Summer Shadow Romancing (short story excerpt)

It is her, our eyes meet, and I can tell she's thinking the exact same thing. The rooms of this mostly empty art gallery permit us to speak, and we mumble a few inconsequential nonentities. Underneath though I get a strong urge to say something meaningful, to make a gesture. It's been years and even though it was short, a summer and not even half of an autumn, I always had the feeling I hurt her badly. I fight the impulse to just cut if off with a lightweight farewell, yielding to my desire to seize the opportunity for redemption. "Vicki", I say, "let's go for coffee or something, I'd like to talk with you a bit more". She agrees, tells me she's got to make a phone call but I can wait in the gallery cafe downstairs.

Memories come swarming back to me as I wait for her, mostly good. Our first date, and the way she sat cross-legged on her chair and rested one leg on my thigh created an intimacy that instantly made me feel "this is going somewhere good", or, on a more base level, "I'm going to get some here. Yesss!" Fragments of phone conversations when we would excitedly arrange when where and how we'd meet again;
- Ok captain of my heart, what adventures have you got planned for us this weekend? Her voice sounds warm and full and I'm loving the attention, even though I feel the pull of other activities, other places, other people.
- Well this boy will be making tracks down south. Can we rendevouz on Monday?
- I guess I'm going to have to cool my jets here on Venus, huh?
The excitement of something new, the sun bursting everywhere, down the phone, in our voices, in the room. I remember it now, I smile so much my heart could burst. I was young, arrogant, naive; Somebody likes ME, somebody wants me so much. Hey look at me, I'm valuable property, my net worth has just rocketed upwards.

I'm brought back to the present by her sitting down across from me. I'm shocked at how much older she seems, something I hadn't noticed when I saw her in the gallery. I'm also secretly relieved that it didn't work out.
- Well Vicki, how are you really? I was just thinking, I haven't seen you in years, 7, I think, maybe 8.
- Yes I know, how are you, it's good to see you. So you are in Dublin now, how's your life there?
- Yeah like I said I came back nearly two years ago, it's going well, it's a big adjustment, but, yeah, overall it's going well.
- That's great, I'm happy for you.

I feel increasingly awkward, we're rehashing the conversation we just had in the gallery, and I have that old familiar feeling of an opportunity slipping away. C'mon I urge myself, she agreed to this coffee, she must want something more than mere banalaties as well. I flinch and grimace while getting the following out:

- Thanks, and you too... You know, I feel... strange, well, I'm um not sure about the best way to say this, but I, I regret somehow, if that's the way, letting things get the way they did between us... I wasn't very mature, not clear in communicating myself.

I'm met by a blank expression and this response:

- Well, it was a long time ago...

I want desperately to break through this meaninglessness, to seize the redemption that I can practically smell at this point, and I lean forward imploringly.

- C'mon Vick, let's be honest, let's use this opportunity to really connect. Tell me how you really feel. I know I hurt you.

- Well, that was pretty obvious. I was crazy about you, but I couldn't understand you, you were a complete puzzle, I really couldn't work you out at all.

- Yes, that was er, I er, um...

I suddenly feel self-concious, no longer in control, taken aback by her arms-folded frankness and invulnerability. A strained silence follows, then I say:

- You know I really liked you too, but I just didn't feel the same way about us that you did, I...
- You know, this is all in the past why bother going there now.
- Yes I know it's in the past, but there's still some things that need to be said... Let's use this opportunity to, to, I don't know, connect...
- Ok, go ahead, connect.

She's knotted up, arms folded, legs crossed, and looking cross. I'm beginning to curse myself and make a mental note to seek counselling for addiction to redemption.

- Jesus... Well I can still see your hurt, but I was confused, ok. It, it felt like you basically wanted to be married after a few minutes. I felt suffocated, trapped, like I'd nowhere to go. We should have taken it slowly. Or not at all maybe.
A silence.
- Is that all you have to say on the subject? Because frankly it was a fairly small episode in my life. Yes, it was clumsy and stupid of us both, and we deserved a good smack on the head each, but, you know, I got over it.
She sniffs, head tilted, manages to looks down at me even though I'm half a foot taller, and I sigh deeply, searching for something reasonable to say.
- Yes, but did you learn from it?
- Learn? Well I learned that you were an emotional retard.
- It's not just me Vick. There was two of us in it.
- Ok, tell me what I'm supposed to have learned then, "teacher".
Something about the way she said this got to me, and I fought to control my irritation. I lean forward again, using the anger to fuel what I say.

