Stir-Fry (3 page)

Jael’s voice lifted to a call as she clattered down the stairs. “See you later, ladies. Be good.”

Cold air was coming off the bare window. Maria pulled the sleeves of her jumper down to cover her fingers and leaned on the sill. Her breath made a circle of glittering condensation; she touched her little finger to its chill, and made a small
m
in the center. When she heard steps in the passage,
her hand poised to rub out the mark, but instead she reached for the curtains and drew them across. The room was safer now, but smaller. “Couldn’t see anything but roofs,” she told Ruth.

“Yes, but this room faces west; it’s glorious in the late afternoons. Come and see the rest?”

It would be strange to live up so many steps, without a garden to wander into. The elegant and the shabby met in every corner of this flat. She craned her neck to examine the moulding around a bare light bulb.

“Georgian,” Ruth explained. “Gorgeous fanlight over the front door, did you notice? Three floors of the building got converted into offices in the fifties, but the penthouse was too oddly shaped for anything but a flat. A bugger to heat in the winter, but I love these high ceilings. They elevate the mind, don’t they?”

Maria nodded, rapt. The highest ceiling she had ever slept under, she remembered now, was in Uncle Malachy’s smelly barn one night when she’d gotten locked out by mistake; she hadn’t wanted to throw a stone and wake Mam, who was still weak after the operation. “So who’s down below?”

“You’re unlikely to meet them; they use the front staircase. There’s a firm of chartered surveyors, an optician, and the Girl Guides HQ. In the basement there’s what purports to be a baldness clinic, but we suspect it’s a brothel for businessmen. Is there a brothel in your town, Maria?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she answered, after a puzzled moment. “I’ve lived there all my life, but I’ve no idea. There’ve been rumours about the flashy cars outside Mrs. Keogh’s, but I’ll bet that’s because she’s a redhead.”

Ruth chuckled under her breath. “Must tell Jael about that.”

The bathroom was lined with white tiles, clean but cracked in places. Opening the hot press, Ruth prodded a folded
towel into line. When she turned, her face looked tired in the hard fluorescent light. “I’d better be honest with you, Maria, you might find it a bit isolated here.”

“Isolated from what?”

A disconcerted pause. “Depends what you’re looking for.” Ruth bent to fish an empty shampoo bottle out of the bathtub. “I’m not wildly sociable, myself; I do things at college, debating and stuff, but when the day’s over I like to curl up with tea and a book.”

“Me too.”

“Really?” Ruth’s mouth softened. “You could get somewhere nearer the university with a younger crowd, for the same money. But on the other hand, this place can be a sort of home. On good days.”

“It seems very nice,” said Maria.

“Do you think so? It all depends on … what do you do, Maria?”

“Maths and art.”

Her hand flapped that away. “No, I mean what do you really like to do?”

She sat on the rim of the tub and let the question hang in the air. Her eyes paused on a ceramic mermaid, old toothbrushes poking up from her breasts.

“I know, isn’t it the pits?” said Ruth. “I’ve tried all sorts of arguments, but Jael is such a stubborn Scorpio. Apparently it’s got sentimental value because she got it from an old friend in Denmark. I think she keeps it to annoy me.”

Maria traced the yellow hair with one finger. “Why haven’t you accidentally knocked it off the windowsill?”

“Do you know, I’ve never thought of that.” Ruth’s expression was oddly respectful. “Not sure I could go through with it; what if it decapitated a passerby? Maybe if you came to live here, you could do the deed.”

Maria was reminded that she still had to prove herself.
“About what you were asking—I can’t really say what I like to do.”

“Ah, forget it, you don’t like questions.”

“No, it’s not that.” Her fingers rested on the cold ceramic. “It’s just that I’ve never lived away before, so I don’t know what I’ll be like. At home I draw and watch wildlife documentaries and stuff. I sit round nattering to Mam while she cooks, and keep my brothers away from breakable objects.”

“Every house needs someone like that.” Ruth’s smile vanished as she turned off the light. “And this is our room,” she said as she opened the door to a larger, darker bedroom, with a purplish hanging on the wall. “It’s north-facing, so we don’t sit around in it much.”

“But you don’t even have proper beds,” protested Maria. “Could you not ask the landlord—”

“We like the futon, really. It’s great for Jael’s bad back, and there’s plenty of space.”

