"What were you expecting, bacon and cabbage? Or just a trough of spuds?" said Jael with a bray of laughter.
"You'll have to excuse her, she's not used to culinary compliments," said Anton, rising to collect the plates.
"Yeah, I've come to cooking late in life," Jael admitted. "Last November, Fat Bastard here was away on some junket in Prague, leaving Yseult and me to subsist off frozen tikka masala, and I suddenly thought, I'm an intelligent woman, I run my own PR company, why don't I try cracking a cookbook for once in my damn life?"
Jude was about to say something about the first time she'd ever barbecued an arctic char, but she'd missed her moment; the conversation had swirled on, to cover digital TV, bilingualism (here Jude tried to say something about Canada's French immersion schools but fumbled her chance again), a particularly brutal recent murder-suicide, and whether very hairy men should wax their backs. She sank into a weary fugue and let it all flow over her head.
At one point their hosts were all out in the kitchen, and Jude turned to smile at Síle. But her lover's mouth was tight. "What is it?"
"You haven't opened your mouth in forty-five minutes," whispered Síle.
"I haven't had a chance to get a word in edgeways! You talk right over each other, all the time."
"The Irish are highly evolved," Síle snapped. "We can listen and talk at the same time."
"Well I can't."
Síle chewed her lip. "I just want them to like you."
"I'm not a performing seal," muttered Jude, and then the mango brulée came in, heralded by Yseult, blowing through a paper trumpet.
Jael went out for another cigarette after dessert, and Jude was sorely tempted to go with her. But on the couch, Síle reached for her hand, and their interlocked fingers made up the quarrel. The child reluctantly went to bed at 11:30. Half an hour later, Anton came down and murmured, "She's out for the count."
Jael, sprawled on the other couch, like Sarah Bernhardt, perked up at once. "Who's for a little coke?"
"Yum," said Síle.
"I'm fine with coffee," murmured Jude, thinking, Who'd want to drink pop after a meal like that? She only got it when Anton brought in an old striped can that claimed to be mouse poison.
"It's hell to get hold of these days," Jael was complaining. "Worse than reliable babysitting, and nearly as pricey."
Anton waited till Jael and Síle had inhaled their lines off the mirror. "Sure you won't join us?" he said graciously, holding the mirror out to Jude.
She was suddenly sick of being predictable, being Silent, saying no to things. She was a woman with a foreign lover and an overdraft she couldn't clear; she was a long way from home. Casually she took the rolled-up note. Síle was watching her a little warily. Jude snuffed it up, then sat back, feeling nothing except a bit numb in her nose. But a few minutes later she found herself participating confidently in an argument about voting systems, despite the fact that all she knew about proportional representation was based on a half-forgotten skim through of a New Democrats leaflet. She didn't feel drugged, she felt at her own healthy best, the dinner party guest she'd always been meant to be. "For some unknown reason this reminds me of one time I was hiking in the back country—Algonquin Park—and I turned a corner and nearly walked smack into this huge black bear. They say the thing to do is to stick your arms above your head so you'll seem taller, and sing as loud as you can..." She was playing the self-deprecating merry Canuck for all she was worth, and Jael was laughing so hard she claimed she was going to be sick, and Anton at some point, for a reason Jude could never remember afterward, demonstrated a Highland sword dance on the Persian rug, using poker and tongs.
When Síle was in the washroom, Jael announced she needed another smoke. Jude went with her, for a breath of cool air. Irish houses didn't have porches, she was discovering, so they made their way onto the damp lawn—Jael slightly unsteady from the wine. "Does it still smell good?" she inquired, waving her cigarette in front of Jude's nose.
Jude let herself breathe in. It did. "Temptress."
"It's the taste I like," said Jael, kissing her.
At first Jude was too startled to react, and then a giggle escaped from her mouth. Her hostess had stepped over to some scented bush and was tapping ash onto the grass, as if nothing had happened. Jude considered letting the moment go by, but some obscure fighting instinct roused her. "What was that?"
