The Importance of Being Aisling

by Emer McLysaght

  Niamh interjects with a laugh. ‘The budget didn’t stretch to the Ard Rí then?’

  ‘Trying to keep overheads low on this one,’ James replies, smiling. Mad for the smiling, he is.

  ‘Lads, I have to go,’ I call behind me as I turn and head for the bathrooms and Majella. She’s at the sinks, lavishly applying what I think is supposed to be one of those nude lipsticks but looks more like purple against our Irish skin. Pablo is wearing a fair whack of it across his face as well. Her sombrero is lying limply beside her. ‘Dropped it in the jacks.’ She gestures at it as I approach her.

  ‘Piotr and John are out there. Talking. To each other.’

  ‘Aisling.’ She sighs, smiling sympathetically at me. ‘You’re getting het up about nothing. These things happen. John doesn’t know. Piotr isn’t about to tell him. Everything is going to be fine.’ She folds her arms drunkenly around me. Usually it’s me doling out the sensible advice but now here’s Maj, still dropping things in the toilet but at least she’s graduated from phones to hats, in a stable relationship, talking me down off a cliff.

  ‘I just feel so bad,’ I mumble into her shoulder. ‘And …’ I think about telling her about the funny feelings Piotr gives me, but I trail off. I haven’t felt that funny feeling with John for a while now, but I don’t know if I can say it out loud.

  Majella starts up again, moving towards the door as I follow her. ‘Look, you and John were broken up. Sure, he was with that girl Ciara.’ This was true. John did have kind of a thing with a camogie-playing vixen we met on holidays, but it was short lived, and sure I had dumped him. Maj continues, pulling the door towards her, ‘And anyway, Piotr’s a ride and he fancied you. Why wouldn’t you shift him?’

  She turns into the little hallway and stops dead. ‘John.’

  My heart drops to my feet. I push into Majella’s back to move her further into the hallway and step out, looking up into John’s eyes, which are already narrowing. Behind him, Sadhbh pushes into the hallway from the function room, exclaiming, ‘Oh, hi, guys, here’s where you all are …’ She trails off, Majella shaking her head furiously at her.

  John goes to speak and then closes his mouth again. Majella has a go. ‘John, I …’ but he interrupts.

  ‘Who shifted Piotr, Majella?’ His voice is shaky but cold. He turns his gaze back to me. Sadhbh looks down at the floor and mouths, ‘Fuuuck.’

  There’s silence for … how long? Ten seconds? Ten hours?

  ‘Did you shift Piotr, Aisling?’

  My breath catches in my throat. You can see him working things out. You can see him wondering how and when it happened. You can see him realising why Piotr moved out. I bite my lip. ‘Yes but let me–’

  ‘When was it, Ais?’ His eyes are blazing. ‘Was it recently? When was it?’

  ‘No! No!’ I cry. ‘It was ages ago. We were broken up. It was ages ago. It was nothing!’

  John gives me a look I’ve never seen before, his eyes blazing, before turning on his heel and pushing out past Sadhbh. We three look at each other for a moment before Sadhbh and Majella scarper after him, Majella gasping, ‘Jesus, what’s he going to do?’ I’m hot on their tails.

  John is shoving his way through to the bar, his head snapping left and right. Who’s he looking for? Not Piotr, surely? He pushes past Titch Maguire, who’s topless and leaning against a pillar swaying, barely holding on to his lethal margarita. John comes up behind a group of lads: Cillian, Baby Chief and – I strain my neck to see who else – Piotr. He stands there for a second, seething. Majella rears up behind him, pulling on his sleeve. ‘John, John. Leave it.’ He shakes her off and makes to step into the circle. I reach him just as he raises his hands to push Piotr. I grab his arm, pulling him as roughly as I can out of the circle towards me.

  ‘John. What are you at?’ I never thought I’d see him going for someone like that. On the field he’s rough, of course, they all are. But he’s not a fighter.

  John is shaking his head in disbelief. In my peripheral vision I can see them staring at us, Cillian and Baby Chief and Piotr. Sadhbh steps up to me and says gently, ‘Maybe you should go outside and talk?’

  ‘No!’ John hisses. OhJesusOhJesusOhJesusOhJesus. How is this happening?

