A River Would Run to the Sea

A River Would Run to the Sea

(c) by the author

There were two messages on the phone machine when Mark returned home after work. He didn’t immediately recognise the first caller’s voice. ‘Mark, look, I know I’m the last person you want to hear from, but please listen. It’s Luan. You know Brian’s fortieth birthday is next month. And we—me and several of his friends—we’re having a party for him on May 16th. That’s a Saturday. It would make your brother so happy if you would come. It’s just going to be drinks and a buffet at our house, and you won’t have to stay very long if you don’t want to. Your parents are coming, and …’ The message continued with the details of the time and place.

Luan spoke in haste, as if he thought that he had best deliver the message as quickly as he could before Mark hung up. He must have known that I would be out when he called, thought Mark. He didn’t want to risk talking with me.

The second message was from Mark’s mother. ‘Mark, your father and I will be in London for Brian’s party, and we’re hoping we can stay with you. We’re thinking about flying from Belfast to Heathrow on the 15th and then leaving on the 21st. We promise not to be a bother. There are several old friends we want to see. …’

His mother had also called when she knew he would be out and couldn’t offer excuses. Unlike Luan, she had his office number and had called there many times. Indeed, she was not at all reluctant to interrupt him at work. Mark felt sandbagged by the two of them. They must have planned the calls. Now he had no choice but to go the party. He briefly wondered if he should tell his parents that he would be away on holiday or a business trip during that period but that they were welcome to stay at his place. But he had spoken with them a few days before and not mentioned a trip, and it was too late to invent one. They would see through the pretence.

It was typical of them to assume that they could stay with him rather than Brian and Luan. Once they had become accustomed to his brother and Luan’s civil partnership, they began thinking of Brian as a married man, more settled and more responsible than his younger brother. Like their father, Brian and Luan were also doctors, and their parents felt that Brian was the busier of their two sons. Brian and Luan had ‘important jobs’, whereas he was frivolously pursuing his hobby of sailboat racing. The fact that he had a degree in naval architecture and owned a successful firm specializing in small-boat design meant little to them. In their minds, he was fooling around, and he, unlike Brian, could take time off to do things like pick them up at Heathrow or to spend a week in Ireland when they needed help. The fact that his home in Staines was much closer to Heathrow didn’t enter into their calculations. Had Brian lived a mile from that airport and he in Glasgow, they still would have expected him to be the one to meet them.

He replayed Luan’s message and jotted down the address. He had never been to Brian and Luan’s house in Harringay before. He Googled the address and found it on a map. The computer’s suggested route from his place to theirs was a nightmare of street names through the heart of London. It would take over an hour to drive there, even on a Saturday. He couldn’t remember—was there a congestion charge on the weekend? He thought not, but he was prepared to add the fee to his list of grievances about this party. He should check on trains and the underground and buses before his parents arrived. They were sure to complain if he suggested that, however. His father in particular hated travelling on the tube, especially if it involved changing lines, and there was sure to be at least one transfer. And his parents would want to take Brian and him out at least once. He would probably have to invite Brian at least for one dinner as well, and he could hardly omit his brother’s partner.

Brian and Luan—he tried to remember how long they had been together. It must be fifteen-sixteen years since their civil ceremony. His parents had forced him to go to that too. He had stood with them in the registrar’s office in his stiff new suit, a red rose pinned to the lapel, and watched as the two of them went through the simple ceremony. That had been bad enough, but the party afterwards had been worse. There were over a hundred people there, all of them ‘celebrating’ Brian and Luan’s civil union. He had had to sit at the head table along with the other family members and listen to the fulsome speeches of the grooms’ friends. At least his father hadn’t embarrassed himself like Luan’s father had done. That was something to be thankful for. The poor man had gotten pissed and then delivered an incoherent speech welcoming Brian to his family. It had probably been the only way he could face the thought of what his son was doing.

