The Rachel Incident(49)

James rang me. He was on lunch break from his shift, which had started an hour after mine, and had been told the news about my firing.

“Rache, are you all right? Where are you? Why didn’t you call?”

“I’m fine,” I said breezily, stretching out the vowel sounds. “I’m at the Harrington-Byrnes’.”

“What? Why?”

“To get drunk.”

“What? With Fred?”

I wasn’t sure how much of his side Deenie could hear. Her eyes were still closed.

“Rachel, you’re being annoyingly elusive,” James barked. “What’s going on?”

“I’m fine! Let’s talk later!” I hung up before he had time to argue.

Dr. Byrne was jogging back across the lawn with the SPF. Deenie opened her eyes.

“My housemate,” I said. “Checking to see if I was okay.”

“You call us the Harrington-Byrnes?” Deenie asked, sounding amused. She smeared the cream on her freckled arms. “Why?”

“What does your housemate do?” Fred asked. Too upbeat, too curious, too clearly for show.

“He works in the bookshop,” I said, resenting the theatre of this. “How did you guys get together, anyway?”

It was an important life lesson to learn, and I’ve used it a lot since: if you’re looking to distract a couple, just ask them how they met.

She had been his student, of course. That much I already knew. He was slightly young for a professor; she was slightly old to be doing a master’s. They bonded over Thackeray. Their love affair had the thrill of being somewhat controversial but not exactly scandalous. It was a story littered with “somewhats” and “slightlys.”

The evening grew cold, and we went back inside. That should have been the cue for me to go home, but I was too drunk to think about it. We danced on the kitchen tiles as it got dark, and I said a lot of things. About my parents, my brothers, and eventually, about Carey. I wept on top of Deenie, slouched on her arm while we sat on the squashy green couch.

“I just feel like I want to staple him to the ground, you know? Like, nail his shoes down,” I said, tears slipping off my chin and onto her. “I feel like we could really do love properly, if he let me.”

I don’t know why I was so upset. Carey and I were, technically, still together. But he couldn’t be relied on, and I needed so badly to have one thing I could rely on. The uncertainty overwhelmed me.

“Oh, baby.” She stroked my hair. “Men are awful. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. I’m sorry.”

“He’s not even awful. He’s very nice.”

“What’s he like, exactly? You’ve never said.”

“He’s very kind,” I explained, wiping my nose with my hand. “And very weird. Can I call him?”

“Off our phone?”

“Mine is out of credit.”

“Sure.”

I lay back on the green couch as she passed me the portable house phone. I rang Carey’s mobile and he picked up, suspicious of the ROI number. He softened when he heard it was me, and sounded glad that I was drunk and being taken care of.

“I know you think I’m too young,” I said. “But I think we could make a real go of love.”

“Yeah,” he said grimly. “Yeah, I know.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My mother has cancer.”

“What?” I spluttered. “I thought she was having tests?”

“She was. Tests for cancer. She has cancer. Pancreas.”

“Oh, Care. I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

“I’m…I don’t know. Dad is in bits.”

“Of course, of course.”

“The girls are all coming home tomorrow. But they all have families, Rache. Babies of their own. I’m the only one…” He trailed off. I remembered our conversation, back in the bread shop. James Carey was a dosser, a born dosser. His attempts at adult life had played out like Peter Pan trying to trap his shadow. In that one unfinished sentence, he was coming to the realisation that some people create their own adulthood, and some people have it thrust upon them. He, it turned out, would be the latter kind of person.

“I need to look after things here, Rachel. I…I don’t know what I can say to you, really.”

“I understand,” I squeaked, the tears falling again.

“I do love you,” he said. “And maybe, when things settle down, you could come up for a bit. Or I’ll meet you in Dublin. But…”

“I get it,” I said. “You need to be there for your family. For your mum.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “I don’t know if I’ll be much use.”

“You will be. Can I call you, still?”

“Rachel, I’ll go mad if you don’t call me. Just once a week, with the news or something. Please. Please don’t drop off.”

I couldn’t believe this reversal. Suddenly he was the one who wanted to nail my shoes to the ground.

“Of course,” I said.

He sounded like he was going to cry. “I have to go now.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I need to.”