Belinda McKeon - Tender

“Oh, you’ll be kept busy, don’t you worry,” her mother said drily. “Monica and Fidelma are up to high-doh with the preparations.”

“You’d think it was a wedding,” came another echo of her mother from the back.

“Anna!” their mother warned, before turning to Catherine. “So what is it you’ve been so busy with?”

She slowed the car, now, for Mulligans’ cattle; the large herd was walked to the farmyard twice daily for milking from a field further on down the hill, sixty or seventy Friesians filling the road to the verges, weaving lazily through the stalled cars, nosing windscreens, swatting tails against wing mirrors.

“They’re late out this evening,” Catherine said.

“Good Friday,” her mother said. “They were probably at late Mass.”

“The cows?” Anna said, delighted with herself.

“You settle down, now,” Catherine said over her shoulder. She wanted to get off the subject of Good Friday as smoothly as possible; she was cursing herself, now, for having walked right into it. “Just this essay for English,” she said, seeing from her mother’s slow blink that she had clean forgotten her question of a few moments earlier. “It’s a big one, so I want to do a good job.”

Her mother nodded. “Where did you go to Mass today, in case you’re asked?”

“At Mass?”

“If you’re asked. I presume you didn’t go.”

“I didn’t get…” Catherine said, trailing off.

“Well. Pick a church,” her mother said briskly, and eased the car back onto the open road.

The yellow square of light on the hill as they drove towards the house. Inside, a figure moved past the window: Ellen. Catherine would have recognized the shape of her, the movement of her, even if she had been looking at a stranger’s house from a stranger’s car in a country she did not know. She was heading for their bedroom, where they would meet to talk, as they always did the moment Catherine arrived home; they would confer on the events of the weeks since last they had seen one another.

“Ellen’s very worried about this bloody Leaving Cert,” their mother said now, clearly seeing the same thing. “Give her some reassurance, would you?”

“But it’s ages away yet.”

“That’s what I keep saying to her. She can’t go on like this for the next two months.”

“She’s got exam stress,” Anna clarified. “She needs to take a break and do an activity.”

“Where did you hear that?” Catherine said, laughing; it did not sound like their mother.

“The radio,” Anna shrugged, clicking herself free of her seatbelt.

“So who was at the party?” Ellen said, sprawled across her bed. “Was Robert Emmet there?”

She had heard, on a previous visit of Catherine’s, of James’s nickname for Emmet, and had approved of it.

“No,” Catherine said. “Nobody from college was there.”

“What were you doing there, then?”

“James.”

“Oh,” Ellen nodded. “Cool.”

Ellen was the only one in Catherine’s family who knew that James had returned to Ireland; Catherine had told her in a phone call that first Sunday, warning her to check, first, that there was no way their mother, much less their father, might be within earshot. James was still an unmentionable subject with her parents; James would always be that way, Catherine suspected. He had gone to Germany, far away and unable to influence their daughter, and that was all that mattered to them. That weekend the previous summer, when Catherine had stepped over the line so astonishingly, simply, now, had not happened; the shouting had not happened, and the arguing had not happened, and the aftermath, the weeks of creeping around under a cloud of anger and trouble, simply had not happened. With Ellen it was different, obviously; Ellen liked the sound of James, laughing at the things Catherine told her about him, at the lines of his that Catherine quoted to her, as though they were lines from films. But none of what had been happening over the last couple of weeks could be told to Ellen; she and Ellen had always told each other about the boys they liked, and the boys they had been with, but this was different. This was, Catherine felt, somehow shameful; that was what this was. This was not something that Catherine could stand for her sister to know. Which made it a first, yes — but some things needed, surely, to be that way. They were getting older. They were moving on, on their separate streams.

But then Catherine sighed, and Ellen could read Catherine’s sighs, Catherine’s every sound and gesture, as though they were her own. She leaned forward on the bed, suspicion alight in her eyes.

“What?”

“What?” Catherine said, shaking her head. “No, nothing.”

“Did something happen? Something happened.”

“Nothing happened.”

“You’re blushing. You’re puce . What happened?”

“James,” Catherine blurted, and then panicked. No, no, she could not tell this; she would have to take a different tack. “James shifted a guy.”

“Cool,” Ellen said, sitting up. “Who? Was it Robert Emmet?”

“No,” Catherine said scornfully. “This American fella. And I’m not sure if it’s actually cool.”

“Why? It was his first shift with a fella, wasn’t it? That’s good.”

“He’s older.”

“Well, you can’t talk. Yer man Aidan was ancient.”

“Yeah, well,” Catherine shrugged. “He’s just not really suitable, or whatever.”

Ellen pulled a face of disbelief. “You’re not James’s mother .”

“I know I’m not his mother,” Catherine shot back. “Believe me, his mother wouldn’t be talking about this.”

“Yeah, but you don’t get to rule his life.”

“How am I ruining his life?”

“Rule! Jesus! Get over it! It’s fucking well for you, going to posh parties and watching fellas shift other fellas. What do you have to be moaning about?”

“It’s just more complicated.” Catherine shook her head.

“Why?” Ellen said, her suspicion sparked again. “Did something else happen?” She looked at Catherine more closely. “Did you shift someone?”

Catherine was silent.

“You did,” Ellen said, not with surprise but as though this was a fact which had merely been overlooked thus far in their conversation. “You shifted someone. You’re puce again.”

“I’m not fucking puce. Will you quit saying that?”

“Your face looks like you’re after running up the lane from the bog. Who did you shift?”

“Nobody.”

“You shifted someone. I know by looking at you. What the hell is the big deal? Was he married or something?” Then something else occurred to her; her eyebrows shot up. “Was it a girl?”

“No! Don’t be fucking ridiculous.”

“ You’re being ridiculous.”

“It was the artist,” Catherine, her heart racing now, heard herself saying. “The guy whose exhibition it was.”

“Wow,” Ellen said. “Seriously?”

“He’s Irish, but he lives in New York.”

“Cool. Maybe he’ll take you to New York with him. How old is he?”

“Thirty, probably,” Catherine said, plucking the number out of the air.

“Thirty? Do you ever shift anyone your own age?”

“I was drunk. It was just a drunk thing. He pushed me up against the wall. I didn’t even know—”

“Wait,” said Ellen. Her expression had changed. “You mean, he made you?”

“No, no,” Catherine said impatiently. “Look, these parties. You don’t know. They’re just sort of mad. Everyone’s plastered, and everyone’s sleeping with everyone. You’ll see.”

Ellen stared. “You slept with him?!”

“No, I didn’t fucking sleep with him!” Catherine snapped, and at that exact moment, the door handle turned, and both sisters screamed at one another with their eyes, and switched instantly into the mode that this situation required.