Catherine O’Flynn - Mr Lynch’s Holiday

And Eamonn had tried to brush that away, insisting it was an exaggeration and moreover an irrelevance. But it lingered between them, an inconvenient truth.

Dermot had of course said nothing remotely questionable all evening. He had been in high spirits. Possibly, Eamonn reflected, a reaction to the earlier drama and shock. They had not been at Rosemary and Gill’s long when his father spotted the pack of cards.

‘Do you like to play a hand or two?’

‘We do,’ said Gill. ‘How about you? Could we persuade you to a few rounds of Whist? And Eamonn? Could you bear it? Would you humour us?’

‘What do you say, son? Shall we have a go?’ Dermot said. ‘Now, Whist?’ He turned to Eamonn and winked. ‘Which one is that?’

They had played for hours and Eamonn had grown tired. He decided to leave as his father was setting about teaching the two women the many idiosyncrasies of the game of Twenty-Five. It wasn’t until Eamonn walked away from their building that he realized how dark it was. The sky was cloudy and the streets black without the benefit of moonlight. He held out his mobile phone as a torch.

He remembered nights on holiday in Ireland. Walking back to the caravan site, after similarly interminable evenings of cards with relatives, the air thick with cigarette smoke, the atmosphere serious, the games impenetrable. His father holding his hand as they walked between towering black hedgerows. The air smelling sweet and strange. One time they walked straight into a donkey wandering the empty road in the moonless night. Eamonn screamed, the donkey brayed and his parents giggled. The memory felt like a dream.

He stopped and looked around him. He didn’t know where he was. It was possible that lost in thought and muddled by alcohol he had strayed off course, or maybe it was simply that the familiar looked strange in the darkness. He stood still to try to get his bearings. The light from the phone was faint and he could see little more than a few feet in front of him. He had no idea how long he had been walking. It felt a long time, long enough certainly to have reached his own door. He peered into the blackness and had no inkling which way to go.

He continued a few steps in the same direction, hoping that his subconscious had been successfully navigating all along. But after just a few yards he stopped. There it was again: the sense he had had outside the half-built house. He was not alone.

He attempted cat speak. ‘Psss wsss wssss wssss.’ But no cat emerged. Squinting into the darkness he saw nothing. He started to walk again before remembering that he was lost. He was tired and uneasy and wanted very much to be home in his bed. He could think of no other option but to phone for help. Calling his father to rescue him for the second time in a day. As he dialled the number for Gill and Rosemary, he heard movement nearby.

‘Dad? Is that you?’ he called out.

Then, up close, a voice on the phone: ‘Hello?’

‘Gill.’ His own voice too loud.

‘Hello? Who’s this?’

‘Gill. It’s me. I’ve got a bit lost. I can’t see a thing out here.’ He spoke more quietly, tried to sound light-hearted; it came out wrong.

‘Eamonn, is that you?’ There was laughter.

‘Gill, listen, can you put my dad on …’ The phone slipped from his hand and clattered on to the road, leaving him in total darkness.

‘Fuck. Fuck.’

He dropped to his hands and knees, patting the ground around him. He had his arm outstretched. One moment the phone was nowhere, the next he felt the corner of the plastic casing pushing against his fingertips. He reached to grab it and as he did he felt something else touch his hand. Warm, light, gone in an instant. He yelped.

‘Who’s there?’

He stood up and turned in a circle, his arms out straight.

‘What do you want?’ There was nothing. Silence. Blackness. Suddenly he felt a disturbance of air behind him and he fled, no longer wanting to know who or what it was. He ran blindly, his breath ragged, until he saw a light bobbing in the distance and heard his father’s voice.

‘Eamonn? Eamonn? What are you up to?’

Eamonn ran right up to him.

‘What’s going on? Are you drunk?’

‘There’s someone out there. I dropped my phone and I felt someone touch my hand.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

Dermot shone his torch around and then back at Eamonn.

‘Are you drunk?’ he asked again.

‘It happened the other day. Someone hiding. Watching me.’

Dermot looked around again. The street was empty and silent.

‘Where did it happen the other time?’

‘Over by the building site.’

‘All right, then. You stay here and keep a lookout. I’ll head down there, find out if someone’s messing around.’

‘No … let’s just go home.’

‘What? Why would we do that?’ He shone the light in Eamonn’s face. ‘Are you scared?’

‘Yes! A bit. Of course. It’s scary.’

‘There’s no need to be scared. I’ll leave you with the torch.’

‘Dad.’

‘What is it?’

Eamonn tried to laugh. ‘You don’t watch horror films, you don’t understand. You don’t split up.’

‘For the love of God. It’s not a horror film, son.’ Dermot handed over the torch and started to go but Eamonn’s hand shot out and held his father’s arm tight. He turned and looked at Eamonn’s face.

‘OK, son. We’ll head home.’

Back in the apartment he made him some sugary tea, which Eamonn found undrinkable.

‘Some people pick up on these things,’ said Dermot.

‘What things?’

‘Oh, ghosts and atmospheres and all that. I never did.’

‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’

‘I don’t reckon believing’s anything to do with it. Just a sense. There are just some that have it and some that don’t.’

He was quiet for a while and then said: ‘Dominic and I were always out exploring old abandoned houses. Most of the time we were like wild animals running about the place, but every now and then something would scare him. He’d say he didn’t want to go in a particular room, or didn’t want to play in certain places. It drove me mad. I was forever trying to convince him there was nothing there, it was all in his imagination.’

‘Not everyone shares your love of crumbling old ruins.’

‘I remember one time, in the old Dempsey cottage, I asked him to look in one of the rooms for any old furniture or bits of wood we could try and burn. He just dithered about next to me until I shouted at him: “Will you go in the other room like I told you!” and he turned and said: “But, Dermot, I should wait till the man’s finished fixing the door.”’

He laughed. ‘He wasn’t even scared. Very matter-of-fact. He could see the funny side though. After that whenever we’d go anywhere I’d tease him. “Is that phantom carpenter doing any work here today?”’

He shook his head. ‘I’m making him sound cracked. He wasn’t. He was great company.’

Eamonn smiled.

Dermot looked at him. ‘You’re very like him sometimes.’

Dermot was awake again. Something about the heat had him waking and dozing, waking and dozing all night long. He drifted in and out of dreams. Each time he woke, the same breathless struggle to work out where he was. No sound or shape to give him a clue. He wondered at the time, his watch useless in the dark. He closed his eyes and saw a different shade of black.

He remembered another summer’s evening, sitting in golden light watching shadows lengthen on the floor. His mother in the bed. Her black hair unfurled upon the pillow, as if she were underwater.

‘Are you still there?’

‘I am.’

‘Come over and talk to me.’