by Richard Ford
Far, indeed, from great wrongness, Eileen believed. Far from guilty sensations, or of some reckoning needing eventually to be faced. Instead, there was a great exhilaration of rightness. Tom’s life imbalances being put easily right without a grain of harm visited on a living soul. And her own. A kind of tonic. Tom was certainly no one she’d choose for life. Quite dry. He had a boyhood limp and a professorish beard and was losing hair. She’d likewise put on a stone cooking for the boys and felt her drive not as strong as once. Fucking Tom Magee in the airport Maldron, then having a free day in town while he flew away to wherever, was just a thing you did. The same way being a single mum raising two boys in a shabby little one-street seaside town, where there was pitiful to do but go to work and to the bank and the pub with her fisherman beau, was a thing you simply did. Couldn’t not. It wasn’t the sex. That she could get any day, and did. It was the lark of it. Tom was the smooth and occasionally pleasing way in for that. A portal.
In Dublin she did very little. Took the airport coach in. Had a late breakfast at Bewley’s, when it was still open. Took a walk through Trinity—Tom’s college—where she’d once hoped to go, herself, but lacked the funds. Inside the walls was especially charming. She could walk about and never know where she was apt to come out. Plus, the little shops in the old part. A pint at O’Neill’s, or the Duke, where the professors drank. Sometimes something would be on at the National Library—a talk or a recitation. Then that was that—the walk across the river to the bus, then the long trip north, when she’d sleep as the miles poured past. Friday (her flexi day) over to Saturday. Sunday rest. School Monday. On the bus, she’d glance at the various riders and think they were all engaged in some similar escapade—only in the details were they different. She used to think—when there were still the red phone boxes—that when you saw a woman talking in a pay phone you’d be certain something was in the works. Solo on the bus, the same. But again, you couldn’t not. It was such a small thing. Whereas to live (and die) on others’ terms was giving life away cheap. She wouldn’t do that.
THE LOGISTICS HAD BECOME SIMPLE AND CUSTOMARY. CHANGE IN Ballymena to Europa station, then the Translink to the airport—climbing down amidst the other travelers going on to Galway and Cork. Take the courtesy van the short distance to the Maldron, walking in as though she owned it, with only a largish handbag. Tom would’ve phoned already with his room number. The occasionally heart-pounding walk down the clean-smelling corridor, past the nodding, Philippine cleaners with their carts. Fingernails on the door. Then everything was commenced. If familiar, it was no less consuming and occasionally even frantic, coming close to violent, which she cared less about but Tom apparently needed as a measure of the ardor. He was forty-five, did the elliptical and free weights, in addition to sailing and the coronet.
Later—in bed—they would talk about subjects that were allowable and didn’t tread into the sensitive. She always asked politely about Marj, whom she hadn’t seen since this all took up, and felt she would likely not see again. His work interested him still—being off-shore; his company being bought by a good firm in Norway. He did not inquire about James, of whom she said little except that he existed and golfed. Some talk arose about her boys and their difficulties with the father who lived now in Derry and saw them infrequently, which Eileen resented, if only for the time lost. Tom and Marjorie had no boys or girls, and there was sometimes fitful, insincere talk of how one got old, etc. Eileen did not give much thought to growing old—only to being forty, which was coming up fast. And then what? They laughed about it.
