“Outside the house?”
“Outside this room.”
Nate stood, rubbing his hand across his mouth. “OK.”
“I have to get our coats,” Catherine said.
“Yeah, there are some coats,” he said, and he gestured sloppily to the bed behind him. He looked at her. “Why are you kneeling on the floor? Are you praying?”
“That’s right,” Catherine nodded, slowly, deliberately, keeping her voice low and even, and she watched him, kept her eyes on him, as he left the room, and as he did so he was looking at her as though she was completely and certifiably insane.
In the sitting room, the dregs were left: Ed Dunne, and the Doonans, and two or three other people, and James, who was standing on the other side of the fireplace, the side closest to the door, talking very intensely to Julia.
“Coat,” Catherine said, and she handed James his coat, and Nate appeared to help Catherine on with hers.
“Oh, what a gentleman, isn’t he, Catherine?” Ed said drily.
“Catherine and James,” Julia said, with a huge smile. “It’s been such a pleasure. Do you want me to show you where to get a taxi?”
“No, no,” James said. “It’s not far. At least not for Catherine.”
Catherine stared at him. Sobriety seemed to jolt through her. Would he not come back to Baggot Street? It was so close. It made no sense, surely, for him to go all the way back to Thomas Street, not for the sake of a couple of hours — and besides, it had been so nice, cuddled up to him, cozied up to him in the alcove of rugs and roses — would he not, would he not, come and stay?
They called goodbye to everyone, and Julia said she would walk them out, and as she left the room, James went with her — not, Catherine noticed, saying goodbye to Nate, which made her, in turn, want to say to Nate a much more effusive, pointed sort of goodbye.
“I’ll keep praying for you,” she said, putting her arms up to be embraced by him.
“Pray hard, Catherine,” Ed said from the sofa. “Pray long and hard.”
And then she was at the front door, with James and with Julia, and Julia, her new friend, was so nice to her, and seemed to really like and respect her, and told her that she had a beautiful singing voice, and that it mattered nothing at all about the words.
“James,” Nate said, from behind them; from the middle of the big, now empty, central room. They glanced around at him, all three of them, and he beckoned to James, who muttered, to Julia presumably, his apology, and stepped towards Nate with, Catherine thought, something almost businesslike in his eyes. And left alone together now, Catherine and Julia could chat a bit more, and so they did, and Julia was so friendly, so easy to talk to, and when she smiled at Catherine, Catherine felt so much approved of, and when, in the next instant, her gaze traveled over Catherine’s shoulder, and caught on something there, and decided on something — made a very obvious and conscious decision — to come back to Catherine, but looked different as soon as it did so, looked full of something else, some wariness or wryness; when her gaze did this, Catherine knew that it was telling her not to look around, not to look to the middle of the room. Julia’s eyes were fast on hers; they were full, Catherine thought, of the sentence Stay here, and Catherine was so very proud of herself then, because she was quick enough, in that next moment, as she turned towards James and towards Nate, to turn her inward gasp into a noise of amusement, of enjoyment — the noise of someone who took everything in her stride.
“The art of goodbye,” Julia said, from behind her, and Catherine dug up a laugh, and laughed it low in her throat where it sounded so much in control, and she took the movement her shoulders wanted to make, which was to slump, and she made them shrug.
James’s mouth on Nate’s mouth. James’s hands on Nate’s arse. Nate’s hands in James’s hair. Tongues; even in that brief glimpse she could see that there were tongues.
“Well,” Catherine said to Julia, shrugging again, and again Julia smiled. It was probably best now, Catherine thought — how utterly sober she felt, now, how capable, if she had had to, even of driving home — to talk about the weekend, and about what she was doing for the weekend, and that in a few hours, she would take the train home, and yes, she was so much looking forward to seeing her family, and yes, and yes, and yes, and then, once again, Julia’s gaze shifted, and something in it told Catherine she could turn around, now, and there was James, coming towards her, looking past her, and there was the space where Nate had been.
11
In the street, she turned to him. Smiling; she had decided that she would be smiling about it. That this would be her tactic. Laughing, as though what a jape! What a whirl! Parties, who could be up to them? Parties, what silly things happened at them, what comical things, what things, so much fun at the time, but ultimately meaningless, ultimately—
“Don’t, Catherine,” he said, holding a hand up, and her heart, she thought for a moment, actually stopped.
“Don’t what?” she said, forcing herself into a giggle; out it came, like a brace of bells. “James. You snogged him. You—”
“I can’t, Catherine; don’t,” he said, and his hands were to his temples, his fingers pulling at his brow. “Don’t, please.”
“James,” she said, still laughing, but then he looked at her — he blinked at her — and she stopped. “I don’t understand,” she said, trying to take his hands; he shook her off. “I don’t—”
“That was madness,” he said, leaning, with one hand, against a windowsill; possibly the windowsill of the room in which the Doonans and all their remaining guests were still sitting. With a light touch to James’s shoulder, she steered him away, down past the other little houses, all their curtains closed against the dawn.
“Don’t worry about it so much,” Catherine said. “I mean, I know it was mad — it was mad. I mean, you snogged Ed Dunne’s boyfriend!” She tried again for laughter; tried to get him — jostling him gently — to join in. Her heart was hurtling; she did not want to laugh, she wanted to cry, but she could not cry. She could not show. “James,” she said, and she put her hand on his arm again. “You snogged Nate from Brooklyn!” She gave the words, again, Julia’s enunciation. “In Michael Doonan’s house! This is mad!”
He spun around in her grip, then, it seemed to Catherine; he did something — shook her off, she realized, a moment later — the force of which set his whole body moving, and hers, and they stood there like this, jolted apart, in this narrow lane off Harcourt Street, in the half-light of morning, and James stared at Catherine, and Catherine stared at James.
“It’s not fucking funny, Catherine,” James said, and his breath was coming raggedly, and Jesus Christ, he was crying. Crying. A tear betraying him at the corner of one eye.
“James,” she said, and it was so selfish of her, so self-centered, but what she felt, in that moment, was jealousy; she had wanted to cry, and had fought it back, and now here he was, doing it, and she could hardly join in — could hardly storm in on top of him; and she envied him that, too, she realized. His moment. His crisis. Whatever it was.
“James,” she said again. “I mean, it was just a kiss. It was just a drunken kiss.”
“It should never have happened,” he said, his mouth grim. “It should never have gone that far.”
“You were drunk,” she said, hearing that the pleading was coming through clearly in her voice. “Nate was too. It meant nothing. It meant—”
“Nate,” James said, shaking his head bitterly. “That fucking prick. That arrogant, self-satisfied, fucking prick.”