Spin the Bottle

by Monica McInerney

  They’d known each other only as neighbours until a year before. On her way out for a run one morning, Lainey had tripped and fallen while chasing her cat Rex down the stairs. Adam had come out of his ground-floor apartment and found her, groaning from the pain of a broken ankle. He’d taken charge, driving her to hospital, looking after Rex, and later helping move her gear to her parents’ house until she was mobile enough to come home and tackle the stairs again. She was surprised to learn he was a chef – she’d seen him coming and going at odd hours and always just assumed he had an active social life. He made a joke of overseeing her rehabilitation program, taking her to the swimming pool, going with her on walks along the river path. She slowly learnt things about him – he was thirty-five, his father was Scottish, his mother Australian, he had worked as a pearl-diver, taxi-driver, carpenter and tourguide before he’d discovered a passion and natural talent for cooking. They became good friends, talked about lots of things, fought about lots of things, laughed a lot too.

  And then one afternoon, when they came back to his flat after getting caught in a sudden shower, it changed from just a friendship between them. They were standing in his kitchen, both soaked to the skin. He fetched towels, then insisted they both have a whisky to warm themselves. Watching him reach up for glasses, seeing the muscles move under his damp T-shirt, she felt like she was seeing him physically for the first time. She stared at the tall, lean body, the brown, muscular arms, the dark-blond hair ruffled from the wind and rain, and felt a jolt inside her. He turned from the sink and saw her looking at him, and his expression changed too. They gazed at each other for a long moment, then he moved across and took her into his arms. He kissed her softly at first, and she kissed him back just as softly. And then the kisses became hot and fast. She was overwhelmed at the sudden burst of passion, at how good he felt, what his kisses were doing to her. He lifted his head from her, and she saw his brown eyes had darkened, become almost black. He smiled. ‘I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I saw you,’ he’d said.

  ‘So is it serious between the two of you?’ her friend Eva had asked when Lainey was back in Dublin for the wedding. ‘Is he your Mr Cholera at last?’ Lainey had declared to Eva once that she was waiting for the real love of her life, Mr Gorgeous, the man who made her weak at the knees, made her heart skip a beat and her stomach swirl. ‘You’re not waiting for Mr Gorgeous. You’re waiting for Mr Cholera,’ Eva had laughed.

  Was it serious? Lainey had thought about it for a moment before answering. ‘I don’t really know yet, to be honest. He’s as busy as I am with work, especially now he’s opened his own place, so to tell you the truth we don’t get to see a lot of each other. But it suits me and it suits him, I think.’ That’s what she’d been telling herself. And the truth was there was so much going on in her life with her family that there wasn’t much room for matters of her own heart.

  Rex was waiting to greet her as she opened the door to the third-floor apartment. He’d stopped making a dash for freedom every time she came in, instead winding himself around her legs as if he was trying to trip her up. She leaned down and scratched his black head. ‘Guess what, Rexie? I’m off to live in Ireland for a year. Isn’t that funny?’

  She kept walking, a little hampered by his figure-eight movements around her calves. She leaned down and picked him up, just as he yawned. She winced at the little puff of fish breath. What would she do with Rex while she was away? She couldn’t take him with her, could she? Perhaps he could go to her parents’ house again. He liked it there and he could sleep on the end of her father’s bed all day, keep him company. She went into her bedroom, swapped her work clothes for a light summer dress, trying not to let herself be overwhelmed by the night’s events.

  ‘Lainey, are you absolutely sure about this?’ her father had said just before she left her parents’ house that evening.

  She’d crouched down beside his chair, taking his hand in hers. ‘Of course, Dad. Honestly, it makes perfect sense that I do it. It’ll be great to be back in Ireland again. And I only have to run the B&B for a year after all.’

  Only a year. But a year filled with bed-making, bacon-frying, sheet-washing, daily dusting and vacuuming… nothing but housework for a whole year. She fought back the dismay. Stop it, Lainey, she said firmly. Think of it as a work project. It has to be done and that’s that. She just had to be practical about it, take her emotions out of the situation. In any case, it wasn’t about her. She was doing it for her parents, who had emigrated from Ireland to Australia to give her and her brothers a better life. This was the least she could do in return, wasn’t it? Exactly.

