Watermelon

by Marian Keyes

  He said, “Who are you here with?”

  And I said, “My friend Laura.”

  He said, “Can I join you?”

  I said, “Of course.”

  Why not, I thought. He’s entertaining and sweet and Laura will enjoy him.

  Although he might be a bit old for her.

  He steered me through the packed pub. I must say, people treated me with a lot more respect with him around.

  I don’t think I had more than one drop of alcohol spilled on me on my journey back from the bar as opposed to an entire brewery-full on the outward journey.

  Very unfair, of course, but there we are.

  We passed a crowd of people who seemed to know Adam.

  “Adam, where are you going?” demanded one of the girls. Blond. Pink pouty mouth. Very young. Very pretty.

  “I’ve met an old friend,” he told her. “I’m going to have a drink with her.”

  I quickly scanned the crowd to make sure that Helen wasn’t there.

  Thankfully, I couldn’t see her.

  However, I did notice an older woman in among them, looking very anxious as Adam bypassed their little group. Could this be the poor lovesick Professor Staunton?

  I was aware of several hostile looks. All from girls. It was almost funny.

  Fuck them, I thought cheerfully. If only they knew, they have nothing to fear from me. My husband dumped me, I wanted to tell them, and he was only average good-looking. I brought Adam over and introduced him to Laura.

  She blushed.

  So he did have this effect on every woman he met, I observed. And not just on the women in my family.

  Somehow Adam found a spare seat.

  He was that kind of guy.

  “You’re a terrible fibber.” I smiled at him.

  “Why?” he asked, opening his blue eyes very wide and looking all innocent and little-boyish.

  “Telling that poor girl that I’m an old friend,” I told him.

  “Well, you are,” he said. “You’re old.”

  “As in ‘older than me’ kind of ‘old,’” he told me hastily as he noticed my eyes starting to narrow. “And I only know that because I asked Helen what age you were. I thought you were much younger.”

  I just looked at him, thinking, I’ve got to hand it to him.

  “And,” he continued, “even though we’ve only met once before I feel like you’re a friend.”

  Yes, I thought, he’s definitely redeemed himself.

  It was at this stage, Laura later told me, that she took off her underpants and lifted her skirt but that neither of us noticed. I don’t believe her for a second, but I do believe I understand the point she was making.

  Laura asked Adam how he knew me and he said, “I’m in college with Helen.”

  Laura gave me a look that said a lot. Something like, “Oh God no, a bloody student. We’ll have to pretend to be interested in whatever boring subject he’s studying.”

  “It’s okay.” He smiled at Laura. “You don’t have to ask me what I’m studying.”

  “Oh,” she said, a bit embarrassed. “In that case I won’t.”

  There was a little bit of a pause.

  “Well,” said Laura, “I’m actually curious now.”

  “That wasn’t my intention.” Adam laughed. “But seeing as you’ve asked, I’m in first year doing English, psychology and anthropology.”

  “First year?” asked Laura with a raise of her eyebrows, obviously alluding to his—what shall we say—less than boyish demeanor.

  “Yes,” said Adam. “I’m a mature student. Or so they tell me. I don’t feel a bit mature. Only when I compare myself with my classmates, I suppose.”

  “Are they awful?” I asked, willing him to say yes.

  “Not awful,” he said. “Just young. I suppose somebody has to be. I mean, they’re all seventeen or eighteen and they’re all just out of school and they’re only going to college to put off being responsible for another couple of years. Not because they have any great interest in learning. Or love of their subjects.”

  Laura and I had the grace to look extremely shamefaced as he said this.

  Laura and Judy and I had been prime examples of the lazy, self-indulgent types he was describing.

  “How awful for you,” I murmured.

  Laura and I smirked at each other.

  “And how come you’re going to college now?” I asked him.

  “Well, I never wanted to go before. I never really knew what I wanted to do when I left school. So I did all the wrong things,” he said intriguingly.

  “And recently I’ve got my life back together. It was in a bit of a mess,”

  he continued, even more intriguingly. “And now I’m ready for college. I really love it.”

  “Really?” I said, impressed by his maturity and his single-mindedness.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Then he continued hesitantly, “I think I’m lucky to have waited until now. Because now I can really appreciate it. I think everyone should have to go and work for a couple of years before deciding whether they want to study some more.”

  “Is that what you did?” I asked him. “Did you work?”

  “Sort of,” he said abruptly, obviously not wanting to say anymore.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  So squeaky-clean Adam has a Past.

  Well, that’s how he was making it sound.

  I bet he’s just trying to be all mysterious and create a myth around himself, I thought uncharitably. He’s probably worked in the civil service for the past six years. Probably in the least glamorous department, like the livestock licensing one, if there is such a thing. Laura asked Adam the second question that one always asks students.

  (The first being, What are you studying?) “What do you want to do when you get your degree?” she asked.

  I waited with bated breath.

  Please God, oh please God, don’t let him say he wants to be a writer or a journalist, I begged.

  It would be just too much of a cliché.

  I was starting to like and respect him, and this would ruin it entirely.

  I put my hands together in prayer and sent my eyes heavenward.

