by Marian Keyes
But it wasn’t just that. In all the seduction/rejection fracas I’d forgotten how entertaining he’d been that first night in the Rickshaw Rooms. And so he was again.
‘OK, babe,’ he said, the minute he got into my bedroom. ‘What does this room tell me about Rachel Walsh?
‘First off, I can tell you’re not what they call an anal retentive, are you?’ he said, surveying my bomb-site boudoir. ‘You’ve been mercifully spared a terrible neurotic obsession with tidiness.’
‘If I’d known you were coming I’d have redecorated,’ I said good-humouredly, as I lay on my bed, resplendent in Brigit’s good dressing-gown.
‘Now, that’s nice,’ he said, taking in a poster advertising the Kandinsky exhibition at the Guggenheim.
‘Fond of the visual arts, are you?’
‘No,’ I said, surprised to hear someone like Luke saying words like ‘visual arts’. ‘I stole it from work. It’s covering a hole in the wall where a load of plaster fell off.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, equably. ‘Just as long as I know. Give us a look at your books,’ he said, bearing down on them. Luckily he’d wrapped a towel around his dangly bits so I wasn’t too distracted by him moving around the room. ‘What kind of person are you really? Good, there’s your Collected Works of Patrick Kavanagh, just like you told me the first night I met you; nice to know the girl doesn’t tell lies.’
‘Come away from them,’ I ordered. ‘Leave them alone, they’re not used to visitors, you’ll upset them and they won’t lay for weeks.’
I was embarrassed by my book ‘collection’ – eight books don’t really amount to a collection. But the thing was I didn’t need any more. I rarely found a book that spoke to me and even when I did it took me about a year to read it. And then I reread it. And then I read it again. Then I read another of the ones I’d already read a million times. And then I came back to the first one. And read it again. I knew this wasn’t the usual approach to literature, but I couldn’t help it.
‘The Bell Jar, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Trial, Alice in Wonderland, Collected Works of PG Wodehouse and not one but two Dostoyevsky books.’
He smiled at me admiringly. ‘You’re no eejit, are you, babe?’
I wondered if he was being sarcastic, and couldn’t decide. So I just shrugged vaguely.
I was especially mortified by my Dostoyevsky books. ‘What’s wrong with John Grisham?’ Brigit demanded every time she caught me with them. ‘Why do you read all that up-its-own-bum stuff?’
I didn’t know why, except that I found it very comforting. Especially because I could just open it on any page I liked and I knew exactly where I was. I didn’t have to bother with all that tedium of finding where I’d left off and remembering who was who and all the other problems that assail someone of less than average intelligence with a criminally short attention span.
‘You had a right nerve telling me to take my dress off the way you did,’ I said teasingly, as we lay on my bed. ‘What made you so sure that I would? I might have been going out with someone else.’
‘Like who?’ He laughed. ‘Daryl? That thick-looking eejit.’
‘He’s not a thick-looking eejit, ‘I said haughtily.’ He’s really nice and has a great job.’
‘You could say the same about Mother Teresa,’ Luke scoffed, ‘but I still wouldn’t want to go home with her.’
I was glad that Luke was jealous of me being with Daryl, but I was slightly ashamed of the whole incident. So I tried to change the subject.
‘I wouldn’t have thought that the Llama Lounge was your kind of place,’ I said.
‘It’s not’
‘What were you doing there?’
He laughed and said ‘I shouldn’t tell you this but I had scouts on the lookout for you.’
I had a simultaneous ego rush and a surge of contempt for him.
‘What do you mean?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, except for the huge part of me that wanted to know everything.
‘You know Anya?’ he asked.
‘God, yeah.’ Anya was a model and I wanted to be her.
‘I told Anya about you and she rang me and said that you were in the Llama.’
‘How do you know Anya?’ I asked.
‘I work with her.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Number-crunching, babe.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Accounts work. At Anya’s agency’
‘Are you an accountant?’ I asked in astonishment.
‘No. Just a lowly clerk.’
‘Thank God for that,’ I breathed. ‘My sister Margaret’s husband, Paul, is like an accountant, only worse. You know the things I mean, what’s that they’re called?’
