Tender (20 page)

He was bemused by it, Catherine thought. He did not seem to see it the way she did, as something to worry over, as something about which she should feel ashamed; those ways of seeing it, she suspected, would never even have occurred to him. For his part, the things he had told her that night in the kitchen, the experience of telling them, had seemed, to some extent, to have lightened the load he was carrying, to have freed him up in some way. He was up early in the mornings now, and unless she was quick about getting up herself, and getting ready, he was often out the door before she was, and it could be difficult to track him down during the day. On the evenings he was not working in the pub, he was mostly at home with her and the others in Baggot Street, but one evening he had wanted to go for a drink with Zoe and Aidan and Aidan’s friend Liam, and Catherine, who had only wanted to stay in and watch television in front of the fire with him, had not been able to leave him to it; she had trailed along, and had not been very good company—Zoe, the next day, had made a comment about PMS.

He was going from her; that was how she kept thinking of it. He had made the decision, because of what she had said to him that night, or because of what she had forced him to face up to that day, to pull away from her slightly, to carve out his own space, to start living his own life. And Catherine could not understand where these feelings were coming from; she could not understand why they had such a hold over her, gripping her by the hair it seemed sometimes, clasping her by the throat—but she felt them. She felt alone; or she felt, at least, the threat, the specter, of her own aloneness. She felt the panic of his going, and the emptiness with which it would leave her. He was not going anywhere, and yet she felt it. And there were no letters now; there were no fat white skins bulging with words through which to feel close to him, through which to feel that there was someone, out there, always, listening to her. There was only him, and there was only the distance from him to her. And Catherine was scrabbling across it now. Catherine was thrashing in it as though it was drowning her. And there was, too, the fact of what was happening to her body, now, when James put his arms around her, when James put his lips to her forehead, his lips to her cheek—but Catherine did not want to think about that part of it anymore. Catherine did not want to think about the second night, the previous week, that Cillian had stayed over, so that he and Lorraine had once again sequestered the sitting-room floor; Catherine did not want to think of her own gladness that night, or of what it had felt like to have James once more in the bed beside her, or what it had felt like to drift off and to awaken with him nestled so close.

There were things it was not good to think about. There were questions it was not useful to ask.

James was finished in the darkroom, as it turned out, when Catherine went up to find him; he was in the PhotoSoc office, chatting intently with a girl holding some kind of old-fashioned, box-shaped camera. If he was surprised to see her arrive, he did not show it; he just beckoned her over, and began telling her about the girl’s camera, which had belonged to her grandfather, and which was, he said, a Rolleiflex, the camera that Richard Avedon had used, and Diane Arbus, and Robert Capa. He mentioned some other photographers of whom Catherine had not heard, and the girl beside him nodded enthusiastically and added some more names. Catherine glanced at her. She was plump and short, with blond curls; she held the camera below her large breasts. Her fingernails were painted a glittery purple. James introduced her, but Catherine instantly forgot her name; all she could think about was how keenly she wanted to get James away, and home, and to herself. But he kept talking, as was usual; now he was explaining the workings of the camera, how you had to look down through it from above, as though through a tiny trapdoor, and at this, the blond girl demonstrated and then, smiling, looped the leather strap from around her neck and passed the camera over to Catherine to try for herself.

“Oh, no, I’d be afraid I’d break it,” Catherine said, but the girl insisted, and so did James. She took it; it was lighter than she had expected, but sturdy, its silver dials jutting out against her palms, its pebbled black plastic surface pleasingly rough against her fingertips. She looked down through the neat square chute which topped it, and she staggered in surprise a moment; the picture was sharp and clear and moving, like a tiny television in her hands, and in it was a tiny, frowning James, now a grinning James, now a James who was calling out to her, waving at her, saying her name. She found herself staring at this James; she found herself transfixed by him. He was just the same as the real James, as the James who stood not two feet away from her, but he was different. When she moved, he moved. When she turned one of the dials on the side of the camera, he went out of focus a moment, but when she turned it once more, he was back again, crisp and perfect and real; there was a short, curved handle on the other side, and when she turned that, winding it like a clock handle, the camera gave a lovely, satisfying click, and the blond girl cheered.

