‘So the only reason you did medicine was to spite him?’ Orla sounds dubious as if there were other, more honourable, subconscious reasons.
He’s going to put her right about that. ‘No. Not just that. I wanted him to fork out for a nice long stint at uni, to make him pay for being so tightfisted all my life. Seven years felt about right.’ He eyeballs her. ‘So what do you think of me now?’
She slips her arm into his and leans on him. ‘I think you’re great.’
She thought that of Owen too. So much for her judgement.
After a silence, she asks, ‘Do you like being a doctor?’
He’s annoyed by the question. ‘You know I do.’
‘So you’ve your father to thank for something after all.’
He is suddenly furious. ‘You’ve it all sorted.’
‘If I had, do you think I’d be here?’
He stands, letting her arm slip from his, and walks towards the hotel.
She follows, saying nothing until he has stopped to hold the door open for her. ‘If you want to be decisive, listen to your gut.’
His reply is an upward movement of his chin. He has spent so many years mistrusting it, he’s not sure he can hear it any more.
Rory has mentioned his ‘girlfriend Louise’ a lot in the last half-hour. Even if he didn’t have a girlfriend, he’d have invented one. Samantha seems to have had too much to drink and has come over all touchy-feely. At the third mention of Louise, though, she dances off towards the bar, then in behind it. The barman looks nervous, as though trying to figure out if he should ask a paying customer to leave or if he should humour her. He opts for the latter while simultaneously trying to keep his distance and get on with his job. It’s late and there are not many left in the bar – Rory, Orla, Morel and Gloria and a young couple sitting up at the counter, a teacher and a social worker from the course. Their bodies lean in towards each other, the attraction between them obvious. Orla can’t take her eyes off them. Wistfully, she says, ‘They probably don’t even notice how much they touch.’
Samantha is salsa dancing closer to the barman. When she reaches him, she pulls him to her. He is shorter than her and his face ends up in her chest.
‘Death by bosoms,’ Gloria deadpans.
This, from someone so seemingly conscientious, causes an eruption of laughter.
Rory is first to recover. ‘Maybe someone should rescue him.’
Orla calls to Samantha as if there is something she wants to tell her. Rory is surprised when the actress responds, dancing out from behind the bar and over to them in four-inch wedges. He wonders if she has South American blood in her. She can really move.
‘Yes?’
Orla hesitates, unprepared. ‘Eh, I was just wondering where you got your top. It’s really lovely.’
Samantha looks down and sees cleavage. She squints at Orla. ‘Are you mocking me?’
‘No. God, no.’ Orla is blushing.
‘I might have had a few drinks, but I’m no fool.’
‘Of course you’re not. We’re all having a few drinks.’ Orla looks mortified.
‘Do me a favour,’ Samantha says, totally sober. ‘Next time you’ve nothing to say,’ she pauses, ‘don’t say it.’ She turns, chin in the air and dances back to the bar.
Orla drops her face into her hands and groans. ‘I wasn’t laughing at her. I mean, I did, at the bosom thing – I couldn’t help it. Oh, God. Someone take me outside and shoot me.’
‘I volunteer,’ Morel jokes, then gets serious. ‘Don’t worry about it. Here, let me get you another drink. My round.’
Rory was beginning to wonder if the Englishman knew the meaning of the word. As for Gloria, she hasn’t exactly been blazing a trail to the bar either.
When the drinks arrive, Gloria reaches enthusiastically for her fresh Cinzano. ‘So,’ she says to Morel, a man she normally seems to have difficulty making direct eye contact with, ‘why is a novelist on a course like this?’
Is she flirting or just in awe? Rory wonders.
Either way, Morel is totally at ease with the question. ‘To learn more about human behaviour. I thought it would help with characterization, motivations, that sort of thing.’
At the words ‘characterization’ and ‘motivations’, Rory feels like asking for a sick bag. Gloria looks like she might swoon.
