Chapter 8 #2
He nods and grins. ‘I know, she told me you were here. What can I say? We changed. It happens. You, though… Jesus, Ellie, how is it that you look exactly the same? Except without the angry scowl?’
I pull my face and narrow my eyes, folding my arms over my chest and letting my lip do the little sneer it used to wear permanently.
‘Ah! There she is!’ he says, sounding delighted as he laughs.
I can’t help but join in, despite how weird this is.
Just like the rest of him, his voice is both the same and different – there are hints of the different places he has lived, but beneath it that same Irish lilt that always marked him out as an alien when he joined our school.
I am suddenly flooded with memories, all rugby tackling me at once.
The first time I saw him, the summer before we went into the same class.
He was kicking a football around the village green, wearing shorts that almost came down to his ankles, passed on from his big brothers.
‘Ach, he’ll grow into it!’ was a common refrain in his house.
I remember the first time he came to the pub for his tea, and he couldn’t believe I had a room of my own.
The first time we got drunk together, and Liam was sick all over both of us.
His dad made us stand in the back yard and hosed us down with the pipe.
The endless firsts we experienced together – starting high school, skiving off high school, the cigarettes that made us choke, the bus trips and walks on the cliffs and swims in the sea and the constant, unceasing talking.
Mainly the talking – it felt like we talked non-stop for years on end.
Liam and I shared everything from the age of seven until we were sixteen.
Such incredibly formative times in our lives, going from being little kids into young adults.
He was my ally in life, my best pal, my other half – my soul mate.
We never, ever ran out of things to say to each other.
Until the time we did. Until a combination of immaturity and teenage hormones drove a wedge between us.
I wonder if he is feeling the same as I am right now – embarrassed, excited, and below all of that…
relieved? Yes. I’m relieved to see him again.
It feels like I’m actually home now and I should let the dark parts of our past go.
Earlier today I was thinking I was glad he was on the other side of the world.
Now he is standing in front of me, I can’t help wanting to tell him every single thing that has happened to me since I last saw him.
Just like we used to at the end of every school day, but with a bit more to catch up on.
I am also made of questions – literally bursting with them.
I want to know every single thing that has happened to him since we were last together.
Which would be quite a lot of things, I’d imagine.
I have the urge to immediately launch into an interrogation, but I bite my tongue.
I tell myself to slow down, to give myself the chance to steady.
To calm. To not explode with this unsettling mix of excitement and dread.
For all I know, this isn’t a big deal to him. Maybe he’s just thinking it’s nice to see an old friend. Maybe he has barely even thought about me over the years. I’m sure I’m over-estimating my own importance, and don’t want to completely overwhelm him.
‘This is weird, isn’t it?’ he says, his gold-flecked eyes running over me.
‘Yeah. Totally. But we are mature and responsible adults these days.’
‘Says the woman who just fell on her backside dancing to The Killers in a pub kitchen.’
‘There is that.’ I’m unable to stop smiling now. ‘Maybe my inner child sensed you were nearby and acted accordingly.’
‘Right,’ he says, raising his eyebrows cynically. ‘So it’s all my fault, is it?’
‘It is, yes. I’ll be swigging red wine and painting my toenails black before you know it. Want to help me clear up?’
I am keeping the tone light, but this feels intense. Why is Liam here? Why isn’t he in Dublin, or Australia, or Timbuktu? Why does he look a bit sad and tired, despite his new state of handsomeness? Why is my heart crashing against my chest like I’m out of breath?
I need to be active, to be doing something other than staring at him and getting ambushed by my memories.
He nods, and immediately gets stuck in. I leave the music on, and we both sing along to Nirvana and Green Day and then bizarrely Whitney Houston.
I have eclectic tastes. He already knows that, of course, because so much of what I like now was already in place back then.
He doesn’t bat an eyelid as we segue from punk to I Will Always Love You.
‘You were always a better singer than me,’ I say as he stacks the dishwasher.
‘That’s not saying much. A zombie warthog giving birth is a better singer than you.’
‘Oi!’ I respond, throwing a tea towel at his head and laughing.
‘Don’t you mean oink?’ he says, throwing it back.
And just like that, I am sixteen again. The good bit of being sixteen.
Like on the night of my birthday party, where my dad let all my friends come to the pub, and pretended not to see the hip flasks of vodka doing the rounds.
It was before my mum and dad fell apart, before Liam and I fell apart – before everything fell apart.
I remember lying on the grass outside with him afterwards, both of us staring up at the stars in the night sky and waiting for the world to stop spinning.
Everyone else had gone home, but we were still out there at one in the morning, determined to last the whole night.
