Chapter 3: Chapter 3
She was about a half hour late, but she looked fucking lovely. Black V-neck sweater, black pants, black shoes. Very Prada. Long hazel hair billowing behind her as she came through the door. She looked familiar, like I'd known her before. Like some sister I used to have and lost.
So clean, young and adult at the same time. From the moment she walked through the door, my biggest challenge was to hide from her how strongly she affected me. She came towards me with, I think, the intention of leaning to my left for what I was to learn was the obligatory New York peck on the cheek. Never heard tell of such a thing in St Lacroix.
Those eyes.
This is going to sound awful, but I don't care. I'm way past embarrassment.
You can't hurt a man with a pinprick when he's already got a spear in his chest. I swear to you that she looked just like the pictures of the Virgin Mary in Irish Catholic homes.
I kid you not.
The Virgin Fuckin' Mary.
"You look great," I said, motioning towards the hostess-stand.
"Thanks, so do you."
That was her first lie. We strode into the arena. All brown leather and tea-stained tiles. This was Friday night. I was to fly back to you-know-where the next morning. It was quite busy so we didn't get the booth. But we got a nice enough table. She was not stupid. That much was very clear, very quickly.
This was no twenty-two, twenty-three or even twenty-four-year-old inexperienced bimbo. She talked older than she looked. I really was thrown by that. I was expecting to spend the evening deflecting compliments of such enormity that I would find myself hating her for her lack of subtlety. Instead, I ended up kicking myself for mine. And it was too late. I couldn't suddenly wake up and say, "Oh, I didn't realize you were intelligent. I thought you were a stupid fawning child unworthy of my best game."
She must have seen everything she needed to see in the first fifteen minutes of my unbelievably self-centered diatribe. Slowly, almost considerately, she let me know how much I'd shown myself up. She'd already attended exhibitions I'd only begun to read about. Films I'd heard about were already memories to her. And I would never have realised that I'd mispronounced the names of foreign artists until she pronounced them.
Her superiority was graceful, though sympathetic even. Talk about being wrong-footed. Of course, I've since attributed every little nuance in that evening's conversation to her devilish manipulative skills, but the truth is that when someone outshines me, I hide my anger by putting them on a pedestal. This makes me seem generous so that when I want to put the knife in I'll be trusted. Yes, sometimes I even scare myself.
Anyway, she went on to tell me that she was from Killiney in Dublin. I found out much later that this is an extremely well-off area. And that her brother worked in London and her sister was married in Spain and that she herself had been in New York over a year. She'd been assisting photographers on a freelance basis because it afforded her more time to devote to her own work between assignments. Forgive me, but I've always translated that to mean: "I can't get a full-time job." All the while she was talking, I was falling totally and irrevocably in love. The long hands, the direct look, the head-flicks commanding the soft tumbling hair, the clear skin on her neck, the gentle slope of her small breasts.
Stop.
When she did appear impressed by something I'd said ( I was now realizing I'd need to dust off my china, so to speak) she'd seem to notice me, like you would a small boy "Oh really, gosh that's great." or "They must think a lot of you." and "I wish I had your problems." By these remarks, I realized that I must have come off as if I was trying to impress her. I felt tricked into it. I wanted to start the whole evening all over again.
And I couldn't help thinking she was bored but acting. She had a Bacardi and Coke during dinner. A big one. I had the pork chops. I still have the bill. I do. I got it back on expenses, but I kept the bill. You see, that night changed my life. If it hadn't been for that night, I wouldn't be sitting here in the East Village in New York City, writing this fucking thing. She said I'd like the East Village.
She was right.
But there you go. I fell totally in love with her. How could I not? My dead dad's gift to me and I was going to say no? No. We chatted easily about advertising and I generally tried to dazzle her as best I could. She was reserved, but mannerly, very mannerly. Old school. I'd never been allowed near that before. She even poured mineral water into my glass and twisted the bottle abruptly like you do with Champagne.
I got off on that.
She was very attentive. That was it. She knew how to handle a guy. She made you feel like it was okay to be a guy. To be yourself. This, it seems to me, is the most devastating weapon of all in a woman's arsenal. If you can encourage the man to be himself, to give you his character, his ways, then you know how to navigate him, and therefore, he will never be able to hide from you.
I already knew this.
I've managed to stay in the advertising business for ten years.This is one business that isn't known for its charity and even I, Mr. Jaundice himself, entered through her velvet drapes and signed the waiver. Mind you, I was ready, I hadn't touched a woman in five years, for fuck's sake.
So, she did her well-behaved Irish aristocrat act and I did mine. Irish lost-boy-with-two-big-eyes-borrowed-from-a-cow. She glided across the floor and led me back onto Broadway and into Bleecker Street, which in my ignorance and to my everlasting shame, I asked her to show me because I heard it was quite cool.
She took me to a gay bar. I hadn't even been in a bar let alone gay bar for years. It took me about an hour to figure it out. There were a lot of, what appeared to be, very happy middle-aged men with dyed hair, singing around an upright piano.
Delighted they were. Not drunk, just happy. Cherubic. She went to the toilet and left me on my own for longer than what I would have thought necessary. For all I know, she might have popped across the street for a leisurely drink and come back just in time to find a burly man with the whitest teeth I'd ever seen leaning against me. I was relieved to see her and told her so. She liked that. Of course she did.
We moved on to another bar. Bit more cramped. On barstools clumped together, she told me through her hands, she seemed to have picked up the American habit of using her hands to shape the words coming out of her mouth, how she'd won a Green Card in the Irish lottery and she'd worked in New Orleans for about a year before coming to New York. She became quite animated when she talked about Mardi Gras and, more specifically, the dancing that accompanied it. She seemed far away when she talked about this experience. It was the only time she unclutched herself...yes, even when we were fucking or, should I say, when she was fucking me, I remember thinking how beautiful she looked, but that there
was something else there, something unnerving, not quite hatred, maybe self-hatred. Yes.
More like self-hatred. Whatever it was, it was internal. She'd deal with it. I would never
get that chance.
That privilege.
So from there to a coffee bar, which I still can't find today. Must have been somewhere off Bleecker. There were mice under the seats. While I'd have been more than happy to leave it at that, she seemed so insistent that we stay out longer. She seemed to want to hang on for more. So I ended up saying I'd really enjoyed talking to her. More than I'd expected. She said she thought the same thing, with the hands again, this time reaching as if to say - Hold my hand - I reached forward and before I knew what was happening, we were kissing gently.
