‘That poor man,’ I whispered.
I tried to slip out of the shop unnoticed, but the bookseller caught me just as I got to the door.
‘What, you’re not going to purchase any ridiculous nonsense pitted against your own gender today?’
‘I’ve got everything I need, thank you,’ I said. ‘By the way, Camus wasn’t a defensive midfielder, he was a goalkeeper. Everyone knows that.’
He looked at me appraisingly. ‘How on earth do you know anything about football?’
I was incensed. ‘Um, how dare you impose your gender stereotypes on me? Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t know about sports, you know.’
He sighed. ‘Get off your high horse, Germaine Greer. I was referring to your nationality, not your gender. I have never met an American who knew anything about football. Real football, I mean. Not your … helmeted nonsense,’ he said witheringly.
‘I’ll have you know that I played soccer for ten years. My team won state three years in a row.’ I felt so smug I was practically levitating.
He had the momentary good grace to look suitably impressed. ‘Well, I’m not entirely sure what “winning state” means but it sounds quite good.’
‘It is,’ I said, pulling myself up to my full height and slightly puffing out my chest. ‘We beat Mount Alvern in a penalty shoot-out for the title in my senior year.’
‘Nail-biting stuff.’
I nodded sagely, ignoring his sarcasm. ‘It was.’
And with that, I walked out of the shop, feeling enormously pleased with myself. There was nothing better than having the last word.
19 July
I arrived home and kicked aside a pile of recycling that had accumulated by the door.
‘Lucy?’ I called as I turned on the light. ‘Are you in?’
No reply. Presumably she was at Tristan’s again. It was starting to feel like I had a two-bedroom apartment to myself – albeit a shitty, decrepit one. It was great in a way, as I could turn up Ani DiFranco very loud and dance around the living room without incurring any judgmental looks, but it was also kind of lame. I missed ranting with Lucy over the television, and my childhood fears of being murdered in my sleep had come back with a vengeance now that I was alone every night. I kept double-checking the locks and looking under the bed for serial killers. It was embarrassing.
I dug through the pile of mail on the kitchen counter and found another postcard from Meghan: a close-up photograph of an ear. I flipped it over and read the message scrawled on the back in bright purple ink.
‘I would rather die of passion than of boredom’ – Vincent Van Gogh.
Saw this and thought of you. Just don’t go hacking off any body parts in the process.
Love, Meg
I sat down with a glass of wine and a salad I’d assembled from the fridge dregs and gave her a call.
The phone rang many, many times before she picked up.
‘Hello?’ she said, audibly panting.
‘It’s me. What the hell are you doing?’
‘Hey, kid! Sorry, Maud was beating the shit out of Harold and I was trying to separate them.’
‘How does a kitten beat the shit out of an eighty-pound dog?’
‘Trust me: where there’s a will, there’s a way. How are you?’
‘Eh, I’m okay. Got your postcard. Don’t worry, I’m still fully intact.’
‘Good to hear.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’ I let out a deep sigh.
‘What’s up with you? You sound like shit.’ Trust a sister to tell it like it is.
‘I’m just a little lonely. A little homesick. Lucy’s met this amazing new guy, so she’s never around, and work’s a little tough at the minute, and I’m following the dating advice of some douchebag … I’m a little filled with ennui, I guess.’
‘So come home already.’
‘I can’t come home. You know that.’
‘Kid, you can always come home. The past isn’t as scary as you think it is. It’s not some monster living in the closet, waiting for you.’
I glanced over at my bedroom door. ‘I’m not so sure of that.’
She sighed. ‘Speaking of which, I saw Dylan the other day.’
A little pocket of bile bloomed in my stomach. ‘You did? Where? Did you talk to him?’
‘At Sangillo’s. We talked for a second, but he was three sheets to the wind so it wasn’t a very stimulating conversation.’
The thought of him drunk at Sangillo’s filled me with an inexplicable sadness. ‘Did you talk about me?’
There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘No, but he wasn’t exactly in a great frame of mind.’
I felt a prick of guilt. It was my fault, I knew it. I took a sip of wine and changed the subject. There was nothing I could do to unknow it, but I could sure as hell ignore it.
I got off the phone soon after, promising that I’d think about what she’d said about coming back home. The thought of Portland swelled in front of me: the clapboard houses painted in blues and greeny-grays, the Eastern Promenade in the height of summer as the boats sail past, the quiet that descends on Old Town once fall settles in and the tourists clear out. I went onto the balcony and lit a cigarette, pushing the memory out of my head. I stared out across the London night. Portland wasn’t home anymore. For better or worse, I’d made my choice.
23 July
After nearly a month of radio silence, Adrian turned up again like a bad but not entirely unwelcome penny.
I was at work, pretending to write a press release for an upcoming exhibition on electromagnetism (‘It’s hair-raising!’). Really, I was sketching out my ‘adding-value’ story. The book asks you to think of personal anecdotes that convey your charm, sense of humor, bravery and general panache and then store them in your conversational armory for the right moment.
The only one I could come up with was when I spent a summer riding a pony on the farm near my house, culminating in a blue-ribbon win at a show-jumping competition, only to return the following summer to find that Jason had become too fat for anyone to ride and had been sent to that great big glue factory in the sky.
