At a Time Like This (3 page)

I felt stung. I desperately wanted to be part of this imagined life that Georgie and Maggie already shared. I didn’t care what the rent was. I’d earn it. I didn’t care what the
consequences were. I’d put up with them. I wanted Rathmines, friends my own age, freedom. Bugger the suburbs, the number sixteen bus, the fifteen hours of babysitting every week. My father
wanted me to spread my wings, to stretch myself? Then watch out. The bars of the family cage were about to get a beating.

‘Yeah,’ I said, casually. ‘Two weeks should be fine. I’ll let you know.’

Georgie nodded her agreement. ‘Great.’ By then, we’d arrived at the English Department noticeboard, and I still have no idea how we got there. I remember nothing other than
floating along on this girl’s promise of a life I had never known. She pointed to the timetable. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘We share lectures at least twice a week. That’s
good.’ She smiled at me. ‘I’m meeting Maggie tomorrow night for a pint. In O’Neill’s of Suffolk Street. You know it?’

I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t. I decided I’d find it for myself. ‘Yeah,’ I lied. ‘I know it.’ Tomorrow’s Thursday, I remember thinking.
I’m babysitting Friday and Saturday. ‘Tomorrow’s fine.’

‘Okay, then,’ she said. She glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go now – I’m meeting up with Danny, my boyfriend. See you tomorrow evening around
nine?’

I nodded. I had that cold feeling, again, that I’d just been a useful opportunity – that I’d filled some kind of a gap in a busy woman’s schedule. But Georgie smiled at
me then, a warm, genuine smile, and all my reservations faded away.

‘Great to meet you, Claire. I know that you and Maggie will get along. Start working on that father of yours. Tell him you’ll always be home by ten.’

We both laughed.

‘Okay, then,’ I said, my lightness of heart safe again, restored. ‘See you tomorrow night.’

I decided to arrive at O’Neill’s well before nine. I wanted to be there when the two of them came in, wanted to see if they’d arrive together or separately. I
suppose I wanted to be sure that Georgie had room in her life for another friend, that she and Maggie wouldn’t always be two against one.

I settled at a table in the corner, one where I could keep an eye on the door. Georgie arrived first and by herself. I was relieved. There was no conspiracy, then; no whispering campaign about
the red-headed culchie. I was about to wave, but she’d already spotted me. Georgie had one of those effortless glances that took in a whole room at once. I learned quickly, too, that she
could identify where the creeps hung out. And more: she could tell where boredom lurked. She used to say that she preferred creeps to bores. The ‘undesirables’, as she called them, were
reduced to jelly by her sharp tongue; the bores were not. They, she said, were impervious. That was why they were bores in the first place.

‘Hiya, Claire. No sign of Maggie, then.’

I looked at her. I felt completely stupid. But then, it wasn’t a question, after all.

‘Just got here myself, right this minute,’ I lied. There was no half-empty glass on the table to give me away, no smouldering cigarette in the ashtray. I hadn’t wanted to drink
on my own, anyhow, so I’d hidden away and read my book. But Georgie didn’t know that. She would never know things like that unless I told her.

‘Ready to order now?’ An eager young lad in a cheap white shirt and a tired bow-tie stood before us, his sticky tray held out in front of him like an offering.

Georgie looked at him for a moment as she took off her jacket and I noticed that her gaze made him blush. I felt sorry for him then. He was all awkward angles, all bony elbows and knees. He
couldn’t be more than fifteen, a new sixteen at the very most.

‘Yes,’ said Georgie. At that moment, the pub door opened and a small, dark-haired girl entered. She trailed a cloud of astonishing energy in her wake: even the tired, middle-aged men
at the bar looked up from their newspapers as she passed. Georgie grinned. ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘We’re ready now. Three pints of Guinness.’

Even if Georgie hadn’t ordered (and how was I going to drink a whole pint of that stuff?) I’d have known at once that this was Maggie.

‘Hi, Georgie,’ she said, flicking a wave of dark hair away from her face, back over one shoulder. Then she looked at me. Her eyes were a translucent green, her lips painted bright
scarlet. ‘You must be Claire from Clare. Nice to meet you.’

But she didn’t laugh at her own joke and I forgave her. ‘And you’re Maggie,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘That’s me. Don’t believe everything
she
says about me, though.’

I smiled. ‘Oh, she didn’t give anything away. You’ve nothing to worry about.’

