Tales From A Hen Weekend

by Olivia Ryan

  ‘Don’t be silly. I…’

  ‘I’m not being silly, Katie. I’m not the one kidding myself. The chemistry between the two of you is sending off so many sparks I’m practically getting burnt just sitting in the same car.’

  ‘OK, yes - I do like him. But I won’t do anything about it. I’m going back to Matt and I’m going to talk to him about having a baby.’

  She doesn’t say anything. Just shakes her head and looks away, which is irritating, but I decide to ignore it. Maybe she’d like to have a baby too, really. Sometimes people don’t admit it.

  Emily and Jude both fall asleep in the back seat as we head southwest towards Cork. I’m studying the map, looking at all the strange Irish place names.

  ‘Lots of Kills,’ I say wonderingly.

  ‘It means church, apparently.’

  ‘Oh! And Raths?’

  ‘Fort, I think.’

  ‘Inis?’

  ‘Island.’

  ‘I didn’t think you spoke any Irish?’

  ‘I don’t,’ he says with a smile. ‘That’s just general knowledge.’

  ‘In that case my knowledge obviously isn’t very general.’

  ‘You must know more about books than I do, though. More than most people do.’

  ‘Nice of you to think so. I mainly read light fiction, though. I’m sure it’s not easy to write, but it doesn’t exactly strain my brain cells reading it. I did study English lit. at uni. But you know how it is. All that learning, and then you go back out to the real world, out to work, and you probably retain about five percent of it. Shame, really.’

  ‘Yeah. Still, they say uni teaches you life skills.’

  I snigger.

  ‘I think the only life skills I learnt, certainly in my first year, were how to survive alcoholic poisoning and how to get laid…’ I stop, freeze, and turn to look out of the window. You see? He’s so easy to talk to, I’m finding myself saying the sort of things I’d normally only confide to my girlfriends.

  ‘Oh, really?’ he says, sounding highly amused. ‘Well, that’s a very interesting life skill. Would you like to share your knowledge with me, do you think?’

  ‘I was joking,’ I say, shakily, still looking the other way. I’m boiling hot. I search for the button to open the window on my side but he does it for me. Fresh air gusts in but it doesn’t help to cool me down at all.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ he says, softly.

  I spend most of the rest of the journey talking about Matt. I don’t suppose Harry appreciates this, but it’s kind of reassuring to me. I have to keep reminding myself – I have a boyfriend at home. Well, in Prague. I have a boyfriend who was almost going to be my husband. We might have decided to ditch the wedding, but I love him, and he loves me. We’re going to have a baby together. He doesn’t know that yet, but he’ll be thrilled when I tell him. I even find myself telling Harry this.

  ‘What if he isn’t thrilled? He might want to wait a while. He might not want kids at all. How come you haven’t discussed it before?’

  How come everyone keeps asking me that?

  ‘We’ve been too busy talking about everything else. Enjoying ourselves. Planning the bloody wedding,’ I add tersely.

  ‘So you don’t feel ready to go ahead with the wedding, but you think it’s time to have a baby?’

  ‘Yes! Look…’

  ‘It’s OK. It’s none of my business, after all. I’m just intrigued. I’ve never been with a girl who wanted a baby.’

  ‘You haven’t been with me, either!’ I retort, shocked.

  ‘No. But I’m hoping to.’

  This is getting worse. It’s brazen. I can’t believe his nerve.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, with an impish grin like a little boy who’s been caught nicking biscuits out of the tin. My heart does a double somersault. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you, Katie. I should have kept it to myself. I won’t mention it again.’

  ‘What? Kept what to yourself?’

  ‘How much I fancy you. I have done from the moment I saw you. There – I’ve said it. It’s totally inappropriate, I know that; you’ve got a boyfriend, and I’ll probably never see you again anyway, and I’m totally out of order for talking to you like this. But – today, getting to know you a bit better – well, I feel like we’ve known each other for ages, to be honest.’

  ‘Me too,’ I admit.

  ‘So am I forgiven? No offence taken? I won’t say another word about it. We’ll talk about something safe and neutral. Dustbins. Or cleaning the oven.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s the most unsexy thing I can think of. I always have to imagine cleaning the oven when I need to try to get my mind off sex.’

  ‘And do you… often… have to think about cleaning the oven?’

