‘I’ve done some health and safety on burns. I can’t believe you didn’t consider it was acid. I saw it happening in slow motion.’
Lucas shakes his head and I see that he’s been genuinely quite traumatised by it. I am touched. I’ve also been touched. I can feel his fingertips on me …
‘Why did she do that?’ I say. ‘Who’s “Bob”?’ We stare at each other utterly mystified, until the realisation clangs. Who – related to this workplace – might want to throw a noxious substance over me? ‘Hang on. Wasn’t the Thor stripper called Bob?’
‘I’m not sure …?’
‘Yeah! When he left he shouted: “Bobby does not forget!” This must be his revenge. Why throw water?’
‘Uh, I doubt it was water.’
I pull a strand of my hair round to my nose and inhale. ‘You did such a good job of hosing me down there’s not much left. So we suspect … stripper’s piss? That’s one for the craft ale names, if you run out.’
I gurgle with laughter.
‘You will honestly find the dopey lols in fucking anything, won’t you?’ Lucas says.
Before I can respond, he traps me in a completely unexpected hug. The t-shirt falls from my hands. I surrender to it, caught tightly in the right angles of his elbows, hesitantly wrapping my own arms around his back. I can feel his heart still pounding. Lucas mumbles into my hair: ‘Of all the faces to destroy.’
What? What?
We pull back and gaze into each other’s eyes for a second, mere centimetres apart, and I think, Christ alive: are we going to kiss? In shock and stripping and fear and shared crisis, everything between us is up in the air. What’s been revealed, other than a quarter of my breasts, is that Lucas cares about me. Electricity crackles between us.
The door opens, and Devlin peers round. He takes in the embrace, and his eyes travel down to my exposed abdomen. I automatically start to pull away but Lucas’s grip tightens fractionally and I stop.
‘I’m presuming the lass is alright if my brother’s jumping on her. This is a food preparation area, Luc!’
Kitty’s voice can be heard squeaking: ‘What’s going on? Is Georgina OK?’
Lucas gallantly manoeuvres himself without letting go of me, bending down and returning my cardigan, which I accept and hold draped across my front, like a beach towel. The top is going to need a good wring out and to sit on a hot radiator unless they want this to be a wet-t-shirt establishment for the afternoon.
‘All sorted; seems Georgina got a dousing from an unknown clear liquid.’
‘I’ll refrain from any off-colour jokes which aren’t occurring to me right now, you know that’s not my style.’
‘Get LOST, Devlin.’
‘Hahaha. The assailant ran off and it took Kitty too long to get round the bar to give chase. What was it about?’
‘The prime suspect is the strip-o-gram we ejected, Georgina says.’
‘I think it was revenge served cold for me hitting him.’
‘Right. Never a dull moment, eh?’ Dev says.
He withdraws and I pull my cardigan on and rebutton it, which strangely feels more intimate in front of Lucas than not wearing it. Must be something in the implications of the process of getting dressed around him. There’s only one other sort of occasion when it might take place. I think he feels it too because he looks away and blathers vaguely about the necessity of calling the police.
‘What do we say though? Someone throwing water is like reporting a toerag for a balloon in the street.’
‘I think it might’ve crossed their minds you’d think it was acid, the sadists,’ Lucas says. ‘I think it’s worth flagging. If it sends someone in uniform round to see him to remind him of the sentence for throwing worse things, it won’t be in vain.’
‘True. What a shift!’ I say, tucking sodden hair behind my ears, aware my make-up must be ‘member of Kiss’.
‘Yeah, it’s been eventful,’ Lucas says. ‘All things considered, you’re allowed to knock off now.’
‘I’d like to go home, shower, change, come back and down several large stiff drinks, please.’
Lucas gives me an appraising look. ‘For the shock?’
‘For the shock.’
‘We’ve established my shock was worse,’ Lucas says.
‘You best have a stiff drink too then.’
Lucas checks his watch. ‘See you in an hour or so.’
A session? The two of us? I’m aquiver with anticipation. I keep thinking of what Lucas said when he held me. He gave himself away.
I have hope.
