I’d known he fancied Anya, all along, I thought resentfully. I’d just bloody well known it. And him giving me all that crap about what a nice girl she was.
‘Stop staring,’ Brigit hissed.
I jerked and kind of came to.
‘Swop places with me,’ Brigit ordered. ‘You’re to sit with your back to him. And take that starving baby look off your face. And put your tongue back in, it’s banging off your knees.’
I did what I was told and then wished I hadn’t. So I tried to get Brigit to stare by proxy for me.
‘What’s he doing now?’ I asked her.
She flicked a glance at them. ‘He’s holding her hand.’
I moaned softly.
‘Still?’ I asked a few seconds later.
‘Still what?’
‘Is he still holding her hand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh Christ.’ I could have cried. ‘What does he look like?’
‘About six one, dark hair…’
‘No! What does his face look like? I mean, does he look happy, does he look like he’s mad about her?’
‘Suck that down,’ Brigit curdy indicated my drink. ‘We’re leaving.’
‘No,’ I protested in a low fierce voice. ‘I want to stay. I have to stay and watch them…’
‘No.’ Brigit was very firm. ‘No way, it does no one any good. And let this be a lesson to you. The next time you meet a man as sexy and nice as Luke Costello, maybe you won’t shag it up.’
‘Do you think he’s sexy and nice?’ I asked, in huge surprise.
‘Oh course I do,’ she said, astonished.
‘Well, why didn’t you say?’
‘Why? Do you need me to endorse everything for you before you’ll let yourself like it?’ she asked.
Stupid wagon, I thought, annoyed. She’d only been promoted a matter of hours and already she was acting like she was someone’s boss.
I mourned him for some days. I felt the loss acutely. But I didn’t hold out any hope because I knew I couldn’t compete with Anya. No way. I knew my limitations.
I devoted my time to glancing around for a job. The effort I put into it wasn’t deserving of the word ‘looking’.
With my poor employment history and lack of higher education my options were strictly limited. However, I managed to stumble over a job in another hotel. Not as nice as the Old Shillayleagh, not of course that the Old Shillayleagh was nice. My new place of work was called the Barbados Motel. I had no idea why. It was nothing like Barbados, unless people pay for their time in Barbados by the hour.
My boss, Eric, was one of the fattest men I’d ever seen, and was called The Head Hauncho on account of his colossal love-handles. Most of the other staff were illegal immigrants because of the management’s penchant for paying below the minimum wage.
However, it was a job.
In other words, hard labour, misery and tedium all rolled into one.
After my first day there I staggered home, exhausted and depressed, and as I got in the phone was ringing.
‘Yes?’ I demanded, none-too-civil, keen to work off my filthy humour on whoever was on the other end.
There was a brief – loaded – pause, then Luke’s voice, like a caress, said ‘Rachel?’ And my charcoal world sparked into blazing light.
Instinctively I knew that this was no enquiries phone call along the lines of ‘I can’t find my Beavis and Butthead jocks and I’m wondering if I left them at your place. Any chance you’d give them a wash and drop them round to me?’
On the contrary.
From the tone of his voice, just from the way he’d said ‘Rachel?’ – as if he was stroking me – I knew everything was going to be all right.
Better than all right.
I’d been certain I’d never hear from him again. I almost wept with relief, with joy, with deliverance, with gratitude for my second chance.
‘Luke?’ I said. See the way I didn’t go ‘Daryl?’ or ‘Frederick?’ or ‘Beelzebub?’ or some other man’s name, the way I would have if I’d still been playing games with him?
‘How are you?’ he asked.
Call me babe, I yearned.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Well, I was sacked from my job and I’ve got a new one but it’s in a horrible place and I think it’s used by prostitutes and the money is poxy, but I’m fine. And how are you?’
He gave a little laugh, a warm, friendly, I-think-you’re-great laugh and I felt as if I loved him.
‘Any chance I could take you out for dinner?’ he asked.
