by Marina Ford
“Never mind now,” I interrupted tersely. “Have a great weekend. Bye.”
I hung up before he could say anything more. I wanted to throw my phone against the wall.
“Are you all right?” The cleaning lady, a broad cockney woman, with her hair pulled tightly back in a thin ponytail, examined me with concern. I’d gone down on my haunches and covered my face with my hands.
“Yeah, thanks,” I choked out.
Harry and Kieran. Harry making fish and chips for him. Harry smiling up at Kieran from his phone. Harry falling asleep on him. Harry laughing at his jokes. Harry and Kieran moving back in together. No. No. No. No. Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .
The man in the booth checking the passports peered at me suspiciously.
“Are you all right, sir?”
“Yes, thank you.”
I took my passport back and put it in my pocket.
In the bathrooms I checked myself in the mirror. I looked ill. Splashing water over my face didn’t do anything, and I had to slap my cheeks to bring colour back into them.
Harry and Kieran. Harry and fucking Kieran.
Six Months Before the Big Day
Harry and fucking Kieran . . . I can’t believe it.
How I am progressing with my Plan so far:
Get Harry to come to Dublin with me under false pretences. ✓
Surprise him with sweet hotel room in fancy AF hotel I can’t afford. ✓
Purchase suit that makes me look like James Bond. ✓
Get fancy new haircut to impress Harry. Make myself bald. ✓
Make myself look sparkly and beautiful for Harry. Iron shirt with cold iron and cover myself with mud-coloured goo. ✓
Get restaurant reservation for the evening. Piss off the one person in the world who could possibly get me restaurant reservation. ✓
Seamlessly meet Harry after pretend exhibition and sweep him off his feet with elegant dinner at fancy restaurant, and late night stroll to Ha’penny Bridge. Confront angry Harry while looking like a second-rate Jim Carrey impersonator and ruin both career and relationship in one swoop. ✓
Extra points:
Made Irish hairdresser cry.
Flashed Harry’s cousins.
Have never been further from proposing to anyone in my life.
Also . . . Kieran is here.
I won’t lie. Things aren’t good.
I’m in the gallery staff bathroom, washing my face. I don’t really care what I look like at this moment, but everybody was staring at me, so I thought best get rid of goo on face before asking Harry why his ex is in Dublin with us.
Harry comes in, but I don’t turn to him. I’m worried I might scream. He takes a fistful of paper towels from the dispenser and hands them to me. His expression shows concern, mostly, which is rich, considering everything.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Oh yes, dandy. You?” My high-pitched voice betrays me.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he says. His phone buzzes. He glances at it and then puts it away. I toss the paper towels scrunched to a ball into the wastebasket.
“So,” he says, “do you know why my cousins are making lewd jokes about the size of your, er, equipment?”
I shrug. “They’re all in the closet?”
“Joe,” he says, his eyebrows raised, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement, “did you expose yourself to my cousins?”
“What I may or may not have done in a moment of confusion is beside the point,” I say, defensively. “You have brought Kieran! On our anniversary!”
He becomes more serious at once.
“Right. That. I haven’t brought him. In fact, I didn’t know he was in town. We ran into him by accident.”
I narrow my eyes because he can sell those fairy tales to some other chump.
“Where is your exhibition?” he asks. “They say it’s in three weeks’ time, just as previously planned. They claim they never rung Chloe or anybody to change the date.”
This is why I don’t plan. Harry would have had contingency plans attached to the main thing, whereas I find myself without answers. Luckily, Harry gets distracted.
“What is that thing you put on your face?” he asks, frowning.
“A facial.”
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know. Mud?”
He touches my cheek, carefully, and then turns it so I face my reflection in the mirror. My skin has erupted in angry red blotches, on my forehead and cheeks mostly. It’s like I’m having an allergic reaction to something.
“I probably left it on for too long,” I say.
“Why were you wearing a face mask?” he asks. “Why didn’t you tell me—”
We’re interrupted by the door opening again. It’s Kieran.
