Stir-Fry

  “That’s the Pat in the women’s group?”

  “You’re catching on.”

  “Don’t mock me,” said Maria. “I understand enough.”

  “I doubt that.” Jael was practically spitting. “You stand there with your mouth all pursed up in disapproval of something you know fuck-all about.”

  “I just don’t see why anyone would do a thing like that,” said Maria wearily.

  “What, a one-night stand? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. But then, maybe you’re so sexless you wouldn’t understand.”

  The front door was kicked open; Ruth stepped through the curtain with a bale of turf briquettes and two brown-paper bags of groceries. When she saw Maria she stopped short, put everything down carefully and came over to give her a hug. “Good to see you, pariah.” They leaned into each other.

  Jael swung out the door, muttering something about the afternoon post.

  When she heard the footsteps clatter down the stairs, Maria gave Ruth a wan smile. “I’m only here to pack my bags, I thought you’d both be out.”

  “Glad you’re here.”

  Maria was disconcerted to feel tears behind her eyes. She picked up a bag of groceries to put away. After the baked beans and the orange juice, she was in control of her voice again. “Thanks for the letter; I didn’t expect you to waste a stamp on me.”

  “Hey, don’t start being soppy yet, we’ll have enough of that at midnight.”

  “But I’m going clubbing with Yvonne.”

  “You’re not!” Ruth giggled under her breath as she piled the fruit bowl high. “The social butterfly has got you in her clutches at last.” Then, peering into the depths of the fridge, “You wouldn’t consider staying with us tonight? You could ring Yvonne and explain.”

  Explain what, exactly? Playing for time, Maria straightened up the soup tins. “If you really wanted,” she said at last.

  “It doesn’t matter what I want,” said Ruth, folding the brown-paper bag and putting it in a drawer. She looked up and caught Maria rolling her eyes. “Sorry, did that sound rather masochistic?”

  “Very.”

  “What I mean is, what I want depends on what you want. I think I need to ask now: Do you want to stay?”

  Maria’s hands went on picking spilled grapes out of the bottom of the bag. “What, here?” Surprised to find she knew the answer, she said in a rush, “I’d love to. If it were possible. If there were … room.”

  She could not read the expression in Ruth’s brown eyes: amusement or disappointment or perhaps irony. The blurred look of a heavy sleeper when shaken awake on a winter morning. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of room.”

  And the key rattled in the front door.

  Over dinner, Maria recounted all the comic anecdotes she could wring out of her family Christmas. She even made up a few, in desperation; well, it would have been funny if that small cousin had thrown up all over her father’s new cardigan.

  Theirs had been quiet.

  “Ruth spent Christmas Day with Mumsie,” began Jael, “leaving me to douse my pudding in whisky all on my ownio. However, she did return to my bosom on Saint Stephen’s Day, bearing a vegetarian ‘turkey roll’ that had all the texture and taste of an Aran jumper.”

  Ruth protested. “You stuffed your face with two thirds of the bloody thing.”

  “I did not,” Jael informed her. “I chopped it into the sink-tidy while you were in the toilet.”

  Maria sneaked a glance at her watch; a quarter to ten. At this rate they’d never make it to midnight on speaking terms. “Listen, lads, I came up to go clubbing, so why don’t we?”

  Yvonne’s number was engaged. “You can call her from a phone box on the way,” said Jael brightly; she seemed determined to set off before Ruth could state any objection. In ten minutes they were dolled up and heading down the stairs.

  “Where had you in mind?” asked Ruth, buttoning the cuff of her jacket as they halted at the bus stop.

  Jael furrowed her forehead in concentration for a minute, then said, “What about, what was it called, ZZ’s? It is still running, isn’t it?”

  A brief stare. “OK.”

  Maria’s voice was uneasy. “Listen, what about me? I mean, I’ve no objections, but …”

  “Don’t worry,” Ruth told her, “it’s mixed. Lots of trendy straight couples go there too.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not a couple,” said Maria coldly.

  “We’ll find you a nice boy to take home,” Jael reassured her.

  “I just don’t want to feel totally out of place, that’s all.”

