Stir-Fry

  Gathering her beige satin dressing gown round her neck, Thelma smiled at the anxious tone. “I’m sure that could be arranged.”

  “Sorry to be in so late.”

  “Oh, I got accustomed to it with Alexandra. She was always staying out till five in the morning; university life brought out the vagabond in her.”

  “Where is it that she is now?” asked Maria politely, stifling a grimace as she sipped the urban water.

  “Bucharest. At least that’s where the last postcard was from. Live it up while you’re young, or you’ll regret it later, I always say.”

  She angled her glass, watching the water catch white ovals of light.

  Thelma took a sip of cocoa without wetting her lips. “I’ve always said to her, ‘Darling, make your own decisions and I will respect them.’ Especially during her bad patch after her father passed away, I thought she needed to know that.”

  Maria nodded and reached for her cocoa. She was suddenly weary in every muscle.

  “What about you, do you often clash with Caitríona? Battles over boys?”

  Maria’s lips tightened. “Mam and I get along fine, actually.”

  “You’re not still calling her that, are you? Mam, it sounds so nineteen-forties.” Thelma spooned up the last drip of cocoa.

  “She prefers it.”

  “I see.” A meditative pause. “Caitríona was never the radical of the family.”

  “How’s the stool coming along?” asked Maria, on the verge of rudeness. She bent her face to catch the steam from the cocoa.

  “Very nicely. French polishing’s all done, and I start on the seat tomorrow. It’s for my dentist’s sitting room; he’s taking it as payment for that broken crown on my molar.” Thelma’s face looked girlish with satisfaction. “Would you like to see it?”

  The molar or the footstool? Maria wondered, and felt fatigue and repentance tugging her two ways. “In the morning, I’d love to.”

  “Good night so. There’s a hot water bottle in your bed.”

  Maria watched the knot of limbs struggle toward the edge of the lake. All round her, students lay draped on the concrete steps, white-faced in the autumn sun. Only at the third scream from the girl at the hub of the group did people begin to look up. “Engineers are at it again,” said a lazy voice just behind Maria. “I heard they’re aiming to beat last year’s total of ten girls in the pond by the end of Freshers’ Week.”

  “At least it’s sunny this year,” commented another.

  Maria could see the woman now; she bucked and shoved, making vain attempts with one free hand to keep her billowing peachy skirt between her knees while a dozen boys towed her, head first, down the steps. The odd giggle escaped from the watchers. With a shriek and a violent kick one leg leaped free, but the sandal dropped off, and four hands caught the ankle again. “Heave! Heave!” They swung her twice over the water, their chant drowning her out. And then the body dropped with a splash.

  Almost at once a sleek black head emerged over the lip of concrete, dripping and laughing, calling for a helping hand. Maria gathered her belongings to go. At the top of the steps she turned, staring until one of the engineers retrieved the woman’s sandal and another wrapped her in his laboratory coat.

  Heading blindly up the peopled steps, Maria careered into a sharp shoulder.

  “We must stop meeting like this.”

  For a long moment she couldn’t place the face, then embarrassment flooded her as she recalled the New Yorker. “Sorry, hello. I’m sorry.”

  “And I’m Galway. Were you watching the ritual witch-dunking?” He jerked his eyes toward the lake.

  “She’s no witch, she’s a bimbo,” retorted Maria, more viciously than she meant.

  One bushy eyebrow lifted. “Do you know her?”

  “She was laughing, for god’s sake. How could she let them toss her into all that oil and sludge, and then laugh?”

  “Maybe she didn’t have much of a choice. If she’s going to be in their class for four years, she won’t want a reputation for not being able to take a joke.”

  “Well, I think it’s sick.”

  “Of course it’s sick, I was taking that for granted.” Galway readjusted the faded rucksack on his shoulders. “Adolescent macho thuggery. That’s why I never joined a fraternity back home in my freshman year; I just couldn’t see the thrill in walking backward along a roof ridge in my boxer shorts.”

  She eased into a smile as they began drifting toward the long grey buildings. “Do you want to, I mean, I was just going for a cup of tea.”