"Just taking your measure," said Jael in a reasonable tone. She had a few more puffs, then ground her butt into the lawn, before picking it up to bring into the house.
At one in the morning, Síle got Jude into the little green car and they all waved good-bye. "Well, that went rather splendidly in the end," said Síle, backing out of the drive.
"Mm." Jude's impulse was to mention the bizarre little incident right away, but she was thinking better of it. She'd heard enough stories about Jael to know that before marriage she'd had the sexual ethics of a bonobo chimpanzee, but her sense was that the woman hadn't been seriously hitting on her; she'd been making mischief, at worst. This was probably not a moment for full disclosure.
"Thank god for the coke," she said instead. "From now on I'll be tempted to bring a little cache to every party." She reached over the gearstick and slid her fingers down Síle's raw silk wraparound skirt. She stared out the window as the neon signs of Dublin melted by: B&B, ANGELO'S CHIPS, DANGER CONSTRUCTION, SACRED HEART CONVENT, CAR PARK FULL. "So Yseult's your godchild?"
"For my sins. All I have to do is spend an afternoon with her and I'm glad to be childless again. Anton would love a second, but Jael says fuck off." She turned with a wide smile. "Listen, as it's only eight in the evening for you—"
"It is?"
"When I was on the Dublin-Heathrow rotation last year, I went back and forth three times a day. I never knew what country I was in. Anyway, what I was going to say was," stroking Jude's nape, "there happens to be a monthly club night on called Colleen."
"As in, girl? Sure, why not? I've only got three days; I should pack in as much as I can."
Jude had expected some shiny chrome-and-glass venue, but it was a ballroom upstairs in an old hotel. The girl selling tickets at the door looked about fourteen, and pretty with-it. "Thank god for the new generation," roared Síle in her ear. "When I was your age I'd have known every single raddled face here."
"By the way," Jude asked over her first pint of Guinness—it really did taste much better in Ireland—"did Jael ever try to get you into bed?"
"Just once," said Síle, with a grin that was half-wince. "She felt me up in the back of a taxi, but I swatted her away. Jael's really mellowed, but sometimes I don't know how—being her—she can stand her life."
By grabbing the odd stranger on the lawn, maybe, thought Jude.
Then a pack of Síle's acquaintance were on them, and it was all shrieked hellos and pecks on cheeks. It comforted Jude, the familiarity of this small world: roughly the same proportions of leather jackets and denims, lipstick and cleavage, smiles and chips-on-shoulders as she might find at a women's night in some mid-size Canadian city. A lot of the music was familiar, but not too much so; mercifully, she hadn't yet heard "I Am What I Am," or "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves." For the first time today, Jude felt more or less at home.
The only problem was, she couldn't understand a word these women were saying. Síle was engaged in rapid, bellowed conversation with two of them; they were probably interrogating her about why she'd left the flawless Kathleen.
Síle squeezed over to her, now, kissed her on the jaw. "I know most of the girls in here," she remarked. "I've probably slept with half of them. I've lived with half of the half I've slept with. I've loved half of the half I've lived with. What does it all come to?"
Jude stared.
Síle fell about laughing. "Don't you recognize the quote? It's from one of the Beebo Brinker novels. Nineteen fifties lesbo trash."
"Oh," she mouthed in some relief.
"My other favourite Beebo line is 'Nine m
onths of desire exploded like a firecracker between her legs.'"
Jude grinned. "I know that feeling. Sure beats The Well of Loneliness: 'That night they were not divided.'"
Swapping quotes was not the ideal activity in this noise. Jude took hold of Síle's hips and steered her onto the light-rimmed dance floor. Síle seemed to hang back, which Jude only understood halfway into the first track when she was forced to conclude that her lover's odd, off-the-beat, bouncing movements were not some highly sophisticated dance style that hadn't yet made it to rural Canada.
"Can I please sit down now?" Síle shouted in her ear.
"Good idea."
