The train coughed its way to a halt at every tiny station between Dublin and home, but Maria barely noticed. She sat curled up in the corner of a smoky carriage, thawing out. After half an hour her fingers had uncurled, and she picked up a Farmers Gazette somebody had left behind on the seat. She found it impossible to concentrate on the print; her eyes skewed toward the pale orange fields framed in the rushing window. On page three a headline leapt into focus: “Homosexuality an Affliction Says Archbishop.” She folded the paper in fours and tossed it onto the opposite seat.
At Limerick Junction she thought she spotted Ruth in a crowd on the next platform, but it turned out to be some skinny stranger. Ridiculous, anyway, because what would Ruth be doing in Limerick Junction? By now Jael would be bringing her breakfast in bed, no doubt. How would she explain last night, Maria wondered—a sociable peck on the cheek, perhaps, or a joke, a mock kiss staged between the two of them for a laugh. She would not put it past Jael to claim that Maria had started it. Not that it was long enough to start or finish; it could only have lasted half a second. All this fuss over a momentary contact of dry lips.
She leaned her elbow on the edge of the jolting window. God knew, she had never been more than friendly with that wretched woman. Painstakingly Maria ran the past three months like a film in her head, but it began rolling too fast for her to pick out more than the occasional detail. She had felt so at home in the flat. So absurdly safe. It had not crossed her mind that a woman might want to, well, kiss her. Her mind jerked through the weeks. It was undeniable that Jael’s behaviour had been odd, sometimes intense and flirty, but that was just her way. Similar to the way friends had talked to Maria all her life; just schoolgirl humour.
There was Nuala, now that she came to think of it. On sunny days they used to bunk religion class and slip out the back field to lie in the long grass and eat Kola Kubes. The odd time Nuala’s eyes might catch hers in a lingering stare, and Maria would wait, but then the pale eyes would drop, and the next remark was always banal. That was all—no scandal. Nuala had left in fifth year anyway. It was hardly fair on the girl to start interrogating her in retrospect.
Maria wove her way down five carriages to buy a plastic cup of coffee. As she was carrying it back to her own carriage, the train hiccuped and slammed her hip against the door. She felt nothing. In her mind she was taking off from the roof of the train. Her taloned heels thrust up from flat metal, kicking away rags of cloud, firing up into the icescape.
Her mother noticed her yawning over lunch and gave a disapproving glance. “It’s the heat,” said Maria to forestall any remarks about dissolute student life-styles. “The house is stifling, I don’t know how you can bear it.”
“Isn’t it the only thing for your mother’s arthritis,” put in her father. The boys had legged it out straight after dessert to watch the circus on TV. What a boring little house.
Maria withdrew to her room, slid under the quilt, and put the most soporific pop music she could find on her Walkman. It did no good. She could neither drift into sleep nor wake out of this cotton-wool numbness. The savour of something cooking drifted in from the kitchen: mince tarts? Cursing under her breath, she sat up and changed the tape to Handel’s Messiah. Hallayloo, hallay, hallaylooya … After ten minutes Maria staggered up, stretched, and went into the kitchen for a mince tart. She passed her mother in the hall; even after shutting the kitchen door, she could hear the high-pitched phone voice.
“And what in Heaven’s name is she going to do with it?” A hush. “Would she not think of adoption, for the good of … no, of course, Thelma, it’s her own decision. It was just a suggestion. And what about …” A stifled sigh. “Not much help from that quarter, I imagine. Well, Alexandra has always gone her own way. I suppose we should be grateful. Thousands of Irish girls going over on the night boat every year, they say. Terrible.”
Her tone brightened. “My own lassie? Came down early, this morning. Oh, the hair, yes indeed.” And a cackle of laughter as she listened. “No word yet, but maybe she’s shy of mentioning names. Oh, I’m sure. The studies seem to be going all right, though she’s not killing herself with work. Is that the truth? Aren’t they all. Still, so long as she keeps well and passes her exams. The laddibucks can wait!” Her voice spiralled up into laughter again.
The tart was dry in Maria’s throat. For a moment she wanted to walk into the hall, take the receiver from her mother’s hand, and batter her across the forehead with it. Instead, she went out the back door into the garden. The crooked bird table was still standing, half hidden by rhododendrons. Laddibucks, what a word; they were the least of her problems. Maria kicked a mildewed tennis ball down the side of the lawn.
