever having done. The door opened and brought me face-to-face with a man and a woman.

‘Yeah?’ said the man, Turlough.

‘Seen a dog?’ said the woman, Mrs Turlough.

‘I have a package,’ I said. ‘They left it in the wrong box.’

Turlough took the parcel and looked me over, blinking.

‘Kevin,’ I said, extending a hand. ‘I live downstairs.’

‘Maria,’ said the woman.

‘Turlough,’ said Turlough. ‘Have you seen a fucking dog?’

‘A dog?’ I said.

‘She’s got out,’ said Maria.

‘No. But do you need a —’

‘No.’ Turlough straightened his glasses on the bridge of his nose to bring me into sharper focus. ‘I can find her. You’re grand.’

Maria cocked her head to one side and considered me from an angle. She had narrow, feline eyes, a dimple in the centre of her forehead. She leaned away from Turlough — arms crossed beneath her breasts, feet shoulder-width apart — as though she were trying to build strength into her posture. Turlough leaned towards her, attracted but forewarned. He had done something, I could tell, for which she might never forgive him.

Turlough had one sandalled foot in the hallway. Fronds of waxy hair spiralled from the toes. ‘Here,’ he said and handed the parcel to Maria. ‘I’ll go out.’

‘All right.’ Maria was still frowning at me.

‘You stay here in case she comes back.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll find her.’

‘See that you do.’

Turlough aimed a kiss at Maria’s lips but she turned at the last moment and his nose bumped against her ear. He flashed me an uneasy look and left.

‘Tea?’ Maria said.

I searched for excuses but came up empty. ‘Sure,’ I shrugged, and stepped into an apartment I found eerily familiar, like the figure of a stranger you might feel compelled to wave at in the street. Their TV was a little bigger than ours, but cheaper. Their stereo was vastly inferior, I was pleased to note. I liked the set-up of the bookshelves, though: they carved the open-plan living area in an interesting way. I admired too the arrangement of the floor lamps: even in daylight I could tell that it would make for superior illumination. But most impressive was the way the place smelled: like soap, perfume and time-intensive cooking. It made me feel guilty about the slide in standards over which I was presiding.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Maria said, rubbing her elbows.

‘Grand.’

I walked to the window. Their view was almost the same as ours, except, from this slightly greater height, they could see beyond the graffitied wall of blue construction hoarding that faced our building and truncated my own perspective. I looked out over the waste ground that surrounded the development on three sides. Kids in dirty trainers and warm coats were milling about in the long grass. I wanted to be outside, to breathe the air they breathed.

‘I don’t understand it,’ Maria said over the whistle of the kettle. ‘The lock broke yesterday. And he told me he’d fix it and of course he didn’t. But that doesn’t explain how the dog got out now, does it? Do you follow me? How did she do it?’

‘Weird all right.’

‘Did she jump up and turn the handle, I’m saying? Does she always do that when we’re not here?’

‘Right.’

‘I mean, anything could happen. When you think about that it’s terrifying.’

Maria had left the parcel on the kitchen island. Beside it, she placed two cups into which she dropped tea bags and poured water.

‘Lumps?’ she said.

‘None, thanks.’

‘Moo juice?’

‘Just a splash.’

She joined me at the window. I took my tea and stood for a moment, envying still the extra sliver of life that they could see and we could not.

‘She’ll come back,’ I said, and the uselessness of the sentiment forced me to say it again.

‘She will or she won’t,’ Maria said with a shrug. ‘Sit.’ She picked up the parcel and brought it to the couch.

‘Are you going to open it?’ I eased myself into the leather armchair facing the door.

Maria’s fingers traced the lines of the address, as mine had done a short time before. She weighed the parcel, shook it and, with a sad smile, set it down. ‘I’d better not. No, it’s not addressed to me. It wouldn’t be right.’

I made a show of looking around at the apartment. ‘Your place is lovely.’

‘I’m sure it’s pretty much the same as yours.’

‘It is and it isn’t, if you know what I mean. We should have you two down, though. To see, like. Sometime.’

‘That’d be nice,’ Maria said. ‘Where I grew up we all knew our neighbours.’

‘So did we. I still get a little present from the woman next door at Christmas.’

