First published in: Voyages. Poems and Stories by Waterford Voices Writers’ Group. Rectory Press, 2004.
I was one of six people who started work together at Unicom on the same day, that summer after university. We were all new in Dublin, wanting to get to know people, so naturally we started hanging around together, having breakfast in the staff canteen every morning, lunch and coffee breaks, and bunking off an hour or so early on a Friday to go down the pub. On that first Friday evening, after a few drinks, there was general agreement that five days a week sitting in front of a monitor in a four-by-six cubicle at Unicom could only be made tolerable if they were followed by a raucous weekend of decadence and debauchery on the streets of Dublin city. Tammy insisted that we make a pact to sample every pub and nightclub in the city before the end of the summer. Everyone cheered and clinked their glasses against Tammy’s as she held it high, drink spilling onto the table. The pact was made.
I remember looking around from face to face as I delivered a round to the table. I liked this bunch. There was already a group dynamic developing after less than a week, a careless irreverence combined with mutual admiration that had gales of laughter erupting from the table every few minutes, turning heads in the pub. Conor had his arm draped around the back of Sarah’s chair, while Sarah was betting she could drink him under the table; Tammy was talking excitedly to Nuala, while Nuala laughed incessantly at Tammy’s wisecracks and Rob did his best to draw Tammy into conversation at every opportunity; and everyone’s face turned towards me, smiling, as I settled the drinks on the table. “Cheers, Steve!” “Good man yourself!” I grinned self-effacingly. I was building my role: as always, I would be the quiet one, the one no-one knew much about, but who knew everything about everyone else.
It was the start of the summer, the evenings were getting longer and warmer, and the monotony of the week at work didn’t seem so bad when there was a weekend to be planned. Tammy always seemed to know about the latest nightspots and would vividly describe a particular place to us over lunch until everyone was dying to go. We would invariably be there the following Saturday. The girls, especially Tammy and Sarah, had the organisational side down to a T and would have us out of the pub and in the club in time to get a seat. Pint after pint, cocktail after cocktail would arrive and before long the girls would be out dancing while Conor, Rob and I minded the coats and bags and had discussions that became increasingly heartfelt as the empty pint glasses lined up in front of us. Rob would pretend not to be looking at Tammy on the dancefloor, and Conor would agonise over whether Sarah was only playing him along till she found someone else, while I nodded sympathetically. Eventually, after a sufficient number of pints, the two guys would muster the courage to lumber out onto the floor to dance beside the girls. I would stay sitting and chatting to whoever happened to be at the table having a break from dancing at the time.
The only slight awkwardness would occur when Nuala and I happened to be alone at the table. Nuala did not have Tammy and Sarah’s stamina for dancing and would usually give up earlier in the night and come and sit down. She did not seem to want to spill out her heart to me in the way the others did, and had a way of glancing at me when she thought I wasn’t looking. I could not quite make her out. I suspected that she felt a little insecure in the group, being the least pretty and outgoing of the three girls. I worked hard to let her know that I did not see her any differently and would let her talk about the things that interested her. Like me, she was an English graduate, and was happy to have an opportunity to discuss plays and films. I saw that getting her to open up to me fully would just take time.
While I could tell you what any of the others talked about most of the time when they were alone with me – Conor about Sarah, football, and his hated office-mate; Nuala about plays, politics, and Tammy; Sarah about her drinking exploits, hockey matches, and, occasionally, Conor; and Rob about anything he could think of, in a vain attempt to disguise the fact that that only thing he really wanted to talk about was Tammy – I can’t be so definite about Tammy. Whatever it was she talked about, it was always fascinating. She talked eloquently and energetically, and whenever she was particularly making a point, she would pull back her gleaming hair with both hands and catch it at the nape of her neck, exposing her whole face, making it look small and oddly vulnerable. It was not just Rob who was in love with her; in a way, we all were. When she talked, we all listened, and gave her the floor for as long as she wanted it. It must have been something about that vulnerability for hers – it made us want to protect her.
Sometimes on those Saturday evenings, Rob and Tammy would coincide at the table with me, and these were the only occasions when Tammy would actually sit down for a reasonable length of time. Those were the conversations I enjoyed most – me, Tammy, and Rob. Rob seemed to have a calming effect on Tammy; in conversation with him, the usual sense of impatience and urgency about her was gone. She listened to what he had to say and replied to it thoughtfully. I watched them together and knew they were a couple almost before they did. They complemented each other, enhanced each other. I enjoyed listening to their conversation, making the odd contribution, introducing topics, seeing how they would react, and what it would make them say to each other.
