Landing

  "How tactful."

  "You know, Síle, you're better off single."

  "Sez Mrs. Anton McCafferty," she said automatically. And then, "I don't feel exactly single."

  "Careful, now. That girl in Canada was probably just a symptom of your discontent," Jael warned her. "Dykes always pair up too fast; the boys are much more sensible. Marcus can just head out to the Phoenix Park if he gets the urge, can't he, or the sauna if it's raining?"

  Síle grinned at the thought of Jael's insights into what the tabloids called "the gay lifestyle" being overheard by a carriageful of travelers. "Not now he's buried in Leitrim living out The Good Life."

  "Oh god, I'd blocked that, poor eejit. Sheep-shagging's his only option, then."

  "Kathleen and I hadn't, in three years," Síle confided in a low voice.

  The phone squawked so loudly she had to lift it away from her ear.

  "Calm down," she said.

  "If I ever go a month without," Jael told her, "slit my throat."

  It was like being headhunted, or planning a surprise party. Síle seemed to go around all day biting her tongue. At the tiny corner shop on Stoneybatter she bought Time, Private Eye, Wired, and streaky bacon and a baguette, and she wanted to say to the tired eighteen-year-old behind the counter, I've just turned my whole life upside down because of a stranger.

  She sent Jude a photo of each of the five rooms in her house; she had to borrow Deirdre's old camera, because when she sent digital ones they crashed the Ireland Museum's PC. She smiled at mothers and babies walking in the park, and gave passengers extra bags of pretzels, but was tetchy with anyone who interrupted her daydreams of Jude, and she bit her brother-in-law's head off for forgetfully calling her an "air hostess." Wasn't romance meant to make you happy? What she felt was more like palpitations, or heartburn.

  Home Base

  Everyone has the right to leave any

  country, including his own, and to

  return to his country.

  —Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13 (2)

  Above Toronto the captain announced "a little bit of nasty weather." Síle'd had three Bailey's over the course of the flight, and felt fantastic. On the descent, the wind thrust against the thin metal skin of the plane; through her window she caught glimpses of the darkening April evening, gusts of snow like the spit of a furious giant. The plane heaved, and the man beside Síle hissed with fright. This would be fun, she decided, especially as Dublin hadn't seen a flake of snow all year.

  Landing, landing: an ecstatic quiver at touchdown.

  Walking through a strange airport always made Síle feel like she was in the opening scene of Jackie Brown, which was one of her all-time favourites. (Well, how many other films starred ripely gorgeous, clever, dark-skinned flight attendants?) She walked fast, relishing the chance to stretch, aware of the movement of her hips in her purple knee-length skirt. Her red leather carry-on glided along behind her. She'd put her hair up in a French twist and applied a lipstick called Bruised Fruit. Toronto Pearson Airport was all gray carpets and oversized art; outside the walls of glass she could see nothing but spiraling white.

  "Visiting friends, family?"

  "Mm," Síle told the woman at Immigration with a smile, slightly breathless at the thought of trying to explain what had brought her here.

  "Staying how long?"

  "Just the weekend." Her passport was scanned and stamped (one mark among many on its tattered pages) and she was waved on. She sailed through customs, thinking Don't stop me, don't let anyone delay me one minute longer or I'll burst...

  There, behind the barrier, was a small head on top of a huge padded jacket. Síle paused, blinking. Jude didn't shout a greeting; she just raised her fingers and walked toward the gap in the barrier. Her hair looked very short, infinitely soft. Síle had planned to kiss Jude boldly, with lips and tongue in the middle of the throng, but now that the moment had come she felt barely capable of shaking hands.

  Jude hugged her. Síle was engulfed in down; it was like being embraced by a duvet. But on her back she could feel the hard grip of Jude's hands, and hot breath on her neck. They were blocking the stream of passengers emerging from the baggage hall. "Hey," said Síle, stepping sideways. "Hey you."

  "Hey."

  "Oh dear, I've got lipstick on your jaw."

  "Have you?" said Jude, grinning, not wiping it off.

  Síle remembered what it was all about, why she'd come all this way. Her heart drummed. "Here you are. Two feet away!"