  She decided to do what she always did when she was feeling overwhelmed. Make a list. She sat at the dining-room table and grabbed a notepad from the pile in the centre. Top of the list? That was easy.

  PANIC

  She crossed it out. Focus your mind, Lainey. You don’t have a choice so what do you have to do?

  Tell everyone

  Rex knew now, so that was the animal kingdom alerted. Adam was next, of course. She tried to picture his reaction. He’d listen to all she had to say, ask lots of questions, like he always did. He’d be practical about it, though, wouldn’t he? It was hard to know for sure. In the year they’d been together, there had never really been a normal, ordinary time between them. They had been seeing each other for just a month or so when her father had his accident and her life changed so much. They had been planning to meet for dinner that night. She’d rung Adam from the hospital, not in hysterics, but in deep shock, she’d realised afterwards. As always in the middle of a crisis, work or personal, she’d gone into super-efficient mode. ‘Adam, hello, it’s Lainey,’ she’d said calmly. ‘I’m just ringing to say my father’s had an accident and he may not live through the night. So unfortunately I won’t be able to meet you tonight for dinner after all.’ Some months later, she’d actually been able to laugh when Adam had reminded her of her polite, matter-of-fact message. At the time, she’d turned down his offers to drive her or her mother to and from the hospital. But his offers had kept coming anyway. In the weeks after the accident, she’d come home from work or the hospital, exhausted, too tired to cook. There, waiting outside her door, she’d find a meal ready to be heated, or a bunch of flowers, a book, a note hoping she was okay. And then the opportunity had suddenly arisen for him to go out on his own and open his own restaurant. Since then, their relationship had existed on snatched nights together, notes and phone calls – no normal time at all. She rubbed her eyes, not caring about the mascara smudges. How could they handle a year apart when they’d hardly had that long together?

  Her thoughts jumped from Adam to her boss Gelda’s probable reaction. The word furious sprang to mind. She’d have to try and talk to Gelda first thing in the morning, before the presentation meeting. Lainey thought of all the events and launches she had already half planned for the year ahead. She wouldn’t get to see them through now. She thought about her big plans for her birthday later in the year. She’d have to cancel those too. As her mind leapt from person to person, thinking of all the ramifications, the list started taking shape.

  Book plane ticket

  Sub-let apartment

  Pack

  Would she have to buy some more winter clothes? What did a B&B operator wear anyway? Flowery dresses and an apron? Her clothes – mostly from young Melbourne designers – wouldn’t really suit life in a countryside guesthouse, would they?

  She rubbed her eyes again, willing herself to stay calm, be rational. It worked in her job, it would work here too. Think of all the tips in the management books, she told herself. ‘Think calm, be calm.’ ‘Make decisions with your head, not your heart.’ ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff, and remember it’s all small stuff.’ What did that last one actually mean? she wondered.

  Distracted by Rex mewing beside her, she put down her pen, slung him over one shoulder and walked over to the kitchen. She caught a glimpse of herself in the glass of the oven door,
the newly short dark hair, the mascara smudged in rings around her eyes. Rare white panda spotted in Melbourne. Her dress was quite baggy on her, she noticed as well. Her mother was right, she was looking a bit too skinny. It wasn’t deliberate, there just hadn’t been a lot of time to sit around enjoying food lately.

  Shushing Rex who was now wailing as if he’d never been fed in his whole cat life, she chose a can at random from the cupboard – lobster-flavoured, his current favourite. As she spooned the stinky orange mess into the bowl, he slid off her shoulder and mewed again. ‘What was that, Rex? What will Eva say when she hears I’m coming over?’ She punctuated her words with the clang of the empty can landing in the bin and the ‘ding’ of the spoon landing in the sink, where she’d thrown it from the other side of the kitchen. ‘The very thing, Rexie boy. Let’s call her now.’ She looked at her watch and calculated the time in Ireland. Mid-morning, just before the lunchtime rush at Ambrosia, the delicatessen and café her friend ran in Dublin.

