Erotic Refugees

by Paddy Kelly

  “Be serious Eoin!” Jenny hissed. He heard her footsteps, and knew that she was changing room (in the house partly owned by him) so that Damien wouldn't hear.

  “I don't know anything about you any more, Eoin,” she said. “How can I? You do just what you want, it seems! Whatever is good for you, but nobody else—”

  Eoin grabbed a fistful of his hair in his left hand and pulled until it hurt. He didn't know why it always had to be like this when he talked to Jenny. She made him feel like the nastiest person alive, and he was quite sure that wasn't the case. Or maybe it was? He didn't feel like a selfish bastard, but maybe all selfish bastards felt that way?

  He sat down on the corner of the bed and poked at a few wrinkles in the duvet, pulling and smoothing them until the whole thing was flat and neat. “Jenny, I don't think it's fair—”

  “His passport is with me, you know.” Her voice was neutral and she didn't at all make it sound like a threat. She didn't need to. Eoin got it.

  “Look, we talked about this, Jenny. He's travelled away with you loads of times, and you can't stop me, I'm well within my rights—”

  “Your rights! And what about the rights of that little boy, to have a family, and a home, din själviska—”

  “Alright now, stop it! It's decided. I'm taking the kid on holiday to see my family like we planned.”

  There was a pause. “Well maybe I won't be able to find the passport—”

  “Damn it Jenny!” Eoin grabbed the duvet with his free hand and pulled at it, messing up the nice smoothing job he'd just completed. He had more than enough to worry about right now. He didn't need this too.

  ”Listen to me. I am taking him to see his family, alright? He's been asking about them, you know he has. About the cat, and that swing in the garden. And if you want to stop him from going there, fine, do that! Just remember in the future that it was your decision to break him away from that part of his family, and not mine.”

  Jenny was silent. Eoin heard her shallow breathing and then her footsteps as she changed room again. Damien was in the background once more, babbling along with the TV program in Swedish. Still she didn't say anything. Maybe she was about to cry. It wasn't like her, but he could imagine it happening, and he wasn't very far from it himself.

  She spoke again and her voice had returned to being painfully neutral. “I'll bring him over at five. With the passport. And the medicine in case he gets that ear problem—”

  “Look!” Eoin took a deep breath, and tried again. “Look, it’s fine, I have my own medicine, and a thermometer, and extra socks and underwear. He'll. Be. Fine.”

  “And if you get it into your head to not come back I swear—”

  “Jenny! Please. See you tomorrow.”

  “Right,” she said, and hung up.

  He put the mobile on the bed and stared at it until the buzzing in his head died away. Nothing left him more drained than talking to Jenny, especially when she dragged Damien into the argument just to make him feel that roaring guilt.

  Eoin accepted that she felt bad about Damien living in two places, and about her life being shattered, and about every other damn thing she blamed him for. That didn't give her the right to make him feel just as bad whenever she could.

  Alice had told him countless times that Jenny's behaviour was troubled and abnormal, and that he shouldn't let it get to him. He tried to believe that, to hang onto that thought, and mostly he succeeded.

  He wished Alice were around right now. When things like this happened he missed her more than ever.

  Eoin decided to pull himself together and stop thinking about it. He got up, moved into the kitchen and swung himself into his chair in front of his laptop. He went to Diamond Date and typed in his username irish_clover. Then he realised what he was doing and shook his head. He erased the characters, studied the blinking cursor for a moment, and typed in boo_radley, the username on his other account, the one he'd been using for a week now to scout Middle Mum and come up with a way to contact her.

  It wasn't the most developed dating profile in the world. The photo (of his cousin Neil at a family wedding) was a bit blurry and the description was pretty bare. But it was funny, it was concise, it was light-hearted, and everything was in English as Alice had suggested. In fact he suspected the ghost profile was actually better than his real profile. Maybe boo_radley would end up doing better than irish_clover in the dating world.

  The fact that boo_radley didn't really exist was beside the point. Online existence was such a shaky concept anyway, right?

