by Marian Keyes
One of the neighbours had seen a person on the ladder and concluded that next door was being broken into.
Already many of the guests had melted away into the night.
The police called an ambulance and by the time the girl was ferried off, almost nobody was left, except Cara and Ed.
‘Now what?’ he asked.
‘Now what, what?’
‘You could come home with me?’
She looked at him. All of a sudden she was sober. ‘Sorry.’ She felt awkward. ‘You’re nice. I like bad boys. I should have outgrown it because I’m thirty now, but it hasn’t happened.’
‘You don’t know the first thing about me,’ he said. ‘I’m actually a headcase. I get my kicks parading around my bedroom in a gimp mask and wrestling jocks.’
She laughed at that. ‘Do you even know what a gimp mask is?’
‘Okay.’ He paused, seeming reluctant to give up. ‘It was great meeting you, Cara.’
‘You could come home with me?’ She didn’t know why. It was just that he was so nice.
In her bedroom she’d said, ‘Nothing is going to happen. Like I said, you’re not my type and I’m too sober.’
‘Sure.’ He shrugged super-casually and said, ‘We can just hang out.’ They both laughed at the cliché. ‘Is it okay if I lie on your bed? On top of the covers? I’ll take my boots off but it doesn’t mean anything sinister.’
‘Okay. I’ll do it too.’
They lay on their backs, several inches of empty space between them.
‘So,’ he said, ‘you were very proactive tonight. Ladders and that. How come?’
‘Maybe because of my job – I work in hospitality. Reservations manager at the Spring Street Hotel. I’m always having to sort out dramas.’ Almost sheepishly, she added, ‘I won an award last year.’
‘For what?’
‘I don’t know if it’s something to be proud of it. For achieving 101 per cent occupancy.’
‘Isn’t that technically impossible?’
‘Everyone thinks you check in at three and check out at twelve. But lots of people check in at, say, midnight, or leave at six a.m. If you keep an eye on who’s coming and going, you can turn the same room over more than once in twenty-four hours.’
‘So the hotel is over-booked?’
‘Management policy in my place. In lots of hotels.’
‘What if people arrive at the right time to check in and there’s literally no room for them?’
‘Promise them an upgrade, send them away with a voucher for a free lunch and ask them to come back in an hour.’
‘And if they’re pissed-off?’
‘They’re right to be. I’m very nice to them. Except,’ she added quickly, ‘I’m not faking it. Just because I’m good at what I do doesn’t mean I’m cool with it.’
‘That must be hard, working in a way you disapprove of. Cognitive dissonance.’
‘Oh, my God, Nice Ed, you don’t know the half of it! Anyway, soon some whizz will write a piece of software to do it all automatically and my moment of glory will come to an end.’
‘So why do you keep doing it?’
‘Holding all that information in my head, shifting things around, finding efficient solutions? I guess I enjoy it. What do you … Have you a job?’
‘Botanist.’
‘A tree-hugger?’
‘A scientist.’
‘Really? Wow.’ He seemed too sincere, too normal, to be a scientist. Mind you, how many scientists did she know? ‘Hey, we should get some sleep.’
An awkward pause followed. They were lying on the bed, fully clothed. What was the protocol here?
‘You’re interfering with my night-time routine,’ she said. ‘I listen to a guided meditation. To build self-esteem.’
‘Work away.’
‘Maybe not tonight.’
Another awkward pause followed, and this one lasted.
Into the silence he said, ‘I’m not skinny.’
‘Exsqueeze me?’ She turned her face to his.
‘Earlier you called me skinny. But I’m just lean. Muscle, plenty of it.’
That made her smile.
‘I had to do a medical for my job. They measured me with a machine. I’m thirty-one per cent muscle. That’s quite a lot.’
A ball of warmth radiated from her stomach. He was so cute.
‘I could take off my shirt and show you?’
Suddenly the air between them had become thick and charged. ‘Okay,’ she managed to say. ‘Okay, go on, then.’
In the morning, she said, ‘You’re still here!’
Oddly, he seemed better-looking now than he had last night, an entire reversal of her usual experience. His messy hair, his smoky-grey eyes, his unexpectedly sexy mouth, things she hadn’t at first noticed because she’d been blinded by his aura of niceness.
