Authors: Doreen Finn
Isaac sat down beside me. Putting his arms around me, he removed the cardigan from my hands. He lay me down on the bed, kissed my face, smoothed my hair on the pillow. With his thumbs, he wiped the salt from my face. ‘I’m sorry, Eva. I just don’t know what to do any more.’ He kissed my shoulders, my neck. ‘I love you, but you need more than I can give you, and I want less.’
Adam puts a hand to the small of my back as we enter the gallery. Ushering me inside, he keeps his hand on me. Even as we rove from picture to picture, devouring Picasso’s women, his sadness, his starving families, Adam finds some reason to touch me. Once it is to move me to the side to allow a German tourist room to view a painting of a blind man reaching for a bowl. Then he taps me on the arm to show me five women, their faces and bodies moving on the canvas. When he pulls me to stand in front of him, he leaves his fingertips on my waist. As we admire a still life, he pulls me close to whisper his interpretation.
‘See that?’ He points to a blue musical instrument, all cubed angles and pitched sides. ‘This is where Matisse comes in.’ Adam circles his forefinger in front of the painting. ‘This design, the colours, it’s all Matisse.’ He drapes his arm around my shoulder, casually.
I’ve loved Picasso since my brother brought me a poster of
Guernica
from a school trip to Madrid. I like to think I’m knowledgeable on the subject, but Adam’s enthusiasm is burning so brightly that I don’t wish to dampen it by blurting out that I already know what he’s telling me. I’ll let him know another time. Right now, in this packed exhibition, boxed in by eager viewers and overlooked by a stern supervisor who regularly steps forward to request more distance from the paintings, it’s nice to have Adam’s hand on my arm, his voice in my ear.
I’ve seen a lot of Adam recently, but it’s been strangely platonic. Since the day I went to lunch in his house, he has been as friendly to me as he’s always been, but he hasn’t again reached for a lock of my hair. We have gone to the cinema a few times, to a play in the Gate, we’ve eaten in other chichi places where they take your number and text you when there’s a table. But it’s as though Adam has drawn back from me. That one time he tucked my hair behind my ear in the fading light of an autumn Saturday in Sandymount, and I responded by ducking out of the house, has not been repeated.
Afterwards, when we have exhausted Cubism and ourselves, we sit in the café. It is packed, and we squeeze ourselves into a corner. Beside us, a child sets up a wail.
‘I’ll bring Annalie here. She’d love it.’ Adam uses a tissue to wipe away crumbs left by the previous occupants. ‘She’s very creative.’
I idly wonder if there is anything his child can’t do. But I’m being mean, and maybe more than slightly jealous that he has her.
‘They do art classes.’ I’d read it on a poster on the way in.
‘Really? Brilliant.’ He sits back in his chair, pleased. ‘I’ll bring her in. I’ll have to get some new paints for her. The old ones have probably dried up by now.’
‘Adam! What are you doing here?’ A large hand slaps Adam on the back. He chokes slightly on his coffee. It is David, the journalist. He is amused.
Adam is less gregarious. ‘Hey. Remember Eva?’
David’s handshake is strong and manly. ‘Eva, good to see you again. How did you drag this philistine in here?’
Something witty and clever is expected of me, but spontaneous humour evades me. I smile, say hello.
David is waiting to interview a politician. One of the identikit suits that are responsible for the yawning chasm the whole country is tipping into.
‘The place is fucked, completely fucked. If it was anywhere else but Ireland, heads would be on platters.’
‘So why are you here if you’re waiting to talk to him?’ Adam asks.
‘Location, dude. It’s just around the corner, and the coffee here is great.’
David’s coffee is black, and he drinks it quickly. He checks his phone. ‘Shit. I have to fly.’ He grabs a bag, throws it across his chest and settles the strap over his jacket. ‘Good to see you, Eva,’ he says again. He slaps Adam on the shoulder. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
Adam shakes his head. His hair has got longer. There is no grey among the reddish brown. ‘I’m always running into him. No matter where I go, he’s there.’
‘I like him.’ I do. He’s clever, he brims with energy. David has enthusiasm for life, which I admire.
‘Women always do. He thinks you’re beautiful.’ Adam taps the back of my hand with his finger. ‘Eva.’
I look at him. ‘What?’
‘I said, David thinks you’re beautiful.’
Embarrassment stains my face. I can feel it, spreading. ‘Stop.’ Never have I learned just to say thank you to compliments. My laugh is short, intended to chase away the moment.
