Tender (15 page)

“I don’t know,” Catherine said. “I think the whole point is to be unsettled. It’s not actually a photograph of a dead woman.”

Zoe squinted at her. “You what, Citsers?”

“It’s a piece made out of a photograph of a dead woman. Or, of a death scene, actually. Of the mechanics of someone dying, I mean. The actual person isn’t even the point. I mean, the photograph would be as important to the police, or whoever, even if the woman wasn’t lying there. Or even if there were twenty dead women lying there.”

“Well, Warhol wouldn’t have wanted it if there hadn’t been any dead woman,” Zoe said.

“Come on,” Catherine said, deciding to change the subject. “You need to see the pillows.”

“Pillows?” said Zoe, who claimed to have had only two hours of sleep the night before. “There are pillows?”

“Silver pillows,” Catherine said, and she led the way.

The silver pillows were actually foil balloons: fat, elongated tubes of helium, making a gentle, sleepy trail through the air. A gallery assistant sat on a chair in one corner, reading; she did not even glance up as the girls came into the space.

“So lovely,” Zoe said, lifting a hand towards the drift of silver. “Look, we’re in every one of them.”

The foil of each pillow was, by now, shabby and tarnished, presumably from the months of being bashed around; all of the reviews of the Warhol show had talked about this piece, about the fact that viewers were allowed to touch it. As the pillows clipped one another, kissed one another, they made a noise like so many slowed-down, ticking clocks; there were maybe twenty of them, some of them very clearly diminished, unable to lift themselves and steer themselves as confidently as the others did. Others of them were already fully deflated, reduced to rags of silver on the floor, and Catherine wondered whether their sad scattering was intended as part of the piece.

“Catch,” Zoe said then, slapping at one of the pillows; the silver fled her, and, calling out in delight, she hit at another, and then at another, leaping at them and laughing at them, calling to Catherine to do the same. She hesitated a moment, but then set to, and then all around them, the silver was glinting and swooping and falling, and she and Zoe were reaching and spinning and swiping, and they were like children, bumping into one another, bumping into the white walls, breathless with laughter, red-faced with it, and the noise was like a thunderstorm; no, the noise was like a shower of hail; no, the noise was like a waterfall on a mountainside, crashing another kind of silver onto stone, and then there was someone in the doorway, someone in the doorway that led to the soup cans and the Jackies and the Marilyns, and at first Catherine was embarrassed, because here she and Zoe were, eighteen and nineteen years of age, throwing themselves around an art gallery, attacking the works of art, and surely this person in the doorway would think oddly of them, would think less than warmly and approvingly of them, and for a moment Catherine almost stopped, but in the next moment, she felt instead delighted, delighted in a defiant kind of way, because why
not
do this; why
not
feel such glee and abandon in just this way? And then came the next moment, which was the moment when she saw who the person in the doorway was, and if her breath seemed to have gone as she danced under the helium pillows, as she wove and jumped and shouted in the silver stream, then it had not gone at all, there had been plenty of it, because it was gone now, and it was really gone, and she had gone still and the silver was plunging around her, and Zoe was still leaping, and James was there, a young, thin boy in the doorway, no, a boy who looked somehow at once both young and old, his red hair grown high and grown messy, into huge, tumbling curls, his skin pale, his freckles faded, his smile nervous, and hesitant, and moving, now, his lips were moving, as he said her name.

W
hat the fuck? What the fuck?!”

“Surprise. Surprise. Surprise. Surprise.”

“You were meant—tomorrow! You were meant—it was tomorrow, wasn’t it? You said tomorrow! You said Sunday!”

“I know. I know. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Oh my God, James. Oh my
God
.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not sorry. No, you’re not sorry. You fucker. You
fucker
.”

“No, I’m not sorry. Yes, I am a fucker.”

“How did you get here? How did you—”

“I got a lift. I told you. In another lorry. I just left on Wednesday instead of on Thursday.”

“No, how did you get
here?
How did you know I was here?”

“Oh. Amy was in Baggot Street when I got there. She told me where you were gone. Off on your cultural expedition, like a good little girl. I got the bus. Which took nearly as long as the lorry from Berlin, I might mention.”

“You
fucker!
I can’t believe you did this! I can’t believe you’re here!”

“I can’t believe I found you engaged in a Dionysian orgy in a room full of priceless Andy Warhols, but there you go.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Seriously, James, this is unbelievable. How can you be
here?
”

“How can you not be in handcuffs?”

“Stop it, James, seriously. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this. You’re actually
here
.”

“I’m here.”

“You’re actually
here
.”

“I’m home.”

“You’re
here
.”

By the time they got home from Emmet Doyle’s party that night it was after three o’clock, and they both staggered in the door for different reasons: James because he was exhausted, Catherine because she was plastered. The house was in darkness; Amy and Lorraine were either still out themselves or long in bed.

