Spin the Bottle

by Monica McInerney

It’s been over two weeks since I said those things to you and I keep expecting to feel that I was right, that I have made the right decision. But I don’t feel good. I feel like I might have made the biggest mistake in my life. I was listening to reason, thinking of us as though what we had was some kind of business dealing, an issue to be looked at with a cold eye, to be analysed from an efficiency point of view. I think I was…

  ‘Lainey?’

  wrongggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

  Lainey jumped at the sound of Eva’s voice right behind her. She quickly deleted the email as Eva came out of the kitchen, a towel wrapped around her wet hair. ‘Lainey, I’ve just looked in your fridge. What on earth have you been eating since you got here? You haven’t been going to that chipper every night, have you?’

  She swiftly closed down the computer. ‘No, of course not. Well, once or twice maybe. I haven’t really been thinking about food, to be honest.’

  ‘How can you not think about food? I think about it all day long.’

  ‘You run a deli and a café, of course you do.’ It had been the same with Adam, always asking her to try this new taste, that new cheese, a new sauce he’d invented. Another memory she had to try and erase. ‘I mean, I really like food, but as fuel, I guess, not for pleasure.’

  ‘Then you need to slow down and start enjoying it more. Look how skinny you are. Maybe it’s as well you’ve been press-ganged into coming here. It’s the break you need.’

  ‘What, so I can learn to cook as well as make beds? I’m already a dab hand at bacon and eggs. Would you like some for your dinner?’

  ‘No, thanks all the same. Come and show me what else you’ve got in your pantry and I’ll cook for us tonight.’

  Lainey followed her back into the kitchen. Out of habit she looked around and checked the five mousetraps she had set in the pantry, at Eva’s suggestion. They were all still empty. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed. There still hadn’t been a confirmed rodent sighting, just an occasional rustling noise. Lainey had almost convinced herself it was the wind moving the ivy outside.

  She opened the fridge for Eva now. There was only milk, butter, cheese, bacon and eggs inside. ‘That’s it, really. Everything else May had here was prehistoric. Powdered moose horns, that kind of thing.’

  Eva took out the eggs and cheese. ‘Okay, I’ll make us some cheese omelettes for tonight. You need some variety, at least.’

  ‘I haven’t just been eating the bacon and eggs. I’ve been eating a lot of the cereal as well.’

  ‘You don’t have to take the B&B diet to heart that much. What if a guest asked you to cook their evening meal?’

  ‘They wouldn’t.’

  ‘They might. Some B&Bs supply evening meals. It’s a good way to earn more money.’

  ‘It wouldn’t lift my occupancy rate, though, would it?’

  ‘It might, if word got round that you served fantastic authentic Irish dinners as well as breakfasts.’

  ‘I don’t know any authentic Irish food. My mother hates cooking, you know that, and all I know how to cook is a few Asian dishes.’

  ‘Cooking is easy, Lainey. Like anything, it’s all in the preparation. You should think about learning. My cousin Meg teaches at a great cooking school in County Clare. Maybe you could do a course with her. Or I could teach you a few things, if you like.’

  ‘Thank you, Eva, I’ll think about learning,’ Lainey answered in a flat, monotonous tone of voice.

  ‘Lainey, I’m serious. Look me in the eye and tell me you really will think about it.’

  ‘Ever since you got married and started managing that café you’ve got very lippy, young lady.’

  ‘You’re just raging because you know it’s a good idea and you wish you’d thought of it first.’

  Lainey laughed. ‘All right, I promise I’ll think about it.’

  The next day they had just started painting the front room a warm fuchsia colour when Lainey turned down the radio. ‘How did you know for sure how you felt about Joe, Evie?’

  Eva didn’t seem surprised at Lainey’s sudden question. ‘That I wanted to be with him, or that I wanted to marry him?’

  ‘Both. Either.’

  ‘I just did. I just thought he was great. I still do.’

  ‘But aren’t you nervous that you might have made the wrong decision?’

