Tender

by Belinda McKeon

  * * *

  Thinking, Might not. Thinking, Need not.

  Might not ever find out, that was.

  Need not ever be told.

  Or Liam told, come to think of it, about him. Because Zoe had not told him about James; Zoe, it turned out, on that score, was a lot more discreet than Catherine had ever been. Saying, We can let them work it out for themselves. We can help them—we can nudge them—after the exams are over, we can make it so that they’re both in the right, same place, at the right, same time—

  (And Catherine would see it again in her mind’s eye, as clearly as though it was unfolding right here in the library before her: James’s smile meeting his smile. James’s eyes softening at what they saw in his. A greeting, shy, and a conversation, nervy, and a knowledge, an understanding, sparking at every atom of the air; and a suggestion, a conversation, an invitation—something casual, something light…)

  (And what, though, was actually wrong with her? What kind of friend would ever try to block this for him? Would fantasize about how to stop this ever from being?)

  (But those were questions for other people. Those were questions for people who lived in some other, simpler realm.)

  * * *

  And of course she should never have left her hiding place. Of course she should never have gone out of the library, that lunchtime, for food. Standing at the arts block railing, eating her sandwich, and keeping her eyes on the ground, and nearly there; just on the last bite of bread—

  And then Liam. Of course.

  Lifting his hand to her: a shy greeting. Smiling at her, striding over to her, calling out her name—

  Giving it those three long syllables. What would James’s name sound like in that mouth?

  She has the mouth.

  Those fucking Northern accents: so dangerous. So fucking attractive. How had she not copped at least that before?

  Telling her they had been missed at the party. Her and James.

  And so that was how James’s name sounded when he said it. Sweet and lifted. Quiet.

  She told a lie; she told a lie about James’s father, about how he had been sick at the weekend, about how James had needed to go and see him.

  And so had she, obviously. Obviously—and she let the im­plication hang there, let it sit on the air between them and do its insidious, straining attempt at work—obviously she had needed to go there, as well, with James.

  (Cursing herself in the next moment for having caused Liam’s face to become so filled with worry for James; to become so softened by concern for him, so tender with it—)

  * * *

  “Well, we’ll all have to get a few drinks, now, when these exams are over,” Liam said, once she had assured him that James’s father was fine, now, that there was no cause for alarm.

  (Or for caring, she said to herself.)

  Yes, a few drinks, Liam was saying; a few drinks after the exams. But Catherine shook her head.

  “Well, James is pretty busy,” she said. “I mean, with this exhibition he has coming up at the end of the summer.”

  “Oh, aye,” Liam said, laughing as though she had said something funny. “Ah, well, we’ll try. I’ll be around Dublin all summer.”

  “Why?”

  “Ah, you know, a bit of independence. Up home is fine, ah, but it’s a quiet old spot. You know yourself. Have you something lined up?”

  “I’m staying here.”

  “Aye, but I mean, like, a job?”

  And laughing again when she told him.

  “But what kinds of things are you going to write for people? What kind of thing would you write, say, for me?”

  * * *

  As if a sober star had whispered it

  Above the revolving, rumbling city: stay clear.

  * * *

  “What?!”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing. It’s just a line from a poem.”

  * * *

  And all the time she had been talking to him, she realized afterwards, she had been trying to see it in him. Studying him; staring at him through their conversation, as through a strip of gauze. Trying to see: where was it in him? Was it that softness, that sweetness, in his voice? Was it that slight unsteadiness, always, in his smile? Was it that restlessness in his hands, their constant motion, their darting as he spoke to people? Was it in his brown eyes, the eyes that—yes—she could imagine James finding beautiful? Was it somewhere to be seen, to be read as though it was a kind of notation, in his clothes? In his video-game T-shirt? His baggy corduroys? His scruffy Vans?

  And yet, so many of the boys in college dressed just that way—

  And no, she could not believe she was doing this. She could not. She could not believe that this was what she was trying to do. That this was what she was, actually. That this was what she had revealed herself to be carrying. That she had so much fooled herself, flattered herself, into thinking that she was good. That she was so open, and so loving, and so all right with everyone, in every way—

  Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named…

  Because that was what she was looking for, wasn’t it?

  Because that was what she was trying, in Liam, to see.

  * * *

  [EN20011]

  UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN

  TRINITY COLLEGE

  Faculty of Arts (Letters)

  School of English

  Senior Freshman Examination

  English Studies / T.S.M. Trinity Term 1998

  ROMANCE

  Saturday, 23 May 1998 Regent House 9:30–12:30

  Answer three questions

  Candidates are warned against repeating material

  Can it be claimed that medieval romances offer a significant comment upon and engagement with reality?

