Don’t You Forget About Me(87)

‘Us.’ Is that significant? Wouldn’t it be more natural to say ‘you’?

I remember this precipice of excitement from long ago. Not knowing if he feels the way I feel, knowing I could fall from a huge height, if not. Even though you could be utterly destroyed by hitting the rocks below, there’s no feeling like it.

We talk easily, having enough in common now that it’s effortless. He tells me how he hated university too, didn’t want to do his business degree.

‘Dad wanted us to take over the family firm, end of story, no other ideas tolerated or indeed, funded. It was a glove-like fit for Dev, but … I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I didn’t want to run bars.’

‘What would you have liked to do?’

‘I quite fancied teaching, actually,’ Lucas says, batting his glass from one hand to the other.

‘I can see you as a teacher!’

‘Is that a jibe?’

‘No!’ I grin. I am incapable of objective judgement, but it feels like we’re flirting to me.

‘You could still retrain?’ I say.

‘Yeah, I could. But I’m quite long in the tooth to begin again now and I’m used to this income, so. Look, I didn’t say my problems were worthy of sympathy.’

He gives me a sly grin from under his brow and I think we’re definitely flirting, surely.

‘Are you loaded then?’ I ask, curious as to whether he’ll be honest.

‘Errrr. What’s the tactful response to that?’

‘Honesty.’

‘Yeah, I am. We are. The Faustian pact with my dad: do as I say, it’ll all be yours. He was quite the bully, to the point of not entirely respecting the law in his dealings with the fruitier side of Dublin nightlife. We cleaned all that up. I’m relieved he’s retired.’

‘How did you and Dev turn out so well?’ I say, unguardedly, and Lucas looks genuinely gratified.

‘That’d be my mum.’

I know glorying in wealth is unseemly and that Lucas isn’t more valuable as he’s worth a lot, on paper. I still allow myself a brief flight of fancy, imagining being his. The men I’ve dated have been fairly inert and hapless, borrowing off me before payday. Ugh, Georgina, no, stop this. You’re not an Austen heroine, make your own money. Think of your mum and Geoffrey.

We talk about Robin, and I tell Lucas my side of catching him in bed with Lou, and he boggles and guffaws and gasps in the right places and I see us bonding, from the outside, and quite like who I am, for a change. I might’ve dated an idiot but I can take it to the metaphorical Cash Converters and turn it into something of entertainment value.

Bottle gone, Lucas asks if I’ve tried a cherry liqueur they’ve been sent and we do sticky shots, smacking our lips together and debating whether it’s delicious or saccharine. The illuminated clock over the bar says half one. My mind is fuzzed by drink but I know a moment of reckoning is drawing near.

‘Look at the time! Best call your cab,’ Lucas says.

‘Luc,’ I say. The nickname is deliberate. I take a risk. A premeditated risk. ‘So you know when you hired me? I … overheard you saying to Dev you didn’t want the pub to turn into Hooters.’

Lucas startles.

‘Did I say that?’

‘Uh … I thought you did. I was having a fag outside the kitchen window, after the wake.’

‘Oh, I was probably pissed …’ He looks awkward and I worry I shouldn’t have pushed my luck.

‘I didn’t think I had the dumb blonde, big rack look.’

‘You don’t!’

‘Robin called me “Topshop Diana Dors”.’

‘Wow. He looks like Leo Sayer.’ Lucas pauses. ‘I was … probably just putting Devlin in his place for jumping in and hiring when he was half cut.’

‘Right.’

‘… I’m really sorry if it sounded like I was passing judgement on your appearance. It came out flip and rude because I was jibing at Dev. Oh …’ he rubs the back of his head, ‘I feel like such a wanker now.’

It was always a risky gambit, confronting Lucas with this, and right now it’s deservedly backfiring. He’s uncomfortable and I’ve damaged the easy-going mood.

‘No, I know you’d never insult me. It’s just – sometimes I worry that I don’t attract the right sort of man. Robin was surprised I’d read books. Maybe I should dye my hair dark and ditch the pink coat.’

That’s better, Georgina, I think. I mean, creakingly manipulative compliment-fishing, but just about getting away with it.

‘Any man who doesn’t recognise an intelligent woman because of her hair colour isn’t worth knowing.’

‘Yeah. True.’

Well that trap failed.

‘I’m not tanned enough for Hooters anyway.’ Argh, let it go, Georgina. Can you hear yourself.

‘I really wouldn’t worry about it. You’re lovely as you are.’

WOAH. Scored in injury time. Lovely. Lucas McCarthy thinks I’m lovely. Of all the faces to ruin. That meant something. It had to. My heart is pounding so loud I’m surprised the neighbours haven’t knocked on the wall to ask me to turn it down.

‘OK.’ Lucas glances at the wall clock. ‘Taxi.’ He gets up to call from the phone behind the bar.