Maggie snorted. She settled herself more comfortably on her stool. She was dressed for maximum impact and I admired her panache. A crimson shirt, an exact match for the shade of lipstick she was
wearing, and a pair of tight, black Levi’s. Her curves were evident. Her whole attitude said: if you’ve got it, flaunt it. I wouldn’t have had the nerve, not in those days.
Anyhow, I didn’t have the curves, not like Maggie did. I still hid behind flowing dresses back then because somehow, I believed that they camouflaged my thinness.

‘Wouldn’t I love to have something worth telling,’ she said, throwing her eyes up to heaven. ‘Life’s much too quiet at the moment. Isn’t that right,
Georgie?’

Georgie said nothing.

Maggie had just begun to fumble in her bag for cigarettes. Now she stopped, reacting to Georgie’s silence. She looked across at her friend, her green eyes huge. ‘Georgie – you
haven’t, have you? Not again. Tell me you haven’t?’

Although Maggie’s tone was full of urgency, I felt that I was watching a well-rehearsed double act, where each person had already practised their lines and knew them off by heart. I was
the audience, but I didn’t mind. I liked being entertained.

Georgie closed her eyes, lifted her elegant shoulders ever so slightly and spread her palms towards us. Maggie shook her head. ‘Who is it this time?’ she demanded. ‘Isn’t
one fella at a time enough for you? God knows it’d be enough for me, if I could
get
one.’

But Georgie made no reply. Just then, the lounge boy returned and placed three nervous pints on the table in front of us.

‘Any matches?’ Maggie asked him. There was a cigarette already lodged between her fingers. I noticed that it looked at home there.

‘I’ll go and see.’ He disappeared in search of them. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her. I remember thinking that his cheeks had flushed to a fair match for her
shirt.

‘Don’t terrify him, Maggie – I think it’s his first night. Never seen him before, have you?’ Georgie took out her own packet of cigarettes.

Maggie shook her head. ‘Nah. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle with him. He looks like someone’s kid brother.’

Yes, mine, I thought, with a sudden, sharp prod of memory. Ruaidhri, with his long and awkward arms and legs, his sticking-up hair. The lounge boy delivered the matches to Maggie. I noticed how
he averted his eyes. She smiled and handed him, grandly, a tip of twenty pence. He sloped off, pleased with himself.

Georgie raised her glass. ‘Here’s to us, then.’

‘It was nobody we know, right? Nobody I need to avoid?’ asked Maggie. She held the glass to her lips, delaying the first sip until Georgie answered her. They were very good
together.

Georgie sighed. ‘No, it’s nobody
you
know. Just someone I met over the weekend. He was fun. So who cares?’ And she shrugged again. I would get to know that dismissive
gesture. And the tone that hovered somewhere between weariness and boredom. The tone that would make us – Maggie and me, that is – laugh and eventually forgive whatever it was she had
just got up to.

‘Well, okay, then.’ Maggie lifted her glass. ‘To the three of us, right?’

We all chinked obediently and drank. I tried not to breathe because I did not want to taste the yeasty liquid as it prickled and fizzled its way across my tongue. It was my first pint and I
didn’t know what I might be letting myself in for. Up until then, pints were for farmers and mountainy men who guzzled themselves to a standstill every Saturday night in the pubs of
Ennistymon. Guinness was not something that girls drank. I also decided that I had better not to ask who, or what, they were talking about. I didn’t feel, then, that it was any of my
business.

‘Well,’ said Maggie, turning to face me. ‘You’ll be joining us in the flat, right?’

I opened my mouth to speak, about to be cautious. But Maggie’s bright, open face and Georgie’s amused one somehow gave me courage. ‘Yeah,’ I said instead. ‘I will.
As long as it’s affordable. That okay with you?’ And I smiled at her, having the impression that I was beginning to gain ground. She made me feel that I might be able to hold my own,
placed somewhere appropriate and agreed between the two of them.

Maggie shrugged. ‘Yeah, ’course,’ she said. ‘It’s hardly a palace, though. Has Georgie told you?’

‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ I said. Not that I cared. ‘When can I see it?’

‘I’ll find out,’ said Georgie. ‘The other tenants are still there, but I’ll see what I can do. Maybe we can get in at the weekend.’