  “Trust me, kid.” Jael put on her Bogart voice. “I’ll protect you from the big bad butches.”

  “Hello, who’s calling, please?”

  “Yvonne, can you hear me? It’s Maria. Sorry, the music’s deafening.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, where the hell are you?”

  “I don’t remember the name of it. I tried ringing you earlier, I’m terribly sorry.”

  “I was expecting you hours ago. My mother made Chicken Kiev.”

  “I’m so sorry. I dropped into the flat, and Jael and Ruth asked me to come out with them; apparently I’d arranged it before but I forgot. I can’t let them down.”

  “Right.”

  “Yvonne? Don’t hang up. Listen, can’t you go on without me?”

  “Who with?”

  “Aren’t you and Pete—”

  “No.”

  “But I thought there was a crowd going. You said you knew the doorman at the Purple Snail.”

  “He’s in Mexico. Oh, forget it. I don’t care about tonight, there’s a party I can gate-crash. It’s just your attitude, Maria.”

  “What attitude?”

  “You seem obsessed with these, these bloody flatmates of yours. And nobody else matters. Are normal people just too boring for you nowadays, is that it?”

  “Yvonne, sorry to butt in, but I’m on my last twopence. Look, I’ll ring you tomorrow, OK? OK?”

  Jael clung to a lamppost, weeping with laughter. “So what did you say to her then?”

  “Stop making fun of me. All I said was, ‘Sorry, I don’t have the time.’”

  Jael leaned on a car and pounded the bonnet softly in time with her paroxyms. “That has to be the all-time conversation killer. A verbal chastity belt.”

  Ruth was walking ahead of them, but she glanced back and called “Get away from that car before you set the alarm off.”

  Ignoring the remark, Jael staggered after Maria. “‘I don’t have the time,’ you told her. Jesus H. Christ!”

  “Well, how the hell was I meant to know she was asking me to dance?” demanded Maria. “It’s not every day of the week that strange women proposition me, you know.”

  “Me neither,” said Jael regretfully.

  “Yeah, well, I couldn’t hear her properly, the music was far too loud. And she had no right to just presume I was that way inclined. You told me it was a mixed club.”

  “The only way she wanted you inclined was horizontally,” shrieked Jael.

  Maria gave her a shove and she tripped into the gutter, but it only brought on a fresh spasm of mirth. “The poor girl. The blank look on her face when you said you hadn’t got the time … Not a bad looker either. Good ass.”

  “Just wish I’d never got that haircut,” muttered Maria as they rounded the corner into Beldam Square.

  Jael cast her a sly glance. “Nobody forced you.”

  Ruth had reached their building already and was fumbling with her keys. “Yoohoo, Valium,” Jael carolled from halfway down the street. She ran along, doing figure-eights around parked cars, till she got to the door.

  Maria came panting up behind. “What time is it now?” she asked hoarsely.

  Ruth didn’t answer, but Jael grabbed her wrist and read aloud, “One-thirteen or thereabouts.” Ruth twisted her arm away and headed up the stairs without turning on the light.

  “She’s cross because I called her Valium,” expla
ined Jael in a breathless whisper. “But it’s the perfect name for her—she sends me to sleep and she’s easy to take orally.”

  Maria gave her a cold stare. “One more dig like that,” she whispered as they climbed, “and I swear I’ll kick you down the stairs.” As she caught up with Ruth her voice came back to normal. “So we missed the bells,” she remarked regretfully. “I think I was in the toilet when they played ‘Auld Lang Syne.’”

  “They didn’t play it,” panted Jael from behind. “We got to shamble round in a chain to ‘Aga-do-do-do’ instead; there’s modern Ireland for you.”

  By the time they reached their door, Maria was painfully aware of Ruth’s silence. She scanned her mind for something to say that would make them all relax. “What are your New Year’s resolutions, ladies?” she inquired.

  Jael flung herself into the rocking chair and reached down for her whisky bottle. “I’m giving up women,” she announced. “They’re too fucking complicated. And what about you, light of my life?” she asked, turning, but Ruth had already disappeared down the corridor. Jael tucked her feet under her and began to rock the chair.

