‘I’m really sorry, I wouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Life said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Or as Blake would say, “Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”’
Donal laughed but turned it into a cough instead for my benefit.
‘We can talk about the big trip tomorrow. In the mean time, give the man your phone, he needs to call his father.’
‘My battery’s low,’ I said.
Life gave me a look and spoke in a warning tone. ‘Lucy, give the man your phone.’
‘The battery is low,’ I said slowly, so that he’d understand.
‘Fine, you made me do this.’ Life turned to Donal. ‘Donal, I am not Lucy’s friend. I am Lucy’s life, I have contacted her in an effort to fix the mess she has made of herself. So far you have done a wonderful job with her carpet. I’m spending time with her because right now she needs me, though at the moment I’m strongly considering medication as the best course of action.’
I gasped.
‘You lied about the battery on your mobile.’ He justified his truth.
I opened and closed my mouth but nothing would come out. I reached into my pocket and grudgingly handed Donal the phone.
‘Let me walk you to the door,’ I said, taking one step to get there. I held it open for him. While Donal was out of earshot I added in a hushed voice, ‘I thought you could claim it on expenses. I can’t afford my own bill, never mind other people making calls.’
‘I’ll give you the fifty cent,’ Life said and threw me a cheeky smile, revealing new sparkling white teeth, before disappearing down the hallway. When I turned around, Donal was looking at me with a shocked expression as though he’d seen a ghost.
‘What?’ I asked, worried. ‘What happened?’
‘Where did you get this photo?’ He lifted up the phone, showing me the pair of Don Lockwood’s eyes on my screen saver.
‘The guy who owns the eyes sent it to me,’ I replied, confused. ‘Why?’
Realisation passed over his face. ‘Because they’re mine.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘What are you talking about?’ I stayed at the door, back pressed up against the metal while my mind ran through the various possibilities. The enduring emotion throughout all of the scenarios was anger. OK, I didn’t know Don Lockwood, he was a wrong number, but I had been honest with him when I had never been honest with anybody – myself included – definitely for the past two years, quite possibly in my entire life, and it doubly hurt that he had conned me. ‘Why would he take a photo of your eyes and send them to me?’
He was grinning broadly, laughing at a joke that I didn’t get. ‘No, I took the photo. I sent it to you. Lucy, I’m Don.’
‘No, you’re not, you’re Donal, your shirt says Donal.’ And a shirt wouldn’t lie. It couldn’t; it was a shirt.
‘My mother stitched this. She’s the only person in the world who calls me Donal. Lucy …’ He emphasised my name and smiled. ‘Of course, you’re such a Lucy.’
I stared at him, like that gaping fish again trying to figure it all out, then he took his cap off, ruffled his hair a bit self-consciously and looked at me. Then Bam! His eyes hit me, it was almost like a physical reaction, my head jerked back on my neck as if I’d been punched. They were the eyes I’d been staring at all week and there they were in the same room as me, moving, blinking, with a perfect nose and cute dimples beneath them. I don’t know if it’s possible for a human being to do this, but I melted.
‘You have me on your screen saver,’ he grinned proudly, waving my phone in the air.
‘I thought they were nice eyes. Not as nice as the ear, but nice.’
He turned his head to the side and proudly modelled his left ear.
I wolf-whistled and he laughed.
‘I knew it,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I kept looking at you and I knew that I knew you. So it wasn’t a wrong number after all,’ he said.
‘Sometimes wrong numbers are the right numbers,’ I said mainly to myself, echoing Life’s earlier sentiments. I had thought he was being philosophical but for once he was being literal. I was still trying to figure it out. ‘But directory enquiries connected me to the company number, not your mobile.’
‘You called on a weekend. My dad doesn’t work weekends, so the office number gets diverted to my mobile phone.’
‘I’m so stupid. I heard pub noises and just assumed …’
‘You’re not stupid,’ he said softly. ‘You’re just an idiot.’
I laughed.
