Snowflake

by Louise Nealon

  She has no idea how many girls sitting in this pub would kill to be introduced to his parents as his girlfriend. They’ve clocked her already. Alannah Burke gave her a head to toe inspection on her way in. As jealous as I am of Xanthe, I’m also proud. Look at this beautiful woman who has decided to be my friend. Me. The girl who had no friends in school. The slutty one who you always suspected to be kind of dirty and weird is moving up in the world. Being friends with Xanthe makes me feel cleaner and more presentable, but also so unbelievably depressed because no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be as good as her.

  “He’s coming down later?” I ask.

  “Yeah. It’s weird that you haven’t met him properly before.”

  “And I can’t really ask him the general opening questions like where are you from?” I say.

  “Haha, please ask him that.”

  “He’ll think I’m a simpleton.”

  “He actually said that you were the smartest person in school.”

  “Well that’s a lie,” I say, but I’m pleased. The way that Xanthe is looking at me, I could almost swear that she’s a bit jealous of me too.

  * * *

  Xanthe wants to go over and play pool with Billy, but Murt Mooney is over there and I’m afraid Billy would slag me about him in front of Xanthe.

  We go to the bar. I say hello to Mark as he passes with a tray of drinks.

  “Who’s that?” Xanthe asks.

  “James’s brother. He milks with Billy now.”

  “You never mentioned him,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “He seems nice.”

  “Mark is like a brother. I wouldn’t go near him with a barge pole,” I say.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Anyway, he has a girlfriend.”

  She puts her hands up. “I didn’t say anything.”

  It’s past seven o’clock. The Twelve Pubbers are already on their third lap, sweating in their woolly jumpers. A few rule-enforcers are getting angry with the group beside us who keep forgetting to pull their invisible elves off their pints before taking a drink.

  Xanthe checks her phone again.

  “Himself?” I ask.

  “Yeah he gets a bit anxious about going out. It’s because he doesn’t drink. He’s afraid everyone thinks he’s boring. I tried saying to him that having one beer wouldn’t be the worst thing, you know, to be sociable. He’s a bit off with me.”

  “As in thick?”

  “No, he never really gets angry. Just, I don’t know, distracted. I don’t know if he’d give me the time of day if he didn’t fancy me.”

  I laugh. “Oh boo-hoo, poor Santy. You can’t complain about being too good-looking.”

  “I’m not saying that. And it goes both ways as well. Like, would I be with him if I didn’t like the look of him? We don’t exactly have mind-blowing conversations.”

  This piece of information makes me happier than it should. I take a sip of my drink and try to hide my delight. I want to get Xanthe drunk tonight, I decide. Very drunk.

  * * *

  I clock him the moment he walks in. The girls from school perk up as soon as they see him. They talk in a more animated way, laughing louder, taking pictures, and looking scarily happy. He has a nervous energy about him, slapping the lads he meets on the back. He seems too skinny to be a hurler. The other lads on the team have potato faces and look like early versions of their fathers. He is all cheekbones and long fingers. He’d make a beautiful woman. He seems to be conscious of this femininity because he’s all bravado when he knows people are watching. Some girl stops him to take a photo with her and he puts his arm around her shoulder, tilts his head sideways, and points to her.

  He creeps up behind Xanthe and puts his hands over her eyes. I try to meet his eyes without blushing.

  “Oh, I wonder who it is,” Xanthe says drily.

  He releases his hands and kisses her on the cheek.

  “Debbie.” He holds out his hand. “Thanks for putting in a good word for me.”

  “Ah, I can’t take any credit for this,” I say, and feel my face flush. I shake his hand.

  “What are you drinking?” he asks Xanthe.

  “Can you get me a glass of white wine actually?”

  “Debbie?” He looks at me.

  “Ah no, I’m grand for a drink,” I say, holding up my glass.

  “Two glasses of white,” Xanthe says.

  “No honestly, I’m grand.” I kick her when he leaves. “Don’t let him buy me another drink.”

