CHAPTER
SEVEN
I was sitting on
Colette’s bed, swinging my legs. Trish sat on the floor. I
was getting sick of Trish, she was either in a bad mood,
telling us to ‘Cop on,’ or she was like she was tonight,
friendly and determined to stay in the way.Colette was
doing loads of exercises. She had done one hundred sit-ups,
fifty leg stretches on each side and she was going to beat
her previous record of two hundred waist twists.
It wore me out,
looking at her: I lay down on the bed and watched her face,
contorting and grimacing. It was all pink and shiny. And
still she looked nice. She wore a long T-shirt that came
just to the top of her long legs. I thought she looked
brilliant.
‘Sing to me,’ she said every now and then, and I laughed.
Of course I wasn’t going to sing. It was someone like
Colette who could sing out of tune and still sound okay.
Make the song even better. That was because she really did
have a good voice. But it was weak and she mocked it. And
then the weakness sounded the best part of it.
‘You sing,’ I said.
‘Okay, wait a
minute!’ Colette began to twist her waist faster and more
savagely. ‘Just give me a minute,’ and she hacked her body
each way. ‘I must be thin for Christmas.’
Her face got redder and redder and her cheeks bulged. And
just when she was beginning to look really awful, she
stopped. It took her a few minutes to get her breath back.
‘You’re going to give yourself a heart condition,’ Trish
was talking like she was fifty.
‘Not I,’ Colette gasped and she wasn’t able to say anything
more for a few minutes. Just stood there, wiping her face
and chest and arms with yellow tissues and panting.
‘Actually, I think I’ll have a wash!’ she said and gave a
grin to Trish. She pulled off her T-shirt. She had nothing
on except a small pair of purple knickers. They were about
the same colour purple as her hands. I found it
embarrassing.
Colette pulled her breath in really tight and showed off
her rib cage. I thought she was perfect but I didn’t like
her standing in front of us, half naked. I felt awful
uncomfortable. Mainly because I was afraid that she would
expect me to do the same. The way some people weigh
themselves in front of you and then ask you to get on the
scales.
Colette soaped and soaped, making a lather all over her
arms and chest. Showing off. I couldn’t stick it another
minute. ‘Oh God, this is so
boring,
I must get back to my book.’
Colette caught her T-shirt, pulled it over her head and sat
down next to me. Holding my eyes to hers, she swished back
her silky hair. ‘But don’t you find it so sexciting?’
I found it silly. But I liked it, too. I never knew what I
would do if we were alone. Sometimes I wished I were a
different person. Someone who could throw herself into
things. Or throw my clothes off the way Colette did.
‘Stop embarrassing Grace,’ Trish said and I hated her.
‘I’m not embarrassed,’ I said.
‘Of course she’s not. She loves me,’ Colette howled the
word love like a wolf and pulled my head against her damp
sleeves for a second.
‘You never told us the story of Deirdre of
Sorrows,’ Trish’s latest
thing was that we should do educational things with each
other.
Colette sat up enthusiastically, ‘Go on, why don’t you tell
it?’
‘Are you sure you never heard it?’ I said, not wanting them
to say half way through the telling, ‘Oh but we know that
old thing.’
‘No, we don’t,’ said Colette. ‘We’re positive.’
‘Well,’ I began, ‘there was this beautiful girl called
Deirdre.’
‘Like you,’ Colette interjected and then said,’I’m only
joking.’
‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’
‘Sure we’re sure,’ said Colette stroking my arm
encouragingly.
‘Well, there was this girl, Deirdre, and the story is
basically about her. Her story was full of sorrow.’
‘Definitely like you,’ said Colette, playing an imaginary
violin.
‘Oh for god’s sake,’ I said, fuming and folding my arms.
‘Oh for God’s sake, oh for God’s sake,’ Colette sang to the
tune of the Banana
Splits song., ‘la la la, la
la la, la la la, la la la.’
I folded my arms and stopped speaking.
‘You have to tell it now. You have to! The suspense is
killing me.’ Colette wrung her hands.
‘You’re really good at telling stories, come on,’ Trish
said.
‘Oh all right so,’ I said. ‘But if there is one more
interruption, I’m stopping. She was very sad because she
was betrotted to the King of Ulster who was very rich, but
desperate old.’
