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“No,” she exhaled, remembering. “And today Kieran asked me to manage the Green Door.”
“How did you pull that off?”
“Damned if I know! It’s out of control! Everywhere I go I just want to be a schlemiel and somebody hands me a set of keys and the books, and before long I have employees and late hours and a lot of problems. It’s the curse of the crudest possible intelligence. The fact is, if you tell a hundred people, Put the chair in that corner, fully seventy-five of them will promptly hang it from the chandelier. Did you know that most of the world is made of fruitcakes?”
He laughed. “You get more American when you drink.”
“I can’t help it. I was born this way.”
“You don’t like being American?”
“I’ve learned to get by with it, like any handicap—harelip, paraplegia. Do you like being Irish?”
“What do you think?”
She eyed him. “That you abhor it. In short, Ireland suits you perfectly.”
She was getting swacked. Her voice was louder and higher; people were looking over at their table. She used her hands when she talked, and as her motions got wider Farrell eyed their tall goblets warily, though she always missed. Then, she knew her way around a landscape with glasses, that was clear. She had reached a phase he knew himself, marked not by sloppiness but by inordinate precision—her pronunciation was getting more rather than less correct. Her phrasing grew considered, her gestures semaphoric, crisp as air traffic control. When she rose to find the loo, he recognized the careful placement of her hand on the table, the excessively smooth ascent from her chair, the purposeful step-by-step glide around other diners—too exact, too concentrated. She had crossed the point where all these ordinary matters could be executed without thinking, and now to negotiate finding the ladies’, asking Maire coherently, remembering the directions and being able to follow them, took the full application of her powers.
Farrell enjoyed her absence. He kneaded his forehead. He had to admit he’d no idea what to make of her. The boasting had been a bit much; though if she really had washed dishes in the Philippines and made plastic boots in Galilee, he supposed she deserved a little airtime over dinner for work that had surely been excruciating after the first half hour. Farrell was tired. That was it, she was tiring. He wished she would just quiet down. He was sick of words. This whole island never shut up, and he wondered at how much people said was in such reliably inverse proportion to how much they had to say. If Farrell chose to lose any of his senses, he decided he’d go deaf.
Yet when Estrin returned it was as if something had happened. She seemed sad. He felt sure he could make one mean remark and she would cry.
“Are you married?” she asked straight up.
“You know when I woke up at thirteen, but you can’t tell if I’m that much of a shite?”
“That’s right,” she said calmly. “Only the incidentals of your life are apparent.”
When the bill came and Farrell went for his wallet, Estrin crumpled into her pocket for a wad of pound notes. “No, no.” He put a hand over her fist of cash. He flicked a card to Maire, allowing Estrin to catch that it was platinum.
Farrell gave her a hand up, pressed gently at her waist between tables; opening the door, he slipped his fingers under a shock of hair still beneath the jacket and pulled it free; she paused to let him finish, and a little longer still for the back of his hand to rest at her collar. As a result, by the time they were outside they had run through all the routine moves of the gambit like speed chess. Then, she was thirty-two, he forty-three; openings had become so easy. Perhaps the very definition of adulthood is a fascination with the middle parts of games.
“I have my bike,” she said.
“It’s safe?”
“Locked, anyway. I suppose.”
“Leave it, then. We haven’t far.”
Estrin shot her motorcycle a mournful look. “Where to?” she asked, in tow.
“My hotel.”
“You live in a hotel?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“It’s safer.” To Estrin’s grunt of incomprehension, he simply replied, “Never mind.” He put his arm around her shoulders, though at Estrin’s height that was less like holding a person than resting on a banister.
“The swallow,” he told her as if beginning a bedtime story, “takes off when it’s young and flies all around the world. For up to four years it never lands, sailing over South America, Africa, Australia—thousands of miles, the circumference of the earth several times.”
“Does it mate in the air?”
“No, after sowing wild oats in Tierra del Fuego, the swallow settles down to raise a family. Buys a station wagon and gets fat.”
“Thanks,” said Estrin.
While no longer rolled up by dark as it once was, central Belfast was deserted after the pubs closed; their heels rang down the walk.
“Another parable,” said the American, whose voice, cowed by quiet, had gone soft. “A few years ago back in Philadelphia I decided I was sick of my ratty underwear—it was stained, the elastic shot. So I treated myself to, like, the best—in one store, silk, maroon, black lace; as my stack piled down the rack, other customers began to stare at me sidelong. I bought thirty pairs. When I got home I spread them out and not only felt insane, I felt deprived. All I could think about was going out and buying more.”