  Ten minutes later, Lainey was almost wishing she hadn’t made the call. ‘Could you stop laughing for a moment, Evie, so we can have a normal conversation?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Lainey,’ Eva said, laughter still bubbling under her voice. ‘And you know I’m really sorry that your dad can’t sell the B&B straight away. But I just keep getting this mental image of you making all those beds and breakfasts. You hate housework.’

  ‘I don’t hate it. I only have a cleaner because I’m too busy for housework.’

  ‘You do so hate it. This is like some revenge on you, all the beds you never made, the floors you’ve never washed – they’re going to come back and haunt you.’

  ‘Evie…’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. So do you really have to be here next month, as quickly as that?’

  ‘Yes, or we forfeit the lot. It’s like convict days in reverse, isn’t it? The emigrant sails back. Except I’ll be shackled to a stove and a linen cupboard, not a cell.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Lainey, really. I’ll help you as much as I can, come down every weekend if you need me to. Is there anything I can do now? Go down and get things sorted before you get here?’

  ‘You’re a darling but no thanks. The solicitor’s been paying one of her neighbours to keep an eye on the house since May died. And anyway, I have to meet with him, sort out all the legal stuff before I get the key.’

  ‘It’s a nice house, though, isn’t it? And it’s so beautiful around there, your aunt must have been turning people away. You’ll be so busy the time will fly past. What did your work say about it all?’

  ‘I’m telling them tomorrow. Well, asking rather than telling. I just have to hope my boss doesn’t mind giving me a year off.’

  ‘And Adam? What will you two do?’

  The million-dollar question. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t been able to tell him yet. Listen, I’d better let you get back to your olives and cheese. I just wanted to let you know the headline news. I can’t wait to see you, and give my love to that beautiful husband of yours, won’t you?’

  ‘I will of course. And you’ll let me know when you want us to pick you up from the airport? We can bring you back here and teach you how to poach eggs and cure your own bacon. And Joe’s really good at doing those hospital corners on the beds.’

  ‘If you’re going to be so mean to me, I hope it’s a six a.m. flight.’

  ‘You know where the taxi rank is then, don’t you?’

  Lainey was smiling as she hung up. What had happened to the good old days when Eva had done as she was told? They had been friends now for more than thirty years, growing up in the same street and going to the same school in Dunshaughlin, a country town not far from Dublin. Their friendship had survived the trials of Lainey and her family emigrating when Lainey was fifteen, kept afloat by letters and phonecalls, and Lainey’s two visits home to Ireland on holiday. Eva had come to Melbourne on a spur-of-the-moment holiday the previous year, and during that time met and fallen in love with Joseph Wheeler, a Londoner. Within a year, Eva and Joseph had been married. Another job well done, Lainey thought, looking back. She’d felt quite the matchmaker at their wedding in Dublin. ‘Eva really has you to thank, Lainey, hasn’t she?’ one of Eva’s aunts had said. ‘She’d never have met Joseph if you hadn’t been living in Melbourne.’

  ‘Well, it was mostly her own looks and charm that lured him in, of course,’ Lainey had said, looking at the pair of them on the dance floor, Joseph tall and dark-haired, Eva smiling up at him, her long black hair arranged in a beautiful style.

  Who’d have thought at the wedding that she’d soon be back in Ireland, living less than an hour away from the pair of them? Lainey started a new list, headed ‘Good things about going to Ireland’. ‘Eva and Joseph’ was number one.

  By one a.m. there was still no sign of Adam. He must have had a late-night rush at the restaurant. She went downstairs in her pyjamas to move the pot plant back to its original position. She had an early start in the morning and needed to get some sleep. Her big news would have to wait.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LAINEY STEPPED OUT of the Complete Event Management lift just before eight o’clock the next morning. Her PA Julie jumped in surprise, pushing aside a newspaper and nearly choking on what looked like half a banana.

  Lainey bit back a smile. ‘Morning, Julie. Still trying to break that national fruit-eating record, are you?’

  ‘It’s my latest diet, actually,’ Julie said, swallowing awkwardly as she leant down to throw the banana skin in the bin. ‘Fruit only. It’s my last-ditch effort – if this one doesn’t work, then I’m going for the knife.’

