Spin the Bottle

by Monica McInerney

  Yes, we do, she thought, wondering where her clear-minded decision-making had gone all of a sudden. She tried another tack. ‘What if you meet someone else while I’m away?’

  ‘But I won’t.’

  ‘But you might. Seriously, think about it. If you met someone else while I was away and you thought she was lovely and you were interested in her and she was interested in you, what would you do?’

  ‘What if you meet someone in Ireland?’

  ‘I’m talking about you, not me. If someone said, oh, poor Adam, all on his own, that nasty Lainey out of the way, I’ll give him a ring and see if he wants some company, what would you do?’

  ‘Well, I’ll mostly be throwing myself into work, of course, trying to distract my pining heart. But I might go out on one of my rare nights off. I know you wouldn’t want me to mope for twelve months, howling like a dog.’

  ‘And if you did meet someone and they wanted to see you again? What then?’

  ‘I promise to call you the moment I meet her, to keep you up-to-date. I’m sure she won’t mind if I just nip out to a phone box, as long as I explain what I’m doing.’

  Why wasn’t he listening to what she was saying?

  Was he actually laughing at her? She cursed the champagne she’d drunk. Her head was all muddled. ‘Adam, I’m serious.’

  ‘Can you stop organising things for a single moment, do you think?’ he said, laughing. He took her face between his hands and looked at her, then gently kissed her lips. ‘There’s a difference between thinking and planning ahead and getting absolutely paranoid.’ As he looked at her his expression changed, became serious. ‘But while we’re sitting here, there is something I’d like to talk to you about as well. I’d thought tomorrow would be the best time, but perhaps now is just as good.’

  There was something in his tone of voice that set all her antennae quivering. This was an Important Moment in their relationship, she knew it in her heart. And she wasn’t ready for it. She turned panicked eyes on him. ‘Ad, I think it’s too late.’

  ‘Too late for what?’

  ‘Whatever it is you’re about to say.’

  ‘What am I about to say?’

  ‘Something mushy, I think.’

  He smiled at the childish term. ‘It’s the night before you go away and abandon me for a year, of course I’ve got something mushy to say. Something more than mushy. Bigger than mushy.’

  Lainey had to fight a strong temptation to put her fingers in her ears. She hadn’t expected this, not for a minute. She thought she’d get to say her piece, explain rationally why it was best they called it off. She thought that he would agree, perhaps a little sadly, but without fuss, and then they would part as friends. She hadn’t thought he’d laugh at her, and she definitely hadn’t thought he would turn the tables like this. ‘Ad, can this please wait till tomorrow? I think I’m too drunk at the moment.’ She cast her mind around for something to prove it. Could she sing a sea shanty in a loud voice? She stood up and walked a few metres, weaving across the footpath. ‘See, I can hardly walk a straight line.’

  He laughed. ‘All right, champagne girl. I give in. I’ll leave it until tomorrow. Let’s go home and go to bed instead. It’s our last night together for a while, after all.’

  She sat down again, feeling an odd sense of relief that the moment for splitting up had passed. She really was too drunk to do it tonight. And why ruin their last night together? ‘I’m sorry, Ad. I’m just not in the mood for anything serious tonight. And I’m sorry for other things too. I do take you for granted, don’t I? I’m too bossy, too judgmental, too organised, too pushy.’ What else had Kim and her friends said tonight?

  ‘That’s absolutely right, and too sweet, too generous and too drunk. Now, come on, let’s go home. Which would you prefer, my bed or yours?’

  She thought for a moment, then sadly shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I’m too drunk to decide that either.’

  ‘The stairs it is, then,’ he said firmly.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LAINEY WOKE BEFORE the alarm the next morning to the glorious sensation of a pair of lips slowly kissing their way from her face to her neck to her breasts. She opened her eyes slowly, watching in the muted light of his bedroom as Adam moved slowly, surely down the length of her body.

  ‘Adam?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Shh, I’m busy.’

  ‘Adam, wait…’

  ‘Lainey, please, I’m really busy. Can’t you see?’

