Finistère Kevin Barry

The big man was in a condition of thrilling remorse. He was brokenhearted again at fifty-five and loving it.

He leaned against the rail on the top deck of the CorkRoscoff ferry and shook woefully from side to side his heavy, handsome ginger head and the cries of a seal pup rose softly from the hollows of his chest. Sylvia had been abandoned that morning in County Clare and would get over him before the leaves were off the trees; Cian John Wynn would never get over himself. He raised his head and wiped away the tears and watched Ireland recede into the afternoon haze and he prayed that it would stay there. He knew it would be a long time before he went home again.

It was early September in a fine spell. The day was calm and the Celtic Sea ran smoothly on streaks of white gray lustre. He walked the deck in a bliss of painful nostalgia—the ferry felt as ifit had sailed directly from the nineteen-eighties. There was the same old idiot noise of the arcade games from below, and Dexys Midnight Runners still played on the Tannoy, and a gaggle of French and Irish teenagers in high-waisted denim worked up their flirtations in the giddy-making salt breeze—they had fifteen hours yet to Finistère.

He descended the decks to escape the hormones. He had a widow’s peak and a weakness for contemporary tweeds. He found a quiet corner at Le Café and took a red wine. His moods were swift and ever changing and the thrill of his escape fell away now on a quick grade to emptiness. A familiar void opened up within. He gave out to himself a little and then some more and in fact for a while he argued half seriously against his own existence. Then he gathered his resources somewhat. He drank slowly and judiciously. He tried to read his novel but the words would not fix on the page. Soon a slight girl of about fourteen or fifteen years sat at the table nearest to him. She flipped open a MacBook and scowled into it for a few moments and then looked vaguely in his direction.