Chapter 17 2010 #2
“I’m good,” she says, as though her smoking is a genuine possibility, as though today might be the day. Sweet that Niamh continues to ask. Relationships should be active. Nevertheless, she follows her out into the alley glowing purple and blue under paper lanterns and cheap strip lighting.
She is beautiful, Niamh, her downy head tucked under a bright red beanie, lips painted the deep purple of the night.
On her arm a pale green bruise is blooming from a protest she went to last weekend over the Queen’s Jubilee.
Viola had seen the photos online of Niamh, open-mouthed and gleeful, carrying a sign that read in bold fuchsia, “I AM NO ONE’S SUBJECT,” even though (strictly speaking) Ireland made that point some time ago.
Across the Atlantic, a wave of unrest and dissatisfaction is mounting.
Online she sees Zach Papadopoulos, scruffy and jubilant in a tent on Wall Street, a Facebook post written by Molly McInerny on the ninety-nine percent.
All of it fills her with uncertainty, a sense of the world on a precipice.
As Niamh sticks a lumpy roll-up in her mouth, Viola thinks of the mangled pocket Bible Sebastian shreds for rolling paper.
When did Orson start smoking again? Foul concoction, logically she knows it will kill her (remember: tar, arsenic, formaldehyde), but she is beginning to understand—the ugly smell, the ambient streetlights in the narrow passage, Niamh’s smile and the musicality of Rowan’s voice make her feel as though she’s living artfully, as though she’s doing it right.
“No, I know him.” Rowan is laughing about some campus legend, flicking a plastic lighter in front of Niamh’s face. “He did legitimately try to steal, like, twenty candles from Corpus, for like, a séance. He’s convinced his room is haunted by a dead ex-student.”
“What a legend,” Niamh says. “I mean, property is a construct.”
“I love you,” Rowan says. “They fined him two hundred pounds.”
A light rain starts to fall, and the smokers huddle against the lip of the building. A snatch of music emerges from the open door, followed by a redheaded chorus girl, still wearing her costume headdress of goat horns and flowers.
“You all right?” the girl asks. People here are always asking that, though they never expect an answer other than Yeah, or the question repeated. It’s the one thing that rankles here, the disingenuousness of it. Why ask?
“Can I bum one?” the redheaded girl begs Rowan, “I’ll trade you for one of these prop ones.” She holds up a packet of fakes they used on set. “I think they’re full of rose petals.”
“No, thanks. I’ll stick with my death stick.”
“Is that what you’re calling it these days?” Niamh asks, cheekily inspecting the packet of fakes. Sugar Lilies, they are called, like they’re going to dissolve in your mouth. Like they are not going to kill you.
“So, are you going then?” the redhead asks.
“Going where?” Niamh asks. “If you leave, they better not cut off my free wine.”
Rowan waves a dismissive hand. “I’m not that desperate.”
“Going where?” Viola asks.
“The Clayton. Orson Grey is staying there,” the redhead announces.
“That’s the goss,” says Rowan.
Carefully, Viola had lined her eyes and brushed her lashes, bronzed and blended her cheeks.
She is underdressed in the way an accidental ingenue would be underdressed, wearing her black college sweatshirt with St. Sylvia’s emblazoned over the breast, the small crest featuring an open book.
Her tightest, blackest jeans. The worst thing would be to look as though she was trying, as if she was after anything. It needs to feel organic, destiny.
“I don’t find him attractive,” Niamh says, exhaling. “Maybe it’s his jaw, I don’t know.”
“His jaw!” Viola says in mock outrage.
“Or his chin or something. I don’t know, something about it. His face.” You can say that sort of thing about celebrities. Her dismissal is a shame and a relief.
“I heard he’s a shagger,” says Rowan.
“Really, Rowan, you can shame people for their weird chins, but not for sex,” Niamh says.
“I always thought he had a nice face,” Viola says.
“Oh my God, you want to lick his weird chin.” Niamh places her nonsmoking hand in Viola’s pocket, and interlaces her fingers. “Fingers are freezing,” she says.
“It’s not that cold,” Viola says.
“Well, you’re warm-blooded. You snow people. Or is it cold-blooded?” A pulse. A linger. Her phone is vibrating in the other pocket.
Sebastian
At Dad’s. Where do we keep the flashlights?
“Is that your boyfriend?” Rowan asks. “Is it Orson Grey?”
“I thought you were my boyfriend, Rowan,” Viola says, the wine hitting recklessly. “You’ve seen me naked and everything.”
“And wasn’t it glorious.”
Maybe she could get to like Rowan after all.
Niamh holds out her cigarette and she realizes she has been staring at it unconsciously.
