So I said yes, let’s do it.
Liz knocked on my door at seven that evening wearing a Santa hat.
I laughed. “What the …?”
“No need to be jealous, Ali,” she said, producing a second one from behind her back, “because I brought one for you too.”
It started off as a really nice evening. Grafton Street was strung with twinkling lights and the buskers there had switched to Christmas playlists. Brown Thomas’ famous windows had displays of seasonal party finery, arranged in wintry scenes. (I’d heard grumblings on the radio that this year’s window scheme wasn’t kid-friendly and that next year they should at least try to include a few toys.) Every single shop we went into was copiously decorated, with Christmas music playing. There was only a week to go until the big day and plenty of shoppers were taking advantage of the extended opening hours this Friday night.
I bought a few small presents for my parents—a book for my mother, some whiskey for Dad, chocolates in the shape of reindeers for both of them—and Liz and I got mulled wine and mince pies from a food truck parked up under the intricate curl of a Georgian streetlamp on Stephen’s Green. We sat on the icy stone steps of one the square’s townhouses and admired the decorations hanging from other facades around us.
“They should put lights in the trees,” Liz suggested, nodding at the black shadows beyond the wrought-iron railing of Stephen’s Green across the street.
“Hmm,” I said through a mouthful of mince pie.
The park closed at dusk every day; adding anything that only served its purpose in the dark would be pointless.
I didn’t say this aloud, though. Liz didn’t like being contradicted.
A horse-drawn carriage trotted past, carrying two people—tourists, surely—huddled under a furry sheepskin blanket while taxis screeched by. They were followed a moment later by the pungent smell of what one of the horses was steadily depositing on the street as it sauntered along.
Liz started coughing. “Oh, my God.”
“Let’s go.” The smell was already at the back of my throat.
Feeling warm and loose from the wine and slightly sick from the smell, we decided to skip the hot chocolate and start back toward St. John’s.
We’d just reached the canal when Liz said, apropos of nothing, “Did Will find that ski jacket he was looking for?”
“What?”
I hadn’t heard anything about any jacket. All I knew about Will and skiing was that he wasn’t very good at it and loathed having to go do it for the next fortnight with his parents and siblings in tow.
“Yeah,” Liz said. “He was looking for it out in Dundrum.”
“You mean in the shopping center? When was this?”
“Oh …” She shrugged her shoulders. “Thursday, maybe?”
I tried to keep my tone casual. “You saw him out there?”
“We had lunch.” She looked at me. “He didn’t tell you?” He hadn’t and that fact was all over my face, I could feel it. Liz was looking worried now. “You know what? He had a little bag with him. Like from a jeweler’s or something. I bet he was out there buying your Christmas present. Maybe he didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”
It made sense.
I wanted it to make sense.
So I smiled half-heartedly and said, “And now he’s busted.”
“God, I’m so sorry. Pretend I didn’t say anything, okay?”
Later that night, when I was back in my room alone, Will rang from France. I asked him how it was over there.
He sighed. “Cold and dark.”
I laughed. “Sounds fabulous.”
“I already want to kill them all. My brother’s come up with this “season of good Will” joke that he thinks is hilarious and original. He’s wrong on both counts.”
“Well,” I said, “season of good Will: I miss you.”
“I know it’s not cool, it’s only been like six hours, but I miss you too.”
“You’re worried about being cool? Because I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but …”
“I happen to think I’m very cool.”
“Hey,” I said as casually as I could. “Were you in Dundrum on Thursday?”
A pause. “Why?”
“Liz let it slip that she saw you.”
“What else did she say?”
That seemed like a strange follow-up question, and Will’s tone was disconcertingly cautious.
“That you two had lunch,” I said.
“What?” Will cursed. “We didn’t have lunch!”
“No?”
“I thought you were going to say that she told you what I got you for Christmas. No, I just ran into her. In the middle of the shopping center. She was with that Lauren girl. They were going to Penneys to look for Santa jumpers or something. I had your present in a bag and … Well, it was obvious what it was from the bag. But I asked her not to tell you. I didn’t want her ruining the surprise. But lunch? Bloody hell. I talked to her for maybe a minute and then I went on my way. I was trying to get back to meet you after your Victorian Lit class.” And he had—he’d been waiting for me outside my last class. It was off campus, in rooms in a converted Georgian house that was mostly used for postgraduate study. He didn’t like me walking back after it by myself in the dark. “Are you sure that’s what she said?”
“Were you looking for a ski jacket?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t have my size in stock.”
“Oh.”
“It’s crazy that she would say that.” He swore again. “Us having lunch. As if. I mean, what the …?”
“Yeah,” I said lamely.
I didn’t know what else to say, but I knew who I believed.
So what the hell was Liz up to?
* * * * *
The next morning, Liz and I took the train down to Cork together but didn’t speak much. She dozed and I read. We were used to sitting together in cars, buses, and trains in companionable silence, so I doubted she sensed that there was any motivation behind mine.
Everything had changed so much in the last three months, my head was spinning. I thought back to when we’d traveled up to Dublin back in September, the palpable excitement, that first night in St. John’s. And I thought of what lay ahead of me: nearly a month without Will. The idea set me adrift—which was so strange when, twelve weeks ago, I hadn’t even known he’d existed.
