by Marian Keyes
Pause. More pacing, a lot more agitated this time. Up down, up down, up down. Faster, faster, faster.
Another pause for more singing, this time with arms outstretched. ‘Was it here I parked it…? Maybe it wasn’t… But I’m sure it was, I’m fucking certain.’
Then reaching a crescendo, ‘For FUCK’S SAKE! The fucking bastards. The fucking… fucking, fucking, dirty, fucking… BASTARDS.’
‘It’s only new.’ (In some versions.)
‘It’s not insured.’ (In others.)
‘My father doesn’t know I’ve taken it.’ (In Chris’s.)
I soothed and shushed. I calmed and crooned. I offered to go to the peelers, ring the insurance people and kill the person or persons unknown who’d stolen the car. What I actually wanted to do was get a taxi home, go to bed and forget all about Chris and his disaster. But for some reason I felt honour-bound to stick with him.
Eventually he said ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do, we might as well just go home. I’ll ring the filth in the morning.’
I breathed a sigh of relief that nearly uprooted some nearby trees.
‘Sorry about this,’ he said, with a wry smile that I recognized of old. ‘Do you still want to come back to my place?
‘My folks are away,’ he added.
My stomach juddered and I said casually ‘Ah, sure, I might as well come back with you. The night is young, hahaha.’
What are you doing?
Get off my case! He’s just a friend.
Even though I lived at home with my parents, I couldn’t help a stab of scorn that Chris did too. After all, he was in his thirties, I was still in my twenties.
Just.
But he was a man. There was something very namby-pamby about a man living in the family home. As if he should still call his mother ‘Mammy’. As if he had to hand over his wage-packet every Friday evening and ask permission to go down to the pub for a couple of pints with the lads. As if the mother was a religion-crazed lunatic who kept the curtains drawn and had little red lights burning to the Sacred Heart in every one of the tiny, musty, whispery, lace mantilla packed rooms.
Luckily, the Hutchinson ancestral family home was nothing like that. It showed signs of suburban affluence. Extensions and conversions, conservatories and patios, microwaves and camcorders and not a red light burning to the Sacred Heart in sight.
Chris took me into the kitchen and, while he boiled the kettle, I sat at the breakfast bar – of course, they had a breakfast bar – and swung my legs to show that I was relaxed and not sick with a combination of half dread, half anticipation.
I knew I’d die if something happened with him. And that I’d die if something didn’t.
I could hear Josephine’s voice warning me ‘Your instinct is to look for someone to fix you. A man. Probably any man.’ But then I looked at Chris, at the way his jeans hugged the back of his hard thighs and I thought ‘Fuck Josephine’.
Chris wasn’t just any man, he was far more than averagely attractive. And he and I had so much in common, so much shared experience. If we were allowed to have a relationship, we’d be perfect together.
He sat on another of the stools at the breakfast bar and pulled himself very close to me. We sat with our knees touching, then he made me jump by shifting his thigh so that it was positioned between both my knees, just nudging in. I was embarrassed by how loud my breathing sounded.
We’d sat that way many times at the Cloisters, and it had been perfectly safe. But we weren’t in the Cloisters anymore, I realized with a frisson of alarm. As if I’d just jumped out of a plane and realized I’d forgotten my parachute.
‘Now then,’ Chris said with a smile that made my intestines curdle, ‘there’s something I’ve been meaning to do for the past two months.’
And then he kissed me.
64
I knew it was the wrong thing for both of us, I strongly suspected that he didn’t even fancy me. But I was determined to do it anyway.
I shouldn’t have.
It was one of those nightmare sex sessions when you both realize about three seconds into it that it’s a terrible, terrible mistake.
And, in those circumstances, with twelve stone of grunting male pinning you to the mattress, how do you make your excuses and leave?
You can’t pretend that you’ve just seen someone you know on the other side of the room.
Oh no.
You can’t just look at your watch, gasp and mutter something incoherent about your flatmate having no key to get in.