  Fourth time tonight, thought Maria, gritting her teeth as she recognised the song. It drew squeals of enthusiasm, and another chain of dancers sewed its way into the crowd. She scanned the flushed faces. Nuala, her friend back in fourth year, would have reduced them to sweaty proles, or the twit-terati. It would be handy to despise these fellow freshers; then she could give up the bother of getting to know them and go back to Thelma’s to read an early edition of the Sunday papers. But the fact was that half of these people seemed more intelligent than she was, and the other half were better-looking.

  A painful prod between the shoulder blades; she turned and found Yvonne’s pink nails. “Been queueing long? You could get me a vodka and Coke while you’re there. Try the barman with the earring, he’s a sweetie.”

  Maria leaned against the wall. The condensation soaked through her thin sleeve, and she recoiled. “Having a good time?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  There was no answering that.

  “Bet you’re glad now that I made you come along.”

  They inserted themselves in a gap at the bar. Lager and stout mingled in tinted pools along the wood.

  “Those harem pants are dead sexy on you,” Yvonne said.

  “They are not, they make me look bandy-legged.” She caught Yvonne’s eye. “Sorry, I mean, I’m grateful for the loan. I just hadn’t realised they’d have so much gold braid on them; I feel like I’ve escaped from a circus.”

  “Mmm, that’s why I never wore that outfit myself. But you’ve got the slimness to carry if off,” Yvonne added hastily.

  “You look rather luscious,” Maria told her, stifling a yawn.

  “Salmon has always done things for me,” Yvonne agreed. “Nearly fell out of it when I was doing the lambada, though,” she added; “that guy Pete’s eyes were popping.”

  The barman noticed Maria’s limp wave at last, and hurried them their drinks.

  “So tell us, have you found a flat yet?”

  “I’ve rung around a bit, and seen one total dive. I thought I’d have heard from that first place by the end of last week.”

  Yvonne’s attention was wandering. She pointed discreetly, at hip level: “She’s the one that got dumped in the lake, wasn’t it gas? Looks a bit goosepimply still.”

  To avoid replying, Maria touched her lips to the creamy head of her half pint. “Anyway, if I don’t get that flat, I’ll try a few more on Monday.”

  “Do. So tell us,” Yvonne said, turning her pale blue eyes, “you been asked up yet?”

  Maria considered lying but hadn’t the heart for it. “I jived to a fifties remix with a spotty theology student and got a violent stitch in the ribs.”

  “Bad luck.”

  “He was no loss; all he talked about was how many points he won in his matriculation.”

  Yvonne was smoothing out a crease in her skirt. “You have to start somewhere, Maria.”

  “Not with him, I don’t.”

  She gave a theatrical sigh. “Your problem is, your standards are too high.”

  “That’s what my mother says.”

  But Yvonne had drifted a few feet away in response to a wave from a boy in a wing collar.

  Now that she came to think of it, Maria could only remember her mother telling her that once. She must have been about nine, that time she was allowed sit up late to watch the Eurovision Song Contest and had kept commenting how yucky the men were, with their big e
ars or furry chests. Mam remarked that Maria might end up an old maid, being too picky to be satisfied with any one man. Marriage was about give and take and a fair bit of giving up too. It occurred to Maria to suggest polygamy, which she had read about in her history book’s brief section on “Our Tribal Ancestors,” but her mother was probably too Catholic to find that funny. As her dad took her up to bed he told her not to fret, she’d be the career woman of the family. She laughed and threw a rolled-up sock at him as he turned off the light.

  In the dark, she parted the curtains and leaned her elbows on the chilly windowsill. Counting the lights of the small town nestling round her house, she realised that all the women she knew were wives and mothers. Except for the young ones heading for the uni, and that librarian with the hay fever, and a couple of teachers. And of course Nelly the Nutter, who sat on the steps of the town hall, scratching her ankles. That night Maria slid down and tucked the quilt over her head and could not sleep for worrying what she would turn out to be.

