Ordinary Decent Criminals by Lionel Shriver
“Sorry. You make me nervous. I don’t know why.”
He liked her for the confession. He took her hand, swinging it a little, feeling … content. A mysterious sensation.
chapter five
Cape Canaveral on York Street
Estrin was pleased he led her to Whitewells, old Belfast, one of the last monuments downtown to an era largely expunged in the last twenty years blast by blast. At the corner of Royal Avenue and York Street, its Edwardian opulence put the rest of the town center to shame. The “Belfast Is Buzzing” campaign proudly celebrated a commercial reincarnation not unlike having been born a prince and coming back a sow. The lines of shoe stores and garish plastic marquees may have made locals proud, but they made Estrin feel temporary, trivial; she might have preferred the atmosphere had the shops remained bombed out. Yet only a few chipped stones on the hotel suggested nearby explosions; more than its architecture, what impressed Estrin most as they walked in was that Whitewells was still here.
Not that they got far. Two steps in, they were met by a security façade more imposing than at most airports. While the doorman respectfully recognized “Mr. O’Phelan,” even Farrell laid his jacket on the X-ray belt, walked through the metal detector, and raised his arms to be searched. For the first time in this Province, Estrin’s adorable round cheeks didn’t roll her past the guards. They impounded her can of Mace, and a far more than perfunctory frisk recovered a Phillips screwdriver Estrin had rummaged for all week. They took that, too.
“Jesus,” Estrin exclaimed when they were through. “I’d hate to see what they do to suitcases.”
“Something between homogenization and genetic engineering. If Watson hadn’t discovered DNA, Whitewells would have found it at the door. Best security in all of Europe.” He clapped her delightedly on the shoulder and left for the key.
Estrin sank across the carpet. Security curtained away, only formidable Old World appointments presented themselves. Whitewells was a bulwark of a building, with that airless quiet of a bomb shelter or a bank vault. Even the decor was safe, with conservative furniture, all dark, woody, and green. While oceans crushed the rocks of this island, the fountain here purled coyly: surely water would only wash your face. In Whitewells every element was contained: the fire would never pop beyond its grate, and whatever the powers of earth in this place, they were marshaled entirely for your protection. Estrin was reminded of the feeling of the world when she was a small child, when everything seemed oversized, looming, more real than you. The tables were long and steady, the chairs sturdy and stable, with fat, affectionate arms. Upholstery skirted their formidable square chassés to the floor, like RUC Land Rovers. Wainscoting was so thick you could run into it; the ceilings were corniced, the paintings mostly framed. Grandfather clocks, above ordinary time, were stopped at twelve.
Grazing the lobby, Estrin’s eyes struck Farrell by accident: a few deft strokes from a distance, more sketch than sculpture. And she’d never seen a man whose apparent age could shift so. Joking with the receptionist, he could have been her brother; turning, her father. Both versions were striking, though Farrell had that quality rare in men of not seeming to know how attractive he was.
Joining him in the lift, she could tell they were watched by the way the staff deliberately looked elsewhere.
Later she would notice the lovely room, with no smeary seascapes or little broken coffee machines; for now Estrin could attend only to the bed, rising at her with its big white spread. Despite her nervousness, she felt simple. Hanging her coat, she didn’t mind having nothing to say. She sat on the edge of the bed and took off her boots; allowing her hair to drape on either side of her face, she looked up and smiled.
Farrell slipped off his shoes and stretched on the bed to its foot. He did not reach for her, but closed his eyes and rubbed his face. Estrin massaged his temples. He rested his arms and didn’t touch.
“You know, if you’d like to just sleep, that would be all right,” Estrin offered.
Farrell kept his eyes closed as her fingers moved into his scalp. “Don’t think the old man has it in him?”
“I think you’re tired.”
“Yes,” he said, pulling her closer. “I am shattered.” He was an angular man, but the kiss was acquiescent; he was shaking.