Nothing too graceful.
I was half-standing and leaning across a table with mice circling our feet.
But it was nice.
I felt all the cobwebs billow, then blow away in a warm flush of Summer air that seemed to close around me. Fuck knows what she felt, but I was in the bag right there. I would have been quite content to keep pecking her lips for another few hours. No problem.
Except she deftly raised the stakes with a little stiff flick of her tongue. It was amazing. Like the pilot light came on in the flue of my dick. You know that sound.
Thuem or is it Pfftum.
Suddenly, I was looking at this sweet teenage innocent as if she were a cum-soaked whore. And I liked it. More importantly, so did she. I was supposed to be leaving the next day. But it was already the next day. I was probably not going to see her again until Christmas and that wasn't even for sure. We both intended going home to Ireland for the holidays. There was nothing else for it.
"Want to come back to the hotel room?"
Epic stuff for me. Already, I'd packed about fifteen years of half-experienced adolescence into two hours, and now here was a semi-materialized thirty-five-year-old making the pitch of his life. She muttered something about it being a bit fast or something. And I retreated gratefully. Relieved. So we walked down the street, slowly, hand-in-hand looking-but-not-too-hard for a cab. In the end, she turned to me and said, "We can go back to the hotel room as long as we take it easy." With that, we were walking quicker. She hailed a cab. We kissed a little bit in the back. How wonderful New York City looked to me through the shimmering strands of golden hair that fell over my face between kisses.
Allow me a moment here.
Thanks.
Before long we arrived at 31st and Madison and the doorman of my hotel moved in slow-mo towards us. I have a great fear of these doorman creatures, because I knew one in St Lacroix and all he ever seemed to do was complain about how little he was tipped. I didn't tip them at all. For what? Standing there? So my young girlfriend and I slid past his smiling, in my mind, envious face and strolled to the elevator. I was very nervous in that mirrored humming container. Why were they always mirrored? There is nothing more frightening
to me then the image of my own image from two or three different angles. So I stared
at the floor.
Room 901 meant nine floors.
I prayed the key would work. I also prayed she was over eighteen. In this country, one does not want to be associated, even jokingly, with paedophilia. And this girl did look young. I satisfied myself that she was at least in her twenties, but I still couldn't get it out of my mind that the police were going to kick in the door at any second. At one point, she turned to me, we were on the bed at this stage, and blinked innocently at me.
"Tell me a story," she said.
I must have gone white. She could have been fourteen. I told her a story about a woman who brought back a rat from India because she thought it was a dog. We kissed and caressed, and I ended up going down on her.
Now I don't want to get too graphic here, but I have to say it because it is true, and in my experience, rare. Her womanhood tasted better than her mouth. I could have stayed down there all night.
No problem.
I only came up to see if she was as pretty as I'd suspected. She was. This went on until it began to get light. She said we should take it easy, so easy is what we took. I was adamant that we not go the whole way.
Memories of being with Pen, body memories began surfacing in me. I remember looking at Aisling while she slept and thinking, she's back. I've got Penny back. I used to look at Penny when she was asleep. It was nice to just let my eyes wander unchecked around the smooth skin. A living breathing picture. Strange to be touching a naked body again after so long. I was so petrified that she wouldn't find me attractive I didn't even take all my clothes off. Secretly I was glad we were taking it easy since it meant I didn't have to get into any performance issues. What if I came too quickly or couldn't get it up?
I used an AA maxim, which helped.
When in doubt be of service.
So, I concentrated on giving her as much pleasure as I could. Pen had trained me to go down on her and now I was glad. Aisling's sleeping face wore a gentle smile. She
seemed happy enough.
The next morning, I said that we should go for breakfast. I got my bags together and checked out. Soon we were in another taxi on our way to a café near her place. And soon after that I was in yet another cab and on my way back to That Place. She didn't look around after I got in the cab and was whisked away.
I know this, because I did.
Back in St Lacroix, it still hadn't snowed. I still hadn't sold the fucking house. I was already out of my mind with paranoia, thinking my company was instigating a block on the sale of my house. I thought they were slipping some money to the realtor to restrain his enthusiasm in closing a deal. I was under tremendous pressure with a big campaign I was doing for a charity that supplied Summer vacations for kids with AIDS.
Big project. Big deal.
Every ad agency likes to have a charity on their books for which they'll pull all sorts of outlandish favors. There are attractive incentives for this, though. One, the agency can usually do great dramatic work for a charity, more dramatic than what you'll be allowed to do for baked beans. And two, there are tax concessions and write-offs. But it's important which charity you affiliate yourself with.
Especially in the United States.
For instance, a fundraising group that wants to help addicts off heroin isn't nearly as reliable, or photogenic, or even pitiable, as a kid with AIDS. Adults with AIDS are no good. It could be their own fault. No, kids are good. Kids with AIDS, are better. Sorry, but it's true. It's not the fault of the ad agencies. It's actually your fault.
The Public.
And if this never gets published it's your fault too because it means that this kind of story was deemed uninteresting to you.
You bastards.
You just won't accept a heroin addict asking for money to kick his habit. Maybe you're right. Who knows? But that's it. Charities are as competitive as commercial companies and nowadays need to think like them.
After all, they're chasing the same dollars.
Then you've got the networks. They have a finite amount of airtime available annually for donation to charity. Which ones to give the time to? Each network has standards to maintain and are wary of letting the tone of their channels slip. It comes down to which commercial is going to make them look best. Again, you're safe with kids. So the ad agency is clever enough to pick a charity with lots of kids in it, because they know from the outset, the networks will have more time for them, in this case, airtime.
Anyway, let me tell you my Summer camp kids story. We were shooting the commercial on location at the Camp Northern Minnesota. We were sleeping in bunk beds at the camp. I didn't even know what Summer camp was until I had it explained to me. Still seemed like something only middle class kids would ever do. But there is no middle class in the United States. Yeah right.
After a fitful sleep, it was so quiet I made my way to the communal bathroom (euphemism for toilet) for a shit and a shave. It occurred to me that with two hundred kids running around here during the Summer, some of their contagions might rub off on the basins. It occurred to me just before I shaved.
