‘You gonna let us in?’
‘Sorry, yeah, yeah, in yis come now. Looking foxy there, Emerald, if you don’t mind me saying,’ he says, pushing me behind her. I elbow him in the ribs as we hustle through the hall and into the enormous kitchen that’s lit up like a showroom. Everything is expensive-looking: cream walls, cream table, cream chairs, cream cupboards: the glass ones with the lights behind them. There are tasteful black and white photographs of Fiona’s family on the walls. I’ve never been past Fiona’s front door before, but still none of this is a surprise.
A load of familiar girls with very long hair, in very high heels and in very tight dresses, are stationed by a giant kitchen table, every inch of which is covered in bottles. Their chatter stops as soon as they see us. There’s an overpowering smell, like a mix of sticky peaches and weed. Nicky Minaj, or one of those, is blaring out from speakers in the roof.
Fiona comes running across the room. ‘Liam!’
‘Happy birthday,’ I say, immediately thinking how nice it would be to have a present to give her now. I’m only thinking this because Em mentioned it earlier. I’m crap at that sort of thing.
‘Yay, you’re here,’ she says, with her wide smile of super-white teeth. Then she goes ahead and plants a big kiss on my cheek, not a bother. ‘You must be Emerald!’ she says, looking Em up and down.
‘It’s just Em actually.’
‘Oh, cool. Kenny’s told me about you. He was right – you are gorgeous! You’re from London or somewhere?’ She laughs. Em hardly has a chance to answer because Fiona’s jabbering away again. ‘Here, we’re all doing vodka shots. D’you want one?’
Fiona takes Em’s hand before she can answer and drags her towards the harem of identical girls. Kenny was right: they’re pretty good-looking, to be fair. But Em’s a different thing altogether.
I feel Kenny’s arm slink in around my shoulder.
‘Fair play to you, Flynn,’ he says, thrusting a can into my hand. I open it with one eye on the girls. They’re all looking at Em. You know that way: smiling but still scanning everything, trying not to look like they’re looking. Fiona hands Em a shot and they clink their glasses. I watch as Em throws her long hair back, downing it in one. All the smiley girls cheer.
‘Just hope you can handle her,’ Kenny says, slurping away beside me.
Fiona gives Em a paper cup and she stands there, clutching it with two hands as the girls introduce themselves. I have an urge to get her out of here and away from them. I’m leering at the back of her head when she suddenly turns around to me. No, I’ve been caught! But she raises her cup, as if to say ‘cheers’. I raise my can and we smile at each other. For a brief second it feels like no one else in the room can see her.
Kenny knees me in the back of the leg and we lurch towards the garden. ‘C’mon!’ He reaches in front of me to open the double doors and together we fall on to a large wooden deck and over a couple of enormous terracotta flowerpots, which are dappled with fag butts. All the lads are here, sitting around on the patio furniture looking awkward, like they’re trapped in a page of the Argos catalogue. There’s even one of those outdoor heater yokes. Billy Gilhouly is trying to light his fag off it.
Red-faced and sweating he turns around. ‘All right, Liamo. How’s it going?’
‘All right, Billy?’ I smile because it’s impossible not to smile at Billy. No matter who you are, or what fecking stupid thing you just did, you never, and I mean never, look as thick as Billy Gilhouly. He’s sporting some new hipster beard, which isn’t working for him at all.
‘Sweet as, bro. Sweet as …’ he says, fag in his mouth, somehow still unlit despite the raging furnace next to him. He resumes his efforts and I look back in through the double doors to see if I can spot her. Turbo and Murph are here too. It feels a bit like Maths class all over again. The girls are yakking away through the open window and I try to pull out Em’s voice, but it’s all screechy noise. I lean up against the shiny barbeque and crane my neck further towards the kitchen.
‘So how d’you know Liam?’ I don’t recognise the girl asking.
‘Oh, I don’t,’ Em replies, ‘not really –’
I hate that this is true and I’m afraid to hear any more. Kenny and Billy are opening the patio doors up full so the music cranks up even louder now. Kenny struts in and out as if it’s his fancy gaff.
‘Ah, here, Fiona, give us that Spotify,’ he shouts, reaching for her phone.
