Luke laughed so much I thought he deserved to be told about the school trip to Paris I’d gone on when I was fifteen. How the tour bus got caught in a traffic jam in the Pigalle and the nuns who were guarding us nearly had apoplexy at their proximity to neon signs advertising totally nude bars.
‘You know the sort of thing,’ I told Luke. ‘ “Girls, girls, girls, in their pelt!” ’
‘I’ve heard such things exist, all right,’ he said, his eyes wide with contrived innocence. ‘Although of course, I’ve never actually seen them.’
‘Of course.’
‘So what did the good sisters do?’
‘First they went round and closed the curtains on the bus.’
‘You’re joking!’ Luke looked stunned.
‘And then…’ I said slowly, ‘You’re not going to believe what happened next.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Sister Canice stood in the aisle and, all business, announced “Right girls, the Sorrowful Mysteries; first, The Agony in The Garden. Our father who art in heav – Rachel Walsh, come away from that window! – who art in heaven…” ’
Luke choked, in hysterics. ‘They made you say the rosary!’
‘You can see it, can’t you,’ I said, making him laugh even more. ‘Forty fifteen-year-old girls and five nuns, on a bus in a traffic jam in the red-light district of Paris, with the curtains closed, intoning the fifteen decades of the rosary.
‘That,’ I said solemnly to his red, shiny-with-laughter face, ‘is a true story’
Like a magnet, Luke drew lots of me to the surface, so that I told him things I’d never tell a man that I fancied.
Somehow, I even let slip that I kept The Collected Works of Patrick Kavanagh by my bed. As soon as I’d said it, I wished I hadn’t. I knew what was cool to read and what wasn’t.
‘Not because I’m a clever clogs,’ I hastened to tell him. ‘But I like to read something and my attention span is only long enough to concentrate on something short like a poem.’
‘I know what you mean,’ he said, giving me a wary look. ‘There’s no problem trying to remember plot developments or different characters with a poem.’
‘I think you’re humouring me.’ I smiled.
‘There’s nothing wrong with reading poetry,’ he insisted.
‘You wouldn’t say that if you had my sisters,’ I said ruefully, then I made a scrunched-up face so that he’d laugh.
Now and then, the others interrupted and tried to join in with funny stories of their own, but it was no contest, really. No one was as funny as Luke or I. At least that was what Luke and I thought and we gave each other knowing looks as Gaz laboured to tell us about the time his brother nearly choked on a Rice Krispie. Or was it a Frostie? No wait, it might have been a Weetabix. Not a whole Weetabix, couldn’t have been a whole Weetabix, although maybe again it was…
All the others, including Brigit, did at least one trip to the bar to get drinks for everyone, but Luke and I didn’t. We ignored Gaz as he called, time after time, ‘Your shout, you stingy bollix.’ (Eventually Joey managed to make him understand that the drinks were free and he shut up.)
Meanwhile, Luke and I were so busy out-hilariousing each other that, when our drinks were pressed into our gesticulating hands, we barely noticed. We hardly even heard the several mutters of ‘You could at least have said thanks.’
I just kept thinking to myself, he’s so nice. He’s so funny.
He launched into another story ‘So, Rachel, there I was, wearing one of my mother’s flowery skirts…’ (He had broken his leg.) ‘And who do I meet, only my ex-girlfriend…’
‘Not the one who caught you and Shake tying each other up?’ I exclaimed. (They had been practising knots, not indulging in bondage.)
‘The very same,’ said Luke. ‘And she looked at me and shook her head and said “Now it’s women’s clothes. You’re one sick bastard, Luke Costello.” ’
‘And what did you say?’ I gasped.
‘I decided to go for broke, so I said to her “I suppose a ride is out of the question?” ’
‘Any luck?’
‘She threatened to break my other leg.’
That had me in hysterics. All in all, I was delighted with my new friend.
Of course, I realized, I’d have to do something about the way he looked. What would people think of me if I was seen with the likes of him? I wondered. Wasn’t it a pity? Because if he didn’t dress like such a fool he could nearly be attractive.
I found myself discreedy checking out his body, flicking my eyes away from his face and back again, really fast, so that he wouldn’t notice what I was doing. And I had to say that, while leather trousers are rather unsubtle, there was no denying that he had tall, strong legs and… I waited for him to turn slightly to accept another drink from Joey, so that I could get a good look… a very cute bum. I found myself thinking that if, just say, I was a Rock Chick and if, let’s pretend, I was looking for a mate, then he’d be a good one to pick.
After ages of non-stop mirth, there was a small let-up in the talk. The hum of the outside world broke through the magic circle that Luke and I had drawn round ourselves.
Out of the corner of my ear I heard Johnno calling to Brigit, ‘Hey, The Brigit of Madison County, get cigarettes as well.’
‘Isn’t it funny,’ Luke remarked, ‘how this is the first time we’ve ever spoken to each other?’
‘I suppose.’ I smiled.
‘Because I’ve been watching you for a long time, you know,’ he said, holding my eyes for far longer than was necessary.
‘Have you?’ I simpered, as my brain screamed, He fancies me, one of the Real Men fancies me, what a blast! I wondered how soon I could tell Brigit so that we could laugh our heads off about it.
‘So tell me,’ he said confidentially, ‘what it is you and Brigit find so funny about me and my friends?’
I could have died. That lovely, warm feeling ebbed away at high speed. He didn’t fancy me at all, how could I have thought he did? Even though my emotions were well upholstered by the twenty Seabreezes I’d had, I stammered and blushed.
‘Because I’ve seen you, you know,’ he said. He didn’t sound half as friendly, all of a sudden. He didn’t look it either.