The Swan Lake Read online

  ‘I’m not moving an inch until you tell me what’s going on,’ she declares firmly. Sian clings like a limpet and keeps tugging. ‘What is all this about?’ Her voice is rising. Somewhere close by a door opens, then closes again.

  Sian sighs heavily, and looks as though she might kick Astarte to get her moving. ‘It’s Eden. John phoned and asked me to take you over there. He’s had some kind of fit, and no-one can rouse Doctor O’Riley. John said you’re a nurse.’

  The fog in Astarte’s brain starts to clear. ‘John the Estate Agent?’

  ‘The very one.’

  ‘Eden? Not Eden McDonagh?’

  ‘The very one. For the sake of all that’s holy, woman, get in the bloody car and I’ll drive you there! It’s an emergency!’

  Astarte relinquishes her hold on the banister and slithers down the stairs after Sian, allowing herself to be hauled into the car. They roar off down the street at an astonishing speed. Astarte dazedly reflects that Sian would make a superb racing driver.

  As they hurtle around a corner, bouncing from one side of the road to the other, she applies imaginary brakes and tries to get her brain in gear. Something does not make sense. She turns to Sian.

  ‘How does John know? Why phone for me? There must be other doctors.’

  ‘There’s someone new in Ennis, but one of his patients just had a heart attack, so he went with him in the ambulance. Can’t be in two places at the same time. Grace, Eden’s mother, phoned John because he knows about first aid, and John rang me.’

  ‘Oh.’ Astarte sits quietly for the rest of the journey, which, at the speed that Sian is driving at, passes uncomfortably swiftly. She hopes it isn’t a heart attack; she’d be no use without a defibrillator. To distract herself she untangles the curler from Sian’s hair and drops it into the glove compartment.

  The car turns up a lane and speeds up a long driveway, screeching to a halt in front of a large old farmhouse. A crowd of men with cameras are waiting outside, and they run over, shouting questions as flashes go off all around them. Dazzled, Astarte raises an arm to shield her eyes as Sian catches hold of her other arm and runs with her towards the front door, barging through the photographers and sending the most persistent one sprawling. The door opens as they reach it and slams shut behind them as they dash inside.

  A tall, elegant woman with silky blonde hair introduces herself hurriedly as Linda, Eden’s agent, and points Sian in the direction of the living room then hustles Astarte up the stairs and into a crowded bedroom. Eden lies on the bed, grey-faced but conscious, gasping for breath. An older couple, obviously his parents, stand beside the bed, clutching his hands and exhorting him to breathe. The woman is crying, and behind them, looking pale and shocked, are two young girls who bear a striking resemblance to their brother. John stands with his fingers on Eden’s wrist. He looks up and smiles briefly at Astarte, moving back to make room as she steps across to the prone figure, reassures him that he will be fine, takes his pulse, and swiftly assesses the situation. His pulse is very fast, but regular.

  ‘He needs some air,’ she says to the room in general, and Linda steps over to the windows and opens them, leaving the curtains closed. A cool breeze rushes into the room. ‘Can you help me sit him up, please?’ she asks, and several pairs of hands pull Eden into a sitting position while she stacks the pillows around him. ‘Eden, you’re going to be absolutely fine,’ she tells him calmly, looking into the frightened eyes that she never dreamed of being so close to. ‘Now I want you to cup your hands like this,’ she demonstrates, ‘and breathe into them. That’s great,’ as he tremulously does as she asks. ‘Now keep on breathing. Slower, slowly. That’s it. Nice deep breaths. No, don’t speed up – that’ll make you feel worse. Slowly. You’re doing great, really well. Keep going.’

  She watches the colour gradually return to his face as his breathing evens out, constantly encouraging while his terrified gaze stays locked on her calm one. She keeps her voice low and soothing yet authoritative, just as she has on the occasions when Rainbow and Leaf took too much acid or became paranoid on dope. Astarte is experienced at calming people down; she developed the skill long before puberty.