‘Now, you see? That’s what I’m talking about. That’s nice, isn’t it?’

‘We talked about that, actually,’ I said. ‘Wished for it even when we moved here. When we first bought the place, like, and were settled. We were envisioning kids. And other kids for them to play with. We thought about having a party.’

‘And did you?’

‘No. And then we got a bit upset that we got no invites either.’

‘Were you expecting fruit baskets?’

‘Honestly?’ I said. ‘I think we were. Something like that. Just a little — what? Something would have been nice.’

‘Recognition.’ Maria nodded. ‘I get that.’

‘So, who are you, then?’

‘I’m Maria.’

‘And Turlough?’

‘He’s Turlough.’

‘Right.’

Maria squirmed. ‘I’m a dietician. Turlough’s an engineer. I was born in Dublin but grew up in Madrid. Dad taught English. Mammy was a housewife. I came back here for college. That’s where I met Turlough. Will that do?’

‘Sure.’

‘That’s better?’

‘That’s good.’

‘That’s how people talk to one another, isn’t it?’

‘As far as I remember.’

Maria smiled. ‘And you?’

‘I’m Kevin, she’s Sarah. Unmarried, no kids.’

‘Oh, us too, I forgot that.’

‘She’s an HR officer, the money of the operation.’ I laughed. Maria studied me. ‘And she’s based in London at the moment.’

‘Working?’

‘Working.’

‘For good?’

‘For now.’

‘Right.’

‘Just for now.’

‘Sorry.’

‘But we’ll work it out.’

‘Sure.’

I sipped my tea.

‘So,’ Maria said after a while. ‘What do you do for a living? If she’s the money, you’re the — what?’

‘I’m a music journalist.’

‘Really?’

‘Freelance.’

‘So, you’re the passion, then?’

‘You could say that.’

Maria chewed her lip. She folded her legs beneath her and leaned towards me across the arm of the couch. ‘Who do you get to meet? Impress me, now. Is it ever anyone cool?’

‘From time to time.’

‘Who’s the most famous person you ever met?’

I thought for a moment. ‘Roy Keane.’

‘Is he a musician as well?’

‘I was in a queue behind him in an airport.’

Maria grinned. ‘So, do you work for a newspaper or a magazine?’

‘Internet.’

‘Is that what you wanted to be when you were a kid?’

‘There was no Internet when I was a kid.’

‘I bet you wanted to be in a band.’

‘To be honest, no, not really.’

‘What, then?’

‘I wanted to be an explorer.’

Maria giggled.

‘Thanks very much.’

‘I’m sorry. That’s perfectly reasonable. So, where would you have explored?’

‘I never really thought that far ahead.’

‘And where would you have lived?’

‘I’ve always liked Dublin.’

Together we looked out the window: grey, heavy sky. When our eyes met I noticed in Maria’s a fear with which I was familiar.

‘Christ,’ she said. ‘I can’t do this. Just sit here? Come on. We’ll have to go look.’

‘But what if she comes back by herself?’

‘Do you think that’s likely?’

I shrugged. ‘If she can turn a handle …’

‘Well.’ Maria stood. ‘I have to do something.’

I heaved myself from the chair and followed Maria to the hall. She took out her key and swore as she watched it swivel in the lock. She rolled her eyes at me, I shrugged, and together we took the stairs, Maria’s hand brushing the banister behind her.

Outside the afternoon was cold, already turning to evening.

‘Well, Magellan, which way?’ Maria said.

I squinted into the wind, wondering about the dog’s motivation. ‘This way,’ I said, and led us along the alley between our building and the next one. It felt good to be out, breathing fresh air; my steps grew quickly in confidence. But soon I realized that there were parts of the development with which I was unfamiliar: clean canyons sided with unknowable buildings; a mini-plaza built around a waterless fountain; gleaming access roads that ended abruptly at the borders of grass-choked wastelands. At the furthermost edge of the development I stepped into empty space and looked out over churned earth, abandoned digging machinery, stacks of concrete sewer pipes and new snarls of brambles and brush. Maria called the dog’s name, and I did too, but the only sound that returned was the trundle of motorway traffic.

I took a step forward into the muck but Maria’s hand on my elbow restrained me. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Let’s not.’