Everything was all right now; booze and dancing and the company of everyone had made everything, every single thing, all right. James had not really wanted to go to Emmet’s party, of course; he had protested to Catherine that he would know nobody, that he was not in the mood yet for such full-on socializing, that he just wanted to go back to Baggot Street with her, and spend the evening catching up properly, talking about everything. But Catherine and the others had persuaded him; the others had wanted Catherine to come anyway, and Catherine, after a couple of drinks, had decided that she wanted to go. James had resisted for a while, but she had talked him round, had persuaded him that it would be fun, that it would be a good introduction to everyone else she wanted him to meet, that it would be full of good-looking guys. Zoe had agreed, egging James on, nudging him, leaning in conspiratorially as though she had known him as long, as deeply, as Catherine had, as though they knew what he needed, knew what was good for him, and Catherine—Catherine had felt a pang of irritation, seeing this, and a pang of jealousy, seeing how readily, how laughingly, James had responded to her pleas, but mostly, she had been relieved, that they would all be going out tonight, and going out with everybody, instead of going home to face up to the seriousness of what had been in James’s letters. And of course she felt terrible about this, of course she felt like a horrible person, but it was just that she could not face up to it yet, not just yet, now that he was here, now that he was beside her, leaning into her, clutching her hand, so often, underneath the table of the pub they had all gone to in Thomas Street after IMMA. She could face it tomorrow, she told herself, but not tonight. Tonight she needed to have fun; tonight
they
needed to have fun, the two of them, as a celebration, a launching upon Dublin of the force that, together, they were going to be. They drank in Thomas Street and then in the Buttery bar until it was time to make their way to Emmet’s rooms, by which time Catherine was tripping and rambling, and James was—she did not, exactly, remember how James was—and she and Zoe were manic and Conor had somehow met up with them again, and Conor had said something to James—she could not remember what it was, but she knew that she had wanted to
kill
Conor for saying it at the time. Maybe she had tried to kill Conor, or anyway tried to give out to him—she could not remember; had she said something to him, shouted something at him, on their way across Front Square?

“Did I say something to Conor about you?” she asked James now, from the armchair into which she had slumped as soon as they came in the door of Baggot Street. James was fixing a bed for himself on the couch cushions, wrestling with the gray, saggy duvet that Amy or Lorraine had left out for him. The room was in half-darkness; Catherine had turned on the main light, but James had complained instantly about its brightness, shielding his eyes, and had fumbled with the switch of the lamp beside the television until it had come on. He had stripped, by now, down to his polo shirt and his boxers—she had not even noticed him taking his jeans off, which meant that she must, for a minute or so, have dropped off—and he had his back to her, so that she could take a good look at the thinness of his legs, the way his back was threaded with the jut of his spine.

“You’re so
skinny,
” she said now, which felt suddenly much more important than the question of whether Conor had said or had not said anything to him, and anyway it did not matter, apparently, which of them was the more important, because James did not seem to be listening to her; he did not seem to plan on turning around and giving her any kind of answer.

“James,” she said, and she threw her hand towards him, which did not work, because her hand, of course, was attached to her arm and to the rest of her body, so she reached down to where her foot was and she took off her shoe;
“James!”
she said again, more insistently and more loudly, and she pulled the shoe back into the air behind her head and she pushed it forward and she let it go.

She missed. But James, his face almost unrecognizable with tiredness, turned around anyway.

“I was calling you,” Catherine said, and her head was very floppy, for some reason; her head kept falling back and falling forward, and the cushion of the armchair behind her could not hold it, which was surely what the cushion of the armchair was supposed to do. “I was
calling
you. I wanted you.”

“Go to sleep, Catherine,” James said, his mouth a funny, cross straight line, and he came over to where she sat, and he pulled her out of her chair by both elbows, and walked her towards the door.

She pouted. “I don’t
want
to sleep. I want to talk about the party. Wasn’t it brilliant? Wasn’t everyone so cool?”

He opened the door. “Go to sleep, Catherine. I don’t have the energy. Go to sleep.”

“I’m so glad you came to the party,” she said, but he was closing the sitting-room door.

Sunday was a write-off, but on Monday morning Catherine’s head felt clear again, and although it took much persuasion to budge James from his bed on the couch, by eleven o’clock they were both on campus, sitting on a bench by the lawn outside the arts block, drinking coffee and surveying the talent.

“There’s Shane,” Catherine said, grabbing James’s arm. “Remember I wrote to you about him?”

“Shane
Russian
Shane?” James said, looking around in every direction. “Where?”

“Over there,” Catherine said, “but for fuck’s sake don’t be so obvious!”

But it was too late: James was staring at him. Shane was not someone she knew personally, but he was someone she had described at great length in her letters to James; he was a fourth year, and studying Russian, and both she and Zoe agreed that he was one of the best-looking guys in college.
You should see him, James,
she had written, back in October or November,
you’d love him. He’s unbelievably sexy.

“Him?” James was saying doubtfully now. “With the gray hair?”

“I told you about the gray hair! The gray hair is what makes him so sexy!”

“What is he, forty?”

“No!”

“He looks forty. Are you sure that’s not Aidan?”

“James!” she said, thumping him on the arm.

“When am I going to meet the famous Aidan, by the way?”

“Never you mind meeting Aidan. Concentrate on Shane.”

“I don’t see it, Catherine,” James said, shaking his head more firmly. “I don’t see it at all.”

“But he’s gorgeous.”