I hung around the house my first couple of days back, deeply appreciating the ease with which things could happen. There was always food in the fridge. There was never anyone in my way in the kitchen. My dirty clothes magically disappeared from the laundry basket in my room and I didn’t have to worry about having clean towels or toilet paper or toothpaste. Mam was on hand to make endless cups of tea. She even brought them when I didn’t ask for them. Everything was already there, supplied. I basked in this, took advantage of it, lazing around reading novels belonging to my mother that had absolutely nothing to do with the St. John’s curriculum, and tucking into the boxes of chocolates she’d stocked up on for Christmas.
On my third day at home, I stepped out of the shower to hear voices in the kitchen. I paused at the top of the stairs, listening, but I couldn’t identify who my mother was talking to.
Then I heard the high pitch of Liz’s laugh.
I hurried down, worried that she might have already said something that would reveal Will’s existence to my mother. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t sure my mother was ready for that. She seemed to think Dublin was a den of iniquity where only the mortal sins await. A boyfriend, to her, would be proof of that. She’d say I was there for a degree, not an unplanned pregnancy. I knew that’d be her first thought, and my cheeks burned hot at the idea of discussing that with her. No. Not yet. She needed to be primed for it. I had a plan: come January, I’d start dropping his name into conversa
tion. Telling my mother about Will was on my Things to Worry About in the New Year list, not today’s.
“Hello, stranger,” Liz said when I entered the kitchen. “I’m heading into town for a walk around. You want to come?”
“Of course she does,” my mother said. “Be careful, though, because the oxygen might go to her head. She hasn’t left the house in two days.”
I rolled my eyes. “I could just go back to Dublin if it’s bothering you.”
“Off with you then, love. You’ll have to wait for me to dry those four loads of clothes first, though. You can’t pack them wet.”
Liz looked away, biting back laughter.
I made her wait upstairs with me while I got changed and dried my hair, just to be on the safe side. She had her mother’s car with her. We parked in Merchants Quay and started down Patrick Street, pushing against a tide of Christmas shoppers. Liz’s mother had given her a list of things to pick up. Compared to Dublin, Cork seemed impossibly tiny now, especially when we started bumping into people we knew.
I had never, in all the time I’d lived in Dublin, bumped into anyone I knew accidentally, except for Will in that café in Ranelagh—and he’d admitted that wasn’t entirely accidental. Here, you couldn’t move for people you knew popping up at random. Worse than that, though, was being seen by people who knew you but who you didn’t know, like friends of your parents. It meant you could never get away with anything.
We were browsing the racks in River Island when a familiar voice said hello. When we turned around, two girls we’d gone to school with were standing there. One of them was Sharon who’d had the CAO offers party that I hadn’t gone to because I thought Liz was in a sulk. The other one was a girl called Amanda who had been in another class, who I only knew from seeing around.
We chatted for a few minutes about how college was going, for them and for us, and how Dublin was compared to Galway, where Sharon was.
Then Sharon turned to me and said, “And I heard you have a boyfriend? Louise is in Trinity and she knows his friend Matt, she said? Does he have a friend called Matt?” I said he’d mentioned that name a couple of times. A school friend, I thought. “Well, I only heard good things. Lou said he’s hot.” She looked to Liz. “Is he hot? There’s no point asking her because we know what she’s going to say.”
Liz hesitated. “Well, he’s not my type, but …”
Sharon laughed and said to me, “I supposed that’s just as well, isn’t it?”
I forced a smile.
I was thinking, He’s not your type? What’s that supposed to mean?
“He’s skiing,” Liz said pointedly, loading the word with meaning. None of us had ever been, or knew anyone who had.
“Doesn’t everyone in St. John’s do that?” Amanda said slyly. “You two will have to start.”
St. John’s had a reputation for educating the kids of the upper classes, the ones decked out in designer threads, kept in Volkswagen Golfs and taken skiing every winter. It deserved this—those kids were there—but they were just one part of the student body. It was an image St. John’s couldn’t possibly shake, though, being situated in the most expensive postcode in the country: Dublin 4.
Will came from a family like that, from what I could gather, but you’d never know. He never acted like he was any different to the rest of us.
“What about you, Liz?” Sharon asked.
“Me?” Liz raised her eyebrows. “Skiing?”
“No—boyfriends.”
“Eh, I don’t think so.” Liz made a face like she’d just sucked on a lemon. “Being stuck in someone else’s pockets, like, all the time? Never going anywhere without them? Never wanting to go anywhere without them?” She sighed dramatically. “God, no. That’d drive me insane. No, thanks.”
My face was rapidly coloring.
“Jeez,” Sharon said. “Tell us how you really feel.”
She and Amanda exchanged a glance.
We said our goodbyes and made vague promises to arrange something for Stephen’s night. As Liz and I walked out of the store and back onto the street, I was overwhelmed with a sad, dense anger.
Liz was chatting away, oblivious, about some top she’d seen and how it’d be perfect to wear on New Year’s Eve, as if she hadn’t just cruelly and casually insulted me, and I just couldn’t stand it a second longer.
