Spin the Bottle

by Monica McInerney

  ‘Forget what’s fair or what’s practical,’ Eva said, not sounding at all convinced with Lainey’s measured arguments. ‘Do your feelings come into this at any stage? Or his feelings?’

  ‘Evie, I leave in just over a week, I have to be practical about things.’

  ‘But you’re in a relationship with him, Lainey, not a business partnership. Who’s ever practical about relationships?’

  ‘I’ve told you before, there hasn’t been time for it to become serious between us.’

  ‘It’s certainly sounded serious to me.’

  ‘What’s sounded serious? I’ve hardly talked about him.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. It’s when you have to talk about things all the time, analyse his behaviour and your behaviour, that you know things aren’t going to work. From what you’ve said, you and Adam just get on really, really well.’

  ‘Eva, you’re on the other side of the world, how can you tell from there?’

  ‘From the bare bits you feed me. Like that time you came home and he’d cooked all those meals for you and put them in the freezer. And when he did the same for your parents after your dad came out of hospital.’

  ‘He was trialling dishes for his restaurant.’

  ‘It sounded to me like he was spoiling you. And what about all those notes you told me he leaves you?’

  ‘He has to leave me notes. We never get to see each other.’

  ‘Lainey, when exactly did you build this moat around yourself? Can’t you just admit he’s a lovely man or you wouldn’t have been going out with him for a year?’

  Eva’s words momentarily pierced Lainey’s resolve. Yes, he was indeed a lovely man or she wouldn’t have been going out with him for a year. Then she snapped out of it. This was no time to be emotional, no time to be thinking of herself, what she wanted to happen. She’d looked at the whole situation matter-of-factly and this was the best thing to do. ‘I think it’s the only option, Evie. It’s not fair on him otherwise.’

  ‘And will he have any say in what is or isn’t fair on him?’

  ‘Of course he will. And I bet you anything he agrees completely. It’ll leave him free to get on with the restaurant and me able to concentrate fully on the B&B.’

  ‘This isn’t anything to do with that Mr Cholera, is it? You’re not still waiting for some make-believe hero to show up?’

  ‘Of course not. Mr Cholera was just a joke. This is about Adam, what is best for him. It just makes sense, can’t you see?’

  Eva suddenly sounded distracted. ‘Yes, I’ll be right there,’ she said to someone in the deli near her. ‘Lainey, I’m sorry, I have to go. But please don’t do anything rash about Adam. And don’t worry about what it will be like over here, either, I’ll do all I can to help you. It’ll all just unfold, you wait and see.’

  Unfold? Lainey had a horrible mental image of herself in the B&B folding and unfolding hundreds of sheets. As she said goodbye and hung up, she fought off the panic that seemed to be permanently simmering away inside her these days. It took all her energy to keep it from boiling over. She tried to banish the ghosts of doubt that Eva had put in her mind about breaking up with Adam. She’d made her decision, given it careful thought and knew it was the right way for her to go. Adam would see it that way too, she was sure of it. She’d pictured the conversation in her mind many times, what she would say, how he would respond. He’d be a little surprised, but relieved too, she suspected.

  Feeling she was back on steady ground again, she reached for her To Do list. Her PA Julie called her the Queen of Lists. It was lists that made the world go round, she’d answered. This latest one was more of a volume of lists than a list list, though. But where would you be without lists? Listless, she thought. Mooching about with nothing to do – she hadn’t known that feeling in a long time.

  ‘We’re really very lucky to have you, Lainey,’ her mother had said at a family dinner the evening before. ‘So in control, so organised. I don’t think any of us could have done this as well as you’re doing.’ Behind her mother’s back, Declan had been making vomiting-mimes, rolling his eyes at the praise. Brendan had just looked cross, as usual. Hugh was running late and hadn’t arrived yet, also as usual. Lainey had been surprised to hear her mother say those things, but she knew without any false modesty that it was true. She liked the feeling, too, liked it when people said, ‘Leave it to Lainey. She’ll be able to sort it out. She’ll get things under control.’ And usually she had. Except with her father. She hadn’t been able to make him better, had she? Not yet, anyway. But perhaps once the B&B was sold, once the financial worries had gone, things would change. She fought off another twinge of anxiety.