‘Auditors?’
‘That’s right. So tell us, what’s Anya like? Is she nice? Has she any vacancies for friends?’
‘She’s a great girl,’ he said. ‘One of the best.’
As his eyes closed and his speech became faint and mumbly, he lay on his side. I lay myself against the smooth skin of his back and put my arms around him, sneaking a feel to see if his stomach did that lean-to action that mine did. It didn’t.
But after he went to sleep I suddenly became fixated by the condom he’d had in his jacket pocket. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. Even though I knew it was a responsible thing to do, it made me jealous. Jealous of the unknown woman he’d have used it on, if it hadn’t been used on me. And what did it tell me about Luke? I wondered angrily. That he was always on the look-out for a shag? Anytime, anyplace, anywhere? Ever-ready, his trusty condom poised to be called into active service? Mad-for-it-me Costello. How many more of them did he have in his pocket, ready to be used at a moment’s notice? On Anya, probably, if he got half a chance, not that she’d have anything to do with a fool like Luke.
I looked at him as he lay sleeping and decided I didn’t like him anymore.
I woke in the middle of the night with sickening period pains.
‘What’s up, babe?’ Luke murmured, as I writhed in cramping agony.
I paused. How could I say it?
‘I am becursed’? Maybe he wouldn’t understand.
‘I’m blobbing’? Helen said that. Even to men.
I decided on ‘I’ve my period.’ Snappy, to the point, no room for confusion, yet not as clinical as ‘I’m menstruating.’
‘Great!’ Luke exclaimed. ‘No need for condoms for the next five days.’
‘Stop it,’ I groaned. ‘I’m in agony. Bring me drugs, look in the drawer over there.’
‘OK.’ He hopped out of bed and, even though I didn’t like him anymore, there was no denying that he had a fine body on him. In the dark, I watched the silver from the street-lights glint on the hard length of his leg, that lovely line that runs sideways along a well-muscled thigh. Not that I’d know.
He rummaged round in a drawer while I admired the view of him from the side. What a gorgeous bum he had, I thought, dizzy with pain. I loved the hollow at the side of it. I’d love a couple of them myself.
He came back with my big container of industrial-strength pain-killers.
‘Dihydracodeine?’ He read from the label. ‘Heavy gear. You can only get them on prescription.’
‘That’s right.’ No need to tell him I bought the prescription from Digby the smack-head doc.
‘OK,’ he said, reading slowly from the label. ‘Two now and none again for six hours…’
‘Can you get me some water?’ I interrupted. Two, my foot. Ten would be more like it.
While he was in the kitchen, I crammed a handful of tablets into my mouth. Then when he came back I let him give me two, with the glass of water.
‘Manks,’ I mumbled, barely able to speak because my mouth was so full. But I knew I’d got away with it.
35
Naturally I couldn’t go to work the next day. Liberated from guilt because, for once, I really was sick, I took another handful of pills and set about enjoying my day off.
/>
And it was a good one.
Pleasantly floaty from the painkillers and the humidity, I watched Geraldo, then I watched Jerry Springer, then I watched Oprah, then I watched Sally Jessy Raphael. I ate a carton of ice cream and a family-sized bag of tortilla chips. Then it was time for a little sleep.
When Brigit came home from work I was lying on the couch, wearing track-pants and a bra-top, eating Cinnamon Toast Flakes straight out of the box. Because as everyone knows, cereal eaten straight from the packet – like broken Club Milks and any food eaten standing up – has no calories.
‘Did you skip work again?’ were her first words.
‘I was sick,’ I said defensively.
‘Oh, Rachel,’ she said.
‘I really was sick this time.’ I was annoyed. Who needs a mother when you’ve got Brigit?
‘You’ll lose your job if you keep doing that.’
God knows why she was cross with me. Many was the time, in the past, that Brigit had begged me to ring in dead for her.
Anyway, it was too hot to fight.
‘Shut up,’ I said awkwardly. ‘And tell me how you got on last night with Our Man in Havana.’
‘Madre de Dios!’ she declared, all that she remembered from the Spanish lessons she had gone to in an attempt to win the heart of the unfair Carlos. ‘High drama or what! Turn off that telly and turn on the fan, till I tell you.’