Take you out for dinner. Take you for dinner. So much is conveyed with that one word. It means, I like you. I’ll take care of you. And, most importantly of all, I’ll pay for you.
I wanted to say, ‘But what about Anya?’ and for once in my self-destructive life I managed to do the right thing and kept my fool mouth shut. ‘When?’ I asked. Now, now, now!
‘Tonight?’
I suppose I should have pretended I was busy. Isn’t that one of the golden rules to make sure you snare your man? But I had no intention of letting him slip through the net again.
‘Tonight would be lovely,’ I said sweetly.
‘Oh, and sorry I didn’t come over to you and Brigit the other night,’ he added. ‘Anya’s fella had just ditched her and I was trying to cheer her up.’
My cup spilleth over.
44
It was a date, a proper one.
He said he’d collect me at eight-thirty and take me to a French restaurant. I felt a slight frisson of alarm at his talk of French restaurants because only hicks and out-of-towners went to French restaurants and Turkmenistanian was the thing to impress a girl. But then I thought, so what.
I got ready slowly and calmly. The kind of churning excitement that I usually associated with Luke was absent. Instead a steady quiet anticipation hummed within me.
I had butterflies in my stomach, but they were asleep. They stretched and turned occasionally, just to remind me that they were there.
Of course, I reminded myself, Luke could be stringing along me and Anya and God knows how many others. But I just knew he wasn’t. I didn’t know where such deep abiding certainty came from, but I didn’t doubt it.
We’d gone through so many twists and turns; sleeping with each other after the Rickshaw Rooms, him asking me out, me refusing, me coming onto him at my party, him refusing, him looking out for me everywhere, meeting him in the Llama Lounge, having mind-blowing sex, Daryl arriving and Luke leaving in a huff. After all of that, the mutual overtures and rejections, for him to still want to take me out and for me to still want to go, it meant there was some little glimmer of understanding.
We’d arrived at a plateau, where we both knew enough about the other, even the bad bits, especially the bad bits, and still wanted to proceed.
In preparation for my free French meal, I dressed demurely.
On the outside at least.
I wore what I called my grown-up dress. I called it that because it wasn’t black, it wasn’t made of lycra and you couldn’t see the line of my knickers under it. It was a dark grey, nun-like shift. Because of these qualities I’d thought it was a total waste, but Brigit had bullied me into buying it. She’d said it would come in very handy one day. I’d said I wasn’t planning on dying, entering a convent or being up in court on a murder charge. But, as I admired my demure, yet strangely unrevolting reflection, I admitted she’d been right.
It got better. I wore high heels and I put my hair up. Normally I could only do one or the other, not both, not unless I enjoyed towering over people like the Incredible Hulk. But Luke was man enough for me at my zenith.
Underneath my cassock I had struggled into black stockings and a suspender belt. A sure sign that I was mad about Luke. Because surely no one could wear such underwear if they weren’t planning on taking it off very shortly? Uncomfortable and unnatural, that’s what it was. I felt as ridiculous as a drag artist.
Eight-thirty arrived and so did
Luke. I took one look at him, dark-eyed, clean-shaven and citrus-fragranced, and my butterflies woke up en masse and started bickering over whose turn it was to make the coffee.
He looked a lot sleeker than I’d ever seen him before. Acres less hair and denim than was usually in evidence. I realized it meant he was taking me seriously and I brimmed with pleasure.
As he crossed the threshold, I braced myself to be snogged to within an inch of my life. But, to my surprise, he didn’t kiss me. Momentarily startled, I rallied gamely and declined to descend into the pit of depression that beckoned so warmly. I didn’t think, He doesn’t fancy me. I knew he fancied me, I would have staked my life on it.
He politely sat on the sofa and politely didn’t push me to the floor and ravish me. How strange it felt to be in the same room as each other for more than five seconds and still be wearing clothes!
‘I’ll be ready in a minute,’ I promised him.
‘Relax,’ he said.
