Offcomer

by Jo Baker

  She jumped. The phone had burst out ringing. Down the stairs, dripping, towel clutched round her, leaving heavy dark footprints on the stair carpet.

  “Hello?”

  “Claire?”

  “Yes—”

  “Paul.”

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  A pause.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “Fine. What about you?”

  “Fine.”

  “How’s the cut?”

  “It’s okay. Listen.”

  She felt her stomach twist tighter.

  “Mm?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve been feeling terrible. It wasn’t fair of me. You’re not over Alan yet—and Grainne, you know—”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d hate to upset her. It’d be terrible if she got hurt.”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean, it’s not like it was anything serious. It’s not like we’ve had an affair or anything. It wasn’t, like, well … When you think about it, she doesn’t really need to know, does she? It would be kinder, really. Don’t you think?”

  “Right.”

  “So you won’t tell her?”

  “No—”

  “Well, listen, you’re alright then?” She could hear the relief in his voice.

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  “And this is just between the two of us? No one else needs to know?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, listen, thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Right.”

  She put down the phone, stood looking at the receiver’s smooth white plastic back. A breath, held.

  The white tiles were granular. Flecks danced like static on a TV screen, bright pixels blinking on and off.

  It was dizzying. She closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids, the same. Little dancing squares of light and dark. Her picture breaking up. Underneath her, the floor seemed to shift. She slid her feet away, planted her hands on the tiles, leaned her head back against the cold ceramic rim of the bath.

  Windy dark outside. The screen fizzing. Dad crouched, twisting the plastic dial, and the Doctor Who theme tune wailing from the TV set.

  She opened her eyes. The light and dark specks still jostling, dancing. She narrowed her vision, stared at her wineglass, trying to grip it with her attention. A tiny pool of liquid red resting in the deepest pit. A bubble caught in the thick greenish glass, near the lip. Her hand lying near the rippled base. Pale skin, tiny lines crossing and recrossing like a map. Tendons and blue vessels pushing against the surface. Creased swellings round each joint. Two silver rings, the smaller holding the larger one in place. Scarred, abraded, old-looking.

  The flash of silver from his hand when he skimmed a stone across the flat of the reservoir. The stone flickering into the distance. Always uncountable, unbeatable.

  The thumb was bent, pressed down against the index finger, a tiny mole in the crook. Blood had crept underneath the nail, dried into a brownish-red half-moon. The blade lay beside her hand, one corner moist, red.

  Soft black fabric pulled up in folds. Dips and curls and invaginations, dark shadows. Pale skin, puckered with goosepimples, pale hair bristling. The left knee bent. Ankle resting on the right knee. Profiled foot, the reddened pachyderm hide of a heel, the bulge of a calf muscle laced with old pale scars, dripping with new blood, cut.

  She had drawn a spiral round a mole, traced a five-pointed star into her skin, she had shaded and cross-hatched a tiny parallelogram. She bled onto the bathroom floor.

  The car engine sighed off. The car door slammed. A key rattled in the lock and the curtains moved in the draught. The front door banged shut.

  “Claire?”

  Grainne thumped up the stairs.

  “Claire?”

  “I’m in my room.”

  She heaved herself up from the bed and stumbled over to the dresser. She scrabbled around in the clutter as if looking for a lipstick, mascara, eyeliner. Anything at all rather than look up. She grimaced at Grainne’s reflection in the mirror, then looked back down at her scuffling fingers.

  “Good weekend?” Grainne asked. She eased herself down onto the bed. “I had a great time. Met up with Roisín and Anne. You know, them ones I used to run around with at school. Hadn’t seen them in, oh, months and months. Not since Christmas, anyway. Went to Charlie’s. Got completely blocked. Haven’t been there in ages. D’you know what we used to drink? I’d forgotten this. Cider and Lucozade. Can you imagine? Jesus.”

  “I—”

  “Were you working? Course you were. I knew that. Paul said.”

  “Oh—”

  “He’s some boy, isn’t he? Can’t take my eye off him for a minute. He’s healing up nicely, though. You did a good job looking after him. What did you think of his house?”

  “I didn’t really notice—”

  Grainne paused, sat up a little.

