Offcomer (27 page)

“You’re doing grand.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ve been away,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“But you’re back now.” His eyes were watery, blue. The pink bits at the corners looked sore.

“Yes.”

“And everything’s all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think so.”

“Good.” He settled back on his barstool, settled down to his pint.

The door opened. She glanced up. Paul walked in. He wouldn’t have seen her yet. That change from daylight to bar-light blinded everyone for a moment. She watched him walk towards her, pressed her palms down on the counter, hoisted herself onto her toes. Smiled.

He saw her. She saw the moment that he saw her. She saw
him register her, hesitate, then decide to carry on. Just the slightest flicker in his stride. She watched him come towards her, scanning the bar, head turning, looking everywhere but at her, as if he was expecting to see someone he knew, even though it was perfectly obvious that the place was dead. Making out he hadn’t seen her, that as far as he was concerned, she wasn’t even there. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his cigarettes. He came to a halt at the counter, flicked the packet open.

“Hi,” she said.

He tucked a cigarette between his lips, glanced up at her.

“Oh hi,” he said. “I didn’t see you there.”

He pulled a matchbox from a trouser pocket, shook it, pushed it open.

“You back then?” he said.

He watched himself pick out a matchstick, pinching it between his flat thumbnail and his index finger.

“Yes,” she said.

He struck the match, lit his cigarette.

“Right.”

He dropped the match into a clean ashtray.

“You on the bar now?” he said.

“Yes.”

He nodded slowly, slid a hand into his trouser pocket.

“I’ll have a pint of Stella then,” he said.

She reached down a glass, flicked the tap. She watched the beer flow into the glass, watched him without looking up. He stared out across the bar, towards the wrought-iron rails and the stone-clad wall.

“Two-fifty,” she said, placing the drink down in front of him.

He handed over the money, picked up his glass, and walked away.

Tommy’s pint was two-thirds gone. His glass was ringed with stout-suds. Claire shifted her weight onto the sides of her feet, leant back against the counter, easing her insteps. Paul sat at the corner of the bar. Dermot had arrived in, sat down, was talking to him. Claire, listening to the looping, dandering tracks of Dermot’s speech, wondered suddenly if he fancied Paul. And if he did, did Paul know, and did Gareth suspect. Dermot eagerly waved his cigarette in circles, talking. Paul nodded slightly, looking off across the room. He didn’t seem to be listening at all. Gareth rattled the change in his pockets. She glanced round at him, grimaced. Between them, the till sat silent, almost empty.

“Quiet night,” she said.

“Dead,” he said. “Shouldn’t have bothered. The whole fucking town’s deserted.”

“It’ll pick up.”

“Not till August. Might as well shut up shop now.”

“What d’you think’s going to happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here. D’you think it’s going to be okay?”

“Jesus. Now you’re asking.”

“It’s just I don’t know anything at all about this stuff.”

“Who does.”

“What do you think, though?”

“It’ll be okay. It has to be.”

“Right.”

“But don’t you quote me on that.”

“Right.”

“And having said that, I’m not sticking round for the fun and games. We’re off to Lanzarote for the duration. Got one of those last-minute deals.”

“That’s nice.”

“What about yourself? You going to head off somewhere?”

“I think,” she said, “I’ll stay here. I think I might do some drawing.”

THIRTEEN
 

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

“No.”

“You’re here for your stuff.”

“Yes.”

“You’d better come in.”

Claire could still hear her moving around downstairs. Doors opening, footsteps, floorboards creaking, the oiled tick of Claire’s bike. Grainne was wheeling it out through the house. Claire heard it bump down the front steps, a moment’s pause as it was leant against the wall. Then the gritty sound of Grainne’s feet on the steps, then the scrape of the latch as she came back in and shut the door behind her.

Then silence. Grainne standing still, leaning back against
the closed door, breathing. Upstairs, Claire pushed the drawer shut, pulled open the one beneath it. She began lifting out her T-shirts.

A creak. Footsteps muffled by the carpet, then loud on kitchen lino, and the floorboards still protesting. She must be pacing out the length of the house. Hallway, dining room, kitchen; kitchen, dining room, hallway, living room. Stopping dead at the window and staring straight out across the street. Gnawing at a thumbnail. Digging her nails deep into her forearms, bringing up the skin with little red crescent moons.

Claire picked the photograph up off the top of the chest of drawers. She wiped the dust off with a sleeve. The footsteps started up again: across the living room, down the hall, through the dining room, back into the kitchen. Hands on the worktop, looking out across the narrow yard at the brick wall opposite. The wall was painted white. Grainne had bought pots and plants and a trellis. Tried to grow things. Would the clematis be in flower, or was it too shady back there? Claire dropped the picture into her bag, drew the drawstring tight. She hefted the bag up onto her back. Heavier than it had been for a long time. She glanced round the room.

The bed was rumpled, untouched since she’d heaved herself out of it last. Whenever that was. Years ago, or days. Hairs still clung to the pillow, the duvet was still moulded to the shape of her leaving. She couldn’t abandon it, leave it for Grainne to deal with. She dropped her bag down onto the floor, crossed over to the bed. She stripped away the sheet, pulled off the pillowcases, peeled the duvet from its cover. She carried the heap of linen to the bathroom, stuffed it into the laundry basket. She folded the duvet on the end of the bed,
piled the pillows up on top. She heaved up the window-sash, letting air and sunlight in, and looked around the room again. The circles in the dust were where her things had stood. The smear of foundation on the chest of drawers carried her fingerprint. Her hair was tangled into the carpet. The whole place must smell of her. She heaved the window higher, picked up her bag. She closed the door behind her.