Fat chance.
You’re there for the duration and you’ve just got to grin and bear it. Grit your teeth and get on with it.
As soon as we both took our clothes off, which was an ordeal in itself, I instantly felt all the passion ebb away. I knew, I just knew that he’d gone right off me. I could almost smell his panic.
And I’d gone right off him too. He was all wrong. Too small. No matter what I felt about Luke, there was no denying that he had a fine body. In comparison, Chris was lacking in every department. And I mean every.
We were both too polite to call a halt to proceedings.
It was like having had a massive dinner, then turning up at your friend’s house to find that she’s prepared an elaborate eight-course meal for you. Which you have to eat even though you feel as if you’re going to puke with each mouthful.
Sick with misery, I watched him do the condom thing. If you’re not slightly delirious with passion, a grown man covering his lad with a piece of clingfilm just seems plain mad. Then we both reluctantly indulged in a short bout of play-acting. Nipple sucking, that kind of thing, very half-hearted. Then he clambered on top of me for the main event.
It felt very, very wrong to be penetrated by a penis that wasn’t attached to Luke. But at least events were moving on and it would be over soon.
Wrong.
It lasted for ever.
Will he ever come, for Christ’s sake, I begged the universe, as he pounded away on top of me. Naturally, there was no chance that I’d come, but I faked and faked in the hope that if he’d been waiting for me, that he might just hurry up and bring it to a conclusion.
And still he pumped and pumped and it started to hurt. I’d probably go home with blisters.
Then it occurred to me that he might be one of those men who feel they haven’t satisfied a woman until she’s come several times. So I faked a couple more to speed him on his way.
And still he kept going.
And a long, long time later he stopped…
Not with a deep groan, a few death-throes spasms and wearing an expression like he’d just got an almighty kick in the bollix. But with a slowing down and a marshmal-lowesque texture to his willy, that was nothing less than an admission of failure.
‘Sorry, Rachel,’ he muttered, not looking at me.
‘It’s OK,’ I replied in an undertone, not looking at him either.
I would have left except I didn’t want to ask him for a lift and besides, what good would it have done seeing as the car had been stolen? And I hadn’t enough money for a taxi.
He pulled the condom off himself, threw it in his waste-paper basket – ugh – then switched off the light and turned his back on me. I had expected nothing else.
Luke and I used to go to sleep wrapped around each other, I remembered mournfully.
The bastard.
As I lay there in the darkness, I suddenly felt hungry. I should have eaten my refried beans.
Too late now.
I slept horribly. Fitful and light. And when I woke at about six-thirty, my feelings of failure were so acute that I couldn’t bear to be there a moment longer. I grimly got dressed, picked up my bag and made for the door.
Then I hesitated as I realized that I had absolutely nothing else in my life that was good. I rummaged in my bag until I found a pen, wrote my phone number on a piece of paper and put it on his pillow. I didn’t dare do the trick I did to Luke of scrunching it up into a ball, throwing it in
a bin and saying, ‘There! That’s saved you the bother.’ Because in this case it would be the truth.
‘I’ll ring you,’ Chris murmured sleepily.
*
Of course he didn’t.
I might have been drug-free, but nothing else had changed in my life.
I stood at the bus-stop and the people on early starts looked at my fancy-me clothes and sniggered.
Except for a teenage boy who thought I was fair game, followed me up the stairs and sat behind me on the bus, murmuring ‘Knickers, knickers, I saw your knickers,’ in so low an undertone that at first I thought I was imagining it. I was afraid to move seats in case people looked at me again.
When I got off the bus the driver winked and said ‘You’ll have some explaining to do to your mammy.’ I ignored him, stepped onto the foot-path and swore to myself I’m not going to look up, I’m not going to look up. But I was helpless, in the grip of an instinct too strong to resist. I lifted my head. Sure enough, the revolting, knicker-obsessed boy was leering down at me. I wrenched my eyes away from his but not before I had deduced from his hand gestures that he was planning to have a good old wank for himself in my honour.
