Spin the Bottle

by Monica McInerney

  ‘Real life’s just not like that, Lainey. Things go wrong or people do things you least expect or say things you don’t want to hear. It can’t all be scripted and managed.’

  Lainey suddenly wanted to start running. She wanted to run as fast as she could, far and away, from the mean way she’d treated Eva, from her selfishness, from the mess she’d made with Adam, from the mad imaginings about Rohan. Just run until she left it all far behind her and she could start a whole new life somewhere different – be a fresh, kinder, nicer version of herself.

  She felt Eva’s arm come around her shoulder. ‘But that doesn’t change all the wonderful things about you, Lainey. You’re a great person, you really are.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m marvellous. Bossy. Controlling. Selfish. Self-centred.’

  Eva squeezed her tighter. ‘Lainey, you’re you and you’re a great person,’ she repeated. ‘You might drive me mad sometimes and from now on, now this is all out in the open, if you try and boss me ever again I’m going to put my fingers in my ears and ignore you. But you’ll always be my friend. My oldest, best friend.’

  ‘You do still want to be my friend?’ Her voice was very quiet.

  ‘I’ll always want to be your friend. But you have to let me be, put down your barriers sometimes. I’m worried about you, Lainey. You were stressed to the hilt when you arrived, unable to cope if you weren’t doing something twenty-four hours a day, going for runs even though there was hardly enough meat on your bones as it was, not eating properly. I meant it when I said I thought it would be good for you to slow down a little. Not that you’ve paid any attention to me, of course.’

  Lainey was going to pay attention now. ‘I am a bit stressed,’ she admitted. She was completely stressed. She felt like the world was spinning out of control, in fact.

  ‘Then please, Lainey, slow down a little. Calm down, let things happen around you. Let us look after you for once. And I promise I’m not talking about the fates. I suppose I’m just saying there are gentle ways of living life as well. And please, tell me how you are feeling now and again, how you’re really feeling. You don’t have to be superwoman. You’re allowed to have emotions, you know.’

  Lainey turned into the hug then. ‘Thanks, Evie.’

  ‘I mean it, Lainey. And I do love you, really.’

  ‘And I love you too.’ As she buried her face in her friend’s shoulder and blinked away sudden tears, she felt like she was eight years old, not thirty-two.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  HER MOTHER RANG the next day. ‘Lainey, I’ll go straight to the point. I’ve got bad news. Declan and Hugh have got themselves in trouble with the law.’

  In trouble with the law? What paperback Western had her mother been reading this week? ‘Ma, are you drunk?’

  ‘I wish I was, Lainey. You’d think with three sons I had a fairly good chance that one of them would turn out normal, wouldn’t you? But no, one of them’s a workaholic and the other two have turned out mad and, not only that, they’ve gone mad at exactly the same time.’

  ‘So what was it, the ecstasy or the dope?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘They’ve been busted for drugs – that’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that and frankly I don’t want to hear any more. They’ve been trespassing.’ Mrs Byrne told the story with some relish. It seemed Declan and Hugh had dressed up in suits and turned up with Hugh’s video camera at the head office of the insurance company handling – or mishandling – their father’s claim. They’d decided that if the insurance company could film their father, then they could film the insurance company. They managed to get past reception and were looking for the case officer, demanding to see if she really was on stress leave or just having a go-slow year, when the security guard stopped them.

  ‘They got as far as that? Hugh and his blue hair?’

  ‘It’s black these days. Pitch-black, actually. He looks like Eddie Munster, if you ask me.’

  ‘So what were they planning on doing if they found this case officer? Standing by her desk filming her until she finished processing Dad’s claim?’

