with her and Donna; some Thai food and a film.
When he asked was she okay, attempting to open up the issue of her irrational indifference to him, she evaded it. She had customers to attend to, she said, and needed to go. ‘But come over,’ she insisted.
Her insistence on him coming over put his mind at rest. She’d been out of order and she just wanted to move on, he thought. It was as good as an apology.
* * *
An invitation to Geoff ’s forty-fifth birthday was met with suspicion and reluctance. It had been extended as a matter of courtesy, after Vic had told Orla about Lali. Vic viewed it as an opportune occasion for Lali’s casual induction; a few drinks and some finger food.
‘I don’t think so,’ was Lali’s response.
She moved then from not wanting to go, to the barely more substantial inability to go. She cited a pre-existing arrangement with Donna for the same night.
Vic saw the excuse for what it was and called it as such: a sham. He tried to impress on Lali the significance of Orla, and the decency of her. But Lali could be moved to nothing through obligation.
Then the girls, Lali and Donna, fell out in a dispute over working hours. Lali cut Donna to pieces, turning on her closest friend for having the gall to question the roster. It was so personal that Vic suspected their friendship was over. Donna objected to being rostered for both the Saturday and the Sunday, and was unusually adamant that it was Lali’s turn to open up on the Saturday.
‘Owner’s prerogative, surely,’ Vic said.
‘Exactly! She said I was taking advantage. I’ve been carrying that whale since we were kids. And I pay her well. Especially considering she’s a fucking liability.’
‘Is that the line of diplomacy you went with?’
‘Not exactly.’ Then, beginning to laugh, Lali said, ‘But I did threaten to take her doughnut allowance away.’
Donna irritated Vic greatly. She seemed always to be in the way. To a significant degree, and wrongly, he viewed her as an obstruction. So he laughed along, indulging Lali’s cruelty, because it suited. And because it was always nice to know, with certainty, that you were on the same side as Lali.
‘But now you have to open up yourself, Saturday and Sunday,’ he said, thinking that any chance of her accompanying him to Orla’s was gone for sure. But Lali always had a distinctive logic, distinctive in its utter deficit of reason.
‘Yeah, but I suppose that means I can come to your cousin’s lame party now.’
He just accepted. ‘Good. We’re to be there for eight.’
He met her after work and as they made their way back to her flat she was quiet. He had been braced for resistance, or manic hyperactivity, fuelled by earlier than usual drinks, but not for her open but seemingly unconscious lassitude.
At her flat, Vic began by showering and dressing, and having something small to eat, while Lali pulled her knees into her chest and propped her head on some cushions on the sofa. The sound of the TV lapped over her and there was no indication that she would initiate anything any time soon. He wondered was she preoccupied by her fight with Donna, or whether she was daunted by the prospect of meeting his cousin and her family, by a perceived formality of occasion. Whatever it was, a morose stillness hung about her. Then, around a quarter to eight, she finally began readying herself. Vic said nothing, resisting the urge to move her along more swiftly.
On the doorstep of Orla’s house, with the doorbell already rung, Lali spoke. ‘So what do these people do with themselves?’
Through the frosted glass of the front door Vic could see the undefined shape of Orla coming down the hall. Rushed and ill-prepared, he condensed what he knew down to as few words as possible. ‘Orla writes. And she’s a mum. Geoff ’s some kind of I.T. genius. They’re nice,’ he assured her. ‘You’ll be fine.’
Although Lali had turned to face the door as Orla opened it, she didn’t have time or wasn’t inclined to replace the look on her face with anything better. Orla’s welcome stuttered, confronted by Lali’s indiscriminate glare. But Orla promptly regained her composure and welcomed them both, ushering them into the hallway.
Lali managed a muted hello and handed Orla the bottle of wine. Taking their coats, Orla called into the living room for Geoff. His mop of gritty blond hair, beginning to whiten and grey, framed his cheerful face, as he reached out for a manly handshake and clapped Vic on the shoulder. ‘Now, how did you fool this beautiful lady into accompanying you?’
Geoff ’s mild flirtation soothed Lali’s tension, but she remained on Vic’s shoulder for most of the evening. She sipped away quietly on glasses of wine as Vic tried to integrate himself among the guests. On several occasions, Vic discovered Orla beside him, offering crudités, tiny quiche slices, canapés, filled tortilla wraps, or more wine, and softly enquiring how they were doing. She seemed aware of Lali’s discomfort. Vic encouraged Orla to go and enjoy the party herself. Lali’s sole acknowledgement of Orla’s concern was to shift her gaze from whatever absent task it had set itself. Once she smiled, but in a manner that seemed insincere.
Nervousness. Fear, maybe, came next. An anxiety regarding the unknown came over him – what would she do now? how should he react or intercept? He felt Lali drift off his shoulder, word by word. He could feel the menace of her head beginning to lift, the bravery of inebriation. Before he knew it she was wading into the small crowd of visitors, becoming more loquacious with each step.
Vic was talking with Geoff, watching her carefully, when she stumbled against a bookcase, trying to squeeze toward the hallway. She bounced off it and put her hand out to steady herself. It worked but as she took hold of some woman’s arm it sent the woman’s drink down the front of her top and caused her to screech. Lali’s apology echoed hollowly below her hysterical laughter. The woman did her best to remain calm. But when Lali saw the look of annoyance on her face, she had what she desired – indignation!
‘What’s your fucking problem?’ she snarled. ‘I apologized. It was an accident.’
‘My top is ruined,’ the woman began, expecting, surely, to be the aggrieved in this situation, but finding that the Lali was already sky-high on a victim complex.
Lali leered toward her. ‘It’s just a bit of wine.’
Vic moved across the room, apace, to lead Lali away before it descended into worse. She shuffled along, with minimal resistance, but kept looking to Vic and then away, toward the woman’s tie-dye wine stain, and back again, in disgust.
While Lali puffed and sulked in the hall, not sure where to begin her assault but certain that she would, Vic waved Orla away to fetch their coats.
‘Be easier if we left, would it?’ Lali challenged, as Orla returned with the coats over her arm.
‘I’m not sending you away,’ Orla said, defensively. ‘I thought you might want to.’
‘Why? Because you want me to?’
‘I asked her to get our coats, Lali. You’ve made an arse of yourself,’ Vic cut in.
‘I’ve made an arse of myself?’ she said, stressing the idiom, as if the expression was the essence of a xenophobic ganging-up; the very language
