The One I Love (19 page)

Elle had smiled for photographers and made nice with the interviewer. She had shaken Jack L’s hand and they had posed together and parted, and when her work was done she joined her pals, Fiona and Lori, at a private party in a club she used to frequent.

“Well, if it isn’t Elmore,” one other partygoer said. “Long time no see!” Two air-kisses followed. Elle signed all her paintings “Elmore” but only the biggest of arseholes within her circle referred to her as anything but Elle.

She moved through the club and towards the pool table where some guys were playing, sat on the sofa nearby and a waitress took her drink order. She drank and watched the guys play. One in particular interested her. When he finished his game she asked him to join her and had a drink waiting for him. “I’d really like to have sex with you,” she said.

“I’d like that too,” he said.

“Of course you would.”

“Are you playing with me?”

“Absolutely not. Tell me, do you like doing it outdoors?”

“It depends,” he said. “What have you got in mind?”

“Come with me,” she said, and he followed her through the club, outside and down the street. They crossed the road and as they approached the police station he began to wonder about her, but she pressed her finger to her lips. When the coast was clear she opened the gate that led to the back of the station.

He pulled away from her. “You’re insane,” he said.

He heard some noise out front and she pulled him onto the ground under a window through which he had seen five or six men and women, sitting at desks, roaming around, one at the coffee machine and another kicking the fax machine.

“We can’t,” he said, but she could tell that he was excited because he was leaning against her so she unzipped his trousers and released him. After that there was no going back and if any of the officers had taken a moment or two to look out of their window they would have seen a pool player’s freckled arse appear intermittently.

Afterwards, invigorated, Elle returned to the club where she joined Fiona in the loo for a few lines of coke. She drank shots with Lori and, as it was a celebration, she paid for six or seven bottles of champagne for all twenty of her new best friends.

Kurt woke up around seven. He yawned, stretched, scratched his balls through his boxer shorts and headed into the main bathroom. He peed, shook himself off and flushed the loo. It was when he turned to walk from the loo to the door that he saw Elle. She was lying in a bath
filled with water. She was completely naked, her lips were purple and she was either asleep or dead.

Kurt roared, “Mum! Mum! Mum!”

Jane woke up with a start. Kurt was still roaring. She jumped out of bed and followed his yells to the bathroom where he had remained frozen.

“Oh, my God!” Jane cried. “Oh, my God, Elle!” She ran to her sister, touched her cold skin and shook her hard.

Elle’s eyes opened and she yawned. “What’s happening?” she asked.

“Oh, Jesus,” Jane said, and sank to her knees. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m really cold,” Elle said, realizing she was in a bath of freezing water.

Kurt exhaled and sat on the loo lid. “Holy shit, Elle.”

Jane asked Kurt for a towel. The only one he could find there was a hand towel, which he handed to his mother. She responded with a dirty look. “Come on, Elle, time to get out,” she said.

“I can’t seem to move my legs,” Elle said, and giggled.

Jane looked at Kurt.

“Oh, no,” he said, because lifting his naked aunt out of the bath was above and beyond the call of duty.

“I need your help,” Jane insisted. “I have to get her out now.”

Kurt walked up to the bath, flexing his neck and trying not to focus on his aunt’s bush. Elle gave him her hand and smiled at him; her purple lips were stuck to her teeth. Jane took the other arm and together they pulled Elle up.

Kurt closed his eyes when he felt his aunt’s breast against his chest. “Oh, Mum, this is so wrong.”

Elle giggled again.

“Here,” Jane said. “I’ll take her from the front, you go around –”

“Don’t even say it,” he said.

Jane and Kurt pulled Elle out of the bath, and while Jane held her up Kurt ran to the hot press and piled his arms high with bath towels. Jane wrapped Elle in one and Kurt helped carry her into his mother’s room. Once she was dry and safely snuggled in bed with the electric blanket on, Jane went to the kitchen and boiled the kettle to make some tea for Elle.

Kurt followed his mum.

“Are you okay?” Jane asked her son.

“My eyes, Mum, my eyes!” he said, covering them and pretending to be blinded.

