‘We were living in London then,’ Larry says, ‘and we just hit it off, got on, you know.’
‘And how long have you been in Dublin?’
‘Five years.’
‘For work?’
‘Retirement. Madeleine was born here, but grew up in England. Her heart is here, it always had been. I promised her we would return in our old age.’
‘You’re not old,’ Bernie says.
‘You know what I mean. Older. More mature. Me at least. Of an age where we start thinking about different things, where we are in our lives, what we do for the rest of it. And we have a good life here.’
Larry takes an extended mouthful of wine. ‘Do you like this stuff?’
‘Yeah,’ Bernie says, ‘It’s excellent.’ What do I know about wine? he thinks. He usually buys anything on offer, two for one, bin ends, whatever he can afford on his inadequate salary.
Larry looks at his watch. The doorbell rings again, Larry jumps up and walks quickly. From where he is sitting Bernie watches Larry open the door. A woman smiles, and Larry sounds pleased. Larry and the woman kiss each other’s cheeks. And while they continue with the niceties, Bernie notices her lean legs are wrapped in almost black. She too wears a black skirt, shorter though, than Madeleine’s. He watches her step over the threshold, heels scraping along the floor. She removes her coat and Larry hangs it up, follows the woman who walks towards Bernie.
‘Bernie, Fiona, Fiona, Bernie.’ Hands held out, they reach and touch. She is not exactly pretty, not exactly unattractive. Her nose is slightly crooked, her brown eyes too close together.
‘Hey Bernie,’ Fiona says, ‘Good to meet you. I hear you’re starting at Trinity soon?’ She has a different accent to Madeleine.
‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I am.’
‘I’ve a friend who works there. I can put you in touch if you like?’
‘Sure,’ he says.
Larry pours wine for Fiona, goes to phone his children, find out where they are. Fiona and Bernie listen to him, in the hall.
‘They’ve probably been told they have to come,’ Fiona says.
‘Yeah,’ Bernie says, ‘and it’s probably the last place they want to be.’
‘Me too,’ Fiona confesses. ‘I mean, I like them, Madeleine and Larry, I like them a lot, but they’re not my friends, you know. They’re not.’
‘So why are you here?’
‘Because they said someone interesting was coming, and I had nothing better to do and … I’d better shut up now.’
He likes women who are up-front, women who say it like it is, even if she is only here because it was a choice between Bernie or staying home alone, and she chose him.
‘So, Bernie. Are you a Bernard?’ She crosses her legs and Bernie crosses his.
‘I am. Actually,’ he says. ‘I am Bernard George.’
‘Don’t tell me your last name is Shaw?’ she says.
‘Simon,’ he lies.
‘Right,’ she says, ‘because that would have been too much really. Bernard George Shaw, I mean really, don’t you think?’
They sip and smile, neither sure what to say next. In the background Larry becomes more angry, more impatient.
‘How do you know …?’
‘I work with Madeleine. Or should say for Madeleine.’
Rhymes with Seine.
‘She’s your boss?’
‘Yeah,’ Fiona says, ‘she’s my boss.’
Fiona leans in, moves closer, puts her hand on Bernie’s knee and whispers. ‘She doesn’t need to work, neither of them do. I mean, look at this house.’
He has looked at the house, detached with a large, gravel drive. And he will look again in the morning, when the daylight offers a different view.
‘What does she do?’
‘Retail.’
‘What, a shop?’
‘Larry set her up in business, she goes in three days a week. In the city centre. Clothes. Designer, boutique, indie labels, you know.’
Bernie doesn’t know. He is not a shopper, buys only when he needs something, when holes appear or shirts have faded to near extinction. He is a cliché and he knows it.
Larry reappears, apology trying but failing to cover his anger.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he says, the kids are not coming. I’m really sorry. Shit, Madeleine will be pissed off.’ He leaves them alone, goes to break the news to his wife.
‘More wine?’ Fiona asks.
‘Sure.’
She walks into the kitchen like she has walked into it many times before. She is as familiar as he is unfamiliar with these surroundings.
