Marian Keyes - Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married (18 page)

"You're such peasants, keeping your booze on your bookcase."

"Well, what can we do? We haven't any books, we have to keep some- thing on it."

He rummaged around on the shelves, "I can't see it."

"I'm sure it was there earlier."

"It's not here now."

"Maybe Karen and Daniel drank it. Sorry, sorry!" I said hurriedly, as he winced again.

"You can take it from me, it won't last." His voice had a slight tremor. "He's gay, you know."

"But you say that about every man in the whole universe."

"Daniel really is. Sooner or later, he'll see the light. And when he does, I'll be there."

"Fine, fine, whatever you say." I didn't want to upset him, but really! Every gay man I knew insisted that every straight man they knew was really a closet gay.

29 Dennis sat down again and placed his hand on his chest and breathed deeply for a long time while I wriggled with impatience. Finally he said, "It's all right now, I'm over it."

"Okay." I launched back into the story. "So at Pizza My Mind, Gus didn't have any money--well, obviously, because he didn't have any last night or earlier today and even though he's a talented man, I don't think that alchemy is one of his particular gifts..." lucy sullivan is getting married / 209

"So you had to pay for the two of you."

"Yes, which is fine because it's extremely reasonable..."

"And the waiter has a lovely butt..." Dennis was a gay man twenty-four hours a day, he never let up.

"Quite. But Gus drank about ten bottles of Peroni and..."

"Ten bottles of Peroni!"

"Relax," I said. "I've no problem with that in principle, especially because Peroni is weak, but it has to be paid for."

"You don't feel like he's taking advantage of you, do you?" said Dennis, looking levelly at me.

The thought had crossed my mind earlier in the day while we were in the pub, and that upset me because I lived in fear of being thought an idiot, taken for a fool.

But I absolutely hated arguments about money. It reminded me of my childhood. Memories of my mother shouting at Dad, her face red and dis- torted. I would never behave like that.

"No, really, Dennis, because then he said some really lovely things in the restaurant."

"Ten Peronis worth of loveliness?"

"Easily."

"Let's hear it."

"He took my hand," I said slowly, trying to build up effect, "and said, very seriously, `I really appreciate this, Lucy.'

"And then he said, `I hate not having money, Lucy,' and get this Dennis, `especially when I meet someone like you.' What do you think of that, eh?"

"What did he mean?"

"He said that I was lovely, and should be taken to beautiful places and have beautiful things given to me."

"Except that you won't be getting them from him." Dennis could be very blunt.

"Shut up," I said. "He said that he'd love to wine and 210 / marian keyes

dine me and buy me flowers and chocolates and fur coats and fancy kitchens and electric carving knives and one of those little vacuum cleaners that you can use on the couch and everything my heart desires."

"And what does your heart desire?" asked Dennis.

"It desires Gus."

"I don't think that's your heart we're talking about."

"You're so vulgar, do you ever think of anything but sex?"

"No. Then what did he say?"

"He said that the little vacuum cleaners were great for getting fluff out of your coat pockets."

"He sounds like he's a sugar bowl short of a Fornasetti dinner service to me," snorted Dennis. "Carving knives and vacuums and fur coats, hon- estly!"

But he didn't know the half of it and I felt reluctant to tell him. I didn't want negative comments, I wanted great rejoicing, to match my mood. Because the conversation with Gus had got a little bit tangled after that.

"Do you like flowers?" he had asked.

And I had said, "Yes, Gus, they're lovely, but my life isn't incomplete without them."

Then he said, "And chocolate?"

"Yes, I like chocolate an awful lot, but I'm not lacking for it."

"Oh! You're not?" Concern crossed his face, and he suddenly seemed to go into a deep slump. "Well, what did I expect?" he said mournfully. "A beautiful woman like you. How could I have been so stupid to think that I might be the only man in your life?"

"Gus, please stop. What are you talking about? No, it's okay," I said to the waiter who had come running when he heard Gus's outburst. "No, really, everything is fine, thanks." lucy sullivan is getting married / 211

"You might as well get me another of these, while you're at it," said Gus waving a Peroni bottle at the waiter. (That must have been his ninth.) "I'm talking about you, of course, Miss Lucy Goddess Sullivan--it is Miss, I presume...?"

"Yes."

"...And the suitors that bring you the chocolate."

"Gus, I don't have suitors bringing me chocolate."

"But didn't you say...?"

"I said that I don't go without it. And I don't. But I buy it myself."

"Oh," he said slowly. "You buy it yourself. I see..."

"Good." I laughed. "I'm glad you see."

