Tara nodded. ‘We had a fight. We never fight. It was horrible. And in public.’ Tara covered her face with her hands and Martha was terrified she might cry. Tara didn’t believe in crying, felt it was a waste of make-up. Martha knew she should hug her friend. Or touch her arm at least. But they weren’t huggers or touchers as a rule and doing either now might make the situation worse.
‘Mathilde couldn’t believe I hadn’t ... come out to my family. Christ, I hate that term. Come out. Coming out of the closet. That’s worse. We don’t have closets in Ireland, I told her. We have wardrobes. Except you never hear about people coming out of those.’ Tara’s voice was becoming as thin as her argument.
‘Take a breath,’ Martha said, forgetting about the tuna.
Tara closed her eyes and breathed in and out, several times. She could be so literal sometimes.
‘OK, go on,’ said Martha, trying not to sound impatient.
‘Well, we sort of made up and she went to kiss me and ... we were in the middle of Heathrow airport, for God’s sake ... there were people everywhere and ... I pulled away from her and she just looked at me and said, I see, in this really quiet voice.’
Tara lifted her head. Looked at Martha, shook her head. ‘She said I was the first gay homophobe she’s ever met.’
‘You didn’t tell her how you feel about the word gay, did you?’
‘I thought it best not to.’
Tara managed a weak smile and Martha was glad. They sat for a while, in the kind of silence that never bothered them.
‘I should have told you. Ages ago. About Mathilde,’ Tara said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I just ... it was all so new to me, and I wasn’t sure if—’
‘You don’t have to explain.’
‘I rang her when I landed in Milan. Then again after my meeting. I was going to ... you know ...’
‘Apologise?’
Tara nodded. She didn’t like admitting she was in the wrong. Probably because she rarely was.
‘I left messages but ... and then, when I arrived back in Heathrow, I found myself scanning the crowd in Arrivals because sometimes she meets me off the plane and the place was mobbed and there were all these people, kissing and hugging each other, and one couple in particular. Two women. Maybe in their fifties. And they just looked so ... sort of ... unselfconscious, as if it was the most normal thing in the world that they should be together, in public, and when they stopped kissing, one of them said, “I missed you so much.” Anyone could have heard her. And I started to cry. Like, proper crying. Out loud.’
‘In the Arrivals hall?’ Martha was shocked.
‘I couldn’t stop once I got going.’
‘Jesus.’
‘A security guard came up to me and asked if I was OK. And I told him I’d just found out ... just that minute ... how ... fond of Mathilde I was. I thought it would be a more gradual thing, you know? But this was like someone hit me on the head with, I don’t know, a mallet or something. Something heavy at any rate ...’
‘Fond?’
Tara looked at Martha. Her expression was solemn. ‘I love her.’ It was nearly a whisper. ‘Like the way you loved Cillian. That much.’
It had been strange. Tara mentioning Cillian. They never talked about him, not usually. Part of Martha’s ‘new beginning’ that Tara had referred to after everything had come to a head.
‘Move on, Wilder,’ she’d said when Martha mentioned his name on occasion. ‘There’s nothing to see here.’
Tara slumped against the back of the couch, as if her bald revelations had sapped her of her usual reserves of energy.
‘The security guard – his name is John, by the way – took me for a coffee. Obviously, I was anxious about airport security but he said not to worry, he was due a break and one of his colleagues would cover for him, and I told him everything. Can you believe that?’
Martha could not. Sharing confidences was not one of Tara’s traits. And certainly not with random strangers.
‘We’re following each other on Twitter now,’ Tara said. ‘He’s sent me a few links about, you know, telling people like ... your family, that you’re ... I suppose ... about your sexuality. Then he booked me on the next flight to Dublin and ... here I am.’ Tara raised her arms in a sort of ‘Ta-Dah’ gesture, and while her smile was of a diluted quality, it was there. It was definitely there. Martha was relieved to see it.
‘Does Mathilde know you’re here?’