  ‘John,’ I plead, grabbing onto his arm. ‘It was nothing. I was just upset over Daddy and it was just for a second and nothing else happened–’

  He pulls away and goes to walk off but turns back and looks me dead in the face. There are tears glistening in his eyes, but he curls his lip into a snarl and shouts, ‘Doesn’t make you any less of a slu–’

  Majella gasps and lunges for John before he can finish, and at the same time Piotr makes the same move, leaping towards John with his arms outstretched. Both of them look like they might kill him. Majella and Piotr collide, though, knocking John out of the way in the process. He lands on the floor and Majella jumps half on top of him and immediately begins pummelling him, stone mad on the toxic drinks. Nobody knows what to do and I make feeble attempts to pull her off him. She’s not landing a single blow, and of course John makes no move to hit her back.

  Piotr, meanwhile, has landed awkwardly, banging his arm off the edge of a chair. He’s rolling around and groaning, but the assembled crowd is far too suspicious of this blow-in to ask him if he’s OK. I shout at Majella to get up, but it’s not until Pablo sashays over to help her that John’s face is revealed. He catches my eye with such a look of hatred as he clambers to his feet that the hot tears spill over onto my cheeks. There’s no sign of Mammy and I can only hope that she and Auntie Sheila are already safely on the way home with Terry Crowley. I’d hate for her to have seen this display.

  Liam Kelly wobbles over towards us, completely oblivious, with his tie around his head and singing along to J.Lo. ‘Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got, I’m still, I’m still Liam from Knock.’ He stops suddenly and looks from me to John to Piotr, who’s still lying on the ground, grimacing, with Sadhbh now kneeling by his side. ‘Jesus, lads, what am I after missing?’

  Chapter 17

  When I wake up the following morning I have a merciful few seconds before my brain fully engages. I lie there in my bedroom, sniffing the air, hoping for a hint of sausage, and then it hits me. The party. Piotr. John’s face, scrunched up in disgust. I’ve never seen him look at anyone like that before, and definitely not me. He called me a slut – well, almost called me a slut – in front of everyone. Niamh from Across the Road was there. Even Natasia from bloody Chernobyl was there! The shame starts to seep up through my body from my toes, quickly replaced by panic about John. Is he okay? Did he get home alright? What will his parents say? I remember the tears glistening in his eyes and my heart breaks a little. What am I going to do?

  Majella. Majella Mouth Almighty Moran. Can she ever keep her trap shut? I know it was an accident but I can’t believe it. And what was Piotr doing there anyway? He and Cillian were never that pally. What a bloody mess.

  After the ruckus, Liam and a few of the Rangers pulled John up off the floor and bundled him out into the night. The party was well over then and that was the last I saw of him. Someone – I’m not sure who – whisked Piotr away. I tried ringing John when Sadhbh went to gather up my coat and good pashmina but there was no answer. The second time it went straight to voicemail.

  We sat in the bright lights of the Mountrath lobby for an hour before Terry Crowley was able to squeeze myself, Sadhbh, Majella and Pablo in on a run back from the Ard Rí. Terry already had four hens from Dublin on board dressed as the Spice Girls. Scary Spice had her sights firmly set on Pablo in the back seat, but Maj was having none of it, throwing her leg over him territorially even though she was half-asleep.

  There’s a soft knock on my door.

  ‘Ais?’ Sadhbh has managed to scramble free from the nest of cushions, pillows and throws Mammy erected for her in the spare room. She pads across and slips into the bed beside me, resting her head on my shoulder and whispering, ‘Are you alright?’ Of course I s
tart bawling. What else is there to do?

  ‘How can I make him understand it was nothing?’ I wail. It was nothing, wasn’t it? Although what I felt when I saw Piotr last night wasn’t exactly nothing. It was something. It was something I’ve felt about him before. I push it down. No. I need to fix things with John, or talk to him at least.

  ‘We’ll sort it out, Ais, I promise,’ Sadhbh says, rubbing my hair. ‘Honestly, John was so pissed he probably doesn’t even remember it.’

  ‘He was drunk, not dead. I think he’ll remember,’ I say soberly, taking a tissue out of my pyjama sleeve and blowing my nose. ‘What the feck was in those margaritas, though? Everyone was in bits.’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s nearly nine o’clock and there’s no sign of your mam.’

  That’s highly unusual alright. She’d normally have the hoover going by now. My phone buzzes on the bedside locker.

  ‘Ne word frm John? I’m so sorry crying emoji.’ It’s Majella, of course.