  He logged in and there it was, a fat number one enclosed by a pair of brackets on top of his inbox. He sucked in a lungful of air and held his breath as he clicked on the new mail. Oh yes. Abso-fucking-lutely yes! Middle Mum had replied!

  He leapt up and did a little dance in the kitchen, gyrating and air-boxing in sheer joy. Then he happened to glance out the window and saw two people standing on the balcony opposite, staring back at him. He froze and flattened himself against the wall. A deep breath, then he dropped to the floor and crawled back into his seat, keeping well out of view. He settled down and hovered the pointer over the mail from RosieCotton, with his face almost pressed up against the screen.

  The mail he’d sent her twenty-four hours earlier had been short.

  I am actually good friends with Samwise, but I won't mention anything about seeing you on a dating site. I hear he's away on business anyway, something about a ring.

  It had, to start with, been much longer, but after agonising over it for hours he'd thrown out the bulk of it, leaving only those two sentences. Now it remained to be seen if they'd done their job. He held his breath and opened her reply.

  Thank you for the tips. But I know he's away with that Frodo. I think they are playing golf like they are always. Men like golf, don't they? Maria.

  Eoin grinned. She had given him her name, and after only one exchange of mails! This meant he probably had to give her some fake name in return, but a little more lying wouldn't hurt, would it? More important, though, was that she'd asked him a question and was therefore fishing for a way to continue the dialogue.

  Alice had told him, during one of her get-Eoin-dating drives, that on a dating site one reply is a wave, two is a consideration, and three is a yes. And now that Middle Mum (AKA Maria) was clearly fishing for a second mail from him, it meant he was under serious consideration.

  He read it again and kept on grinning. As first mails went, this was a mind-blowing success. His eye skipped down to the list of people who'd viewed his profile recently and there she was, three places down. It was now impossible for him to sit still and he got up to fill a glass of wine. This was big news and would take some serious concentration, as well as a very large glass to put the wine in.

  As he fiddled with the plastic spout on a fresh box he pondered how he'd reply. What did she mean with the golf comment? Did she like golf, or hate it? Was it a deal-breaker if he didn't like golf? But a woman who liked Lord of the Rings wouldn't like golf. Weren't they mutually exclusive? They had to be, surely.

  He sipped the wine and sat down to think properly. Obviously he couldn't send a reply too quickly, because that would make him appear too eager. And if he got some rapport going with her they'd only be able to meet up after things faded out with Anja. So he had to slow that whole process down.

  But he couldn't leave it too long either, because that would show he was a moron who couldn't come up with a snappy reply in a reasonable span of time.

  He was also going to Ireland on Monday, which meant he'd have to send the reply at the latest tomorrow, before he entered the land of little or no Internet. Yes, tomorrow was probably good. It also gave him a whole day to think about it (or fret about it, most likely).

  He leaned back in the chair with his legs crossed, happy with his progress but unable to ignore that what he was doing wasn't very honest. The chances of the lady in question taking it well, should she find out about it, were slim indeed.

  B
ut damn it, the situation was dire! Alice couldn't be consulted for advice until that unspecified thing between them stopped being a thing, and he needed some way to get talking properly to Maria. He'd just have to plough ahead and explain it all to Maria later after she'd been convinced of his worthiness.

  (And after he'd stopped banging her best friend.)

  Eoin arrived at Sonja's café on Högalidsgatan at five to ten. Rob swore blind that the place had the best Sunday brunch in Stockholm, but Eoin was pretty sure he'd picked it because it was only a short walk from his own flat.

  Eoin sat down at an empty table—there were a few of them—and grabbed a newspaper. The other customers didn't react to his presence and the staff didn't as much as glance in his direction. Eoin was used to this. As a customer in Sweden one was often treated as more of a hindrance than an asset, and it was just something that had to be put up with. Along with their confusion about what makes a sandwich, and their inability to pull a proper pint of Guinness.

  Rob was only ten minutes late, looking a bit dishevelled in a crinkled shirt, scruffy denim jacket and two-day old stubble. He fell into a chair and exhaled, giving the impression that getting to a location down the road approximately on time was the most difficult thing he'd done in weeks.

