"I'll take your bag up," said Rachel.
"It's all right—"
Rachel hurried off with it. Jude followed her into the hall, watched as her slippered feet disappeared up the narrow stairs. There was something askew about the woman's walk. Acid pooled in Jude's stomach. In her mind's eye, a plane plummeted through the clouds.
Genii Loci
To live in one land, is captivity.
To run all countries, a wild roguery.
—JOHN DONNE
"Elegy 3: Change"
One night at the end of January, Síle and Kathleen were sitting in a pub in Dublin's Smithfield Market. Outside the window, gigantic poles bore flaming gas torches; light gleamed across the scoured cobbles. "The architect won some prize, didn't he?" said Kathleen, sipping her wine.
"Did he? It looks like Colditz to me. I used to love walking down here on Saturdays to buy my veg, when it was a real market," said Síle.
Kathleen tucked a creamy strand behind one ear. "I don't know why you bother; they're always rotten by the time I turn up to cook them."
"They're decorative," said Síle, smiling. "And then the bloody Corpo pretty much did away with the horse fair too. I miss the surrealism of bareback lads clattering down my street. Gentrification's grand when it means people like me moving into the inner city," she added with a touch of self-mockery, "but not when it means scouring away every bit of colour or grit."
"Oh, Stoneybatter still has too much grit for me," said Kathleen with a little shudder.
Though they'd been together for—what was it?—almost five years now, Kathleen had never expressed an interest in moving in; she still kept her high-ceilinged Georgian flat in Ballsbridge, around the corner from her tennis club. So Síle got to have a partner and her house to herself, which most days seemed the best of both worlds, despite the rancid spinach.
Her gizmo played "Leaving on a Jet Plane." After a brief exchange with her friend Jael, she rang off and said, "Domestic disaster, another fifteen minutes."
"There's the real difference between the New Ireland and the Old," said Kathleen: "Mobiles let your friends tell you how late they're going to be, as if that absolves them."
"Last night I got talking to a passenger who wanted to feature me in a piece on Ireland since the Celtic Tiger."
"Oh yeah? He wasn't just chatting you up?"
"She," Síle corrected her; she liked it that Kathleen still got proprietorial. "Can't you just imagine? 'Veteran crew member Síle O'Shaughnessy, chic at thirty-nine, tosses back the hip-length tresses she owes to her deceased mother's Keralan heritage,'" she ad-libbed.
Kathleen took it up. "'People are just people, under the skin,' laughs Indo-Hibernian Síle as she wheels her smart green carry-on across Dublin Airport's busy departures level.'"
"Bustling departures level."
"Thronged and bustling."
"'Her soignée blond life-mate, Kathleen Neville," Síle added, "is a senior administrator in one of the vibrant Celtic capital's top hospitals...'"
Kathleen grinned at that. "God, we're ungrateful mockers. In our student days, didn't we sit around griping that Ireland was trapped in the nineteenth century, and then the minute the money flowed in and it jumped to the twenty-first—"
"We've a lot to be ungrateful for, especially in Dublin," Síle protested. "You pay an arm and a leg for a fragment of sea bass, everybody's stressed and rude and booked up a month in advance..."
"At least you're not the only brown face anymore," Kathleen pointed out.
"That's true. In fact, compared to the women in chadors I hardly look foreign at all. Hey, did I tell you what happened to Brigid?"
"Which Brigid?"
"You must have met her at parties, she's ground staff. Black hair, tans easily, but County Cavan all the way back. She was on a bus the other day, got told, 'Go home, Paki bitch!'"
Kathleen looked revolted.
"She and I had a laugh about it. You have to laugh," Síle added after a second.
Kathleen covered a yawn with short cream nails and gulped the last of her wine. "I have to go to bed. If Anton and Jael do ever turn up—"
"They'll be here in a minute, sure."
"I don't wait an hour for anyone, sweetie. Give them my best."
"Okay," said Síle a little glumly. "I shouldn't be that late."
"I doubt you'll wake me." Kathleen bent to kiss her.
"We'll have a lovely breakfast."
"Sorry, I've an early budget meeting. Coffee in bed, anyway," Kathleen promised. She turned back to say, "Does the cat need another of those pills?"