  Finally, Eden’s breathing returns to normal and he drops his hands, still holding her eyes as if afraid that by breaking the connection he would panic again. The room is very quiet. Astarte takes his wrist and feels for his pulse. It has slowed down to a soft, steady rhythm. She smiles at him and gently lays his wrist back on the duvet, and he smiles tentatively back and grasps her hand, squeezing it. ‘Thank you,’ he says softly.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she tells him, embarrassed now that the emergency is over, and steps back as his mother leans over to hug him.

  ‘Eden, you scared the bejesus out of us all!’ she says, wiping away her tears, then scolds him for apologising. Her daughters slip away, murmuring that they will make tea. Linda smiles gratefully at Astarte and sits on the bed, taking Eden’s hand.

  ‘Do you want me to stay? I could cancel my flight,’ she says quietly. Astarte is touched by the gentleness in her voice.

  Eden shakes his head. ‘No, you have a meeting. I’ll be fine now. It was the shock. It felt for a moment like a rerun of Wembley.’ He grimaces.

  Astarte is beginning to have an inkling of what the dark side of celebrity life must be like, and she peeps out of the corner of the curtain without moving it aside. The sun has risen fully, and she can see twenty or thirty people huddled together, their eyes and cameras aimed towards the window, waiting. She shudders and moves back into the room as Eden’s sisters come in with a tray holding tea and biscuits. ‘How long will they stay out there for?’ she asks Linda, who shrugs wearily.

  ‘Wherever Eden goes, they follow. We thought we’d slipped in unnoticed, but someone must have tipped them off. The taxi driver, probably.’

  Astarte looks at Eden, assessing him. ‘Can I make a suggestion?’ She shifts her gaze between Eden and Linda, feeling awkward. She has no experience of their lifestyle, and feels that perhaps she is teaching her grandmother to suck eggs. ‘They’ll stay here, I suppose, until they get something to go away with. Pictures, or an interview.’

  Linda nods. Eden looks up, a wry smile on his face. ‘They’ll have their story. There’ll be photos of me naked all over the internet by now.’ He shudders, then, surprisingly, gives a short laugh. ‘Jaysus, what a crazy life.’

  Astarte takes the cup of tea that Grace hands to her. The older woman pats her on the shoulder as she gratefully takes a sip, thinking. ‘Well,’ she muses, looking at Linda, ‘I don’t know how any of this stuff works, but do you think that if you could tell them that Eden is unwell, but will come out for just five minutes to have his picture taken, and that he will arrange to talk to someone briefly in a few days, they would leave you all alone?’

  Linda looks doubtful. Eden raises his head, chin in the air and Astarte is struck by how beautiful he is. The expression in his almond eyes is thoughtful. ‘It’s maybe worth a try. It would be my last interview. But no flashes; you’d have to tell them there will be no flashes. I don’t want to be a prisoner here, scared to leave the house. Linda, could you go and tell them I’ll be out in a while?’ His agent looks hard at him, her face set, then nods and goes downstairs.

  A few minutes later she returns, and tells them that a deal has been struck. Everyone puts their cups on the trays and troop downstairs, leaving Eden to get dressed. John squeezes Astarte’s arm and whispers a thanks, and she shrugs it off. Eden calls out as she reaches the door. ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ he tells her. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Astarte’ she says shyly. ‘Astarte Weaver. But there’s nothing to thank me for. Just take it easy, and use your hands like I showed you if you begin to feel panicky.’

  ‘Do you live around here, Astarte Weaver?’ he asks.

  She laughs. ‘I’m going back to England today, but I’m moving here very soon. I just bought a ruined cottage by the Swan Lake.’

  ‘My favou
rite place!’ he exclaims, beaming. ‘We’ll be neighbours, Astarte Weaver. That is great news, truly.’

  This is a dream , thinks Astarte as she walks down the stairs to look for Sian.

  Eden McDonagh will be my neighbour . She pinches herself, hard. It hurts.

  Chapter Nineteen

  For the past three nights, Jamie has tossed and turned in his bed while the floorboards creak and dust motes spiral through the room in protest. A field mouse who miraculously escaped Sebastian the cat’s sharp claws has made a nest behind the skirting board and feasts on crumbs from the biscuits that are all Jamie can seem to eat. Tonight the air seems charged with magnetic energy; hair and clothes crackle and send off sharp stinging sparks. The mouse, whiskers quivering like antennae, follows her nose towards the remains of a biscuit beside Jamie’s bed then senses the dangerous air and runs squeaking back to safety. If John or Siobhan were to walk in here now they would be swept up by vertigo, by the sensation that the room is spinning faster and faster; a vortex generated by the spiralling thoughts of the lanky teenager who now hurls himself from the bed and stalks to the open window.

