Belinda McKeon - Tender

“Oh, no, I’d be afraid I’d break it,” Catherine said, but the girl insisted, and so did James. She took it; it was lighter than she had expected, but sturdy, its silver dials jutting out against her palms, its pebbled black plastic surface pleasingly rough against her fingertips. She looked down through the neat square chute which topped it, and she staggered in surprise a moment; the picture was sharp and clear and moving, like a tiny television in her hands, and in it was a tiny, frowning James, now a grinning James, now a James who was calling out to her, waving at her, saying her name. She found herself staring at this James; she found herself transfixed by him. He was just the same as the real James, as the James who stood not two feet away from her, but he was different. When she moved, he moved. When she turned one of the dials on the side of the camera, he went out of focus a moment, but when she turned it once more, he was back again, crisp and perfect and real; there was a short, curved handle on the other side, and when she turned that, winding it like a clock handle, the camera gave a lovely, satisfying click, and the blond girl cheered.

“You took him!” she said, clapping her hands. “Well done!”

“Catherine,” James said much less warmly, “you’re wasting Lisa’s film.”

“Oh, no,” the girl said, “sure how would it be a waste? Sure this way I get to have a photo of you!”

“Jaysus,” James said, pulling a face. “You’re made up.”

“I bet it’ll be worth a fortune twenty years from now,” the girl said, laughing. “After my show kick-starts your glittering career.”

“Show?” Catherine said, frowning, looking from one to the other.

“Lisa’s asked me to give her a few photographs for her group show,” James said, taking the Rolleiflex from her.

“You never told me!” Catherine said, hearing the whine in her voice.

“I’ve just found out myself,” he said.

“Myself and a few friends from NCAD are putting together a group show of new artists on an old factory floor in the Liberties at the end of the summer,” Lisa explained.

“The Liberties?” Catherine echoed incredulously. In her mind she heard, as though it was the shutter release of the Rolleiflex, the neat, smooth click of parts coming together and working just the way they should. “I’ve heard of there,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s a great spot,” Lisa said. “So many amazing spaces that are derelict now. I love James’s portraits, and they’ll be perfect for this show, I think—”

“We’ll see,” James said, holding up a hand as though to suggest that this line of talk was dangerous, and needed to be deflected. He turned to Catherine. “Anyway. Now that you’ve taken your masterpiece.”

“Sorry?”

“Will we head?”

It had started to rain, so they took the bus, climbing upstairs to find a seat together, and they had been sitting less than a minute when Catherine, moving to rest on James’s shoulder, noticed that he was asleep, his head hanging, his hands lying slack and open in his lap. She tried to rest on him anyway, but he jerked away, though it might only have been the motion of the bus, going over a pothole or a bump, or swerving, maybe, to avoid someone on a bike. As he slept, she studied his face: the delicacy of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lips, the sheen of his stubble, golden and glinting at moments in the evening light. She felt it again, the sensation she had been having for days: that although he was beside her, even awake he was as far away, really, as he was now when asleep, and that she could not hold him, and that she could not even really know him.

Then they were nearing home, and she put her hand to his, to wake him, and as he had done that morning on the couch, he gasped his way back to consciousness, regarding her, for a startled moment, as someone he did not know and had not seen before.

“Our stop,” she said, her eyes pleading with him, and he nodded.

“Down we go,” he said, and they lurched towards the stairs.

Then they were home and he was himself again. Or his public self, or his social self; Catherine was beginning to have trouble remembering all of his selves. Amy and Lorraine were there, and Cillian had brought hash, so the air was giddy, the night seemed young, and in their excitement James was in the middle of them, chatting and teasing and making everyone snort and shriek and double over with laughter; he was witty and wizard-tongued and quick as a trap. And he was all sweet, mischievous physicality: all hugs, all nuzzles, his arms thrown so happily around the girls.

It was beautiful. It was whirlwind. He was full of laughter, and Catherine saw it softening his face: the sheer joy of being with these people, the way it lifted something, clear and clean, off of his heart. And she hated herself in that moment, because she felt jealous of them; she wanted him back to herself. Not the dark, quiet version, not the version she had been with all day, the James who had worried her and exhausted her, the James with whom things had, impossibly, become tense and strained; she wanted this James. She wanted the brilliant, funny, vibrant James, lit up with enjoyment, teeming with it, and she wanted him to be only her friend. She did not want him to love the others this much, to take such unbridled pleasure in their presence. It was not that she did not want him to be happy; it was that she could not deal with the idea that it was others who could make him happy, as he seemed to be now. She wanted him to be only her friend. She wanted the best of his attention; she wanted the highest pitch of his energy; she wanted to be the reason he was fascinated, delighted, amused. And here were all the others, stealing this ground from her, and she resented them for it, and she resented James, for being taken in.

And yet they were his oldest friends.

And yet she was his closest friend; she knew that.

And yet.

And yet?

The following Thursday, she came home late from the TN office to find James alone in the house, sprawled on the couch. He was watching No Disco; something hazy and bleached-out flickered on the screen as a man strummed a guitar, singing something about a shoreline. James lifted a hand in greeting.

“You shouldn’t have waited up,” Catherine said, dropping her bag.

He shrugged. “I didn’t. I’m watching this. Listen to this fella.”

“What?”

“His voice. Listen to it. I’ve never heard of him before.”

“I don’t know any of the music they play on that program.”

Finally now he looked at her. “How’s our Robert Emmet? Any more rebellions in the pipeline?”

Catherine shook her head. “I didn’t see much of him. It was crazy in there — they’re three days late going to print.”

“Did you not go for a drink afterwards?”

“Afterwards?” Catherine said with a snort. “They’re still at it. They’ll be there all night.”

“Oh. Some other time, then.”

His attention was fixed again on the television, his head lolling back. The guy was singing now, about shining, repeating the word over and over. Had James meant that sarcastically, that thing about going for a drink with Emmet? Was he actually talking about it as casually as this? She watched him, but he seemed absorbed in the music video, locked onto the man’s voice, its throaty, gentle whine. She wondered if he was drunk, if he had been drinking wine with the girls, maybe, or if he was stoned on some of Cillian’s hash, but there were no glasses in evidence, just a mug of tea on the floor in front of him, and no smell on the air. The music video ended and the program presenter came on with his eager patter; James sighed and clapped a hand down on the couch.