by Marian Keyes
‘Yesss,’ I sighed, with a great play of patience.
‘Oh, be careful, Rachel,’ Mum said, her forehead crinkled with concern. ‘He has his poor mother’s heart tormented.’
‘Is that right?’ Interest and fear propelled me closer to her. ‘What did he do?’
‘He wouldn’t stop taking the drugs,’ she muttered, not meeting my eyes. ‘And Philomena and Ted spent a fortune on this expert and that expert, for all the good it did. The next thing they knew, his work’d be on the phone saying he hadn’t turned up in a week. And he’s in his thirties, Rachel, too old for his parents still to be looking after him. And there’s something else…’
‘I know,’ I interrupted.
‘He was in the Cloisters once before, four years ago.’
‘I know,’ I said again, in a deliberately soothing voice. She’d been getting a bit agitated and it was suddenly too close to the bone for me. ‘He told me.’
‘He nearly made poor Philomena have a nervous breakdown,’ Mum said, her voice shrill and with a hint of tears in it. Time to go. ‘And then there’d be a pair of them in institutions.’
I remembered the large boomy-voiced woman who’d visited Chris at the laughing house. ‘She didn’t look tormented,’ I scoffed. ‘She looked like a right heifer.’
‘You’re too quick to judge…’ Mum’s voice trailed after me. ‘You think everyone’s happy except you.’
Off I went on the Dart into town, my legs wobbling like a new-born calf’s. Everything was so strange and new, I felt as though I too had just been born.
Even though I wasn’t going on a date and I wasn’t allowed dates, and both Chris and I knew that, I still had that lovely, I’ll-never-eat-again, stomach-tickling terror.
Everything seemed new and beautiful. As if I was seeing a spring evening in Dublin for the first time ever. The tide was in, the sea blue and calm as I passed it on the train. The sky was wide and clear, with a faded, just-washed look. The parks were bright with green grass and red, yellow and purple tulips. I sat on the train, trembling with the fear and wonder of it all.
I almost ran to Stephen’s Green with the need to see Chris. And there he was, standing waiting for me. I’d known he’d be there, yet I still marvelled at the sight of him. He was gorgeous, I thought, my breath catching, and he’s standing over there because he wants to meet me.
I could see the blue flash of his eyes from ten yards. And had ever a man’s legs been so sexy? He should never be allowed to wear anything other than Levi’s, I thought distractedly.
He turned his blue gaze onto me. Eyes lowered, I crossed the road to him. Then I was standing next to him, my heart beating hard, pleasurably. We were both smiling, embarrassed, tearful. Not sure how to deal with each other in the outside world.
‘How’re you doing?’ he said gruffly and gave me a hug that was so awkward it was nearly a necklock. Spontaneous affection did not come easily to us recovering addicts in the outside world, I thought, with a pang of loss. We’d been all over each other in the treatment centre but it was different when we were among civilians.
‘Fine,’ I said in a trembly voice, feeling as if my heart would burst from all the emotion.
‘One day at a time,’ he said, with an ironic smile.
‘So,’ I said with another enormous, shaky smile. ‘We made it, we’ve done the Cloisters and lived to tell the tale.’
The general vibe was that we had survived something awful and were united by it. Like the survivors from a hijacked plane who met up once a year to rake over misty-eyed memories of drinking their own urine, savaging their nearest and dearest for their bread rolls and being beaten to a pulp by a man wearing a tea-towel on his head.
‘So!’ he exclaimed.
‘So,’ I agreed.
I waited for him to say something about my hair and when he didn’t the worry started to gnaw at me. It was awful, wasn’t it?
‘Don’t you notice anything different about me?’ I heard myself asking. No, no, no!
‘You’ve shaved off your moustache?’ He laughed.
‘No,’ I mumbled, embarrassed. ‘I’ve had my hair cut.’
‘So you have,’ he said thoughtfully.
I cursed myself for ever mentioning it and I also cursed men in general for their visual unawareness. The only things they ever notice about any woman, I thought in disappointment, are big tits.
‘It’s nice,’ he said. ‘Gamine.’
He may have been lying, but I was more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
‘What’ll we do?’ I asked, my good humour restored.
