Page 73 of The First Time I Saw You
‘Sammy!’ My eyes snap open. The room fills with dancing shadows, the blue of the sky replaced by a heavy grey. I leave Michael lying next to me: no need to wake him just yet. ‘I said when are we going to fetch this girl of yours?’
‘I need to get ready, I need to have another look at the map before I go.’ I close my eyes again and my world fills with light.
‘You’re not suggesting you’re going to go into the back of the Welsh beyond on your own, are you?’ I sigh and open my eyes again, leaving the great expanse of the room behind and instead accepting this claustrophobic life that I can’t escape from.
‘Well, I’m not very well going to turn up on her doorstep with my da holding my hand.’
‘I’m not holding your bloody hand, you great big arse wipe! But you’ve got to admit, Sammy, it’s one thing walking through our town with Mikey boy guiding the way, but it’s another thing traipsing up bloody mountains. What if you get lost? You’ll not be able to understand the locals even if you ask for help.’
‘I can understand them just fine, stop being so melodramatic.’
‘Right . . . and what kind of first impression are you going to make if you fall flat on your great behind? Hardly going to be bowled over by you, is she? If you’re crawling around on your hands and knees trying to find Michael, you’ll look like a right numpty.’
‘Thanks for the confidence, Da,’ I say, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I shake Michael awake and he stretches into his full height. Together we walk over to the window, but Da has left his case on the floor; Michael tries to warn me, but I don’t react quickly enough and we go flying over it.
‘Fuck!’ I shout, throwing Michael across the room. Da bends down and grabs my arm, but I shake him off. ‘I can do it,’ I snap and pull myself upright.
‘And you want to go climbing mountains?’
‘It’s your fault, you shouldn’t leave your shit everywhere.’
‘Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, Sammy, but there will be shit everywhere on the Welsh hillsides. There’s fecking sheep all over the shop.’
A small grunt of amusement escapes me, and I begrudgingly reach up to take his hand.
‘We’ll get in the hire car,’ Da goes on, ‘and I’ll drive you up the fecking hill, then we can park somewhere discreet and I can tell you where you need to mind your step and what you need to look out for. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go holding your hand right up to the doorstep, but whether you like it or not, you need a little bit of help, so stop being a stubborn arse. The last thing your gal will want is you knocking on her door covered in sheep shite.’
He is right. I know that I have no choice, really, but it doesn’t stop me from being angry. Actually, angry isn’t the right word – defeated, possibly? Although that makes it sound as though I’ve given up, and I haven’t. Maybe there isn’t a word to describe how someone in this situation feels. I’m lucky to be alive and yet I don’t feel lucky. I’m grateful for the small amount that I can still see and yet I resent that that is all I get. I’m happy, but every little bit of happiness I get is tinged with something dark. Happiness isn’t something clear-cut any more; it is, and always will be, smudged around the edges. I will always be surrounded by that fire and no matter how far I travel away from the big smoke,thissmoke will continue to spread, however hard I try to contain it.
‘Do you think you need to change gear?’ I ask, as the hire car screams up the hill.
‘Giving me driving tips, are we now?’ He crunches the gears and they lower their aggravated sounds into a more compliant grumble.
Michael taps nervously on my knee as I look out of the window. It’s like summer has stayed behind in Ireland. Rain lashes down against the windows and the bright green that I saw in the pictures before we left home is dull and grey . . . the colour of old navy ships. I haven’t thought about how the changing seasons would affect me. The sun, and the colours that summer brings, filled my vision with bright tones – even if they were seen through the tunnel – but what happens when winter draws in? What happens when there are weeks and weeks of weather like this? But then I think about how long it is until winter is here. My sight will be gone by then anyway . . . Christmas trees will flicker in the shadows and the faces of the people I know will become ageless; their images will be unchanging for me. ‘Jesus, will you put a smile on your face? She’ll likely slam the door on you if you keep that sour expression on your mush.’ The road is narrow, and the hedges scrape the sides of the window as though they are trying to clamber in to escape from the harsh elements. Autumn is starting to wake up . . . will I get to see the leaves turn colour?
‘So, your woman, Sophie. Tell me what is the best thing about her and the worst thing.’
I smile at Da; this is the way that they used to start dinner-time conversation when we were kids: ‘Tell me the worst bit about school today and the best bit.’
‘The worst thing is that she’s defensive, she keeps people at a distance . . . it’s hard to break through that, it’s hard to know who she really is.’
‘And the best thing?’
‘Once she lets her defences down, once you break through, it’s as though she’s been waiting for you her whole life and only you get to see who she really is. It’s like winning a trophy – no, not a trophy, an Oscar? It’s like winning a . . .’ I rack my brain. ‘It’s like winning.’
I think of how she snorts when she laughs, how she covers her mouth in embarrassment, the way her hands can turn a sugar packet into a flower, the look in her eyes when she sees something beautiful. ‘That’s it, Sammy, that’s the look you want when she opens the door,’ he says before I have time to answer. ‘Like a lovesick idiot. That’s what’ll win her heart.’
‘You think?’
‘Worked for your mother.’
I laugh.
‘But what about when I introduce her to Michael?’
‘What she thinks of Mikey doesn’t matter.’
‘How can you say that?’ I ask, returning my gaze to the circle of countryside flashing past the telescope in shades of sage and ash. ‘Of course it matters what she thinks of him.’ Michael stops tapping and sits still.