  Maria avoided her glance. Then, summoning courage, she asked in a low voice, “Why are you being like this?”

  “It don’ matter how ah be.” Jael accompanied her twang on an imaginary banjo.

  “Would you stop play-acting for one minute.”

  “The bag is packed. It’s beyond mattering how I behave.”

  Maria looked at her warily. “What bag?”

  Jael’s mouth spoke from between her hands. “Mrs. Johnson’s hand-me-down leather suitcase. It’s half full and hidden in the back of the wardrobe.”

  A long silence. “Maybe if you—”

  “I’m damned,” Jael told her distinctly, “if I’m going to play at being nice for an evening to beg her back.”

  Maria’s exasperation boiled over. “I’ve never met anyone so full of herself. Listen, you wouldn’t have to be nice—we could hardly expect that of you. All you’d have to do is tell her how you really feel.”

  “Shit, that’s how I feel. Absolute scum.” Jael splashed more whisky into her glass.

  “I don’t mean how you’re feeling, I mean how you love her.”

  No answer. Jael looked at her over the top of the glass. Finally: “What if I can’t remember how I feel?”

  She forced her fury into a whisper. “It’s such … waste. I don’t believe you’re about to lose the best thing in your life because you can’t humble yourself enough to say three words.”

  “Ah, Maria.” Jael’s voice was oddly compassionate. “We’re gone a bit beyond that now.”

  Maria slashed through the bead curtain. Ruth’s door was shut. She stood outside, her fingers against the wood, waiting for the right words to come. Not a sound from behind the door. What was she expecting—a sob, breaking glass, the snapping strings of a guitar?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a flush, and suddenly Ruth was behind her, toothbrush in hand.

  “Hi,” said Maria, her back to the door.

  “Did you want something?” Ruth’s voice was barely audible.

  Light caught the wet bristle of the toothbrush. Maria stared at it stupidly. “Just to say good night.”

  “Sweet dreams, Maria.” Ruth shut the door behind her.

  Maria lay in bed awhile, vaguely aware of the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” leaking from the kitchen in Jael’s hoarse contralto. The night was safe at last. Probably. All those sharp words would evaporate with the dew, and she would make her flatmates pancakes for breakfast. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed her Dietrich poster hanging awry from one drawing pin; the whites of the eyes glimmered in the street light.

  By the time she woke again the house was silent. Maria lay inert, flexing her stiff neck. When her door creaked open slowly, she blinked, then squeezed her eyes shut. It was Ruth; she had made out her silhouette in the dark. Nothing happened for a full minute. Maria knew she was being looked at and let her mouth hang slightly open. Finally Ruth’s voice came out of the black. “Are you awake?”

  Go away. Maria was dead. She was limp like a tracker who didn’t want to be eaten by the bear. Go away.

  After a few seconds she heard the rustle of paper, then a murmur of words that she could not distinguish; it could have been “Good luck.” The door closed. She waited till the front door thudded shut too, then sat up; maybe there would be a note. But it was a brown-paper bag, propped on the end of the bed. Inside was nothing but the black cap, no message. Maria slid down in bed and pulled it over her face. The worn velvet was warm and utterly dark.

  8

  SERVING

  Maria was woken at half seven by the sensation of a boulder on her chest. She sat up and took a deep, ragged breath. The night before began to run, image by image, through her head. She lay down flat again.

  Reading The Radio Times Special Seasonal Edition cover to cover killed a couple of hours. At around ten her stomach began to protest in a series of creaks she was sure could be heard through the walls. Besides, skulking in bed was an adolescent strategy. She pulled on her jeans and limpest jumper and plodded down to the kitchen.

  Jael was ensconced on the sofa in her duvet. Surely people only slept on the sofa in Hollywood comedies? But then again, Jael was capable of any histrionic gesture. Unless it was Ruth who put the duvet over her. Was she still asleep? Yes, snoring prettily, and just look at the ashtray full of crushed butts beside her. Back on the fags; Ruth must be gone for good, so. Maria decided not to think about that yet. She leaned over the sleeping face; the soft lines around Jael’s eyes and mouth were beginning to show her age. Without the vitality she had when awake, her face looked slack, nearly vulnerable.

