‘You hardly know this man. A visit to see some penguins is one thing, but going off to Adelaide with him just like that? With my cat? A one-day driving tour of South Australia? Flights back to Melbourne? And now passionate lovemaking sessions - in a standing position, if you please - in my front room? Anything could have happened. And it’s not just about your personal safety. I don’t want you to get hurt again. Like you were with ‘
‘Dermot.’ Eva interrupted. This was no time to bring up anyone else. ‘Lainey, I won’t get hurt. This is nothing like it was with Dermot. With anybody I’ve ever gone out with before.’
‘But you don’t know the first thing about Joe.’
‘I do. I know plenty of things about him.’ ‘Like what?’ ‘All the things I’ve already told you on the phone. He’s thirty-four. He lives in London. He’s backpacking on a working holiday around Australia. Isn’t that enough to be going on with?’ ‘A backpacker on a working holiday, is he?’ Eva nodded. ‘Who takes spur-of-the-moment one-day trips to South Australia?’ Joe’s meeting with Lewis wasn’t her story to tell. She didn’t answer for a moment, hating how Lainey was making her feel. ‘He had to get some wine,’ she finally blurted out. ‘Get some wine? What, he can’t buy it in London? Or here?’ Eva shifted uncomfortably under the force of Lainey’s questioning. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. He just liked the idea of getting it straight from the winery.’ ‘And did this Joe happen to know the people at this winery? Were they expecting him, do you think?’ Eva had just about had enough. ‘No, the people at this winery didn’t know this Joe. What exactly are you getting at, Lainey? Because I don’t like your line of questioning one bit.’ Eva felt her cheeks go red. She rarely stood up to Lainey. ‘Oh come on, Evie. Don’t you think it’s all a bit weird? I’m sorry, but I think you have to be a little
more wary than that these days. You can’t take people on face value any more. He’s a backpacker who was working in Four Quarters because he was running out of money, is that what you told me?’
Eva nodded.
‘So how did you get from Adelaide to the Clare Valley?’
‘He hired a car.’
‘And how did you get home?’
‘We flew.’
‘Who paid?’ ‘Are you an immigration officer, Lainey?’
‘Evie, who paid?’
‘He did. He had those frequent flier points, he said.’
‘Oh, did he? Don’t you think that’s a bit suspicious? A bit unusual? For a backpacker? I read a very interesting article in the newspaper a week or two back about drug trafficking in Australia. How it’s quick and easy money for the right people. And how they prey on innocents, get them to do the dirty work. He hasn’t given you any parcels or anything, has he? To take back home with you?’
‘Now you’re saying Joe’s a drug smuggler?’
‘No, I’m not saying anything for sure. I’m just not taking everything at face value, like you have. Come on, how much do you know about him? Really?’
Eva was defiant. ‘Lainey, Joe is exactly what he seems. Why would he be anything different?’
‘What does he call you?’ There was a long pause. ‘Niamh.’ ‘What does he think you do for a living?’ ‘He thinks I’m a sculptor. And a singer.’ ‘And that you live where?’ ‘In Galway. In a caravan. Oh, stop it, Lainey, you know exactly what he thinks. You’re the one that started this whole thing.’ ‘I know, I know. For one night. I didn’t expect you to start living your whole life around it. I’m just trying to say that things aren’t always what they seem. And you need to be a bit wary sometimes. I mean, meet him for a drink, fine. Dinner, maybe. But a spur-of-the-moment trip to South Australia? A day in a car with him in the middle of nowhere? It could have been so dangerous.’ ‘But it wasn’t, was it? Lainey, stop this, please.’ ‘Look, I’m not trying to be difficult, but I feel very responsible for you. I invited you over here, after all. What if something were to happen ‘ ‘For heaven’s sake, Lainey, I am thirty-one years old. I wanted to come to Australia. I wanted to go away with Joe. You’re not my mother. In fact, you’re behaving worse than a mother. Please, don’t spoil this. For once I’ve felt free with someone, that I’m really being myself, that I ‘ Lainey made a strange noise. ‘Oh yes. You’re really being yourself. With your fake name and your fake caravan and your fake successful career.’
That was enough. ‘Shall we go to dinner, Lainey? I don’t want to be any ruder to Joe than we’ve already been.’ She walked out of the room.
Twenty minutes later they were in a restaurant that Lainey had chosen down the road from the apartment. ‘Modern Australian cuisine, I think tonight. What do you say, Niamh?’