‘No. I thought I’d get everything done, then fly back to London tomorrow evening and surprise her and ... you know ...’
‘Live happily ever after?’
‘Maybe.’ This non-business-related optimism was unprecedented.
‘So,’ said Martha. ‘What’s your plan?’ Tara perked up at the mention of a plan, as Martha knew she would.
‘We’re going to tell my family.’
‘We?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why do I have to?’
‘Katherine first,’ Tara continued, her voice gathering strength. ‘I’ve arranged for us to meet her at the bank tomorrow. At noon. We’ll take her for lunch, then go to see my mother.’
‘Ah, not your mother too?’
Martha could see Tara steeling herself before she nodded firmly.
‘Don’t you think—?’ Martha began.
‘It has to be all or nothing. It’s the only way Mathilde will believe that I ... you know ...’
‘Love her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, fine,’ said Martha, shaking her head.
‘I knew you’d say yes. Thank you,’ said Tara, and she leaned towards Martha and gathered her in her arms as best she could and hugged her and, after a moment, Martha hugged her back. The sensation was strange. They stayed like that, on the couch, with their arms around each other for much longer than Martha had anticipated. It was not unpleasant. She felt liquid and lightheaded. Feelings she usually associated with drinking. But she wasn’t drinking. She was sober. She supposed it was a moment. For both of them. A good moment. She held onto it. Wanted to make it last.
Except the good moment didn’t last. Of course not. Because now Tara was in a hospital. On a weekday. When she should be behind her enormous walnut desk in her enormous corner office on the top floor of the enormous office space she rented in the enormous office block in London’s reassuringly expensive South Bank, speaking with authority into one of her phones, brokering some highfalutin deal or other. Maybe buying more Internet companies. And then, after work, she should be at a little-known but fabulous bistro in some trendy on-the-cusp-of-gentrification part of London, having dinner with Mathilde, celebrating Tara’s long overdue disclosures to her family. Martha knew Katherine would be fine about it. And while Mrs Bolton might have repaired to a church to throw novenas at Tara’s revelation, she would have gotten over it. Eventually.
Tara had told Martha she was gay – although she didn’t actually use that word – on the day that Martha got drunk for the first time, two weeks before her fourteenth birthday.
She was home alone that Sunday. Her father was in Pretoria, reporting on the inauguration of Nelson Mandela. ‘The first black president of South Africa, Mo,’ her father had said before he left. ‘That’s no small thing.’
Her mother had taken Martha’s brothers to Sunshine House.
Martha’s mother took great trouble with her appearance any time she went to Sunshine House. She went there a lot. One of their most dedicated volunteers. On every committee, at every meeting, every event. She read to the kids, did arts and crafts with them, brought the few who could manage it on nature walks around the grounds, told them the names of the wildflowers growing in the hedgerows.
Martha had been relieved to note that since her mother had begun volunteering there, six years earlier, she’d been better. Perhaps better was too strong a word. She’d been busy. Distracted. She had less time to wonder what Martha was up to.
Martha laid her careful plans.
&nb
sp; That day was the annual memorial service at Sunshine House. For the kids who had kicked the bucket. Martha wondered where the term kicked the bucket came from. She would look it up in the school library the next time she was there for detention.
She didn’t say kick the bucket in front of her mother. She didn’t say anything. She was busy pretending to be sick. While her mother was in the shower, she mixed bread and milk into a thick paste in the basin that was kept in a cupboard in the utility room and used for vomiting into. She considered the sodden mess at the bottom of the basin, then crumbled an Oxo beef stock cube into it, which lent it a more authentic colour. She diced half a carrot and threw it in. Her mother put carrots into nearly everything she made. The final touch was drenching the substance with a good dose of vinegar, giving it that credible sour stench. She carried the basin to her bedroom, set it beside her bed. In the bathroom, she filled a hot water bottle, then got into bed and pressed it against her face for as long as she could manage.
