There’s No Place Like Here

30

Leading away from St. Stephen’s Green, Leeson Street was a fine Georgian street largely intact. The buildings, once grand homes housing the aristocracy, now mainly housed businesses: hotels, offices, and the basements were home to Dublin’s “Strip,” a chain of thriving nightclubs and strip clubs.

A brass plate beside the grand black Georgian door announced the building to be Scathach House. Jack took the seven concrete steps up to the door and came face to face with a brass lion’s head with a ring clasped between his teeth. He was just about to grasp it and rap it against the door when he noticed a collection of buzzers to the right of the door: modern day’s ugly invention mingled with the old. He looked up Dr. Burton’s clinic; it was on the second floor, a PR agency at the bottom, a solicitor’s office at the top. He was buzzed upstairs where he waited in an empty reception area. The receptionist smiled at him and he felt like shouting, I’m not here for me, there’s nothing wrong with me, I’m investigating!

But he smiled back instead.

Magazines adorned the table, some a few months old, others a year old. He picked up one and self-consciously flicked through the pages, reading about a member of the royal family of an obscure country who lay across beds, couches, kitchen tables, and pianos in the favorite rooms of her house.

The door to Dr. Burton’s office opened and Jack quickly disposed of the magazine.

Dr. Burton was younger than Jack had imagined, mid-to-late forties. He had a tight beard, light brown, speckled with silver in places. He had piercing blue eyes, was five eleven, Jack guessed, and was dressed in jeans and a tan corduroy jacket.

“Jack Ruttle?” he asked, looking at him.

“Yes.” Jack stood and they greeted each other with a handshake.

The office was busy, the style of furniture and design eclectic with a packed bookshelf, a full desk, a line of filing cabinets, a wall of academic credentials, nonmatching rugs, a chair, and a couch. The place had character. It suited the man who sat before him in the chair taking his personal details.

“So, Jack.” Dr. Burton finished filling out the form and crossed his legs, focusing all his attention on Jack. Jack fought the urge to run out of the building. “Why is it that you have come here today?” he asked.

To find Sandy Shortt, he wanted to say, but instead shrugged and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He wanted to just get this all over and done with right now. How on earth was he going to find out about Sandy through making up lies about himself? He hadn’t fully thought this through, assuming that everything would fall into place as soon as he’d walked into Dr. Burton’s office. What was it they said in the movies when the shrinks asked them questions? Think, Jack, think. “I’m under a lot of pressure,” he said a bit too confidently, pleased with himself for answering a question.

“What kind of pressure?”

What kind? Was there more than one kind? “Just the normal kind of pressure.” He shrugged again.

Dr. Burton frowned and Jack feared he’d got the question wrong. “Is it due to work or-”

“Yeah.” He jumped in, “It’s work. It’s really”-he searched his brain-“pressurizing.”

“OK.” Dr Burton nodded. “What is it that you do?”

“I’m a stevedore in Shannon Foynes Port Company.”

“And what brings you to Dublin?”

“You.”

“You came all the way to see me?”

“I had to visit a friend too,” he said quickly.

“Oh, OK.” Dr Burton smiled. “So what is it about work that you find so pressurizing? Talk to me about it.”

“Uh, the hours.” Jack made an under-pressure face which he thought was convincing. “The hours are so long.” He was silent then and he clasped his hands together on his lap and nodded and looked around the room.

“How many hours do you work a week?”

“Forty.” He spoke before thinking.

“Forty hours aren’t more than average, Jack. Why is it you feel that you can’t cope with these?”

Jack’s face flushed.

“It’s OK to feel that way, Jack. Perhaps we can get to the root of why work is bothering you, if it is indeed work that is bothering you…”

Dr. Burton continued talking while Jack tuned out and looked around the room for signs of Sandy, as if she would have scribbled her name across the wall before she left. Jack realized Dr. Burton was staring at him in silence.

“Yes, I think that’s it,” Jack said, nodding, and looked at his hands, hoping he had said something suitable.

“And what’s her name?”

“Whose name?”

“Your partner, the person at home you’re having difficulties with?”

