At a Time Like This Read online

  ‘Your accent is lovely,’ Georgie said. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Ennistymon. County Clare,’ I added, in case she hadn’t heard of Ennistymon.

  ‘I know Ennistymon well,’ she said. ‘And Kilkee. And Doolin. My last boyfriend was a traditional music nut.’

  Her last boyfriend?

  Somehow, I knew that Georgie’s experience of boyfriends was the real thing: cool, sexy, grown-up. I bet she’d have lifted her well-defined eyebrows if she knew anything about my couple of blunderers. I thought of Jamesie’s shy, adolescent fumblings, the hopeless tangle of his fingers in my bra straps.

  By then, I was really hooked. Georgie’s ease with the world was seductive. It helped, too, that she’d been to Doolin. She’d crossed into my territory, and that somehow expanded my small childhood world and gave my home place a measure of significance. ‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Where are you from?’

  She opened the glass door to the Buttery, waving me in ahead of her. She grinned. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’m from the centre of the universe. Ballsbridge.’

  I said nothing. What was I missing here? What secret language was I not able to speak?

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘you’ll get it soon enough.’

  It was only when we were sitting down I realized that I hadn’t spoken those words aloud. ‘You read my mind,’ I said to her. The coffee was awful. It was weak and burnt-tasting and bitter all at the same time. The tables were crowded and the blue air was humming with cigarette smoke and conversation. A dumpy, bad-tempered woman with misapplied orange lipstick swept by us. Her greying hair was curled tight and angry: an exact match for her face. She loaded dirty crockery on to a trolley, but not before she glared at us and swiped at the table with a less than clean cloth. We waited until she’d moved along before we dared to speak again.

  Georgie made a face. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to stop doing that. It makes people nervous.’

  ‘Does it always work?’

  She shook her head, tucking a strand of fair hair behind her ear. ‘No. But your expression said it all. It was easy to know what you were thinking.’

  I decided right then that I liked her.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Georgie said, pushing her cup away from her. She didn’t wait for me to answer. I liked that, too. ‘Your hair. Is it . . . naturally like that?’

  I wasn’t sure what she meant. ‘The colour?’

  She shrugged. ‘Everything – the colour, the curls, the . . . exuberance. The whole deal.’ She nodded at me, waiting.

  I sensed that something hung on my reply. I wasn’t sure what it could be, but I was taking no chances, not with this girl. The truth, the whole truth. Nothing but the truth.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s naturally like this. It’s mine. All mine.’ And I tugged at a curl above my right ear, just to prove it. I decided that today I could be whoever I wanted to be, miles and miles from Clare. ‘My mother’s legacy. She abandoned us for the local doctor when I was twelve. I shaved all my hair off when I found out, and when it grew back, it looked just like this.’ I waited. This was where I’d decide.

  Poor little lambs, and they so young. And Claire’s so like her mother. Same shape face, same slender frame, and now, with that mane of red hair . . .

  Would Georgie be curious? Shocked? Would she, too, define me by my mother?

  ‘It’s stunning,’ she said, shaking her head slowly. ‘Absolutely stunning. I’d say that Eng. Lit. guy still has his mouth open.’ She pulled a packet of twenty Carrolls from the side pocket of her rucksack.

  I remember thinking: how extravagant.

  ‘Smoke?’ she asked, offering me one.

  I accepted. I rejoiced. I inhaled. The right answer, I thought, as I savoured a blast of nicotine and delight. She’d chosen the right answer.

  And that was how Georgie and I met. After a whole miserable month of getting lost on my own in Dublin, I felt, finally, that I’d found a way home. I’ll go further and say that I dated the beginning of my grown-up life from the minute that Georgie offered me one of her cigarettes.

  Being with Georgie changed everything. The College lawns were greener, the sky looked bluer, kinder. It was as though someone had just adjusted the focus. The picture shimmered into clarity. It felt as if I had just met, and instantly recognized, myself. My other, more assured, more daring self. The one I hadn’t met before and whose existence I had never even suspected.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ Georgie asked, as we climbed the steps from the Buttery and made our way towards the New Arts Block. We’d decided to check out the English Department, to see what our timetables were like for the following week, when Michaelmas term would begin. Despite myself, despite my wariness of elitism, and urban sophistication, I loved the names. I loved the oldness of everything, the shabby, ruddy splendour of the Rubrics, the gnarled ancientness of trees.