He was playacting so Jane relaxed, content that he wouldn’t be scarred for life. “I’m sorry, Kurt. You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.”

“It’s fine, Mum. If it ever happens again I’m moving to France, but it’s fine.” He was smiling, which suggested he was joking, and after he’d come into skin-on-skin contact with his naked aunt that was the best she could hope for.

“I got lucky with you,” she said, and Kurt blushed just like his mother often did.

“Whatever,” he said.

“Kurt?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit weird that Irene didn’t wake up?”

“She wears ear-plugs. She says I snore like a pig and you should have had my adenoids out when I was a kid.”

“How does she hear you snore from the spare room?”

“Oh, crap!” He grinned and held his hands up. “She’s on the pill, I wear condoms and I’m turning eighteen in two weeks.”

Jane sighed. “I give up.”

“About time,” he said, waved her away and headed back to bed to sleep off the image of his aunt’s tits and arse.

Jane handed Elle the tea. It was too hot, burning her frozen hands, so Jane kept hold of it and fed it to her shivering sister until it was gone. “What’s going on, Elle?”

“Just wanted a bath, Janey.”

“You could have frozen to death.”

“I was just really tired. Big night.”

“Did you take something?”

Elle nodded. “I was having a good time – but I won’t do it again.”

“Do I need to call Dr Griffin?”

Elle shook her head. “No. I’m just cold, that’s all.”

Jane tucked the duvet up under her sister’s chin. “What am I going to do with you, girly girl?”

“Just love me, Jane, even though I don’t deserve it,” Elle said, and then she turned around and fell fast asleep.

Jane sat in the room, touching her sister’s hand every few minutes until it had returned to a normal temperature. She turned off the electric blanket and the light, then made her way to the kitchen.

Through the intercom she heard her mother calling. “Jane! Jane! Jane! It’s your mother!” Jane put her hands over her ears and if she hadn’t been scared of frightening her son for the second time that morning she would have screamed until her voice was gone.

Chapter 9

No Goodbyes

I love you now as I loved you then

but it’s time to save our prayers
,

it’s time to say amen
.

         Jack L,
Metropolis Blue

May 2008

Breda went to Mass every day and had done so for well over thirty years. Every morning she would wake at seven, she’d wash, dress, drink a cup of tea, and then she would put on her hat and coat and walk a mile down the road to her local church in time for the eight o’clock service. Over the years she had noticed the church becoming emptier and emptier. The young people had all but disappeared and all that was left was a handful of old men and women, most of whom were waiting patiently for the Lord to call them home.

Breda was early so she knelt down and put her hands together and looked up at the statue of Jesus hanging on the cross. She said an Our Father and then some Hail Marys and a Glory Be after that. The church was empty as she looked around. Her knees were hurting and she felt tired and cold. She leaned on the pew and pulled herself into a sitting position, then joined her hands again to wait for the priest and the few last souls seeking solace or saving.

“Dear God,” she said, “I look at Your Son on the cross, I see the nails in His hands and feet, the thorns on His head, the blood in His eyes, the wound in His side, and I’d trade places with Him in an instant if You would just give me my Alexandra back. This burden is too great and I can’t carry on much longer. I’m begging You as your servant, have pity on me. Show her the way home. I’m leaving now.” She got up and bowed before the altar. “I won’t be back tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. The day she comes home, that’s when You’ll see me here again.” She walked out of the church, and although bargaining with or, indeed, threatening the Lord had been slightly unnerving, Breda felt that He had left her with little or no choice.

Kurt woke up to Jane, Rose, Elle and Irene singing “Happy Birthday” at the end of his bed. He grinned because his grandmother was wearing a party hat with “18” written on it, Elle was draped in a banner that read “18, Legal and Pissed Already”, and Irene was bouncing up and down, blowing a horn. His mum was standing between them, holding a cake with candles blazing and, of course, she was fighting tears. She always cried at every birthday and every milestone so it had been only a matter of time. He smiled, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up.

Jane made her way around the bed. “Blow,” she said.