  Write on images of divine activity in medieval romance.

  “Many romances are so episodically structured that they are more like collections of stories than one story, and consequently often appear to have no overall meaning.” Discuss.

  “Description of place in romance can carry all the excitement of furious action.” Do you agree?

  “A self-portrayal of feudal knighthood with its mores and ideals is the fundamental purpose of courtly romance.” Discuss Eric Auerbach’s statement.

  Write on the importance of episodes and interludes of delay in Romance narrative technique.

  How significant is the title…

  * * *

  Dear Cit-Bag,

  EXAMS ARE OVER. Therefore, leave the library at once. The pleasure of your company is requested at Le Pav RIGHT THIS MINUTE for some v.v. pleasant boozing, which will take place on the lawn, in the company of every single other person who attends this university, along with quite a few who do not, beneath the lovely rays of the lovely sunshine.

  If you do not come, I will send Aidan to get you.

  You are DULY WARNED.

  Z

  P.S. I know that James is around, because Liam—☺! ☺!—tells me that they bumped into one another this morning—☺! ☺!—so please inform him that the pleasure of his company is also required.

  P.P.S. If you do not snog Little Emmet this evening, I will be very cross.

  P.P.P.S. I may already be slightly drunk.

  * * *

  “Just look at them all!” Aidan said, as he walked her down from the library. “It’s like Milton, the fallen angels!”

  Green sweep of the cricket lawns. Evening heat of the sun. All the hundreds of people stretched out, free now, drunk and happy and grateful, the whole, glinting summer before them.

  Drop your bags. Lose your notes. Buy your cans, and slip off your sandals, and feel the grass cool on your calluses, on your unpainted toes. Sweet smells of several smokings. Lazy strummings of several guitars. Sunburn being nudged back to life on so many faces, freckles springing back to the surface on so many arms.

  * * *

  And James was already there.

  * * *

&n
bsp; “Howaya,” he said drowsily, and he waved to her, from where he lay, which was with his head in Zoe’s lap, with Amy on one side, and Lisa on the other, his legs stretched out in front of him, his jeans rolled up. He was barefoot.

  “Hiya,” Catherine said, standing over them. Aidan had gone into the bar.

  “Sit down, Cath,” Lisa said, patting the ground beside her, and Catherine sat down. Her limbs felt stiff. She did not know what to do with them. Lisa handed her a can.

  “I must give you that photograph you took of James that day up in PhotoSoc, by the way,” she said. “I finally developed that roll of film.”

  “Oh?” James said.

  “Yeah. Most of them were rubbish, but Catherine’s one of you was lovely, actually. Really nice. You look like you’re dreaming, or something.”

  “Now, Reilly,” James said, as though this proved some point, and he sat up to take a sip from his own can. “Anything I can do, you can do better.”

  * * *

  And Catherine could not even look at him. What had he meant by that? Had he meant it as some kind of comment on her? Something snide. She felt sure of it—her heart was pounding with her sureness of it—but she could not understand what it was he had meant; had he intended for her to understand?

  But now he was laughing. Reaching across to her, actually, Catherine saw with a start—and touching her. Clasping her.

  “Happy anniversary, Reilly,” he was saying, and she was staring at him, her mouth gone dry. Was she losing her mind? What was he talking about? Had he even said it, that thing that she felt quite sure that he had? Happy anniversary? What was he talking about? She stared at the date in her mind, but it meant nothing to her: the twenty-third of May? Was he taking the piss out of her? How drunk was he?

  He was watching her, a smile on his lips, and the girls were laughing.

  “Happy anniversary?” she said. “What anniversary?”

  “Ah, Reilly,” he said, and he came over to her, clambering across Lisa’s legs. His breath was sharp with beer. “The day after your exams finished last year was the first day we met. I was just telling the girls.”

  “About you and your pea fetish,” Zoe said. “And your hangover from trying to fall asleep in Conor Moran’s arms. State of you.”

  “You’re an eejit, Reilly,” James said, and he put his arms around her, squeezing her, and her breath was gone. “I’m so glad I met you,” he said, over her shoulder. And then, much more quietly, into her ear so that the others could not catch it, “I’m sorry about everything.”

  “Awwww,” Lisa was saying beside them; the sound of her had almost drowned out James’s murmured words. But he had said them; Catherine saw from his eyes now, as he pulled back from her, that he had said them.

