by Lucy Carey
“And?” her mother demanded.
Her father was silent for a second. “I forgot to get an answer.” She heard some shuffling and the line became clearer.
“Is it girl troubles, Susan?” her dad asked again.
“No, Dad, it’s not—” She could hear a commotion down the phone and knew her mother was grappling to take it from her father. She just couldn’t handle her today. “Listen, I have to go, Dad. Sorry for being so dramatic. I’m fine. Just the other kind of girl problems. Tell Mam I’ll talk to her soon.”
His voice increased suddenly in volume as she guessed he yanked the mouthpiece back.
“Wait, Susan… Your mam wants to—”
She pretended not to hear him. “Alright, Dad, bye. Goodnight.” He had started to say something but she hung up. She let the phone ring out when they called back.
* * *
It was after closing time. The front door was locked, most of the lights were switched off, and all of the chairs were turned over onto the tables.
In a dimly lit corner, David and Mariana sat on a battered couch with a beer each, the beers taken from David’s stash at the back of the milk fridge. With no one to witness the rule breaking, Mariana was smoking a cigarette.
“Here, give us one of them, will you?” David nodded to the open packet on the table.
Mariana exhaled slowly. “No. You’re supposed to have given up.” David pulled a face and Mariana mimicked his deep voice. “‘Mariana, no matter what I say, no matter how stressed I get, you are not allowed to give me a cigarette ever again.’” She switched back to her own voice. “Does that sound familiar?”
David shook his head, a bewildered expression on his face, and pointed at the counter. As Mariana turned to see what he was pointing to, David grabbed the cigarette box.
He shoved the cigarette between his lips. “Give us a light, there.” Mariana didn’t move for a second. “Look,” he said. “You didn’t give me the cigarette so you kept your promise. Now give us a light. You never promised not to do that.”
She couldn’t argue with that logic. She slid her orange plastic lighter to him. He took it, lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, then sighed in satisfaction as he exhaled a thin, long plume of smoke.
“Oh God, that’s lovely. So what’s the craic with you, Mar? How are things going with you and Tara? Mad thing, that one is.”
Mariana put her beer bottle to her lips, taking the time it took her to take a large mouthful as an opportunity to collect her thoughts on the matter. She swallowed the beer and looked down at the burning red of her cigarette in the dull light, watching the smoke spiral and float toward the ceiling.
“She’s nice,” she eventually said.
David looked at her. “But…?”
Mariana screwed up her nose, unsure of how to answer. Tara was David’s friend. She didn’t want to offend him.
“She’s very nice, but I don’t know… I don’t think that we have lots of things in common.”
He nodded, waiting for her to continue.
“Well, see, she likes things like discos and parties and seeing famous people. We saw somebody from the television last week and she was very excited. I didn’t know who it was.”
“That doesn’t seem like such a big thing,” David offered.
“It’s not, but then I like to read and to study my English, and she doesn’t understand why I would like to do that. And I want to go to see films and go to galleries and museums and learn more about this country, and she doesn’t. Maybe because it is familiar to her, or maybe because it is boring to her, I don’t know.”
“So do you think you’re too different?”
Mariana tried to drag on her cigarette while she considered the question. It had burned out, so she stubbed it out onto the chipped saucer in front of her.
“Maybe,” she said uncertainly. She thought a little more, then said in a quiet voice, “Probably.” She poked the dead ash in the saucer with the squashed butt of the cigarette. “I think we will have to break up. I like her, but I don’t think I could ever love her. Without love, why bother?”
David chuckled. “Mariana, you old romantic. For the distraction? For the fun? Maybe just to get the ride every once in a while? That’s what I do anyway.”
“You do not,” Mariana countered loudly, laughing, and David beamed at her.
“I do!” David’s smile turned to a cheeky smirk. “Still got that redhead on your mind, then?”
Mariana grimaced.
“No. That girl, Susie is… I nearly said she is a friend, but she’s not even a friend. She is my teacher. That is all.”
David nodded, a patronising, knowing look on his face, and Mariana could feel her cheeks flush.
“Don’t look at me like that. There is nothing with that girl. She doesn’t like me, I try not to like her, and that’s all. She is my teacher and I am her student. Nothing different.”
David flapped his hand placatingly at her.
“Alright, alright. I was just fooling around with you. No need to get so annoyed about it.”
The conversation lulled for a while and they both sat in silence, sipping their beer thoughtfully.
“It’s nice, this.” David broke the silence.
“What is?”
David cast his eyes around the room, his gaze lingering here and there, on a favourite painting on the wall or on the well-scrubbed countertop.