I could feel his eyes following me as I bumped awkwardly round the flat looking for my keys. Here a hipbone crunched against the counter, there an elbow skinned on the doorhandle. Nothing like the feeling of being watched by a man I desire to bring on my incipient clumsy oafness. Eventually I turned and demanded in contrived exasperation, ‘What?’
I knew it’d be good, see.
‘You look…’ he paused, ‘… beautiful.’
Correct answer.
I didn’t know the restaurant he took me to, hadn’t even heard of it. But it was lovely. Thick carpets, lighting subdued to the point of sulkiness, and humble, murmuring waiters with French accents so exaggerated that they couldn’t even understand each other.
Luke and I barely spoke all evening.
But this didn’t indicate discord. In fact, I’d never felt so close to anyone, ever. We couldn’t stop smiling at each other. Huge, face-splitting, glowing smiles right into each other’s eyes.
He continued with the polite, not-wrestling-me-up-against-a-wall behaviour that he’d kicked the evening off with. Instead, we had more cab-paying and door-opening and non-contact-ushering than you could shake a stick at. And with every gesture, we grinned out loud.
When he politely held my hand and helped me into the cab, we both beamed our heads off. Then after we’d arrived at La Bonne Chère (The Good and Dear) he deferentially helped me out of the cab and we gave each other dazzling smiles that rushed up from our toes. A brief pause while he paid the cab, then we turned to each other, crinkling our eyes so much we could barely see.
He said Are you right?’ – the Irish version of ‘Shall we?’ – extended his elbow for me to hook, and off we swung into the restaurant. Where we were greeted enthusiastically, if indecipherably, by the waiters. And that made us catch each other’s eyes and smirk.
We were led to a table that was so discreet and dimly lit that I could barely see Luke. ‘This do for you, babe?’ he murmured. I nodded gleefully and beamed my assent. Anything would have been wonderful.
There was a brief moment of awkwardness when we sat down opposite each other, because after all, we’d never been in such a situation before. There’s only one thing more shy-making than the first time you go to bed with a man and that’s the first time you go to dinner with a man. Luke attempted conversation with a cheery ‘Well?’ And I thought about replying, but then that joyous feeling filled me up and spilled out at my mouth, forcing it to burst into another ecstatic grin, and I realized there was no need to say anything. Luke replied to my smile by return of post and we both dazzled each other like a pair of village idiots. And so we remained, smiling and glazed, until the frog waiter arrived and unctuously proffered the menus.
‘I suppose we’d better…’ Luke indicated the menu.
‘Oh right,’ I said, and tried to concentrate.
After a few seconds I looked up and found Luke staringatmeandwebothburstinto smiles again. Slightly embarrassed, I dropped my eyes. But I couldn’t stop myself looking up at him once more and he was still staring at me, so we both had another smile for our trouble.
Again, I felt delighted, yet embarrassed, and murmured ‘Stop.’
And he murmured back ‘Sorry, can’t help it, you’re so…’
Then we both had a lovely, warm little chuckle and he reindicated the menu and said ‘We’d really better…’
And I said ‘We really should…’
I felt as if I would burst with the happiness of being with him. I was sure I must bear some resemblance to a bull-frog, puffed-up to the max with joy.
He ordered champagne.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Because…’ he paused, looking at me speculatively.
‘Because…’ he said again, a smile in his eyes. I held my breath because I was certain he was going to say he loved me.
‘Because you’re worth it,’ he finally said.
I gave a secret little smile. I’d seen his face, I knew how he felt about me. And he knew that I knew.
All night I felt quite calm on the surface. But under that I was pleasurably breathless. Every part of me. I felt like my lungs were barely managing to inhale, my heart just sustained a beat, my blood dragged itself sensuously through my veins. I’d slowed into a different rhythm, drugged by what I felt for him.
All my sensations were heightened. My nerves were raw, exposed, on the outside. Mine was the Pompidou Centre of central nervous systems.
I took pleasure in each breath that I drew. I savoured every bump of my heart in my chest, every flutter in my stomach.