Between mass and dinner on Christmas morning, while the uncles were discussing tax, Maria was handed a baby cousin to keep entertained. She quite enjoyed making obscene faces to disconcert it. She wondered idly, as she handed it back to its mother, what it would be like to be in Alexandra’s situation, her body swelling with a creature of her own that she couldn’t hand back to anyone. A quick shiver; she dropped the baby’s rattle on the carpet and reached for the choked magazine rack.
Two quizzes for her in Femme: “Are You a Witch or a Wimp?” and “Know Your Passion I.Q.” Turning to an article on fantasies, Maria read that, according to the latest survey, 10 percent of women imagined (“occasionally or frequently”) having sex with animals, and 70 percent imagined it with other women. She slapped the magazine shut; why did she always happen across this kind of statistic? Sliding her eyelids down, she leaned her head back on the sofa, trying to conjure up the memory of that one wretched little kiss. It had happened so fast, she didn’t have time to enjoy it or not. Well, yes, there had been a certain electric shock, like when a friend’s hand might brush against hers by mistake. But it could by no stretch of the imagination be called a big deal. So why was she worrying herself sick about it?
She nodded abstractedly at an uncle who had turned to the women for confirmation of one of his more biting statements on V.A.T. The smell of dinner, heavy with sage, was seeping from the kitchen.
And if she did turn out to be that way inclined, Maria asked herself, for the sake of argument, what would she do then? She looked round at her family and relations, their plump indifferent faces, and imagined clearing her throat and beginning (in a rather Southside Dublin accent), “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you …” How their ruddy cheeks would cave in. It might be a perverse kind of fun, so long as she could spirit herself away on a magic carpet afterward.
Or was she underestimating them? Auntie Bronagh would probably be sharp enough to guess. Perhaps, Maria thought, with a chill settling into her stomach, even a kiss showed, no matter what your motivation had been. The kiss of a woman might leave some kind of mark, a twist in the curve of the mouth.
“Are you dreaming on us?”
Maria looked up guiltily. Her mother had come in from the kitchen with floury hands for a brief sit-down. “Read us out the horoscope there, pet.”
She flicked through the pages and found it. “This one’s yours, Mam: ‘A financial bonanza in the near future, if you act cautiously.’” She turned to her own. “Aquarius, here’s me. ‘Your usually calm heart is invaded by a whirlwind romance this week. Let it happen.’” Her brothers sniggered, but Maria looked uneasily at the tiny sketch of the water-bearer, straining under the precarious load of two buckets. Then she turned to check the date: It was the July issue.
The steam rose in blue clouds, gleaming on the window. Maria let her shoulders sink into the scalding water, eased herself down until cold enamel touched the nape of her neck and made her jerk forward. The water stung her thighs. Maria liked her baths sinfully hot and with the light off.
Well, she had behaved like a normal, healthy young woman for four days now, and the strain was beginning to tell. Asking for second helpings of plum pudding, watching a repeat of The Two Ronnies Christmas Special even going for a six-mile tramp in the coldest bloody fields in Ireland just to please her father. He liked birds. Maria herself could never tell the difference between a swallow and a sea gull, but mumbled “Look over there” and “Could be” convincingly enough. They had got back stiff and numb when tea was nearly over, and her mother had announced that Maria had a grand colour on her. Now she was thawing out in the bath, trying to plan her life.
One, find a new flatshare, staying with Thelma in the meantime. No doubt about it. The questions, the embarrassments of returning would be too much. She paused to imagine a flat without Ruth and Jael and shrank from the thought. Maybe she could loiter in the library sometimes to say hello. On with the list. Two, get seriously involved in theatre or something next term so she’d be too busy to mope. Three … she couldn’t really think of a third resolution, but they had to go in threes. Work very hard to get honours in the exams, and go waitressing in London next summer? Not the most exciting New Year’s resolutions, but practical. Oh, and cut down on the chocolate, of course.