  He glances at me, like he’s checking to make sure I’m smiling. I am.

  ‘All the fucking time,’ he says with a growl.

  We’re both laughing when the other two wake up and ask how much further we’ve got to go.

  And surprisingly – disappointingly in a way – Harry says we’re just coming into Kinsale.

  ABOUT FERGUS

  As we turn onto the coast road I get a glimpse of the sea and catch my breath. It’s beautiful.

  ‘Look,’ says Harry, stopping the car at the top of a headland. The bay is stretched out beneath us. ‘Lovely sight, eh?’

  ‘Amazing. You’re so lucky, Jude.’

  She’s only been living here a little while. When I’ve visited her in the past it’s always been to her old home just outside Cork.

  ‘I know. It’s a sight to stir your heart, to be sure. But where I live, Katie, it’s down a back street and out of sight of the sea, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You’ll have to direct me from here, Jude,’ says Harry, starting the car again.

  We’re outside her flat in five minutes. It might not be within sight of the sea, but it’s still lovely. It’s half of a converted pink-washed cottage – the bottom half, fortunately for Jude’s current situation – and it’s tucked away down a little side road just a stone’s throw from the town’s main shopping streets.

  ‘You’ll come in and have a cup of tea or something to eat with us, Harry,’ says Jude in a tone that brooks no argument, ‘after all you’ve done for us, driving us all this way.’ She slides across the back seat as he’s holding the door open for her. ‘Could you ever get me crutches out of the boot for me, please, Katie?’

  I’m already out of the car, stretching my legs. I open the boot and move our bags out of the way, looking for the crutches.

  ‘Not in here,’ I call back to her. ‘You must have put them inside.’

  ‘Don’t be daft – there’s no room in the back here. They’re in the boot to be sure, Katie. Would you have a proper look!’

  Emily joins me as I start lifting the bags out of the boot. She takes out a couple of jackets and the boot’s empty. No crutches. I turn to look at Harry.

  ‘Shit,’ he says. ‘I think I forgot to put them back in the boot. After we stopped for lunch.’

  ‘So…’ Emily’s looking at him like he might be having a laugh with us. ‘So you’re saying the crutches are still in the car park back at Urlington?’

  ‘Urlingford,’ Jude corrects her automatically.

  ‘Urlington, Urlingford, bloody Tipperary – it all amounts to the same thing!’ says Emily irritably. ‘Poor Jude’s stuck here with her leg in plaster and no means of transportation!’

  ‘Sorry,’ says Harry, scratching his head.

  ‘All right, Emily – I expect we can get her some more from the local hospital or whatever,’ I try to pacify her. I don’t want her to moan at Harry after he’s been so kind to us. These things happen, don’t they? People probably leave their crutches in car parks all the time.

  ‘You must be joking,’ says Jude. ‘It’s not the NHS over here, you know. They don’t give out crutches willy-nilly to any old person who turns up asking for them. They’d probably charge me an arm and a leg j
ust to borrow them.’

  Very appropriate.

  ‘Well,’ says Harry with a sigh, ‘there’s only one thing for it.’ He reaches in to the back of the car and easily lifts Jude up in his arms.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ says Emily churlishly, ‘but you can’t carry her around indefinitely.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to,’ he says with a grin. ‘I’m going to phone the pub and ask someone to see if the crutches are still there. Or if they’ve been handed in. Then I’ll drive back and pick them up.’

  ‘Oh, no, you can’t do that, Harry, for the love of God, I won’t be letting you do that!’ squeals Jude, twisting around in his arms in protest. I find myself wondering what it feels like to be held like that.

  ‘Keep still, Jude, or I’ll drop you in the gutter! Have you got your front door key? Or are we going to stand out here all day arguing? Of course I’m going back for your crutches. It was my fault, not putting them in the boot.’

  ‘Well, no, it wasn’t your responsibility,’ I begin, but Emily silences me with a look.

  ‘That’s very kind of you to offer, Harry,’ she says primly. ‘But it’s an awful long way to drive there, and back again, isn’t it.’

  ‘Like I said before – I like driving.’

