Chapter Text
Erin sat listless at her kitchen table, her laptop open in front of her, ignoring her cat as he wound around her ankles pleading for treats.
He always did this after staying with Gina, Erin’s upstairs neighbour, who had no qualms about overindulging the wee beggar. He never seemed to learn that it was good for Erin to refuse to give him what he wanted.
But he was only a cat. He didn’t know that it was no good to have too much of something that you wanted. He didn’t know that having it could ruin everything. But Erin knew.
It was because she knew that she’d left Derry that morning. She’d gone home. And maybe she felt rather like her cat with his doleful crying, but she knew eventually she’d be grand.
Maybe this time she could stop doing the same shit over and over again. Maybe this time she could be different. Permanently different. Better. Definitely better.
She refreshed her email again for the tenth time that hour and checked her mobile for a missed call or text. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
How could there just be nothing? She’d expected for there to be something, anything. Even just an “ok” to the message that she’d sent off to James in the wee morning hours. Even just that. She wasn’t asking for much. But, instead she was just waiting. She’d gone all the way back to Belfast to wait. She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d expected to do once she left Derry, but it wasn’t this.
Impatient and determined not to mope around her flat all day, she picked up her mobile again and hastily typed out, “Back. Are u around?” to Michelle.
Her phone almost immediately began buzzing with a call.
“Back? Back where?” were Michelle’s first words to her.
Erin let the harsh edge of the question slide by as she picked at a loose thread on her jeans. Maybe this had been a bad idea.
She answered with an insouciance she couldn’t quite inhabit. “At my flat. Obviously. Where else would I be ‘back’ to?”
“Your flat,” Michelle repeated.
“Aye. Want to go for a drink?”
“I’m at work.”
“I meant later.”
“Hold on –” Michelle said. Erin heard Michelle call out to someone through the line, her voice tinny and distant, her mobile probably pressed against her chest. “– Barry, I’m stepping out. No, I didn’t just get back – listen, just give me a minute.” When Michelle’s voice came back clear through the phone, she asked, “Is James there?”
“No. He’s in Derry.”
“Why aren’t you in Derry?”
Erin hadn’t considered this part when she’d been staring at her ceiling in the dark at three o’clock in the morning, ruminating on what an absolute eejit she’d been and deciding to take the first bus back to Belfast. Instead, she’d been wishing she could start all over again, but just hadn’t been able to decide when. Which part of her life did she want to do over again? At which scene in the working draft of her entire life had everything started to unravel? There were too many of them. All of the mistakes had stacked up, undergirding the entire shape of her life.
But she could have at least started with deciding what to say to Michelle.
“I have…things to do here. You know. Important stuff. And James doesn’t need my help anymore. So what do you think? Meet at Rafael’s after work?”
“I can’t after work. Rafael’s brother is visiting, remember?” Michelle said impatiently. “James said that? That he doesn’t need your help?”
“Oh I forgot about his brother,” Erin said lightly. “You couldn’t even pop round for one drink?”
“Erin.”
“No, James didn’t say that. But I could tell. Anyway, why does it matter? I don’t even know why you’re asking.”
“What I’m asking is, what the fuck happened?”
Erin bristled at Michelle’s weary tone – like this had been expected, like it’d been bound to happen.
“Nothing. Jesus,” Erin answered. “Nothing has to happen for me to want to be in my own home again.”
“Excuse me for thinking it’s fucking bizarre that you just waltzed on back without James after I had to listen to you wet yourself for weeks over how excited you were to work on his film in Derry.”
“I wasn’t wetting myself. And plans can change.”
“Christ, Erin. I don’t have time for this.”
“You called me.”
“After you texted me,” Michelle scoffed. “So, what is it this time? Did you fuck him again for something? No, don’t make that noise. You wanted me to ask. You always do this. You want me to ask, and you want me to know, and don’t fucking pretend otherwise.”
“Stop it, Michelle –”
“I really don’t think you can keep doing that and expect anyone to feel sorry for you. Like, at a certain point, you’re making choices, you know. And, like, sorry, but you have to wise the fuck up and deal with the consequences of that just like the rest of us.”
Erin stood up, resisting the urge to throw her mobile across the room. The same cold, bokey feeling from the night before twisted through her stomach. It’d taken hours, two pathetic dry heaves in the loo, and one rushed email to James for it to finally go away, but it was back in full force now. The front legs of the kitchen chair tilted back precariously with her sudden movement, sending the cat scattering from where he’d been grooming himself underneath it, before falling back to the linoleum with a small thud.
“Like I don’t know that. All I ever do is deal with the consequences. Like, did it occur to you at all that I came back because it was the right thing to do? I’m really trying this time, Michelle.”
“Being fucking honest, Erin, it’s hard to tell that you’re trying at all. That we’re even talking about this – this wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. You said you were over it.”
“I am,” she said, her tone sounding too much like her cat’s plaintive meows. “I am now. I’m gonna be better. I am being better. Me being here is being better. I promise. And, I didn’t…do that. Just so you know. It wasn’t like that. I’m just…I’m trying to be over it. And I was…having trouble with it in Derry. So I left. And that’s good, right? That’s what I should have done. Right?”
Maybe if someone told her that she’d done the right thing, maybe just once, maybe it would fix a lot of things.
Michelle gave a long, frustrated sigh. “Aye. I guess so. Listen – sorry. I guess. If you didn’t do anything – I shouldn’t have thought you did something.”
“Thanks,” Erin said, her mouth tight. It wasn’t technically a lie if she just didn’t respond to the salient points.
“I should go,” Michelle said. “Barry’s on my fucking arse today. His slaggy girlfriend broke up with him again last night. I don’t know why that’s got to be my problem, but whatever.”
