The Living (7 page)

I tried not to let my eyes keep flicking to my passenger as I started the engine and pulled out from the kerb. ‘Joan's first, I presume,' I said firmly, and nobody argued. We spoke very little on the way there, exchanging sparse comments about the party, the music, Donal and Linda's flat.

Joan and Val lived not too far from me, in a small terraced house in Rathgar. I stopped the car outside and kept the engine
idling, watching until Joan found her keys. The hall, with its red walls and white woodwork, looked bright and warm. The light rippled through the wavy glass in the door as Joan closed it.

‘R
IGHT, THEN,
' I said, turning to Matthew. ‘Where do you live?'

‘Kilmacud,' he said, ‘but—' He tipped his head down slightly and pinched the tip of his nose, giving me a sideways look. The streetlight caught on a curl that had dropped down over his temple. ‘But, well, I just thought, rather than make you drive all the way out there, maybe you might have a sofa or something I could sleep on, and then I could get a bus in the morning. Or something.'

I sat fizzing for a year or so. ‘Yeah, sure,' I said at last. ‘I have a sofa – you could – that would be great. Fine. OK.'

I started the engine again and performed an awkward turn between the rows of parked cars that lined Joan's street. When I'd got us moving again I said, ‘Do you often invite yourself to stay the night with strange women, then?' I glanced across at Matthew as I stopped the car at the T-junction. His eyes were gleaming.

‘Oh, rather,' he said. ‘The stranger the better. I'm known for it. In fact, this is nothing. Sometimes I accost them in supermarkets.'

He raised one eyebrow. Our eyes locked, and suddenly I felt as if I'd been touched, hooked. A rope of meaning tautened between us. My mind formed the thought carefully:
He wants to kiss me
.

‘So this is your traditional English reserve.' I turned on to the main street.

‘Exactly. Well spotted.'

By the time I parked under the ash tree my belly was dancing a tarantella, and hordes of hopped-up spiders were running up and down my limbs. I was nearly sure I was right about Matthew, but nearly is nerve-wracking.

I let us into the house and held a finger to my mouth for silence as we went upstairs. ‘So. Here we are,' I said as I opened my door. I stood aside to let Matthew in. ‘One sofa, as advertised,' I went on. ‘I'll get you blankets and stuff in a bit.'

It was odd to see him here. He stood in the middle of my sitting room, leaning on one foot, hands held slightly out from his body and his head tipped forward, as if the ceiling were too low. I afforded myself a long look as I took off my coat, from his dark blue jeans to his curly hair. He loped over to the window, covering the distance in three long strides, and looked out into the street. He stood to one side, looking slantwise.

‘Very Victor Laszlo,' I said, quietly enough so that he didn't have to hear me if he didn't want to.

‘Very what?'

‘You know, Victor Laszlo?
Casablanca
? That scene in the hotel where he's looking out the window at the watchers in the street.' Matthew looked a bit puzzled, but didn't say anything. ‘I don't have the Venetian blinds, mind you,' I continued, then stopped, suddenly self-conscious.

‘I've never seen
Casablanca
,' he said. ‘Is that dreadful?'

‘I'm shocked – shocked!' I said. ‘We'll have to do something
about that. In the meantime, would you like some tea?' I moved towards the kitchen.

‘Tea,' said Matthew firmly. ‘Yes, please.'

In the kitchen I watched my hands as they lifted the kettle and grasped the tap. Matthew was at the kitchen door when I turned from the sink, leaning his face against the door jamb, four fingers curled round below, almost to the wall. It was such a tactile pose, it sent further tremors through my system. I took a gulp of air.

‘Where's your bathroom?' Matthew said. His speaking voice was exquisite, soft and light, like feathers brushing my skin.

‘Other door,' I said, gesturing with my free hand. ‘Through the bedroom. Sorry about the mess.' I turned back to set the kettle going.

Having put out mugs and teabags and spoons, I went and arranged myself on the sofa, leaving plenty of room to one side. From the kitchen I could hear the small, deliberate whisper of the kettle as it began its long climb towards boiling point.