I thought about all the skin pores being opened up to all that diseased air. Christ. I went ahead and shaved, of course. And after a few appreciative glances at myself, I was satisfied that while I hadn't slept well, I didn't look as if I hadn't slept well.
I was careful not to smile at myself. I want never to be caught smiling at myself in a mirror. It's okay in private. Out for breakfast I went. The crew and the director were already assembled around steaming plates. They looked rough and unshaven.
This pleased me.
I sat down and dug into eggs and toast or whatever was on offer. Cwaffee. Then, the Camp Boss and general all-around hero of the day came in all bubbly, wringing his hands and lowering his eyes with excess humility. He ran the camp and was the founder of the whole thing. I noticed he, too, was unshaven. This was very uncharacteristic of him since he was always very particular about the way he looked. In fact, apart from being unshaven, he seemed his normal well-dressed self, but in country wools and tweeds. My veins began to curdle. He risked a humble look around the table. He was looking only for information. Who was at the table? Who did he need to be nicest to and in what order?
He stopped at me:
"You didn't shave, did you?"
I must've gone white.
"Yes. I did. I…"
"Aw c'mon, I'm very disappointed."
I was about to ask him how he thought I felt.
"We don't shave here at camp. It's meant to be informal, but I suppose since, strictly speaking, you're still at work, we'll let it go this time."
I laughed a genuine laugh. I would live. And more importantly I wouldn't need an HIV test before meeting my beloved again. Being in that camp with birds singing and children everywhere being so cute and nice to each other had awoken something familial
in me. I saw Aisling and I living somewhere wooded like this. Light dappling our happiness, laughter echoing around trees before we shushed each other lest we wake the baby.
How fortunate we'd consider ourselves to be that our child was not infected with some horrible disease or other.
My future wife's phone number burned away at my thigh and in the inside of a drawer and a few other places I couldn't remember. I'd taken the precaution of writing it down and placing it in a few different places in case I lost it. I'm no fool. I had to resist the temptation to call her. A lot.
Physical cravings.
I was in a bad way. I mean I hadn't even looked at a girl for five years and now it was all over me. I didn't even know what it was. I'd never really had those feelings before. I wince now to look back on it, but I really was in love. Or infatuated. My eyes got heavy when I thought of her, they dilated just thinking about her.
The ads for the camp turned out pretty good and one even went on to win an award. All the kids we featured have since died.
Don't quite know what to do with that.
But there you go. It's easy for me to be totally honest here because the possibility of anyone ever publishing this is so remote. At least I'll benefit from it as a form of therapy. Did I feel love or obsession? I still don't know. Somehow, the thought of her, or even the thought of calling her, got me through those Minnesotan nights.
So I called her and we chatted, about advertising mostly, and therefore about me. I thought she was interested. Maybe she was. At least, that would have made it a bit more enjoyable for her. I can't help thinking that she must have treated this part of the whole thing like a prostitute treats the talking bit before the sex. You have to listen to some of their shit before they feel comfortable enough to get a hard-on, and they have to get the hard-on or they won't have the sex that you need them to have with you in order for you to get paid. This is what I thought was going on. She listened to me, I know she listened to me. There I go again. The male ego. Like the guy who believes the hooker comes when she seems to. I want to believe she listened to me and liked me and, yes, even loved me a little bit. Even now I seem to want to believe that. Crazy, huh? I used to say, crazy, eh? But now it's huh.
America.
In Minnesota, I'd been in a terrible state of mind for almost two years and felt I deserved something good to happen. Having been in New York now for over a year, I can see how innocent and silly I must have sounded to a twenty-seven-year-old hungry-as-fuck photographer determined to crack the New York scene. Fair enough. Her fascination must have been of the morbid variety, mine wasn't much more developed.
I wanted her to help me out. Out of St Lacroix. I wanted her to be my pathfinder in New York. I wanted her. I wanted a lot.
I had my reasons and I suppose she had hers. To her, I must have seemed like a big wet-fat-bald overpaid Culchie, a name reserved for anyone from outside the Dublin area.
Ripe for harvest.
Aisling would have seen a lot of my type in her travels as a photographer's assistant. Shoots in Miami - the light, darling - were commonplace for photographers from cloudy New York. Lots of hotel rooms and bars and long shoots. Lots of art directors like me with lots of money and wives and kids and mortgages. I hope I stuck out because all I had of these was the mortgage.
She must have thought I was married, though, or hoped it. You see, I couldn't help thinking she was gathering information on me for some later use. Perhaps she wanted to blackmail me against the wife she imagined me to have. Well, why else would I be living in a three-bedroom Victorian house? The reason for the blackmail? To get big juicy commissions from the ad agency. It'd be worth a lot to her as a fledgling photographer to get a job or two from such a renowned company.
I thought, what the hell, she's very pretty, I'm lonely, I'm also in need of a courage booster. I wouldn't have had the balls to do the next bit if I hadn't had a tasty chick egging me on. I gave her the power to pull me out of there.
I started calling the personnel department, inquiring about how to resign. As if I didn't know. I wanted them to know I was serious. I was past caring. In reality, it was a crazy move. They must have been sure I was in love, and let's face it, I was. I made a point of asking if what we discussed was confidential, knowing they'd have to inform the group head in a situation like this. So I was able to threaten resignation without having to resign. Graham, my boss, knew what I wanted him to know. That I was serious.
It didn't take long before he asked me in passing whether I'd sold my house. I'll never forget the expression on his face. God help me, but I enjoyed it. And again, believe me, I got my version of this happening to me later, but this was my moment. The best way I can describe his pale face is to say that it rippled. From below his chin and upwards to his hairline, one solitary ripple. Like milk. He was that pale. It took a couple of beats for its significance to register in him and then in me. I didn't think it would matter that much to him, one way or the other. But seemingly, it did. He really must have thought he had me for another couple of years. If I'd succumbed to the Swedish women, he probably would have.
The next day, he called me in to say that I was to fly to New York to help out at the office for a few weeks. I didn't know that I wouldn't be coming back but I hoped it. I'd be able to see my Aisling. I didn't care about the job. Fuck the job, I was sick of advertising and everyone in it. All I wanted was a few weeks paid-up in a nice hotel in New York City with my love.
