Marian Keyes - Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married (23 page)

"I really don't know what you're talking about. And anyway, it's none of your business."

"Fine."

"And isn't she boring?" I continued almost immediately. "Going on and on about the bloody dry cleaners. What do we care about it?"

"But..."

"What?"

"I don't know...I think she's lonely. She must not have anyone to talk to..."

"If she's lonely, it's her own fault."

"...stuck in that house with only your dad to talk to. Does she ever get out? Apart from going to work?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. And most important, I don't care."

"There's an awful lot of fun in her, you know?"

"I don't know."

"No, really, Lucy, there is. She's still a youngish woman." 284 / marian keyes

"She's an old hag."

"You're unbelievable!" said Daniel. "You are so unreasonable. She's not an old hag. She's very pretty. You look a lot like her."

"Daniel," I hissed, "that is the worst thing you've ever said to me. It's the worst thing anyone has ever said to me."

He just laughed.

"You're crazy."

"It was lovely to see Dad, though."

"Yes, he was quite nice to me," said Daniel.

"He's always nice."

"The last time I met him he wasn't."

"Wasn't he?"

"No. He called me an English bastard and accused me of stealing Ireland and oppressing him for seven hundred years."

"He didn't mean you personally," I said soothingly. "You were just a symbol to him."

"It still wasn't nice," said Daniel stiffly. "I've never stolen anything in my life."

"Never?"

"Never."

"Not even when you were a little boy?"

"Er, no."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Really sure?"

"Well, fairly sure."

"Not even candy from a shop?"

"No."

"Sorry, I didn't catch that?"

"No!"

"There's no need to shout." lucy sullivan is getting married / 285

"All right then! Yes! I suppose you're thinking about that time in Wool- worth's when Chris and I stole those knives and forks."

"Er..."

This was all news to me, but Daniel was racing ahead.

"You never let me get away with anything, do you?" he demanded an- grily. "You just ferret everything out of me. I can't have any secrets from you..."

"Why knives and forks," I interrupted, puzzled.

"Why not?"

"But...what did you want with them? Why did you steal them?"

"Because we could."

"I don't understand."

"Because we could. We took them because we could. Not because we wanted them," he explained to me. "The prize wasn't what we acquired, it was the acquiring itself. The act of acquisition was the important part.

"Oh."

"Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think so. And what did you do with them?"

"I gave them to my mother for her birthday."

"You mean pig!"

"But I got her something else also," he said hurriedly. "An egg timer. No, no, I paid for the egg timer. Don't look at me like that, Lucy!"

"It's not because I thought you stole the egg timer. It's because it's an egg timer at all! What kind of present is that for a woman?"

"I was young, Lucy. Too young to know better."

"What age were you? Twenty-seven?"

"No," he laughed. "I was about six."

"You haven't changed much, have you, Daniel?" 286 / marian keyes

"How do you mean? That I still steal cutlery from Woolworth's to give to my mother for her birthday?"

"No."

"How then?"

"By taking things just because you can."

"I don't know what you're talking about?" he said huffily.

"Oh yes, you do," I sang, happily.

"I don't."

"You do. Am I annoying you?"

"Yes."

"I'm talking about women, Daniel. Women and you, Daniel. You and women, Daniel."

"I thought you might be," he said, trying to hide a little smile.

"The way you take them just because you can."

"I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"Lucy, I bloody well don't."

"Well, what about Karen?"

"What about her?"

"How much do you like her? Or are you just amusing yourself with her?"

"I really like her," he said earnestly. "Lucy, I do. She's smart and great company and pretty."

"Honestly?" I asked sternly.

"Honestly."

"Are you serious about her?"

"Yes."

"God."

A little pause.

"Er, are you, you know...in love with her?" I asked cautiously. lucy sullivan is getting married / 287

"Lucy, I haven't known her long enough to be in love with her."

"Fine."

"But I'm trying to be."

"I see."

Another peculiar little pause.

I really couldn't think of one thing to say. And that had never happened with me and Daniel before.

"Dad was quiet tonight," I said eventually. "Very well behaved."

"Yes, he didn't even sing anything."

"Sing?"

"He usually treats me to several rousing choruses of `Carrickfergus' or `Four Green Fields' and makes me sing along with him."

I had an uncomfortable feeling that Daniel was laughing at Dad, but I didn't want to find out for certain, so I said nothing.

A long time later we arrived at my apartment.

"Thanks for coming with me," I said to Daniel.

"Don't be silly. I enjoyed it."

"Well, er, good night."

"Good night, Lucy."

"I'll see you soon. You'll probably be around to see Karen."

"Probably." He smiled.

I felt an unexpected rush of annoyance, the childish feeling of "He's supposed to be my friend."