“I’m going home,” I announced abruptly. “I don’t feel well.”
Liz swung around to face me. “What?”
“I have a headache. It’s been building up all morning but now it’s making me feel a bit sick. I think I’m getting my period. I just want to go home to bed.”
“Oh, shit. Well, that’s okay. Let’s head back toward the car.”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “You have to get that stuff for your mother, don’t you? I’ll just take the bus.”
“Don’t be silly, we’ll just—”
“No.”
Liz blinked at me.
“No,” I said again, more evenly this time. “It’s fine, really. I’ll just get the bus. It stops practically outside my door. Honestly, it’s fine. I’ll call you later.”
“Okay …” Liz sounded uncertain.
I gave her a limp hug and then turned off Patrick Street, heading for the bus stops on the South Mall.
With steam coming out of my ears, I was sure.
I was just so tired of this, of Liz’s little mood swings. When she was happy, she was such fun to be around. We were best friends, really. I felt better after seeing her.
But if Liz wasn’t happy, if she was in one of her inexplicable moods, I either felt like I had to walk on eggshells around her or that I was the prime target on her warpath. Or sometimes, both.
And it was one thing when she working her little digs into our private conversations, but to so blatantly insult me in front of other people?
That was it. Limit reached. Line crossed.
I’d just missed a bus. I found some cold stone steps leading to a closed bank branch and sat on them to wait for the next one.
A few minutes later I heard, “Alison? Well, hello again.”
Sharon and Amanda. Done with their shopping and headed home too. They asked me where Liz had disappeared to and I explained that I wasn’t feeling well and had elected to go home.
“Headache,” I said, rubbing my temple for effect.
Amanda fished in her bag and handed me two Ibuprofen in a blister pack. Sharon had a few mouthfuls left in a bottle of water. I couldn’t very well refuse so I took them and thanked them. I’d nearly convinced myself that I was getting a headache, anyway.
“So what’s he like, then?” Sharon said. “Will, isn’t it? I heard he’s a really nice guy.”
I said he was. I told them how we met.
“Listen,” Amanda said, leaning closer, “don’t worry about her, okay? She’s always been a bit of jellyfish.” Sharon threw Amanda a sharp look. “What? It’s not like she doesn’t know it. She can’t not. She just got stung herself. We were there.”
It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about. “You mean Liz?”
“Look,” Sharon said, digging Amanda lightly in the ribs, “ignore us. She’s your best friend.”
I looked to Amanda. “What’s a jellyfish?”
The two girls exchanged another glance.
“It’s when you have a friend,” Amanda said, “who is really nice, like, most of the time, but then they’ll suddenly say something mean or rude, like a little jab, a little sting, and then they just carry on as if nothing has happened and you’re left there thinking, Did something just happen or am I imagining it? Didn’t you ever see Bridget Jones?”
“I like Liz,” Sharon said. “She’s a laugh. But she does do that.”
“A lot,” Amanda added.
Their bus came then. Mine was st
ill another ten minutes away. I thanked them for the painkillers and said I might see them around over the break.
* * * * *
But I didn’t see them or anyone else over the break.
On Christmas Eve I woke up with a stuffed nose and by the morning of Stephen’s Day I was knocked out by full-blown flu. I realized pretty quickly that all the other times I’d thought I’d had the flu, I had, at worst, a heavy cold. This was something else entirely. Headaches, chills, sweats, a heavy pressure on my chest. After two really bad days of it Mam rang our GP, who said yes, it was flu, and there was really nothing to do except take something with paracetamol in it to keep my temperature down, lie down, and wait for it to be over.
The only saving grace was that I got it at home, where I was waited on hand and foot. I don’t know how I would’ve coped at college. I commandeered the couch where I lay cocooned in a sea of pillows and blankets, presiding over a kingdom of pots of Vicks Vapour Rub, crumpled tissues and half-drunk cups of tea. I read or napped during the day and watched episodes of The West Wing with my parents at night. Mam had bought Dad the DVD box set for Christmas and after a couple of episodes, we were all hooked. Mam would slip upstairs at some point to plug in the electric blanket for me. In the morning, she’d wake me with breakfast in bed and change the sheets while I showered.
If it wasn’t for constantly feeling like I’d been run over by a truck, I would’ve enjoyed it.
I didn’t see Liz at all, but we talked on the phone. Will called a couple of times, but on both occasions I was in the living room and it was difficult to talk to him normally when my parents were within earshot without giving something away. We constantly texted each other too.
One day, while I was asleep, Liz called over and left a stack of glossy magazines with my mother. They were wrapped up like a present and had a gift tag that said, “Get Well Soon.”
It was my mother who eventually opened them and started leafing through the top one from the pile.
My plan had been to go back to Dublin a few days early, on the Monday before classes began. Will and I were going to have our Christmas then. We planned to go on a bit of a road trip down the coast, toward Wicklow, and maybe stay in a B&B here and there. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. But after being a plague-ridden burden for most of my stay at home I felt guilty, and elected to stay on there instead. Will understood and we arranged to just have a weekend away instead. I booked a train for that Friday.
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