‘So we were texting each other right beside one another all day.’
I had to think about it. All that time I had hated the person at the other end of his phone and all that time that person had been me. The irony.
‘Which, by the way, was extremely unprofessional of you,’ I said.
‘Couldn’t help it. But you didn’t respond to my last text which, by the way, was extremely rude of you.’ He handed me back the phone.
I scrolled through and read the end of his last text:
–But what I really really want? Is to meet you.
I thought about it, he was looking at me for an answer but instead of giving him one straight away, I texted him back:
–OK. Meet you for a coffee in five minutes?
I put the phone down, ignored him and headed straight for the cupboard from which I removed two mugs, and the coffee granules.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, watching me.
I ignored him and continued. Then his phone beeped. I watched him from the corner of my eye. He read it. Texted. Sent. Then he didn’t look at me and just got straight back to work, removing the furniture from my bed and lining it up back in front of the TV. I watched him as I waited for the kettle to boil.
My phone beeped.
–Just finishing work. See you in five.
I smiled. We went about our business in silence, me making the coffee, him putting the couch back together. Then when he was finished, he made his way over to the kitchen.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Don Lockwood.’ He held his hand out to greet me.
‘I know,’ I said, placing the coffee into it instead. ‘How was work?’
He looked down into his mug as though deciding whether to drink it or not and then he placed it down on the counter. Then he took my mug from my hands and placed it down beside his. And then he stepped closer, put his hand to my face – his fingers touched my face so tenderly – and he leaned in and kissed me. Not since I was twelve years old at the six-thirty-to-eight-thirty disco in my local leisure centre when Gerard Looney and I had slobbered all over each other for three consecutive slow songs without coming up for air, had I kissed someone for that length of time. But I couldn’t stop and I didn’t want to stop, so just for a change of scenery we automatically started working our way from the linoleum, to the brand spanking newly cleaned and slightly damp carpet, then our feet left the floor completely as we collapsed on the bed.
‘I have an idea for your infomercial,’ I said later that evening, lying on my side and leaning on my elbow to look at him. I continued in an advertiser’s voice. ‘We’ll take the dirt from your carpet and bring the filth to your bed. We’ll clean your carpets and seduce your wives while you’re at work.’
He laughed and joined in, ‘Want us to know if your curtains really match your rug?’
‘Uugh,’ I laughed, slapping him playfully. ‘Besides, I’ve no curtains.’
‘No,’ he said, looking at the curtain pole with amusement. ‘You haven’t much of a rug either.’
‘True,’ I smiled, and we laughed.
‘So,’ he said in a more serious tone, turning on to his side so that we were facing one another. ‘Tell me about life.’
I groaned. ‘This is very serious pillow talk.’
‘No, I don’t mean your life, I mean the guy who was in the apartment. Jesus, what do you think I am, interested in you?’
‘I should hope not,’ I laugh
ed. ‘I was hoping you were just using me for my body.’
‘I am.’ He moved closer.
‘What do you know about this kind of thing?’
‘That Life contacts you and you have to meet them and make some changes. I read an interview with a woman in a magazine while I was at the dentist.’
‘Did she have an over-the-top blowdry and was standing beside a vase full of lemons and limes?’
He laughed. ‘I can’t remember the details. But she was happy afterwards, that’s what I remember.’ He studied me and I waited for him to ask me if I was unhappy the way everybody else did, but he didn’t, probably because I’d tensed up and was as stiff as an ironing board beside him. ‘I’ve never met anyone who’s actually met with their lives before. You’re the first.’
‘How proud I feel.’
‘Well, whatever about pride, you shouldn’t be embarrassed.’
I went quiet.
‘Are you embarrassed?’
‘Tell me a fart joke or something. This subject is too serious.’
‘I’ll go one better than that.’ I felt him move beside me, then a disgusting smell.
I couldn’t help but giggle. ‘Thank you.’
‘Anything for you.’ He kissed my forehead.
