Stir-Fry (22 page)

The skylight resisted a few thumps from the brush, then creaked open, sprinkling rust down on them. A wave of cold air hit their flushed faces. Maria gasped as she climbed through the narrow hatch.

“It’s the frost that’s making me slip, not the whisky,” explained Jael as she staggered along the dip between the roofs. She worked her way over the slates to the wall and started waving to the tiny figures getting into cars on the streets below.

Maria stood still. She craned her neck back to see the full bowl of luminous clouds, satellites and stars. Dizzy, she had the impression she might topple right off the building. Gradually she became aware of Jael standing just behind her, holding a strand of holly high in the air. “What’s that for?” she asked.

“No mistletoe,” said Jael briefly, and bent round to kiss her.

Later, trying to remember whether it was a short or a long kiss, an acceptable peck or a dangerous fusion, Maria had no idea. It was somehow balanced on the knife edge between these definitions when Ruth’s head came through the skylight. In the second her eyes took to get used to the dark, they had lurched apart.

“Oh, sorry,” said Ruth. The blank oval of her face disappeared down the hole.

They were mute, staring at the skylight; then Jael made a dash for the ladder. Maria could hear heavy footsteps in the corridor, Jael’s muffled voice protesting, petering out, then silence.

It was getting colder, she thought, as she inched, one foot at a time, along the dip between the roofs and squatted down
in a nook beside a chimney. Too cold for snow. She wondered whether there was snow on the mountains. She wondered what the hell had just happened.

Maria tried to fix her attention on the stars, then on the icy slates under her, but her head was whirling. Such a confused dread. Like when she was a child at mass, putting her tongue out for Holy Communion, and heard her own unspoken whisper of resistance: This is too much for me.

By six she was cold to the bone, her knees locked stiff. She would go for the half seven train home; Mam would be glad of the help at lunchtime. She waited for the first lick of dawn on the mountains, taupe and snowless.

Maria climbed down the ladder; her numb fingers lowered the skylight clumsily. The flat was hushed. Once in her room, she fumbled a few jumpers and jeans into her rucksack and tiptoed down the corridor. Better leave a note on the kitchen table so they wouldn’t worry.

But when Maria reached the bead curtain, she realized that they were still there. She stood rigid, convinced that they would see her or hear her breathing, but the couple by the fire were oblivious to everything. All she could make out clearly in the red light was Ruth’s face. Her head sagged back on the top of the sofa, and her face was a blank page. The folds of her new black dress were crumpled over her stomach; her legs were limp as a rag doll’s. Jael was sprawled between them; all that could be seen of her was her long back and some copper waves of hair spilling over the lap of her lover. Maria watched, as if this dance, this coupling, was the key to the whole story. The bodies shifted together like a knot of seaweed.

It was not until Ruth’s eyes opened, glittering straight at her across the room, that Maria backed away and slipped out the front door.

T
he 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
.