For all her avaricious crackling of maps, at last Estrin Lancaster paused in her gorging of whole foreign countries to remain in a single room, really a small room, in one odd city with one difficult character, but as a result something paradoxical happened and, instead of feeling hemmed in, Estrin found the world of Whitewells and this man on its bed the source of infinite, patient fascination. As the universe shrank ever further to two patches of face, Farrell’s mouth opened into a cavernous place, large enough to walk around in, get lost in, take the underground. Her passage echoed down his throat. Farrell had swallowed the world, and all that ever was could be found there—the Taj Mahal, the Eiger, the Ganges, Cape Canaveral, the Smithsonian Institution, and Estrin’s favorite U.S. Out of Nicaragua coffee cup back on Springfield Road.
She actually forgot about the sex, since she was not waiting to get on with something else. Sometimes she forced herself to pull away from him so she could enjoy going back, each time to visit new tourist attractions—the Pyramids, St. Stephen’s Green, the Roman Catacombs. They were luxurious kisses and, while soft, not that disturbing invertebrate bleah, where the tongue dissolves into a pool of gelatinous mouth-flesh, like lapping at soup with no bowl, kisses without rim. No, even as their tongues wrapped, Henry Moore, one form into the other, these were kisses with structure and purpose, like good sculpture always turning, one plane leading endlessly into another, until you are back where you started, with no sense of having been there before.
Farrell held her neck and pressed her deeper. The farther they tunneled down each other’s throat, the more it seemed unfair to be kept so far apart. Even if the evening was one-off, he was a slime, this was a pickup, Estrin was ready to offer money or favors or flattery, anything at all if he would only keep her in his bed the whole night.
“No, don’t.” Estrin stopped his wrangling with her silk. “I can’t stand being undressed. And you’d never have a chance with these leather pants, they would take you hours.”
This next business was also simple, without the zip by button hassle Estrin had grown so weary of, but with the neater, practiced efficiency with which people can take off their own clothes. She did not want to think about clothes.
Without them he was just as long, but even more narrow. So meager and unmuscled, his body looked easy to draw, though you would need a ruler. As a result, though hard to read at dinner, here he printed legible right angles, undivisive, direct. His skin, surprisingly tender for a man his age, pimpled with a dot-matrix of chenille. His legs dangled off the mattress, the wan, desperate sticks with knobbled knees that crowd Save the Children posters. Even his penis, though long, was unusually slim, and less bullying than most, a limb more of grace than aggression, smooth and abstract like the rest: Giacometti.
Be that as it may, Estrin looked in his eyes as she hadn’t for a few minutes and remembered his name; remembered other people saying it, the way they said it—with an inching away. She recognized his face as the same from yesterday: stony, blasé, You’re all witless gobshites. As he slid into her easy as you please, like popping in an open back door, she recalled that only a few minutes before she’d have knelt on the floor for one more kiss—from a stranger, whose powers of affection she knew little but whose powers of disdain had already shown themselves to be monumental. In fact, Estrin had risen in the ranks of menials all over the world because she was reliable, but once in a while even Estrin slipped, and flat on her back now, she had that feeling of having been trusted and suddenly remembering she did not lock up.
It felt better than she remembered, but she hadn’t remembered because she didn’t want to. Estrin twisted underneath. She avoided seeing his face now because she already cared what it was think
His fingers on her shoulders bit flesh. Below him, Estrin put up feeble resistance: she would not come. A traveler may be excited, but never satisfied. Besides, can’t you understand that pleasure is grotesque? What can possibly happen next but that someone will take it away?
Farrell immediately reached over to shake down his overcoat and didn’t explain. He located an inhaler, which he sucked on, sitting up. This was not romantic.
He slept on the far side of the bed in a ball. A small person with the rest of it, Estrin lay bereft on the wide white sheet. She tossed, always hot or cold, pulling up the blankets, throwing them off. She felt deserted, and irrationally offended that he could sleep.
