by Helen Cullen
He clenched his fist as she extracted the sting from the back of his ear with the tweezers, washing the wound with water from her thermos. It trickled down the collar of his shirt, but she stemmed the flow with her hand. Every nerve in his body was focused on the tiny intersection between the burning skin of his ear and the cool touch of her fingertips. He heard her twisting a cap loose, her silver bangles shaking, and felt the press of a handkerchief to his ear. “What can I smell? What is that?” His eyes squeezed tightly against the sting.
“Chamomile,” she replied. “I carry all sorts with me. My grandma is a naturopath and has taught me a lot. Not for nuttin’ but I’m not a big fan of modern medicine.”
Murtagh sensed a story but was too wobbly to pursue it; he would have happily lain there all day listening to her American drawl. It was like being inside a movie; a feeling entirely unfamiliar but utterly seductive.
With a little push from Maeve he sat up, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.
“Well, I guess I’ll say goodbye, then, and go crawl under a rock somewhere and die of embarrassment,” he said. “I’m so sorry for the trouble.”
She stood up, laughing, and held out her hand to help him up in turn.
“I’ve seen worse. Trust me. Let’s go find coffee and a doughnut. Maybe you can keep me company while I wait.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, still holding on to her. “I’m not convinced that I have the powers to redeem myself.”
“I think I’m sure,” she answered, still holding his hand. “That’s as good as you get with me, I’m afraid. I’m Maeve, by the way. Maeve Morelli.”
“Murtagh Moone. Moone with an E.”
* * *
Murtagh carried her rucksack on his back and Maeve crisscrossed her body with his satchel, resting her hand on it as they walked to Ma Reilly’s, the ramshackle café at the back of Finnegans Wake bookshop. “No apostrophe,” she said. “Good work.” Only three tables clustered together constituted their dining emporium: one pine, one oak, one teak. The seats, red upholstered dining-room chairs with gold lacquered legs, had been salvaged from a clear-out of the Shannon Hotel. Dusty secondhand paperbacks lined the wall of bookshelves behind them and lay abandoned on the bare tabletops. A teenage boy, red hair cut tight to kill the curl, swimming in a creased yellow shirt several sizes too big for him, lumbered over to take their order. His hand shook a little as he rested the nib of a plastic Biro against a spiral notepad; two kissing giraffes, necks entwined, graced the cover.
“So, tell a girl. What coffees have you got?” Maeve asked him, arching her brow.
His eyes widened. “Er, Nescafé? You can have it with milk or no milk? Or sugar?”
“Ness-caffay? What is that? French?”
Murtagh leaned across the table and touched her sleeve. “It’s instant. You’ll hate it, but it’s the best you’ll get.”
She wrinkled her nose but smiled at the waiter. Murtagh was transfixed by the whiteness of her teeth. Like someone on the telly. “Two instants, then, please, sir,” she said but Murtagh interrupted. “I’ll just have a tea, thanks.”
She looked at him in horror. “You don’t drink coffee?”
He shook his head. “Too bitter for me.”
Murtagh stirred three spoons of sugar into a floral china teacup that looked much too delicate in his strong hands. When he poured from the teapot, the lid slipped and hot brew splashed across the table. He pushed a pile of Flann O’Brien novels out of the way and stood up to brush the scalding tea from his lap. Maeve snatched a tea towel from the rear pocket of the waiter’s jeans as he passed and mopped up the mess without pausing the flow of her story. “So, I won the scholarship, and I’m here representing my theater class for the summer at the Trinity Drama School. Eleven weeks. Six plays. And, first up, I’m doing a scene as Desdemona. Can you see it? Me as Desdemona?” Murtagh could, and nodded in fervent agreement. “What about you?” she asked, sipping her coffee with a tight grimace. Murtagh pined for another wrinkle of her nose.
“I’m at NCAD, studying ceramics. I want to be a potter, some day.”
“NCAD?”
“National College of Art and Design. It’s on Francis Street, near the Liberties.”
