Erotic Refugees (26 page)

”
I am a good father to
that kid, and I was worried fucking sick when I came here,
expecting all kinds of horrible things! And then he's just sitting
on the bed with a bandage on his head. Don't get me wrong, I'm
happy as hell that he's fine, and I know you were panicking, but
still, to make me worry that much over a scratch on the kid's
head!”

Jenny looked about to say
something but Eoin wasn't done.

“
I”—he jabbed a finger
into his chest—“am going to Gotland as planned. I will have my
well-deserved holiday. Damien will be fine. And I won't even blame
you for this, because it isn't your fault. Although you'd
definitely blame me if it was the other way around. Wouldn't
you?”

Jenny shook her head and looked
away, up the corridor.

“
I don't know what
happened to the man I married.”

Eoin couldn't help a bitter
laugh. “And you know why? Because as soon as you married him, you
tried to change him into the man you really wanted! Well I think if
you want that man, then go find him! He's out there somewhere, and
nothing would make me happier.”

He took a deep breath and
rubbed his sore neck.

“
Look, I'll have my
mobile on all the time. Just call me if you need to. And if things
get worse, I'll come back. It's not the moon, it's only Gotland.
But that's all I'm going to offer, and I think it's actually
plenty.”

Jenny nodded and didn't say
anything else. Her eyes were bright with tears. Eoin placed a hand
on her arm and squeezed it. Her face flashed in surprise but she
didn't do or say anything more.

Eoin removed his hand. They
went back into the room and sat with Damien for a couple of hours
until he was released. Eoin went with them to the hospital café
where they had a celebratory glass of fizzy orange and a fat slice
of chocolate cake. He told Damien he was heading off to an island
for a few days, and the boy thought this was an excellent idea and
told him to watch out for sharks.

Eoin hugged and kissed his son,
gave a brisk nod to Jenny and hurried to the exit. Once he was
sitting on the bus he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He
was tingling all over and realised that something amazing had just
happened.

He had, for possibly the first
time, properly stood up to Jenny. He had stated his own position,
and braved her scorching guilt, and he was still standing. That
surely demanded a drink. As did the fact that he'd managed to lose
both an actual and possible sex partner in the same afternoon.
Although that drink would be more of a drowning-sorrows kind of
thing.

Drinking partners, however,
were thin on the ground. Rob was away in Copenhagen, Alice was on
Gotland and there was really nobody else he knew well enough to
call on for a spontaneous weekday beer.

He pondered this problem as he
hopped on a train and jumped off at the Old Town. He found himself
wandering in the direction of Malone's and reached the bar just as
a customer opened the door and left, exposing him to the
tantalizing smell of fried food, the friendly clink of glasses and
the murmur of good-natured conversation. A second later, the door
swung shut again.

Oh screw it, Eoin thought, I'll
just go get a pint by myself. There'll be a newspaper or magazine
to read or, failing that, the text on the back of a packet of
crisps. Today could simply not slip away without some kind of
celebration.

He pushed the door open and
went on in. After he'd settled happily in a corner with a pint, a
newspaper and a packet of crisps he looked proudly around. He
realised he didn't care in the slightest if people were looking at
him. In fact he kind of hoped they were.

Chapter
27

“
Fish, right,” Rob said.
“D'ya think they wonder about what's on the other side of the
water?”

Eoin looked down and studied
the surface just below his swinging feet. “Probably not. I mean,
not any more than we wonder what’s inside a wall or, you know,
under the bed.”

Rob grunted in agreement but as
Eoin thought about it, he realised his reply made no sense at all.
Must be the beer. They'd been drinking for most of the afternoon
and now it was seven in the evening. They were on a battered old
jetty, watching the fish as they snatched at flies. Each fly strike
was accompanied by a tiny splash and the slow spread of rings
across the water. That was the only sound they could hear in the
otherwise pure and perfect silence.

