Erotic Refugees (6 page)

Rob shook his head and scanned
the bar, looking for somebody, anybody, he knew well enough to
bring along. But he drew a blank. He pulled out his mobile and
while Eamonn kept Brian and Andy entertained with some stupid story
about a bus he clicked his way through his contact book. The As and
Bs produced nothing but a few annoyed grunts, but when he came to
E, his finger hovered.

Eoin? Who the hell was … oh
right, the guy from Malone's a few weeks ago, with the fat date!
Well they weren't exactly friends, but that night had turned out
fairly well, after they'd got past the hatred and such. He was a
dry bugger though. But still—dry party, Annika's dry friends, and
dry Eoin. Could be a perfect combo!

He wrote a friendly text
message, sent it off, and turned his attention back to his bar
companions.

“
Now there's an idea for
your web business, Rob,” Andy said, eager to steer the conversation
away from buses. “You need somebody to take to a social engagement?
Hey, you just go on this site and find somebody else with nothing
to do!”

“
They have those
already,” Rob said drily. “And they're called escort agencies. Or
haven't ye heard about them?”

“
No, I meant for free.
Just lots of bored people, you know, out there looking for
something to do. You could even do an iPhone app, sure you
could!”

“
Still sounds like an
escort service to me. Or a kinky dating site, and there's already
lots of them. Not that I'd know, or anything. Plus I'd never be
able to make a better one, not this fast anyway.”

“
So I take it your
brilliant idea is still at the planning stage?” Brian said. “All
those free cappuccinos just wasted?”

Rob flipped down his sunglasses
and clasped his hands on the table. “I'd tell ye, but then I'd have
to kill ye.”

Andy laughed. “You're a rubbish
man in black, Rob. Good at avoiding questions though, I'll give you
that.”

Rob's mobile beeped. He read
the message and gave a surprised but satisfied grunt. So it seemed
Eoin was on, in a half-arsed and unenthusiastic kind of way. Not a
huge victory, really, getting a recently divorced single father to
go to a party, but it took the pressure off him, and that was good
enough.

“
Seriously though,” he
said as he tucked his mobile away. “I have a short-list of ideas,
and I just have to pick out the best one. Things are takin' off any
day now!”

Brian shrugged and raised his
pint. “I guess we'll have to take the man's word for it. Here’s to
things taking off any day now!”

Andy and Eamonn lifted their
pints. Rob smiled and clunked his glass against each of them before
taking a creamy swig. He put the glass down and kept his smile in
place, while behind the foamy moustache and bravado he was fully
aware that he wasn’t quite as far along as he should be.

In fact, he hadn't done
anything at all on his killer site, beyond making a few lists with
ideas, most of which he had lost. Being behind in this race was an
understatement. Rob was still only lacing up his shoes at the
starting line.

He would get down to it,
though. Immediately, if not sooner. It was becoming too much work
to lie to people about his progress. It was just a series of basic
steps, to be taken in a certain order. First, find an idea that
resonated. Then find somebody willing to work on it with him. Then
program it and get people to actually use the thing. Finally, he'd
need the users to somehow pay him to use it, and all that in only
seven months.

Andy launched into a story
about a girl he was dating, and Rob nodded along, laughing with the
others at the sleazy bits. His grin was still pasted in place and
he took another sip of his Guinness just so he could relax his
mouth for a moment.

He seriously had to get this
project moving. Otherwise all this smiling would end up giving him
a heart attack.

Chapter
7

Eoin arrived at the door to
Rob's flat at ten minutes to one on midsummer afternoon. He was
carrying, as instructed, a bottle of red wine, a nice bunch of
tulips and a fat wedge of Danish Blue. He pressed the bell and
stood back.

Rob opened the door wearing
nothing but a threadbare blue bathrobe and a look of blurry
confusion. “What, already? Yer kidding me. Shite.”

Rob charged back in and Eoin,
not knowing what else to do, followed him. He watched as Rob began
extracting clothes from unlikely locations and throwing them on,
removing wrinkles, crumbs and stains on the fly.