The water streamed off Maria in rivulets as she stood up and clambered out of the bath. She dried herself slowly, wanting to delay the moment when she would have to turn on the light and emerge. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror; how very unlike the average “Nude Bathing” canvas. Well, maybe a bony Cézanne. Maria let her palm linger on her stomach. It looked strange, a hand on a belly. A bit purposeless. What if it wasn’t her hand, but somebody else’s? Her face caught only a few wavelets of light from the street outside, just on the sharp tip of her nose and the bulge of her chin. It seemed completely blank; pleasant enough, but forgettable. She tried to imagine someone wanting it, memorising its lines, watching out for it in a crowd, rushing down a busy street after her like the nerd in the perfume ad. Someone putting a hand on her shoulder, then realising with embarrassment that she was the wrong girl. And she would accept the apology so graciously; “I am afraid,” she mouthed in a French way at her foggy reflection, “we do not know each other.”
“Maria,” her youngest brother bawled indistinctly from the kitchen.
She opened the door a crack. The draught raised goose pimples all down her arms.
“Mam says did you know there’s a pair of letters for you and they’ve been sitting under the teapot all day.”
She was into her dressing gown and down the stairs in half a minute. Dublin postmarks under the brown stains.
In case you haven’t glanced to the end yet, this is me, Ruth. Hello, my dear Maria.
This is a letter because face-to-face I’d get too emotional. And also because your fluffy scalp is hundreds of miles away in some godforsaken village I can’t even visualise.
None of this is likely to make much sense as I haven’t slept since the night before last.
It’s sort of like a stir-fry, that’s the only way I can think of to describe it, don’t laugh. I thought you could chop up lots of different vegetables and mix them in and raise the heat, and they’d all make each other taste better. It never occurred to me that ginger and fennel might clash.
Here I am waffling on, and this was meant to be a brief note.
You see, I had this theory that among women, possessiveness and jealousy needn’t exist, that women could sort of share themselves out and, to use my awkward analogy, make each other taste better. Like, for example, a flat of three friends, two of whom happened to be lovers.
Well, you must admit it was a good idea, if a little naive.
I overestimated my capacity not to mind. I overestimated all of us. Jael means no harm—well, not much—but she’s like a kid, you know, she has to have a little bit of whatever’s going. The pull between us two is still there, but I think it might be going to smash us right through each other. Not that I’m blaming you, Maria. I realise now that you had no idea where we were heading. I should probably have done something at the start, offered some kind of earthquake warning, but what could I have said? I was afraid of seeming paranoid, one of these ghastly wifey types who goes into fits if her girlfriend even glances at anyone else.
Much the same kind of thing as I’m afraid of seeming in this letter! But things are a bit different now. Let’s just say that I want to do the right thing—for everyone—it’s just that I’m not sure what that is yet.
Will you be coming back to the flat? It’s entirely up to you. I’m just so tired I couldn’t give a shit.
What I mean is, Happy Christmas Maria.
Love (if you want it)
Ruth
Maria had sped through it too fast to take it all in; she was about to start again from the top when she remembered the second letter. It had no envelope, just a page folded up and stapled, postmarked the day after Ruth’s.
M.
Apologies for ungentlemanlike behaviour. Stop. Have learned how to make Baked Alaska. Stop. Get your ass back here. Stop.
J.
The Dublin train was frantic on New Year’s Eve; the burly man who sat beside Maria, gripping a bottle of champagne between his knees, had let it smash all over the floor of the carriage. He kept asking her did she think he’d have any chance of compensation because the driver had stopped the train so jerkily, or were they the crowd of crooks he’d always suspected?
Maria was noncommittal. She lifted her runners out of the fizzing puddle and turned her face into the corner of her seat. A sojourn in Sea View Villa would be a wonderful rest; Yvonne’s animated invitation over the crackling phone line had been exactly what she needed to hear. They could go clubbing tonight, then take it easy for a few days; stroll on the pebbled beach, bus into town for a look at the January sales. Her glam rags were all in the flat. Maybe she could slip in, to collect some clothes and books? Ruth would probably be over at her mother’s, and Jael most likely out boozing. And if they were by any chance at home, well, she could manage a civil conversation, just “Happy New Year, see you round college next term, bye.”
Maria couldn’t have stuck another day at home, it was making her claustrophobic. Her mother had offered to teach her how to make choux pastry; she had to get away. At least Dublin was anonymous. She could avoid maudlin New Year’s Eve thoughts by dancing herself numb in a strobe-lit nightclub.