  We’ve got the front door open now and we’re standing in the hallway of Jude’s new flat. It’s gorgeous. But then, knowing Jude, it would have to be. She never could bear mess or shabbiness, even when she was a student. The walls are cream, the floor’s dark varnished wood. We follow her (still being carried by Harry) through into a pastel-pink lounge with a rose-pink carpet and dark red leather upholstery. I feel like I’m stepping through the pages of an Ideal Homes magazine. Even the simple stone vase on the fireplace and the few tasteful ornaments look as though they’ve been chosen for a TV house makeover programme. How does Jude do it? OK, she’s been away for a few days, but how does she keep Fergus under control? Where are the newspapers lying all over the floor? The empty beer cans? The TV remote control down the side of the cushion? How come the wastepaper bin’s empty? Where are the crisps packets and the Kit-Kat wrappers? Why aren’t there any curry sauce stains on the carpet? Suddenly I’m changing my mind about Fergus. This guy must be perfection personified. If the toilet’s clean, that does it. She should marry him.

  ‘Go through to the kitchen, Katie, if you wouldn’t mind,’ says Jude as Harry sets her down on the sofa, ‘and put the kettle on. Then we’ll talk about what to do.’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ says Harry firmly. ‘I’m going back for your crutches. I’ll wait till a bit later, when the roads are quieter. I’ll be there and back in no time.’

  At least three hours, probably more. I wouldn’t call it no time.

  ‘I can’t let you do it…’ begins Jude, but he silences her with a raised hand.

  ‘I absolutely insist. I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’m going to pick up my cousin, and we can drive down there together. We’ll have a meal at the same pub, where we had our lunch, and drive back later in the evening. Is that OK?’

  ‘Well, if you really want to do that – it’d make me happier to think you were having an evening out, with your cousin, so it would,’ says Jude doubtfully.

  ‘Excellent. That’s decided, then. Get the kettle on, girls!’ he adds playfully.

  ‘There are some chocolate biscuits in the cupboard,’ Jude calls after us.

  ‘What do you make of all this?’ Emily asks me as we’re standing in the neat little kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil.

  ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it? I knew Jude would choose somewhere nice, but I had no idea how…’

  ‘No, Katie – not the flat. I mean Harry. What’s he after, do you think?’

  ‘After?’ I ask faintly, pretending not to understand. I busy myself with the teabags and biscuits, aware that she’s watching me.

  ‘Yes. What’s he after? Going all that way, halfway back to Dublin, to look for Jude’s crutches…’

  ‘He’s going to phone the pub first, to make sure.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But even so – he’s certainly putting himself out, isn’t he?’

  ‘I think he’s just a nice guy. And he feels bad about leaving the crutches behind, that’s all.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Hmm, what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Call me suspicious, but I think he’s trying to impress us.’

  ‘Well, fair enough, I am quite impressed.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she says, giving me a pointed look.

  I turn away again and look in the fridge for the milk. Everything in here is tidy too. No smelly remains of vegetables going rotten in the drawer at the bottom. No mucky crusty dollops of spilt yoghurt or dried blood from dripping steaks. It’s hard to believe that a man has been living here.

  ‘That’s who I’m most impressed with,’ I say, turning back and surveying the clean work tops and empty sink. No washing-up piled up waiting to be done. No coffee grouts slopped into the sink congealing around the plughole. It’s just miraculous!

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Fergus. The mysterious, house-trained, house-proud boyfriend. I admit I had my doubts about him, but now I can’t wait to meet him!’

  And this is so bizarre, I feel like I must be dreaming. Because, at the exact same minute I’m telling Emily I can’t wait to meet Fergus, the doorbell rings and we hear Harry go to answer it while we’re carrying the tea and biscuits through to the lounge.

  ‘Hello young man,’ says someone with a very broad Cork accent. ‘I saw the car outside – would Judith be back from her trip? I’m Roisin from upstairs, and I’m very pleased to meet you, so I am. Shall I come in? Only I’ve brought Fergus.’

  I nearly drop the tray with all the mugs of tea all over the rose pink carpet with no curry stains. Roisin appears in the lounge doorway, jumps in surprise at the sight of Jude and her plastered foot, and deposits a very small, short-haired cream-coloured cat in her lap.

  ‘He’s been a good boy while you’ve been away – haven’t you, Fergus!’ she croons. ‘But for the love of God! What have you been doing to yourself with your foot?’

  You could hear a pin drop; if it wasn’t for the cat, who’s settled down immediately and comfortably on Jude’s lap and is purring louder than most of the men I’ve ever heard snoring.