“You took him!” she said, clapping her hands. “Well done!”

“Catherine,” James said much less warmly, “you’re wasting Lisa’s film.”

“Oh, no,” the girl said, “sure how would it be a waste? Sure this way I get to have a photo of you!”

“Jaysus,” James said, pulling a face. “You’re made up.”

“I bet it’ll be worth a fortune twenty years from now,” the girl said, laughing. “After my show kick-starts your glittering career.”

“Show?” Catherine said, frowning, looking from one to the other.

“Lisa’s asked me to give her a few photographs for her group show,” James said, taking the Rolleiflex from her.

“You never told me!” Catherine said, hearing the whine in her voice.

“I’ve just found out myself,” he said.

“Myself and a few friends from NCAD are putting together a group show of new artists on an old factory floor in the Liberties at the end of the summer,” Lisa explained.

“The Liberties?” Catherine echoed incredulously. In her mind she heard, as though it was the shutter release of the Rolleiflex, the neat, smooth
click
of parts coming together and working just the way they should. “I’ve heard of there,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s a great spot,” Lisa said. “So many amazing spaces that are derelict now. I love James’s portraits, and they’ll be perfect for this show, I think—”

“We’ll see,” James said, holding up a hand as though to suggest that this line of talk was dangerous, and needed to be deflected. He turned to Catherine. “Anyway. Now that you’ve taken your masterpiece.”

“Sorry?”

“Will we head?”

It had started to rain, so they took the bus, climbing upstairs to find a seat together, and they had been sitting less than a minute when Catherine, moving to rest on James’s shoulder, noticed that he was asleep, his head hanging, his hands lying slack and open in his lap. She tried to rest on him anyway, but he jerked away, though it might only have been the motion of the bus, going over a pothole or a bump, or swerving, maybe, to avoid someone on a bike. As he slept, she studied his face: the delicacy of his cheekbones, the fullness of his lips, the sheen of his stubble, golden and glinting at moments in the evening light. She felt it again, the sensation she had been having for days: that although he was beside her, even awake he was as far away, really, as he was now when asleep, and that she could not hold him, and that she could not even really know him.

Then they were nearing home, and she put her hand to his, to wake him, and as he had done that morning on the couch, he gasped his way back to consciousness, regarding her, for a startled moment, as someone he did not know and had not seen before.

“Our stop,” she said, her eyes pleading with him, and he nodded.

“Down we go,” he said, and they lurched towards the stairs.

Then they were home and he was himself again. Or his public self, or his social self; Catherine was beginning to have trouble remembering all of his selves. Amy and Lorraine were there, and Cillian had brought hash, so the air was giddy, the night seemed young, and in their excitement James was in the middle of them, chatting and teasing and making everyone snort and shriek and double over with laughter; he was witty and wizard-tongued and quick as a trap. And he was all sweet, mischievous physicality: all hugs, all nuzzles, his arms thrown so happily around the girls.

It was beautiful. It was whirlwind. He was full of laughter, and Catherine saw it softening his face: the sheer joy of being with these people, the way it lifted something, clear and clean, off of his heart. And she hated herself in that moment, because she felt jealous of them; she wanted him back to herself. Not the dark, quiet version, not the version she had been with all day, the James who had worried her and exhausted her, the James with whom things had, impossibly, become tense and strained; she wanted
this
James. She wanted the brilliant, funny, vibrant James, lit up with enjoyment, teeming with it, and she wanted him to be only her friend. She did not want him to love the others this much, to take such unbridled pleasure in their presence. It was not that she did not want him to be happy; it was that she could not deal with the idea that it was
others
who could make him happy, as he seemed to be now. She wanted him to be only her friend. She wanted the best of his attention; she wanted the highest pitch of his energy; she wanted to be the reason he was fascinated, delighted, amused. And here were all the others, stealing this ground from her, and she resented them for it, and she resented James, for being taken in.