  "Less," said Jude, stepping closer for a real kiss. "Sorry about the weather," she said after a minute; "spring seems to have changed its mind. Where's your coat?"

  "I'll be fine, this is lined," said Síle, zipping up her raincoat.

  Jude cast a doubtful glance at Síle's heels. "It's a whiteout, out there, and the roads haven't been salted yet. We could always go to the Holiday Inn," she added after a second.

  Síle frowned at the prospect of spending their first night at the Holiday Inn. She took Jude by one skinny, warm wrist and murmured, "I trust your driving."

  Jude grinned, picked up Síle's case, and staggered.

  "Mind, it's heavy."

  "You can say that again."

  "It's got wheels, look—" but Jude was already carrying it away. Síle followed her through the crowd, trying to remember where she'd stowed her red kidskin gloves. As she stepped through the sliding doors, a blast of icy wind nearly knocked her off her heels. Snow like a cloud of needles against her face, in her ears, in her eyes. Where had Jude got to? Síle couldn't be expected to walk through this. The evening air was like broken glass in her throat. Her hands were hurting. The moaning wind flattened her raincoat against her; she might just as well have been naked. Turn it off! she thought. Make it stop!

  A tug on her shoulder. Jude's face inside a huge fur-edged hood. "Where were you?"

  "Where were you ?" replied Síle childishly.

  "Don't you have a hat?"

  "I didn't know I'd need one, it's nearly May!" Then she tucked her hands in her armpits, set her back to the wind, and bawled, "Listen, let's go back inside till this dies down."

  Jude shook her head. "It won't." And turned away, no discussion.

  So Síle had to follow, picking her way across the road to the parking lot through several inches of snow. Jude was still carrying the bag instead of wheeling it; this was butch bordering on ridiculous. Her car turned out to be a white Mustang, nibbled by rust along all its edges. While Jude was putting the suitcase in the trunk, Síle went to the left-hand door, without thinking, and then felt a surge of exasperation with herself for behaving like someone who'd never crossed the Atlantic.

  The heating made a desperate whirr. "Sorry about this old wreck," Jude muttered, backing out, "but at least it's a stick shift, so I can usually find my way out of trouble."

  As they inched along the motorway in the twilight, behind hundreds of other travelers, Síle sat cupping her throbbing ears. Her ankles were wet. "I'm just not bred for this cold," she remarked with a self-mocking shudder.

  Jude didn't answer. She was hunched over the wheel, peering past the headlights at the spotlit direction signs. ALL ROADS LEAD TO BRAMPTON. Was the girl really this taciturn in person, Síle tried to remember, or was it only a mood brought on by the howling blizzard? But then, what were any of us except a random sequence of moods?

  "This climate's rather a thrill," she said, as merrily as she could manage. "I might have died back there outside the terminal, mightn't I, if I'd turned the wrong way in the snow and tripped over something, or just stood there waiting for you for too long? Whereas at home you could lie in a ditch for a fortnight and end up with nothing worse than a runny nose."

  Jude's eyes were on the dim taillights of the jeep in front. There was no other sign that they were on a road, Síle realized. They must have turned off the motorway without her noticing. The signs were illegible with snow. "Actually," Jude began hoarsely, then cleared her throat. "Ac
tually, this isn't too cold, because it's snowing."

  Síle puzzled over that. "Am I missing something?"

  "When it's really cold, snow can't fall."

  She absorbed that cheering information, as darkness began to close in. The Holiday Inn was sounding more and more attractive, in retrospect. Already she'd counted four cars off the road, one of them upside down. She craned to see whether all the passengers had got out safely, but all she glimpsed was snow and blackness. The narrow file of cars crept forward. Síle suddenly wondered whether there was a road under them at all, or whether the lead car might have veered off across some desolate field, with the rest of them following like slow lemmings.

  Jude turned on the radio, looking for a weather report, and for the next half hour she switched between crackling stations offering soul, classical, a panel discussion on gang culture, and Christian rock. It occurred to Síle that she hadn't seen her have a cigarette yet; maybe Jude never smoked while she was driving. "How are your legs?" Jude asked suddenly.

  "Numb to the knee, actually."

  Jude fiddled with the heating controls. "That better?"

  "Not really."

  She turned and tugged a blanket off the backseat.