  ‘Fergus!’ I say faintly, staring at Jude. ‘You’ve… you’ve named your cat after your boyfriend?’

  ‘No,’ she says, with a long, thin sigh, without looking up at us. ‘No, Katie. Not at all. I should have told you. I was going to, when Harry’d gone. My boyfriend… is a cat. This is Fergus, everybody.’

  The silence grows deeper. We don’t seem to want to look at each other. Roisin hovers, half turns towards the door, obviously uncertain whether to stay or go. Harry gets to his feet. I pick up one of the mugs, meaning to hand it to him, to tell him to sit down, don’t go, stay for tea and biscuits. But he’s not thinking of leaving. He walks over to the sofa where Jude’s sitting, bends down, takes Fergus’s delicate little paw in one hand, shakes it very solemnly and says:

  ‘Good evening, Fergus. Very pleased to meet you.’

  Everyone laughs. And Jude looks up at him, gratitude mixed with the embarrassment in her eyes. Roisin sits down and stays for tea and biscuits. And I look across at my oldest friend, sitting on her perfect sofa in her perfect flat where no slobby messy man has ever set his muddy feet on the perfect pink carpet, where her boyfriend sits on her lap, purring and looking at her with adoration in his slitty green eyes.

  And I wonder if things can possibly get any fucking stranger.

  JUDE’S STORY

  Fergus is a Burmese, two years old, very clean and very affectionate. I got him from Kathleen who runs the pub at the end of the road. She’d bought him as a kitten, the runt of a litter, but her other two cats didn’t accept him and she was fed up with the fighting.

  ‘He needs to be an only child, so he does, bless his heart,’ she told me. ‘The o
ther two eejits won’t give him a minute’s peace, poor little devil.’

  He had red angry claw lacerations on his little pink nose, and a badly bitten left ear. What could I do? I said I’d take him in temporarily to get him away from his tormentors while Kathleen tried to find a home for him. It took nearly three weeks for his ear to heal up properly, and by then I’d fallen in love with him. And he with me. It was so nice to come home after work and find someone waiting for me, purring with pleasure at seeing me, winding himself around my legs as I dished up his food, jumping onto my lap as soon as I sat down and gazing at me as if I was the most wonderful person in the whole world.

  I sent Katie an e-mail:

  I’ve got myself a new boyfriend! He’s name’s Fergus, he’s sweet and funny and I love him to death!

  I was going to wait for her reaction before I told her he was really a cat, and then we’d have a laugh about it together. But her reaction was so over-the-top, so full of patronising shit about how wonderful that I’d finally found myself a man, how much she hoped he’d be good to me and that we’d be happy together, blah blah blah, that I felt humiliated and cross and didn’t bother to reply. And as the months went by and she carried on e-mailing me and phoning me with this attitude of surprised excitement about the amazing news that poor old Jude had actually managed to pull, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth. I built up a little fictitious character for Fergus the boyfriend, not terribly far removed from Fergus the cat-friend except that I missed out things like him bringing mice in through the cat-flap. And I’m sorry – I know it was lying. I know it was silly, and deceitful, and in the end I’ve probably ended up making a complete arse of myself. But Katie was asking for it.

  I’m her oldest friend and I shouldn’t say it, but she can be so bloody annoying. She really doesn’t have the faintest idea how easy life is for girls like her. Even when we were still at school together in England, going through that awful stage round about puberty when I spent my entire time suffering agonies of insecurity about everything – everything – from the way I looked to the way I walked, the way I spoke and even the way I smelt – even at that age, Katie always appeared supremely confident. And why shouldn’t she? She never had a single spot or pimple in her life. Her hair was never greasy or flyaway or just wrong – it always hung, sleek and glossy like a shower of dark satin. She didn’t need to worry, like I did constantly – about what might happen when she opened her mouth to speak in a crowd, how her voice might wobble or squeak or dry up altogether, leaving everyone to laugh while she blushed and stammered and wanted to die. She didn’t even have to give it a thought, because all she had to do was walk into a room, smile and laugh and say ‘Hi!’ to everyone, and they’d be falling at her feet, wanting to be her friend, wanting to be in her team, wanting to invite her to their birthday parties and their holiday outings and make up foursomes with the best-looking boys in the class.