Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

‘You’d want to say sorry to Karine,’ Ryan said, stepping right up to Vaughan, chest to chest, and in fairness, the other didn’t back away. There was a grin dancing on his face.

‘Karine doesn’t mind,’ he said.

‘Karine does,’ snapped Karine.

‘Oh God, sorry I grabbed your arse, your ladyship.’

Karine took her vodka from the bar counter, gestured towards Ryan’s pint, and tugged at his arm. Ryan didn’t move.

‘You don’t sound very fucking sorry,’ he said.

Vaughan rolled his eyes. ‘Jesus Christ, get over yourself.’

‘Ryan,’ Karine whinged, ‘come on .’

‘Come on, come on!’ Vaughan echoed, pressing his hands together.

‘I’m not convinced he’s that bothered about being called on his bullshit,’ Ryan said.

‘Yeah, he’s drunk? Can we leave it please?’

‘I’m not drunk,’ said Vaughan. ‘I didn’t know you were back together, did I? Y’know, grabbing your ex’s arse shouldn’t bother you.’

‘She’s not my ex,’ Ryan said, moving close enough that he could snarl into Vaughan’s ear. ‘And if you touch her again I’ll take you apart, yeah?’

‘Sorry, Mr Breaking fucking Bad. Far be it from me to go back for seconds with you gawping at me. She’s all yours.’

‘Ryan!’ snapped Karine. ‘Come. On!’

Ryan frowned. ‘What d’you mean, go back for seconds?’

‘Seconds of her arse, like. Seconds of the rest of her.’

‘What’s he on about, Karine?’

‘He’s pissed and he’s disgusting,’ she said. ‘Pick up your pint and get back to the table. Now.’

Niall Vaughan mimed a cracking whip.

‘Ryan, honestly, if you’re going to spend any more of tonight spatting with clowns…’

‘Ah, Karine,’ said Vaughan. ‘Ah now. That’s not nice.’

‘Dickhead,’ she muttered, turning away.

Ryan looked back at Vaughan, who pushed his bottom lip out.

‘You don’t have to be so aggressive, like,’ he said. ‘Or is that what happens in there? No, seriously? Like after a few dozen rapes in the shower?’

Ryan said, ‘Whatever problem you have, d’you wanna take it outside?’

Vaughan held up his hands. ‘Ah no. No, I couldn’t do that to you.’

‘Yeah,’ said Ryan. ‘I didn’t think so.’

When he turned around Vaughan said, ‘Not after I fucked your girlfriend.’

Ryan turned back.

‘What’d you say to me?’

‘I fucked your girlfriend. After the Debs. In fairness, boy, she was in fucking heat. If it hadn’t been me it would have been someone else.’

Ryan would have punched him. Not a bother; he would have levelled the fucker. What contest? The lad was barely able to stand up straight and he was asking for it, howling for it, taking out billboards up and down the motorway advertising his need for it.

But he wasn’t lying. Ryan Cusack stared at his girlfriend of three years and the look on her face, her glistening eyes and her parted lips, told him that this was the rawest truth he was ever likely to hear.

She’s sitting on the bed, mascara smudged under her eyes, and I stand as far away from her as I can get, over by the door, my hand hovering onto the handle every so often as instinct tells me to get away, get the fuck out, just run, boy, keep running. I have to make myself stay. Every molecule is screaming against me being this close to her and it’s a feeling so alien I’ve already thrown up. I just can’t believe it, like. I can’t fucking believe it. I just…

She’s crying and I’m crying.

‘C’mere,’ she implores, for the seventh or eighth time.

I shake my head. I can’t look at her. ‘No,’ I say. I fix on the corner of the ceiling. My head is sliding left to right. I’m like Churchill the fucking dog.

She’s sniffing. My head feels like it’s been scooped hollow. Then the next minute it feels like my brain’s been jammed up right behind my eyeballs. Then the next it feels like the brain’s dripping down my throat and choking me.

You’ve no idea. You’ve just no idea. Like that’s it. I’m done. I’m finished.

‘Ryan, please, just talk to me.’

She’s already spilled her side of the story. It’s the end of August, I’m away in prison, she’s got her Debs coming up, yer man asks her, her mam and dad and sisters tell her she’ll regret it someday if she doesn’t accept, she remembers what a prick I am for leaving her, she drinks the bar dry and he fucks her in the car park. There you go. I lost my girlfriend up the side of a fucking Ford Focus.

‘You have no idea what I went through,’ she blubs.

‘You, girl? You? What about me? All I fucking had in there was the knowing I’d come home to you and you were spending your nights out whoring with fucking Niall fucking Vaughan!’

‘You did come home to me, Ryan! I’m still here for you!’

‘No. No you’re not.’

‘I am! One mistake, for God’s sake. And where were you? In prison! You weren’t thinking about me when you got yourself caught with someone else’s cocaine, were you?’

‘It’s my fault, is it?’

‘It’s both our faults! Ryan, for fuck’s sake. I love you.’

I cough out a laugh and drag my hand across my eyes.

‘I do, Ryan.’

‘No, you fucking don’t.’

‘I do. Oh for God’s sake, I do!’

I’m fucking proper bawling now and I can’t get the words out at all. Jesus fucking Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. I wheel around and kick the wall. I kick it again, and again, and knock my head off the plaster and she jumps up and hugs my back. I don’t even push her away. I’m too exhausted. I don’t know what I am.

A few minutes later I get the words out: ‘Did he come inside you?’

I shake her off and she sits back on the bed and folds up like a poked slug.

‘Did he, Karine?’

‘He wore a condom, if that’s what you mean.’

‘How would you know if you were that fucking drunk?’

‘Coz I made sure. Fuck you, Ryan. Because he wasn’t you.’

‘Did you go down on him?’

‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘Why “of course you didn’t,” Karine? I’d have said up to two hours ago that of course you wouldn’t cheat on me and here we fucking are.’

She puts her head in her hands. ‘I didn’t go down on him. I swear. It was just an ugly stupid fuck in a fucking car park.’

‘Did you come?’

She says no and I really want to believe her. If the Lord God appeared right now and said, ‘Here, Cusack, you can have either the promise of eternal life or the promise that your girlfriend didn’t show her O-face to Niall Vaughan,’ I’d take the second with both fucking hands.

So we sleep somehow. Both in our clothes, beside each other on the bed, fucking bate. And when we wake up, she starts kissing me, and saying sorry, and touching me and I’m getting hard despite myself and there’s this sudden forked road and a signpost telling me if I don’t fuck Karine D’Arcy right now I’ll never fuck her again.

So I do. I have to. I can’t lose her. I’m not able. I hold her down and fuck her like I’m exorcising her. An ugly fuck. That’s how she wants it, isn’t it?

And after I come I roll over and listen to her crying again, until I can’t stand it anymore. I get up and go for a slash and when I come back to bed she looks at me all red-eyed and says, ‘That’s how it is now, is it? That’s just how we’re going to fuck from here on in?’ and I can’t answer her. I lie on my side with my back to her and stare instead at the fucking floor.