“Ok,” Erin said dejectedly, already foreseeing the hours and hours ahead of her sitting alone in her flat, ruminating.
This hadn’t gone at all the way she’d wanted. Michelle was supposed to want to see her. Michelle wasn’t supposed to ask difficult questions. Michelle wasn’t supposed to see anything that Erin wanted to keep hidden.
“Listen,” Michelle said, sounding halfway kind. “Rafael’s making dinner at his tonight. You should come over if you want. And – if you need any more help ‘getting over it,’ Alonso’s kind of a ride.”
“Do not try to set me up with Rafael’s brother. It’s like…eugh. Incest or something.”
“I thought you were into that –”
“Jesus, Michelle –”
“– what with the Dicko Desperation and all that.”
“I’m not trying to date anyone right now,” Erin said, ignoring her.
“Who said you had to date him?”
“I’ll go to be friendly.”
“Suit yourself. But if you change your mind –”
“Just tell me what time and I’ll be there.”
___________________________________
From: [email protected]
[DRAFT SAVED] Monday, June 25, 2007 12:21 PM BST
Dear James,
I don’t even know what to say. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, any of it.
I don’t think I’ve always made the right choices, but I’m trying to now. I promise, I’m really trying.
Can we talk?
___________________________________
By the time Erin was grimacing in the mirror at her own wan expression that night as she left her flat, she had turned off her mobile five times, tossed it under her pillow another three, had a draft of an email to James saved on her computer, and had even once dialled his number.
She’d been too cowardly to press the call button. She didn’t even know what she would have said if he did answer. She had nothing to say, at least nothing that wasn’t already buried too deep under sedimentary layers of shame.
Instead, she’d called home, just to see if her ma might give even a hint of James, but no one had answered.
It was for the best, really. It’d get easier with time, probably. It had before, sort of. And, in the meantime, at least there was the distraction of dinner – Rafael boisterous in the kitchen, his brother Alonso decidedly more quiet but equally affable, Michelle moving anxiously around the flat, a bafflingly attentive hostess.
“Sit down, you’re acting like a ma,” Erin muttered to Michelle after she refilled Alonso’s water for the third time within a quarter hour.
“Shut. Up,” Michelle answered out of the corner of her mouth, glowering at her as Rafael’s five-year-old daughter, Sienna, came racing out of her room with yet another armful of soft toy animals. “Why don’t you show them to Erin, love? Tell her all about them. Every single one. Don’t leave anything out.”
This had been a good idea to come tonight, Erin decided, as she listened to Sienna monologue about her rabbit stuffie’s missing button eye. She wasn’t even thinking about James or the wallaby stuffie that he’d brought with him all the way from Australia and that was currently staring blankly up at her from the pile of Sienna’s other toys.
She also wasn’t thinking about how it had sat on the arm of her settee for three whole days before James had passed it along to Michelle to give to Sienna. Her cat had kept knocking it down onto him as James tried to sleep until she’d come out one morning to see it chucked clear across the room.
And she definitely wasn’t thinking about how long ago it all felt since she’d met him at the airport, since she’d been giddy with delight at having him right there, always in reach. Or how long ago it already felt since last night, when he’d been too close in reach. She wasn’t thinking about any of it.
Blessedly, it wasn’t long before Rafael called Sienna away to help him with a task in the kitchen, leaving Erin to make small talk with Alonso. Michelle continued to shuffle back and forth from the kitchen every few minutes with more water, some wine, a bowl of olives, then another, cheese, some nuts, and some more nuts, until finally Rafael called her to watch the paella while he took a call from the employee on shift at the bar that night.
Alonso was nice. He had a good job. He liked to cook and ride his bicycle. He was sort of a ride. And he already had a girlfriend – Jesus, did Michelle even ask before making wild assumptions?
He liked all the olives and cheese and nuts and wine that Michelle kept serving. Did Erin like wine? Yes, she did. What was her favourite? Oh, all of them? He’d never heard anyone say all of them before, but that was nice. It must show that she had a broad palette. What did she do for work? Oh, what was her book about? What was she working on now? Oh, a film? How did one go from writing books to working on a documentary?
“…but James is so brilliant, he really guided me through the whole process. He’s worked on loads of films, but he wants to make his own, you know? And he’s really, really good at it. I think. I mean, he’s still making it, so I haven’t seen it yet. But I’ve been there for the interviews, and he’s brilliant. And such a good interviewer. Sure, I think everyone thinks it’s going to be easy, but it’s not. It’s probably because he’s travelled so much, you know? Like he’s met so many different kinds of people. I wouldn’t have ever thought he’d be good at it before – you know, when we were wains at school together. God, aye but so much can change, can’t it? You know that wallaby stuffie that Sienna had out earlier? Well, he bought that for her. Brought it all the way back with him from Brisbane. He was just on a job there before he –”
“Erin? Come help in the kitchen for a sec?” Michelle interrupted from the kitchen doorway. She gave Erin a pointed look.
“Er, sure,” Erin said. She smiled at Alonso. “Be right back.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Michelle hissed as soon as they were safely in the confines of the kitchen, the steaming paella making the whole room fragrant with flavour.
“What? I thought you needed help. Is something wrong with the paella?” Erin peered over Michelle’s shoulder at the simmering pan.
“Can you just be fucking cool?” Michelle huffed, brushing her away. “For like one night?”
“I’m being normal.”
“If that’s you being ‘normal,’ then stop it,” Michelle snapped, her eyes trained on the paella. “You sound fucking mental out there.”
“We were talking. He was asking me questions, all I was doing was answering –”
“This is, like….really fucking important to me, ok? I only just met him, and you weren’t even supposed to be here tonight, and I want him to, you know, like me. They’re really close, him and Rafael. This matters.”
