Julian
When he gets in, Orla says, “You’re back!
” as though he’s an explorer returning from an expedition.
She told him once that when she asked him to go to the shop, she worried he might step into oncoming traffic and their future would be snatched from them because of her yen for mint choc-chip.
It makes him smile to realize hunger gets the better of these worries.
Jules or ginger snaps? Jules or ginger snaps?
Ginger snaps. She seems to have an underlying faith that everything will be okay.
But when he hears about something like the Paris attacks, it only confirms his view that everything can be taken away in an instant.
His own life tells him these things happen to real people.
They sit in the window seat, her feet in his lap, as she spoons ice cream straight from the carton. He runs his palm against the pale stubble on her unshaven legs; she rolls her eyes but doesn’t move.
He’s never wanted any of it. While his grandmother seeks out the opportunity to talk about what happened, to raise awareness, he’s never wanted to dwell on it or display it as part of who he is.
He hated having to confess his past to Orla; just the thought of it had caused him to raise his guard on the night of the flood all those years ago.
At first, he’d considered writing to her, setting it out in a letter where he could choose the right words. But he hadn’t wanted to commit the facts of his parents to paper.
And so one evening when they both stayed late, he waited for her bandsaw to fall silent and then knocked on the glass of her open door. She looked up and, on seeing him, a flicker of uncertainty crossed her face.
“Do you have time for a word?” he asked, and when she nodded, he crossed the room and leaned against the rolled top of the radiator.
“I wanted to apologize about that night of the flood, like.” She said there was no need, started sweeping offcuts into the corner with an efficient must-press-on air.
“I wanted to explain something. Will you be putting down the broom a moment, Orla?”
“I’m—”
He interrupted where usually he would have held back.
Now he was there, he just wanted to get it over with.
“When I was five, my mam was killed.” She stopped sweeping at that.
Stood in the middle of the room, not knowing what to say.
“It’s not something I usually tell people about.
I guess, when I say usually, I mean at all.
But that night, I felt like I couldn’t get into something without, you know, opening up.
And I wasn’t sure I was ready. I didn’t want to lose what we had. Your friendship.”
She raised her eyes at that. Not unkindly, but as if to say, Well, that didn’t go so well. And he said, “Yeah,” acknowledging what had gone unspoken. For a moment, it broke the tension and they laughed. “But I want to tell you now. If you’ll listen.”
She sat down on a stool, and he noticed the way she rested her hands in her lap, palms up. A gesture—although perhaps he was reading too much into it—that seemed to suggest a lack of judgment.
“My father,” he said. And the word stuck in his throat like a gumball. He wasn’t used to using terms that implied possession, not for this man unworthy of a name. “He was—Well, he abused my mam. Like domestic abuse, I suppose you’d say. And then one day, he killed her.”
“Good God.” Hands no longer open but pressed to her face.
Julian stood, unsure what response might be growing in the space between them; the seconds bloated into minutes, hours, days in his mind.
But finally, Orla looked up and asked, “Are you all right?” Hand moving to her mouth in the next moment.
“Of course you’re not all right. Sorry, I’m an eejit.
” And then, “I don’t know what to say. But that’s awful. You poor thing.”
Julian wanted to sweep the conversation into the corner with the sawdust. He waved away her apology, tried to make light of what could not be made light. “But d’you see, I couldn’t have got into anything without telling you first?”
“Because you’re still dealing with it?” she asked, uncertain.
“No. Because it’s only fair. I didn’t want to be, like, tricking you into something. You know, get into a relationship—or whatever it might have been—and then be like, Yeah, that guy you’re seeing, well, he has half the genes of someone capable of murder.”
“Oh,” she said.
He felt that word—murder—hanging in the silence, dirty and contaminating. “D’you see now? Why it was difficult for me? That night.”
Orla made circles in the dust with the tip of her shoe. And when she looked up again, she asked, “You really believe that? About the genes?”
“Well, I don’t think I show any signs. You know, I have a pretty even temper and stuff, but—”
“Don’t,” she said. “I already know.” She stared past him out of the window for a moment or two before speaking. “So, I’ve been out with a few fellas. But I’ve never thought to tell them that my da had an affair with his secretary.”