‘I don’t know, what do you want to do?’
‘I don’t mind.’ I simpered. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘What I’d really like to do is buy a quarter of Red Leb, smoke it in under an hour, take you home and fuck your brains out,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘But,’ he smiled reassuringly at my rigor-mortised face, ‘we’re not allowed to do that.’
‘And we can’t really go to a pub,’ I said, clearing my throat in manly fashion, letting him know that I hadn’t taken him seriously, that I wasn’t going to go all girly and clingy, and pout and stamp my foot in the middle of a busy street, ‘But you said you’d fuck my brains out. You PROMISED!’ I’d learnt in the Cloisters that I’d made the mistake in the past, too many times, of being needy. And needy girls scare men away. Of that there was no doubt. So to not scare them away, you’ve got to pretend not to be needy. When you’re being shown out of their flat in the morning and they say, ‘See you,’ you’re not supposed to turn around and plead into their face ‘WHEN? TONIGHT? TOMORROW? WHEN, WHEN, WHEN?’ You’re just supposed to say ‘Mmmm, see you,’ and trail an immaculate talon along their stubble-rough cheek and waft away in a cloud of tangible un neediness.
I wanted to act strong, even if I wasn’t. Changing old behaviour patterns. Just like they told me to. Virtuous was the Rachel who turned to smile at Chris.
‘We could… I dunno… go to the pictures?’ he suggested.
Not what I wanted to hear.
The pictures?
The fucking pictures?
Was I reduced to this?
No, I wasn’t beaten yet. They could take away my Valium, my cocaine, my credit cards, but they could never take away my soul. Or my appetite.
‘We could go for something to eat,’ I said eagerly. Luke and I had had some of our happiest times in restaurants. ‘We’re still allowed to do that, aren’t we?’
‘Just about,’ he agreed. ‘So long as neither of us pukes straight afterwards or orders five desserts or any other aberrant behaviour.’
‘Where will we go?’ I asked. I was pleased. I imagined a dimly lit, romantic little bistro. Our faces close in the candle-light. Talking into the small hours, the plump patron smiling fondly at us, as all the other chairs in the place were stacked on tables and Chris and I talked eagerly on, not noticing.
‘Let’s just take a stroll and we’ll see where we end up,’ he suggested.
As we rambled, I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. He’d like to fuck my brains out.
The silver-tongued devil.
Mmmm.
No! You’re not allowed to think that way.
That’s right, I’m not, I thought, sense returning to me. OK, so he was gorgeous-looking, but we were proceeding as friends. And that was all right, my down theres would close up at the suggestion of having sober sex with someone who wasn’t Luke.
A bleak wind swept through me when I realized I’d never again be in bed with Luke. For a split-second I forgot I hated him.
Briskly, I forced my attention back to the here-and-now and Chris.
We went to Temple Bar, Dublin’s Left Bank. Where I witnessed the completed groovification of my native city with my own two eyes. It certainly was kicking. And very attractive.
Could I live here? I wondered. It was certainly very different from the city I had left eight years before.
Different enough to live in? I felt a shiver of fear.
If I didn’t stay in Dublin, where would I go?
Back to New York?
Back to face Brigit and Luke and the rest of them?
I didn’t think so.
I turned to smile at Chris.
Save me.
We were outside a restaurant that I felt was eminently suitable. It had everything, the candles, the checked tablecloth, the plump patron. Positively obese, actually.
‘How about here?’ I suggested eagerly, waiting for my fantasy to become reality.
‘I don’t know,’ Chris said, flailing his hands vaguely. ‘It’s too…’
I wanted to go there. But instead I just smiled and said ‘Yeah, it is, a bit, isn’t it?’ And then I hated myself.
I should have said what I wanted. I’d just missed an opportunity to change old behaviour. And, I thought irritably, I was sick of Josephine’s disembodied voice making announcements in my head.
On we strolled, passing intimate, dimly lit bistro after intimate, dimly lit bistro, Chris dismissing each one with a vague ‘But isn’t it a bit…?’
My spirits drooped and my sentences became shorter and terser with each disappointment. Finally we arrived at a raucous yellow shed. The Gypsy Kings were playing at ear-bleeding decibels.
