‘Okay.’ Claire smiled. ‘I’ll put a gun on the shopping list.’
‘So, tell me about the party last night. Was it fun?’
Claire shrugged. ‘It was okay.’ Her mother would probably have enjoyed it more than Claire had. Espie loved company, and had an insatiable appetite for meeting new people.
‘Come on, I want details. Entertain me. Did you meet any nice men?’
‘
Mum
.’
‘You can’t be mean to me when I’m laid up in hospital. You have to indulge me. You’ve a lot to learn about visiting the sick, young lady.’
‘I’m not being mean to you. There’s nothing much to tell, that’s all.’
‘Make something up, then.’
‘Well, let’s see … There were turquoise cocktails to match the furniture.’
‘Did you make that up?’
‘No, that’s true.’
‘Ooh, very glamorous. What did they taste like?’
‘I don’t know. I was driving, so I just had water.’
‘Honestly! You’re hopeless.’ Espie shook her head ruefully.
‘I know I’m a sad disappointment to you,’ Claire said on a yawn.
‘You’re knackered,’ her mother said. ‘You should get on home.’
Claire was shattered, but she felt sorry for her mother cooped up all day with no one to talk to. ‘No, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I can stay a bit longer. Do you want to play cards or something?’
Her mother hoisted herself up a bit in the bed, wincing. ‘Well, maybe just a quick game to keep our hands in. We don’t want to get rusty. There’s a deck in the locker.’
Several rounds of gin rummy later, Claire got up to go.
‘Claire,’ her mother said, as she put on her coat, ‘you know I was just kidding, don’t you – about shooting me?’
‘Of course! But I wouldn’t mention it in front of Michelle, if I were you. She doesn’t have our sense of humour.’
‘God, no! She’d take me up on it, wouldn’t she?’
‘In a heartbeat.’
Claire was almost crying with exhaustion as she walked up the path to her house. She would just go straight to bed and draw the curtains on this wearisome day. She’d feel brighter in the morning after a good night’s sleep. And tomorrow was Sunday so she could have a nice long lie-in.
She went straight to the kitchen and flicked the switch on the kettle. She was pleased to see that her impromptu guest had at least cleaned up after himself. Feeling a little more energised now that she was at home, she made tea and took it through to the living room, thinking she might unwind in front of the TV before bed. She flicked on the light and stopped in her tracks – because there on the sofa lay Luca, fast asleep, emitting a low rhythmic growl as he snored.
‘Oh, shit.’ Was there no end to the bloodiness of this day? Why was he still here? Maybe she’d just go straight to bed after all. She could pretend she hadn’t seen him. She was too tired
to deal with him right now. With any luck he’d be gone in the morning when she came down. But even as she started to back out of the door, he stirred.
Luca woke to find a dark-haired girl with hazel eyes staring down at him. She was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her. He glanced around the room, but he couldn’t place that either. Presumably he’d shagged her the previous night and this was her place. It was the only explanation he could come up with, though he had no recollection of kissing her wide, beautiful mouth. But why was he on the sofa, and why were they both fully dressed? And why was she looking at him with such … horror? Then he remembered: food; warmth; a soft bed. Claire – that was her name and this was her house. She was looking at him like that because he wasn’t supposed to be here. He had meant to leave while she was at work, but he’d just lain down on the sofa to shut his eyes for a few minutes … Fuck!
He sat up quickly, rubbing his eyes. ‘Hi. Sorry – I must have fallen asleep. I didn’t mean to …’
She watched him in silence and he could see she was trying to hide how upset she was at finding him still there. But it was clear she wanted him gone. He didn’t blame her.
He sprang off the sofa. ‘Look, I’ll get out of your way,’ he said, moving to the door. ‘Sorry – and thanks for the bed last night. And the dinner.’
‘That’s okay.’ She followed him into the hall. He found his jacket on the coat-stand and she stood watching him as he pulled it on. ‘Will your electricity be back on?’ she asked, her eyes darting from him to the door, which was being rattled by wind and rain.
‘No, but it’s fine. I’ll get it sorted.’