I’ve a good mind to ask him how he’s feeling about Ashling now, but I swig from my can and savour the last of the evening sun on my face instead. Turbo is ripping Billy to pieces beside me. I wanna hear this.
‘Did yis all hear what Billy told Cliona when she caught him with his arm around that bird in Moloney’s last week?’
‘Feck off, Turbo!’
‘What was that, Billy? I can’t quite hear you?’
‘Shut up, I said.’
‘I’ll go in and ask Cliona what it was? Back in a tick, lads,’ says Turbo, plonking his can down and setting off towards the kitchen.
Billy grabs him back. ‘It’s a sorry mouse …’ he says into the funnel of his hoodie, biting down on one of the little toggle yokes.
‘What’s that, Billy? Speak up, man.’
‘It’s a sorry mouse … that has only one hole,’ says Billy, staring at his feet but his tomato face is plain for all to see.
Turbo slugs greedily from his glass before wiping his mouth. ‘There’s a line for yis, boys. Fecking genius!’
It continues this way for a while with fellas taking the piss out of each other because it’s the only thing we know. We don’t ask each other how we are, or how we feel about things. Well, if we do they’re questions we don’t really want an answer to. I’m thinking about all of this when I hear Kenny.
‘You’re very quiet tonight, Liamo.’ He’s just stirring.
‘Yeah?’
‘All cerebral in your thoughts again?’
‘That’s it, Kenny. Bang on.’
Despite being such a talker, Kenny somehow manages not to say anything, not really. He’s not one of life’s listeners either. Maybe fellas don’t listen to each other the way girls do. I want to talk to Em. I want to be alone with her again. I want to make all the earlier awkwardness better, but I don’t know how to get her away from Fiona yet, so I move over beside Turbo and settle in.
By the time it gets dark almost everyone has moved outside; there’s at least twenty of us dotted around the swishy-looking deck. Between the beers and whatever Ibiza-shite Kenny’s put on, everything feels better. I’m gathering the courage to wander in to the kitchen when I spot Em and Fiona toppling through the patio doors.
‘You’re in there.’ Kenny slobbers it in my ear.
I shove his shoulder to get his face out of mine, watching her all the while.
She leans against the table between Turbo and me. ‘Hey!’ I know Turbo’s trying not to stare at her, but he is. Thankfully she doesn’t seem to have clocked him or his efforts.
‘Y’all right in there?’ I ask, trying not to smile.
She leans back on to the table to get her balance. ‘Yep.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yep.’
I’m enjoying her economy: no fat, no blather. ‘I’m gonna head in for another can.’ I want to get her away from Turbo before he starts laying into me next. ‘Coming?’ I ask. She doesn’t say anything, just gets up and follows and together we weave through the bodies and into the brightly lit kitchen. The once immaculate room is now strewn with bottles, cans and all manner of cocktail-making wreckage.
‘Bought you some booze earlier. Just in case, you know.’ It’s hard to read the look on her face but then she sways. At first I think she’s putting it on, but I look into her eyes and I can tell: she’s drunk. She’s properly drunk. ‘Eh, seems like you’re already on your way.’
She glares at me.
‘No offence, like.’
‘Fiona’s been looking after me,’ she
says, swallowing a hiccup. ‘We did a few more shots.’
I watch her tilt again towards the table. I grab a four pack from the stash and unhook a can from its plastic ring. She holds out her hand and I reluctantly slot one into it. As we move back outside her body drifts from mine, walking in the opposite direction from the others and finally sitting down on a low wall near an oil tank on the far side of the garden. I’m trying to work out the significance of this move as I follow behind and sit down.
‘Got a cigarette?’ she asks.
For some reason this shocks me. I shake my head. ‘D’you want one?’
‘Nah, don’t worry about it. I was only going to have a drag.’ She sounds even more English now through the slight slurring. She looks me up and down, not even trying to hide it. ‘Fiona’s told me a lot about you,’ she says, idly blowing loose strands of hair off her face.
‘Has she now?’
She cups her chin in her hand, looking up at me with those eyes and nods. ‘You’ve just done your A levels …’
‘It’s called the Leaving here.’
