Little Black Everything

by Alex Coleman

  “No,” she said, still struggling to catch her breath. “I’m meeting . . . oh, it’s a couple, a middle-aged couple. I think the reservation is in the man’s name, but I can’t seem to remember . . . Uh. His first name’s definitely Charlie. And the woman’s name is Delia Christmas, if that’s any help. She’s my mother.”

  All of this had tumbled out of her in a sort of heap that now seemed to lie between them on the floor. Too late, Holly realised that she might as well have drawn a picture. My mother’s out on the town with some man who isn’t my father. A second dragged by.

  “Christmas?” the woman said then. “Really?”

  “Yes,” Holly said and before she knew she was doing it, added, “Don’t start.”

  The woman flinched. “Well. Let me see here . . . Seven thirty, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Charlie . . . Ah. I have a Charles Fallon by three?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Okay. This way, please. May I take your jacket?”

  Holly shimmied out of the garment in question, which was immediately palmed off on an underling who seemed to appear out of nowhere and then disappear again with equal stealth. The table she was led towards was right at the end of the restaurant which, apart from the odd nook and spur, was broadly L-shaped. Right up until the moment when her host came to a stop, Holly had been unable to see which one they were heading for. She didn’t know what Charlie – or “Charles” – Fallon looked like, of course, but she’d expected to recognise her own mother.

  “Mum!” she wheezed when it became clear that she had failed to do so. “Look at you! You look great!”

  “Have a nice evening,” the Chinese lady said and crept away.

  “Oh, thank you,” Mrs Christmas said. “So do you.”

  “But I mean it,” Holly said. It was the truth. Although her mother had done nothing else but spend some time on her notoriously unruly hair and apply a little make-up, the effect was startling. “You look like someone from an After picture,” Holly marvelled. “I mean, as opposed to a Before. That came out wrong. But you know what I mean.”

  This drew a small chuckle from Charlie and gave Holly an excuse to look at him properly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You must be Charlie. I’m Holly. I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “Not at all,” he said and got to his feet.

  He extended his hand and when she took it, drew her towards him. Before she knew what was what, he had deposited a small kiss on her cheek and basically pushed her back to her original position. It was more wrestling move than greeting. Holly made a conscious effort not to mind. Early days, she thought as she took her seat. She had somehow assumed that he would be a large, leather-skinned sort of creature with brilliant white teeth and a thick head of silver hair; something like a movie mafia Don. Where she had acquired this image, she had no idea. She guessed that she had just heard the words “New York” and let her imagination run away with itself. Given her expectations – silly though they were – she couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed by the figure sitting opposite her now. Charlie looked like a retired jockey. He was short and slightly built. His salt’n’pepper hair was not so much receding from his forehead as energetically fleeing it. The little that remained had been coerced into forming an ill-advised miniature quiff. His skin had a blue-ish tinge and seemed to have been borrowed from a much larger man.

  “I’ve never been here before,” Holly said. “It looks really lovely.”

  “Oh yes,” her mum said. “All . . . modern.”

  Charlie wobbled his head. “But you can’t tell, can you? That’s the kicker. I’ve been in some beautiful places where the food was no better than mediocre and, obtusely, I’ve been in some real dives where they served nothing less than heaven on a plate.”

  Holly winced. She wondered if she should correct him. Her mother either didn’t notice his mistake or – this was more likely – didn’t care.

  “Charlie’s quite the gourmand,” she said with what sounded like a degree of pride.

  “No, no, Delia,” Charlie said, patting her wrist. “A gourmand is just someone who likes eating. I’m a gourmet. That’s someone who knows what they’re talking about. Big difference.”

  “Oh,” Mrs Christmas said. “Sorry.”

  Holly chewed on the tip of her right index finger for a moment. She had no idea if he was right about the gourmand/gourmet thing but that was hardly the point.For a man who said “obtusely” when he meant “conversely”, he was awfully quick to correct other people.

  “So,” she said when her fingertip began to hurt. “Mum tells me you’ve been living in New York?”

  “That’s right. Thirty-odd years. Greatest city on Earth. Capital of the world. You ever been, Holly?”

  “Once, yeah, a few years back. Just for a long weekend.”

  He spluttered. “A weekend? But that’s no good. You couldn’t even scratch the surface in a weekend, long or not.”

  “Well, we did know that at the time,” Holly said, doing her best to smile. “It’s not like we thought we were going to turn into Woody Allen after three days.”

  She picked up her menu, hoping the move would instigate a change of subject. It didn’t.

  “What did you do and see while you were there? Tourist crap, I suppose?”

  Holly’s sole companion on the trip had been Aisling. Orla had planned to go too but had been laid low at the last minute by an unspeakably nasty throat infection. The upshot was that Holly had spent the majority of her time on Fifth Avenue standing outside changing rooms while Aisling tried on the shop’s entire stock. The remainder had indeed been devoted to tourist crap.

  “We saw the sights,” she said from behind her menu, “if that’s what you mean. What else are you supposed to do on your first trip?”

  “Get off the beaten track!” Charlie said. “First trip or not. Strike out! Explore! See the real New York!”