Back at Fort Fuck-up, my nickname for the house, I'd speak to her. I'd imagine she was sitting in a chair in front of me. I'd look lovingly at the middle distance just above the chair as if into her blue eyes and cock my head, impressed. Nodding courteously, I'd lean forward and agree almost reluctantly with what she had to say. She was so intelligent that even I had to concede a point.
And then I would laugh happily. Because I was happy. I was conducting a love affair. The perfect love affair with no interruptions from anyone else. I saw a cartoon that had a picture of Narcissus staring at his own reflection in a pond. His girlfriend asks him a question, "Narcissus is there someone else?"
If they fired me at the end of my New York sojourn, fine, at least I'd have a few memorable moments. I had tried to organize trips to New York before, but they'd all fallen through. Each time, desperately trying to hide the disappointment in my voice as I told Aisling I couldn't make it after all.
I'd kick myself as I felt any hope of our relationship slip. It was killing me. Then I'd call on Saturday morning around 10:30am and she wouldn't be there. The one-hour difference made it even more worrying, 9:30am in New York. Jesus, my mind would have a fun with that, I can tell you.
Not there?
Obviously, on her way home from some guy's flat or maybe even still there fucking him. Why not, she got into bed with me the first night we went out? But that was different, that was love. That was with me. I'd call and offer to turn up there one weekend. This she would deflect gracefully, saying it was nicer if I didn't have to pay myself. Better to wait for a business trip. She was right, of course, but I was gagging for some sex. I could see also that she was ambitious. Not afraid to talk about her work.
This scared me a little because it meant she was only interested in me because of my position as Senior Art Director. I hated the word "senior," made me sound old. To her, I must have seemed old as fuck. I consoled myself that I didn't look much more than thirty-two. She played along with that. What pretty-just-turned-twenty-seven-year-old wouldn't? She was having an exhibition, she said one night. I was so glad she was involving me in her life enough to tell me this detail that I offered to help. I tried to impress her with my talents as a media manipulator but she wasn't impressed.
Disappointed more like.
I wanted to cheapen the whole thing by putting a St Patrick's Day spin on it.
Now I can see how that must have made her more comfortable about what she was going to do. Isn't it funny how, after deciding we don't like someone, we can find reasons to support our decision and equally, the other way around. That's what I think was happening. As I went further in, I had already decided I liked, nay loved, her and progressively began gathering and threading together a daisy chain of little observations and nuances that tied her tenderly to me.
Concurrently, she was compiling her own list.
Of grievances.
I remember silences after I'd say something. A silence in which you let the now silent speaker stew. Like a spotlight on what's been said. Like repeating something in a cold, dispassionate voice. And in those rests she took from me, she refueled her fervor to complete what she must have already begun.
Here's what I know about her.
Twenty-seven years old. Aisling McCarthy. Photographic assistant. Worked as a producer in a big clunky ad agency in Dublin in the early 1990s. Her boyfriend at the time got her the job. Left Dublin after winning a Green Card in the lottery. Told me that she had to leave Dublin in a hurry. Worked in New Orleans for about a year. Had worked in Dublin's Clarence Hotel (owned by U2) as a hostess. I try not to define hostess unless
I'm feeling particularly unkind.
She loves Kilkenny, my hometown, and her uncle, Mr Tom Bannister, an associate of mine who was highly recommended by my father, now dead.
Her mother is from Kilkenny. Fairly patriotic towards Ireland, but not in an unattractive Fenian sort of way. When I knew her, she worked as Peter Freeman's assistant, big-shot photographer very big-shot photographer, probably one of the best in New York and, therefore, the world. She was sharing an apartment in New York's Nolita with an architect friend called Shawn, and a "precious stones" buyer for Macy's called Maurette. Her home in Ireland is in Killiney. Very fucking posh, believe me. Her brother works for The Strategist Magazine in London. Her sister is married to some hotel guy in Florida. And she looks very, very young.
She's been mistaken for sixteen.
Spent time with nuns as a kid, at least that is what she told me. There was a
nun with whom she was quite close. Oh, yeah? Her grandaunt, I think. Also, her grandmother died during the time I knew her. Her work includes double-exposures. That's where one image appears to be laid over another. Two-faced? She's been in France and worked as an au pair.
All this data retained after one short evening and no more than four phone calls. She could never accuse me of not listening. If anything I listened too much. I was trying to soak her up into me. I could have written a book about her.
Whoops.
She went on holidays once with her brother to Mexico. She said she was disgusted by the way the Mexicans looked at her. Blonde and blue-eyed, in those leather-faced raven-haired surroundings. A lot of computer learning was required in her new job. She encouraged me to set up my own agency in Dublin. She liked to drink pints of Guinness. She got help with her work from Peter Freeman. He even came in on the weekends a few times to help her. I was jealous when I heard this.
A few months back, her mother visited her in New York for a week. I only found out this last bit because I spoke in passing to Tom Bannister while dealing with some financial transactions.
That's about it. Apart, of course, from the rest of what I'm going to tell you. I will say this. I'm surprising myself here because I'm normally more cautious. If there was a way that I could torture and kill her without going to prison, I would. Or I feel like I could. Don't worry, I don't daydream about how or what I'd do. I just feel capable of doing her harm. I won't, though. These pages are the nearest I will ever get to evening up the effects of that evening in March. But let's not jump ahead here, shall we? I've been thin with rage for almost six months. To cause that kind of lividness in someone takes a certain amount of talent and, I'd like to think, intelligence. Love, hate, what's the difference?
One night on the phone, she told me she had a publishing deal. That's interesting,
I said. What kind and how did she manage to wrangle that? I was always interested in avenues that could lead out of advertising. She said she had some friend studying publishing in Harvard. I tried not to gulp. These were rich motherfuckers we were dealing with here. I forgot, of course, that I was making serious bucks by then. I've never felt rich. Just silly. Especially in that house. The book would consist of photo-essays, she said. Portraits. She already had some done. But she had a couple of years to complete them.
I was immediately jealous. I'd love to be doing something pure. Something that didn't need to sell something.
"Maybe you'll be in it." she said.
This was left open. I didn't know if I should be flattered but I was.We arranged to meet in Dublin while we were both home in Ireland over Christmas. I called from St Lacroix and booked a nice room in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. St Lacroix was fucking freezing as I jumped gratefully into a cab on Hennepin Avenue, exhaled loudly and told the cab driver in an American accent to take me to the airport. It was a forty-five minute drive, and no I did not want to converse.The flight was long too. Eight and a half hours. Actually it was more because of Northsouth Airlines.