Each breath felt like a victory, as my chest rose and fell, then after an infinitesimally-too-long pause, rose and fell again. Like conquering a small hill. And then another. And then another.
‘That nice?’ He nodded at my pomme au fenêtre or whatever it was.
‘Yairs, lovely,’ I murmured, managing to swallow a good two or three atoms of it.
There was a lot of picking up our forks and letting them hover over the food – which probably was delicious, but neither of us seemed to be able to eat – then smiling at each other like two morons. Then putting our forks down and catching each other’s look before exploding into wreaths of smiles again.
Apart from the sensation that my stomach and oesophagus had been filled with quick-setting concrete, I felt floaty and elated.
We both seemed to know that what we felt for each other was a fragile, precious thing that had to be carried carefully and kept very still. We couldn’t disturb it or unsettle it, but despite its lack of activity we were both completely aware of it. Aware of little else.
There was no need to outdo each other with funny stories because we both knew we could tell funny stories. There was no need to lep on each other and tear our clothes off, that would happen all in the fullness of time.
The only rockyish patch in the whole night occurred when Luke said ‘How’s Daryl?’
‘Look,’ I said awkwardly, electing to put some of my cards on the table, ‘nothing happened with me and Daryl.’
‘I’m sure it didn’t,’ he said.
‘How?’ I said, a small bit miffed.
‘Because he’s gay,’ Luke laughed.
‘Get lost!’ I was the colour of a tomato. Although, once I thought about it, it would explain a lot.
Except shouldn’t it have been ‘Dada’, rather than ‘Mama’?
‘But he devotes too much of his energy to his drug habit,’ Luke said in disgust, ‘for him to have any kind of sexuality.’
‘Oh right,’ I said, not quite sure what to say, but fairly sure I should say something.
All evening a quiet stream of desire had gently sparkled over the bedrock of certainty we felt for each other. As Luke paid the bill (See? See? Didn’t I say? I’ll take you.) some of the winter snows melted and the torrent increased.
When we got outside into the humid night, Luke asked politely ‘Would you like to walk or get a cab?’
‘Walk,’ I said, all the better to build more anticipation.
On the way, he didn’t even hold my hand, just did the kind of hovery action with his hand over the small of my back, which I thought was very cute. The enforced separation, the so-near-and-yet-so-farness of being next to him, but not touching, served to heighten my longing for him.
As we commenced our final descent to the front door of my apartment block, I had a surge of relief. About bloody time, I thought. The lack of physical contact with him had put a greater strain on me than I’d realized. Joyfully, I geared up for the ‘Will you come in for coffee, f’naar, f’naar?’ scenario.
I speeded up my steps and was all set to burst into the building and start running up the stairs, when he slowed down. Then stopped. He pulled me in out of the way of passing pedestrians and kissed me on the cheek. I was dying to grab him by the crotch, but it had been such a lovely, contained date that I forced myself to wait a few minutes longer.
‘Thank you for a wonderful evening,’ he murmured at me.
‘You’re welcome,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
I smiled politely, but I was thinking impatiently, enough of the messing, let’s hurry upstairs so you can dash me to the floor and stick your hand up my skirt, like you usually do.
‘I’ll see you soon?’ he asked. ‘Give you a ring tomorrow?’
‘Fine,’ I said, but my elation had started to drain away, as if a plug had been pulled. He couldn’t seriously be going to call it a night, could he? The decorum of the evening had been all fine and dandy, but only because I hadn’t for a second thought it was real. And had I really gone to all the time and effort of putting on stockings and a suspender belt for me to be the person to remove them?
‘Goodnight,’ he said, then he leant down and gave me a very brief kiss on the mouth. His lips lingered just long enough for it to feel like a sacred moment. Then he pulled away and my head was full of dizziness and stars.
‘Oh, before I forget,’ he said, and handed me a little parcel that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Then without further ado – or more appropriately adon’t – he turned on his heel and strode off down the street, leaving me staring slack-jawed after him.