Offcomer (20 page)

“I don’t know why you have to make such an effort. It’s only work.”

And then silence. Not a word out of him as she walked past him in her bathtowel, as she dressed in the bedroom. As she stood, half an eye on the telly, pulling on her jumper and smoothing out her hair again. Not a word from him until she said, “See you.”

And after a moment’s pause, to prove that he was engrossed in the current local-interest story, and that she was disturbing him, he would reply, “Yeah. See you.”

And she would close the door behind her, slip out through the front door of the house, and onto the cold leaf-littered street.

She had tried talking to him about work. She had tried
telling him about the hordes of customers, about how when Paul and Grainne came in to the bar, they always spotted her and called her over to talk. About Dermot who had asked her name then teased her. “Claih?” he had said, exaggerating Claire’s accent. “ ‘
Claih
?’ You mean
Clurr
. That’s how you say it.
Clurr
.” About Gareth who shared the tips with her even though she never got any herself, and had asked her how she was settling in, and when Alan would be down. But Alan had not wanted to hear. As she had spoken a frown had gathered on his forehead, his jaw had set as he gritted his teeth. They knew where he was, he told her. If they were so bloody interested, they could call him. They could just ring him up and ask him down for a drink. So she had stopped talking. She apologised. She had not spoken about it since.

By mid-November she had realised that she couldn’t earn enough money before Christmas to pay the forty pounds for a coach ticket home, let alone the hundred and fifty for the air fare. Alan might have lent her the money, but the weeks went by and she still couldn’t bring herself to ask. She could barely bring herself to open her mouth and speak, let alone ask for money. And when it came to it, she realised that she couldn’t go home. She wouldn’t be able to pretend to be at ease, not for any length of time. She could deal with a phone call, but she didn’t really believe that she could lie convincingly, for days or a week, to her mother’s face. And the idea of seeing Jen, of dealing with Jen’s confident, delighted energy made Claire feel tired and defeated. It was bad enough after Oxford, but now … If she could just curl up beside her father, his heavy hand on her shoulder, and lean against his warmth, speechlessly. But it wouldn’t be allowed. It was never allowed.

Around teatime on the last Sunday in November she
phoned her mum. She told her she had to work over Christmas. She was sorry, but there it was, unavoidable. It was that or lose her job. And not to worry, she would have a great time. It was always good craic, the other staff had told her, working over Christmas and New Year. And Alan sent his love. And she promised she would visit as soon as possible. She hung up, biting her lip, then she keyed in Gareth’s number. She asked him if there were any extra hours going over Christmas, if she could work Christmas Day. “I’m skint,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. “I don’t mind. I’ll do Christmas Eve as well, if you want.”

Twentieth of December and Alan came home pissed. An after-work end-of-term afternoon drink at Dukes had turned into three or four or five. Claire was on her way out of the door. He held his arm out, half-embrace, half-barrier. She stopped, standing on the doorstep. She looked at the olive wool of his turtleneck sweater. He asked her when she was stopping work for Christmas.

“I’m working every day,” she said.

“But we’d agreed we’d go to my ma’s.”

“I’m sorry. Gareth’s really stuck. And it’s that kind of job. Busiest time of the year.”

“You let him take advantage of you.”

“I know. But I need the money.”

“He doesn’t pay you enough.”

“I know.”

“I can’t believe you let him treat you like this.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be such a pushover.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“You go. Have a great time.”

At about half-two on Christmas Eve Alan set off down town to catch the bus to Glengormley. He took a stack of books with him. He would not be back till the day after Boxing Day. Claire wrapped herself up in her yellow waffled blanket, hunched on the sofa, and watched
It’s a Wonderful Life
on TV. She had to switch the TV off three-quarters of the way through the film. She would be late for work.

A fresh post-Christmas paypacket in her bag, she sat in the back of a black-and-white tiled hairdressers and watched the silent young woman slice off tranches of her hair. She watched as the scissors began to cut close against her head, the clippings falling like pine needles onto her lap. The style did not, she thought, particularly suit her: it left her looking boyish and exposed. She turned her head, watching her reflection. She felt jittery, satisfied.

“It got in the way at work,” she told Alan, who had blanched.

“It was beautiful,” he said, an ache in his voice.

