Tender

by Belinda McKeon

  “My doubts?” Liam said, looking at her almost wildly, and for a moment Catherine thought he had said My dice?

  (That accent. That accent which should never, ever, have been trusted.)

  “No, Catherine,” he said, and he did it to her name again, rolled it out as though it was a name in another language. “I’ve never had my doubts.”

  * * *

  (Well, that was his business.)

  * * *

  Well, it was just that she thought he deserved to know, was all, Catherine said, turning the beer mat over and over in her hands.

  Pieces flaking and crumbling off of it. The thick square of it, soggy with the Guinness she had spilled, sitting down.

  It was just, Catherine said, that she had decided that—for both their sakes—this could not go on any longer.

  This deception.

  This lie.

  Did he see what she meant? Did he understand why she had had to tell him?

  (Dates, all stored up and ready to give to him. Evenings, and mornings, and weekends; because she had known every moment of that summer. She had known, every moment, where James was, and she could remember every evening that he had been with her, and every evening that he had not, and so, she could list them out.)

  * * *

  “I can’t believe this, Catherine,” Liam said, but she could see that he could.

  The trouble in his eyes; she could see the trouble she had put there.

  And she had never had any doubt, really, but that he would believe her.

  Because, when it came down to it, really, how could you ever be sure of knowing any other person?

  Really knowing them?

  And Liam knew this, she saw. Liam understood this.

  * * *

  On the way home she stopped at Patrick Kavanagh’s bench.

  The bronze face glared.

  * * *

  And even if it was not true now, the thing she had told Liam, then still it was true in the core of her, and the core of things was, wasn’t it, what mattered?

  The core of things was what counted.

  And it was just that it was not Liam’s time for James, she told herself.

  Not yet.

  * * *

  “You’re looking better,” Lorraine said to her, that evening. “You’ve been looking so tired lately.”

  “All those bloody horoscopes,” Catherine said.

  Lorraine smiled. “Exhausted from seeing what lies ahead of us.”

  * * *

  In a day or two you will know where you stand in relation to something important to you.

  This week will bring closure.

  This week will bring a return.

  * * *

  And no, of course Catherine had not thought it through.

  What James would or would not say; what he would or would not be able to say to Liam, to undo the things Catherine had told him, to turn Catherine’s truths into fictions with a wave of his hand—

  She had not yet come to that part of the thinking.

  Because she had not been thinking at all, actually.

  She had only been doing what her every bone and every blood cell had ordered her to do.

  * * *

  The knock on the door. The knock, loud; loud and angry.

  Lorraine going to answer it, and Lorraine’s cheery hello, and Lorraine’s cheery hello faltering into concern, into confusion, as James walked past her, calling Catherine’s name, giving Catherine’s name two syllables, and both of them ugly, and both of them sharp—

  Catherine went to meet him.

  His face, leached of light.

  His eyes, in them nothing she had seen before.

  And still her stupid heart leaping at the sight of him.

  * * *

  And everybody hearing. Lorraine, Cillian, the friends who were over at the time, visiting them—everyone. The people in the flat upstairs; the people downstairs; the people in the houses on either side, even. They would be hearing them; they would be hearing James as he roared at her. What would they make of him, Catherine found herself wondering—worrying—as she stood there, in the path of him? What would they think of the things he was letting them hear?

  “People can hear you, James,” she said, at one point. “Everyone can hear.”

  He looked at her. She had stopped him, at least; she had stopped him mid-flow. At least there was that; at least there was this silence, merciful between them, for these moments.

  (Even if there was that look in his eyes.)

  And then he spoke.

  “Christ,” he said, “You learned your spake from the best of them. People can hear? Christ, you were taught and taught well.”

  (His spittle, as the words formed, landing on her cheeks, landing on her lips as they opened to try and form words of her own.)

  (She did not wipe it away.)

  * * *

  That she was devious, controlling, manipulative.

  (Well, she knew that.)

  That she was insane.

  (And she knew that, too.)

  That she could not bear to see him happy. That she could not bear to see him have something, someone, of his own. That she could not stand not to get her own way, when her own way was what she had always made damn sure of getting; that she was a spoiled child, a self-absorbed child; that she was a madwoman, that she was hysterical, that she was out of her disturbed and unstable mind. The way she had clung to him—followed him home to Carrigfinn—the way she had gone behind his back with his boyfriend, or tried to; what was fucking wrong with her, for Christ’s sake? Why would anybody want to go on in that way?