‘But in actual fact,’ the author continues, ‘I’m learning more about human behaviour right here.’ He eyes the lovebirds at the bar, then Samantha, who is helping the barman pull a pint. It all seems innocent now, which makes Rory wonder if he just misinterpreted. ‘What old Sweaty Pits says about actions speaking louder than words is only partly true,’ Morel continues. ‘You can tell a lot from words, maybe not always in the way they’re meant. Take the way people talk to me about my books…’
Do we have to? Rory thinks.
‘No matter what they say, I always know what they’re thinking.’
Orla and Gloria lean towards him.
‘If they say their friend loved it, they didn’t themselves. If they say they enjoyed it, they thought it was OK. If they “really enjoyed” it, they thought it good but flawed.’
‘So how do you know if they really did like it?’ interrupts Orla.
‘Oh. They say they loved it. Or else just keep talking about things that happened in it.’
Rory gets up and stretches. ‘I think I’ll call it a night.’
Back in his room, he calls Louise, surprised she hasn’t been in touch.
‘How’s the course going?’ she asks.
‘OK.’
‘Good.’
Good? He’d expected something like ‘only OK?’ and some concerned probing. ‘I miss you,’ he says.
‘You too.’
‘What are you up to?’ he asks.
‘Nothing much. The usual.’
‘How’s work?’
‘Fine.’
She seems so far away. ‘You’d hate it here.’
Her ‘why?’ sounds like it’s being asked because it’s expected of her.
He struggles to make a connection. ‘You’d have to carry a hot-water bottle around, the hotel’s so damp.’ She’d done that in the first apartment they’d rented together, a draughty first floor of a Georgian building that has since been sold, creating another Dublin multi-millionaire ex-landlord.
‘What are the people like?’ she asks.
He thinks of Samantha, Morel and Gloria. ‘OK.’
‘How’s Orla?’
‘Orla!’ He laughs. ‘Unbelievable. You wouldn’t recognize her. Last to bed. Drinking like a fish. Mixing with everyone. But still turning up for every lecture, really getting involved. The only place I can keep up with her is at the bar.’
Louise is quiet and it occurs to him that he’s done it again – become animated when talking about his sister-in-law. ‘Love you,’ he says.
‘I better go,’ she says, her voice higher.
‘Don’t,’ he says, but she has hung up.
17
Next morning Rory comes back from a toilet break to see that they’ve broken for coffee. Morel is pouring a cup for Orla. There’s something protective in the way he hands it to her. She smiles at him. They look cosy together, a unit. Morel’s body language subtly says, ‘Do not disturb’. So Rory does exactly that. Orla seems happy to see him. Morel, he feels, pretends to be. Rory peers at his sister-in-law. Doesn’t she see that Morel is into her?
During the next lecture, Rory watches Morel, whose eyes keep drifting to Orla. She’s too busy taking notes to notice. When Bingley finally decides to halt for lunch, and everyone starts to file from the room, Morel makes his way over to her. Instantly she brightens and they fall into easy conversation. At the buffet, Morel stays by Orla’s side. She’s not exactly shooing him away. She seems animated but there’s an innocence to it, as if she’s simply happy, as if she sees him as a friend. She’d want to watch out, Rory thinks, Morel is interested – and married. He wonders about that – the auth
or wears a ring but doesn’t talk about his family, except in sessions, when he can’t exactly avoid it. Other people talk openly about their families. Why doesn’t he? Isn’t he happy with his?
Orla selects an empty table. Morel positions himself next to her. Rory has had enough. He scans for an available seat with its back to them. There is a last one free beside Samantha, not ideal, but better than watching Morel drool into his lunch.
Samantha is talking about star signs.
Rory examines his pasta. Salmon in dickey-bows.
‘So, what are you?’ she asks Rory.
He looks up. ‘Sorry?’
‘What sign?’
‘Eh. Virgo.’
‘Oh, like me. And your Chinese sign?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘What year were you born?’
He tells her, noticing while he does that her eyebrows are pencilled in.
‘Then you’re a pig.’
He laughs. ‘That’s not very nice.’
‘Pigs,’ she tells him, ‘are sociable and popular.’
‘That would be me, all right,’ he smirks.
‘They hate conflict and rarely argue.’
‘Is that right?’ He’d prefer to be a lion.