“What would you say, carnations or chrysanthemums?”
She turned her head reluctantly.
The fretful man went on. “See, sorry to bother you, but I just wanted a female opinion. The blasted champagne was for proposing to her, my girlfriend, Frieda. I meant to do it tonight. But I don’t have time now to get to an off-licence so I was thinking I could pick up some flowers at the station instead. They’re not as romantic as champagne, but then, Frieda’s not much of a drinker.”
Maria was softened by his idiocy. “I’d go for white roses, if I were you. Just a few. That’s if they have them.”
The man was impressed. “I didn’t even know they made white ones. Grew, I mean. So you think she’d prefer white to red?”
“I’m no expert,” Maria assured him. She could just imagine some pragmatic Frieda turning up her nose at white roses. “I’ve never proposed to anyone.”
“No, you wouldn’t have—or only in a leap year,” he said with a snigger. “It’s us poor blokes who have to do the asking.”
She shut her eyes and tried to concentrate on her plans again but lapsed into daydreams. Just imagine if somebody was waiting for her on the platform in Dublin with a bunch of white roses and a sheepish smile. “Name the day”—what a thrilling phrase, as if you could somehow stop time and tie a white satin bow around it, one day out of all the days in your life when a crowd of shiny faces would remind you how wonderful you were.
Maria shivered, wrapping her scarf more tightly round her throat. Even if she were happily married in five years’ time, she thought, she still wouldn’t feel a hundred percent normal. The flat’s strangeness had rubbed off on her. She was branded.
Toiling up the last flight of stairs—Maria had forgotten how steep they were—she heard raucous laughter in the flat. A good sign; things must be patched up between them. Come on now, no chickening out. But as she slid her key into the front door and pushed it open, she heard a distinct “Oh, shit” from the kitchen. Jael hurried out, but when she saw who it was, her face lightened. “And it’s the Virgin Maria in a rare appearance by public demand,” she yelped.
Deciding not to be embarrassed, Maria carried her bag into the kitchen. The visitor, leaning against the table, was a thin woman with short black spiky hair; her tanned face warmed into a slight smile as she held up one hand in a gesture of welcome.
“Aren’t you meant to say you’ve heard so much about her?” prompted Jael.
Making a face, “Must I?”
Jael, flurried, suddenly remembered her duties. “Oh, I forgot, Maria, this is Silk. She’s just back from Greece.”
“Are you the one who sent the postcard on Jael’s birthday?”
“I didn’t know my communications were such big events,” said Silk, looking up ironically at Jael, “but it’s gratifying.”
“Well, look,” Jael began, and Silk moved toward the door, stretching her arms above her head as she pulled on her shabby black dinner jacket.
“Yes, I must be off,” she said. “Mustn’t risk running into her ladyship on the stairs. Listen, are you people partying tonight? ZZ’s?”
“All depends on how persuadable Ruth is,” said Jael doubtfully. “Keep an eye out for us anyway. It was good to see you.”
“Been a while,” Silk commented, and let herself out.
Left alone, they were suddenly awkward again. Maria launched into an apology: “I’m just picking up my stuff, I’m not actually staying. Yvonne’s expecting me.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Well, I’d better—”
“Listen, about Silk,” interrupted Jael.
“Yes, by the way, where did she get her name?”
“I belive it was the pseudonym for a highly erotic haiku she got published in The Pink Paper.”
“Mmm, that figures.”
“What, that she’s a dyke?”
“Well, not necessarily. Just that kind of person.”
“What kind of person?”
“Oh, for god’s sake,” snapped Maria, “you know what I mean. I’m not labelling anybody, so don’t get hot under the collar.”
“I’m not getting hot under the collar.” Jael stalked to the window and stared down at the street. “By the way, it might be as well if you didn’t mention to Ruth that we had a visitor. They don’t really get on.”
“Why?” Maria was surprised at her own daring.
“Because I’m asking you not to. It would annoy her.”
“No, but why don’t they get on?”
“Because I’ve slept with them both.” Jael turned, her voice iron. “OK? Is that what you wanted to hear? The prurient curiosity satisfied yet, Maria?”