Yet by morning she, too, was deep in, and it was Farrell who roused her into his arms with a remark about feeling neglected.
Farrell eyed her from the safety of his Unionist tabloid. He had barricaded himself at the breakfast table with ten different papers, even for Farrell generous. He never knew what to say to women mornings. He watched her smarm her mug over her forehead, against her temple, down her cheek. She had a warmth with objects, he’d noticed in 44, the way she tapered over her fork, smeared the flat of the knife, traced the flute of her plate—she seemed to savor the setting more than the food.
As he walked her back to Bedford Street, they discussed the Guilford Four. Approaching her bike, Farrell felt Estrin drag at his hand.
“Well, it’s been fun,” said Estrin defiantly.
“Yes” was all he said. He waited for her to remove the padlock, zip up, strap on her helmet, and actually turn the key. As she revved the motor, he slipped his hands in his pockets. She fed the engine more petrol than it needed; its revolutions grew louder and more shrill. He could feel her clutching through disappointment to disbelief to rage like gears, and he waited for the very last stage—ordinary pain—at which Estrin unexpectedly switched off the cycle and stared down at the tank. She looked up, her face not wobbly but impassive and open.
“This is it?”
“Not unless you prefer, my swallow. Myself, I’d like very much to see you again.”
“Then why don’t you take my fucking phone number?”
“Now, that’s a thought. You Americans are so well organized.”
The exchange done, she started the bike energetically; he squeezed her shoulder and leaned down to shout, “And it was more than fun!”
She tore out from under his hand, grazed his toe with her back wheel, and ripped past the BBC.
chapter six
Roisin’s Furniture Goes Funny
Now, why go to that confounded funeral, Roisin, when I’ve the afternoon free?”
“You know very well why. Didn’t you just go to McMichael’s? Even Seawright’s, and that was appalling.”
“What was appalling, love, was blowing up his car. The yob was a bigot, but last time I read up, that wasn’t a capital crime.”
“It should be,” she muttered.
“Sure we’d all be six foot under in no time.”
“Well, last time I read up, walking down the road on the border wasn’t a capital crime, either.”
“The soldier says himself, the gun went off by accident.”
“Angus, catch yourself on! I suppose Cromwell’s invasion was an accident, too.”
“Cromwell’s invasion was three hundred years ago, Christ! This Brigadoon drives me to distraction, always blattering on about Oliver and James and Billy, as if they were all on their way here to tea. MacAnespie will be investigated—”
“That’s rich. Just like the Birmingham Six?”
“The point is, you attend, at the end of the day it’s one more Nationalist demonstration.”
“And Seawright’s was a Loyalist one.”
“That funeral was part of my job. Your job is to stay home and find it all too painful to bear.”
“Even a poet needs to make political statements.”
“Bollocks, haven’t you had it up to your bake with political statements?”
“It’s more you have, and only with mine.”
“I’ll not get into the whole kit, since I said I’d an afternoon free and not the rest of my life. But I do wish you’d think things through a bit more, lass. You call yourself a Republican, but you’ve not a single decent word for the South. It’s the DUP fellows steam off to Donegal on holiday and say it’s brilliant. You, Rosebud, come back from Sligo raving. ‘Their veins run with Fairy Liquid!’ you says.”
Roisin laughed. “I said that?”
He snaked a finger down her arm, and Roisin shivered. “Aye, you’ve a right decent sense of humor, when you let it out. Loose a few more crackers instead of all this howl about creepy trees and menstruation, maybe I’d show at one of those do’s of yours.”
“Angus, you wouldn’t go to my readings if I tap-danced with Dame Edna.” Roisin struggled halfhearted toward the clock. “I’ll need to leave in twenty minutes.”
“I vote we have our own wee service.” He slipped his hand up under her blouse. “Why, this afternoon I personally volunteer to cross the sectarian divide.”
