William Shaw - She's leaving home

He couldn’t bring himself to say, “But what about me?” Instead he said, “I was thinking I was going to take a holiday. A long one. I’ve got leave owing.”

“You?”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t think you knew how.”

She was teasing him, but it was probably what she thought as well, he realized. “I’m going to go to Ireland,” he announced. “I’ve got some money in the bank from my father. I thought I could go and find out where he was from.”

She nodded. “That’s good,” she said. “You should do that.”

“I was thinking, you could come too,” he said.

She licked the rim of her whisky glass. “I’ve heard it’s like Devon only wetter.”

“Probably.”

“I don’t think I’d like it then. I don’t think so, Cathal. You go.”

He tried not to show his disappointment. She was young. Uncommitted. Maybe this was the way it was now with girls.

“When are you going back home?” he asked.

“Gave in my notice today. Four weeks,” she said.

He tried to imagine her bringing in the cows day after day, but couldn’t see her in that role. He tried to imagine himself down there with her, but that was no better.

“If you don’t fit in, what makes you think I do?” he asked.

“You? You fit in fine,” she said.

It was just a careless comment, but he was stung by it. He chewed it over for a while. It was fine for her to change her mind from one day to the next, but he was set in stone. He was about to ask what she had meant by it, and perhaps start some childish argument of the kind that lovers might have, but they were not lovers, they had just had sex because they were two people who had gone through something terrifying together. He had wanted more, but he realized this was all there was. And when he turned to her, she was asleep, mouth open, eyes closed.

He lay there awhile, watching her naked chest rise and fall, feeling a weight pressing down on him. The bed was too small for the both of them. He tried to sleep, but he couldn’t.