“All this. And getting to sit here with you, with the other staff, shooting the breeze.”
He took a swig of his beer.
“It might not be for too much longer if things don’t improve.”
Mariana was startled. She knew he was having difficulties with money but this was the most concerned he’d ever sounded about it. It wasn’t even that he seemed worried, she realised—he sounded like he was completely resigned to the fact that things were coming to an end.
“I’m thinking of selling my house, you know.”
“Shit, David, really?”
He chewed on a fingernail absentmindedly.
“I can’t make ends meet enough. It’s either get behind on the mortgage or get behind on the payments for this place. I bought my house for way more than it was worth, though, so I’ll make a loss whatever I do.”
Mariana shifted closer to him on the couch, put her head on his shoulder and gave him a small pat on the back.
“Is there no way to find some more money?”
She felt him shake his head gently beside her. He let out a strangled, frustrated noise.
“I don’t know why I bought that stupid house in the first place. I thought it would be exciting to have a big pad in the city, to show to the gobshites who thought I’d never amount to anything. And look at me now—rattling around, alone, in a place that’s too bloody big for me.”
She was about to give him a hug when something hit her.
“David, you have more bedrooms? More than one?”
He turned to look at her and she beamed at him in anticipation.
“Em, I do, yeah. I’ve a couple of spare rooms, but what—”
She interrupted him excitedly. “Have you ever thought of having—oh what are they called—a person who lives in your house when you do and they pay you money?”
“A lodger?” he suggested.
“That’s it! A lodger. Would you have a lodger?”
He mulled over the idea for a few moments.
“A lodger. I’ve never thought about that before.” He considered it for another few seconds. “Sure, why not? That’s a really good idea. But I don’t know who…”
Her excitement was too much for her to let him finish. “I have the perfect person for you! Let me find out more.”
She jumped up and shrugged her coat on. She leaned down and kissed him on the crown of his head.
“I have to go make a call now. You lock up here and I will phone you as soon as I know for certain.”
He managed a baffled “okay” before the door slammed behin
d her, the bell swinging and chiming manically with the speed and force of her exit.
* * *
“Hello?” Susie said groggily. She didn’t know what time it was or how long she had been asleep. Mariana’s musically accented and currently agitated voice answered her.
“Hello, Susie? Susie, can I come to see you? I want to talk to you about something.”
Susie reached for her watch. It was a little after ten.
“Mariana, this isn’t a good time for a lesson.”
She shuffled into a sitting position.
“It’s not for a lesson. I need to talk to you about something.”
A knot twisted in Susie’s stomach. This must be the kiss-off. Why else would Mariana be ringing so late and so urgently? Maybe she had noticed Susie’s puppy-dog pining for her. Or maybe her girlfriend had got jealous of the time they were spending together. Perhaps she was just a shit teacher. Whatever the reason, Susie felt sure this was the end of things.
She rubbed her eye with the butt of her palm. Best to just face the music and get it over with.
“Alright,” she agreed. “When?”
“Soon,” Mariana replied. “I will call you when I’m near.”
“Alright. See you then.”
Susie hung up the phone and ran her fingers through her hair to loosen any knots that had formed in her sleep. She had fallen asleep in her clothes, a notebook and a thick history book open beside her on the bed, so she just shoved her feet into the shoes she’d left on the floor and ambled down the stairs.
She was popping the kettle on when Mark walked in behind her. Afterwards, she didn’t even know why she said it to him—it wasn’t like she felt the need to ask his permission for anything. Maybe she just needed to say it out loud, to further convince herself of what was coming.
“Mariana’s coming over in a little while,” she told him as she opened the press to get a mug. As she closed the press door, she saw him staring in disbelief at her with his arms crossed.
“You mean, for an English lesson?”
Her forehead creased in bewilderment.
“Eh, yeah, for an English lesson. She called to say she needed to see me.”
He nodded exaggeratedly to the clock behind her on the wall.
“It’s a bit late, don’t you think?”
She clattered her mug to the counter, the sneer on his face boiling her blood.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s after ten, Susie,” he said slowly as if to a child. “I think it’s a little unfair on the rest of us to have to humour your guest this late. I have exams in the morning.”
The laughing came on her suddenly, as she looked at his big, scruffy, unshaven face twisted in disgust. It started quietly at first then built to a roar as the ridiculousness of his statement sunk in. He looked a little alarmed at her reaction. Tears sprang to her eyes as she laughed, her breath catching in the little piggy snorts she always had when she got a fit of giggles. Every time she thought it was dying down, the absurdity of what he had said hit her and she dissolved into a fresh bout of laughing.