  (Why, indeed.)

  And that she was wrong, too. That was the greatest irony of it. That was the laugh, almost; that was almost the laugh. That she was wrong about Liam. Wrong about him. That she was wrong if she thought that it had been so easy, that any of this was, for James, in any way easy; in any way just something into which and through which he just wandered, easily, blissfully, as though he was just as much of a child as her. That none of this was easy for him. That so little of what he had brought home with him from Berlin had gone away. That Liam had made things easier, had made things feel lighter, but that Liam had not just wiped all slates clean. That every day was still difficult, that every day there was still the fear; not being able to hold his boyfriend’s hand in the street, for instance—did she have any idea what that felt like? And even though they were not holding hands, seeing the way people looked at them, knowing that people saw them, and knew, and hated them—did she have any idea what that was like? Probably not, because she was one of those people, actually, wasn’t she? She was one of those people who begrudged them every precious scrap of what they had? Wasn’t she? Yes, she was. Yes, she was, no matter what she tried to tell herself—well, then, if she was not, then why had she done what she had done? How could she have done what she had done? How could she ever have thought—? What kind of fool had she taken Liam for? Did she honestly think that Liam would believe something like that of him? No, he hadn’t; no, he hadn’t, no matter what it had looked like to her; no matter what Liam had looked like to her in the pub. And what did she think she was doing, anyway, arranging to meet his boyfriend in the pub? Arranging to lie to him? What was actually wrong with her? What had she turned into? Had she always been this way? Was it just that he had not seen it? Because, when it came down to it, they barely knew each other really, he and she; they had barely even known each other a year, if they were being honest. Writing those fucking letters to each other, like children, like pen pals—his letters that—he knew, he knew fucking well—she had barely even bothered to read. Because they had not fitted with her nice, light, college-girl lifestyle. Because they had not fitted with her boys and her parties and with all of the things that she had wanted to do more than she had wanted to bother with the trouble of being a friend to him. Until he had decided to act the same way, of course. Until he had decided, himself, to strike out on his own, to stand on h
is own feet. Oh, then it had stopped being all right for her, not to have him where she could see him, not to be aware of his every breath, his every move; then it had stopped suiting her.

  Well, this was an end to it. This was the end of it; this was the fucking limit of it. Because it was laughable, laughable, what she had done, what she had tried to do—as though he would want to touch her. As though he had ever, ever wanted to touch her; did she really think otherwise? Did she really delude herself so badly? No—no—she was not to touch him, now, she was not to even try to touch him—she was to keep her hands well and truly clear of him, that was what she was to do, and she was not to come near him again, and she was certainly not to come near his boyfriend again, and she was to leave them the fuck alone, and get her own life, not this pathetic, clinging shit she was up to now, acting like someone who was actually insane—no. No more, Catherine. He was not doing this anymore; he was not putting up with this anymore. He would not be coming here anymore; he would miss seeing Amy and Lorraine and Cillian, but they would find other ways to see each other; they would find other ways to maintain the friendships that had been in place long before she had come along, and that would be in place long, long after.

  And as for Liam—he and Liam—he and Liam were getting out of the city this weekend, up to stay with Liam’s parents, because Christ knew they needed to get away for a couple of days after the shit she had put them through; Christ knew they needed to get out of the city and somewhere they could relax without worrying about bumping into her, or about being stalked by her—because that was what she had been doing, did she not understand? Stalking them? Stalking them like some kind of fucking psychopath?

  They were gone—did she understand that? They were getting on a bus in the morning, and they were gone.

  Did she understand that?

  Fucking nutcase. Fucking limit.

  * * *

  (And God help her, what she most wanted to know, in that moment, was whether Liam’s parents knew about Liam and James. Whether Liam had told them. Whether, when they arrived up there for the weekend, would it be as a couple, would James be there as Liam’s boyfriend, and would Liam’s parents have no issue with that? Would Liam’s parents be happy for them to walk around the town, whatever town it was, and for anybody who saw them to see them? And maybe to know?)

  (This was what she found herself thinking, as she watched the front door slam.)

  (Which meant that he was right, didn’t it?)

  (Christ, you were taught and taught well.)

