Tender (25 page)

“Yes, probably,” Catherine lied, though maybe, she thought then, it was not a lie, after all; actually, she would quite like to write an article about Dunne’s photographs.

“He certainly struck lucky with his timing,” Julia said drily, eyeing the photograph in front of them. “Any other week of the year, this stuff would look exactly like the forced, stretching pedanticism it is. But the jammy bastard’s opening night turns out to be the night of the peace talks deadline, and so here we find ourselves, bang in the middle of the most blazingly relevant cultural phenomenon of the year. I mean, look at the size of this crowd.” She gestured around the room, now full to capacity. “I don’t know how Ed does it. He always does, you know.”

“God,” Catherine said faintly.

“I mean, they’re so bloody opportunistic. I mean,
Oh, bombing three thousand miles away, in the country I left thirty-odd years ago; oh, I’ll just pop out with my camera and take a snapshot of the first sweet little black child I see.
”

“You’re not Ed’s publicist, then?” Catherine said.

“I am not,” Julia said, raising an eyebrow. “And if you think I’m negative about them, you should hear Mick. But, that said, Ed is a very old friend of ours. He and Mick have known each other since London in the seventies. And I’m sure that he’d have some choice opinions of his own on Mick’s work. These things are just better not spoken about sometimes, you know, if a friendship is to survive.”

Catherine laughed, unable to believe her ears. Doonan hated Dunne’s work, and Dunne hated Doonan’s, and they said horrible things about one another, and yet they were still, after twenty years, good friends? The idea of it staggered her. She looked for James, but he was hidden in the crowd. Twenty years from now, would they be like this, lying to each other, or not telling everything to each other, so that they could maintain the facade of being friends? It seemed impossible. Why would anybody bother?

“And as for our American friend,” Julia was saying now, with a sardonic twist of her mouth.

“Oh, Nate?” Catherine said, relieved for the change of subject.

“Nate from Brooklyn,” Julia said, giving the “t” and the “k” a sharp, clipped sound. “He’s a handful in his own right. We thought he’d have long since moved on by now.”

“Yeah, my friend’s talking to him,” Catherine said, craning her neck again to try and find James. “He introduced him to Ed.”

Julia looked confused. “Your friend did?”

“I mean, Nate introduced my friend to Ed. He’s a photographer too. My friend. He has an exhibition coming up himself soon, actually.”

Catherine was blushing, she knew, and she was furious with herself for this, and she could see that Julia had noticed; she said nothing, but stood looking at Catherine with a strange, tolerant smile.

“Oh!” Catherine said, suddenly seeing James as the crowd parted for a moment. She pointed. “There he is!”

Julia squinted. “The redhead?” she said, sounding surprised.

Catherine nodded, swallowing.

“And you say you two are just friends?” Julia said doubtfully, studying James more closely.

“Well, yeah,” Catherine said. “Good friends.”

“Ah,” Julia said, as though she understood perfectly. “Well, the two of you will have to come to the little party we’re throwing for Ed after this. It’s back at our house. The American over there will have the address. Can you make it?”

“Oh God,” Catherine said, stammering. “Really?”

“Of course,” Julia said, shrugging as though this was a stupid question. “If you want to, that is. If you can be bothered with all us boring elders. Now, where did that gom go for our champagne?” She looked around. “Oh, hark at him,” she said, pointing. “He’s given them to Moira bloody Donnelly and her
lover
over there.”

“Ha,” Catherine said.

“Lover,”
Julia repeated, rolling her eyes. “As though the rest of us are only going to Mass together.”

“Ha.”

“Anyway, what else are you writing about these days? Apart from Ed’s photos?”

“Well, I’m writing an essay, mostly, at the moment,” Catherine said. “For one of my English courses.”

“Oh, of course,” Julia said, her gaze drifting away. “You have to get your
degree
.” She gave
degree
the same intonation she had given
lover:
a low drawl of derision. Catherine hesitated to go on.

“Yeah,” she said, then. “I’m writing about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.”

“Oh,
Jesus,
” said Julia, in the manner of someone who had just heard a very unfortunate piece of news. “What’s possessing you to do that?”

“The new book,” Catherine said, adding “His,” then, hardly necessarily.

