Abruptly she feels the handle slip from underneath her hand and before she can step away from the door, it bangs open. She hears a cracking noise when it connects with her face, then a strange feeling inside her head. She steps backwards while Alan enters the room. There’s a ringing, but it’s not so much a sound as a physical sensation, like the friction of two imagined metal plates somewhere in her skull. Her nose is running. She’s aware that Alan is inside the room. Her hand goes to her face. Her nose is running really quite badly. Lifting the hand away now, she sees that her fingers are covered in blood, warm blood, wet. Alan is saying something. The blood must be coming out of her face. Her vision swims diagonally and the sense of ringing increases.
Are you going to blame me for that now? says Alan.
She puts her hand back to her nose. Blood is streaming out of her face so fast that she can’t stem it with her fingers. It runs over her mouth and down her chin, she can feel it. She sees it land in heavy drops on the blue carpet fibres below.
Five Minutes Later
(JULY 2014)
In the kitchen he takes a can of beer out of the fridge and sits at the table to open it. After a minute the front door opens and he hears Lorraine’s keys. Hey, he says, loud enough for her to hear. She comes in and closes the kitchen door. On the lino her shoes sound sticky, like the wet sound of lips parting. He notices a fat moth resting on the lampshade overhead, not moving. Lorraine puts her hand softly on the top of his head.
Is Marianne gone home? says Lorraine.
Yeah.
What happened in the match?
I don’t know, he says. I think it went to penalties.
Lorraine draws a chair back and sits down beside him. She starts taking the pins out of her hair and laying them out on the table. He takes a mouthful of beer and lets it get warm in his mouth before swallowing. The moth shuffles its wings overhead. The blind above the kitchen sink is pulled up, and he can see the faint black outline of trees against the sky outside.
And I had a fine time, thanks for asking, says Lorraine.
Sorry.
You’re looking a bit dejected. Did something happen?
He shakes his head. When he saw Yvonne last week she told him he was ‘making progress’. Mental healthcare professionals are always using this hygienic vocabulary, words wiped clean as whiteboards, free of connotation, sexless. She asked about his sense of ‘belonging’. You used to say you felt trapped between two places, she said, not really belonging at home but not fitting in here either. Do you still feel that way? He just shrugged. The medication is doing its chemical work inside his brain now anyway, no matter what he does or says. He gets up and showers every morning, he turns up for work in the library, he doesn’t really fantasise about jumping off a bridge. He takes the medication, life goes on.
Pins arranged on the table, Lorraine starts teasing her hair out loosely with her fingers.
Did you hear Isa Gleeson is pregnant? she says.
I did, yeah.
Your old friend.
He picks up the can of beer and weighs it in his hand. Isa was his first girlfriend, his first ex-girlfriend. She used to call the house phone at night after they broke up and Lorraine would answer. From up in his room, under the covers, he would hear Lorraine’s voice saying: I’m sorry, sweetheart, he can’t come to the phone right now. Maybe you can talk to him in school. She had braces when they were going out together, she probably doesn’t have those anymore. Isa, yeah. He was shy around her. She used to do such stupid things to make him jealous, but she would act innocent, as if it wasn’t clear to both of them what she was doing: maybe she really thought he couldn’t see it, or maybe she couldn’t see it herself. He hated that. He just withdrew from her further and further until finally, in a text message, he told her he didn’t want to be her boyfriend anymore. He hasn’t seen her in years now.
I don’t know why she’s keeping it, he says. Do you think she’s one of these anti-abortion people?
Oh, is that the only reason women have babies, is it? Because of some backwards political view?
Well, from what I hear she’s not together with the dad. I don’t know does she even have a job.
I didn’t have a job when I had you, says Lorraine.
He stares at the intricate white-and-red typeface on the can of beer, the crest of the ‘B’ looping back and inwards again towards itself.
And do you not regret it? he says. I know you’re going to try and spare my feelings now, but honestly. Do you not think you could have had a better life if you didn’t have a kid?
Lorraine turns to stare at him now, her face frozen.
Oh god, she says. Why? Is Marianne pregnant?
What? No.
She laughs, presses a hand to her breastbone. That’s good, she says. Jesus.
I mean, I assume not, he adds. It wouldn’t have anything to do with me if she was.
His mother pauses, hand still at her chest, and then says diplomatically: Well, that’s none of my business.
