Síle looked away, as if examining the tiny bronze that stood in a niche in the wall.
"You're not—" Jael took her by the jaw. Síle slapped her away. "Have I made you cry?"
"Why, was that your goal for the evening?" she asked, standing up and wiping her cheekbones.
"Ah ducks. I'm a terrible killjoy," said Jael.
That was probably the nearest Síle would get to an apology. "I need to go to bed."
"Don't we all. I've to be up at the crack tomorrow to drive the fucking child to rehearsals; she's Dorothy in this forty-minute version of The Wizard of Oz." Jael couldn't hide the pride in her tone. Standing up with a slight wobble, she pulled on her trench coat. "Lunch next week?"
"Probably not. Busy-busy," said Síle meanly, holding the front door open. When she'd shut it behind Jael, she knelt to unplug the fairy lights.
Flying Visit
Time, you old gypsy man,
will you not stay?
—RALPH HODGSON
"Time, You Old Gypsy Man"
Every time Síle had bid for the Dublin-Heathrow-Detroit run that would have put her within a long bus ride of Jude, she'd lost to someone even more senior who had a sick sister in Michigan. But at last someone else agreed to swap with her for just one run, and from Detroit she hopped on a prop plane to Toronto for the afternoon.
The city hugged the lake like a glittering dress. Jude took a half-day off and rattled up the highway in her Mustang. They met at—Síle's choice—a vintage clothes shop in the heart of Kensington Market. "Wow, what a daring haircut!" she said, when she'd stopped kissing Jude long enough to take a proper look.
Jude rubbed the uneven pattern and laughed. "Last night my old clippers finally quit, halfway across my head."
"I like it," said Síle, pulling her close.
Toronto was full of Indian and Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi faces; it was the first time in years that she'd felt so visually unremarkable, and the effect was oddly relaxing. After half an hour wandering around tattoo parlours and Chinese greengrocers, Síle said, "Let's go to bed."
"I wish," said Jude.
"I've booked us a room for the afternoon."
"You haven't!" Jude's clear eyes looked very young.
At the Honeysuckle Arms, in the gay ghetto, Síle hung up the Privacy, Please! sign, and the world narrowed to a white square. The two of them were starving, sticky, worn out in the strong autumn sunshine that poured in through the broderie anglaise draperies of their antique tester bed.
"I have to go."
Jude kissed the naked inside of Síle's left elbow. "You only just came."
"Let go, badness. Really!"
"Honestly!" mimicked Jude softly. "Don't worry, in a little while we'll hail a cab; it'll get you to the airport in fifteen minutes, twenty max."
"What if there's traffic? Sweetheart, seriously, if I don't catch that short-hop flight I won't be at my plane in Detroit an hour before takeoff."
"It can't take a full hour to trundle the meal carts on."
"I do more than trundle carts..." But Síle was lost already, straying into bliss, her knees dropping her onto the quilt.
Afterward, when she was lying with her face pressed against Jude's delicate collarbone, she held her breath and stayed very still, as if playing hide-and-seek with time.
Jude said she would grab a sandwich, then find a barber to neaten up her head, after she put Síle—still buttoning up various parts of her emerald uniform—into a cab. She was a tiny waving figure in the back window. Síle immediately turned on her music and hit the Shuffle function, but between trying not to worry about being late and feeling her toes curl with remembered pleasure, she didn't hear much.
There was indeed traffic, lots of it; a three-car pileup had brought things to a standstill. It took an hour and ten minutes to get to Pearson Airport. Hurrying past a mirrored wall Síle caught sight of herself, cheeks glowing. The small plane that was to have taken her to Detroit was gone.
When she got through to the flight supervisor on her gizmo, he turned out to be a Corkman she'd never met. He barked at Síle on the line as if she were an escaped convict. "You've ruined the day for nearly three hundred passengers, and that's just this leg, not to mention the knock-on effects."
She bit her lip, tasted lipstick. Síle, get a grip!
"You're on Flight 592 tomorrow morning, that's if you manage to crawl out of bed."