Once or twice a year, during visits by his parents to London, he was forced into socialising with Brian and Luan. So far he had managed to avoid having to meet them by himself. His relationship with Brian was still strained. He hadn’t stuck by his original resolve never to see him again—his mother hadn’t permitted that. ‘All of us will attend this wedding, and I don’t care whether you like that or not. You will pretend to like it, and no one is to know that you don’t.’ She had worked herself into a rage when Mark had said that he wasn’t going. Mark still felt that the real target of her anger had been Brian, but Brian was not there and he was a convenient target.

Both of his parents had apparently grown to like Luan. They were always talking about him, and they seemed to anticipate his and Brian’s visits with pleasure. At first Mark had blamed Luan for ‘corrupting’ Brian and making him gay. It had taken him a few years to admit to himself that they suited each other. They had a way of being together that revealed a quiet happiness in each other’s presence. His dislike of Luan was irrational, he knew that. He didn’t think his loathing was based on prejudice against gays. He had other gay friends, knew other gay couples. He no longer hated Luan as he had when he learned that Luan and Brian were more than friends, but his antipathy toward Luan had survived. It wasn’t as intense as at first, but it had become a habit, and he couldn’t overcome it. Every time he saw Luan, his heart tightened. And it had affected his relationship with Brian.

Since he couldn’t see Brian without Luan, he avoided seeing them. Part of the reason, he knew, was embarrassment. Brian, and Luan, had tried to overcome the rift. But he had rejected their efforts in the first few years, and they had gradually accepted the fact of his estrangement. In the early years, there might have been things he could have said or done, but he had been too young and immature to know what they might be. It had been easier to blame Luan for suborning his brother’s affections, and to hold on to the feeling that Brian had betrayed and abandoned him. And now, too much had been left unsaid for too long. It had become impossible for him to say anything. He had played the reconciliation scene out in his mind many times. It never ended well. He envisioned revealing himself as variously angry, petty, hurt, jealous, and, worst of all, lonely. He dreaded the thought of an emotional reunion. In the end, it was easier to keep his distance.

And now, he had to endure several hours of their company.

On the day of the party, it proved surprisingly easy to get to Brian and Luan’s house following the directions that Luan had emailed his parents. Alerted by a phone call from Mr Conlan a few minutes before they arrived, Luan was waiting for them on the pavement. He greeted Brian and Mark’s parents with affection as they stepped from the passenger side of Mark’s car. He hugged Mrs Conlan and exchanged kisses. Mr Conlan put an arm across Luan’s shoulders, while they shook hands vigorously. Mark and he said a brief hello to each other across the body of his car. The front garden was filled with spring flowers and shrubs in bloom, and his parents congratulated Luan effusively on his gardening skills. It crossed Mark’s mind that they were consciously filling the air with noise to camouflage his silence.

Luan led them around the house to the back garden. There were already several guests present, and Brian stood at the centre of the group talking animatedly. He broke off when he saw his parents and Mark and rushed over. Mark was the closest, and he hugged him first. ‘I’m so glad you came. This makes the day perfect.’ He kept an arm around Mark’s back as he bent to kiss their mother and then shook hands with their father.

Mark’s body was stiff within Brian’s embrace. It refused to relax. He wanted to throw off the embrace, but there was no way of doing that without making the gesture an insult. He folded his arms across his chest protectively and tried to make himself as small as possible in an effort to escape. But Brian grasped Mark’s shoulder even more tightly as he chatted with their parents about their journey from Belfast and their plans for the week. Much of their conversation was a repetition of a phone conversation they had had the previous evening after his parents had arrived at Mark’s place. The very fact that there was no need for them to repeat the exchange grated on Mark’s nerves.