Eoin found a corner to stand
in, feeling very much out of place. This whole thing had been a bad
idea, and he'd known it all along. He didn't know Rob's
neighbours—or Rob either, for that matter—and he wasn’t good with
new people, especially in a party environment. But Alice had got it
into her head that this would be good for him, and things that
Alice got into her head usually got out of her head and into
reality fairly quickly. That's just how it went, and so here he
was.

His gaze drifted to Rob's
computer. There were several windows open and the main one
displayed code that he recognised as CSS. As small talk went,
programming was fairly rubbish but it was better than nothing.

“
So you're making a
website then?”

Rob glanced over. “Yeah, well,
I have a few ideas.” He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful.
“Ever do anything like that yerself?”

Eoin shook his head. “A bit. I
mean, I work as a technical project leader, so I know the basics.
Big systems though, business support and—”

“
Ah, right,” Rob said,
now busy flattening sections of his dark brown hair with globs of
wax. Once that had been applied, he dashed out to the hall where he
opened and closed a few doors, making a great deal of noise about
it. He stepped back into the room, buttoning a shirt, all ready to
go.

Eoin looked at his watch and
saw the whole process had taken Rob about seven minutes. That was
how long it would take Eoin to just pick out his socks.

“
Well come on then,
what're ye waiting for, a taxi?”

Eoin followed him into the
hall. “Right then,” Rob said, and held up a straining purple bag
filled with clinking bottles. “Here's the drink and some of that
fish-in-a-jar stuff, and you've got the rest. So let's get out
there and meet the ladies, yeah? Are we ready?”

Eoin blinked, worried for a
moment that he was expected to deliver a high five, or a fist bump.
Thankfully it didn't happen, and a nod sufficed.

They crossed the corridor. The
door to Annika's flat was open and before they even pressed the
bell she dashed out to greet them. She was very enthusiastic as she
shook Eoin's hand. He couldn't help noticing her breasts had been
arranged optimally in a tight yellow dress, and he tried very hard
to not stare at them.

“
So glad you could make
it Rob! And you Eoin, nice to meet some friend of Rob's at last.
Except for them I bump into on Sunday morning when she's on her way
home!”

Eoin kept on grinning, hoping
he didn't look insane. When she turned her back to take care of the
gifts they'd brought, Rob nodded towards the kitchen where a big
punch bowl stood on the counter. Eoin nodded with enthusiasm and
they hurried towards it like dying men in a desert.

“
Cheers then,” Rob said,
plastic cup in hand. “It might be a long day, so we should start as
we mean to go on. When duty calls, I'm not the man to turn on my
heel, never let it be said!”

“
I suppose,” Eoin said.
“And what do you mean, duty?”

Rob paused in his drinking and
smiled sheepishly. “Oh. Well, nothing really. It's just, you know,
Annika did me a favour, so I kind of agreed to come to her
party.”

“
Oh, right” said Eoin. “I
see.”

Great, he thought. Not only was
he the pity guest, but he was the pity guest of somebody who had
actually been obliged to come. Could it be any worse?

He drained his punch and
plucked out and ate the little chunks of pineapple. Maybe Rob had
the right idea—just get flaming drunk and get it all over with as
quickly as possible.

“
It really looks like a
big dick,” Rob said. “With balls and all. Ye see it,
right?”

They were sitting on a picnic
blanket, nibbling at Annika's cakes and biscuits as they drank
coffee from plastic cups. The ground was covered in speckled
shadows from a row of trees behind them, and it fell away in a
gentle slope to the energetic midsummer festivities below. The
party was definitely in full swing.

“
It does,” Eoin said. It
was hard to miss it really. The midsummer pole stood six metres
high, a construction like a cross wreathed in flowers and greenery.
Two big circles made from entwined branches and flowers hung from
each end of the crossbar. These were apparently the testicles and,
if the pole were squinted at with the correct amount of drink
taken, it did indeed look very phallic.

Rob forged on. “But isn't it
stupid having the thing looking like a big dick? I mean, it can't
just be me what sees it. The whole country dancing round a dick.
Maybe I should tell them.”