‘I wondered if you’d be a curtain wiper,’ Cara said. ‘It’s a name me and my friends have for, you know, a man who tiptoes out in the middle of the night, with his jocks in his pocket and, as a final insult, wipes his lad on the curtains. They’re my usual.’
‘I could do it now?’
That was funny – and suddenly she didn’t want to go through it all again: falling for a man, feeling hope bloom, only for it to turn sour and sad.
‘What?’ He was watching her face.
‘I have form. I keep picking bad boys. But I’m burnt out. So do me a favour, do one good act in your terrible life and leave me alone.’
‘I’m one of the good guys. You said it yourself! You kept calling me Nice Ed.’
‘But I don’t fancy nice guys. And I fancy you. So please hop it.’
‘I’m on good terms with all my ex-girlfriends,’ he offered. ‘Not that there are that many,’ he added quickly. ‘Just a normal amount. And only ever one at a time. I’ve never cheated on anyone. I’m a –’
‘Please leave.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
Paradoxically it was his obedience that persuaded her to take a chance on him. ‘All right, you can stay if you answer my questions. What’s your worst trait as a boyfriend?’
He gave it serious thought. ‘Probably money. My job, it’s a niche thing. I’ll never be a high earner, and I’m good with that. I love what I do. But my last girlfriend, Maxie, it made her angry that I wasn’t more ambitious.’
‘What else?’
‘I don’t care about clothes. Sometimes I wear stuff my brothers are throwing out. I’ve had one or two complaints on that score.’
‘You’re a botanist, you said? Does that mean you love the outdoors?’
‘Yes! I love hiking and camping and … No? You hate it?’
‘Hate it.’
‘I love the indoors too. I love a lot of things.’
‘So you mentioned you’ve brothers?’
‘I’ve two. They’re both … you know … The eldest, Johnny –’
‘How much older?’
‘Three years. Three and a bit. A successful salesman who never stops talking. One hilarious story after another.’
‘Oh, I know the type! Says your name six times a sentence? Accumulates people, knows bars that never close – if you’re on an evening out with him, you’ll have the best night of your life and you’ll need a week in hospital to recover?’
Ed lay back on the pillow and laughed loudly. He sounded delighted but also, Cara thought, relieved.
‘And is he one of those – how do I put it delicately? – gnarly-looking, butty Irish men who still manage to get the girls?’
‘Nah-ah … Everyone says he’s a “total ride”.’
‘Photo?’
Ed flicked until he found one.
Cara stared. Johnny had expensively cut chestnut-brown hair, lush eyelashes, a scattering of freckles and a great big smile. He could have been an estate agent, or a junior politician. ‘Like a more groomed – much more groomed, in fairness – better-fed version of you.’ She let that settle, then gave a sidelong smile. ‘Which m
ust mean you’re a total ride too.’
‘But with Johnny you notice it. You’re blinded by it. And your ears are bleeding from the gas stories. He’s a one-man weapon of mass destruction, and even when he’s giving you alcohol poisoning, you still love him.’
This guy is hilarious, Cara thought. He’s lovely. In that moment, she felt pure happiness.
‘And your other brother?’
‘Liam. Liam Casey. The runner.’
Oh, my good God.
Even people who had no interest whatsoever in athletics knew about Liam Casey. No one cared that he was only averagely talented and rarely won any of his international races. With his dishevelled dark-blond hair and his sly-eyed, saucy smile, he’d become a household name in Ireland. If Johnny was ‘a total ride’, he had nothing on sexy, swaggery Liam.
Cripes, no wonder Ed felt like Mr Unimportant, sandwiched between a charm monster and a sex god.
‘So you get on with your brothers? You like them?’
‘Most of the time. Liam is, well, you know … Here’s this guy and he’s an athlete, he’s movie-star handsome and it’s hard for him not to be affected by that. He kinda thinks life is always going to be good to him, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Then Johnny’s my big brother. He’s got the chat and the charm and he’s decent. Maybe not always, because nobody is all the time, but, growing up, he was my hero. He sort of still is.’
‘Right.’