Erin stared at her. Was Michelle…blushing? Erin couldn’t quite tell. Maybe it was from the paella steam. Or the wine. Either would have seemed more likely to Erin if she hadn’t already seen the spirit of her ma inhabiting Michelle’s over-attentive hostessing all night.
Oh. Oh.
Erin had seen Michelle with all types of fellas. Dicks, and rides, and losers, and creeps, and charmers – they’d appear for a few weekends, or maybe a few months. Sometimes Erin would hear about them – Brian’s feet reeked or Dara was always fucking skint or Eoin “accidentally” fingered a shot girl on a lad’s holiday or Shay loved his ma just a little too much. It was nearly always the same. Erin would eventually meet them. She’d make polite conversation. Sometimes they’d try to make an impression – free concert tickets or nice dinners.
She’d sometimes even begin to like them. Patrick, for instance, who Michelle had gone with for nearly a whole year, had been sweet. He’d even attended one of Liam’s poetry readings before Liam and Erin had broken up. But it hadn’t been long after that that Michelle had ended things. Erin was pretty sure she’d been more upset about it than Michelle was.
“He was a boring bastard, Erin,” Michelle had said in answer to Erin’s dismay. “It was only a matter of time.”
“You’ve got to at least try sometimes,” Erin had said in a huff. “You’re gonna run out of fellas at this rate. What if he was it? You know – the one. Don’t you ever wonder?”
“No,” Michelle had said with a shrug, entirely unbothered.
She was always unbothered. Except for now.
“We were having a normal conversation, I promise,” Erin said, all bite gone from her voice.
“Sticking your head up your own hole over my dickhead cousin who isn’t even here isn’t normal conversation, like. Jesus.”
“Fine. I get it. But he asked —”
“I don’t care. Here, take this wine back out with you,” Michelle said, shoving another open bottle of red into Erin’s hands and then Erin back out with it.
Erin rather thought she did a good job of not talking so much after that. At least not about James. Not when Alonso complained about his coach from Dublin to Belfast breaking down just outside of Newry (James had been on a coach that blew a tyre outside of Dromore once on a visit to Faye and Clare in Dublin).
Not when Michelle regaled them with the story about the time she’d negotiated a £10 photo with Antonio Banderas outside a pub in East London only to realise later that it was just some random fella (Erin had been raging that she’d missed it for being in the loo after James had spilled an entire pint on her, but was vindicated the next day when Michelle developed the film. “The giant neck tattoo didn’t tip you off that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t him?” James had asked incredulously. “It was dark, all right?” Michelle had huffed. “And, aye, maybe I was a wee bit pished. But he still kinda looks like him. It’s basically the same.”)
Not even when Rafael looked across the table at her as he set down his glass of wine, “How were things with the film? You’re done filming now?”
“Not yet,” Erin said with a weak smile. She twisted her napkin in her lap, waiting for the next inevitable question.
“Not yet? Then why are you in Belfast?”
There it was. “I just needed a break. Just a – aye, a short break. I’ll go back soon,” she lied. “It’s just the cat, and my parents – nightmare – and I’m getting my book galleys any day now. I needed to, er, be home. To accept the parcel.”
That wasn’t entirely a lie. But it hadn’t seemed important a day ago. Her upstairs neighbour, Gina, could have signed for it. Sure, Erin had been dying to get the advanced copies of her book in hand for months, but it could have waited. It could have waited when there were more important things to do.
Rafael nodded slowly, looking at her too shrewdly for comfort, before turning his attention back to Michelle who had begun to clear empty dinner plates.
“Ah, good idea,” he said, pushing his chair back and standing to join her.
“Sit down, would you?” Michelle said, nudging Rafael back to his chair. “I’ve got it. Oh wait – hold on.”
The mobile buried in Michelle’s denim pocket had begun to ring out a tinny, melodic “fuck you very, very much.”
She shoved a plate into Rafael’s open hand as she dug around to free the mobile, balancing it in between her ear and shoulder as she answered and took the plate back from Rafael. Erin watched, eyes wide, her breath shallowing out.
It could only be one person. Michelle had spent a whole £1 on the ringtone just for the laugh of the song playing every time James ever called her.
“What’s up, Dicko?”
Erin strained to hear even the ghost of his tone through the phone from where she was sitting. Why was he calling? Did he want to talk about her? Did he want to talk to her? He was just there, on the other side of that wee piece of plastic pressed against Michelle’s ear. He was so close, she could just take the phone and hear him and –
“No, I’ll ring you tomorrow,” Michelle continued. “We’re all just finishing dinner – um, just Rafael and his brother. And Erin – aye, thought they should meet since she’s back.” Michelle turned and made her way to the kitchen before stopping abruptly in the doorway. “Listen, I don’t fucking know. Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s right here.”
Erin sat up straight, heart pounding, and held out her hand for the phone without even thinking. What would she say? What would she even fucking say? But if he wanted to talk – maybe he’d have something to say. Maybe they could just talk, and it would be fine, and maybe –
“You sure?” Michelle continued, giving Erin a funny once over. “Ok. Aye, tomorrow night’s fine. Ok. Bye.” Erin dropped her hand, her heart dropping with it. Oh.
“Who was that?” Erin called out to Michelle’s back as she disappeared into the kitchen. Met with only Michelle’s silence, Erin excused herself from the table and hurried into the kitchen to find Michelle rinsing the dinner plates in the sink. “Who was that?”
Michelle let her head fall back for an aggravated moment before glancing unpleasantly at Erin over her shoulder. “Jesus Christ, Erin. Who do you think it was?”