  “He can do what he likes.” She sighs. “I feel bad about bitching about him.”

  “You weren’t bitching, you were telling the truth. That’s allowed.”

  * * *

  He comes back from the bar with two bottles of white wine and two fresh wine glasses.

  “I said two glasses!” Xanthe slaps his wrist.

  “Sure bottles are cheaper in the long run.”

  “Ah Jesus, where are you going?” I say. “Thanks very much.”

  He holds his hands up. “I will not be held responsible for the carnage that comes after this.”

  He stands up and pours Xanthe a glass with one hand behind his back. “How was your day?” he asks.

  “I prefer Debbie’s house to yours,” Xanthe says.

  “Let me guess, more books?”

  “More books, more cows, more craic.”

  “Debbie, she gives out to me because I don’t read,” he says.

  “Not even Harry Potter?” I ask.

  “I’ve seen the movies.”

  We both shake our heads. “It’s not the same.”

  “It’s not my fault. I have a condition. I get narcolepsy when I try to read. I just conk out. It’s not something I have any control over. Anyway, I’m not book-smart like ye.”

  I smile over at Xanthe. I’m glad that he has at least put us in the same category.

  * * *

  After our second bottle of wine, Xanthe musters up the confidence to play pool with the auld lads. She is trying and failing to use the cue as a baton twirler. Billy calls her and she swings around, nearly taking the head off Dooley.

  I thought he would go off with the hurlers, but he takes Xanthe’s seat beside me.

  “How are you finding Trinity?” he asks.

  “Oh good, yeah.” My mouth is too dry to talk so I swallow and try again. “A bit overwhelming for a country bumpkin. How’s UCD?”

  “Much the same, really. It’s massive. There are roundabouts on campus and everything.”

  “You didn’t say that out loud did you?” I ask.

  “I made headlines: Culchie Amazed by Roundabouts.”

  I laugh.

  He nods over to the bar. “Father John is some man.”

  The priest is standing behind the bar giving out Tayto crisps to people like it’s Holy Communion. The Twelve Pubbers have formed an orderly queue, shuffling toward him with hands clasped in front of them.

  “Oh Jesus,” I say.

  “Mad for the session.”

  “Mad for Jesus and mad for pints.”

  A looming silence lingers around the edges of our conversation. We’re already running out of things to say.

  “Xanthe is a legend,” I say, watching her take a shot.

  “She’s great. I feel really lucky to have met her.”

  “Good.” I nod. “Good.”

  “Ye’re good mates?”

  I’m not sure if that’s a statement or a question so I just nod again.

  “It’s packed in here,” he says.

  “It always is on Twelve Pubs.”

  I look over at the girls from school. They are eyeing us. Any one of them would give a fake tanned leg to be talking to him. I don’t know why I’m getting upset. I’m disappointed that the moment is so ordinary. It takes a few seconds of silence to make me realize that I’m bored.

  “I’ve to go to the bathroom,” I announce.

  He seems relieved. He stands up for me to pass him. There is no brushin
g of shoulders or spark of electricity.

  I turn around to face him again. “You know, this is the first time we’ve ever actually spoken?”

  His eyes widen. “I suppose it is, yeah!”

  “Yeah.” I go to walk away but I turn back again. “You know, for someone I’ve never spoken to, I have the most complicated relationship with you in my head. It’s like a grudge that I can’t let go of? Like I’m angry with you, but I don’t know why?”

  “OK.” He nods, but his eyes dart away for a second. He has no idea what I mean.

  I run away from what I’ve just said. I push past people queuing up for a pint, past the girls from school perched together in their stilettos, past Billy who is taking a photo of Xanthe pointing to the sign above the stove that says ARSEWARMER.

  * * *

  There’s a girl vomiting in the cubicle beside me. I take deep breaths on the toilet seat. I’m not sure what I expected to happen. I’m annoyed with myself. I’m angry with someone I don’t know because he is not fitting into my fantasy. He’s not going out with Xanthe to make me jealous. He’s a genuine, nice, boring guy who just doesn’t fancy me.