The stairs were dirty again. Dust and fluff and grit had already crescented the corner of each tread. Green blue red light filtered through the stained-glass door, stretched out along the hall carpet like spilt inks. She reached out a hand towards the bright new latch, turned it, pulled the door open.

“Claire—”

Her fingers were already hooked around the lip of the door. Her bagstrap was dragging at her shoulder. A pool of green light bathed her eyes. She turned. The backpack brushed against the wall, made her stumble forward slightly. She saw Grainne standing in the dining-room doorway. She looked bent, thin, slightly crumpled.

“Grainne—I’m sorry—” Claire heard her voice crack.

“I just want to know. Are you two—”

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am—”

“I just want to know—”

“I’m really sorry. I’ve—”

“Are you two together?”

“What?”

“Are you going out with him?”

“No.”

Grainne exhaled, leaned against the doorjamb, her head falling forward a little. As if her strings had been cut, Claire thought. Claire took half a step towards her, stopped. Grainne
lifted her head, but didn’t look at Claire. She stared at the wall in front of her, seemed to be studying a join in the paper.

“Have you seen him?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Who do you think?”

Claire hesitated.

“Yes,” she said.

Grainne seemed to absorb this slowly, thinking.

“Will you be seeing him again?” she said.

“He’s been in. At Conroys. He’s in most nights now. I’m still working at Conroys.”

Grainne nodded, swallowed.

“I’m really sorry,” Claire said. “I’m really sorry.”

Grainne nodded again, slowly. She turned to look directly at Claire.

“Don’t come back here again,” she said.

Claire caught her breath.

“Right.”

Grainne looked at her, blinked. She turned and walked back into the dining room. Claire reached out to touch the sunlit wall with a fingertip. The useless phrase “I’m sorry” came back up to her lips again, but she didn’t speak. Her hand fell back to her side.
I’m sorry
. Slowly, she turned, walked back through the translucent colours, through the open door.

The pieces shifted, grated, would not slide into place. Like some massive 3-D jigsaw, like a Star Trek board-game going on inside his head. And he just couldn’t get the pieces into a new pattern. He couldn’t get so much as a toothpick into their surfaces. He understood the argument. Of course he understood
it. He just couldn’t make it different. He couldn’t make it his.

He hadn’t touched a key for ten minutes. After three minutes his screensaver had blinked into life. Multi-coloured Spirograph and Etch-a-Sketch lines spiralled and squared and formed solids and suddenly folded away on themselves into dark. He had chosen the screensaver himself when he bought the computer. It was, he had come to realise, the most infuriating screensaver he had ever come across.

He cupped a hand round his neck, leaned his head over, easing out the muscles. Stiff and sore and tired and bored and ever so slightly panicky. A bad day, he told himself. Just a bad day. Nothing to worry about. Everyone had bad days. He had been working too hard, he had lost focus: what he needed was a break. A breath of fresh air, a leaf through
Camera-Europe
in Easons, a packet of Mintola to eat on the way home and he would be fine. He would, in fact, be refreshed and revitalised. Ready to tackle the problem, to write the article, to get his argument straight. And he had to get it straight. It had to be good. It had, in fact, to be perfect. Because people were so unkind. There was no generosity in academia. If anyone found the slightest hole in his argument, they would, he knew, tear it to shreds, just to get another article out of it in the process. The principle was ruthless, Alan had realised; it was Darwinian. The academic journals arranged the regular cull of the weak, and they hosted the feast that followed. It was kill or be killed. And you couldn’t hide in the long grass: you had to get out there and show yourself. Even if you knew you were a bit feeble; even if you were, like Alan, having a bad day. If you didn’t publish, you lost your job. This was, as far as Alan was concerned, a no-win situation. He was beginning to feel
there was a case to be made for conservation, because everyone, sooner or later, had bad days.

He stood up from the computer, stretched. One of his vertebrae clicked. He was getting old. Arthritic. Or was it rheumatic. Definitely one or the other. These things crept up on you, joint by joint, and before you knew it you were in a terrible way. His knuckles would swell up, his knees would creak, his hipbones would grind in their sockets. This was what he had to look forward to. It was, he realised, downhill from here. Aching bones and excruciating academic articles and everyone already busy whenever he suggested going for a drink. He hitched up his trousers, cracked his knuckles, and the doorbell rang.

Which wasn’t usual. Not at half-past three on a Friday afternoon. At half-past three on a Friday afternoon the doorbell was uniformly silent. In fact, during the vacation, he could spend the entirety of Friday afternoon lying on the sofa with a volume of
The American Journal of Philosophical Studies
splayed open on his chest, meditating on the articles he had just read, safe in the knowledge that he would not be disturbed by the doorbell. Even during term time he could be pretty sure he would not be interrupted. He would be halfway through first-year Ethics, a faint whiff of alcohol coming off the students, their heads heavy, their eyelids drooping. Locked into his snug little office, windows pulled tight against draughts, he could be quite confident that—short of the genuine urgency of a fire drill—there would be no sudden noises to shatter his concentration.

There it went again. Harsh, confident, demanding. And incredibly annoying. What on earth could they want at half-past three on a Friday afternoon? He hadn’t rung for pizza. He
looked round the room. The slithering heaps of
TV Times
, the unwashed cups caked with cup-a-soup and the smeared plates pushed halfway under the sofa gave nothing away. He rubbed his hands down over his jumper, brushing at biscuit-crumbs, at the streels of coffee and yoghurt on his grey cableknit.

“Coming—” he muttered to himself.

His socks had got twisted round. The place where his heel was meant to go was now on top. It was saggy, like a drained blister. And the toe of the other sock hung loose: flipper-like, it flapped as he walked. But he wasn’t, he thought, going to stop and pull his socks up. Whoever it was, calling round at half-past three on a Friday afternoon, they could take him as they found him.