She felt her face cave in. “I just wondered.”
“You’ve been just wondering since you came into this flat three months ago,” said Jael. “Do you think we haven’t noticed the kind of games you’ve been playing? What do you think this is, feeding time at the zoo?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Maria’s voice was shaking. “I think I’d better go,” she added, moving toward the door.
Jael caught her by the elbow: “Don’t act the fucking innocent.” Her face was livid, six inches from Maria’s. “If you want to know, ask.”
“I don’t want to know.”
The grey crystal eyes were on the point of splintering. “Then why did you come back?”
“Not to take this kind of crap from you.” Her own snarl astonished her.
Jael dropped her elbow.
“I came back to get my clothes. And to see Ruth. And to tell her I’m sorry if I’ve made her life any more difficult than you’ve already made it.”
She let out a long breath. “I knew it. I had a feeling you’d overreact.”
“What?”
“It was only a wee kiss. It’s not like I raped you on the kitchen table, Maria. Mistletoe, you know? It’s a tradition.”
Maria’s cheeks were scalding. “My reaction isn’t the point.”
“Well, Ruth’s fine about it now, you know. She just panicked a little at the time. It’s been a sore spot, ever since Silk.”
Anything to shift the spotlight from her own pinched lips. “How did that happen?”
“We’d been friends for years; we just got a little carried away one night in the summer when Ruth was in Majorca with her mother.”
“How did she find out?”
“I told her, of course,” said Jael scornfully. “I may not be the model monogamist, but I’m honest. And there was a major brouhaha. And Silk told Patricia, who she’d been with for five years, and they broke up.”
“That’s the Pat in the women’s group?”
“You’re catching on.”
“Don’t mock me,” said Maria. “I understand enough.”
“I doubt that.” Jael was practically spitting. “You stand there with your mouth all pursed up in disapproval of something you know fuck-all about.”
“I just don’t see why anyone would do a thing like that,” said Maria wearily.
“What, a one-night stand? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. But then, maybe you’re so sexless you wouldn’t understand.”
The front door was kicked open; Ruth stepped through the curtain with a bale of turf briquettes and two brown-paper bags of groceries. When she saw Maria she stopped short, put everything down carefully and came over to give her a hug. “Good to see you, pariah.” They leaned into each other.
Jael swung out the door, muttering something about the afternoon post.
When she heard the footsteps clatter down the stairs, Maria gave Ruth a wan smile. “I’m only here to pack my bags, I thought you’d both be out.”
“Glad you’re here.”
Maria was disconcerted to feel tears behind her eyes. She picked up a bag of groceries to put away. After the baked beans and the orange juice, she was in control of her voice again. “Thanks for the letter; I didn’t expect you to waste a stamp on me.”
“Hey, don’t start being soppy yet, we’ll have enough of that at midnight.”
“But I’m going clubbing with Yvonne.”
“You’re not!” Ruth giggled under her breath as she piled the fruit bowl high. “The social butterfly has got you in her clutches at last.” Then, peering into the depths of the fridge, “You wouldn’t consider staying with us tonight? You could ring Yvonne and explain.”
Explain what, exactly? Playing for time, Maria straightened up the soup tins. “If you really wanted,” she said at last.
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” said Ruth, folding the brown-paper bag and putting it in a drawer. She looked up and caught Maria rolling her eyes. “Sorry, did that sound rather masochistic?”
“Very.”
“What I mean is, what I want depends on what you want. I think I need to ask now: Do you want to stay?”
Maria’s hands went on picking spilled grapes out of the bottom of the bag. “What, here?” Surprised to find she knew the answer, she said in a rush, “I’d love to. If it were possible. If there were … room.”
She could not read the expression in Ruth’s brown eyes: amusement or disappointment or perhaps irony. The blurred look of a heavy sleeper when shaken awake on a winter morning. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of room.”
And the key rattled in the front door.
Over dinner, Maria recounted all the comic anecdotes she could wring out of her family Christmas. She even made up a few, in desperation; well, it would have been funny if that small cousin had thrown up all over her father’s new cardigan.
Theirs had been quiet.
