“Okay,” I said, feeling almost disappointed.
“I must apologize to him,” said Gus, jumping up off the bed.
“No,” I said. “Come back here. It’s too early in the morning for apologies. Later.”
Gus lurked by the door for a while, looking stressed and anxious, then he opened it a crack. “He’s gone,” he said with relief. “It’s safe for me to go and hose myself down.” And off he went.
While he was gone I lay in bed feeling very pleased with myself. I had to admit that I was relieved that he was slightly ashamed of himself for running off with Daniel’s Guinness. It showed that he was a decent person. And a smart one too—he’d figured out Karen fairly quickly.
He looked even cuter than I remembered—smiley and attractive and not half as bloodshot around the eyes.
What would happen, I wondered, when he came back from the bathroom? Would he get dressed and leave, awkwardly omitting to say anything about calling me? Somehow I thought not. I certainly hoped not.
There wasn’t that awful sordid feeling that often goes with waking up on a Sunday morning, either with a complete stranger in your bed, or in a complete stranger’s bed.
At least Gus had woken me up. He hadn’t inched carefully out of the bed and silently dressed in the dark and bolted out of the apartment, his underpants in his pocket, his watch forgotten on my bedside table.
I hadn’t awakened to the sound of the front door slamming behind him. And, with my history of relationships, that counted as a flying start.
Being with Gus felt natural and right. I wasn’t even nervous. Well hardly even.
He was back from the bathroom, with a pink towel around his waist, his hair wet and shiny, all clean and fragrant.
Suspiciously fragrant, actually.
I had been right about his legs.
He wasn’t very tall, but he was all man.
A shiver ran through me. I was looking forward to…er…getting to know him better.
“You’re looking at a man who has been exfoliated to within an inch of his life, Lucy.” He grinned, looking very pleased with himself.
“Exfoliated, defoliated, cleansed, conditioned, emolliated, moisturized, massaged, anointed! What! You name it, I’ve had it done to me in the last ten minutes. Can you remember the days when all we were expected to do was wash ourselves, Lucy? But not anymore. We must keep up with the times, mustn’t we, Lucy Sullivan?”
“Yes,” I giggled. He was so funny.
“Can’t let the grass grow under our feet, can we Lucy Sullivan?”
“No.”
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a cleaner man in the whole of London.”
“I bet.”
“Wonderful bathroom facilities, Lucy. You must pride yourself on them.”
“Er, yes, I suppose…”
The state of my bathroom wasn’t something that exactly occupied my thoughts much.
“Lucy, I hope it’s okay, but I used some of Elizabeth’s stuff.”
“Who’s Elizabeth?”
“Well, there’s little enough point in asking me, you should know, you live here. Isn’t she your roommate?”
“No, there’s only me and Karen and Charlotte.”
“Well, she has a nerve in that case, because the bathroom is full of her things.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Elizabeth, what was her surname? Began with G. Ardent, that’s what it was, I think. Elizabeth Ardent—I remember now because I was thinking it was a good name for a romantic novel writer—anyway she’s got a load of bottles and tubes in the bathroom with her name on them.”
“Oh God,” I started to laugh.
Gus had used Karen’s very expensive jars of Elizabeth Arden shower gel and body lotion. Or Elizabeth Hard-on as Charlotte and I called them. That was because we were jealous and coveted them, but we were afraid to touch them.
In fact even Karen didn’t use them—they were really just exhibition pieces that she kept for show, to impress the likes of Daniel, not that he noticed things like that,
what with him being a man. Up to now I’d even suspected that there was only coloured water in the bottles.
Heads would roll over this.
“Oh no,” said Gus nervously. “I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I’ve committed another faux pas—surely I’m well over my quota already?—I shouldn’t have used that stuff, should I?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. There really was no point worrying now—it was done—if Karen kicked up a fuss…no…when Karen kicked up a fuss, I’d offer to replace them.