  Eva looked closely at her friend. She wasn’t being flippant. She wasn’t being confident. She looked genuinely, painfully worried. ‘Lainey, this isn’t about me. This is about you and Adam, isn’t it? What’s the matter? Do you think you made the wrong decision about breaking up with him? Are you having doubts?’

  Yes, I am, she thought. ‘No, I’m not really,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking about it, wondering how you know for sure if the person you’re with is the right one. Adam, for example. If he really was my one true love, if there is such a thing, then shouldn’t I have heard a clanging of bells the very first moment we met?’

  ‘If he was a bellringer, yes, you would have.’

  ‘I’m serious, Evie. Look at you and Joe, meeting on the other side of the world. If there was such a thing as fated falling in love out of the blue, if Adam and I were truly soulmates, then wouldn’t it have been a bit more dramatic than it was? We’re neighbours. We met when he helped me after I hurt my ankle. Hardly the stuff of romantic films and songs, is it?’

  ‘Lainey, just because Joe and I met under those sort of circumstances doesn’t mean the rest of our lives have been lived in some kind of rosy hue. Life got normal. We fight.’

  Lainey covered her ears. ‘Eva, don’t you ever tell me those kind of untruths again. You’ll destroy me.’

  ‘But we do fight, of course we do.’

  ‘What about? Whether the poem he’s written for you this week scans properly?’

  ‘He doesn’t write me poems all the time. Where on earth did you get that idea from?’

  ‘Oh, you know you two. You seem so smoochy all the time.’

  ‘It’s just we’re well mannered. We keep our fights to ourselves.’

  ‘So what do you fight about?’

  ‘Normal things. I want my own way, he wants his own way. Neither of us wants to compromise.’

  ‘Oh, yuk. Who wants something as boring as compromise in a relationship?’

  ‘That’s what a relationship is, Lainey. And it is boring sometimes. Of course I’d much rather I spent every day being swooped off to romantic dinners or being sent love letters, but the cold hard truth is the rubbish has to be put out, we have to shop for toilet paper and toothpaste and mouthwash…’

  ‘Now you’re telling me Joe needs mouthwash? Oh God, all my illusions are cracking around me.’

  ‘Lainey, we’re human beings, not some characters in a TV soap. And Adam is real too. Why are you expecting him to be like some romantic hero?’

  ‘Isn’t that what everyone expects? Someone to come charging up, sweep us off our feet, take all choice out of it?’

  ‘Arranged marriages, you mean? Lainey, I’m shocked at you.’

  ‘It’d make life easier in some ways, though, wouldn’t it? Don’t you get sick sometimes of having to make decisions, weighing up the pros and cons? It’d just be a relief sometimes if it all just happened.’

  Eva laughed. ‘As if you’d settle for that. You’d only like it if it happened exactly as you pictured it, you mean.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You know what you’re like, Lainey. You get this idea in your head of how things should be, and that’s that.’

  ‘I’m not that bad.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘I blame Joe for this, you know. You used to be terrified of me. I think I prefer the old days.’

  The doorbell rang, making them both jump.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Lainey said, relieved at the interruption.

  ‘Don’t think we’ve dropped the subject, by the way,’ Eva called after her.

  ‘Want to bet?’ La
iney called back as she threw aside the scraper and tore down the stairs.

  She was back up just moments later. ‘Don’t you think the whole B&B concept has to be the most ridiculous accommodation concept in the entire world?’

  ‘That wasn’t a guest then, I gather?’

  ‘No, someone looking for directions. Seriously, don’t you think it’s strange? It’s so inefficient. No bookings system, no check-in time, no real codes of behaviour. It’s just some weird kind of free-for-all, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not inefficient, it’s just the way it is. People drive around, decide on the spur of the moment where they want to stay, see a B&B, knock on the door and there they are.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. Spur of the moment. I mean, really, how am I supposed to plan my day, work out how much food to get in?’

  ‘You could always just relax and see what happens, if that isn’t too foreign a concept to you.’

  ‘You can’t relax in the middle of this sort of chaos. If this happened with work in Melbourne, we’d be bankrupt in days. Can you imagine it? “Well, we’re organising a banquet for Saturday night, or maybe Sunday night, and there will be five hundred people or maybe there won’t. It depends if they turn up or not. There might only be twenty and even then they might decide to go to the hall next door rather than ours.” Honestly, how do these other people cope? I’m a bag of nerves just sitting around waiting for someone to turn up.’