  He leans his hands on the sill and pushes his upper body forwards, towards the cool night air. Crickets call to each other, sounding like out-of-tune violin strings against the creaky bow of the night. Jamie sweeps his damp hair back and takes great gulps of air. Longing for something that he dare not even hope for is burning him up; it’s frying the air around him in a smoky arc. He is so hot that even the moths avoid coming too close. Even they know better than to sear their wings on the flames of human desire. The hairs on his body stand on end like tiny spikes, goosebumps puncture his skin, and he knows that if he stays still for one more moment he will explode in a blaze of sparks that will be visible from space.

  Turning swiftly, he steps into his jeans and trainers then, shirtless, clambers out of the window and drops silently to the grass below. His mind is buzzing, and every thought contains her name. Jamie runs, for he knows that running, either towards or away, is the first law of love; that love will not allow you to stay still, but demands action, the use of its energy. Jamie, young though he is, and inexperienced, cannot ignore the pulse that beats within him and forces him out into the blue night.

  The full moon casts mysterious shadows, rendering the landscape unfamiliar. An owl calls, and Jamie runs fast, skating over leaves and through pools of darkness under the trees. He remembers reading that when an owl calls your name, your time on this earth is close to ending. Afraid of what he might hear, he refuses to listen, concentrating instead on the steady rushing sound of his breath as it moves in and out of his lungs in an endless circle. He’s certain that his heart, this over-stretched, over-burdened hunk of muscle, will burst in his chest, but still he keeps on running. A fox barks nearby, its cry eerie and full of yearning. Sounds travel towards him as though he is in a tunnel, rushing from all sides to gather in the space that his body occupies as it displaces air and earth in continuous forward motion. His breath comes in gasps. Twigs crackle and break underfoot, tiny stones fly out behind him, marking an acoustic trail, but Jamie cannot stop running until, finally, the dark sheen of the lake appears before him.

  Panting, he hurls himself to the ground, close to the boggy edge. The rushes whisper, whether because of the movement of the breeze or the passage of hidden creatures Jamie cannot tell. He sits by the water, his senses straining, then reaches into his pocket for his tobacco tin and lighter and rolls a cigarette. In the morning his arms and chest will be criss-crossed with scratches and tiny cuts, but tonight all he can feel is a sense of longing that gnaws from the inside outwards, threatening to consume him whole. He can still feel the touch of her lips from days ago, their brief pressure and softness, and he blows a stream of smoke into the air with a sighing sound.

  The swans are awake, drifting together, their reflections black upon the silvery surface of the water. The moon casts a beam of blue light, reproducing itself like the pot at the end of a rainbow. Jamie leans back on his elbows, watching. He was weaned on folktales, and swans hold a special place in the store of memories from the cache he built up before he could even spell his own name. Even though the story of The Children of Lir made him weep, he would plague Siobhan to tell it over and over again, every night for months until he knew each word by heart and could whisper it along with her. He could never imagine how a man could love a woman wicked enough to turn his children into swans. He was certain, always, that love meant truth; that it brought out only the best. What he never expected was to be scarred by it, to find that it sears him from the bones outwards.

  ‘Sinead,’ he murmurs, imagining that she is there beside him. Her name on his lips creates a shape, but it drifts like smoke into the sultry air and vanishes. The owl calls close by, and a blur of wings fluttering past sends a shiver up his spine. One of the swans dips its neck towards the water in a long smooth curve. Sparkling droplets fly out into the air, evaporating before they can arc downwards to return to the surface of the lake.

  A click followed by a brief flare of light cuts into Jamie’s consciousness. Heart racing, he is on his feet in an instant, poised to run. Below the nearest willow tree, not five yards away, a dark outline stirs. As Jamie hesitates, wondering fleetingly whether he has conjured Sinead out of thin air through the mere mention of her name, a man’s voice, richly musical and familiar, fixes him to the spot and his feet stop of their own accord.