‘Pigs like to have a cause,’ she continues. ‘And will often rally others to it.’ Now, that, he thinks is wrong. His whole problem is that he has a cause and he can’t get Louise behind it at all. He listens politely but eats fast, skips dessert and is out at the lock, which, short of peeing on it, he has now claimed as his territory. He leans back against it, closes his eyes and holds his face to the sun. It’s got to be at least five degrees warmer here than at home. He thinks of home, and Louise, pulls his mobile from his pocket and switches it on. Messages, yes. But none from Louise. He calls her.
‘Hey,’ he says, cheerfully.
‘Hi.’
‘How are you?’
‘Busy.’
‘OK. Won’t keep you, then. Just called to tell you that Orla has…’ He is about to say a secret admirer when she cuts across him.
‘I’m really busy here, Rory. I have to go. I’ll call you later, OK?’ The line goes dead.
He closes his phone, thinks for a second, then opens it again and texts Louise the news. But before he sends it, he deletes it. Maybe she doesn’t want to hear about Orla at all. He puts his phone back in his pocket, tilts his face to the sun again, closing his eyes. He stays like this until it is time to go back in, at which point, he gets up and walks in the opposite direction, along the river, towards Cambridge centre. Morel and he are supposed to pair off again this afternoon. Morel, he knows, will have no problem talking to the wall.
The day is bright and optimistic, on the verge of hot. On a whim, Rory hires a punt from one of the numerous college students selling guided tours or simple unaccompanied boat rides. He opts for the latter. With difficulty, he manoeuvres the punt out onto the lazy river with the long pole provided. Each side has traffic going in the opposite direction. He tries to get in line, but his lack of experience as a Cambridge gondolier shows and he drifts into the path of oncoming traffic. He almost loses his pole. Finally, he develops a rhythm and sense of direction and relaxes enough to enjoy the pleasure of doing something purely physical, no analysis, no difficult questions. Just survival. The river is busy, mostly with tourists. There is much for the photographers among them to capture – the imposing university buildings whose grounds they are gliding through, Canada geese grazing on the grassy banks, and the many bridges they have to manoeuvre their way under. A young American takes loud pleasure in careering out of control and into Rory, her laughter drowning that of her party. Rory smiles and untangles himself, while an older couple in a nearby boat, tutt-tutt at the disturbance.
He recovers in an Internet café with a giant mug of coffee and a newspaper. He comes across an article on sperm donation. Some teenagers in the States are trying to trace their sperm-donor fathers. Rory wonders why they’d do that. If a man donates sperm, that’s all it was to him. Sperm. He doesn’t think of it as a child. He won’t want it coming back to haunt him. The world, he thinks, is just getting stranger and stranger. He closes the newspaper.
Activating the Dell in front of him, Rory sets about easing the computer game withdrawal symptoms he has been plunged into since leaving home. He should have remembered to bring his PSP. After a few bouts of stick wrestling and an old-fashioned game of space invaders, he is beginning to feel better. He goes into YouTube to watch rugby highlights and leaves the Internet café feeling more relaxed than he has all week. The rest of the afternoon is spent wandering around the shops, selecting presents for Louise: a book on small businesses and marketing, a hot-water bottle, though it’s heading for summer, the latest yoga gear, a holder for her incense sticks. And a giant bar of soap guaranteed to lodge at her breasts when she tries ‘playing’ with it in the bath.
When she doesn’t ring that night, he does.
‘You sound like you’ve a cold,’ he says.
‘A bit tired. That’s all.’ She sounds it.
‘Were you in bed?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sorry. Will I call back in the morning?’
‘If you want.’
There’s enthusiasm. ‘Love you.’
Silence.
He’s not going to say it again. If she doesn’t want to, fine. ‘Good night,’ he says.
‘Night.’
The following morning, Rory disconnects his phone from the charger. He’s about to ring Louise, as promised. But stops. He’s tired of being the one to make all the calls, only to be fobbed off. If she doesn’t want to talk to him, fine. If she insists on thinking the worst of him, let her. She’s just going to have to start trusting him. He shouldn’t feel guilty about his friendship with his sister-in-law. He shouldn’t have to watch every little thing he says to Louise about her. He goes down for breakfast in a foul mood.