  Eva laughed at her friend’s mock outrage. ‘I suppose they have other interests.’

  ‘What, macrame? Knitting? The way I’m going I’ll have a four-hundred-foot scarf done before spring arrives.’

  ‘They have people in to help them, too. Maybe you’ll have to think about that, to have someone here when you’re not, so you can get away occasionally.’

  ‘That’s a good idea. Just what I need. A nice weekend in a B&B somewhere.’

  They moved into the second bedroom, dragging the ladders and dust sheets and pots of paint in with them. They worked in silence for a while and then Eva spoke up.

  ‘Lainey?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about this. Perhaps there is another reason why you were unsure about Adam, you know. Why you felt you had to break up with him. A simple reason.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Eva stopped painting. ‘Perhaps he really wasn’t the right one for you. Maybe all your instincts were just trying to tell you the truth. It’s hard for me to know for sure because I never met him, but perhaps he’s not right for you. And perhaps that’s why you’re here, out of the blue like this, to discover that for sure and maybe meet the person you’re fated to be with. Your Mr Cholera.’

  ‘Are the paint fumes getting to you?’

  ‘No, Lainey, think about it. Maybe this is all meant to happen. Here you are, beside the Hill of Tara, one of the most mystical places in Ireland. Everyone knows special things are supposed to happen here, call it fate or mysticism or ancient Celtic gods at work or…’

  ‘Evie, things happen as a result of your actions, by putting your mind to it, not through fate or some preordained life plan.’

  ‘But don’t you ever think things happen for a reason?’ Eva said earnestly. ‘Like me going to Australia unexpectedly to visit you. If that hadn’t happened, I would never have met Joe, would I?’

  ‘But if you were destined to be together, then surely you would have met in some other way? Maybe he would have come to Dublin on holiday, called into the deli, ordered a pound of mortadella from you and fallen instantly in love on the spot.’

  ‘Well, that would have been simpler. Saved a lot of air travel anyway. But maybe it’s your turn and that’s what this year is all about for you. You’ve been snatched out of your usual work, dropped here in Ireland for a year, forced to slow down so there’ll be some space in your life for something great to happen to you, too.’

  ‘I’m going to be pronounced the long lost Queen of Tara, you mean?’

  ‘Talking to you is like playing table tennis sometimes, you know that? Do you have to hit everything back?’ Eva moved the paint pot one step higher up the ladder so it was level with her shoulder. ‘Couldn’t I be on to something? That this is the fates intervening, showing you the person you’re supposed to be with?’

  ‘Do you know, I thought that boy in the paint shop was winking at me. I mean, he’s only about twelve, but that’s okay. Perhaps he likes mature women.’

  ‘Not him. Maybe it’s, oh I don’t know, Rohan Hartigan. Perhaps he’s the man for you.’

  ‘Rohan. God, I think you’re right. Will you call and tell him or shall I?’

  Eva didn’t laugh. ‘Lainey, stop the joking. Can’t you just give in to the world a bit for once?’

  Lainey sighed theatrically. ‘All right, Evie, I will try and calm down, just a tiny bit and be as open as I can to great mother universe and all her mysteries.’

  ‘Don’t mock. That’s not being open or calm.’

  ‘All right, all right. But tell me, can I still step in and change things if I see a real problem?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like the fact your plait is in the paint tin.’

  ‘Oh shite.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IT TOOK THEM SIX DAYS of solid work, but the rooms finally looked better, brighter. Under all the layers of wallpaper, the walls had been in good condition, easy to paint. They’d arranged for new carpets to be laid in four of the rooms, deciding that the old coloured mats would be good for another year in the back bedrooms.

  They stood in the hallway, all the doors and windows open around them to clear the house of paint and new carpet smells. Lainey gave her friend a hug. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Evie, you’re a marvel. I couldn’t have done even one room without you.’ She put her hands on her hips and looked around. ‘Now all I need to do is lure people here.’