“You’re obsessive.”
“Not so simple. It’s greed. The same thing happens when I’m not halfway through a meal and I start thinking about a second helping. Or a cassette’s not nearly over and I decide to play it again. It’s a hunger like C. S. Lewis’s magic Turkish delight: the more you eat, the more you want, because you didn’t taste what you had before. When I decide in the middle to play a song again, I stop hearing it the first time. I have a problem with wanting what I’ve already got.
“Anyway, that’s what happens with me and maps,” she explained. “I spread them on the floor like underwear. I no sooner get my butt to Belfast than I start frantic plans to fly to the Soviet Union.”
“Still have the silk drawers?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Nope. After the shopping binge I stopped wearing underwear altogether.”
She couldn’t match his stride, and kept trying different rhythmic combinations, 3:2, 5:3, like solving an equation, and now tangibly hung back. “Listen,” she fumbled. “I don’t do this sort of thing much anymore.”
He stopped and kissed her hair. “Now, what sort of thing might that be?”
“I guess that’s my question.”
“Always in such a rush. Don’t we need something to discuss before we can discuss it?”
“Sorry. You make me nervous. I don’t know why.”
He liked her for the confession. He took her hand, swinging it a little, feeling … content. A mysterious sensation.
chapter five (#ulink_998029b8-bed9-5f40-b7a8-75ece63414fa)
Cape Canaveral on York Street (#ulink_998029b8-bed9-5f40-b7a8-75ece63414fa)
Estrin was pleased he led her to Whitewells, old Belfast, one of the last monuments downtown to an era largely expunged in the last twenty years blast by blast. At the corner of Royal Avenue and York Street, its Edwardian opulence put the rest of the town center to shame. The “Belfast Is Buzzing” campaign proudly celebrated a commercial reincarnation not unlike having been born a prince and coming back a sow. The lines of shoe stores and garish plastic marquees may have made locals proud, but they made Estrin feel temporary, trivial; she might have preferred the atmosphere had the shops remained bombed out. Yet only a few chipped stones on the hotel suggested nearby explosions; more than its architecture, what impressed Estrin most as they walked in was that Whitewells was still here.
Not that they got far. Two steps in, they were met by a security façade more imposing than at most airports. While the doorman respectfully recognized “Mr. O’Phelan,” even Farrell laid his jacket on the X-ray belt, walked through the metal detector, and raised his arms to be searched. For the first time in this Province, Estrin’s adorable round cheeks didn’t roll her past the guards. They impounded her can of Mace, and a far more than perfunctory frisk recovered a Phillips screwdriver Estrin had rummaged for all week. They took that, too.
“Jesus,” Estrin exclaimed when they were through. “I’d hate to see what they do to suitcases.”
“Something between homogenization and genetic engineering. If Watson hadn’t discovered DNA, Whitewells would have found it at the door. Best security in all of Europe.” He clapped her delightedly on the shoulder and left for the key.
Estrin sank across the carpet. Security curtained away, only formidable Old World appointments presented themselves. Whitewells was a bulwark of a building, with that airless quiet of a bomb shelter or a bank vault. Even the decor was safe, with conservative furniture, all dark, woody, and green. While oceans crushed the rocks of this island, the fountain here purled coyly: surely water would only wash your face. In Whitewells every element was contained: the fire would never pop beyond its grate, and whatever the powers of earth in this place, they were marshaled entirely for your protection. Estrin was reminded of the feeling of the world when she was a small child, when everything seemed oversized, looming, more real than you. The tables were long and steady, the chairs sturdy and stable, with fat, affectionate arms. Upholstery skirted their formidable square chassés to the floor, like RUC Land Rovers. Wainscoting was so thick you could run into it; the ceilings were corniced, the paintings mostly framed. Grandfather clocks, above ordinary time, were stopped at twelve.
Grazing the lobby, Estrin’s eyes struck Farrell by accident: a few deft strokes from a distance, more sketch than sculpture. And she’d never seen a man whose apparent age could shift so. Joking with the receptionist, he could have been her brother; turning, her father. Both versions were striking, though Farrell had that quality rare in men of not seeming to know how attractive he was.
Joining him in the lift, she could tell they were watched by the way the staff deliberately looked elsewhere.
