Tender (7 page)

“What about me?”

“Any nice German girl?”

His eyebrows shot up. “No,” he said firmly. “No nice German girl.”

“No not-nice German girl?”

“No not-nice German girl either.”

“Oh, but you’ll have to do something about
that,
” she said, trying to borrow the teasing tone he had used on her. “I mean, when you go back,” she added, hurriedly.

“We’ll see,” he said, sounding bored of the subject.

“Oh, come on.”

He looked at her sharply. “Come on what?”

She stammered. “I mean, meet someone. You know. German girls, I mean. They’re good-looking, aren’t they? Blond.” She took a breath. “Some of them, like.”

He sighed. “That they are, Catherine. That they are.”

“So.”

“So,” he shrugged, and he stubbed his cigarette out. “So here we are,” he said, looking at her. He took a deep breath, and Catherine’s mouth went dry.

“I…”

“Both of us lonely,” James burst into song. “Longing for…something…”

And now what the fuck was happening? What was she supposed to do with this? She spluttered out a laugh, just for the sake of getting some other sound out into the room, something other than his weirdly passionate—what was that, a baritone? No, a baritone was lower, gruffer; his must be a tenor voice.

“You can’t really sing,” she said, which was not actually true, but she had needed to say something to break the tension, the mortification of him singing at her; she needed him to stop. What was he doing? What was
she
doing? Her mother would kill her—
kill
her—if she could see her right now, if she could know how she had spent the last hour.

“The summer,” he was saying now, having stopped with the singing, at least, but what was he saying about the summer? Catherine blinked at him.

“What?”

“I said, what are you doing with yourself for the summer?”

“Oh,” she said, relieved. “Going home. Back to Longford. I’m meant to have got a job.”

“
Meant
to?”

She sighed, remembering that she still had not made that phone call. “I was going to ask the editor of the local newspaper for a job.”

He looked impressed. “Oh.”

“I’ve been writing a bit for the college paper.”

“About what?”

“Art,” she said, feeling almost triumphant as she saw the effect this had on him; he pursed his lips as though conceding something. “And literature.”

“Literature,”
he said mockingly, and the heat rushed back to her face, but in the next instant, he was nodding approvingly. “Very good. Very good, Catherine. So that’s what you want to do?”

“I think so.”

“Do you write anything else?”

She swallowed. “Poetry,” she said, and instantly regretted it; his eyes had lit up with something, and she was pretty sure it was scorn. “I mean, it’s shit, obviously.”

He frowned. “Why obviously?”

“Never mind.”

He was regarding her steadily. “I think it’s a very good thing that you write poetry. A very good thing indeed.”

She squirmed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What’s ridiculous about it?”

“
It’s
ridiculous. This is ridiculous. My point is, I’m meant to have called up the editor of the local paper at home, I’m meant to have done it six months ago, and I told my mother that I would, and I never did it.” She took a breath. “And now I’m going home tomorrow, and she thinks I have a job, and I want to have a job, and I don’t. And I’m dead when my mother finds out.”

He frowned. “Is your mother a very violent woman, Catherine?”

She burst out laughing. “Fuck off.”

“Will she beat you? Will she lock you in the shed?”

“Fuck
off.
I should have done it. I shouldn’t have put it off.”

He looked at his watch. “It’s half past two,” he said. “How many hours behind is Longford?”

She stared at him. “Oh, very funny,” she said, after a moment. “Sure you’re from Leitrim.”

He shrugged. “Leitrim’s another time zone entirely.”

“
Stop.
It’s not funny.”

“Indeed it is not,” he said, and he got to his feet. “Come on,” he said, reaching a hand out to where she sat, looking up at him.

“Come on what?”

“Come on up,” he said. “There’s a phone in the hall, isn’t there?”

“I can’t call him
now.
”

“Now is better than tomorrow.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s too late. It’s months too late. I’m going to have to forget about it.”

“And what? Live all summer on the proceeds of your poems? Come on.”