I began the short walk home, feeling dirty.
But at least someone fancies me, I found myself thinking, before I was halfway there.
I was greeted by my mother in a manner that reminded me why I had left home in the first place.
Wild-eyed and be-nightdressed, she shrieked ‘Where in God’s name have you been? I was on the verge of ringing the guards!’
‘I stayed in Mrs Hutchinson’s.’ I thought if I said ‘Mrs Hutchinson’s’ it would sound a lot more benign than, ‘I stayed with Chris and we attempted to have sex but he couldn’t sustain an erection.’
‘I stayed in Mrs Hutchinson’s and I would have come home except their car was stolen and he had to ring the insurance and the coppers and report it…’
I talked quickly, hoping to distract her from her me-directed rage with the story of the stolen car.
‘Philomena and Ted Hutchinson are in Tenerife,’ she hissed. ‘You were there on your own with him.’
‘Actually, Mum, I was,’ I agreed cheerily. I was tired of all this. I was an adult.
And with that she went ballistic. She tried to hit me, throw a hairbrush, sit down, stand up and burst out crying, all at once.
‘You slut,’ she screeched. ‘Have you no shame, and him a married man! And what about his three children? I suppose you gave no thought to them.’
The paralysing shock must have shown on my face, because she shrieked ‘You didn’t even know, did you? Well, what kind of a bloody eejit are you? A bloody useless selfish fool who always does the wrong thing.’ Her face was puce and she was breathing hard. I’d gone cold with horror.
‘I bet you don’t even know he was forced to leave the Cloisters the first time he was there,’ she screamed. ‘Because he was caught having intercourse with a married woman in one of the bathrooms. And will I tell you what galls me?’
‘No,’ I said. But she told me anyway.
‘It was bad enough, the right show you made of me with your drugs carry-on. But now you have to go and do this. You were always a selfish brat, I haven’t forgotten the time you ate poor Margaret’s Easter egg, do you do these things deliberately to spite me…’
I ran out of the room and up the stairs, while she stood at the bottom, screeching up at me, ‘Selfish, self-centred pup. Well you can just get out and you needn’t bother coming back. Go on, pack your bags and go, it’ll be a relief to me if I never see you again. Tormenting me like this…’
I was shaking with shock. I’d always hated fights, and I was appalled at the force of my mother’s rage. Her contempt for me was horrifying. I’d long suspected I was a big disappointment to her, but it was excruciatingly painful for it to be confirmed.
Not to mention what she’d told me about Chris. I could hardly believe it. He was married. With three children. He was obviously separated, but that didn’t make it any better.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how he didn’t fancy me enough to come. His rejection of me felt terrible, but in conjunction with my mother’s rage, it was too much.
But I knew exactly what I was going to do.
First I was going to change my clothes. Then I was going to beg, steal or borrow lots of money and go out, buy a shit-load of drugs, ingest them and feel better.
I stumbled into my bedroom and slammed the door, shutting out Mum’s hysterical voice. The curtains were drawn and someone was in my bed. No, two people. Helen and Anna.
Again.
Why couldn’t anybody in this house sleep in their own bloody bed? I wondered wearily. And why were Helen and Anna there together? They were supposed to hate each other.
They were both deep in slumber, curled up like two kittens, cute and sweet, their long black hair tangled across the pillows, their spiky eyelashes throwing shadows on their smooth little faces.
I switched on the light, which caused immediate uproar. ‘For fu…!’ One of them sat up in shock. ‘I was asleep!’
‘Turn off the fecking light,’ the other one ordered.
‘No,’ I said. ‘This is my room and I need to find things.’
‘Hoor,’ muttered Helen and leant out of bed and began rummaging around in her bag.
‘Are you OK?’ Anna asked. She sounded surprised.
‘Fine,’ I said, shortly.
‘Here,’ said Helen, handing Anna a pair of sunglasses. ‘Put them on so we can go back to sleep.’