  His accent up to now had been just what Holly had imagined it would be – ninety per cent Dub with a sprinkling of American on top. His delivery of his adopted city’s name, however, was pure parody: Noo Yawk. She found herself holding this detail against him.

  “I’m sure Holly will be more adventurous next time,” Mrs Christmas said, perhaps sensing trouble. “Now – what are we going to eat? We’ve been putting off choosing until you got here.”

  “Yeah, let’s get to it,” Holly said quickly. “Everything looks great.”

  They perused in silence for a moment. Then Mrs Christmas said, “It’s all a bit confusing to the likes of me.” She leaned over the table and dropped her voice as if she was divulging a great secret. “They don’t seem to have chicken balls and tubs of curry sauce, which is what I normally go for.”

  Holly gave her a wink. Charlie gave her another pat on the wrist.

  “Leave it to me, Delia,” he crooned. “I’ll order for you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Holly said through gritted teeth.

  “I really don’t mind,” Charlie said, as if that was the issue. “It would be my pleasure. Holly, would you like me to order for you too? Maybe –”

  “No, thank you,” Holly said, returning her gaze to the menu for fear that it might betray her. “I can order for myself. Maybe you could cut things up for me, though. I’m not great with a knife and fork.”

  Charlie tut-tutted. “Surely you won’t be using a knife and fork?”

  “As opposed to what?” Mrs Christmas said.

  “He means chopsticks,” Holly replied.

  Her mother flinched. “Oh no, I don’t think –”

  “No problem, Mum. Look, they leave knives and forks on the table for a reason. Don’t worry about it.”

  “But it’s so easy!” Charlie squeaked. “Look . . . ” He broke his chopsticks open and used them to snatch at the thin air like the little old man in The Karate Kid trying to catch a fly. “You see, Delia? See how they pivot? See? Open . . . closed . . . open . . . closed . . . open .
. . closed.”

  Holly stomach gurgled. She wasn’t sure if the cause was hunger, her hangover or simple annoyance.

  “Well, I’ll give it a go,” Mrs Christmas said. She opened her own chopsticks and ever so carefully attempted to copy Charlie’s movements.

  Holly tried not to watch. She looked like someone who was learning to use a hand they’d just acquired from a donor.

  “Not bad for a beginner,” Charlie said. “But you’re gripping the top one like a pen – that’s all wrong. More like this, look. See? Open . . . closed . . . open . . . closed.”

  The worst part about all of this, Holly thought, was the expression on her mother’s face. She looked embarrassed – not by Charlie’s attitude but rather by her own shortcomings. And she seemed so keen to learn, so keen to please him. The lesson went on for a couple of minutes. Holly realised that she might as well not have been there and eventually started scanning the room for an available waiter. She soon caught one’s eye and was greatly relieved when he approached and asked if they were ready to order.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “I am, anyway.”

  Charlie seemed a little disappointed by this interruption to chopstick class. He picked up his menu and said, “Yes. I’ll be ordering for myself and the lady beside me.”

  The waiter shifted from foot to foot. “Certainly.”

  “But first,” Charlie said, “I have some questions regarding the wine list . . .”

  An hour and a half later, as she examined the dessert menu, Holly found herself wondering about her hangover. It should have been on the way out by now, but it was still firmly in its plateau phase. Although there were any number of factors that she could have held responsible – Chinese food was hardly a good idea, for a start – she decided that the number one reason why she was still feeling unwell was because she’d spent the evening listening to Charlie frigging Fallon. In fact, she was quite sure that if she’d arrived feeling on top of the world, he would have given her a headache and an upset stomach. Although it seemed unfair to dwell on just one of his many transgressions against common taste and decency, the moment when he expressed his “pity” for the friends he’d left behind in Dublin had been a real low. They’d been talking about the émigré life in New York – a subject that occupied them for about three-quarters of the meal – when he dropped that particular bomb. Holly had allowed him to twitter on for a while about the experiences they’d missed out on and the bitterness they must harbour towards the likes of him before she pointed out that her mother was one of those “sad cases”, as he’d called them. She’d imagined that he would hastily backtrack and looked forward to seeing him squirm a little. But he didn’t backtrack, much less squirm. He smiled and said that “obviously” he’d been talking about men. It was different for women. They had “their own role in life”. Holly would have liked nothing better than to explore this topic a little further and to ultimately leave him curled up in the corner, weeping and promising to never express an opinion about anything ever again. But she’d kept her mouth shut. It was already becoming clear to her even then that, somehow or other, her mother actually liked this tool – or, at least, was impressed by him. Again and again she had displayed the same attitude that she’d adopted during the chopstick lesson: Charlie was a knowledgeable and sophisticated man of the world and she should count herself lucky that he was showing an interest in a timid little ignoramus like herself. Holly would have found it thoroughly inexplicable if it hadn’t been for those occasional moments when Mr Start-Spreadin’-the-News paid her mother a compliment. They were small asides, all of them – she had a wonderful laugh, her perfume was refreshingly subtle, she had the delicate fingers of a concert pianist – but the effect they had was considerable. Her mum positively swooned each time and then broke into a giggle that she found hard to control. Once she even slapped him playfully on the bicep. That constituted Voluntary Physical Contact and VPC, Holly had read somewhere, was one of the seven signs of something or other. Holly spent an alarming portion of the meal wondering about Charlie’s bladder capacity and hoping it was significant. The last thing she wanted was for him to go to the Gents, leaving her alone with her mum. She was bound to ask her what she thought of him – that was the point of the whole exercise, after all – and Holly felt that she needed time, possibly several weeks’ worth of it, in which to choose her words.