“You don’t need to be such a dick about it,” Erin grumbled, letting herself lean back against the refrigerator with a heavy thud, demoralised.
“Well he was sure in a hurry not to talk to you, so I’m not too sure who the dick is,” Michelle snapped. “Nothing happened in Derry? Really? Christ, why I even put up with the two of you. I’m not a fucking eejit, you know.”
Erin opened her mouth to protest, but Michelle didn’t pay her any mind and continued as she washed the dish in her hands more vigorously with every word. “You know, you only ever think about yourself. Sounding so fucking pitiful on the phone – oh but sure, you did the ‘right’ thing. There’s only ever one reason why Dicko doesn’t want to talk to you. What the fuck did you do?”
Erin felt blood rush to her face in mortified anger, unsure which thread of Michelle’s insults to follow. “What – nothing. What did he say? Did he say something? If he said something – I –”
Michelle turned to her finally, looking incredulous as water dripped off the yellow rubber gloves she’d donned and pooled on the scuffed kitchen parquet. Erin waited a beat, nearly breathless with anticipation for any word from James, no matter that it would be translated through the growing ire of his cousin.
“That’s why you’re so fucking worried about?” Michelle asked, scoffing. “Do you ever even listen to yourself?”
Erin opened her mouth, expectant that something – anything – would come out in response. Surely she could defend herself. At least explain herself. But nothing came out. She closed her mouth, cheeks now burning red.
Michelle gave a humourless laugh. “D’you want to know something? I’ll tell you something you’ll want to know. If you’d kept your shite together just a few more days – you know, we’re all supposed to be in Derry this weekend to surprise you. But you can’t even wise the fuck up long enough not to ruin everyone else’s craic.”
Erin’s mouth fell open again, this time in astonishment. Michelle rolled her eyes and turned back to the kitchen sink to keep at her work. Plates and cutlery now clinked dangerously together in the soapy water.
“What?” Erin breathed out.
“Like, Jesus, Erin. The amount of convincing me and Faye had to do just to get Clare to take Friday off so we’d have an extra day together. You’re not worth all the fucking effort, if you ask me, because you know what? You never do the same back. He can say it’s ‘for the film’ all he wants, but we all fucking know, and it’s really fucking boring. Did you know that? It is so boring to watch your fucking Reality Bites bullshit over and over again. And, like, sorry, but you’re just not as much of a ride as Winona, you can’t keep doing this. Now are you gonna help me dry the dishes or what?”
“I don’t – what are you talking about? Surprising me?”
Michelle slung the tea towel at Erin. She caught it, just barely, letting it hang limply at her side and making absolutely no movement to join Michelle at the sink.
Michelle gave Erin a peevish look. “Aye. Me, and Orla, and Clare. We’re gonna be in Derry this weekend to do our interviews for James’s wee film. Without you now, I guess. Such bad craic. Or, no, you know what? Maybe it’ll be good craic since you’d probably be acting like this the whole fucking time if you were there.”
“No. What? Since when?” Erin asked, shaking her head in disbelief. “I set the interview schedules. He was gonna come back to Belfast for yours. I’d even asked Clare if she’d come up, she kept blowing me off –”
“I think that’s what makes it a surprise. No one try to tell me I can’t keep a secret, I kept that shite locked down. But who the fuck cares if you know now? It doesn’t matter anymore. Seriously, are you just gonna stand there?”
“Why didn’t he say? I wouldn’t have – I mean, I would have stayed, I would have –” Erin stammered, moving automatically to join Michelle shoulder-to-shoulder at the sink. “How long did you say he’s been planning it?”
Michelle shrugged. “I don’t remember. A few weeks. Before you went to Derry. Clare tried to tell him it was too short notice, can you fucking believe it? I swear to Christ she plans her entire life out like two years in advance. Faye is a saint, I don’t know how she stands it.”
“Right,” Erin said absentmindedly, finally picking up one of the clean plates that had accumulated in the sink and drying it. “So – so you’re going? You’re all still going? Even though I’m – here.”
“Barry already gave me the time off work. And Orla nicked some expired nitrous from the team’s infirmary bin, we’re gonna get so fucked –”
“Jesus, you’re gonna kill yourselves.”
“It’s basically safe. Faye said she’ll keep an eye on us. You know. Take us to hospital if shit gets really real, that kind of thing.”
“Hmph,” Erin answered, carefully stacking the dried plates one by one. For a moment, it was just the sound of Michelle’s hands in soapy water and the soft swish of Erin’s tea towel on ceramic.
“You could fucking go, you know,” Michelle said. “No one’s stopping you.”
“Go back? I – no, I can’t go back, not after –”
“After what?” Michelle asked, eyes narrowed.
“Not after I left,” Erin hurried to clarify. “It’s – embarrassing.”
“Well what else is new?”
“Fuck off, ok?” Erin snapped. “I’ve had enough of it from you today. You’ve got your shots in, you don’t need to keep –”
Michelle raised her soapy hands in surrender. “Calm your tits. It’s fine. I’ll stop. But really, who the fuck cares? James? Listen to yourself – James? Don’t fucking worry about him. For once in your life, like. You’ll go up with me on Friday, we’ll have some major fucking craic. Clare will cry a bit. Orla’s for sure gonna have fireworks. You can avoid my dickhead cousin who doesn’t even want to talk to you anyway, so, like, that’s easy. And then you’ll come back with me on Monday. Fucking easy.”
“No. I can’t,” Erin insisted.
“Why the fuck not?”
“It’s complicated.”
Michelle pulled out the drain stopper. The soapy water gurgled through the drain.
“Erin. Nothing is that fucking complicated.”
