Free The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride Page B

that after Christmas after Christmas. What? He’s marrying some Czechoslovakian bitch – shrouds of crying and sheets of snot – It’s a visa thing. It’s a what? So she can stay. So it’s not for real? He’s really marrying her alright. Is she paying him or something? It’s for his fees! Well that means it’s only the money. Oh come on, she says We all need that but I’m not marrying strangers for a few thousand quid. I touch her lovely haircut But. Don’t defend him to me. I’m not, he’s a gobshite. He is     whatever that means. Another rumple of awful tears. Ah don’t, I say Sit up here, I’ll make you a cup of tea.
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    Weeks roll over to December. Room and school the same. A month of holiday meeting every eye and today is the last day.
    There’s a message for you on the notice board. Just a numberand ‘Please ring him’ below it. It’s got to be your Him, she says Who else would it be? Will I? Or Fuck him! It must be five weeks, never mind what else I’ve been at. She says Forget about that, he has no right to know.
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    Hello? Hello there, how are you? Fine. What are you up to? I’m off to Ireland tomorrow. For good? No, for the Christmas break. So     are you around tonight? Actually this afternoon’s our Showing, then we’re all going for a drink. Right, Doctor Faustus, I remember    well    break a leg maybe catch up in the But I could do later on? Okay, Prince Albert again? Round nine? Half past, I say – to be the final word.
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    Clearly none of you have a clue what this play is about. Do you know how it feels to be in the grip of evil? To have a desire for which you’d sell your soul? To have sold your soul and owe the devil? The Principal waits, pacing, until it’s clear we don’t and then he really starts. Guts spill and – though it’s no surprise – we flinch against the music of our own tearing sound. Bloodless. Sexless. Stick insect. Blank card. Beat to low by the end. But afterwards, shoving flats back into the furniture dock, hanging costumes on rails, packing, we laugh and think of drinks ahead. One or another peel and pick off to the Fiddler’s Elbow or Barnacle Bill’s for chips. I, slow and almost last, love the dust of the day closing off. No more Song Exercises. Drums. Madding about. Night showing itself beyond the canteen light and forgotten water bottles on its floor. Past cutlery dumped by the serving hatch door. Tide-marked jockstraps on the sofa. Scripts. London’s Calling fliers ripped for a roach. Spotlights with our favourite actors’ pictures torn out and mugs on the tile tabletops. Onewhite sheet on the notice board reads: School reopens 10 am 9 January 1995. And I choose these months – for everything – as the very best of my life, so far.
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    Later
    Breath of winter on me, brain crawling little from drink, I sit where he was with The Devils that night and read my book like pub doors are quiet and will not look up for him. Then at my shoulder Women in Love? – stoops to my cheek but gets an earlobe – Thought you’d be long past the Lawrence phase. Well, hello to you too, I lifting my eyes to him, damp and cold-faced from the wind. Have a few in you already? I do. Better catch up, and to the barmaid – rubbing heat into his hands – Two, when you’re ready, and a salt and vinegar please. Come on, that table’s free.
    Stretching his legs out When are you off? Tomorrow afternoon. And when are you back? Sixth, I say So what have you been up to since? Writing mostly, he smokes I got into a jag – which is why I haven’t called      sorry about that. Oh right any more nosebleeds? No touch wood, and leans to kiss at my lips. Oh God. Terrible, how pleased he is to see me when I did what he did to make hard things easy with someone else, for a laugh. Alright?