“No,”
she protested, as he pulled her to her feet; he stepped back to make room for her, and in the next moment they were standing in the middle of the room, clasping hands. James was looking at her with an expression of resolve beneath the surface of which a fit of laughter seemed to be twitching, but he did not laugh; he did not even smile.

“Number?” he said briskly.

“It’s in my room,” she said, with an air of misery.

“Change?” he said, and he rooted in his jeans pocket. “Here you go,” he said, handing her a fifty-pence piece.

“Oh
fuck,
” Catherine moaned. “I’m not even dressed.”

“It’s a
phone,
Catherine. Come on. We’re getting this over with, and then we’re going to drink some stolen wine.”

“Some what?”

“From the back of our Eddie’s lorry,” he said grimly, as he pushed her towards her bedroom door. “I think I earned that much. Anyway, I’m fairly sure he was stealing it in the first place.”

As she was finding the editor’s number in her address book, a new thought occurred to her. “I don’t want you standing beside me while I’m talking to him,” she shouted out to James.

He appeared at the door. “You’re terrible, Muriel,” he said, nodding towards the poster on the wardrobe.

“Seriously,” Catherine said. “You’re not standing beside me.”

“I haven’t the slightest interest in standing beside you,” he sniffed.

“And no listening at the door.”

“No listening at the door? No getting back
in
the door if you don’t do what you’re meant to do. Now go on.” He pointed. “And don’t come back in here without a job to your name. Do you want our poor children to starve?”

“Oh, God,” Catherine moaned through her laughter as he marched her to the outer hall. “Why did you ever have to come home?”

That night was for all of them. Amy and Lorraine came home from their exams, and they launched themselves at James, whooped and cheered and even cried because he was home, and there were moments when Catherine felt, again, like an outsider as she watched them, as she saw how easy and how happy they were with each other, but that went away; the way that James behaved towards her sent it away. That night was for all of them, cooking dinner together in the house and heading out into the night afterwards, down to Searson’s and on to O’Donoghue’s and on to dance in Rí-Rá, and stumbling, laughing, home through the streets. And the next day—Catherine postponed her journey back to Longford—was for her and James, wandering around the city, going to IMMA and St. Patrick’s Cathedral and into the gardens behind Dublin Castle, all the places she had not been to yet, all the places it had not occurred to her yet to go, and through campus, where she felt as though she was showing the place off to him, and on towards the National Gallery, except that they did not end up in the National Gallery; they ended up, instead, in a strange little pub called the Lincoln’s Inn. And that night was another night for all of them, and the next day was not a day, either, when Catherine felt like taking the train home, and that day she and James stayed in Baggot Street and talked again for hours and hours, and that night was another night of drinking and dancing, and the next day was Friday, and Catherine finally had to face up to Longford, and to the long, empty months ahead, and, feeling really heartbroken, she packed her rucksack, and she said goodbye to the girls, and James said he would go with her as far as Connolly station, that he would help her with her bags. And at the station, as they waited, Catherine said,
I want you to hear something with me; I want you to listen to the lyrics of this song. Listen.
Listen
.

“Dreams fled away. What’s the rest of that line?”

“What line?” James said lazily, from the other end of the blanket.

“You know, from the Thomas Kinsella poem, the one about September.”

“
I
don’t know.”

“It was on the Leaving curriculum. You have to have done it. Everyone had to do it.”

“I don’t
know,
Reilly. You’re meant to be the poet.” He pulled his legs towards him, let them drop back again. She felt him wriggle in closer to her.

“I don’t know what’s happening to my memory,” she said, trying to ignore her heart, the way it was going faster.

James sighed. “Dreams fled away. And the fire brought a crowd in?”

“Those are two completely different poems! The second one’s Austin Clarke. Did you seriously think that was the line?”

“I don’t
know,
I told you,” he said impatiently. “I don’t remember my bloody Leaving Cert homework.”

“When night stirred at sea—”

“Lookit, can you stir over a bit on the blanket there, please, while you’re speaking of stirring. I’ve got far too much of the grass.”