  Adam had seen through her calm exterior. It had thrown her and touched her in equal amounts when the week before, lying together on her big sofa on a rare night together, he had kissed her and told her everything would be all right.

  She’d pulled away from him. ‘What do you mean everything?’

  ‘In Ireland. It’ll be a bit odd at first, but you’ll be great.’

  ‘I’m not worried.’

  His dark-brown eyes had been warm, amused. ‘You’re not? You weren’t lying there thinking about it, getting anxious that you’ll be able to keep the B&B running so you can sell it and your dad can get the money he needs?’

  That was word for word what she’d been worrying about. She denied it though. ‘No, I was actually thinking about the mayhem Celia’s going to cause with my clients.’

  ‘Were you? Okay, let’s pretend you were worrying about that.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Were not.’

  ‘Was.’

  ‘Were not.’

  Then she’d hit him with a cushion and he’d hit her with a cushion and then they’d kissed again and kissed for longer and then both of them had stopped talking about Ireland or B&Bs or Celia or anything much at all.

  The next night she called over to her parents’ house, straight from work. She’d had a long afternoon with Celia, going over the client list, passing over her files, getting more and more bothered by her. Was it Celia’s high-pitched voice she disliked most, or was it her laugh? Or the way she slipped her shoes on and off, stretching and bending her feet as though she was in some footpowder commercial? By the end of the day even Celia’s breathing had been annoying her.

  She especially disliked Celia’s transparent eagerness to take her clients. Her over-confidence. And her breezy answers when Lainey asked if she needed any more details. ‘Oh no. We’ll sort it out between us, once you’re gone.’

  Lainey heard her own voice grow icy. ‘I’ve been working on some of these projects for months now, Celia. Many of the details are already locked in.’

  ‘Fresh face, fresh ideas, Lainey. But I won’t take up your time with my ideas now, will I? I’m sure you’ve plenty to do before you go.’

  Like the quick murder of a colleague perhaps? Lainey kept her temper down, willing herself not to react, even as she smiled and opened the next folder.

  She let herself in through the back door and was surprised to find her father sitting at the kitchen table. The promise of money in a year’s time had lifted his spirits a little. He was watching a current affairs program on television. Lainey kissed the top of his head in greeting and watched the program with him for a few moments. It was a piece about the Australian actress Hilly Robson, in Sydney for the premiere of her latest film, fighting the unwelcome attention of the paparazzi every moment of her stay.

  Mr Byrne shook his head with a sigh and turned it off with the remote control. ‘Investigative journalism at its finest, wouldn’t you say, Lainey? Insurance companies persecuting thousands of us every day and programs like this are more worried about pretty blonde actresses being chased by photographers.’

  Lainey was too embarrassed to admit she was quite interested in Hilly Robson’s media trials. She resisted the temptation to turn the TV back on. ‘Ma’s not here?’

  ‘No, she’s out at that food d
emonstrating job in the supermarket.’

  ‘She’s started already? How’s it going?’

  ‘She said it’s a doddle after bringing you four up. At least the customers don’t throw the food back at her like you used to.’

  ‘Dad, I did not. I used to drop it under the table.’ As a child she’d taken a strong dislike to vegetables – peas and carrots especially – surreptitiously spooning them under the table, imagining it as some kind of black hole. Her mother had thought they’d fallen by accident until Brendan had told her the truth. Lainey had been put on solo dishwashing duties for a month as punishment.

  Her father laughed at the expression on her face. Lainey realised it had been a long time since she’d heard him laugh like that. She had a rush of how much she missed her father. Her real father. Not the bad-tempered one who had come back from the hospital. She wondered sometimes if they’d brought home the wrong person. Perhaps there had been another Irishman in the emergency ward that day.

  ‘And how are you, love? Nearly organised?’

