‘Can you help?’ said Orla in a cracked voice that was high with strain. She knew the one thing she couldn’t afford to tell anyone was that she’d been in a plane crash. The flight hadn’t been authorized for take-off. It wouldn’t take the Garda long to realize that something was amiss, and they would be on to the English police before you could say knife. ‘My brother and I were out in a dinghy. It capsized. Can you help me look for him please?’
The man stared for a long moment. Then he stepped back and said, ‘Come along in.’
Orla entered the warm cottage interior. It felt unreal, this cosy normality, like a dream. A woman was watching TV at the kitchen table. The newsman was saying that British troops had sealed off the Catholic Bogside area in Londonderry after clashes with rioters. The woman looked up in wonder at this half-drowned young woman standing there dripping all over her clean floor.
‘What…?’ she breathed, coming to her feet.
‘There’s been a boating accident,’ said the man. ‘Cissie, get the brandy out.’
Orla was shaking her head, hard. Brandy? Desperation was making her eyes manic. ‘There’s no time for that. We have to go and find him. Fetch torches.’
‘But I-’
‘We haven’t time for this. For the love of God, fetch the torches and let’s go.’ But she was trembling so badly that she could no longer hold herself upright. She fell forward almost delicately, and found herself on her knees with her head humming so loudly she was sure she was about to pass out. The cottage lights seemed to flicker in and out of focus and suddenly everything was very far away, even their clucking anxious voices as they got her off her knees and on to a chair.
‘Get that brandy, Cissie,’ she dimly heard the old man say. ‘I’ll go out and check the shoreline.’
Orla refocused to see Cissie crouching in front of her, watching her with concern.
‘Yes, that’s the thing for a shock like this.’ Cissie hurried away and returned with a glass brimming with amber liquid. ‘Here, here,’ she said, putting the glass against Orla’s lips. Orla sipped, felt it warming her all the way down. She coughed, sipped again.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Cissie was chattering on, ‘Donny will find your brother if anyone can, he knows this stretch of coast inside out. Now, let’s sort you out some dry clothes…’
The old man was putting on wet-weather gear, picking up a heavy-duty torch from the dresser. ‘I’ll be away then,’ he said, and went out into the stormy night.
Donny never found Redmond. He scoured the headland, the beach, all around to the next bay, but there was nothing, no one. He was out for well over an hour. By the time he got back, Cissie had taken Orla’s wet clothes off her and dressed her in a winceyette nightie and a thick dressing gown. She had disinfected and covered the worst of the cuts on Orla’s feet, dried out and untangled Orla’s hair, forced a little soup down her, saying she must get warm and take some food.