Belinda McKeon - Tender

She grimaced. “Well you may ask,” she said, finishing her pint.

She got another round in, and then, maybe because Emmet had mentioned her mother, they were talking about their families. He told her about his older brother, a fourth year studying Medicine, who was not much impressed, it seemed, with Muck or with Emmet’s reputation on campus; Emmet said that he had just that past weekend received a lecture from him on the need to mend his ways.

“So he wasn’t at the party?”

Emmet scoffed. “Saturday night. He was probably playing bridge.”

“Do you see much of him?”

Emmet shook his head. “What’s your family like?”

“Mine?” she said, surprised. “They’re fine. I mean, they’re down in Longford.”

“Do you go down much to see them?”

“The odd time. Not as much as last year.”

He clicked his tongue. “The life of the degenerate Poetess up in Dublin.”

“Any chance you might stop calling me that?”

“I’ll consider it,” he said lightly. “You have a little sister, don’t you? You told me.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah,” he grinned. “One day last year up in publications. You said she was a right little rascal.”

“Anna. Yeah. She’s seven.”

“I wish I had a brother or sister that age,” he said. “I’d say she’s some craic to go home to, is she?”

“She’s hilarious. She’d give you a run for your money in the mimicry stakes, I can tell you. You should hear her doing our mother.”

He laughed in what seemed like genuine amusement. “So when are you going to see her again?”

“Soon. I’m due a visit. Though they’re in the process of knocking down my bedroom at home to put up a new extension, so it might not be the best time.”

“They’re knocking down your bedroom?” He looked at her as though waiting for a punch line. “Jesus. They must be really pissed off with your degenerate lifestyle.”

“Something like that,” she said. And then her name was called from the doorway, and Emmet’s name, and when she looked up, Zoe and James were coming towards their table, waving, grinning, looking very plastered, and very pleased with themselves for having found her, and very much in the mood for more booze.

But on the walk home two hours later, James was quiet. He did not take Catherine’s arm; he did not talk about the night and how it had gone; he did not ask her any questions about her drinks with Emmet; he just looked at the ground, as though he was walking home alone, and he kept walking. Catherine attempted to make light conversation, but most of his answers were monosyllables, and by the time they were past the Green, she had pretty much given up and lapsed into silence herself.

It was when they got back to Baggot Street, into the light of the hallway, that she saw how pale he looked, and how hard-eyed with what looked like exhaustion, and she felt almost frightened, looking at him; she wanted just to go to her bedroom, and leave him to his bed in the sitting room, and close the door. But she could not do that, it turned out, because it was one of the nights when Lorraine’s boyfriend Cillian was staying over, and because Lorraine and Amy shared a bedroom, the only way for Lorraine and Cillian to have sex was for them to drag Lorraine’s mattress into the sitting room and spend the night there; James’s sleeping things had been left in a heap outside the door, and on the kitchen table Lorraine had left a note reading Sorry, J! Kip in with C?

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” James muttered, sounding furious.

“Well, of course you can sleep on my floor,” Catherine said, filling a glass of water. “It’ll be fine.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he said again, his fingers to his temples. “Dumping my bedclothes outside the door. This is my fault. This is my own stupid fault. I should have a place of my own.”

She spluttered her disagreement. “You’ve only been home a couple of days! It’s no big deal. Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

But he sat down heavily at the table, snatching up one of the girls’ packets of Marlboro, and lit himself a cigarette with a grim, heavy sigh. “I’m sick of this,” he said, looking out the window to the night’s darkness. “I’m sick of this shite already.”

Maybe if she had not been so tired herself; maybe if she had not been drunk — not as drunk as he was, but drunk anyway, four or five pints along — Catherine would just have let him sit there, moaning like that; she would have known that it was only the booze talking, and the tiredness, and whatever else was eating at him — things that she had not, after all, really tried to talk to him about yet, things that any real friend would probably by now have encouraged him to talk about: Berlin, whatever had happened there or had not, all the darkness of his letters, all the sadnesses that he had hinted at, that he had run from, surely, coming back here — and that the best thing to do would be to leave it all until the morning. To leave her bedroom door open for him, so that he could come in and settle himself down on her floor after he had finished his cigarette; to put a hand on his shoulder, maybe, and say, It’s OK, it’ll be OK, and then kiss him on the top of the head and say that she would see him in a few minutes. Maybe, if she had not still been angry with herself over the scene that had taken place in the bookshop that afternoon, or angry with him for the way he had, in the Buttery, become everyone’s best friend, or angry with Conor for what he had said about him, or angry with James — again — for his silence and brooding on the walk home; maybe, if she had been a version of herself who was free of all that anger, of all that residue of a day that seemed to have so many parts to it that it could not, surely, have been only one day, she would have been able to do the sensible thing.

But she was not that version of herself. The bile rose in her; the anger sparked again to her fingertips. “Oh, would you ever stop fucking whining,” she said, and she lifted the glass of water she had just filled, and she tossed its contents into the sink. “Would you ever?”

James stared at her. “Sorry, Catherine?” he said, sounding incredulous, which just made Catherine angrier; she shook her head with an incredulity of her own.

“Why do you have to be so negative about everything?” she said. “Moaning about your bedclothes, as though it’s part of this big fucking conspiracy the whole world has against you.”

“My bedclothes,” James said, slowly and carefully, as he stood up from the table. “Oh, Catherine. This is not about my bedclothes.”

Her heart was racing; they were too drunk for this, she knew. But neither could she stop herself.

“This is not about my bedclothes, Catherine,” James said again, coming towards her. “This is about what happened in the pub tonight, isn’t it? You were having your nice cozy date with Little Emmet—”

“Little Emmet?” Catherine cut in. “The guy must be six foot tall!”

James smirked. “Is he now? Is he now? Well. Lucky you.”

“Oh my God, you’re being ridiculous. Are you actually—”

“Am I actually what, Catherine? Am I actually what? ”

“I don’t give a fuck about Emmet Doyle!” she shouted, and she flung out her arms as though to illustrate how true this was. “You can have Emmet Doyle if you want him. You certainly fucking behaved like that tonight in the Stag’s. Oh, tell me more about yourself, Emmet, ” she imitated him, tilting her head, widening her eyes. “ Tell me more about your theory of satire. For Christ’s sake. Have him! Go on!”

He stared at her. He was somehow even paler than he had already been. He had been standing close to her, but now he stepped back — now he stepped back so that he was leaning against the kitchen counter, not, Catherine knew, because he needed the support of it, but because it was the only thing that was stopping him from backing away from her any farther. His mouth was a thin line. The cigarette was hanging out of his right hand, and its column of ash was growing longer and longer.