“Just seems a bit unfair that whoever moves in gets a room of her own.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” said Ruth, bending to straighten a corner of the duvet. “We’re used to each other by now. I’ve trained Jael not to snore.”

Halfway through a tour of the cupboards, Maria’s eye was caught by a moth flapping against the ceiling; she looked up and noticed a skylight. “Can you get out onto the roof? The view over Dublin must be amazing.”

“To tell you the truth, I’ve never got around to it.”

“Suppose not,” said Maria, regretting her enthusiasm.

“But I must ask the landlord,” Ruth added as she pushed an obstinate door shut on a stack of blankets. “Though the mean bastard would probably put another fiver on the rent ‘for use of rooftop recreational space.’” Her fingers slid to the switch, and they were standing in darkness.

Maria stood still. Small ads, that was always how psycho killers lured victims to their flats.

“Look,” said Ruth.

“What?”

“Up. Have your eyes adjusted?’’ Directly below the skylight, Ruth’s finger was raised. “That must be the Seven Sisters.”

“I didn’t think Dublin had stars. I mean, with the smog and all.” She peered up, open-mouthed.

The front door lurched open.

“What are you two playing at in the dark?” Jael asked, as they came up the corridor to help her with her splitting bags. “Hey,” she went on, “some good fairy left me this month’s
Her
on the stairs, and it’s got twenty gorgeous pages of lingerie. I have my suspicions,” she went on, putting the tip of the wine bottle to Ruth’s temple.

“It’s mine.” Maria’s cheeks were scorching. “I must have dropped it and not noticed.”

“Ah, too bad.”

“No, no, take it. I’ve read it already. On the bus,” she insisted. “Speaking of which, I’d better be getting back before my Aunt Thelma rings the police.”

They turned on the light in the stairwell for her as she said her goodbyes. They would ring. She would take care. As she reached the first landing, she heard one of them begin to hum, one of those slow fifties croonings you could never get out of your head.

Maria pretended not to see the youth in a bicycle helmet who was shifting round the phone box, rubbing his hands and peering at his watch in the streetlight.

“Yeah, they’ll let me know by the end of the week. I hope so, Mam. I think being a nonsmoker was a plus.

“The rent’s not too scarifying. If I got a job on top of my grant, it should be grand. Central heating, and an open fire as well. I didn’t check the fridge. Should I have? Ah, Mam, it’s very civilised, not like a squalid bedsit at all. You can stop fretting. OK, I didn’t mean fretting—being concerned.

“Yes, I’m eating very well, Thelma cooks everything in a cream sauce. Mam, she specifically asked me to call her that, it makes her feel younger. Yeah, she’s still at the upholstery. All right. Night-night now. Ta for letting me ring reverse-charges. Say hi to Dad and the lads, will you? God bless.”

She swung the glass door wide and darted out, with a quick “Sorry for keeping you.” Halfway down the street, hands bunched in her duffel-coat pockets for warmth, she remembered her fountain pen sitting on the directory and loped back.

His helmet bent over the receiver, he was agitated in conversation. Maria knocked timidly on the glass and got a glare in return. “Sorry,” she mouthed. “Pen.” Her hand made a writing motion, then pointed at the ledge. Dark eyes stared through the glass. “Forget it,” she mouthed, her hands flapping; she turned her hot face away and headed down the narrow street.

The door of the phone box crashed open. “What? What is it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she called, her voice unsteady.

“Hey, come back here, I’m through with my call.” He lowered his voice as she neared him. “I guess I was rude. I was in a hurry.”

“It was just my fountain pen,” Maria said, clearing her throat. “I think I left it on the shelf.” She took it from his hand. Up close, he was skinny and no older than she was.

“I’m sorry I wouldn’t open the door, but you know, you could have had a knife or something.”

She stared.

“So you’re not the most likely of muggers,” he admitted, tugging off his helmet and running a bony hand through tufts of hair. “But in Brooklyn we take no chances.”

“You’re from New York, really?” Then she heard her own voice talking to a male stranger on an empty street. “Sorry to have bothered you. Good night.” And she strode off, not giving him a chance to do more than nod.

Safe on the top deck of the meandering bus to Dun Laoghaire, she let her shoulders uncurl, shedding the weight of a long day. Twenty minutes of dreamtime now, as floodlit city corners flared into black suburban avenues. The knob-bled branches of overhanging horse chestnut trees cracked against the windows, on and off, pulling her back to consciousness. Glinting on the glass she could see the first spatter of rain.