___________________________________
From: [email protected]
[DRAFT SAVED] Tuesday, June 26, 2007 12:21 AM BST
You know, if you think about it, it’s actually YOUR fault that I
___________________________________
From: [email protected]
[DRAFT SAVED] Tuesday, June 26, 2007 12:53 AM BST
I can’t believe you planned this. Fucking awful timing. Why didn’t you just say? Then I wouldn’t have
___________________________________
From: [email protected]
[DRAFT SAVED] Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:01 AM BST
Michelle’s wrong, though. I know what she thinks, but she’s wrong. Maybe from the outside it looks a certain way. But she’s wrong. And you and I both know it. She’s wrong because otherwise you would have
Please don’t tell her
___________________________________
From: [email protected]
[DRAFT SAVED] Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:13 AM BST
You make me feel so miserable. I thought about you through the whole dinner. I just can’t stop. I was supposed to stop. And when you called, I was practically about to wrestle Michelle for the phone. I feel totally mental. And the worst part is that I know I’m the only one. I feel so completely mental.
You always do the right thing. I never can. I don’t even know what the right thing is. You’re never thinking about yourself. You’re always thinking about others. Why are you so nice to me? I am such shit. Even when I’m trying not to be. That’s shit too. I’m sorry.
___________________________________
“...sure, but it was John Nesbitt who walked right on in, wouldn’t you know it? Sarah was sure of it, but didn’t have her disposable on her. Said he looked just like himself –”
“Ma, it’s James Nesbitt,” Erin said impatiently, checking her watch as she paced back and forth across the squeaky floor of her flat, phone pressed to her ear. “And I really don’t think James Nesbitt walked into Aunt Sarah’s nail salon.”
Her mother had developed a sixth sense for ringing her up at the most inconvenient times, usually when Erin was just about to leave her flat. After one too many accusations that she was lying just to avoid talking to Mary, Erin had instead learned to answer the calls and then try to end them as quickly as possible without her ma minding. She was rarely ever successful.
“Men are getting their nails done now, you know. Sure, I keep trying to tell your father he should get a pedicure. Might help him get rid of that fungus on his big toe –”
Erin grimaced. “Boke. I don’t want to talk about Daddy’s feet again. He should go to a doctor, I keep telling him.”
“I bought him some new cream at Woolie’s, he’ll be right as rain soon. But maybe if someone just dug it all out it would –”
“Ok. Ma. I’m being dead serious, I really gotta go,” Erin interrupted in a rush, trying yet again to end the call for the third time in 10 minutes. She would likely still be talking about toe fungus and actors who definitely weren’t in Bogside nail salons by tea if she didn’t hurry it along. Erin slung her bag over her shoulder and began to pull on her shoes as she continued, “The post closes in an hour, and I need to get my books, and they took it to the one clear across town and –”
“Speaking of James,” her ma said, completely ignoring her. “Yours sure is a wee talented cook. He made us carbonara last night, did he tell you? Even your granda liked it, and you know how he feels about Italian.”
Erin nearly tumbled over, her left foot only halfway into her shoe as her bag slumped off her shoulder and hit the floor with a loud thump. “My – what? James?”
“Did he not tell you? Well, sure, I invited him again to supper. No sense in not, I could only think of the poor wee fella sitting at home alone. Deirdre never cooks anything worth eating anymore, let me tell you. Her soda bread’s as a hard as a rock even straight out of the oven. I nearly broke a tooth over tea last week.”
Erin stood dumbly in the front hall of her flat. “You invited James? Ma –”
“Sure, what else is he supposed to do? Starve? He was over nearly every night before you swanned off.”
“Well, yeah. But. I mean. It’s different when I’m there.”
“I don’t see why,” her ma sniffed. “He was so appreciative. I’ve never heard the like out of him. I told him he’s welcome any time, no matter what. Asked if he could thank us for all the hospitality. I was hard pressed to let him in the kitchen alone, but it all worked out for the best.” Her ma paused. When she continued, her tone was uncharacteristically gentle. “He grew up into such a nice fella, Erin.”
“Aye. I know,” Erin grumbled, punctuating her sentence by pulling her shoelace a little too tight.
She set about loosening them as her ma said, “He sure does like you, you know.” Erin’s hand stilled, her stomach ribboning out inside of her like the loose laces in her fingers. Erin hitched the phone balanced on her shoulder even closer to her ear, as if it would make the words sink in better. “You should have heard him going on about working with you on the script for his film. God aye, the way he talks you’d think you were a wee Maeve Binchy.”
Erin felt her cheeks grow warm and resumed tying her shoes with now-clumsy hands. “That’s…aye, that’s nice.”
“You’ve been friends for such a long time, can you believe how the time flies? It’s so good you stayed in touch. Remember when he took you to that school formal?”
“Aye…” Erin said, worrying her lip between her teeth.
“Sure, I still remember I barely had to say a word to him before he told me that he’d come and get you. Fellas like that don’t come around every day. Now, don’t bite my head off, but d’you ever think about how it’s been so long since you and Liam –”
“Ma, stop,” Erin interrupted. “I know what you’re trying to say, but it’s not like that –”
“Well you should give the idea a chance. You never know. When I met your father –”
“I don’t need to give the idea a chance. It’s not happening –”
“You’re not getting any younger and just because I’m your mammy doesn’t mean I don’t know a thing or two –”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” Erin said, voice piercing through her quiet flat. “Not with you.”
The silence that followed was so foreboding that Erin rushed immediately into apology: “Ma – I’m sorry, I just –”
“Well talk about it with someone,” her ma snapped.
“No, it’s just that now’s not a good time and, you know, me and James, it’s just not –”
“Go pick up your parcel, you’ll be late,” Mary interrupted in clipped tones. “I’ll tell James you say hello.”