“Francis Street. That’s where I found the paint for my shoes! It looks like a fun part of town. A potter. I like that. It’s soulful. Meditative.”
“Hang on,” he said, feeling the tightness in his chest relax a little. “What do you mean, paint for your shoes?”
She laughed and stretched out one leg to rest her foot on the table beside them, her dungarees sliding upward to expose more of her leg; the waiter dropped a tray and Murtagh smiled at him.
“Do you like?” she asked. “I did them myself.”
“I do,” he answered as he lifted his foot up to sit beside hers. “Maybe you can do mine.”
A dusty Chelsea boot and a tomato-red platform shoe kissed.
And that was that.
* * *
At five minutes to four o’clock, the waiter began hovering around Murtagh and Maeve, shoving discarded paperback books haphazardly onto the shelves, half-heartedly spritzing the tables with furniture polish and dragging a dirty dishcloth across them. “Is it closing time?” Murtagh asked, checking his bare wrist for a digital watch that lay on the windowsill of his college practice studio. He could picture it there, its neon-green numbers flashing in the emptiness, beside the half-eaten Granny Smith apple he’d also put down in order to scrub his hands of clay.
The waiter nodded. “The boss does his Tarot reading here on Monday evenings, and it doesn’t work with other customers in, ’cause they’re always earwigging.”
Maeve perked up. “Tarot reading? Well, who can blame them? Is he any good?”
The waiter looked over his shoulder as if expecting his boss to appear. “I’d save your money, miss. I’ve heard him say the same thing more than once, if you know what I mean. He calls himself Marcello Pollo, but his real name is Marky Platt. Says it all, eh?”
Maeve laughed. “Still, might be good fun. I wouldn’t mind knowing what Dublin has in store for me. We’ll clear out—give me a minute while I pop to the powder room.”
While she stepped away, Murtagh settled the bill and carried her rucksack outside to wait for her. He added an interest in the occult to the list of interesting things he’d learned about her over the course of the afternoon, and counted them on his fingers:
How when she was anxious she liked to lie on the grass and feel the earth beneath her.
That she loved listening to opera, Carmen in particular, but had never been.
That she distrusted vegetarians and thought the choice an affectation boring people adopted to give them something to talk about. He couldn’t wait to hear what his best friend, Jeremy, a vegetarian since primary school, had to say about that.
That she’d never owned Wellington boots but coveted a pair, preferably red, with a tartan lining.
How she hated the smell of lilies because they reminded her of funerals, and the sight of any flowers at all wrapped in cellophane because it looked as if they were choking.
That she liked writing poems in pencil because the mistakes were impermanent that way.
How sometimes she had trouble sleeping but lavender on her pillow helped.
The pieces of the Maeve puzzle were intriguing and unnerving in equal measure. He felt so gray in the shadow of her Technicolor. If he were to hold her interest, he knew he would have to shake off the ennui that so often dogged him, that he’d need to achieve more than just getting by. Mediocrity would not the heart of Maeve Morelli win.
* * *
While Murtagh’s fingers moved in acknowledgment of each revelation, Maeve stood in front of the mirror in Ma Reilly’s toilet cubicle and splashed cold water on her face. The towel draped over the basin was soggy, so she dabb
ed her skin dry with a clutch of toilet paper and tossed it into the overflowing wicker basket by her feet. She paused, deciding if it was sensible to encourage this Irishman to walk her home. Surely she could spend twenty-four hours in the city without meeting a man already. Wouldn’t it do her good to be on her own for a while? She smoothed the velvet of her dungarees with the palms of her hands and hoisted up her stockings. Loved the smack of elastic against her skin when she released the band. Snapped it once, twice, three times. A future version of herself might be strong enough to walk away, but Maeve recognized she hadn’t become that woman yet. She frowned, wondering for a moment if she would ever become that person if she remained afraid to be alone with herself. “Stop it, Maeve,” she whispered to her reflection, and pinched some color into her cheeks. Instead of seeking out excuses to run, she threaded the little beads of knowledge she’d collected about Murtagh together and wore them like a talisman around her throat. Unbuttoning a purple moleskin notebook from her pocket, she extracted a little red pencil from its spine and rolled it between her fingers before writing:
Dear Diary,
I don’t have much time but, before I forget, or sense robs me of them, here are the reasons why I cannot let this man disappear:
First of all, he’s a potter! That’s like being a poet with your hands. And his hands, well, they look like poetry, but secondly, he never makes pots when he’s out of sorts because he thinks the toxic energy spoils the clay.