‘The fan is on.’
‘God, and it’s only June.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, wait till you hear.’
Her face darkened with anger as she related how she’d legged it to Z Bar and Carlos had left. So she went to his apartment, but Miguel was guarding the door and wouldn’t let her in. But she got as far as the hall and saw a little Hispanic babe, about three foot high, with snapping brown eyes and a don’t-fuck-with-me-or-my-brothers-will-flick-knife-you air.
‘And the minute I saw her, I just knew, d’you know what I mean, Rachel, I just knew that she was something to do with Carlos.’
‘Women’s intuition,’ I murmured. Although maybe I should have said ‘Women’s neurosis’.
‘And was she?’ I asked. ‘Something to Carlos?’
‘His new girlfriend, according to her, and she made me come in and she kept screeching in Spanish at Carlos, then she said to me, “Steeck to joor own kind”.’
‘Steeck to joor own kind?’ I was shocked. ‘Like in West Side Story?’
‘Exactly,’ said Brigit, her face a study of fury. ‘And I don’t want to steeck to my own kind, Irish men are the pits. And wait till you hear the worst bit, she called me a gringa. Those exact words, “Joo are a gringa.” And Carlos let her, he just sat there like he couldn’t speak for himself anymore!
‘BASTARD,’ she shouted, throwing my can of deodorant across the room, where it bounced off the far wall. ‘The dirty, lousy little bollocks. I ask you, a gringa, what an insult.’
‘But, wait a minute,’ I said, anxiously.’ Gringa isn’t really an insult.’
‘Oh, right,’ Brigit said hotly. ‘So being called a prostitute isn’t really an insult. Thanks very much, Rach…’
‘Gringa doesn’t mean prostitute,’ I said loudly. You had to talk loudly to get through to Brigit when she was in this kind of mood. ‘It just means white person.’
There was a stunned silence.
‘So what is Cuban for prostitute?’
‘I don’t know, you’re the one who did the Spanish lessons.’
‘You know,’ Brigit looked a bit mortified, ‘I thought she seemed a bit confused when I said that I was no gringa and the only gringa round there was her.’
‘So is that the end of Carlos?’ I asked. Until the next time in any case. ‘Are you devvo?’
‘Devvo,’ she confirmed. ‘We’ll have to get jarred tonight.’
‘Right you are. Or maybe I could ring Wayne and…’
‘NO,’ she shouted. ‘I’m sick of you…’
‘What?’ I stared in fear at her.
‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ‘Nothing. I just want to get pissed and maudlin and cry. You can’t feel miserable with coke.
‘Not if it’s you that’s taking it, anyway,’ she added cryptically. ‘I’m going to get changed.’
‘Prostituta,’ Brigit called from her room.
‘You’re not exactly a saint yourself,’ I spluttered.
‘No,’ I could hear the laugh in her voice. ‘I’ve looked it up, that’s the Spanish for prostitute.’
‘Ah, right.’
‘I want to make sure I’m insulting her properly in the letter.’
‘What letter?’ I asked slowly.
‘The letter I’m writing to that Spik chick.’
Oh no.
‘Cheeky hoor,’ Brigit’s voice continued. ‘Who does she think she is to be rude to me? Isn’t that good? Spik chick? And because we’re Irish, we’re Mick chicks. Let’s see if we can think of any more.’
‘Would you not be better off writing a letter to Carlos?’ I suggested tentatively.
I could hear her muttering ‘Bick, cick, dick, eick, fick, gick, hick… No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because then he’d know I cared about him.
‘You know,’ she added, ‘if your woman is going to last as Carlos’s girl she’ll need to be good at two things.’
‘What are they?’
‘Blow-jobs and forgiveness.’
The phone rang. Both of us dived headlong onto it, me in the living-room, Brigit in her bedroom. Brigit got there first. Even as a child she’d always had marvellous reflexes. Many was the happy hour we’d spent thumping each other just below the kneecap, with the edge of a ruler, shouting ‘It moved!’
‘It’s for me,’ she called.