  And how much farther had she gotten with that question in eight years, she asked herself wryly, as she picked her way through the bar to a spare chair by the window. The music had changed to a slow set, without her noticing; a cover version of a sixties lament inched the couples across the dance floor. Maria leaned back in the crooked plastic chair and turned her eyes to the window. She traced the lasso of lights around the campus buildings until the music and voices blurred into the background. She imagined herself up and away, gliding over the dark lake, gaining height as she zoomed toward the city. Black air between her legs, the office windows glinting as she skimmed by.

  Yvonne dropped heavily into the next seat. Then she heaved up again, felt her buttock, and sniffed her finger. “Damn it to hell, I’m sitting in a puddle of cider.”

  Maria’s hand patted the windowsill beside her, but Yvonne let herself down onto the floor and rested her sagging curls on her pink satin knees.

  “Still having fun?”

  “Yeah. It’s just cramps.” Yvonne’s voice was rigid.

  “Ah, you creature. Want an aspirin?”

  “Better not, on top of three vodkas it’d probably make me pass out.”

  It occurred to Maria to reach down and stroke the bent head, but she thought better of it.

  They sat wordlessly for two songs, then Yvonne asked, “So where’s that skinny guy I spotted with you, all pally in the canteen queue?”

  “Galway’s not here, and he’s not my type.”

  “Terribly weedy name, Gary.”

  Maria heaved her voice over the level of the music. “No, Galway, after the county. Yankee nostalgia.”

  “Even worse!”

  “It’s not his fault,” argued Maria, putting her sore feet up on an ash-powdered bench. “Apparently his granny was postmistress in Oughterard until she emigrated in 1934; she bullied Galway into spending his junior year over here studying Anglo-Irish drama and discovering his roots.”

  “He might discover your roots while he’s at it,” replied Yvonne mechanically. “So why isn’t he here tonight?”

  “Apparently it’s a puerile mating ritual. Besides, he can’t afford it.”

  Yvonne stretched and pulled herself onto her high heels. “This one’s Madonna. Let’s get on down.”

  “I’m grand here.”

  Her eyes were hard. “I know it’s not easy to make friends at a hundred decibels, but we’ve got to try.”

  “I do talk to people after classes.”

  Yvonne waited, hands supporting the small of her back. “You’re only making it more difficult for yourself in the long run, Maria.”

  “Oh, all right, don’t nag.”

  They squeezed into the crowd.

  The little m was still there, a faint mark on the pane.

  “I’ll leave you to, well, whatever one leaves people in bedrooms to do!”

  Maria turned from the window and grinned widely. “I’m ready for bed anyway. Hauling all my worldly goods up four flights of stairs has taken it out of me.”

  Ruth hovered at the door. “You’re sure there’s nothing you need, like a nailbrush or something?”

  “There’s nothing to brush,” said Maria, holding out her trimmed nails for inspection. “I’ll be grand, don’t worry about me.” She put the last of her neatly balled socks into the back of the drawer, rattled it shut, and bent to slide her suitcase under the bed. Straightening up, she found Ruth still there, her hand on the door handle, her face almost apprehensive.

  “I’m really glad you wanted me, actually.” Keep the tone casual; sit down on the brown candlewick bedspread. “I’d nearly given up expecting you to ring.”

  “I know, I’m sorry about that,” said Ruth in a rush. “There were a few others interested, and we thought we should wait just to be on the safe side.”

  The safe side of what?

  “Sweet dreams, Maria.” Her light steps faded down the passage.

  She could never sleep the first night in a strange place. The flat was warm, still smelling faintly of garlic. She stretched out on her creaky bed and tracked faces in the damp-marked ceiling. That one was definitely her father, with the big eyebrows and pointy chin. The brothers could be those two blobs in the corner, their features moving too fast to be distinguishable. And who was that with one wide eye and her hair blowing over her face?

  Before she could scare herself, Maria turned her nose into the coverlet. There was nothing imaginary about its soft ridges. She ran her fingers over them, counting the rises and falls; she was a giantess, fondling a countryside of motorways.

  It occurred to her that she had forgotten to brush her teeth. She yawned, fumbled for her toilet bag on the chest of drawers, and set out for the bathroom. Turning the wrong way down the pitch-black corridor, she felt her hand brush against the bead curtain; she was about to retreat when she heard low voices from the fireside. She jerked, but her feet refused to turn.