“Oh, that book is insane, isn’t it?
Insane.
”

“It’s pretty intense, all right.”

“Intense? It’d give you nightmares for a month,” Julia said, shaking her head. “What was he thinking, writing those poems?”

“Well…”

“God, he’s such a fine figure of a man, though. Physically, I mean. We met him at a festival where Mick was reading a few years ago. Honestly. The whole room would weaken when he’d walk into it. Men, women, the lot of us.”

“I’m sure,” Catherine said, laughing nervously.

“But really, are you not just depressing yourself, writing about those two? I mean, it’s a terribly sad story. An awful waste.”

“I know,” Catherine said. “But really, I’m interested in the poems rather than in the lives.”

Julia smiled that same strange smile again. “I believe you,” she said, after a long moment. “Thousands wouldn’t.” Then she nodded at something over Catherine’s shoulder. “Oh, about bloody time.”

Then Mick Doonan was upon them, muddle-handing three glasses of champagne.

“Here we go, ladies,” he said, a little breathlessly. “Sorry about the delay. Forced diversion to Lesbos.”

“I’m sure you minded.” Julia cut her eyes at him. “Catherine here is just telling me she’s writing an essay about Ted Hughes.”

“Hughes?” Doonan said, as though Julia had just mentioned a difficult neighbor. “Huh.”

“Hughes and Plath, really,” Catherine offered, in response to which Doonan made a face of droll horror.

“Oh, Jaysus,” he said, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “Hughes. Hmm. Ever interview him, did you?”

“God, no,” Catherine said through a splutter of disbelieving laughter. “I’d
die
if I had to interview him. I mean, I’d love to. I’d never be able to, though.”

“Now, make up your mind, darling,” Julia said.

Doonan was looking at her archly. “Is that what you were like about the prospect of interviewing me?”

Catherine stammered. “Well…”

“Oh, leave her alone, Mick,” Julia said. “Sure you couldn’t blame her.”

“I’d say he’d give you the runaround and all,” Doonan said, sipping his champagne.

“I’m sure he’d be a perfect gentleman,” Julia said. “What do you think, Catherine?”

“I don’t know,” Catherine said, sweating now. “I mean, it’s hard to believe that he’s still actually alive. That he’s out there, writing something.”

Doonan gave a snuffle of protest. “For Christ’s sake, he’s only eight years older than me!”

“Well,” Catherine shrugged, “I meant in terms of, not age, but—”

“I know what you mean, Catherine,” Julia said, putting a hand on her arm.

“You mean stature,” Doonan said grouchily.

“Oh, shut up, Mick. You have absolutely nothing to complain about.”

Doonan clicked his tongue loudly and switched his attention to the photograph behind them. “What in the name of fuck is this, anyway?” he said, apparently to himself.

“Mick,” Julia said in a warning tone.

“What’s this lassie meant to stand for? The Black Kesh, is it?”

“Mick,
please,
” Julia said, still more sharply. “You’re making Catherine uncomfortable. And me, I might add.”

“Atlantic Avenue,”
Doonan snorted. “Atlantic Ocean would be the best place for this stuff.”

“I love the way you’re wearing that cameo, by the way,” Julia said suddenly, and she reached out and touched the brooch with the cracked surface that Catherine had used to fasten her scarf. “So clever.”

“Oh, thanks. I’ve had it for ages. My father gave it to me.”

“
Very
nice. Does he collect?”

“Oh, no, no,” Catherine said, laughing, thinking of how her father had found the brooch one evening while he was out foddering the cattle; it must have fallen from a car, he had told Catherine, or maybe—he had preferred this idea—it had been buried for years and had only just come to the surface. It was almost intact, but not quite; part of the bone had fallen away.

“Where’s the rest of it?” Doonan said skeptically.

A ditch in Longford,
Catherine was tempted to say, but she just smiled in what she hoped was a mysterious manner.

“That’s the point,” Julia said.

“Oh, you’re a deconstructionist, are you?” Doonan said with a theatrical shudder. “Well, keep it to yourself, darling, will you please.”