He collects old recipe books and loves cooking for others but never for just himself.
He’s an only child, like me, but has never minded it, unlike me.
Two different-colored ink stains on his shirt pocket from leaking pens—didn’t learn his lesson the first time. He needs some looking after! It would be nice to be the one doing the looking after for a change.
Writes to his mother every Sunday without ever telling her anything about his real life; just pretends to be the son she wanted—his “specialist subject.”
Hasn’t talked about his father yet, other than to say he is still alive, an Irish teacher and captain of the county hurling team. Not a fan of hurling but does love taking black-and-white photos of the matches. “Ballerinas in another life,” he said. “So swift and graceful were the players.”
In his company, I feel my edges soften. Maybe I could stop bumping into my own sharp corners if I spent more time with him.
Those hands, have I mentioned the hands?
The lead snapped on her pencil. She cursed. Dropped it back into her bag with the notebook. At least she couldn’t pretend later she hadn’t thought it through. It was written down, even if only in pencil.
* * *
In the short time they had been apart, long distances were traveled. And so, when Maeve looped her arm in Murtagh’s, the satchel he had almost forgotten draped over her shoulder, it felt entirely natural. It was only a few minutes’ walk back to Trinity College, but they dawdled along Grafton Street to postpone the ending of the afternoon.
“I’m so excited to finally be here,” Maeve said. “Ma used to sing that song to me all the time, you know the one. ‘Grafton Street’s a wonderland, there’s magic in the air. There’s diamonds in the lady’s eyes and gold-dust in her hair.’”
She looked at him expectantly and, despite himself, he shyly joined in.
“‘And if you don’t believe me, then come and meet me there. In Dublin on a sunny Sunday morning.’”
She put her hands on his shoulders and stood before him. “You do know it,” she said. “Ma would be beside herself to see this.” The sudden thought of her mother so far across the Atlantic Ocean tripped her up, and she withered like a kite when the wind unexpectedly drops.
“Would you like to call her?” Murtagh asked. “There’s a telephone in my flat you can use.”
She squeezed his arm. “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind? I’ll pay you back.” He waved the suggestion away, suppressing a niggling fear of how expensive a transatlantic call might be.
“How about I check in, we go to yours to make the call, and then I’ll treat us to a beer somewhere?” Maeve held out her hand to Murtagh, and they shook on it.
* * *
Murtagh couldn’t know that Maeve’s mother, June, was pacing her Brooklyn hallway, willing the telephone to ring, her father repeatedly moaning that they should have never let her go.
He had no idea just how far Maeve had really come when she crossed the ocean to make peace with herself in Dublin.
Or how temporary that calm might be.
Not that he would have cared.
In that moment, he couldn’t have contemplated any reason not to initiate an immediate surrender to this woman who fizzed beside him; it was as if his heart had been patiently waiting for her to arrive, and the hesitation he’d felt before about other girls was now entirely justified. As if he had unwittingly been training for Maeve’s arrival for years. He pledged to do all he could to hold her interest, as tightly as she held his hand.
And as she held it, Maeve loved the solid way he moved through the world in that scratchy duffel coat, the kind she’d only known small boys to wear in the past, but which suited him so perfectly. Her feet had never been more grounded and yet felt so light.
Those heavy boots were left back in America, she was sure of it.
So, in the doorway of Brown Thomas on Grafton Street, a deal was done.