  “You know, you look exhausted. Gareth has you run off your feet. You’ll wear yourself out, so you will.”

  “I am a bit tired.”

  “You should take some time off.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I would if I were you. No point killing yourself. Get yourself a night off, at least. Come out with us. We haven’t been out for a drink together in ages. Here, what about Thursday? We were planning on heading out for a few beers anyway. Come on. It’ll do you good.”

  Claire woke. A door had slammed. She heard Grainne’s car start up, the fanbelt whine. She lay flat. The air had got thick. It pressed her down onto the bed, pressed the duvet down on top of her. The central heating sighed off. A stair-tread eased itself back into shape. Her feet were cold. Her bones seemed sore. Her cuts were sticking to the sheets.

  There had been an orange nylon quilt when she was sick. It had crackled with static. Flattened out on the sofa, she had leaned against her mother and looked down over a soft tangerine landscape. She had bent a knee and watched the earth ripple. An orange stream would run down that gorge; tiny orange forests would cling on the slopes, and in the dip a perfect orange lake would settle. The photograph album was dark and heavy on her lap. Slowly turning pages, her mother’s grained finger drew Claire from orange into grey. Beards and waistcoats, glossy bosomy cars, thin-dressed women and boys in baggy shorts. Uncle, granddad, aunt and cousin. Aunt, cousin, granddad, uncle.

  Upright and her head spun. She waded, pushed her way through to the bathroom. Like trying to run in a dream. Like the blankets still covered her. She felt brittle, sluggish, but her heart was going fast, fluttering.

  She stood under the shower. The water ran over her until it ran cold. She bent to turn off the taps, then stepped stiffly out of the bath. There was a towel. She pulled it round her shoulders, slumped down on the tiles, dragging it over her skin. Underneath her breasts, on her ribcage, a few pale soft hairs, like baby hair, were growing. She hadn’t noticed them before. She gripped one between her thumbnail and her finger. It came out easily, and didn’t hurt. She grew cold watching the goosepimples prickle her arm. The curve of her upper arm was steep and round, the crook of her elbow a fold in moorland.

  The electricity bill was open on the dining-room table. A note in Grainne’s big round handwriting. Asap, please. This is the reminder. Claire leaned over it, rubbed her face.

  I fucked your boyfriend.

  Claire brought the biscuit to her mouth, bit it. The shortbread was thick and sticky in her mouth; she couldn’t swallow. She looked down at her teacup, blew unnecessarily on the liquid, watched a shower of spit and crumbs land in her tea. She couldn’t drink it anyway. Grainne had put milk in it.

  “But you should. You should take some time off and enjoy yourself. Can’t be any fun at all watching the rest of the world get drunk every night. Let’s face it, it’s your turn. You’ve cleared up after everyone else often enough. Come out on the tear. Get pissed. Snog a stranger. Do you good.”

  I fucked your boyfriend. His mo
uth was on my breasts. His hands nearly met around my waist.

  “Don’t you think? I’ll get Paul to bring along some of the ones from work. And there’s Jim and Colm from school. We’ll bring the lot of them. You can have your pick.”

  But I fucked your boyfriend. His skin smelt like treacle toffee. Sweet and smoky. When he came, he closed his eyes, but mine were open. I fucked your boyfriend.

  “I’m sorry. That was really stupid of me. I didn’t think. It’s Alan, isn’t it? I know how you must feel. It’s not easy, getting over something like that. Alan’s such a lovely bloke. And you two had so much in common.”

  Claire looked up. Grainne’s eyes were clear. Paler than she remembered. You don’t have a clue what I’m like, she realised, not a clue. And if you’d just ask, just the once, I’d try and tell you.

  “I do know how you feel. When I split up with Sean, I thought it was the end of the world. But it wasn’t, was it? If I hadn’t broken up with him, I wouldn’t be going out with Paul now, would I? And when it comes down to it, that’s the most important thing. You never know, your Paul might be waiting just around the corner. Did I tell you he phoned me in Armagh? He never usually does. And to tell you the truth …”

  Claire took another bite of her biscuit. Her mouth felt gluey. She tried to smile.

  “What are you having?”

  “Gin and tonic.”

  “Right.”