  “James—”

  But Zoe was scrambling to her feet now, a commotion. “Hey, Liam! Liam! LIAM IS HERE!” she shouted, jumping and waving as though to a rescue helicopter. “Liam! LIAM! We’re OVER HERE!”

  “Yeah, I think he hears you,” James said. “I think all the Liams can hear you.”

  “There’s only one Liam I’m interested in,” said Zoe, as Liam, his cheeks pink and his hair a tangle and his smile wide and delighted at the sight of them, ambled over.

  * * *

  And they talked about everything, the two of them. Once they got going, there was nothing that they did not seem to cover.

  They were drunk, Catherine knew, which helped—but still.

  They stretched out on the grass, not beside each other but opposite each other, his feet alongside James’s shoulders and James’s feet alongside his, and the evening blazed down on them, and they talked on for hours. The others wove in and the others wove out, and Catherine was among them, the weavers, the contributors, the consulted, but the spine of it was the pair of them, laid out across from one another. Their voices climbing easily across the way.

  * * *

  And later, Zoe’s argument, set out loudly and firmly and drunkenly.

  * * *

  Because she had heard it was the only place in town to go if you wanted to really, really dance.

  Because it was a Saturday night, and on a Saturday night, everywhere else would be awful.

  Because Conor and Emmet had at some stage joined them, and Conor and Emmet were making outraged noises about the idea of it, but Conor and Emmet would go where everyone else was going—“I resent that!” Emmet said—and it would be such fun—“I resent that!”—to watch them squirm.

  Because Zoe had heard that the DJs there always played Madonna, a lot of Madonna, and Madonna was precisely what this occasion called for.

  Because none of them—could this be possible?—not even Aidan, had ever been there before.

  Because the sun had gone down.

  * * *

  Because James.

  That was the actual reason.

  Because Liam.

  * * *

  And maybe there were other gay clubs in Dublin, but this was the one everyone knew about. This was the one everyone used, after all, in jokes.

  * * *

  And Catherine could go with them or she could go home now, alone, to a house that would be empty, because Amy was here, and Lorraine and Cillian were out elsewhere; she could go back to a house that would come at her every instant with new panics, new versions of what was happening a mile away, of what was being forged.

  That was the choice.

  And as they crossed Front Square, somebody was whooping and somebody was turning cartwheels on the cobblestones, and somebody was hoisted, wobbling, onto Aidan’s shoulders, and someone was puking, and someone was laughing, and the blue face of the clock was looking, watchful, down on them all. Seen it all before, it would say, if it could say, but it was a clock.

  Tick-tock

  Tick-tock

  “The fucking drink better be cheap in this place,” she heard Emmet grumble behind her. “That’s all I can say.”

  * * *

  The drink was not cheap.

  All these men, so handsome, so smiling—

  (All these women, smiling that way too.)

  “Fantastic,” Aidan kept saying, looking around as though in wonder, looking over the railings to the dance floor below. “Fantastic.”

  Emmet, leaning back stiffly against the purple walls: “Do you want binoculars, Murphy?”

  * * *

  Purple walls, and long velvet curtains, and velvet couches in bright reds and blues, and gilt edging on all of the furniture—everywhere was gilt, everywhere, and all of this oversized faux-Baroque, so that you could see the irony, you could see the confidence, you could see the gleeful wink and nod.

  Tiny, twinkling lights strung down from the ceiling, all over the stairs.

  And downstairs, in the lower part, was where the music they could hear now had its center; the bass was reaching up here, full and determined and languid, but the heart of whatever was happening was down there, still out of sight, and the tune playing was one that Catherine could not place just now, but she knew it, she did—

  (“Jesus Christ,” said Emmet, as another guy in a white vest went past, smiling at him.)

  “You love it, Doyle,” said Catherine, without enthusiasm; her eyes were on James. James, who was bundling, with Amy and Lisa and Zoe, onto one of the huge velvet couches. James who was falling into the cushions now, all elbows and knees and giddy laughter, something manic in the look of him—

  Something scared.

  So, safe enough yet?

  That was what Catherine caught herself thinking. That if he was scared, if he was nervous, about being here, that then she was safe enough yet. That she might not be losing him just yet; that he might not be ready to go from her, after all—

  In the next breath, despising her mind for the things it said to her. The places it allowed itself to go.

  (But, safe enough yet?)

  * * *

  Conor and Emmet lasted twenty minutes, and then they left for the Stag’s.

&
nbsp; * * *

  “Look at us,” Catherine said to James. They were standing in front of a wall covered entirely in tiny shards of mirror. Everything glinted in the countless tiny mirrors; everything shivered.