Belinda McKeon - Tender

“Hello?” Catherine called out, without raising her head from the pillow. “Hello?”

In response, there was only another sound from the armchair; it protested like that when you sat forward. A shifting, now; the scrape of something on wood.

“Hello?” Catherine called again. “Who’s there?”

The voice shocked her when it came. It was a man’s, sharp and wary. “Hello?” it said, and Catherine heard again the creak of the armchair; he was standing up. “Hello?”

“Hello!” Catherine said, almost shouting, trying to push authority, a lack of patience for nonsense, into her tone, but her heart was slamming, and she knew she sounded scared. She was sitting upright now, and conscious of the fact that, apart from her T-shirt, she was naked, and that the guy, whoever he was, was walking to the sitting-room door, which was directly across from the door to her room. Her mind scanned the possibilities; Cillian, Lorraine’s boyfriend, was already gone to London for the summer, and Duffy, their landlord, had a nasal whine she would know anywhere.

“Who’s there?” the voice said, even more sharply this time. He was out of the sitting room now; he was in the hall.

“ I’m here!” Catherine shouted, angry now.

“Who’s I?” he said, sounding equally angry.

“Don’t come in, don’t come in!” Catherine shouted, and she knocked the bag of peas to the floor, and the little green orbs scattered, and the door handle turned, and a head topped with red curls and cowlicks appeared.

“You must be Caroline,” was what he said, while Catherine sat there, the duvet snatched up around her, one naked leg sticking out, and the now-thawed peas having spilled onto the carpet below. She stared at him. She stared at his hair, and at his face sandblasted with freckles, at the amused little twist of his thin-lipped mouth. He was wearing a jumper, old-fashioned and patterned in dark greens and grays, and faded jeans, and black Docs, shoes rather than boots, the leather scuffed and scratched. He was fully in the room now, having pushed the door wide open.

“Catherine,” she said, in a tone intended to shame him — she had worked out who he was by now, she had remembered what Amy had said the night before, but still, how dare he just let himself in here? How dare he burst into her bedroom like this, as though it was still his? It was not his; it was not his for another couple of days yet, and she was nearly naked, and he was completely out of order, and this was something he needed to realize, this was something for which he needed to make amends—

But James was not paying Catherine, or Catherine’s tone, the slightest bit of attention. James was looking around the room, taking in everything Catherine had done to make it her own: her desk, covered now with books and lecture notes and balled-up clothes; her CDs, stacked high on the windowsill; the wardrobe, decorated now not just with his black-and-white postcards, but with things she had put there: a photocopy of a Patrick Kavanagh poem she had loved from her Writing Ireland course; a photograph of her sister Anna with muck on her T-shirt and a scraggy chain of daisies in her hair; a Muriel’s Wedding poster, showing Toni Collette in a shower of colored confetti; the picture from the cover of Beetlebum, showing the guy or girl or whichever it was lying passed out on a pile of leaves.

He looked to the peas. “You’re getting your greens, anyway, Caroline,” he said. “That’s good to see.”

“Catherine.”

He glanced at her. “Why, what did I call you?”

“Caroline.”

“Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head as though appalled. “Oh, no. That’s not you at all, at all.”

He stepped over towards her, extending a hand. “I’m James. I hope Amy and Lorraine told you I was coming.”

“Oh, yes,” Catherine said, as briskly as though they were in a boardroom. “I’m sorry the place — I mean — I just finished my exams yesterday, you see. I was out—” She stopped, gesturing by way of explanation at the peas. “So.”

He burst out laughing, a high, delighted peal. “Oh, Catherine,” he said, shaking his head again. “What you do with your frozen vegetables is none of my concern.”

“I need to get dressed,” Catherine said, pulling her leg back under the duvet.

“Right you be,” James said, and he strode towards the door. He glanced back at her.

“Tea?” he said, and he was gone.

Tea, Father, actually; that was what he had said, a perfectly pitched imitation of the mad housekeeper in the sitcom about the three idiot priests. So he was funny, like the girls had said; he was clearly also a bit weird, or lacking normal manners, or something — the way he had just opened her bedroom door like that and let himself in. She took her time about getting dressed, not because she wanted to do it with any degree of care — she could not be bothered to shower just yet, for one thing — but because she wanted to postpone the strangeness, the inevitable awkwardness, of being out there with this guy when nobody else was home. She could have hidden, could have stayed in bed for the rest of the afternoon — what could he do about it? — but she was hungry, and anyway, she was not at all sure that he would not come barging in again, maybe bearing tea, maybe making himself comfortable at the end of her bed, talking her head off for hours. That was another thing Amy and Lorraine had said about him: that he talked. Talked and talked; there was nobody else like him for that, Amy had said, meaning it as a good thing, and Catherine had found herself quite looking forward to meeting him, then, this talkative James. To see what that looked like: a boy who could talk. But now, standing in the mess of her bedroom, buttoning her old flannel shirt and stepping into a pair of shorts she had found at the bottom of her wardrobe, she felt wary. Wary not so much of him, but of herself — how would she handle this? What account would she give of herself? What would he think of her, when she was forced to actually talk to him? But then, it struck her: what did she care? He was a redhead, wearing the wrong kind of Docs and a jumper like something her mother would buy for her father. What did she care what he thought of her? She tied her hair up into a ponytail and headed barefoot down the hall.

“How are you now, Catherine?” he said without looking up, as she came into the kitchen. On the counter, the little transistor radio was going; Doesn’t make it right, a woman was singing in a kind of wail. Catherine turned it off. James was sitting at the table, leaning over a newspaper, which had not been there earlier that morning; he must have brought it. He pointed to the teapot, to a plate of toast.

“Help yourself,” he said.

“Thanks.”

He clicked his tongue and she glanced at him in alarm, but it was only something in the newspaper, it seemed. He was reading it intently, his cheek pressed into his knuckles.

She sat. The butter was still visible on the toast, which was something she hated; she preferred it melted in completely. Still, she took a slice, and poured herself a mug of tea, and then she sat there, watching him frown over the paper, wondering if she should go to the sitting room and get something to read herself. But maybe that would be abrupt, or something; probably, he was just finishing that one article, and then he would be ready to talk to her. She ate her toast, and she looked around the kitchen, and then she looked at him. Considered him. His hair was longer than it had been in the photograph, and really quite wild; he looked a bit insane. His freckles went everywhere, even behind his ears; his eyes were a light, cold-looking blue. He wore a silver digital watch, and he bit his nails, she could see — the tips seemed buried in the underskin. This made her shudder, the thought of how tender it was there, and just as she was pushing the thought away, his gaze shot up to meet hers.