  ‘I thought it best to warn you of my presence.’ The lighter flares again, held up to illuminate a face that is distorted by light and shadow. Jamie gasps, and leans forward to look more closely. Obligingly the man raises the light higher. ‘’Twould not be fair to sit here while you reveal your thoughts to the night, and not give you notice,’ the voice says quietly.

  Jamie’s heart begins to slow its frantic rhythm. ‘It’s you,’ he exclaims.

  Eden laughs. ‘I surely hope so.’

  Jamie’s neck is extended like a tortoise and his eyes are round with surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘The same as you, presumably. Getting away from it all for a spot of moonbathing and a quiet cigarette. It’s been a while since we met, Jamie.’

  Jamie laughs and sits back down, pulling his tobacco out. He can hardly believe that he’s sharing the night with Eden McDonagh. The last time he spoke to Eden was three years ago, when he was a gawky thirteen year old, just before Eden hit the big time, and Eden’s sudden metamorphosis from family friend to rock star planted the seeds of Jamie’s own dreams. Since then, on the occasions when he did meet Eden he kept silent, unable to brush off his feelings of awe, studying the man for signs of changes and finding only that Eden, who had always been quiet and gentle, seemed mostly tired and strained, brushing off questions about who his famous friends might be and ignoring the cameras pointed in his direction.

  Eden studies him as he leans forward to light Jamie’s freshly rolled cigarette. There is no doubt, from the boy’s radiant countenance, that Jamie is in love, and Eden gets to his feet.

  ‘I’ll not disturb your tryst, if you’re waiting for a young lady. See you around,’ he says casually.

  ‘No. Wait.’ Eden halts as he is about to turn away. ‘I’m not meeting anyone, and you were here first. Stay a while.’ Jamie has mentioned Sinead to no-one. When Bran woke after Sinead had fled from their kiss, they threw the reeking bait into the lake and walked to Bran’s house to play computer games until Siobhan came to collect him. His mother had given him a few sideways glances, and felt his forehead for fever because he was so quiet, but Jamie shrugged her off and went to his room, to lie all night and replay the afternoon in a loop-tape in his mind. He has not seen Sinead since, though he has wandered slowly past Mairie Hennessy’s several times in the last few days, hoping for a glimpse of her. He’s worried that she might ignore him next time they meet; that she regrets her hasty act. Eden sits down, and Jamie takes a deep drag from his cigarette and blows the smoke out with a sigh. Eden watches hi
m.

  ‘Your secret is safe with me. I’ll not say a word.’ His voice is soft and full of understanding. Jamie looks out over the lake. The swans have moved further away, and their backs glow luminously above the sheen on the water.

  Jamie clears his throat. ‘I just couldn’t sleep.’

  Eden leans his back against the willow tree, feeling waves of sympathy flow across his chest, contracting his heart. He was once like this boy; full of hope, stewing in the heat of first love, certain that the course of his life would be altered by a simple yes or no. The rush of affection that he feels for Jamie dissipates some of the tension of the past weeks. At Jamie’s age all he wanted was the love of Sheila Farrell and to be a musician. Well, he achieved his dreams, and they crumbled into dust all around him. He can still taste the ashes in his mouth. But this boy’s eyes are starry with dreams too, and Eden sends up a silent prayer that they won’t turn sour on him.

  The minutes pass, punctuated by croaks and cries from the busy creatures of the night. It’s a serious business, thinks Eden. The hunters and the hunted, all around them; in the grass, on the branches, below the shimmering water. And at any moment the predator can become the prey, depending upon the company. He glances across at Jamie, who is eaten up by the first stirrings of something larger than himself, the victim of his own heart.

  ‘How do …?’ Jamie’s voice cracks and trails off. He can’t bring himself to ask. He knows that John would give him answers, but John is his father, and prone to bouts of teasing. Eden has written songs that Jamie knows describe this feeling perfectly. The fear and anticipation, the longing, the sense that if you take a breath too fast you just might break in two. He tries again. After all, this night is a secret between them both, and he knows that Eden will reveal their conversation to no-one. From what he has heard, Eden has problems of his own to deal with.