Her aunt’s house was the last in a cul-de-sac of opulent hedges. Maria let herself in noiselessly and was halfway up the stairs when she remembered the no-shoes rule. Damn it to hell, who ever heard of having a magnolia carpet? She was wrenching off her second sneaker when the kitchen door opened.

“Welcome back. You’ll join me for cocoa?”

“Surely,” said Maria, stuffing her sneakers into her coat pockets. She padded down the stairs and into the gleaming kitchen. “Could I have a glass of water as well?”

Gathering her beige satin dressing gown round her neck, Thelma smiled at the anxious tone. “I’m sure that could be arranged.”

“Sorry to be in so late.”

“Oh, I got accustomed to it with Alexandra. She was always staying out till five in the morning; university life brought out the vagabond in her.”

“Where is it that she is now?” asked Maria politely, stifling a grimace as she sipped the urban water.

“Bucharest. At least that’s where the last postcard was from. Live it up while you’re young, or you’ll regret it later, I always say.”

She angled her glass, watching the water catch white ovals of light.

Thelma took a sip of cocoa without wetting her lips. “I’ve always said to her, ‘Darling, make your own decisions and I will respect them.’ Especially during her bad patch after her father passed away, I thought she needed to know that.”

Maria nodded and reached for her cocoa. She was suddenly weary in every muscle.

“What about you, do you often clash with Caitríona? Battles over boys?”

Maria’s lips tightened. “Mam and I get along fine, actually.”

“You’re not still calling her that, are you? Mam, it sounds so nineteen-forties.” Thelma spooned up the last drip of cocoa.

“She prefers it.”

“I see.” A meditative pause. “Caitríona was never the radical of the family.”

“How’s the stool coming along?” asked Maria, on the verge of rudeness. She bent her face to catch the steam from the cocoa.

“Very nicely. French polishing’s all done, and I start on the seat tomorrow. It’s for my dentist’s sitting room; he’s taking it as payment for that broken crown on my molar.” Thelma’s face looked girlish with satisfaction. “Would you like to see it?”

The molar or the footstool? Maria wondered, and felt fatigue and repentance tugging her two ways. “In the morning, I’d love to.”

“Good night so. There’s a hot water bottle in your bed.”

Maria watched the knot of limbs struggle toward the edge of the lake. All round her, students lay draped on the concrete steps, white-faced in the autumn sun. Only at the third scream from the girl at the hub of the group did people begin to look up. “Engineers are at it again,” said a lazy voice just behind Maria. “I heard they’re aiming to beat last year’s total of ten girls in the pond by the end of Freshers’ Week.”

“At least it’s sunny this year,” commented another.

Maria could see the woman now; she bucked and shoved, making vain attempts with one free hand to keep her billowing peachy skirt between her knees while a dozen boys towed her, head first, down the steps. The odd giggle escaped from the watchers. With a shriek and a violent kick one leg leaped free, but the sandal dropped off, and four hands caught the ankle again. “Heave! Heave!” They swung her twice over the water, their chant drowning her out. And then the body dropped with a splash.

Almost at once a sleek black head emerged over the lip of concrete, dripping and laughing, calling for a helping hand. Maria gathered her belongings to go. At the top of the steps she turned, staring until one of the engineers retrieved the woman’s sandal and another wrapped her in his laboratory coat.

Heading blindly up the peopled steps, Maria careered into a sharp shoulder.

“We must stop meeting like this.”

For a long moment she couldn’t place the face, then embarrassment flooded her as she recalled the New Yorker. “Sorry, hello. I’m sorry.”

“And I’m Galway. Were you watching the ritual witch-dunking?” He jerked his eyes toward the lake.

“She’s no witch, she’s a bimbo,” retorted Maria, more viciously than she meant.

One bushy eyebrow lifted. “Do you know her?”

“She was laughing, for god’s sake. How could she let them toss her into all that oil and sludge, and then laugh?”

“Maybe she didn’t have much of a choice. If she’s going to be in their class for four years, she won’t want a reputation for not being able to take a joke.”

“Well, I think it’s sick.”

“Of course it’s sick, I was taking that for granted.” Galway readjusted the faded rucksack on his shoulders. “Adolescent macho thuggery. That’s why I never joined a fraternity back home in my freshman year; I just couldn’t see the thrill in walking backward along a roof ridge in my boxer shorts.”