Asking for It

by Louise O'Neill

  ‘Ah, the old skin cancer in a bottle.’

  ‘And one for you, one for me.’ She ignores me again, giving us a packet of Haribo Tangfastics, grabbing the medjool dates for herself.

  ‘I can’t eat these,’ I say.

  ‘Why not?’ Jamie sighs.

  ‘Eh, because of the gelatine?’

  ‘Oh my God, are you still pretending to be a vegetarian?’

  ‘How is it pretending when I—’

  ‘I have popcorn,’ Ali says. ‘That’ll be OK, won’t it?’

  I take the bag off her. (I should smile. I should say thank you.) ‘Fine,’ I say.

  We lie down, propping ourselves up on our elbows, and pretend to watch the match. The ball goes back and forth, players taken off and brought on, the crowd baying for blood, then proclaiming them gods for our time.

  ‘They’re not playing very well, are they?’ Ali says as the old man next to her, wearing dark tweed trousers and a matching jacket despite the heat, starts screaming obscenities at the stupid cunting ref and, Will ya look, Campbell, will ya just fucking open your eyes and look around ya?

  Campbell’s mother, standing two metres away from us, winces at that but she doesn’t comment. ‘They’d better get their shit together for the County,’ I say. ‘I want to go to the Winner’s Gala ball again.’

  ‘You were so lucky to get to go last year,’ Maggie says. Sean Casey asked me, and I told him I’d have to talk to Ali first. I could tell she didn’t want me to, but I knew Ali would never say no to me. Fine, she said, her shoulders slumping. Go if you want to.

  ‘Sure what’s the point of bringing the Dineen lad on at this stage?’ the old man grumbles as one of the Ballinatoom players limps towards the dugout, moving sluggishly in the hazy heat. I sit up at the mention of his name. ‘I didn’t think much of him at the friendly against Nemo, but if Ciarán O’Brien, in all of his fucking wisdom, thinks Dineen will make such a difference . . .’ The rest of his sentence is drowned out by the crowd’s screaming, and I snap my head back to see Jack weaving around the exhausted backs, the ref blowing the whistle pretty much as the ball hits the back of the net.

  ‘That Dineen lad is brilliant . . .’ I hear people saying as they start walking towards the clubhouse.

  ‘. . . there’s talk that the young Dineen lad is going to make the Cork team . . .’

  ‘. . . he has to, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I haven’t seen footballing like that in years.’

  I beckon my girls together, waiting until we’re in a close-knit circle.

  ‘I’m going to score with Jack Dineen tomorrow night.’

  ‘Oh my God, like,’ Jamie says. ‘Does he even stand a chance?’

  I wait a beat. ‘Nope,’ I say. ‘Not a chance.’

  And we all crack up laughing, Jamie too, and for a second it feels like nothing has changed.

  There’s a sudden ear-splitting scream. It’s Dylan Walsh in front of the clubhouse, with Julie Clancy thrown over his shoulder. She’s banging on his back telling him to, Leave me down, but she’s laughing so hard she can barely get the words out. He drops her a little and she wraps her legs around his waist, his hands holding her up by the ass as they kiss.

  ‘Dylan Walsh is so gross.’ Maggie’s face is screwed up in a grimace. ‘No offence, J, but I don’t know what you were at.’

  They move ahead of us, chatting loudly about the outfits they’re going to wear tomorrow, Maggie telling Ali she’s thinking ‘lots of checks, you know?’ Jamie has stopped dead, dozens of other supporters milling around her.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, reaching out to grab her hand. ‘We agreed it was best not to—’

  ‘Fuck off,’ she says, pulling away from me. I check quickly to make sure the others haven’t heard, but they’re at the entrance gates, chatting to my dad. He’s still wearing his pinstriped business suit, but has taken off the jacket. He has patches of sweat around his armpits. You should buy him special deodorant, I told Mam last summer. You can get this stuff that, like, means you never sweat. I’m sure I read that causes cancer, she had replied, as if that had anything to do with the conversation.

  ‘There’s my princess.’ He puts his arm around my waist and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘How are you, Jamie?’ Dad asks. ‘Did you enjoy the match?’ She murmurs yes. ‘That Dineen lad is in your class, isn’t he?’

  ‘You don’t say “class” any more, Daddy. We’re not in national school.’

  ‘Sorry. Your year then.’ I nod. ‘He’s a handy player for someone so young.’ Dad grabs a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs at his brow.