They finish the bottle by the time Larry and Madeleine appear together, solemn-faced, disappointed. Madeleine has changed into a dress, holding her body the way Bernie wants to hold her. Her lips are succulent and juicy and he wants to taste them. And he wants to taste them now. He is not in the mood for curry any more. He wants something more delicious, something that no menu can offer, no two for one deal can supply.
‘Look at you two,’ says Madeleine.
They are sitting on the same sofa, plush grey suede, soft to touch. They have red lips, red tongues, and Bernie has relaxed into calling her Fi.
‘Sorry about the children,’ Madeleine says. ‘Young people, you know what they’re like.’
‘Except,’ Fiona says, ‘they’re not that young. And they’re our age. My age. And Bernie’s age.’
‘I’m not,’ he begins.
‘You’re not what?’ Madeleine asks.
Bernie shakes his head, dismisses it. He was going to say he’s not that young. In relation to Madeleine, he is.
‘Let’s order,’ Madeleine says, and instructs Larry to open another bottle of wine. Except he can’t drink any more, because he has to drive. Because the takeaway they like doesn’t deliver this far out, even though he is always prepared to pay extra. Because the takeaway is from a restaurant, Madeleine’s favourite. Because his wife likes him to go and collect it, she likes to ensure the order is correct, precise, even though Larry will pay for a cab to bring their meal hot and ready and home.
They choose and Larry orders.
‘Should we do the … you know …’ Larry says, pointing at the table, at the bread and shot glasses filled with red wine, ‘Before we go for the food?’
‘Why not?’ Bernie says. For fuck’s sake, Bernie thinks, they really want me to do it.
‘Oh good,’ Fiona says, ‘I’ve never done this before.’
Bernie is loose and relaxed, the wine has made him sparkle. As Madeleine uncrosses her legs he feels his stomach dance. She stands beside him at the table, eager and all ears, ready to receive whatever he gives. Bernie’s skin prickles, tingles all over. It is as if someone is kissing his neck and ears and he can’t stop it, can’t do a thing about it.
Larry covers his head with a napkin, Madeleine just wants to drink the wine. Two extra for her now the kids are not coming. Larry gazes at the kitchen cupboards, Fiona knows she has been set up. She has never had a Jewish man before.
Bernie speaks fast, convincing himself that what he is saying is right. He throws his arms in the air, and passes round the wine. They drink. Madeleine drinks again. And again. He throws his arms some more and cuts the bread. There is no salt, but he doesn’t bother to tell them. He is so hungry, he could eat the entire loaf. It isn’t the bread he is used to; challah from the shop near his mother’s, fresh and soft with a hard crust. This is a white loaf, not sweet enough for his sweet tooth. But it will do.
‘Now what?’ Fiona says.
‘Now we go and get the food,’ Larry says.
But tonight it is not Madeleine who will accompany her husband. Tonight the twenty-something Madeleine has spent all day with, the twenty-something who would, she knows, love to sit beside Larry in his silver convertible, listen to his stories and plays classical music, tonight the twenty-something will escort him.
‘Just make sure everything’s in the order,’ Madeleine says as she waves them of
f, closes the door and returns to her guest.
Bernie is rinsing the shot glasses, tidying the table, trying to distract himself from the woman walking towards him. In the walking, she slips off her shoes, her feet slide along the heated floor.
‘How’s your mother?’ she asks.
Bernie sighs. ‘Good, she’s good. She said to send you love.’
‘Send it back when you speak to her.’
‘Of course,’ Bernie says, then, ‘Yeah, I will.’
He is trying not to catch her accent, mimic it badly, so it will look like he is taking the piss. He is doing anything but taking the piss.
When he turns away from the sink, Madeleine faces the back garden.
‘You know, he’ll say later on that he’ll sweep that up tomorrow. But he won’t. He won’t.’
‘I can do it if you like?’
‘I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that,’ she says. ‘You’re our guest. And we like to treat our guests properly.’
He wonders if she can feel the earth that is shifting through him. He turns, sits down once more, sips wine.
The house is quiet. So is Bernie.