Helen put on a pair also and they lay in bed, wearing their sunglasses, looking like the Blues Brothers.
‘So,’ said Helen conversationally, ‘did you ride your man?’
‘Yes,’ I said shakily. Then paused. ‘And no.’
Helen raised an eyebrow from behind her shades. ‘Yes and no? Blowjobs?’
I shook my head. I was sorry I’d said anything because I didn’t want to talk about it.
‘Can I just remind you,’ Helen persisted, ‘that anal penetration does count as riding.’
‘Thank you, Helen.’
‘So was it?’
‘Was it what?’
‘Anal penetration?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I don’t mind it.’ I’d never actually done it but I wasn’t going to admit that to my much younger sister. I should have been telling her about such things. Not the other way round.
‘I swear by it,’ she murmured.
65
I cleared my mother’s purse of money, netting about a hundred and thirty quid. She must have just got her housekeeping. Then I blew the dust off her credit card and took that for good measure. I hesitated about stealing money from Anna but, as luck would have it, she only had eight pence in her little Madras pouch. Helen slept with her money under her pillow so there wasn’t any point trying to shake her down for anything.
I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. I was in the grip of such a strong compulsion that I couldn’t stop myself. I had to get my hands on some Valium and some coke. That was all I could think of. I was being torn apart by my mother’s terrible words and it was inconceivable that I stay with the pain.
I was hardly aware of the Dart journey into town. My blood was up, every atom in my body was screaming for chemicals and there wasn’t any force in the universe that could have talked me out of it. I had no idea where I’d buy drugs, but I sensed I had a better chance in town than hanging around at the end of my road in suburban Blackrock. I’d heard that Dublin had a bad drug problem. Naturally I was hopeful.
When I got off the train, I anxiously wondered where I should head for. Nightclubs were a great place to buy coke, but precious few were open at nine o’clock in the morning. A pub would be my likeliest bet. But where? Which one?
And why weren’t any of them open? I walked and walked, fear growing, need expanding.
It reminded me of one time when I
’d been dying to go to the loo and nowhere was open. Running around the streets, looking for a bar or a cafe that might let me in. Becoming more and more desperate as the buildings shut their doors and closed their faces against me. Nowhere, literally nowhere, that could help. Once again, I experienced those same feelings of helplessness, frustration and unbearable, excruciating need.
To my stomach-chilling alarm, every pub I went to was shut.
Go home.
Go fuck yourself.
‘What time do the pubs open?’ I blurted at a man hurrying to work.
‘Half-ten,’ he answered, startled.
‘All of them?’ I croaked.
‘Yes.’ He nodded, giving me a funny look that in different circumstances would have made me cringe.
Wasn’t Ireland supposed to be a nation of pissheads? I thought in confusion. What kind of nation of pissheads has the pubs opening at half-past ten? When the day was nearly over?
If only Dublin had a red-light district. Why wasn’t I Dutch?
I pressed on into the back roads and, more by luck than judgement, found myself on a long street which appeared occasionally on the news as an example of deprivation and violence. About two people a year were shot in Dublin, usually on that very street. Apocryphal stories abounded about suburban, middle-class citizens who’d strayed there by mistake and were offered drugs one hundred and eighty-four times along a ten-yard stretch.
Bingo.
But you can never get a dealer when you need one. Maybe it was too early for them to be up. If only I had a letter of introduction from Wayne!
For ages I traipsed up and down past graffiti-covered blocks of flats. Crooked, wobbly pictures of giant syringes with a red cross through them and big ‘Pushers Out’ signs were painted onto every gable end. Which indicated I was in an area where lots of drugs were sold. But nobody approached me, wrestled me to the ground and forcibly injected me with heroin, the way news reports would have you believe happened constantly. (I had yet to meet a dealer who offered free samples and test-drives of their products, but they most definitely existed in tabloid-land.) Or perhaps I should find the local school where, of course, there would be busloads of dealers all loitering and hawking their wares, as if in a Moroccan souk.