Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes (9 page)

"Playing on the stairs in my mother's high heels."
"Age what? Six? Eight?"
"Twenty-seven. No. Five and a half. I was doing a big Hollywood-musical-style thing, and I fell
down the stairs and at the bottom hit my forehead on the corner of the convection heater."
"Convection heater?"
"Must be an Irish thing. Metal yoke. I needed three stitches. How did you get yours?"
"Day I was born. Accident with a midwife and a pair of scissors. I also got three stitches. Now
tell me what you do when you're not being a magician's assistant."
"You want the real me?"
"If that's okay. And if you could speak quickly, I'd appreciate it. Just in case you decide to
leave."
So I told him all about my life. About Jacqui, Rachel, Luke, the Real Men, Shake's air-guitar
prowess, Nell, my upstairs neighbor, Nell's strange friend. I told him about work, how I loved
my products, and how Lauryn had stolen my promo idea for the orange-and-arnica night cream
and passed it off as her own.
"I hate her already," he said. "Is your wine okay?"
"Fine."
"Just that you're drinking it kind of slowly."
"Not as slowly as you're drinking that beer of yours."
Three times the waitress asked, "You guys okay for drinks?" and three times she was sent away
with a flea in her ear.
After I'd brought Aidan up to speed on my life, he told me about his. About his upbringing in
Boston, how he and Leon had lived next door to each other, and how unusual it was in their
neighborhood for a Jewish boy and an Irish-American boy to be best friends. He told me about
his younger brother, Kevin, and how competitive they'd been as kids. "Only two years between
us, everything was a battle." He told me about his job, his roomie, Marty, and his lifelong love of
the Boston Red Sox, and at some stage in the story, I finished my glass of wine.
"Just hang on while I finish my beer," he said, and with admirable restraint, he made the last inch
last a full hour. Finally he couldn't avoid being done and he looked regretfully at his empty glass.
"Okay, that's the one drink you signed up for. How's the plumbing in your apartment?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Perfect."
W        ell?" Jacqui asked, when I got in. "Nut job?"
"No. Normal."
"Vrizzzon?"
I thought about it. "Yes." There certainly had been a frisson.
"Snog?"
"Kind of."
"Tongues?"
"No." He had kissed me on the mouth. Just a brief impression of heat and firmness and then he
was gone, leaving me wanting more.
"Like him?"
"Yes."
"Oh, really?" Suddenly interested. "In that case, I'd better take a look at him."
I set my jaw and held her look. "He is not a Feathery Stroker."
"I'll be the judge of that."
Jacqui's Feathery Stroker test is a horribly cruel assessment that she brings to bear on all men. It
originated with some man she slept with years ago. All night long he'd run his hands up and
down her body in the lightest, feathery way, up her back, along her thighs, across her stomach,
and before they had sex he asked her gently if she was sure. Lots of women would have loved
this: he was gentle, attentive, and respectful. But for Jacqui it was the greatest turnoff of her life.
She would have much preferred it if he'd flung her across a hard table, torn her clothes, and
taken her without her explicit permission. "He kept stroking me," she said afterward, wincing
with revulsion. "In this awful feathery way, like he'd read a book about how to give women what
they want. Bloody Feathery Stroker, I wanted to rip my skin off."
And so the phrase came about. It suggested an effeminate quality that instantly stripped a man of
all sex appeal. It was a damning way to be categorized and far better, in Jacqui's opinion, to be a
drunken wife beater in a dirty vest than a Feathery Stroker.

Her criteria were wide and merciless--and distressingly random. There was no definitive list but
here are some examples. Men who didn't eat red meat were Feathery Strokers. Men who used
postshave balm instead of slapping stinging aftershave onto their tender skin were Feathery
Strokers. Men who noticed your shoes and handbags were Feathery Strokers. (Or Jolly Boys.)
Men who said pornography was exploitation of women were Feathery Strokers. (Or liars.) Men
who said pornography was exploitation of men as much as women were off the scale. All straight
men from San Francisco were Feathery Strokers. All academics with beards were Feathery
Strokers. Men who stayed friends with their ex-girlfriends were Feathery Strokers. Especially if
they called their ex-girlfriend their "ex-partner." Men who did Pilates were Feathery Strokers.
Men who said, "I have to take care of myself right now" were screaming Feathery Strokers.
(Even I'd go along with that.)
The Feathery Stroker rules had complex variations and subsections: men who gave up their seat
on the subway were Feathery Strokers--if they smiled at you. But if they grunted "Seat," in a
macho, no-eye-contact way, they were in the clear.
Meanwhile, new categories and subsections were being added all the time. She'd once decided
that a man--who up until that point had been perfectly acceptable--was a Feathery Stroker for
saying the word groceries. And some of her decrees seemed downright unreasonable--men who
helped you look for lost things were Feathery Strokers, whereas no one but extreme Feathery
Stroker purists could deny that it was a handy quality for a man to have.
(Funnily enough, even though Jacqui fancied Luke something ferocious, I suspected he was a
Feathery Stroker. He didn't look like one; he looked like a tough, hard man. But beneath his
leather trousers and set jaw he was kind and thoughtful--sensitive, even. And sensitivity is the
FS's defining quality, his core characteristic.)
It was only when I realized how anxious I was that Jacqui might dismiss Aidan as a Feathery
Stroker that I saw how much I liked him. It wasn't that Jacqui's opinions affected me, it just
makes things a bit awkward if your friend despises your boyfriend. Not that Aidan was my
boyfriend...
My last proper boyfriend, Sam, had been a great laugh, but one terrible night he'd got tarred with
the Feathery Stroker brush for eating lowfat strawberry-cheesecake yogurt, and although it had
nothing to do with me and him breaking up--we hadn't been built to last--it made life a little
bumpy.
I'd never seen a Feathery Stroker being decategorized: once a Feathery Stroker, always a
Feathery Stroker. Jacqui was like the Roman emperor in Gladiator, the thumb went up or the
thumb went down, the fate of a man was decided in an instant and there was no going back.
I abhor the Feathery Stroker test, but who am I to judge because I have a "thing" about nuzzlers.
Men who nuzzle. Men who badger you in a hands-free way with their face and head, nudging
their head into your neck, polishing their forehead against yours, before finally kissing you--
sometimes with accompanying croony noises. I don't like it at all. At all.