Alice had sent them away from
the house while she made dinner. Eoin had offered to help but she'd
made it clear that in that house only her or her mother would ever
prepare dinner, and that's just how it was. The guests were of
course upset to be relegated to the jetty with nothing to do and a
six-pack of Norrlands Guld to do it with, but they put on brave
faces and suffered their punishment well.

“
Andy told me about that
thing with Alice,” Rob said.

Eoin turned around with an
eager look (far too eager, he suspected). “Really? When? What did
he tell you?”

“
Last weekend. He was a
bit more pissed than normal and he came home with me after the pub
cos I promised him the camp bed. And there was a bit of whiskey
drinking and I guess it loosened his tongue.”

“
And what did he
say?”

Rob lit a cigarette, crossed
his arms and settled into a story-telling position. “Well now, it
was like this. They met on the net a while back—”

“
And this was before she
got divorced, right? Like a couple of years ago?”

“
So he said. Anyway they
made a film of, ye know, some stuff they got up to. And she asked
Andy to send it to her, so he did. And then he didn't hear from her
any more. She just vanished, poof, into thin air.”

Eoin tried to focus on what Rob
was saying but was powerfully distracted by the realisation that
there was, or had been, a recording in existence featuring Alice
unrobed and up to things. He shook his head to shift the thought
and only partially succeeded.

“
Wow,” Eoin said, and
cleared his throat. “Well she did say that Andy had done something
stupid that ruined her marriage. I suppose that was it, sending her
that film. Shit, maybe her husband saw it? Or the kids? That's what
it was. Wow.”

“
Mmm,” Rob said, pausing
for some beer. “Andy didn't know, but that's my guess too. He never
heard back from her. He sent her a couple of mails, and a few
texts, but no reply.”

“
But he knew she was
married, right?”

“
He knew she had kids,
yeah, but from what he tells me the whole marriage part had kind of
been left out. He said he only found that out when you told
him.”

Eoin nodded. “And that's
all?”

Rob flicked his cigarette into
the water and lay back with a satisfied groan. “Yip, that's it. He
hasn't seen her since. That's all he'd say.”

Eoin's mind raced. Now that he
knew most of the story, he could just go ahead and dig out the
remainder from Alice. He was aware he was getting a bit obsessive
about this whole thing, but he couldn't help taking it personally
that Alice wouldn't confide in him. He saw her as one of his only
good friends, and if she couldn't share things he wasn't even sure
of that. He was tired of things being unsure, of the world always
slipping around underfoot like loose gravel. He wanted to know
where he stood with people, and especially with his friends.

He nodded in determination as
he swirled the beer in his mostly-empty can. He simply wasn't
leaving this island without learning the whole truth. Or until
Alice broke his arm for bugging the hell out of her. Whichever came
first.

After they'd stuffed themselves
with new potatoes, fish soufflé, green salad, peach sorbet and a
few slabs of cheese, the three of them transported their plates and
bowls to the kitchen. Then, at Alice's insistence, Eoin took out
the folder containing the designs for the site and started to
arrange the pages on the newly cleared table. Alice fixed some
coffee while Rob, cigarette in mouth, settled down to watch them
both working, like some kind of scruffy lord.

Alice's mother's house was
small but ridiculously pretty. Rose bushes climbed up trellises on
the exterior walls, pots of fuchsias hung on chains from the eaves,
and a huge clump of honeysuckle by the front porch poured out its
heady scent day and night. All of this flora, however, was outdone
by the riot of colour in the strip of wild grass around the edge of
the lawn. From that crazy tangle of green peered flowers of orange
and blue and fiery red, and even at this late hour butterflies
flitted among the stalks. There wasn't a single television in the
house and it clearly wasn't needed. The exterior show was
entertainment enough.

Alice put down the tray of
coffee and settled into her chair. She sipped some red wine. She'd
been sipping it so long now that her lips had become noticeably
purple. She studied the papers Eoin was arranging.

“
But boys, the name?
DateAbase? It's awful, it sounds like date abuse and not many
people will be in a rush to go there, will they?”

Eoin nodded. “But what else is
there? Date Book? Date Compare? Maybe Date Dealer?”