Luan arrived with a tray of drinks and handed a pint of dark ale to Mr Conlan and glasses of white wine to Mrs Conlan and then to Mark. Mark found himself irked that Luan had known their drinks preferences. Sometimes this man seemed more a member of his family than he did. The four of them stood there chatting, with Mark in reluctant attendance. The other guests allowed the family a few moments together. To Mark’s relief, the arrival of a new group of guests claimed Luan’s attention. Mark’s parents saw someone they knew and wandered off.

Brian, however, retained his grasp on Mark’s shoulder and began pulling him over to the new arrivals. ‘I’d like you to meet these people. I think you’ll like them.’

Mark looked at the group of four men who had just arrived and winced at their loud and animated greeting of Luan. ‘I need to use the loo first. Where is it?’

‘Oh, let me show you.’

‘No, just tell me where it is. I’m good at finding things, and you have your guests to attend to.’

Mark spoke decisively. A look of disappointment flashed across Brian’s face. He would have liked a private moment. ‘There’s one off the kitchen. Just go in that door and it’s on the left. If that’s busy, there are two more upstairs. One at the head of the stairs, and the other en suite in our bedroom.’

The kitchen was occupied by the caterer’s staff. The three people milling around made it impossible for him to pretend to use the toilet there. Mark aimed a tight smile toward the centre of the room, refusing to make eye contact with any of the workers, and then walked down a hallway that he guessed must lead toward the stairs. The drapes had been drawn against the afternoon sun, and the front of the house was quiet and cool. He paused in the doorway to what appeared to be the main living room. Brian and Luan have done well for themselves, he thought. A large Turkish carpet occupied the middle of the room. Even in the subdued light, it glowed with colour, as did the painting over the fireplace. He stepped into the room to take a closer look at the painting. He tried to decipher the artist’s signature but gave up. It wasn’t as if the name would mean anything to him, no matter how famous the artist. But it was a striking painting, all the more striking because of the simplicity of the furniture.

Someone had made a half-hearted attempt to straighten the room up because of the party, but it still looked lived in. A newspaper had been folded so that the crossword faced up. An uncapped biro lay across the half-finished puzzle as if Luan or Brian had been interrupted while doing it and put it down to finish later. A cardigan had been tossed across the back of a chair. The cushions of one chair and at one end of a sofa still bore the imprints of the bodies that had rested on them, and it was easy to guess where Brian and Luan habitually sat. It was a comfortable room, and Mark could imagine them at ease in it. A room for quiet conversations and laughter and companionable silence.

When he turned around to leave the room, he saw a row of photographs on a table against the opposite wall. He recognised several members of Luan’s family. The formal pictures his parents had had taken for their twenty-fifth and fortieth anniversaries were there, along with a casual snapshot from a vacation in California three years earlier. There were also three pictures of himself. One was a studio portrait his parents had insisted that he have taken when he had been visiting them once. He was posed stiffly and unconvincingly, a strained smile on his face. He had tossed the envelope with his copies into a drawer and forgotten about them. His parents must have given Brian a copy. The other two were shots of a much younger version of himself. He couldn’t recall the occasions on which they had been taken. In one he stood before their house in Belfast, smiling at the camera. He looked about seventeen or eighteen in the photo. His father or mother probably took the photo during one of his visits home from school.

In the third photograph, he and Brian and their grandfather sat in the family sailboat, An Ghaoth Gheal, The Bright Wind. All three were squinting at the camera. The sun must have been in their eyes, and it would have been reflecting off the water as well. Their grandfather had one hand on the tiller. Brian stood at the mast, his hands on the lines, as if preparing to raise the mainsheet. He looked to be around fifteen. Mark sat off to one side out of the way, wearing a bulky life jacket and grinning. He would have been too young to work the sails yet, although his grandfather would have let him sit beside him and help ‘steer’ the boat once they were under way. I looked so happy to be there, thought Mark. Well, I would have been. Being taken out on that boat was the most important thing in my life then. And Brian was so serious, as if he wanted everyone to realise that he was ready for adult responsibilities.