‘What’s betrotted?’ Trish asked.
‘It’s the old word for being engaged,’ I said, impatiently.
‘You mean betrothed,’ Colette corrected me. ‘Where did you
get betrotted, you old fool,’ she began to giggle.
I went red, ‘Stop interrupting. The king’s name was
Conchubhar and he knew she didn’t want him so he kept her
in a house in the woods until they were ready to get
married. And he’s come to visit her, and tell her he was
going to get her and she’d say no, she wanted a young man
with the hair of a raven and skin of snow and lips as red
as if blood had been spilt on them.’
‘God, she sounds like a right animal,’ Colette said.
‘It’s a bit much all right, but that’s the way they were
then and it had to sound poetic. Anyway one night, three
young men arrived, it was Naoise and the sons of Usna.’
‘Hohoo,’ Colette said. ‘We’re getting to the sexciting
part.’
‘It was love and it was beautiful and so sad, because it
was all foretold in a prophesy that the king got. But he
paid no heed to it. Deirdre was even embroidering a
tapestry of three huntsman before she ever saw them. They
arrived one day and Naoise fell in love with Deirdre.’
‘He’d no choice,’Colette interrupted.
‘Why? Because she was beautiful?’ Trish leaned forward.
‘No, because of the prophesy.’
‘That’s true
actually,’ I said. ‘It was like Jesus, he never had a
chance either, he had to fulfil the scriptures. If he had
tried to get out of it, everyone would have said that he
was coward.’
‘Jesus, don’t get religious, for God’s sake,’ Colette gave
me a light belt across the shoulder.
‘Well, you better stop interrupting me,’ I said.
‘Go on,’ said Trish.
‘Oh yes, and they ran away, Deirdre and the sons of Usna.
Deirdre’s maid stayed behind and faced the music.
Conchubhar went mad, he sent armies after them, they spent
years fleeing from country to country.And do you know what
he did that was terrible lousy?’
‘No, but I’m all ears,’ said Colette, screwing up her face.
I looked at her and then I did something weird. I kissed
her. Not an ordinary kiss, but a kiss where our lips were
exactly over each other’s. And it felt nice, soft and warm
with a lot of nerves beating. I felt stupid in front of
Trish, though.
‘Go on, honeybunch,’ Colette said.
‘The really lousy part was,’ I could hear my voice shake,
‘Conchubhar would tell all the kings in all the other
countries how beautiful Deirdre was and then they’d want to
get her , chasing Deirdre and the sons of Usna all over the
place. In the end,they were getting exhausted from all the
fleeing and Conchubhar promised to pardon them if they came
back.’ I stopped for breath. ‘But Deirdre didn’t believe
him. She kept saying it was prophesied that they would be
killed by the king. Naoise wanted to chance it anyway even
though Conchubhar was being fishy. He kept wanting to know
if Deirdre had lost her beauty with all the years
travelling. They came back even though Deirdre was against
it and Conchubhar sent Deirdre’s old maid to see if Deirdre
was still beautiful and the maid went back and pretended
that Deirdre had lost all her beauty and was gone all
wrinkled. Conchubhar didn’t believe her. He found out
Deirdre was still beautiful and had the two sons of Usna
killed. Deirdre was so heartbroken, she split her head off
a rock rather than let Conchubhar get her.’
‘Well she sounds like a right fool, she could have married
the king afterwards and have Naoise as well and had all the
money,’ said Colette.
‘But she couldn’t stand Conchubhar,’ I said. ‘I think it’s
great. It was romantic. They were in love.’
‘And I’m in love with you and you keep rejecting me.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Prove it,’ said Colette, pulling me down in the bed, on
top of her chest. I wanted to stay like that but I couldn’t
with Trish there. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I broke away and
heaved over the side of the bed, feeling breathless.
‘I must get back to bed,’ I said, shivering as my warm feet
made contact with the cold tiles.
‘So must I,’ said Trish, getting up heavily at last.
I looked at Colette, she was lying back in the shadows now
with her eyes closed.
‘We’re going now,’ I said into the sulky silence.
‘Goodnight, Colette,’ we called again as we were walking
away but there was no answer.