Eoin turned to Rob, not sure if
he was being ironic or not. “It's supposed to look like a big dick,
that's the whole point. It's a fertility festival. The dick is the
symbol of plenty and growth, that's why we're all out here.”

Rob looked at him in amazement.
“Really? It's supposed to be a dick? I thought it was just an
accident. Ah well then it's not even funny any more. Gimme some
coffee.”

Eoin handed over the thermos.
Down the slope people were dancing around the pole, and he idly
wondered if Damien and his mother were dancing somewhere right now.
Or maybe they were right here in front of him, separated from him
by a wide stretch of grass as well as an unbridgeable gulf of guilt
and blame.

“
So,” he said, eager to
switch his head from the Damien-and-Jenny channel. “Tell me about
your Internet idea.”

Rob's eyes lit up at that.
Talking about his ideas was clearly something he enjoyed. He
finished one of Annika's home-made muffins, brushed the crumbs away
and shuffled closer on the grass.

“
Okay, ye've asked for
it. Guinness, right? Where is the best Guinness in Stockholm?” He
stabbed at the ground. “Here? Or maybe here? Is there any
independent authority? Who do ye trust? Come on now Eoin, have a
stab at it!”

Eoin shook his head. “I
suppose, Guinness drinkers?”

“
Exactly! So let them
decide! I just make a website where people can go in and vote for
the Guinness in every bar in every city in the world. I give ‘em
the forum and the tools and let them run wild, making content for
me!”

“
Fair enough. But how do
you make money on it?”

Rob emptied his can of beer.
“From Guinness! We're advertising the arse off them, I'm sure
they'll give us some money to do it.”

“
Okay, fine, but you'll
be telling people all over the world where the good Guinness is,
which means the places with bad Guinness will lose sales. And does
Guinness want some of their outlets selling less, maybe cutting it
out entirely? And then if it affects sales, the bars will find out
about your website, and they’ll send in people to vote for them and
it won't be impartial any more, will it?”

Rob sighed. “Way to smash a
man's dreams, Eoin.”

“
Well, sorry, but if
you're going to do a website, you need to do one that actually
works—”

“
Oh right,” Rob said,
“and you know what works?”

“
Well I should,” Eoin
said. “I've studied marketing and business, and I am a technical
project leader. Not projects like this, much bigger ones, but it's
the same basic idea. Plus they also have me as the unofficial web
editor at work, when the old ladies can't paste something or open a
ZIP file.”

“
So ye have any better
ideas then?”

Eoin shrugged. “Not
really.”

Rob popped two cans of beer and
thrust one at Eoin. “Oh come on, I'm sure there's something
bouncing around in there. Tell you what, let's get together and
have a proper chat about it. A meeting. Throw some ideas around,
yeah?”

Eoin nodded, quite sure that
nothing would come of it. He was about to say more when his reply
was cut short by the out-of-breath arrival of Annika. She stood in
front of them with her hands on her hips, her ample breasts rising
and falling a few centimetres with each breath.

“
So you are here!” she
said. “And eating all the cakes to yourself!”

A song started up from the
accordion band below, causing Annika to clap her hands like an
excited six-year old. “Oh I love this one!” She turned to Eoin. “We
have to dance! At my party everybody dances!”

“
Well,” Eoin began but
then realised that any arguments he might come up with were not
about to get him out of dancing with Annika today. So he took her
outstretched hand and allowed her to pull him to his
feet.

“
Go on there!” Rob
shouted as Eoin was dragged away down the slope. “Make the lady
sweat for Ireland!” Eoin pretended not to hear him.

But it turned out that a dance
wasn't such a terrible idea after all.

Chapter
8

“
So Eoin,” Rob said with
a slur. “Ye'll have to learn to look at all these women with the
eye of a predator, right? Forget about being a nice guy, because,
well, we're all nice guys, right?”

Eoin nodded, only dimly aware
of what he was nodding to. A glorious day had turned into a
glorious evening and the park was now full of people. Tables and
picnic blankets were arranged on every free space and savoury
streams of smoke drifted up from a dozen barbecues. Pretty women
were everywhere and Eoin, in his lecherous state, couldn't keep his
gaze off them.