The worst airline in the world.
Delays were standard. I only ever brought carry-on luggage because otherwise they'd end up being delivered two days later to wherever you were. People were always shouting at their staff and their staff obviously accustomed to being shouted at wore professional masks of indifference. They were the only airline out of Minnesota so there wasn't a lot we could do…except shout.
I expected to be very tired before I met my loved one in Dublin. I built in a
few hours to allow me some sleep in the Shelbourne before waking to find a message
under my door.
There on Shelbourne Hotel stationery was one of those Please Call, WYWO things with ticked boxes. AISLING in beautiful handwriting headed the ensemble of Victorian typography that seemed so exotic to me now after a year and a half in the history-free environment from which I had just been delivered.
I had an hour or so to kill before calling her at 7pm as requested, by the ticked box. I needed some condoms and began to panic because I couldn't remember if Ireland was still medieval in that department. There was a time, not too long ago when you couldn't buy them. They had to be prescribed.
I went for a walk. I turned right out of the Shelbourne's beautiful front door and headed towards Grafton Street. I had to hold back the tears. I don't think I can capture what it felt like to walk amongst all those beautiful young faces. It was as if someone was going to shout, "Not him. No. Everyone else is allowed walk through here and to laugh and be easy-going and dress well but not him. He shouldn't even be here."
It was so lovely. I don't even know if it was Grafton Street. It was pedestrian only, the day before Christmas Eve. I'll never forget the moment. I even found a Boots chemist, which made me feel like I was in London. Dublin had changed so much and so had I.
I was sadder.
But after buying a twelve-pack of condoms (hey, some of them might break) I cheered up somewhat. I walked back to the hotel, feeling like someone who'd just got out of prison. I called her home number from my room and got her dad. Jesus, I wasn't expecting that. So I just said I'd call back later or something, he didn't sound too happy. At seven o'clock, she called and said we should meet at the corner of Grafton Street at that big glass shopping centre thing. I knew it, and trying to remain calm, I agreed to see her there in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes? I strolled there and waited for her across the road. She was a little late. But very beautiful. I had to keep checking to convince myself that she really was as lovely as she seemed. She, I thought, was doing the same thing with me, but I realize now that she must have been checking how moon-faced I looked. How easily taken I was.
We had something to eat in Temple Bar and it was there in the restaurant that the first photo was taken. I didn't really even notice it, but I saw something in her eyes after she clicked the little disposable camera button. She said it probably wouldn't even come out in the dimly lit restaurant. I had asked her if she carried a camera around. She said she did, but that I'd laugh if I saw it. I said I wouldn't. She said I would. So I said, okay I would. She took out a disposable camera (the kind you see at newsagents) and tilting it off the tabletop so that it pointed upwards under my chin, she clicked the shutter. I remember I was looking at her when she took it. Looking directly into her big, blue, innocent eyes…click. I immediately felt robbed.
She'd got my moon face.
My idiotic stare had been sucked off my face, replaced by an expression of distrust. Only for a moment. My first instinct had been right. I knew that a shot taken like that impromptu, no waiting, taken by a professional, wasn't meant to be flattering.
She had water with the meal and later we ended up in a snug in the Temple Bar where she drank Bacardis and Coke for the rest of the evening, as I downed about five bottles of Bally-fucking-gown water. She must have been out of her mind by the time we returned to the hotel. I was pleased about how I handled that. I said,
"It's a pity you can't come back to the hotel."
"Why, are there rules? Can't you have people back?" she asked.
"No, I just assumed you wouldn't be able to come back, what with your
parents and…"
"Oh no. I'd like to come back."
Ding ding. Full steam ahead. Mind those icebergs. We strolled back to the hotel,
her clasping my stumpy hand in her long fingers. The evening was beautiful, and the trees along Stephen's Green were yellowed by the streetlights against the navy sky. We didn't say much. She'd been kissing me. Non-stop. There was one time when her big eyes dilated and then shrunk to little pinheads. That freaked me out a little. I didn't know if she was on something or not. In the room, we got down to business in what I now see as a fairly matter of fact manner. We used MTV as lighting.
It was great. I loved it. She was very beautiful. Very. I suppose I wouldn't even be writing this if she hadn't been. It wasn't every day a guy had the chance for unrushed sex with the Virgin Mary, when she was sixteen. She had a great angular back. I had hair on mine. I couldn't stop giggling. Actually, there were even moments when I laughed out loud. She got a bit annoyed by this. I couldn't stop, though. It felt so good. When I feel good
like that, I laugh.
She thought I was laughing at her. Also, I was nervous. It had been (yes, we know) five years. We rolled around and basically kept ourselves busy till dawn. I can remember her on top of me at one point. Her long honey-coloured hair falling forward as she pumped me. The hair formed the darkness that looked like the interior of the hood of The Grim Reaper. Like something out of one of those horror movies where from the darkness you see the faint glint of two little red beads.
I couldn't help thinking about how she said she'd been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and how she'd been impressed by the dancers and the atmosphere of the whole festival. I imagined some fucked-up voodoo types smothered in chicken's blood. Only this was Dublin. We were a long way from Louisiana now and the dawn was knocking gently on the window. I began to prepare myself for our parting. We ordered breakfast and I took a shower after her.
When I came out of the bathroom, she was leaning out the window taking photos with her little disposable camera. No doubt we'd be seeing them again soon.
God knows what else she took while I was transferring from the bathrobe to my clothes. But she had all the opportunity she needed. So, on the way to the elevator she walked ahead of me. She turned and said to me with those big blue headlights blaring.
"I look like shit."
"You don't look that bad." I said,
I was trying not to let her know how just how beautiful she did look.
"That bad?" she quipped, obviously annoyed. I winced. She made a phone call from reception. She'd made one the night before, too. To let her parents know she wouldn't be home. We had coffee and I got a cab to Houston Station. And that was it, basically.
The second Christmas after my dad died I was at home. We did all right, Ma and me. My dad always loved Christmas so the empty chair really stuck out this time of the year. But I was optimistic. Well actually no, I was high. I had a gorgeous Irish girlfriend and my house was in the throes of being sold, which meant St Lacroix as a city of residence was nearing the end of its reign. I was a cheerful influence around the house that Christmas. My brother visited. I went to my AA meetings. Aisling even visited me in Kilkenny, and
we had coffee in a new cafe. A converted bank. Ireland had changed so much. Nothing bothered me.