- Well how about paying attention and not being completely oblivious to the entire world at the cost of your own needs. I don't mean to be judgemental, well, actually, you know, I do, because you haven't exactly been completely objective here yourself, but, you know, as soon as I saw you, I saw a look in your eyes, the way you hold your head, that tells me you haven't really changed at all.

She leans forward, equal to my determination.

- I want to get something really clear to you. I never showed you even the slightest trace of the rage, the anger and frustration I felt at you. And yes, I know I have responsibility for what happenned, but you really killed something in me when you said that, "you must take every precaution necessary", it was "you", as in "you" and "not me, you're on your own now baby, good-BYE". I'll never forget that. That turns my blood cold today.
I frown. I resist the impulse to say sorry, because that's what I automatically do when faced with incoming anger, but more than that I feel a sense of shock, and realize I'm not on steady ground anymore. Clouds of guilt and shame hang overhead. I try to make sense of it, explain through logic; women are sensitive creatures, so much more than us men. Or maybe we just shut down our sensitivity as an instinctive defense mechanism? I can't deny it, when the thought of pregnancy had entered my mind, the possibility that she might be, that was my reaction, immediate, cold and clinical. It effectively terminated our relationship, and the idea that I'd killed something in her finally sank in and made me awarw of my stupidity, followed by sadness and regret. What can you do but accept that some people will just always view you as a piece of worthless excrement? That's the purpose you've served in their lives, to be the lowlife, the demon, to foul up their beliefs in the goodness of others. No point in trying to make them believe you're ok, that you're in fact normal. Seeking redemption by trying to make them see that you are really normal and decent is futile, worthless and ultimately selfish. Just get on with it. And don't do things quite so badly again. And that's what I did, or tried to.

Was That Kindness (short story excerpt)

Was that kindness, he asks me, his voice trembling, eyes imploring, to treat me like that?
I suddenly feel very quiet, and stare at the space between us, trying to set up a wall against his grief and sadness, which I now feel intensely.
I'd tried to reason with him, cruel to be kind I said, your father had a good heart I'd said, all the while feeling irritated by his weakness and sensitivity, and also annoyed that he could speak like that about my uncle, his father, who had died just barely a month before. I'd listened to him in complete denial - this - what he said - just didn't make sense; this was not my uncle Seamus, the man who's quiet, almost giant like strength, and gentle, eazy going carefree manner had been such a contrast to my father's seemingly eternal anxieties and black depressions. No, no I inwardly exclaim, listening in mounting disbelief to my cousin's litany of injustice, until I can no longer contain myself and blurt out no, your father was a good man, stop being such a, such a victim for Christ's sake, I'd give anything to have had him as a Dad, he was kind, I'd swap Dads in a heartbeat.
His face registers a momentary shock, like he can't understand me, but then he becomes animated and what he tells me I'm just not prepared for, no, just not willing to hear or accept it. Maybe it's his cold fury more than any words or facts that shock me, that he could feel so much anger and grief at the same time, and I feel shame, fear, and... pity, maybe more than anything else I feel pity that his father is gone and he's got all this hurt, all this wounding inside him and it's just got nowhere to go. As his voice increases in intensity and pitch I am alarmed that he's going to completely lose it, and I feel myself close down, like I've way overstepped the mark and am in alien emotional territory. And then I realize how close he is to me when he asks me - was that kindness - and repeats it a third time with a strangulated exasperation that frightens me out of my shutdown state. It dawns on me that he's expecting a response, even though there's only one obvious answer I can give and I say hastily "no, no, of course not". I feel as if I've been beaten up, and an image comes to my body of the time his older brother had me pinned on the field and wouldn't let me go until I'd actually said the words "I give up", I'd had the submission physically forced out of me. I felt like that now. A pause, then I say "look I'm really sorry, I didn't know, I had this image of your Dad, my uncle, as, as " all the time I'm staring intently into the space with nothing in it, I can see in the corner of my eyes his quivering blue eyes in his yellow jaundiced face and I mutter an inconclusive ending with "I'm sorry, Ger I really am. I can't imagine how you feel, I'm really sorry." Now I'm staring down at the ground. After what seems like an age I look up, and he's gone. I breathe out and it almost hurts. I feel numb, trying to take in what he's told me. Still in denial, my heart and head at odds, confused.

Background - photo of uncle Denis with dog, character, strong, silent, instinctive, big heart. A hero, almost, in the mythological sense of the word. Experience of being Irish in England, of being lost.

Establish relationship with Ger - summers visiting Ireland, dynamic of domination physically, he was frail, prone to asthma. Interleave this with the dialogue - the exchange - above