‘Easiest order ever.’ The girl took away the menus and Kate’s empty glass. ‘I’ll be back with the drink in a flash.’
‘And the wine, please.’ Liam smiled.
‘Sorry! It’s on the way.’ She headed in the direction of the bar, her fishtail plait in chevrons down her back.
‘Now,’ said Liam. ‘Now we’re settled. We’re hungry, that’s all, isn’t it? Nothing like hunger to start a war.’ He leaned across the table and kissed her. There was a briny residue on his lips that made her own tingle. She traced her tongue over them when he moved away. He started to talk about work again and she didn’t interrupt, watching instead the way his nostrils flared when he was excited about something. He had a beautiful nose, the bone straight and slender, his features split evenly on either side. He switched suddenly, in that way he had of jumping from topic to topic when he was enjoying himself, to tell her about an architectural boat tour he’d been on earlier in the week in Chicago. Her mind went blurry and it was impossible to concentrate. The descriptions flowed out of his mouth like some random word generator. Silver kidney bean. Howling wolves. A glass step suspended above absolutely nothing at the top of a skyscraper. Chicago, Chicago, Chicago.
‘Nothing!’ he said. ‘It’s like standing on air. Gravity shoots through your body. You can feel it in your organs.’
A different girl came back with the drinks and Liam waved her on to pour the wine, not bothering to try it. Kate’s vodka had a twisty green-and-white straw this time and she plucked it from the glass and sucked the end before a drop could fall. The girl went to put the wine in the bucket but Kate smiled at her and she tipped a gorgeous, hay-coloured liquid into her wine glass first.
‘It’s not a race,’ Liam laughed.
‘But it might be,’ she said, biting the straw.
‘That skyscraper was something else. You’d have lost your mind up there, if Ballycotton was anything to go by.’ He leaned in again and took her hand, kissing it. ‘I’ve missed you.’
She let her hand go limp and pulled away.
He moved his drink to one side. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I thought you were in New York, Liam.’ She took another sip. The vodka didn’t taste of anything this time except cold. That’s why people really bought the high-end stuff; they didn’t want to know how drunk they were getting.
‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I told you. Change of itinerary last minute. The Midwest guys had to stay local for quarter end.’
‘All this time, I thought you were in New York.’
‘I must have said.’
‘Three full weeks.’
‘New York, Chicago, Timbuktu.’ He smiled his be-reasonable smile and took her hand again. ‘What matters is we weren’t together.’
‘You know there’s a difference.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What if something had happened to you?’
‘Look, Kate. You know she was with me. And when she’s with me, I can’t.’
Oh, look, Kate! Kate looked, Kate knew. Kate was always looking and knowing.
‘When Shauna’s gone to college,’ he said.
It was like the opening line of a poem that never ended.
‘But what if something had happened to you?’
Liam picked up his glass and downed the wine. ‘I’m going to the bathroom.’
She felt the tears as she watched him walk away. He ducked his head at the low arch near the bar, before taking a left and then he was gone. The first girl appeared at the table, announcing the starters as she put them down, adding an extra plate in case they wanted to share. She did a double take when she looked at Kate and then moved quickly on. Kate wiped away a fat tear and tried to focus on the food, the pinky-grey wedge of pâté with the clarified butter on top, thick as marzipan. The corners of the toast curled inwards and she picked one up and snapped it in half, bits of cracker splintering the table. She put a piece in her mouth and crunched, tasting nothing. Across the table there was a bowl of lumpy coral-coloured soup with a lobster tail standing in the centre. She finished her vodka, ate another bit of toast, and he still wasn’t back. She reached for her wine and drained the contents, the floral taste strange and tangy after the vodka. The girl appeared again, the bottle already out of the bucket, refilling her glass. She left two fresh napkins on the table, glancing at the empty booth. Kate wanted to make a joke about the gazpacho getting cold but she didn’t trust herself to get it out. She smiled instead and thanked the girl.
