by Lucy Carey
“Three pints of Guinness and a G & T when you’re ready there, love.”
Susie bristled. She recognised him as the captain of the local golf club, a personal friend of the owner of the pub, so she fought the urge to tell him and his clicky fingers to feck off with themselves.
She poured the three Guinnesses three quarters of the way to the top, then left them to rest while she served up the gin and tonic. She handed him his change.
“I’ll bring the Guinness down to you,” she told him and went back to the milling customers. Two more customers served speedily later, she finished the Guinness pour and slipped out from behind the bar. She spotted the captain’s wife before she’d spotted him, her hideous orange fake tan and peroxide blonde hair like a beacon. At the table sat two other men besides the captain; one she recognised as a local restaurateur and the other she hadn’t seen before: a much younger, more open-looking man than the two he was with. Slowly, steadily, she moved towards the table, holding the three pint glasses carefully to avoid spilling a drop.
“Excuse me,” she said as she dodged drunkards and stepped around wildly gesticulating conversationalists. She ducked as an errant hand gesture nearly whacked into her face. “Excuse me,” she said more loudly this time, weaving and diving through the crowd.
The captain nodded as he noticed her arrival.
“Three Guinnesses? Anywhere here?” She put them down on the middle of the table and, after taking a moment to mentally clap herself on the back that she hadn’t spilled any, she turned to make her way back to the bar.
“Hang on a minute,” one of the party said to her—the man she didn’t already recognise. “Stop and take a load off.”
She smiled quickly, gratefully. “I can’t, honestly. Thank you though.”
He moved up the couch a little. “They’ll be grand. Look, it’s hardly even busy.”
She flicked her attention back to the bar. Sure enough, somehow the throng of waiting customers had thinned. She toyed idly with the idea of sitting down even though she knew she shouldn’t. Her feet were already killing her, even though she was only halfway through her shift, and she’d love nothing more than to fall onto the cushioned seat. She shook the thought off.
“It’s very nice of you. The boss would shoot me though.”
He shrugged and turned his attention back to his friends. “Suit yourself.”
* * *
Mariana hadn’t worn this shade of lipstick in an age. She painted the brash, bright red, gloss around her full lips, rubbed her lips together and pouted. This was her going-out colour, a colour guaranteed to make her feel sexy and confident and womanly.
Had it really been so long since she had been on a date? she wondered. Despite this being her go-to colour for dates, it had been buried in the bottom of her makeup bag.
She checked her teeth for lipstick and, finding none, stepped back to look at her full reflection in the mirror.
She had chosen a form-fitting dress in a colour to match the shade of her lipstick and she adjusted the cups of her bra, to push her cleavage higher in its V-neck.
This, she thought to herself, must be what Susie had described as “putting your best foot forward.”
“Tara?” Mariana asked hopefully as she approached the front of the church where she had arranged to meet her blind date. The woman standing waiting was pretty, if not Mariana’s usual type. She was expertly made up and very groomed, far from the tomboyish femmes she usually favoured. Her long blonde hair was piled high on her head and, as the woman walked towards her, Mariana saw how high her shoes were and how she teetered on them like a baby gazelle.
“Mariana?” The woman moved closer, tugging her the hem of her very short skirt down as she walked to stop it riding up. She kissed Mariana on the cheek. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Up close, Mariana thought Tara was quite pretty. It was hard to tell really, under the dim glare of the streetlights, not to mention through the thickness of Tara’s foundation, the false lashes and layers of heavy bronzer. Despite that, she had lovely, clear blue eyes, Mariana noted, and a nice smile. Further down the line, maybe Tara could be convinced to stop covering up her natural beauty? Would she take offence if Mariana asked to see her without her makeup someday soon?
Mariana blushed inwardly. Not even two minutes after meeting Tara and she was already thinking about the future? That had to be a good sign.
* * *
Will this shift never fucking end? Susie wondered as Mr. Golf Captain clicked at her for the third time that evening. If he did it once more, she couldn’t be held responsible for accidentally spilling a pint down his back. Or a flaming Sambuca on his head.
“I’ll drop them down,” she promised through gritted teeth.
If she didn’t need this job so badly, she’d tell her boss where he and his irritating friends could stick it. But while she was saving to get out away from the three bell-ends she lived with, she couldn’t afford to be so forthcoming. Susie topped off the three pints of Guinness and stepped out from behind the bar to drop them down.
As they had the last three times, the golf captain, his wife and the restaurateur barely acknowledged her presence when she walked up to the table. The fourth man, however, greeted her with a cheery grin.
“Rushed off your feet?”
Susie brushed an errant curl out of her eye-line with her forearm and nodded. “Absolutely crazy. It’s starting to die down now though. I hope.” She put the pints down and reached up to tuck the still-loose curl behind her ear. Right then she saw them—and her heart dropped into her stomach with a queasy thud. Leaning in to talk to a pretty, dolled-up blonde girl was Mariana.
