After a hurried breakfast of coffee and a few slices of Julia’s delicious soda bread, I drove to the seaside town of Mulranny. There I picked up a bike from a man with a van and set off for Achill Island on the Greenway Trail, a disused railway line transformed into a cycle path that hugged the coastal roads.
I visited Achill every time I came to Mayo, alone or with Joe. Cycling on the Greenway was heaven for him. We usually came by ferry from England so he could bring his own bike. The island evoked happy childhood memories for me. Dad loved it. The first time I recall going there it was just the two of us. Tess was heavily pregnant with Mikey and she stayed behind at Granny’s house.
Before we left, Dad spread a map of Mayo out on the cold stone floor and pointed to a piece of land attached to the coast only by a narrow bridge. It looked like the spout of a teapot.
“That’s where we’re going.” he said, tracing his finger across the vast blue of the Atlantic. “Next stop America.”
I looked down in awe.
“But Daddy, that’s the edge of the world,” I said.
He laughed and kissed the top of my head. “So mind you don’t fall off.”
Later, on the white sands of Keel beach, I refused to go near the water, scared I might just do that. Hiding behind his legs, I looked out for the Statue of Liberty on the horizon.
I cycled on, slapped around by a fierce headwind. There were few other cyclists or walkers on the path. Olive peat-land swept down from the mountains, the rough earth patched with purple heather and chalk-white rocks. The light on the island had a clean quality that polished the colours of the landscape, adding sheen and lustre. When we visited in the seventies and eighties, the island was desolate, the residue of mass emigration everywhere: tumbledown cottages, clapped-out old cars and barely a shop or a hotel in sight. Then the boom brought glass-fronted holiday homes with solar panels, fish restaurants with Michelin stars and surfing schools.
It was almost two when I crossed the swing bridge then cycled some more until I came to Keel village. The sun was high in the sky and the heat dropped over my shoulders like a warm coat.
I leaned my bike against the wall of a small shop and headed inside to get a drink and a sandwich. As I pushed the door open, I stopped and did a double take at the man standing in the queue by the till. He was bending down talking to a tousled-haired boy of about ten or eleven by his side. His hair was loose and falling down over his face so I couldn’t be sure if it was him at first. Then he straightened up and tucked his hair behind his ear. Yes, it was Dan, the bloke I’d met at the fundraiser in the Irish Club. I froze, suddenly mortified at the memory of that night, remembering my drunken state and how he’d had to help Joe get me down the steps and into a taxi. My anxiety got the better of me and I hurried out of the door to the far end of the street where I hid behind an orange camper van.
He came out a few minutes later and sauntered towards a silver Mondeo with the boy. I watched from behind the van. As the boy climbed into the back of the car, Dan took the ice cream, licking it and teasing as the boy tried to grab it back. Then a woman appeared at the passenger side in a loose yellow raincoat, dark curly hair billowing across her face. She was beautiful and, as she opened the car door and lowered herself into the seat, I could see she was heavily pregnant. The sun was high in the sky above their heads, the sea sparkling in the distance. They looked like such a happy family. How could I have suspected anything might happened between him and Karen?
I waited until the Mondeo had driven off before I emerged. He was pretty old to be an expectant father. His wife looked younger but still in her late thirties. They looked so idyllic. Maybe it wasn’t too late for me and Joe after all.
I headed back into the shop. What were the chances of meeting him again, here on Achill Island, at the edge of the world? Then I remembered he’d said his wife was from Achill and it was half term in England so they were probably visiting family.
After buying lunch I cycled down to the beach. I was cursing myself for being such a wimp and running off and hiding like that. I thought he might have been embarrassed to see me because he was actually flirting with Karen that night and he might not want to be reminded of it. But the real reason I ran off was because I’d made an idiot of myself and he might remember. Why was I always so anxious about everything? Why couldn’t I have behaved like a normal person, put on a mask, said hello and feign normality? Why did I have to run and hide? I hated the way my anxiety got the better of me. Sometimes it pinned me down and I was powerless to break free.
I parked my bike, sat on the beach wall and tucked into my salmon and cream-cheese sandwich. Wind rippled through the rivulets of sand like a thousand snakes. Surfers dipped and curled themselves over the high waves and a red kayak appeared, the tide carrying it out further.
I watched the waves ebb and fall and I thought of all the victims like Tess that shame had put on a boat and sent away from these shores. When I was doing my initial searches for my sibling online, I had come across lots of survivors’ groups across the world that