  Eoin started to say something but Rob waved at him feebly and muttered, “No, coffee first”. He dragged himself to the counter, ordered in a low mumble (in Swedish, Eoin noticed) and returned with a mug of rich black coffee.

  Eoin went and ordered the medium breakfast, the contents of which were not specified. Presumably it contained an egg, and yoghurt or muesli, and maybe a little sandwich. Possibly juice. He paid, grabbed a coffee and sat back down. Rob was scanning the sports section of the paper and some focus was returning to his eyes.

  “Aren't you missing your course?”

  “Nah,” Rob said. “Well, yeah, a bit, but I'll make the after-lunch bit. I told Milly to make up some lie for me. Women are good that way.”

  “What, at lying?”

  Rob looked up innocently and shrugged. “Yeah. Aren't they?”

  Eoin shook his head. “So who's Milly then?”

  “Yeah, right, sorry, let me tell ye about it!” Rob launched into the story of how they'd met, and how talented she was, and how she'd get the whole project in order. Eoin couldn't help narrowing his eyes as he listened. He suspected that Rob's head was not making all the major decisions when it came to this Milly woman.

  “Well it's good you found somebody to help out, but, well, you have to make sure she's the person you really need, and not just ask her to help because, well, you want something else from her, you follow me?”

  Rob gave an emphatic wink. “Well that's the best part, ye see, cos she's gay!”

  Eoin stared at Rob for a moment. “So why,” he asked carefully, “is her being gay the best part…?”

  “Well, so there'll be no distractions of that type, ye know? Just straight down to work. She'll point out the way to go and prod our arses so we'll get there fast.”

  “Because gay women are bossy and dominant?”

  Rob looked all innocent again. “Aren't they?”

  The breakfast arrived and Eoin was glad of the distraction. As he had suspected, it was a boiled-egg, yogurt-muesli, small-sandwich combo. No juice though, that was extra, and Eoin wasn't a paying-extra kind of guy. So the basic deal would have to suffice.

  “Well that's great Rob!” he said as he began de-capping his egg. “I mean, good work. I'm not convinced she'll be any better just because she's gay but, you're right, it does make things simpler. And she'll do it all, just like that? For nothing?”

  Rob gave Eoin the briefest of looks and Eoin suspected the worst.

  “You know we can't pay her Rob, so I hope you didn't—”

  “Oh no, she knows that. She thinks it's interesting and it won't be much work for her. Plus she's unemployed so she's nothing to do anyway. But it's not just the system developer stuff, it’s the whole getting-things-going angle. She's a tough lady, all action. She even got me to reserve the domain—”

  Eoin looked up sharply. “What domain?”

  “Ye know, for the site.”

  Eoin blinked in disbelief. “What? You hadn't even—”

  “Chill,” Rob said, raising a calming hand. “No need for a hissy fit. All booked and paid for now, in the bag so it is. All's well that ends well. Jaysus, I'm hungry. Hang on.”

  Rob headed to the counter and got himself a breakfast. Eoin watched him and shook his head. He was hardly able to believe that Rob had only now bought the domain for the project they'd been working on for a month, but he was also unwilling to argue about it this early on a Sunday. He was, however, a little suspicious as there was something Rob wasn't telling him here. Something about this Milly person, but he just couldn't put a finger on what it was.

  “And,” Rob announced when he returned with a tray. “I've even gotten a graphic designer on board!”

  “What, Milly again?”

  “Nah, she can't draw for hell. It just occurred to me last night, a revelation—”

  “In the pub?” Eoin asked dryly.

  “Come on, what kind of a boozer d'ye think I am? No, this was after the pub, when I got home. And it just popped into my head.” Rob did a thumbs-up with one hand. “Karen!”

  “Your sister? Can she do design?”

  “Sure she can, no problem! She's been drawin' her whole life, and she's always poking around with something on the web. She grew up with that stuff!”