In hindsight, I think she wanted to invite me to a New Year's party, which one of her friends in Dublin held every year. She had come to Kilkenny to visit her uncle Tom and later had broken away to see me. This was two days before New Year's Eve.
Maybe she had wanted to do on New Year's Eve what she ended up doing to me in the Cat & Mouse bar three months later. I have nothing to indicate that this was the case, except my notoriously faulty intuition/paranoia. The night we'd met in Dublin she had mentioned that a friend of hers was visiting from New York for the Christmas period and that she'd left him in a bar somewhere. When we first met and kissed that night there was a strong smell of alcohol so she must had a few drinks with him before meeting me. I of course, protested that he shouldn't be left alone, that we should invite him to join us. Her long hands wiped away the suggestion.
"He's too rude, you wouldn't like him."
I believe I met him the following March, in the Cat & Mouse. Back in the Hibernian Café, I think the fact that I had already arranged to see some friends in London for New Year's Eve postponed my soul searing for a few more months. I booked a night in The Clarence Hotel for the night after New Year's Eve in the hope that I might repeat our night of sex only the week before. And I thought it would be a nice surprise for her since she'd worked there once as a hostess.
I called her from London on New Year's Day after a disappointing night out with my AA friends. Her mother answered. She was very pleasant and asked who should she say was calling. Hoping that Aisling had mentioned me, I told her.
"Sorry who?"
My chest caramelized.
And when the girl of my dreams did finally fumble sleepily with the phone and say hello, I could hear the disappointment in her croaky voice. Then the "No's" began to emerge from the receiver in single file. No…she had to spend time with her parents; No…she saw them rarely enough at it was; No…maybe when we're both back in New York. No. No. No.
I didn't tell her I'd booked the hotel. Easy since I'm quite accomplished at hiding disappointment. At The Clarence Hotel, there's a hundred percent cancellation charge. Just in case you're ever thinking about it, that means you don't get your money back. My sister put it best.
"Sounds like an expensive wank."
She has an enviable command of the English language. And at $600 a night she had a point. I did everything I could not to call Aisling until I got back to St LaCroix. I really didn't want to go back at all. She was now the only thing that kept me interested. I hated my big wonderful job. Hated isn't even the right word. It's too active. It was more like apathy. I carelessly remarked to people whose tongues were loose that I was unhappy and would soon resign. Until then, I was afraid to even think such a thing in case they heard me. But now I wanted to be fired.
I would have welcomed it. They didn't fire me, though. Far from it. When I got back from the Christmas break they sent me to New York. It was obvious I didn't give a shit anymore and it was obvious that I wanted to be in New York. So they arranged it. Officially, I was to go and help out for a few weeks but I knew I was never coming back. I think they knew it, too.
Especially since the house-sale was set for February 2nd. Two months before a young couple had turned up on my doorstep.
"Hi there. We were just wonderin' if you'd be interested in sellin' your
beautiful home."
I had to resist hugging them.
Perfect people. Perfect words coming out of their mouths. After so long in advertising and so many late nights poring over stock photo books full of people just like this couple, I was beginning to think I was the only one who farted loud long sonorous notes and wanked in the bath. They just seemed to confirm that I shouldn't have been in this house in the first place. It was as if I was giving it back to it's rightful owners, in fact, it would not have seemed surreal to me if there had been fairy dust floating in the air around them.
An answered prayer is not something I'm used to. They must have passed by the house when the real estate sign had been up and waited. Clever. Because now that I had finished with that agent there was no commission to pay for either of us.
Escape to New York was no longer just a dream. I was to fly out on the Sunday night. I left two messages for Aisling, saying I'd be in New York the following weekend.
I intentionally didn't tell her that I was going to be there forever. I knew she'd keep
putting me off.
On the Sunday night, she left a message saying how she thought it was funny but she was going to be in Miami that Sunday. Hilarious. I knew I was in for a fucking roasting, I just could never have guessed how sophisticated the roasting would be. So on Tuesday night around 7pm, she called me in my Soho Grand hotel room where they give you a black goldfish of your own and where I envisaged fucking her not inconsiderable brains out later that night.
Not to be, my friends, not to be. This night began the unfurling of events that still make my mouth go dry. We agreed to meet in Fanelli's, a cafe bar on Prince and Browne. I was there early and sat at a little table. Wearing a white jacket, she turned up looking tired. Mercifully, not too beautiful.
By the way, I am aware that up to this point I sound like a jilted boyfriend trying to disguise his attempt at revenge (i.e. this whole story) as a literary event that you (the reader) are supposed to be taken in by. Maybe. But I think you'll agree that the antics of Aisling are worth recording under any pretense. Call it a warning to my brother romantics. Call it what you like. I know. Call it therapy for me (and you lot are eavesdropping).
Mind you, if she does recognize herself in these pages then that's fine, too. Of course, it could backfire and make her famous. Still, this occurrence would indicate a lot of these books will have been sold, which means I won't have done too badly either.
Still reading? Good.
Back to Fanelli's, I said something about how nice the bar was. Coming from St Lacroix, I meant it, too. I said something about seeing photos of it somewhere and asked if it was famous. I'll never forget the cold look on her face as she said,
"You'll remember it after tonight."
I watched her to see if she meant something good by this comment. Didn't seem so. I stuttered a little.
"What do you mean? Am I in for some big surprise tonight?"
I wanted to keep it ambiguous.
"Wait." was all she said.
That was not what I'd expected, and it scared me. Wait? There must be a schedule of some kind. An order. A structure she had in her mind about how the evening should proceed. I swallowed hard like someone who's realized he's in over his head. Something not good was going to happen. But it wasn't necessarily happening right now. It would happen soon, and she knew what it was, and I didn't.
I couldn't leave yet because I had nothing to react to. She began asking me questions. Where were the Killallon Fitzpatrick offices? Did I ski? Did I work out in the gym? Did I ever go horse riding? Did I play chess? I answered no to all of these and felt like I was being interrogated. What the fuck was this? It made me feel very inactive. She said she'd love to play chess with me someday.