‘Whatever,’ she says, waving my words away. ‘You’re already eighteen. A Gemini! And … you’re the nicest of all Kenny’s friends, apparently.’
I try to swallow a smile. ‘Generous.’
‘I’ve just finished exams too. GCSEs though.’
‘Yeah? How’d that go for you?’
‘As expected, I guess. You know … ?’ she drifts off. ‘Anyway, what’s it like?’
‘What?’
‘Being finished with school and … out in the world?’
‘Dunno. Doesn’t feel like I am, like any of us are. I mean, look around you,’ I say, nodding over towards the shower of hopeless, showboating eejits who haven’t even grown into the patio furniture. She smiles. I try to think of something to say now she’s got her chat on. There’s so much I want to ask her but I feel panicky, like I’m wasting time. We look around each other for a bit, almost like we’re trying to avoid our eyes finding each other’s again.
‘So then … Bob the Builder?’ she says, out of nowhere.
For a second I think I’ve misheard, but no, she’s looking right at me, smiling. Does she think it’s funny? I can’t tell what this expression means. I’m not sure I want to. I clench my teeth, hoping the anger doesn’t jump out of my mouth.
I hurl my empty can into the bush. ‘Fiona said that?’
‘It was a joke.’ She jumps in. ‘She said something about you joining your father’s building company. Maybe I got it wrong?’
‘You did!’
She leans towards me. ‘Sorry.’
I search for words but can’t find any that are right. I’m embarrassed now and I feel bad for tossing the can into Fiona’s lovely garden. For the second time tonight I’ve made us both uneasy and I don’t even have a drink to busy my hands with. ‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ I say finally. ‘Can we talk about something else though?’
‘Of course.’ I can see she’s concentrating, like she’s trying not to look drunk, but she does, which I have to admit makes me feel a bit less self-conscious about the questions I’m desperate to ask. It’s as though I’ve nosed ahead in a race she doesn’t know she’s running.
‘Were you serious, you know, about being here for the whole summer?’
‘Yes.’ She sounds briefly sober, like I’ve forced her to recall something awful.
‘I forgot. You had plans.’
‘S’OK,’ she says, taking out her lip gloss. She reapplies it and takes a long swig of her beer.
‘Suppose there’s things neither of us want to talk about?’ She doesn’t comment so I stare at my feet. I’d go and get another can but I want to keep talking. ‘I wasn’t sure whether you’d drink beer.’
‘What did you think I’d drink?’
‘Kenny thought white wine.’
She laughs at this and rolls her eyes. ‘I’ll drink anything,’ she says and she knocks back the rest of her can by way of a demonstration. We’re silent again and I notice the music inside has upped a gear to something bassy and loud. I never know how to describe dance music but it’s a long way from Fiona’s chart stuff now. It’s all pounding beats, deep and dirty. I peer back through the dark and study the familiar faces dancing in the kitchen, which looks lit up like a spaceship from here. Then I clock the tall hood moving through the edge of the crowd. Bodies part to let it pass. It must be him.
The hooded head presses up against the glass doors, staring out into the blackness. I’m already picturing his mad eyes across the garden when the door opens and his lanky hooded shadow lurches towards us. How did he even get in here? I stand up; it’s instinct.
‘All right, Flynn!’ he bellows as he gets closer.
I can’t even feign enthusiasm. ‘McDara.’
He sidles up close to Em, rubbing his nose. ‘Is that yer one?’
She throws me a glance before she looks back at him and this small gesture makes me feel good.
‘Not bad,’ he says, gawping at her, head to toe, and then he winks at me. He actually feckin’ winks! I make what I hope is a reassuring face at Em. ‘Kenny tells me there’s gravy owing,’ he says, sniffling. ‘Only the ginger blouse called it a dividend. That suit’s clearly gone to his head.’
He’s going a mile a minute. God knows what he’s just put up his nose. ‘Em, this is McDara. From the shelters last Friday.’ Feels unnecessary to point out they were his drugs she stashed from the Guards.
‘Hi.’ She smiles at him, which strikes me as an impressive thing to be able to do under the circumstances.
‘Here, for yer troubles,’ he says, pushing something into Em’s hand. She flashes him that smile again and my stomach clenches. ‘Never let it be said I’m not a reasonable man, yeah?’