  ‘In Rathfarnham,’ I said. ‘In digs, with a friend of my aunt’s. Just until I find my feet,’ I added, aware that I’d just sounded old-fashioned.

  Georgie looked at me. ‘How long do you have to stay there?’ she asked, having seen right through me.

  ‘Until Christmas,’ I replied miserably. Such safety, such predictability already felt like a prison sentence. I knew that I’d found my feet now and that Georgie would keep me grounded.

  ‘I have a place in Rathmines,’ she said. ‘I’ll be sharing with Maggie. We’ve been friends for ever. You’ll like her.’

  ‘I’m sure I will,’ I said.

  ‘There’s room for three, but so far, there’s only the two of us. Someone else let us down. Her parents made her stay at home for first year.’ Georgie settled her rucksack again. There was an unmistakable ripple of irritation as she did so.

  I was very glad that it was the other girl Georgie was mad at, and not me.

  She continued. ‘Apparently, if you live at home for first year, you’re safe. You won’t have any opportunity to have sex. Did you know that?’

  I laughed. ‘I think that you should talk to my dad.’

  Georgie looked at me, interested. And I remember thinking: she’s interested in what I might have to say?

  ‘Go on, then,’ she said.

  I shrugged. ‘Well, d’ye know, where I come from, nothing bad ever happens before midnight. Be home by ten, and you’ll never be a pumpkin.’

  The blue gaze stayed level. She waited.

  ‘It means you can hang on to your virginity for ever. My father calls it “The Cinderella Syndrome”. He says it’s absurd.’ He did indeed say that, but I wasn’t sure he’d have expressed it as boldly as I’d just done. I was beginning not to recognize myself.

  Georgie grinned at last. ‘A sound man, your father.’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah, he is.’ And suddenly, I missed him. But why should I? He was the one who’d kicked me out, after all, the one who insisted I had to ‘spread my wings’. I’d fought him, tired of always having to do those things that were supposed to be good for me. I can hear myself now. Why is it ‘good for me’ to have to do the things that make me feel bad? To leave my friends? My home? My wings are quite happy as they are, thank you very much and I’ll spread them as much as I like. Home gives me enough room to stretch, and, if we want to extend the metaphor, just enough to feel the bars of my cage if I push too hard.

  But he wouldn’t listen. I tried to avoid it by using every trick in the book. I’d even hoped that fate and poor exam results might bring about a happy accident and let me stay where I was. Local. Located. I prayed for a marriage between hope and circumstance: hopenstance. Well, happenstance is a word isn’t it? But it didn’t work.

  And so, here I was. Standing in late September sunshine with the first person under forty years of age I’d spoken to in a month. Well, except for children, and they didn’t count, not in the way I meant.

  Georgie was looking thoughtful. ‘So, your father mightn’t mind you giving up your digs, then?’ she persisted. ‘We hope to move int
o the flat at the beginning of November. That’s almost five weeks away,’ I could feel her watching me. ‘What do you say? Long enough to convince the old man, do you think?’

  I smiled. ‘Old man’ he was not. Not in any sense. ‘Yeah,’ I said, feeling brave. ‘I’ll talk to him at the weekend. When would you need to know?’

  Georgie shrugged. ‘Two weeks? If you can’t take the room, we’ll need to look for someone else.’

  I felt stung. I desperately wanted to be part of this imagined life that Georgie and Maggie already shared. I didn’t care what the rent was. I’d earn it. I didn’t care what the consequences were. I’d put up with them. I wanted Rathmines, friends my own age, freedom. Bugger the suburbs, the number sixteen bus, the fifteen hours of babysitting every week. My father wanted me to spread my wings, to stretch myself? Then watch out. The bars of the family cage were about to get a beating.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, casually. ‘Two weeks should be fine. I’ll let you know.’

  Georgie nodded her agreement. ‘Great.’ By then, we’d arrived at the English Department noticeboard, and I still have no idea how we got there. I remember nothing other than floating along on this girl’s promise of a life I had never known. She pointed to the timetable. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘We share lectures at least twice a week. That’s good.’ She smiled at me. ‘I’m meeting Maggie tomorrow night for a pint. In O’Neill’s of Suffolk Street. You know it?’