"Oh yeah, bless you."
Through the pub's huge windows Síle watched her heading for the taxi rank, her blond head and sleek camel coat disappearing in the crowd; though fit, Kathleen saw no point in walking ten minutes through dark and dirty streets. Síle felt a little clenching of guilt for not going home with her. But then, Kathleen could have stayed long enough for one drink with their friends—your friends, she'd probably say.
Her gizmo showed a text from Orla inviting her to John and Paul's school production of The King and I, and yes, thank god Síle was off that day, not like the last three auntly occasions: Keep me a seat, she shot back. Her thumb twinged—too much texting—but she ignored it. A name she didn't recognize turned out to be a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend at a conference on cultural hybridities in Warsaw, wanting advice on restaurants: Síle checked her file and sent back a quick recommendation.
What a wordy species humans were, it struck her. Not content with singing and lecturing and gossiping and phoning strangers to offer them the opportunity to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime special offer, they also wrote. What a Babel! They scribbled anniversary cards and memos, epics and obituaries, lyrics and encyclopedia entries, books of affirmations and smut, and all for what? To reach each other, to convince, beg, placate, reassure. To stay in the loop.
That time Síle's last PDA had crashed and she'd lost her whole address book ... it made her neck go rigid to remember. She'd felt like a diver whose air hose had got tangled.
She saved the text from Marcus till last, as her former colleague was her favourite man in the world (well, after her father). "Will try make it for quick one, have major news!" Síle stared at the words. Had he landed a great job? But Marcus liked his freelance technical drawing. His landlady was putting him under pressure to move out of his Dun Laoghaire flat, she knew, so maybe he'd managed to find something halfway affordable, if such a thing still existed in Dublin.
Still no sign of Jael and Anton. She called up the electronic digest of the Irish Times, and paused at a dispatch from the paper's woman in Baghdad. What peculiar lives foreign correspondents lived: dodging shrapnel, scribbling notes in the supermarket. They were never meant to quite settle in, Síle supposed; the moment they felt at home in the new country, they might forget how to explain things to their faraway readers.
Which somehow reminded her of Jude Turner, as a surprising number of things did. It had occurred to Síle, on and off over the month of January, to track down that little museum online and lash off a greeting, maybe in the flippant form of a cod genealogical query or something. But no, best to leave it as a self-contained brief encounter at an airport, one of the serendipitous side effects of travel.
It did bother Síle slightly that during that breakfast at Heathrow she hadn't come out with the usual phrase, "my partner Kathleen." But really, she wasn't obliged to discuss her domestic or undomestic situation with everyone she met. She'd never see the girl again, so what did it matter?
Long-limbed, Jael strode out of the crowd. "Muchos apologos," she cried, landing a kiss on Síle's cheek, "babysitter fell off his bike doing wheelies to impress Iseult. So what's the craic, what's the story?"
"Hello at last," said Síle. Jael's dark red curls were cut shorter than usual around her freckled face, and long rods of silver hung from her earlobes. When she took out her lighter, Síle clicked her fingers.
Jael s
lapped it down with a groan. "I keep forgetting the bloody ban. We're living in a police state."
"Have you thought of just giving it up?"
"I wouldn't dream of letting the State bully me into anything," said Jael virtuously. "No, it did cross my mind when I turned forty, but it seemed too late to bother my arse."
Anton slid into the booth with three full glasses. "Sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you on your tod, Síle?"
"Oh yeah, is Kathleen in the loo?" Jael scanned the pub belatedly.
"Actually, regrets, she wasn't feeling great," said Síle, aware of stretching the truth.
"Is it this weird lurgy that's going the rounds?" asked Anton.
She shook her head. "Mad busy at the hospital, as ever. Speaking of which, did you drive the lad to Casualty?"
"Did not," Jael snorted. "Stuck a few Band-Aids on him and told him not to ring unless he bleeds through them."
Anton straightened his tie. "I'm still not a hundred percent convinced about a male babysitter."
His wife knuckled him on the thigh. "I refuse to have this argument again. It's not teenage boys doing all the child abuse, it's priests and straight men like you."