God, she’s gorgeous, Susie thought wistfully as she watched Mariana’s scarlet lips form words in the blonde girl’s ear. Ordinarily she was beautiful—but tonight, with her dark brown hair tucked up into a graceful bun, her long, mocha legs crossed daintily beneath the hem of a sleek red dress, she looked amazing.
Mariana began to turn in Susie’s direction, so she sat down quickly at the captain’s table.
“That offer still open?” she said quickly to the friendly guy.
He smiled warmly at her. “Of course. What’s your name, by the way? I’m Steven.”
“Susie,” she said turning her attention briefly to him. She shot a look back over her shoulder. Mariana had turned back to the blonde girl. Time to beat a hasty retreat.
“Nice to meet you, Steven,” she said. “I’d best be getting back to work.”
She kept her head down as she barrelled straight for the back door, out into the lane behind the pub. She pulled out a cigarette she’d cadged earlier from one of the other bar staff, lit it and dragged deeply. She didn’t often smoke… but right now it was just the excuse she needed to step into the fresh night air. The street was quiet and still, the chatter of the pub a dim buzz in the background.
She rested her head against the cool wall and exhaled, watching the plume of purple-grey smoke dance above her into the evening air and dissipate in the wind.
So that explained Mariana, she thought bitterly. Susie just wasn’t the time of girl who could do picture perfect. She had hair that wouldn’t stay straight or tamed, no matter what products or heat she applied to it. She barely got five minutes out of her makeup before she’d smudged her mascara or chewed off her lipstick. She snorted when she laughed; she fell off high heels; when she ate anything like spaghetti Bolognese, a large proportion of it ended up down her top.
She couldn’t compete with the girl in there, her hair expertly coiffed and her makeup applied with practised precision. But maybe she could convince Mariana that she was worth a second look; that she could be pretty and girly and cute.
Or maybe she’d just have to face facts—Mariana was just too far out of her league.
The heavy metal door creaked door beside her, pulling her from her reverie. She squinted against the light above the door to identify the figure coming toward her.
“Hi again,
” the figure said and it took her a second to guess who it was.
“Oh, Steven. Hi. Out for a smoke?” She didn’t exactly want the company, but he’d been so nice to her she felt too guilty to be rude.
He popped a cigarette between his lips and patted his pockets. Susie held out her borrowed lighter, which he accepted with a nod. The orange glow of the flame and the red flare of the cigarette lit up his face momentarily.
“Escaping the bullshit,” he said sombrely, exhaling his first drag slowly. He handed the lighter back to Susie. “Cheers.”
She grinned and he took another pull on his cigarette, longer and harder this time. “I’d say that lot wreck your head.”
“God, no. Not at all,” Susie countered, and she prayed the dim light was hiding the blush that appeared on her face whenever she was lying.
“It’s all right. They wreck my head, too.”
Susie chuckled in spite of her attempt at politeness. “So what are you doing drinking with them?”
“Family,” he said as if that was explanation enough. He looked at Susie’s confounded expression and expanded. “Big King Ding-a-ling in the chinos and polo shirt is my uncle. My ma told them I was at a loss for the night and I couldn’t dodge the offer of a pint. Believe me, I tried.
“She didn’t even ask, just arranged it, and then says—” his voice took on a shrill falsetto, “—he’s the only uncle you have on my side of the family. The fact that she’s seven sisters is not enough family to be seeing, apparently.”
Susie laughed. “Ah, he’s not all that bad.”
Steven smiled wanly. “Ah no, he is. You’re very kind to fib though.”
Susie laughed again.
“So what are you hiding out here for?”
“The ambience,” Susie replied drily.
He didn’t answer, just leaned against the wall, staring up at the few stars peeking through the eerie pink glow of the light pollution.
“I’ll never get used to that—it being night time and it not being dark.”
Susie craned her head to look up at the sky, too.
“Me either. Back home, it’s pitch black by now. For the first few months I lived here, I couldn’t sleep for the light coming in under the blinds.”
Well that and a few other reasons, she thought, but decided not to burden Steven with the Tale of the Shitty Housemates. She was even boring herself with that story these days.
He nodded, in complete understanding, and smiled sardonically.
“Look at us. Couple of culchies, wondering what’s the big whoop with the Big Schmoke of Dublin.”
They leaned back against the wall again, both gazing up at the hazy night sky, amicably silent for a few minutes. The sound of a glass breaking inside and the predictable cheer going up from the revellers cricked Susie’s vision back to the door. The tip of her cigarette had long since extinguished, the ash gone dead and hard. She checked her watch.
“Feck, I may go.”