"An independent woman, Lucy. That's what you are. You don't want to be under an obligation to them, and you'd be right. To thine own self be true, as our friend Billy Shakespeare was forever telling me."

"Er, who don't I want to be under an obligation to?"

"The suitors."

"Gus, there aren't any suitors."

"No suitors?"

"No. Well not just at the moment." I didn't want him to think I was a total loser.

"Why not!!?"

"I don't know."

"But you're beautiful."

"Thank you."

"I never heard before that the English were a shortsighted race, but they must be. It's the only explanation I can come up with."

"Thank you."

"Stop saying `thank you.' I mean it."

There was a pleased little pause where we sat smiling 212 / marian keyes

at each other, Gus's eyes slightly glazed over, probably from the excess of Peronis.

There was no need to tell any of that to Dennis. I decided to pass over it and tell him the next good thing.

When Gus said, "Er, Lucy, can I ask you something?"

And I answered, "Of course."

"I couldn't help overhearing that you're currently without a suitor..."

"Yes."

"...So would I be right in thinking that there's a vacancy?"

"Yes, I suppose that's one way of putting it."

"I know that this is going to sound outrageously forward of me, but is there any chance at all that you might consider me for the position?"

And I looked at the red-and-white checked tablecloth, too shy to meet his eyes and murmured "Yes."

Dennis was disappointed in me.

"Oh, Lucy." He sighed. "Haven't you listened to anything I've told you--you're not supposed to submit so easily. Make them work for it."

"No, Dennis," I explained firmly. "You've got to understand that I was afraid to play games with him--he was liable to get confused even when I was being totally straightforward. Introducing manipulation and feminine wiles--saying `no' when I meant `maybe,' saying `maybe' when I meant `yes'--could be the undoing of us."

"Okay, if you insist. So what happened then?"

"He said, `I'm also unattached romantically; do you mind if I eat the last piece of pizza?'"

"The silver-tongued devil," muttered Dennis, clearly unimpressed.

"I was thrilled," I said.

"Isn't it going a bit far to be thrilled?" asked Dennis. lucy sullivan is getting married / 213

"I mean, it was paid for, so someone might as well eat it but, really, Lucy, thrilled?"

I let it pass.

"And what's he like in bed?" asked Dennis.

"I don't actually know."

"You wouldn't let him?"

"He didn't try."

"But you were together for nearly twenty-four hours. Aren't you wor- ried?"

"No." I wasn't. Granted his restraint was unusual. But not unheard of.

"He's probably gay," said Dennis.

"He's not gay."

"But you don't seem upset that he didn't jump you?" said Dennis, sounding confused.

"That's because I'm not upset;" I said. "I like men to take things slowly, men who want to get to know me before they sleep with me."

That really was true, it wasn't just bravado for Dennis's benefit--I was horrified by men who were upfront (as it were) about their need for sex, big grown-up men with huge sexual appetites. Men with come-to-bed eyes, men with big thighs and hairy chests and huge unshaven jaws, men who got erections six times an hour, men who smelled of sweat and salt and sex. Men who entered rooms by saying bodily, "Here's my hard-on, the rest of me will be along in about five minutes."

Pelvo-centric men put the fear of God in me. Probably because I thought that they'd be very demanding and critical of my performance. These men could pick and choose from any woman they wanted so they'd be used to the best. If I clambered into their bed with no chest, no long legs, no tan, they'd be bitterly disappointed.

"What's the meaning of this?" they'd demand when I 214 / marian keyes

removed my clothes. "You're not like the one I slept with this afternoon. You're not a woman. Where are the tits?"

I hoped that, if a man got to know me before we went to bed together, I would have a better chance of his being nice and not laughing at me. That he would be more prepared to overlook my obvious physical shortcomings because I had a nice personality.

That's not to say that I hadn't, once or twice, slept with men I had just recently met. There were times when I felt that I had no choice. Times when I had liked a man and was afraid that if I repulsed his sexual advances he would run away and have nothing further to do with me. If Gus had insisted on sexual relations I probably would have complied. But I was a lot happier that he hadn't.

"You and your Catholic guilt," said Dennis, shaking his head sadly. I had to stop him before he launched an attack on the Catholic Church and the nuns and the Christian Brothers and how they damaged the psyche of every young boy or girl that came into contact with them, taking away their capacity for guilt-free sensuous pleasure. We could have been there all night.

"No, Dennis, it's not Catholic guilt that stops me from being promiscu- ous."