“We need two blankets, really,” Catherine said hopefully.

He made a noise of exasperation. “Well, I’m not going into the house again. I just got another earful from my mother about this fucking wedding.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She’s still nagging at me to go. And to bring you with me. Fuck’s sake.”

“Well, I don’t mind.”

“You must be joking.” He sat up; his shadow dropped onto her. “Whose side are you on?”

“OK, OK,” she said, holding up a hand. “I just don’t want to cause trouble.”

“Trouble?” he almost spat. “You’re not causing trouble. You’re helping me out.”

“Well, good, then,” she said uncertainly.

“Good,” he echoed, and seeming satisfied, he sank back down.

James, when Catherine had phoned him earlier that week, had announced that she was going to join him at his parents’ house in Leitrim on Friday evening and stay for the whole weekend. It was a masterful plan, he declared, because it would mean that he could go down home, which it was about time he did anyway, having been back in Ireland for over a month, and having Catherine with him would mean that he could visit his parents without having to go to the awful neighbor’s wedding to which he had been invited, because Catherine’s presence would get him off the hook. At the same time, it would mean that the two of them could see each other again, because there was only so much you could talk about on the phone. Catherine lived on the same train line that he would be taking to Leitrim, so they could meet halfway and travel down together, and on Sunday they could leave together again, and she would get off the train in Longford, and he would go on to Dublin.

“So it’s the perfect solution,” he said, sounding very pleased with himself. “God, I would have been great to have around during the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

“I can’t come,” Catherine said, hoping that none of the journalists in the office around her would hear. She covered her mouth with her hand. “There’s no way I could get away.”

“What do you mean?” he said impatiently. “There’s a breaking Longford Missile Crisis, is there? I thought they only let you write the Births and Deaths?”

“It’s not work,” she said, as quietly as she could. “It’s just home.”

James said nothing.

“Hello?” she said, a little desperately. “I mean, I’d love to. I just wouldn’t be able to get away for—”

“Catherine,” James cut across her. “Not this again. Not this complete shite about your parents. I’m tired of listening to you talking this nonsense. You’re not in primary school anymore. You can do what you want.”

“I
can’t
just up and go to your house for the weekend. What would I tell them?”

“Why do you have to tell them anything?”

“I just have to.”

“So you tell them that you’re going up to Dublin. You
live
in Dublin, remember? You’re just visiting Longford for the summer.”

“No I’m not.”

“Sorry? What are you telling me? You’ve decided not to go back to college?”

“No. You know what I mean. I mean, yeah of course I live in Dublin, but this is my actual home.”

“Catherine,” James said sharply. “You have a flat in Dublin. As far as your parents are concerned, you have a reason to be in it this weekend. Tell them—I don’t know—tell them it’s Amy’s birthday.”

“I stayed up the weekend for Amy’s birthday in May.”

“Lorraine’s birthday, then. Lorraine’s engagement party. Lorraine’s funeral. I don’t care. Tell them whatever you have to tell them. Tell them that you’re getting the half six train to Dublin, and get yourself to the train station. Then wait for the train passing through
from
Dublin and get on it. I will be on it. I will be keeping a seat for you.”

“I don’t know, James. Someone might—”

“Pat Burke? You’re not using the Pat fucking Burkes of the world to get out of this, Reilly. I want to see you on that train. I will see you on the train. In fact, just to make absolutely sure that you get on the train, I will see you on the platform in Longford. Never before in the history of this country has that sentence contained such excitement and anticipation.”

“I don’t know,” Catherine had begun to say. But James had hung up.

When she got off the phone, she went into the kitchen, where Anna was filling in a coloring book at the table while their mother stood at the sink, rinsing lettuce and radishes for a salad.

“You were talking on the phone an awful long time,” Anna said without looking up from her page.

“Was I?” Catherine said, glancing at her mother’s back.

Anna nodded, a twist of distaste suddenly taking over her face; it looked almost grotesquely adult on her little features. “How the hell can you have that much to say to anyone?”