In almost two decades in the job, this was the first time Síle had missed a flight. What had got into her? Jude. She wondered what the report sent to personnel in Dublin would say: irresponsible, unprofessional, unacceptable? This time it was all true.
She shut her eyes briefly as she walked. She was other things, too. She was beloved. She was succulent.
And if she moved fast enough, it occured to Síle now, she might even catch Jude at the barber's, and they could have a whole night together. Maybe their room at the Honeysuckle would still be free, the sheets not even changed...
If Jude weren't such a Luddite, of course, she'd be reachable by mobile, a sudden thought that filled Síle with rage. Still, surely she could track Jude down; no queer ghetto was that big. "Church and Wellesley," she said to the driver. The taxi shot along the road that looped between the city and the dark blue lake. Síle put her head back and thought of everything she hadn't had a chance to do to Jude yet. If she was going to be irresponsible, by god she'd enjoy herself.
There were two barbers and a hair salon on the block where Jude had waved good-bye. Síle popped her head into the first and said, "Excuse me, I'm looking for someone who might have been in for a cut in the last hour—a young woman, white, slim, short hair?"
The Italian gave a mirthless laugh, and Síle realized that she'd probably described half his clientele. She thought of trying to describe the ways in which Jude's slim-boned face was different from all the others, but she realized that lovers saw peculiarly.
Well, surely Jude would have lingered for a coffee before her long drive home? She talked loudly in her head: Hang on, gorgeous. On my way. The afternoon was warm, for all the pumpkin and cornstalk décor in shop windows, and the boys (and occasional girl) sitting in shorts on café steps with enormous iced lattes all seemed to glow with health. She passed a place that offered bubble tea: Would Jude be likely to go in there? Nah, too contemporary.
She should have planted a bug on her lover, slipped a microchip into the almost-grown-over hole in Jude's earlobe, so she'd be able to track her everywhere. What right had the girl to be out of Síle's reach? This was ridiculous; they couldn't miss each other entirely, not after she'd blotted her record by missing a flight for the sake of one last delicious fuck. She suddenly thought of Jude's car, parked behind the Honeysuckle Arms. But when she got there, breathless, the parking lot was full, and none of the cars was a rusty white Mustang.
Then Síle saw her. Walking along in blue denim, head down. "Jude," Síle shrieked. "There you are!" And thundered across the street. But the head lifted and the jaw was too heavy; the haircut belonged to a moody boy whose lip and eyebrow were connected by a light chain. "Sorry," Síle said, laughing, almost sobbing, "I'm really sorry."
She sat with a sour apple martini, watching the crowds go by. The crisp October evening had turned dusty. Later on she had gnocchi with sage, but didn't taste a thing. It occurred to her to go back to the Honeysuckle and ask the nice owners for the same room, but then she told herself that it would do her no good to spend the whole night sniveling into the pillow. Besides, by now it would probably have been rented out to a pair of Minnesotan dermatologists celebrating their thirtieth anniversary.
Instead, Síle taxied back out to the airport, past the darkening disc of the lake. She browsed through the book racks for something to read, but all she could see were titles with time in them: The Time Trap, Recipes in No Time Flat, Finding Time for the Timeless. In the Hilton she watched three episodes of South Park back to back, then turned the TV off and slid down on the pillows. She tried to th
ink of this night as an offering on the altar of love, but she wasn't convincing herself. She wondered whether she'd tell Jude, when she called her from Dublin. (She wouldn't let herself call tonight, in case Jude insisted on climbing back into her car, so tired she'd probably rear-end a truck.) There was no valid reason to mention it at all; it would only cause Jude frustration to know that they'd missed out on a whole night together (and who knew when the next would be?). But Síle would no doubt spill out the whole story, tomorrow, as soon as Jude picked up the phone.
In the bag that held her velvet-lined eye mask, she found a small package wrapped in newsprint. She ripped it open and found a strange, humanoid figure made of flat stones glued together. The note said
Made you this Inukshuk one night when I couldn't sleep. It's an Inuit thing, a beacon for travelers, meaning "meat buried here" or "try coming this way" or "evil spirits begone" or maybe just "hang on."