"Bye," I said shortly, turning to get out of the car.

"Lucy," said Daniel.

There was something unusual, something new in his tone, urgency per- haps, that made me turn and look at him.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing...just...good night." 288 / marian keyes

"Yes, good night," I said, trying to sound exasperated. But I didn't get out of the car. There was a funny tension that told me I was waiting for something, but I didn't know what it was.

We must be having a fight, I decided, one of the silent but deadly types.

"Lucy," said Daniel, again in that funny, urgent voice.

But I didn't say anything, I didn't sigh and demand "what?" like I usually would have.

I just looked up at him and, for the first time in my whole life, I felt shy with Daniel. I didn't want to look at him, but I couldn't stop myself.

He put his hand up and touched my face and I watched him, like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights. What the hell was he doing?

He gently pushed my hair back out of my eyes while I sat rigid, staring at him.

Then I came to life again.

"Good night," I yelled cheerfully, gathering my bag and moving toward the car door. "Thanks for the lift. See you soon."

"Oh, and bonsoir," I called to Hassan. "Bon chance with the Home Office."

"Salut," he called back.

I ran toward the house and put my key in the door. My hands shook. I couldn't get inside fast enough. I just wanted to get to my room and be safe. I felt really scared. What was the sudden tension between Daniel and me? There were so few people that I felt comfortable with, so few people that I considered to be friends. I couldn't bear it if things went wrong with Daniel.

But something was wrong, things had taken a turn for the very weird. Maybe he was mad at me for being mean

about his girlfriends. Maybe he'd fallen in love with Karen and was feeling all protective about her.

Maybe he wouldn't need me anymore if he had fallen in love and found a soul mate--because that was what happened sometimes. How many friendships end when one of the parties fell in love? Hundreds, probably. I shouldn't be surprised if it happened with Daniel and me.

Anyway, I had Gus. I had other friends. I would be fine.

38 It was about six weeks later, on a Sunday night, late on Sunday night.

We had been back from the Cash'n'Curry for a while, Gus had left about an hour before. Karen, Charlotte and I were limply draped over various pieces of the living-room furniture, eating potato chips, watching TV and recuperating from the weekend. Karen suddenly sat up straight, looking as though she had come to a major decision.

"I'm having a dinner party on Friday," she declared, "and you two and Simon and Gus are invited."

"Gosh, thanks, Karen," I said, nervously.

I had known she was plotting something. She'd been staring at the fire for the last half hour with a funny, determined look on her face.

"Is Daniel coming?" asked Charlotte, na�ve to a fault.

Of course Daniel was coming. Daniel was the reason that Karen was having it. 290 / marian keyes

"Of course Daniel is coming," said Karen. "Daniel is the bloody reason I'm having it."

"I see," nodded Charlotte.

I saw too.

Karen was going to cook a very elaborate, multicourse dinner, serve it stylishly, graciously and without spilling anything on her dress or getting a red, shiny face. She would look beautiful, be witty and entertaining company, all in an attempt to show Daniel how indispensable she was to him.

"We'll have a lovely dinner," she said. "And you'll all have to dress up."

"That sounds like fun," said Charlotte. "I can wear my cowgirl outfit."

"Not that kind of dressing up," said Karen in alarm. "I mean glamorous dressing up, nice dresses, jewelry, high heels."

"I'm not sure if Gus has a nice dress," I said.

"Ha, ha," said Karen, unamused. "Very funny. But make sure he turns up in something decent and not in his usual Salvation Army rejects.

"And now," continued Karen, "I'll need, let's say...ooh...thirty pounds from each of you now and we'll sort out the final sum later."

"Wha-at?" I asked, flooded with alarm.

I hadn't been expecting that. Neither had Charlotte, judging by the way her jaw had fallen open.

Oh no! I had partied hard with Gus all weekend and I felt far too fragile to have a "discussion" with Karen.

"Yes," she said, annoyed. "You don't expect me to pay for all the food, do you? I'm masterminding the whole thing and I'm doing all the cooking."

"Oh, well, fair enough," said Charlotte, trying to sound cheerful and giving me a "let's try and look on the bright lucy sullivan is getting married / 291

side of this" look. "We can't expect her to feed us and our boyfriends out of the goodness of her heart."

How right she was.

"Good, that's settled," said Karen firmly. "And I'll need the money now, if you don't mind."

There was a stricken pause.

"Now," repeated Karen.

There was a half-hearted reach for purses, followed by half-hearted ex- cuses.

"I don't think I have it just now."

"Can I give you a check?"

"Will tomorrow evening be okay?"

"Honestly, Karen," I said, "how can you possibly expect us to have any money left on a Sunday night? Especially after the weekend we've just had. And for that matter, why do you need it now? I don't think the grocery store is open at ten-thirty on Sunday night."