All around the restaurant, in the dimly lit arches, people looked cosy and content. The same man was singing again, the song about 500 miles this time. She sat back against the leather banquette, no longer roasting, a kind of post-sweat chill around her neck and shoulders. What if something had happened to him when he was away? She knew he hated that question but it was one that had plagued her from the beginning, and it seemed more real and pressing the longer they were together. What if something happened to him? How would she find out? From Anthony probably, or one of the sales guys keen to be the first with the gossipy thrill of death. She’d imagined herself countless times at the funeral, hidden at the back in most of the fantasies, though occasionally up near the altar in a side pew, like some sort of grief pervert, watching his wife and children.
The girl passed again and Kate nodded at her.
‘Can I get you something?’ She looked at the untouched plates. ‘More butter?’
‘A shot of tequila.’
The girl laughed, her eyes brightening as they rounded. ‘Seriously?’
Kate smiled. ‘Urgently.’
‘Understood.’
Less than a minute later she was back with two shot glasses and a squat-looking bottle of liquor whose brand Kate didn’t recognize.
‘He won’t want one,’ Kate said quickly, glancing over at the arch.
‘He’s not getting any.’ The girl poured a gold-flecked liquid into the glasses. ‘Top shelf stuff is only for the ladies.’ Winking, she gave a glass to Kate, held up the other one and clinked. They looked each other in the eye before they drank and Kate imagined for a second that they were sisters, that at the end of the girl’s shift both of them would go home to Kate’s flat and thrash out the week.
The singe of the drink as it went through her was magnificent.
‘On the house.’ The girl turned on her heel. ‘Say nothing.’
Kate felt Liam’s hulk before she saw him, a hand on her shoulder, then he levered himself into the booth. There was a coolness off his face and she wondered if he’d washed it. She noticed now for the first time the sallow half-moons under his eyes, the way the colour seemed to sink into them like a hammock. She reached across the table and touched his cheek, then half stood to kiss him.
‘Hey,’ he said, when she broke away. ‘Get over here.’
He squashed into the far end of the booth, nearly knocking a painting off the wall. Kate went in beside him, wanting suddenly to sit on his lap, to be hugged until she went numb. She settled for turning sideways, kicking her wedges off and putting her legs over one of his. They drank quickly, swapping stories. When he was here, he really listened to her, in a way that no one else did.
She got happier and hazier as they chatted, not noticing the starters disappearing until the girl arrived with the mains. Somewhere in the background she heard a cork pop and a cheer. The girl left the beef on the table. Kate found it hard to look at.
‘We’re going to need space for this boyo,’ Liam said, taking her legs gently from his own. He was talking to the girl, not to her, and Kate followed his voice. She smiled at the girl, almost giggled really, because everything seemed funny now; the secret she had with her that Liam knew nothing about, the secret she had with Liam that the girl knew nothing about, the secrets, the secrets, it was all hilarious.
‘Oi.’ Liam straightened her up. ‘You’ll get us kicked out.’ He was laughing too though as he helped her back into the other couch.
‘Are yo
u OK?’ The note of panic in the girl’s voice cut through the haze.
Kate put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. She couldn’t stop blinking. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry.’ Liam smiled at the girl. ‘I’ll carve.’
She was gone then and Kate missed her.
‘Lightweight. Oi, drunko!’ Liam waved his hand in front of her eyes and she sat back, surveying the table. There was a mound of crisp chips in a miniature wine bucket and a hunk of beef that looked like a Sunday roast. She wished she could take a picture for Peter but she remembered how much Liam hated her camera phone. She would never be drunk enough to forget that one again. The shock of it, watching her iPhone soaring through the air into the steely Portrush sea. Then he’d stalked off and left her there on the hard sand, with the dog walkers watching her and the tide coming in out of nowhere, drenching her runners. She’d been raging going back to the hotel—passing all those cheery, red-nosed golfers—stripped she’d felt, naked in front of the world without her phone, or her dignity.