Lainey was mad with her, Eva knew that. Well, too bad, because she was mad with Lainey too. ‘Perfect,’ Eva had said with a fake smile.
Another twenty minutes and she was regretting having agreed to go out to dinner. Regretting urging Joe to come along. Regretting coming to Australia in the first place. She wasn’t mad with Lainey any more. She was furious.
Lainey was performing, there was no other word for it. She was behaving like an actress, a celebrity, glittering at all and sundry. She had insisted on changing before she came out, emerging from her bedroom in a very figure-hugging dress. Eva had immediately felt like a postulant nun beside her, her previously lovely shift dress metamorphosing in her imagination into something from the scrap basket. She was Maria von Trapp beside the baroness. Cinderella beside her stepsisters.
Since they’d arrived at the restaurant Lainey had flirted with the waiter, the barman, the two men at
the neighbouring table. And now she was flirting with Joe. She was like someone in a How to Flirt documentary. All twinkling eyes, hands on her chin, tinkling laughter and just that bit longer than necessary eye contact.
Eva had only seen Lainey in full flight like this once before. In Ireland, eight years ago. She hadn’t liked it one bit then and she liked it even less now. She felt like Lainey had drained all her personality away. She’d hardly opened her mouth, yet Lainey was in top form, telling anecdotes about her early days in Australia, what it had been like when she first went back to Ireland, tales about Melbourne. And was Eva imagining it, or was Joe laughing at every single thing she said?
Lainey leaned across the table again now. ‘So tell me, are you enjoying Australian food, Joe?’
‘I am, yes. There seem to be some great restaurants here.’
Lainey gave a deep sigh. ‘Oh, there is, isn’t there? I have to say, nothing makes me happier than being in a kitchen or a restaurant. I worked in a deli for a while, it was heaven, all the wonderful tastes and smells.’
Eva blinked. What was Lainey talking about? She’d never worked in a deli.
Lainey turned toward her now. ‘I had all sorts of ideas to open a cafe or something too, didn’t I, Niamh?’
Joseph glanced between the two of them again. ‘But you didn’t?
Lainey gave an elegant shrug. ‘No. I guess I was just too scared that it wouldn’t work. So I didn’t even give it a try. And now I’ll never know for sure, I suppose, will I, Niamh?’
Lainey was playing with her, Eva realised. She just glared back at her without answering.
Joseph stood up. ‘Could I get you both another glass of wine?’
Eva nearly toppled the table in her haste to stand up as well. ‘No, Joe, let me get it.’
‘Please, let me.’
He was barely out of earshot when Eva turned on Lainey and hissed, ‘That’s enough, Lainey. Stop it.’
Lainey smiled innocently. ‘Stop what?’
‘You know what. All that stuff about the deli. Everything you’re doing.’ The flirting.
‘It’s just a joke, Evie. You’re not being you, so I thought I’d be you for you. That way you can see if Joe likes the real you, can’t you? He seemed quite interested in the idea of the cafe, don’t you think?’
‘It’s not funny, Lainey.’
‘What’s not funny?’ It was Joseph with the glasses of wine.
Lainey smiled up at him. ‘Niamh and I were just talking about the price of wine in restaurants these days, it’s just not funny how expensive it is. Thanks for getting these, aren’t you great?’ She put her hand
on his arm for a moment. That was it, Eva thought, rage overtaking her. Enough. More than enough. She felt like she was twenty-three years old all over again. Worse than that time, even. She stood up, her eyes flashing. ‘I do apologise if I’ve been in the way tonight. Have a lovely night together, won’t you?’ She snatched up her bag and walked out of the restaurant.
Eva walked three hundred metres before she stopped, overcome with embarrassment.
What a stupid, childish thing to have done. And now what would she do? She certainly couldn’t go back in there, feeling like this. Disappointed with Joe and raging with Lainey.
She started walking again, dodging the groups of people going in and out of the restaurants and bars all along the street. She felt sick. What could she do now? Go home? She didn’t want to. She didn’t think she ever wanted to see Lainey again.
She’d gone another hundred metres when she heard her name being called. Her false name. She stopped and turned around.
‘Niamh, wait. Please.’ It was Joe, walking quickly toward her.
She stood, embarrassed and angry at once, waiting for him.
