Stir-Fry by Emma Donoghue
“Forget about it, it’s no big deal.” Ruth’s hot hand covered Maria’s for a moment. “Shh, listen to this one, she’s a journalist.”
After the debate, they looked for Jael in the bar, but she had disappeared. Shivering at the bus stop, they waited for the motionless number seven to open its doors. The sky had that tight-packed look that hinted at snow. Breath billowed momentarily into white speech bubbles from pale lips.
“Tell me, Maria,” Ruth asked softly, “am I boring?”
“No,” said Maria, startled. She tucked her gloved hands in her armpits for warmth. “Why do you ask?”
“I feel boring.”
“Well, you never bore me.” She hoped it sounded even half as true as it was.
Ruth leaned her head against the icy bus shelter. “I suppose I should rephrase my question then: Am I boring Jael?”
“I haven’t noticed. Do you think you are?” Jogging on the stop to loosen her numb feet, Maria remembered. “At the flat this evening, she was just having a wee tantrum. Is that what you meant?”
“Oh, stop deflecting my questions, you sound like a goddamn cocounsellor.” Then Ruth bumped her head against the glass. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right.”
“I’m losing my grip on people. Like that audience tonight—I was saying the right things, even making them laugh, but I could tell I wasn’t really touching them.”
“Audiences are shits,” said Maria. “If there was a barrier tonight, it was homophobia, that’s all.”
“It’s not just audiences; I feel I’m losing my grip on everybody. Even you, if I keep droning on about how boring I am,” she added wryly.
“How could you ever lose your grip on me? Remember, you’re my mentor, cookery instructor, and mother figure, as well as lender-of-fivers-on-demand.”
Ruth breathed heavily on the glass of the bus shelter, which fogged up against her mouth. “No need to pile it on, I feel old enough already.”
“Ah, pet—” Maria wrestled with exasperation. “That mother figure stuff’s just an old joke. The punch line is that you’re all of twenty-four, remember?”
Drawing a stick figure on the clouded glass, Ruth nodded.
“Tell you what, I’ll drop the jokes.” Maria felt oddly shy, but pushed on. “The room feels warmer when you’re in it, you know?”
Ruth turned; one eye was in shadow, the other glittered in the orange light. “That’s about the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Maria considered her shoes, then leaned out to scan the bus for signs of life.
“Just hope the room stays standing.”
“What room?” Maria asked, rubbing her cheeks with the backs of her gloves.
“Never mind.”
Maria yawned. “You’re at your metaphors again, I can tell.”
“It’s a bad habit. You know who you remind me of, Maria? I’ve just worked it out.”
“Greta Garbo?” she suggested, cupping her hands over her nose and blowing hot air into them.
“Myself, five years ago, when I was a minion in the Service. Wish I could get back to her. She was a tough girl, that Ruth was; excellent at saying no. Why didn’t I have you for a friend back then?”
“Five years ago I was a twelve-year-old with a facial tic, so I wouldn’t have been much use to you.”
“Suppose not.”
The cold started a shiver in the small of Maria’s back, which spiralled to the top of her ears. She stared over at the motley collection of campus buildings. A huge crane was garlanded with red lights; it dipped over the muddy foundations of a new block like an emaciated mother bird. Acres of trees, broken only at the entrance to the dual carriageway, blotted the dark line of the horizon. No sign of another bus. Ten yards from the bus shelter the number seven sat motionless, its only light the pinprick of the driver’s cigarette. Maria turned to share some flippant remark about the driver, but stopped when she saw Ruth’s face. “Ah, pet, what’s wrong?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“It’s hard to tell what’s going on with you and Jael. Sometimes I hear you fighting, but then the next day you’re all glowy.”
“Oh, yes,” said Ruth softly, “nothing like a good fuck for the complexion.” Then, turning her face to the freezing glass, “Ignore me, Maria. Please, don’t listen when I get like this. I’m not like this.”
“But it—”
“This isn’t me. I’m somewhere else.”