  After a civilised breakfast of juice and granola, Maria still felt empty. To hell with civilisation. The furious hiss of a frying pan woke Jael; she sat up, sneezed twice, pulled on her orange kimono, and asked for a sausage. They ate wordlessly, swapping sections of last Sunday’s newspaper. Over the washing up, Maria remarked that she had better head over to Yvonne’s.

  “Thought you had a bust-up on the phone last night.”

  “Lord, yes, I’d forgotten all about it. I could ring and grovel, I suppose.”

  “Is it worth it?” Jael’s mouth was curved ironically.

  “No,” said Maria, suddenly decisive. “Well, I’ll give Thelma a ring then.”

  Jael flicked through the last pages of the sports supplement. “I gather you’re looking for a new abode?”

  “I’d better.” Maria willed her embarrassment away.

  “You’d do as well to hang on here for a few days, you know, till you find somewhere. Unless you want to go home again.”

  “No way.” She felt cornered. “Well, I suppose if the next rent isn’t due till, what is it, the fifth?”

  Jael looked up, her eyes grey as feathers. “Maria, the rent doesn’t matter; stay as long as you want.”

  “Thank you,” said Maria stiffly. Then, repentant—hadn’t the woman lost enough?—she offered to do a sketch of Jael in her kimono. They lit the fire because it was such a cold, miserable morning and Jael thought firelight might hide her double chin.

  “Let’s have a peek?” she kept asking, till Maria threatened to tear it up.

  “I warn you, it’ll be no good. I’ve only got lined paper, and the pencil’s too soft.”

  “Never mind. Use your imagination. Give me bigger tits.”

  Maria ignored her, concentrating on the proportion of limbs. It felt like a Sunday; slightly too warm, with the smell of sausages fading from the air. After ten minutes Jael complained of being bored, so Maria dumped Don Quixote and a fresh pack of cigarettes into her lap. She sketched on, wanting to catch the likeness, but the drawing got more and more heavy, latticed with pencil strokes.

  The flat was silent except for the lick of the flames. Jael dropped a casual comment about Maria’s hair getting curly, but Maria spent so long wondering whether it was a criticism
or a compliment that she forgot to respond.

  Finally she handed the sketch over with a regretful grimace. Jael was impressed: “Ugly as sin, but very like me.”

  “Really? People don’t usually see their own likeness.”

  Jael considered, turning it to one side, then upside down. “All I can say is, it looks just like me in the mirror after a hard night’s carousing.”

  “You can keep it if you like.”

  “Don’t you want it?”

  Maria tripped over the words. “Well, yes, if you don’t, but if you do, I don’t.”

  Jael smiled like a cat. “We can photocopy it.” She tossed it back, but a draught caught it and nearly sucked it into the fire. Maria whipped out her hand, then put it back in her lap. Laughing under her breath, Jael rescued it with the tongs, only one corner singed.

  Lulled by the tug of the train, thin winter light in her eyes, she felt as if last night had never happened. She looked across at Jael and could not turn her bruised sense of loss into angry words. It was almost impossible to hold Jael responsible for anything; the redheaded child drawing faces on the dusty window seemed to have nothing in common with the virago of the night before.

  Jael wiped her finger on her sleeve and shivered vigorously.

  “I could get hypothermia,” she remarked, chafing her ankles. “What a way to go, eh?”

  “Take your muddy boots off the seat.”

  “Yes, Mammy.”

  “You’ve done nothing but whinge since we left home; this outing was your idea, remember?”

  Jael stuck her lower lip out. “Didn’t realise Dublin Transport was using its passengers as guinea pigs for refrigeration technology, that’s all. Are we nearly there?”

  “Two more stops, then it’s Bray,” said Maria. “There’s the sea out the other window.”

  “Looks wicked. Grey and hungry.”

  “Shut up.”

  They had walked halfway down the blue peeling promenade when a wave lurched over the stones and soaked them to the shins. “I’m cold and wet and I want a bag of chips,” announced Jael. “Steaming hot with lashings of vinegar.”