Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
T hat Saturday morning (the one with Jack in my bed).
When I’d finally got myself downstairs, and after three attempts of counting them, a whole heap of penises, and a million trees, I opened Una’s text.
Did you go home with him?
I stared at her words and wished it was her upstairs not Jack. I mean I didn’t do that. I didn’t sleep with random men. I typed my one-word reply.
Yes.
Fuck! What was it like? Does he have a big cock?
I don’t know.
What do you mean, you don’t know?
I don’t know if he has a big cock because I don’t know what happened…
Oh shite, you were quite pissed.
That’s your bloody fault.
I didn’t make you drink the shots!
You brought him over to our table…
Did you see Carmel’s face? :D. She was fuming, silly mare. What are you going to do now then? Is he still there?
He’s asleep upstairs. Bloody hell, how do I get him out?
Just wake him up and ask him to leave…
I can’t just go and wake a naked man up in my bed and make him leave!
He’s naked?
Yes.
So you must have slept with him!
I told you, Una. I don’t know.
Check the bins.
What the hell for?
Condoms.
Oh fuck, he’s coming downstairs, I’ve got to go.
There was no time to compose myself. Jack was stood at the bottom of my stairs with an amused look on his face.
‘Everything OK?’ He grinned.
I placed my phone down on the side.
‘Fine, I’m fine thanks.’ I could hear my own voice as it sped up. ‘Actually, it’s awkward, I wasn’t sure… I saw my clothes, and you, yours…’ I glanced down at his crotch as if the gesture would fill in the blanks. ‘Did we, did we, I mean, was it…’
‘Did we fuck each other?’ His grin widened and I felt my cheeks burn.
‘I can’t remember.’ I paused. ‘Did we?’
‘No, don’t worry, we didn’t,’ he said. ‘I just always sleep naked.’
I let out a breath.
‘OK, great, I mean, that’s good. Not that I wouldn’t want to, I mean I would, you’re um, you’re gorgeous, it’s just I don’t make a habit of sleeping with strangers.’
‘I don’t either.’ He laughed. ‘Although I’m not sure we’re strangers now.’ He grinned again. ‘I feel like I know you a bit more intimately than that.’
My heart stopped.
‘Did we do other stuff?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Did I…?’
He smirked.
A flash of intrusive thoughts moved through my mind. Had I given him a blow job? A hand job? Or something else? Something anal? I’d never gone near a man’s arse before in my life. Jesus.
‘Anyway, I’m sure he’s forgiven you.’
‘Who?’ I asked but I think deep down I already knew who.
‘The Lord,’ he said. ‘At least he should have done the number of times you said his prayer.’
And right then, I died. I died and I did not go to heaven.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said because what else could I say? I couldn’t hide or run away. I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened when it had happened right in front of him. Jesus, I would never drink again.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘If you do it again tonight, I’ll just leave you to it.’
‘Tonight?’
‘If that’s still OK?’
‘If what’s still OK?’ I had no idea what he meant.
‘It’ll only be a couple of nights and I’ll be out of your way.’
‘What will be? Sorry, what are you talking about?’
‘Your spare room, you offered it to me last night, remember? Well, you actually offered me your room.’ He chuckled and my heart literally stopped. ‘But I think it’s a bit soon to move in together.’
I tried to think back. I tried to remember but there was nothing, just a hazy memory of Carmel shooting us daggers as we left and Una making a joke about a threesome just to piss her off. But that was it. That was as far as my memory stretched. Only there must have been more because I had woken up to a naked man in my bed who’d seen me on my hands and knees for all the wrong reasons.
In all my wildest dreams (and they weren’t particularly wild) I had never imagined I would have a total stranger stay in my house. I had never lived with anyone else, if I didn’t count my parents or Una when she stayed for a week after she’d broken up with Shaun did everything but .
I had moved into my grandmother’s house, Anickuna Cottage, after she died. She was actually born there, in the front room, by the bay window while my great grandfather was in the kitchen drinking whisky. When he came in to meet her for the first time, he nodded, raised his glass and then left my great grandmother to clean up everything on her own. That was how things were back then. The men drank whisky and the women had babies by themselves.
I could never have afforded to buy my grandmother’s house, but my parents had gifted it to me because I think they knew I would have stayed living with them if they hadn’t. And the truth is I don’t think either of them could have taken much more.
Anickuna Cottage is set back from the village. It is sunflower yellow with a black iron gate and looks out across the fields over to Slievenamon, which means Mountain of the Women. The myth was that a legend called Fionn waited at the top while the women of the village raced to be with him, and whichever lucky fair maiden won was declared his wife. I’d thought about climbing it many times myself, but Fionn would have been long gone by then.
I could see the tip of Slievenamon from my kitchen window as it poked out from behind the morning mist. I stared back at Jack. At his copper hair and freckles. His chocolate eyes looked almost black, like lumps of coal. He could be my Fionn. He could be my hero.
‘Is it still OK?’ he repeated, breaking my thoughts, but I kept my eyes on the mountain.
‘Yes,’ I said before I could come back to reality.