Planning to talk for hours, and give our own names to the constellations.
We’d got as far as making Orion into Brian before we inevitably started making Uranus jokes.
Eventually we fell asleep, the waves our lullaby, the stars our blanket.
When we woke up with the dawn light, we were both covered in sleeping bags my mum had snuck out and tucked around us. The sea birds were calling and we were both wet from dew. We didn’t care. We were young, and life was an adventure.
I miss that, I realise. I miss life being an adventure.
Things have improved for me over the last year, but I am still smaller and more scared than I used to be.
I can’t commit to Tyler, and I don’t know if that’s because he’s not the right person, or simply because I’m a coward and afraid to try again.
I’d like some of sixteen-year-old Ellie’s fearlessness back again.
‘So,’ Liam says as we finally finish the job, ‘do you want to sneak a six pack of Guinness and drink it on the beach? I’d suggest a smoke, but neither of us really ever liked them did we? We were just trying to be cool.’
‘I know. I’m glad it didn’t stick.’ I lean back against the kitchen counter and watch him as he pours himself a glass of water.
‘I can’t believe how different you look,’ I say, letting my eyes run over him. He shrugs, obviously a bit more used to the new him than me.
‘I had a full body transplant,’ he replies, gesturing down at himself. ‘Picked it out of a catalogue.’
‘Well, you picked a good one…’ I say, immediately blushing at the appreciative tone in my voice.
I can’t flirt with Liam. I didn’t intend to, either, it just came out that way.
‘Though I liked you just the way you were,’ I add hastily.
Which, I realise as soon as the words are out, makes it even more awkward.
His eyes meet mine, and I see such kindness in them. Such understanding. This is what Liam always was: someone who just ‘got’ me. Even after all these years, his expression tells me that maybe he still does. At least about this.
He points at me and says: ‘Your face is so red right now. You look like a giant tomato. You’re just a great big enormous tomato that has legs. Astronauts on space stations are pointing and saying “What the hell is that?” in a dozen different languages.’
I laugh and pretend to be offended, but I am grateful for the escape route. Insulting each other is much safer territory.
‘Well at least I don’t smell of farts!’
‘What?’ he says, looking shocked. ‘I don’t smell of farts! I smell of Tom Ford!’
‘Not to me you don’t. To me, you’ll always smell of farts. It’s like they’re ingrained into you. Soaked into your skin. Part of the very essence of your being. Eau de Liam.’
‘God, I so wish I could just squeeze one out right now, it would be so funny…’
He contorts his face, obviously putting some real effort into it, but thankfully nothing emerges. He looks sad and says: ‘I feel like such a failure.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I reply, patting his arm, ‘it happens to all men. Now, I think we’re done in here… and I need a drink. If you’re lucky I’ll get you one on the house – I know the owner.’
He glances at his watch, and I find myself loving that he wears a watch.
It feels so old fashioned, and the watch itself is gorgeous.
Like something James Bond would wear. He shakes his head, and I see a flicker of regret on his face.
‘No, sorry, I’d better be getting back. How long are you here for? ’
‘No idea,’ I say, biting back my disappointment.
I realise that I don’t have a clue if he is here just for Christmas, if he has his wife with him, if he has kids.
I tell myself that is fine. I have spent years not wanting to know any of that, and it was my choice to blank him out of my life.
‘I’ll stay until my dad is back on his feet.
Until he’s okay to run the place on his own. ’
His hazel eyes meet mine, and he frowns slightly. Or maybe I imagined it, because as quick as it appeared, it disappeared. He just nods, and the mood suddenly feels awkward again.
‘Well, it really was great to see you. I’d love to catch up properly, if you have time while you’re here? And I know my parents would love to see you. If that isn’t enough to tempt you, there’s also a puppy…’
I am immediately interested. ‘You know I’m a sucker for a puppy, Liam Byrne.’
‘I know. You’d have ridden away with the clown from IT if he had a puppy in his clown car.’
‘This is true. And yes, of course – we can catch up. It’ll only take about five minutes at my end, but I’m guessing yours might be more interesting. Right, off you feck then!’
I make a shooing gesture with my tea towel, and we both laugh at my impression of his mum.
He closes the distance between us, and I freeze as I realise he is coming in for a hug.
His arms wrap around me, and after the initial panic, I relax.
I let myself feel small and warm and safe.
I always felt safe with Liam, but the small is a new thing.
I can’t help inhaling a little as my face lies against his chest. That really is very good cologne.
I pull away, wrinkle up my nose in disgust. ‘Fart boy.’
‘Tomato face.’
‘Off you feck!’
He finally leaves, and I slump back against the kitchen sink. What the hell just happened?