  She sat down opposite him, took an orange from the fruit bowl and started to peel it. ‘Just about. The flight’s booked. The apartment’s sublet to one of the secretaries from work. I’ll bring Rex over here next week to get him settled before I leave. And my bags are already packed.’ She’d been packed for more than a week. She loved packing. ‘Just have to get on that plane now.’ She gave a cheery smile, hoping it would fool her father.

  It didn’t. ‘You know how grateful I am, don’t you? I know all the others think you’re just taking it in your stride, but of course it’s a shock. And a big change. And not what you would have planned for yourself, I know that.’

  For a moment it was like having her old dad back. The one she used to sit and chat over the table with, the one who laughed at her need for order, her planning, her finely tuned organisational skills. ‘If you ever leave event management, Elaine, there’s a job in the army for you for sure. You’d have them terrified and sorted out in no time.’ The father who spoke like that, joked around like that, had nearly disappeared though. Except for occasional flashes.

  She was surprised to feel her eyes well up. She blinked quickly. ‘Well, they say a change is as good as a holiday,’ she said lightly, holding out half the orange to him. He shook his head. ‘It’ll be fun, I bet. And I’ll get to see lots of Eva, too.’ Eva and Joe were going to meet her at Dublin airport on Sunday morning. She’d stay the night with them, then make the forty-minute trip to Dunshaughlin from their house the next day to meet the solicitor.

  ‘You know, it was a lovely house once, though too big for us even back then. I’m amazed May stayed in it on her own all these years. I suppose that’s why she started the B&B, to fill up the rooms again. We used to have great fun there when we were kids, roaming around Tara as though it was our own backyard.’

  ‘I can’t imagine it.’

  ‘Me roaming around Tara or May and I having fun?’

  She smiled, caught out. ‘Both, I suppose. She was fun as a child, was she?’

  ‘She was. She wanted her own way, of course, and would kick up if she didn’t get it. Quite like someone else in this room as a little girl, actually.’

  ‘Dad! I was an angel as a child, I thought we’d agreed that. Why was May so cranky with us, do you think?’

  ‘Cranky?’

  ‘You know, so mad at you for emigrating. I remember when we all went back to Ireland for that first holiday, she was furious with us the whole time. Don’t you remember? What had she expected, that we’d pick up and move back to Ireland just when things started going well for us here in Melbourne?’

  Her father shifted into a more comfortable position in his seat. ‘She had a hot temper on her, all right.’

  ‘Perhaps it was harder for her to understand why we’d left, not having been married, not having any kids.’

  ‘You’re probably right, Lainey.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m glad we came here. Imagine if we’d stayed there. I probably would have been running the B&B with her by now.’ She pulled a face. ‘God, it’s all just come full circle, hasn’t it? I’m doing it after all.’

  There was a knock at the door. It was Ken, one of her father’s friends, carrying a six-pack of beer and a video. ‘Got some soccer here for your dad, Lainey.’

  ‘Come in, Ken.’ She decided to leave them to it. She’d go down to the shopping centre instead.

  It didn’t take long to find her mother. Mrs Byrne was in aisle six of the brightly lit supermarket, standing behind a cardboard stall crammed between the baked beans and the spaghetti sauces. She was wearing a bright-yellow apron and a cardboard saucepan hat.

  ‘Lainey, how are you? Pass me that cloth over there, would you? Are you here to try some Pronto Pot? From can to table in just five minutes. All you have to do is add water and one beef stock cube. Your family will be amazed and impressed.’

  Lainey tried not to laugh. ‘I don’t have a family, unless you count Rex and he’s far too fussy.’ She gingerly took the little sample pot from her mother and tasted the gluggy contents.

  ‘Horrible, isn’t it?’ Her mother leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘It’s made by the same people who make the pet food and I think they’ve mixed up the cans.’

  Lainey stood back as two genuine customers came up for a taste. She marvelled as her mother switched into full professional selling mode. The two shoppers were quickly convinced by Mrs Byrne’s spiel and headed off to the counter clutching several cans each of Pronto Pot.