‘Well, actually he does.’ He leans closer to me, drops his voice. ‘And he’s right.’
I should respond to him, say something, defend myself, but I fail. Adam’s thumb grazes my lower lip.
I’m saved by a voice announcing the imminent closing of the gallery. Reluctantly, we stand, pull on our coats.
‘Will we get dinner?’ Adam asks as we drop coins in the donation box. ‘It’s too early to go home.’
Since the Saturday in his house, Adam hasn’t offered to go for a drink. Nothing about it has been mentioned, just a quiet understanding of the problem I have with alcohol. My addiction is something I’ve preferred to keep private. Others’ awkwardness in the face of it makes me awkward, and that makes me want to have a drink, and the cycle spins forth. Avoiding alcohol by all means is the only way I can be sure of not drinking. It’s too difficult now for me to be around it and stay sober. It’s the oldest cliché, but it’s true. I must avoid it.
Adam holds the door for me.
Offices are in the process of disgorging their occupants onto the streets. A splatter of rain darkens the path. Umbrellas pop open, the only splash of colour in this grey late afternoon. Cars are beginning to turn on headlights. The wind has picked up and great gusts propel us along. Merrion Square is locked now, so we walk along its perimeter. Adam puts his arm around me, hugs me to him. I sneak a sideways look at him. His hair is blowing over his eyes and he rakes it back. He catches me watching him, and smiles.
The Merc is parked at the far end of the square. Adam opens the passenger door with a flourish. ‘Madam, your chariot.’
I laugh. The interior is strewn with test papers, ragged schoolbooks, old coffee cups and bags of recycling. The contents seem to have multiplied during our few hours with the paintings. ‘Do you ever clean this car?’ I ask as I put my bag on the back seat, pushing a box of paper to one side.
‘Never,’ is his reply. ‘My father likes to have a go every so often, but that’s about it.’
Adam is still standing at the passenger door. His hands cup my shoulders. The wind blows my hair across my face. He pushes it aside, then thumbs my bottom lip again. He starts to say something, then thinks better of it, and puts his mouth to mine instead. His kiss is surprising. Warm mouth, firm lips, vague taste of coffee. I don’t know what I had expected. Pupils widened, black with lust, mouth slack, maybe? What I get is quite the opposite, but it thrills me, properly, not in same way as being with Sean, but more, and in a different way. Adam appeals to my mind. That sounds terribly pretentious, but I don’t mean it to be. An intelligent man is a beautiful man.
Before I can react, return the kiss, trace his face with my fingertips, do anything, he is gone, not saying a word, just opening the driver’s door as though the kiss never happened. He starts the engine, leaving me still half in, half out of the car.
Darkness has thrown a blanket over everything by the time we reach his house in Sandymount. Adam offers to make dinner. I accept. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have minded a restaurant, the pleasing anonymity of ordering food that I don’t witness being prepared, the distance the table would force between us, the comfort of other diners preventing any more surprise kisses. I need time to process the kiss, the hand-touching, the arms draped around my shoulders. It all has an endpoint, this I know. The fact that suddenly I’m thinking about birth control defines the point in itself. With Sean, things happened and I allowed them to. With Adam, it’s different. He’s older for starters, but it’s more than that: I like him.
By accepting dinner in Adam’s house, I am complicit in this dance. And I’m not taking any birth control. Since last year, it hasn’t been something I’ve needed. Sean had provided his own, two square packets of foil wedged behind a twenty euro note in his wallet. I had peeked when he went to the bathroom. I prefer to be in control of my body myself, don’t trust anyone to take care of things in the way that I do. The pill doesn’t suit me any more. It bloats me, makes all my clothes uncomfortable around my waist. I feel slightly dulled when I take it, as though my mind is too tired to absorb all the information it needs.
Adam negotiates rush hour traffic. The Merc insulates us from the cold.
The sea hangs heavy on the air. The tang of salt and seaweed is slightly nauseating. I’m not sure I could live in Sandymount, with its dampness and smells, the coating of salt on every surface and the vague feeling of being on the edge of the world. I shiver. The rain is pouring down now, hopping off every surface. It skates along the road, runs into the pavement cracks. A discarded chip bag disintegrates in the gutter.
Adam kills the engine, and in the silence that follows all we hear is the rain drumming on the car roof. A seagull screams in the distance.
He turns to me. ‘Will we make a dash for it?’
