A Place Called Here

‘What?’ she asked defensively.

‘Nothing. You being a light sleeper is a great answer,’ he said playfully, dropping the pages onto his lap. In the deathly silence of the cottage he listened to the sound of Sandy’s breathing and her voice, and tried to imagine what she looked like, where she was and what she was thinking.

After a long silence her voice was gentler. ‘I’ve a lot of missing people on my mind. There’s too much to think about, too many places to look to allow sleep to come. You can’t find anyone or anything in dreams.’

Jack looked towards the closed bedroom door and agreed.

‘But why I told you that, I have no idea,’ she grumbled to the sound of more paper being shifted.

‘Tell me honestly, Sandy, what’s your success rate?’

Paper rustling stopped. ‘It depends on the level of the missing case. I’ll be honest with you, cases like Donal’s are difficult. There has already been a large-scale search and it’s rare that I have found someone under these circumstances. But with general missing cases I find people around forty per cent of the time. You should know that not all the people I find return to their families. You have to be prepared for that.’

‘I am prepared. If Donal’s lying in a ditch somewhere I want him back here so we can bury him and give him a proper funeral.’

‘That’s not what I mean. Sometimes people go missing deliberately.’

‘Donal wouldn’t do that,’ Jack said dismissively.

‘Perhaps not. But there have been situations just like this where I’ve learned that people just like Donal, from families just like yours, voluntarily move on from their lives without a word to anyone close to them.’

Jack digested this. It hadn’t occurred to him that Donal would take off of his own free will and he found this scenario hugely improbable. ‘Would you tell me where he was if you found him?’

‘If he didn’t want to be found? No, I couldn’t tell you that.’

‘Would you tell me if you found him?’

‘It depends on how prepared you are to accept being unable to know where he is.’

‘All I would want to know is that wherever he is, he’s safe and happy.’

‘Well, then I would tell you.’

After a long silence, Jack asked, ‘Is there much work for you? On the rare occasions that people go missing, don’t their families turn to the Gardaí to deal with it?’

‘That’s true. There aren’t many severe cases for me like Donal’s, but there’s always something or someone to find. There are categories of missing people that the Gardaí can’t and won’t investigate.’

‘Like what?’

‘You really want to know this?’

‘I want to know everything about it.’ Jack looked at the clock: two thirty a.m. ‘And besides, I’ve nothing better to do at this time of night.’

‘Well, sometimes I find people that others have merely lost contact with – long-lost relatives, old school friends or adopted children trying to find their biological parents, that kind of thing. I work quite a lot alongside the Salvation Army, trying to trace people. Then there are the more serious cases such as people who have disappeared, many of them of their own volition, and families just want to know where they are.’

‘But how would the Gardaí know it was their choice?’

‘Some people leave messages behind saying they don’t want to return.’ He could hear her unwrapping something in the background. ‘Sometimes they take their personal effects with them or sometimes people have previously expressed dissatisfaction with their situation.’

‘What are you eating?’

‘A chocolate muffin,’ she replied with her mouth full. She swallowed. ‘Sorry, did you hear me properly?’

‘Yeah, you’re eating a chocolate muffin.’

‘No, not that,’ she laughed.

Jack smiled. ‘So the families come to you for cases the Gardaí can’t deal with.’

‘Exactly. A lot of my work, using the help of other missing persons agencies in Ireland, is in specifically tracking cases that aren’t classed as high risk. If a person has left home of their own accord they won’t be accepted as missing but it doesn’t ease the worries of their families and friends.’

‘So they’re just forgotten about?’

‘No, a record will be made at the station but the extent of the enquiries is left to the discretion of the garda in charge of the station.’

‘What if somebody who was incredibly unhappy with his life packed his bags to be alone for a while, but then went missing? Nobody would look for him because he previously expressed a dislike of his life. And haven’t we all done that at some point?’

Sandy was silent.

‘Am I wrong in thinking that? Wouldn’t you want to be found?’

‘Jack, I can only assume that there’s only one thing more frustrating than not being able to find someone, and that’s not being found. I would want someone to find me, more than anything,’ she said firmly.

They both thought it over.

‘I’d better go now.’ Jack yawned. ‘I’ve to be up for work in a few hours. Will you sleep now?’

‘After I go through all these files again.’

He shook his head in wonder. ‘Just so you know, if you’d told me you’d never found anyone, I’d still be on this phone.’

She was quiet for a moment. ‘And if I’d never found anyone, I would be too.’

15 (#ulink_acca0e1f-b085-5b3d-9f98-6a9bea08f0e6)

Jack woke up earlier than Gloria, as usual. Her head rested on his chest, her long brown hair spread across his skin, tickling where it fell down alongside his ribs. He silently and very slowly moved his body from under hers and slipped out of bed. Gloria moaned sleepily and settled back down with a peaceful look on her face. He showered and dressed and left the bungalow before she had even stirred.

Every morning he left their home before she did to be at work at eight a.m. Gloria didn’t start work as a guide in Foynes Flying Boat Museum until ten o’clock. The museum was Foynes’ number-one tourist attraction, celebrating the era between 1939 and 1945 when Foynes was the centre of the aviation world, with air traffic between the US and Europe. Gloria, always more than willing to talk and help people, worked as a multilingual guide in the museum from March until October.

Apart from the museum, Foynes was famous for one other thing: the invention of Irish coffee. During cold and rainy weather, people waiting at the air terminal needed something stronger than coffee to keep them warm. Thus Irish coffee was born.

In a matter of days from now, Foynes would be overrun by bands playing music on the festival stage, the farmers’ market in museum square, the regatta, and the children’s street art would decorate the town for the Irish Coffee Summer Festival. As usual, the celebratory fireworks would be sponsored by the Shannon Foynes Port Company, which was exactly where Jack was headed that morning.

After greeting and consulting his colleagues, Jack took his place in the gigantic metal crane and got to work loading cargo. He enjoyed his job and felt a sense of satisfaction, knowing that someone just like him, somewhere on foreign soil, would unload the gift he had helped wrap. He enjoyed placing things where they belonged. He knew everything and everyone had a place in life: every piece of cargo that lay stocked up on the docks and every man and woman who worked alongside him had a space to slot into and a part to play. Every day he had the same goal: moving things and putting them where they belonged.

He could hear Sandy’s voice in his head, repeating the same sentence over and over again. I can only assume that there’s only one thing more frustratingthan not being able to find someone, and that’s not being found. I would want someone to find me, more than anything.

He carefully placed the cargo onto the ship, lowered himself to the ground, to the surprise of his watching colleagues, took off his helmet, threw it to the ground and ran. Some watched in confusion, some in anger, but those closest to him viewed his exit with sympathy, for they guessed that even a year on, Jack could no longer sit in his perch high above the ground, so high he felt he could see the entire county and all that was in it, except his brother.