‘They take the piss out of me, the two of them. Because I know the Latin name for plants – like I have to for my job – they call me Ordinarius Hominis. It’s Latin for –’
‘“Ordinary man”, yep, I guessed.’
But they were wrong, she was beginning to realize. Ed wasn’t ordinary. Unassuming, maybe, but he was far from ordinary.
NINE
Nell was woken by a ringing phone.
‘Good morning, Nell,’ Dilly said. ‘It’s Easter Friday and time for breakfast. TJ, Bridey and I will pick you up in five. Liam can come too.’
‘What?’ Liam asked sleepily.
‘Dilly and her crew are on their way.’
‘Grand.’ He sat up and rubbed his eyes, while she hurtled towards the shower, then threw on her boiler suit.
Downstairs, the breakfast room was huge and geared up for big groups. Many tables were set to seat twenty or more, all covered with blinding white cloths.
Jessie, Johnny and Saoirse were at a twelve-seater.
‘Ed, Cara and the boys are on their way,’ Jessie said. ‘So, you can order from the menu,’ she said to Nell, ‘or you can help yourself from the buffet.’
‘She knows,’ TJ said.
Gently, Liam said, ‘It’s her first time here.’
‘Where was she all the other years?’ Dilly was confused.
‘You’ll understand when you’re older.’
‘Come on, we’ll show you how the buffet works,’ Bridey said.
Gratefully, Nell stood up. Her in-laws seemed sound, but they were much older than her and lived very different lives. The only ones she felt properly comfortable with were the kids.
‘I want to hold her hand!’ Dilly complained.
‘I wasn’t holding her hand, I was leading her,’ Bridey countered. ‘Anyway, she has two hands.’
‘Tray.’ TJ handed one to Nell.
‘I wanted to give her her tray,’ Dilly said.
‘You snooze, you lose.’
My God, all this food. Nell had seen breakfast buffets before but never a wonderland like this.
‘That’s the fruit,’ TJ said. ‘We don’t bother with that. Obviously. There’s cheese and ham – that’s for the Germans.’
‘Smoked salmon and capers here,’ Bridey said. ‘No. Clue. Why. All along there is the disgusting stuff, sausages, black pudding, horrific. You can skip it –’
‘– because these are the best things.’ TJ led her to a waffle machine. ‘Waffles and pancakes. You can have Nutella or maple syrup –’
‘Or both!’ Dilly said.
‘Then you come back for Coco Pops. But best of all …’ They pulled Nell to a counter, which sported a mesmerizing array of mini-pastries. The smell alone was heady stuff.
‘Excuse me.’ A woman tapped her on the shoulder.
Nell, released from the pastry spell, turned around. ‘Yes?’
‘The toaster is broken, you need to fix it.’
‘I can … Well, I can take a look …’
‘But don’t you work here?’ The woman gestured at Nell’s boiler suit.
‘No. But I can still take a look.’
‘Oh! I’m so sorry.’ The woman backed away and collided with a man who was holding the fullest plate of fried food Nell had ever seen. ‘I thought you were a mechanic.’
The three girls set up a clamour. ‘What did the lady want?’
‘For me to fix the toaster.’
‘Because you wear man’s clothes?’ TJ exclaimed. ‘That’s why I do too. So people know you can do stuff.’
Bridey abandoned her tray, keen to be the first back to the table with the story. Dilly and TJ were hot on her heels, so Nell decided to go too. By then Ed, Cara, Vinnie and Tom had arrived, and the story of Nell’s mistaken identity made everyone laugh and laugh.
‘So she said, “I thought you were a mechanic”!’
‘Then the lady banged into a man and his rashers went all over the floor.’
‘He was pretending he wasn’t cross, but he was raging!’
‘And a bit of his black pudding plopped into the big bowl of yoghurt.’
‘It was so funny.’
Liam was the only one who didn’t seem delighted.
Johnny kept making the girls repeat lines. ‘TJ, say again, “The toaster is broken. You need to fix it.”’
TJ obliged, then Johnny said, ‘Now you, Nell.’
‘So I said, all doubtful, like, “Weeell, I can take a look.”’