We trudged back to the front door of the building and sat on the lips of two enormous planters empty of plants. Together we looked across the street through a gap in the hoarding at the stretch of waste ground I had seen from Turlough and Maria’s window, which now had been deserted by most of the kids. The few who remained sat on thick-treaded tyres and threw stones at the windows of earth movers.

‘Whose kids are they?’ I said.

‘I don’t know.’ Maria shrugged. She ran her hand through her hair and gave me a white smile.

I watched the arc of a well-launched stone, heard the shatter of glass and the trill of thin voices swallowed in space. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to think of Sarah but instead I found myself picturing the dog. First it was a Jack Russell, then a sad-faced boxer, now a golden retriever jumping for a lofted tennis ball, now a greyhound running through tulips.

When I opened my eyes again I saw, at the end of the street, the gloom begin to coalesce into the shape of a figure who could only have been Turlough. The dog was at his heel. I pointed. Maria shouted. The dog broke into a gallop. Earlier, hunting, I had admired the languor of Maria’s gait, but now, as she started to run, I saw an awkwardness: she lifted her knees too high, planted her feet too heavily. A few feet from the dog, she dropped to one knee. The dog leaped into her arms. She snuggled it, whispered something in its ear and rose to kiss Turlough. They stood for a moment, his hand in her hair and her hands against his chest. Then they started back, coiled together, the dog trotting in obedient step.

‘Told you I’d find her,’ Turlough grinned.

‘You were right,’ I said. ‘And fair play to you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Maria whispered to him.

‘Me too.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘I’ll get a locksmith out tonight.’

I looked down at the dog: a muscular red setter with clouds of steam rising from its coat. The blacks of its eyes flashed white and its pink tongue lolled in slaver.

‘Good stuff,’ I mumbled. ‘Listen, I should get going.’

‘Nonsense!’ Turlough said and slapped my shoulder. ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ll have a drink with us. I won’t hear no. Come on, now. We’re celebrating.’

He led the way back upstairs, ushered us inside and opened the patio door. ‘Pull up a pew,’ he said as Maria folded herself into a deckchair. ‘I’ll run in now and open us up a bottle.’

‘This’ll be nice,’ Maria said to the dog. ‘Won’t it?’

I leaned over the balcony and looked down at the stretch of waste ground, now fully deserted; and beyond that at the halogen fog that signified the city, the red blinking eye at the top of the spire; and, in the distance, a hulking blackness spread beneath the arched spine of the Dublin mountains. I thought of Sarah, far away.

The dog nuzzled the backs of my knees.

‘She likes you,’ Maria said. ‘Don’t you?’

The dog shuffled its front paws and licked Maria’s outstretched fingers. Turlough came back with three glasses and a bottle of wine. He uncorked the bottle and poured us each a glass.

‘Your health,’ he said.

We clinked glasses and Turlough leaned back in his deckchair. He crossed his legs and let a sandal dangle.

I sat forward. ‘So, Maria was saying you’re an engineer?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What do you work on? Buildings? Bridges?’

‘Aircraft.’

‘Really?’

‘No joke.’

‘He’s very clever,’ Maria said.

‘At the airport?’

‘Where else?’

I finished my first glass quickly. Turlough topped me up.

‘And you’re a — what?’

‘Music journalist,’ Maria said.

‘Fancy.’

‘Freelance,’ I said.

‘Still. Sounds creative.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ Maria said.

Turlough frowned. ‘Where can I read you?’

‘I have a blog. I’ll give you the address.’

‘Do.’

‘I’d like that too,’ Maria said.

Turlough nodded slowly. ‘I’d be interested.’

‘But he wanted to be an explorer.’ Maria smiled at me.

Turlough frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

The dog parted its jaws in a wide-open yawn. It shook its head and stretched itself out flat.

‘She’s had a long day,’ Maria said.

‘We all have,’ Turlough said.

Maria bit her lip.

‘So, you live by yourself?’ Turlough said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Well, yes, at the moment.’ I explained my situation.

‘It’s temporary,’ Maria said.

‘Good,’ Turlough said.

‘We might have them up soon? Next time?’

Turlough finished his second glass. ‘Sure.’

