Prose Lucy Reid

I Know Places

23rd of February, 2017

(two weeks after)

Eoin

The Marina. The name of such an establishment had confused Eoin since his arrival in

Westhead. Everyone had pointed him in the direction of ‘The Marina’, everything he needed to know was at ‘The Marina’. At first, he had assumed that they were referring to the pitiful stretch of

beach that was dashed with pastel coloured houses overlooking the coast as these tiny houses appeared to be the only thing the town had to offer. They were the only thing Eoin had found any information on when previously researching Westhead online. The town boasted that they were

repainted by locals every year to keep them ‘perfectly bright and happy’ - or so the AirB&B listing would have him believe. To Eoin, it seemed they were the town’s only attempt to attract some tourism or any knowledge that the town even existed. Unfortunately, there would be no more business in those houses for a long time as Westhead’s online presence was now haunted by photos of a young woman.

‘Girl Murdered in Idyllic Coastal Town.’

‘The Last of Colour Drained from Westhead as Young Woman Falls to Death from Cliff.’

‘Woman’s Body Found at Coast in Westhead in Suspicious Circumstances.’

Not one paper had mentioned the yearly paint jobs. Eoin was surprised that the story had made such big news, especially in England. The English tended not to care very much about the Irish and even he himself had never previously heard of Westhead and he was born all but a fifty-

minute drive from the town. The woman whose fate the town had sealed, hadn’t even resided there

herself which piqued the media’s attention. However, after exploring the little that the town had to offer, the journalists that now plagued Westhead seemed to be in an unspoken agreement that Westhead was definitely a place you come to die. The clouds remained grey and the people remained grey. Eoin did admit to once thinking that the little fairy-like houses would in fact look rather lovely if the sun was shining; but the sun had not graced Westhead since his arrival and he did not expect its presence anytime soon. Had Ireland always been so grey? He remembered life, soul and beauty on the West Coast. It had been a long time, he knew that (he had all but lost the accent) but he had always believed that he had a rather good memory. Reality persisted in proving him wrong as he found himself back in Ireland, standing outside a pub that was so meekly advertised that if the small red Guinness sign had not been flickering so fiercely and tirelessly against the grey as though it were an old heart beating desperately just to stay alive for a little longer, you could have easily mistaken it for an old Granny’ s

cottage. The Marina. The town’s local. Its beating heart. It did not seem like such upon his first arrival. As he first entered The Marina on the afternoon of the 23rd of February that year, he felt as though he were entering a morgue. His noisy arrival through the heavy, creaking door rudely interrupted the quiet whisperings from inside; all evidence of any life ceased to exist as he entered. The five men who were present that day (and almost every other day he revisited for that matter) had all turned to face him in unison with a joint expression of complete despair. After a moment of unwelcoming and suspicious stares, the three old men with even older guitars returned to their sombre songs whilst the man sat at the bar, restored his head to his pint and the barman walked away and pretended to dust glasses. Mourning had never made itself so clearly present to Eoin before. He felt like an intruder to their grief. He felt like an intruder to Ireland. That uncomfortable thought almost made him turn for the door and run, run far away across the water once more to

leave these strangers to mourn in peace. But he didn’t. Instead, he forced himself to remember the reason that he had come back. He was not coerced into taking the case, he had volunteered. He planned on leaving his homeland once more when the time was right with all of the answers that he needed. He perched himself at the bar three seats down from where the man sat alone. Late thirties, early forties Eoin guessed; pale, dressed casually in a navy t-shirt and worn out jeans. He looked typical of the town. Same grey as everyone else. That was a good start, he needed to get to know the

locals; he needed to spend time with them, to let himself stew in their environment and surrender himself completely to their terms. The man did not raise his head from his pint to greet him, just lifted his drink and stared forward towards the barman who was still pretending to be too busy to talk. In one swig he finished his beer and asked for another in a mellow Scottish accent.

‘You not from here?’ Eoin asked the man. This was his way in. At least that’s what he had told himself when initially reflecting upon the conversation later that night. But he knew that if he were to be completely honest with himself, he would admit that it was an involuntary reaction to the shock of hearing a different accent for the first time in a week. The realisation that he wasn’t the only outsider in Westhead filled him momentarily with great comfort and reassurance. He felt a strange connection with this stranger and the feeling was reciprocated. When Jordan finally lifted his eyes to meet the Detective’s, he no longer felt agitation for him but instead recognition. Jordan

stared for a moment, before deciding that he couldn't possibly know this man and that he definitely

did not want to get to know this man, just half-laughed and replied: ‘Matty, get Sherlock over here a drink.’

