Adrian McKinty - Dead I Well May Be

So poor Bridget, it’s all mapped out, and the only alternative would be to fly the coop, but she isn’t the type. Besides, the coop suits her fine, and if nothing dramatic happens she will, I suppose, settle down and marry him. I doubt she’s in love with him. It’s possible that she’s in love with me, but who can know their heart at that age. At my age. I am crazy about her, though, and it’s not because she’s a looker. I don’t know what it is, actually, but it’s more than that.

Within a minute of coming into the apartment the high-tops were off and the button-down blue jeans were being buttoned down.

This place is disgusting, is her opening line.

I know. I do clean it, Mouse, is my romantic response.

Mouse is the cute pet name I’ve been attempting to impose on her, with some success. Her name for me was Rat, but I was never very keen on this and it has petered out recently.

Fucking bugs everywhere, she says.

Not literally everywhere.

There’s a dead one beside the phone, on the wall, disgusting.

I’m sorry, Mouse.

I mean to say, Michael, can’t you get DDT or Raid or anything?

I’ve tried boric acid.

What about the exterminator?

Been and gone.

So far it’s hardly Abelard and Héloïse, but she is naked, which is something. I pull off my jeans and T-shirt and carry her into the bedroom.

Have you got a beer? she asks.

It’s hardly my place to lecture her about the hour, so I go get one from the fridge. I take one myself and it hits the spot.

On the bed her back is arched and tense like a long bow, her lips are red, and that’s all it takes. She’s so pale, you could lose her in the sheets. I kiss her white belly and she lies there and grins at me, that hair curling down onto her shoulder. Looking at her, I sometimes forget to breathe. It’s all worth it, the risk, the fear. I mean, Jesus. I slip beside her and we make love, very slow and intricate for a half hour, and when we’re done we take a drink and lie there and then we do it all again. Fast this time, frantic. I climb on top of her and she wraps those long legs around my back; she moans and digs her nails into my shoulder. She’s intoxicating. Heady. I close my eyes and drink in her smell and feel her touch. I kiss her breasts and her neck and I lick under her arms, and she bites me on the shoulder.

More, she says.

More what?

Shut up, she says.

We screw like I’ve just been released from prison, and we come together and lie there panting in each other’s sweat.

When we’re both recovered we have another beer, stick on the radio, and I wander into the kitchen to make her breakfast.

I’m taking up riding again, she says from the living room.

Horses?

No, pigs, what do you think? Darkey’s getting it for me.

Nice of him.

He’s a nice guy, you know.

Yeah, that’s the rumor.

It’s when I’ve made scrambled eggs and tea and a toasted bagel that I remember to ask:

How’s the big guy?

Andy?

Aye, Andy.

A little better; he’s breathing well. Darkey phoned this morning with info, and he says he’s good, he’ll be ok. They’ve moved him to some new place.

What sort of a place?

Different part of the hospital, not the morgue or anything.

Good.

It was terrible. What do you think about it?

I don’t want to tell her what I think about it, so I just say:

That’s good about Andy. How did you get down here, anyway? The bar must have been crazy still with people.

No, no one’s there. Just Mom and Dad and me.

Yeah, well anyway, shouldn’t you be in bed? You were up with him half the night.

I was, and me and Mom actually went to visit him first thing this morning. We didn’t get in again, of course. Mom says she was always very fond of Andy, which isn’t true at all. Anyway, you’re right. I am tired. Mouse is tired. I want to sleep here, with you.

I’m suddenly very thoughtful. I wouldn’t put it past Darkey to have had her followed. Could be a goon outside right now. It’s by no means impossible. Andy getting beaten up and all Darkey’s talk about Bridget being his and the young don’t have his stamina or whatever. A chill goes through me.

No, seriously, though, how did you get down here? I ask.

I took the train. Where’s my eggs?

Eggs are coming.

You know, Bridget, I think in the future we have to be a lot more careful about-

Where are my eggs? she screams, pretending to be a diva.

We eat and go to bed, but I can’t sleep. I find myself obsessed by the idea of Darkey tailing her. In my first week in America, Scotchy sold me a pair of binoculars he’d stolen from some guy’s car. He said I’d need them all the time in this line of work and, of course, I’ve never used them. While she snoozes by the fan, I pull on some clothes, grab the binocs, and take the stairs up to the roof. It’s a hot day and the light up here is blinding off the water tower and the roof and it takes me a minute or two to adjust to it. I go over to the side of the building and look down. Most of the cars are familiar, but there are four I don’t recognize. It’s hard to tell if anyone is inside them. If you walk on this roof and over to the next building you can get a better look at the plates and the make of vehicle. I stare through the binocs and memorize all four numbers to write down later. I wait for a long time for something to happen but nothing does.

I go back downstairs to Bridget.

I meet Ratko outside the apartment, and he’s coming in to see me. He has a bottle and three glasses. Three. Christ, she must have been pretty damn loud and obvious.

I open the door and shout through:

Mouse, make yourself decent. We’ve got company.

I hear her wake groggily and go off to the bedroom to pull on some clothes.

Her panties are in the hall, and I crack open the bedroom door and pass them through to her.

Your whips, I say.

My what?

Underpants.

That’s so Irish of you, she says and kisses my hand.

Ratko sees me smile and laughs his Santa laugh.

He loves to see me and Bridget together. I sit next to him. She comes out in my jeans and my Undertones T-shirt. Of course, she looks devastating.

Ratko Yalovic pours us a drink from a clear bottle. When he’s in a good mood, he pours me from the bottle that has the gold leaf in it, but it’s hot and his wife has been on to him about the mice and the roaches, so today it’s the rotgut.

He tells us about his problems, which are all domestic, involving wife and child, and are not really problems at all. I solve them with platitudes and clichés and he seems satisfied and genuinely grateful.

We talk about the weather, and he asks Bridget about her life. She gives him answers that are neutral and noncommittal, designed for my ears too.

I ask Bridget if she wants to nap while we talk, but she doesn’t. She likes the different company. She kisses me on the cheek as a thank-you for my concern.

Handsome couple, you two should just go off together, Ratko says, maybe getting a little buzzed and weepy from the booze but eerily echoing what I’ve been thinking for the last couple of hours. For my heart is suddenly filled with warm feelings towards Bridget: a little difficult she may be, but she’s good and sweet-natured and you’d be lucky ever to come across such a one again.

Strong childbearing hips, I say.

Bridget laughs, and it pleases all of us.

No, you should go, leave the city, go to country, Ratko persists.

We’d go to California, she says. Or Hawaii or someplace where there’s sun and a big ocean.

Sounds good to me, I say and look at her, and she takes my hand.

What’s Yugoslavia like? she asks Ratko, knowing that he would love to tell her.