Maria shut her mouth and turned back to look at the bus.
She knew Galway had something on his mind tonight, it was just a question of waiting for it to rise to the surface like a trout. He’d been abstracted all through the rehearsal, missing three lighting cues, even leaving the lead bishop standing in the orange glare of a swastika left over from last week’s political comedy. A couple of times he glanced over to where she sat, moving the switches silkily up and down.
“Maria,” in a voice that was meant to be flippant, “would you say I was attractive?”
She bent over the speakers to push in a plug, thinking rapidly. It seemed a rather vain opening to the conversation, but then again, all the books talked about the fragile male ego.
“Fairly attractive,” she said, not wanting to betray too much enthusiasm. He finished his coffee in one gulp. “You’re not going to believe this, but underneath this suave, confident exterior lurks a spineless amoeba.”
“Amoebae are usually spineless, Galway. What are you on about?”
“Irishwomen, Maria.”
She scratched an eyebrow. “What about them? I mean us?”
“Well, I can chat away to them as friends, but when it comes to the murky business of wooing, I seize up as if I had a ferret in my Levis. It all seemed so much easier in the States.”
Maria swallowed hard. She mustn’t laugh, it might put him off. Just then Jennifer called: “Hey, people, I know it’s a drag, but could we go through the lights in Act Two one more time?” Maria cursed under her breath.
Half an hour later they were free to whisper again. “Go on with what you were saying,” she encouraged Galway.
“Nah, it was nothing really.”
“Go on,” she said sternly.
“It’s about Suzette.”
“What is?”
“Do you think you could find out is she dating anyone or has she anyone in mind? I’d really love to ask her out, but I don’t want to barge in if I’m not welcome.”
Maria shut her eyes for a second. “Sure, I’ll get talking to her at the next rehearsal.” After a minute, she forced herself to add a jocular “Best of luck!”
“Take five,” drawled the director from the shadows at the back of the stage.
Take a fucking hike, thought Maria.
Trailing out of her lecture on vectors the next day, Maria walked into Jael’s hip.
“Aha, little girl, I was just looking for you. Come into the woods with the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“What are you on about?” asked Maria blankly.
Jael grabbed her by the hand, despite her protests—girls didn’t hold hands in broad daylight unless they were three vodkas over the limit—and tugged her over to the swing door. She brandished a black plastic bin liner: “Today I feel like picking holly for Yuletide, so what do I do, I look up a snotty little fresher’s lecture timetable and turn up outside the door and kindly invite her to join me and she had better not say no.”
“You’re practically a fresher too.”
“I am not,” said Jael in outrage. “Repeating first year is quite a different thing.”
“Well, I want some lunch first,” Maria insisted, leading the way toward the canteen.
By the time they were settled with their trays—on the very edge of the nonsmoking section, so Jael could catch just a whiff—Maria had stopped sulking. “If you don’t want to be an eternal fresher,” she asked, “do you intend passing your exams this time around?”
“What, you mean in June?” Jael considered
“But you never do any work.”
Jael smiled enigmatically, tucking the bin liner into her leather cummerbund. “It may look that way, but actually every time you see me playing my guitar, I am soaking up the atmosphere of Spanish literature.”
“Right. And what about Hebrew?”
“Well, I might go live on a kibbutz between second and third year, so this year it’s just a question of cramming some grammar, isn’t it?”
“You’re a terrible chancer.” Maria’s eyes strayed to the canteen windows, daubed with giant leering Santas and bow-legged reindeer, the work of the Art Society she had never gotten around to joining.
Jael began on her second banana. “Actually, Maria, I’m thinking of packing it in.”
She stared. “But you could easily—”
“It’s not that I’m afraid of the exams. I just can’t see myself as a bobby-soxed coed anymore, you know? Maybe I better grow up and get a job.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Jael finished her banana with a satisfied swallow. “Dublin is beginning to bore me out of my tiny mind again. Just between you and me, I was thinking I might try the States.”
