There’s No Place Like Here

25

I was sixteen years old, in Mr. Burton’s office. I was sitting on one of the burst velvet chairs, the same since the day I’d arrived over two years ago, but for the extra foam on display. I was staring at the same posters on the walls of the cramped room. The bricked walls had been clumsily painted white, some holes still black and naked of paint, others holding clumps of white. It was all or nothing in this room, never even. Blu-Tack clung to parts of the walls, corners of old posters still hung on to the Blu-Tack. Somewhere in the school I imagined a room fully stocked with cornerless posters.

“What are you thinking about?” Mr. Burton finally spoke.

“Cornerless posters,” I replied.

“Ah, that old chestnut.” He nodded. “How was your week?”

“Crap.”

“Why crap?”

“Nothing very exciting happened.”

“What did you do?”

“School, ate, slept, school, ate, slept, multiplied by five more times and to be multiplied by a million more weeks in my life. My future looks bleak.”

“Did you go out at the weekend? You were saying last week that you’d been asked out by a group of people.”

He always wanted me to make friends. “Yeah, I went out.”

“And?”

“And it was OK. There was a house party. Johnny Nugent’s parents were away, so we all went there.”

“Johnny Nugent?” He raised his eyebrows.

I didn’t answer but my cheeks pinked.

“Were you able to forget about Mr. Pobbs and enjoy yourself?”

He asked it so seriously, I studied the Blu-Tack again, feeling slightly embarrassed. I’d had Mr. Pobbs since I was a baby. He was a gray, fluffy, one-eyed teddy bear in blue-striped pajamas, who slept in my bed, and any other bed I stayed in, every night. My parents and I had been away for the week a short time before and as soon as we’d returned I had repacked to go stay with my grandparents for the weekend. Somewhere in changing over my clothes, I’d misplaced Mr. Pobbs. It had upset me deeply all the time I was at my grandparents’ and I’d taken to a two-week-long search of the house on my return, much to my parents’ dismay. Last week we had discussed my not wanting to go out with Johnny Nugent at the weekend because I’d have preferred to find Mr. Pobbs, my trusted friend, no matter how ridiculous it sounded. It had been difficult leaving the house to go out for the night knowing that somewhere in there, Mr. Pobbs lay hidden.

“So you went out with Johnny Nugent?” Mr. Burton went back to the question.

“Yes, I did.”

He smiled awkwardly. He’d obviously heard the rumors too. “Is everything…are you…” He stopped talking and instead made trumpeting noises with his lips while he thought how to rephrase his question. It was rare to see him awkward, as he always seemed to be in control. He was in this room, anyway; other than the small hints of personal information he revealed mistakenly during our at times candid talks, I knew nothing of his life outside of these four walls. I also knew not to ask any questions, because he wouldn’t answer and because I didn’t want to know. Not knowing, asking and him not answering, reminded me that we were strangers in a way. Only inside this room were we familiar. We had created our own world, had rules to follow, and had a line between us that, although it couldn’t be passed, could be danced upon on playful days.

I jumped in and stopped his trumpeting lips from launching into an orchestra of brass instruments. “Mr. Burton, if you’re wondering if I’m OK, then please, don’t worry. For once in my life I’ve lost something and I’ve no intention of searching for it or expect it to come back. I think I’m cured.”

We laughed. And laughed. And when there was an uncomfortable silence while I fantasized about him curing me, too, we laughed again.

“Will you see him again? And by that I mean did you enjoy the company of others? Did you enjoy going out, did you relax, could you forget about all the things that are missing?” He started laughing again. “Did they manage to reach Scathach’s island?”

While my head was banging against the headboard in Johnny Nugent’s parents’ bed, I’d had an epiphany. I’d remembered where I thought I’d put Mr. Pobbs aside in my grandmother’s house, before packing my clothes. I had called her the next day and expected Mr. Pobbs to be found, lying under the bed staring with his one eye at the broken springs beneath. But he wasn’t and we had arranged for my search of my grandparents’ house the following weekend. Even though Johnny Nugent had asked me out. I was going to explain all this when I frowned and asked, “Wait a minute what’s Scathach’s island?”

Mr. Burton laughed. “Sorry, that just slipped out. It’s a bad analogy.”

“Explain!” I smiled, watching his face redden.

“I didn’t mean to say it. It just popped out. Never mind, let’s move on.”

“Hold on a minute, you don’t let me get away with that! I have to repeat everything I mumble.” I laughed, watching him squirm for the first time in my life.

He composed himself. “It’s an old Celtic story, and it was a stupid comparison.”

I motioned for more.