“Oh,” he says, startling. “There you are. The curator lady wants to know if you mean to sue her, after all. She’s on the phone with her lawyer right now.”
“Ah.” Harry’s hand drops from my cheek. “Er, tell her I overreacted. I’ll apologise in a minute.”
“Okay,” Kieran says, his eyes swivelling from me to Harry. “Everything all right?”
“We’re fine,” I say, pushing him out and closing the door. Nosy bastard.
Harry eyes me with apprehension. For a moment it feels like he wants to embrace me, but then his frame relaxes. “We can talk about everything later. This isn’t the place. Come on.”
Hoping that this could buy me time, I follow him back out into the gallery. We find Kieran leaning against the reception desk, charming Orla into a smile. She spots us, and her smile falls, especially when she glares at Harry.
“I take it that my little ‘thieving enterprise’ is safe for now?” she asks Harry, with a healthy dose of bite. Harry nods.
“Yes, sorry, there was a misunderstanding,” he says. Chastened, he apologises again and then looks to me. I’m pretty sure my chances for work in this gallery have now dwindled to nothing, and that my actual, real exhibition next month will probably be cancelled, and I suggest we go now. Orla takes this news with no hint of regret, and so Harry, Kieran, and I leave.
Outside, it has begun to rain. I want to go to the hotel, but Kieran is still with us, and I have no intention of inviting him up there. What the hell is he doing here, anyway?
“I don’t suppose I could tempt you to dine with me?” he says to Harry, before belatedly glancing at me, by way of extending the invitation. No, I want to say. No, you cannot tempt us, Kieran. The nerve of that guy.
“As a matter of fact,” I say, “we have plans. We were going to go to the Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud tonight.”
Harry startles. “Really? The Patrick Guilbaud? I’ve been dying to go there.”
“It’s an excellent restaurant,” Kieran confirms. “What time’s your table?”
Well, that’s just grand. I only said it to get rid of Kieran. Now I am forced to say, “I—I haven’t been able to get one. Yet.”
“For tonight?” Kieran says, surprised. “Mate, you won’t get a reservation on the same day, unless you’re the Taoiseach.”
I stop myself from sticking my tongue out at him.
“Wait, let me see if I can help you out.” He puts his iPhone to his ear. Well, isn’t this just the cherry on the top of a pile of shit. Harry watches Kieran, as he says, in that arrogant, self-important way of his, “Dylan! How’ya doin’ you old tit, eh?” And then, moments later, “Nah, mate, it’s just a friend of mine . . . Yeah, a table would be great . . . Nah, nah, don’t worry about it . . . Yeah, that’s great, mate. Sure thing. Thanks again. Bye.”
He puts his phone away, smiles at Harry—I hope his teeth rot—and says, “They’ll let you in at six. It’ll have to be through the back door. I’ll have to escort you, but it won’t be a problem. Want to get a drink beforehand?”
I don’t want to drink with Kieran. In fact, I would be very glad if he just walked away. And he must know this. He must know he’s the last person I w
ant to see. If I were him, I’d just bow out at this point, but of course, he is a cunning bastard, so instead he made it impossible to refuse his presence. Either he comes with us, or we don’t eat at the bloody restaurant.
Harry looks to me, wavering. I do want him to eat at the restaurant he’s been dying to go to. I throw my hands out in frustration and say, “Do you know of a good place?”
Kieran beams.
We head out along the river. As we do, Kieran spots the Ha’penny Bridge, and says, “Oh have you been on it yet? It’s gorgeous. Come, you’ve got to see this.”
He reaches his hand out to Harry, but then only pats his shoulder. I might have to kill him tonight.
“I really don’t think—” I start, but he’s crossed the street already, and Harry takes my hand and we are forced to follow. The sky is grey, so the lamps, which stick up from decorative, white-painted cast-iron arches, illuminate our way, and even in the drizzle it is powerfully romantic. Or would have been if Kieran hadn’t ruined it.