  ‘Sean Casey is in our year too,’ Ali pipes up.

  ‘Yeah, but sure he’s only a sub,’ I say.

  Dad’s eyes drift over my shoulder, and he breaks into a huge smile. ‘And here’s the man himself!’

  I spin on my heel, but it’s just Ciarán O’Brien, his shock of hair suspiciously dark for someone of his age.

  ‘Ciarán, congratulations! Great game. Your lad played well.’

  ‘Ah, we were grand. Still a bit weak in the forwards,’ Ciarán says. ‘No chance of Bryan coming back for us?’

  ‘Ah,’ Dad looks embarrassed. ‘He says the UL team is enough for him at the moment.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Ciarán grunts. He looks at each of us in our turn, smiling extra widely when he sees Ali, enquiring after her dad.

  ‘And is one of these lovely ladies your own daughter?’ he asks, and Dad gives me another squeeze around the waist, saying, ‘This is our youngest, Emma.’

  Ciarán looks me up and down. I probably shouldn’t have worn such a low-cut top.

  ‘Well, well, well.’ He winks at Dad. ‘You have a heartbreaker on your hands there, Denis. I’d say you must be bating them off with a stick.’ He tilts his head in a hello to a passer-by, shaking a couple of outreached hands, then makes a drinking gesture at Dad. ‘Pint?’

  ‘God, did you see the way Ciarán O’Brien was checking me out?’ I shudder as we watch them leave.

  ‘Well, what do you expect, princess?’ Jamie says. ‘You’re about to take someone’s eye out.’

  (Jamie and I getting ready in my bathroom. She fidgets nervously with her dress. Do you think it’s too short? she says, spinning around to see herself from the back. Don’t be stupid, I say, handing her another drink. With your legs?)

  ‘You really are your dad’s pet, aren’t you?’ Ali says, a little wistfully. ‘All those hugs and kisses. My dad is so not a hugger.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if he was,’ I say. Ali’s dad, James, is an absolute ride. She groans in disgust and shoves me as hard as she can, cackling with laughter when I stumble against a girl walking past me.

  ‘Eh, excuse me.’ It’s Susan Twomey, surrounded by ten of her friends, all slim and tanned, with long hair spilling over their shoulders in various shades of blonde. All of them are wearing what looks like the children’s version of the Ballinatoom jersey, minuscule shorts and wedge sandals.

  ‘Susan,’ one of the WAGs mutters under her breath, ‘Paul’s coming.’

  He runs up to us and grabs Susan around the waist, although how he can pick her out of this line-up is beyond me, and gives her a massive kiss, ruffling her hair and saying ‘We won, we won!’ as if the rest of us hadn’t been at the match.

  ‘How come you didn’t go to the clubhouse?’ He turns to one of the others. ‘Ben was looking for you too.’ The girl looks guilty, her eyes darting to Susan and then to the ground.

  ‘Ugh, baby,’ Susan says. ‘It’s so gross in there – that rag they use to dry the glasses looks like it hasn’t been washed in twenty years.’

  He smiles at her, then glances at the rest of us, doing a barely perceptible double take when he sees me. He looks me up and down, just like his father did, running a hand across his brown buzz cut. Susan grits her teeth.

  ‘Emily, isn’t it?’ she says, walking towards me.

  ‘It’s Emma, actually.’

  ‘You must be freez
ing, Emily.’ She gives a sympathetic shiver, standing so close to me I can smell the biscuit tang of her fake tan. She unwraps my cardigan from around my waist and places it around my shoulders, hoiking up my crop top to cover my cleavage. Her friends snicker, and my ears start to burn.

  ‘Thanks for your concern, Sharon,’ I say. I take off the cardigan again, wrapping it around the strap of my bag, and pull the top even further down. ‘But I’m not cold at all.’ I direct this at Paul with a smile. And as I walk away, my legs tremble with an adrenalin rush so strong I almost feel sick from it.

  *

  ‘There you are,’ Mam says. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, tapping at the iPad. ‘I’m trying to watch something on playback and it keeps freezing. What’s wrong with this thing at all?’

  ‘Did you ask Bryan? He’s better at stuff like that than I am.’

  ‘He’s not feeling well. Food poisoning.’

  ‘Food poisoning?’ I say as I go into the TV room after I tried in vain to help Mam fix RTÉ Player. ‘I did that already,’ she snapped when I suggested turning it off and back on again. ‘And put a jumper on yourself.’ She handed me Bryan’s UL hoodie. ‘You’ll embarrass your brother if you go in to him like that.’