She chewed her lip, and he could tell she was tussling with herself, longing to be rid of him and trying to tamp down the better part of her nature that hadn’t allowed her to kick him out into the rain. He wasn’t sure which side he wanted to win.
‘You’ll get soaked again,’ she said, with a resigned little sigh. He reckoned the better part of her nature probably won out every time.
‘Look, it’s not your problem,’ he said, buttoning up his jacket determinedly. He had to let her off the hook. She had been kind to him and she didn’t deserve to be lumbered with him any longer. She looked exhausted and he could tell she just wanted to be alone.
She followed him to the door. ‘It’s late, and … you’re welcome to stay again if you want to. I mean, unless you have somewhere else to go.’
He opened the door and looked out at the rain. He couldn’t bring himself to go out into it when he had a better offer. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked her.
She nodded.
‘Thank you,’ he said, closing the door. ‘I promise I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.’
‘Well, you know where everything is. Help yourself to anything you want,’ she said, as he removed his jacket and hung it back on the coat-stand. ‘I was going straight to bed anyway.’
Shit! Why couldn’t he have had the decency to brave a bit of rain and leave her alone? Now she was going to spend the night hiding in her room because of his stupidity last night.
As she turned to the stairs, he stopped her with a hand on her elbow. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry about last night, about trying to—’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, not turning to look at him.
‘No, it’s not okay,’ he said, more sharply than he’d meant to. But she shouldn’t let him off so easily. ‘I behaved like a total dick, and I’m really sorry.’ He needed her to know that his apology was genuine.
She looked at him and nodded.
‘Please don’t feel you have to go and hide in your room to avoid me. I’m not a complete savage. I know I didn’t show much evidence of it last night, but I can behave like a civilised human
being if I have to. If you really can’t stand to be around me,
I
’ll go to my – er, to the guest room.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not that. I was planning to go straight to bed because I’m knackered.’
She did look exhausted – not just washed out physically but emotionally too. She was clearly on the verge of tears.
‘Bad day?’ he asked gently.
‘Pretty shitty.’
‘Not helped by coming home and finding me still here,’ he said, smiling wryly. He noticed she didn’t deny it. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘I’m too tired to even think about getting anything. But you help yourself to whatever you want.’
‘Why don’t I make us both something? You cooked for me last night, so it’s the least I can do. That is, if you’d like …’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I have in, though.’
‘How does scrambled eggs on toast sound? Not very exciting, but I happen to know you have the ingredients.’
‘It sounds perfect.’ She smiled.
‘Cool. You were drinking tea when you found me. Why don’t you go and finish it, and I’ll bring the food in when it’s ready?’
‘Okay. Thanks.’
‘This is really nice,’ Claire said later, as they sat side by side on the sofa with plates of scrambled eggs and toast, and big mugs of tea. ‘Thank you.’
‘Are you usually this late getting home from work?’
‘No. I went to visit my mother on the way home. She’s in a nursing home at the moment.’
‘Oh. When you said she was away, I assumed holidays.’
‘She had a hip replacement last week, and she’s in convalescent care now.’
‘But she’s okay?’
‘As okay as she ever is.’
He looked at her questioningly.
‘The operation went well. But she has a lot of ongoing health problems. She has a very dodgy heart so we constantly lurch from one crisis to the next.’ Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, and her jaw tightened as if she was trying hard not to cry.
‘Is that why you still live with her?’
She nodded. ‘She’s quite incapacitated with arthritis, and between that and her heart condition, it’s not really safe for her to live alone.’
‘What about your dad?’
‘He died when I was two. But he hadn’t been on the scene for years before that. Mum raised us on her own, really.’
‘Us?’
I have two older brothers. They’re both married with children.’
‘No sisters?’
‘No.’ She sighed wistfully. ‘I’d love to have a sister. So, how about you? You said you grew up near Yvonne, so you’re from Dalkey originally?’
‘Yeah. Well, not originally. I was adopted.’
‘From Romania.’ She nodded.
‘Yeah.’ He could see the questions in her eyes, and could tell she was struggling with herself not to ask them. He was glad. He didn’t really want to talk about it. Then it occurred to him that maybe she didn’t need to ask because she already knew the whole story. He hated the thought that she might know all about him. ‘Who told you I was from Romania?’