  ‘I don’t think they’d thought it through that far. Declan was going to be the mouthpiece, which was Hugh’s first mistake if you ask me. He said he had a fantastic speech all worked out. “On what grounds have you taken so long to process this claim? Have you any idea what impact you have had on this family? One daughter forced overseas, the mother forced to take a part-time job to make ends meet. This poor family, little Aussie battlers, doing all they can to make a go of it in a new country. All their dreams dashed by the cruelty and incompetence of a huge corporation like yours.” You know the sort of nonsense Declan speaks. Though between you and me, I think he was embroidering the story after the fact. You know how he gets that twitch in his left eye when he’s making something up? He’s done it all his life, since he was a little fellow, and he’s never known I know. But still, he gave us quite a repeat performance in the living room tonight.’

  ‘Tonight? So they’re not in prison?’

  ‘For walking into an insurance office with a camera? Lainey, this is Australia, not communist Russia.’

  ‘I thought you said they were in trouble with the law.’

  ‘Did I? Well, they were given a warning that if they did anything so stupid again they might have charges pressed against them – trespassing or something.’

  ‘Ma, that’s hardly being arrested. You made it sound like they were being executed at dawn. Did they actually go into the insurance office at all or have you made that up as well?’

  ‘Oh no, they did, with the camera and all. It’s a great story, don’t you think? Your father loved it. It gave him quite a lift, actually, the idea of Declan and Hugh going to these lengths on his behalf. It’s the most I’ve heard him laugh in weeks.’

  Lainey tried to ignore a twinge of jealousy. She wanted to be the one who made her father feel better, the one who was doing the hard work on his behalf. That’s the way it usually was. But she wasn’t in charge of the world any more, was she? She had to learn to stop interfering in other people’s lives. ‘Well, tell them well done from me, too, won’t you? And give them all my love.’

  Her mother sounded surprised. ‘That’s it? You haven’t any advice about what we should do next? Don’t want to tell Declan and Hugh off?’

  ‘No, they’re both grown men. I can’t tell them what to do.’

  ‘You’ve been managing fairly well for the last thirty or so years.’

  ‘Very funny. No, this is the new me. The new relaxed Elaine Byrne. You won’t know me when I get home again.’

  ‘I don’t know you now. You’re sure you’re not running a fever or anything? There’s not the tiniest bit of advice you want to give them? Give any of us?’

  ‘No, not a scrap,’ Lainey said breezily, fighting back a whole chorus of advice that was trying to make itself heard.

  Her mother changed the subject in any case. ‘Tell me, Lainey, have you seen Leo Ramsay again by any chance?’

  She hadn’t seen him again. She had only received the creepy phone call and didn’t want to mention that. ‘No, I haven’t actually. Why?’

  ‘I just wondered.’

  After she’d said goodbye and hung up, Lainey’s fingers itched for a little while afterwards, wanting to call back and offer some advice about the insurance company. She went into the kitchen and cleaned the stove instead.

  After all the preparation and worry about the theme weekends, it was almost an anticlimax when the first one finally came around. She had a full house – an Irish-American couple, a husband and wife from Dublin, an intense Austrian woman and her mother, and an Australian woman and her female Irish cousin – all keen to learn about Irish art and enjoy good food and wine. She’d also had a late call from an American man, who had just heard about the program and was in Ireland for a month’s work. Was there any way at all he could join in? he’d asked. A small cupboard
he could sleep in? He wasn’t fussy – it was just that the whole culture and cultural package had sounded right up his street. Oh, why not, she’d thought, if he really wasn’t fussy. She’d warned him that the only available room was indeed small.

  Over the weekend Lainey found herself needing to blink hard a couple of times, unaccustomed as she was to walking into rooms in the B&B and finding people there. The living room was the most popular with this first group, the roaring fire drawing them in each day. She had struck it lucky with Orla, her guest lecturer, who had been not only knowledgeable about Irish art but gregarious with it, happy to sit and tell stories during the day as well as give her more formal talk on the Saturday evening. Lainey had been asked twice about Hilly Robson and Noah Geddes and just said sorry, but she really couldn’t comment. The questioners nodded and smiled back knowingly. ‘Of course you can’t.’