  She couldn’t see it but she could feel it. As his lips and tongue found just the right spot, she shut her eyes again and turned her brain off as well. He was right, he was far too busy to talk.

  An hour later, Lainey came down the front steps of her apartment building, squinting at the sunshine, her head throbbing slightly from the hangover. Her anxiety levels were hovering in the high to very high range now, as the time to leave came closer. She still hadn’t had The Conversation with Adam. It had been too nice to be in bed with him, making love, feeling the length of his body on top of her, feeling his kisses, laughing at the outrageous compliments he liked to murmur while he made love to her.

  There’d been the last-minute packing to do afterwards. The last-minute checking to see her flat was ready for the new tenants to move into the next day. The last-minute ticket, passport and luggage check. Now Adam had gone to the underground car park and she was realising they’d have to talk about it in the car. No, she decided, that wouldn’t be any good either, not just before they called in to say goodbye to her parents and Rex. It would have to be in the car on the way to the airport. Or at the airport itself.

  She heard her name being called and turned. It was her brother Hugh, running along the street towards her. Shorter and much stockier than Lainey and her other two brothers, he was panting by the time he reached her. ‘Shit! I knew I was cutting it fine. Are you on your way to the airport?’

  ‘Just seconds away, Hughie. I thought you were going to be over at Ma and Dad’s this morning. We’re calling in there on the way.’

  ‘I know, but I stayed at a mate’s house last night and my car’s playing up this morning and I couldn’t get out there. So I caught a tram here instead. I’ve got something for you. I made it myself.’ He passed over a present wrapped in what looked like handmade paper. ‘Have you got time to open it now? I’d really like to see what you think of it.’

  ‘Of course I have.’ She waved across at Adam as he drove out of the car park in Lainey’s red hatchback. Adam was gazing at Hugh, trying to recognise this creature with the blue hair. Hugh had been blond when she and Adam first started going out, then bright scarlet for the past few months. ‘I like the new hair, by the way.’

  He tousled his blue locks. ‘Yeah, I needed a change. It’s very calming, isn’t it?’

  ‘Right up there with dolphin sounds. I see it matches your shoes, too.’

  He wriggled his sky-blue Doc Marten boots. ‘Matching accessories are the key to style, Lainey, you should know that. Come on then, open the present.’

  She carefully removed the sticky tape and the paper. Inside was a flat cardboard square, covered in handpainted drawings of beds and eggcups. ‘Oh, I get it, my life for the next year. Thanks, I’ll hang it in the kitchen over there to remind me what I’m supposed to be doing each morning.’

  ‘No, it’s not just a painting. Look closer.’

  She looked and this time noticed that there were perforations around each bed and eggcup.

  ‘It’s a little reward-calendar for you, like an Advent calendar,’ he explained. ‘See, there are drawings of six beds and six eggcups, painted on little doors. At the end of each month you can open one up and there’s a surprise for you behind them. I thought it might make the year go past more quickly. Or help you mark each month. Or something…’ He trailed off, embarrassed.

  She turned the drawing over and noticed cardboard pockets here and there on the back. She shook it gently and
heard rattles. ‘This is fantastic, Hughie, thanks. What’s in them?’

  ‘Well, I did think about ecstasy tablets. To cheer you up when it gets too boring.’

  ‘Are you joking me? I’ll be arrested.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. No, they’re just chocolates. Nice stuff though. Swiss, full cream milk. They cost me a fortune.’

  She was really touched. Hugh always had been the sweetest of her brothers. Brendan and Declan wouldn’t have done something like this in a million years. ‘Hughie, thanks very much, you’re a darling.’

  He shrugged, a little awkwardly. ‘I just wanted you to know I was glad you were doing it. You know, going to Ireland for Dad. I know I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘No, I don’t think you could,’ Lainey said with a grin. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken. But if I can do anything to help from here, I will, I promise.’

  She ruffled his blue hair. ‘A soft heart beats under that wild exterior of yours, doesn’t it? If I think of anything for you to do, I’ll let you know, I promise.’