Just the three of us ‘men’—he could hear daideo calling them that. When their grandmother or mother asked their grandfather where he was taking the two brothers, he always said, ‘We men are going sailing.’ And he would tromp out the kitchen door, carrying some bit of gear or tackle across his shoulder. Then he would stride down the hill toward the bay, never looking back, his free hand waving into insignificance whatever it was that his wife or daughter might be calling after him, his eyes fixed firmly on the water, speculating about the sea and where they would find the best winds that day. The two brothers would dance excitedly around him, each of them assigned the task of carrying what their grandfather had labelled an ‘important piece of equipment.’ ‘You be careful with that,’ he would warn, ‘or we’ll end up stuck in the middle of the ocean and have no way back.’ It didn’t matter what it was, it could be a coil of rope or a box of sandwiches, but he made each of the brothers feel responsible for the success of that day’s sailing.

Brian would suggest places they might go, trying to sound like a knowledgeable, experienced sailor, and Mark would plead that they go all the way up Sheephaven Bay to Horn Head and maybe even as far as Tory Island. I was always so sure that we would find friendly winds no matter where we went, thought Mark. That is what I miss most. That sense of companionship, of joy in our joint endeavours. Oh well, those days are long gone. He reached out a hand to pick up the picture, but then thought better of it. Best to find the toilet and pretend to use it. He mustn’t be away too long or Brian would come looking for him, worried perhaps that he had escaped out the front door.

When Mark returned to the party, he retreated to the edges of the group surrounding his parents. He was near enough that anyone looking at them would think him part of the group, yet distant enough that he didn’t have to participate in the discussion except by smiling and nodding and laughing when the others did. From time to time, he would sip at the glass of wine he had been given, barely letting the liquid touch his lips.

‘I hope I’m not interrupting.’

Mark turned at the sound of the voice. A man stood behind him, backed up against the shrubberies and smiling at him. ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there. Do you want to get past?’

‘No, actually I came to speak with you. My name’s Jason Dunlop.’ The man held out his hand to Mark.

Oh, he’s one of their gay friends, thought Brian. I hope he’s not trying to hit on me. I’d better stop this before it goes any further. ‘I’m Mark Conlan, Brian’s younger brother. I’m here with my parents.’ He shook hands quickly and then stepped back.

‘Yes, I know who you are. Brian brags of you quite often. Well, of course, everyone’s familiar with your exploits. Will you be competing at Portland this year?’

‘Yes. I plan to.’ Mark realised with relief that the man was a sailing fan.

‘In the 4-70 or the Star class? Are you still racing with Ian Meers?’

‘When I can tear him away from the Moth races. It’s his latest enthusiasm. He’s racing one of my designs in the experimental class at Portland this year. But he’s promised to join me this summer for the Star class races there and then later in Dún Laoghaire for the Irish races. You must sail to know so much about it.’

‘Yes, my wife and I have a 36-foot sloop. Brian and Luan often join us. Perhaps you could come along some weekend. Of course, it’s not a racing boat like you’re used to, but there are challenges—different challenges, of course—to sailing a larger boat, even if it’s just for recreation. And I have selfish reasons as well. I’d like you to look over our boat and tell me whether it would be worthwhile to hire you to help improve it. And I’d like to see you in action up close. Luan is always talking about the first time he met you and you took him and Brian sailing on your family’s boat. He says it was a revelation to watch you sail. That you just knew where the wind would be the next instant.’

Mark stood there making polite conversation about sailing, his mouth on automatic pilot, saying the familiar lines. But his mind had rocketed back to the first time he had met Luan, a day filled with strange tensions he hadn’t understood until later, a day that at the time had seemed golden, a day that he had felt especially close to Brian and to his friend Luan. All that had ended abruptly when Brian had taken him aside and told him that he and Luan were entering a civil partnership in a few weeks.

