Belinda McKeon - Tender

What was James doing now? Catherine checked her watch again: it was ten to three. They had been in Murphy’s until two in the morning, and then the natural thing to do had been to come back here. So here they were, sitting around the room, her grandfather’s sheepdog asleep under the table. Often, she noticed, her grandfather glanced towards the slumped form.

“Shep’s tired,” she said. “He’s not used to company at this hour.”

“He’s put out of his usual spot,” her grandfather said, gesturing across to the armchair. “Ah, he’ll survive for one night.”

He hauled himself out of his own chair now and went through to the hallway; she could hear him heading slowly upstairs to the bathroom.

On the radio, 2FM was playing. Someone had moved the dial from Shannonside, where a repeat of one of the daytime chat shows had been playing; Turn off that bloody bollox, her grandfather had said, and so now it was this, the sad violins of The Verve.

It was Saturday night, early Sunday morning, in Dublin too, although it felt as though it could be a few time zones away, as though it could be midmorning there, a beautiful Sunday morning at eleven, people going about their business in the sunshine. But no: it was ten to three in Dublin, too. The late buses lining up around the walls of college. The walk home beginning for most people. The pubs spilling out, the drunks howling. Where would he be? Was he at home? Fast asleep now? Alone?

She stood.

She went through to the hallway, where the phone was. She did not have to turn on the light; she had, anyway, the moonlight spilling through the hall window.

She dialed his number in Thomas Street, let it ring once, hung up. Dialed it again, hung up. The third time, she let it ring longer, and just before she hung up, she heard it click and knew that he had answered, or that someone had. She tried again, but this time there was no answer, and when the long beeps came in to signal that it would ring no longer, she swore aloud and slammed the handset down.

From the stairs, a noise: a rustle. She jumped, and a bolt of cold shot down her spine. It was her grandmother she thought of, though that was impossible.

“My God, child,” a voice said. “You’re in a bad way, aren’t you?”

Her grandfather’s shadow; that was who was speaking, it seemed to her.

But that was impossible too.

Love set you going like a fat gold watch—

Was there any line as magnificent?

That had been about the newborn Frieda, that poem. Frieda, who would grow up to send the red and yellow blisters across the cover of her father’s book.

The children were very cold but quite safe.

None of this was any of Catherine’s business.

* * *

Hughes, in “Epiphany,” his own poem about that same newborn, written that same London spring, described how he had almost bought a baby fox. A man on a bridge had the animal stuffed down his coat front, the tiny face staring out between the lapels.

Bereft

Of the blue milk, the toys of feather and fur,

The den life’s happy dark. And the huge whisper

Of the constellations

Out of which Mother had always returned.

Cheap enough at a pound, the man with the fox said.

But no.

* * *

New slate — clean slate — but already the pressure of precedents. Her cry takes its place “among the elements”—and shadows and blankness and “own slow / Effacement” = dissatisfaction, anxiety. Mirror image is not actually mirror image, because the child has been born. The reflection untrue.

What is the “far sea” that moves in her ear?

* * *

Inevitable.

What happened between herself and James was inevitable.

Was that true? Was that a reality?

Was a reality something you arrived at, or something you made?

Or something you just forced onto things?

Lovers.

As though —what was it Julia Doonan had said?

As though the rest of us are only going to Mass together.

And now, it seemed, they were lovers . At least in private.

At least, that was, where other people could not see them.

And, well, at the end of all, all love was private, wasn’t it?

* * *

(This was what Catherine told herself.)

* * *

Catherine wanted him every minute. Catherine wanted him to fuck her and fuck her until she dissolved.

James—

* * *

James was another story.

Once, as a small girl, she had gone with the wrong mother from the shop. She had not realized it was the wrong mother. The woman was tall, and moved with purpose, and wore boots and carried a handbag and had a winter coat. Her mother, on that day, had also had all of these things.

Catherine walked along, chatting and chatting.

The woman did not even notice the child at her knee.

How could you not even notice?

Her mother, calling and calling from the door.

* * *

James laughed at her when she told him that story. James was right to laugh.

“You knew damn well what you were up to, Reilly,” he said, stretched out on her bed, smoking. “You liked the cut of that other woman’s jib.”

His hand resting on his naked stomach. His nipples pink and pricked and hard. His dick, ten minutes earlier, had kept making her gag, but the throat was where you were meant to take it, wasn’t it? The throat was how you had the best chance of getting it again.

And anyway, why on earth was she telling him that story now?

* * *

James had made it happen, the second time. Catherine not quite able to believe it. His hands, the way they changed from stroking fondly to stroking slow—

His tongue, full and supple against hers. The hardness of him, already waiting, already there—

And surely that meant something? Surely that said—?

But no.

Because the way they got through this — got away with this — was by laughing about it.

Their great joke.

Their great mischief.

Their great addition to the long, long list of things that, together, they could do.

* * *

And afterwards: the slagging. The innuendo. Like they were meeting for breakfast after their separate, hilarious one-night stands.

“You’re terrible, Muriel.”

“ You’re terrible.”

* * *

And where does the blood go when it is making you weak, when it is making you want to fall? Does it go to the brain first, and from there to the cunt, or is it the other way around? Is it the brain or the cunt that says it to you, over and over, no matter how you try to reason with it, no matter how you try to roar at it; is it the brain or the cunt that hisses those words?

Hissing, Get him. Bring him here.

* * *

His hands. His tongue. The fullness of him, tensed and pleading in her hand.

His eyes, closed. The lids the color of sand.

Packed sand, trodden over.

(Why did such things come to her mind?)

* * *

And for Catherine, just the touch of him was always enough. Just the fact of him. That this was James .

He was a long, low shudder that started deep in her spine.

And yes, probably, when he put his hand to her there, it should feel different. Yes. Probably, it should not feel like it felt: like he had lost something down there, like he was searching down there, impatiently casting about. And yes, probably, when he put his mouth there, probably he found it—

All of that — how would he think of it?

Architecture?

* * *

And was it her fault, if he looked to her more beautiful every day?