“Ruth spent Christmas Day with Mumsie,” began Jael, “leaving me to douse my pudding in whisky all on my ownio. However, she did return to my bosom on Saint Stephen’s Day, bearing a vegetarian ‘turkey roll’ that had all the texture and taste of an Aran jumper.”
Ruth protested. “You stuffed your face with two thirds of the bloody thing.”
“I did not,” Jael informed her. “I chopped it into the sink-tidy while you were in the toilet.”
Maria sneaked a glance at her watch; a quarter to ten. At this rate they’d never make it to midnight on speaking terms. “Listen, lads, I came up to go clubbing, so why don’t we?”
Yvonne’s number was engaged. “You can call her from a phone box on the way,” said Jael brightly; she seemed determined to set off before Ruth could state any objection. In ten minutes they were dolled up and heading down the stairs.
“Where had you in mind?” asked Ruth, buttoning the cuff of her jacket as they halted at the bus stop.
Jael furrowed her forehead in concentration for a minute, then said, “What about, what was it called, ZZ’s? It is still running, isn’t it?”
A brief stare. “OK.”
Maria’s voice was uneasy. “Listen, what about me? I mean, I’ve no objections, but …”
“Don’t worry,” Ruth told her, “it’s mixed. Lots of trendy straight couples go there too.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a couple,” said Maria coldly.
“We’ll find you a nice boy to take home,” Jael reassured her.
“I just don’t want to feel totally out of place, that’s all.”
“Trust me, kid.” Jael put on her Bogart voice. “I’ll protect you from the big bad butches.”
“Hello, who’s calling, please?”
“Yvonne, can you hear me? It’s Maria. Sorry, the music’s deafening.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, where the hell are you?”
“I don’t remember the name of it. I tried ringing you earlier, I’m terribly sorry.”
“I was expecting you hours ago. My mother made Chicken Kiev.”
“I’m so sorry. I dropped into the flat, and Jael and Ruth asked me to come out with them; apparently I’d arranged it before but I forgot. I can’t let them down.”
“Right.”
“Yvonne? Don’t hang up. Listen, can’t you go on without me?”
“Who with?”
“Aren’t you and Pete—”
“No.”
“But I thought there was a crowd going. You said you knew the doorman at the Purple Snail.”
“He’s in Mexico. Oh, forget it. I don’t care about tonight, there’s a party I can gate-crash. It’s just your attitude, Maria.”
“What attitude?”
“You seem obsessed with these, these bloody flatmates of yours. And nobody else matters. Are normal people just too boring for you nowadays, is that it?”
“Yvonne, sorry to butt in, but I’m on my last twopence. Look, I’ll ring you tomorrow, OK? OK?”
Jael clung to a lamppost, weeping with laughter. “So what did you say to her then?”
“Stop making fun of me. All I said was, ‘Sorry, I don’t have the time.’”
Jael leaned on a car and pounded the bonnet softly in time with her paroxyms. “That has to be the all-time conversation killer. A verbal chastity belt.”
Ruth was walking ahead of them, but she glanced back and called “Get away from that car before you set the alarm off.”
Ignoring the remark, Jael staggered after Maria. “‘I don’t have the time,’ you told her. Jesus H. Christ!”
“Well, how the hell was I meant to know she was asking me to dance?” demanded Maria. “It’s not every day of the week that strange women proposition me, you know.”
“Me neither,” said Jael regretfully.
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t hear her properly, the music was far too loud. And she had no right to just presume I was that way inclined. You told me it was a mixed club.”
“The only way she wanted you inclined was horizontally,” shrieked Jael.
Maria gave her a shove and she tripped into the gutter, but it only brought on a fresh spasm of mirth. “The poor girl. The blank look on her face when you said you hadn’t got the time … Not a bad looker either. Good ass.”
“Just wish I’d never got that haircut,” muttered Maria as they rounded the corner into Beldam Square.
Jael cast her a sly glance. “Nobody forced you.”
Ruth had reached their building already and was fumbling with her keys. “Yoohoo, Valium,” Jael carolled from halfway down the street. She ran along, doing figure-eights around parked cars, till she got to the door.
Maria came panting up behind. “What time is it now?” she asked hoarsely.
Ruth didn’t answer, but Jael grabbed her wrist and read aloud, “One-thirteen or thereabouts.” Ruth twisted her arm away and headed up the stairs without turning on the light.
