Father’s Music. Dermot Bolger

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ for a queer-bashing.

      Yet it was his wife I kept watching. For no reason I hated her. Sitting there, plump and content with permed hair and hick clothes that were aeons out of fashion. She was in her late thirties but dressed like someone entering a glamorous granny contest. If Luke’s family began to swipe each other with switch-blades, she would simply lift her Pimms and chat away, oblivious to them. But my hatred had nothing to do with her personally, I was uneasy around all happily married couples. If I felt I would become like her, I’d have smashed that vodka glass in the ladies and slashed my wrists.

      Screw her anyway, I thought. All my life I’d had that future hammered into me, but I wasn’t living by Gran’s rules any more. Why not fuck a married man under his family’s nose? That would be one for Roxy and Honor, although, even in my drunken state, I knew I’d never tell them. If Luke hadn’t attracted me I would never have let him talk for so long. His desire attracted me too, at odds with most men’s surface pretence. I wasn’t bound by vows I’d no intention of ever getting roped into. Besides, for all his talk, he wouldn’t dare. He wanted me here to eyeball. Once I stepped off this stool I would discover him to be all bull-shit, like most men.

      I tapped Garth’s shoulder and he patted my arm. I didn’t look back. Eight vodkas or was it nine? Only when I hit the cold air did I count seriously again. The street was silent before closing time. It was three minutes’ walk to the tube. I made a mental note of danger points. But I didn’t go that way. Instead I stood in the doorway beside the shuttered shops and fixed my coat, then unbuttoned it again. One minute passed, maybe two. I was going nowhere with Luke but I was curious to see if he dared appear. If he did, I could slip away into the shadows.

      Four minutes passed, I couldn’t believe I was still there. He hadn’t the balls. It was cold. I buttoned my coat again. I found I was excited. How many weeks was it since I’d slept with a man? The air smelt like there would be heavy rain soon. Five minutes turned into six, twice the time it would have taken to walk to the tube. I’d have to hurry now. Luke was just another manipulator, a cheat who ran scared. You could expect no better from the Irish. I remembered Gran repeating the phrase every time there was a bomb on the news. If she saw me now her worst fears would be confirmed, standing like a cheap tart waiting for an Irishman. When would I lose this hatred every time I thought of her, or was hatred a mechanism to keep guilt at bay? In thirteen months I’d never phoned. I should write but what could I say? I had decided to put my past behind me. At that moment I felt removed from everything, consumed by an old ache which I knew neither sex or drink could fill. I felt outside myself, watching this girl who was clearly drunk because she took forever to button her coat. Why had she spent a decade being addicted to crazy notions? I willed myself to move and finally I did so. But I had only walked a dozen paces when I felt Luke take my arm.

      ‘That’s the problem with you dykes,’ he said quietly. ‘Hard-nosed businesswomen always demanding attention now.’

      This was when I stopped pretending. The role-playing, the danger of discovery, everything about this situation made me as horny as hell. It was no big deal for a man to feel this way, so why should I be different? I was glad the hotel was only three doors down. I might have felt cheap in reception, except that it felt too much like a game. The bed hadn’t been made up, but we didn’t get that far. We never even turned the light on. We did it once for Luke, standing up, with sweat on my neck turning cold against the damp wallpaper, and then a second time, more slowly for me, with him sitting on a hard chair. I liked that better, not having to look at him, just rocking back and forth on his knee as I tried to guess at the lives behind curtained windows across the street. I heard muffled calls for an encore at the Irish Centre. Luke withdrew hurriedly before he came and I heard him finish the business with his hand. Even with a condom he was a cautious man. I pulled my dress down between his knees and my buttocks, but it was so soaked with sweat that the sensation remained of naked flesh upon flesh.

      Time was against us. They would be clearing the bar in the Irish Centre. But we stayed perfectly still, like children bewitched in a fairytale. There were raised voices below, but the street seemed distant. I heard the condom slip to the floor. Some men often made a joke while others were quiet and tender. Luke did nothing until I felt his cold hands toying with my shoulders.

      ‘Tell me about wall tiles,’ I said.

      ‘They’re smooth.’ His hands moved to my neck. ‘You take your time and lay them right until even the joins are smooth. That is unless you make a mistake and they crack.’

      There was no force in his hands and nothing in his voice to suggest menace, but I was suddenly scared and he knew it. The room was cheap and my unease made me feel cheap too. Luke must have been crazy to take this risk. How crazy was he and what danger had I placed myself in? I sensed him staring at my neck.

      ‘Shouldn’t you head back to your flabby wife?’ I wanted to break the spell and control my fear with the insult, but Luke’s voice maintained its methodical calm.

      ‘It so happens I love her.’

      ‘Is that meant to be a joke?’

      ‘No. But it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy fucking other girls either.’ A hint of apology entered his tone. ‘You’re not just some girl. I don’t do this often. Seven times in twenty two years. That’s faithful enough as marriages go.’

      ‘That’s my age,’ I said. ‘Twenty two. You must like us young.’

      ‘I’ve only had one girl younger than you.’

      ‘Flirting with innocence, were you?’

      ‘She was the most deadly of the lot.’

      I didn’t want a litany. I felt cold and started shivering. Tomorrow I’d wake hungover, trying to convince myself this had never happened. But I’d know that physically it had felt truly good.

      ‘It didn’t work, you know,’ he said.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Facing away from me. For all your attempts to hide it, I could still tell both times you came.’

      I felt vulnerable and wanted to be out of that room. His fingers retreated from my neck to glide slowly along my backbone. When he lifted them away my inability to track their movements made them more menacing. Luke wasn’t the first Irishman to touch me. I had fooled myself into thinking I could banish such memories.

      ‘I suppose you’re going to say you love me next,’ I said.

      ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t room to love anyone else. But I loved fucking you.’ Somehow the inflection he invested in the word stripped it of vulgarity. ‘Next Sunday night I can make sure we get this same room. You enjoyed it here, don’t say you didn’t. Think about it, eh?’

      ‘So much for champagne and flowers,’ I mocked.

      ‘I haven’t time for that stuff any more and, be honest, you don’t want it either. There’s a fight brewing out there. I’ve got to get down. Next Sunday night, around half past nine.’

      ‘Bring a copy of Penthouse and a hanky,’ I said. ‘I’d hate to have you going home frustrated.’

      ‘Half nine,’ Luke repeated. ‘Ten at the latest. I warn you, I won’t wait all night.’

      I stood up. My knickers lay a few feet away. I didn’t want to put them on with him watching. But when I bent to pick them up he covered them with his foot.

      ‘Pirate’s СКАЧАТЬ