I suspected that if I had big bouncy breasts and long, slender, cellulite- free golden thighs, I could have overlooked my Catholic guilt. I would probably have been a lot more likely to confidently hop into bed with total strangers. Maybe sex would have been an activity that I could just enjoy, instead of it mostly being an exercise in damage control, trying to act like I was enjoying myself while at the same time managing to hide a butt that was too big, a chest that was too small, thighs that were too...etc., etc.

"Well, if you're sure." Dennis still sounded a bit doubtful. lucy sullivan is getting married / 215

"Really, Dennis, I'm very sure."

"Okay."

"So, all in all, to wrap up, to summarize, what do you make of the whole thing?" I asked gleefully. "Doesn't he sound great?"

"Well, I don't think that it would be what I want..."

I mouthed "Michael Flatley" at him.

"...but," he said hurriedly, "he does sound cute. And if you will insist on choosing men that haven't any money, I hope you know what you're doing. I wouldn't recommend it but I seem to be talking to the wall."

"And isn't it amazing what the fortune-teller said?" I urged, steering him back onto the track of positive comment.

"I have to admit that the timing is uncanny," he agreed. "It must be a sign. I would normally advise caution, but this does seem to be written in the stars."

That was exactly what I wanted to be told.

"Apart from the money, is he nice to you?" asked Dennis.

"Very nice."

"Okay. I'll have to see him before I can fully endorse him, but at the moment, you have my provisional blessing."

"Thank you."

"Right then, it's twelve thirty, I'm off. I'm going out tonight."

"Are you going to take poppers and wear a check shirt and dance to The Pet Shop Boys?"

"God, Lucy." He was disgusted. "That's outrageous stereotyping."

"But are you?"

"Yes."

"Well, have a great time. I'm going to bed."

I went to sleep happy.

I felt like hiding, but then again it was Monday and it was hard to change the habit of a lifetime. Meeting a new guy, even someone as great as Gus, couldn't transform me overnight into someone who bounded out of bed before the alarm went off.

I pawed around until I found the snooze button, negotiating another five minutes of guilt-ridden dozing for myself. I would have given anything not to have had to get up. Anything.

Someone was in the bathroom, which was nice. There was no point in my getting up until it was free. A short reprieve.

Time for me to lie in bed, half asleep, idly contemplating the various suicide options available to me, because, naturally, they seemed a lot more inviting than getting to work.

I had toyed with the idea of suicide several times--most weekday mornings actually--and a long time ago I had realized how badly the modern apartment is equipped for the killing of oneself. Not a bottle of poison, not a noose, not a farm implement anywhere.

But I shouldn't have been so negative--they do say that

216 lucy sullivan is getting married / 217

where there's a will there's a way. But then again, if I hadn't been so neg- ative, I wouldn't have wanted to kill myself and the whole discussion would be moot anyway.

I ran through the list of possibilities available to me.

I could have taken an overdose of painkillers. But I was fairly sure that that didn't work, at least not for me, because a couple of times when I had a very bad hangover I had taken about twelve tablets and I didn't even feel sleepy, never mind like I was dying.

The idea of being smothered with a pillow didn't seem to be too awful. Quite a nice, peaceful way to go, with the added advantage of not having to leave your bed to do it. But it was a little bit like synchronized swim- ming--rather pointless if you tried to do it on your own.

Just then I heard someone coming out of the bathroom and I stiffened with horror but, quick as a flash, someone else went in. I breathed out with relief--no need to get up just yet. Although I was living on borrowed time and I knew it. But for the moment I could stay horizontal and contemplate doing myself in although I knew that I didn't really want to kill myself at all--the taking of one's own life is unnatural.

It is also an awful lot of trouble.

It was ironic, really--you want to die because you can't be bothered to go on living--but then you're expected to get all energetic and move fur- niture and stand on chairs and hoist ropes and do complicated knots and attach things to other things and kick stools from under you and mess around with hot baths and razor blades and extension cords and electrical appliances and weedkiller. Suicide was a complicated, demanding business, often involving visits to hardware shops.

And if you've managed to drag yourself from the bed and go down the road to the garden center or the drug 218 / marian keyes

store, by then the worst is over. At that point you might as well just go to work.

No, I didn't want to kill myself. But it was a long way from not wanting to kill myself to actually wanting to get up. I may have won the battle, but there was, as yet, no sign of me winning the war.

Karen burst into the room. She looked chic and efficient and her makeup was perfect. The effect was a bit scary at that hour of the morning. Karen always looked groomed and her hair never got frizzy, not even when it rained. Some people are like that. But I wasn't one of them.

"Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, wake up," she ordered. "I want to talk about Daniel. Has he ever been in love, I mean really in love?"

"Er..."

"Come on, you've known him for years."

"Well..."

"He hasn't really, has he?"

"But..."

"And wouldn't you say it's about time that he was?" she demanded.

"Yes," I said. It was easier to agree.

"Me too."

Karen slumped onto my bed. "Move over. I'm exhausted."

We lay in silence for a short time. We could hear Charlotte, in the bath- room, singing "Somewhere over the Rainbow."

"That Simon guy must have a big one," commented Karen.

I agreed.

"Oh, Lucy," she sighed dramatically. "I don't want to go to work."

"Me, either." lucy sullivan is getting married / 219

Then we played the Gas Explosion game.

"Wouldn't it be great if there was a gas explosion?" said Karen.

"Yes! Not a bad one but..."

"Well, bad enough to keep us at home..."

"But not bad enough to hurt anyone..."

"Exactly, but the house would collapse and we'd be stuck here for days with just the TV and the magazines and we'd have to eat all the stuff in the freezer and..."

Although the stuff in the freezer was nothing but a beautiful fantasy. We never had anything in it except a huge bag of peas that had been there when Karen moved into the flat four years before. Sometimes we bought big tubs of ice cream with the intention of having modest little amounts every so often and making it last for months, but they usually didn't even last the evening.

Sometimes, for variety, we played the Earthquake game instead. We wished for an earthquake that had our apartment at its epicenter. But we were always careful not to wish death or destruction on anyone other than ourselves. In fact, all we wished destruction on was the way out of our apartment. Magazines, televisions, beds, sofas, and food were miraculously saved.

Sometimes we used to wish for a broken leg or two, lured by the idea of several weeks solid, uninterrupted lying down. But the previous winter Charlotte had broken her little toe at her flamenco dancing class (at least that was the official story, the truth was that she had broken it jumping over a coffee table while under the considerable influence of alcohol) and she said the agony was beyond description. So we no longer wished for broken limbs, but sometimes we wished for a burst appendix.

"Okay," said Karen with determination. "I'm going to work." 220 / marian keyes

She left and Charlotte arrived.

"Lucy, I've brought you a cup of coffee."

"Oh, er, thanks," I said grumpily, dragging myself upright.

In her work clothes and without any makeup, Charlotte looked about twelve. Only her enormous chest gave it away.

"Hurry up," she said, "and we'll walk to the tube together. I need to talk to you."

"About what?" I asked warily, wondering if it might be about the pros and cons of the morning-after pill.

"You see," she said, looking miserable, "I slept with Simon yesterday and do you think I'm awful to sleep with two people in the one weekend?"

"Nooooo..." I said soothingly.

"I am, I know I am, but I didn't mean to, Lucy," she said anxiously. "Well I meant to when I did it, but I didn't ever decide to sleep with two people. How was I to know on Friday night that I'd meet Simon on Saturday night?"

"Exactly," I fervently agreed.

"It's awful, Lucy, I keep breaking my own rules," said poor Charlotte, intent on chastising herself. "I always said that I'd never, ever sleep with someone on the first night--not that I did sleep with Simon on the first night, because I waited until the following afternoon--and it was evening really. After six."

"That's fine then," I said.

"And it was great," she added.

"Good," I said encouragingly.

"But what about the other guy, the Friday night one--god, I can't even remember his name--isn't that awful, Lucy? Imagine! I let someone see my butt and I can't even remember his name. Derek, I think it was Derek," lucy sullivan is getting married / 221

she said, her face screwed up in concentration. "You saw him--did he look like a Derek to you?"

"Charlotte, please, stop being so hard on yourself. If you can't remember his name, you can't remember it. And does it really matter?"

"No, of course it doesn't really," she said, agitatedly. "Of course it doesn't. Or it might have been Jeff. Or Alex. Oh god! Come on, are you getting up?"

"Yes."

"Do you want me to iron something for you?"

"Yes, please."

"What?"

"Anything."

Charlotte left to get the iron and I dragged myself up to sit on the edge of my bed. Charlotte called to me from the kitchen, something about having read somewhere about an operation you can have in Japan where you can get your hymen sewn back up and thereby have your virginity restored. Did I think she should have it done?

Poor Charlotte. Poor all of us.

It was very nice and we were very grateful to get the beautifully wrapped (albeit reluctantly given) gift of sexual liberation, but who was the out-of- touch, aged great-aunt that gave us the hand-crocheted coordinating packages of guilt?

She wouldn't be getting a thank-you card.