All yours, keep believing, Jude
Spring Forward, Fall Back
And once I went
over the ocean,
Being bound for
the proud land of Spain,
Some singing and dancing
for pleasure,
But I had a heart
full of pain.
—ANON
The Maid with the
Bonny Brown Hair
Sile's fortieth birthday began well, at home in bed, when she opened the parcel with the Canadian postmark and found a tiny Japanese notebook in which Jude had written, one item to a page, four hundred things she loved about Síle.
Your flair for argument.
Your orange eyes.
The way you let Petrushka shred your couch.
Your zest.
Your wrinkled instep...
But then she had to hustle to the airport for her flight to New York, which turned out to be a stinker. High winds on approach made them abort their landing; the plane was diverted to Philadelphia, and sat on the ground for three hours. Food ran out, passengers fumed about missed connections, and one got stuck in the bathroom and went into hysterics. Síle managed to remove the lock with a screwdriver, which would have made a nice story: How I spent my fortieth earning Mrs. Walson from Alabama's eternal gratitude. Except that Mrs. Walson exploded from the tiny bathroom and knocked her down; Síle found herself lying across a passenger's feet, with a twisted knee and orange juice in her hair.
"I've wangled an extra day's layover in New York to rest my knee," she told Jude on the phone.
"I thought you said it was all better."
"Oh it is, but not officially. Meet me there on Tuesday?" she begged.
That little intake of breath that meant her lover was marshaling her stubbornness.
"Come on, for once, just let me pay for everything. I could have post-traumatic stress disorder!"
"You're such a bullshitter," said Jude, laughing. And then, "I'll get the Greyhound, it's cheaper."
Manhattan was a dazzle, a confusion; Síle watched it through the eyes of someone who'd never seen it before. She rode the elevator to the forty-ninth floor of their hotel, and when she let herself in she found Jude curled up asleep in the wide bed, her hair still wet from the shower. Síle stood and watched her. A fairy tale: Snow White in her glass box. She bent over to wake her with a kiss on the eyelid.
They'd meant to hit the town, as they had less than forty-eight hours, but they ended up not leaving the room that night. It had a view of the Chrysler Building, lit up in icy Deco curves. At two in the morning Síle insisted on calling Room Service for her delayed birthday dinner. They had oysters, grilled pear salad, and BLTs served with parsnip chips, a pretentious detail that made Jude laugh like a two-year-old.
Everything was a little too fast and frantic. Síle's body felt like sandpaper, then like mercury. Jude didn't take her hands off her, not for a minute. When Síle went to brush her teeth, Jude followed and held onto her hips.
"Doesn't summertime end tonight?" asked Síle. "Or is it different over here? No, I think I'm right."
"So have we lost an hour?" Downcast.
"Gained," Síle assured her, putting back the hands of her watch. "Look, it's not even three A.M., all over again."
"Spring forward, fall back," murmured Jude, leading her to the bed. "I can never remember which way it goes unless I say that. It's a depressing phrase."
"You think?"
"Like that math problem about the snail that climbs ten centimetres up the well every day but slips down five every night."
They had brunch in a revolving restaurant above Times Square, which moved so slowly you didn't notice until you glanced up and found the view had changed. "I'd have an old house in Florence," Síle decided, "with a week or two of skiing in the Rockies, then Sussex in March to see the bluebells, oh and Sydney for Mardi Gras, and lilac time in New England, then a month in West Cork, then, hmm, Bangalore's pretty nice any time of year because it's so high up. You must see Bangalore, Jude, it's what the future looks like. Maybe late summer in San Fran—I always feel exhilarated there even if it's foggy, it's so improbable the way it's built on all those hills. Autumn in New York—or maybe Toronto, why not, there's the big film fest, and drives to see the leaves," Síle offered, aware that she was juggling the conversation single-handed—"then back to the Med. What do you think?"
"I don't like this game. The whole point seems to be to make you restless," said Jude.
"I was born restless," said Síle with her best approximation of a devilish grin.