Sometimes (not always), they would make love again. Though, if the residuum of their separate journeys worked to induce sleep instead of passion, they skipped it. Tom slept soundly and silently. She merely dozed, thinking about him in the highly restricted and fractional ways she felt were appropriate but not preoccupying. She knew him only a little when all was said, whereas Marjorie she knew better. They’d traveled to New Hampshire from university one fall break, met the educated, welcoming New England mother, the stern Antrim father, the special-needs sister; saw the family’s tall log house in the primeval woods. Once she and Marjorie kissed and caressed on a walk along a forest trail, where the light was bright and crisp. She’d liked it; they’d both liked it—but never did it again or spoke of it, could never precisely meet each other’s gaze again, though they tried. Yes, there was a tedium to this business with Tom, the tedium of a long affair. And a betrayal. Though she liked him, would touch his back, his bum, his thin hair while he slept. She could easily know him better, step into more serious questions (his fears, his dissatisfactions, his illnesses, his feelings about Marjorie) but would never be more intimate with him than this. Exchange of personal data wasn’t intimacy; in fact, it could be intimacy’s death stroke. Her life with Mick had proved that beyond a shadow. Listening to Tom breathe, hearing his soft snores, the noises in his stomach, hearing the occasional—well, yes. And fucking him—in ways she enjoyed. This was as intimate as she cared for, and in large measure as much as she’d ever wanted or missed.
By seven P.M.—dark in the winter, light in summer—they’d been in the room four hours. Tom always brought Chablis and put it on ice. Dinner was proposed by him as a relief. The city, of course, was miles away—a sixty-euro cab ride there and back. Though there was Malahide, even Swords, nearer places they could go and “dine.” An Indian, an Afghan, and two pastas—northern and southern. A taxi took you, a taxi brought you back. Never once did they fail to make love on re-arrival. Usually for longer, often languidly with an appreciation for different details, a sense for the other that might’ve got lost in the earlier flourishes.
And then straight off to sleep, sometimes still “united,” often without good night. Just falling in, with silent consent. Tom would rise early, dress in the dark as she slept or pretended, and depart (his limp audible) after kissing her in the warm bedclothes. Once he’d whispered “I love you.” Though even in sleep, she knew he’d mis-thought her for Marjorie. He never said it again. The last was the door softly clicking shut.
EILEEN AWOKE STARTLED, THINKING IT MUST BE TEN OR MORE. THE blackout curtains deceived the time. Tom was in Paris already. The empty Chablis bottle a shadow beside the TV, the only remnant of him, other than the obvious. The day seemed to spring at her.
Though she saw it was only eight. She could hear the rumble and gathering thrust of the jets queuing not far away—the curtains muffling that, too. A peek through the gap revealed the roadway full up with cars off the roundabout. She herself could be going somewhere. Lisboa. Even America. A pleasing thought. James has talked about a trip at half-term. Nothing decided. It was only late January. There was time.
She had, however, a terrible thirst, and a genuine hunger, as well. With Bewley’s shut, breakfast in town wasn’t the thing it’d been. There were the posh hotels—which were too pricey. Buswells was less but was too small and closed in. Plus the unlikable feeling that one was in with a tour, some coach huffing outside, heading south. In Bewley’s she’d felt a local, knew how the ordering scheme went, could read the papers ’til the shops opened.
Better to take breakfast here—as she and Tom had done twice, when his flight was delayed. They’d stayed in bed, made love, though the cleaners had knocked, and the noise of the planes was distracting.
First a shower, though, then the blue wool slacks with the new jumper she’d bought at Debenhams, when she’d taken the boys up. And the still stylish yet reliable boots in case the weather turned bad. And the Aquascutum. James’ present at Christmas, which she didn’t like. “You remind me of a spy,” he’d said when she put the thing on. “It must be how you think of me,” she’d said. He’d laughed. She had not. It wasn’t entirely fair.
SHE’D EATEN LITTLE AT THE THAI IN MALAHIDE THE PREVIOUS night. Picked at her noodle dish, been quiet. Just an odd bit of a vacancy. Postcoital. Hormones. The lot. The winter yaws. Plus Tom feeling “in total command” after lovemaking. Banging on about the new boss
es from “Norwegia”—his joke name for it. And Paris, where he had his favorite “little restaurant” no one knew about. And of course Marjorie. She couldn’t remember much of those parts. Some court case Marj was arguing.
Now, though, was Saturday. Hers. Her free day. After breakfast, possibly take a taxi to the bottom of Dame Street if the road works were finished—which they probably were not. Pity a tram wouldn’t serve the airport. What a breeze that would be for such occasions as this. Which, she believed, would not be ending any time soon. Why would they?