  Adam got out of the car, his mobile phone at his ear. As he walked closer, lifting a hand in hello to Hugh, they could overhear the conversation. ‘No way, Greg. No, sorry, you’ll have to talk to her yourself.’

  ‘Is that Greg? Greg Gilroy?’ Lainey mouthed the name of their café-owner friend. Adam nodded as he passed over the phone to her. Lainey put on a very cross voice. ‘Greg Gilroy, what are you doing calling me at a moment like this?’

  ‘Lainey, I’m so desperately sorry to have to ask you this.’ Greg didn’t sound in the least bit apologetic. ‘I’ve had an emergency and I need to borrow your boyfriend. Right now.’

  ‘But we’re on our way to the airport. Can’t it wait?’ Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hugh and Adam laughing. They’d always got on well together.

  Greg had put on his best wheedling tone. ‘If it was up to me alone, sure. But I’ve got fifty guests about to arrive at my café for a special lunch and my first and second chefs are ill and I need your talented boyfriend right here and now.’

  ‘But Greg –’

  ‘It’s a birthday lunch for a very old lady, Lainey. Her hundredth, I think. Possibly even her hundred and tenth. Imagine her disappointment if I had to tell her, sorry, no food, I couldn’t get a chef. A frail old lady like that.’

  ‘We’re about to leave for the airport.’

  ‘Well, can’t you have your tearful farewell there at the house as easily as at the airport? Fewer people around, far more private… I’ll even organise your taxi to the airport, if you like. I took the liberty of ordering one to pick up Adam, seeing as his car’s in the garage at the moment, but you can have that one and he can take your car. I’ll cover the cost, of course.’

  ‘That’s a lie and you know it. You still owe me for a taxi from six months ago. Hold on, Greg, let me do some sorting here.’ She turned to her brother, deep in conversation with Adam. ‘Excuse me, Hughie. Have you still got your licence or have you been busted again for drink driving?’

  ‘It wasn’t drink driving. I was busted for driving without a licence.’

  ‘But you’re legal now?’

  ‘After a fashion.’

  Lainey decided she didn’t want to know what after a fashion might mean. ‘Would you have time to take me to the airport and then bring the car back here?’ She noticed Adam didn’t look happy at the idea.

  Hugh did, though. ‘You’re going to let me drive your car?’

  ‘If you promise to bring it back here afterwards.’

  ‘Can I go via my house? For a month or two, you know, take the long way? Till I can afford to fix my car up?’

  She should have thought of offering it to him earlier. His car was always breaking down. ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘Cool, thanks.’

  Lainey spoke into the phone to Greg again. ‘All right, Greg, but you seriously owe me now.’ She hung up.

  Adam wasn’t pleased at all. ‘Lainey, I said no to him, it’s our last morning together –’

  She interrupted. ‘I had to agree, Ad. Greg’s in dire straits and work is work, we both know that.’ She was oddly grateful to Greg. His call had placed it all in the right perspective. There was a time for emotions and there was a time for clear-headed, rational business thinking and it was that time right now. She’d have to say all she had to say to Adam here, it was as simple as that. ‘But I really need to talk to you before you go.’

  ‘I really need to talk to you, too. Have we time to go back inside, just you and I?’

  That feeling of dread was back, as though she was in a dentist’s waiting room. She tried to lighten the mood. ‘Good God, Adam, you’re insatiable.’

  He didn’t laugh. ‘Just for a moment?’

  There was a particular look in his eyes. The look that made her feel good and warm and safe. The look that also unsettled her and made her anxious.

  She wasn’t just in the dentist’s waiting room any more, she was now sitting in the chair with her mouth open, the drill coming closer and closer… She tried to ward it off a moment longer. ‘Ad, I really don’t think we have got time, not if we’re going to call in to see Ma and Dad on the way. And Hugh’s driving is so appalling, I need to factor in near-accident time and all of that, too.’

  Hugh was listening to every word. ‘Lainey, that’s rubbish, my driving’s good these days.’

