He’s nearly crying. I sit beside him and stroke his arm.
‘I never knew someone to care so much about something,’ I say.
‘It’s dreadfully unfashionable these days to care. Look. I really want to see you again. I want to bring you out collecting. Experience it with me. Be open-minded.’
I think about us, running around a meadow, the sun shining as we wear white and frolic. It seems quite a nice fantasy. ‘Okay.’
He kisses me zealously. I’m not sure whether to get back into bed.
I leave his place and go, light-headed, into the white-skied day.
Kim is crying in the kitchen.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘We’ve ended it, Nat,’ she bawls.
‘What?’ I feel like I’m going to fall over.
‘Yeah. We had a chat. I never knew. Pete doesn’t want to have kids, now, in the future, ever. I didn’t know. There’s no point us staying together. How did we not talk about this?’
‘Oh fuck.’
‘Yeah. I’m not saying I want kids but I’m open to it. I’m open to what might happen. He’s not. No way. Not with me. Not ever.’
I think about Vincent. How is it that overnight, I’m more advanced in a relationship than Kim?
We spend the day watching full series of comedy shows. She sporadically bursts into loud sobs. She leaves the room to clean her face and apologizes when she comes back. Her skin is blotchy and her eyelids are swollen.
‘It’s okay, Kim, let it out. Will I order some takeaway?’
‘I’m not hungry. Don’t want food.’ She sniffles and rubs her eyes. ‘So how was the third meeting? I’m sorry, I never asked you. I forgot.’
‘It was good. Or weird. I’m not sure.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think he’s a hipster anymore. I don’t think this is about image. It’s lifestyle. He’s into the olden ways. I don’t know if I am.’
‘You’re not seeing him again?’
‘No. I didn’t say that. We had sex. It was good, Kim. Really good.’
‘Yeah?’
I nod. ‘Kind of amazing in the end.’
‘You are seeing him again?’
‘I dunno, Kim. He’s a bit strange but the power of the O compels me.’
‘The power of the O would do that indeed,’ she says and cries again.
Vincent wears a cyclist’s uniform – black T-shirt and black pedal pusher-style pants for our collecting date. I discover he gets his clothes bespoke sewn for him.
We take a public bus out to a field close to a river, somewhere on the outskirts of Dublin near Meath.
We walk to where the sun and shade meet and stalk an area for butterflies. It could be very romantic in the setting, with the long grass and flowers beginning to bloom, but Vincent is intensely focused on the activity and everything feels formal.
He creeps up on a butterfly resting on a leaf. He positions his net under it then swings it up and turns the handle. The butterfly is caught. He folds the net over so the butterfly can’t escape.
He has a box to persuade the butterfly into and, when it goes in, he slides the lid across it.
‘Do you want to try to identify it?’ He hands me the box and an Audubon guidebook.
‘Do you not know what it is?’ I ask.
‘I do,’ he says. ‘But it’s fun for you.’ He investigates the underside of the leaves for eggs.
I identify it as a holly blue. I feel slightly nauseous as it struggles to spread its wings. It’s trapped, batting the glass, dying.
I open the lid and the butterfly whooshes upwards at me, nearly brushing against my face and flies away.
‘Vincent, I don’t want to do this,’ I say. I back away, holding the guidebook out for him to take.
Kim springs on me when I return to the flat. She has a full face of make-up on but is in her pyjamas.
‘We should go somewhere. I’ve been thinking about getting the hell away from Dublin for a couple of weeks until these disturbing feelings have passed. You know that saying, “Don’t sleep around in your hometown.”’
‘No?’
‘Well, it’s a saying. Look at what travel’s done for you. It’s made you a much more together person. You even joined a gym. You even instructed lessons. In fitness.’
‘Travel forced me to be my own friend because it was too fucking lonely not to be.’
‘Yes. That. I need that. An enormous part of me has been ripped away. The Pete part of me. It’s gaping and bloody and I don’t want to be a mess in Dublin. I have to live here.’
‘Aren’t we so privileged.’
‘Maybe but let’s go. You’re not committed to those temp jobs you do here. You like travel.’
‘Where?’
‘Peru?’
‘I don’t know, Kim.’
She pulls a baby voice on me. ‘All I’ve done for you over the years. Can you not return me some kindness? Remember when you were this way? How can you forget that?’
‘I don’t forget it, Kim, I’m grateful to you, you know that.’
‘I know but please, please, I don’t want to go alone. I’m too scared. Do you not want to go because you’ve a boyfriend now? Is that the story?’
‘I don’t have a boyfriend.’
‘You want to stay here with your boyfriend and chase butterflies around the Phoenix Park with not a care in the world?’
‘No. He’s not my boyfriend. I doubt we’ll even meet again.’
‘Well, let’s go, the two of us.’
‘I promise I’ll consider it but let me sleep on it.’
‘How did it go with Vincent today?’
I sigh. ‘I don’t think he’s right for me. I don’t get him. I’d only try to change him and that’s not fair.’
‘Will you have a go on your Tinder, let me see who’s out there?’
‘Okay,’ I say. She nestles in beside me on the couch. I click into the app and left swipe a few profiles.
And there he is.
I try to turn the phone away but she’s seen it.
‘My fucking god, show me that, Natalie,’ Kim says and goes for my hand.
‘No, Kim. Don’t.’ I throw the phone away from me, the other side of her, onto a cushion. ‘It was nothing.’
‘Show me the fucking phone right fucking now,’ Kim screeches.
My heart pounds. I don’t move.
She pounces and takes the phone from the cushion. She opens her mouth. A high decibel banshee shriek comes from her.
‘That absolute bastard.’ She makes the piercing noise again. ‘He’s using pictures I took of him. He doesn’t even have hair anymore.’
‘Kim, I’m so sorry,’ I say.
‘That picture is from our anniversary, when we went to Porto, three years ago.’ She holds the phone up to me. ‘The bald catfish lying mother—’ and then she breaks down. She falls onto the floor, crying hard, her whole body heaving.
I left swipe Pete and turn my phone off. I go down onto the floor beside her and rub her back.
Peru it is.
Rub
‘We rise at 3 a.m., have breakfast, and pack. Then we go to the permit controls, wait to enter and get to the Sun Gate for dawn. It is the famous viewpoint for Machu Picchu, the one you see in pictures.’
There’s a murmur around the table. We’re excited, and sad, that this experience is drawing to a close.
The porters serve a watery vegetable soup and a tough brown bread for starters. I slurp the liquid from the metal bowl and lube up bread with oil instead of butter.
Our tour guide, Eduardo, eats with us and continues, ‘I want you to know that we need to be awake and out on time. If the porters miss their trains, they will have to pay over a hundred dollars to get the next train. This is paltry money to people like you, but to them, it would leave them in debt and their families would starve for the coming year.’