"What, me personally?" He rolled his eyes at Síle. "As if I'd have the time or energy. Quick wank in the shower once a fortnight, if I'm up for it."
"Conor's a pet," said Jael. "I bet Yseult keeps him up half the night playing 'Demon Quest.'"
"That's your fault, by the way," Anton told Síle.
Síle nodded. "I'd never have downloaded it for her if I'd known my godchild had such an addictive personality."
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," said Jael, complacent.
"Marcus, my man." Anton stood up to give their tall, shaven-haired friend a hug.
"Nice jacket," Jael murmured, "though that shirt's all wrong with it."
"Nice haircut, shame about the face," the Englishman countered, squeezing onto the banquette.
Síle made room for him and kissed him on the ear. "So tell, tell. Apparently he has major news."
"You got laid," Jael decided. "You have an evil glow about you."
Marcus smiled, and scratched his head.
"That wouldn't count as major," Síle objected.
"Depends who it is. What about a celebrity? Maybe he's bagged some singer from a boy band."
Marcus made a face. "I've never fancied chicken. Maybe when I'm older; they say when you hit forty, you develop a taste for cradle-snatching."
"What a horrible prospect!" said Síle, who was going to pass that milestone in October. Her mind strayed back to Jude Turner. She'd looked early twenties, but how could you be the curator of anything at that age?
"Getting laid mightn't be major news," Anton put in, "but getting an actual boyfriend would."
"Give it a rest, lads," said Marcus, sheepish. "I like being single."
"Do you remember that time in the Stag's Head when some girl of all of nineteen claimed to be celibate?" Síle asked him. Turning to the others, she said, "Marcus wanted to know was she celery or halibut."
"Bet that threw her," said Jael with a cackle.
"What's—"
His wife interrupted Anton. "Oh you must have heard that one."
"Celery's when you say no to everyone," Marcus explained; "halibut is when no one'll have you."
"And you're still celery," Síle assured him.
"Crisp and crunchy."
"You never told us your news," Anton complained.
"Okay, here goes. I am the proud owner of a picturesque hovel in the North West."
A Silence. "Northwest what? Northwest Dublin, meaning somewhere near Stoneybatter?" Síle asked without much hope.
"The North West, meaning the wilds of County Leitrim."
She dropped her face into her hands.
"Sorry, ducks," Marcus said.
"You don't sound one bit sorry," Jael pointed out.
"I can't help being excited," Marcus protested. "A great big house of my own! And it's time I got out anyway, this city's becoming a hole."
"But it isn't fair, I've lost half my friends to the sticks," Síle protested. "Trish's doing shiatsu in West Cork, Barra's tele-working in Gweedore ... I know Dublin's insane unless you've the money for it, but do you all have to go so far and seem so happy about it?"
"You won't lose me, flower; I'll come up for weekends." Marcus knotted his fingers into hers. "For me it was about turning thirty-five."
"What's the big deal about thirty-five?" demanded Jael.
"You know, half the alotted three score and ten. The day after my party I was in my poky flat in Dun Laoghaire spritzing my little pots, and I suddenly thought, 'Sod this, I could have an orchard!'"
Well, what could Síle say to that? She shook her heavy ponytail off her shoulder and drained her drink, but it tasted like ammonia.
"Fair play to you, boyo," said Anton.
"When I got kicked out of home and went off backpacking," Jael remembered, "I used to tell people I'd shaken off Mother Ireland's bony claws for good. I thought I'd settle in Berlin or Athens, or never settle at all."
"Shows how little we know," said Marcus.
"I never chose to come back to Dublin," she went on with a frown, "I think I just dropped in one Christmas and got stuck. And now look at me! The career, the house, the husband, the child, like anchors shackling me to the spot."
"You could call it kismet," Síle suggested.
"Oh, spare me the Hindu baloney," said Jael. "It's just a long-term accident."
Anton kissed her on the jaw.
"Now that's exactly why I want to pick for myself where to live," said Marcus, "instead of letting some job or man do it."
"Have you photos?" asked Jael.
He hesitated. "They'd only mislead you."
"You mean it looks like a rubbish heap."