  Lainey hadn’t intended to go with Rohan when he arrived to take the group on their tour of the Hill of Tara. She’d been worried in case her mind went into action and she found herself blushing and imagining rude thoughts mid-tour. But then she’d changed her mind, urged by her guests to come along too.

  Rohan was a far better guide than her father had ever been. He took them from site to site, explaining the history and all the different interpretations historians had placed on each mound and stone. He painted an engrossing picture of what life would have been like on Tara thousands of years before, describing dwellings made from wood, a whole settlement laid out with a huge banqueting hall at the centre. He described day-to-day life – the cooking, the animals, the clothes. He spoke of rituals, including a particularly gruesome one involving the King of Tara performing a sexual act with a horse, which was then killed, cut up and cooked in a cauldron of hot water, from which the King had to drink.

  ‘Oh, Rohan, you’ve spoiled Lainey’s surprise for dinner tonight,’ Nell said from the back of the group, bringing laughter.

  Lainey’s dinners had been a success, to her astonishment. She’d had a back-up school of fish ready if she ruined the first lot of salmon. She had even been prepared to drive into Dunshaughlin to buy Ye Olde Authentic Irish Fish and Chips if necessary. But she hadn’t needed to. The food had been delicious, the conversation lively, both dinners feeling like her casual dinner parties at home in Melbourne. The pre-dinner glasses of champagne and the amount of wine she’d served during the meals may have helped a little, she admitted to herself.

  On Sunday morning she walked around the rooms, gently knocking on each door. ‘Breakfast in twenty minutes,’ she called. ‘Thank you.’ ‘Thanks.’ The replies differed from room to room. As she knocked on the American man’s room she heard giggling. Female giggling. Well, well. He was interested in something other than Irish art. Which of the women was it? she wondered later as she moved around the dining room, delivering extra toast and brown bread to each of the tables. The Austrian? The Australian or her cousin? Or Orla, the Irish art expert herself? He was sharing her table – was that the clue? She watched them engage in a lively conversation, as Nell stood between them refilling their coffee. Orla was flushed, as she debated a point, passionate in her arguments. Lainey smiled a secret smile. It must have been her.

  Nell had been a great help, electing to be Outgoing Nell all weekend. To Lainey’s surprise she had been there early each morning, already in the kitchen and setting the fires when Lainey got up. And she had stayed late each night too. The work was doing her good. She was lively, eyes sparkling, happy. The poor kid – it must have been hard for her being dragged from home, treated like a child.

  The day after the third gourmet weekend was over, Lainey went for a long run around the Hill of Tara to clear her head. She’d thought of nothing but food and wine and guest speakers and guest requirements for days. They’d all gone well, though, a full house each time. There had been a late cancellation for the second weekend but she’d simply moved the American man into that room. He’d had such a good time at the first weekend he’d booked for the whole series. Then she’d had a flurry of worry when her third guest speaker had phoned, voice croaky. He’d come down with a cold and wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do it after all. She’d thought of her aunt May’s handy herbal hints and called him back, reeling off a list of possibilities – could he try inhaling eucalyptus oil mixed with boiling water? Or take hedge mustard drops, or even slice an onion, simmer it in milk and cayenne pepper and take it as a soup? He’d phoned the next day, voice at full strength, delighted with himself. May’s tips had worked wonders.

  There was a minor hiccup when the Aga seemed to be cooking unevenly, and only half the main courses had been ready on time. But her saviour and friend the Great Bottle of Wine had come to the rescue again. She’d staged an impromptu wine-tasting session, based entirely on what she’d learnt when organising the launch of a new chain of wine stores in Melbourne the year before, about riesling from the different wine regions of Australia. The Clare Valley had won hands down.