‘That’s very thoughtful of you. We’re practically married now.’
‘Nah, if we were married, I’d have wafted it.’
It was disgusting but I laughed, loved the closeness and the level of comfort with him, but I was worried. It had been a long time since I’d bedded a stunning man. It had been a long time since I’d slept with any man – a stockbroker who liked my tits ten months ago, but a longer time since a man like him who I’d truly felt at home with – and never had I brought a man back to my flat. Don had seen my world, he had entered my bubble that I’d created for nobody else but myself and though I’d enjoyed every second of it and hadn’t thought of Blake once, now as he was looking at me with the eyes that I felt belonged more on my phone screen saver and less in my bed, all I wanted was for him to leave. I thought I’d made a mistake. The adrenaline I’d felt when I’d discovered my true feelings for Blake mere hours earlier had returned. I was thinking of Jenna, Jenna the slut from Australia, and wondering if they lay like this together, naked and contorted, and it made my heart twist.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Yeah.’ I snapped out of it. I suddenly wanted to be alone again but it was dark, it was ten o’clock on a Sunday night, I wasn’t sure if he intended on staying over or if he was going to leap out of bed any second thanking me for my time.
‘Didn’t you say that you were late for an appointment earlier?’ I asked.
‘No, it’s okay, it’s not important now.’
‘I won’t take it personally,’ I said, perking up. ‘If there’s somewhere you have to be then please feel free to leave.’
‘I was supposed to have dinner with my parents but really you’ve done me a favour. Sex with a stranger is far more important.’
I tried to figure out another way to make him leave; wanting them to stay was usually enough.
‘What were you thinking about a few minutes ago?’
‘When?’
‘You know when.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘It’s just that, I lost you,’ he said tenderly, stroking my hair in a hypnotically relaxing rhythm. I battled to keep my eyes open. ‘You were right there, and then you were gone.’ He was speaking so gently, so melodically, that I was present again. He moved closer and kissed me.
‘Ah. There you are,’ he murmured, then kissed me more intensely.
And despite my inner emotional protestations and despite feeling torn inside about my love for Blake, my body couldn’t help but respond to him and I got lost all over again.
He didn’t snore. He slept so silently I barely knew he was there. His skin was warm, not blazing hot like Blake’s. He kept to his side of the bed, not a foot or a knee or an arm across the line. His skin smelled of marshmallows, tasted salty from sweat. And despite the fact that I lay there planning what to bring in my half-packed suitcase beside our strewn clothes on the floor, and working out what I would do and say when I met Blake, I reached out to the warm sheets and felt for his hand. The silent sweet-smelling sleeper opened his closed palm and wrapped it around mine. We held hands and I slept. Then Life came knocking, or in my case, let himself into my flat with his own set of keys.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I was woken by the clatter of keys on the kitchen counter. Don jumped beside me, startled, probably disoriented, and immediately sat up in bed, ready to defend.
‘It’s okay,’ I said groggily. ‘It’s just him.’
‘Who?’ he said, alarmed, as though there were a secret love I hadn’t told him about, which technically there was but that certain secret love would not be bursting into my flat with his own set of keys and singing ‘Earthsong’ by Michael Jackson.
‘My life,’ I said, trying to speak with my mouth closed to avoid travelling morning breath. I offered him an apologetic smile. For my life interrupting him, not for my breath.
‘At six a.m.?’ He looked at his watch.
‘He’s a twenty-four-seven kind of man.’
‘Right.’ He smiled. ‘Of course. Will he approve of this?’
Life had suddenly stopped singing and the rustles of plastic bags had stopped.
‘Do I hear talking?’ Life asked in a sing-song voice. ‘Do I hear the voice of a man in little Lucy’s bed?’
I rolled my eyes and ducked under the covers. Don chuckled and protected his modesty by pulling the sheet to above his waist.
