Postscript(65)

She shrugs and reaches for her ice cream before leaving.

I go downstairs. Mum steps out of the kitchen to examine me. She gives me a proud but concerned, and at the same time warning, look. All three expressions I recognise and understand. Everything my parents say and do has many meanings. Like when my parents say ‘have fun’ but their tone suggests they mean to have their idea of fun, that if I actually have the kind of fun I want to have, then there will be repercussions and consequences.

Dad, Declan and Ciara are watching Beadle’s About on TV and Declan is roaring with laughter. Jack and Gerry are in the den playing Sonic on Jack’s new Sega Mega Drive. As well as Eddie, Jack and the Mega Drive are the second addictions to draw Gerry away from me. I’ve spent countless evenings and weekends in that room up against both of them. The room that usually smells of dirty socks and smelly feet tonight is filled with the smell of aftershave.

Gerry has his eyes fixed on the screen, playing Sonic.

Jack glances at me and wolf whistles in a jeering way. I wait at the door for Gerry to finish and notice me and for more of Jack’s smart comments that I’ll ignore. I know he likes Gerry, I know that he’d swap him for me any day and that all of his disparaging remarks and stereotypical big brother comments are out of duty, embarrassment and because he thinks it’s expected.

Gerry’s face is a mask of concentration, pursed lips, serious brow. He’s wearing blue jeans, a white shirt. Gel in his hair. His blue eyes sparkle. He’s wearing enough CK One for every man at the party. I smile, watching him. As if sensing my desire, he finally removes his eyes from the game. Eyes up and down, quickly at first, then slowly. I’ve butterflies in my stomach. I wish we could miss the party completely.

‘Ah no!’ Jack yells, throwing his hands up, giving us both a jolt.

‘What?’ Gerry looks at him.

‘You died.’

‘I don’t care,’ Gerry grins, chucking the control pad into Jack’s lap. ‘I’m off.’

‘Keep your hands off my sister.’

Gerry grins as he makes his way to me. Our eyes lock. He holds his hands up, where Jack can’t see them, open palms, spread fingers, squeezing at the air as if about to grab my boobs. The door pushes open beside me.

It’s Ciara.

She observes his disappearing spread hands and his quickly reddening face.

‘Nice. Is that the foreplay?’

The party at Erin’s Isle is everything I imagined it to be, but when I’d imagined it, I was on the outside. It’s easier when I’m in it. A room filled with Gerry’s cousins, uncles, aunts, we don’t stop talking over plates of sandwiches, chicken wings and cocktail sausages. I’ve finished my permitted one alcoholic drink by 10 p.m. and my secretly understood but not spoken about second drink by eleven. The older guests leave at 11 p.m. as planned, with Eddie starting a conga line to lead them around the venue once before taking them outside to their cars and waiting taxis. And then the DJ starts and the music is so loud there’s no more civilised chat. I down a third drink, thinking I’ll have time for a fourth, beginning to think that our plans to leave have been scuppered by Eddie’s attention on Gerry all night. When Eddie takes to the dance floor to display his comedy breakdancing, I’m sure I should order another drink because Gerry is usually the eager sidekick in this show. But I’m wrong. This time Gerry chooses me.

Gerry leans in to whisper something to Eddie, Eddie grins, slaps his back. I’m mortified, I’m hoping Gerry hasn’t told him exactly what we’re about to do, but the fact we’re leaving early is a giveaway. Eddie drags Gerry across the dance floor over in my direction. Eddie hugs me and squeezes me so tight I can barely breathe. Gerry is so pleased at this meeting of the giants of his heart that he doesn’t do anything to stop him.

Eddie, sweaty and drunk, pulls us both close to him.

‘You two,’ he squeezes us tightly. ‘You know I love this lad.’ A bit of his spit lands on my lip but I’m too polite to wipe it away. The sweat from his forehead is slick against mine. I think of my make-up being wiped off.

‘I love this lad, I do.’ He kisses Gerry on the head roughly. ‘And he loves you.’

He hugs us both again. Although I know his sentiments are well meaning, and it’s a moment, it’s also painful. This guy who bashes into grown men on a football field doesn’t know his own strength. His shining pointy party shoe is on my toe, it pinches and hurts. I concentrate on making my body as small as possible while he continues.

‘He loves you,’ he says again. ‘And you love him too, don’t you?’

I look at Gerry. Unlike me, he seems moved by this messy man display of love and intimacy. He doesn’t seem bothered by being squished, sweated or spat on. Or the fact that his girlfriend is having her love for him forcibly squished out of her.

‘Yes,’ I say, nodding.

Gerry’s looking at me with tenderness and large pupils, which tells me he’s drunk but that’s OK, I’m feeling the buzz too. He has such a silly smile on his face that I laugh.

‘Go on, get out of here, you two,’ Eddie says, releasing us from his grip, ruffling Gerry’s hair with another violent kiss to the head before heading back to the dance floor for a dance battle with a teammate.

We get to Gerry’s house as fast as we can, determined not to waste a second of our magic time. Gerry is a sweetheart, Gerry is thoughtful. We both are. We both think about each other, which makes it all the better for ourselves. He lights a candle, puts music on. At sixteen and seventeen we’re the last of our group of friends to have sex, and the couple the longest together. I’m smug enough to think Gerry and I will be different and we’re smug enough to make sure that it is exactly what we want it to be. I hate the word smug, yet it is how others see us. We are confident enough together to do our own thing, never to follow the crowd, to dance, not march, to the beat of our own drum. It bothers others, cuts us off from time to time, but we have each other and we don’t care.