The barman turned back to face Eoin, staring at him expectantly with a hopeless expression. As if he was waiting for a question, as if he was waiting for answer. Or both. Eoin had no answers yet, so he asked the first of the many questions that he planned to ask the people of Westhead that

year.

‘Can I have a Guinness please, mate?’ Before Eoin was done speaking, the man nodded and it was as he went to pour the pint the Eoin first noticed the photo behind the bar. There she was. Captured for all of eternity in a dusty bronze frame, looking right at him, smiling at him, dealing colour to The Marina. Bright blue eyes,

ebony hair, red coat. Fenella Marie Galway. It was clear that she didn’t belong in the town, and yet she went there often. Having grown up and lived all her life in Clonagh, an hours drive away, she would come to Westhead often, to The Marina, more than three times a week. To the media, it begged the question of why? Why would she travel an hour there and an hour back every few days to visit Westhead of all places? The town offered no life for a twenty year old woman, no lively cafes or restaurants or anything. Nothing that Clonagh didn't have to offer. The journalists all wanted to know why. Why did she come here? Why did she come here to die? They couldn’t understand it. They couldn't understand Ireland. They couldn't understand the

people.

Eoin understood. That was why he left in the first place.

8th of February, 2017

(the funeral and before) Jordan

Fucking amazing. He had met Fennella Marie Galway for the very first time on a cold night in March and he thought she was fucking amazing. By the time had stumbled home intoxicated on the moonlit pavements, he had already convinced himself that his existence before her had been meaningless; that he had only been biding his time, waiting patiently for this moment. The calm before the storm. And that storm had brilliant blue eyes and dusky black hair. “You’re taking the absolute piss! You’s aren't from Clonagh!” He had joked with her that

first night. She had loved his Scottish accent. Months later, she teased him claiming that it was the sole reason that she was attracted to him.

“Which is a good thing for you, I guess,” she had said, “you never shut the fuck up.” According to Fenn and her friend Amy, they had walked into The Marina that night by complete chance. But knowing the little that there was to know about Westhead and knowing how he had felt when he had first locked eyes with Fenn, Jordan knew that there was nothing coincidental about it at all.

It was fate.

Two young women walking through the doors of The Marina was close to a miracle to which all the men, from the old and the dying to the middle-aged and bored thanked a God that they previously had shown no signs of believing in. Jordan Boal fit indefinitely into the second category. “You's can't be! Why the fuck would you come here then?!” Jordan’s middle-aged and bored

friends had all asked.

The answer had something to do with a cheating boyfriend, a girls night out, an adventure and being unfortunate enough to need the bathroom during a long car journey in the middle of nowhere when you're a female - or something along those lines. The girls spoke so quickly that Jordan found it difficult to keep up with what they were saying. Yet, he found himself laughing along anyway; the Marina was usually host to talk of country music, whiskey, cars, cliffs, the wars and the weather. Not the infidelity of a 20-something-year-old boy. It was often that Jordan thought about that first night in The Marina as he desperately attempted to breathe some life back into the impossibly perfect image he had created of this girl. She had come back to Westhead a few days later, just as he prayed she would. When he had found her sitting alone in The Marina, he knew the empty seat to her right was waiting for him. It was like they were now speaking in their own wordless, private language, that they could both decipher but did not fully understand yet.

“Well,” he had greeted her, lifting his hand to attract the barman’s attention, “what are you having?” “No,” She said, slowly raising her own hand to meet his and pushing it back down to rest on

the bar. She let her skin linger over his for a moment. “We’re going for a drive.’ “Are we now?” Jordan eyes flitted around the room. Of course everyone was watching. He had a wife. He had two kids. They were all judging him. None of that had seemed overly important to him at the time. When he remembered this moment, he became filled with a shame almost too

great to bear. “Where to, may I ask?” She shrugged and offered a sly smile, “I know places.” She had driven twenty minutes out of Westhead to a beach that Jordan had never heard of when she stopped the car, undid her seatbelt, leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips. Every inch of her body had seemed to speak to him in that moment, sing to him as he melted into her; kissing her felt like writing a poem. And Jordan had never written a poem in his life. When she slowly pulled away abashed, her eyes pleaded for the reassurance that he wanted this too, that he was willing to take the leap with her. Those eyes. Pools of blue, reminding him of rocky seas that had survived a hundred stormy nights. Yet, they held the promise of a light warm wind over a gentle sea somewhere on a distant shore. He knew she was watching him, reading him too. They were both puzzling silently, attempting to figure one another out; communicating without words, becoming fluent in their own secret language. And then he kissed her again.