“It’s different,” he said.
“I’m not so sure. I reckon the cheating gene is one most potential partners might like to know about.”
“The cheating gene won’t kill anyone.”
“Neither would you, Jules. The sort of person who’s capable of it, he doesn’t confess his entire family history before even kissing a girl.”
He smiled then, or at least let the grimace fade from his face. “So, you wouldn’t have felt misled, like? You wouldn’t have been horrified?”
“Only by what you’ve lived through. That something like that could have affected someone I know and care about.”
“So would you—”
She interrupted. “That’s what I was going to say earlier. I didn’t think you were interested. I’ve been seeing someone.”
“Oh,” he said, the relief he’d felt moments earlier curling at the edges.
And so, they’d moved into an odd sort of friendship. Easy in trust and fondness, awkward in the attraction that sat between them, palpable but unmentioned.
But something in their conversation that night, about who he was and what he was made of, shifted things, and it felt like a door had opened, through which Julian could see potential relationships and his life growing bigger. Even if not with Orla.
For two years, they stayed in that no-man’s land of working down the hall from one another.
Comrades, colleagues, friends. Orla’s relationship hadn’t lasted long, but still they danced around one another.
Until an evening intended to be just a quick drink was still unfolding as the pub landlord closed the doors on them.
He remembers the sound of their shoes on wet pavement, their conversation echoing as they walked aimlessly along shuttered streets, the feel of his arm brushing hers, two bags of chips, and the salty tang of her kiss.
Later, Orla would say she always knew they’d end up together. But she’d sensed Julian needed time to become more himself.
“As though I were a tadpole gathering courage to metamorphose into a frog, while you were sat at the edge of a pond waiting to kiss me?” Julian laughed. “Seriously, Orla.”
“No, you seriously, with your maybe your jeans are dry now.”
He laughs whenever she brings it up. He feels like a different person now. That wavery feeling quieter, stiller. Not gone completely, but if it were a piece of paper held beside a fan, the fan has been turned right down, leaving it wafting only gently in its breeze.
But some things remain no-go areas. Like England.
Where he doesn’t have any wholesale stockists, despite mounting interest. Sometimes he will receive a commission from a customer in London or Bath or some other unfamiliar city.
He’s working on one now, an engagement ring sought by a man from Oxford named David, after he’d spotted Julian’s work while he and his girlfriend were on holiday in Ireland.
As they discussed the design in a long-running exchange of emails, details of his and his partner’s life emerged.
That his girlfriend has dark hair and pale skin, that she teaches secondary-school English.
That, like Julian, she recently watched the retrospective about Philippe Petit crossing the void on a highwire between what were once the Twin Towers. That her name is Lily.
Last weekend they saw a honey buzzard, rare in England; David wonders if they’re more common in Ireland.
Julian asks Cian, who tells him they’re most likely later in the year, blown off-course by strong winds.
Julian has told David a bit about where he works at the Old Chocolate Factory; he’s mentioned that he’s about to become a father.
He imagines the two couples would have enough in common to enjoy a drink together in person, and he’s happy the ring he’s made will be a part of David and Lily’s lives.
But still, when he thinks of shipping boxes wholesale across the Irish Sea, each one filled with something he’s crafted, it feels too much.
Orla has suggested it several times, especially now the baby is coming.
The money would help. But Julian doesn’t want his jewelry—the boxes bearing his name—on display there, as though it’s a place he feels no animosity toward, a place he’s at peace with.
When it wasn’t just his father who killed his mother, but her adopted country too—where people who might have saved her during all those years of abuse looked the other way.
Like his grandmother, he blames God too.
Because surely if there is a God, he also let his mother down.
He doesn’t want their child baptized into that when the time comes.
Orla says it’s just a rite of passage required for entry into 90 percent of the local schools.
That it doesn’t have to mean anything more to him.
But there’s something about it that feels hypocritical.
As Orla sets the empty ice-cream carton on the floor, Julian asks, “Why d’you still go to church?”
“Tradition,” she says.