Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [42]
‘Well done,’ he told her at the end.
‘Can we go?’ Joy said tersely, when Ashling returned to her seat. ‘What a waste of time this was. Not a man in sight. Just one dance with a short-arse slaphead to show for our trouble.’
‘Oh go on, please, just for five minutes,’ Joy begged. ‘I don’t know where I stand with Half-man-half-badger and he’s bound to be there. Please.’
‘Five minutes, I mean it, Joy, that’s all I’m staying.’
The party – like most student parties in Dublin – was held in Rathmines, in a four-storey, red-brick Georgian house that had been converted into thirteen tiny oddly shaped flats. It had the obligatory high ceilings, original features, peeling paint and overpowering smell of damp.
The first person Ashling saw when she walked in was the enthusiastic bloke who’d given her the note saying ‘Bellez-moi’.
‘Shite,’ she exhaled.
‘What?’ Joy hissed, terrified that Ashling had spotted Half-man-half-badger snogging someone else.
‘Nothing.’
‘There he is!’ Joy noticed. Leaning against a wall – a risky business in these gerry-converted flats – was her quarry. She slipped her moorings and was gone. Suddenly alone, Ashling gave Bellez-moi a cheesy, sweaty-apologetic grin. To her great alarm, instead of repelling him, it sent him hurtling towards her.
‘You never called me,’ he declared.
‘Mmmm.’ She tried another smile, while inching away.
‘Why not?’
She opened her mouth to launch into a long list of lies. I lost the piece of paper, I’m deaf and dumb, there was a typhoon in Stephen’s Street and the phone lines were down…
Unexpectedly, she had it. ‘I can’t speak French,’ she said triumphantly. How about that for a watertight excuse?
He smiled the wistful smile of one who knows when he’s not wanted.
‘I’m sure you’re very nice and everything,’ she added hastily, keen not to cause any hurt. ‘But I didn’t know you and –’
‘Well you’re never likely to if you don’t ring me,’ he pointed out, pleasantly.
‘Yes, but…’ Then she hit on something. ‘Isn’t it more traditional for the man to ask for the woman’s number, and for him to phone her?’
‘I was trying to be liberated, but right you are then, can I have your number?’
He has freckles, she thought, wondering how to get out of this. She didn’t want to give her number to an enthusiastic man with freckles. But he had his pen out and his eyes were keen and warm. She swallowed away the rage of being put in such a spot. Pushed it down, buried it. ‘Six, seven, seven, four, three, two –’
She wavered over the final digit. Should she say ‘Two’ when it was actually ‘Three’? The moment took for ever.
‘Three,’ she said, in a sigh.
‘And your name?’ His smile flashed bright in the darkened room.
‘Ashling.’
What was his name? Something silly. Cupid, or something.
‘… Valentine,’ he said. ‘Marcus Valentine. I’ll call you.’
This was one instance, Ashling thought angrily, when ‘I’ll call you’ meant just that. Why did the awful ones always ring and the good-looking ones never?
Through the crowds she spotted Joy conversing energetically with Half-man-half-badger. Good, now she could go home. ‘See ya,’ she said to Marcus.
She was too old for this studenty-type shite. On the way out she tripped over Ted, talking to a gamine redhead. He was smiling a smile Ashling didn’t recognize: no longer a panting, please-love-me rictus, but something more contained. Even his body language had altered. Instead of bending forward, he tilted away slightly, so the girl had to lean towards him.
‘Howya.’ Ashling greeted him with a punch to his upper arm.
‘Ashling!’ Excitedly he tried to trip her up.
Greetings having been exchanged, he turned to the little red-head. ‘Suzie, this is my friend, Ashling.’
Suzie gave a suspicious nod.
‘Have you a drink?’ Ted asked Ashling.
‘No, I’m not staying. I’m knackered.