36
‘Yes, madam, what’ll it be?’ Devlin says.
‘Half of Strippers Piss, please,’ I say, when I present myself back at the bar half an hour before closing, fluttery with expectation, having spent more care over my freshening up and outfit than was strictly necessary for a lock-in. I’m wearing a tight Cure t-shirt. Sometimes being subtle is overrated.
‘I’ve taken it off, that was coming through cloudy. I think the pipes need cleaning,’ Lucas calls over, and we laugh in a goonish way. It’s Devlin rolling his eyes for once. Wow, Bobby, you did me a favour. Extraordinary.
I can’t believe I only recently thought of Lucas as standoffish. Seems I had to learn the lesson of the person behind the façade, twice. He just needs to trust you.
Usually when Lucas is working, I’m working too. Parked with a glass of red wine at a table, I get to watch him for once. I have a covert ogling licence and I intend to use it.
I’d not admitted to myself until now what the sight of Lucas does to me. It was too masochistic, with someone who didn’t like me, who thought so little of me that he had erased me. Now I’m wondering if this wasn’t in fact, ideal – no history to worry about. An untainted second chance.
I prop my chin on my hand. He reaches up to get a bottle from a shelf and his t-shirt rides up, exposing several inches of abdomen. A considerate customer changes their mind about which gin they want, and he has to put it back and get another one down, and this time I see the muscles above his belt flex as he strains to grasp it. My own, less flat gut flexes in response.
Even the way he stands over the till does something to me, the tension in his shoulders, the loose way his body moves. Oh God, and look at the way he’s pushing his inky hair out of the light sweat on his brow … He glances over at me and I quickly move my eyes back to my phone.
He did suggest he might drink with me, right? My disappointment if he doesn’t will be considerable.
I adore Dev and yet I’m effusive with gratitude when he says apologetically that he would have a jar but Mo and the kids are over and he’s leaving early. Lucas waves away my offer to help with the clean-up. When the last punters clatter out of the door, it’s me, Lucas and Massive Attack on the speakers. Stand in front of you …
I shiver with anticipation.
‘Is that, this?’ he holds up a bottle of red, points at the label, points at the glass.
I nod. He walks over holding it, with a glass, and I sit rod-straight with contained tension. He sits opposite on the second shabby-chic easy armchair at my table, unscrews the cap, tops me up, pours his, and says:
‘So then, Georgina Horspool. This is highly preferable to us sitting in some hospital’s serious burns unit, eh?’
He picks up his glass and clinks it against mine, pulling a grimace.
‘Us.’ Is that significant? Wouldn’t it be more natural to say ‘you’?
I remember this precipice of excitement from long ago. Not knowing if he feels the way I feel, knowing I could fall from a huge height, if not. Even though you could be utterly destroyed by hitting the rocks below, there’s no feeling like it.
We talk easily, having enough in common now that it’s effortless. He tells me how he hated university too, didn’t want to do his business degree.
‘Dad wanted us to take over the family firm, end of story, no other ideas tolerated or indeed, funded. It was a glove-like fit for Dev, but … I don’t
want to sound ungrateful, but I didn’t want to run bars.’
‘What would you have liked to do?’
‘I quite fancied teaching, actually,’ Lucas says, batting his glass from one hand to the other.
‘I can see you as a teacher!’
‘Is that a jibe?’
‘No!’ I grin. I am incapable of objective judgement, but it feels like we’re flirting to me.
‘You could still retrain?’ I say.
‘Yeah, I could. But I’m quite long in the tooth to begin again now and I’m used to this income, so. Look, I didn’t say my problems were worthy of sympathy.’
He gives me a sly grin from under his brow and I think we’re definitely flirting, surely.
‘Are you loaded then?’ I ask, curious as to whether he’ll be honest.
‘Errrr. What’s the tactful response to that?’
‘Honesty.’
‘Yeah, I am. We are. The Faustian pact with my dad: do as I say, it’ll all be yours. He was quite the bully, to the point of not entirely respecting the law in his dealings with the fruitier side of Dublin nightlife. We cleaned all that up. I’m relieved he’s retired.’
