The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Thirty-Three
‘So what did you get up to today?’ she asks him, some unknown amount of time later. They’re sitting cross-legged on the bed opposite one another now, still no tetanus shot in sight, but an array of unhealthy snacks spread out between them. It seems so peculiar that a hospital would sell such things.
‘Oh my God,’ he says, and there is something – she might as well admit it – downright adorable about the way his face brightens with enthusiasm. ‘I did all the things – all the touristy things, I mean, but, like, fuck it, I am a tourist. So, I got the bus from Garrett Castle, which turned out to be, uh … let’s say a scenic route.’
‘Stops at every hole in the hedge, yeah,’ Fia agrees, making him smile.
‘It actually was incredibly scenic though, so I guess I can’t complain. Anyhow, I went to Trinity College first,’ he continues, ‘’cause I wanted to see the Book of Kells, and I read the lines can be crazy. After that, I went out to Kilmainham Gaol and did the Guinness Storehouse, and then I made my way back into the city centre, wandered around a little, came across this really great bookstore … Hodges Figgis – do you know it?’
Fia nods, a smile rising to her lips unbidden. Her mother used to take her there often as a child. It feels so strange to think that Benjamin – Benjamin Lowry – has been in there, that there is now one more small thing on their list of common experiences.
‘Oldest bookshop in Ireland,’ she says, but then suddenly she doubts herself. ‘Or one of them at least, I think.’
Benjamin squints over at her. ‘Did you know that Garrett Castle was built in 2002?’ he asks, a hint of accusation in his tone.
Fia doesn’t know whether to wince or laugh, and she ends up in some amalgam of the two. ‘I did know that, yeah,’ she replies. ‘I thought they tried to kind of keep it on the downlow from visitors, though. How’d you find out?’
‘I asked.’
She just nods, like this is a hard truth and one that must come to everybody eventually. ‘I think there was some sort of ruin there to begin with,’ she adds, in case this is any comfort. ‘But, I dunno – it didn’t exactly scream luxury spa weekends in its natural state, I suppose. It’s like the Vikings and the Normans weren’t even thinking about a Mother’s Day brunch when they landed here. So, yeah. Most of the facade was just built new. It’s a pretty good job though, don’t you think? A blind man on a galloping horse wouldn’t know the difference.’
This is one of her mother’s favoured expressions, and from the look on his face, Benjamin quite enjoys it, too.
Still, he puts on scepticism. ‘It’s made me very mistrustful of the shit you guys are claiming is old, that’s all I’m saying. Anyhow, after Hodges Figgis, I wanted to have an Irish stew for dinner, but I couldn’t find any. So – I guess you can take the boy out of New York, right? – I just grabbed a slice of pizza. And, after that … well, after that,I guess I ended up bleeding profusely from the head, so …’ He shrugs. ‘As per the recommendation of some very concerned locals, I came here.’
Fia just nods. As to the precise source of his injury, she knows better than to try to press him again. If he doesn’t want to tell her, she cannot make him. That’s every single bit as true as the reverse would be.
‘I suppose, when you think about it, no trip to Dublin would be complete without seeing inside the Mater Hospital, though,’ she offers instead. ‘Kind of a hidden gem, you might say. Was it not in your guidebook?’
He smiles, grabbing a few crisps from the bag that’s split open between them. She waits as he chews, swallows.
‘You sound different here,’ he offers then, à propos of nothing whatsoever.
Fia blinks, taken aback slightly by the comment, by the admission underlying it: he has been paying attention. Here, and in New York, he has been noticing things about her, filing them away. As ammunition? Maybe, yes. But maybe not only for that purpose. Maybe also because he simply cannot seem to help it.
Once again, this notion occurs to Fia for one main reason: because she knows the reverse is also true.
‘Different how?’ she asks.
‘I dunno. Your accent’s just stronger, I guess. Same thing happens to me when I get back to North Carolina.’
‘There’s just an ease, isn’t there?’ she says, and her mind flashes back, of its own accord, to her conversation with Ryan earlier – to the shorthand that existed so naturally between them. Then, another example springs to mind. ‘Or, like, even here, tonight. They made me sign in at reception when I arrived, and I got to write my actual name, which was nice.’
‘Yeah, I’ve been noticing that, on all the paperwork for Susan,’ Benjamin replies conversationally, and Fia is startled anew to find that this is another thing he’s registered.
Fiadh. It just looks, at least to her eyes, so much more beautiful that way – so much less like a car model or a macOS update.