  * * *

  “Don’t even talk to me,” Lorraine said, when Catherine walked back into the sitting room, shaking, the tears finally, frantic­ally beginning to fall. “Don’t even look at me, Catherine. I can’t believe you. I can’t believe you would try to do that to him. After all that he’s gone through. After all we’ve seen him go through. He’s finally happy, and you try to—you try to—I can’t even understand you. I don’t want to understand you. I have to be honest with you, Catherine, I think you should go. I think you should leave. I don’t think there’s any place for you here anymore.”

  (He never said he was happy, was what Catherine thought.)

  * * *

  And she did not expect that Lorraine would talk to her again.

  She expected that the silent treatment she was given that evening, and the next evening, and all of Saturday morning, and into Saturday afternoon—Lorraine and Cillian ignoring her, talking to one another as though she was not there—would continue, and that it would be a full weekend of silence, and a full week of it, and another, until she managed to find another place in which to live—

  And she was fine with that. Or she was growing fine with that. She had cried all the tears she had to cry. She had hoped all the hope she was going to bother with. She had no use for it anymore. She needed to leave no room for it. This was not, it turned out, a terrible feeling. This numbness, this emptiness, was not the worst way to feel. She watched a lot of television, and she did not move from the armchair which was farthest from the sitting-room door, so that, if someone came in, she would find herself less tempted to look at them, less naturally inclined—

  It was golf on the television all that Saturday afternoon, which she did not understand even in the slightest, but which she let herself watch for hours anyway. Slumped in the armchair for two days. No horoscopes on the Friday; they could do without her, she had decided. She had made a couple of grand out of them, and that would keep her going for a while, that would give her the deposit and the first month’s rent on a new place, and someone else, some other robot, could create lies about how people’s lives were going to turn for them, about how people’s days were going to be—

  Her poems; maybe she would go back to her poems now, or maybe—what happens in the heart—maybe, actually, probably not. Something else. Something with a cleaner, blanker kind of slate. Putt again of the golf ball, and murmur of applause from the crowd so genteel that they did not even need a cordon, the crowd who stood there like good boys and girls, trailed the golfers across the course like a sea of chaperones. Putt. And applause. And the sun was streaming hot through the big bay window. And the picture on the television was filtered through its dusty, heavy haze. A red band running around the bottom of the screen now, but Catherine could not make it out, Catherine could not be bothered to squint at it; putt, and applause. Putt, and applause. Walk, and the crowd goes with you—stop, and the crowd stops too—

  Then a clatter from the hallway. The clatter of someone tripping on the way from the kitchen, and then, over the clatter, someone calling her name. Someone coming closer; someone up on their feet again, coming towards the sitting room, calling—shouting—Catherine’s name.

  Lorraine.

  Catherine almost laughed at the sound of her; that didn’t last long, was what she thought. Probably, Lorraine had dis­covered that all her cigarettes were gone, and had made the assumption that Catherine had helped herself to what was left of hers. But she was wrong, and Catherine looked forward to telling her. Catherine looked forward to—

  Lorraine at the sitting-room door now.

  “Catherine,” she said again, and Catherine saw; Lorraine had the transistor radio from the kitchen clutched in her hands.

  Her voice, when she said Catherine’s name, sounded at once very old and very young.

  And her face. It surprised Catherine that faces could actually turn that pale. That they could be so drained; drained of every drop of blood. And yet, still, the freckles as dark as ever; seeming darker, even, and more vivid, even, against the whiteness; spilling across the whiteness like tarnished stars.

  And her hands. Her hands, trembling so violently, Catherine saw now, that the radio should surely have fallen. That the radio could not stay—

  And in that moment, the radio fell. Bouncing off the carpet; the battery cover knocked off, the batteries spread—

  The voices silenced.

  “Catherine,” Lorraine said, “Have you heard from James today? Have you heard from Liam?”

  Catherine stared. Was this some kind of joke?

  “Catherine,” Lorraine said, and now a sob had leapt into her voice, and her hands, which had been hanging, went to her temples, went to her hair. “Catherine,” she said, and she said a sentence that Catherine did not understand. Some of the words she understood, and one of them she could not but understand—it was not a word you could ignore—but another of them, the most important of them, she could not understand; not just what it was, but how it was relevant, how it was relevant to them. Relevant to Lorraine, standing, really crying now, crying ragged, frightened tears in the doorway, the parts of the radio scattered, useless, at her feet; relevant to Catherine, sitting, still half hearing the putt and applause, in her big soft armchair in the afternoon sun. Relevant to James, or relevant to Liam, who were up with Liam’s parents in Enniskillen, or Derry, or wherever it was—