  Síle tried to feel grateful for that bit of gallantry, as she wrapped the scratchy, damp material around her legs. At one point she took out her gizmo and gave it a squeeze to light up the little screen. It was 8:39, somewhere in the snowbound, godless wilderness. Distance from Home City Dublin 3285 Miles. Nearly two in the morning back in Stoneybatter, where Síle could have been tucked up in her copper-pipe bed on her Egyptian cotton sheets.

  She hadn't noticed the jeep ahead turn off the road, but it was nowhere to be seen; the Mustang was alone now. There was nothing ahead of them but the menacing whiteness under their headlights, the faint speckle of falling snow. "Not too long now," murmured Jude.

  And that was it for small talk for another half hour. Síle had never met a Silence she couldn't fill, but tonight she was too cold, too disappointed; she'd be damned if she was going to do all the work. Why did I ever think I was falling for this peculiar bogtrotter who has nothing to say for herself and nothing to say to me?

  They drew to a halt two blocks short of a bare crossroads, under a feeble streetlight. "Don't say we're out of petrol?" asked Síle.

  "No, we're home." Jude went out into the night, slamming the door behind her.

  Síle was alone, the skin of her throat, wrists, and knees contracting in the icy air. In theory she'd known that there would be no mountains, no river, but for the first time it hit her that the hamlet of Ireland was nothing but a few Silent streets. Population six hundred, but where were they all? It had taken nearly four hours to reach the arse end of nowhere.

  Jude opened the door again to explain, "I can't pull into the driveway till it's shoveled."

  When Síle stepped out, the snow came up to her knees. It was astonishingly wet and cold through her tights. She lurched after Jude's dark bulk. Snowflakes spiked on her eyelashes. At one point she almost lost one of her shoes in a snowdrift, but she reminded herself grimly of what it had cost and clenched it on.

  Jude was waiting for her outside one of the houses, hands tucked under her arms. "Soon be warm," she said. Síle's teeth were clamped shut.

  In the upstairs bathroom she cracked her head painfully on the slanted ceiling. Everything was in French as well as English, she noticed: the shampoo, the toothpaste.

  Slow steps on the stairs. Jude stood in the doorway. "I guess you hate me right now."

  "That's right," said Síle. She kept on chafing her bare legs with the stiff towel, aware of Jude's eyes on them.

  "What you need is a hot bath."

  "Oh, I always take showers," said Síle, "they're so much faster."

  There it was, the crooked little smile, the one Síle'd been trying to call up in her memory, ever since New Year's Day. "What's the rush?" asked Jude. She ran the bath till it was very deep—checking the temperature, while Síle sat there on the toilet seat, suddenly drop-dead tired. Finally Jude opened a box and threw in what looked like a handful of dust.

  "What's that?" asked Síle.

  "Oatmeal." Jude turned off the taps, which made an old-fashioned creak.

  Oatmeal? I've gone back in time, Síle thought, I've joined the fucking Amish, like Harrison Ford in Witness.

  Alone, she immersed herself in the silky, clouded water and sank down till it covered her stomach, her nipples, her chin. The heat made her limbs throb. She felt as if she were drowning.

  When she emerged in her towel, she was in a better state to notice things. Lots of bare wood; warm air puffed through intricate wrought-iron grilles in the floor. She paused at a heavy carved bookcase, her finger brushing titles: Sisters in the Wilderness, The Donnellys Trilogy, Who Has Seen the Wind, Wisconsin Death Trip, and a whole shelf by somebody named Pierre Berton. The first room she peeped into had an unused look, a vase of honesty beside the bed; that must have been the mother's. The next door was wide open, and her green case was standing there, incongruously executive beside a rocking chair, on the rag rug. Folded on the bed were a pair of blue striped cotton pajamas. Síle had brought her silk nightshirt with her, but on impulse she put the pajamas on and crawled under the huge, lumpy duvet. She wondered where Jude had got to. Off having a fag at last, maybe.

  Two in the morning, Irish time, or was it three? Her eyelids were beginning to droop by the time Jude appeared in the doorway with a steaming mug. "Camomile tea."

  "Sorry," said Síle, "but I can't stand the stuff."

  The girl set the mug down on the table and sat on the very edge of the bed. "How're you doing?"