  I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t. I decided I’d find it for myself. ‘Yeah,’ I lied. ‘I know it.’ Tomorrow’s Thursday, I remember thinking. I’m babysitting Friday and Saturday. ‘Tomorrow’s fine.’

  ‘Okay, then,’ she said. She glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go now – I’m meeting up with Danny, my boyfriend. See you tomorrow evening around nine?’

  I nodded. I had that cold feeling, again, that I’d just been a useful opportunity – that I’d filled some kind of a gap in a busy woman’s schedule. But Georgie smiled at me then, a warm, genuine smile, and all my reservations faded away.

  ‘Great to meet you, Claire. I know that you and Maggie will get along. Start working on that father of yours. Tell him you’ll always be home by ten.’

  We both laughed.

  ‘Okay, then,’ I said, my lightness of heart safe again, restored. ‘See you tomorrow night.’

  I decided to arrive at O’Neill’s well before nine. I wanted to be there when the two of them came in, wanted to see if they’d arrive together or separately. I suppose I wanted to be sure that Georgie had room in her life for another friend, that she and Maggie wouldn’t always be two against one.

  I settled at a table in the corner, one where I could keep an eye on the door. Georgie arrived first and by herself. I was relieved. There was no conspiracy, then; no whispering campaign about the red-headed culchie. I was about to wave, but she’d already spotted me. Georgie had one of those effortless glances that took in a whole room at once. I learned quickly, too, that she could identify where the creeps hung out. And more: she could tell where boredom lurked. She used to say that she preferred creeps to bores. The ‘undesirables’, as she called them, were reduced to jelly by her sharp tongue; the bores were not. They, she said, were impervious. That was why they were bores in the first place.

  ‘Hiya, Claire. No sign of Maggie, then.’

  I looked at her. I felt completely stupid. But then, it wasn’t a question, after all.

  ‘Just got here myself, right this minute,’ I lied. There was no half-empty glass on the table to give me away, no smouldering cigarette in the ashtray. I hadn’t wanted to drink on my own, anyhow, so I’d hidden away and read my book. But Georgie didn’t know that. She would never know things like that unless I told her.

  ‘Ready to order now?’ An eager young lad in a cheap white shirt and a tired bow-tie stood before us, his sticky tray held out in front of him like an offering.

  Georgie looked at him for a moment as she took off her jacket and I noticed that her gaze made him blush. I felt sorry for him then. He was all awkward angles, all bony elbows and knees. He couldn’t be more than fifteen, a new sixteen at the very most.

  ‘Yes,’ said Georgie. At that moment, the pub door opened and a small, dark-haired girl entered. She trailed a cloud of astonishing energy in her wake: even the tired, middle-aged men at the bar looked up from their newspapers as she passed. Georgie grinned. ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘We’re ready now. Three pints of Guinness.’

  Even if Georgie hadn’t ordered (and how was I going to drink a whole pint of that stuff?) I’d have known at once that this was Maggie.

  ‘Hi, Georgie,’ she said, flicking a wave of dark hair away from her face, back over one shoulder. Then she looked at me. Her eyes were a translucent green, her lips painted bright scarlet. ‘You must be Claire from Clare. Nice to meet you.’

  But she didn’t laugh at her own joke and I forgave her. ‘And you’re Maggie,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘That’s me. Don’t believe everything she says about me, though.’

  I smiled. ‘Oh, she didn’t give anything away. You’ve nothing to worry about.’

  Maggie snorted. She settled herself more comfortably on her stool. She was dressed for maximum impact and I admired her panache. A crimson shirt, an exact match for the shade of lipstick she was wearing, and a pair of tight, black Levi’s. Her curves were evident. Her whole attitude said: if you’ve got it, flaunt it. I wouldn’t have had the nerve, not in those days. Anyhow, I didn’t have the curves, not like Maggie did. I still hid behind flowing dresses back then because somehow, I believed that they camouflaged my thinness.

  ‘Wouldn’t I love to have something worth telling,’ she said, throwing her eyes up to heaven. ‘Life’s much too quiet at the moment. Isn’t that right, Georgie?’

