by Tara Heavey
We knew, all right. A cast of thousands.
‘And as for his –’
‘Oh, please. We really don’t want to hear this. We’re just about to have sausages.’
Speak for yourself, Hazel! ‘I want to know.’
Chris closed her eyes and placed her hand over her heart. ‘It was just beautiful. The whole experience. Simply sublime.’ She sighed. ‘It was like being touched by the hand of God.’
Hazel snorted. ‘How can you compare a tawdry one-night stand to a religious experience? I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.’
Chris studiously ignored her again. It was becoming something of a habit. She turned to me. ‘Lainey, you should give him a go. You won’t regret it.’
‘I will not “give him a go”!’ I tried to look indignant but ended up laughing. I thought of Jack and wondered if such skills ran in the family....
‘I’m telling you, you don’t know what you’re missing.’
‘Are you seeing him again?’
‘Don’t be daft.’
Silly me.
‘And you too, Hazel. When was the last time you had a good seeing-to?’
I looked on in horror as Hazel’s features contorted in fury. ‘I don’t need “a good seeing-to”, thank you very much.’
‘If you ask me, that’s exactly what you need. Stop you obsessing about that job of yours.’
‘Well, I’m very sorry, but we can’t all work in pathetic nothing jobs and get paid exorbitant sums for doing fuck-all.’
‘Hazel! That’s enough.’
But there was no stopping her. ‘And just because you get sluttier and sluttier every day doesn’t mean that we all have to act like out-and-out whores.’ And with that she slammed out of the room, leaving two open-mouthed women in her wake.
Just then, a loud, insistent wailing sound erupted out of thin air. It took me a few seconds to recognise it as the smoke alarm.
That was all I needed. Burnt sausages.
As it turned out, neither Hazel nor Chris got to sample the charred remains of my breakfast. Hazel packed immediately and demanded that I drive her directly to the train station. Chris was gone by the time I got back. I didn’t know it then, but it was the last time I was to see them together for a long time. Looking back, I should have known. It was inevitable, really.
Jack rang me on Tuesday. Perfect timing. If he had called a day later, I would have had no choice but to turn him down for that weekend. Wasn’t that one of the Ten Commandments of the new dating rules? Or did the fact that the pace of life was slower in the countryside mean that he could have got away with ringing me on Wednesday? Anyway, we weren’t going out at the weekend – not yet, anyway; we were going out on Wednesday night. Hold on – I had agreed to that, just one day in advance! I began to panic. He was going to think I was some desperate tart.
This kind of obsessive nonsense ran round and round in my head like a hamster on one of those wheels, never stopping, going nowhere. It had been a long time, you see, since I had ‘dated’ anyone. I had become so comfortable in my little routine with Paul. I tried to cast my mind back to the early days of our romance.
Paul had come along at a time when I had just started to attract men again after a long barren period. It was as if I suddenly began producing a strange and powerful pheromone. I knew love was in the air; I just didn’t know who with. I had felt Paul coming. About two weeks before I met him, some mysterious force had compelled me to buy several sets of decent underwear, despite the fact that I’d had no use for such garments for well over a year.
But had I experienced this heady mixture of excitement and high anxiety with Paul? If so, I certainly couldn’t recall it now. I had been happy, sure; but, right from the very beginning, it had been like wearing a comfy pair of slippers. I never worried that I was saying the wrong thing. There were no mind-games. You always knew where you were with Paul. He rang when he said he was going to ring, showed up when he said he was going to show up. Good old steady, reliable Paul.
Not that I was accusing Jack of playing mind-games. It’s just that I wasn’t sure how much he liked me – what he wanted from me. And it had been the longest time since I’d experienced this not entirely unpleasant out-of-control sensation. I had known from the start that Paul was in love – bigheaded as that may sound. How had Hazel put it? I’d always had the upper hand.