Later she would notice the lovely room, with no smeary seascapes or little broken coffee machines; for now Estrin could attend only to the bed, rising at her with its big white spread. Despite her nervousness, she felt simple. Hanging her coat, she didn’t mind having nothing to say. She sat on the edge of the bed and took off her boots; allowing her hair to drape on either side of her face, she looked up and smiled.
Farrell slipped off his shoes and stretched on the bed to its foot. He did not reach for her, but closed his eyes and rubbed his face. Estrin massaged his temples. He rested his arms and didn’t touch.
“You know, if you’d like to just sleep, that would be all right,” Estrin offered.
Farrell kept his eyes closed as her fingers moved into his scalp. “Don’t think the old man has it in him?”
“I think you’re tired.”
“Yes,” he said, pulling her closer. “I am shattered.” He was an angular man, but the kiss was acquiescent; he was shaking.
For all her avaricious crackling of maps, at last Estrin Lancaster paused in her gorging of whole foreign countries to remain in a single room, really a small room, in one odd city with one difficult character, but as a result something paradoxical happened and, instead of feeling hemmed in, Estrin found the world of Whitewells and this man on its bed the source of infinite, patient fascination. As the universe shrank ever further to two patches of face, Farrell’s mouth opened into a cavernous place, large enough to walk around in, get lost in, take the underground. Her passage echoed down his throat. Farrell had swallowed the world, and all that ever was could be found there—the Taj Mahal, the Eiger, the Ganges, Cape Canaveral, the Smithsonian Institution, and Estrin’s favorite U.S. Out of Nicaragua coffee cup back on Springfield Road.
She actually forgot about the sex, since she was not waiting to get on with something else. Sometimes she forced herself to pull away from him so she could enjoy going back, each time to visit new tourist attractions—the Pyramids, St. Stephen’s Green, the Roman Catacombs. They were luxurious kisses and, while soft, not that disturbing invertebrate bleah, where the tongue dissolves into a pool of gelatinous mouth-flesh, like lapping at soup with no bowl, kisses without rim. No, even as their tongues wrapped, Henry Moore, one form into the other, these were kisses with structure and purpose, like good sculpture always turning, one plane leading endlessly into another, until you are back where you started, with no sense of having been there before.
Farrell held her neck and pressed her deeper. The farther they tunneled down each other’s throat, the more it seemed unfair to be kept so far apart. Even if the evening was one-off, he was a slime, this was a pickup, Estrin was ready to offer money or favors or flattery, anything at all if he would only keep her in his bed the whole night.
“No, don’t.” Estrin stopped his wrangling with her silk. “I can’t stand being undressed. And you’d never have a chance with these leather pants, they would take you hours.”
This next business was also simple, without the zip by button hassle Estrin had grown so weary of, but with the neater, practiced efficiency with which people can take off their own clothes. She did not want to think about clothes.
Without them he was just as long, but even more narrow. So meager and unmuscled, his body looked easy to draw, though you would need a ruler. As a result, though hard to read at dinner, here he printed legible right angles, undivisive, direct. His skin, surprisingly tender for a man his age, pimpled with a dot-matrix of chenille. His legs dangled off the mattress, the wan, desperate sticks with knobbled knees that crowd Save the Children posters. Even his penis, though long, was unusually slim, and less bullying than most, a limb more of grace than aggression, smooth and abstract like the rest: Giacometti.
Be that as it may, Estrin looked in his eyes as she hadn’t for a few minutes and remembered his name; remembered other people saying it, the way they said it—with an inching away. She recognized his face as the same from yesterday: stony, blasé, You’re all witless gobshites. As he slid into her easy as you please, like popping in an open back door, she recalled that only a few minutes before she’d have knelt on the floor for one more kiss—from a stranger, whose powers of affection she knew little but whose powers of disdain had already shown themselves to be monumental. In fact, Estrin had risen in the ranks of menials all over the world because she was reliable, but once in a while even Estrin slipped, and flat on her back now, she had that feeling of having been trusted and suddenly remembering she did not lock up.
