Offcomer Read Free

she would be trying not to laugh.
    “Fucked that up, didn’t I?” Claire said inwardly.
    “Too right you did.” Jennifer would shake her head in mock despair.
    “Well what would you have done if you’re so bloody smart?”
    “I wouldn’t be working in this fucking hole in the first place. You’ve got no class, Thomas. That’s your problem.”
    Claire was still nodding slightly to herself as she climbedthe steps, turned the corner into the main bar. You work in a pub, she thought, you serve wankers. You deal with it. And while they were laughing at her, they couldn’t be too pissed off. So no big deal, no real harm done. But her hands, as they folded and refolded the cloth, were shaking.
    Paul was still at the bar. He leant one elbow on the counter, one hand on his thigh. He was listening to Dermot. Two pints, half-drunk, the glasses ringed round with foam, stood on the bar. Dermot was talking, glancing at Paul, then back at his hands as he shredded a beermat, peeling away little flecks of cardboard and dropping them into an ashtray.
    That was it. That was exactly what it did to her. Talking to Paul always left her stammering, fidgeting like that. Paul never fiddled with anything, never played with a beermat or a cigarette. When he smoked, you knew it wasn’t nerves. It was with some people: not with him. With him it was a ritual; deliberate, neatly done. He never tapped off the ash too soon, never sucked too frequently on his cigarette. He was monumentally still. And that just made you fidget.
    And he made you talk, Claire thought. He forced you to, just as much as if he twisted your arm up your back and growled threats in your ear. He always seemed sympathetic, but he never gave the impression of registering much of what you said, so you kept on talking to him until you knew you had said too much, but still you blundered on, giving yourself away. Trying to make an impression. You always ended up saying something unforgettably stupid. And you could never tell if he’d even noticed. Nothing, Claire thought, ever bothered Paul.
    That Thursday night back in October. Bar Twelve. Two steps behind Alan, Claire had gazed round the bright bustling room looking for she didn’t know who, cheeks glazed from the cold driven rain, hair dripping. Paul was dirty-fair, wore glasses, was an architecture student, Alan had said. So Claire had imagined another Alan, abstracted and dishevelled, blinking out at the world through smeary lenses.
    Alan had set off across the room, towards the bar, and she had followed. They had got there first, she decided, before the others. Then she saw the suited slight young man with honey-coloured hair, and next to him a slim dark-clothed woman. He reached out and grabbed Alan’s hand and for a minute there was noisy good-willed confusion.
    “Alan, how you doing?”
    “Paul.”
    So this was Paul. His hand, when she shook it, was dry; not too soft. It made her own feel damp and grubby. And this was Grainne. Slender, smooth-skinned, she took Claire’s arm and began to talk. Kind, quick-fire questions that she never got the chance to answer. Paul bought a round of drinks, and they sat down.
    “So, you’re back,” Paul said. He settled himself, glass in hand.
    “I’m back,” said Alan.
    Throughout the evening, with Alan’s arm clamped around her shoulder, faced with Paul’s cool smile and Grainne’s kind questions, Claire rolled up the till receipts from the bar, pulled her rings round and round on her fingers, twisted her hair into tangles. She tensed every time she felt Alan’s ribcage and diaphragm swell as he prepared to speak. For some reason he was telling them everything, every little thing he knew about her.Her family, her home, her Jewishness;
Jewishness
, she thought, but didn’t speak. And all the time they were talking, she just wanted to lean across the table towards Paul and tell him,
this is not me
. She thought that he might understand.
    Now, she met him most nights on