‘How did you and Dev turn out so well?’ I say, unguardedly, and Lucas looks genuinely gratified.
‘That’d be my mum.’
I know glorying in wealth is unseemly and that Lucas isn’t more valuable as he’s worth a lot, on paper. I still allow myself a brief flight of fancy, imagining being his. The men I’ve dated have been fairly inert and hapless, borrowing off me before payday. Ugh, Georgina, no, stop this. You’re not an Austen heroine, make your own money. Think of your mum and Geoffrey.
We talk about Robin, and I tell Lucas my side of catching him in bed with Lou, and he boggles and guffaws and gasps in the right places and I see us bonding, from the outside, and quite like who I am, for a change. I might’ve dated an idiot but I can take it to the metaphorical Cash Converters and turn it into something of entertainment value.
Bottle gone, Lucas asks if I’ve tried a cherry liqueur they’ve been sent and we do sticky shots, smacking our lips together and debating whether it’s delicious or saccharine. The illuminated clock over the bar says half one. My mind is fuzzed by drink but I know a moment of reckoning is drawing near.
‘Look at the time! Best call your cab,’ Lucas says.
‘Luc,’ I say. The nickname is deliberate. I take a risk. A premeditated risk. ‘So you know when you hired me? I … overheard you saying to Dev you didn’t want the pub to turn into Hooters.’
Lucas startles.
‘Did I say that?’
‘Uh … I thought you did. I was having a fag outside the kitchen window, after the wake.’
‘Oh, I was probably pissed …’ He looks awkward and I worry I shouldn’t have pushed my luck.
‘I didn’t think I had the dumb blonde, big rack look.’
‘You don’t!’
‘Robin called me “Topshop Diana Dors”.’
‘Wow. He looks like Leo Sayer.’ Lucas pauses. ‘I was … probably just putting Devlin in his place for jumping in and hiring when he was half cut.’
‘Right.’
‘… I’m really sorry if it sounded like I was passing judgement on your appearance. It came out flip and rude because I was jibing at Dev. Oh …’ he rubs the back of his head, ‘I feel like such a wanker now.’
It was always a risky gambit, confronting Lucas with this, and right now it’s deservedly backfiring. He’s uncomfortable and I’ve damaged the easy-going mood.
‘No, I know you’d never insult me. It’s just – sometimes I worry that I don’t attract the right sort of man. Robin was surprised I’d read books. Maybe I should dye my hair dark and ditch the pink coat.’
That’s better, Georgina, I think. I mean, creakingly manipulative compliment-fishing, but just about getting away with it.
‘Any man who doesn’t recognise an intelligent woman because of her hair colour isn’t worth knowing.’
‘Yeah. True.’
Well that trap failed.
‘I’m not tanned enough for Hooters anyway.’ Argh, let it go, Georgina. Can you hear yourself.
‘I really wouldn’t worry about it. You’re lovely as you are.’
WOAH. Scored in injury time. Lovely. Lucas McCarthy thinks I’m lovely. Of all the faces to ruin. That meant something. It had to. My heart is pounding so loud I’m surprised the neighbours haven’t knocked on the wall to ask me to turn it down.
‘OK.’ Lucas glances at the wall clock. ‘Taxi.’ He gets up to call from the phone behind the bar.
Make a move, make a move.
‘One for the road?’ I call, as Lucas puts the phone back. I’m not sure why pubs still have landlines, really. I shouldn’t have let him call it. I could’ve pretended I was getting one on my app.
‘Ack, go on,’ Lucas says.
Gleefully, I pour out more as he comes back to our table. He picks up the glass, clinks with mine, the back of his fingers making the faintest contact against my own. Our eyes meet as we down it. I unconsciously lick a drop from my lips and his eyes flick towards this movement so briefly, I can’t tell if I saw it or saw what I wanted to see.
Car lights sweep up to the window and Lucas stands up and says, his tone impossible to read: ‘Oh, that was quick.’
I think no no no no, getting to my feet. The lights travel onward and Lucas says ‘False alarm.’