‘How come you don’t spell it that way at ZOLA?’ he continues.
She shrugs. ‘Just wasn’t worth the hassle I suppose.’
Truthfully, there are often times these days when she wishes she’d pushed through the hassle – or more to the point, made other people push through it. She’d only had so much fortitude, though. There were only so many times she could smile along with the whole omg that’s so crazy and unnecessary, lols lols lols thing.
It’s an understandable reaction, she supposes, among those who happen not to speak Irish. It doesn’t make Fia like people less, exactly. It’s just that … well, maybe it makes her like them a tiny bit less. Part of her half expects something similar from Benjamin right now. Not for the first time, though, he surprises her.
‘Well, I’m into it,’ he proclaims. ‘With the d and the h, I mean. I can’t say I understand it, exactly, but I like it.’
For a second, Fia says nothing. It’s difficult to explain how very far this response puts him ahead of the curve. And, as it turns out, she has no time to try.
At long last, a nurse arrives to administer Benjamin’s injection, swooping through the curtain with a rickety trolley. She makes conversation, snaps on a fresh pair of gloves, and the job is done and dusted in little more than a minute.
Afterwards, Benjamin barely has the sleeve of his T-shirt tugged back down before it’s made clear that he and Fia must vacate the cubicle sharpish. There will be no hanging around to finish off their last few crisps, no more bickering over the various confections she chose earlier. Someone else needs the bed. Though they’ve spent all night waiting for this – to be cleared to go – it feels like quite an unceremonious eviction.
‘Sorry again about the delay,’ the nurse says, as Fia and Benjamin hop down from the bed, gathering their belongings.
‘That’s okay,’ Benjamin replies easily. ‘What else would we have been doing, right?’
The nurse offers a grateful little half-laugh, before disappearing off to her next task.
‘I’ll have you know I left a very … promising evening for this,’ Fia says, once they’re alone again. Just for the record.
Benjamin stops in his tracks, looking over at her. It’s clear he catches her meaning perfectly. ‘Did you now?’
She just smiles cryptically, heading out of the cubicle with a swoosh of the curtain, leaving him to trail behind her.
‘It was good of you to come,’ he says, a few minutes later. They’ve cleared the chaos of the reception area by now and fallen into step on their way to the exit. ‘The four buses and the six-hour walk and whatever. Thank you.’
It’s unexpectedly nice, the simplicity of those last two words – the sincerity of them.
‘You’re welcome,’ she replies softly.
And it occurs to her once more that they are the same, she and him. They have always met and matched each other. When it comes to debates and wisecracks, criticisms and harsh truths, what one offers, the other will always reciprocate. But what if they were – even just every now and then – gentle with one another? What, Fia wonders, might that be like? If this evening is anything to go by, it might be quite nice.
All of a sudden, though, another thought altogether crosses her mind. Just like that, the spell is broken.
‘Oh my God,’ she exclaims, glancing down at her watch. ‘Ben! Your bus! You’ll have missed the last one now!’
He’s entirely unconcerned. ‘I won’t. It’s, what, like ten thirty, eleven o’clock?’
However, as he takes out his phone – presumably to check the app – his face soon falls. He looks back up at her. ‘In Ne—’
‘Do not say “in New York”, Benjamin! Do not! This is not New York! This is Ireland. You can’t just assume there will be buses.’
‘Well, could I have assumed that the Irish woman I was with might have warned me about the no buses?’
‘If she was your mother, maybe yes.’
Despite themselves, they each give in to a quick burst of laughter, because they’re both so ridiculously dramatic – almost a parody of themselves at this point – and it’s funny.
‘I guess that whole process in there couldn’t exactly have been sped up, anyhow,’ he admits then. ‘Could I get a cab?’
Fia thinks about it. ‘It would be pricey,’ she says then. ‘Like, a hotel might even work out cheaper. And – Friday night … I’m not sure how many Dublin drivers are wanting to head out to the middle of Wicklow, to be honest.’
For a moment, there’s silence, as they each process the predicament. They’re hovering just shy of the hospital’s exit now, and as they look across at one another, an obvious solution seems to come creeping towards them. Fia imagines she can feel a moment of impact, the prospect hitting her once and for all, spurring her into a reaction.
‘You’re not staying at my house,’ she tells him resolutely, though of course he hasn’t asked yet, and perhaps he never would have. ‘I’m sorry. No. I know we’ve had this whole night and it’s been … y’know. It’s been unexpected. But I think a sleepover with you, me, and my mam and dad would just be pushing it.’