  Bryan is thrown down on the black leather sofa, a blue plastic basin next to him and one of Mam’s patchwork quilts in red gingham pulled up to his neck. His skin is tinged with grey, his dark curly hair coated with sweat and sticking to his head. ‘Looks like someone had fun last night.’

  ‘Tesco value vodka,’ he croaks. ‘May as well have been drinking lighter fluid.’

  I nudge his feet off the sofa so I can sit next to him, yanking some of the quilt away from him.

  ‘Ah, the poor Bryany.’ I pat him on the head. He grunts, turning his attention back to the TV. ‘You look very skinny. Maybe I should come visit you again, feed you up.’

  ‘And give me food poisoning for real? No, thanks.’ He pulls the quilt off me, looking a bit more awake. ‘And anyway, you’re not allowed back to UL, not after your visit at midterm.’

  ‘Are your roommates still pining after me?’

  ‘They’re managing to survive, somehow.’

  Ali: Today was fun, wasn’t it?

  Ali: I’m so bored.

  Ali: Anyone want to Skype?

  I tell Bryan to turn up the volume as Graham Norton flips an unfortunate-looking girl off the Big Red Chair.

  ‘The state of her,’ I say. ‘You think she’d have got her hair done or something if she knew she was going to be on TV.’

  My phone beeps again. Ali has tagged me in a photo on Instagram, a selfie of the four of us at the match captioned ‘Me and my girls, fresh as fuck.’

  I look at the photo closely. I’m definitely the prettiest out of the four of us.

  (It’s just because Jamie is tall. Models need to be tall.)

  (It’s just because Asian girls are on trend this season.)

  I turn my phone on silent and put it face down on the armrest.

  ‘How’s Jen?’ I ask.

  ‘You can ask her yourself tomorrow night. She’s staying over.’

  ‘What, like a sleepover?’ I joke, but he doesn’t laugh. ‘Wait, are you serious? Do Mam and Dad know?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That is so unfair. As if they would ever let me have anyone to stay.’

  ‘That’s different, Emmie,’ he says. ‘Anyway, they won’t be here. I got them a deal for a night’s stay in a four-star down in Killarney. It was Jen’s idea – she and Sean and Laura got the same one for their folks because it’s John Junior’s anniversary this weekend.’

  ‘Oh yeah, Sean did mention something about that at the park,’ I say, turning my mouth down. ‘Won’t it seem a bit random though? You just buying Mam and Dad a hotel voucher?’

  ‘Hardly random.’ He presses mute on the TV. ‘It was for their wedding anniversary.’

  ‘What? When was that?’

  ‘Today, you moron. They’re thirty-five years married.’

  ‘Oh shit.’ I try and think of what I’m going to do. ‘Can I go in on yours? Ah, please, Bryan. I’ll sign the card and I’ll give you the money later.’ He raises an eyebrow at me. He’s forever slipping me cash and I tend to ‘forget’ to pay him back.

  ‘It’s too late, Emmie. I’ve already given it to them.’

  I’m about to argue with him when Mam comes into the room, her mobile phone tucked between her cheek and her shoulder, a large tray with three cups of tea and a plate of biscuits in her hands.

  ‘Oh, I know, Bernadette, it’s ridiculous.’ She places the tray on the coffee table in front of us, straightens up and takes her phone in her hand. ‘OK, I’d better go here. Bryan’s back from UL for the weekend, he’s so good. I know . . . I know . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . OK, bye bye bye bye bye.’ She hangs up and places her hand on Bryan’s forehead. ‘Are you comfortable? Do you want more water?’

  ‘I’m grand, Mam.’

  ‘Well, I made your favourite biscuits.’ She points at the tray. ‘Oatmeal and raisin.’

  I hate raisins, I want to say. I haven’t eaten raisins in about ten years.

  ‘Did you get it sorted?’ I ask her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘RTÉ Player.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m going to wait till your father gets home.’ She frowns at me. ‘Emmie, give your brother some room, he’s not feeling well.’ She flops into the leather recliner next to the sofa as Bryan starts demolishing the cookies, his appetite miraculously returned.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ he asks.

  ‘He’s gone for a drink with Ciarán O’Brien.’

  ‘Ciarán O’Brien, is it? Or Ciarán, King of Ballinatoom, to give him his official title.’

