“Okay,” I said, delighted.
“Great.” Charlotte hugged her knees in excitement.
“Where do you want me to start?” I asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“Look at her,” said Karen dryly. “She’s like the cat that got the cream.”
“What’s his name?” said Charlotte.
“Gus.”
“Gus!” Karen was horrified. “What an awful name. Gus the Gorilla. Gussie Goose.”
“And what’s he like?” asked Charlotte, ignoring Karen’s noises of disgust.
“He’s wonderful,” I began, my description gathering steam. And then I noticed that Daniel was looking at me rather oddly. He sat forward in his chair, with his hands on his knees and was staring, looking sort of puzzled, sort of sad. “What are you looking at me like that for?” I said indignantly.
“Like what?!”
But it was Karen who shouted it, not Daniel.
“Thank you, Karen,” said Daniel politely to her, “but I think I can manage to cobble together a couple of words.”
She shrugged and haughtily tossed her blond hair. Apart from the slight pinkness in her cheeks no one would have known that she was embarrassed. I envied her her poise and aplomb.
Daniel turned back to me. “Where were we?” he said. “Oh yes, Like what?!”
I began to laugh.
“I don’t know,” I giggled. “Funny. Like you knew something about me that I didn’t know.”
“Lucy,” he said gravely. “I would never be foolish enough to presume that I knew something that you didn’t. I value my life.”
“Good,” I smiled. “Now can I tell you about my guy?”
“Yes,” hissed Charlotte. “Get on with it, would you.”
“Weeell,” I said, “he’s twenty-four and he’s Irish and he’s brilliant. Really funny and a bit, you know, off the wall. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before and…”
“Really?” said Daniel, sounding surprised. “But what about that Anthony guy that you had a thing with?”
“Gus is nothing like Anthony.”
“But…”
“Anthony was crazy.”
“But…”
Gus isn’t,” I said firmly.
“Well, what about that other drunken Irishman you went out with?” suggested Daniel.
“Who?” I said, starting to feel slightly annoyed.
“Whatshisname,” said Daniel. “Matthew? Malcolm?”
“Malachy,” murmured Karen helpfully. The traitor.
“That’s right. Malachy.”
“Gus is nothing like Malachy either,” I exclaimed. “Malachy was always drunk.”
Daniel said nothing. He just raised an eyebrow and gave me a meaningful look.
“Okay!” I burst out. “I’m sorry about your Guinness. But I’ll replace it, don’t worry. Anyway, since when did you get so mean and stingy?”
“But I’m not…”
“Why are you being so nasty?”
“But…”
“Aren’t you happy for me?”
“Yes, but…”
“Look, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!”
“Sorry.”
He sounded so contrite that I felt guilty. I leaned over to him and rubbed his knee, apologetically, awkwardly. I was Irish—I wasn’t equipped to deal with hot weather or spontaneous affection.
“I’m sorry too,” I muttered.
“Maybe you’re getting married after all,” suggested Charlotte. “This Gus could be the man your fortune-teller told you about.”
“Maybe,” I agreed quietly. I was embarrassed to admit that that was what I had thought too.
“You know,” said Charlotte, looking a bit shamefaced. “For a little while I thought that Daniel might be your mystery man, your husband-to-be.”
I burst out laughing.
“Him! I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole—you never know where he’s been.”
Daniel looked all offended and Karen looked absolutely furious. Hastily I backtracked and winked affectionately at Daniel.
“Only joking, Daniel. You know what I mean, but if it’s any consolation, my mother would be delighted. You’re her ideal son-in-law.”
“I know,” he sighed. “But you’re right, it would never work. I’m too ordinary for you, isn’t that right, Lucy?”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well I have a job and I don’t show up to meet you blind drunk and I pay for you when we go out and I’m not a tortured artist.”
“Shut up, you bastard,” I laughed. “You make all my boyfriends sound like drunken free-loaders.”
“Do I indeed?”
“Yes. And you’d better watch it because they’re not.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
“All the same,” he said. “I don’t think Connie’s going to be too thrilled when she meets Gus.”
“She won’t meet him,” I said.
“She’ll have to if you’re going to marry him,” he reminded me.
“Daniel, please shut up!” I begged. “This is supposed to be a happy occasion.”
“Sorry, Lucy,” he murmured.
I caught his eye. He didn’t look very sorry. Before I could complain he said, “Come on, Charlotte, tell us about your guy.”
Charlotte was only too happy to oblige. Apparently his name was Simon, tall, blond, good-looking, twenty-nine, in advertising, had a great car, at the party had been all over her like a rash and was calling her the following day to take her out for lunch. “And I just know he’ll call,” she said, her eyes shining. “I have such a good feeling about this.”
“Great!” I said, delighted. “It seems like we all got lucky this evening.”
Then I left and slipped back into bed beside Gus.
Chapter 23
Gus was still asleep and still looked gorgeous. But what Daniel had said had upset me slightly. It was true—my mother wouldn’t like Gus. In fact, my mother would hate Gus. The good had gone out of the evening slightly. I marvelled at my mother’s unerring ability to tarnish all the happy things she touched. She always had, as far back as I could remember.