“She’s cross because I called her Valium,” explained Jael in a breathless whisper. “But it’s the perfect name for her—she sends me to sleep and she’s easy to take orally.”
Maria gave her a cold stare. “One more dig like that,” she whispered as they climbed, “and I swear I’ll kick you down the stairs.” As she caught up with Ruth her voice came back to normal. “So we missed the bells,” she remarked regretfully. “I think I was in the toilet when they played ‘Auld Lang Syne.’”
“They didn’t play it,” panted Jael from behind. “We got to shamble round in a chain to ‘Aga-do-do-do’ instead; there’s modern Ireland for you.”
By the time they reached their door, Maria was painfully aware of Ruth’s silence. She scanned her mind for something to say that would make them all relax. “What are your New Year’s resolutions, ladies?” she inquired.
Jael flung herself into the rocking chair and reached down for her whisky bottle. “I’m giving up women,” she announced. “They’re too fucking complicated. And what about you, light of my life?” she asked, turning, but Ruth had already disappeared down the corridor. Jael tucked her feet under her and began to rock the chair.
Maria avoided her glance. Then, summoning courage, she asked in a low voice, “Why are you being like this?”
“It don’ matter how ah be.” Jael accompanied her twang on an imaginary banjo.
“Would you stop play-acting for one minute.”
“The bag is packed. It’s beyond mattering how I behave.”
Maria looked at her warily. “What bag?”
Jael’s mouth spoke from between her hands. “Mrs. Johnson’s hand-me-down leather suitcase. It’s half full and hidden in the back of the wardrobe.”
A long silence. “Maybe if you—”
“I’m damned,” Jael told her distinctly, “if I’m going to play at being nice for an evening to beg her back.”
Maria’s exasperation boiled over. “I’ve never met anyone so full of herself. Listen, you wouldn’t have to be nice—we could hardly expect that of you. All you’d have to do is tell her how you really feel.”
“Shit, that’s how I feel. Absolute scum.” Jael splashed more whisky into her glass.
“I don’t mean how you’re feeling, I mean how you love her.”
No answer. Jael looked at her over the top of the glass. Finally: “What if I can’t remember how I feel?”
She forced her fury into a whisper. “It’s such … waste. I don’t believe you’re about to lose the best thing in your life because you can’t humble yourself enough to say three words.”
“Ah, Maria.” Jael’s voice was oddly compassionate. “We’re gone a bit beyond that now.”
Maria slashed through the bead curtain. Ruth’s door was shut. She stood outside, her fingers against the wood, waiting for the right words to come. Not a sound from behind the door. What was she expecting—a sob, breaking glass, the snapping strings of a guitar?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a flush, and suddenly Ruth was behind her, toothbrush in hand.
“Hi,” said Maria, her back to the door.
“Did you want something?” Ruth’s voice was barely audible.
Light caught the wet bristle of the toothbrush. Maria stared at it stupidly. “Just to say good night.”
“Sweet dreams, Maria.” Ruth shut the door behind her.
Maria lay in bed awhile, vaguely aware of the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” leaking from the kitchen in Jael’s hoarse contralto. The night was safe at last. Probably. All those sharp words would evaporate with the dew, and she would make her flatmates pancakes for breakfast. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed her Dietrich poster hanging awry from one drawing pin; the whites of the eyes glimmered in the street light.
By the time she woke again the house was silent. Maria lay inert, flexing her stiff neck. When her door creaked open slowly, she blinked, then squeezed her eyes shut. It was Ruth; she had made out her silhouette in the dark. Nothing happened for a full minute. Maria knew she was being looked at and let her mouth hang slightly open. Finally Ruth’s voice came out of the black. “Are you awake?”
Go away. Maria was dead. She was limp like a tracker who didn’t want to be eaten by the bear. Go away.
After a few seconds she heard the rustle of paper, then a murmur of words that she could not distinguish; it could have been “Good luck.” The door closed. She waited till the front door thudded shut too, then sat up; maybe there would be a note. But it was a brown-paper bag, propped on the end of the bed. Inside was nothing but the black cap, no message. Maria slid down in bed and pulled it over her face. The worn velvet was warm and utterly dark.