Matthew came back and sat down, right in the middle of the available space.

‘So,' he said, ‘have you managed to sneak a peek at that Republican memoir, then?'

Oh, for fuck's sake! Everyone, it seemed, wanted to hear all about how central I was to the production of this one bloody book. Dad, Mícheál, and now Matthew. How tragic to be such a disappointment to them. I swallowed my frustration with difficulty. ‘I told you,' I said. ‘I'm only a serf. George won't let me near that project.'

‘So what does he let you near, then?'

‘Well, actually, in fairness, I have started copyediting. I'm working on a set of proceedings from an indescribably glamorous conference about fisheries.'

‘Gosh, how magical.'

I caught his eye, and we looked straight at each other for just a little longer than was strictly necessary.

‘This George Sweeney's a bit of a control freak, then, is he?'

I allowed myself a disloyal laugh. ‘You've met him, have you?'

‘Not yet,' said Matthew, and we had another of those looks.

The kettle switch snapped off just then, sending me springing to make the tea.

‘Milk and sugar?'

‘Just milk, please.'

I tried to focus on the task at hand. Pour, stir, squeeze teabags and dump in sink, plop and cloud of milk, deep breath, careful walk back to the sofa. ‘Sir's tea.'

‘Thank you, Madam.' He smiled as he took his mug, a warm, open smile that bolstered my hopes.

As I sat down, Matthew said, ‘He's quite the Irish nationalist himself, though, isn't he?'

‘George? Um … yes, I suppose so.' Presumably he was, if the allegations in the newspaper had been true. ‘You wouldn't really know from talking to him. Why do you ask?'

‘I was wondering if he'd be worth interviewing for my research.'

‘Oh, right,' I said. I did not want to talk about his research.
‘Something about the Republican movement, isn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Matthew. ‘Basically, I've come to answer the Irish Question.'

‘Oh?' I said, feeling more than a hint of annoyance now. ‘And tell me, what is the answer to the Irish Question?'

‘Blowed if I know. My supervisor says I'm such a lazy English wastrel I'll never solve the riddle. But the authorities – by whom I mean Sellar and Yeatman – are fairly clear that every time Gladstone came close to discovering the answer, the Irish secretly changed the Question.'

I frowned. ‘What are you on about?'

‘Sorry – historian joke. Never mind.' He took a sip of tea. ‘It's a book.'

I decided to drop it, and tried to think of some other conversational direction to take. I drew a blank. ‘So, what exactly are you researching?'

‘Well, if you really want to know, at the moment I'm looking at the career of a civil servant who was sacked by Harold Wilson in 1976.' He spoke with exaggerated dullness.

‘You make it sound so interesting,' I said, relaxing a little.

‘Don't I just?'

I paused, then said deliberately, ‘I could listen to you all night.'

Once again, we were looking straight at each other. Much more softly, he said, ‘Then I intend to go on talking.'

But in fact, he fell silent.

From there, it was a smooth, delicious dance towards the
moment when we drifted closer together on the sofa, the moment when we crossed the line and slid into each other's space, the moment when we got so close that our faces blurred – and then Matthew brought his hand up and rested his fingertips on my cheek as we kissed, gently at first, then more urgently, deep, searching kisses that made my body hum, planted a knot of clean, singing pleasure in my very centre.

Eventually, I stood up and whispered, ‘Come on.' Matthew got up too and allowed me to lead him by the hand into the bedroom. I fervently thanked myself for having changed my sheets that week. ‘I've decided,' I said, ‘that it's far too much trouble to get out the spare blankets for you.'

‘Oh really?' He raised an eyebrow.

‘I'm afraid so,' I said. ‘You'll just have to share my bed with me.'

There was a moment, a short time later, as I crossed the room to turn off the light, when everything seemed to teeter on an edge. I felt acutely aware of my nakedness, how my pasty body must look under the unkind bulb. With my hand on the switch I looked back towards the bed, to see Matthew propped on one elbow, head held back slightly, face solemn, looking intently at me.