No—no—she wasn’t going back to that now, not in the middle of all the fun, the antics, the crowd across the way singing, what was it they were singing? It wasn’t as good as the miles, there was no chorus to this one, just a lad belting out the words and the rest of them looking on, waiting, waiting for what? Liam stood to carve the beef, holding his elbows high above his wrists, angling his body away from the table as the juices leaked on the wooden board. An intensely sweet smell passed over the table, caramel or coconut. A spriggy herb was draped artistically over the board.
‘How many slices do you want?’
‘One. From the end bit, no blood.’ She took a chip from the top of the mound, bit into it and dropped it on the plate in shock. Steam rose from the fluffy white middle.
‘Roasting!’
‘Careful,’ he said, laughing.
Once he’d served them both he stopped a waiter and asked boring, endless questions about Châteauneuf-du-Pape. ‘Pappy!’ she called out suddenly. They did not seem to appreciate the hilariousness of the word. ‘Pappy! Pappy!’ She tried again but it was no use, they were no fun at all. They went back to talking varietals. Kate slipped out of the booth, delightfully unsteady on her feet.
‘Easy.’ She heard Liam’s voice as she set off for the arch. Focus, focus on the point at the tip, whose name she knew but couldn’t remember, and soon she was up close to it and then it was gone and she could see the varnished oak of the toilet door, but she was outside, suddenly, leaning on the cast-iron railings at the entrance to the restaurant.
A line of taxis with yellow lights were to her right, a couple of drivers chatting to each other, smoking, eyeing her up. One of them called to her and she shook her head. Across the road, the late evening sun was in pink diagonals on the powdery brick of the Dáil. Shouting, farther up the street, at the Irish bar on the corner of Merrion Row where a group of men lifted a guy in a nurse’s outfit on top of their shoulders. All the laughter and the jeering—oh, the night seemed full of promise. She wished she was still a smoker, felt the temptation rip through her, if only to have some excuse to be out here, enjoying the world like she should be, not hidden away downstairs in a dungeon with enough food to keep her in dinners for a week. Dinners and lunches if she rationed it. What was he thinking? That he could make up for three weeks of no contact by giving her all the missed meals in one evening? It was a disgusting thought. A cigarette, she needed one. The taxi men. They looked so lonely in their cars, all lined up. She started crying for no reason. It was as if the tears belonged to someone else.
‘Kate!’
She looked up and saw Liam at the railings where she thought she was herself, but he was at least a block away and here she was instead, in front of the park, at the bike stands in fact, the metal docks empty, except for one sad-looking creature with its saddle on backwards like an upside-down triangle.
‘What are you doing down here?’ Liam looked all around him before he came to her. It didn’t matter. The heft of him, there in front of her on a summer’s evening in the middle of Dublin city. She pressed herself into him, burying her face in his chest.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘You’re hammered.’
‘The room,’ she remembered. ‘You got us a room. A suite.’
‘Kate.’
‘Come on.’ She grabbed his hand and set off on her mission to nowhere. He was the size of an oak.
‘Kate, sweetheart. We can’t go back in there. We need to get you home.’
‘My bag!’
‘I have it here.’ The soft leather clutch was bunched in his hand, the clasp all wrong. She took it from him and studiously fixed the button.
‘Kate.’
She tried to walk around him. He put a hand on her arm and she stopped.
‘Dinner,’ she said irrefutably.
‘It’s eaten. It’s cold. You were gone for ages.’
‘I’m starving.’
‘For crying out loud,’ he laughed. ‘Look, we’ll get you a chipper in Clontarf.’
‘I live in Ra-HEEEE-ny.’
‘Jesus. OK, listen, Kate. You need to wise up. Excuse me, mate?’ He shouted at the taxi men before taking her by the shoulders. ‘Kate.’ He propped her gently against the bike. ‘Stay there.’ The saddle was cool and comfortable through her silk dress and she felt like it was a treat to be sitting once again after such a long journey. She started to hum the 500 miles song, delighted with herself for remembering. It was so easy, so lilting the tune.
