by Dan Mooney
“That’s a lovely tie, Denis,” Natasha told him.
He had at least won that argument before they left the house; his right not to dress like a man eight years younger than himself was something he held very dear to his heart. Those running shoes he’d worn to dinner a week before had probably had their last ever outing.
“Thank you,” he replied while trying to catch Rebecca’s eye.
“Can’t get this guy into a tie for love nor money,” Natasha said, gesturing at Frank.
“Seriously, Denis, stop showing me up. I think she’s getting a crush on you,” Frank said, feigning exasperation.
“What can I say, when you’ve got it, you’ve got it,” Denis replied.
“Listen to this guy.” Rebecca laughed. “Mr. Smooth here nearly had a meltdown when I hung my coat on the back of the kitchen chair.”
“Standards,” Denis announced loftily, “are to be maintained at all times.”
“I hear you,” Frank joined in. “You’re not the only neat freak you know. If I wasn’t here to keep the place in order, the house would fall down.”
Natasha arched an eyebrow at him.
“Momma’s busy bringing home the bacon,” she told him. “Besides, you do it better than me.”
“He learned from the best,” Denis told her with a chuckle.
“Oh please, you were a pig in college,” Rebecca said with a gentle punch on the shoulder.
She had touched him, and curiously, he didn’t mind. He shot her a warm and very genuine smile. One week was all it had taken, and he really had lost a little bit of himself.
After dinner they sat out in the backyard, under the red-hot glow of a gas lamp. There was something very tranquil about Frank and Natasha’s life. Frank’s affable but slightly solemn demeanor was matched perfectly by Natasha’s charm and conversation. Their home together was decorated well; brightly lit and there was no spare wall that wasn’t fitted out for storage. Each shelf was packed, from the floor to the low ceiling: books, ornaments, spices, cooking utensils. He marveled at the peculiar order of it, which was a strange kind of medley of organization and space-saving. The living-room furniture seemed lower to the ground than usual furniture, giving their house the sense of being cozier for some reason. The whole place seemed to be a perfect reflection of the life they shared. Denis envied it a little, but understood that there was no way he could live with such chaos. The tea jar was bright red, but its coffee counterpart was green. It was hardly bearable. He guessed it wouldn’t be long before these two were married. For that matter, Ollie and Roisin were in a much similar boat. It made him feel somewhat lonely, so he made his mind refocus on something else. Domestic bliss was not making him feel wonderful.
In a quiet moment while Natasha and Rebecca talked shop, Frank motioned Denis to one side.
“I like seeing you like this, you know,” he said with a little half smile. “It’s not like the old days fully, I mean you’ve still got your shields up, but it’s a nice change.”
“I like who I am,” Denis told him. “You all keep wanting me to be something I’m not. And I don’t like that, but I have to admit, it’s been a nice evening.”
Frank marveled at him until he became uncomfortable.
“Now go away,” Denis told him, rejoining the ladies.
At the end of an enjoyable evening, Rebecca insisted they walk most of the way home. Fearing a return to the bad books he’d been in earlier, Denis acquiesced. For a while they didn’t speak, but walked in companionable silence. They were so close their shoulders were nearly touching. It was the first time in a very long time that Denis almost touched someone without panicking.
“Why did you break the plates?” she asked without warning.
He didn’t know how to answer that. His first impulse was to blame Plasterer, the actual culprit, but the words stuck in his mouth. She didn’t even know Plasterer was in the house. She’d think he was a lunatic. Then when they got home and saw him, she’d want to know why they were being kept a secret from her. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. She might leave, and even though that was the eventual aim of the plan, for some reason the thought of it made him feel sick to his stomach.
“I told you, I’m clumsy,” he eventually replied. His eyes were stinging with the effort of lying.
“It’s okay,” she whispered soothingly.
At home, Rebecca insisted that there was time for a movie before bed, and selected a horror film from the DVD collection. Denis found other people’s fascination with horror films unusual. They barely phased him while they were apparently revered as a genre for their ability to terrify the viewer. Why would anyone choose to terrify themselves? People just might be the weird ones after all. Rebecca jumped several times during the movie and then laughed at her own fear. When the movie was done and the good-nights were shared, Denis made his way to bed. It had been a long week and he was bone tired. Tired of trying to hold on to his way of life. Tired of being confused. Yet still he couldn’t sleep, so he lay staring at the ceiling. He was wondering if Rebecca was still awake when the answer tapped lightly on his door and crept in on silent feet.
“I can’t sleep,” she told him.
“Neither can I,” he admitted.
“I’m not going to touch you,” she assured him carefully, “but I am getting into your bed.”
His breath quickened, whether in alarm or excitement, he couldn’t tell. She was the only person with whom he had ever shared a bed. He hoped that he looked relaxed, but his heart was hammering in his chest. He knew it would be bad for him, bad for his housemates. He knew that no one would like this and he should object, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to feel what it would be like to have her fall asleep beside him again, just like old times. Even knowing that he wanted this felt like betraying his housemates, but he couldn’t fight her again. He wouldn’t fight her just for them.