  “So,” Charlie said after they’d spent a silent minute with the dessert menu. “Anyone tempted?”

  “I don’t know,” Holly said.

  “Neither do I,” her mother agreed. “I won’t get through the door when I get home.”

  Charlie shook his head emphatically. “Nonsense! You’re as slender as a reed.”

  Cue swoon. Cue giggling fit. They went back and forth on the subject for a minute or two before all three ultimately succumbed.

  As the waiter made off with their order, Charlie joined his hands in front of him, looked at Holly and said, “Science, huh?”

  She didn’t even know what he was talking about at first. And then she realised that he was referring to her teaching career. He had asked about her job way back during the starters but had offered no follow-up questions when she gave him the headlines; instead, he had embarked on a long review of Frank McCourt’s book about teaching in New York.

  “Yup,” Holly nodded. “Science. And maths.”

  “Hmmm. Gets us into a lot of trouble, doesn’t it? The old science lab.”

  Holly took a deep breath. “Oh? What do you mean by that?” She knew fine well what he meant by that; she was merely buying time for more deep breathing. Her instincts told her she was going to need it.

  “You know,” he said. “Weapons. And fiddling with genetics – making mice with ears growing on their backs. All that.”

  She forced herself to finish her breathing exercise before replying. “Really? That’s what you think of when you think of science? Weapons and mice with ears on their backs?”

  “Oh, I know what you’re going to say.”

  “Do you?”

  “You’re going to say, ‘What about curing diseases?’, ‘What about inventing useful things like airplanes and television?’”

  “I have to admit, you got me. So – what about curing diseases? What about inventing useful things like airplanes and television?”

  “Those are good,” he said. “I’m not saying they aren’t.”

  “Phew.”

  “I’m just saying, we have to have a little perspective. Science gave us penicillin, sure, but it gave us the bomb too.”

  “Science is just a method, Charlie,” she said as evenly as she could. “It’s just a way of finding out about the world. It’s up to us how we use it. If we use it to invent nuclear weapons or poisonous gases or whatever else you care to name, that’s our fault. Not science’s.”

  “And what about the genetic end of things? Do you approve of that?”

  Holly took a sip of coffee. “I don’t think it matters one way or the other if I approve. It’s not as if the world’s geneticists are sitting around waiting for me to –”

  “You’re avoiding the question.” He said this in a sing-song voice with a playful shake of his index finger, as if trying to emphasise that they were just talking, not arguing.

  “I wouldn’t like to be that mouse with the ear on its back,” Holly said, “if that’s what you’re asking me. Then again, I wouldn’t particularly like to be a mouse, full stop. Not a big cheese fan.”

  “Once again, you’re av–”

  “Broadly speaking, I think that fiddling with genetics, as you call it, is a very exciting prospect. Anything that can help us cure horrible diseases and, you know, save people’s lives, I’m all for.”

  Charlie shook his head sadly. “And what about God?”

  “What about Her?”

  “Don’t you think that tinkering about with life is God’s domain and not ours?”

  Mrs Christmas cleared her throat. “Charlie . . . has strong reli
gious views,” she said.

  Holly nodded and considered her options. She considered them for so long that Charlie eventually prompted her with an urgent “Well?”

  “We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one,” she said carefully. This was the only one of the options she’d considered that did not include shouting and creative swearing. She felt oddly pleased by her self-restraint. And there was no doubt that she had done the right thing. The look on her mother’s face – it was if she’d just been told that a relative had survived delicate surgery.

  “A conversation for another time, perhaps,” Charlie said.

  Yeah, Holly thought. Behind the bicycle sheds after school. Bring an ice-pack. “Perhaps.”

  Their desserts arrived shortly afterwards. Like their main and starter predecessors, they were universally declared to be delicious. Holly thought she might have enjoyed her cheesecake even more if she hadn’t – twice – caught Charlie stealing a peek at her boobs. Mark from next-door had once explained to her that a woman should never be offended when she caught a man’s eyes going south because they genuinely couldn’t help themselves. It was a reflex. Built-in. Hard-wired. They no more decided to do it than they decided to jerk their leg when the doctor hit their knee with the little rubber hammer. Still, given their relationship – she was Charlie’s potential girlfriend’s daughter, for Christ’s sake – she was more than a little horrified. Once again, she thought of several interesting spears she could throw at his head and once again, she decided against all of them. Perhaps realising the effect they were having, he had increased the flow of his compliments to her mother – she could really tell a story, her watch was a thing of rare beauty – and this alone stayed Holly’s tongue.