"So when are you seeing this possible Feathery Stroker again?" Jacqui asked.
"I said I'd give him a call when I was in the mood," I said airily.
However, he rang me two days later, said his nerves couldn't take the waiting for me to ring, and
would I meet him for dinner that evening. Certainly not, I replied, he was a stalker and I had a
life. Mind you, I could do the following night if he wanted...
Four nights after that dinner, we went to a jazz thing, but it wasn't too bad, the musicians took
breaks after every second song--or so it seemed--so there were plenty of opportunities to talk.
Then around a week later, we went to some fondue yoke.
In the meantime I went on the date with Teenie's friend (to the Cirque de Soleil, a terrible night,
a circus is a circus, gussying it up with a French name changes nothing), and in theory I was
open to all offers, but the only man I saw was Aidan. Nonexclusively, of course.
He always asked after everyone--Jacqui's job, Shake's air-guitar practice et al.--because even
though he'd never met them, he knew so much about their lives. "It's like The Young and the
Restless, or something," he said.
We never strayed into serious territory. I had questions--like why he hadn't rung me when I'd
first given him my card or why he'd said he'd wanted me but didn't think he could have me. But
I didn't ask them because I didn't want to know. Or rather, I didn't want to know Yet.
O     n around our fourth or fifth date, he took a breath. "Don't be scared but Leon and Dana
want to meet you, like, properly. What do you think?"
I thought I'd rather remove my kidneys with a blunt spoon.
"We'll see," I said. "Funnily enough, Jacqui wants to meet you, too."
He had a little think. "Okay."
"Really? You don't have to. I told her I wouldn't ask because it might scare you away."
"No, let's go for it. You make her sound great, but will I like her?"
"Probably not."
"What?"

"Because," I said. "You know when two people are meeting for the first time and the other
person--me--really wants them to like each other and they say, `You'll love each other'? Their
expectations are too high, so they end up being disappointed and hate each other. The key here is
to lower expectations. So no, you won't like her at all."
T    he three of us will have dinner!" Jacqui declared.
We would not. What if she and Aidan didn't hit it off? Two to three hours making light
conversation while forcing food down tense throats--aaarrrgh!
A quick postwork drink would do; nice and easy and, above all, short. I decided on Logan Hall, a
big, rackety midtown bar, noisy enough to cover up any dips in conversations. It would be
packed with wage slaves kicking back and letting off steam.
On the designated night, I arrived first and fought my way through many tantalizing
conversations--
"...she is so fired..."
"...a bottle of Jack Daniel's in his sock, I swear it..."
"...under his desk, sucking him off..."
--and got a booth on the balcony. Jacqui was next to arrive, and eight minutes later, Aidan hadn't
yet appeared.
"He's late." Jacqui sounded approving.
"There he is." He was downstairs, pushing his way through the throngs, looking a little lost.
"We're here," I called.
He looked up, saw me, smiled like he really meant it, and mouthed, "Hey."
"Christ, he's gorgeous." Jacqui sounded astonished, then recovered herself. "Which counts for
nothing. You could have the best-looking man in the world but if he won't eat the bar nuts
because he's got a Feathery Stroker fear of germs, it's curtains."
"He'll eat the nuts," I said shortly, then stopped because here he was.
He kissed me, slid in beside me, and nodded hello to Jacqui.

