The Rachel Incident(23)

“The train station?”

The station was at least a mile away, and back then we never walked anywhere further than college or the bookshop. I sat up, and pulled at the curtains next to my bed. The sky was still morning blue, the trees dark.

“What time is it?”

“Just gone seven thirty.”

“Seven?”

Dr. Byrne was going to Dublin that morning, to some kind of conference relevant to his book. He had told Deenie that he was taking the last train the night before, and used the opportunity to hit up James instead.

“Are you coming in?” he said.

I thought about it. “Have you changed the sheets?”

“Good point. Give me ten.”

I padded downstairs barefoot, feeling like Santa Claus had been. I was awake too early, I had been brought a snack in bed, and someone familiar yet simultaneously mysterious had visited my house while I slept. James had cleaned up the living room, and a new bottle of orange Tropicana and some chocolate buttons were on the side.

I took a long, confused wee. Food was James’s love language, and this much of it indicated that he was feeling at least a little guilty. I didn’t know whether he should. It was too early in the morning to have my thoughts straight about it.

But on the whole, I was curiously unbothered. Not because I was this divinely liberal, unselfish twenty-year-old. I was quite self-obsessed, but I was also used to being passed over. I had learned not to take it personally. I had been almost six foot tall since the age of fourteen. Living with my partially closeted gay friend while he romanced my adored professor was new to me; having a friend fuck my crush was not.

James threw the old sheets down the stairs and the smell of Dr. Byrne fell in waves around me. James never smelled of anything but deodorant and clean cotton; Dr. Byrne had a denser mix of male odour. There was something in it that pinched at the base of your nostril, like nutmeg or cinnamon.

He peered down at me from the top of the stairs. He was already getting back into his sweatpants.

“I know,” he said, watching me sniff the air. “Old Spice. So typical.”

We got into bed.

“What was it like?” I asked.

“Hot,” he said, biting into his breakfast roll. “Did you hear anything?”

“No. Not really.”

He swallowed hard, and a chunk of hash brown stuck in his throat. He swigged some Diet Coke and coughed. “That was my first time,” he said at last. “My first time it not being a first time.”

“You mean it was your first time riding someone for a second time?”

“Yes.”

This was crazy to me. I was a boyfriend girl. Casual sex was still a thing for famous people and girls I was jealous of.

“What did you talk about?”

He raised his eyebrow.

“Come on, you must have said something to each other. He was here hours.”

James looked dreamy and coy. “He said he wasn’t able to stop thinking about me. Since the launch.”

A spike of jealousy. I smoothed it down. “What else?”

“He got his first blow job in Canada from a boy at the farm next door.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“And then he lived in America for a bit and sometimes went to gay clubs.”

“Why won’t he just be gay, then?”

James shot me a look.

“Okay, sorry.”

“He likes women too, though, he said that a lot. I asked him about his wife.”

“Deenie.”

“Yeah.” He bit into his roll again, ketchup smearing on his chin. “He really loves her. She has no idea.”

I felt defensive of poor Deenie. “He can’t love her that much if he’s keeping secrets from her. If he’s cheating on her.”

James started rooting through the plastic Centra bag for paper napkins. He wiped his face. “This is the first time he’s ever gone to a guy’s house. In Ireland, anyway.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” James looked dazed, like the weight of the responsibility was too much. Then he shook it off, literally shaking his head from side to side. “Which is probably a lie.”

I replayed the conversation I had seen them have in O’Connor’s in my mind. I was baffled. After all the posturing I had done, Dorothy Parker and the rest. All of that trying, and the man was willing to break years of heterosexuality after a casual chat with James.

“Are you telling me,” I said slowly, “that Dr. Byrne was willing to put his marriage on the line for some random bookshop chat about DVD players and Fermoy?”

“Lust at first sight, I guess.” It was a very un-James statement.

“He told you that, didn’t he?”

“Let’s watch TV,” he said, and we put on Ab Fab until we both fell back to sleep.





11


THE MAN at the Toy Show had nothing else to say about Dr. Byrne, he only wanted to know if I knew, and I went home as soon as the broadcast was over.

I arrive home and say hello to my husband, who has rather gamely been sleeping in the spare room while my ocean madness plays itself out. He insists, however, that I wake him up to say goodnight if I’ve been out late.

“You seem a bit funny,” he says, stroking my body dozily. I am tucked under his arm, a very big little spoon. “Spooked.”