At eight forty-five the breakfast room was all but empty. A slow day—Saturday. All the cheap package tours departing early. Tom, whom she’s scarcely thought about, would be back tonight, driving himself west, while she’d be on the bus with something right for James and for Frank and Bob. Computer things she knew about only because they’d submitted a list with the names of stores they’d read up on.
She took the fry-up with the trimmings. And a latté. Tom had ordered a Bristol’s the last time; but that would wooze up the morning, take away the keenness for things once she got to town. Plus, it was inevitably chilly—she hadn’t been out; a buzz would intensify the cold. Last night had been quite brisk nearer the sea. She hadn’t liked it.
In the salon de thé was only a man having breakfast with his teenage daughter in her school uni. And two Africans—a small man and a large woman in their pretty tribal garb. They were laughing softly, though the room was still and otherwise silent. A bit cold, the light slightly insufficient, the staff taking down the buffet, and noises coming through the kitchen porthole doors. It wasn’t unpleasant. The eggs properly poached, the tomatoes crusty, warm-through and sweet on top. The sausages popping. All very convenient. The staid English-y feel of things seemed right, even here, as the day commenced. Not Bewley’s, by any means. Tempus omnia revelat, or some such.
She had a thought, just for a twinkling—a strange thought. All of them in a queue—Marjorie and James and her sons, and loss-leader Mick and Patrick French in Ballycastle, with whom she’d had the brief dazzle just before (and just after) Mick had left, and who still occasionally rang up. It wasn’t a thought meant to tweeze out what they all might be thinking just at this moment. You wouldn’t know, and no matter. But that they were all in the full throes of whatever they were up to on a Saturday, wherever they were. While she was, unbeknownst, having a fine breakfast in complete serenity and seclusion, without a thought (or almost) for any of them. Such motionless moments—being in this less than splendid room with utter strangers—were hard to come by, and precious, and needed to be demanded, even at the cost of . . . well, the cost of it all. Tom did not enter into this—this queue of faces and lives. Tom and his coronet was the wild card that filled out the hand, and needn’t be all that much considered. What she’d said. A portal.
She paid with her euros—Tom had certainly closed out the room account upon leaving, the room being on the firm. Eating “in,” without Tom, was new. Normally, he’d hang the Please Let Me Rest card outside on the door, so she could sleep in—though it wasn’t so relaxed being in the room alone when she wasn’t officially supposed to be. Except, she couldn’t leave when he left in the dark. To do what once she alighted in Dame Street at half six? Still, she’d always gotten up and chain-locked the door once he was gone as precaution against the cleaners. Then got back to sleep.
The young woman with her cart was already in the corridor when she got off the lift, though not outside room 119, which had the Please Let Me Rest on its door handle. What was the Spanish word she so liked the sound of—soft and lotion-y to one’s tongue? Huespedes. Guests. And some French story called that. L’hote. Odd, the things flooding back when the mind finds its ease. Huespedes.
The key card Tom had left now didn’t work for some reason—the tiny bead on the lock going to red didn’t change to green. No familiar click or soft buzz to signal entry. Possibly she’d kept it in her pocket close to her phone the way you weren’t meant to, but had never happened before. She turned the shiny little card over so the arrows were down and the magnetic strip up. Nothing. She rubbed the card on her jumper sleeve as she’d seen shop clerks do. And which had worked. But the light stayed red. Tom had said, and James had remarkably said much the same once in the Canarys, “They want to make it clear to you the fuckin room’s not about to be yours. You’re in their custody. You need to keep proving that you haven’t pilfered the key, slipped a deft hand in someone’s coat pocket, and gotten up here ahead to hijack the diamonds.” Once, when the card had failed coming from dinner, it’d been necessary to return to reception, present it and have the key re-programmed. As if, Tom had said. Meaning, as if he’d be up to anything inappropriate on the firm’s nickel. A royal pain. Gone, he’d remarked, were the days of real keys, real locks and real people.