“He’s all right. I wouldn’t say much more than that.”

“Wait until he stands up. He’s tall. You might change your mind.”

“Ah, Catherine. Now you’re just forcing things.”

“I’m
not,
” she said mock-petulantly, pretending to be offended, but the truth was that she was slightly offended, actually. Shane was a ride. For James to so bluntly deny this now, to so bluntly refuse Catherine’s invitation to admire him, to lightheartedly stalk him and trade pithy, funny comments about him: she felt almost robbed. She looked around the lawn, hoping to see another of the guys she had so looked forward to showing him, but there was only the usual late-morning spread of unremarkables, smoking their cigarettes and drinking their coffees and reading their yellowed paperbacks in preparation for their afternoon classes. Which, come to think of it, was something Catherine should be doing herself right at this minute; she had a Romance tutorial at three, and a
TN
article—an interview with Pat McCabe—due that evening. But it seemed wrong, somehow, not to spend this time with James. He was just home. He was
finally
home. He was
here
—here, and now. She could not waste that. She could not behave in a normal manner, as though it was just a normal Monday, with James far away in Berlin, and everything needing to be saved up for a letter to him.

“I can’t believe you don’t think Russian Shane is gorgeous,” she said. “I’ve been looking forward to showing him to you for months.”

“Oh, well. Sorry.”

“I don’t feel like showing you any of the others now.”

“Ah, Catherine,” he said, taking her arm. “I’m dying to see them all. Sure I feel like I’m after walking onto a film set or something. I’m going to meet Dusky Dick next, I assume?”

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Don’t you
dare
call him that if you do meet him!”

“If ?
If?
It’s a matter of
when,
not
if,
I hope.”

“Rafe doesn’t come in to college much these days. I think he prefers to study at home. Or smoke weed there.”

He frowned at her. “You’ve killed him, haven’t you, Reilly? You’ve chopped him up and buried him under the patio. That beautiful langer, the color of a Longford sunset, gone forever.”

“Oh my God,
stop
it,” she said, swatting at him, but the truth was that she did not want James to stop. This was what she had wanted for so many months: for James to be here with her, gossiping about boys, reducing her to helpless laughter with his jokes and his mutterings and his outrageous innuendos, the way that only he could come up with them; the way that she remembered him from the summer. She felt so lucky, having him here beside her; she felt luckier than anyone else sitting around this lawn, anyone else walking around this campus, anyone living in this whole city: they only had the stupid city, and she had James.

“Now
he
’s more like it,” James said, sitting up suddenly, and it was Catherine’s turn to look about wildly.

“Who?”

“Him,” James said, pointing straight across the lawn, his arm held high; Catherine gasped and batted at him to put it back down.

“Jesus! A bit of discretion!”

“Ah, sure who gives a fuck? Sure he’s not looking at me.”

Yeah, but plenty of other people are,
Catherine thought, but she was too concerned with trying to work out who he was talking about to nag him further. There were no guys she even recognized around, except Emmet Doyle, opening a Coke can beside the bin, and the sight of him gave her a rush of guilt about the way she had dragged James to his ridiculous party, so she cast about for someone else, but there was nobody else, and by leaning into James’s line of vision, she landed once again on Emmet.

“You’re not talking about The Doyle?” she said, incredulously.

“Oh, yeah,” James snorted. “I forgot about that ridiculous nickname. Yeah, I was impressed by him at the party the other night as well. He’s very nice. Very nice indeed.”

“Oh, come
on,
” Catherine spluttered. “He’s The Doyle.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s a messer,” Catherine said. “He’s a
TN
hack.”

“So are you.”

“Yeah, but he
really
is. He practically lives in the publications office. And the rest of the time he’s just swaggering around campus, doling wisecracks and insults out to everybody.”

“Sounds like your friend Conor.”

“No, he’s worse,” Catherine said. “He saw some of my poems up in the publications office and he’s been slagging me about them ever since.
Quoting
them at me. He’s a fucker.”

“Well, I don’t care about his taste in poems. I just think he’s a right little bit of stuff.”

“Ah, James.”

“I do. Those lovely ruddy cheeks of his.”

“James!”

“You have a filthy mind, Reilly. What did you say his real name was again? Or are we only allowed to use his
nom de plume?
”

“Emmet,” she said sulkily.

“Ah, after Robert Emmet the patriot, presumably. Well, I’ll write your epitaph for you, Sonny. Come over here to me and I’ll write you a lovely one.”

“I don’t think he’s a patriot, exactly. He went to Gonzaga.”

“Come up, you fearful Jesuit!” James said then, in a roar, which horrified Catherine—she covered her face with her hands, the sight of which only served, of course, to encourage James, and by the time he had finished with his commentary, Catherine was almost falling off the bench with a mixture of laughter and mortification, and James was holding on to her, helplessly laughing himself, and in the next moment he was hugging her, his arms tightly around her, his breath hot on her neck. His body was still quaking with the laughter, and against her shoulder he was making a noise like crying, and for a horrified moment she thought that he actually might be crying, but as he gave a long, low sigh she knew that he was all right, that he was just recovering, just steeped in the enjoyment of how funny he himself had been.