‘How about here?’ Chris suggested. Tight-lipped, I shrugged, my whole demeanour saying ‘Here? Are you out of your stupid, fucking mind?’
‘Come on, then,’ he said eagerly, opening the door for me.
Gobshite, I thought, in silent fury.
When we got in, the noise nearly knocked me to the floor. It was then that I realized that I was getting old and that a drug-free Rachel viewed the world very differently from the Rachel who had a gram of coke doing laps in her head.
A twelve-year-old girl wearing a poncho and a sombrero greeted us with bonhomie that was so enthusiastic as to be crazed, manic. Give that girl some Lithium.
‘For two,’ Chris said, rubbernecking like there was no tomorrow. As if he was looking for someone. While we were being led across the crowded, sawdust-strewn floor, I heard someone shout, ‘Rachel, Ray-chel.’
‘Rachel.’ The voice got nearer. I located the source, turned and there was Helen. Wearing a red frilly blouse, a very short skirt, and a sombrero hung from around her neck. She was carrying a tray.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded back.
‘I work here,’ she said simply.
And then it all became clear.
‘This is the abattoir?’ I asked.
‘Others call it Club Mexxx,’ Helen said flicking a glance at the manic one, who was beaming from Helen to me to Chris, as though she might explode.
‘Gimme them.’ She grabbed the menus from the grinner. ‘I’ll seat them in my section.
‘Now, don’t think you’ll be getting loads of free drinks,’ she called over her shoulder as she weaved her tiny bottom through tequila-guzzling revellers.
‘Sit here.’ She threw the menus down on a wobbly, wooden table that was the size of an album cover. Within seconds my hands were punctured with splinters.
‘I just have to go and get that crowd of stupid fuckers some drinks,’ she explained with a nod at the eighteen very drunk lads at the next table. ‘Then I’ll be back.’
Chris and I faced each other. He smiled. I didn’t.
‘Did you know that Helen worked here?’ I asked in a shaky voice.
‘Sorry?’ he shouted above the noise.
‘DID YOU KNOW THAT HELEN WORKED HERE?’ I roared, releasing some anger.
‘No.’ He opened his eyes wide. ‘I’d no idea.’
I didn’t believe him.
I hated him. He didn’t want to be with me at all. It was Helen he was after. No one ever wanted to be with me. I was just their stepping-stone to someone else. Someone who wasn’t me.
Helen returned about half-an-hour later.
‘Adios amoebas,’ she greeted us.
‘We have to say that,’ she added, with a contemptuous curl of her lip. ‘To make it authentic.
‘Right,’ said Helen briskly. ‘What do you want?’
The menu was the usual Tex-Mex stodge, with refried beans appearing everywhere.
‘What do you recommend?’ Chris twinkled up at her.
‘I recommend that you go somewhere else, actually,’ she said. ‘We get staff meals here and I swear to God, they’d have to pay you to eat them. It’s all right if you like living on the edge. I had a burrito earlier and it was a near-death experience. But if you’re not feeling suicidal, try somewhere else. There’s a lovely Cal-Ital place over the road, go there!’
I was almost on my feet, but Chris laughed and said ‘Ah no, as we’re here we might as well stay.’
So I resentfully ordered refried beans, served with refried beans.
‘And a side order of refried beans?’ Helen suggested, her pen poised.
‘Ah, go on,’ I said gloomily. ‘What harm can it do?’
‘OK,’ she said, moving away. ‘Mutches grassy arse, amoebas.
‘Oh yeah.’ She was back. ‘What do you want to drink? I can steal you some tequila because it’s so cheap and disgusting they don’t care if we nick some of it. The only thing is, you might go blind. Sorry about that, but if I’m caught nicking any more beers, I’m for it.’
‘Er, no, Helen, that’s all right,’ I said, wanting to die with shame. ‘But I’ll just have a diet coke.’
She stared at me as if seeing a vision. ‘Diet COKE? Just diet coke? No, lookit, the tequila isn’t that bad, it might just bring on a mild bout of schizophrenia, but it passes.’