  "Better."

  Jude took a sip of the camomile.

  The Silence was getting awkward, so Síle said, "I brought you a little something," pointing to the duty-free bag on the table.

  Jude pulled out the two big cartons of cigarettes.

  "I've always refused to buy death-sticks for my friends, but this time I decided to make the grand gesture, to make up for biting your head off at Heathrow. When you lit up at the baggage carousel."

  Jude let out a creaky laugh.

  "What?" asked Síle. "Did I get the brand wrong?"

  Jude leaned over and kissed her with precise and strong lips.

  Síle stared up at her. "You don't taste like a smoker."

  "Exactly."

  "You didn't!"

  "Midnight yesterday, and I've been brushing my teeth a lot since then, for something to do."

  "For me?" asked Síle, marveling. "You gave up smoking for me?"

  Jude shrugged. "You were just ... the occasion."

  Síle smiled as sleekly as a cat. "That's why you've been such a glump this evening. You're in withdrawal!"

  "A glump?"

  "You know exactly what I mean. Riding along in stony Silence like some prison escort..."

  "I was concentrating on the road. It was tough driving." Jude's voice was grim, but her mouth was twisted with laughter. "And as for you, showing up in a blizzard in stilettos and a slinky raincoat—"

  "Whose are the pajamas?" asked Síle, to change the subject.

  "Mine," said Jude, looking at her with those transparent blue eyes.

  "They're very soft. Are you coming in?" asked Síle, patting the duvet.

  Jude snapped the light off before undressing. "Puritan blood, you know," she muttered.

  Síle listened to the small sounds of clothes coming off, being piled on a chair. Then the bed creaked as Jude climbed in. Síle wriggled backwards till her back reached Jude's hot chest. The girl was completely naked; not such a Puritan as all that, then. It was odd, Síle thought; they'd never even hugged till this evening, they didn't know any of each other's curves and angles—and yet here they were; slotted together like this was the only possible way to lie on a wintry April night.

  She was glad, suddenly, that it had been so long since she'd had sex with anyone but herself. Too long to be trouble
d by memories. Must take of these pajamas, she thought sleepily. First times are crucial. Mustn't be wearing pajamas when I ravish her in some memorable way. "Lordy," she murmured, "cold really makes you appreciate another body."

  "There's a bit in the Bible about that, actually."

  "Isn't there always?" she groaned.

  Jude quoted it in her ear: "If two lie together, then they have heat, but how can one be warm alone?"

  Síle lay still, planning a witty response to that, deciding on her moves.

  But the next thing she knew, it was morning, and a gaudy yellow sun was setting their bed on fire.

  Sun in their eyes, lemon yellow in the crooks of their knees and elbows. Jude shouldn't have worried. She and Síle knew what to do as if the information had been coded in their genes. There was startled breathing and shrieking. The two of them got so tangled up in'Síle's hair, she had to shake it back over the headboard. This was a lucky dip, a ten-course banquet, a fruit machine where—ching, ching!—coins kept spilling from slots.

  They lay catching their breath, their fingers slotted together. "The first sap is the sweetest," Síle quoted.

  Jude's laugh turned into a hacking cough. So unfair, that it was only when you gave up smoking that your lungs broke down. She played with the delicate gold chain around Síle's waist.

  "Feels strange," Síle said; "nobody's touched it in a long time. It was my mother's; it's called an Aranjanam."

  Jude repeated the syllables, Síle correcting her till she'd got it right. "Didn't Kathleen touch it?" she asked. There were always ghosts around a bed; you might as well invite them in, start trying to make peace with them.

  Síle looked her in the eye. "Not in a few years."

  Excellent! But Jude only said that in her head, and she managed to keep her face straight. She thought of saying something like That's terrible, but it would be tacky to triumph over the fallen foe. "Do you ever take it off?"

  Síle shook her head. "Though one of these years I may have to have it lengthened! The times I've been to Kerala, my relations tell me I look like Sunita reincarnated," she went on, "but I still feel like such an outsider there. If our Amma had lived to raise me and Orla I suppose we'd be cultural hybrids, but as it is we're just brown Irish. I've never even slept with anyone who wasn't white as paper. Have you?"