I follow Adam inside.
CHAPTER 22
A
dam lights a fire, if it can be described thus. What he actually does is touch a match to a wrapped log in the grate. Blue flames instantly swarm. Small pieces of wood are stacked neatly to one side. He places some on top of the flaming log, then sits back on his heels and admires his handiwork.
I slip into a seat near the fireplace. The house is cold, and I keep my coat on.
Adam stands. ‘I’ll stick the heating on. You’ll be warm in a few minutes.’
A mood lamp leaks muted light into a corner of the room. The table where we ate lunch the last time I was here is covered with papers. Adam starts to clear them away.
‘Working on something?’
He spreads his hands. ‘Sort of. A piece for
The Times
. A book review. Just some historical tome.’
‘Impressive.’
‘It’s not. I know the editor, and I do him favours from time to time when he’s stuck.’ He moves things to bookshelves, to the coffee table, then turns back to me. ‘Now, some tea? Water? Or I can squeeze some juice if you’d prefer.’
‘Water is fine.’
‘Still or sparkling?’
He doesn’t have to go to this much effort. I know what Adam is doing, have seen it before, that shrouding of alcohol, offering every drink possible except the one that I really want. He is a kind man, and I don’t resent him for mentioning everything except the liquor-soaked elephant looming large in the middle of the room.
I wander into the kitchen. Adam is chopping and peeling and sautéing. A hot, smoky scent fills the space. He hands me a knife. ‘Here, chop that, will you?’
I remove the seeds from a chilli pepper, then slice it finely. Adam slides the pieces into the pan. There is a sudden sizzle. I tear coriander leaves, crush lemongrass, then leave the knife aside and lean against the counter. The house is extremely tidy and clean.
He catches me looking around. ‘The cleaner was here today. I’m not responsible for all this.’
‘I didn’t think so.’ His car breeds rubbish, paper and books. Finding space to sit is an achievement, but the smell of doughnuts makes it worthwhile.
‘I just don’t see things till it’s too late, then there’s a huge mess, and it takes me days to clear it.’ He wipes his hands on a tea towel. ‘I’d pay ten times the amount not to have to think about it.’ He twists the lid on a bottle of Italian lemonade. It fizzes open. The music of fizzy drinks is also the symphony of beer. Sweeter than any other sound. I clench my fists. I want a beer so badly I can taste it, taste those microscopic bubbles in my throat, feel the wet cold of the bottle in my hands and the eddy of exhilaration as the alcohol hits my bloodstream. I ignore the faint hiss of effervescence as Adam puts the plastic bottle down. My hands shake as I raise my glass of water to my mouth. The ice cubes chill my lips.
Plates are taken from the cupboard. There is a clatter of cutlery. Adam nods towards the table.
‘Let’s eat.’
Something electronic and mellow flows from the speakers in the ceiling. Our empty plates have been pushed to the side. A small tin with a scratched picture of a Christmas tree on the lid sits on top of a notebook near my plate. I fiddle with it. The lip flips open. Inside are four small joints, tightly wrapped.
Adam laughs. ‘Confiscated from one of my sixth years.’ He leans over, puts his finger to my lips. ‘Not a word.’
The smell of the weed is sweet. I run my finger down the length of the paper wrapping. God, I’d love some.
I know it won’t kill me, but having kicked drinking to the kerb for now, getting high isn’t exactly how I should be celebrating my tentative sobriety.
Isaac liked to smoke weed sometimes. His brother grew it, and a couple of times a year Isaac was the recipient of a bag of Humboldt County’s finest. I’d never bothered with it much before I moved to New York. Crumbled pieces of hash, wrapped in a cigarette and furtively passed around at the back of the student bar, was never my idea of fun, and it tasted disgusting. But weed is different, and I crave something that could replace the gap left by booze.
Adam notices my hesitation. ‘Here, I’ll put them away,’ he says, reaching for the tin. ‘Will you have some tea? Coffee?’
What I’d actually like is a hit or two off one of those skinny little joints. Just a quick hit. It wouldn’t hurt me. Drugs have never been my issue. Which student, I wonder? How did Adam intercept them?
To distract myself, I look at a series of pictures on the wall opposite the table, an uneven line of photographs in square black frames. Nothing much appears to be happening in any of them. I count them. Seven. Strange number for a sequence. A prime number. Adam follows my gaze.
‘My sister took those. She’s really good. I tell her all the time she should be doing more of them, but she doesn’t believe me.’