But times had changed. Paul hadn’t returned any of my calls. I was secretly relieved; what would I have said if he had? I rang and left messages on his machine when I knew he’d be in work or at soccer practice. It eased the guilt – somewhat. From time to time I asked Hazel how he was getting on. ‘Fine,’ she’d say.
Fine. What did that mean? Her obsession with her job had turned her into a lousy informant.
I got a ‘lovely surprise’ that Thursday. Mum and Dad, who had been in Cork for a few days, were going to drop in and pay me a visit on their way home. If I was ‘very lucky’, they might even be persuaded to stay the night.
The house was in bits. And I only had an hour to do something about it. These days, I didn’t just have to contend with my own impressive capacity to make a right royal mess; Terence was even dirtier than I was.
I had discovered that, though there were many advantages to owning a dog, a clean house was not one of them. The biggest advantage was an ecstatic welcoming committee when I came home in the evening; if only I were as wonderful as he thought I was. There was also the incentive to get off my fat, blubbery arse once in a while to bring him for a walk. Then there was his uncanny ability to tell when I was down in the dumps. He would rest his chin heavily in my lap and look up at me imploringly with his brown Smartie eyes – although he did tend to do this quite a lot around dinner-time, so his motives may not have been entirely pure. He was also excellent at hoovering crumbs up off the carpet. A more dubious plus: I’d be lying on the couch, half-asleep; I would be vaguely aware of a wet, snuffly sound, but before I could sense any real danger, a sloppy wet lick would be administered to my nose and mouth. Completely disgusting, but it never failed to make me laugh. I knew that a lot of the locals, Patricia being a case in point, thought I was insane to give a dog the full run of the house; but what would be the point of having a dog for company if I was inside all the time and he was outside?
The downsides to owning a dog: hair all over the carpets, mucky paw-prints on the kitchen floor and, last but not least, the fragrance of Eau de Canine permeating the entire cottage.
I decided to tackle the smell first. I threw open every window in the house and steeled myself as the chill November air filtered in. Then I sprayed half a can of emergency air freshener through the entire building, making the cat flee in terror. Disgusting stuff, I thought as I choked, but this did qualify as an emergency.
Next job: hoover the carpet. Easier said than done; the pathetic hoover that had come with the cottage had all the power of a travel hairdryer. I attempted to vacuum up all traces of dog. In the end, I had to give this up as a bad job.
I spent the next forty-five minutes in a frenzy of scrubbing, wiping, dusting and polishing. Well, actually, I didn’t really polish; I just sprayed the polish into the air to make it smell as if I had. I had read this handy household tip in a magazine once, and it sounded very clever to me. All I needed now was some of that spray that made it smell like you were baking bread, and the illusion would be complete.
I was just slipping on the last clean pillowcase, whilst simultaneously shoving junk under the bed with my foot, when Dad’s Volvo pulled into the driveway. I literally wiped the sweat from my brow and surveyed my handiwork proudly. Result! Nobody would ever have known that a slob lived here.
‘Elena! You look wretched, my dear. Did you have a tough day at the office?’
‘Something like that, Mum.’
‘Rosie.’ Dad nodded at me and followed Mum into the house, carrying what looked suspiciously like an overnight bag. ‘You do look a bit rough.’
Thanks. ‘Cup of tea
?’
‘That would be lovely.’
My mother is a very generous woman. On this particular occasion, she had brought me the following presents:
• A cookbook; another to add to my pristine and rapidly growing collection
• A pot plant; yet another for me to kill. I’d give this one two weeks
• A plastic Virgin Mary key-holder that had been blessed in Medjugorje (‘I’ll have to check with Tyrone before I go hammering things into his wall’). How she managed to reconcile her religious beliefs with her New Age mumbo-jumbo, I could never understand.
Dad had just brought himself. He sat in the nearest armchair and read his newspaper as Mum nattered on.