His baby was born in the last two weeks of Fenn’s life. His third child. His first baby girl. Whilst Angela was giving birth, he became so queasy, he thought he might faint and soon found himself throwing up in the bin in the corner of the delivery room. He was ashamed of himself. A baby girl. His first baby girl. He cried as he held her and his wife patted his back and ran her fingers through his hair. A great big proud smile on her red, puffy face. The realisation that his wife knew of his affair sunk in slowly the days after Fenn’s death. She had attended the funeral with him despite his requests to go alone. It had taken months for her to leave their two older boys at her parents for the night, it was downright outrageous that she would leave their two week old infant daughter with them so that she could attend the funeral of some random young girl in Clonagh. He prepared himself for her accusations at the church where his friends patted his shoulder and whispered their condolences but none ever came. His wife never uttered a word. The funeral was sad and tiring. He felt sick. When they arrived home that evening, Jordan crawled into bed and slept for fourteen hours. He dreamt of the beach where he had first kissed Fenn. Days after her death, he had searched endlessly for that beach to no avail. Now, it ceased to exist outside of his memory and the more that time passed, the less he believed that Fenn had ever even truly existed herself. When he finally awoke in the early hours of the morning after the funeral, he found his wife sitting rigidly at the end of the bed still in her black dress, staring out at the sombre, shadows of the dawn sky. Angela had felt it in her chest when Jordan had awoken. Asleep, her husband brought her a great sense of calm. Knowing that he was was at home with her, still and dreaming brought her a blissful peace that was disturbed from the moment he opened his eyes. So she knew her husband was awake without moving her gaze from the window.

“How well did you know that girl, Jordan?” She asked him, unmoving. Ah, there it is. The inevitable question Jordan thought. He followed her line of sight through the window to the dark coastal sky where the waves broke somewhere close by.

“Not very well.” He lied. “Jordan… If you know anything about what happened to that girl… you need to tell me now. You need“ “I don’t.” They waited in a heavy silence for what felt like hours and for the first time since that fateful cold night in March when he had first met Fenn, the sky outside of the bedroom window cleared

and filled their room with a soft, golden light. The storm was finally over. The waves crashed nearby in a soothing melody that lulled Jordan back into his deep, sleep filled with warm sandy beaches somewhere on a distant shore. So by the time his wife had decided that she would force

herself to deny the doubt that she felt growing towards her husband and whispered to him “i love you”, only the waves replied.

5th of February, 2017

(the night of)

Fenn

The fog lay steadily across the sea; it looked almost black in the dawn light. Fenn had never really understood why people thought it was pretty, she found that it rather petrified her. To her it appeared menacing, ominous; it was its own entity, completely unpredictable. Yet from a distance, she found it strangely fascinating. She was enamoured with the coast; she loved climbing the rocks that lined the ocean, feeling the presence of the sombre tides but being free from their waves. It made her feel oddly powerful, as though she faced a huge, irate beast that loomed over her but could never reach her.

She hadn’t been in possession of this strange sense of power for some time now; Westhead was the closest point on the coast to her hometown and this was the first time she had visited in over a month. She had attempted on many occasions to convince herself that she need not return, there was nothing there for her anymore, nothing that she couldn't have easily found anywhere else. But she knew that Jordan still lingered here, waiting. She found that exhilarating. A married man wanting her? Abandoning his wife and children for her? She fancied herself as a sorceress and he drank from her potions willingly knowing that there was no antidote.