I said I'd thought that being beaten at chess was doubly humiliating for me because I fancied myself a bit of a strategist. Her eyes glinted. She was having fun. I couldn't help shifting uncomfortably in my chair. She sat back and watched me squirm.
She looked... Relaxed. Not so innocent now. More at ease with herself. Totally in control and I envied her this feeling, even though I didn't know what she was in control of. I would soon find out.
She looked around. Crossed her arms. Then a little mannered yawn.
Bored.
"I think I'll go home now," she said.
The significance of this didn't occur to me till some time later. But I did know her dismissal was significant. She let it sink in for me.
I must have managed to ask a question that would enable me to ascertain whether or not she intended to go home alone. I can't remember quite what was said, except that it felt like I was being murdered. (Awful drama queen, aren't I?).
There is a scene in Saving Private Ryan where a German soldier is killing an American soldier with a knife. The German is on top of the Yank. The GI begins to plead softly with the German saying something like, "Hold on, can't we talk about this?" To no avail. The German, almost apologetically, proceeds with the knife. His face belying the act he is committing. (In case you are wondering, I'm the American). So there I was being knifed, but with bandages applied immediately after. So much so I almost ended up apologizing to her. I was in the way, causing her beautiful brow to wrinkle. How could I? The thing was, if she'd told me to fuck off I'd have gone. But she didn't. She was enjoying herself too much.
It took a good hour to get her to say she wasn't looking for a relationship. Like I was a fucking shop steward trying to ascertain her ladyship's requirements. At least, I was able to make a clear judgment on what that meant. And what that meant mostly (if I'm honest) was, no sex. So my first reaction was, okay then, fuck you.
She said she'd love for me to go to exhibitions with her and she'd love to show me around New York and...I was already shaking my head. It dawned on me that she had used almost all the clichés except the big one, "friends." I did it for her: "You mean you want us to be friends?"
She wouldn't commit to this. Because it probably sounded too final and she knew I'd scamper. She tried to leave it open, saying, "I want to get to know you better." This implied maybe we could get going again in the future. My instincts were to get up, leave and call it a bad day. But she seemed to want to discuss it more, as if to hear my thoughts.
She said, "You look thoughtful" and "Are you angry?" to which I replied, "Do I? I'm sorry. Angry? No. Why should I be angry? I'm the one who came here." It was my decision. I sensed she was disappointed with my reaction, that she wanted me to be angry and I took the whole thing so well. Anyone would think she was telling me about her new curtains. At least, that's what I hoped. She seemed even more bored now that she wasn't getting the show of emotion she'd hoped for.
Then, without warning, a light blinded me. Flash. I couldn't see, was in shock. The guy next to me turned grinning and said,
"Sorry. It just went off."
I nodded automatically and said,
"S'okay. No problem."
He exchanged glances with Aisling. She was smiling. So was I. So was he. I hadn't
even noticed that there had been a camera on the adjoining table, beside the salt and
pepper shakers.
I looked at the man again. Something was wrong. I didn't know what. He seemed
far too happy about his little accident. And the timing was too precise, as if he realized that the emotional peak had been reached. There would be nothing more expressive than the face I was wearing, had to be done now. The unwitting photographer and his accomplice remained beside us at the other table.
Aisling asked me if I wanted something to drink. I still had my Perrier. I took this to mean, did I want something stronger? I was very hurt by this considering what had already happened. But my pain was easy to conceal. All I wanted now was to get away from her and get on with nursing what would definitely be a broken heart. Something in me wouldn't give up, though. I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk. She reacted too
loudly, over-emphatically,
"No..." and then more mildly, "...it's freezing outside."
I couldn't get it out of my head that she was following some pre-arranged structure. I'd read a very cynical article in a woman's magazine about "How to break hearts and enjoy it." There were many helpful anti-man techniques including, and I'm paraphrasing here,
"Find out his hobbies before dumping him, he may be useful as a friend, or you may want to introduce him to one of your friends. Especially if he's good in bed. What better gift for a close friend? Get good at chess, there is nothing more humiliating for a man than to be beaten intellectually by a beautiful woman. You'll be able to cause him physical pain. If he doesn't let you know how he's feeling, call him late. Wake him up. It's hard for him to hide his feelings when he's in love with you and you're speaking softly to him in bed, even if it is only on the phone...."
These were some of the tips mentioned in the article. Aisling had fulfilled a good many of these tips before the evening was through.
All of this occurred to me in retrospect. At the time, I had too much on my plate to analyze. I just ate what was put in front of me, as it were. You have to remember that I had a lot going on; new city (New York) new job (basically) Killallon Fitzpatrick NY, new assignments. Freaky. Then this. As far as I was concerned, I'd moved to New York to be with this girl, and she was just laughing at me. That's how I saw it. That would have been quite enough, but there was this extra layer. This unnerving feeling that there was an agenda. A hidden agenda. Looking back, it seems even more terrifying that it felt at the time. At the time, I think I was protected by shock or, dare I say it, God.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to talk a bit about a deity here. I prayed every day for a month or more to be delivered from Lacroix. I was delivered. When I look back on the whole experiment in psychological torture (for that's what it was), I wonder if I had known what was going on sooner, would I have either used it as an excuse to drink (we alcoholics like our excuses) or would I have taken an ineffectual swing at someone, or come out of some red mist with her limp body held at her cut throat by, what I'd slowly realize were, my hands? The rage I felt later, as it dawned on me what had happened, was almost visible around me.
As always, I have my theories.
Because I met her at Brian Tomkinsin's studio, I thought it might be a set-up. Tomkinsin did a huge amount of work for Killallon Fitzpatrick and, therefore, favours.
He took the occasional free shot here and there when asked because he knew it was good business to keep in with one of the best advertising agencies in the world. It was common practice. His agent was an ex-beauty queen from Poland (still looked good) who seemed to have eyes like a jaguar, not that I'd ever looked a jaguar in the eye, but you know what I mean.
One conspiracy theory is that Killallon Fitzpatrick didn't like the idea of someone they'd invested in so heavily leaving for New York, so they wanted to help me ruin myself by introducing me to a young lady from Ireland who wanted to further her own career.
She got the job with Peter Freeman very soon after showing me a good time in New York.
I'm just talking here. I know it's very far-fetched, but Killallon Fitzpatrick was a fucking
weird place.