  “Fine, but that doesn't mean she can—”

  “Eoin, relax. Just head off to Ireland, and me and Milly will be workin' hard to get all the basic functions done. Karen will send us some layout ideas and when ye get back there'll be a site to look at. Sound good?”

  “Sure, yeah, sounds great.”

  “Of course,” Rob said as he crammed most of a ham-and-cheese-covered roll into his mouth, “then we have Gotland. Except there won't be any Gotland, right?”

  “It doesn't look like it. Andy and Alice, I just don't know what the hell's going on there, and she won't tell me. And now we had some kind of stupid fight and she won't talk to me at all. So no, it's not looking good for Gotland.”

  Rob sat back with a wise look about him, and Eoin guessed that some advice was on its way. “Ye know what to do about this Alice thing, don't ye? Just go over there, and give her a good hard—”

  “Rob!” Eoin looked around but the three other customers were staring into their newspapers, devoid of expression. He turned back to Rob. “I don't think every problem can be solved by just, you know—”

  Rob raised his voice. “You mean by sexual intercourse?” He grinned at Eoin's mortified expression. “True, it probably caused more problems than it solved but still, when yer havin' some kind of spat with this girl, and there's energy in the air, well, I'm just sayin'—”

  “Drop it,” Eoin said. “I'll get on to her when I get back to Stockholm, and then we'll see about Gotland. But just warn Andy it's probably not going to happen, so he's not planning, or waiting, or something.”

  “Check. I'll send ye a text when there's something to see on the site. And chill out in Ireland, deal?”

  Eoin nodded, although he knew there'd be little chilling out in Ireland. There was his family to face, and his separation to explain, and battles to be fought to stop his mother stuffing Damien with chocolate and crisps. He always came back from his holiday in Ireland feeling like he needed a longer holiday somewhere else.

  Rob raised his coffee mug and Eoin followed suit. They clunked them together with a sound like a pair of ashtrays colliding. “To … to what exactly?” prompted Eoin.

  Rob thought hard for a moment and flashed a grin. “To me finally getting off my arse?”

  “Fair enough,” Eoin said. They banged the mugs again.

  “To Rob finally getting off his arse!”

  Chapter 19

  Rob was annoyed. He had no job to go to, the sun w
as blazing, it was the middle of July, and the entire Swedish female species were walking up and down the street outside his flat being all sultry. There were pubs to visit and cappuccinos to be drunk and beaches to be lounged upon, and here he was stuck indoors and working harder than he'd ever worked in his life.

  It was only Wednesday and already Milly had called two project meetings in Rob's flat. At each meeting it had taken about thirty minutes for them to go through what they'd both done, pose a few questions, and set the time for the next meeting. Not a second had been wasted and Rob was beginning to understand that maybe, just maybe, he'd been a bit unfocused regarding the project up to now.

  Perhaps just a tad.

  To make up for that, he was working frantically through the Flash coding of the calendar section, the meaty heart of the whole enterprise. And slowly, one for-loop at a time, he was actually getting somewhere.

  By two in the afternoon his neck ached, his right arm was stiff and his eyes had started to swim. He figured it was time for a break. He pulled on the least crinkled shirt from his laundry chair, slotted his sunglasses onto his head and headed down to the local shop for an ice-cream. After perusing their selection, he picked the one he always picked and headed for the water’s edge.

  Rob's building was on the western edge of Södermalm, with a slightly crappy view of an industrial area on the other side of the water. But on a day like this, anything looked good. He sneaked around a fence and onto the corner of a jetty that possibly belonged to a boat club judging by the fence, the locked gate and the large “Private” sign. Naturally these could not possibly apply to a foreigner, so he took off his sandals and sat down with a sigh.

  He licked at his ice-cream and watched the water as it slapped gently against the wooden supports below. He wondered once again why he was still in Sweden. Eoin he could understand, having a kid and a good job and an ex to fight with, but what exactly was holding him in this country? He had no woman in particular, no job and no family. There were Irish bars, of course, and there was a shop that specialised in English foodstuffs and real teabags, and other English-speaking expats to hang around with. And all that, he accepted, was fairly good.