Madeleine sits at the other end of the sofa. Opposite them a retro clock hangs above the mantle piece. It is seven fifteen. Bernie wonders how long before Larry and Fiona return.
‘She fancies him you know.’
Bernie looks up, into Madeleine’s cool blue times two.
‘Who fancies who?’ he asks, unsure he wants an answer.
‘Fiona. She fancies him. So I thought, let’s see, let’s leave them together and see if she tries.’
‘Tries what?’
‘Oh Bernie, come on, get with it. To seduce him.’
Bernie shakes his head. ‘Sorry, who?’
‘Larry.’
‘Oh,’ Bernie says, thinks, says again, ‘Oh. He wouldn’t?’
‘It’s not him I’m worried about.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know. Trust me.’
‘Right. Right.’
The clock ticks, the wind gathers speed, they work their way through the bottle, and gradually, each time she picks up her glass, straightens her skirt which crackles of electricity, Madeleine has inched her way beside Bernie. Right beside Bernie, so he can feel her warmth touching him even though she is not. They say nothing, take it in turn to pour from the bottle, smile, ask inane questions because they have to talk about something. When she puts down her glass he thinks nothing of it. When she stands up, he assumes she is going to open another bottle of wine. When she walks into the kitchen and lifts the phone out of its cradle, he thinks she is calling Larry, to check up on him. Madeleine turns her face away from Bernie, talks softly into the handset. Seconds later she is standing close by, looking down, while he looks up.
‘Come on,’ she says and takes his hand. He has no idea what come on means, but willingly offers himself, palms sweaty, but so are hers.
‘Who did you call?’ he asks, as she takes him upstairs, to his single bedroom, with one loose floorboard and a thin shaft of air running in through the window.
‘The restaurant. I asked if they left yet. It’s twenty minutes away.’
‘And?’
‘And the person I spoke to said Larry had just paid.’
‘So?’
‘So if they’re not back in twenty minutes, or twenty five, I will know.’
‘You will know what?’ She throws him down. ‘Fuck,’ he says.
‘I intend to,’ she says.
She lays her head on his chest. His heart is beating, ‘like a hundred Irish dancers’, she says. He finds this funny.
‘What’s so amusing?’
‘Noth–’ She kisses him before he can finish the word. She is hard and tender at the same time. She is everything he is not, has never been, would like to be but cannot be. He opens his lips, to speak, her tongue gets in the way of his a, e, i, o. ‘You can’t,’ he says.
‘Can’t or don’t want to?’
‘I … I want to.’
‘I know. I knew the moment I opened the door. If you really want me to stop me, tell me, get up and walk away.’
But he doesn’t. He allows her to explore him, to undo and unbutton, remove the silk from his feet, warm his toes with her mouth. She stays fully dressed in her fitted dress, so easy for him to feel her figure through the material. She knows exactly what she is doing. She’s had men younger than this, with firmer skin. But there is something delicious about Bernie. With one hand she undoes his jeans, the button kind. And then her hand is in and under and all over.
He smiles, laughs, he can just about bear this. He lifts his hand, looks at his watch.
‘Don’t worry,’ she says.
And then she is on her back, and despite the wine he is hard and longing for her, this Maureen O’Hara look-a-like, with her red hair and apricot skin, her sweet-smelling neck and stockings. She is wearing stockings. And he is in, just like that. He is in, smooth and easy and he fits. He takes a second, just a second to consider where is he, who he is with, in this single bed in the house where he is a guest, with the woman of the house, while the man buys them dinner. He could take this as a thank you, for making him feel so at home. He really does feel at home. He really does feel welcome.
He is above her and in her and then they swap places and she rides him like a horse at the races. His hands are around her waist, his flesh in her hands, nail digging into him, him pulling her down so he can kiss her. He wants to taste her mouth and teeth and tongue. Her saliva is red wine and mints and something else.
Madeleine, he says. ‘Madeleine,’ he says,
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing.’
She laughs and manoeuvres them so that they are sitting up, her back to the wall, Bernie hard inside her, legs bent back, he feels no pain, but later, tomorrow his muscles will ache and he will feel like a real tourist who has explored and found something new.