“But, Gus, I think it would be better if you didn’t use Karen’s things again.”
“Who’s Karen? Oh aye, I get you—Karen owns Elizabeth’s things? Poor Karen, getting hand-me-down bottles and tubes with someone else’s name on them. A bit like me really, all my school books had someone else’s name on them because I have so many older brothers…. Anyway, I’ll use your things in the bathroom the next time.”
“Good,” I smiled, delighted at the suggestion that there would be a next time.
“Lucy,” he said. He came over and sat beside me on my bed and held my hand. His hand was smooth and warm. Mine looked tiny beside it. I liked to feel tiny beside men. A couple of the men that I had gone out with were really skinny and nothing demoralized me more than going to bed with a man who had a smaller butt and thinner thighs than me.
“I really am sorry,” said Gus earnestly, making circles on the back of my hand with his thumb, sending little shivers of delight through me. I could barely concentrate on what he was saying.
“You’re very nice and I really like you,” he went on
awkwardly. “And I’ve done an awful lot of things wrong already and we’ve only just met. Sometimes I joke at the wrong time and when something is important to me I get it even more wrong. Sorry.”
My heart dissolved. I hadn’t been angry with him anyway, but after his little speech I felt so tender, so…so, cherishing toward him.
“And about the stuff in the bathroom, perhaps if I spoke to Elizabeth and explained…?”
“Karen!” I insisted. “She’s Karen! Not Elizabeth.”
I trailed off when I saw the twinkle in his eye.
I’m joking, Lucy,” he said. “I know she’s called Karen and that there’s no Elizabeth living here.”
“Oh,” I said, a bit embarrassed.
“You must think I’m a half-wit,” he said. “But it’s very kind of you to humour me, all the same.”
“I just thought…you know…” I limply tried to explain.
“It’s okay,” he said.
We gave each other a knowing little smile, this would be our little joke.
Already we had shared secrets, in-jokes, verbal shorthand!
“It’s fine,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
“If you say so. And now, Lucy, we’ll go for a walk.”
He had made me laugh with a lot of the things he had said, but that suggestion made me laugh most of all.
“What’s so funny, Lucy?”
“Me? A walk? On a Sunday?”
“Aye.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s freezing outside.”
“But we’ll wear warm clothes. And we’ll walk briskly.”
“But, Gus, I never leave the house on any Sunday from October to April, except to go to the Cash’n’Curry in the evening.”
“Then it’s about time you started. What’s this Cash’n’Curry place?”
“It’s the Indian restaurant around the corner.”
“Great name.”
“Well, it’s not really called Cash’n’Curry, it’s called something like The Star of Lahore or The Jewel of Bombay.”
“And you go there every Sunday night?”
“Every Sunday night without fail, and we always have exactly the same thing.”
“Okay, well we might go there later, Lucy, but right now
we’ll go to Holland Park, it’s only down the road from here.”
“Er, is it?”
“Aye. How long have you lived here, Lucy Sullivan?”
“A couple of years.” I mumbled it and tried to make “years” sound like “weeks.”
“And in all that time you’ve never been to the park? That’s a disgrace, Lucy.”
“I’m not really an outdoor creature, Gus.”
“I am.”
“Will they have a television there?”
“Aye.”
“Really?”
“No. But I’ll entertain you, don’t worry.”
“Okay.”
I was really very pleased. Delighted, in fact. He wanted to spend the day with me.
“Can I wear this sweater?”
“Yes, in fact you can have it, I hate it.”
Gus was rummaging around in my cupboards and had unearthed a revolting dark blue Aran sweater that my mother had knitted for me. I had never worn it precisely because she had knitted it for me.
“Wow, thanks, Lucy Sullivan.”
Chapter 25
I went to take a shower and when I got back my room was empty—Gus was gone and I felt slightly panicky. I was afraid that he might have left the apartment completely but I was more afraid that he hadn’t. He had an admirable capacity to create havoc and, despite his touching apology earlier, I wasn’t yet convinced that it was safe to let him roam my place without a chaperone.