We killed the bottle. I looked at my watch and made my excuses. Turlough walked me to the door. As I was passing the kitchen, I saw the parcel sitting on the island, and thought for a moment, until I thought better, to ask him to open it in front of me. Turlough opened the door and I stepped out into the corridor. He spread himself in the doorway, his arm locked solid against the frame. Maria leaned over it to shake my hand. Turlough held firm.

‘Don’t be a stranger,’ he said.

‘I won’t.’

Maria leaned and nodded. The door closed. I stood for a minute and tried to listen through it but they didn’t seem to be speaking.

Back downstairs, buoyed a little from the drink and a little desperate for ceremony, I decided to forgo my usual sans-Sarah meal of noodles or pasta and instead went foraging in the freezer. I found a vegetarian chilli I remembered Sarah having made on one of her first weekends back. I defrosted it in the microwave and, as it heated on the stove, I set the table with a placemat and a plate and arranged cutlery with care. The chilli tasted muddy, freezer-burned and old, but I took massive consolation in its moments of clean spice. When I was done, happy and full, I turned on the computer and searched my music library for a sad, hopeful song that Sarah and I had once spent a long weekend listening to. I played it as loud as I could, and as it played I washed the dishes, moving between sink and cupboard with a tea towel swinging in my hand.

I set my alarm for the next morning an hour earlier than usual, and when I woke I used that time to drink a cup of coffee on the balcony. Then I took a long shower, combed my hair, moisturized the patches of eczema that had begun on my elbows and which I had angered in my sleep. I cut the nails of my fingers and toes and shaved off the patchy beard I had neglected. Afterwards I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, saw the spread around my waist, and made a resolution to exercise. I threw my sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms into the wash and dressed in fresh clothes. I emptied the laundry basket into the washing machine and, as the drum whirred, I dismantled the apartment. I repositioned the floor lamps and moved the bookshelves, rearranged the books in ascending order of height. I dusted the TV screen and Windolened the balcony windows. Then I worked all day, with a joy I could only dimly recall. I started an essay I had been thinking about for a long while and finished it over the next few days, during which time I resumed my skype appointments with Sarah — who was snowed under with work in Stockholm, who was sorry she had missed my flowers, who couldn’t wait to come home.

I started jogging nightly through the grounds, and by Thursday I noticed an improvement in my breathing. That night, at the edge of the development where Maria had restrained me, I saw her and Turlough and the dog. Turlough was hitting a tennis ball with a hurley for the dog to give chase. His shoulders were powerful, his movements fluid. Maria stood off to one side hugging her elbows and looking out towards the motorway. I waved as I wheezed past but she didn’t see me. I ran on.

On Friday morning I sent my essay to the colour section of a weekend newspaper, and that evening I decided to surprise Sarah at the airport. I dressed in the shirt and jacket she always picked for me whenever I asked her advice. I called a taxi and waited for it downstairs. The air was warm and murky with twilight. I sat on the lip of one of the planters and smoked my first cigarette in a week. Behind me the door opened. I turned to see Maria.

‘Hi, neighbour.’ I grinned.

‘Oh, hi.’

She was wearing a thin T-shirt and no make-up. I patted the planter beside me but she didn’t move.

‘I’m just waiting for a taxi, going to meet Sarah. She’s coming in tonight.’

‘Good for you.’

‘I saw you yesterday playing with the dog.’

‘Okay.’

‘No more jailbreaks, I presume?’

‘No.’

‘Come here to me, though, I was meaning to ask you, what was in the parcel?’

Maria shrugged. ‘Just some stuff for Turlough. It’s not important.’

Her eyes met mine. They were wet and shining. She was, I could tell, in the midst of some new search. I felt compelled to ask about it, to offer her something. I stood, but just then the lights of my taxi appeared at the end of the street. I took a step back from Maria and waved for the driver. The car hitched over a speed bump and eased its way towards us.

‘This is me,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ Maria nodded.

‘Maybe we’ll see you two over the weekend?’

‘I’ll have to check with Turlough.’

The taxi pulled to a halt beside us. I opened the door and got in.

‘Airport,’ I said.

‘Right you are,’ the driver said. He spun us round and pointed the car towards Sarah. I was careful not to look back.