I’m right by him, and I’m looking up at him as he’s looking down at me and the world is holding its breath and I know that it’s now or never.
‘Lucas?’ I say.
‘Yeah?’ he replies.
‘I feel a bit drunk,’ I say. ‘I should go. But …’
‘What?’
‘I don’t want to.’
He reaches out and brushes a stray hair away from my face because touching each other now seems to be a thing we do, and I think: signs won’t get stronger than this.
Before I’m even fully sure I’m going to do it, I close the distance between us, put my arms around his neck and kiss him.
37
It’s still terrifying, but inebriation makes it slightly less terrifying to tough out the seconds of not being sure if he’ll respond. Never mind dancing on your own, kissing on your own’s the truly lonely activity.
The moment I worry it won’t happen, suddenly Lucas is kissing me back, with equal passion, his hand on the back of my head, fingers wound into my hair.
No one kisses as well as this. I’d thought my teenage memories were rose tinted, but if anything they had faded like an old photograph. Everything he used to do to me is still there. It’s like my body remembers him and lights up in response, a ping-ping-ping of recognition and lust travelling the length of my body. I’ve had dozens of kisses-with-grappling in the years in between, and they were all pale shadows of this: the push of him, the pull of him, the whole effect of him.
I’d told myself: well yeah, but you mythologise your first love, don’t you, it’s nostalgia playing tricks. It wasn’t. My God, it wasn’t.
He needs to know how much I want him. Since I’ve not had the courage to tell him, I throw my efforts into this mode of communication instead.
Not only am I making it a deep and quite filthy kiss, I slide my hands under his t-shirt and on to bare flesh underneath, hopefully making it clear this is not a ‘let’s have a quick snog at the end of the night’, this is a full on, ‘take me to bed’ bid.
Lucas slides a hand under my top in response – yes! – and I put my hand over his and move it straight up to my breast, my hand over his. I am certainly not playing hard to get. The euphoria of the moment is carrying me. He squeezes me gently and tugs at the lace of my bra cup and his fingertips brush my left nipple. We’re miraculously back at that same second base (I never understood the bases) we dexterously managed to achieve undetected in the Botanical Gardens. Only this time, we don’t have to go home separately, aching with unfulfillment.
When I fum
ble around his flies, he grabs my hand and says: ‘Stop.’
I step back an inch, getting my breathing back.
‘What?’
‘We can’t.’
I look at the windows. I suppose he’s right, the blinds won’t be foolproof and there’s still enough light in here we could be seen.
‘OK. Upstairs?’
My clothing is rumpled and my face is hot.
‘No. I mean, best not do this.’
I don’t understand. He steps back a little further and it feels like a million miles.
‘Wh— what? Did I do something wrong?’
He looks at me from under his brow and says in a thick voice:
‘Hardly.’
Nnnggg. I am in a state my mum would deem unladylike. I go to kiss him again and he stops me, hands firm on my upper arms.
‘Seriously, Gina. We’re both being pissed and silly.’
Gina?
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Is that a problem?’
‘Hah,’ he shakes his head and says: ‘Maybe not for you.’
Eh? A performance issue? ‘How do you mean?’
‘It might be fun now but we have to get up and work together tomorrow.’
‘I don’t care,’ I say, forcefully.
‘Well, I do. Your taxi will be here any second. Got your coat?’
I’d thought he was kidding, maybe making me work harder for it. Now I know this is not a bluff, and I’m bewildered.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘I don’t like getting involved with anyone I work with,’ he says, voice still low. ‘I don’t want the complication.’
‘Oh, my God!’ I say, hurt, offended, a little too loud. There’s no job on earth I’d sacrifice a night with Lucas McCarthy for.
‘What?’ Lucas says, quietly, far more in control. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’
I’m so hurt and raw, the words just spill out of my mouth, unchecked.
‘I don’t want to get involved with anyone I work with is an obvious fob off. Everyone meets people at work. Just say you don’t fancy me enough, that’s fine.’
It wouldn’t be fine of course, it’d be devastating, but I don’t believe anyone who could kiss me in a way that made me feel like my bones had melted, felt no connection himself.
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