He rubbed his face. “Oh, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. Scathach was a great warrior woman who trained many heroes of the time. Legend tells us that it was almost impossible to reach her island, so that anyone who did was considered worthy to be trained in martial arts.”

My mouth dropped. “You’ve named me after a warrior woman who trains martial arts?”

He laughed again. “The point is that she was a woman who was hard to reach.” He stopped laughing when he saw my face. He leaned forward and grabbed my hand. “I think you’ve taken that the wrong way.”

“I hope so,” I said, slowly shaking my head.

He groaned and thought fast. “It’s just that only the strongest, bravest, and most worthy people could reach her.”

I relaxed a little, liking the sound of this. “How would they reach her?”

He relaxed a little too. “First they would have to cross the Plain of Ill Luck, where they would be pierced by razor-sharp grass blades.” He paused while he studied my face to see whether he should go on or not. Happy that I wasn’t about to punch him, he continued. “Then they would face the Perilous Glens with devouring beasts. Their final task was the Bridge of the Cliff, which was a bridge that tilted upward whenever anyone tried to cross.”

I pictured the people in my life who tried to approach me, who tried to befriend me, who tried to connect with me. I pictured me knocking them back.

“Only real heroes would get across,” he finished.

Goose bumps formed on my skin. My hairs stood up and I hoped he didn’t notice.

He ran his hands through his hair and shook his head. “That wasn’t part of the…” job, he almost said. “I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry, Sandy.”

“It’s OK,” I decided and he looked relieved. “Just tell me one thing. Where are you on this journey?”

Those gorgeous blue eyes bore into mine. He didn’t even need to think about it, didn’t even look away. “I’d say I’ve just passed over the Plain of Ill Luck right this minute.”

I pondered that. “I’ll go easy with my devouring beasts if you promise to just let me know when you’ve passed the bridge.”

“You’ll know.” He smiled, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. “You’ll know.”

Jack pulled up beside Alan’s flat and flicked through Sandy’s datebook. She had also made an appointment yesterday for one o’clock at a place with a Dublin number, and he needed to know if she had kept it. He was hoping that whoever she was to meet would be able to help him. Though Sandy had made this appointment for yesterday in Dublin, she had planned to visit Alan in Limerick today. It must have been an important appointment in Dublin in order for her to make the journey over and back.

With shaking hands he dialed the Dublin number Sandy had written. A woman answered quickly, sounding distracted as other phones rang in the background.

“Hello, Scathach House.”

“Hi, I am wondering if you can help me,” Jack said politely. “I have your phone number written down in my datebook and I can’t remember why I’ve made a note to call you.”

“Of course,” she said politely. “Scathach House is the office of Dr. Gregory Burton. Maybe you wanted to make an appointment?”

I woke up in my Dublin bedsit to the shrill sound of a telephone ringing in my ear. I put the pillow over my head and prayed for the noise to stop, I had a terrible hangover. I peeked over the side of my bed and caught a glimpse of my crumpled garda uniform lying in a ball on the ground. I’d worked a late shift and then gone for a few drinks. A few had clearly turned into a few too many and I had absolutely no memory of coming home. The ringing finally stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief, although it echoed in my head for a few seconds longer. And then it started again. I grabbed the phone from the side of the bed and brought it back under the pillow to my ear.

“Hello,” I croaked.

“Happy birthday to yoooou, happy birthday to yoooou, happy birthday dear Sandeeeee, happy birthday to yooou.” It was my mother singing so sweetly as though she was in a church choir.

“Hip, hip…”

“Hooray!” That was Dad.

“Hip hip…”

“Hooray!” He blew a party blower down the receiver, which I instantly held far away from my ear, allowing my arm to hang off the bed. I could still hear them celebrating from under the pillow as I drifted off again.

“Happy twenty-first, honey,” Mum said proudly. “Honey? Are you there?”

I put the phone back to my ear. “Thanks, Mum,” I mumbled.

“I wish you’d have let us throw you a party,” she said wistfully. “It’s not every day my baby girl is twenty-one.”

“It is, actually,” I said tiredly. “I have three hundred and sixty-four more days of being twenty-one, so we’ve lots of time to celebrate.”

“Oh, you know it’s not the same.”

“You know what I’m like at those things,” I said, referring to the party idea.

“I know, I know. Well, I want you to enjoy your day. Would you think about coming home for dinner at all? At the weekend, maybe? We could just do a small thing, just me, you and your dad. We won’t even mention the birthday word.”

I paused and decided to lie. “No, I can’t this weekend, sorry. Things are really busy at work.”