‘The gas thing is,’ Jessie said, ‘Nell probably could have fixed the toaster.’
‘Ah, no, electrics aren’t my thing.’
‘But you’d have tried,’ Ed said, and that triggered another outbreak of laughter.
‘Okay,’ Bridey said. ‘We need to eat. C’mon, kiddos, c’mon, Nell.’
Fifteen minutes later, Jessie said, ‘Killjoy Central here, but our jaunting car awaits.’
‘Pray for us,’ Johnny said. ‘I envy you. All you lot are doing is climbing a mountain.’
‘Your packed lunches will be at the front desk,’ Jessie said. ‘And, Nell, you won’t forget to pick up Ferdia and Barty from the station?’
‘Course not.’
‘You’ll be back in time from your climb?’ She directed this at Ed.
‘Yeah. It’s only Torc we’re doing. Four hours tops.’
Off they went. Ed unfolded a map – Nell was starting to understand that Ed was a great man for maps, probably because of his outdoorsy job – and consulted Liam on a route.
‘These all done?’ A waiter began taking away abandoned crockery. He indicated several small plates bearing half-eaten Danish pastries. ‘This?’
That was the thing about buffets: people got overexcited and took too much food. It was only human. But when Nell thought about Kassandra and Perla, the waste felt painful.
Nell had met them at a bus stop, in the cold of mid-January. A dark little girl, crying quiet, oddly dignified tears, stood with her mother.
‘Are you cold?’ Already Nell was unwinding her scarf.
‘She’s hungry,’ her mother Perla said. ‘It was fish for dinner tonight. It makes her sick.’
‘Can’t you have something else?’ Nell asked Kassandra.
No, she couldn’t. Nell extracted their story. They were asylum-seekers. War had ousted them from Syria, and they’d come to Ireland, hoping for refugee status. But until that was – or wasn’t – granted, they had a non-person status. They shared a hostel with other broken, displaced people, from the worst parts of the world. There was no privacy. A s
ingle bathroom did for seventeen people. Visitors weren’t permitted. Meals were provided by a central kitchen. The quality was poor and choice was non-existent.
When Nell enquired delicately about money, she discovered that Perla got thirty-nine euro a week from the government and Kassandra got thirty. ‘Out of this we must buy clothing, medicine, schoolbooks for Kassandra, everything,’ Perla said. ‘I want to work, but I am forbidden.’
Nell gave her the nineteen euro in her pocket, got Perla’s number and arrived home to Liam in tears. Their situation seemed overwhelmingly bad. Nell had no idea how she could help, but she knew she had to try. The world would only improve if everyone made an effort.
Since then, they’d stayed in touch. Nell had little to offer in the way of material things but she did her best to be a friend.
TEN
The Dublin train chugged the last few yards into Killarney station.
‘Wake up.’ Ferdia nudged Barty. ‘We’re here.’
Ferdia, a lanky beanpole with a docker beanie pulled low over his hair, stood up, and gave his bag in the overhead shelf a whack so that it rolled off, landing neatly in his arms.
‘Do mine as well, fam.’ Barty was a shorter, more compact version of Ferdia. Even his hat and loose stevedore-style jeans were almost identical to Ferdia’s.
Ferdia passed the bag to Barty, then asked, ‘You and me? Are we good?’
Barty had been pissed-off with Ferdia for making them miss yesterday’s train – all because Ferdia had wanted to be at a protest. Barty was perpetually skint and really enjoyed his once-yearly weekend in the fancy hotel. ‘Ah, yeah.’ He shrugged. ‘Watch me pack four days’ eating and drinking into three.’
Tons of people were getting off. The Good Friday crowds were out in force.
‘Mum said Nell was coming to pick us up,’ Ferdia said.
‘Liam’s new wife? What’s she like?’
‘Dunno. I’ve barely met her.’ Ferdia spotted a woman in overalls. ‘That’s her.’
‘Your woman with the hair? Wow. Nothing like Paige, right? Like, wow!’
‘And shut up now. Nell! Hey.’ Ferdia grabbed her shoulders and gave an awkward half-hug. ‘Barty, meet Nell. My aunt. Sort of?’ he asked Nell.