When I was a little girl and Dad came home in a good mood because he’d just got a job, or won money at the races or whatever, she always managed to defuse any celebrations. Dad would come into the kitchen, all smiles, his coat pocket filled with candy for us and a bottle in a brown paper bag under his arm. And instead of smiling and saying, “What’s happened, Jamsie? What are we celebrating?” she ruined it all by making a face and saying something awful like “Oh Jamsie, not after the last time” or, “Oh Jamsie, you promised.”
And even at six or eight or whatever age I was, I felt terrible. Appalled at her ingratitude. Anxious to let him know that I thought she was behaving dreadfully, that I was on his side. And not just because candy was a rare event. I wholeheartedly agreed with Dad when he said, “Lucy, your mother is a right old misery.”
Because there was no one else to do it, I felt that it was my job to provide an upbeat mood.
So when Dad sat down and poured himself a glass, I sat at the table with him, to keep him company, to show solidarity, so that he wasn’t celebrating whatever he was celebrating alone.
It was nice to watch him. There was a rhythm to his drinking that I found comforting.
My mother indicated her disapproval by banging and clattering and washing and wiping. Intermittently Dad tried to get her to cheer up. “Eat the candy bar I brought you, Connie,” he said.
If the phrase, “Lighten up,” had been invented, he probably would have made good use of it.
And after a while he usually got out the record player and sang along to “Four Green Fields” and “I Wish I Was in Carrickfergus” and other Irish songs. He played them over and over again and occasionally between songs he said, “Eat the candy bar!”
And after a while more he usually began to cry. But he kept singing, his voice hoarse with t
ears. Or it might have been the brandy.
I knew that his heart was breaking because he wasn’t in Carrickfergus—I often felt so sad for him that I cried also. But my mother would just say “Jesus! Sure that idiot doesn’t even know where Carrickfergus is, never mind wishing he was there.”
I couldn’t understand why she had to be so miserable. Or so cruel.
And he’d say to her, in a kind of slurred voice, “It’s a state of mind, my dear. It’s a state of mind.”
I wasn’t really sure what he meant by that.
But when he slurred at her, “But how would you know, because you don’t have a mind,” I did know what he meant by that. I’d catch his eye and we’d both snigger conspiratorially.
Those evenings always followed the same pattern. The uneaten candy bar, the rhythmic drinking, the banging and clattering, the singing and crying. Then, when the bottle was nearly all gone my mother usually said something like, “Here goes. Get ready for the grand finale.”
And Dad would get to his feet. Sometimes he wouldn’t be able to walk too straight. Most times, actually.
“I’m going home to Ireland,” my mother would say in a bored voice.
“I’m going home to Ireland,” my dad would shout in the slurred voice.
“If I leave now I can catch the mail-train boat,” my mother said, still in the bored voice, as she leaned against the sink.
“If I leave now I can catch the mail-train boat,” my dad would shout.
“I was a fool ever to have left,” Mum would say idly, inspecting her fingernails. I couldn’t understand her complete lack of emotion.
“I was a bloody idiot ever to have left,” Dad would shout.
“Oh, it’s a ‘bloody idiot’ this time, is it?” Mum might say. “I liked ‘fool’ myself, but a bit of variety is nice.”
Poor Dad would stand there, swaying slightly, hunched over and looking a bit like a bull, staring at Mum but not quite seeing her. Probably seeing the end of his nose, actually.
“I’m going to pack a bag,” Mum would say, like a stage prompter.
“I’m going to bag a pack,” Dad would say lurching toward the kitchen door.
Even though it happened lots of times and he never got further than the front door, every time I thought he was really leaving.
“Dad, please don’t go,” I beseeched him.
“I won’t stay in a house with that woman who won’t even eat the candy bar I bought her,” he usually said.
“Eat the candy bar,” I begged Mum, as I tried to block Dad from leaving the room.
“Don’t stand in my way, Lucy, or I won’t be brespon…I mean I won’t be rospensible…I mean, ah fuck it!” and he’d fall out into the hall.
Then we’d hear the sound of the hall table falling over and Mum would mutter, “If that man has broken my…”
“Mum, stop him,” I’d beg frantically.
“He won’t get further than the gate,” she’d say bitterly. “More’s the pity.”
And although I never believed her, she was right. He very rarely did.
Once he made it up the road as far as the O’Hanlaoins, clutching a plastic bag that contained four slices of bread and the rest of the bottle of brandy under his armpit. His sustenance for the journey home to Monaghan. He stood outside the O’Hanlaoins for a while and shouted things. Something about the O’Hanlaoins being dishonest and how Seamus had to leave Ireland to avoid a prison sentence. “Ye were run outta the place,” my dad shouted.
Mum and Chris had to go and get him and bring him back. He came quietly. Mum led him by the hand past the censorious stares of all our neighbours who were standing, arms folded, looking over their small gates, silently watching the spectacle. When we got as far as our house Mum turned back and shouted at them, “You can go back in now. The circus is over.”
I was surprised to see that she was crying.
I thought it was with shame. Shame for the way she’d treated him, for ruining his good mood, for not eating the candy bar he’d bought for her, for urging him to try and leave. Shame that she richly deserved.