He was so very, very tired of fighting her.
He nodded slightly at her. It was all the permission she needed.
She climbed in, the left-hand side as she always did before. Neither of them said anything, but Denis watched her curl up and her eyes droop slowly closed. Denis was watching her so carefully he didn’t notice Penny O’Neill arrive in the room.
She stood alongside his bed, her face a mask of fury, tail lashing from side to side.
He was so very tired of fighting everyone.
He returned her stare with impassive eyes. This was his bed. His room. If she didn’t like it, she could go back to hers, he thought to himself.
“Good night,” Rebecca murmured sleepily, without opening her eyes.
“Good night,” he whispered back, still staring at Penny O’Neill. She was trying to cow him, but he wouldn’t be beaten so easily. He eventually half shrugged and went back to looking at Rebecca. Her hair spilled over his pillow. Even in her sleeveless top and pajama bottoms she looked beyond beautiful, and he could feel something stir deep inside himself as he stared at her. Penny O’Neill turned on one heel and left. He didn’t even see her go.
CAN’T STAY HERE
Denis’s alarm rang three times in a display of consistency that seemed to be otherwise sadly lacking in his life. He was, he found, at the farthest point away from Rebecca that he could possibly be. She was, he found, in possession of most of the quilt. It was her way, he remembered.
“Morning,” she murmured sleepily.
“Good morning,” he said.
She smiled at him through half-closed eyes and rolled over to go back to sleep. There was a time when he was the one who rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. She’d elbow him in the back and tickle him until he either got up or fell out of the bed. Either way he’d end up laughing. Now, however, he simply stepped from the bed and commenced the morning rituals. Tasks needed completing, and he’d have to be in top form when she went to work. There was a sh
owdown with Penny O’Neill on the cards.
He embraced the new day with the vigor it now required, just as he had the previous Monday, with the determination that only Denis Murphy could muster. When one’s trousers must be the most well-pressed in the universe on a daily basis, one learns how to approach a task with a relentless drive that would give a jumbo jet pause. His cereal was measured to perfection. His shower took exactly ten minutes. His attire was immaculate and his tie was pristine.
He tried not to watch Rebecca prepare for her day, first because she was a thorough distraction in her nightwear. For some reason her pajama bottoms and top ensemble was alluring to him, even as one hand scratched her messy hair. The main reason was that she prepared for her day the way she lived it: chaotically. She brushed her teeth and hummed at the same time. She allowed water to drip from her hair and towel onto the rug of the hallway as she prepared a load of laundry for the washing machine. She ate her breakfast after she had cleaned her teeth. A flake of cereal escaped her bowl, and she picked it up and popped it in her mouth. Denis did his best to ignore it. When she was ready and about to head out the door for work, they had a moment. For just a second as she passed him, she stopped and moved to kiss him on the cheek; in that same second Denis departed from his own head and watched in horror as he leaned in to accept the kiss. The moment of absolute insanity passed in the blink of an eye as both of them realized what they were doing. Denis jumped about two feet from Rebecca as though she was threatening to stab him. She made a face that seemed to indicate that she realized the horror she had almost inflicted on him. She said a hurried goodbye and shot out the door. Denis got the alcoholic disinfectant and applied it to a facial scrub and rubbed it four times on each cheek just to be sure.
He went to his office, took his seat and swiveled to face the door. They’d be coming through at any minute, he surmised. He was not wrong.
Like a whirlwind they burst into the room, brooding, menacing. Plasterer was the front of the storm, with Penny O’Neill behind him, her face contorted in anger. Deano and Professor Scorpion flanked them.
“Good morning, kids,” he began.
“Whose side are you on exactly?” Plasterer hissed through clenched teeth. Denis knew that they had simply been waiting for her to leave before unloading on him, and that it would take a new type of tactic to contain them now.
“I’m on Denis’s side,” he replied. “Which should mean the same side as you, since you’re on my side too.”
Deano cocked his head and scratched it, confused. Professor Scorpion raised one hand as if to say something, then stopped. Penny O’Neill’s tail stopped lashing angrily.
“Oh very clever,” Plasterer told him contemptuously. “You can fool these idiots with that kind of talk, but not me. You let her sleep in your bed? You think this is going to get rid of her? I’m starting to think that I may have to take some drastic steps to bring you around here, Boss.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Denis snapped. “She stayed in my bed. So what? She’s not living in my house forever. I couldn’t stand the disorder, and you all know that, so calm yourselves. I didn’t have the energy to fight with her about it, and besides, the more I fight her, the more she fights back. That’s her way. Let me handle this. We’ve got a good plan. Let me see it through.”
Plasterer seemed to consider that.
“She took my spot,” Penny O’Neill complained, pouting.
“She borrowed it, that’s all. And I’ll wash the sheets, hell, I’ll even burn them if it makes you feel better, so you can have your spot back.”
Penny O’Neill began to purr. Professor Scorpion walked around so that he was now standing next to Denis, facing the others.