He had almost stopped sailing then. That, he had thought at the time, would punish Brian for his desertion. Brian could live with the guilt that his decision had forced his brother to give up what he most liked. In the end, when he realised that the person he was punishing was himself, he resolved to show Brian and Luan that he was the best. They would learn what they had lost. So in a sense, he mused, I took up racing to punish them. I owe my success to them. Did I ever pursue success for my own pleasure? Or am I still punishing them—and myself—because I had a bad case of hero worship and found out that my hero wasn’t what I thought he was? But it hadn’t been Brian who had changed. He was still what he had always been. I was the one who changed.

‘Are you all right?’

Mark returned to the present with a start. The man—he couldn’t remember his name—had apparently said something to him and he hadn’t responded. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I was thinking about something you said, about the day that Luan was talking about. It was a very important day in my life. My mind was in the past.’

Jason Dunlop looked at him expectantly, as if he waiting for Mark to explain. When Mark didn’t, he said, ‘Your brother and Luan are very special people, you know. They do so much for others. They never mention it. They certainly wouldn’t brag about it, but you and your family must be so proud of them.’

‘We don’t see much of one another. Too busy with our own activities.’ Mark looked across the garden to where Luan stood. His brother’s partner was holding a bottle of wine and refilling glasses. The air in the garden was barely stirring, but it was enough to lift tendrils of Luan’s black curls. Brian stepped into the group and held out his glass for Luan to refill. The two, well what are they? Mark asked himself. Husband and wife didn’t fit. Husbands sounded silly. Lovers. He supposed they were lovers. Perhaps that was the best term. The two lovers glowed with happiness. No, that wasn’t quite right. Not happiness. Contentment. Serenity perhaps. Is that why I became so jealous of them and so angry with them? That I was being excluded from a relationship that provided Brian more than I could ever hope to?

Jason Dunlop gave up on the conversation at that point. Mark Conlan had drifted away again. He was an odd duck, by all reports. A loner. Kept to himself. All of Brian’s talk about him didn’t hide the fact that he seldom saw his brother. Brilliant sailor, of course. Perhaps that was all there was to him. ‘Well, I’ve monopolised enough of your time. Don’t forget, you have a standing invitation to join us on our boat at any time. Just tell Brian, and we’ll make arrangements.’

Mark nodded, the invitation forgotten in the same instant. On the table behind Luan stood a pile of brightly wrapped packages. Birthday presents. He hadn’t thought to bring a present. He couldn’t remember the last time he had given Brian a present. Had he ever given him one? Surely he must have in his younger years, before he had decided to exclude himself from Brian’s life.

He raised his glass to his lips and discovered to his surprise that it was empty. He didn’t remember drinking any of it. Across the garden Luan still held the bottle of wine, in animated conversation with several other people. Perhaps, thought Mark, there is a present I can give Brian. He threaded his way through the knots of guests and walked over to Luan. He held out his glass. ‘Is there any of that left?’

Luan looked up, startled at the interruption. For a second, he appeared uncertain who Mark was. He half-turned toward the people he had been talking with, as if expecting them to introduce him to this stranger. ‘Uh, yes, I think so. I think there’s some.’ He tipped the bottle. There was enough to fill Mark’s glass half way. ‘This is Brian’s brother, Mark,’ he explained to the others. They nodded, exchanged glances and then drifted off with murmured excuses.

‘How have you been, Luan?’

‘Fine, Mark. I’ve been fine. And yourself?’

‘Foyne.’ He mimicked Luan’s pronunciation with a laugh. ‘We still say “foyne”, don’t we? Do you ever catch yourself saying things like “meself” and “hisself”? I do. I open my mouth and immediately everyone knows I’m Irish. Someone asked me recently if I knew how to make colcannon, and I said it was just mashed potaaytoes with lots of butter and cream and karly kale chopped up and added to it. It’s hard to rid ourselves of our pasts, isn’t it?’

‘Difficult, but not always impossible. Now meself, oy’m thinking, oy could larn to say “curly”.’