  ‘Oh, Julie, don’t do that. You’re too young for plastic surgery.’

  ‘Not that sort of knife. It’s a new diet I read about last week. You cut everything you’re planning to eat in two, eat one half of it and then give the rest away. That’s why it’s called the knife diet, because you have to carry a –’

  ‘Knife with you everywhere. I get it. But why bother with all that anyway? I think you look great just the way you are.’

  I think you look great just the way you are, Julie mimicked crossly, watching Lainey as she picked up her messages and walked into her office. It was all right for skinny old her. Lainey was obviously blessed with one of those metabolisms that burnt off food as soon as it entered her mouth. Julie herself couldn’t even wear a chocolate-brown shirt without putting on weight. Walk past a chocolate wheel at a school fair…

  She sighed as she turned back to her computer. It just wasn’t fair. Why did some people get all the advantages in life and others like her get left with the dregs? Life was too easy for people like Lainey, carefee, confident, good-looking, even this early in the morning. Nothing ever seemed to faze her. ‘There’s no secret to it, Julie. It’s just about being organised,’ Lainey had explained once when Julie expressed amazement at the amount of work Lainey could get through in a week.

  But Lainey wasn’t just organised, Julie thought – she ran her life like a military campaign. The woman didn’t waste a minute of her day. The gossip was she even listened to language tapes while she jogged, instead of pop music like a normal person. She glanced in at her boss now. Lainey was speaking on the phone while she stood at her filing cabinet, flicking through folders. She was wearing a beautifully cut jacket and short skirt, her long legs looking even longer in high-heeled pumps. Julie knew the secret behind Lainey’s great clothes, at least – Lainey had been open about it. She had used a personal shopping service at the best department store in Bourke Street Mall, simply turning up one night, enjoying a glass of wine while the consultant showed her an entire range of designer outfits, shoes, accessories and all. Two hours later she’d returned home with a new, up-to-the-minute wardrobe of clothes. ‘You should try it yourself, Julie. Really, it’s so efficient.’ No way, Julie had thought. She was the same age as Lainey, thirty-two, but she would never have the confidence – or the tall, thin body – to use a service like that. No, she’
d just keep fighting the crowds, trying on clothes in crowded changing rooms, getting more and more despondent at the view of her backside in the mirrors, before eventually going home with a pile of unsuitable outfits that she would curse for the next year…

  Lainey had a new haircut too, Julie noticed now. Very short but cut so well it was still feminine. Julie tugged at her own hair, mid-length and needing a crate load of products every day to keep it halfway under control. Old Miss Perfect Hair in there probably didn’t even have to comb hers. At least Lainey wasn’t pretty, Julie thought. That would be just too unfair. She was attractive, striking even, but you could never say she was pretty, not with that biggish nose of hers. The annoying thing was that it actually suited her, gave her face character or something. She knew how to make the best of herself, as Julie’s mother would annoyingly put it. Between her looks and all that energy, it was no wonder she had such a gorgeous boyfriend. Julie had only seen Adam once, when he’d come to collect Lainey one night after her car had broken down. She’d had to stop herself from wolf-whistling. She’d always fancied tall men like that, especially when they wore jeans and T-shirts in that kind of sexy, casual way Adam had. And he’d obviously been mad about Lainey, the two of them talking and laughing together as they’d walked into the lift. No chance someone like her would ever meet a man like that, of course. The only man interested in her at the moment was Richard in accounts, who didn’t have a hair on his head and was as wide as he was tall.

  Perhaps it was time she found another job. She had just opened the newspaper to the employment section when she began to remember all the good sides of working for Lainey. Yes, she would keep you working back late and pile the work on, but then she’d give you lots of surprise afternoons off when things were quieter. And she was so kindhearted too, always up to date and interested in how things were with everyone in the office. And she was great the way she lavished you with praise and made sure you got the credit for your work. And she’d been so strong during that terrible time when her father was nearly killed at work, spending hours and hours in the hospital but still getting her work done and not freaking out at anybody either…