But there’s a gut inside the body, and it metabolises the atmosphere quickly. Everyone knew that something was wrong, and that the graduation ceremony felt like a forced wedding between a child and a corpse. Like a horrible rite that they all had to sit through to ensure another safe harvest.
I took the scroll, and felt the eyes of every member of the department. How many of them knew about Rachel Murray and the terrible dinner party?
Afterwards, my father broke his silence. “Were you very close with your professors, Rachel?”
“No. Why?”
“Only, after you took your scroll, they couldn’t seem to stop looking at you.”
25
WE ARRIVED AT ISAACS, confused and awkward with one another, and I got a phone call from James. He was supposed to meet us there.
“Listen: I won’t be able to make it. Ben can’t spare me.”
“What?!”
“I’ve sent a replacement.”
“A replacement? Who? James, what are you playing at?”
“Just wait.”
A minute later, James Carey arrived in a navy sports jacket and smiling like a talk-show host. “Hello, my darling,” he said, his hands on my hips. “Christ, don’t you look stunning? Congratulations.”
My parents, desperate for something new to think about, became immediately excited.
“Rachel, who is this?”
I hadn’t seen him since August, and in that time I had both carried and miscarried his baby. I was speechless, hard-blinking and jumpy.
“Hello,” he said, sticking his hand out to my father. “My name is James.”
“Another James?” Mum exclaimed.
“Well, Rachel calls me Carey, but she’s the only one. I wouldn’t dare try to replace the other James. No competition there, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, don’t we know it,” Mum said, already charmed. “It’s James this, James that since last Christmas. We’ve heard of nothing else.”
All of a sudden, my parents and Carey were taking the piss out of me. My love affair with James Devlin, which had apparently tickled them, was being aired out for everyone to enjoy.
“He’s great, though,” Carey said. “He told me where you were today. I phoned him when Rachel said she didn’t want to make a fuss over graduation. So I came down from Derry.”
“From Derry?” Dad said. “Today?”
“Train to Dublin last night, train to Cork this morning.”
“Aren’t you great?” My mother was genuinely impressed. She had never liked Jonathan.
“Well, she worked so hard, didn’t she? Have you read her essays?”
I am told that it was a lovely lunch. I can’t remember if I said a word, or ate anything, or even smiled. All I knew was that I was glad he was there, but not enough to make me happy generally. Happiness felt very far away, and like something only the innocent were entitled to.
Carey turned the whole day around for my parents. He seemed to understand that they needed fun, and lightness, and crab cakes. He spoke reverently about his sick mother, but he didn’t dwell on it. He had funny anecdotes about his father and the rest of his family. He said he didn’t mind being back in Derry at all, and that it was very like Cork, really.
The lunch went on a long time, until the restaurant had to close for the dinner service. My parents kissed me goodbye outside, and my father handed me an envelope. “It’s only a fifty,” he said. “It’s not much, but take yourselves out for a few more jars.”
Carey and I walked down the street and discussed pubs. I leaned into him, my head on his shoulder. The further we were from my parents the more I slouched into him, less for love, and more to stay upright.
“Ey ey ey, what’s going on? Are you legless already?”
I gripped him hard, like I was chaining myself to railings. His tone shifted.
“Are you all right, Rache?” he asked. “Oh God, I was right to come, wasn’t I?”
“Yes,” I murmured.
“What’s wrong, then? Why have you gone all strange?”
“So much has happened, Carey. So much you don’t even know about.”
“Well, come on now, I can’t find out if you won’t tell me. How bad can it be?”
I took him to the pub, and I told him how bad it could be. How I realised I was pregnant after he had left for Derry. How I had not wanted to burden him with my problems, when he was dealing with so many of his own. How I had planned to get a termination, but in the end, didn’t need to. I did not mention the Harrington-Byrnes. It was too complicated, and seemed irrelevant anyway.
It wasn’t, of course. It was deeply relevant. I just wanted to save face where I could.
“I don’t understand,” he said finally. “Why didn’t you say any of this to me? The baby, Rachel. How could you not say?”
“You’ve already got so much going on,” I squeaked. “With your mum and your family and everything. I wanted you to think of me as, like, a fun person.”
He looked appalled. “What does that mean? A fun person?”
“You know, whenever you called, we’d just flirt and talk shite, wouldn’t we?” I said. “I didn’t want to pile another thing on top of you. I didn’t want to become another problem. Another dependent.”
It came out all wrong. He looked more offended than ever. “I don’t look after my mum because she’s a problem or a dependent,” he said. “I look after her because I love her.”
This confused me. “I know.”
“And I love you, too. When you love someone, you sign up for the whole thing. Even if they’re grumpy or weird or sick or if they’re pregnant, Rachel. It doesn’t matter how many things you have on already. You love the whole person.”
He looked at his full pint and sighed. “I don’t think you ever got that.”
Carey was speaking in the past tense already, and it terrified me. “I get that!” I said, my voice going up an octave. “I was always just afraid you might go off me again.”
“Go off you?” he spluttered. “I’ve been mad about you for months. You’ve been the one ignoring my calls. My invites. My…feelings.”
“You went off me once before,” I hit back, more focused on winning the argument than being lovable. “Back in May. You fucked off with no warning.”
“That was once.”
“But it was for weeks.”
“Well, I didn’t think you were that arsed, did I?” he suddenly railed. “You were always running off to be with bloody James. And apparently nothing has changed. His is the only person’s opinion you actually care about, Rachel. Everyone else is just fecking window dressing.”
If only Carey knew the hours, days, I had spent lamenting his lack of interest in me to James. How I dissected his movements, his words, his gestures. I tried to tell him something like this: that I relied on James to decode Carey because Carey was so insistently undecipherable.
“I just don’t believe it, Rachel. I’ve been clear,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve been clear about you the whole time. But you always want it to look a certain way, to get a certain number of texts, to have your little life with James always just so. I can see you, you know. I can see you watching me, noting down everything like the Gestapo, ready to report back so you can deconstruct it all. And it gets irritating. Sometimes I don’t feel like providing you with the material.”