"Not for tonight, stupid. For tomorrow. I'll do the shopping on the way home from work tomorrow, so I need the money now."

"Oh."

"We'll all walk down to the cash machine now," said Karen in a voice that brooked no argument.

Charlotte attempted a brave protest, but she was doomed to failure.

"But it's raining and it's Sunday night and I'm in my nightgown..."

"You don't have to get dressed," said Karen kindly.

"Thanks," sighed Charlotte.

"Just put a coat on over your nightgown," continued Karen. "And a pair of leggings and boots, and you'll be fine. It's dark, no one will see."

"Okay," said Charlotte, meekly.

"And both of you don't have to go," continued Karen. 292 / marian keyes

"Lucy, give your card to Charlotte and tell her your PIN number."

"You mean you're not coming?" I said faintly.

"Lucy, honestly at times you can be so dumb. Why would I need to go?"

"But, I thought..."

"You didn't think, that's your problem. Anyway, Charlotte is going, there's no need for you to go."

I didn't bother getting annoyed with her. One of the features of successful apartment sharing is the ability to let other people act completely horrible from time to time. So that when you feel like behaving like an antichrist, they'll return the favor.

"I can't let Charlotte go alone," I said.

"You're damn right. Charlotte isn't going alone," called Charlotte from her bedroom.

Karen shrugged. "If you're going to be noble about it..."

I put on my coat over my pajamas and tucked my pajama bottoms into my boots.

"My umbrella's in the hall," sang Karen.

"You can stick your umbrella where the sun doesn't shine," I said from the safety of the far side of the closed front door.

Of course, another feature of successful apartment sharing is recognizing an opportunity to let off steam.

Charlotte and I battled through the rain to the bank.

"Bitch!" said Charlotte.

"She's not a bitch," I said grimly.

"Isn't she?" asked Charlotte, sounding surprised.

"No! She's a fucking bitch," I corrected.

Charlotte stamped along through the puddles. "Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch!" she shouted. lucy sullivan is getting married / 293

A man out walking his dog crossed the road when he saw this pair of foul-mouthed lunatics, marching along, the frills of Charlotte's pink nightgown flouncing wildly beneath her coat with each stride she took, the legs of my powder-blue pajamas flapping in the wind.

"I hope she gets the clap from Daniel," I said. "Or herpes, or genital warts or something really horrible."

"Or crabs," agreed Charlotte, viciously. "And I hope she gets pregnant. And the next time Daniel is over, I'm going to walk around the apartment with no clothes on, so that he can see that I've got bigger tits than her. She'd hate that, the bossy old bitch."

"Do!" I said fervently. "In fact, you should try to seduce him."

"Yes," she agreed, enthusiastically. "I'd love to."

"In fact, you should try and have sex with him in her bed, if you could possibly manage it," I suggested with malicious pleasure.

"Great idea!" squealed Charlotte.

"And then tell her that he said that she was no good in bed and that you were much better."

"I don't know, though," said Charlotte doubtfully. "It might not be that easy, you know, he seems to really like her. Why don't you try?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you'd have a better chance," she said. "I think Daniel has a soft spot for you."

"Maybe he does," I said gloomily. "But this is sex we're talking about, Charlotte. It's no good if Daniel's spot for me is soft."

We both laughed and felt better. Except that it made me think of Daniel--Daniel, who was barely speaking to me. Or maybe I was barely speaking to Daniel. Something odd was going on, at any rate. 294 / marian keyes

We got the money and returned home, wet and resentful, and handed it over to Karen in surly fashion.

"So where can I stick my umbrella?" she asked archly, from her supine position on the couch.

I reddened with embarrassment. But when I looked at her she was grinning.

I laughed, the tension dispelled.

"I'm going to bed. Good night," I said.

"Good night," called Karen to my back. "Oh and, Lucy, I'll need you and Charlotte to be here on Thursday night for the cleaning and the prepara- tions."

I paused in the doorway and realized that another feature of successful apartment sharing is the ability to imagine your roommate being beaten on the head with a stick.

"Okay," I mumbled, without turning around.

I spent the night fantasizing about putting all Karen's clothes in black trash bags and leaving them out for the garbage men.

On Thursday night, the Night of the Long Preparations, I thought I had died and gone to hell.

Karen had decided to prepare most of the food the night before, so that on the actual night of the dinner she would have very little to do, other than look beautiful and cool and calm and in control.

Except that Karen was so nervous and so determined to impress Daniel that she seemed to be more--how would I put it?--difficult, than usual. She had always been dynamic and strong-willed, but there was a fine line between being dynamic and strong-willed and being a bossy bitch. Karen seemed to have successfully made that leap.