Finally, when she thought it was out of her system enough for her to talk, she asked, “Are you fucking shitting me?”
A sneer returned to his lips but he didn’t look so certain of himself any more.
She asked again, “Are you really fucking serious with this shit?”
A wounded look replaced the sneer on his face, as if her reaction had cut him deeply.
“Of course I’m serious. Why wouldn’t I be?”
The mirth rose in her again and she laughed right in his face.
“For months now,” she said to him, her voice rising in volume as she continued, “I have been asking you pricks to tone down the music, the parties, the screeching of hyenas that seem to run through this house at all hours, even just a little bit so I can get some sleep.
“But no. You and those other two fucking idiots are happier playing the fool, pretending to be at college while you play house with Daddy’s money every night, than acting like decent human beings. And you have the balls to try to question me about my house guests? I’ll bring whoever I want here and you can’t do a thing about it.”
Mark had regained some of his composure; his voice was almost authoritative when he responded.
“There’s no need to be getting hysterical here, Susie. I’m only asking you to have a bit of consideration. It was very awkward the last time that girl was here.”
Hysterical. There was that word again. That minimising, gas-lighting, horrible word.
The door opened and Grant, the third housemate, walked in.
“Is everything alright in here? It sounded very aggro from upstairs.”
Mark shrugged at him. “Yeah, it’s grand. Susie’s just overreacting a little for no reason.” Susie looked at him in exasperation. He was talking about her like she wasn’t even in the room. He turned his back on her. “All I asked her to respect the fact that she has housemates and that she can’t be bringing odd Peruvian girls, or whatever, over for English lessons at all hours.”
Grant turned to study her, quirking his lip and raising his eyebrows, apparently in solidarity with his drinking buddy.
“I think that’s fair, Susie,” he said plainly.
Susie put her mug back up in the press and closed the door with a small slam. She turned back to stare nonchalantly at them.
“And I think it’s only fair, Grant, that you both go fuck yourselves. I’ll be giving my notice to the landlord in the morning. I’d rather have to quit college and go home to my parents than put up with you arseholes anymore.”
She gave them a little wave and headed for the door without waiting to see their reactions.
“Hopefully, I won’t see you later.”
She grabbed her coat from the end of the stairs, then took out her phone and hit the “last calls” icon.
“Change of plan, Mariana. I’ll meet you over at your place.”
Chapter Nine
It was bitterly cold that night. The wind tussled with the trees, knocking the last few orange and yellow leaves that had clung on into winter to the footpath below. The sky had that eerie reddish colour Susie had come to recognise as the reflection of the lights of the city, the thick, low-hung clouds amplifying the glow.
She pulled the neck of her coat tighter to block out the chill, absently lamenting the fact that she had forgotten to take a scarf with her before slamming the door so triumphantly behind her.
Ah well, she thought. Not too much farther to go and then she could put this whole emotional mess with Mariana behind her. Susie was still flying high after her decimation of her housemates. She felt great. She had finally put those idiots in their place and, though she’d be sad not to see Mariana anymore, she knew that she was actually strong enough to handle it.
Maybe it was for the best, she thought. Closure, as the Americans liked to call it. She half-believed it, too. At least until she got to Mariana’s front steps and her strength of will crumbled.
She was completely unprepared for this, she realized. She ducked behind a tree to collect her thoughts, and ignored the fact that anyone who spotted her would think she was insane.
Right, Susie, she thought, put on your big-girl pants. What are you going to do when you get in there?
She brought a stubby fingernail to her mouth and chewed on it, running through all the potential scenarios:
1. Mariana wants to end our lessons. Fine. So be it. She’d agree with her and hold her head up high as she walked out.
Another scenario had just occurred to her:
2. Mariana actually didn’t want to end their lessons and actually wanted to just be friendly or something. Susie didn’t know enough about Brazil to know whether this scenario was actually possible. Was it maybe a cultural thing that she was unaware of and people in Brazil often popped over to each other’s house at all hours? Or maybe Mariana was just a bit socially inept?
Susie hadn’t considered, in all of
her mooning over Mariana, that she was an imperfect human just like everyone else. She’d been so busy putting her on a pedestal that maybe she had been blinded to Mariana’s faults.
But then, where did that leave her? If Mariana didn’t actually want to cancel the lessons, what was Susie going to do?
She wished she had a cigarette on her right now. The rhythm of puffing on one always soothed her, slowed her thoughts. She wryly considered knocking on Mariana’s door, borrowing one from her, and then retreating back to behind the tree to smoke it and think some more. Instead, she contented herself with chewing on her nails.