Angus MacBride was a vigorous, aggressive lover who didn’t fancy diddling about for hours trying to satisfy his woman but pleased himself. Roisin preferred this. She enjoyed being taken, even forced a little. Besides, a too solicitous lover made Roisin feel watched, and his attentions often backfired. She had difficulty coming anyway, and under pressure to perform, her excitement withered. She wondered how men, their pleasures so apparent, ever achieved an erection with a woman in the room. Chichi clitoral diligence had, like every fashion, hit Ireland ten years late, and arrived in Roisin’s life with her last boyfriend, Garrett. Roisin would find herself boated on a horizonless sexual sea, what had begun as a careless afternoon excursion darkening gradually to nightmare as the light began to fade and the bed rocked on. Frankly, the two- or three-hour fuck is highly overrated. Garrett had dutifully rubbed away until her vagina was raw, her labia numb. Once they’d endured a few of these sessions, she hadn’t the heart to admit to him that short of success after ten minutes the project was hopeless, so the marathons went on until Roisin began to dread going to bed. She tried cutting his efforts short by faking, but this only seemed to inspire Garrett to more, like a pinball player determined to rack a higher score. Further, he wouldn’t allow himself to enter her until she was “done,” by which time Garrett himself had wilted. So then Roisin would take the helm and dither, though she absolutely refused to put the thing in her mouth. Ironically, he seemed to have the same reaction she did to being conscientiously serviced, and if he did come, it was a nervous, exhausted spasm after more toil, and this from a man who had apologized at the beginning of their relationship that he had trouble with premature ejaculation.
When Garrett announced that he’d started seeing another woman, Roisin was sure he’d found a buxom, thick-armed Andytown wench who boiled potatoes whom he could throw down on the lino when he pleased, to blast away and zip up after five minutes, better than this overwrought, internationally famous poetess for whom he had far too much respect. Angus didn’t have enough, but then she’d do without if respect
So Angus plundered on, joyful and oblivious, with the rhythmic grunting Roisin trusted. It would never occur to Angus to fake excitement in a hundred million years. If he didn’t relish making love to her, he’d get up and do something else; for there is nothing so comforting as the obviously selfish person: he will take care of himself. Left to her own devices, then, Roisin relaxed and enjoyed some moderate success. This particular afternoon she preferred to lie back and watch, for finally, at the age of thirty-seven, Roisin had discerned that you didn’t come as a responsibility, a victory, or even as a compliment, but because you felt like it.
The timing of the ring was so perfect, and so close to perfectly bad, that they both had to laugh. Still panting, sweat streaming, Angus reached for the receiver with “’Loo?” in a could-be-anyone voice. While he didn’t want to be recognized, he liked the territorial implications of answering her phone.
Angus looked at the receiver like something with a bad smell and discarded it. “Fancy. Rung off. New boyfriend?”
Long after Angus had gone, Roisin lay on her back with her eyes open, the duvet up to her chin. Only the ebb of light and the beat of her body marked the passing of time. Roisin rarely listened to music. She found quiet a marvel. And she found doing nothing a marvel. How spectacular that you could simply lie here and the day would sift by. Roisin considered this her secret. On either side of the house, women rustled up tea—boiling, toasting, dragging children to the table. Tellies blared, papers flapped, electronic games wheedled away, but here Roisin folded her hands over her chest and could detect only the faint on-and-off hum of the refrigerator, her legs laid out like the dead’s. But she wasn’t dead! That was the secret. Under the slanted ceiling of the top floor, cozied by the faded blue wallpaper flowers and the shadows easing over them, Roisin could roam the moors of her head, heather purpling, grass bent, as a young girl with a long dress in a breeze. She wondered at the bustle of women in this town who always had to be a-doing, boys who tore off in stolen cars through checkpoints, even romantics who yearned for the days a lad could light off to sea. She didn’t see the scrabbling for adventure, when all you need do is pull a comforter to your breast. For there was always a ship waiting in Roisin’s port, with sails like skirts; her own breath blew the wind.