Billy O’Shea

[The opening paragraphs of The Castle in the Sea]

What would you do if you saw a ghost? In the middle of the day? Whatever way you think you might react, let me tell you now, you probably wouldn’t. I bet you’d do exactly what I did: look away and pretend you didn’t notice. Decorum always trumps sensation in the civilised world. Especially in the middle of the day.

I am at a literary event, of all things. A Yeats anniversary.

Nice rafters, shame about the pointy windows. To be honest, there’s something about repurposed churches that gives me the creeps. Abattoirs masquerading as restaurants. Swords pretending to be ploughshares.

The attendance isn’t bad: forty or fifty greying heads, mostly Irish or married to Irish. Plus a few students that I’ve inveigled into coming. The embassy will be pleased.

I’m here because they asked me to introduce the visiting academic who is giving the lecture. I’m supposed to be some kind of expert on the subject, after all. I had to do my usual pre-night scrambling on the internet to pretend I’d even heard of the man. But his talk, to be fair, is quite good. There’s some stuff about Yeats I hadn’t heard before. A letter from Maud Gonne that seems only now to have turned up. An interesting angle on his relationship with the Golden Dawn. I make a couple of notes in my little brown notebook. I might as well try to look the part – it’s not his fault if my passion for Yeats has of late followed the same trajectory as Yeats’ passion for himself, and now seems to have reached the Circus Animals stage.

I’m dressed all in black à la mode danoise, trying to make myself inconspicuous in right field, but not sitting so far back as to seem indifferent. There is a man in a white suit seated on the other side of the hall, exactly parallel with me. I wonder what WB would have made of the symmetry. He was a great man for signs and symbols, our Willie. Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.

The academic has his boyfriend with him, so he won’t be expecting me to entertain him afterwards. It’s an embassy gig, anyway. Not my problem, for once.

He’s onto The Second Coming now. Things fall apart. Jesus Christ, let it be over soon so that this rough beast can slouch to the bar.

A glass of red. A polite chat with the man of the evening. Maybe a crafty second glass. Then I can go home. Unless I get caught here.

The ambassador isn’t here, but Paulie is. Paulie is the second secretary. A convivial fellow, we’ve drunk a few pints together in the past. Sometimes I think I catch a glint of wry amusement in his eye when he looks at me. I don’t know how much he knows.

I hope, and don’t hope, that he wants to chat tonight. It’s a weird dichotomy. I’m not much of a one for the ex-pat community or the comforting talk about the green, green grass of home and how you can’t get a decent pint outside Ireland. But I recently broke up with my Danish wife and my best friend in the English department moved to Brazil when the authorities wouldn’t let his girlfriend come here, so the odd bit of human contact is welcome now and then. Questions unnerve me, though. And the Irish, garrulous and inquisitive as they always are, do so love questions. Where are you from, what do you do, how did you end up here? I do my best, but it must sometimes seem odd that I, a lecturer in English literature, can barely seem able to put two spontaneous words together in my native tongue.

Cautious, that’s me. Years of practice.

The lecture ends, there is applause, and Paulie jumps up onto the rostrum to utter the ritual thanks. Saves me having to do it. Ite, missa est.

We file over to the bar. I order a glass – no free drinks, I note sourly. Cutbacks in the culture budget.

And that’s when I look up and see the ghost. In the mirror behind the bar. And of course, I look away and pretend I didn’t see it. Because that’s what you do, right?

‘You’re losing your touch, boy.’ Soft Donegal accent.

I turn. The straight dark hair is a little shorter, and there are a few wrinkles around her mouth, but there’s no mistaking the grey eyes.

‘Sarah,’ I say. And the word echoes forever in my head.

‘You’ve forgotten my name!’ she smiles. ‘I’m Maria.’

‘Maria, of course. What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you.’

‘You could have phoned.’

‘No, I couldn’t.’

Of course she couldn’t have phoned, you idiot. I smile at her, flummoxed. This can’t be happening.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘I just have to talk to someone here …’

‘I know. I’ll wait.’

My heart thumping, I stroll over to the main man and his entourage, to utter polite meaningless words and smile on all that smile. And all the time I’m thinking at twice normal speed, my mind surging with a cascade of absurdly melodramatic memories. It’s like being force-fed an opera. I glance over. Sarah’s still there, still exists. Looking serenely out at the Copenhagen rain like the Little Mermaid. Not a bother on her. She’s holding a dark green rain jacket on her lap. She wouldn’t have worn that back home. Not unless it was a special occasion.

Eventually, I make my usual excuses about an early morning start, say my goodbyes to our visiting academic, pull on my old leather jacket and stuff my notebook into my backpack. I’m surprised to find my hands are trembling. You’re losing your touch, boy.

And then I walk the thousand miles across the floor to her.

‘So?’ I ask.

‘Let’s find somewhere.’