“Oh, Gloria,” he said, thoughts switching to her at home and how delighted she was that he was here today, spilling his heart out, when in the reality he wasn’t even listening. The more he thought about it, the angrier he began to feel inside.

“Do you talk to her about your feelings of stress and pressure?”

“Oh, no.” Jack laughed. “I don’t talk to Gloria about that kind of thing.”

“Why not?”

“Because she always has an answer, she always has a way to fix me.”

“You don’t want that?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t need to be fixed.”

“What needs to be fixed?”

He shrugged, not wanting to be dragged into this discussion.

Dr. Burton left a long silence and Jack felt the pressure of having to fill it. “It’s what’s going on around us that needs to be fixed,” he finally answered.

Dr. Burton waited for more.

“And…” He stalled a bit, then said, “So that’s what I’m trying to do.”

“You’re trying to fix what’s going on around you,” he repeated.

“That’s what I just said.”

“And Gloria’s not happy with this.”

Dr. Burton was being paid an extortionate amount of money for this, Jack thought incredulously. “No.” He shook his head. “She thinks I should move on and forget about everything.” He hadn’t actually meant to say any of that, but it hadn’t hurt and he still hadn’t given anything away.

“What does she want you to forget about?”

“Donal,” Jack said slowly, not sure whether to continue or not. Maybe if he explained, Dr. Burton would agree with him and he would finally have someone on his side. “The rest of the family are the same. They want to forget him, let him go, leave him behind. Well, I don’t think like that, you know? He’s my brother. Gloria looks at me like I’m crazy when I try to explain.”

“Did your brother Donal pass away?”

“No, he didn’t,” Jack said, as though that was ludicrous, “but you would think he had. He’s only missing. Only.” He laughed angrily, rubbing his face tiredly. “I sometimes think it would be easier if I knew he was dead.”

There was a silence and Jack felt the need to fill it again. He thumped his fist against his hand with every point he delivered. “He went missing last year on the night of his twenty-fourth birthday.” Thump. “He took cash out of the ATM on O’Connell Street at three-oh-eight A.M. on Friday night.” Thump. “He was seen on Arthur’s Quay at three thirty A.M.” Thump. “And after that no one saw him again. How can you let that go?” he asked. “How can you decide to keep on living life when your brother is somewhere out there and you don’t know where he is or if he’s hurt and needs you? How the hell is everything supposed to become normal?” He became angry now. “How does anybody expect you to be bothered to do forty hours of pointless work a week, putting cargo on a ship? Boxes I don’t even know what’s in them, and send them to places I’ve never been and never will be in. Why is that more important than finding my brother? How can you not look around you in all directions, trying to find him every time you’re outside? Why is it everywhere I go and everyone I ask that I’m met with the same answers?”

His voice raised even louder now. “Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything, nobody knows anything. There are five million people in this country, there are one hundred and seventy-five thousand of them living in Limerick, fifty-five thousand of whom are living in Limerick city. How the hell didn’t somebody, even one person, see my brother, somewhere?” He stopped shouting now, out of breath, his throat sore and his eyes full of tears he was adamant he wouldn’t let fall.

Dr. Burton allowed the silence to lengthen. He allowed Jack to gather himself and his thoughts and ponder all that he had blurted out. He went to the water cooler and returned with a plastic cup for Jack.

Jack sipped the water and thought aloud: “She sleeps a lot you see. The times when I need her, she’s asleep.”

“Gloria?”

Jack nodded.

“Do you have difficulty sleeping?”

“I’ve so much going on in my head, I’ve so many papers to look through and reports to go over. Things people said go through my head over and over again, and I just can’t switch off. I have to find him. It’s like an addiction. It eats away at me.”

Dr. Burton nodded understandingly. Not in a patronizing way that Jack had thought would be the case, but as if he had a real understanding. It was as though Jack’s problem was now their problem, and it was time for them to figure it out together.

“You’re not the only person that feels like this and lives like this, you know, Jack. This is exactly the kind of behavior expected after a trauma such as yours. Were you advised to speak to a counselor after your brother’s disappearance?”

Jack crossed his arms. “Yeah, the guards mentioned something, and every day leaflets and fliers landed on my hall floor about joining groups of other ‘sufferers,’ they called them.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Not interested.”