Orla and Morel are leaving the restaurant as he arrives, Orla laughing at something the writer has said. Rory just about acknowledges them. Breakfast is stewed coffee and cold toast. He arrives late for the lecture, and couldn’t care less. When it emerges, as Bingley drones on, that Orla has started to return Morel’s glances, and even initiate a few of her own, Rory feels like standing up and saying, ‘Would you both just cop on.’ Then he reminds himself it’s none of his business.
After lunch, when everyone is getting ready to pair off, Orla and Morel are missing. Also gone is Adam of the itchy hair. Bingley expresses his disappointment at the fall off in attendance, looking primarily at Rory, as though he’s to blame for setting a bad example. Rory is close to suggesting he hold the course in a hotel surrounded by a desert in future. What does he expect? Of all people, surely a psychologist knows he’s dealing with human beings.
So utterly pissed off is he that he doesn’t care when he is paired with Samantha, normally Adam’s partner.
‘Why don’t you go first,’ he says, not in the mood for talking.
He half-expects her to argue, ‘No, you.’ If she does, he will walk.
She pulls her chair closer and with no meandering says, ‘I’m here to learn how to cope with cancer.’
Whoa! he thinks. Back up. This woman does not have cancer. She’s too… he’s not sure… flamboyant, jolly? Must be a relative. Or maybe she’s playing the part of a cancer sufferer in some production somewhere…
‘I was diagnosed nine months ago.’
Shit.
‘Colon. I’ve been operated on, had the chemo.’
He glances automatically at her hair. She has a bright pink scarf wrapped around it.
She touches it and smiles in fake seductiveness. ‘I’m not a natural redhead.’
He doesn’t know what to say. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’
‘I mean…’
She waves away his awkwardness. ‘So, what are you here for?’ she asks, as though they’re prison inmates.
He pauses a momen
t, wondering if he should say it. It’s like a bad joke. ‘I’ve a problem breaking bad news to patients.’
Her whole body shakes as she laughs. ‘A match made in heaven.’
He manages a smile.
‘So,’ she says. ‘What is your problem with breaking bad news?’
He shrugs. ‘I just can’t do it.’
‘Why not?’
He explains, summarizing with, ‘Survivor’s guilt, I guess. I got off, they didn’t.’
‘Ah!’
They’re quiet.
‘When you were told,’ Rory says, ‘the doctor, did he… she… do an OK job? I mean, what I’m trying to say is, is there a right way of doing it?’
She frowns, looks down, as though trying to remember. ‘I don’t know. It’s such a shock. You’re not really concentrating on the person who is telling you; you’re just trying to take it in. Your life has stalled. You’re just so stunned.’
Rory knows that feeling.
‘I’m trying to remember,’ Samantha continues. ‘My doctor. He was straight. The English usually are, I find.’ She smiles, as though they share something by being outsiders. ‘But that was good. If he’d tried to comfort me with platitudes I might have hit him. I remember him being very patient, waiting while the truth sank in. Then answering every question, though they came in no logical order and I’m sure I repeated myself.’
Rory is nodding, taking it all in.
‘You know what?’ Samantha says. ‘He was good.’
‘He wasn’t nervous, telling you?’
‘He didn’t seem to be. If he had, I guess I’d have been even more terrified, imagining he was hiding something.’
Rory nods. It makes sense. Still, he’s not sure that knowing the downside of being nervous will make him any less so.
‘Can I talk about acting?’
He’s bemused. ‘Sure.’
‘On stage, if all you think about is yourself and how well you’re performing, how you appear, what you’re doing, you’re going to be self-conscious, you’re going to die – excuse the pun.’ Rory notices how well she speaks, her voice and enunciation so clear. He imagines her on stage, her voice projecting effortlessly. ‘But,’ she continues, ‘if you think of your audience and giving them what they need, the result will be different. Better.’ Her voice returns to normal. ‘If I were you, I’d focus on the patient, on what they need to know, what they might want to ask, but don’t know how. It’s not your fault that they have what they have but it is your job to make it easier for them.’
Do You Want What I Want? Page 13