Benjamin all but pouts. ‘You would send me out, into an unknown city, injured, seeking whatever Travelodge might take me?’
And Fia can tell, from the look on his face, the tone of his voice, that he’s just joking. He’s not really trying to put the guilts on her. But, when said aloud, it does sound a bit mean, the prospect of just leaving him here. It’s true that he has just been discharged from a hospital; it’s true that he has nowhere obvious to go. Not to mention that, quite aside from those things, he is a very good-looking American man. He has, sometimes, the hint of a southern drawl. Once word gets around among the women of Dublin, there’s a possibility he could be in real danger.
What she says next seems to come out of her mouth entirely of its own accord. ‘I will consider it – if you tell me what happened to you today.’
Benjamin lets out an exhale that’s half surprise, half amusement. ‘Always with the transactions, aren’t you, Fia? Always the quid pro quo. I think you should worry about that, maybe. Are you in therapy?’
Fia is unmoved. She just stares at him, until he rolls his eyes in capitulation.
‘All right, fine,’ he says, and she’s sure the slight pause he takes is purely to build her anticipation.
‘So, I was at that famous bridge in the city centre – the little white one. Ha’penny Bridge?’
Fia nods a confirmation.
‘Right. Just walking along the Liffey, eating my pizza slice, minding my own business.’
‘You never mind your own business,’ she interjects, but even she can hear the affection that seems to come out along with it.
‘Minding my own business,’ Benjamin repeats, his voice rising over the top of hers. ‘And – I guess there’s really no other way to say this – I was full on attacked, unprovoked, by one of your Irish seagulls. Attacked in my face.’
It’s his delivery, more than anything. It’s his wide eyes, his affronted expression.
Fia can barely restrain a guffaw, her whole face animating in response. ‘Oh my God! That’s …’ She bites back another giggle, the effort creating a strangled sort of sound at the back of her throat. ‘I’m sorry – that sounds terrible.’
When she thinks about it properly, it does sound quite terrible.
‘Did it want your food?’ she asks.
‘I think so, yeah. Which it did manage to get, in the end. But I put up a bit of a fight, which in retrospect was … unwise.’
‘Mmm,’ she murmurs. She is, in her own good opinion, doing a remarkable job of being sympathetic here, of resisting the urge to tease. Remarkable.
‘What are seagulls even doing in a city centre, anyhow?’ he continues, all indignance. ‘It just makes no sense. There’s nothing there for them.’
‘I mean, there’s the odd slice of pizza knocking about,’ she can hardly help but point out, and then – at the look on his face – she recants. ‘No, I know! I know. You’re right. They have got incredibly bold in the past few years, it seems like.’
‘The whole escapade actually drew quite a crowd,’ Benjamin says. ‘People were a lot more sympathetic than they would have been in Manhattan, that’s for sure.’
Fia can well imagine. By this point, she’s seen countless fender-benders on New York City streets, spied her fair share of people crying on the subway. Passersby, including herself, tend overwhelmingly towards not poking their noses in. By contrast, in Ireland, there is the opposite inclination. People very much want to find out what the craic is, get involved, offer some bit of assistance or advice. There is, like every other thing on earth, good and bad in both scenarios.
‘So!’ Benjamin says, new jollity in his voice now. ‘Which way to your place? Is it close enough to walk? I gotta say, I’m pretty excited to meet the in-laws. You think they’ll ask me to call them Mom and Dad?’
Fia feels herself jolted back to the present moment, to the basis on which she extracted Benjamin’s confidence in the first place. She opens her mouth in protest, but before she can even get the words out, he beats her to it.
‘A deal’s a deal,’ he trills.
What she said, in fact, was simply that she would consider the idea. So, consider it she does, letting out a long-suffering sigh for his benefit. For another moment, she says nothing, just looks at him, the notion making itself real in her mind for the first time.
Perhaps, at this point, it is just the simplest, swiftest option.
‘You’d have to be on your best behaviour …’ she warns then.
He smiles beatifically. ‘I always am.’
‘I’m serious. It’s not the time for your funny, funny jokes, okay?’
‘You think my jokes are funny?’ he returns, and she just rolls her eyes. He does, too, snorting out a laugh. ‘Okay,’ he adds. ‘I get it. I’ll be the perfect, non-husband houseguest, I promise.’
Perhaps she still looks sceptical, because he’s soon reassuring her once more. ‘For real. I’m actually great with parents.’
Fia clicks her tongue against her teeth. She doesn’t know if that’s true or not – but, unfathomably, it seems she is about to find out.