But love, she thought later, is supposed to exault you, to energise you. This love was packaged in wave after wave of misery. Being with him rendered her bleakly disconsolate and not being with him glazed her in yet more desolation. The joy was sporadic, the guilt permanent.
Some people, she reflected that night, lying in bed with her brain whirring, were able to make it work. They fell in love with people who reciprocated. They invented lives together – homes, children, pets, sun-and-sand holidays, Sunday lunches with other couples. Why not her? Why couldn’t she fall in love with a man who was available – that would be a flying start. Start as you mean to go on, isn’t that what they say? No wonder she was toppling over hurdles. But it was all a matter of luck, Helen concluded resentfully, and she’d been short-changed.
The theorising and labelling and deconstructing and attempting to make sense of something that defied definition came later, however. For now she was drinking latte, content to feel his shoulder against hers. Body heat – no comfort could match it. He brought her a scone and jam, she knew she’d never be able to eat it tidily and ignored it until he cajoled her to slice and nibble it.
‘You don’t eat enough,’ he scolded. ‘There isn’t an ounce of flesh on you. You need someone to look after you.’
‘There’s no one to do that. I must be more trouble than I’m worth,’ she shrugged, but her heart was singing.
‘Do you remember when we all used to go on holidays to a leaky caravan in Tramore?’ asked Patrick.
She rolled her eyes and giggled. Theirs was invariably the wettest fortnight of the summer, the first two weeks in July – decreed by Helen’s mother from habit because her parents had always taken her away then. But her mother grew up in Belfast and Helen’s grandparents had wanted to avoid the North’s tribal tensions during the run-up to the Orange parades on the Twelfth; it was hardly relevant in Ballydoyle, a mote of a village in County Kilkenny.
‘Who could forget Tramore: Aran cardigans over our swimsuits and goosebumps among the freckles- the epitome of the Irish summer?’ said Helen.
‘Do you ever go to Tramore at all now?’ He tapped his spoon against the handle of his cup.
‘Haven’t been for years. The last time I was there we were on our way to the Burren – I know it was a convoluted route – and stopped off for chips. It looked seedy and peeling but it was out of season, and I’ve heard the place is buzzing now.’
‘Shall we go? Will we jump in the car and head off?’
Helen looked at him in wonder. ‘Tramore in late January – have you been so long in London you’ve forgotten what it’s like, Patrick?’
‘Come on, it’s the best time. Think of the Atlantic breakers, the salt air, the strip-the-flesh-from-your-bones freshness of it all. We can go into the amusement arcade and shove coins into the claw machine, win you a cuddly toy instead of all the gobstoppers we ended up with as kids. I’ll buy you an ice-cream cone with everything on top.’
His enthusiasm was infectious.
‘Let’s do it,’ she concurred.
However, with her agreement, his get-up-and-go stood up and left. His excited expression evaporated, he clattered his cup against the sugar bowl. ‘It’s too late in the day.’
Did he mean literally or figuratively? she wondered.
‘We’d never reach there before dark,’ he added. ‘We’ll do it another time.’
‘Sure,’ she agreed, knowing there’d be no other time.
All they had was now. There was no future for them. Certainly not as lovers; she didn’t think as friends – that required a mental somersault she was incapable of executing. And comradeship was unsafe. It offered intimacy and they needed distance.
She was word-perfect on the theory, no bother to her, it was this business of executing it that foxed her. So when they loitered on the pavement after their coffee, and instead of turning his steps in the direction of his hotel Patrick walked towards her car, she didn’t object. Helen should have pointed out he was going the wrong way but she held her tongue.
Only five more minutes, she promised herself. That’s not too much time to steal for ourselves; as remains of the day go, it’s meagre enough.
At the car she paused and turned to him. ‘Goodbye then. It’s for the best. And for what it’s worth, I truly think we’re doing what’s right.’
His bewildered stare implied the decision they’d jointly made in the park was a revelation. Had he blacked out and forgotten? This was ridiculous – they agreed on a course of action. Mutually. She jingled her keys, stuttering something inane like ‘Take it easy’.
‘Can I come home with you? I’d like to see where you live. So I can imagine you there.’
‘No!’ Helen practically screeched the refusal. ‘I mean,’ she amended, ‘the place is a tip. I’ll invite you over sometime. Yourself and Miriam.’ She said the woman’s name deliberately as a reality fix.
He ignored it. ‘Please.’
She compressed her resolve. One of the pair had to be strong and he was caving in like ice under sunshine.
‘Patrick, don’t ask me,’ she supplicated.
‘I am asking.’
He tilted her chin upwards so their eyes met and she felt like submitting because she didn’t want to be firm any more. She didn’t want to be virtuous or to worry about doing what was right. She wanted to love and be loved. And this compulsion was beginning to outweigh any other consideration.
‘Another time.’ Helen willed him to leave her alone, knowing if he pressed her again she’d yield. And a miracle happened – he retreated.
‘I’ll call you,’ said Patrick.
He walked away without a backward glance. She watched him until he disappeared from sight and then she watched the empty space which his frame had filled. His tall, lean, rapidly moving shape.
She knew she should feel relief at averting something they’d both regret when the insanity passed. But she was conscious of desolation and the prescience that unfinished business dangled between them. As this certainty over Helen she leaned against the car door to steady herself, for she suddenly felt unable to support her own weight.
Dear God, what were they letting themselves in for?
Helen pulled over at a Centra to collect the Sunday papers on her way home. As she wandered along the aisles, lobbing into her basket purchases that she definitely didn’t need and probably didn’t want, the idea of surrounding herself with supplements and a conveyor belt of tea against a backdrop of easy listening music lacked its usual appeal. Molly’s apartment wasn’t much of a detour – she’d hive off there.
Molly was wearing glasses, which meant her hands were too unsteady to negotiate her contact lenses, although at least she was dressed. Sometimes she lasted all day Sunday without prising off her dressing gown.
‘You’re up and about early – it’s only four o’clock,’ said Helen.
By way of response, Molly extended the elastic on her joggers to show she was still wearing her pyjamas beneath. The polar bear ones. ‘I like to keep them on during days when I might have to crawl back under the covers at a moment’s notice. I suspected this might be one of those days,’ she expanded.
Helen followed her through an archway into the kitchen, where unwashed dishes were stacked on work surfaces like mockeries of the tall food trend all the rage a few years previously.