  ‘She’s joking, Hughie,’ Adam said, before turning back to Lainey. He lowered his voice. ‘You see, I want to give you something. I had it all planned for the airport, in the club lounge, with a glass of champagne and a flowery speech…’

  ‘Oh, this is just as nice,’ she said, looking around at the warehouse buildings, the road busy with traffic.

  ‘It’s not very romantic,’ Hugh said, edging even closer.

  ‘Hugh, go away,’ Lainey and Adam spoke in unison.

  He frowned. ‘Oh, come on. How am I going to learn about relationships if I don’t observe those happening around me?’

  ‘And how are you going to walk again if I break your legs?’ Lainey said, glaring at him. After Hugh had made a show of sidling dejectedly towards her car, she turned back to Adam. Her stomach lurched again. ‘Ad, I need to say something to you, too, and I think I need to say it first.’

  He smiled. ‘I’m all ears.’

  She’d thought it over, rationally and for some days. She’d made her decision. There was now nothing to do but say it. ‘I think we should break up.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I think we should break up. Now, before I go to Ireland.’

  ‘Do you know, I think it’s that subtle approach of yours that first drew me to you, Lainey. This is a joke, right?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, Adam, it’s not.’

  ‘You’re telling me this is it, it’s all over between us? You’ve just had this thought now? Minutes before you leave for the airport?’ There was the rehearsal of a smile wavering over his face, as if he still wasn’t sure if she was serious.

  ‘No, not just now. I’ve been thinking about it since I found out I had to go.’

  His near-smile disappeared, giving way to something closer to shock, disbelief. He took the smallest of steps back from her as she kept talking.

  ‘I don’t think it’s fair to ask you to wait for me. We really hardly know each other, you’re up to your eyes with the restaurant. I just think it makes much more sense if we call it quits now, so we’re both free to do whatever we need to do while I’m gone. What’s the point of keeping it going when we’re on opposite sides of the world? It’s cleaner this way, don’t you think?’

  His voice was now as cold as his eyes. ‘Did you say what’s the point? We really hardly know each other?’

  She felt stuck for words, standing there, mouth open, shocked at his reaction. She grasped for something to say, searching for some justification for what she’d suggested. ‘We don’t, Adam. You’re so busy, I’m so busy, it hasn’t been th
at serious, has it? For either of us? Don’t you think it makes good sense to break up now?’ It was coming out all wrong but she couldn’t work out how to put it properly, how to tell him what she really meant. Not when he was looking at her like that.

  ‘You’ve never heard of telephones? Keeping in touch by email? Letters? You’re going to Ireland, not Mars, Lainey.’

  ‘It’s too much to ask. You’re so busy here, I’ll be caught up with the B&B, I just think it’s better this way.’ She knew her voice sounded firm, even though she was feeling shaky inside.

  ‘And did you ever think that I might like a say in this? That I might have an opinion on what might or might not make sense? What was fair or unfair? Serious or not serious?’

  His coldness helped strengthen her belief that she was right. ‘Of course I thought about you. I thought about both of us. I weighed up all the pros and cons –’

  ‘You weighed up the pros and cons?’ He narrowed his eyes, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. ‘And did you run through a complete cost analysis and profit and loss statement as well? We’re not talking about a business here, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Adam, please don’t make this harder than it already is.’

  He slowly shook his head, his face stony. ‘Lainey, this can’t get any harder than you’ve already made it. Or any worse.’ For a long moment he just stared at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. ‘I can’t believe that this is how you’ve felt about me all this time.’

  She blundered in. ‘Please don’t get me wrong, I’ve really enjoyed it, but –’

  ‘But it wasn’t serious for you. It was just two busy people having a bit of fun together in their spare time, nothing more than that. Is that what you mean?’

  She stared at him, unable to answer. None of this was happening the way she’d pictured. He wasn’t supposed to get upset, go cold. He was supposed to have agreed with her sensible decision, given her a nice affectionate hug and wished her well in Ireland. Not reacted like this. She desperately searched for something to say and grabbed the first thing that came to mind. ‘You said you wanted to say something to me as well?’ Please let it be that you wanted to break up too. Please don’t let it just be me that has made a stupid decision today.