The photos are intriguing, if indecipherable. I turn back to the tin. ‘Maybe we should just try one.’
He gives me a look, one I’ve seen many times before. It’s a don’t-you-know-what-you’re-doing-here sort of look, a you’re-an-alcoholic look. And that’s the thing, I’m an alcoholic.
My name is Eva, and I’m an alcoholic, not a bloody drug addict.
There are matches beside the fire. I light a joint, straighten the crude filter, then inhale.
I take three hits and hand it over. That’s enough.
The weed kicks in within minutes. Whatever strains they’re growing these days, they’re strong. I shouldn’t have taken more than one go at it. I look at Adam, but it’s hard to focus. The electronic music that seeps from the ceiling swirls around me. I want to laugh, but if I start now, this early, I won’t be able to stop. I know myself, and I will laugh and laugh and laugh before I sink into a stoned semi-coma. No. The urge is stifled. Adam moves to throw more sticks on the fire. His movements are slow, deliberate. He shoves a fat log into the flames. Sparks shoot up the chimney as he adds another. Instead of resuming his seat at the table, he settles on the floor by the hearth. I try to lean into the high, into the mellow calm of being stoned. Negativity must be kept at bay or it will swamp me, ruining everything, and I’ll spend the rest of the time fighting panic and warding off thoughts of my mother and how she must have hated me to have treated me as she did.
‘Eva,’ he says, arranging cushions. ‘Come over here. It’s warmer.’
I wait for him to pat the floor beside him, but to my relief he doesn’t. Instead, he leans back against the cushions, cradles the back of his head with his hands and closes his eyes. I hate when men pat the floor, inviting you to sit with them. It’s cheesy, unoriginal. If done to me, I ignore it. For some reason I am absurdly glad that Adam’s eyes are closed, that for now he prefers to listen to the music and be inside his own head.
Standing up, I place my hands on the table, almost knocking a framed photo of Adam’s child over in the process, then pick my way across to the fire. A beer bottle is on the hearth. I hadn’t noticed it till now. One glance at him. Eyes still closed. The bottle is warm on the side that faced the fire. A centimetre of liquid lies quietly at the bottom. I raise it to my nose, inhale its scent, that intoxicating, addictive mix of malted barley and fermented sugar. The fizz has long since subsided. I shake the bottle gently, watch the pale liquid within slosh around. The need to drink, that drive to consume at any cost, fills me.
From somewhere outside my stoned head I observe myself, halfway between sitting and standing, a near-empty bottle of beer in my hand, while Adam stretches out on the floor beside me. I look ridiculous, a thief caught mid-plunder. Self-consciousness, that old enemy, creeps over me, the weed making it acute.
‘Do you want that?’
I jump at his voice. ‘What?’ I turn.
‘If you want one, I’ll get you a cold one.’
I thrust the bottle at him. ‘No. I told you, I’m off it.’
He twitches the hem of my skirt. ‘Come on, sit down.’ I don’t move. The logs crumble sootily and rearrange themselves in the grate. The rain has picked up again, and it hops off the window panes. Upstairs, a door slams.
Eventually, I fold my legs under me, lean my back against the armchair. Within minutes, pins and needles seize both legs, and I stretch them out in front of me. The toes of my new boots are pointed and my legs appear elongated, elegant. In the fireplace, the flames wind themselves around each other. My face warms in the heat.
‘Eva.’ Adam’s voice is unexpected. I jump slightly. He laughs, a slow, ponderous sound. ‘Sorry.’
I pull my gaze away from the fire. How much time has passed since I sat down? Adam’s eyes are pot-reddened. His glasses are nowhere to be seen. His face is closer to mine than I’d realised. His hair hangs over one eye. I want to push it away, but my hand feels too heavy. I think of the line of hair on his stomach, how it disappears into his jeans. I think of it, but I do nothing. If I were to do something, touch him, put my cheek on his shoulder ... if I did these things to him and he pulled away, how would I cope with the shame? So I imagine it instead, imagine myself pushing that lock of reddish hair out of his eyes, rubbing my fingers along his jaw, now stubbled with end-of-day shadow. I imagine myself slipping my hand inside his shirt and splaying my fingers, starfish-like, across the warm expanse of his skin. I think these thoughts, and I do not act on them. Let him make a move, if there is any move to be made.
‘If the sixth years could see us now,’ he says, laughing. ‘Stoned out of our heads on confiscated weed.’