She had decided that Charlotte and I would do the actual hands-on preparation and she, herself, would be more in lucy sullivan is getting married / 295

the role of an Artistic Director, overseeing us, advising, guiding and man- aging us.

In other words, if there were potatoes to be peeled, she had no intention of doing them.

Charlotte and I were barely in the door from work before she set about organizing us.

"You," she shouted at Charlotte, pointing a pen and reading from a list, "are on carrot, pepper, zucchini, and eggplant preparation; coriander and lemongrass soup; and asparagus souffl� duty."

"And you," she shouted at me, "are on duchesse potato, kiwi fruit pur�e, cranberry jelly, whipped cream, stuffing mushroom and Viennese cookie duty."

Charlotte and I were terrified. We had barely heard of most of these things, let alone knew how to cook them. Charlotte's culinary specialty was toast, mine was pasta, and anytime we tried to make anything more complicated than that, we ended in tears and fights and recriminations. Outside incineration, inner rawness, raised voices, hurt feelings, spillages and slippages. You can't make an omelet without breaking legs--or at least I had certainly never managed it.

That evening the kitchen was a scene from Dante's Inferno. The circle where sinners were tormented with fruit and vegetables. All four rings and the oven were in constant use, steam billowing, lids rattling and hop- ping, water boiling over. There were mounds of grapes, asparagus, cauli- flower, potatoes, carrots and kiwi fruit everywhere. The heat was intense and Charlotte and I were the color of tomatoes. Karen wasn't.

There was no room for anything, because Karen had made us move the kitchen table into the living room.

"Just put them down over there. No, no, not on the meringue base, for Christ's sake!" she screeched, when I 296 / marian keyes

had to empty the fridge of its normal contents to make room for the twenty or thirty desserts she seemed to be expecting us to make.

Everywhere there was food. On the top of the fridge, on the draining board, most of the floor was covered in bowls of pork that was marinating and gelatin that was setting and garlic bread that was wrapped in tinfoil. I was afraid to move my foot half an inch in case I ended up ankle-deep in olive oil, red wine, juniper, vanilla, cumin and "Karen's secret ingredient" marinade. And as far as I could see Karen's secret ingredient was nothing other than ordinary brown sugar. I was itching to slap her.

I peeled fourteen million potatoes. I sliced seventeen thousand kiwi fruit. Then I chopped them. And then I had to shove them through a sieve--whatever that was all about. I skinned my knuckles carrying the kitchen table down the hall. I cut my thumb when I sliced the fruit. Chili got into the cut. Karen said I should be more careful, that she didn't want blood in the food.

Every so often she came around and "jokingly inspected" what we were doing and, even though I knew it was ridiculous, I felt nervous. She was like a sergeant-major examining the young soldiers on parade.

"No, no, no," she said, and to my disbelief, she rapped me on the knuckles with a wooden spoon! "That's not the way to peel potatoes. You're taking half the potato off with the skin. It's wasteful, Lucy."

"Fuck off with the wooden spoon," I said angrily, wishing my peeler was a knife.

The bossy bitch had gone too far and the wooden spoon had hurt.

"Oooooh, we are grouchy this evening," she laughed. "You'll have to learn how to accept constructive criticism, Lucy. You'll never succeed with that attitude." lucy sullivan is getting married / 297

I could taste fury in my mouth. But I was trying--I had to understand that she was crazy about a man. Even if he was Daniel. It wasn't my place to judge.

"And what on earth is this?" she demanded. She had moved on to where Charlotte was peeling carrots, and held up a carrot from the "done" pile.

"It's a carrot," said Charlotte. Surly. Defensive.

"What kind of a carrot?" asked Karen slowly and meaningfully.

"A peeled carrot."

"A peeled carrot!" said Karen in triumph. "A peeled carrot, she tells me. Might I just ask you, Lucy Sullivan, does this carrot look peeled to you?"

"Yes," I said loyally.

"Oh no, it does not! If this is a peeled carrot it's a very badly peeled one. Start again, Charlotte, and get it right this time."

"Knock it off, Karen," I blurted out, too angry to care. "We're doing you a favor."

"Excuse me?" said Karen archly. "But run that one by me again--you're doing me a favor? I think not, Lucy. But, by all means stop if you want, just don't expect a place set at the table for Gus and yourself tomorrow night."

That shut me up.

Gus had been very excited when I had told him about the dinner, espe- cially the dressing up part. He'd be bitterly disappointed if he couldn't come. So I swallowed my rage. Another installment on my road to ulcer- dom.

"I'm having a glass of wine," I said, angrily, reaching for one of the bottles that were in the fridge. "How about you, Charlotte?"