  “I’d like to do something with the psychology,” he said. (Phew! I thought.) “I’m interested in the way people’s minds work. I might like to be some kind of counselor. Or I might like to get involved in advertising.

  And use the psychology that way,” he explained. “Anyway, it’s a long way away.”

  “And what about English?” I asked him nervously. “Don’t you enjoy that?”

  “Of course,” he said. “It’s my favorite. But I can’t see myself getting a job out of it. Unless I want to try to become a writer or a journalist. And everybody wants to do that.”

  Thank God! I thought.

  I’m glad that he likes it. I just couldn’t bear to hear another person going on about how he wants to write a book. So we chatted pleasantly. Laura went to the bar to get more drinks.

  Adam turned to me and smiled.

  “This is great,” he said. “It’s so nice to have a bit of intelligent conversation.”

  I glowed.

  Adam moved a little bit closer to me.

  So I may not have the body of a seventeen-year-old but I can still entertain a man, I thought smugly.

  “Adam, we’re leaving now. Are you coming?”

  The pretty blond girl appeared at Adam’s side.

  “No, Melissa, not yet. But I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay?” said Adam.

  It was obviously far from okay. Melissa looked outraged.

  “But…I thought…aren’t you coming to the party?” she asked, sounding as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “No, I don’t think so,” said Adam, a bit more firmly this time.

  “Fine!” said Melissa, letting Adam know that it was far from fine. “Here’s your bag.” And she let a huge sports bag fall with a thu
d onto the floor.

  She cast venomous looks at both Laura and me.

  Puzzled but venomous.

  She really couldn’t understand what Adam was doing with two old bags like us when he could have had his pick of all the nubile seventeen-year-olds in the place.

  Quite frankly, neither could I.

  Melissa flounced away and Adam sighed.

  “I couldn’t stand it,” he explained wearily. “Another student party. Cans of warm Heineken. And not being able to get into the bathroom because someone’s having sex in there. And you leave your jacket on the bed and someone pukes on it. I’m too old.”

  I suddenly felt genuinely sorry for him.

  I thought he was being sincere when he told me he was enjoying a bit of intelligent conversation.

  It couldn’t be easy to be surrounded by giggly excitable eighteen-year-olds like Helen and Melissa when you’re a lot more grown-up than that.

  And it also couldn’t be easy, I realized, to have so many young girls in love with you. Not if you were a kind person, like Adam seemed to be, and didn’t want to hurt or upset them. Sometimes, not that I’d know or anything, but being beautiful isn’t all fun and games. You have to use your power wisely and responsibly.

  For the next ten minutes or so a steady stream of young girls came over to say good-bye to Adam. Well, that was their pretext. Melissa had obviously reported back and they were really coming to see how hideous and old Laura and I were. I have to admit, if the tables were turned, I’d be one of the first over to criticize and ridicule the shoes, clothes, makeup and hair of the offending women.

  As it happened, Laura looked beautiful, red curls, alabaster skin and nothing like her thirty years. I don’t think I looked too awful either. But I’m sure that didn’t stop anyone from saying how ancient we looked. And what did it matter?

  Someone stuck a can under my nose and rattled it a bit. “Would you like to make a contribution to children in need?” asked a harassed-looking man in a wet overcoat.

  “Certainly,” I said, and shoved a pound into the can.

  “Yourself?” he said, looking at Laura. He hadn’t even asked Adam to contribute. He obviously recognized a penniless student when he saw one.

  “Oh, I make my contributions directly,” Laura explained to the man.

  “Do you?” I asked, puzzled. I hadn’t known that Laura was involved in any children’s charities.

  “Well, I have sex with a child on a regular basis,” she declared. “If that isn’t contributing directly, I don’t know what is.”

  The man looked horrified and moved on to the next table at high speed.

  Adam roared with laughter.

  “I’ve never met a pedophile before,” he said to her.

  “I’m only joking. I’m not really a child molester at all,” she told Adam.

  “The child in question is nineteen.”

  We finished our drinks and put on our coats and got ready to leave.

  The pub was starting to empty. Everyone at the tables around us seemed in high spirits, except the bartenders, who were practically begging people to leave. “I’ve worked thirteen nights in a row,” I heard one bartender telling a particularly rowdy table of revelers. “I’m exhausted.” In fairness, he did look exhausted, but I think he was wasting his time trying to appeal to their humanitarian side.

  “You’re bringing tears to my eyes,” said a rather drunk young man with grave irony.

  “Finish that beer, or I’m taking it,” threatened another bartender, at another nearby table.

  So the customer drank nearly a whole pint in one gulp, to the encouraging comments of his friends—“Good man,” “Waste not, want not,” and various other shouts.

  Even Laura called over, “Swalley that down.”

  We passed the customer about five minutes later, just outside the pub, as he was being assisted by a couple of his equally drunk friends while vomiting copiously. When we got to the door of the pub, we found that the rain had started again.

  “I’m only parked up the road,” said Laura. “I’ll run.”

  We hugged each other.