  I message Xanthe: Why are you flirting with my uncle?

  My phone vibrates on the floor and flashes up a message from Xanthe.

  What?

  The phone rings. I don’t answer.

  Another message: ????????

  * * *

  A few minutes later there’s a bang on the cubicle door. “Debbie, let me in.”

  If I don’t move or make a sound this whole situation might go away.

  Xanthe’s head pops over the bathroom stall. “Are we going to talk like this?”

  I unlock the door. She barrels into the cubicle and shuts the door behind her. “So, what was that about?”

  I shrug like a spoiled child.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Your boyfriend thinks I’m a psycho.”

  “No he doesn’t. I need to pee.”

  We swap places and Xanthe pulls down her tights.

  “Oh my God,” I say.

  “What?”

  “You have a full bush!” I exclaim.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t shave your fanny! This makes me so happy. Does he like a full bush?”

  “What? No! He hasn’t seen it yet.”

  “Oh, right.”

  She flushes the toilet, pulls up her tights, and shimmies her skirt down again.

  “Billy fancies you,” I tell her.

  “Where are you getting all this from?”

  “Don’t tell me that you weren’t flirting with him.”

  “I wasn’t flirting with him. I’m trying to have a good night. Where is all this coming from?”

  “It’s coming from you flirting with my uncle.”

  “It’s my first time meeting your family and I want to make a good impression.”

  “You could try not flirting with him.”

  “So fucking what if I am flirting with him?”

  “You have a boyfriend!”

  “I fucking know! You don’t own people, Debbie. You can’t control how other people feel. I swear to God, sometimes I feel like I’m in a relationship with you.”

  “Oh fuck off, Xanthe.” I open the cubicle door to a queue of my neighbors waiting for the toilet.

  * * *

  I try to lift up the hatch to go behind the bar. I knock a few glasses and everyone cheers when they smash on the floor. Mark is cleaning up the mess with a dustpan and brush.

  I’m leaning against him when he says, “Debbie, I think it’s time to go home.”

  “Are you coming home with me?” I murmur.

  “No, Debs.”

  “Are you kicking me out?”

  “I just said I think it’s time to go home.”

  “For me to go home,” I say, pointing to myself.

  “Yes.”

  “Nobody else.”

  He sighs.

  “I’ll have a double vodka and tonic please,” I say.

  “I can’t serve you any more drinks, Debbie. You’ve had enough.”

  “Everyone in the pub has had enough, Mark. Why are you picking on me? Is it because you fancy me?”

  “No, Debs.”

  “So you won’t go home with me?”

  “I have a girlfriend, Debbie.”

  “Didn’t stop you the last time.”

  “The last time, my head was all over the place. My brother was lying dead in a coffin and your mam was lying on top of him and you were all over me like a fucking rash.”

  “Wow.” I feel those words rush around my head. They sober me up. “Thanks for that.”

  “I’m sorry. Listen, Debs, I want to be your friend. I think you’re a mentaller—mad craic like, but I don’t fancy you.”

  “You think I’m mad,” I say slowly.

  “Mad craic like. You’re great craic!”

  “OK.”

  “Are you thick with me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I think you’re right, though. I need to go home.”

  He slaps me on the back and smiles. “You’ll thank me tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Xanthe is outside the pub smoking, waiting for me. “Debbie! What the fuck? What is wrong with you?”

  I grab her by the elbow and pull her away from the crowd of smokers. “Sure there’s nothing wrong with me. You’ve hogged all the problems—all the misery.”

  “Are you making fun of . . . you’re the only person I told about my mental illness.”

  “You’re the only person I told about my mental illness,” I mimic her, waving my hands around.

  She looks at me like I’m a different person.

