Chapter Six: Keenan
Faye slipped quietly through the door, her feet barely making a sound as she treaded the boards softly. Slinging her coat over the banisters, she sank onto the sofa, looking like her only wish was for a hot water bottle and a fluffy mattress. As a couple of minutes passed, I continued to steal glances in her direction from behind the kitchen door, hoping that the cloak of mystery that surrounded her would part during the brief time she was alone. She remained utterly still in silent contemplation, her brow furrowed against thoughts she apparently would rather not hear.
I ambled into the room, making enough noise so as not to scare her. She glanced up as I turned on the TV, her bottle green eyes settling on my face for a moment before once again returning to middle distance, unfocussed and far away. I pretended to watch the screen, secretly and silently trying to gauge her emotions through the intensity of her expression, through an upturned corner of her mouth or a tear caught on an eyelash. After an agonising ten minutes, I gave up, and turned to face her.
"What did you do?" The question I had asked was too harsh, too prying to be termed as casual. I winced inwardly, cursing my undeveloped charisma. She seemed so fragile; as if a sharp tone or a rough word could shatter her into a million pieces. I felt a brotherly need to protect her, like I would if she was the sister I had left behind me. Faye gave a small smile, barely turning up the corners of her mouth, as if sensing my inner turmoil.
"I went to Belfast. Saw old friends, etc." My jaw dropped, and I stared in utter shock. Her expression was caught between a grimace and a giggle at my own stunned appearance. In a palpable attempt to change the subject, she searched the corners of her mind for more neutral territory. "How's the painting going? Is my career as an artist's muse over?" Belfast? Artist's muse? Was that really the most obvious connection between something she didn't mind discussing and the way she had spent her day?
"I need another couple of hours to get the drawing right. If you don't mind, you'll have to do another sitting." I rushed through the words, doggedly eager to steer the conversation back to what I had originally asked, but too polite to ignore her questions. "Isn't Belfast a little far away for a daytrip? Don't your parents mind?" I was being too abrupt, my stubbornness shining through my feeble attempts at conversation like a lava lamp. Her eyes glimmered for a second, filled with annoyance at my assumptions and intruding manner, before fading once more to their normal intensity. I sensed the time to cut my losses. "Sorry, I'm being insensitive. I'll leave you alone." I rose to leave, full of apologies and ready to give up any hope of ever knowing her better.
"No! No. It's just that you pick the wrong questions, the ones difficult to explain," she clarified. It wasn't particularly reassuring, but her eyes were boring into mine, making me stop. I dropped back down into my chair uncomfortably, the seat seeming too stiff and pristine to have been used all that often. "I don't know why I decided to go. I just saw the bus and... Anyway, I went back to all the places I liked to hang around in, found my way around the city again." She saw the confusion written across my expression. "I used to live there." It was only a small sentence, filled with regret and disappointment. I half-smiled, reluctant to speak and yet trying to console her. "I met an old acquaintance, and we chatted for a while. That was really it. As for my parents, they're too busy to check up on me every second of the day." She had used a lot of words to tell me nothing, and a strange bitterness had entered her tone when she was talking about her parents. From what I'd seen, they didn't even know where their daughter was, and didn't really care. I wondered about this mysterious person she just happened to run into. There had to be more to it than that, judging by the tightness in her jaw coupled with the thankfulness in her eyes.
"And this old acquaintance was...?" She smirked slightly, the sign of someone who knew exactly what you were up to, and really didn't mind. Yet even as her lips pulled upwards, her eyes flashed with pain, with barely restrained emotion, before growing iron hard and steely.
"I have - I had - a brother. He died." Her tone was brusque, cold and clinical, yet she was unable to cover the telltale crack in her voice. I rearranged my expression to something suitably less shocked, but before I could utter a word, she had moved on. "The person I saw was one of his best friends."
"Faye, I'm so sorry. I didn't realise... Feel free to hate me from now on." My eyes pleaded with her for forgiveness. I needed her friendship, someone to talk to without pretence. It was okay to chat to the artists at the gallery or have coffee with some girl I'd only just met, but it barely took the edge off my loneliness. Everything had changed as soon as I decided to call Dublin my home. I used to have so many friends, back when I still thought that my art was just a hobby and that my future lay in accountancy. Now I seemed weird compared to the people I used to know, too different and strange. They couldn't understand my decisions, or why my clothes bore Primark labels. I was too posh to fit in properly with the inner-city dropouts, and too poor to be able to befriend the few people who bought my paintings.
"It's okay." A stray golden hair fell into her eye, and she absentmindedly brushed it away, the bracelets on her wrist clinking and falling together, sparkling and reflecting patches of light onto the ceiling. She caught my eye. "So, tell me about you. All I know is that your one of my mother's new favourites." I thought hard.
"There isn't much to tell. The people in my family are straight-laced bureaucrats who didn't - sorry, don't- really approve of my art. I dropped out of school after my GCSEs, wanting to paint for a living. I don't know who was more surprised, the school or my family. After a couple of months I got bored of my parents trying to entice their rich contacts into buying my art, so I moved here. Dublin was a big enough city to keep me interested, and I like the music in the southern accents." She laughed, a jubilant rejoicing that pleaded with you to join in. That still didn't mean that I got the joke.