“It was a pain, though.”

“It was beautiful,” he said again, his tone shifting. “You did it to annoy me.”

“No,” she said, and rubbed the soft short fuzz with a hand.

A door slam.

“Claire?”

He was back from work. Unexpected. A little earlier than usual. The new semester had left him more irritable, more unpredictable than ever. He had started calling her at work, he had started popping home at lunchtimes. And now, it seemed, he had started coming home early.

There was something about the way he spoke her name, proprietorial, belligerent, sexual, that made her flinch, shoulders hunching up, eyes closing, as the hot water poured down over her. She knew he knew she was in the shower. In the small flat, the sound of running water and the groaning of the hot tank were audible in every room.

“I’m in the shower.” She said it anyway, because it was easier. She soaped her underarms. She shaved. She listened as he moved about the flat.

She heard his bag hit the floor with a thump. Heavy. Lots of marking. That meant he would be irritable. His feet were heavy on the old boards. Putting his books on shelves, setting out his work on the table, hanging up his jacket in the wardrobe. He trudged noisily down the hallway. She put her razor down on the side of the bath. He was going to try the bathroom door. She had locked it, but the lock was unreliable; the bolt would shift out of the socket with a gentle tug or push at the door. She waited, frozen, listening. He walked past the bathroom, went through to the kitchen. He ran the cold tap, the water rattled against the metal base of the kettle, and the shower ran for a moment blisteringly hot. Claire shrank back against the icy tiles, out of the spray. She heard him turn the tap off, flick the kettle on. She stepped back into the cooling water, heard him walk past the door again, walk through to the bedroom. She ducked her head under the shower. She reached down for her shampoo bottle.

Hot water streaming down her face, eyes closed, she squeezed a slug of shampoo into one hand, put the bottle back down on the side of the bath. She rubbed the shampoo into her cropped hair. It thickened and foamed, dripped down her arms. She kept her eyes shut, enjoying the warmth and the silkiness of the foam, hearing nothing but the gushing water and the mulchy sound of her hair as she rubbed.

The doorhandle creaked. A draught of cold air hit her skin. He was in the room. She turned and saw a strip of pale naked back as he passed. Then she heard the chink of plastic against ceramic as the toilet seat was raised. Through the steam and the citrus scent of the shampoo came the rank musty smell of piss. Then she heard the toilet’s rattling, gurgling flush.

A cold hand on her hip. She jumped.

“What’s the matter?” Alan climbed into the bath beside her.

“Nothing.”

He stood, his skin pimpling in the steam. He had the beginnings of an erection; his penis was becoming stocky and pugnacious. “Let me get warm,” he said.

He moved round her to stand under the water, letting it run over him. His skin blotched pink. The fair hair on his chest, belly and legs darkened. He lifted up his head and wiped back his hair, let the spray wash over his face. His eyes were closed.

“You’ve a while yet before work,” he said.

“Yes.” Claire leant against the cold tiles. Shampoo dripped from her hair, trickled slippily down her skin. It felt greasy. She was vividly conscious of her nakedness; her breasts felt tender, vulnerable; the sudden dark scribble of her pubic hair seemed ridiculous. The cut on her leg throbbed, as if trying
to draw attention to itself. She smiled at him unevenly. “But I still have to get ready,” she said.

He smiled. It wasn’t a natural smile, Claire realised. Because he wasn’t a natural smiler. “Plenty of time,” he said.

He put his hands on her waist, pulled her towards him, back under the shower. The water ran over her head and down across her body, rinsing the shampoo out of her hair. It got into her eyes, her mouth. His penis pressed against her belly, hardening. She reached up to rub her eyes, to wipe away the soap, but he took her hands and held them, pulled them down to touch his penis. He kissed her on the mouth. His spit was sticky. Eyes tight shut and stinging, she took him in her fist and rubbed.

He came quickly, shuddering, one hand to the tiled wall for support. Pale translucent semen spurted onto her belly, cooled, began to drip down her. He groaned thickly and leaned back against the wall, eyes closed, as the water washed over him and the last drops of semen were rinsed off his cock and down into the drain. He sighed. He opened his eyes, looked around him. He picked up the soap, began to wash. He washed himself thoroughly: armpits, ears, crotch, feet. Then he got out of the shower and wrapped himself in Claire’s towel.