He came up beside her, his face very serious. ‘Are you all right?’ She felt her breathing quicken. What on earth could she say? No, Joe, I’m not. I thought something wonderful was happening between us and then you met Lainey and responded to her just like every other bloody man that ever meets her responds to her. And I can’t handle it and it makes me sick with jealousy and I couldn’t stay another minute and I know it was childish but she’s done it to me once before and I couldn’t watch her do it again. No, she couldn’t say that. She shook her head. ‘What did you mean you were in the way tonight? ‘I can’t talk about it yet, Joe, I’m sorry.’ She couldn’t. Her mind was too jumbled, filled with fury at Lainey, shame for her own behaviour. She had been so happy. Things had been going so well. And then Lainey had arrived in the middle of it and ruined everything, just as she’d done before. His eyes searched hers. ‘Do you want to come back to the restaurant? Or do you want me to walk you home?’ Go back there? Or go home? Lainey would be there either way, eventually. She shook her head. ‘No. I’m sorry, Joe. But I think I need to be on my own.’ ‘Are you sure?’ She nodded, fighting a sudden longing to go into his arms, to kiss him.
‘Can I ring you later? I’d like to know you’re all right.’
His words nearly brought her to tears. But she had to get away. She nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Joe. Goodnight.’
He watched her walk away for a moment, then he turned and went back to the restaurant.
Eva walked steadily for ten minutes, her anger and distress keeping her moving, until she realised she’d passed all the restaurants and cafes. She was now in a much darker part of town and there were very few people around. She’d just begun to feel nervous when she recognised where she was. At the intersection of Lainey’s road, with the petrol station on one corner and the motel on the other.
The motel. Before she could think too much about it, she’d opened the door and walked up to the reception desk. ‘A single room for tonight, please.’
What on earth are you doing?
What does it look like? Booking into a motel room.
But what will Lainey think when you don’t come home? She’ll be worried sick.
She won’t even notice I’m not there. She’s probably about to invite Joe back to her house. No point all that flirting going to waste, is there?
Don’t be ridiculous. Of course she’ll be worried if she gets back and you’re not there.
Good. She wanted Lainey to worry. Eva wanted Lainey to feel as bad as she was feeling now. But
I’m not listening to you, she said, as she passed I over her credit card.
In the restaurant Lainey sat at the table, not sure what would happen next. She’d been very impressed when Joe had stood up and gone after Eva. She felt a bit guilty about her behaviour. She had been flirting a little bit, she knew that. Been a bit mean to Eva. And all right, a bit jealous of her too. In Melbourne for such a short time and finding this lovely man.
She looked up as Joseph came back in again. ‘Is she all right?’ she asked.
He didn’t sit down, just took his coat from the back of the chair. ‘She’s gone home. To your apartment.’
‘Oh,’ Lainey nodded. ‘She’s overtired, probably.’
‘Do you think so?’
Lainey glanced up, unsure of his tone.
‘I think I’ll call it a night myself. And I’ll take care of the bill.’
‘No, Joe, you don’t have to do that.’ Lainey started to stand up.
‘I insist,’ he said.
Five minutes later, they said goodnight in front of the restaurant and walked in separate directions.
Less than a kilometre away, Eva lay on the motel bed in the darkness, watching the passing car lights flicker against the wall. She was still angry. Furious. About tonight and about eight years ago. She’d been wrong all along. It hadn’t gone away. It had just been lying in wait, like a dragon, waiting to be awoken.
And tonight Lainey had woken it. By trying to do with Joe exactly what she had done with Martin eight years ago. Ruin things.
Eva rolled over, feeling the memories rush into her mind again. Martin had been her first boyfriend. She’d been just twenty-three years old, still living at home with her parents in Dunshaughlin, working in the local newsagent. He was the first man she’d been in love with, the first man she’d ever had sex with. She and Martin had been together for five months, Eva in dreamland for most of it. Her friends had teased her about being lovestruck. She hadn’t minded any of it. She was the luckiest woman in Ireland, she thought. Her very first boyfriend, her very first lover, and he was the kindest and most gentle man in town. Perhaps he didn’t like talking about their future together as much as she did, but sure, weren’t all men like that? Everyone knew that it was women who did all the organising, got things done in relationships. And there was plenty of time anyway. They were getting on just fine, weren’t they?
Then Lainey had arrived back from Australia on holiday. She’d radiated sunshine and confidence, had