  Eva grinned. ‘Perhaps you could hire a psychic to give free sessions. That’d attract the new-agers, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Well, at least a psychic would be able to tell me when I could expect guests. No, what I should do is have some sort of drinks party, I think. Invite all the other B&B operators over, and the tourism people, so they can all see what we’ve done to the place.’

  ‘They’re certainly curious,’ Eva said. Both of them had noticed several cars driving past in recent days and they hadn’t all been tourists. ‘A party’s a great idea. Launch the place with a bang. What will you have? Jugglers and fire-eaters greeting people at the door?’

  ‘Well, I thought more about hula dancers.’

  ‘A Hawaiian-themed Irish B&B, that’s novel.’

  ‘I could change the name from Green Gables to Green Pineapple, couldn’t I?’

  ‘No, what about something more Irish, so tourists feel like they’re getting the authentic Tara experience?’

  ‘And then get greeted by a true-blue Aussie at the door? They’ll have me up for false advertising. No, what I really need are a couple of celebrity guests to turn up and give me the vote of approval. Where are Hilly Robson and Noah Geddes when I need them? If they’re driving around Ireland like the papers say they are, surely they’re going to turn up on my doorstep at any moment?’

  ‘Perhaps you could get Lord Lucan to drop in and make a real party of it?’

  ‘Exactly. And what about a dodo as a breakfast table centrepiece?’

  ‘All those paint fumes are going to your head, Lainey.’

  Lainey ran her fingers through her hair. ‘No, the right idea will come to me, I know. I’ve still got a bit of money left in what my darling Mr Fogarty calls my Refurbishment and Other Miscellaneous Expenses account as apart from my General Living Expenses and other Associated Day to Day Requirements account. I just have to give it some thought.’

  The phone rang as they were folding the last of the dustsheets in the now crimson-walled dining room. It was Joseph, wanting to know how much cheese to order from the supplier who was in the shop at that moment.


  Lainey guessed from Eva’s answers what it was about and interrupted. She took the phone. ‘Joe, this wonderful woman is all yours again. I’ve worn her out, worked her fingers to the bone, showered her with thanks, so you can have her back now, overalls and all, poor, pale shell of a thing that she is.’

  After Eva had gone, Lainey moved the old tape machine into the main room and started flicking through the tapes she’d recorded before she left Melbourne, trying to find one that matched her mood. It was difficult – she didn’t feel particularly jazzy, bluesy, poppy or funky at the moment. She spotted the KC and the Sunshine Band tape. Perfect. That tape had helped rid her mind of ideas left over from different launches she’d organised, so maybe the reverse would work just as well – it could blast ideas into her currently empty brain.

  She turned it up to full volume and sang along at the top of her voice as she turned on the TV, sound down, and flicked channels. She stopped at an exhibition of Irish dancing. It looked funny playing to a soundtrack of KC and the Sunshine Band. Every now and then the movement on the television matched the disco beat. Perhaps that was the idea she was looking for – she could run dancing classes, ship in busloads of tourists and teach them all disco dancing one night, Irish dancing the next. Or even better, Irish dancing to a disco tune.

  The idea made her laugh. She stood in the middle of the lounge room, trying to remember the basic Irish dance steps she’d learnt under sufferance as a child. It wasn’t exactly Riverdance, but if she wriggled her legs really quickly she could keep up with the music. She finished an energetic movement, threw up her arms with a flourish and turned around.

  Rohan Hartigan was standing in the doorway.

  ‘I was dancing,’ she said, for lack of anything better to say and through sheer and absolute embarrassment. She turned the music down, grabbed at a nearby jumper and pulled it over her paint-splattered pyjamas.

  ‘You certainly were.’ He was making a very bad job of trying not to laugh.

  Lainey decided attack was the best defence. ‘How did you get in, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘The front door was open. I did knock, but unfortunately you were otherwise occupied and didn’t hear me.’ He was still trying not to smile. ‘I’m sorry to have interrupted your, um, exercise class like that, but I just came to bring you these. Some of the oral histories I’ve collected about the Hill of Tara legends.’