  ‘Well done, Ma. You’re a natural at this.’

  ‘I spent years convincing all of you to eat my disgusting food. This is simple. Did you call in home before you came here?’ her mother asked, scraping more blobs of muck into the white cups. ‘How did you think your father was?’

  ‘Not too bad, actually. Ken had just arrived with a soccer video.’

  Mrs Byrne’s mouth tightened. ‘That Ken, turning up as soon as he knows I’m out the door. Do you know he –’ She was interrupted by a couple and their five children wanting a Pronto Pot tasting session. Lainey stood back as they emptied all the tasting cups and asked for more. They finished off all the samples, then walked off without any cans of the product.

  ‘Saves me washing up, anyway,’ Mrs Byrne whispered, stacking the empty cups. She looked at her watch and removed her saucepan hat. ‘Let’s get out of here. I’d kill for a coffee.’

  Sitting at a café table near the supermarket, they had just taken a sip of their cappuccinos when Mrs Byrne leaned over and whispered to Lainey. ‘See that man over there? No, you’re looking in the wrong direction, that one there, in the blue shirt. Up in court last week for stealing a lawnmower from that school down the road, he was. Pleaded not guilty, on the grounds of diminished responsibility. As I said to Marjorie, at least the grounds would be well mowed. As in mowed by the lawnmower. Get it, Lainey?’

  ‘I get it, Ma.’

  Her mother dropped her voice even lower. ‘And you see that woman there? I used to work in the library with her husband, till she upped and left him, with the three kids and all. That’s her new fellow, that one with the beard at the counter, see? Turned out she’d been having an affair for months and the husband had no idea.’

  Lainey looked at the couple. The woman seemed like an ordinary suburban mum, the man beside her slightly built, with a beard. ‘That’s terrible. How could she do it?’

  ‘Kiss a man with a beard? God knows, they’re horrible, aren’t they? Thank heavens your father never grew one.’

  ‘I don’t mean the beard. I mean have an affair and just leave the kids like that.’

  ‘Well, she wouldn’t be the first woman who wished she could up and leave her kids behind. She told a friend of mine she just fell in love with the other man and couldn’t help herself.’

  ‘Of course she could help herself. I hate it when people use excuses like that, that they were all overcome with emotion, that it had nothing to do with them. Surely you get a
choice about things like that.’

  Mrs Byrne put down her cup and gave Lainey a long look. ‘Good Lord, Lainey, you’ve obviously never fallen head over heels in lust. It happens, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Lainey spoke in a joking tone. ‘This is your way of gently telling me you were off having affairs while we were at school, isn’t it? Do you know, I always suspected something like that about you. Who was it? The postman? No, not that fellow that came to do the roof? The one with the long ginger moustache? Or perhaps it wasn’t here. It was in Ireland, was it? Let me think, not Mr Doherty in the shop. Oh, Ma, you didn’t, did you?’

  Mrs Byrne lifted her chin. ‘Elaine, a mother must have some secrets from her daughter.’

  Lainey felt a prickle of unease. ‘Ma, stop it. You’re joking, aren’t you? You didn’t have an affair with that roof man, did you?’

  Mrs Byrne finally laughed. ‘Him? Of course I didn’t. I have some taste.’ She took a sip of coffee. ‘So what do you think you’d do if you found out Adam was having an affair?’

  Lainey blinked. Where on earth had Peg learnt to be a mother? Watching the Oprah Winfrey show? ‘When would Adam have an affair? He’s hardly had time to have a relationship with me let alone anyone else.’

  ‘Would you have one yourself?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Why “of course not”?’

  ‘Because I just wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be right.’

  Mrs Byrne laughed at the serious expression on Lainey’s face. ‘You’re a great one for everything in its place, everything under control, Lainey, aren’t you? Where did I go wrong raising you?’

  ‘I’m not like that,’ she said, stung yet again by this new, particularly plain-speaking version of her mother. She had always been one to speak her mind, but since her father’s accident Peg seemed to be using a megaphone. ‘I can be very flexible, actually.’