They didn’t want a meal – God, no – tea and biscuits were grand. They’d stopped off for pub grub along the way. Oh, wasn’t this cottage charming? So quaint, yet so tastefully decorated. The wooden ceilings were so high – very attractive feature, but, of course, so difficult to keep clean. No wonder I’d had such difficulty in reaching those old cobwebs in the corner. (What cobwebs? Oh, shit.) And just one more thing – I wasn’t to take this the wrong way, but, next time I was expecting visitors, it really would be a good idea to hoover up the dog hair.
Talking of said dog, I let him in at my mother’s request, and he immediately set about re-destroying the carpet. His attempts to ingratiate himself with his new grandparents were as shameful as they were successful, earning him four Jammie Dodgers.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Terence.’
The dog woofed softly in approval. It was a stupid name, if you asked me, but he seemed to like it. I had tried all week to get him to answer to Jasper, but no: Terence it was.
As Mum cooed over Terence, it occurred to me that my father was being unusually quiet.
‘What’s up, Dad? Tired after the journey?’
‘Your father’s lost his job. He’s been made redundant.’
Dad visibly winced, although he didn’t look up – just turned another page.
‘Oh, my God! I’m sorry, Dad. That’s terrible.’
‘Ah, it’s not so bad. I’ll get a good package out of it.’ He still didn’t look up.
Imagine. After all these years, his prophecies of doom and gloom had finally come true. I’d have to get him to help me pick this week’s Lotto numbers.
‘Are you going to look for another job?’
Dad was sixty.
‘I haven’t decided yet. I might treat it as an early retirement.’ He looked up at me this time, as if seeking approval.
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ I said.
Mum tutted. ‘It’s a terrible idea. What’s he going to do all day long?’
I stared at her in surprise. She sounded really angry, as if it were all Dad’s fault or something.
To change the subject, I launched into an account of ‘my life in the country’. I wasn’t long into a description of Patricia and Bridie’s vicious jam war when Mum interrupted.
‘Have you heard from Tatiana lately?’
‘We e-mail each other about once a week.’
‘Hmph. You’re lucky. We haven’t had so much as a phone call since your father chased her back to China.’
‘I did not chase her anywhere, woman. She decided to go back early of her own accord.’
‘Only because you made it clear she wasn’t welcome in her own home.’
‘I did no such thing. I just told her a few home truths.’
‘Oh, you’re impossible. You make sure you hold on to Paul, Elena. Never marry a man who’d rather make his family miserable than admit he’s in the wrong. Now I’m going to bed. Elena, show me my room, please. And I’m not sharing with that man tonight.’
Since it was a two-bedroom cottage, I had no option but to let Mum bunk down with me. After ranting on about Dad for an hour, she finally fell into an exhausted stupor.
Thank God they’d be gone tomorrow when I got home from work.
I lay there for at least another hour, unable to drop off. I wasn’t thinking about Mum. I wasn’t thinking about Dad, or about Annie. I wasn’t even thinking about Jack, for a change.
I was thinking about Paul.
I should have told my parents about our break-up. It had been the ideal opportunity. But somehow I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. I had to come to terms with it myself first. Before that night, I’d thought I had; but evidently not. Realistically, I don’t know why this surprised me. We had been together a full year. I supposed these things took time to get over, even when you were the dumper and not the dumpee.
Poor Paul.
I had made him a dumpee.
Chapter Sixteen
As I stood at the edge of the frosty hurling pitch, that Sunday morning, I forced uncomfortable thoughts of my problem parents out of my mind. I chose to focus instead on the fabulous Thai restaurant that Jack had taken me to the night before. Who knew that such a place existed in the wretched provinces?
Let’s face it: I had to focus on something other than my current reality. What the hell was I doing there, anyway? I had to be mad (madly in love?). Jack had no clue what a huge compliment this was. Paul had never succeeded in dragging me along to one of his precious soccer games. I had sacrificed not only my essential Sunday-morning lie-in, but also my customary leisurely brunch accompanied by The Sunday Times.
Apparently this match was, and I quote, ‘vital’. Vital to what, exactly, I had no idea. In my opinion, all sports were only as important – or unimportant – as you chose to make them. Despite the best efforts of a thermal vest, two jumpers, my winter coat, a scarf, a pair of gloves and a woolly hat, I was still fucking freezing.