Dublin: August 18, 1978
MAEVE’S MOTHER AND father were expecting to greet her at JFK in two weeks’ time. It choked her up to think of Hank wearing a suit for the occasion, his silver cufflinks winking at him as he drove his gleaming white Oldsmobile Cutlass to the airport, turning the steering wheel with his hands fixed in the ten and two o’clock positions; to imagine how June would have spent the morning readying her old room, baking the cheese scones Maeve loved, as she sang along with Roy Orbison playing on the tiny yellow record player that she treasured.
If she posted the letter today, it would hopefully arrive before her mother called Murtagh’s flat on Sunday week for their fortnightly appointment—June thought her daughter stopped in for tea on Sundays after she and Murtagh had taken Mass together. Or at least she pretended to think that, and Maeve didn’t spoil things by ever confessing the truth.
* * *
Maeve sat at her desk and tore a sheet of pale blue notepaper from the pad her mother had optimistically sent, and rested it on top of The Country Girls; she hated when words were imprinted on the pages underneath. In her left hand, she held the fountain pen her father had gifted her at graduation; in the right, a pure white pebble in the shape of a triangle that Murtagh had found for her on the strand in Bray. The record player whirred softly, having reached the end of Live and Dangerous, but she didn’t switch it over. Instead, she closed her eyes and listened to the satisfying thwack of a tennis ball against the strings of a competently yielded racquet in the courtyard below her, the hateful flapping of two pigeons arguing on her windowsill, the muffled vacuum cleaner from Dorothy in the flat above. She was waiting until she knew how to begin, but as is so often the case, it was only when she began to write that the best way to express how she felt was revealed. Slowly the words came.
August 18, 1978
Trinity College, Dublin
Dear Ma, Dear Pa,
As always, I hope that the pair of you are healthy and happy as you open my letter. You’ll be pleased to hear that I am healthy as I write it and will be happy when I’m done.
Ma, I can picture you sitting straight as a ruler on the living-room sofa reading this aloud to Pa like a radio announcer; Pa, I can see you in your armchair, a saucer resting on the armrest with two vanilla biscuits poised for dipping in your cocoa. I know how you both love to receive these letters, and that’s why I have waited so long before writing this one, for I hate to spoil it for you with news I know you don’t want to hear.
>
Maeve paused and looked around her disheveled room. Before any more writing could be done, she drank a pint of elderflower cordial over the sink and dipped her flushed face under the cool running water. It still shocked her that there was no air-conditioning in Ireland. “Not worth it for the few sunny days,” Murtagh had said as he fanned her with a copy of Hot Press magazine with Rory Gallagher on the cover, his face floating in and out of her vision as she ate banana ice cream straight from the tub.
A little cooler, she crouched on the floor and began cutting encrusted lumps of candle wax from the carpet with nail scissors. Why hadn’t she listened to Murtagh and cleaned it up immediately when it happened? Because it would have meant turning the lights on, that’s why. It would have meant the end of their dancing, the rinsing out of glasses, sobering up, when she’d really wanted him to stay. Despite her nerves; in part, because of his.
She reached over her head and felt around the unmade bed for the strap of her blue leather handbag; the mirrors that were glued all over it caught the hot, white afternoon sun and reflected miniature rainbows around the room as she pulled it toward her. It spilled its contents into her lap, and she riffled through the debris: a blunt kohl eyeliner, honey-and-lemon cough sweets; a mix-tape from Murtagh he’d named “Sounds of the Summer”; two ticket stubs from the Stella Cinema for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; and the journal she’d started on the flight from JFK. Only a couple of blank pages remained.
She opened it at a random date from a few months previously:
May 8
The boxes arrived!
Finally!
I had begun to nurse a creeping paranoia that they were lost in transit and that I’d never forgive myself for risking my most beloved worldly possessions to the international postal system. My records are all here now, and I love Ma so much for indulging me in sending them over, even if it’s only for a few months. I kissed the covers like old friends, as if they were ghosts from past lives come back to haunt me.