In that moment I almost made a flippant remark to puncture the atmosphere, but something stopped me. Some niggling idea at the back of my mind that here was a junction, a choice between flippancy and seriousness.

Without letting go of Matthew's gaze I turned off the light, then groped my way back to the bed and the eager mysteries of his body.

O
THER TIMES WHEN
I'd brought a man home to bed for the first time, I'd spent a sleepless night, dozing but always conscious of his presence, always slightly wary – of what I might do in my sleep, of what he might do if my vigilance slipped. This first night with Matthew, though, I slept soundly until ten o'clock in the morning. I woke to hear him moving around in the bathroom, and levered myself up on one elbow, blinking in the flood of sunlight that washed through the thin curtains. Matthew came back in, running his fingers through wild hair.

‘Ah, there you are,' he said, mimicking an absent-minded aristocrat.

‘Good morning, Mr Taylor.'

‘You must be Ms Houlihan,' he said, with a little too much
ee
in the middle syllable. He climbed back into bed behind me and began to stroke my back, gently, slowly.

‘Oh well, if you say so, I suppose I must …' I turned to him, and we kissed – carefully at first, both conscious of the sharp taste of sleep in our mouths.

It was a long time before we got up. Finally, I couldn't ignore the twinges of hunger any more. I heaved myself ungracefully out of bed and shambled into the kitchen to put on the kettle and find some bread to toast. The floor was chilly under my feet. I leaned against the sink surround, letting the hard countertop press into my flesh.

‘Wow,' said Matthew from the door. ‘A naked breakfast service.'
He was dressed in his jeans and shirt, his eyes sleepy. He put his arms round me and kissed my neck. I started buttering the toast, enjoying the feel of his clothes against my body, his lips on my skin.

There was a moment of giddiness – vertigo, almost – when I thought, how can this possibly be happening? How did we get here? Is Matthew Taylor
really
standing in my kitchen kissing me? Then I put the knife down and turned to kiss him back.

Breakfast shaded into brunch, after which we ambled into town through a sunny, breezy afternoon and ended up going to a film in the Savoy. It was a lavish Hollywood feel-good movie, much better than I expected. We bought popcorn and fizzy drinks, and Matthew sat with his arm round me for most of the film. When we emerged afterwards into the yellowing dusk I felt as if I'd been given a transfusion of energy.

It was windier than it had been, a damp, whipping wind that threatened to develop into rain. Matthew turned up the collar of his jacket and pinched the end of his nose. We walked down to the river hand in hand.

We stopped at the bridge. ‘Madam,' said Matthew, ‘you've been charming company.' He kissed me gently. ‘I believe my bus stop is this way,' he said.

‘Mine's just across here.'

‘Right.' He fished in an inner pocket and produced his phone. ‘I suppose we'd better do this bit, then. What's your number? I'll text you.'

I told him my number, and a few seconds later I read on my phone: ‘This is me. 990'

‘What's the nine hundred and ninety for?'

‘Think about it,' he said.

‘It's ten less than a thousand … which is … I don't know.'

‘Go on, you're on the right track. Think Latin.'

I laughed aloud. ‘Oh, my god, it's
XM
, right? Like a Roman numeral?'

‘The woman is sharp!'

‘The man is a big nerd!'

We kissed goodbye, and Matthew loped off towards the river, turning to wave at me before he'd gone thirty feet. I floated across to the bus stop and replied to his text as I waited: ‘Look, I can be a nerd too! 90' I could still feel the ghost of his touch, taste his sweat, his kisses. I felt shiny and precious, like silver.

S
UMMER WAS LONG
gone: the urban greenery on my wonted routes grew russet-flushed, the light turned to liquid gold and the promise of chill brushed my face. As always, I loved it when branches whispered to me as I went by, and one or two leaves dried out and fell, a prelude to the devastation ahead. I hunted out last winter's hat and scarf, although it was not yet cold enough to wear them.