The other theory could exist alongside the one above, or on its own, if you prefer. Theory Number Two supports the artistic coffee book route. In this version she has two friends from Harvard studying publishing, who have already negotiated a publishing deal, and approved a concept of a high-quality book of photography featuring photo-essays in the style of those True Romance picture sequence things that used to be more commonplace in the 1970's. In this case, though, the romances would all feature the same girl with different guys. The photo essays would record the progression from the very beginning to the very end. In Theory Two, I am one of those guys.
Theory Three is that Theories One and Two are bullshit, and that life is random and therefore everything that happens has no meaning or structure; it just happens. As the man with the lisp said on hearing about the fate of the Titanic, "Unthinkable."
So there you have it. My money is neatly spread over the area of Theories One and Two, with most of it on Two. Just so you know.
If we look at Theory Two, she had covered the early stages of this "True Romance" and even the beginning of its demise. But she didn't have anything decent. Just moon-faced shots of a man too much in love. No anger, no tears, no anguish. What's a romance without anger, tears and woe? Can't have a book entitled True Friendship, can we? Well, of course not. Not if you've got a publishing deal, which means a deadline and money spent from a set budget, which you've been allotted to help you "gather material." Hmmm.
And not if you've already invested quite a bit of time and energy into your subject. Oh no. Another photo flash outside Fannelli's as I raised my hands (tilted upward) in what could, I realize, be misconstrued as a pleading gesture and that particular page in her forthcoming book turned over.
The next day after promising I'd call her, I did everything I could to resist leaving fifteen pleading messages on her machine. In the end, I left a message saying I couldn't see her that night, that some work had come up and that "I'd see her around." My hand was shaking. It took everything I had, which wasn't much, to make that call. My intention was never to call her again. Ever. I was going to use the same method I'd been taught to kick the booze. Keep it bite-sized. One hour at a time. One minute. Jesus, it was torture. My ego would tell me I was hurting her needlessly by not calling her. That I was hurting her. That she had to play hard to get. That was what girls had to do.
Anyway, I somehow got through another day and that night, at around 11:30pm,
she called me in the hotel. I was asleep. It had snowed earlier and I had tried to meet Telma, that lovely girl from work who I've seen a few times since (she's a flirt), but who didn't turn up that night.
When the phone rang, I woke up and who was I talking to? The source of my worst nightmare. She got me talking about some of the stuff I swore I'd never say to her. Ugh. I wince now just thinking about it. All that naive shit about Tom Bannister and my father and that she must be The One and how I had threatened to resign from my job if I wasn't sent to New York and...oh God. I was half-asleep and didn't know what I was saying. She encouraged me, of course, consoling me with things like "I didn't know that…"and "you should have said…" or "that's different." I took these barely audible utterances to mean, 'there's hope"
That's the other thing I remember about our phone conversations. I could never fucking hear her. I'd be embarrassed asking her to repeat what she'd said. I spilled my guts out and in the end left it at;
"I'm not going anywhere under the banner of buddy."
I hung up, proud at least that I'd managed to initiate the ending of the call. That's how pathetic I had become. She ended the relationship and I ended a phone call. Not exactly 1:1 on the scoreboard, but it would have to do.
Until two days later.
I couldn't hold out. I called her and left a message, saying something about having thought about what she'd said and that I wanted to meet her for lunch. In my mind, lunch was less of a commitment than dinner. She left a message back saying we could meet for dinner that night Sunday "if I was feeling up to it." That fucking killed me. It implied that she knew her effect on me.
Exactly the effect.
I couldn't stop myself. I had to get my fix. I called her and we arranged to meet at a French restaurant not far from where she worked. She was preparing for an exhibition opening the following Wednesday. She was working quite hard. I suppose I should've taken that into account. I was trying to see it from her point of view. Guy turns up in New York, expecting her to drop everything for him just because it suited him to leave St Lacroix. A guy she was only lukewarm about to begin with. Now he was acting all hurt because she didn't want to have sex with him. I could see that.
The problem, though, was that there were these photographs being taken. Halfway through our conversation in the charming French restaurant on Lafayette, there was another camera flash. This time from a table on the opposite side of the room at which four people sat. They laughed and even waved. I couldn't be sure if the light was facing me or whether they'd just taken a shot of themselves. But in retrospect (where would we be without retrospect?) it fit the pattern. The people at the other table had bags. So what? Bags that were for equipment, not clothes. (Okay, maybe I'm stretching this one a bit thin).
Another shot was definitely taken that Sunday night. I even made a joke about it. I was telling her how my old partner and I had been on TV in London for an outrageous ad we'd done. I was trying to impress her. To let her know that she was dumping a fucking media genius. And I ended up telling her how much I had disliked my former creative partner, saying, "He's the one you should be trying to fuck up instead of me. He deserves it. He's not a good person. You and your friends should have a go at him." I nodded at the other table.
Now, you'll have to forgive me here because my memory tells me that she replied with a meaningful look,
"So, you know."
And then my memory goes on to tell me that I replied,
"Of course I know."
"Why are you doing it?"
"Because it's interesting to me," I said.
Now that could have meant anything, but I know what I thought it meant. And I do apologize because I can't even be sure this verbal exchange even took place. I did, however, mention my ex-partner and even told her where he worked in case she wanted to fuck-him-up. (By the way, I did hear that he'd recently visited New York for a wedding and that, consequently, had come to work here. Say no more.) Anyway, I paid the bill and explained to her that I was on expenses and that I was making more money just by being in New York. Hotel bills and every scrap of food were expensed. She seemed jealous of this.
Money was the only subject where she showed emotion. Her lovely eyes would widen when the subject came up. So what? Can't hold that against her. Women only love money so much because we men make it hard for them to get at it. They have to massage us and our egos to get it. Otherwise, they wouldn't even bother with us. Except maybe for the occasional fuck. Not unlike how we treat them.
We left the place. Not wanting to risk rejection, I didn't even try to kiss her on the cheek. I didn't want the friendship thing to become official. At least, this way there was still some hope of sex. So, I stood about two yards away from her (mind you, she wasn't exactly trying to close the gap) and saying things like, I'll call you and see you soon
I prepared myself for the heartbreaking walk back to the hotel.
"Are you coming on Wednesday?"
I secretly leaped for joy.
"Oh yeah, I forgot, your exhibition. What's the address?"
Waving goodbye I stomped off as if I had a thousand other things to do in the direction of the Soho Grand.
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