Steven looked back to her, sadly.
“Ah, do you have to?”
“I do unfortunately. Those Guinnesses won’t pour themselves, you know.”
He flicked his cigarette and moved towards her.
“Listen, before you go… I… Would you…?”
His next words were so quiet, she leaned towards him to try to hear them. A split-second later, she felt the moistness of his lips on hers, the light stubble of his chin scratching her cheek. She pulled back, startled.
“Oh, I’m not—” she started.
He stepped back quickly, the mortification on his face clear even under the low light. He rubbed his stubble and turned around on his heel, then turned back again.
“Shit. I’m so sorry. Fuck, I thought we were… I dunno what I thought. I’m so sorry. I’m such an eejit.”
Susie put her hand on his forearm.
“Listen, it’s all right. Really. Don’t worry about it.”
He dropped his head. “Fuck,” he repeated quietly. He looked up at her. “I’m really sorry.”
“Honestly, it’s grand. Come on in. We’ll get you a fresh pint.”
He nodded. “You go on ahead. I’ll follow you in.”
She wrenched the heavy door back and gave him a small smile.
“It was nice talking to you, Steven. It really was.”
* * *
Tara was speaking but Mariana wasn’t listening to a word she was saying. She knew what she’d seen in the alley behind the pub. And she knew what she needed to do.
She needed to bury thoughts of her.
She grabbed Tara’s waist and twisted her to her. She kissed her deeply.
Chapter Eight
Yo, fat-head. Where the feck are you?
Susie stared at the screen of her mobile phone, as if her concentrated glare would make Paul reply quicker. She had been sitting on the grass pitch in the centre of Trinity College (ducked behind a tree so the overenthusiastic security man wouldn’t spot her and move her off the grass), waiting for him for twenty minutes now.
Trinity College’s pitch was one of her favourite patches of greenery in all of Dublin. Outside, past the walls and the iron railings, buses and traffic rumbled by, the noise of them reverberating and amplifying off the buildings in the narrow street. But on the pitch, where she was sitting now, the noise barely carried, making it a fairly peaceful place to sit. At this hour of the evening, it was more peaceful still, and she had the entire area to herself to sit and wait for Paul.
She had amused herself for about ten of the twenty minutes she’d been waiting by watching a grey squirrel—they’d bullied all the red ones out of Ireland, the little bastards—scurry from tree trunk to tree trunk. But he, too, had left her high and dry, disappearing into the foliage and refusing to come down again.
Stupid squirrel.
She and Paul were due for a night at the cinema, a custom they had kept up at least once monthly since becoming friends three years before—more often on the odd occasion that Susie had some money left over. She didn’t care what they watched; she just wanted to eat crap—junk food smuggled in from the nearby and cheaper supermarket—sit in the dark, and be distracted for a couple of hours.
Her phone lit up in her hand.
sry. gt delayed. on d way. b der in 2.
About bloody time, she thought.
She pressed the screen of her phone to light it up again. 19:30. If he didn’t hurry up, they were going to be late to the film. It was actually one she was looking forward to, too—a camped-up, hammed-up, tongue-in-cheek horror that promised to be buckets of blood and a barrel of laughs…and a fantastic way to turn off her brain.
Every time she sat down to do anything lately—to read through her study materials, to watch TV; hell, even when she was lying with her pillow squashed round her ears, desperately hoping some freakishly localised explosion would take out her housemates and keep her miraculously unharmed—Mariana intruded. Or more specifically, Mariana kissing that blonde…tramp. She had seen Mariana with the mystery blonde a couple of times since that night in O’Rourkes, out and about together. She guessed that Mariana and that hideous woman were an item now.
That wasn’t fair, Susie reasoned. She didn’t know the blonde girl. She might be perfectly nice.
For a cow-faced tramp.
“Urgh!” She shuddered with frustration and yanked the head off a dandelion in the grass.
She heard a cough behind her.
“Eh, are you all right?”
She whipped round to see Paul standing over her—hand-in-hand with Liz. Susie leapt up and brushed down the back of her trousers.
“Hi! And Liz—I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“Hi, Susie. I’m looking forward to the cinema. I haven’t been in ages. It’s so nice of ye to invite me.”
Susie’s eyebrows felt like they’d leapt up into her hairline and she gazed pointedly at Paul. He had the decency to look awkward. She turned back to Liz.
“No problem at all, Liz,” she said,
hoping she’d rearranged her expression in something passing for friendly. “Looking forward to it too.” She whipped out her phone to check the time again. “But we’d better get moving or we’ll miss the start of the film. Trailers are probably nearly over.”
Liz look at Paul for confirmation. “But it’s not for another forty-five minutes.” Susie opened her mouth to interrupt but Liz continued, “It looks so funny. I love anything with Sandra Bullock.”