“No. What. No. Ma. I don’t say ‘hello’! Please don’t tell him I said –” Erin whinged as the line went dead. For the second time in two days she resisted the urge to throw her phone clear across the room and instead settled for tossing it onto the settee cushions. “Fucking hell.”
___________________________________
From: [email protected]
[DRAFT SAVED] Wednesday, June 27, 2007 4:24 PM BST
You’re really not making this easy. Why can’t you ever make this easy?
Stop going to my house.
___________________________________
From: [email protected]
[DRAFT SAVED] Wednesday, June 27, 2007 6:54 PM BST
I got my books today. They’re really, really something. You wouldn’t believe it. Or, maybe you would. You’ve always believed more than me.
I wish I could give you one.
___________________________________
Erin hadn’t intended to clean out the mess under her bed in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. There had been plenty of other things that needed her attention – the wash, an email from her publisher with dates for her modest autumn UK book tour, the empty refrigerator, the shining sun. But, instead, she was sitting on her bedroom floor with open shoeboxes and their contents strewn around her – stacks of handwritten letters, several full journals carefully labelled by year, envelopes of developed film.
It was a wee bit depressing when she compared the afternoon’s activities with those of only a matter of days ago, when she’d been doing the exact same in Derry with James just next to her being too discerning and asking questions that she’d been afraid to give the answers to.
But it was useful to declutter – no, it was good to find things for the film – no, she should stop thinking about the film, the film wasn’t her concern, not anymore – still, maybe James would want the photo of her and Orla dressed in their First Communion dresses on top of the Walls, their wee white dresses starkly contrasted against the armoured British soldiers passing by in the background. She placed it into a small pile of other photos and tokens that had seemed to accumulate to one side on their own accord, but which could all be categorised as “For the Film, But Not Really, But Maybe.”
She could put them in an envelope, give them to Michelle to take with her. Maybe she could include a note, saying something nice, something that would make him want to call her.
Or, even better, maybe she could hand deliver them. Maybe she could go back to Derry. Maybe it’d be just like Michelle had said – no big deal. If James wanted to ignore her, then fine. She could ignore him too. She was excellent at ignoring him. Maybe it’d even be a good thing. Maybe they could reset, just forget everything that needed to be forgotten, maybe –
Her thumb traced over her name, scrawled in James’s neat handwriting on an envelope that had been addressed to her at her first-year student dorm at Queens, back when they wrote letters to each other like it was nothing, like it didn’t mean anything. But it’d meant everything – to her, at least.
No, it was too soon. She’d end up in the same old hole again – and that was why she’d left in the first place, wasn’t it? Because she’d fallen into the hole again. She couldn’t go back, not yet. She could at least do that for herself. For him.
She eased herself up off the floor and, in digging around in a desk drawer for an envelope large enough to hold the items, caught a glance of the open box of her brand new book galleys tucked into the corner of her bedroom. She paused and prevaricated for a moment, looking at the plain, undesigned covers with a red ribbon reading “ADVANCED COPY” splashed across the front.
She’d always meant to give him one. And she wanted to give him one. Present circumstances or not, why shouldn’t she give him one?
Before she could second guess herself further, she picked a book neatly out of the box and stuck it in the envelope along with the items she’d collected on the floor, and wrote “For James” on the outside. She’d take it to Michelle when she met her at Rafael’s later that night. Easy.
But it was only a few minutes before Erin returned to the envelope and took the book out again. Maybe another time. She might like to give it to him in person, whenever that was. It was settled. Later. She’d give it to him later.
She’d sent an email back to her publisher, put in a load of wash, and made a shopping list when she returned to her room a third time. She rummaged in her desk for a pen and a slip of anything to write on, scrawled a quick note, and stuck it inside the book at the dedication page before slipping everything back inside the envelope. She even sealed it this time for good measure.
The book was his. He should get to have it. She might like to give it to him in person, but it would be perfectly fine not to. She would be fine. She didn’t need to always get what she wanted. Everything was going to be fine.
___________________________________
From: [email protected]
Thursday, June 28, 2007 3:43 PM BST
I could have been doing a hundred different things this afternoon, but you know what I was doing instead? Thinking about your stupid film. I can’t stop thinking about your stupid film. And, in thinking about your stupid film, I was going through more old things. I have more photos for you to use in the film if you want them. I’ll send them with Michelle.
I still have our old letters. I took good care of them, because I’m stupid too. I’m so stupid. All the important things, all the things that ever mention you, are here. They’re not in Derry, because I made sure to bring them here. I made sure that I always had them. But I wish I didn’t now. You’re not even here, and you’re still everywhere. Stop being everywhere. Do you even still have my letters?
But even so, I wish I had more of them. I wish we’d never stopped writing them. I wish we’d started again. Why didn’t we ever start again? I wish I could hold every word you’d ever written or said to me in my hands. I wish
I’m not coming back for the weekend. I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s going to be miserable, but I’ll be fine. I always am.
___________________________________
It was surprisingly quiet at Rafael’s that night when Erin slipped through the front door of the bar. A couple huddled together in a corner booth under a dim pendant lamp. Two older fellas played a placid game of cards in another. Erin slid carefully onto a cracking leather stool, the “For James” envelope as well as three galley copies at her elbow on the bar just as Rafael pushed his way out from the back hallway, hands laden with a crate of clean pint glasses.
“Erin! Michelle said you’d be coming by tonight. What can I get you?” he asked, setting down the crate of glasses a little too haphazardly on the polished wood bar. They clinked precariously, but Rafael didn’t pay it any mind.