"Can I get you guys a drink?" A waitress was flinging down cocktail napkins, then placed a bowl
of mixed nuts midtable.
"A saketini for me," I said.
"Make it two," said Jacqui.
"Sir?" The waitress looked at Aidan.
"I've no mind of my own," he said. "Better make it three."
I wondered what Jacqui would conclude from that. Were mixed drinks too girlie? Would it have
been better if he'd had a beer?
"Have a nut." Jacqui offered him the bowl.
"Hey, thanks."
I smirked at Jacqui.
It was a great night. We all got on so well that we stayed for a second drink, then a third, then
Aidan insisted on picking up the bill. Again, this worried me. Would a non�Feathery Stroker
have insisted we split it three ways?
"Thank you," I said. "You didn't have to do that."
"Yes, thanks," Jacqui said, and I held my breath. If he said stuff about it being a pleasure to be
out with two such lovely ladies, we were sunk. But he just said, "Welcome," and surely this
would count in his favor in the final Feathery Stroker shakedown?
"Better go to the ladies' room," Jacqui said. "Before the great migration home."
"Good idea." I followed her and asked, "Well? Feathery Stroker?"
"Him?" she exclaimed. "Definitely not."
"Good." I was pleased--delighted even--that Aidan had passed with such flying non�Feathery
Stroker colors.
With warm admiration, she added, "I bet he's a hard dog to keep on the porch," and my smile
wobbled just a little.
14

O     n Saturday afternoon, a taxi drew up outside chez Walsh. The door opened and a high-
heeled spindly sandal appeared, followed by a tanned leg (slightly orange and streaky around the
ankle), a short frayed denim skirt, a straining T-shirt that said MY BOYFRIEND IS OUT OF TOWN,
and a fall of vanilla-striped hair. Claire had arrived.
"She's forty," Helen said, in alarm. "She looks like a tramp. She was never that bad before."
"This is much more like it, better than that bloody Margaret," Mum said, heading to the front
door and welcoming Claire by calling out at the taxi, "Mutton dressed as lamb! Good girl
yourself."
Grinning, Claire swung up the drive, displaying six inches of thigh that was only slightly
cellulity, and into Mum's embrace.
"I've never seen you looking so well," Mum declared. "Where did you get that T-shirt? Listen,
would you have a word with Margaret; she's your younger sister and she looks older than me,
she's bad for my image."
"The state of you," Helen said scornfully. "Dressed like trailer trash--at forty!"
"And you know what they say about forty?" Claire put her hand on Helen's shoulder.
"Your arse hits the floor?"
"Life begins!" Claire yelled right in to her face. "Life BEGINS at forty. And forty is the new
thirty. And age is only a number. And you're only as young as the person you're feeling. Now
fuck off!"
She pivoted on her narrow heel and, with a dazzling smile, gathered me into arms. "Anna, how
are you feeling, love?"
Worn-out, actually. Claire had only been home a matter of seconds and already the shouting, the
insults, and the abrupt changes of mood had plunged me right back into my childhood.
"You look loads better," she said, then began surveying the hall, looking for Rachel. "Where is
she?"
"Hiding."
"I'm not FUCKING hiding. I'm FUCKING meditating." Rachel's voice came from somewhere
above us. We all looked up. She was lying on her belly on the landing, her nose poking through
the banister. "You could have saved yourself the journey because I'm definitely marrying him
and how do you reconcile your feminist principles with a skirt that short?"

"I'm not dressing for men, I'm dressing for me."
"Yeah." Mum sneered.
Eventually Rachel snapped out of the childish state we all seemed to have reverted to (especially
Mum) and became all wise and serene again and agreed to give Claire her ear. Me, Helen, and
Mum asked if we could be in on it, but Rachel said she'd prefer if we weren't and Helen lowered
her eyes and said, "Obviously, we respect that." Then the minute the pair of them closeted
themselves in a bedroom, the three of us raced up the stairs (well, they raced and I hobbled) and
listened at the door, but apart from the occasional raised voice, "Chattels!," "Objects!," and
Rachel doing her superirritating, "I understand" murmur, it quickly got boring.
Claire, having failed in her attempt to talk Rachel out of getting married, departed in high
dudgeon on Sunday evening. (After first clearing out my makeup bag of the last few remaining
lipsticks. As she said, she had not only her own needs to consider but those of her eleven- and
five-year-old daughters, who needed to impress their peers.)
T    hat night, Dad came to talk to me--as best he could. "Ready for the oul' journey
tomorrow?"
"Ready, Dad."
"Well, um...good luck when you get back and keep up the oul' walking," he said stoutly. "It
helps the oul' knee."
The number of times he said "oul" was an indication of how mortified he was: the "oul" index
was at an all-time high. Dad would lie down and die for me and all his family, but he would not,
could not, talk about emotions.
"Maybe when you get back, take up an oul' hobby," he suggested. "Keeps the oul' mind off
things. Golf maybe. And that'd be good for the oul' knee, too, of course."
"Thanks, Dad, I'll think about it."
"Mind you, it needn't be golf," he amended. "It could be any oul' thing. Lady things. And we
might be over at some stage to help with Rachel's oul' wedding to that hairy molly."