‘That guy Philip mentioned it.’
‘I bet he did.’
‘So what will you do about your electricity?’ she asked.
‘I’ll figure something out.’
‘Wouldn’t your parents help?’
‘I wouldn’t ask them to.’
‘Oh. Well, why don’t you get a job?’
‘Doing what?’
‘I don’t know. Anything. Just to pay the bills.’
‘I’m an artist. It’s not a very transferable skill.’
‘Well, I’m sure there are plenty of other things you could do. I mean, if you can’t make a living as an artist …’
Oh Christ, not this again. He’d had enough of being harangued over the years – by his parents; by random girls, who decided they would like to be with him if only he were different; by well-meaning friends who wanted to make him their pet project and sort out his life. This was why he didn’t want a girlfriend. They were always trying to change you, to mould you into the person they wanted you to be.
‘I mean, I write but—’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean I can just say, “I’m a writer,” and give up work to sit around writing all day.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I have bills to pay. I have my mother depending on me.’
‘Well, I don’t have anyone depending on me. If I’m broke, it doesn’t affect anyone but me. Besides, I don’t “sit around all day”. I work hard. Do you work at your writing?’
‘Yes,’ she said, bristling. ‘But it doesn’t pay the bills, and I don’t think it makes me too special to have an ordinary meaningless job.’
‘Neither do I!’ he protested. She obviously thought he was really up himself. ‘I don’t think working’s beneath me, or any crap like that – though I’ve been told I’m unemployable on numerous occasions, and at this stage I’m inclined to believe it.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I do bits and pieces when I can – casual work that won’t interfere with my painting.’
‘Like what?’
‘I do some framing occasionally for a friend who owns a gallery. And there are a couple of Polish girls in my building who work as cleaners. They pass on jobs to me sometimes when they have an overload.’
‘Cleaning?’ She raised a sceptical eyebrow, no doubt remembering his flat.
‘Yeah, I’m not very good at it,’ he said, with a soft chuckle. ‘The only things I’m really good at are painting and shagging, and I haven’t figured out how to make money from either yet.’
When Claire got up the next morning, Luca had gone. On the kitchen table, he had left an A4 sheet of paper, with a pencil sketch of a bunch of flowers and a message: ‘Thanks for last night – and the night before. Sorry they’re not real. Luca.’ Claire smiled at the drawing, touched by the sweetness of the gesture. Then she stuck it to the fridge with a magnet, as if to mark the end of her acquaintance with Luca. At least it had finished on a good note.
Let’s Get This Party Going
Regular readers of the blog will know I’m not into threesomes. I might consider it with the right person, in the right circumstances, so it’s not quite what the BDSM crowd would call a hard limit – but almost. So it might surprise you to know that I attended my first orgy last weekend.
If I don’t like the idea of sex with just one extra person, how could I think about doing it with a whole group of people, most of them strangers? But here’s the thing: people can do all sorts of things in a group that they wouldn’t contemplate doing on their own. Psychologists have studied this. A sort of group mentality takes over. It’s partly the safety-in-numbers thing – no one feels responsible individually for what’s going down. Guilt is shared and thus dissipated. So: the more, the merrier.
It all started at a swingers’ event I attended with Mr Curious. You probably have ideas about swingers, right? I know I did. Even the word ‘swingers’ seems so old-fashioned, kind of sad and saggy, with a nasty tang of the seventies about it. It conjures up images of ghastly parties where a bunch of sad-sack suburbanite couples throw their keys into a bowl after a nice dinner, and some leering fat guy in bell bottoms wins the right to fuck you.
That’s what I expected to find at the hotel when we rolled up for our swinging evening – sad, desperate men whose wives were no longer interested; bored housewives longing for the excitement of flashing their cellulite at someone new. But I went because Mr Curious was … well, he’s not called Mr Curious for nothing, and he wanted to try it. He’d heard about these parties from a colleague. Apparently the swinging scene is on the rise at the moment in our little part of the world. He’d read an article. He said he thought it was different nowadays. And, like I say, I wasn’t averse – I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, but I was willing to give it a try.