  ‘Ah, stop that now.’ Mam takes one of the cups from the tray and throws two cubes of sugar in it.

  ‘Mam,’ Bryan looks at her incredulously, ‘how can you say that, after what happened with Eoin Sayers and—’

  ‘Well.’ Her lips tighten. ‘You weren’t exactly innocent in that little escapade yourself now, were you? And you would have been expelled too if Ciarán hadn’t intervened on your behalf.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I’m sure he did that out of the goodness of his heart. Nothing to do with the fact that we had the college’s All-Ireland and—’

  ‘Well, if Eoin had played football, I’m sure Ciarán would have spoken up for him as well.’

  ‘Jesus, Mam, that’s the point—’

  ‘Bryan.’ Her voice is razor sharp and we both start. Mam never gets cross with Bryan. ‘Ciarán O’Brien does a lot for this town, and he’s very well respected. You were lucky that he stepped in when he did.’

  She gestures at Bryan for the remote control, stretching across to get it from him, and changes the channel, ignoring our protests.

  ‘No talking,’ she says, ‘not while The Late Late is on.’

  We fall silent. ‘Isn’t this nice?’ she says. ‘I can’t remember the last time we all sat in together on a Friday night; it must have been last year some time. You two are always so busy these days. Why I—’

  ‘Shhh,’ I say. ‘The Late Late is on.’

  Saturday

  Ali: What you wearing tonight?

  Ali: Oh my god, you look so hot in that. I love it.

  Ali: Can I come over earlier? My mom is driving me insane.

  It’s nearly 8 p.m. I’m lying on my bed, clicking through photos of Jack on Facebook. I take a swig of my drink, wincing as the sharp taste of vodka hits my throat, burning a hole in my empty stomach.

  ‘Is that all you’re going to eat?’ Bryan asked me earlier when I chopped up half a banana into a small bowl of natural yogurt. ‘Mam left dinner for us.’

  ‘Eating is cheating,’ I said, and he laughed.

  My parents left for Killarney before lunchtime, Mam phoning Sheila Heffernan to boast about what a generous son she has, Yes, a four-star hotel, can you believe it, Sheila? Not many boys his age would be so thoughtful. ‘And what ar
e your plans for tonight?’ she asked me as Dad put their overnight case in the boot, her voice a little cooler, and I wonder if Dad or Bryan ever notice that, notice how different she sounds when she’s talking to me, or if it’s just my imagination. I tried to act casual. ‘Oh, nothing much. Probably going to go to Maggie’s, watch a DVD or something.’ (I’m eighteen, I’m an adult, what does it matter to you what I do?) ‘Well . . .’ She looked reluctant, but not even she could argue with watching a DVD on a Saturday night. ‘Be back by midnight. I expect you to phone me from the house phone as soon as you’re home.’

  That’s not going to happen, but I’ll just tell her tomorrow that it kept going to voicemail, that her reception must have been weak down in Killarney. ‘Will there be boys there?’ Jesus. ‘Yes, Mam. Eli will be there.’ ‘The African lad?’ Dad had interjected. ‘Dad, he’s not African.’ ‘Sure, of course he’s African.’ Dad laughed. ‘His father is the man up in CUH, isn’t he?’ I nod. ‘He’s as black as the ace of spades.’ ‘Yeah, but his mam is Irish,’ I said slowly. ‘And Eli’s lived in Ballinatoom all his life. And Conor and Fitzy will probably be there too,’ I lied, and Dad visibly relaxed. ‘I just don’t know if I feel comfortable—’ Mam began, but Dad interrupted her, saying that he trusted me to be responsible. Bryan and I watched as the car pulled out the drive. Freedom.

  I yank at the thin straps of my dress, pulling the material away from my clammy body. The heat is curling in through the open window, wrapping around my limbs. I can hear the sound of the kids on the estate shouting ‘Red rover, red rover . . .’ I sit on the windowsill and see the two Mannix boys playing with a little girl I don’t know. The girl and the older boy are on the swing set, ignoring the other boy whining that he wants a go, s’not fair, and it could almost be me and Conor when we were kids, Fitzy insisting every game that I suggested was ‘stupid’, until I burst into tears. ‘Don’t cry,’ Conor would plead with me, telling Fitzy to leave me alone. He promised that I could choose whatever game I wanted. ‘I hate it when you cry, Emmie,’ he said.

  Maggie: Hey hun, we’re nearly there. I hope you don’t mind but I said to Eli about tonight and he’s coming too. xx