Visions of finding him lying in bed with Daniel and Karen, blithely chatting, while they put a reluctant and ill-tempered halt to their sexual activities, appeared before me.
But it was fine.
Gus was in the kitchen, sitting at the table with Daniel and Karen. They were all drinking tea and the newspapers were spread out. To my intense relief, everyone was getting along nicely and having a civilized Sunday morning chat, stolen Guinness and misappropriated Elizabeth Arden toiletries notwithstanding. Gus and Daniel seemed to have resolved their differences regarding Gus’s unauthorized drinking of Daniel’s Guinness. Gus and Karen appeared to be the best of friends.
“Lucy,” smiled Gus when I appeared in the kitchen doorway, “come in and sit down and partake of some nourishment.”
“Oh,” I said faintly, a bit taken aback by all the camaraderie. I was a little bit, well, not annoyed exactly, but a bit put out, I suppose because all these people, who only knew one another because of me, were getting along fine without me.
“I explained to Karen about me using her Elizabeth Ardent things,” sang Gus, his face a picture of innocence. “And she says it’s okay.”
“It’s fine,” said Karen, smiling at Gus, smiling at Daniel, smiling at me.
Gosh! I’m sure Karen wouldn’t have been quite so reasonable if Charlotte or I had used said Elizabeth Arden toiletries.
She obviously liked Gus.
Or maybe Daniel had surpassed himself between the sheets the previous night. No doubt I’d find out later. She would tell everything, in the minutest possible detail, when the menfolk were gone.
I spent hours getting ready. It was the hardest thing in the world to look as if I was dressed sensibly and to look pretty and feminine and skinny at the same time. It was far harder to do that than getting ready for dinner with Daniel the previous evening had been. The trick with dressing for a visit to the great outdoors was to look as if I didn’t care how I looked, as though I’d just grabbed anything that came to hand and slung it on me. I wore my jeans—I couldn’t really see any way around it, even though I hated the way they made my thighs stick out.
I hated my thighs more than life itself and I would have given anything to have had skinny ones. I even used to pray for them. Well, I had once. It was one Christmas day at Mass (my mother insisted that we still go to Mass en famille and I had learned to go along with it). When the priest said that we should pray for our own special intentions, I prayed for thinner thighs. Afterwards my mother asked me what my “special intention” was and when I told her she was furious and told me that that was a completely unworthy and inappropriate thing to pray for. So I shamefacedly slunk back into the church, piously bowed my head and prayed for thinner thighs for her, Dad, Chris, Pete, Granny Sullivan, the poor people in Africa and anyone else who might like them.
But God didn’t reward my altruism by granting me slimmer thighs and I found that the only way to make them look small was to surround them with big things. So I put on my heavy, clumpy boots. But then I had to cancel out the trucker image that they conjured up by wearing a girly, pink angora sweater. And a big checked blue-and-black jacket, to make me look fragile and tiny.
I spent another hour or so trying to make it seem as if I had just loosely bundled my hair up on top of my head. It took forever to arrange my curls so that they looked as if they had just fallen down around my face at random.
Then a heavy application of makeup to achieve the unmadeup Look, or Bare-faced chic, if you prefer. All pink cheeks and clear white skin and bright eyes and fresh lips.
I found Gus in the front room, obviously firmly bonded with Karen, Charlotte and Daniel. They looked as if they’d known each other all their lives and my heart lifted. I wanted my roommates and friends to like him. And I wanted him to like my roommates and friends.
Although not too much, obviously.
There’s only one thing worse than your boyfriend and roommates not liking one another and that’s when they like each other a bit too much. It can lead to all sorts of terrible complications and confusion over the sleeping arrangements.
Charlotte’s Simon had called and Charlotte, all made-up and perfumed, was excitedly preparing for the lunch.