  When she was about six, Maria had gone through an insecure phase. If she shut her eyes now, she could see her child self, rumpled in brushed cotton pyjamas, creeping down to the living room door and pressing her ear against it as her parents swapped domestic trivia over supper. Just in case they would mention her, let fall some secret praise or sarcasm. They never did, and the child tiptoed coldly back to bed. Eventually she had broken herself of the eavesdropping habit. But on occasion, on nights like tonight, the old curiosity gripped her. Her feet were going numb as she stood in the corridor, her face almost touching the beads. Only half a minute, she promised herself.

  Ruth’s voice was the softer one. “Yes, but she’s only seventeen.”

  Maria shut her eyes.

  “Ageist,” commented Jael with satisfaction. “She seems good crack; I’d rather her than that humorless social scientist anytime.”

  “It’s not that. I think she’ll be lovely to have around.”

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  “It’s not my problem, it’s ours.” A hurt edge to the words. “Just, it occurred to me tonight when we were hauling her suitcases upstairs, she may not have copped on yet.”

  Maria strained to hear, her ear almost touching the beads.

  After a pause, the lazy voice said, “Does it matter that much?”

  “It does to me. I’m worried that the wording of the ad was too subtle.”

  Jael chuckled. “That’s your idea of subtlety, pet?”

  Then came a phrase too low for her to catch. The curtain was shifting slightly in the draught; would a crack of firelight slip between the beads and light her up? Her knees were locked.

  Ruth again, straining. “All I mean is, we don’t want another melodramatic exit, do we? I thought we agreed to be honest this time.”

  “There’s honest and there’s boringly obvious. I think you should give the girl a chance,” Jael went on. Was her voice growing, moving toward the curtain?

  Maria swerved away. Her feet carried her silently down the corridor and into her room. She pushed the doo
r delicately shut before crawling under the quilt. Staring at the ceiling in confusion, she wondered what on earth she had not “copped on” about. All she could think of was a drug ring. She heaved herself over and immersed her face in the pillow.

  2

  MIXING

  Regards to Dad and the lads. I’ll be home for the weekend soon. All the best, Maria.

  She licked the flap of the envelope, wincing slightly at the taste, and stuck it down. Pausing outside the other bedroom, her fingers played an arpeggio on the door. “Anyone want anything down the shops?” No answer. Odd, surely she’d have heard them going out. Walking down the corridor, she slapped at the fern’s lowest tendril, and it bobbed in its hanging basket.

  Dirty blue clouds were scudding over slate roofs. A good cold smell in the air and the whiff of turfsmoke as she turned the corner made her think of home. The dusk lasted much longer in the country; nothing to get in its way, she supposed. In Dublin there was only half an hour of grey, then the street lamps blinked on and all the shoppers hustled home in the dark.

  The post office was in the back of a newsagent’s on the bottom floor of a narrow townhouse; its fanlight seemed to have been shattered by a stone. After practising silently in the stamp queue, Maria managed to ask for “Three 30p’s please” without spitting. She dawdled at the candy counter until the boy behind it began to whistle “Why Are We Waiting?” “One of those,” she told him, with a minimal point of the finger.

  She could tell he was not going to let her away with it. “Mum,” he bawled, “how much’s the Fizzie Kolapops?”

  Maria took it from his oversized fingers and slid out through the crowd. A year ago she would have claimed it was for her little sister. Real maturity would be hers, she decided as she tore the thin plastic with her teeth, when she found herself able to ask for Jelly Tots in a ringing voice.

  It tasted as wild as she remembered. Ten years ago at least; Sister Miriam used to dole them out as prizes for good conduct. The breeze snatched the crinkly plastic from her fingers as she turned down the street. Getting nippy now. Maria unzipped her anorak and let the wind shake through her, flapping her long black skirt and tossing strands of pale hair in her face. At home the wind had always seemed horizontal, dulling her ears as she plodded the mile and a half home from school, looking out for a lift from the butcher’s van. But here it gusted in spirals, exciting her skirts. If she had a big enough umbrella now, she could lift away from the earth like Mary Poppins, her neat feet spurning the chimneys.