  Georgie said nothing.

  Maggie had just begun to fumble in her bag for cigarettes. Now she stopped, reacting to Georgie’s silence. She looked across at her friend, her green eyes huge. ‘Georgie – you haven’t, have you? Not again. Tell me you haven’t?’

  Although Maggie’s tone was full of urgency, I felt that I was watching a well-rehearsed double act, where each person had already practised their lines and knew them off by heart. I was the audience, but I didn’t mind. I liked being entertained.

  Georgie closed her eyes, lifted her elegant shoulders ever so slightly and spread her palms towards us. Maggie shook her head. ‘Who is it this time?’ she demanded. ‘Isn’t one fella at a time enough for you? God knows it’d be enough for me, if I could get one.’

  But Georgie made no reply. Just then, the lounge boy returned and placed three nervous pints on the table in front of us.

  ‘Any matches?’ Maggie asked him. There was a cigarette already lodged between her fingers. I noticed that it looked at home there.

  ‘I’ll go and see.’ He disappeared in search of them. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her. I remember thinking that his cheeks had flushed to a fair match for her shirt.

  ‘Don’t terrify him, Maggie – I think it’s his first night. Never seen him before, have you?’ Georgie took out her own packet of cigarettes.

  Maggie shook her head. ‘Nah. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle with him. He looks like someone’s kid brother.’

  Yes, mine, I thought, with a sudden, sharp prod of memory. Ruaidhri, with his long and awkward arms and legs, his sticking-up hair. The lounge boy delivered the matches to Maggie. I noticed how he averted his eyes. She smiled and handed him, grandly, a tip of twenty pence. He sloped off, pleased with himself.

  Georgie raised her glass. ‘Here’s to us, then.’

  ‘It was nobody we know, right? Nobody I need to avoid?’ asked Maggie. She held the glass to her lips, delaying the first sip until Georgie answered her. They were very good together.

  Georgie sighed. ‘No, it’s nobody you know. Just someone I met over the weekend. He was fun. So who cares?’ And she shrugged again. I would get to know that dismissive gesture. And the tone tha
t hovered somewhere between weariness and boredom. The tone that would make us – Maggie and me, that is – laugh and eventually forgive whatever it was she had just got up to.

  ‘Well, okay, then.’ Maggie lifted her glass. ‘To the three of us, right?’

  We all chinked obediently and drank. I tried not to breathe because I did not want to taste the yeasty liquid as it prickled and fizzled its way across my tongue. It was my first pint and I didn’t know what I might be letting myself in for. Up until then, pints were for farmers and mountainy men who guzzled themselves to a standstill every Saturday night in the pubs of Ennistymon. Guinness was not something that girls drank. I also decided that I had better not to ask who, or what, they were talking about. I didn’t feel, then, that it was any of my business.

  ‘Well,’ said Maggie, turning to face me. ‘You’ll be joining us in the flat, right?’

  I opened my mouth to speak, about to be cautious. But Maggie’s bright, open face and Georgie’s amused one somehow gave me courage. ‘Yeah,’ I said instead. ‘I will. As long as it’s affordable. That okay with you?’ And I smiled at her, having the impression that I was beginning to gain ground. She made me feel that I might be able to hold my own, placed somewhere appropriate and agreed between the two of them.

  Maggie shrugged. ‘Yeah, ’course,’ she said. ‘It’s hardly a palace, though. Has Georgie told you?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ I said. Not that I cared. ‘When can I see it?’

  ‘I’ll find out,’ said Georgie. ‘The other tenants are still there, but I’ll see what I can do. Maybe we can get in at the weekend.’

  ‘’Course it’s affordable,’ said Maggie, putting down her glass. I noticed she was almost half-finished, Georgie too. I’d barely begun. ‘Georgie’s daddy would never try and rip us off, would he, Georgie?’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ she said easily. ‘Besides, this way, he gets the best of both worlds. I’m out of his hair and he has three careful tenants. We’ll keep things ticking over till he’s ready to sell. And then off he goes and makes a fortune.’ She turned to me. ‘Simple, really. And that’s another thing to tell your old man: you’ll be a friend of the family, no possibility of eviction. Cheers.’