He was back on the footpath, the tall trees of the park swaying behind him. She felt the wind for the first time, a cold spreading up her limbs, her chicken-skin legs in the glare of the street lamp.
‘OK, Kate, it’s sorted. Hey, Kate, look at me.’
With a swoop of her head, she dodged his hand. ‘Gonna be the man who’s working hard for you!’ She missed his chest, nearly poking him in the eye.
‘Careful. Kate, come on, stand up.’ His voice was serious now, Portrushy.
She sniggered. ‘You don’t like my singing?’
‘You need to sober up. I’ve promised him you won’t puke. They’re watching us.’ The ‘us’ was like a sound a snake would make.
‘Ussssss,’ she said.
‘I’m coming home with you. Isn’t that what you’ve wanted? Isn’t that what you’ve been asking me to do for months?’
She leant farther back on the saddle until her shoulders touched the handlebars. It was strangely comfortable. She looked up at him. ‘For the whole night?’
‘The whole night.’
‘Promise?’
She felt mean for doubting him, wanted so much to believe it.
‘The whole night,’ he said, holding out his hands. ‘In Ra-heeee-ny.’
He pulled her from the bike and her lower back twinged.
‘But I would walk five hundred miles!’
‘Sssh,’ he said. ‘Be good.’
At the corner of the square, a battalion of foreign teenagers with yellow backpacks were squabbling and eating ice creams. One of them waved and said something in French.
‘Ignore them,’ Liam said. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’
‘Où est la gare?’ she shouted and they cheered.
‘Kate, please.’
A light rain began to fall, speckling her arms fresh again. The students put up umbrellas and she could no longer see their faces.
‘Les Pussies,’ she shouted, but no one cheered now, and the high was starting to leave her, working its way through her, so sweet as it went. Parts of her body felt rent from each other. Her fingers were too heavy for her hands and her clutch fell to the ground, the contents spilling from it. She watched her phone bounce and then land on its back in the slope by the dock. Her coral lipstick made it as far as the bike lane.
‘For Christ’s sake.’ Liam crouched and handed her the bag. Items appeared in front of her and she put each one back in it like a good girl: a miniature hairbrush, her
keys, her ATM card, the loyalty card for the laser place, a dirty tenner, a tampon whose bright green wrapper was ripped and faded. She didn’t know why she bothered to bring one around with her any more.
‘Useless,’ she said, taking it from him, pointing to the lipstick.
‘I’m useless?’ He strode off to the bike lane. He had misunderstood her but there was no way to explain. Eleven months and counting without a period. It was like a super-long pregnancy with no big belly and no baby at the end of it.
‘No baby,’ she said.
He’d picked up her phone, was wiping it with a tissue. They stared at each other. The rain fell harder now. There were drops running from his hairline. He didn’t seem to notice or to care.
‘What are you talking about, Kate?’
She knew she had to get it together, that they were on the brink of something and it would be her own fault if she ruined it. He was coming back to her place—to his place really. To their place? Someday. She steadied herself, holding her hand out for the phone.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Let’s go home.’
He took her bag and fastened the clasp. She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning against him, trying to tuck herself into the earthy smell of him, a trace on his shirt if she concentrated. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. Her wrist burned suddenly and she went backwards, falling against a bike stand. She caught herself before the slope, looking down at her hands, at the thick band of grease across her palm. The dirt shimmered as if it was alive. A voice came from behind her, high and startling.
‘William Carroll.’
A woman in a cocktail dress stood under a clear plastic umbrella, her blonde hair in a waxy, movie star wave. The man beside her had a tux jacket over his head, a gleaming white shirt, a dicky bow. They were tall and tanned and po-faced. They were swaying, dancing, the footpath sliding with them.
‘Liam.’ The man put out his hand. ‘You’re getting drenched.’
‘I thought you and Joanna were in Chicago.’ The woman frowned at Kate. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘This is one of Conville’s lot,’ Liam said in a stranger’s voice. ‘You know Anthony? Tony Fitz?’
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