She nods and he turns around looking horribly satisfied, swaggering back over the Lego-looking lawn, punching his fist in the air to the music. The state of him.
Em pokes at the two brown heart-shaped pills in her palm. I’m waiting for her to fling them away when she looks up at me with twinkling eyes, reaches down to pick up her can, and then, without breaking her stare, she pops one of the pills in between her teeth and drains the beer before I can blink. Just like that! OK, I was not expecting that. ‘What the … ?’
‘Eughghhh!’ she cries out at the taste, before looking up at me.
I want to shake her. ‘McDara’s trouble. You wouldn’t know what the –’
‘Everyone’s doing them!’ she cuts in before biting at the mouth of the can.
‘What?’
‘Fiona said.’
I know my head is shaking. ‘Have you even taken a pill before?’
‘Er, yes,’ she says.
I’m pretty sure she’s lying. ‘And did you take it in one go the last time too?’
This annoys her. ‘Are you taking yours, or what?’ she says, holding out the other brown heart between her fingers.
I pinch it out of her palm. ‘Dunno,’ I say, quickly dropping it into my pocket. I know it’s safer there than with her. I’m watching her, waiting for something, but now I’m not sure what. This wasn’t the direction I’d imagined the evening to go in. I’ve no idea what’s in this girl’s head.
‘D’you wanna dance?’ she asks eventually, getting up from the wall and fixing her jeans in a way that makes it hard not to watch.
‘Can’t we just talk for a bit?’ I feel like a tool asking her this but I know if we go in there I’ll lose her again.
She sits back down and lands that look on me. ‘What d’you want to talk about?’
It’s that look I can’t predict. I think about what to say, but as I’m thinking don’t I only go and burst out, ‘D’you have a boyfriend?’
She looks around like she’s thinking.
Ah, Christ! I’ve blown it. Haven’t I? Have I?
‘Funny you should ask,’ she says and then stops. ‘Rupert …’
I feel a bit sick. ‘Oh.’ It’s all I can manage. ‘Rup
ert?’ I say then, like a total fruit. I hadn’t planned to say it out loud. My brain’s trying to picture this Rupert fella and all I can think of is yer man from those Twilight films years ago, even though I know that’s not even his name. Now I can’t shake the image of that good-looking prick from my mind. Obviously, she has a boyfriend. I was asking for it.
‘It’s Ru actually. Everyone calls him Ru.’
‘Course it is.’ It was only a thought. It wasn’t meant to drop from my mouth like a rock.
‘As of eight o’clock this evening, I’m pretty sure he’s moved on,’ she adds and begins tapping her foot steadily against the wall.
‘Yeah?’ I ask with too much enthusiasm. Judging by the look on her face the moving-on lark she’s just mentioned may well be one-sided. I stand up.
‘Oh, yeah,’ she says, getting up too and fixing those jeans again. ‘He was kissing one of my supposed best friends on WhatsApp earlier, which was nice.’
I’m about to go in for more questions but she’s already walking back towards the house.
‘Come on. I’m freezing!’ she calls out.
I follow her, obviously. We step back into the warmth of the kitchen and the place is hopping and thick with smoke. I spot Kenny, Murph, Billy and Turbo in the swarm with the girls. Everyone is dancing and grinning at each other. Em takes my hand and leads me in to the crowd beside Fiona and then I feel her slender fingers fall away. I stand there like a lemon. I’m not drunk enough for this. I don’t dance, as a rule, so I look around, nursing my beer. The music is pretty good now, I’ll give Kenny that. I begin to shuffle so as not to look the complete walnut, but my feet get stuck on some sticky drink that’s been spilt all over the floor.
Em is dancing now. Just small movements: her hips sway gently with her arms bent halfway in the air, letting the music in, slowly. Her face tilts down and her hair falls over her face, then she looks up and thrusts a triumphant arm in the air. She moves easily, effortlessly. I see her beam at Fiona who beams right back at her. I’d be warmed by this if I didn’t know it was just the drugs beginning to work. She swirls around and fixes her gaze on me, transformed from the girl on her grandma’s step earlier.
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