Back down the corridor the cleaner’s cart sat outside room 124, the door opened, lights inside. Eileen stepped down and tapped lightly on the door jamb using the defective key card, not wishing to cause alarm. A smiling, pretty Asian face popped out from the bathroom, yellow earbuds both sides.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you,” Eileen said, “but my key’s gone cranky. Could you possibly let me into room 119? I’m about to leave.” Could the young woman even hear her? Eileen held up the card, the no-good key card, as her evidence. No funny stuff afoot. The girl had the master on the cord around her gray uniform waist.
The little face instantly brightened, a look of alertness, recognition, sympathy, immense willingness to give limitless assistance.
“No English,” she said, earbuds still in. In a display of contrition, she pushed out her lower lip like a child about cry. “Key no good. Go reception. They fix.”
“If you understand that much,” Eileen said, “you could let me in. It’s just my things in there. My purse. My passport with my picture. My driving license. I can prove I’m me. It’s a matter of a moment. I promise. I won’t tell a soul. It’s our secret.” She now held out a ten-euro bill. “It’s the least. I’d be so grateful.” There were of course security cameras. Gone were the days of necessary secrets.
Eileen’s heart for some reason went pound, pound, pound. Something that didn’t exist an hour ago, when she was safely in room 119, peeking out at the traffic queue to Terminal 2—something that didn’t exist then, did now, but really hadn’t needed to exist if she’d merely stayed in the room as she’d always done ’til it was time to leave. Oh, the knowledge had been there—cautionary knowledge. One simply hadn’t observed it, hadn’t chosen to see it, had chosen instead something more agreeable. The salon de thé. The nice breakfast. The mind’s ease. Marjorie—the barrister—would be the one to tell her all that, were she to have the chance.
“Go reception,” the young woman was saying. She was pointing toward the lift alcove, or perhaps the stairs at the end, with the green exit sign portraying the man appearing to flee. “They fix for you.” She smiled as she had already. “Very easy. Be okay.”
“Are you very sure?” Eileen said, brightening herself. The things that now presented (but hadn’t before) offered an odd appeal. A fresh discovery. Her heart slowed. This would be fine. “I could go a hundred,” she said. Once it was a sum of money. A hundred. So much you could buy.
“Yes,” the girl said, beaming. “Reception. Have go to work now.”
“Yes, definitely,” Eileen said. “You go to work.”
“Have nice day.”
“I’ll try to.”
THERE WAS A MOMENT AT THE RECEPTION—THE MOMENT SHE’D HAVE happily had elude her—the burly Sikh with a bright green turban behind the shining counter, much more than well dressed, his lacquered face also shining. Wonderful teeth. Polished nails. A brilliant smile. Aftershave. You simply couldn’t not try, though—not try to save the day at whatever expense of one’s dignity.
“Oh, no need,” the big clerk said and inserted a blank into the little magnetizer box. A look of complicity. “Absolutely no worries.” She’d mentioned her
driving license.
“The things are all mine, inside,” she’d said. “My passport. A brown purse, some black shoes, an empty bottle of Chablis, some underthings.” This, to be engaging.
“Where has your husband flown off to to-deeh?” the clerk said cheerfully. She’d said Tom was her husband; they’d kept their names, all very modern; just sometimes a bit bumpy. Like now.
“To Paris,” she said brazenly.
“Ah,” the clerk said. “I have never been. But someday.”
“I’ve never either,” Eileen said. Which wasn’t true.
“So, we’ll see each other there,” he said, handing her the fresh little key card, ready for use.
“I’ll look for you,” she said.
“I’ve been to America,” he said with pride.
“Still awaiting my moment there, too,” she said, ignoring New Hampshire. “Someday, someday.”
“So. I’ll see you there, as well. Out to America. Is that how you say?” He was gloating, she knew.
“I suppose,” she said.