And yet they were his oldest friends.

And yet she was his closest friend; she knew that.

And yet.

And yet?

The following Thursday, she came home late from the
TN
office to find James alone in the house, sprawled on the couch. He was watching
No Disco;
something hazy and bleached-out flickered on the screen as a man strummed a guitar, singing something about a shoreline. James lifted a hand in greeting.

“You shouldn’t have waited up,” Catherine said, dropping her bag.

He shrugged. “I didn’t. I’m watching this. Listen to this fella.”

“What?”

“His voice. Listen to it. I’ve never heard of him before.”

“I don’t know any of the music they play on that program.”

Finally now he looked at her. “How’s our Robert Emmet? Any more rebellions in the pipeline?”

Catherine shook her head. “I didn’t see much of him. It was crazy in there—they’re three days late going to print.”

“Did you not go for a drink afterwards?”

“Afterwards?” Catherine said with a snort. “They’re still at it. They’ll be there all night.”

“Oh. Some other time, then.”

His attention was fixed again on the television, his head lolling back. The guy was singing now, about shining, repeating the word over and over. Had James meant that sarcastically, that thing about going for a drink with Emmet? Was he actually talking about it as casually as this? She watched him, but he seemed absorbed in the music video, locked onto the man’s voice, its throaty, gentle whine. She wondered if he was drunk, if he had been drinking wine with the girls, maybe, or if he was stoned on some of Cillian’s hash, but there were no glasses in evidence, just a mug of tea on the floor in front of him, and no smell on the air. The music video ended and the program presenter came on with his eager patter; James sighed and clapped a hand down on the couch.

“Fuck, I’m worn out.”

“What did you get up to?”

“I went over to Thomas Street, actually, to see a place.”

“A place?” she said dumbly.

“A place to rent. Someone Aidan knows told him about it, and he told me. It’s in a woman’s house, but I’d have the whole upstairs.”

The words seemed to come apart in front of her as though on a wet page. “Sorry, what? What do you mean? Like, a place to live?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking at her as though he was waiting for her to deliver a punchline. “Sure, you knew I—”

“I thought you meant next month,” she said, hearing herself babble. “I thought you’d stay until the end of this month anyway.” She cast about for the rationale she knew to be in her head, somewhere, and then she found it, and she almost shouted in triumph. “The rent on any place is going to be from the first of the month. You can’t move in somewhere before the month is up.”

“Ah, no,” he said mildly, shaking his head. “The woman’s fine about that. She says I can move in tomorrow if I want to. She’s just keen to get someone in. The last fella bolted on her, I think.”

“But you’re not going
tomorrow,
are you? I have my Doonan interview tomorrow!”

He looked at her, frowning. “What difference does that make?”

She stammered. What difference did it make? “I won’t be able to help you with your stuff,” she blurted. “And then I have to go home for the weekend afterwards, because it’s Mother’s Day.”

“Oh, yes, Mother’s Day,” he said drily. “I must remember to give my old darling a call.”

“James, you don’t have to move tomorrow,” she said desperately. “Please don’t go that soon.”

“Well, I’m not
going
anywhere. I’m just moving into my own place. Sure I have to do that. I have to get out from under your feet.”

“You’re not—”

“Yes, I am,” he cut across her. “Catherine. I’m under everybody’s feet.”

“Nobody minds!”

“I mind. And I mind sleeping on a couch, too. I wake up sounding like my old fella, moaning and groaning in the morning.” He stretched his arms up high. “So. You got the paper sent to bed.”

“Well. My part of it, at least.”

“And yet you didn’t take the opportunity to stick around and maybe go to bed with anyone yourself?” He clicked his tongue. “What are we going to do with you?”

“I wanted to come home.
Jesus.
Am I not even allowed to do that now?”

“You’re allowed to do whatever you like, Catherine,” he said, stretching his arms out wide now, yawning. “That’s the whole point.”