I was putting the final flourishes on Jason the pony when my phone flashed up with a text.
Adrian: Drink?
Me: It’s 11:30 in the morning. I’m at work.
Adrian: Later?
Me: Maybe. What time?
Adrian: 7?
Me: Okay. Will meet you in Blue Posts on Berwick St.
Adrian: That place is gash.
Me: Then you’ll fit right in.
I arrived at 7.30, factoring in Adrian’s laissez-faire attitude towards timekeeping. He strolled in at 7.50, just as I was gathering my things to leave.
‘Where are you off to, Cunningham? You wouldn’t stand a man up, would you?’
‘Do you think it’s normal to be almost an hour late?’
He smiled infuriatingly. ‘Sorry, time escaped me.’
‘I’m pretty sure time has always escaped you, so you might as well call off the hunt.’
He gave me a kiss on the cheek and then gestured towards the bar. ‘Want anything?’
I’d already necked my first glass of wine, so I nodded. ‘Get some peanuts, too.’
He came back with the drinks and a packet of dry roasted and sat down. ‘So, what’s new?’
‘I was about to ask you the same thing. I figured there was some reason you wanted to have a drink with me.’
His eyes widened in mock surprise. ‘Why would I need a reason to see my favorite American?’
I rolled my eyes.
‘Now really, tell me what’s happening in your world. Is all well in the land of science?’
I jumped slightly. How had he found out about the project? ‘What do you mean, science?’
‘You do remember that you work at the Science Museum?’
Relief swept over me. ‘Oh! Right! Yep, science is good. I’m working on an electromagnetism exhibition at the minute.’<
br />
‘Sounds riveting.’
‘It is, actually. How about you? How’s the paper?’
‘Fucking awful. Everyone’s getting sacked. Something called “the Internet” seems to be interfering with our readership numbers.’
‘Is it really bad?’
Adrian smiled sadly. ‘They binned the whole of the arts and culture section today. Apparently they’re going to rely on readers to send in their own reviews. They’re rebranding it the “YouView” section.’
‘That sort of shit drives me crazy. Every idiot with a blog thinks he’s a writer or a critic these days, and no one’s out there fact-checking or proofreading anything! I mean, people are professional critics for a reason – they actually know something about the thing they’re critiquing. And now we’ll have some jackass telling us that the new Transformers film is awesome because loads of shit blows up in it. We’ll all be illiterate in ten years, mark my words.’
‘Yes, and more importantly, I’ll be out of a job.’
I decided this was the moment to test-drive one of my adding-value tales. ‘It kind of reminds me of this pony I used to ride as a kid.’
Adrian raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, you see, when I was a kid, I spent a whole summer riding this one pony at the farm down the street from me. His name was Jason. He was one of those brown and white splotchy ones – very handsome. I loved Jason and I was really good at riding him.’
‘I’ll bet you were,’ Adrian said with a grin.
‘Don’t interrupt. Anyway, I went from trotting to cantering to galloping over a couple of months, and at the end of the summer we came in second place in the local show-jumping competition.’
‘Quite an achievement.’
I ignored his tone. ‘It was, actually. Pretty soon after that, it got too cold to ride anymore and Jason and I had to part ways for the winter.’
‘How could you just abandon Jason like that? Heartless bitch.’
‘Shut up. Anyway, when summer came round again, I went down to the farm to see if I could take him for a ride, and they told me that over the winter, Jason had become depressed and fat –’
‘Probably because you abandoned him.’
I gave him a dark look and continued. ‘He’d gotten too fat to ride and they’d had to sell him. My mom told me that they sold him to a place upstate, but years later I found out that they actually sent him to Elmer’s. As in the glue factory.’
‘Fuck, they made glue out of the poor chap?’
I nodded sadly. Inwardly, I was feeling pretty smug about my storytelling performance.
‘So, how does this relate to me? Are you telling me that I’ve become too fat to ride and should be sent to the glue factory?’
‘No, of course not! Can’t you see? Print journalism is the fat pony!’
‘That’s not particularly encouraging, either.’
‘It was supposed to be an uplifting story of triumph over adversity … but I guess, on reflection, it’s not all that uplifting. So what are you going to do?’
‘That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m thinking of moving to the States.’
My stomach lurched. ‘What? Why?’
‘Well, because long-form journalism has more of a foothold there, so I could probably get a bit of work. I’ve been speaking with The Huffington Post and they seem keen – not that they’ll pay me anything. Plus, chicks dig the accent over there.’
‘But what about a visa? Medical insurance? Crazy right-wing nutjobs?’
‘It’ll all sort itself out. I suppose if I really got into a jam, I could always marry an American … ?’ He raised an eyebrow at me.
‘Sorry, buddy, you’ll have to look elsewhere for your visa bride. I’m sure you won’t have trouble on that front.’
I hated the thought of him in America. It was too weird, like some sort of freaky-Friday swap gone horribly awry. I pictured him surrounded by blond Texans cooing over him as he hammed up a Cockney accent.
‘Ah, don’t look so depressed, Cunningham! With time, the gaping hole left in your life by my absence will shrink.’