James and Mark had forgotten that today was the day for the memorial mass and hadn’t allowed themselves enough time to come up with a plausible excuse as to why they couldn’t go. They gave her daggers as they trudged towards the car. Martha waved – weakly – from her bedroom window.
‘Are you sure you’re going to be alright, Martha? Your temperature is very high. Perhaps I should stay?’
‘No! I mean, that thermometer is old. It’s probably not very accurate.’ The thermometer had shown a reading of a hundred and five which, under normal circumstances, would have meant that Martha was either dead or dying. She’d depended on her mother’s general air of abstractedness but still. She’d gone too far by putting the thermometer directly on the hot water bottle when her mother had briefly left the room.
She always went too far.
She hadn’t any specific plans for the day. She figured Amelia wouldn’t mind her missing the memorial mass since they’d never really known each other. Besides, she’d been to all the other memorial-this-that-and-the-others so, in karma terms, her account was in credit, surely?
She had a vague idea that she wanted to get drunk. But that wouldn’t be much fun if there was no one there to bear witness.
She rang Tara.
‘I thought you were going to Amelia’s memorial,’ Tara said in her bossy-boots voice.
‘I’m sick. Do you want to come over and get drunk?’
‘I thought we were going to get drunk after the exams?’ Tara was a stickler for making plans and adhering to them.
‘That’s not for another month at least. I’m bored. And I want to practise.’
‘OK.’ Practising was up there with studying, in Tara’s immaculately kept book. That was why she was so good at the tuba.
Martha was in charge of mixing the drinks. Her father’s bar in the basement had a large selection and she knew what went with what. ‘I think we should start with brandies and ginger. Ginger is good for settling your stomach.’
‘But your stomach is not unsettled,’ Tara said.
‘Not yet,’ said Martha, handing her friend a large tumbler full to the brim. Tara spat her first mouthful out. Martha drank hers.
‘Can you make me one that doesn’t taste like alcohol?’ Tara asked as Martha approached the bar once again.
‘A vodka and lime, coming right up,’ Martha said.
‘That’s not too bad,’ Tara conceded as she braced herself and took a sip. ‘What are you having?’
‘Whiskey sour.’ It was her dad’s favourite drink. She poured a measure of whiskey into a cocktail shaker, squeezed half a lemon on top of it and added some sugar. Then she put the lid on and shook it with a great deal of alacrity and deft wrist movements. She poured the lot into a cut glass tumbler, topped it with ice and a slice of lemon, then added a cherry for good measure. The procedure took less than a minute.
‘You’d never think you were the worst in the class at home economics.’ There was a note of admiration in Tara’s voice that gave Martha a warm, fuzzy feeling. Although that might be the whiskey hot on the heels of the brandy.
They lay on a rug on the floor of the basement that Martha’s dad called the snug and Martha’s mother called the den. They talked about Katherine, Tara’s sister, who was moving out of home the following day.
Into a flat.
They dreamed of the day they could move into a flat.
‘Do you think Katherine’s done it?’ Martha asked idly.
‘With who?’
‘Anyone.’
‘No way. I don’t think she’s ever had a boyfriend.’
‘Have you done it?’ Martha lifted her head off the rug, looked at her friend.
Tara shook her head. ‘I’d tell you if I had.’
‘Have you done your economics homework?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t lie.’
‘OK then, yes,’ said Tara, crumbling as Martha had known she would. ‘I did it last Thursday.’
‘But it’s not due till tomorrow.’
‘I know. I couldn’t help it.’
‘Can I cog it?’
‘Ah, Martha, you know I don’t—’
‘Pretty please with a cherry on top?’ Martha lifted the cherry from her glass, waved it towards Tara’s face.
‘Oh, fine,’ Tara said, slapping Martha’s hand away.
‘Thanks. And I promise I’ll change it around a bit so it won’t be as good as yours.’ Martha knew that Tara panicked if she lost her footing at the top of the class.
‘I don’t know why you just don’t do it yourself. You’re clever.’
‘It’s easier this way.’