“When?”
“Sometime.”
Maria’s eyes were steely. “With Ruth or without her?”
Jael laid the banana skin carefully along her plate. “That’ll depend more on her than on me. Lighten up, will you? This is just a vague contingency plan, in case things don’t work out here in the long run.”
Maria looked down at her plate of vegetarian spaghetti and attempted a forkful. She drew breath to speak, then let it out slowly.
Jael picked up a pear and asked, “What about you, are you happy here?”
“Fairly.”
“What’s up now—the transatlantic heartthrob?” Jael blocked her furious glance. “I know Ruth wasn’t meant to tell me, but I can prise anything out of her during pillow talk.”
“He’s not a heartthrob, and he has no romantic interest in me,” said Maria. “I just can’t believe I nearly made a fool of myself for the second time this year.”
“Did you want him a lot?”
Maria’s exasperation mounted. “No, I keep telling you, what annoys me is that I fabricated the whole thing in my head. I was just looking for someone to fancy because that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
“Don’t force yourself,” advised Jael, amused. “It’s disruptive enough when it happens for real.”
She looked down at her cooling dinner. “Galway’s just my friend. He’s a nice guy.”
“There’s a few of them around.”
“Do you like men, yourself?”
Jael wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like many people, and certainly not half the human race. Let’s say I’m open-minded.”
“Yes, but what I was wondering was, do you still actually—”
“Fuck’em?”
Maria could feel the heat rising from her throat. “I didn’t mean to be nosy.”
Jael was triumphant. “Yes, you did. And yes, I have, and will no doubt again. Fuckum, fuckest, fuckarama.”
“Could you keep your voice down just a little bit?” asked Maria despairingly. The seminarian from her tutorial was only two tables away.
“But in the meantime,” Jael went on through a mouthful of pear, “it’s good crack being a demon dyke. Just like half the other dykes I know, who are bisexual too but haven’t the guts to admit it.”
“So on a scale, are you like, fifty-fifty?”
She smiled ruefully as she licked pear juice off her thumb. “I don’t know anyone who’s fifty-fifty. Nah, my libido is more like a compass needle, swinging all over the place. For the past while it’s been jammed at women, but I can’t predict what it’ll point at next.”
“Phallic or what!”
“Point taken.” They groaned simultaneously.
Out in the woody part of the campus, Jael ran round looking for mistletoe, her orange silk skirt snagging in brambles. Maria methodically snapped off bits of holly.
“Where’s Ruth right now?” Maria asked suddenly.
“Dunno.”
“Why didn’t you invite her to pick holly?”
Jael shrugged. “She’s probably in the middle of a feminist interpretation of the Black Death or something.”
Maria busied herself with the holly, but the words bubbled up in spite of her. “She’s not happy, you know.”
The branch tore off in Jael’s hand. “Since when did you qualify as a marriage guidance counsellor? I’m perfectly aware that Ruth isn’t happy.”
“And?”
“And people are responsible for their own emotions.” The skin under the red fringe was paler than ever. “I’m not ecstatically happy either, but I still feel like picking holly.”
“But maybe if you were nicer to her—”
“Niceness was never what Ruth chose me for.” Jael shoved leaves into the plastic bag. “Besides,” she went on thoughtfully, “she rather likes being unhappy. It gives her something to fill her diary with.”
“Anyone would think you didn’t give a shit about her.”
Jael flung down her plastic bag and faced Maria. “How long have you been living with us now?”
“Two months. And a bit.”
“And you still don’t seem to have noticed that I love the woman.”
“Well, then,” said Maria sullenly.
“Well, what? In seventeen years, have you not copped on to the fact that love isn’t enough, that it doesn’t make everything hunky-dory?”
Maria looked away from the blazing eyes. They resumed their search. After five minutes, Maria was sufficiently uncomfortable to make the first overture. “Can’t find any blasted holly berries.”
“Me neither.” Jael straightened up, supporting her back with her long hands.
“We could always cheat and use the reddish berries off that bush.”