Chapter 24
I awoke to find Gus leaning over me, anxiously looking down into my face.
“Lucy Sullivan?” he asked.
“That’s me,” I said sleepily.
“Oh thank God for that!”
“For what?”
“I thought I might have dreamed you.”
“That’s so sweet.”
“I’m glad you think so, Lucy,” he said ruefully. “But I’m afraid it’s not really. With my track record, I very often wake up and wish that I had dreamed the previous evening. It makes a change for me to hope that it wasn’t a dream.”
“Oh.”
I was confused, but I thought it sounded like a compliment.
“Thank you for letting me avail of your lying-down facilities, Lucy,” he said. “You’re a wee angel.”
I sat up in alarm. That sounded valedictory. Was he leaving?
But no, he didn’t seem to be wearing a shirt, so he wasn’t going just yet. I snuggled back into bed and he lay down beside me. Though the duvet was between us, it felt wonderful.
“My pleasure.” I smiled.
“Now, Lucy, I’d better ask you how many days I’ve been here?”
“Less than one, actually.”
“Is that all?” he said, sounding disappointed. “That was very restrained of me. I must be getting old. Although it’s early days yet. Still plenty of time.”
Fine with me, I thought. Stay as long as you like.
“And now can I avail myself of your bathroom facilities, Lucy?”
“Down the hall, you’ll see it.”
“But I’d better cover my shame, Lucy.”
I eagerly hoisted myself up onto my elbow—all the better to get a good look at his shame before he covered it—and saw that at some stage during the night Gus had removed his clothing and was now only wearing his boxer shorts. And what a lovely body he had. Beautiful smooth skin and strong arms, and a tiny waist and a flat stomach. I couldn’t get a good look at his legs because he was nearly lying on top of me, but if they were anything like the rest of him, they were bound to be delicious.
“Wear my robe, it’s on the back of the door.”
“But what if I meet one of your roommates?” he asked in mock fear.
“What about it?” I giggled.
“I’ll be shy. And they’ll, you know…think things about me.”
He hung his head and went all coy and simpery.
“What kind of things?” I laughed.
“They’ll wonder where I slept and my reputation will be ruined.”
“Go on, I’ll defend your honor if anyone says anything.”
His voice and his accent were so beautiful, I could have listened to him forever.
“Great robe!” said Gus. It was a white terry cloth one with a hood and he put it on and put up the hood and shadow boxed around my bed.
“Are you in the Ku Klux Klan, Lucy Sullivan?” he asked, looking at himself in the mirror. “Have you any burning crosses hidden under the bed?”
“No.”
“Well, if you ever decide to join, you won’t have to buy the uniform, just throw on your robe!”
I lay back against my pillow and smiled at him. I was happy.
“Right,” he said. “I’ll be off.”
Gus opened the bedroom door and immediately slammed it shut again.
I jumped.
“What’s wrong?”
“That man!” said Gus, sounding horrified.
“What man?”
“The tall one, who stole your friend’s beer and my bottle of wine. He’s right outside this door!
So Daniel had stayed the night—how funny.
“No, no, listen to me,” I wheezed.
“He is Lucy, I swear he is,” insisted Gus. “Unless I’m having the visions again.”
“You’re not having any visions,” I said.
“Well, th
en we have to get him out of here! You won’t have a stick of furniture left in the place otherwise—honestly! I’ve met his type before. Thorough professionals…”
“No, Gus, please listen to me,” I said, trying to be serious. “He won’t steal our furniture—he’s my friend.”
“Really? Do you mean it? Well, I know it’s none of my business and I know we’ve just met and I’ve no right to comment, but, a common criminal—I wouldn’t have expected it, that’s all…and I can’t see what you think is so funny. You won’t think it’s funny when you see your couch on sale at Camden Market and you have to sleep on the floor. I certainly don’t think it’s a laughing matter…”
“Please shut up and listen to me, Gus,” I managed to sputter. “Daniel, that’s the tall man, outside the door. He didn’t steal anyone’s beer.”
“But, I saw him…”
“It was his beer, though.”
“No, it was Donal’s beer.”
“But he is Donal and his name is Daniel.”
A pause while Gus digested this fact.
“Oh God,” he groaned.
He lurched over and threw himself on my bed, his face in his hands.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” he moaned.
“It’s okay,” I said gently.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
Gus looked up at me from between his fingers.
“Oh God,” he said, his face stricken.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“No, it isn’t. I accused him of stealing his own beer and then I drank it all. And then I took his girlfriend’s bottle of wine…”
“She’s not his girlfriend…” I said irrelevantly. “Although maybe she is now…”
“The scary blonde?”
“Er, yes.” Karen could be described that way.
“Believe me,” insisted Gus. “She’s his girlfriend, all right, at least if she has anything to do with it.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I admitted.
How interesting, I thought. So Gus could be perceptive and clued-in? How much of his flighty, madcap carry-on was an act? Or was he both perceptive and flighty? Could it all be part of the same man? And did I have the energy for it?
“I’m not usually obnoxious like that, Lucy, honestly I’m not,” he insisted. “It was the drugs. It must have been.”