“This kind of insubordination doesn’t bear thinking about. It doesn’t bird thinking about. It doesn’t even fish thinking about. You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” he told them as if he hadn’t been standing next to them ten seconds beforehand.
“Fish thinking?” Denis asked.
“Fish thinking,” the Professor agreed, nodding his rotting head. “Would you have preferred panda thinking? That’s a variety of bear.”
“No, no. Fish thinking is fine.” Denis didn’t want to argue. He’d won an ally in the conversation and placated two others. Only Plasterer remained to be convinced.
“I’ll go along with you on this one, Boss, but I’m a little concerned,” he said finally. “I don’t think that this is what allies do to each other. This is our house, and she shouldn’t be able to move about so freely. It’s nearly been a week since she got here, and she’s getting more and more comfy. Next thing you know she’ll be bringing girlfriends over here, and they’ll be putting on makeup and leaving pink crap lying all over the place.”
“This is temporary,” Denis assured him. “She will not be here long so you needn’t worry, but if we push her out, she’ll push back, and we’ll be in a longer war than we need to be. Humor me.”
Plasterer grunted.
“Now, I’ve got to get some work done, so why don’t the four of you go make a giant mess somewhere.”
They duly obliged.
Clever. Very clever. If you’re careful, he won’t murder us. Or you won’t. Or whatever. You get what I’m saying.
For all of his talk, he knew it for the stopgap it was. There was no way that this could continue indefinitely. They would oppose her, and though she didn’t even know them, she would oppose them. Not openly, but in her way of living and her manner and her life. Her very existence opposed them; her selflessness versus their self-obsession, her openness and honesty versus their secretive seclusion. They wouldn’t mix, couldn’t mix. In Western parlance, this house wasn’t big enough for all of them.
And so Denis’s life pattern reestablished itself in a new form of order. Early in the day for work. An hour to clean up the mess his housemates made. Dinner and TV with Rebecca in the evening. Bedtime at night. Sometimes he would stare at his door for a little while after he’d turned out the light and wonder whether she was asleep, and whether she might come in and join him. She did not. Three sharp alarm calls later and he could repeat the new order all over again.
This comfortable period was not without its mishaps of course. When one lives with four housemates of the caliber that he lived with, there could be no such thing as an easy life. Plasterer had taken to leaving banana peels on the floor of the kitchen in a real life imitation of a computer game, hoping that she might trip on them. Rebecca had taken to laughing at the frequent banana peel appearances and thought it was a practical joke that Denis was playing. She periodically forgot that the Denis Murphy she once knew was not the same man as the Denis Murphy she had met on her return from her travels. Once upon a time, practical jokes were his bread and butter. Once upon a time.
Deano had taken a shine to the photograph of the two of them hanging in the kitchen and would often take it down and walk around the house holding it and staring at it. Distracted by the picture, he all too often missed the fact that the Professor was lying in his path and he’d trip over him. Things were getting broken about the house, and he was finding it hard to come up with excuses for why. He was sure she was beginning to think that while she was at work, he was walking around the house smashing things.
One afternoon she had come home for lunch, startling all of them. It was a break from the new established order, which was troubling enough, but it was also a very inopportune moment. Plasterer was standing in the middle of the office with a bucket of filthy water and the mop. The game they were playing seemed to have no more rules than “dodge the muddy water.” Denis was soaked in it.
“Hey, Denny,” she had called from the hallway. “I brought lunch.”
Plasterer had frozen on the spot, the mop dripping water on the floor. Penny O’Neill had slunk into a hiding spot behind the door. Professor Scorpion put on his “hiding face” and picked up a book. Deano div
ed under the desk.
“I’m a bookcase,” the Professor whispered as Denis made his way to the door to peek out.
Rebecca walked through the kitchen and into the utility room without looking in his direction. He dodged out of the room and locked the office door, then bolted for the stairs.
“You there?” she called.
“Yeah. I spilled ink on my shirt and trousers so I’m just changing. I’ll be down in a minute,” he called from the stairs as he removed his trousers.
“You spilled ink on yourself? What a disaster. I’ll get the yellow pages and look up a counseling service.”
“Smart-ass,” he called back, chuckling.
Disaster had been averted, but only barely. Denis reminded himself that he’d have to have another word with her about upsetting the daily schedule. That day had been a particularly good day for Denis. With the door to the office locked, his housemates had no way of playing ridiculous pranks or poking their heads out from doors where they shouldn’t be, and so he had sat in some comfort with her while they ate.
“It’s just that you always do dinner, so I thought I’d take care of lunch for a change,” she told him proudly. Rebecca Lynch had many strengths. She was intelligent, caring, funny. She had a sharp insightful mind. Notably, cooking was not one of those strengths. Denis had always been the chef in their relationship.
“It’s lovely,” Denis told her, around a mouthful of couscous and meatballs. “Who made it?”
“Ha ha. Now who’s the smart-ass?” she asked, feigning offense. “I picked it up in town. There’s a neat pop-up café not far from my office. New Dad recommended it.”