  And that was it. All he had said to her. Hours ago now. Claire squinted at her watch. Half eleven. Hours ago.

  At least they weren’t at Conroys. She lifted her glass to her lips, drank. The glass seemed uneven, unbalanced, slightly slippery. She couldn’t taste the gin. Her head felt as if it had been hollowed out and filled up. Her ears had been plugged. She squinted at Jim, who seemed nice, and tried to work out what he was saying. It was too noisy. She had lost the thread ages ago. He looked quite distant, much further than a tabletop away. He looked like he might be on a TV screen, slightly out of focus, slightly grainy. She reached out towards him. Her hand touched cotton; beneath it, his arm was warm. She let her hand rest there. It was quite reassuring. It seemed to anchor her.

  Grainne had, she thought, been right. It was doing her good. Grainne was bound to be right once in a while. Statistical certainty, Claire thought, pronouncing the words carefully in her head. Statistical certainty, given the amount of stuff, the sheer volume of stuff that she said. Like monkeys and typewriters. Like chalk and cheese. Like dandelion and burdock. She rubbed gently at the cotton, feeling it shift and slide against the muscle beneath. She watched Jim’s face—it was Jim, wasn’t it, or was it Colm—she watched his face, his lips moving as he talked to her about Kenya, was it, or was it class sizes, or was he going on again about Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

  “D’you know Milton?” she asked slowly. “D’you know L’Allegro?”

  Because just beside her, half turned away, Paul was still sitting, his thigh against hers, his arm pressing against hers, the back of his neck a too-close blur in the corner of her eye, and she had to say something, even though the words sounded thick and ugly, and she had to smile, even though her face was numb. And she had to touch this man on the arm and look at him, and try to hear what Paul was saying, because he was talking more than she had ever heard him talk, but she couldn’t hear a word, just feel the rhythms of his words in the air, feel the thrum in his bones, and it made her want to smack her hand down on the tabletop, and shout for silence, because she couldn’t hear what he was saying, and soon he would stop. And then it would be too late.

  Knocking. On her door. She blinked awake.

  “Yes—”

  “Just reminding you. Rent day.”

  Filth in her mouth. Her head sharp, her stomach boiling. She’d kissed him. She could feel the dried saliva on her skin. She’d kissed him and asked him to stay and he’d said no. She’d only wanted someone to fall asleep with. What was his name?

  Someone laughed. She flinched. She pushed her card into the cashpoint, keyed in her number. Waited. The balance flashed up on the screen.

  Shit.

  She stood looking at it. Behind her, someone shuffled impatiently. Shit shit shit. When is pay day, end of the month, how many days till then, how much did that leave her a day—the machine let out a string of angry beeps, spat out her card. Shit.

  She stood on the raised terrace, behind the twisted iron bars. Her cuts had not been dealt with. They oozed and trickled. The fabric of her grubby trousers stuck to them. Her jaw was locked, her headache swelling, neck and shoulders stiffening. Through the peripheral flutterings and grainy interference, she looked out across the bar.

  She had seen them arrive together, walk together across the bare gritty boards. Their faces frozen in profile, they seemed careful not to see her. Grainne had slid gracefully onto a barstool, Paul leaned up against the marble counter. Alan heaved himself up onto another stool.

  Then Gareth was leaning over to give Alan a friendly punch in the shoulder, and Alan grinned his quick, evasive grin. Paul, three-quarters profile, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, a calm, reflective smile on his mouth. The curve of Grainne’s cheek, dark glossy back of her head. Half-heard snatches of speech. Claire could not quite catch what they were saying.

  She turned, walked unnoticed through to the kitchen, sat down in the dark in the back of the store cupboard. She rested her head on her knees, closed her eyes. Her heart seemed to be beating erratically, skipping, stuttering. The dark smelt sweet with spilt aspartame-rich sauce. How the fuck, how the fuck did I get here, she thought. And what the fuck do I do now.

  The door creaked open. Claire looked up. Gareth stood in the chink of light, his face dark. She smiled vaguely at him, peering through the jostling shadows.

  “I was looking all over,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

  “I think I need some time off,” her mouth was dry; the words sounded strange to her, sticky.