‘Oh, Loo-ceee,’ my life sang, his voice getting louder as he got closer. ‘Have you been a naughty girl? Hey, it’s you,’ Life said, standing at the end of my bed. ‘Yes!’
I had to laugh as Life whooped with delight.
‘I take it you approve,’ Don said.
‘Approve? Of course I do. Does this mean she doesn’t have to pay for the carpets because if so, your plan worked, Lucy. You should have seen what she did to the window cleaner.’
I crawled up to the surface. ‘I didn’t sleep with him to pay for the carpets,’ I said, insulted, then turned to Don. ‘Though that would be a really lovely gesture, thank you so much, Don.’
Don laughed. Life sat at the edge of the bed. I kicked him off and he wandered away without a fight and then made his way back with a tray, which he placed on Don’s lap. ‘I didn’t know if you liked marmalade or jam or honey so I brought all three.’
‘What about me?’
‘Make your own.’
Don chuckled. ‘This is great. Do you do this for all of Lucy’s men?’
Life lay down on the end of the bed. ‘Don, there isn’t enough bread in the world for me to feed Lucy’s lovers.’
Don laughed.
‘This doesn’t bother you? Having him around?’ I asked, surprised.
‘He’s a part of you, isn’t he?’ Don responded, then handed me half of his toast.
Life raised his eyebrows at me. I wanted my life to go away, and as sweet and wonderful as he was, I wanted Don to go too. I had to go see a man about our love.
‘You look really rough right now,’ Life said to me, munching on some toast. He looked at Don understandingly. ‘You must be thinking shit right now, are you? It’s okay if you are, we both understand. She’s just not a morning person. She’s a little dodgy after one p.m. too.’
Don laughed. ‘I think she’s beautiful.’ He handed me more toast.
I was embarrassed. Life didn’t offer a comeback; instead he studied me.
‘Thanks,’ I said quietly, taking the toast, but my appetite was gone. He was all the right things at exactly the wrong time. The nicer he was, the more uncomfortable I felt.
‘So does this mean our little trip is cancelled?’ Life asked, picking up on my mood and putting me on the spot.
‘No,’ I replied awkwardly, angry he??
?d mentioned it in Don’s presence. ‘Can you please leave us alone now?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said defiantly.
‘If you don’t leave us alone now, you’ll regret it.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Yes.’
He took another bite of his toast, didn’t budge from the bed.
‘Fine,’ I said. I threw off the covers and walked butt naked to the bathroom leaving Life choking on his toast and Don whooping like a college boy.
I showered in the new light of my bathroom, feeling uncomfortable about my life and my one-night stand sitting outside together. I didn’t want the water to ever stop falling. My fingers were close to shrivelling and the bathroom was so full of steam I could barely see the door, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t face Don. I wanted the water to wash away the guilt, the confusion over my feelings for Blake, which – whatever they were – were making whatever feelings I’d had for Don the night before suddenly insignificant. As I was shampooing for the third time, I had a thought: what was making me so sure that Don wanted more from me? He might have been perfectly content with a one-night stand, so feeling hopeful, I perked up and turned off the water. They were quiet outside. I climbed out of the bath. The voices started again, low murmurs in which I couldn’t make out their words. I wiped the condensation from the mirror and stared at a red blotchy heat-rashed face.
I sighed.
‘Come on, Lucy,’ I whispered. ‘Just get this over with so you can get to Blake.’
But even at that idea I felt a slight dread. Again, I didn’t like what I had but I didn’t know what I wanted, so I was once again aimless. When I stepped out into the kitchen – fully dressed – they went quiet. They were sitting beside each other at the counter, drinking coffee and eating omelettes. They looked at me. Don’s eyes fluttered over me with a softness; Life gave me the once-over but didn’t seem overly impressed. Mr Pan looked up from the bed of shoes at the window and monitored me just as I would him if he’d pissed on the mail – as though he knew the bad thing that I had done.
‘Well, it was obvious you were talking about me,’ I said, making my way to the kettle.