  ‘Nothing,’ I reply. I can’t muster any more than that.

  The phone goes again but this time it’s a text from a number I don’t recognise.

  ‘Hi Aisling it’s Piotr. Cillian gave me ur number.’

  Speak of the devil.

  Sadhbh, obviously copping the look on my face, grabs the phone. ‘Oh my god, he has some cheek,’ she shrieks, holding it just out of my reach. ‘He ruined everyone’s night and now he’s texting you? And no apology? This guy’s a troublemaker.’ She pauses for thought. ‘He’s very hot, though,’ she adds quietly, and then her face turns even more serious. ‘Like, he’s ridiculously ridey. How come you never said?’

  ‘Because I have a boyfriend!’ My face crumples.

  Sadhbh comes closer, putting her arm around my shoulders. ‘Don’t fret too much about last night. You can explain everything to John. You’ll work it out.’

  ‘It’s not even about last night. It’s … it’s me and John. It’s just not the same.’ I’m sobbing now.

  ‘It happens, Ais,’ Sadhbh says gently, after a pause. ‘It’s exciting and lovely to get back together and feel more in love than ever, but a lot of the time it doesn’t last.’

  She’s so wise. She just knows.

  ‘I think seeing Piotr just made me realise, maybe. That there are people besides John. That I should be feeling a certain way about John.’ Mammy always says there’s a lid for every pot, and I thought John was my lid. Maybe he just doesn’t fit anymore.

  My phone vibrates again beside Sadhbh’s knee and she picks it up and hands it to me.

  ‘It’s him again, is it?’

  It’s another message from Piotr.

  ‘In General Hospital for X-ray. Big queue. My turn soon. Any chance a lift?’

  I gasp. ‘He hasn’t left yet. He’s in the General getting an X-ray.’ He did go over very hard on the elbow, to be fair. ‘He’s after a lift.’

  ‘The chancer!’ Sadhbh gasps, although I immediately feel guilty as sin. It’s my fault he’s in the General. And he spent the night there? They don’t even have a canteen past seven o’clock.

  ‘Oh Jesus, I feel awful, Sadhbh. How is he going to get back to the Mountrath? He knows nobody.’

  ‘You’re too nice for your own good, Aisling. Look, why don’t you go and give him his lift and make it clear to him that he’s to leave you alone?’

  She’s right – I need to take action and send Piotr firmly on his way. That will get me back in John’s good books and make me feel useful and productive. Besides, he’ll need a few sandwiches. He must be about to eat his own fist. I hop out of bed and start pulling my trusty O’Neill’s up over my pyjamas and reaching for my fleece. I take up my phone and try John’s number one more time. Straight to voicemail. I look at Sadhbh and shrug.

  ‘Will I come with you?’ She yawns.

  I shake my head no.

  ‘Okay. Good luck with Piotr. I’m going back to bed.’

  ****

  I haven’t been in a hospital since Daddy but as soon as the familiar smell hits my nostrils it’s like I never left. All those days driving him in and out to appointments and then the waiting, the endless waiting and lukewarm cups of tea in Styrofoam cups, when he started going downhill. The place fills me with dread.

  Still, I can’t leave Piotr alone here. Being from Poland, he might not understand the waiting-room politics. Who knows what it’s like over there – they might have one of those fancy systems where you take a number from a machine. It’s not like that in the General, and we all know queuing can be stressful at the best of times.

  I squeak my way along the shiny lino until I get to A & E. He wasn’t lying – the place is jammers, even for a Sunday morning, and I see a few familiar faces from last night, although I’m delighted to see Cillian isn’t among them with a broken spine. Mad Tom is snoring loudly in a corner with his head against a vending machine and his foot wedged into a traffic cone. I wouldn’t be surprised if Auntie Sheila was somehow behind it. She can be quite vengeful and I know she’d have access to cones through Mammy’s Tidy Towns connections.

  I tip down the corridor until I get to the X-ray department, which is one room with six unoccupied chairs outside it. The door is open and there’s no sign of anyone around. I’m about to turn on my heel when someone taps me on the shoulder. I’m expecting it to be one of the patients looking for some toast or new batteries for their remote – I can’t step into a hospital without being mistaken for a nurse, and I usually just do my best to get what they need – but it’s him. It’s Piotr. His left arm is in a sling and he’s topless.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ he says, wincing as he leans forward to hug me with his remaining good arm.