He tells the story of the bridge: how it was erected in the nineteenth century to replace the decrepit ferries that used to get people from one side of the river to the other, and tells us about how the name has changed. Harry listens to him and I put my hood up, put my hands in my pockets, and wonder whether, if presented with all the evidence, any jury would really convict me for pushing the bastard into the river and watching him drown.
He then leads us across to the other side, and into the Grand Social, a bar in a black-bricked building, with enormous posters announcing the various acts that perform there live, later in the evening. Kieran says it’s his favourite hang out in Dublin. I dislike it intensely already.
He orders our drinks for us, knows the staff by name, and we’re informed the drinks are on the house. Then he takes his jacket off, to reveal that he’s been spending the past four years in a gym, apparently. He was always big, but previously he used to be wide and stocky, with a small potbelly. Now all his weight has been transformed into muscle. His stomach, waist, and hips are flat and narrow, while his upper chest is built up and broad. If anybody asks me, he looks like Johnny Bravo’s mean older brother.
Harry says, “Been working out, have you?”
“Oh, you know.” Kieran shrugs modestly. “I’ve a bit more time on my hands now.”
“Why?” I ask. I don’t know much about Kieran, but I do know he used to work a lot.
“I quit my job,” he says. “Starting my own security agency. Been a dream of mine for some time. You know how it is—on your deathbed you don’t regret not having spent enough time in the office. I want to spend more time doing meaningful things.”
I would find this more interesting to listen to if he wasn’t patently addressing all this to Harry.
“Well,” Harry says, “it’s amazing that you finally had the courage to do it. I’ve been telling you for years . . .”
“Yeah, yeah.” Kieran laughs. “I should’ve listened to you from the start, I know. I wish I had! I wouldn’t have wasted all these years on butting horns with everyone at work . . . all this time I could have been, er—” he coughs “—doing other things. You know.”
There’s a jar of olives in the middle of the table, and I’m sorely tempted to flick one at him. Harry smiles, apparently charmed by this very obvious hint that Kieran wishes he could have spent more time with him.
“So,” I say, interrupting this little interlude, “you seeing anyone, Kieran?”
“Who? Me? Oh no.” He shakes his head, colouring. “Let me tell you, Harry’s a tough act to follow!”
Harry rolls his eyes self-consciously and hides his smile by taking a drink. At this stage, I’d need a little cannon to shoot the olives at Kieran to do justice to my feelings.
Harry can see that I’m unhappy and, probably imagining it would shorten my suffering, suggests we just eat here.
But Kieran extolls the wonders of Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud. It’s got two Michelin stars, he tells us. It’s incomparable. My own appetite, in all honesty, is completely gone. But Harry, despite pretending he doesn’t mind where we eat, is clearly very interested in the restaurant, and so we set off for it half an hour ahead of time to make sure we get our table.
Kieran dines with us. I don’t want him to, but by the time he knocks on the back door of the restaurant, which is situated in the ground floor of the Merrion Hotel, and his friend lets us in, it becomes increasingly inevitable that he must be invited to sit down with us. He demurs at first. Then he agrees to stay for the starter. And then he stays for the main, because Harry is intrigued by the eight-course degustation menu, so Kieran’s assistance is obviously needed.
“I eat for two,” he says, patting his flat stomach. I wonder if flinging my spoon at him would really be such a crime against good manners.
He and Harry talk extensively of the food and how it compares to that time a friend of Harry’s invited them to eat at Noma, which at the time had been named the best restaurant in the world. That was in Denmark, and apparently the whole menu’s theme, when Harry and Kieran visited, was onions, which to my mind sounds gross, but apparently it was incredible. They both stumble over each other as they try to explain to me how great it was.
“Oh God, there was a special onion tea!” Harry says.
“Yeah, I so didn’t want to try that, but Mr. Bossy Pants made me,” Kieran says.
“You said you liked it!”
