In a Moment Read online

  One evening as they were walking home together after work, they had stood for a moment on the steps outside Emma’s front door, looking at life busying on around them. They watched Crazy Vinnie, an amputee who had lost both of his legs in Vietnam but managed to get around the place by putting his trunk on a skateboard and pushing himself along with his hands. He got his kicks from shouting at people in the street and then laughing at them as they screamed when they turned around to see him whizzing past them on his skateboard.

  They stayed talking for hours, only sitting down on the steps when it was dusk, and even though they were both starting to get chilly, neither one wanted to move. Eventually Adam knew he needed to seize the moment. It was now or never, so with a wildly beating heart he had leant across mid-conversation and kissed Emma with firm lips, showing the strength of his feelings for her. She had kissed him back with the same intensity, all the passion that had been building for months between them finally released.

  Things had moved pretty quickly after that evening. They spent all their time together. They would go for picnics in the park, cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito or spend a leisurely few hours just having brunch. Adam would stay at hers most nights. They would lie beside each other, bodies entwined, talking all night long. She had braved the live-in hostel in the Tenderloin once but once was enough.

  The rest of the summer passed wrapped up in each other until the inevitable time came when they had to go home. After three months, they had fallen in love not just with each other but with this city too. They felt as though they had become like San Franciscans themselves; they now belonged in this pulsing city with its micro-climate and the fog over the bay every morning, where artists, homeless war veterans and careerists hurrying along to the financial district all co-existed to bring the city to life. They felt different to the tourists who swarmed around Pier 49, queuing to get a boat out to Alcatraz; now tourists asked them for directions. They both knew that the combination of coming from opposite ends of Dublin city, him a southsider and her from the north side, and the pressures of their studies meant they wouldn’t have the luxury of so much time together back home.

  So when the summer of fun was over, they had sadly said goodbye to the city that had brought them together and wondered how their relationship would survive against the backdrop of the reality of their lives at home. They had made a pact that they would do everything in their power to make it work and to the amazement of their friends and families, who assumed it was just another holiday romance, that was what they had done.

  8

  As Zoe walked home after meeting Emma she thought over the conversation they’d just had. It was painful to watch her friend. She seemed so lost. She was going through the motions and getting on with her life but there was still a deep sadness in her eyes. Even when she smiled, it wasn’t a real smile – there was still an unmistakable pain lurking behind it. Zoe could understand why Emma felt the need to lash out; life had been very cruel to her. People reacted in different ways and she supposed that Adam must be a painful reminder to Emma of all that had happened. He mirrored her grief and it was impossible to be around him without dredging up all the hurt again. Zoe hoped that in time it would pass because, although Emma didn’t realise it, she needed Adam.

  As she strolled down the well-lit street, suddenly a car pulled up a little way ahead of her, jolting her out of her thoughts. She watched as the driver threw something out from the window which landed onto the footpath ahead of her. As quickly as it had stopped, the car screeched off again. She ran up the path to see what it was and she was completely shocked to discover it was a puppy. He lay whimpering on the footpath.

  “Hey!” she roared after the car. “Come back here!”

  A jeep pulled up on the footpath beside her moments later and a man hopped out.

  “Did you see that?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I tried to get the registration but they were gone too quick,” he said.

  Zoe bent down to the puppy who was now crying in distress. His brown eyes pleaded with her to help. He was so tiny; he was definitely no more than a few weeks old. She bundled him up into her arms.

  “Oh God – we have to help him.”

  “There’s a vet down on Charles Street – they’re probably still open,” the man said. “Here, get in!”

  Zoe looked at the man for a second; for all she knew he could be a serial killer.

  “Sorry, I should introduce myself – I’m Steve.” He held out his hand to shake hers. His blue eyes seemed kind and trustworthy.

  “Zoe.” She shook his hand tentatively. She climbed up into his battered jeep. Putting the puppy on her lap, she listened to him crying while Steve drove towards the vet.

  When they got there, they both jumped out quickly and ran into the surgery where they explained breathlessly to the nurse what had happened. Gingerly the nurse whose name was Carla, took the pup from Zoe’s arms.

  “Unfortunately we’re seeing a lot more of this type of behaviour. Some people blame the recession for the rise in animal cruelty but there’s no excuse for that!” She shook her head at them.

  “God, that is awful – people are sick!” Steve said.

  “I’ll bring him in to the vet straightaway. He has most likely broken something from the fall. He’s still quite young to be apart from his mother as well so we’ll give him a good checkup, poor little mite.”

  “Will he be okay?”

  “It’s too early to say but we’ll do our best for him – poor fella. If you want to leave me one of your numbers, I’ll give you a call and let you know how he is.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Zoe scribbled her number on a piece of paper.

  “Now – I hate having to do this but I do need to know who is going to cover the bill?”

  “Oh God, of course – sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Steve said quickly. “I’ll take care of it.”

  They both went outside and stood in the yard.