‘It’s just strange thinking of you wandering around my homeland.’
‘Don’t worry, with any luck I’ll do something deviant and be deported immediately.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past you. When are you thinking of going?’
‘As soon as possible, really. No time like the present. I expect I’ll be out of a job in the next couple of weeks, and I only need to give one month’s notice on the flat.’
‘Fuck.’
‘So any helpful hints you could give me about that great country of yours would be much appreciated. You don’t happen to know anyone in DC, do you? Ideally someone very influential and/or devastatingly attractive?’
I thought for a moment. An old friend from college lived there, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to introduce the two of them: she was way too pretty.
‘Not that I can think of, but I’ll ask around. More importantly, what are you going to do for your big send-off?’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘Dunno. Get massively pissed?’
‘Well, let me know when you do so I can join you.’
He gave me a kiss on the cheek. ‘I hope all Americans are as hospitable as you.’
27/28 July
The night of the dinner was upon us.
‘Lo, have you seen my black bra?’ Lucy was standing in the hallway wearing black tights, high heels and an old Liverpool top.
‘I think I saw it on the radiator in the bathroom,’ I said, struggling to zip up my dress.
‘Fuck! It’s still wet!’
‘Just use the hairdryer.’ The dryer switched on for a few minutes, and then Lucy emerged from her bedroom, resplendent in a black leather pencil skirt and a sheer black top. It was a big change from her usual floral tea dresses.
‘Holy shit. You look amazing! Where did you get that skirt?’
Lucy blushed. ‘Tristan bought it for me.’
‘He’s got a great eye. What do you think about this? Is it slutty enough?’ I did a little twirl.
‘Is it meant to be a top?’
‘It’s my party and I can wear what I want to. It’s also my last chance to have sex this month, and Christ only knows what the next book will involve. I could have another month of celibacy thrust upon me. I can’t leave anything to chance tonight.’
‘You’re not leaving anything to the imagination, either.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Just because you’re all saintly and monogamous with Tristan now doesn’t mean you can go judging me.’
‘I’m hardly a saint, babe.’
‘True – you’re wearing way too much black to have completely turned to the good side.’
I heard her mumble something under her breath.
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing!’ she said brightly. ‘Now let’s check on the lamb.’
I am a terrible cook, but luckily for me, Lucy is a great one. She’d planned the whole menu, down to the delicate little raspberry tarts for dessert. She’d been poring through cookbooks and foodie sites for days, agonizing over canapés and cuts of meat: it was like some mania had been unleashed in her. I’d been sous chef and chief wine buyer, which suited me just fine.
The guys were meant to get there at eight, so we’d timed it so dinner would be on the table by nine. I busied myself by filling tiny vol-au-vents with smoked salmon and crème fraiche while Lucy trimmed the carrots into smaller, neater versions of carrots. We were a well-oiled machine. By the time the door rang at three minutes past eight, we were ready.
Tristan was the first in but, despite his relative punctuality and the bottle of more-than-decent champagne he’d brought, he was extremely contrite about his tardiness. He apologized to Lucy at least four times, which was odd enough, but even more surprising was the fact that Lucy just nodded sharply and said they’d discuss it later. I had no idea she was such a ball-buster.
It was my fir
st time seeing him in the flesh and I had to hand it to her: he was dishy for an older guy. Close-cut salt and pepper hair, strong dimpled jaw, impeccable suit hiding only the slightest of paunches … he was the real deal. And, more importantly, they looked happy to see each other.
He opened the champagne and poured three glasses. ‘Here’s to you two gorgeous creatures,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘Thank you so much for having me.’
‘All the thanks should go to Lucy. She’s the one who cooked.’
Tristan put his arm around Lucy’s tiny waist. ‘I’m sure she’s very commanding in the kitchen.’
‘Yep, she’s been cracking the whip all day!’ I said.
Lucy flushed bright red.
Tristan gave Lucy a significant look. ‘I don’t doubt that for a moment,’ he said.
At ten past, Cathryn and Michael arrived with a bottle of dessert wine and a huge pavlova.
‘I hope this is all right!’ she said as she handed over the towering meringue, dripping artfully with cream and berries.
‘Cathryn, it’s amazing! It’s a work of art!’
She looked at it critically. ‘It’s slightly lopsided, I’m afraid. Sorry, I was in a bit of a rush when I put it together.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s amazing! You’re too hard on yourself.’
‘I tell her that all the time,’ Michael said, handing me the wine and giving her a little squeeze. He was handsome in a very symmetrical way, all clean lines and polished angles. They suited each other perfectly.
‘Stop it, both of you,’ she said. ‘My ego doesn’t need any more inflating, thank you. That pavlova is a disgrace and I don’t want to hear any more about it.’
I rolled my eyes and poured them both a drink. ‘Come meet Lucy and Tristan,’ I said, pulling them into the living room.
Tristan stood up as soon as they walked into the room. I saw him blanch slightly as he took them in, but he recovered almost immediately. ‘Cathers? What a lovely surprise!’
‘Uncle Tricky?’ Cathryn said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
Age, Sex, Location Page 13
