One day young Padreig and I went into downtown Dublin for a movie, walked down Grafton Street past Trinity University and grabbed bus #44, a bright fire engine red double decker out to meet Mary, his mother in the suburbs where we lived. I was employed as an au pair and she managed a textile store.
We enjoyed a pleasant dinner as mist rolling east over Wicklow Mountains changed from rain to snow.
Someone knocked at the door, she excused herself, answered and led a male friend down the hallway into the kitchen leaving Padreig and myself alone in the front room.
They talked briefly and her guest left. As he was going out the door, Padreig opened the door leading to the hallway and said to me, “you should introduce yourself to Paul.”
I turned from the sofa and saw a man in a three piece suit, dark hair, about 5’ 9” standing in the doorway. His eyes were blurry from drinking. He didn’t say a word, giving me a hard vacant stare. Mary followed him, they had more words at his car before he drove off down the white street.
She came in and sat down. “This is a tricky situation,” she said. “See, we used how to date but aren’t seeing each other any more.” We let it pass.
Another knock at the front door. Padreig said it was Paul. Mary went to the door and came back in the room, telling me Paul wanted to talk. I got up. As I passed Mary said in low conspiratorial tone, “just tell him you are a friend.” I put on my boots and went out the door forgetting my coat and hat.
He was waiting outside and we started walking down the drive. He held his head down smoking a cigarette. I was filled with a sense of curiosity and uneasy anticipation. He spoke first.
“You know, I’m going to bust you.”
“Don’t you think we should introduce ourselves?”
“No, it’s not necessary.”
We left the drive and turned onto the sidewalk. He turned. “I’m gonna bust you.” My fear of future pain registered.
“Don’t you think we should introduce ourselves?” I asked again realizing that I was being confronted by an angry drunken man intent on killing me.
“Take your glasses off,” he commanded. I hesitated.
“Well, then I’ll leave,” I said hoping he would acknowledge my cowardice. I started to back away. He reached out and forcibly grabbed my sweater with his left hand and pulled back with his right, ready to throw a punch in my face.
I bought time. “Ok,” I said in a low voice, “I’ll take off my glasses before you hit me.”
He relaxed his grip and I started backing away. He moved forward lowering his head like a drunken bull. I anticipated it, dropped off to his right, he raised a fist quickly, smashing into the left side of my jaw. The force and my yielding with the blow broke his grip and I bolted away up the sidewalk, leaving fresh prints in the snow.
My heart pounded as I turned to see he was following. I ran faster. He followed in a drunken disoriented manner.
After turning a corner, I stopped to watch him plod through the snow. Terror flooded my cold body. The blow had been a glancing one but fear controlled my thoughts and I ran again, through a city council neighborhood, passing dark houses and parked cars.
I stopped at a corner. He kept coming. I ran for a field, feeling cold snow and ice collecting in my hair and eyes. I plodded across muddy fields passing people walking on trails finding refuge behind a tree safe from sight. He came into view, looked down the field, turned and disappeared. He’d lost the scent. I didn’t know what to do.
Return to Mary’s? Return home without a coat and hat? Try to see where he went? I decided to return, retrieve clothing and head home.
A corner offered shelter from passing cars. I hid in driveways watching people drive by, sure he'd got in his car and was searching for me. Nothing. Only falling snow. A person came out of a house across the street and knowing there was safety in numbers, I hailed the stranger and asked him if I could join him for a walk.
I jabbered out my fear to the stranger and kept a wary eye as we approached the intersection near Mary’s house.
I didn’t see Paul’s car anywhere but realized he could be waiting nearby. The stranger reassured me the coast looked clear so I went to the door, knocked and Padreig answered.
“Is Mary here?” Where is Paul?”
“He’s not here,” Padreig said opening the door. Mary came downstairs and I told her what happened.
“He came back,” she said, “and asked where you went. I told him you took a walk. I’m really sorry about all this.”
“No bother. I’m just glad I was able to get away from him without a broken nose.”
She related how Paul was married, they’d dated but she was trying to end the relationship, how he just happened to turn up. I listened and left looking both ways before walking through dark fields toward home.
“What are you doing here?” Mary said opening her door a few nights later.
“I just came by to see if I might spend the night,” I said stepping into the corridor. She turned and led me into the front room where grainy images of dancers twirled on the television. She sat down.
“I haven’t been able to talk to you at work and since you have no phone, I came over,” I said.
“Listen. I never wanted to have an affair and what happened is very unlike me. It can’t continue.”
“I see. I just thought maybe we could still see each other. You know I like you and want to spend time with you.”
“I can’t. The relationship has gone too far as it is."
Suddenly a car pull up in her drive. “It’s him! Come on,” she said. We ran down the hall into the kitchen.
“Turn on the light,” I said in a panic. The light came on as I fumbled to free the chain lock above the door. Her thin pale fingers were there, on the handle. The door opened into backyard blackness.
“Climb the fence, there’s no one home next door,” she whispered. I vanished into the night climbed the fence, watching them talking in the kitchen. I jumped another fence and left the relationship behind.
Five years later I was working on an archeology dig in the Middle East and one of our company’s clients, a Dutch museum expert, invited me over for dinner. A gleaming apartment block overlooking the Gulf. Expatriate heaven.
I arrived at the designated hour and pressed the buzzer. Mary answered the door. As beautiful as ever.
We both went into shy quiet shock masking the reality of our memorable past, slipping into comfortable experienced roles as we played through various introductions feigning the performance of totally complete and utter strangers meeting at a dinner party for the first time.
We exchanged smiles and casual handshakes moving among the guests wearing coiled anxiety silently recalling quiet love, uncomplicated snow storms, violence, running through muddy fields full of terror in another country years ago.
Mary was happily married to the curator and we survived the evening, the five course dinner engaging in lies, distortions, creating fabulous imaginary stories filled with where, when, why, and how of old time.
Fortunately for us, Padreig was out of the country or the strange but true evening when fate reconnected our small intimate worlds may have manifested into verbal Irish storytelling beyond our wildest dreams.