Niamh wouldn’t make a feature of it, that smoking isn’t something Viola does all the time.
Softly, gradually, that’s her way. Like wading into a pool of water.
It’s tempting. But it’s a distraction. Stick to the plan, rings a clear voice through the muddle of wine.
“I should go,” Viola says.
“Home? Already?”
“No. Going to try to meet someone.”
Niamh looks wounded. “But the wine.”
“Go on, darling,” Rowan advises. “Don’t let Niamh bully you. She’s probably jealous.”
The moment yawns between them, the possibility of Niamh’s attraction, the threat of a lust that could topple a friendship. Then it dissipates with a cheeky wink, a kiss on the cheek, and Viola off into the dark.
She heads toward the Union Bar, the night slipping off her back.
The evening is unusually warm for October, and students and townies are mingling more than usual, pubs spilling out into the street.
Somewhere, distantly, someone is setting off fireworks.
Outside, she wonders loosely whether she has watched too many films, devoured so many happy endings that she can no longer see them for what they are.
She crosses the street and pushes open the heavy oak door into the glow of the bar.
The room is teeming with a different mix than she might have expected, fewer jackets, more skirts.
Music playing and wine flowing and Orson Grey nowhere to be seen.
Is there relief in this? Maybe it was foolish after all.
What would she have said? Hello, we met once when I was a child. Don’t you recognize me? Stupid, really.
Sebastian
power is out help
Viola
flashlights
where the phone basket used to be
He’ll get it. Incredible that he manages to maintain the ignorance of a stranger in that house.
Since the night he hit her, they speak only in short, functional bursts.
She wonders how often he is going there, whether he is trying to tell her something else with the text. Whether he has found anything else.
“Viola!”
At the bar, her tutor, Dr. Maitland, is merrily sipping a bright pink cocktail. Viola sidles up as he gestures to the bartender.
“What can I get you?”
“Oh, really, I was just—”
“Nonsense. This one is called an ‘Old Cigar Shop,’ beet and cinnamon vodka, really very unusual.”
“Anything but that.”
Maitland is a creature of his institution, with small, gopher-like features and a wardrobe that consists of a single tweed jacket and innumerable white-collared shirts.
He orders her a gin. “Where’s your other half?”
Sebastian? “Niamh?”
“Who else?”
“I see. If Viola, Then Niamh.”
“Apparently not.”
“She’s in—working on her extended essay titles.”
“Well! Good for her. I had her pegged as a last-minute sort of girl.” You had that right. “I assume yours are ready to go.”
“Nearly,” she says. She can do this now, she can focus. Shut out the bustle, think, again, about moral reasoning. Impress him! But she can’t stop herself from asking: “Did you go to the Orson Grey talk just now?”
“Yes, lovely man, really. Off being swamped by adoring fans, I presume. Had a funny story about penguins.”
“Really?”
“Yes, some trip to Antarctica. I’ve never seen any of his films, but now I think I just might.”
Snowdrop. She’s watched it three times, of course. Stark panoramas, tense, abrupt dialogue. He had been better outfitted for the cold than when they met. She glitters with secondhand stardust.
“Don’t tell him, though,” Maitland says. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass him.”
Viola laughs. “I’m sure he could handle it.”
Sebastian
Thx. Dad getting desperate.
Farewell sweet world.
“You changed.”
Orson Grey is sidling into the seat next to her, his face pink and half-lit by the wall sconces, angular cheekbones, full head of chestnut hair, green velvet jacket, hardly wearing the last fifteen years.
“Sorry?”
Surreal shift of the floor and ceiling. The bar has become a hologram of a bar, Orson Grey, his body in the seat next to her, his voice speaking only for her to hear. It’s his smell she wasn’t expecting to remember so viscerally, bitter and leafy like a tea.
“You were the runner earlier, weren’t you? Kind of stared for a minute?”
“No. I mean, yes.”
“Sorry, am I interrupting the two of you?” Orson gestures at Maitland. Is it possible for a celebrity to interrupt? To be unwanted?
“No, no,” Maitland says, chuckling at the insinuation. Dear God.
“I try not to presume,” says Orson. “Particularly with all these geniuses running around. Who knows what you get up to?”
The collective stare of a group of girls in black tights bores into the back of Viola’s head, and she is struck by the reality that this conversation is happening, that he has approached her of all the women in the bar. A sword hangs over her head. “Do you want a drink?” she asks.
“Wouldn’t say no.”
Double malt, she guesses, slowly absorbing the reality of him, his forgotten third dimension. His accent—his real accent—still Scottish after years of shape-shifting.
“It was the neon,” he says. “I thought you were going to a rave.”
“Just helping small children cross the street.”