Belinda McKeon - Tender

“Oh, yeah.”

“I mean, meticulous. I mean, military precision, Catherine.”

“A fine art.”

“I love it,” James said, biting into one of the tiny tomatoes. “Of course it’s true, too. You can’t beat a young fella in a tractor cab.”

“You cannot,” Catherine said, and she felt again the thrill of this new state of being between them. She marveled at it; how much they had now — and how much more, stretching out ahead.

“Oh God, there are so many fellas I want to show you,” she said, sitting up in her chair with the force of the excitement. “Honestly, James. I can’t wait . All the spotting we’ll do.”

“Yes, indeed,” James said, reaching for his glass. “Rhubarb patch, here we come.”

“But in Dublin, I mean, in college, and…” Catherine shook her head. “It’s just so brilliant, James. It’s just…”

The wine was at her already, she knew; it was the reason she was gushing at him like this. But she was glad of it. It was allowing her to move. It was giving her the words — or at least, some of them — which had refused to come to her before. “And there must be guys you want to show me,” she said, reaching across for him; she squeezed his hand — which was not, either, something she would have felt able to do before. “I can’t wait to see them. I mean, who are you into? At the moment?”

“Oh, into, Catherine,” he said drily, and it felt almost like he was mocking her; she blinked at him for a moment, uncertain. “Who am I into? ” he said again, staring at the salt cellar.

“Yes,” she said, trying to sound encouraging. “There must be someone.”

James’s mouth twitched, but he did not speak. After a moment during which Catherine began to panic that he was angry with her, he put his cutlery down and slid a hand into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out his wallet, a worn brown leather billfold, and opened it.

She laughed nervously. “Are you going to pay me to shut the fuck up?”

“I fucking might,” he said, but he was looking for something; he flicked through the sections where his cards were held. He stopped, and pulled out what looked to Catherine like a small white square. He frowned at it for a moment, then handed it to her. “Here,” he said, shrugging as though it was nothing much.

It was a photograph, or part of a photograph — it had been cut out of a photograph. It had been taken at a black-tie event; the boy was wearing a tuxedo, though with the jacket off and the bow tie hanging open around the shirt collar. He was dark-haired, and he was smiling, and he was probably a bit drunk — that wobbliness to his features — and his arm was thrown loosely around someone, but the someone was gone.

“His name is Keith,” James said quietly.

“I don’t think Armani does a navy-blue tuxedo,” Catherine said, one of the lines from one of the films they had laughed over, those first nights in Dublin; one of their lines, now, and James laughed to hear her use it, but only a little.

“Indeed,” was what he said.

Keith was not beautiful; that was what struck Catherine about him. He was not ugly; he was just not anything much, really. He was slight, and ordinary-looking, and his smile was not a smile at all but a laugh; someone had said something to him to make him laugh just as the shutter had been pressed.

“Nice,” Catherine said, and she hoped it sounded convincing.

“It was taken at our grad dance last year.”

She tapped the right side of the photograph. “Is this his girlfriend you cut out here?”

“Oh, no,” he blurted. “No, no. Though I suppose it does look like that. No, just some of the other lads from our year.”

“You didn’t like them in the same way.”

“No, I did not,” he said pointedly.

“And did you take this photo?”

“ Please. Are you trying to insult me? It’s barely even in focus.”

“Plus he’s looking at the camera.”

“Smart-arse.”

“But do you not have any proper photos of him?”

He shook his head briskly. “No. No. That wasn’t an option.”

“Oh, well,” Catherine said, as she passed it back to him. “He looks nice.”

James took it from her, and he touched the edge of the photo, and she thought he might run his finger across the surface of it, but he did not. “He has this…” he said, and then he shook his head.

“No, go on,” she said, and her heart was beating faster, and she ordered it to cop itself on. She was not going to do this; she was not going to sit here and perv on the sight of James talking about a boy. She was not going to entertain this in herself; she was not going to feel this on her skin, in her mouth, on the tips of her fingers, the way she did. She cleared her throat. “Go on,” she said again, leaning across the table for his hand. “Tell me.”

Delicacy. That was how James described it; that was how he described the boy’s face, and what he had loved about it. He was gazing at the photograph as though he had entered once again into its world: a hotel ballroom on a summer night last year, balloons sagging and streamers fallen and cider slick on the floor; “Live Forever” blaring over the speakers. Girls in long dresses and boys in rented tuxes; everyone getting messy and plastered and, eventually, upset. Catherine had photographs just like this one from her own grad dance; for Catherine, too, there had been a boy in a disheveled tux. That boy was long forgotten now; that boy had, anyway, been completely oblivious of her stares.

“Did he know?” she asked James now.

He looked at her. “Are you mad?”

“Where is he now?”

James slid the photograph back into his wallet. “England,” he said. “He did Pharmacy. Easier to get onto the courses over there.”

“Oh, a pharmacist,” Catherine said, and she could have been her mother, approving of someone’s choice of a husband. She laughed at herself, and she thought that James might join in, but he did not seem to be listening.

“I should really get rid of that photo. If I was hit by a bus, and they found a photo of Keith Murray in my pocket. Jesus Christ.”

“I’d get there first and make sure nobody saw it,” Catherine said, and then, because she worried that this had not sounded like enough of a joke, she added, “and I’d take all your money as well.”

“You’d be made up,” James said, refilling their glasses.

She hesitated, and he noticed, eyeing her sharply.

“Go on,” he said, imitating her tone from a moment earlier.

She laughed. “I was just wondering if there was anyone in Berlin.”

“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “No, no.”

“I mean, German guys are good-looking, aren’t they? Some of them.”

He smirked. “Some of them. Oh, yeah, some of them.”

“Well, then. There must have been someone.”

“What do you mean, someone? Was I with someone? I’ve told you, I’ve never been with anyone.”

“No, I just mean, were you interested in anyone? I mean, was there anyone like Keith there?”

He shrugged. “There was a neighbor. Stefan.”

“Nice name.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Nice everything.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“He has the studio upstairs from Malachy.”

“And you got to know him?”

“He’d come in to us a few times a week, just for a chat or whatever. He and Malachy have known each other for years — he’s older, thirty-something.” He smirked again. “I think old Malachy has a thing for him and all.”

“Oh,” Catherine said, surprised. “Malachy’s gay?”

“Malachy’s nothing,” James said shortly. “Or, I mean, what Malachy is is not up for discussion. With him, I mean. There’s no question of talking about such things.”