That was how it was that summer: I was the foil for the rest of the group, the one everyone trusted with their secrets, the one they went to to moan about the others, their love-lives, their work. In work over coffee breaks, quiet moments in the pub, at tables in the nightclubs, I held court; I was the nest they always flew back to. The thrill it gave me was almost heady; I was their counsellor, their oracle almost, the one they came to for comfort and advice.
At some point during the summer it became known that Tammy and Rob were “having problems”. I had known of it for a while by the time everyone else found out. Tammy asked me with tears in her eyes what she should do. It was a Friday night, we were sitting at a tiny table in a deafeningly loud bar in the city centre. I had to lean in close to her to hear what she was saying. “I think I love him Steve,” she said, “But I’ve driven him away.” At the bar later, waiting for my round, the feeling of unease that had taken root in me at Tammy’s words grew. This was the first sign of trouble within this group. Tammy and Rob were the glue in the group; if they split up, things could begin to disintegrate.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it,” said a voice beside me. It was Nuala. “About Tammy and Rob. I saw you two talking. I don’t think it would have a good effect on this group if anything were to happen between those two.” I nodded, a little surprised at this coming from Nuala. I was used to hearing her analyse characters in books, not real people. “If only someone could do something,” she went on. “I mean, someone who knows more than anyone about the group, but wasn’t too involved in the situation, so no-one would get hurt. You know what I mean?” She looked at me pointedly. “Oh here, let me help you with the drinks.”
On my way home in the taxi later that night, Nuala’s words came back to me. So I was not the only one who was worried about what would happen to the group. I did not want this group to implode. They were different somehow; they trusted me, and I belonged to them. Something akin to panic rose in me; I had to do something. After all, Nuala had obviously been hinting that I should. She knew I was the privileged one, the only one in the group with all the information. I knew that Rob did not want to break up with Tammy. When I got home, I dialled Rob’s number and told him what Tammy had said to me in the pub. I was almost light-headed as I replaced the receiver. I had never felt such power.
By the following evening, I had heard nothing from anyone in the group. This was unheard-of on a Saturday night, we always made arrangements to go out. I could get no answer from anyone’s mobile. I was beginning to get a little worried. On Sunday night I turned up at the pub at the usual time for our ritual pre-Monday drinks. I spotted Tammy and Rob over at the bar – Rob had his arm around Tammy and they were laughing. Relief washed over me: it was OK, it had worked. I went over to join Conor, Sarah and Nuala at our usual table. I noticed that there were only two spare chairs and made to get another one, when Sarah cleared her throat.
“Um, Steve, we know you were trying to call us yesterday,” she said with the air of one who had been appointed spokesperson. “We – we didn’t answer on purpose. We’d rather you didn’t phone us any more.”
I stood frozen to the spot.
“We think it was a little – inappropriate – of you to say what you did to Rob about him and Tammy,” went on Sarah, looking uncomfortable. “I guess we think – we’ve had the impression lately that you’re trying to get too close to each of us. It’s like you have – oh I don’t know, too much control or something.”
“But – I was just trying to help. And look – it worked, they’re together,” I said, gesturing to the bar. Sarah shifted in her seat and looked at Nuala.
Nuala sat up straight. “Steve, they were getting there anyway, they were working it out themselves,” she said, looking me straight in the eye. “They didn’t need interference from an – an outsider.” The others nodded. I stared at Nuala in disbelief.
“But you said – you said yourself…”
Nuala’s eyes rounded. “What, Steve? Did I say tell you to ring up Rob in the middle of the night and tell him what to do about a completely private matter between him and Tammy?” She stared calmly at me while taking a sip from her drink.
I looked to Conor in desperation. He put his hands out in a half-apologetic, helpless gesture and looked into his pint. I knew I was beaten.
“I – I guess I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” I said.
“Yeah, at work,” they replied, not looking up.
As I walked home, my collar turned up against the biting wind, I knew it was time to move on. I would start looking at the Situations Vacant tomorrow. The time had come, again, for another new start.
(c) Orla Shanaghy 2003 and 2007