"Let's just say it needs some love."
As Jael interrogated him about the price and other specifics, Anton murmured in Síle's ear, "I've bollocksed up my laptop again; it won't shut down without poking the little button with a bent paper clip."
"I'll have a wee glance at it next time I'm over," she promised.
"You should charge for spoon-feeding these high-earning ignorami," Jael cut in. "If you ever get sick of the Mile High Club, you could go into business as a techno-nanny."
"I forgot to ask about the inquiry," wailed Marcus. "So you didn't get the heave, I presume?"
"An official reprimand," said Síle with a sigh.
"Bastards."
"Management accepted not only that Mr. Jackson was dead when I was alerted to the situation, but that the doctor on board then advised me that he was hours past the point of resuscitation. However, they insisted that in line with airline policy I should still have run for the defibrillator and hauled him into the aisle, rigor mortis and all!"
"Now that would be just too Fawlty Towers," murmured Jael.
Síle was hot-cheeked remembering it; for all her seniority, her impeccable record, she'd been scolded like a child. Her mind slid sideways to Jude Turner's fine-boned face. (I did offer the passenger another seat, she'd said at the inquiry. But as it was only half an hour till landing, she declined. The doctor did not consider that Mr. Jacksons body posed any health hazard.) She'd mentioned the girl to Kathleen, of course; she'd said something about the Canadian in the seat next to the dead man being a bit rattled, and how Síle'd had to buy her a coffee.
"Oh, it's just typical of the industry these days," Marcus was saying, "all petty regulations and fear of legal repercussions."
"The latest is that we're meant to stop passengers from queuing for the loo, in case they're conspiring to rush the flight deck," Síle told them. "Oh, and we have to watch out for anyone reading the Koran or an almanac! Sometimes nineteen years on the job feels like nineteen years too many."
"Ah, but it must be worth staying for the, whatcha call it, the non-rev travel," said Anton.
"Yeah, you're the only person I know who can wake
up on a rainy day off and wonder, Where will I fly to?," growled Jael.
"Though that was a bigger deal in the days before cheap flights," Marcus pointed out.
"You needn't gripe," Anton told his wife, "you were in Trieste last weekend."
"That was business. We got that EuroJoyce Festival gig, by the way, Síle; it's a two-month campaign, megabudget."
"Good on you!"
"Business, meaning champagne breakfasts," said Anton, "while Ys and Daddy were choking down stale Bran Buds at home."
Síle wriggled her way to the bar for the next round. She looked back at the animated faces of her friends. Jael was reapplying her brown lipstick in a tiny mirror and jabbing at Anton with her elbow at the same time. He was going a little silvery around the temples. Jael, she happened to know, would be entirely gray by now if it weren't for expensive monthly applications of Malaysian Cherry. In her charcoal pinstriped jacket she looked so ... worldly, was that the word? Her friend had dressed so much more wildly in the days when Síle had first known her, as a perpetual student living off cheques from her parents' stud farm. Of course, Jael had been a lesbian back then, all battered leather and ties from Oxfam.
That was the early nineties, before the boom turned everything speedy and pricey, before Jael blagged her way into the business and set up Primadonna Publicity. And before Anton. Síle thought back to the phone call in the middle of the night: I've said I'll marry him, the fat-bottomed guy in middle management. Do you think I'm out of my tree? For as long as Síle had known them, Anton and Jael had yapped at each other like dogs. Especially when Yseult was born: Motherhood had sent Jael reeling. (The creature pisses through everything I put on her!) But their marriage seemed as solid as any other.
Then again, who could tell from the outside whether something was built on quicksand or rock? You could know a friend all your life and still find it a complete mystery why he or she loved this particular individual, out of all the people in the world. What did the two of them whisper to each other under the duvet? Was one of them in charge, or was there a secret power-sharing agreement? And as to whether a partnership would last, well, you might as well toss a coin. Síle had seen gorgeous, tender romances founder on the smallest rocks, and septic yokings linger on till death did them part. Couples she'd thought were perfectly content had broken up and confessed to years of complicated misery; there was an awful privacy about relationships, even in these days of tell-all phone-ins.