About seven seconds later she ran back into the living-room and gasped. ‘Guess who that was.’
‘Carlos.’
‘How did you know? Anyway, he wants to apologize to me. So, er… he’s coming round this evening.’
I said nothing. Who was I to judge?
‘So, come on, let’s tidy this place up, he’ll be here in half-an-hour.’
I half-heartedly crumpled up empty tortilla bags and beer cans and dragged my duvet back to my bedroom.
Carlos didn’t come in half-an-hour. Or in an hour. Or in an hour-and-a-half. Or two hours. Or three hours.
Brigit disintegrated over the course of the evening, just fell apart in slow motion.
‘I don’t believe he’s doing this to me again,’ she whispered. ‘After the last time, he promised he wouldn’t torture me like this.’
At an hour-and-a-half, she cracked and made me ring him. There was no answer. Which pleased her because she thought it meant he was en route. But when he hadn’t arrived twenty minutes later she had to give up on that idea.
‘He’s with her, the little girl Spik,’ she moaned. ‘I can just feel it. I know it, I’m a witch, my feelings are always right.’
There was a small, horrible nugget of gladness in me. I wanted him to be so manky to her that she’d eventually have to give up on him. But I was ashamed of it.
At the three-hour mark she stood up and said ‘Right, I’m going round there.’
‘No, Brigit,’ I begged. ‘Please… your dignity… your self-respect… a pig… bay of pigs… not worth pissing on… what’s the point… sit down…’
Just then the bell rang. It was as if the entire apartment had exhaled with relief.
‘At the eleventh hour,’ Brigit murmured.
I decided not to mention we’d said goodbye to the eleventh hour some time ago and that we were now at the sixteenth or seventeenth hour.
A strange light appeared in Brigit’s eyes.
‘Watch this,’ she said, through a clenched jaw, and sauntered towards the entryphone. She picked it up and took a deep breath. And in the loudest voice I had ever heard she bellowed ‘FUCK OFF !’
Then she turned away and started to shake with laughter. ‘That’ll show him, the gouger.’
> ‘Can I’ve a go?’ I asked eagerly.
‘Be my guest.’ She was in fits.
‘Ahem.’ I cleared my throat. ‘OK, here goes. YEAH, FUCK OFF!’
Then the pair of us were in each other’s arms, crying with laughter.
The bell rang once more, long and shrill, knocking us into momentary silence.
‘Ignore it,’ I gasped.
‘I can’t,’ she snorted. Then we both exploded again.
She had to wait until she was able to speak before she picked up the phone and said ‘Come in, you fat, hairy pig,’ and pressed the ‘open’ button.
He looked wary and hurt. And well he might.
Because it was Daryl, not Carlos. Daryl! So dreams do come true.
It was hard to believe that he’d just walked over our threshold. In all honesty, I’d given him up for dead. He must have lost my phone number, I realized, but remembered the address from the night of the party. I was so happy I nearly went into spasm.
It was funny now that things had worked out, how silly my fears seemed.
‘Hey, Rebecca,’ he said vaguely.
‘Rachel,’ I corrected him, embarrassed.
‘No, Daryl,’ he said. ‘My name is Daryl.’
He didn’t seem to be as good-looking as I remembered him being on Saturday night, but I didn’t care. He had great clothes and knew Jay McInerney and my heart was set on him.
‘So, Rebecca,’ he said, not really focusing on me. ‘I’m loo…’
‘Sorry,’ I forced myself to say. ‘But my name is Rachel.’
Then I felt guilty, in case he thought I was criticizing him.
‘But it doesn’t matter,’ I added.
I nearly said ‘Call me Rebecca if you want.’
‘How come you guys told me to fuck off?’ he asked, and gave a deep sniff that explained the dancey, unfocused state of his eyes.
Brigit had been struck dumb with disappointment and disbelief, so I had to answer.
‘We thought you were somebody else…’
The bell rang again and Brigit became very animated, very quickly. She ran to the door, picked up the entryphone and started screeching an incoherent tirade, where only one in every ten words was audible. ‘FUCKERBAS-TARDLATEWANKBETTERTHINGSTODO FUCKERSHITHEADBURNINHELL,’