“Just a pint – of whatever you’ve got too much of, I’m not picky tonight.” She watched him nod and pluck a clean pint glass from the shelf. As he started her pour, she said, “So…I hear Michelle’s off early in the morning to Derry.”
“She is,” he answered simply. And then, shooting her a glance over his shoulder, he said, “But not you, apparently.”
Erin shrugged and shifted in her seat. “No. I – well, like I said, I’m busy and – it’s not like I don’t want to go –”
“So you do want to?” he asked as he tossed a beer mat towards her and placed a dark, milky pint on top.
“No,” she said quickly, feeling uncannily like whatever she had said here could and would be used against her in a court of Michelle. Of course he and Michelle talked. And Michelle was such a mouth. Rafael probably knew all kinds of things about her now that she’d not have particularly wanted him to know. No longer was he just the friendly downstairs bartender whose ear she could talk off without worry; now he was a covert agent. “I didn’t mean that, I just –”
“Jesus Christ, sorry I’m late,” said Michelle, blustering in the door and up to the bar. “Hi,” she said softly to Rafael as she leaned over the bar to peck a quick kiss on his lips before settling on the stool next to Erin. “We couldn’t find Sienna’s wee rabbit stuffie, she thinks she left it at the school, but said she couldn’t sleep and – well, Alonso was reading to her when I left, so fuck knows what you’re going home to later, but just so you know – what are you drinking?” she asked, turning to Erin.
“Erm – stout. Right?” Erin asked, examining the pint in front of her and looking to Rafael for confirmation.
“In June? Christ, no,” Michelle scoffed. “Can I get a vodka cran, love?”
Erin’s eyebrows arched and she turned to Michelle with a teasing self-satisfaction. “Love? Boke,” Erin muttered under her breath.
“Shut the fuck up,” Michelle said, good-natured as she sloughed off her jacket. “So what’s the craic?
“Nothing, really,” Erin shrugged. “Oh, this is for you,” she said, handing the galley over to Michelle. “Don’t look at it yet! Wait ‘til I’m not here or something,” she said as Michelle began to rifle through the pages.
“I better be thanked somewhere in there,” Michelle said, obediently closing the book. “For all the moral support. Never realised you writing a book would make you so fucking needy. If I never hear you moan about writer’s block again, I’ll be a happy woman.”
“You’ll just have to see for yourself,” Erin said with an air of prim mystery. “Take this with you tomorrow, will you?” She slid the other two book galleys and the “For James” envelope over to her. “Clare and Orla’s copies. And then James’s.”
Michelle stared blankly at the envelope. “Why’s his special?”
“It’s not special,” Erin scoffed, feeling the colour rise in her cheeks. “There’re some photos I found in there, too. He might want them for the film.” Michelle shot her a sceptical look. “I was just trying to keep it all together, ok?”
“Whatever. You could take them yourself, you know. I’m not a pack animal.”
Erin gave her a weak smile. “Well thanks for taking them anyway, then.”
Michelle sighed impatiently, but let the topic drop in favour of a long discussion about Paris Hilton’s recent prison release and whether Erin thought that Michelle could call out sick on Monday without her boss suspecting that she’d opted to extend her Derry trip without permission.
“– It’s just not any time at all, and Clare’s saying now that she took Monday off, too. Can you even fucking believe it? So I want to make the most of the time. Orla’s already there apparently – aye, did she tell you already? Clare and Faye aren’t getting in until after supper, but I’ll be there first thing, like, and I think it would just be better if I get mostly three whole days. It’s dead boring to go when it’s just me, but Mammy’s been hounding me, so at least this way I can say I was there –” Michelle’s mobile gave a tinkling little noise and she rooted around in her jacket pocket to find it as she continued, “I swear to God, the only person she’s better at guilting than me is Niall, and that’s probably only because he was in fucking prison and Mammy thinks he shouldn’t have moved away to – oh my God, they’re such fucking eejits. Look, Erin –” Michelle said, suddenly shoving her mobile in Erin’s face as Erin recoiled in surprise.
“God, hold on. You can just hand it to me like a normal – What? What am I even looking at here?” Erin asked testily, steadying the mobile in her hands and getting a clear look at the photo on the screen.
It was immediately obvious what she was looking at – James’s very chagrined face with Orla’s delighted finger pointing at a singed curl.
Her stomach jerked unpleasantly, a spurt of jealousy poisoning the image. She quickly handed the mobile back to Michelle and took a long swig of her beer to swallow her envy down with it.
She should be there. What were they talking about? What were they doing? She hadn’t seen Orla in ages. It should be her there, it should be them together, all of them, it should be –
“Rogue firework got ‘em apparently. I don’t know what Orla’s doing, though. She’s supposed to wait for me – ‘Don’t…waste…the…good…ones…on…fanny…features,’” Michelle said as she typed out the text and hit “send.”
“They should be careful,” Erin grumbled. “It’s dangerous. You’ll be careful, right? I’m worried –”
“Ach, they’re fine. But if you’re so worried –”
“No, I’ve already decided – I’m staying here,” Erin said firmly. “You’ll have a grand time and I’ll be fine. But just be careful.”
Michelle took a long sip through her wee cocktail straw, eyes narrowed.
“What?” Erin asked.
“No one asked you to be Our Lady of Sorrows, you know,” Michelle answered after a moment’s pause. “We all want you to be there. That was the whole point.”
“You don’t get it,” Erin sighed, picking at the peeling edge of her beer mat. “It’s better this way.”
“No, you don’t get it. You’re being fucking selfish, Erin,” Michelle snapped. “You’re ruining everyone’s craic just because you can’t stop wallowing in your own self-pity. Just come –” she said, shaking Erin gently on the shoulder. “When was the last time we were all together? It never happens. You think Clare is going to come back again any time soon? This is important. I know you’re all ‘woe is me’ about Dicko, but I want you to be there, and that should fucking mean something to you.”