  “I’ll be out on Sunday to see Kate,” she said. “Lovely meeting you, Adam.” And off she ran into the wet night, almost colliding with the vomiting man.

  “Sorry,” she called to him, her voice floating back to us on the damp night air.

  Adam and I stood at the door for a moment or two. I wasn’t sure what to say to him, and he said nothing at all.

  “Can I give you a lift home?” I asked.

  I felt a bit awkward about asking him.

  As though I was the rich older woman who was desperate for love and sex and buying the penniless handsome young man.

  “That would be really great,” he said. “I think I’ve missed the last bus.”

  He flushed a smile at me.

  I relaxed.

  I was doing him a favor. Not trying to take advantage of him.

  We walked briskly along the wet streets until we reached the parking lot, and believe me, there was nothing even remotely romantic about the walk in the rain. Utter misery is what it was. My boots are suede. I’ll have to spend the rest of my life standing with them over a steaming kettle to restore them to their former glory.

  We got into the car. He threw his soaking bag on the back seat. He sat in the passenger seat and, I swear to God, he practically filled the whole front of the car.

  Off we went.

  He started fiddling with the radio station.

  “Oh don’t!” I told him. “Dad’ll kill me.”

  I told him the conversation that I’d had with Dad before I left and he laughed heartily.

  “You’re a good driver,” he said after a while.

  Naturally, as soon as he said that I got all flustered and stalled the car, and then nearly drove into a pole. He gave me directions to his apartment in Rathmines and we drove along in the rain.

  Neither of us spoke.

  The only sound was the swishing of the car wheels on the road and the squeaking of the windshield wipers.

  But it was a nice silence.

  I pulled up outside his house and smiled good-bye at him. It really had been a lovely evening.

  “Thanks for the lift,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.” I smiled.

  “Er, em…would you like, I mean…can I offer you a cup of tea?” he asked awkwardly.

  “When…like…now, do you mean?” I asked just as awkwardly.

  “No, I was thinking of sometime around next December.” He smiled at me.

  My refusal was automatic—it was in my mouth before I even knew it. I had several excuses: It was late, I was soaked, this was my first night to leave Kate with someone else, Helen would machete me.

  “Yes,” I said, totally surprising myself. “Why not?”

  I parked the car and in we went.

  I was filled with trepidation. My fear was well-founded. I had been to enough students’ apartments to expect the worst. All kinds of odd arrangements. You know, six or seven people sleeping in the front room, a couple of people living in the kitchen, having to go through a bedroom to get to the bathroom, having to go through the bathroom to get to the living room.

  Bedrooms divided by a tartan rug hanging from the ceiling, to give a pretense of privacy. Wardrobes in the hall. Chests of drawers in the kitchen.

  Saucepans and buckets in the bathroom. The fridge on the landing. The coffee table in the front room consisting of four blue milk crates and a slab of chipboard.

  You know, that kind of thing.

  A kitchen that looked like if it were struck by a bolt of lightning, the process of evolution would begin all over again, curtains askew and crooked, broken blinds hanging from the windows, crushed cans of beer underfoot, the cistern being used to make home brew.

  Oh yes, believe me, I’ve paid my dues at the student apartments of this world.

  So I was g
reatly relieved when Adam opened the front door and let me into an apartment that looked normal—in fact, I’d go so far as to say downright pleasant.

  “Come into the kitchen,” he said, taking off his wet jacket.

  We went into the kitchen and Adam put on the kettle and a heater. I was suspicious.

  “The other people who live here,” I asked him, “are they students also?”

  “No,” he said, taking my coat off me and hanging it up near the heater.

  “They both work.” Well, that explained a lot.

  “Are you soaked?” he asked nicely. “Would you like me to get you a sweater?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said gamely. “My coat protected me from the worst of the precipitation.”

  He smiled.

  “Well, I’ll get you a towel to dry your hair,” he said, and left for a moment.

  He was back almost immediately with a big blue towel in his hand, and I’m glad to be able to put your mind at rest here and tell you that, no, he didn’t dry my hair for me.

  No, he gave me the towel and I gave my hair a few halfhearted scrubs.

  I didn’t want to end up with it sticking up all over the place and drying at funny angles.

  Quite frankly, I’d rather have caught pneumonia.

  I took off my boots and put them in front of the heater. Adam gave me a cup of tea and we sat at the table in the pleasant warm kitchen. He even found a packet of biscuits.

  “They’re Jenny’s,” he explained. “I’ll tell her in the morning that I had a special visitor last night. She’ll understand.”

  He made it seem so easy to be charming. It never came across as smarmy or insincere.

  “So how long is it since you’ve had Kate?” he asked, putting the sugar in front of me.

  “Over a month now,” I said.

  “Look, I hope you don’t mind,” he said awkwardly. “But Helen has told me the situation with you and your husband.” “And?” I said, minding.

  “Well, nothing really,” he said hurriedly. “I mean, I know it’s none of my business or anything, but I’m sure it’s not easy for you. I went through something a bit similar myself and I know how awful it is.”

  “Really?” I said, intrigued.

  “Well, yes,” he said. “But I’m not trying to pry into your life or anything.”