  One night she’d had an awful feeling that the mice had come back to haunt her again, after waking suddenly and hearing a noise in the hallway. Her mind had filled with horrible visions of her guests waking up to find little rodents snoring on the pillows beside them. She’d got up there and then and checked the hallway, pausing outside each bedroom, hoping to God no one would catch her and ask what she was doing. All had been quiet, though she’d thought she heard some noise, laughter or conversation, coming from the American man’s room. She’d hurried away from his doorway in case he caught her snooping outside. He was certainly a smooth operator, she thought. Perhaps he could lure the mice outside for her, Pied Piper of Hamelin style.

  That morning she’d consulted Aunt May’s collection of tips and found what looked like a good anti-mice solution. While her guests were being led around the Hill of Tara by Rohan she had driven into town, bought all the steel wool available, hurried home and shoved it into every nook and cranny in the skirting boards that she could get at, idly watched by Rod Stewart. It had worked. There hadn’t been a squeak out of the mice since.

  But now, with the fourth and final weekend just days away and her preparation all under control, there was nothing to distract her. Her confused thoughts about Adam and this strange attraction to Rohan had come back with a vengeance and were now chasing themselves around her mind. She needed to talk to someone.

  Back at the house, she rang Eva for the second time that day – she’d already called that morning for her regular update on Joseph’s health. He was well on the mend. His left wrist would be in plaster for a few weeks yet, but he was back at college.

  ‘Evie, it’s me. Can you talk? You’re not in the middle of something?’

  ‘No, the shop’s empty at the moment. Are you okay? You sound a bit funny.’

  Lainey took a breath. ‘I think I need some advice.’

  ‘Did I hear that right? Don’t you mean you’re ringing to give me some advice?’

  ‘Evie, please don’t tease me. I’m trying so hard to be nicer.’

  Eva softened. ‘I know you are and you’re doing a very good job. I’m sitting down now. The shock has passed. Go on, how can I help?’

  ‘It’s a hypothetical situation, okay?’

  ‘So it’s not actually about you? It’s not you needing this advice?’

  A pause. ‘No. Completely hypothetical.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Say you’d been going out with someone for nearly a year and he was a really lovely man and you had really enjoyed it but the problem was you hadn’t really been concentrating properly on it.’

  ‘Why would that have been?’

  ‘Um, let’s just say that maybe there was a lot going on in your family life at the time.’

  ‘And you were busy at work as well, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes, that too.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So then you find out you have to go away for a year and you decide the best thing to do is break up with this person before you
leave. So you make the decision and then once you’ve made it, you have to stick to it.’

  ‘Even if you have some doubts?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything about doubts.’

  ‘No, sorry, of course you didn’t. Right, you’ve made this brilliant decision. So you go away and then what happens?’

  ‘You arrive in a new place and meet this other person.’

  ‘That you used to go to school with?’

  ‘This is hypothetical, Evie.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And out of your control you start to imagine things happening with him.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Sexy things.’

  ‘Anything beyond sexy things?’

  ‘No, pretty much staying with sexy things.’

  ‘So what’s the problem? It all sounds good so far.’

  ‘But can you actually feel things for two people at once? I mean, either I’m in love with someone or I’m not, surely?’

  ‘Did you say “I”?’

  ‘I mean “she”. The hypothetical woman. The very confused hypothetical woman.’

  ‘What do you mean by confused? As to which man you like more? Which one you wish you were with? That sort of confused?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘It seems to me they’re two completely different situations, Lainey. You’re not comparing apples with apples. One was real and the other isn’t.’

  ‘But why would you think it’s happening at all?’

  ‘Well, don’t people generally have fantasies to either fill a gap in their life or to block something out that they don’t want to think about?’

  There was a long pause before Lainey spoke again. ‘Let’s forget the whys of it. Not that we’re talking about me, but what would you suggest someone should do if she found herself in a situation like this?’

  ‘I think she would have a few choices. Hypothetically speaking, of course. She could simply forget about both of them. Put both of them out of her mind.’

  ‘No, I don’t think she can do that.’