“I said a lot of things.” Kieran winks.
Harry laughs, but then stops in the middle when he sees my expression. He immediately grows sober.
“This is amazing, Joe,” he says, pointing at his plate. “I can’t believe we get to eat here.”
This wasn’t my doing. It was Kieran’s. We all know it. We go silent and it’s awkward. By the end of the evening, having performed my part of slighted lover admirably, I feel like a complete arsehole. But it’s too late now to be a good sport about it, and so when Kieran says goodbye (at last!) Harry and I walk back to our hotel in silence. We have to cross the Ha’penny Bridge again, but by now, even if I remembered to bring the bracelets, which I didn’t, it doesn’t seem the right time to talk about marriage anyway.
Our hotel room is a right mess. I forget that I left it with my clothes, underwear, the packaging from the suit I bought, and the packets of beauty products lying everywhere. The ironing board and iron take up the middle of the room. The bathroom looks like I’ve bathed baby elephants in it. Harry stares bewildered.
“Did a bomb go off in here?”
“I—I was in a hurry.”
“Okay,” Harry says slowly, before turning to me. “Do you want to tell me what you’ve been up to all day?”
I don’t. I don’t want to tell him. This is not how any of this was supposed to happen. I don’t know what to tell him; I don’t know how to explain. It seems too fantastic, really, to be believed, anyway. I drop onto the bed and shrug.
“So . . .” Harry says. “No exhibition today?”
I nod. “I just wanted us to come to Dublin for the anniversary.”
“Okay,” Harry says, again very slowly. “So . . . why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, mission accomplished.” He looks around. “I’m still reeling. What the hell happened to your hair?”
“I had it cut.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you like it?”
When I look up at his face, I can see he’s keeping himself from laughing, with difficulty.
“It’s—it’s different,” he says, at last. “It’ll take some getting used to.”
“You don’t like it.” I sink my face into my hands. “You hate it.”
“I don’t hate it,” he says, laughing. “It’s just hair. What made you do it? I mean, the whole of it! You love your hair!”
I do. I do love my hair. And now it’s all gone, scooped up and binned. Nothing left.
“The girl sneezed,” I say miserably.
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Harry barks a laugh. “Oh God, are you joking?”
“No! She sneezed and she made me bald up on top and that’s how— Stop laughing, it’s not funny!”
“Oh Joe . . .” His voice is quivering.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “You’re one in a million,” he says. “Come on, lie back.”
I fall back onto the pillows, tired and defeated. Has anybody ever botched anything so badly? I doubt it. All this energy, all this effort, and nothing to show for it. I look around and see that Harry is rifling through his luggage in search of something. He withdraws a white tube of some sort of salve.
“Put your head on the pillow,” he instructs. “This should soothe your rash.”
Sitting at the side of the bed, he places the cool gel with the tip of his finger over my cheeks, my chin, my forehead, and then over the bridge of my nose. He spreads it out delicately. My skin does feel soothed, although I’d say it’s more his ministering to it than the ointment.
“How is that?” he asks softly.
“Better.”
He continues to smooth the salve over my face. Then he spots something, undoes the buttons of my shirt, and says, “Okay, I think maybe it wasn’t the facial that caused the reaction. Did you use anything else?”
I point to the pile of beauty products on the table.
“Oh Joe.” He stares at it in disbelief. “Why?”
“I wanted to look nice.”
“You look like you’ve been out in the sun too long. Your chest, your belly—” he strips me of my shirt “—and your arms, all red. Take off your trousers.”
I take off the remainder of my clothes. It’s far more comfortable, anyway. The rash is unevenly spread in blotchy patches across my body. It’s worse on my face than anywhere else, prompting Harry to conclude that the mask must have aggravated the problem. He massages the whole tube of salve into my skin. I’m not complaining. I like the feel of his hands on me.
By the end of it, I’m a glistening mummy, and I have to lie very still to let my skin absorb the healing properties of the medicine.