‘’Course it’s affordable,’ said Maggie, putting down her glass. I noticed she was almost half-finished, Georgie too. I’d barely begun. ‘Georgie’s daddy
would never try and rip us off, would he, Georgie?’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ she said easily. ‘Besides, this way, he gets the best of both worlds. I’m out of his hair and he has three careful tenants. We’ll keep
things ticking over till he’s ready to sell. And then off he goes and makes a fortune.’ She turned to me. ‘Simple, really. And that’s another thing to tell your old man:
you’ll be a friend of the family, no possibility of eviction. Cheers.’

And she drained her glass, followed by Maggie. I said ‘no’ to another one just then – although there was a pleasant lightness dancing between my ears. Something was nagging at
me, though: was Georgie just being careful, waiting for Maggie’s seal of approval before telling me that her father was the landlord? Or was this how people at the centre of the universe
behaved, by keeping secrets?

I didn’t care. Possibilities were everywhere. I had a surge of anticipation about the future, one I had never even dared to imagine. The distance between the me right then, and the me of
my other life was growing as we spoke. And it blossomed with only a little guilt to season it. I remember asking myself: is this all it takes? Are you really that shallow, Claire from Clare?

It seemed that Maggie was talking to me. More glasses littered the table-top, the ashtray was full and the bar was suddenly crowded with people. The evening had been slipping away from me and I
hadn’t noticed.

‘Claire?’

‘Sorry – Maggie, miles away’

‘Fag?’

I hesitated. The lightness inside my head was changing to something fuzzy and dark. It was unpleasant, like the dizziness you get just before you faint. ‘No, thanks. Not now.’ I
needed to keep my hands very still.

‘You okay?’ She was looking at me closely. Georgie was trying to catch the lounge boy’s eye.

‘I’m fine. Just a bit wrecked.’

‘You don’t need to stick it out till the bitter end, you know.’ She grinned. ‘We won’t talk about you when you’re gone.’

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘Well, no,’ she admitted. ‘But you have nothing to fear. I’ve never known Georgie to take so kindly to anyone before. And,’ she said, lighting her cigarette and
leaning towards me while Georgie was busy ordering another round, ‘I should know. We’ve been best friends since our first day at primary school. Nobody knows her better than I
do.’

I nodded. ‘That’s a long time to be friends,’ was all I could manage. Maggie’s face was friendly, but her tone had an edge to it. Territory was being staked here. She was
warning me what the boundaries were. Or perhaps it was the Guinness. I’ve never been any good at drinking. It makes me paranoid. ‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Are you happy enough
that I’m moving in?’

‘’Course! It’ll be fun. I’m looking forward to it.’ But she turned away from me as Georgie handed her her pint. I didn’t know what to think.

Maggie and Georgie walked me to the bus stop, three pints of Guinness sloshing around inside me. They shared a bag of chips. I couldn’t even look at them and the vinegar fumes didn’t
help my restless stomach, either. But I felt as though I’d completed a rite of passage. It seemed that Claire the Responsible had left herself behind, somewhere between the Buttery, the
English Department and O’Neill’s pub. The Bermuda Triangle where family baggage came to sink and die.

Even then, I thought about how strange life is, how random the coincidences are that shape our lives. I watched the welcome approach of the Rathfarnham bus.

‘You sure you’re okay?’ Georgie’s face loomed in front of mine.

‘Fine.’

‘We’ll see you Monday, then, right?’ Maggie said. ‘Unless we can get in to see the flat at the weekend. Here’s a phone number in case you want to ring us.’
She pushed a bit of paper into the pocket of my jacket. I didn’t bother trying to explain about the babysitting. I stepped up on to the platform of the bus.

‘Take care, Claire – okay?’ Georgie called.

I waved. Maggie waved back.

I sat on the long seat at the side, one hand clutching the cold, stainless steel pole. I remember hoping that I’d make it home in one piece. I was afraid of making a show of myself by
getting sick on the number sixteen bus.

Half an hour later, I straightened up. The bushes on either side of me snagged on the material of my jacket. I had no tissue, so I used the back of my hand. My mouth felt sour
and hot but I felt a whole lot better. I was grateful for suburban roads and quiet cul-de-sacs. No one wants to puke in public. As it was, the only witnesses were abandoned tricycles, the
occasional scooter and a couple of legless dolls in an overgrown front garden.

I felt free and happy and empty. The unruly grass had just accepted, without complaint, almost six years’ worth of loss, sadness, and the hot, bitter bile of guilt.