‘Thanks, Helen,’ I murmured. ‘But diet coke is fine.’
‘OK,’ she said in confusion. ‘Yourself?’ she said to Chris.
‘The same for me,’ he said quietly.
‘But why?’ she demanded. ‘You’re DRUG ADDICTS, but you’re not ALCOHOLICS.’
Heads turned from as far away as the Cal-Ital place over the road.
‘Well?’ Everybody’s faces queried. ‘Why won’t you have a drink? What harm can a drink do? After all, it’s not as if you’re an ALCOHOLIC.’
But it wasn’t the time to stand on my chair and explain to them about the dangers of cross-addiction.
‘Really, Helen.’ Chris went all masterful. ‘Thanks for the offer of the tequila, but no thanks.’
She went away and Chris and I sat in silence. I felt very, very depressed. I could only presume that he did too.
Eventually, I became ashamed of our silence. It contrasted too harshly with the raucous screeches and drunken shouts of all the people around us. I felt as though everyone else in the whole world was having fun, except me and my coke-drinking friend.
I hated him, I hated me, I hated not being drunk. Or coked-up, ideally.
I’m far too young to be marginalized in this horrible way, I thought bitterly.
I’d spent all my life feeling left-out, and now I really was.
Desperately, in a doomed attempt to be normal, I forced a conversation with Chris. It fooled no one, particularly not me.
The entire place was uninhibited, free, young, lively, colourful. Except for our table. In my mind’s eye, the picture changed from day-glo colours into sepia when it came to me and Chris, from carnival music and laughter into slow-moving silence. We were out of step, we didn’t belong, a frame from a gloomy, East European, arthouse film in the midst of Bugs Bunny Goes to Acapulco.
Much later our food arrived and we both faked delight.
We pushed the refried beans around our plates and the askew table rocked and swayed like a ship on the high seas. I leant my elbow on it and Chris’s coke wobbled and spilled. Then Chris lifted the salt and the lurch that followed sent my fork tumbling to the floor. Then I lifted my elbow so that I could rummage around on the floor looking for it, seeing as Chris wasn’t going to, the lazy bastard, and his plate sl
id almost off the table.
A very long time later, after we’d been offered and had refused some ice cream – refried-bean flavour, of course – the horrible ordeal ended and we were allowed to leave.
Chris left an outrageously large tip for Helen and was all smiles as we passed her on the way out.
She was preparing tequila slammers for what looked like an outing of prison officers. She banged glasses of tequila and Seven-up on the table and half-heartedly urged ‘Underlay, underlay’ as the screws knocked them back.
I could hardly look at her. Jealousy had corroded a hole where my stomach used to be. Even though it wasn’t her fault she was born both beautiful and over-confident. But I couldn’t help feeling that it was all very unfair. What about me? Why didn’t I get anything?
63
When we escaped into the warm evening, Chris suddenly seemed to notice me again. He slung an arm around my shoulders, in casual, friendly fashion, and we strolled through the streets.
I couldn’t help feeling glad. Maybe he did like me after all.
‘How did you get into town?’ he asked.
‘Dart.’
‘I’ll drive you home,’ he said. And something in me warmed with gladness. I liked what he said and the way he said it, I felt taken care of.
‘Unless you want to come back to my place first for coffee,’ he suggested, with a side-long glance that I couldn’t fathom.
‘Er… OK,’ I stammered. ‘Fine. Where are you parked?’
‘Stephen’s Green.’
So we strolled to Stephen’s Green, in harmony for the first time that night. And when we got to Stephen’s Green we discovered that the car had been stolen.
Whereupon Chris did the Dance of the Stolen Car. Which goes as follows. Walk four paces beside the empty place, then come to an abrupt halt. Walk four paces back in the other direction, again coming to an abrupt stop. Two paces in the original direction, stop, then back again. A frantic headspin to the left, a frantic headspin to the right, followed by frantic headspins in all directions, culminating in a full-body, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree pirouette. Another pirouette in the opposite direction. This is where facial directions become very important. Pop your eyes, wrinkle your forehead, let your mouth hang open. You may sing at this point. ‘But where…? I parked it here, I did, I definitely parked it here.’