‘Ah, but wouldn’t you feel it was unnatural in the mouth to say it?’

Luan ignored the question. ‘How are you, Mark? You didn’t say.’

‘At the moment, uncertain, I think, to be honest. Is the plan that my parents are taking all of us to a restaurant tomorrow?’

Luan nodded.

‘Perhaps I could cook instead. We could eat at my place. I’ll make colcannon, and we can all practice saying “curly”.’

‘You seem to have mastered that pronunciation already.’

‘It was less difficult than I thought. But will you come? I have a third bedroom. It has my computer in it—I use it as my home office—but there’s a fold-out bed in there. You and Brian can pack a bag and stay the night. That way you both can drink and you won’t have to worry about driving back late.’

‘We might be able to do that. We would have to leave early on Monday morning, though. Brian will need to be at St Brendan’s by six, and my district surgery opens at 7:30 on Monday. I’ll ask Brian about staying over. Thanks for offering. I saw that Jason Dunlop caught up with you. He’s wanted to meet you for a long time.’

‘He says that you and Brian go sailing on his boat.’

‘It’s about the only chance to go sailing that we get now. It’s not perfect, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that.’ Luan shrugged and took a long sip of wine. He started to refill his glass but then realised the bottle was empty. He looked around for another.

‘Why don’t you buy a boat?’ Mark gestured at the surroundings. ‘You could afford it.’

‘It’s a matter of time mostly. The boat would just sit there unused for all but a few days a year because we couldn’t get away.’

A hand grasped Mark’s shoulder. ‘Get away for what?’ Brian smiled at the both of them. ‘What are you two planning?’

‘Mark asked why we don’t buy a sailboat.’

‘Well, we would never find one as good as An Ghaoth Gheal. It was so yare. Sometimes it felt as if you just had to think what you wanted it to do, and it would happen.’

‘It was responsive for that type of boat, wasn’t it? I ran across the plans for it a couple of years back. I found them in an old trunk in mamó’s house when I was helping Da clean it out after she died. I sometimes think about building a second version of it. An Ghaoth Gheal II. Of course, it couldn’t be the same.’

‘Why not? Couldn’t you duplicate it?’

‘Oh yes. I could do that, but there wouldn’t be any point in doing so. I can make a better boat. Some things would have to be changed in any case. I couldn’t afford to use the types of woods that Grandfather used. The hull would have to be a synthetic.’ Mark was suddenly very conscious of Brian’s hand on his shoulder. It was the lightest of connections. In Mark’s imagination it imposed no meaning other than a tentative request for the return of affection, a hope too often disappointed in the past for Brian now to harbour expectations of success. He put a hesitant arm across Brian’s back, not squeezing or pulling, just letting it rest above Brian’s waist. ‘And we know a lot more about the dynamics of water flow now and the proper ratios and configurations of sail to hull and there are computer design programs that incorporate that knowledge. The man who built An Ghaoth Gheal based the design on centuries of experience and some very good intuition. I could build on his insights and produce a faster boat.’

‘But we had such great times on An Ghaoth Gheal. I loved being out on that boat with you. It wouldn’t feel the same on a different boat.’

‘What happened to it?’ Luan broke in. ‘I never heard.’

‘The worms finally got to it—that’s another disadvantage of wood. In the end it was costing too much to keep repaired, and it was becoming a danger. If we had left it in the water, it would have rotted and sunk at its moorings. So Da had it hauled out, and we dismantled it. We burnt what couldn’t be salvaged. I still have the name plate at my house. I’ll show it to you tomorrow.’

‘Do you think you will build a new version?’ Luan stepped closer to Mark. His voice held an undercurrent of urgency, as if much depended on the answer to his question.

‘I think we could do it. We can make it a strong boat, stronger than it was.’ Mark put his other arm across Luan’s back. ‘At least, I hope we can.’

(2010)