  “Are you okay? What is it? Is it Alan?”

  “I want to go home.”

  FOUR

  Alan soon came to look back on that moment with nostalgia. The shade of a naked, candlelit, silent Claire reclining on his sofa haunted the whole of the relationship for him. The memory carried with it the scent of childhood Christmas Eves, the presents under the tree still in their glossy, shiny wrappings, still mysterious and exciting. The rest of the relationship was, Alan had come to think, really just one long disappointing Christmas Day. Even when you got what you wanted, it was never as good as you thought it was going to be. The shiny wrappings were soon torn and shredded all over the Axminster, you were tired and ratty from lack of sleep, and your Evel Knievel motorbike was in bits. Alan, twenty-five years old, experienced the kind of deflation that he had not felt since Christmas morning, 1982, when he had gleefully peeled the reindeer-wrapping off a big flat box expecting to find a Scalextrics, only to see the cool blue and white lettering of a chemistry set.

  But, briefly, things had been perfect. He had felt warm with wine and lust. And as she had opened the door and walked naked into the room he had, briefly, been unable to breathe. Candlelit, she was smooth and slender and seemingly flawless. Her breasts had shaken slightly as she came towards him. He saw her buttocks fold and crease against her thighs in turn as she passed him to get to the sofa. He became aware of a reassuring tumescence in his underpants. He might not, he realised solidly, ever need to visit Northgate Hall again.

  He had taken time over the picture. There was no point, he thought, in rushing things. He had settled the drawing board more comfortably in his lap, and, not looking up, he had marked her down on the paper. He drew confidently, easily. Sketching out the shapes and shadows of a female body. Thick dark lines and scratchy shading. Oblivious, he had dragged his fists across the picture as he drew, smudging and blurring. He had put down his charcoal, rubbed his smutty hands together, smiled, satisfied.

  “How’s it coming on?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he said. “Finished, in
fact.”

  He leaned forward uncomfortably, passed her the picture. She propped herself up on one elbow and the candlelight caught the underside of her breasts. There was, Alan noticed as he handed over the A3 sheet, a mole on her left nipple. His erection pushed and twitched against his jeans. He sat back, shuffled around, unable to get comfortable.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  She shook the paper straight, did not reply. Alan felt the first hiss of deflation. He should not have shown her.

  “Not that bad?” he asked.

  Still she didn’t say anything, just lay there looking at the picture. There were goosepimples puckering her skin. Her silence now seemed critical, no longer simple and welcome. And who was she to judge. She had said herself that she couldn’t draw. That she was useless. After what seemed to Alan far too long, she opened her mouth and said, slowly,

  “Is that what I’m like?”

  “Pretty much.” He leaned forward. The head of his penis had slipped out of his pants. It chafed against his jeans. Uncomfortable and annoyed, he snatched the picture off her.

  “It’s very good,” she said, shifting round, sitting up. Her bare feet hit the floor with a gentle slap. “It’s just it’s strange to see it.” He heard the springs creak as she got up. She came and stood behind him, looking over his shoulder. Alan, still offended, did not look up.

  “It makes sense,” she said. Which didn’t make much sense to him. He wasn’t sure if it was an apology or not. His eyes flickered up towards her, his head didn’t move. Her mole-marked breast was close to his face. Angry, he laid the picture carefully down on the floor.

  He realised afterwards that he should have known all along that nothing would ever be quite as good as her silent, still nakedness, and that it would be better to let it go, not to touch. But he did touch her, and was surprised to find how cold her skin was, how rough it felt, pocked and puckered all over with goosepimples. It had looked so smooth in the candlelight. But she smelt good, and when he kissed her dry lips her cool silky hair brushed against his cheek, and her eyes when she looked at him were dark and wide and beautiful, and his balls ached for her. He pulled his jumper over his head, kicked off his trainers, unzipped his jeans, bent to pull off his pants. She stood, prickling arms wrapped round her, not watching. When he tried to lay her down on the sofa, she seemed stiff and unsupple, and they struggled for a moment, staggered, crumpled onto the cushions. Her breasts were firm to his mouth, the nipples hard. She was cold and dry between her legs, so he licked his finger. He realised then that he should have cut his nails.