So is that why I’m here then? Fenn had asked herself many times and she still wasn’t sure. In the early hours of the morning she had awoken in her bed covered in a cold sweat as the bleak morning light bled into her room. She found herself in her car driving out on familiar, old roads within half an hour; a hoody pulled over her head, jeans yanked on. She had been dreaming about the ocean. She longed for the fresh coastal air on her face but more importantly, she longed to feel in control again. Powerful. Yes, that’s the only reason why I’m going, she had promised herself, gripping the steering wheel tightly, trying to hold on to her feelings, to organise them. Pretending that if she squeezed tight enough, soon the dreadful thoughts in the back of her mind would evaporate and float away from her body leaving her free of conscience once more. Nevertheless, the thoughts creeped in, demanding Fenn to listen. She knew deep down that she had only been avoiding Westhead for the last few weeks because Eoin was home from England. Of course, he had found out about her and Jordan. It was naive of her to believe for a second that he wouldn't have been following her. Investigating as usual. She liked to picture him as a protective older brother looking out for her but sometimes, if she didn't squeeze tight enough, she felt a slight trickle of doubt entering her mind. That Eoin wasn't watching over her to act as her guardian angel but instead to have something to hold against her. She cringed every time she remembered the acidity of his tone when he accused her: ‘A married man with a pregnant wife?’ He hadn’t needed to raise his voice, the hissed whisper was almost worse. Deadlier. Then and only then, had Fenn felt any shame for what she had done. Eoin had presented to her all of her wrongdoings that she had been trying to squeeze from her mind and laid them all on the table right in front of her face where she could no longer deny them. She understood why he was so angry and often thought of ways to portray her sympathy and

her regret to her half-brother. Eoin was only back in Ireland for a few days to attend his Father’s funeral and Fenn wanted to support him, prove to him that she wasn’t as horrible as he clearly believed her to be. She didn't care that she ‘was the product of his Mother having fucked off with another man’, she never had. In her mind, she was his little sister and they were a family. Yet, even

though she squeezed against the thought with every fibre of her being, she could not shake the inkling that Eoin resented her for this very reason. After much disagreement between Fenn and her Mother, they attended the funeral together. Eoin didn't appear to be angry that they had shown up. He didn't seem too sad either though, Fenn remembered thinking. He had turned to face them with an expression that she couldn't quite

understand. It reminded her of a time from years past when her friend Amy had painted a portrait of her in school.

‘No,’ Amy had said. ‘It's not you, I didn't capture you.’ Fenn had puzzled over the painting for days after, trying to understand what Amy had meant. The drawing was phenomenal, very life like. It was certainly a brunette with blue eyes who stared back at Fenn when she gushed over it, but alas, Amy was right. It wasn't her. The girl in the portrait had the same earrings, the same hair falling over her shoulders, the same eyes. But there was something, perhaps in the space between her eyes; the delicate pencil line of her nose or in the concave of her dimples that was missing. She hadn’t captured Fenn. And standing in that church hall, Fenn’s eyes couldn’t quite capture Eoin. As he stared at Fenn and her Mother for slightly longer than was comfortable, his features eerily contorted as though he had been repainted,

reanimated into someone she could no longer recognise. That night she had dreamt of Jordan’s wife and children with the same distorted, sinister faces haunting her. It was then that she decided she would abandon Westhead.

Fenn had driven for miles like this; lost in her thoughts with red hands gripping tightly on the steering wheel but finally, she arrived at her destination. Signpost for Tra. She loved this beach, it was always empty meaning that her and the ocean could be alone together. She climbed the rocks along the coast drifting in and out through the clouds of fog that blanketed the ocean, watching but never touching. But it just wasn't enough for her this morning. No matter how hard she tried, she could not drown her thoughts. Her power would not return to her. The ocean breeze was useless. She wished for a hurricane.

In her desperation she climbed the stoney path about a half-mile from the beach and ascended the rocky cliff. Jordan had first taken her here many months ago, it was his favourite spot. Here they would come again and again to be alone, where no one would ever disturb them. She could peer over the edge to where the sea met the cliffs with the wind rushing past her face while Jordan watched, fascinated. She thought it would feel different to be there without him. Desolate. Forlorn. But standing here in this same spot once again, she didn't feel that she particularly missed him for she didn't feel that she was without him. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, was it the presence of the ocean she felt pricking her goosebumps? No. She couldn't quite explain it but she knew she was in the company of someone else. Was Jordan still lingering up here, brooding on his

cliffs in the hope that Fenn would return to him? She hoped so, she couldn’t be that easily forgotten. Impossible, surely. So she stayed and waited for whoever was going to join her. She sat down on the cliff edge, breathing in the sea air and losing herself in the fog. She closed her eyes and listened to the waves break far below her. She felt it again, finally after so many weeks, that power. She felt in control once more. As if she were manipulating time and space to match her innermost desires. Fenn always got what she wanted. So she was aware of his arrival without seeing it. Her skin prickled and her mouth twitched. She turned her head back, leaning on the rock behind her and smiled.

And there he was.

Lucy Reid