“It’s not just a waste of time you know. You would realize that there are many people in your position suffering from the same effects of losing someone”-and he said more to himself-“or even suffering from losing things.”

Jack looked at Dr. Burton with confusion, “No, no, you’ve got me wrong, I can deal with losing things, absolutely fine, it’s missing family members that I’ve the problem with. My siblings have lost a brother too, and not one of them feels the way I do. I can’t imagine anything worse than sitting in a group and having the same conversations as I do at home.”

“Gloria seems supportive of you. You should appreciate that. I’m sure it’s been difficult for her to lose Donal, but remember not only has she lost him, she’s lost you. too. Show that you appreciate her. I’m sure that would mean a lot to her.” Real emotion slipped into Dr. Burton’s voice and he stood up and walked over to the other side of the room to get himself a cup of water. When he came back, he was back to his cool self. “Do you love her?”

Jack was silent, then shrugged. He didn’t know anymore.

“My mother used to say listen to what your heart tells you.” Dr. Burton laughed, lightening the mood.

“Was she a psychiatrist. too?” Jack smiled.

“As good as.” Dr. Burton laughed. “You know, you remind me of someone, Jack, someone I know very well.” He smiled lightly, sadly, and then returned to his former self. “So what are you going to do?” He checked his watch. “Bearing in mind we only have a few minutes left to tell me.”

“I’ve already started to do something about it.” Jack suddenly remembered why he was here and saw a way in.

“Talk to me.” Dr. Burton leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs.

“I found someone in the Yellow Pages, an agency, a missing-persons agency,” he stressed.

Dr. Burton didn’t flinch. “Yes?”

“I got in touch with this woman and we spoke at length about her helping me to find Donal. We arranged to meet last Sunday in Limerick.”

“Yes?” He leaned back in his chair, slowly, poker-faced.

“Funny thing is, we passed each other at a gas station on the way and then she never turned up at the meeting point.” He shook his head. “I really believed and still believe this person has the ability to find him.”

“Really?” Dr. Burton’s tone was dry.

“Yes, really. So I started looking for her.”

“The missing-persons person?” he stated, deadpan.

“Yes.”

“And did you find her?”

“No, but I found her car and I found my brother’s files in her car, and her phone, her datebook, her wallet, and a bag full of labeled clothes all with her name on them. She labels everything.”

Dr. Burton began to fidget in his chair.

“I was so worried about her. I am still worried about her because I believe this woman has the ability to find my brother.”

“So you’re fixing your obsession onto this other woman,” Dr. Burton said a bit too coldly.

Jack shook his head. “She said to me on the phone once that the one thing that would be more frustrating than not being able to find someone would be not being found. It’s her wish to be found.”

“Perhaps she just wandered off for a few days.”

“The garda I contacted said the very same thing.” Dr. Burton’s eyebrows rose at the mention of involving the police. “I contacted a lot of people who know her and they also said the same thing.” Jack shrugged.

“Well, then, you should listen to those people. Leave it alone, Jack. Try to concentrate on dealing with your brother’s disappearance before you start worrying about another one. If she’s been gone a few days and hasn’t been in touch, maybe it’s for a reason.”

“I wasn’t bothering her, Doctor, if that’s what you’re implying. There are a few of us that are worried so we’ve arranged to meet up and do something about it.”

“Maybe she does this a lot,” he said. “Maybe there’s nothing at all wrong with her and she’s gone off on her own for a few days.”

“Yeah, maybe. But it’s been four days since I’ve seen her and more days since anybody else has, unless I find somebody that tells me differently. If that’s the case, then I’ll back off and get on with my own life, but I don’t think she’s wandering, as so many people have said.” He spoke gently. “I just would really love to find her, to thank her for the encouragement she’s given me, for the hope of finding Donal that she has helped me to feel. That hope she’s given me has allowed me to realize that I could find her too.”

“What makes you think that she’s missing?”

“I’m listening to my heart on this one.”

Dr. Burton smiled grimly at having his words thrown back in his face.

“And in case my heart isn’t proof enough for you, there’s also this.” Jack reached into his pocket and gently placed Sandy’s silver watch on the table.