“Hello?!” she hissed two minutes later, grabbing James by the elbow; he was still part of the same group of people, which had expanded considerably, now forming several separate clumps, but still with Dunne at the center of it all, beaming, chuckling, receiving compliments, delivering evidently hilarious replies. James, as she marched up to him, had been watching Dunne reverently, as though making careful mental notes. He turned to her now, and when he smiled, it was blissful and radiant; he was high on champagne, obviously, but also on the thrill of having been included by these people, folded in by them, of having received their attention, their interest, their apparent respect.

“Hello, darling,” he said, moving to make room for her, but Catherine indicated with her eyes that she wanted him to step away; reluctantly, he did so. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “Have you met—”

“Thanks for abandoning me,” she said, and it came out more angrily than she had in fact intended, but it was too late to do anything about that now. James, an empty glass in his hand, seemed to reel with confusion for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I abandon you? You were the one who walked away from me when we were talking to Nate.”

“Nate from Brooklyn,” she said sarcastically, pronouncing the words the way Julia Doonan had.

James frowned uncertainly. “Yes. Nate. Ed’s assistant.”

“Yeah, well,” Catherine said sulkily. “I’ve been on my own for the last twenty minutes.” It was an outright lie, and it surprised her, but it had worked; James was moving towards her, looking remorseful.

“I’m sorry, darling,” he said plainly, and he put his arms around her, and he kissed her on the cheek, and he kissed her—giving, then, his usual little growl—close to the ear, and Catherine felt it in her spine, and she felt it in her crotch, and she forgave him; of course, instantly she forgave him.

“I got us invited to the after-party,” she said, still using the same sulky tone, which made no sense, but she found that she was not quite able to snap out of it.

James scrunched up his face. “I thought you were on your own for twenty minutes?”

“Well, apart from Michael Doonan and his wife,” she shrugged. “And they’re throwing the party. And we’re invited.”

“Oh, yeah,” James said casually. “Nate told me about it. He said the three of us can walk there together, quite soon actually, because he and Ed are staying with Michael and Julia, and he has to make a call to New York before the working day ends there.”

“Oh, OK,” Catherine said, feeling robbed of her prize now. “Or we could go back to the Stag’s for a few drinks before heading up there? I don’t want to be the first people to arrive again.”

“No, no,” James said, waving this suggestion away. “We’ll walk up with Nate. It’ll be grand.”

The Doonan mews was off Harcourt Street. It looked small from outside, but inside it immediately opened up into two levels: an elegant hall gave way to a huge central room with a ceiling two stories high; the upstairs floor was a mezzanine, with some rooms closed off behind doors and one whole side given over to what looked like another open space. The walls were hung with art—Catherine recognized a Brian Bourke in the main room, a sharp-boned woman with blacked-out eyes, and a piece in gold and linen that could only be a Scott—and though the night was not cold, a fire burned in the high stone hearth. She, James and Nate were indeed the first arrivals; the Doonans, Dunne and a slew of others had been still taking their leave of the gallery when the three of them had slipped away, Nate teasing them, calling them “the terrible two,” and slipping his arm into James’s other arm in an imitation of how Catherine was linking with him. Here, the front door had been opened by a girl in a black-and-white waitress’s uniform, and others, dressed in the same way, were busy setting up long tables with dozens of glasses and bottles of wine. From a kitchen at the other end of the house, there came a spicy, delicious smell.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Nate said, as Catherine and James stood in the entryway, gawking. “I’m just going up to make this call. Make yourselves at home.” He glanced back imperiously. “Within reason.”

“Ha,” James deadpanned. But as soon as Nate had disappeared upstairs, he turned to Catherine, his eyes wide, his mouth open with amazement. “Fucking hell,” he said. “Where
are
we?”

“I know.” Catherine shook her head. “It’s amazing.”

“
Imagine,
Catherine,” he said, and he went over to a long white leather sofa and sat down. “Imagine living like this.” He patted the seat beside him. “Home sweet home, darling,” he said, and he laughed.

One of the uniformed girls came over to them, smiling, her hands behind her back. “Can I offer you a drink?” she said.

“Oh, Jesus,” James groaned. “We’re in heaven, Catherine.” He looked at the waitress. “Is there any way you can barricade the door?”

She laughed. “I don’t know about that,” she said, looking at them uncertainly; she was around their age.

“Ah, try, though,” James said, mock pleadingly. “Won’t you? We’re just going to have a quiet night in. Myself and the little woman here.”