"The answer's never going to be Ireland, Ontario, is it?"
"Maybe for the Summer Squash Fair," she said weakly.
"Besides, living's not tourism," Jude pointed out. "We stay in one spot on the planet because of real things like jobs and families, not because of the scent of the bluebells."
Christ, sometimes the girl sounded sixty-five. "Bluebells are real."
"You know what I mean."
"It's only a game," said Síle, taking a bit of bacon from Jude's plate, more to be cute than because she wanted it; it was cool and clammy. "Where I'd really like to live, actually, is a little-known hideaway known as J. Turner."
A pause. "Oh yeah? Whereabouts, specifically?"
"The Inter-Mammarian Plain," Síle suggested. "Or, no, a little valley between Leftleg and Rightthigh."
Jude smiled, after a brief delay, and they went back to their hotel.
Later that afternoon they took the ferry to Ellis Island. "It's great to be arriving by sea, just like the immigrants did," said Jude, leaning over the rail.
"Who would you be?—if I'm allowed any more Let's Pretend?" Síle asked cautiously. "What about a humble but hard-working button girl?"
Jude shook her head. "I'm a tomboy who's passing as a sailor because men get twice the pay."
"Cheat!"
"It happened a lot," Jude assured her. "It was doable if you kept your cap tilted down."
"Okay," said Síle, delighted by the image. "And I'm an exotic ayah traveling with a boorish English family, and my dark eyes cannot leave your narrow mysterious form. I discern your secret and we make a pact to run away to the Wild West together the minute we're through customs."
Jude craned up at the green giantess rearing up out of the gray water. "She doesn't look quite as ... welcoming as I expected."
Síle lifted the camera attachment on her gizmo, and its lens went erect like a nipple. "Mm, I know that's meant to be a torch she's holding up, but it looks more like she's saying Stop!"
The Museum of Immigration was vast. On a CD-ROM, Jude found a Shawn O'Shawnassy from 1893 who could easily have been a great-uncle of Síle's.
"His surname isn't spelled the same way," Síle objected.
"They'd have written it down wrong," Jude told her. "Like Bukovski becoming Booker, or Cohen, Cole."
The Interrogation Hall was empty except for a vast Stars and Stripes. A little exhibition hall displayed the tests used to weed out applicants of subnormal intelligence. Síle laughed at thi
s, but when she was doing the Spatial Relations puzzle and Jude said "Ten seconds left," she panicked and couldn't finish it in time. "Well, that'd be me and Great-Uncle Shawn back on the boat."
"How can a world traveler be bad at spatial relations?"
"Ironic, isn't it?"
They read stories of applicants who spent years on Ellis Island, waiting; women who were effectively held prisoner until their menfolk turned up. On their way out they passed a huge pile of old-fashioned trunks and barrows. "Must be Hollywood props left over from some set," said Síle.
Jude looked up from the plaque. "Actually, they're real. Unclaimed baggage."
"No!" Síle stared at the handsome old trunks, bound or nailed shut, and the skinny barrows. She reached for her gizmo. "Pose beside them, sweetie. Look sad."
Jude turned away.
"Go on, go on!"
She shook her head. "I don't feel like playacting."
Síle bit her lip. Every way she turned, she seemed to step on glass.
On the boat they had a dull conversation about solar energy. It was understandable, Síle reassured herself. Days together were so strange, so short. They couldn't be having a fabulous time every minute.
When Síle woke the next morning, the first thing she knew was that it was very early; there was only a faint light at the edge of the curtains. The second thing was that the sound that had woken her was Jude crying.
She enfolded the shaking woman in her arms. "Don't."
"I want a cigarette.'
"Don't cry, love. Don't cry. We still have half a day."
"And after that, when do I get to see you again?"
Síle couldn't answer. She thought of saying "Soon," but it sounded feeble. Darkness nibbled at the edge of the word.
Jude sat up, hunched around her knees.
"Do you really want a cigarette?" Síle asked.
Her lover shook her head and stared out the window, where a hungry-faced gull shot by.