“Aye, well it doesn’t really. Not this time,” Erin said with a dry, muted laugh.
Michelle withdrew her hand instantly, her face turning stoney and unreadable. Erin shifted uncomfortably in her seat, avoiding her gaze and trying to tamp down a clammy anxiety that was already spreading rapidly through her whole body.
Michelle was silent for a long moment. Rafael was off at the corner booth, retrieving the couple’s empty pint glass. Erin heard him laugh, the clink of glasses in his hands, but the sound was muffled somehow, her attention focused solely on Michelle’s next word.
When it came, it was icy cold. “You know, cousin or not, I really never understood why he’s so in love with you. You are such a bitch.”
Erin flinched, hunching over her nearly-empty pint glass.
“He’s not in love with me –” Erin said, her hands grasping damply around the pint glass, searching for some purchase. She wished suddenly that Michelle would just stop looking at her, stop seeing her. She wished she were upstairs in her flat, without anyone cajoling her, or judging her, or even just thinking about her. She wished so many things were different. She wished she didn’t know that Michelle was right.
“Oh wise the fuck up, Erin,” Michelle spat, sliding off the stool and snatching the two books and “For James” envelope off the bar. “I should go. Have a grand time this weekend. Alone.”
Erin got her wish a few minutes later – alone, in her flat, without anyone there to notice how utterly miserable she felt. Even Rafael’s worried look as he’d made his way back to the bar to find Michelle gone had felt nearly unbearable. Erin had dropped a tenner on the bar without thinking and rushed away before he could ask any probing questions. And it wasn’t as if he wouldn’t find out later.
Alone – except for her cat looking sleepily up at her from his favourite spot on the settee as she let her keys clatter on the dish she kept in the vestibule for the exact purpose. She could feel his annoyance with her, too.
“Deal with it,” she said, peevishly toeing off her shoes and letting them lay where they would, haphazard on the floor. He settled his head back onto his paws; though, she thought, tilted slightly away from her.
Fine. Whatever. No one understood? Well, that was fine. She didn’t need anyone to understand. How could they?
No one knew what it was like to be the only one in love. No one knew what it was like to think, and wish, and want for the better part of a decade. No one knew how absolutely insane that could make you. How unsure of everything.
She banged and barged around her flat, growing increasingly angry. She slammed the electric kettle lid down. Her tea cup threatened to chip on the counter as she whipped it out of the cabinet.
No one knew what it was like to miss a chance. Or to fuck it up so irreparably. To regret, and regret, and regret again. To feel so old, so much older. To know how stupid everyone else was, seeing things that weren’t there, things that she so desperately wished were there.
He’s so in love with you. Tell that to five nights ago. Tell that to the brick alley wall at Boar’s Head. He sure does like you. Tell that to him, because he sure didn’t seem to know what everyone else thought was certain.
She slung her laptop lid open. It seemed to boot up feebly, as if unsure it even wanted to be on while she was in such a temper. But if she had to be awake for this, so should everything else.
Well everyone could call it whatever they wanted. They could call her whatever they wanted. But it didn’t mean that she wasn’t right. It didn’t mean that she wasn’t doing right.
She forcefully clicked open her email and stared moodily at the page as it loaded part way and then lagged.
Because she was doing the right thing. She was almost sure of it. She had removed herself from the situation. She’d been an eejit, she’d been so foolish, just absolutely mental and, because of that, it didn’t matter what she actually wanted anymore. It didn’t matter. Because only she wanted it. And he –
Her email finally loaded.
And he –
But he –
She stared at the computer screen. He had sent her an email.
Her hands were clumsy as she clicked it open, her leg jiggling impatiently as the page, again, loaded slowly.
“Come on,” she muttered to herself. “Come the fuck on.”
And then, swallowing a gulp of horror at seeing the email she’d drafted to him only earlier that day nestled at the bottom of the email thread – she’d accidentally sent it? Jesus fucking Christ, what was wrong with her? – she read:
From: [email protected]
Thursday, June 28, 2007 9:17 PM BST
Of anything I would have expected you to say to me for the first time in days, I wouldn’t have expected this. I’m so glad to know you think the film is stupid. Your honesty is refreshing. And I guess I’m supposed to say thank you for finding the new photos. So thanks, I guess. I’ll make sure I get them from Michelle.
If you wanted to write letters again, all you ever had to do was ask. All I ever wish you would do is just ask me. I can’t read your mind, you know. Sometimes I don’t think you realise how much I wish I could, but it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t. Do us both a giant favour and remember that for once. And stop running away.
You’ll be missed this weekend. I think by me more than anyone.
James
P. S. Yes, I still have them.
___________________________________
Erin Quinn [10:32 PM]: I’m coming with you tmrw
Erin Quinn [10:33 PM]: And sorry i’m such a dick. I really try not to be
Erin Quinn [10:33 PM]: I’m just not vry good at it
Michelle Mallon [10:35 PM]: thank christ
Michelle Mallon [10:36 PM]: im ok w this bc the book dedication made me weepy
Michelle Mallon [10:36 PM]: bc u were being a bitch
Michelle Mallon [10:37 PM]: & i didnt want u to cum
Michelle Mallon [10:37 PM]: ;)
Michelle Mallon [10:37 PM]: but now i do again
Michelle Mallon [10:38 PM]: dont tell any1 i cried or ill kill u
Erin Quinn [10:39 PM]: Jesus ok already. I have an SMS limit you know. See you tmrw
Michelle Mallon [10:40 PM]: <3