‘If Jim Collins could see us,’ I say, joining him in laughter.
‘He wouldn’t know what we meant. He thinks getting high means jumping for the ball.’
‘Or winning the lineout.’
‘Or kicking a penalty.’
‘Or getting good marks in exams.’
‘Or taking off in a plane.’
I’m laughing so hard now that I can’t stop. Adam tries to say something, but laughter prevents him, which makes it all the funnier to both of us. Eventually, ages later, we subside into exhausted mirth. I don’t want to look at Adam or I’ll be off again.
We are both now leaning back against the armchair, side by side. Unseen, the music has changed to something else quiet, a soundtrack to some film I haven’t seen.
‘In New York they’d consider you a hipster,’ I tell him.
He shifts to look at me. ‘I’m flattered. A 43-year-old hipster. Imagine.’
‘No, seriously. You read the right books, you’ve seen all the cool films. You’re the only person I’ve ever seen here with a vegetable-oil car.’
‘Bio fuel.’
‘Whatever, you’re still the only one who seems to drive one.’
‘Does this mean you like me, Doctor Perry?’ He taps the tip of my nose with his forefinger. ‘Do you approve?’ His mouth is full of amusement, and I can’t tell if he’s joking or flirting. I want him to flirt with me. He’s good at it, subtle. Moves in and moves back again quickly. Pulls on my hair and lets it drop just as easily. Kisses me at his car and jumps into the driver’s seat. I don’t answer him. His fingers move to my cheek, to my temple. He winds my hair around his fingers, draws me closer to him. His brown eyes widen slightly. The fire flickers orange on their surface.
The first time Isaac kissed me, it charged through me like a laser, jerking my body towards him. It was one of those kisses that go on and on and on, and still you can’t stop kissing, can’t pull your mouth away. Kissing Adam isn’t like that, but I don’t want to pull away. It’s different to the kiss at his car, more insistent, more demanding, and maybe it’s the weed that’s making me dizzy, but he manoeuvres me to the floor and somehow manages to divest me of my top and my cashmere cardigan without my even noticing.
‘Eva, Eva, Eva, you’re so sexy,’ he mumbles into my neck. He props himself up then, and looks down at me. ‘I don’t know how I’ve managed to keep my hands off you till now.’ Adam slides his body on top of mine, pins me to the floor, erases me with kisses. Minutes later, I open my eyes, and I’m shocked to see the room is still the same; the hardwood floor, the long dining table, the shelves of books, the uneven line of black-framed photographs. The kisses I return are urgent, greedy, insistent. I pull away but Adam brings me back into the embrace again. When finally we break apart, Adam rolls off me, lies on his back, turns his face to mine.
I put my hands to my flaming cheeks, don’t meet his eyes. He tangles his fingers in my hair and forces my chin towards him.
‘Eva. Listen.’ A log explodes in the fire, shooting an ember onto the rug, where it burns like a tiny bomb. My head is still stuffed from the joint.
The music has stopped. As though to give himself something to do, Adam gets to his feet, goes to the stereo to rectify it. It’s not really a stereo, just one of those things that an MP3 fits into, more of a rectangular speaker than anything else. He presses some buttons and the music starts up again. I wonder – and this is the stoned part of my brain pondering, because normally I don’t worry about things like that – I wonder what the name is for the speaker.
Can you put something else on the speaker?
doesn’t quite have the same ring as
put some music on the stereo.
I’d ask Adam; he certainly knows, but I don’t want him to know how ridiculously out of touch I am with the digital revolution. Email and a mobile phone are enough for me to deal with.
He brings a bottle of sparkling water, a proper glass bottle, the expensive kind of water, and a glass for each of us. My mouth is dry, cottony from the weed. The bubbles burst on my tongue.
Adam leans towards me again, kisses my cheek, my jawline, my neck. He winds and unwinds a lock of my hair around his finger. ‘Listen, I’m not going to push you into anything. I like you, I actually really like you, but I’m not about to jump your bones just for the hell of it.’ He refills our glasses.
What do I say? I concentrate on a thread that curls from the seam in my skirt. I’m hopeless when confronted with men who like me. It’s easier when they just let things happen before analysis sets in. I’d been out with Isaac five times before the subject of his wife arose, and by then it was too late to do much about it. But confronted with this, now, with Adam sitting in front of me, his face a sketch in earnestness, I’m hopeless.