It felt better than she remembered, but she hadn’t remembered because she didn’t want to. Estrin twisted underneath. She avoided seeing his face now because she already cared what it was thinking, and this could be a nothing, a fuck, she didn’t know him— Get out! She managed not to say this out loud, and kissed him as if stuffing a towel in her mouth. Farrell was whipping more quickly and screeing like seabirds, but Estrin only whimpered. She’d put her life together and made do. She had a job now and a house and coffee filters and always bought milk for the morning the night before. She belonged to a gym and her running time was good; the phone rang when she came home. The Guzzi was tuned and she loved spending her free days by herself blasting across the island—to Bushmills— Estrin was in fine form, often excited by this new city, even Provo poppycock, Ulster slang—stocious, legless, half-tore, as many words for drunk as the Eskimos had for snow— For once in a country that spoke English, with more mountains and comically crummy food—bangers and chips, pizza and chips, chips and chips— It had all been enough without this—
His fingers on her shoulders bit flesh. Below him, Estrin put up feeble resistance: she would not come. A traveler may be excited, but never satisfied. Besides, can’t you understand that pleasure is grotesque? What can possibly happen next but that someone will take it away?
Farrell immediately reached over to shake down his overcoat and didn’t explain. He located an inhaler, which he sucked on, sitting up. This was not romantic.
He slept on the far side of the bed in a ball. A small person with the rest of it, Estrin lay bereft on the wide white sheet. She tossed, always hot or cold, pulling up the blankets, throwing them off. She felt deserted, and irrationally offended that he could sleep.
Yet by morning she, too, was deep in, and it was Farrell who roused her into his arms with a remark about feeling neglected.
Farrell eyed her from the safety of his Unionist tabloid. He had barricaded himself at the breakfast table with ten different papers, even for Farrell generous. He never knew what to say to women mornings. He watched her smarm her mug over her forehead, against her temple, down her cheek. She had a warmth with objects, he’d noticed in 44, the way she tapered over her fork, smeared the flat of the knife, traced the flute of her plate—she seemed to savor the setting more than the food.
As he walked her back to Bedford Street, they discussed the Guilford Four. Approaching her bike, Farrell felt Estrin drag at his hand.
“Well, it’s been fun,” said Estrin defiantly.
“Yes” was all he said. He waited for her to remove the padlock, zip up, strap on her helmet, and actually turn the key. As she revved the motor, he slipped his hands in his pockets. She fed the engine more petrol than it needed; its revolutions grew louder and more shrill. He could feel her clutching through disappointment to disbelief to rage like gears, and he waited for the very last stage—ordinary pain—at which Estrin unexpectedly switched off the cycle and stared down at the tank. She looked up, her face not wobbly but impassive and open.
“This is it?”
“Not unless you prefer, my swallow. Myself, I’d like very much to see you again.”
“Then why don’t you take my fucking phone number?”
“Now, that’s a thought. You Americans are so well organized.”
The exchange done, she started the bike energetically; he squeezed her shoulder and leaned down to shout, “And it was more than fun!”
She tore out from under his hand, grazed his toe with her back wheel, and ripped past the BBC.
chapter six (#ulink_00d5da7b-0860-57b5-9e12-f442d50805ce)
Roisin’s Furniture Goes Funny (#ulink_00d5da7b-0860-57b5-9e12-f442d50805ce)
Now, why go to that confounded funeral, Roisin, when I’ve the afternoon free?”
“You know very well why. Didn’t you just go to McMichael’s? Even Seawright’s, and that was appalling.”
“What was appalling, love, was blowing up his car. The yob was a bigot, but last time I read up, that wasn’t a capital crime.”
“It should be,” she muttered.
“Sure we’d all be six foot under in no time.”
“Well, last time I read up, walking down the road on the border wasn’t a capital crime, either.”
“The soldier says himself, the gun went off by accident.”
“Angus, catch yourself on! I suppose Cromwell’s invasion was an accident, too.”
“Cromwell’s invasion was three hundred years ago, Christ! This Brigadoon drives me to distraction, always blattering on about Oliver and James and Billy, as if they were all on their way here to tea. MacAnespie will be investigated—”
“That’s rich. Just like the Birmingham Six?”
“The point is, you attend, at the end of the day it’s one more Nationalist demonstration.”
“And Seawright’s was a Loyalist one.”
“That funeral was part of my job. Your job is to stay home and find it all too painful to bear.”
“Even a poet needs to make political statements.”
“Bollocks, haven’t you had it up to your bake with political statements?”
“It’s more you have, and only with mine.”
“I’ll not get into the whole kit, since I said I’d an afternoon free and not the rest of my life. But I do wish you’d think things through a bit more, lass. You call yourself a Republican, but you’ve not a single decent word for the South. It’s the DUP fellows steam off to Donegal on holiday and say it’s brilliant. You, Rosebud, come back from Sligo raving. ‘Their veins run with Fairy Liquid!’ you says.”