It was official: hell had frozen over.
This had better be bloody well worth my while.
I was considering slinking back to the warm cocoon of my bed when the pitch was suddenly invaded by fifteen – twenty – twenty-five – thirty pairs of milky-white legs. They were so white as to be practically offensive. Where were my Ray-bans when I needed them? The effect was heightened by the minute 70s-inspired shorts that the players were wearing. Jack’s team wore green and gold – matching socks and all; the other team was clad in red and white. Some players wore helmets; more didn’t. I watched, mildly interested, as they ran around the mucky pitch, slicing the still morning air with their hurleys and hitting imaginary sliotars between the posts.
Jack ran over to where I was standing. How he recognised me I’ll never know; the only parts of me not buried under five inches of wool were my eyes and nose. And I was seriously considering covering them up too. Who needed to breathe? I was more concerned about frostbite. I had visions of icicles forming on my brows and lashes and the liquid part of my eyes freezing over. I kept blinking, just to be on the safe side.
Jack was all smiles, as usual. ‘Lainey, you came! Thanks. I know this isn’t your scene.’
I pulled the scarf down past my chin. ‘Rubbish. I love hurling. Wouldn’t miss this for the world.’
He looked at me doubtfully. ‘See you after?’
‘Definitely.’
He ran off to join the other twenty-nine masochists running half-naked about the pitch.
Just then, a gust of wind sawed right through me. Jesus Christ! I looked around at the other spectators. Amazingly, there were about sixty of us now, standing around the sidelines, freezing our butts off. I knew why I was there; what was their excuse? They couldn’t all fancy Jack.
A man in black blew his whistle, and the battle commenced. To pass the time, I tried to work out the rules. I knew all about soccer, by osmosis; this couldn’t be very different. Another load of eejits in pursuit of a differently shaped ball. I wondered if the offside rule applied to hurling too. Paul had spent many an hour trying to explain this particular piece of male nonsense to me, until I was blue in the face and he was purple.
I did my best to follow the intricacies of the game. My confusion wasn’t eased by the fact that most of the players were called P.J.,
D.J. or J.J. – except Jack, of course; oh, and Matt, who was playing on the same team. It was clear from the outset, even to my untrained eye, that Mr Healing Hands was the best player on the pitch. Jack had been right: he was a talented little shit. Jack was good, but Matt was better.
Jack’s team – Ballymuck Rovers, or whatever they called themselves – took an early lead, largely due to Matt’s striking prowess. Another thing hurling and soccer had in common: all the hugging. Jack and a large blond man jumped on each other enthusiastically, even though neither of them had scored that particular goal. Typical repressed males: sport was the only way they felt capable of expressing their affection towards one another.
The game wasn’t half as boring as I’d feared. It was fast-paced and, quite frankly, alarmingly dangerous. I had played hockey in school, and that could be vicious enough at times; but at least the hockey sticks were kept relatively close to the ground. Here, every second swipe of the hurleys barely missed a head. In fact, just before half-time, one poor soul took an almighty whack on the nose. It started to pump blood, but nobody took a blind bit of notice – including the bloke with the bloody nose. It made Premiership players with their grazed eyebrows look like complete wimps.
Two male spectators standing close by commented that it was probably broken, but not to worry: that was the fifth time J.J. had got his nose broken, and it had set funny the last time, so this would probably improve the look of it anyway. So there you had it: not so much a broken nose as a blessing in disguise.
The crowd were even more entertaining than the match. The first year I qualified as a solicitor, I worked almost exclusively in criminal law. This meant I spent my days in courtrooms, police stations and prisons, often in the company of drug addicts and hardened criminals. But never in my life had I heard bad language the likes of what I heard on the side of that hurling pitch in Ballyknock.
A man who must have been a coach or a manager paced up and down the sideline next to me. The air above his head was electric blue.