“
Dirt Dealer?” Alice
said. “How about that?”

“
Sounds like something to
do with farming,” Rob said. “My dad would be in there in a second
lookin' for tractors and cattle grids.”

“
Well what about Dating
Dirt then?” Alice said.

“
That's not too bad,”
Eoin agreed.

“
Well I'm still thinking
of tractors,” Rob said. “But sure, Dating Dirt it is then, where
you always get the latest dirt on those Internet
ladies.”

“
Well,” Alice said, “I'm
assuming it will also be for women, right? I mean you will be able
to go in and look up the dirt on guys?”

“
Sure,” said Eoin. “No
reason why not, we just need some women to join up and start adding
some gossip.”

“
We are equal-opportunity
dirt dealers,” Rob added.

“
Yes, that's comforting.”
Alice pulled back the sleeves of her cardigan and leaned closer to
the table. “Alright then, talk me through this. You log in, search
for the nickname of the person you want to know about, and I
suppose you have to say which site you found them on—”

“
That's what this
drop-down here is for,” said Eoin.

“
And I assume if the
person isn't in the system you will have to add them. Will you be
pulling their details directly from the dating sites?”

“
Not unless we want to
get chewed up by lawyers,” Rob said. “We just get the users to add
a little profile of the person they're rating, if they're not
already in the system. And then they can rate them in all the
important areas. Size, voice, laugh, smell, sense of humour,
tits—”

“
You are sad and sick
little men,” Alice said.

“
Hey”, Rob said, “nobody
ever lost money by underestimatin' the scumminess of the general
public.” He set his beer down on the table. “Now, let me tell ye
all about our icons. This one with the little dick on it, that's
the shagability rating—”

“
Jesus,” Alice said and
shook her head in despair.

Alice and Eoin were talking and
watching the sky. It still wasn't dark and the light at the front
porch was doing a good job of attracting the insects around to the
far side of the house, leaving them in relative peace. Eoin found
that he was happy. He was in this beautiful place with people he
considered to be his friends, one of whom smelled sharp and sweet
like an angry flower and was sitting beside him on the outdoor
couch with a blanket wrapped around her bare legs.

The other one Eoin had
discovered on his last trip to the fridge. Rob had collapsed on the
couch in the living room with his sandals still on, and was
rattling out a gentle snore. Eoin didn’t see any point in waking
him so now it was just him and Alice and the glowing horizon.

“
So now you have no
woman,” Alice said, “having driven them all away with the most
bizarre plan I've ever heard. I mean, how did you think for one
second—”

“
Yes, I know,” Eoin said,
making a face. “The plan was rubbish, you don't need to tell me
again. But I thought it was worth a shot. I just wish I could
attract women without these stupid complicated plans. You know,
like Rob does—”

“
Rob!” Alice laughed. “Oh
come on Eoin, Rob doesn't hold a candle to you. Enough with the
putting yourself down. Rob's got his arrogant country boy thing and
maybe some women love that. But he's single too and his ex sunk
your Internet site, remember? You, on the other hand are a smart
and good guy.”

“
Yes, fantastic, it's
every man's dream to be a 'good guy'. Because obviously they get
all the girls. Much better to be good than desirable.”

“
And it doesn't help if I
say you are desirable?”

Eoin laughed. “Great, a friend thinks
I'm desirable. Brilliant.”

He drank some more water. He'd
been drinking only water for the last hour, trying to keep ahead of
Alice and prepare himself for the interrogation he'd planned for
her. It felt like a very clever plan.

“
That's like my mother
telling me I'm the best boy in the world. Cheers to
that.”

Alice gave him a strange look.
“Eoin, just for the record, and just this once, since I'm wobbly
from the wine, I'll tell you something. When I first met you I was
attracted to you. I mean, you dress sharp and you're a bit hopeless
in a sexy way, and you're smart, in most things. And that accent.
You are aware of how attractive women find that accent? That could
remove a lot of underwear if used properly.”