  “I can’t believe the bastards did that to a poor defenceless animal – I’m sorry, I shouldn’t use language like that but that’s how I feel about them.”

  Zoe shook her head in disbelieving agreement.

  “Here, look, there’s a little café around the corner,” he said. “Do you – well, do you want to go for a coffee – I need something to settle my nerves after that.”

  Zoe looked at her watch and tried to think of an excuse. Yes, he had helped her get the puppy to a vet but he was a complete stranger she had literally met on the street. Plus she really wasn’t in the mood for this – she was upset after seeing Emma, she was worried about her.

  “Well, I –”

  “C’mon, I could do with something to calm me down.” His smile was broad and easy.

  “Okay . . .” she said hesitantly. “Well, I suppose I could go for a quick one . . .”

  “Great!”

  They walked into the café and took seats. The waitress brought them over the evening menu. Zoe shook her head but was appalled when, instead of ordering coffee, Steve proceeded to order a steak and chips.

  “Sorry, you don’t mind, do you? I’m starving – it’s been a long day.”

  “No, work away.” She forced a smile. It would be at least an hour now before she could leave. All she wanted to do this evening was just to go home, have a nice soak in the bath and then sit on the couch in her PJs with a glass of wine.

  “You might as well order something – no point looking at me stuffing my gob.” He smiled at her.

  “Sure,” she said through gritted teeth as she scanned the menu. “Okay . . . lasagne, please.”

  The waitress took the menus and left.

  Zoe’s thoughts flipped back to the puppy. “That was awful, wasn’t it? To do that to a poor little creature like that!”

  “What kind of people throw a dog out of a car window? Jesus, there’s plenty of animal shelters around!”

  “I hope to God he’ll be okay. What a crappy introduction to the
world!”

  He nodded in agreement. “I’ve had dogs all my life. The best pet you’ll ever have – loyal to the last. I grew up on a farm.”

  He looked like the farming type, Zoe thought to herself. He was wearing a green wax jacket over a maroon-coloured sweater and navy cords. He stood out amongst all the office types seated around them in the café.

  “I always wanted a dog when I was growing up,” Zoe said.

  “You never had a dog?” he asked, incredulous.

  She had to smile at his surprise. “My mother could barely take care of me – let alone a dog.”

  “I see,” he said quietly. “So, Zoe, what do you do with yourself – when you’re not rescuing injured puppies?”

  “I work in fashion design.”

  “Wow – now that’s impressive!”

  “Not really, we just rip off catwalk designs and sell them on to the high street – it’s pretty mundane actually.”

  “It sounds exciting to me!”

  “Believe me, it really isn’t.”

  “Now I can’t tell you what I do – my job is so boring in comparison.”

  “Go on!”

  “I’m warning you, it’s not very glamorous!”

  “Tell me!”

  “I work for myself actually. I have a small food company. I make bread, cheeses, pâtés, jams, chutneys, that kind of stuff. All organic, of course – then I travel the country selling them at Farmers’ Markets.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty cool!”

  “Why?”

  “Making your own produce and selling it – it must be great seeing people buying something you have made.”

  “Are you into food?”

  “I love food – I just don’t have the patience for cooking it.”

  “Well, I should give you some of my pâté. I’m told it’s good.”

  Zoe could tell that, although he didn’t think his job was glamorous, he was still very passionate about it.

  “Well, I’d love to try it.” She was really starting to warm to him now. His open nature made him very appealing.

  When they were finished eating, Steve offered to drop her home. Somewhat hesitantly she agreed. He seemed like a nice guy.

  They chatted away easily on the trip home and when they pulled up outside Zoe’s apartment block, they stayed talking until eventually Steve said he’d better get on the road because he had to be up early to bake bread for the market in the morning.

  “Can I leave you my number – you might give me a call as soon as you get an update from the surgery on the little fella?”

  “Oh yeah – of course I will.”

  “Great, thanks for that. Well, Zoe, goodnight – and it was lovely to meet you even if the circumstances weren’t the best.”

  “And you too.”

  “Goodnight, Zoe.”

  “Goodnight, Steve.”

  She walked off towards the foyer of her apartment block, wondering if she would ever see him again.

  9

  Adam woke up saturated again. Beads of sweat were coursing down his forehead, neck and back but he still felt chilly. He took a deep breath. The frost-covered hedgerows, the sunlight so low in the sky that it was glinting in through the car window, his grey-leather steering wheel, the farmhouse with the red door. The bend in the road. The crossroads. Why couldn’t he remember more? The dream constantly haunted him during the night hours as if mocking his attempts at sleeping. He needed to do something. Anything. He lay there in the darkness listening to the traffic going up and down the road, the sound of footsteps on the pavement outside, a dog barking somewhere in the distance.

  * * *

  Adam moved noisily around the kitchen, tidying up things that had gathered on the worktops. He roughly lined up glass bottles for recycling so that they clattered together, threatening to smash. He opened the fridge and took packages of food past their sell-by date off the shelves and fired them into the bin. He had got up early, having spent most of the night lying awake in the aftermath of the dream. Bloody stupid fucking nightmare! Why the fuck will it not leave me alone?