“Love you,” he said.

Claire’s eyes were still smarting with shampoo. Her hair was slick with it. She leaned against the cold tiles, rubbing her eyes, trying not to gag, listening to his wet feet slap against the lino as he headed for the door. She stepped back into the water, rinsed her hair, rubbed her eyes. She took mouthfuls of hot water and spat, rinsing away the taste of soap and spit. Then she reached out for the shower-control and turned it up
as hot as it would go. She would wash herself clean. She would wash away every scrap of the stuff that was trickling down her, creeping down towards her public hair. She would not let it get inside her. She would flush it down the drain, be rid of it. She turned in the stream of scalding water, arching herself forward so that the water washed over her belly. She wouldn’t even have to touch it: it would rinse away, then she would pick up the soap and scrub herself all over, wash herself cleaner than clean. She glanced down at her belly, expecting to see it smooth and flat and clear. But his semen was still there. It had coagulated in the hot water, curdled into strands and soft translucent crumbs. It was sticking to her skin. It looked like scrambled eggs. She gagged, tasted stomach acid in her mouth.

She picked up the nailbrush, scrubbed at the clinging threads, tried to scrape them away. Her skin came up red, hatched and cross-hatched by the bristles.

“What are you doing?”

She had thought he had gone. She froze.

“Claire?”

What had he seen?

“Claire?”

Had the shower curtain covered her, or had he seen her gag, seen her scrubbing him away?

“Just washing,” she said.

She heard his feet again on the wet lino. He tugged the shower curtain back. She saw him look her over. The hot water now stung her skin, dilating capillaries, dragging blood to the surface. She had scraped bright pink weals across her stomach. She had scrubbed herself raw, and yet there were still crumbs of his come stuck to her. She could not cover herself. She couldn’t speak. There was nothing she could do.

“You’ve hurt yourself,” he said.

She looked down at his bare feet on the dirty white lino, the fake tiles marked across the bathroom floor.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why did you hurt yourself?”

“It’s nothing.”

“You’ve all but scrubbed your skin off. You must have felt pretty dirty to scrub yourself that hard.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looked her up and down again, his face red and puckered. He too seemed unable to speak, unable to find adequate words. She could almost see, in the workings of his face, his desperate rummage for the right vocabulary. He gave up. He reached forward, almost slowly, and placed a hand on her chest, between her breasts. For a moment, she thought it was a caress, and was about to reach for him, when he pushed her.

He didn’t push her hard; he pushed her hardly at all, in fact. It certainly wasn’t anything as dramatic and final as a punch, or even a slap. It wasn’t something you could really hold against him, when it came down to it. If Claire hadn’t been scrubbing herself so vigorously and made the bath slippery with soap, she would probably not have fallen. And her razors had retractable blades. If she had remembered to click them back after she had shaved herself, she wouldn’t have got cut. As it was, he pushed her slightly and she lost her footing and slipped, cracking her head against the wall, putting a hand out to save herself and putting it straight down on top of her razor. Slicing herself on its twin blades.

There was a lot of blood. More than when she cut herself deliberately. Claire was aware of the blood, and a throb in her head which crystallised immediately into pain, and a
vague smarting from her hand. And feeling suddenly, utterly bewildered. And lying in the bath, water running over her, and being all angles and joints, one hand held in the air, red streaming brightly down her arm, and slipping and slithering as she tried to dislodge herself, to get herself upright, and feeling as if she never would, and, absurdly, giggling.

And Alan standing back from her, looking down at her as she floundered in the empty bath like a beached starfish. Blank and pale. Tears pouring down his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He reached out a hand towards her, grabbed her wrist. It anchored her. He helped her sit up, then stand. He held her arm as she stepped out of the bath. He steered her over to the basin and turned the cold tap on. He held her hand under the cold water. The cut stung. Claire pulled away, but he held on. The water ran clear. He dried her hand then wrapped it up in toilet roll. There were tears on his face. He sniffed back the gathering mucus. He took off his towel and wrapped it round her. Naked, he put an arm around her and guided her through to the bedroom. He sat her down on the bed, pulled the blanket round her shoulders.