“You’re my type of woman,” said Jael. She plucked off several branches heavy with berries and carried them over to the bag. “Rather experimental gloves, aren’t they?” she commented, taking Maria’s hand between hers.
“The holes aren’t part of the design, they’re what happened when I snipped off the yellow bobbles.”
“Yellow bobbles?” Jael’s eyebrows lifted.
“Christmas present from baby brothers,” said Maria, taking back her hand. “I didn’t want to hurt their feelings by not wearing the gloves, but I couldn’t bear the bobbles.”
“The art of compromise. Not one I’ve ever learned.”
“You’re young yet,” said Maria, dropping a holly leaf into Jael’s collar.
“Yo, babes, I’m home.” Maria clumped down the corridor to her room.
The voices in the living room trailed off. Ruth’s head shot out through the beads. “You have a visitor,” she said brightly. Your aunt, she mouthed.
“My what?” Maria hurried past her. “Thelma! What are you doing here? This is wonderful,” she added unconvincingly.
“Oh, I was just zipping home after Christmas shopping in Grafton Street and I thought I’d pop in and deliver some season’s greetings to my scholarly niece.” Thelma nodded significantly at a beribboned box at her feet, then snuggled back into the rocking chair. “This is a nice place you girls have, I must say. Very bijou.”
“I always think an open fire adds a touch of class.” Jael’s voice was so genteel it verged on parody. She was even sitting with her legs crossed at the ankle.
Maria’s mind was rigid. “You’ll stay for dinner, Thelma?”
Ruth caught her apologetic glance and murmured, “No problem, it’s nearly ready.”
Jael soothed all the visitor’s protestations and engaged her in a conversation about the merits of solid-fuel central heating. Maria beckoned furtively from the door, and Ruth followed her down the corridor. “Mother of god, what’ll we do?”
“Relax, M
“No, but she mustn’t find out. I mean she wouldn’t—”
“I know exactly. The Womyn’s Folk Festival poster is gone from the toilet, and as soon as she arrived I took the ‘Dykes on Bikes’ badge off the kitchen notice board.”
“Bless you. What about the labrys painted on the window?”
“She’s unlikely to know what it means, unless she’s one herself. You didn’t, when you moved in,” Ruth reminded her jokily.
“All you told me was that it was a goddamn Cretan axe.”
The dark head dipped. “I know. I chickened out.”
Maria could feel the sweat breaking out under her arms. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. Thelma’s put me in a panic. She could have given me some warning, and I’d have worn a skirt.”
Ruth nodded comfortingly and headed for the bead curtain. Halfway down the corridor, Maria grabbed her by the sleeve of her Aran jumper. “What’s that they’re talking about now?” she whispered.
“Travel in Eastern Europe, as far as I can tell.”
“Please let Jael not say anything too outrageous.”
“Relax, she can be a proper lady when she tries. Now get on in there and make conversation.”
“Ruth?” Maria’s voice was suddenly forlorn.
“I’ve got to check the lasagne, Maria.”
“Yes, but I want to say I’m sorry. I mean, you having to take down your posters and stuff. It’s not that I’m ashamed—”
“It’s no big deal, honestly. I’m used to dedyking the flat whenever my mother comes to dinner.”
“Ruth? If that’s a box of chocolates she’s brought me, you can have it.”
Their hands touched, warm on cold.
“So the way I see it is, feminism has had its day. You girls have got the Pill and equal pay, so why do you have to keep rabbiting on about ‘Ms.’ and ‘chairperson’?”
Maria murmured “Excuse me, be right back” to the stranger expounding at her elbow and went off to queue up outside the toilet. It would be a long wait; the guy inside occasionally responded to bangs on the door with “Give us three minutes” while his companion erupted into muffled giggles. Maria slumped against the wallpaper and examined a beer stain on the black satin waistcoat she had borrowed from Ruth. This would be the very last Dramatic piss-up she was ever getting dragged along to, she promised herself.