Kurt blew out the candles in one go. Elle, Rose and Irene clapped, and Jane kissed his cheek. “Eighteen,” she said, and burst into tears.

A big breakfast of steak and chips awaited him when he was dressed. He sat with his birthday hat on munching his favourite food while his mother, aunt, gran and girlfriend
fussed around him. Jane made Rose and Elle some toast while they sat at the table with the Birthday Boy.

Rose was first to slide a present across. He looked at the envelope and grinned. “So far I like it,” he said, and opened it. Eighteen one-hundred-euro notes fell out. “This is too much,” he said.

She tapped his hand. “It’s enough to take you and Irene on a sun holiday after your exams.”

“No way!” he said.

“Oh, my God!” said Irene.

“Apparently it’s a rite of passage,” Rose said.

“Mum?” he said, waiting for her to veto the trip.

“I’ve heard that Greece is pretty special,” she said.

“No way!” he said.

“Oh, my God!” said Irene.

He leaped up from his seat, dragged his grandmother off her chair and hugged her. She held him tight for a few moments before letting go. “You’re such a good boy,” she said.

Irene jumped up and down on the spot, saying, “Thank you, thank you!” over and over again.

Elle was next. She walked into the hall and came back with a large box wrapped in red paper. Kurt tore at the wrapping. He opened the box and lifted out a helmet. “A helmet?” he said, and Elle grinned and turned to Jane, who sighed and pointed to the garden.

Kurt stood up and looked out of the window. His dad was straddling a motorbike outside. Dominic grinned and waved. Kurt looked at his mother. “No way!” he said, shaking his head.

“Please, I’m begging you to be careful!” said Jane.

“No way!” Kurt shouted, and the back door was open and he was standing beside his dad in two seconds flat.

Dominic handed him the keys and they hugged, then his dad pointed to his mother and told him that the bike was from both of them. Kurt ran in through the back door and hugged Jane. She burst into tears again but this time it wasn’t as a result of over-sentimentality but instead a manifestation of disbelief that Dominic had managed to talk her into buying her baby boy a death-trap. Elle handed him the helmet. He hugged her and ran back out to his dad. Together they examined every inch of the bike.

“A Suzuki Bandit 600!” Kurt said. “Holy crap, a Suzuki Bandit 600!”

Jane closed the door and left them to it. Rose kissed her on the cheek.

“What was that for?” Jane asked, startled.

“Bravery. You’re learning to let go and that’s good.”

Jane sat down at the table. “Yeah, I suppose it is. Of course, if he kills or maims himself I’ll hate myself for ever.”

“You won’t be alone,” Rose said, and made her way back to her basement apartment.

Elle and Jane went outside, sat on the steps and watched Kurt take off down the road as Dominic waved to him. Dominic turned to Jane and smiled at her. She returned his smile, then got up and walked inside. Elle stood up and went to where Dominic stood watching his son disappear down the road. “What did you do to Jane?” she asked him.

“I married someone else,” he said.

“She’s finished loving you.”

“She is.”

“It had to happen some time.”

“Yes, it did,” he said. “It’s truly amazing she loved me at all.”

“Yeah, well, the Moore women aren’t the brightest when it comes to love,” Elle said, and she walked to the gate that took her through the garden to her little cottage.

Dominic found Jane on her hunkers, loading the washing-machine. “Big day,” he said.

“It is.”

“Our son is a man.”

“And still just a boy.”

He sat at the table and turned his chair to face her. “Is that why you forgave me so easily? Because you knew I was still just a boy?”

“I forgave you because if someone had given
me
a way out I would have taken it,” she said.

“You’re the best person I know,” he said.

“Please don’t try and sweet-talk me because it’s not fair,” she said, sitting down on the floor.

“I’m not and I know. I know. I’ve been really selfish.”

“I let you think I was fine with being friends.”

“But I knew better,” he said. “And I feel like a prick.”

“Well, feeling like a prick isn’t exactly unfamiliar territory for you.”

“No. It isn’t. What are we going to do, Janey?”

“Well, we’re going to be parents to a pretty cool kid, you’re going to work on your marriage and I’m going to get a life.”