“Oh, OK, well, what about if I come to Dublin for a few hours? I won’t even stay over; we can have a coffee or something. A quick chat and I’ll be gone, I promise.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I just want to mark the day with you in some way. I’d love to see you.”

“I can’t, Mum, sorry.”

There was a silence. For far too long.

Dad came on the phone cheerily. “Happy birthday, love. We understand you’re busy so we’ll let you get back to doing what you were doing.”

“Where’s Mum?”

“Oh, she, eh, had to answer the door.” He was as bad at lying as I was.

She was crying, I knew it.

“OK, well, have a great day, honey. Try to enjoy yourself, OK?” he added softly.

“OK,” I said quietly, and the phone clicked and went dead.

I groaned, hung the phone back up on my bedside locker, and threw the pillow off my head. I allowed my eyes to adjust to the bright light my cheap curtains were incapable of keeping out. It was ten A.M. on a Monday morning and I finally had a day off. What I was going to do with it, I had no idea. I would have preferred to work on my birthday, although I would busy myself with working on a missing case that had recently run into a dead end. A little girl named Robin Geraghty had disappeared while playing in her front garden. All the signs were implicating her middle-aged neighbor next door. However, no matter how hard we’d dug into this case, we weren’t hitting the treasure chest at the bottom. Recently I had started following up on such cases by myself, unable to switch off the file that was locked away in a cabinet.

I turned to lie on my back and noticed from the corner of my eye a lump beside me in the bed. The lump was on its side, a tousle of dark brown hair lying on the pillow. I jumped, gathering my bedclothes and wrapping them around me tighter. The lump began to move to face me, his eyes opened. Bloodshot, tired eyes.

“I thought you were never going to answer that phone,” he said croakily.

“Who are you?” I asked in disgust, clambering out of bed and taking the covers with me, leaving him lying on the bed spread-eagled and naked. He smiled, rested his hands behind his head sleepily, and winked.

I groaned. It was meant to be a silent, inward groan but it forced its way out of my mouth. “I’m going to the bathroom and when I get back you will be gone.” I picked up what I assumed were his clothes and threw them onto the bed. I picked up my own stray clothes that were resting on a chair, hugged them close to me and banged the door shut. Almost immediately I returned and grabbed my wallet, much to his disgust. I wasn’t about to leave that there.

Not after the last time.

I stayed in the bathroom down the hall for as long as I could until Mr. Rankin from next door began pounding on the door and telling me and everyone else in the building how he was going to burst an area of his body that I didn’t care to think much about. I opened the door immediately and went back to my bedsit hoping the hairy stranger had vanished. No such luck. He was closing the door behind him.

I walked toward him slowly, not knowing what to say. He didn’t seem to know either, but nor did he care, his smirk still on his face.

“Did we…?” I asked.

“Twice.” He winked and my insides churned. “By the way, before you throw me out of your building, some guy came by when you were in the bathroom. I told him he could wait if he wanted, but you probably wouldn’t recognize him when you saw him.” He grinned again.

“What guy?” I racked my brain.

“See, I told him you wouldn’t remember him.”

“Is he in there?” I looked toward the closed door.

“No, I guess he didn’t feel like hanging around a bedsit with a naked hairy man.”

“You answered the door naked?” I asked angrily.

“I thought it was you.” He shrugged. “Anyway, he left this card for you.” He handed me the business card. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in me giving you my number?”

I shook my head, took the card from his hand. “Thanks, eh…” I began weakly.

“Steve,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Nice to meet you.” I smiled and he laughed. He was kind of cute but still I watched him walk down the stairs.

“We met before, by the way,” he called up to me, not turning around as he made his way down the steps.

I was silent while I tried to remember.

“At Louise Drummond’s Christmas party last year?” He stopped and looked up hopefully.

I frowned.

“Ah, it doesn’t matter.” He waved his hand dismissively. “You didn’t remember the next morning then, either.” Then he smiled and was gone.

There was a moment of guilt until I remembered the business card in my hand and the bad feelings vanished. My knees went weak when I saw the name.

It seemed Mr. Burton had set up a clinic in Dublin, Scathach House on Leeson Street. Wait a minute, Dr. Burton; he’d passed his exams at last.

I danced around excitedly on the spot. I heard the toilet flush and Mr. Rankin left with a newspaper in his hand and caught me dancing.

“You need to go again? I wouldn’t go back in there for a while.” He wafted the newspaper.

I ignored him and went back into my bedsit. Mr. Burton was here now. He’d found me three years after I’d moved away and that’s all that mattered. At last, one odd sock had showed up.