  “You couldn’t wait to tell me about your mental illness,” I say. “But it’s just another way for people to take money off you! You paid a doctor to tell you that you’re special. That you’re sad and edgy. You’re so full of shadow and light, Xanthe. So complicated. So many layers. Not just a pretty girl.”

  “Being depressed isn’t a lifestyle choice, Debs,” Xanthe says in a wobbly voice.

  “Oh fuck off, you already have everything and you’re still not happy. I don’t care how much money you spend making yourself miserable. You’re a fucking snowflake, Xanthe,” I say, backing away from her. “A snowflake.”

  * * *

  Between the snow outside and the drink inside me, the world seems surreal. I don’t feel cold yet, even though I’ve left my coat on my seat in the snug. I trudge home leaving the noise of the pub behind me. The Twelve Pubbers have turned the snow on the road to brown sludge.

  Jacob comes to greet me at the gate and I push him away from me. I fumble around in my bag for my key. We never used to lock the door but recently Mam has become obsessed with security. I try the key in the lock but it won’t budge.

  “Come on,” I moan.

  * * *

  I go around the back. The caravan is locked. It’s never been locked before. Billy said he’d get a lock when there was something worth robbing in it. Now I feel like he’s done it on purpose to piss me off.

  I scramble my way onto the roof, and lie on my back. My eyes get heavy. I’m starting to feel the cold. It’s spreading up my legs and into my belly. It reminds me of walking into the sea—sunlit zone, twilight zone, midnight zone, abyss . . . the hadal zone of Persephone, the winter queen.

  Inside

  The caravan coughs underneath me. There’s a rattle. Something must have fallen inside. My fingernails scratch the ice on the roof. I stare at my hands. They look very red but I’m not cold. I feel like my entire body is floating in a snow globe of white wine. I stand up and try to adjust my wonky view to the horizon. Stare out across the fresh blue-tinted snow. Cherish the glorious moment of defiance where drink triumphs over reality. It’s worth it, I think: drinking. Just for this.

  I’m thirsty. I jump off the caravan and put some snow in my mouth. It burns my
tongue so I spit it out.

  The caravan is still making noise. I remember the hedgehog. Maybe it’s after escaping from the box. The door is still locked, so I scrape the ice off the window and peer through a gash of clear glass—enough so that I can see one of Billy’s tweed coats swaying back and forth. I make the gash bigger and back away from the window. I can see a hand.

  It’s Billy’s hand. He’s hanging from the ceiling. Off the ground. Swaying back and forth, back and forth.

  “BILLY!” I bang on the window. “BILLY!”

  I look around for something to break the glass. I’m shaking. There’s nothing. Nothing.

  And then Mam comes sprinting around the side of the caravan with a hammer. She tries the door.

  “It’s locked!” I shout, but she is already running over to the window.

  “Stand back.” Mam smashes the hammer into the window. She breaks through one layer of glass and then two, until the hole is big enough for her to crawl through. She launches herself forward and tries to push through the shards of glass, cutting her hands and face. She hauls herself in, stands up, and cuts the rope. Billy falls to the floor.

  “I’ll call an ambulance!” I shout.

  “They won’t come in the snow.”

  I call Shirley but her phone goes straight to voicemail.

  “Don’t come in,” Mam says.

  “Is he alive?”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  I’m halfway through the window but she pushes me back out. I try again but this time, she grabs hold of my hands and squeezes them until I can feel them. We’re both shaking. She looks at me, her bottom lip over her top, her chin wobbling. “I said, don’t come in.”

  So I stay outside.

  I walk around in circles. Jacob is jumping up and down on me, yelping. He knows that something is going on. I can’t stay still and I can’t think. Think. I look across the fields and start running.

  * * *

  A disgruntled Shirley unbolts the pub door.

  “Billy!” I’m hysterical. “He’s after hanging himself! He’s dying. He’s dead.”

  Shirley and Mark come running back over the fields with me. Shirley is asking questions but I can’t answer them.

  She keeps saying, “But the ambulance won’t get here in the snow,” and I keep saying, “I know, I know, I know.”