"What? What's so funny!?" After a few seconds she had composed herself well-enough to tell me, even as the odd giggle burst through her poise.
"It's just that you got stuck with the only gallery owners on the south-side who are Northern Irish. For someone who likes the Southern brogue, that was bad luck." I looked at her for a few seconds as she coloured under the weight of my blank gaze. "Okay, okay! So it wasn't that funny," she admitted. "It's just that I needed to laugh. It feels like I haven't in years." I thought of my little sister back home, all the things she would do to make someone crack a joke so that she would have an excuse to throw back her head and chuckle. I hesitated for a second, unsure of what to do and how to respond. An idea formed in my mind.
I pounced on her, my hands finding all of her ticklish spots in seconds, and executing my plan ruthlessly until we were both breathless and she was pleading for mercy. "Please, stop ... No!" she laughed; her breathing ragged and uneven. I gave in, not able to resist her doe eyes and begging gaze, sitting myself back on the sofa with a plop. Faye grinned, her whole face lighting up like a Christmas tree covered in glittering fairy lights.
"Why do you think your mother took me in?" I asked Faye the sudden question, immediately ruining the juvenile atmosphere, changing it into something deeper, darker. It had been bothering me since I had accepted the offer, wondering what was expected in return. She contemplated it for a moment, all trace of her former exuberance replaced with gravity.
"I think she wanted a son again, even though she does her best to try and forget about Jason. Maybe she wanted to have that kind of relationship back. Of course, she probably wants to keep an eye on you to make sure that you don't sell your art to anyone else, so that she can say that she has your work exclusively, and charge astronomical prices for it." She grinned, some of her light heartedness returning. "And she's always saying how she worries about me being alone in the house. So, you're the inbuilt security guard. Stand to attention!" I mock saluted. Despite my joking, the words still bothered me more than they should. To be trusted with so much responsibility, to be depended on to look after someone's only remaining child was grounding. I made a mental note to check the doors and windows before I went to sleep. Faye laughed at my serious expression.
"Don't worry!" she scolded. "It's not like she wants you to patrol the grounds, and I could be wrong about the whole theory, anyway. More like to make sure I don't burn down the house." A ghost of an expression flickered across her face, gone too quickly to understand. "I'm going to bed, anyway. Will you come to the supermarket with me tomorrow?" She pulled a face. "I know, nothing fun ever happens on Sundays, but I don't know what you like to eat."
"Sure, might as well." I didn't have anything else to do. She turned to leave, lightly climbing up the stairs. "Faye?" I asked. She turned around to face me, her arm leaning lightly on the banister. "If you don't mind me asking, how did your brother die?" She looked away briefly, swallowing the lump that was undoubtedly building in her throat. I mentally kicked myself. How could I be so insensitive? Did I want the girl to break out in tears?
"Fire." She whispered. "He died in a fire."
***
Faye
Arms circled me from behind, digging their fingers into my waist. I jumped, my breath catching in my throat. I turned to see Keenan's laughing face, a spark in his chocolate brown eye dancing. "Don't do that," I pretended to scold him. "You almost gave me a heart-attack!" He wasn't listening, his hands quickly sorting through the food in the trolley, before grabbing a CD from a nearby shelf. He looked at me, his eyes begging, looking all of five years old with the latest toy."How often do you go shopping?" I asked. He hadn't seemed so excited last night.
"Not very often. I live of cans of beans from the local shop-around-the-corner." I raised a sceptical eyebrow. Keenan always seemed so practical, in spite of his artistic tendencies, and paying inflated prices for bad-quality food didn't strike me as particularly logical. He grinned, recognising the thoughts that must have been tattooed across my forehead. "I just didn't have the time."
I stopped at the book section, browsing the backs of the more interesting covers before dropping a couple in. Keenan had disappeared yet again, probably to return with some wonderful item I didn't even know they sold. Pushing the cart towards the fruit aisles, I stopped to pick up the requisite 'healthy' items my mother would be up in arms about if she didn't see.
It was strange; how my parents always turned up at the exact time I didn't want them. Dad would just wander around the house, looking lost and mumbling a few words before locking the door to his study. Mum would set her chequebook on the counter, leaving me to fill in the thin slips of paper which she would eventually sign, before making sure that there was food in the fridge and that the cleaning was done. She would always be greeted with the smell of freshly washed dishes and well-stocked cupboards, fruit bursting with colour and vibrancy, and little evidence of anything that could possibly come under the term 'fattening'. After that, she would once again disappear to the gallery, staying in the flat above her precious building, only a phone call away but the distance between us spanning countries.
I was gazing into middle distance again, probably looking as if I could see some realm of time and space open only to me. I really shouldn't even bother to wonder when people thought I was a bit...odd. I could see the sky darkening outside, the stars invisible but ever-present, the clouds forming a blanket to tuck the world in. I thought about the people only just awakening on the other side of the earth, the possibilities of a new day stretched out before them.
Keenan re-appeared, the curls in his hair springing lightly around his face. He smirked, glancing knowingly at the lettuce in my hands.
"Parents?" he asked. He seemed so conspiratorial, as if he knew exactly what I was going through. He didn't. His entire relationship with the people who were supposed to care for him wasn't based on exchanging never-ending notes on the fridge door.