  ‘I wanted to make sure you were alright,’ I stammer. ‘And, and to see why you came to the party. To see why you came here. After what happened between …’ I gesture in the air between the two of us. This isn’t really how I’d rehearsed it in the car. Piotr’s face softens and I quickly add, ‘How’s the arm? Here.’ I brandish a sad, prepacked sandwich from Filan’s Garage at him. Egg and onion. Definitely the worst sandwich – not even a hint of meat – but better than nothing all the same.

  ‘So good, Aisling, like always,’ he says with a grin, sitting down in the empty corridor and tearing off the cellophane as best he can. The poor fella is obviously starving and I must admit I’m vindicated by his hunger. I take the seat opposite him and do my best not to notice his biceps bulging and how his abs ripple slightly as he horses into the sandwich. He’s built like a Happy Pear twin but without all the 6 a.m. headstands and jumping into the sea. Although maybe that is the kind of thing he’s into? I don’t know Piotr well at all.

  ‘Is it broken?’ I ask, gesturing at the arm.

  ‘A hairline fracture.’

  Well, that’s something, I suppose. I had visions of John or Majella being done for grievous bodily harm, but sure a hairline fracture never hurt anyone. I got enough of them lepping off hay bales back in the day. I take a deep breath and swallow.

  ‘Piotr, why are you here? Why did you come to Ballygobbard?’

  ‘Cillian’s party.’ He shrugs lopsidedly. ‘He sent the invitation weeks ago, you know. It had a Chihuahua wearing a sombrero on it. How could I say no?’

  ‘Is that really it? You wanted to see Cillian?’

  He pushes the end of the sandwich into his mouth and looks at me studiously while he chews and rolls the cellophane into a ball. After he swallows he says, ‘And you. I wanted to see you.’

  ‘But why?’ I practically shriek. ‘What happened between us that time shouldn’t have happened. I’m … I’m with John.’

  ‘John who called you names in front of all your friends last night? Yeah, real nice guy John.’

  The memory hits me like a slap in the face. Majella trying to stop him and Piotr … going for him. Piotr defending my honour like a prince in all those fairy tales I was force-fed growing up. When I was younger it was my dream to have two lads fighting over m
e – you know, like Hugh Grant and Colin Firth in Bridget Jones’s Diary. Well, the reality wasn’t a bit romantic, and now John hates me and Piotr’s elbow is in shite. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  ‘Everything was going fine until you–’

  ‘Until I arrived? Was it really fine, though, or are you telling yourself that? He found out about our, what do you call it, shaft? And he went crazy!’

  ‘Shift!’ I hiss, looking around surreptitiously to see if anyone heard him, my voice bouncing off the bare walls and down the corridor. ‘Not shaft! Jesus! It was just a kiss. I don’t know why he reacted like that. He was pissed. The drinks were lethal.’ But with each protest I make I realise more and more that John suspects the same thing I do. We’re in trouble. And the Piotr revelation pushed him over the edge.

  ‘Piotr, you’re lovely. You have lovely …’ my eyes wander over his chest and down his strong arms, ‘… eyes. And you’ve been kind to me. But I’ll drop you back to your car and then we’ll leave it at that, okay? You were supposed to stay at the Mountrath, were you?’

  Ah God. He looks crestfallen.

  ‘Yes,’ he says sadly. ‘Your friend Tom drove us here last night. He had a traffic cone on one foot. I had to help with the pedals.’

  Mother of God, he’s lucky to be alive. Mad Tom was full as a bingo bus. ‘Right, I’ll drop you back so, although,’ I check my watch, ‘the breakfast finishes at eleven so you’ll definitely have missed that – sorry for your troubles. Do you have … everything?’ I point at his bare chest, his sallow skin glowing under the fluorescent lights. I’m worried the other male patients will feel inadequate if he parades out through the waiting room like that.

  ‘My T-shirt, the doctor, she had to tear it off for the X-ray,’ he goes. I’ll bet she did. ‘I have another in the hotel so it’s okay.’

  He still looks sad and I wonder for a split second am I being completely mad. What if Piotr is–?

  He interrupts me. ‘I’m sorry, Aisling. I believed you and John were no more. I really did. I came to the party to see you, yes. But I never meant to make you angry. We are friends?’