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Zöe Beck
I continued to see Flann,
I was given a relatively
clean bill of health, but
somehow this made me
unhappy.
“Stress,” is what they
finally determined, even
the fortune teller. I should
go away for a while and
relax, and everything
would take care of itself.
“I’m not stressed,” I
protested.
“You just moved,” the
neurologist in Edinburgh
pointed out, “to another
country…”
“From
England
to
Scotland, come on now!”
I interrupted him.
“For
some,
moving
away from home is a big
readjustment. And then
you
discovered
your
neighbor dead. That is
stress.” The neurologist
emphasized that he had
discussed this diagnosis
with two other colleagues,
and they concurred with
him. That evening, I
found myself back in St.
Andrews in the pub at my
- or actually at Flann’s -
regular table, staring at
my whisky and ignoring
the Púca and his beer.
“You’re going to have to
talk to her eventually,”
Flann said after a while,
meaning Sam.
“It will be hard for me to
explain you to her,” I said.
“Then you’ll have to end
it.” It sounded logical and
reasonable, though it
wasn’t what I wanted to
hear.
“Why won’t you just
leave?” I asked him.