It was like being given a present of a beautiful, short, tight, sexy, shiny, red dress on the condition that you wear flat brown loafers and no makeup with it. Giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

Work wasn't too awful. I certainly felt a lot better than when I had left on Friday.

Megan and Meredia were very contrite and sweet. They 222 / marian keyes

weren't speaking to each other, but that was nothing unusual. Except from time to time when Megan said casually to Meredia, "Would you like a cookie, Eleanor?" or "Pass me the stapler, Fiona," and Meredia would hiss in reply, "My name is Meredia."

They were very nice to me. True, I was still getting the occasional amused look from some of the other employees, but I no longer felt so raw and vulnerable and embarrassed. I could see things differently--I realized that everyone must think that Megan and Meredia were the dumb ones, not me. After all they had started the stupid story.

And, of course, there had been one major change in my life since Friday. I had met Gus. Every time I thought of him I felt as though I'd been wrapped in a protective armor, that no one could now think of me as a sad pathetic loser because, well...I wasn't, was I?

It was kind of ironic that on Friday everyone had thought that I was getting married, when I didn't even have a boyfriend and now, on Monday, when I had met someone very special, no one would dare to bring up the subject of marriage in my presence.

I was bursting to tell Meredia and Megan about Gus, but it was too soon to forgive them, so I had to keep my mouth shut until the correct annoyance period had been observed.

Another reason that I no longer felt the center of attention at work was because I really wasn't--I was yesterday's news.

The story had broken about Hetty and the big crush that Poison Ivor had on her. Apparently he had gone out on Friday night and gotten plastered and told the entire company, from the managing director to the mailroom and everyone in between, that he was in love with Hetty and that he was distraught that she had left her husband, al lucy sullivan is getting married / 223

though strictly speaking he wasn't distraught that she had left her husband, he was only distraught that she hadn't left her husband for him.

As for Hetty, there was no word from her.

"Is Hetty coming in today, or is she still unwell?" I asked Ivor, all inno- cence. That was the pretense that we seemed to have decided to observe.

"I don't know," he said, his eyes watering. "But seeing as you're so concerned, you can take over her work until she gets back," he hissed at me.

The bastard!

"Certainly, Mr. Simmonds."

In your dreams, pal.

"What's happening with Hetty?" I asked Meredia and Megan when Ivor had gone into his own office and shut the door, doubtless to put his head down on his desk and sob like a child. "Have either of you heard from her?"

"Yes, yes, I have," said Meredia, eager for a chance to rebond with me. "I stopped by her house yesterday..."

"You vulture!" I exclaimed.

"Look, do you want to hear or don't you?" she asked sourly.

I wanted to hear.

"...and she doesn't seem at all happy."

"At all happy," repeated Meredia, heavily and gloomily, thrilled with the drama of it all.

The phone rang, interrupting her. She grabbed it and listened impatiently for a few moments, then she barked, "Yes, I see, but unfortunately our systems are down at present and I'm unable to check your account. Let me take down your number and I'll call you back. Um," she nodded, writing nothing down. "Yes, got that. I'll call you back as soon as I can." She slammed down the phone. "Christ! Bloody customers!" 224 / marian keyes

"Are our systems down?" I asked.

"How should I know?" said Meredia, sounding surprised. "I haven't turned anything on yet. I wouldn't have thought so, though. Now, where was I? Oh yes, Hetty..."

We did that kind of thing a lot in the office. Sometimes we said our sys- tems were down, sometimes we answered the phone and said that we were only the cleaner, sometimes we pretended that the line was very bad and that we couldn't hear the customers, sometimes we hung up and pretended that we'd been cut off, sometimes we pretended that we couldn't speak English very well ("I am not spigging Engrish"). Customers got very an- noyed with us and often demanded to speak to our managers and when that happened we put them on hold for a few minutes and then we came back on the line, all unctuous and soothing, reassuring the furious customer that the offending employee was in the process of cleaning out her desk.

Meredia told me at length how miserable Hetty was, how thin and gaunt she looked.

"But she always looks thin and gaunt," I protested.

"No," she said, annoyed. "You can tell that she's suffering a great deal, that she's involved in a very traumatic...traumatic...er, trauma."

"I can't really see what she's miserable about," commented Megan. "She's got two men, instead of just one. Two heads--and not just heads--are better than one, I always say."

"Oh, God, honestly!" spluttered Meredia in disgust. "How like you to reduce everything to...to...base animal lusts."

"There's a lot to be said for it, Gretel," said Megan vaguely, a secret little smile playing about her luscious, ripe mouth. lucy sullivan is getting married / 225