"I know, I know, it's mortifying!" Settled back at the table with her martini, she wailed, "I look like someone who can dance, don't I?"
"You look like dance made flesh, darlin'."
"I like clubs, I love music. But some bad fairy godmother decided not to give me a sense of rhythm."
Jude started laughing again.
"Whereas you, you beast, are a very funky mover. Get back out there; look, there's Lisa and Sorcha waving."
"You sure?"
"Go on, I want to watch."
Hours later Jude was splashing her face in the washroom when a tall blond woman at the sink beside her said under her breath, "You must be the Canadian."
Jude blinked. "Guilty," she said with a foolish grin. "You must be a friend of Síle's."
The woman shook her head, and applied her brownish lipstick in two moves. Jude's stomach tightened. The blonde snapped her little bag shut and smoothed her satin skirt. "I suppose you think it's all a great laugh," she said, turning to face Jude.
"What—"
"A zesty, international fling, who cares what havoc it creates?" The woman's voice was still level. "I wonder, have you any scruples at all?"
Jude took a laborious breath. "Listen, Kathleen—"
"Shut your mouth." The woman's nose was only inches away from Jude's. "You don't know me, you don't call me Kathleen. You're a greedy little home-wrecker and you turn my stomach."
The door swung open and two girls came in giggling. When they'd gone into two stalls and locked the doors, Jude tried again, in a low voice. "I know you loved Síle—"
"You know nothing about me." The elegant features contorted. "She and I had a life, for your information, we had something you're too young and ignorant to understand, and it was lasting, it was working, till you happened along and shat all over it."
Jude didn't know what to do. The whole washroom seemed awash with pain, and Kathleen was already out the door.
When Jude found her way back to the table, it was empty. She looked around in irrational panic. Síle wouldn't have left without her, would she? Gone off with Kathleen? That's ridiculous.
She had to ask two different friends of Síle's before she finally tracked her down in the lineup for the coat check. Síle's voice was ragged, but her cheeks were dry. "I was just getting our jackets."
Jude put both arms around her. "What did she say to you?"
"I shouldn't have brought you here: bloody small world," said Síle instead of answering. "She was always so scathing about gay clubs, I never thought—"
"I've had a great time," Jude insisted, which had at least some truth in it.
In Síle's extraordinary four-poster made of copper piping, they had sex half the night, and then Jude slept as if she'd been felled with a club.
In the morning, she took a shower in the narrow tiled stall, which was fine until she was rinsing her hair and the water turned cold all at once. "I should have warned you," said Síle, laughing as she rubbed Jude all over with a big orange towel. "We're a cradle of civilization, but our plumbing's rubbish."
"That's okay," said Jude, "it woke me up."
Síle's house always rang with music; there were speakers in every room. It was good music, everything from salsa to Bach, but it never stopped. Jude was tempted to ask for a little quiet time, but when in Rome...
After what Síle called "a dirty great fry-up," they went walking downtown, along the docks; Jude smelled Guinness brewing, at one point, and then a waft of the sea coming upriver. Plants spilled down stone walls; she recognized clematis, and Síle managed to identify a red one as fuschia. She pointed out to Jude a bewildering assortment of cathedrals, crypts, and Georgian buildings. The streets were thick with bodies; people pushed past muttering "Sorry" (if anything). There was an old man with a twitch shouting obscenities, and a woman preaching out loud on an upturned crate.
They were crossing a busy road to Trinity College when Síle paused on a traffic island. "This is it. The holy spot."
"Which holy spot?"
"I was thirteen. This girl at school, Niamh Ryan—"
"As in the gal with the golden hair who lured Oisín over the sea?"
Síle laughed. "I suppose. But this Niamh had flaming copper hair. We weren't best friends or anything, but I always knew where she was in the classroom, without looking; I could hear what she was saying from twenty feet away."
"Ah." Jude remembered crushes like that.