‘But now you’re not going to know what external economies of scale are.’
‘I’ll manage.’ Martha stood up too quickly, had to steady herself against the wall before she could make her way to her father’s record collection, which nobody was allowed to go near, although her father made an exception for Martha. She thought jazz might be good. Jazz seemed an appropriate soundtrack to drinking, she felt. She thought it might have something to do with the haphazard rhythm of it.
She slid the record – Billie Holiday, one of her father’s favourites – out of its sleeve and settled it on the turntable before lifting the arm, resting the needle along the first groove. She loved the crackly sound before the music began. That sense of anticipation.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ Tara said, after Martha insisted she try a peach schnapps.
‘Can you do it into the basin in my room?’ Martha said. ‘It could do with a top up.’
‘Aren’t you drunk yet?’ Tara asked later, with a combined sense of admiration and curiosity.
‘I’m not sure.’ By now, Tara had been sick twice and the basin in Martha’s bedroom was more than half full. Martha made her tea and mentioned toast, although that never materialised.
‘I don’t get alcohol,’ Tara confessed, shaking her head. ‘It tastes horrible. And makes your head ache. And your stomach ache.’
‘Don’t forget the hangover bit. You’ve still that to look forward to.’
Tara groaned. Stretched herself across the couch and covered herself with a wool cardigan belonging to Martha’s mother.
She looked at Martha with bloodshot eyes.
‘What about you?’ Tara asked.
‘What about me?’
‘Do you get it?’
‘What?’
‘Alcohol. Being drunk.’
Martha shook her head. ‘Not really.’ This was the first lie Martha ever told Tara and she felt the sting of it. Felt bad about the telling of it. Because she did get it. Alcohol. Getting drunk. Right from that very first time, she got it. Understood it. What it could do, inside your head. How it could make the world look different. Better. How it could transform possibilities into certainties.
‘I’m going to be a journalist,’ she told Tara.
‘I know. You’ve said it before. Millions of times.’
‘No, I mean really. Like, I’m
going to be a brilliant fucking journalist. The best.’
‘Better than your dad?’
‘Just as good as him.’
It made things easier to say, alcohol.
‘I like girls.’ Because Tara said it so quietly, Martha knew what she meant at once.
‘You don’t fancy me, do you?’
‘No!’
‘You don’t have to sound so outraged. Why wouldn’t you fancy me? What the fuck is wrong with me?’
‘You’re my best friend. That’s what I mean.’
Martha’s face flushed with colour. She reached for her glass and drank deeply.
‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ said Tara.
‘Who would I tell?’ said Martha, in her matter-of-fact voice.
‘Thanks, Martha,’ Tara said before she threw up again, on the deep pile rug that covered the floor between the couch and the fireplace. Martha cleaned it with bleach, which was what scuppered her in the end. Her mother detected the smell straightaway when she returned with Martha’s brothers from Sunshine House. Following her nose, she soon came upon the scene, pointing at the circle of milky pink in the middle of the once entirely blood-red rug.
‘You’ve been drinking,’ she told Martha, now pointing at the bar she had never wanted her husband to install, where Martha realised she had left their glasses, an empty packet of Mikados and a half a bottle of beer with a cigarette butt floating on the top. ‘And smoking,’ her mother added when her gaze slid down the bottle. ‘I don’t know which one is worse.’
‘Dad lets me take a sip of his drink sometimes,’ Martha said, trying to steer her mother’s anger towards her father, who was better able for it, especially at times like this when he wasn’t in the country. She noticed her words now. How they slurred into each other, like they were drunk themselves. That was interesting, she thought. The effect of the alcohol on speech. Not brilliant, no. But interesting all the same.
‘On the day of Amelia’s memorial service. How could you?’
Martha wasn’t sure what Amelia had to do with it. She didn’t dwell on it. Her mother carried her sister into most conversations. In her arms. Like she was still four years old. Which, Martha supposed, she still was.
‘Wait until your father gets home and hears about this.’
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