1913 Suffragette Emily Davison trampled by King's horse in Epsom Derby protest, dies of injuries four days later
21:23
You have 1 unpublished draft.
Subject: Everyone is looking now.
Time: May 1 2006.
“Like I'm -”
The wine waiter comes to top off the glasses.
“Like I'm in prison in these places. A gilded prison. I want to DO something. ANYthing!”
She looks off, looks down, lowers her utensil, takes a sip on her wine, looking away. I give it a second because everyone is looking now. At least, it feels like.
She looks me in the eye with a quivering.
“ANYthing except sitting around in a bathrobe with rich old ugly women swanning about reading stupid magazines about pop tarts' farts. I've had half dozen facials in the last twelve months, for fuck’s sake. I feel like they've exfoliated my entire face for the past decade. I must look like a student.”
She’s mute. Flitters her lashes. Now it's her turn to pout.
“Look, it's not like I don't appreciate this. I do. I mean, really, I could never in my wildest dreams imagine being in a place like this on my woodcutter's wage, feedng on steak dinners and red wine, eating pear for dessert and superb service that wears a suit.”
She smiles uncomfortably. I press my denouement.
“All I want to do is go hang out with you. Some ordinary place. Spend some quality time doing normal stuff - for people our age - like surfing or hiking or seeing stuff or shopping or going to a pub or something.”
'You're beginning to sound like a girl - “shopping”?'
“I'd do anything to spend time with you. Even watch you shop. You can buy me a shirt. I'll get your dress. Anyway, there's nowhere to shop around here, is there? Not unless you want ug boots and pink sweaters. That'll have to wait until we get back to Dublin.” I grab my glass tighter. It's slipping away from me.
'Or we could go to Paris and - '
“Look, I'm serious, I want to be with you. I want us to be together. I want to spend time with you. But if you think we're going to go spending the rest of our lives together, then that's fine, but you should really spend time with me now. And you're away every other week, Aoife, on some PR blag.”
'Well, when are you going to move out of that northside flat and get a house together?'
“When you prove you can stay around for longer than a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and you know, start thinking of me as more than an accessory.” She looks down. Addressing her needs and genuinely meaning it, I say “Aoife. I would never stop you from travelling anywhere.”
'Really?'
“No. Really, I would never. I don’t want to do that. But I need to know you CARE. I would love if you could not want to take a trip once in a while just so you could spend the weekend with me. You know? In our pyjamas, even. Cuddling up on the couch with a bottle of wine and all that jazz.”
'Now you really do sound like a girl.'
I snigger wryly. It shoos the tension cats away.
“It must be all these products and skincare tips. It's giving me the face as smooth as a baby's bum but I just haven't got the emotional gloss to keep up. I'm gone all soft and squidgy.”
I lower my fork, dab my lips and take her hand. We're laughing.
We love each other and argue in an idealised way like old lovers do. Pretty much on the way out now. She's just called me a girl and I've admitted it. She'll start casting around. There's no way she's going to cancel a trip just to hang out with me in my flat up by the Mean Streets. I wouldn't do it either. I would go away for the weekend on a luxury junket with a bunch of strangers just to get away from me and the grime I inhabit.
She's had a couple of gulps of the salubrious wine so she'll be there for the taking.
“Paris did you say? Don’t think much of the shopping there. Not a great place to buy shoes, you know?”
She chuckles. 'Oh no?'
“No, 'fraid not. You see, the problem is, they sell only one type of shoe in Paris. You see all the French people wearing ‘em.”
'What type of shoe is that then?', she asks, grinning.
“Brown. Brown shoes. All the French people wear nothing else. Dressed head-to-toe in beautiful outfits and they ruin it by ending them off with brown shoes.”
She laughs.
“And the handbag of death!”
She's laughing freely. Time to move in for the kill.
“Did you enjoy your massage today?”
She purrs. 'I sure did.'
“Was it nice?”
'It was.' She's smiling. She's a real slut for a massage, especially when she's drunk. 'Very nice.'
I reach across and gently stroke her jaw, where it meets her neck. My fingers slide down her lovely white neck and softly wrap around the back.“Did he -”
'She.'
“Did she massage your neck?”
'Mmm.'
“And your ear?” My fingers are on the move again.
'Mm no ha ha.' I briskly run my thumb along the elegant line of her eyebrow and cup her cheek in my right hand. My thumb strokes her high cheekbone gently. She goes all gooey, tilts her head into my cupped hand and smiles. Job done. "Anyone for brandy?"
She laughs. She is happy enough to be seduced. It’s more gratification. But something is bothering me, I'm trying to hide. Behind a wall as brown as the footwear of the Seine. I think it's there to hide the light but probably it's really hiding the dark. The realisation that dare not speak it's name. Cute and all as she is, long and all as we're together, as much and all as we've talked about these things one thing is still bothering me, and I can't even talk about it with anyone.
This relationship is shit.
That's the thing I don't know I'm in denial about. As for Aoife, she don't know that she don't know what she don't know, even. Or maybe she does but she don't say. She's an intelligent girl.
Save draft without publishing.
23:46
It's a bitter night.