"This one time, Christmas shopping, we bumped into each other. Niamh's bus stop was on Fleet Street and mine was on Nassau Street," said Síle, pointing in opposite directions, "so I said I'd walk her halfway, but we couldn't agree exactly where halfway was, so we ended up on this traffic island. It was freezing—well, by Irish standards!—and there was even a sprinkle of wet snow; we kept shrieking 'Snow!' and trying to pick it up. We stood here all afternoon talking, till it was dark. I was numb to the knees, because I was in tights and court shoes, but I wouldn't have moved off this spot if a bomb had gone off."
Jude nodded. "The first time you have a conversation like that—you feel like you've been slapped awake."
"Exactly!"
They wound up having a drink in a quiet, shabby pub, "the last one that hasn't been overrun by twenty-year-old millionaires," according to Síle.
"I do kind of get it about cities, you know," Jude told her. "The vrumm, vrumm, all that rough energy spilling over..."
"You're adapting surprisingly well for a country girl," Síle teased her.
"There's this bit in the Koran—"
"Oh, getting very nondenominational all of a sudden."
Jude quoted, "'Live every moment in this world as if you were a traveler in a strange land.' Which I guess means, noticing everything."
"Or it could mean, always constipated," Síle suggested, sipping her martini. "I spend my working life with 'travelers in a strange land,' and they're a tense bunch."
Jude kissed her cherry-red lips.
They had cod and chips while waiting for the musicians to start playing. There were fiddles and a banjo and a hand drum pronounced bow-rone. Síle texted her friend Marcus twice—it was an irritating habit, but one Jude knew better than to object to—and at eleven he turned up, tall and baby-faced, in a smart pale brown suit.
"I thought you might be at Pedro's for the weekend," said Síle, hugging him.
"No no," he said, deadpan, "I was down in Leitrim, weeding my cabbages, but as soon as I got your text I saddled the heifer and galloped across the country."
Jude grinned at him and held out her hand.
"Sure I wouldn't have missed my chance to meet the famous Canadian," he said, leaning to give her a kiss on the cheek. "As a keen observer of the O'Shaughnessy, I can tell you I've never seen her quite so smitten. She could barely find your homeland on a globe, before, but now she plagues us with trivia she finds online, like all the Canadians that nobody knows are Canadian."
Síle took a breath. "Joni Mitchell, Mary Pickford, William Shatner—"
"Stop it now, girl," he said, "or you'll have to be slapped."
Settling in Ireland, Marcus told Jude, was the natural course of action for maverick Englishmen. He'd been a flight attendant for a British airline, then for another based in Chicago, before taking a year off to work for a whole-food co-op in Sydney. "Then a Dubliner dragged me over here for Pride '9
3—to celebrate the decriminalization of gay sex—and I discovered that I had an inner Irishman."
"More than one, if I recall," said Síle lewdly.
"So you just ... stayed?" Jude asked, fascinated by the idea of a weekend that lasted a lifetime.
He nodded. "Now I'm a Paddy, to all intents and purposes; my mother complains I can't say my Ts anymore! I love being settled, voting in elections, knowing who to cheer for in the Olympics..."
Síle snorted. "Much good it'll do you. Ireland may be littered with Nobel Prizes, but we're hardly world rulers in sport."
"Last orders," called the barman, "last orders."
"Is it closing already?" asked Jude, startled. She was digging notes out of her wallet, but Marcus slapped her hand away. "Síle hasn't given me a chance to spend any of my euro yet," she protested. "I feel like a gigolo."
"Pity about you," said Síle. "Save them for next time."
"Síle," said Marcus, holding out a note, "I can't seem to get off my fat arse..."
As soon as she was gone he turned to Jude. "So what are your plans?"
"For the rest of the weekend?"
"No, long-term."
That threw her. "I don't think we've got any. Yet."
"Fuck, listen to me," said Marcus, throwing back the dregs of his pint, "Mr. Barrett of Wimpole Street! It's just that I couldn't bear her to get her heart broken." His gray eyes were very searching.
"Me neither."
"And with these long-distance things, there's potential for disaster."