  The lack of sleep was really starting to get to him. The dreams were now occurring almost every night and even the heavy slumber of alcohol couldn’t ward them off; drink only allowed him to forget temporarily. When he was awake, he constantly felt detached from the world that surrounded him. When he was in work he found it difficult to concentrate; if he tried to focus on a task his mind could often just go blank. His brain didn’t even have the energy to daydream. He was constantly feeling foggy and was afraid that one of these days he might just keel over onto his keyboard in work and fall into a deep sleep. The thoughts kept swirling around and about his head. What if he hadn’t gone? What if . . .? He was bloody sick of ‘what ifs?’ He tried to suppress them because they weren’t going to help him but like all bad thoughts that invade in the middle of the night, they were always the hardest to push away. It was gone to the stage that he was like a small child who was too scared to go to bed, scared of the nightmares that lay waiting for him in his sleep.

  Although it was the weekend, Adam almost wished he could go to work – anything that would distract him from the misery of his home life. No matter how hard he tried and how successfully he carried it off at work, once he was within the four walls of his own home, he couldn’t push the reality of his life out of his head any more.

  He had heard Emma creep out of the house after eight, like she did every weekend. She hadn’t even bothered to come into the kitchen and say she was going, he thought angrily, though she must have heard him.

  He heard the electronic buzz of their doorbell, jolting him out of his thoughts. It had better not be the goddamn Jehovah’s Witnesses again, he thought as he stormed out towards the front door. If it was them, he swore he would take their end-of-the-world-inferno pile of crap and stuff it down their own throats instead. In fact, on second thoughts, he hoped it was the Jehovah’s Witnesses; it would do him good to take his anger out on someone. He pulled their heavy front door back with force and was almost disappointed to see the diminutive figure of his mother standing there with her back to him.

  “Mam?” he exclaimed in surprise as his mother, who was dressed in a camel-coloured mohair coat that was swamping her petite frame, turned around to face him. When he was a child she had taught him that whenever you rang the bell you should always face away from the door and you should only turn around when it was opened. It never made any sense to him even now but Ita White obviously still adhered to her teaching.

  “Hi there, love.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you, come in.”

  “Surely your own mother doesn’t need an invitation to drop by?”

  “No, of course you don’t – sorry, Mam. Come in.”

  He showed her into the living room and cleared off a space for her on the sofa.

  “Will you have a cup of tea?” he asked.

  “I won’t, thanks, dear – it’s only a quick visit to see how you both are.”

  He sat down next to her.

  “Where’s Emma?” She peered around the room as if Emma might magically appear from behind the couch or jump down from the bookshelves.

  “She’s gone out.”

  “Oh, I see.” Silence. “Again?”

  Adam nodded.

  “Look, I don’t want to speak out of turn but . . . is everything all right?”

  “Of course it is. Why?” Adam tried to keep his voice level but he knew he didn’t sound very convincing.

  “Well, it’s just that I haven’t seen Emma in ages. Every time I call she’s gone out and you haven’t been over to the house together since . . . well, since . . .” She started to get flustered. “I’m just a bit concerned, that’s all.”

  “We’re working through it, Mam.”

  “Really, Adam?”

  He couldn’t lie to his own mother so he just said nothing. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

  She reached across and took her son’s hand in her
s and stroked it like she would a child’s. When Adam looked at her, her eyes were brimming with tears and her face etched with worry.

  The silence stretched itself out between them. Tension mounted in Adam as he steeled himself for the questions to come.

  Then suddenly she relinquished his hand and stood up.

  “Look, I’d better go . . . your father will be wondering where I got to. You look after yourself, love, won’t you?”

  “Of course I will, Mam.” Adam tried to disguise his relief but it showed in his voice.

  “And you know where I am if you need a chat? Any time of the day or night – y’know that, don’t you, love?”

  “I know, Mam. Thanks for calling in.”

  “All right, love. Tell Emma I was asking for her.”

  “I will,” he replied even though they both knew it was a blatant lie.

  10

  Zoe couldn’t sleep that night worrying about the poor dog and thinking about the strange evening she’d had. One minute she was walking down the road on her way home after meeting Emma and the next she was in the vet’s with a strange man with an injured puppy and then they were having dinner. Life was bizarre.

  The next morning she waited for news from the surgery. She was still upset at the thought of the fate of the poor puppy, only a few weeks old and already suffering at the hands of humans. Some people had no heart. Finally she got the call she had been waiting for all morning.

  “Zoe – hi, it’s Carla from Southside Surgery.”

  “Oh hi, Carla – how is he doing?”

  “Well, the poor little guy had a broken leg from the fall and he’s quite malnourished but he’s responding well and we would expect him to make a full recovery.”

  “Oh thank God – I didn’t sleep a wink worrying about him!”

  “Well, he’s in good hands here. He’s a little dote actually. We’re all mad about him.”