We can go into the amusement arcade and shove coins into the claw machine, win you a cuddly toy instead of all the gobstoppers we ended up with as kids. I’ll buy you an ice-cream cone with everything on top.’
His enthusiasm was infectious.
‘Let’s do it,’ she concurred.
However, with her agreement, his get-up-and-go stood up and left. His excited expression evaporated, he clattered his cup against the sugar bowl. ‘It’s too late in the day.’
Did he mean literally or figuratively? she wondered.
‘We’d never reach there before dark,’ he added. ‘We’ll do it another time.’
‘Sure,’ she agreed, knowing there’d be no other time.
All they had was now. There was no future for them. Certainly not as lovers; she didn’t think as friends – that required a mental somersault she was incapable of executing. And comradeship was unsafe. It offered intimacy and they needed distance.
She was word-perfect on the theory, no bother to her, it was this business of executing it that foxed her. So when they loitered on the pavement after their coffee, and instead of turning his steps in the direction of his hotel Patrick walked towards her car, she didn’t object. Helen should have pointed out he was going the wrong way but she held her tongue.
Only five more minutes, she promised herself. That’s not too much time to steal for ourselves; as remains of the day go, it’s meagre enough.
At the car she paused and turned to him. ‘Goodbye then. It’s for the best. And for what it’s worth, I truly think we’re doing what’s right.’
His bewildered stare implied the decision they’d jointly made in the park was a revelation. Had he blacked out and forgotten? This was ridiculous – they agreed on a course of action. Mutually. She jingled her keys, stuttering something inane like ‘Take it easy’.
‘Can I come home with you? I’d like to see where you live. So I can imagine you there.’
‘No!’ Helen practically screeched the refusal. ‘I mean,’ she amended, ‘the place is a tip. I’ll invite you over sometime. Yourself and Miriam.’ She said the woman’s name deliberately as a reality fix.
He ignored it. ‘Please.’
She compressed her resolve. One of the pair had to be strong and he was caving in like ice under sunshine.
‘Patrick, don’t ask me,’ she supplicated.
‘I am asking.’
He tilted her chin upwards so their eyes met and she felt like submitting because she didn’t want to be firm any more. She didn’t want to be virtuous or to worry about doing what was right. She wanted to love and be loved. And this compulsion was beginning to outweigh any other consideration.
‘Another time.’ Helen willed him to leave her alone, knowing if he pressed her again she’d yield. And a miracle happened – he retreated.
‘I’ll call you,’ said Patrick.
He walked away without a backward glance. She watched him until he disappeared from sight and then she watched the empty space which his frame had filled. His tall, lean, rapidly moving shape.
She knew she should feel relief at averting something they’d both regret when the insanity passed. But she was conscious of desolation and the prescience that unfinished business dangled between them. As this certainty over Helen she leaned against the car door to steady herself, for she suddenly felt unable to support her own weight.
Dear God, what were they letting themselves in for?
Helen pulled over at a Centra to collect the Sunday papers on her way home. As she wandered along the aisles, lobbing into her basket purchases that she definitely didn’t need and probably didn’t want, the idea of surrounding herself with supplements and a conveyor belt of tea against a backdrop of easy listening music lacked its usual appeal. Molly’s apartment wasn’t much of a detour – she’d hive off there.
Molly was wearing glasses, which meant her hands were too unsteady to negotiate her contact lenses, although at least she was dressed. Sometimes she lasted all day Sunday without prising off her dressing gown.
‘You’re up and about early – it’s only four o’clock,’ said Helen.
By way of response, Molly extended the elastic on her joggers to show she was still wearing her pyjamas beneath. The polar bear ones. ‘I like to keep them on during days when I might have to crawl back under the covers at a moment’s notice. I suspected this might be one of those days,’ she expanded.
Helen followed her through an archway into the kitchen, where unwashed dishes were stacked on work surfaces like mockeries of the tall food trend all the rage a few years previously.
‘I don’t have any milk,’ said Molly, ‘but I have lemon left over from the gin – I drank it all before I was halfway through the lemon. If I make tea you can slap in a slice.’
‘I came prepared.’ Helen brandished a plastic carrier. ‘This deceptively humble container is a receptacle for milk, cinnamon bagels and Sunday newspapers.’
‘Magnificent. If you remembered to buy proper coffee I could plunge us some. No? Never mind, saves me from overdosing and turning all jittery and thinking I need a cigarette, and if I could get through last night without buying, borrowing or mugging for them, I can get through the morning after.’
‘So you saw some of the morning?’ Helen was surprised.
‘Negative. Technically I saw nothing of the morning, unless you count last night. But “the afternoon after the night before” doesn’t have the same ring to it. Do the bagels have raisins?’
‘Naturally, Molloy.’
Molly recoiled. ‘Helen, I’ve begged you from the first day I met you never to use that name. It’s meant to be a secret.’
‘How can the fact that your name is Molly Molloy be a secret when it’s splashed over the Chronicle on a daily basis?’
‘I don’t have a byline on a daily basis, only when I write a story – sometimes I only do a crossword puzzle and make personal calls. Anyway, when I’m not working I like to forget the tasteless joke of a name my parents saddled me with.’
‘So you’ve changed it by deed poll, excised it from your passport, driver’s licence, credit cards, electoral register …’ Helen periodically trotted out the list to torment Molly.
Molly affected deafness, rustling through the carrier for bagels, which she jammed into the toaster – complaining when the raisins plopped out and joined charred bread crumbs on the floor of the gadget.
‘Library cards, bank account, P60, health club membership …’ Helen continued inexorably.
‘You know I promised my mother I’d never change the
