Aloof, swotty, aggressive. What a combination. She didn’t give a damn, did Orla. Those terrifying, black-rimmed eyes. Her strong defiant body with its eff-you language, her proud breasts, her barbaric nose ring. Orla, Orla. That flick of platinum hair falling across one eye like a cool blade. I could smell her gum across the chipped formica table in the Soda Fountain. I could smell the mint of it on her breath, mixed with cigarettes and espresso. I could eat her in one bite. Or die trying. More likely.
‘How come you get to climb over that fence lunchtimes?’ I asked her.
‘McCluskey.’
‘McCluskey what?’
Shrugging, Orla stared over my shoulder at the window, as if she was less interested in me than in the backwards writing that said Beppe’s Soda Fountain from the front. ‘Says I can go over there at the moment. Just at the moment, mind. If I want some privacy. ’Cause of …’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Just you, though? Not Gina or Kylie or that lot?’
She sniffed. ‘That crowd of losers? I’m sick of them.’
If they could hear her! ‘Do they know that?’
‘Nah. Back to normal next week, right?’ She gazed at me, daring me ever to tell them what she’d said about her own hard glamorous gang.
As if I’d take my life in my hands like that.
‘McCluskey’s OK for a fascist bastard,’ I said.
‘Yeah.’ She tugged out a cigarette.
If I was switched on – if I was a smoker – I’d have had a light ready for her. The Soda Fountain was the kind of place to play James Dean or John Travolta, a faux-fifties diner done up in pastel ice-cream colours and chrome. It was full of kitsch, like the straw dispenser and the bubblegum machine and the jukebox full of music we didn’t like. There was a papier-mâché Chevrolet on the counter, Neapolitan pink, and black-and-white film stills on the walls. If I was playing my role, I’d lean forward and gaze into Orla’s black-edged eyes as she bent her head low and touched her fag to my flame, then glanced up at me from beneath her thick lashes.
But I’m not switched on, I’m not cool, and unfortunately I’m not a smoker.
‘Can I have one of those?’
‘No.’ She twirled her unlit cigarette between her fingers, her stare full of pity and scorn. ‘Neither can I.’
Oh aye. Smoking ban. I felt like an idiot. Again.
‘Filthy stupid habit, anyway,’ she said. ‘Looks stupid, is stupid. Can I have another coffee?’
Beneath the cover of the table I opened my fist and peered at what was left of my cash. Hell, it was an investment. ‘Yeah. OK. How do you sleep nights?’
‘How do you?’
The silence was as thick as Beppe’s espresso, and just about as dark. I stood up and went to the counter and mumbled a new order. Beppe gave me a baleful look – he always looked Mafia-malevolent so nobody would take the mickey out of his wee fifties-diner busboy hat and stripey apron – and obliged.
It took all my nerve to sit back down opposite Orla, but I managed it, and even looked up at her. Her mouth was sullen but her eyes glittered with interest. OK.
‘You used to hang out with him.’
Him. Kev Naughton. Well, that was getting to the point.
‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘Not any more.’
‘Yeah, but you used to. I don’t think much of your taste in friends.’
Like I needed to hear that again. Anger made me snap, ‘He used to fancy you.’
She didn’t stop staring at me. ‘Yeah.’ Her lips parted and her teeth sank into her lower lip. She bit it harder. I could see the mark she was making. ‘I told him I wasn’t interested.’
‘You grabbed his nuts and twisted, Orla.’
I’d thought it was funny then and I thought it was funny now. Because I was trying not to smile too much I glanced over her shoulder at the sugar-pink Chevy. She didn’t say anything though, and when I looked back at her I realised I’d never imagined Orla Mahon could cry.
Her eyes were very glittery and she put a black fingernail to the corner of each one, staring at the table. I realised the polish wasn’t quite black: it was very, very dark red. I wished I hadn’t made her cry. I couldn’t look away from her fingernails.
‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘I don’t… you don’t need to …’ My throat dried up.
‘I don’t feel guilty,’ she snapped, taking her fingers down so she could glare at me. Now she was angry enough not to cry.
‘I didn’t say you –’
‘Even if Kev was getting his own back. Even if he started on Aidan ’cause … ’cause I did that to him. In front of everybody. I shouldn’t’ve. Well, whether I should or not … it’s no excuse for … It’s no excuse. I didn’t make him do it. Did I? Did I?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Course not. Kev did it. All by himself.’
‘I don’t feel guilty about anything. I don’t even feel that guilty about being alive. I just feel really, really bad that he’s dead. And that makes me feel a bit guilty. See? That’s it. Don’t know why. See?’
No, Orla, not really. ‘Yeah.’
‘It’s still August,’ she said.
Whatever that had to do with anything. ‘Uh-huh …’
She smiled at me, very suddenly and disarmingly.
‘Fancy a swim?’