Bernie inside her, pushing himself into her. Pushing himself against her as far as he can go. He strokes the flesh of her upper thigh, uncovered by black nylon. He is still wearing his shirt, now undone, it tickles her body as he lifts and moves and sways. Her dress is pulled up; stretchy fabric has its uses. The radiator is on and he is boiling hot but right now he doesn’t give a damn, about the heat or Larry or his mother or dead father or what he is doing, because right now he wants to be here, in this room fucking this woman because he can. Because he says yes, it’s what he does, he says yes without thinking. Only this time he wanted to say yes, he didn’t want to think.
She thinks, is this how Mrs Robinson felt?
Outside the wind howls, and Bernie howls and Madeleine grins because she knows she is good. She is the best. She is saving the best for last.
They lie side by side, looking up at the dimly lit ceiling. He turns, licks her face, salt and sweet and expensive tasting. Five minutes to spare before Madeleine hopes she will hear the car pull up, the alarm click twice, the key in the door, the call of Hello, the smell of food rising. Bernie tries to sit up, she pushes him back and shakes her head.
‘Madeleine, we have to, they’ll be, the time.’
‘Trust me,’ she says.
And he does.
She kisses Bernie, her mouth taking his face and then she draws a line with her tongue from his forehead down between his eyes to his nose above his mouth his lips, and his tongue tries to talk to hers, but she is not in the mood for conversation, down the centre of his neck she pulls open his shirt, down between his shoulder blades, she stops for air, starts again, to his nipples, a circle around each, then a bite to keep him attentive, down to his centre, a good centre, she thinks, muscles taut, muscles hard, down past his ribs, and she waits. And she hovers as he pulls his stomach in because her hair, fallen over her face, is caressing his skin so lightly it is causing him to laugh, but not laugh. It is causing him to pull in his stomach. She listens as a car passes. And keeps passing. He sighs as Madeleine licks and kisses and hove
rs and looks him in the eyes and smiles. She will have to brush her hair and reapply her lipstick. Then she is down, crushing her head into his pubic bone, holding his hips with her hands and as his body tries to sit up she takes him, takes his cock in her mouth, and he is hard and ready and she thinks he is such a good guest. Probably the best she has ever had. And he looks down and cannot believe what he sees. And he likes it.
‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘Fuck fuck fuck fuck.’
‘You can say that again.’
She slips off the bed, drops her dress down over her body. There is not one tear, one snag on her stockings. Impressive, he thinks.
She is out of his room, across the hall, into the bathroom, he hears the water running. He makes his bed, plumps up the pillows, tidies. He opens the window, to remove the smell of sex. His sex and her sex and their sex, carried now quickly across the bay.
She winks at him, as she emerges fresh and smelling sweet, red hair untangled, lips perfect once more. She has checked every inch of material, for a signifier to give away the game. This time she is careful.
Behind a locked door Bernie looks at himself in the mirror, grins incredulously. He grabs the sink, hands on either side, drops his head and softly cries, Yes. He is tired, he wants to sleep, but he has to eat and make polite conversation with two people he barely knows. At least Madeleine is not such a stranger any more. He breathes deeply, quenches his hot face.
And then he hears the car pull up, the alarm click twice, the key in the door, the call of ‘Hello’, the smell of food rising. Madeleine responds with, ‘In here.’ She has opened more wine, is sitting at the table, her back to the garden, napkin spread across her lap, her appetite wanting something different now. She sips from her lipstick stained glass, is ready to receive Larry and Fiona with serving spoons ready. She can tell her husband has behaved.
‘Where’s Bernie?’ Fiona asks.
‘Upstairs.’
‘Everything all right?’ Larry says, as Bernie enters the room, clean shirt hanging over clean trousers, schoolboy face still flushed and wet. Except his feet are bare. Larry notices and Fiona notices and of course Madeleine notices. Except Bernie doesn’t notice, because the floor is warm, the ground is cosy.
Sex in the City--Dublin Page 3