“Condoms,” she said feverishly, sitting down and rummaging through her bag. “Condoms, condoms, have I got condoms?”
“But you’re only meeting him for lunch,” I said.
“Lucy, don’t be ridiculous,” she said scornfully. “Oh good…damn, there’s only one—what flavour is it? Pina Colada—but it’ll just have to do.”
“You look lovely, Lucy,” said Daniel admiringly.
“Aye, you do. Beautiful.” Gus turned around to have a good look at me.
“Yes, you do,” echoed Charlotte.
“Thanks.”
“Are we ready?” Gus got up.
“We are,” I said.
“Very nice meeting you all,” said Gus to the general assembly, all rancour from the previous evening seemingly long forgotten. “And good luck with the…er…um…” he nodded to Charlotte.
“Thanks.” She smiled nervously.
“Have fun.” Daniel winked at me.
“You too.” I winked back.
Chapter 26
At least it wasn’t raining. It was cold, but the sky was blue and clear and the air was still.
“Do you have gloves, Lucy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, give them to me.”
“Oh.” Selfish bastard.
“Och, no, not for me!” he laughed. “Look, one for your right hand and one for my left hand and then we’ll hold hands with our two middle ones. See?”
“I see.”
That was great because it took care of the awkward question of handholding. A matter that wasn’t a problem at all on the previous alcohol lubricated evening, but that could have become a bit of an issue in the cold sober light of day.
On we marched, swinging hands, the cold air reddening our faces.
We lolled on a bench and held hands and watched the squirrels running and jumping about.
Even though I felt a little bit shy, I couldn’t take my eyes off Gus. He was something to look at—his hair so black and shiny, his jaw covered in stubble (he obviously hadn’t found Karen’s razor), and his eyes bright green in the cold winter light.
It was wonderful to be with him.
“This is lovely.” I sighed. “I’m so glad you forced me to come.”
“I’m glad you’re glad, Lucy Sullivan.”
“And the squ
irrels are so sweet,” I said. “I love watching them running about, jumping, gambolling.”
Gus quickly sat up and stared at me.
“Are you serious?” he demanded, looking very alarmed.
What now, I wondered, feeling anxious. Was he about to go off on another mad flight of fancy?
He was, apparently.
“Well,” he sputtered. “I have to say that the barbarians are well and truly at the gates when the dumb beasts of the fields have to entertain themselves by illicit betting…but that’s London for you, I suppose. Next they’ll be smoking crack!”
Oh my God, I thought, he’s bonkers. But I couldn’t take it seriously, I was laughing so much that I could barely speak.
“Not gambling, gambolling,” I said.
“I heard you the first time, Lucy Sullivan,” he said. “And what is it, Lucy?” he demanded. “The dogs? The horses? Bingo? Eyes down and two fat ladies for the little squirrels! Cards? Blackjack? Roulette? There’s no innocence anymore, Lucy! None. There’s nothing unspoiled. To think that the little squirrels are gambling, it breaks my heart—you wouldn’t get that in Donegal. What was wrong with gathering nuts? No thrill left in it, I suppose…. The influence of television.”
He stared at me, realization dawning.
“Oh,” he said, shamefaced. “Oh. Oh no. You meant the gambolling type of gambling. Not the gambling type of gambling.”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Oh. Well, sorry about that. A misunderstanding. You must think I’m fit to be locked up. The padded room for Gus.”
“No. I think you’re hilarious.”
“That’s very decent of you, Lucy” he said. “Most people just say that I’m crazy.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, amused.
“Search me,” he said, his pixie face a picture of assumed innocence.
I’d be delighted to, I thought.
“Anyway,” he continued, “if they think I’m crazy, they should meet the rest of my family.”
Uh oh! I sensed an unpleasant revelation hovering on the horizon. But I squared my shoulders and met it head on.
“Er, and what are they like, Gus?”
He gave me a sidelong grin and said, “Well now, insane isn’t a word I care to bandy about, Lucy, but…”