Friends Like Us Read online

  He was driven demented by her. Had been for years and years and years. Desperate to be the object of her affection, he was frustrated he was only allowed to be the nice best friend. But he was nearly forty and there comes a time when you have to admit defeat.

  Cormac had started to wonder. Was this it? His life? Was this all he was destined for? I am, he thought, the empty crisp packet in man form, wafting unwanted along the street. I am a barnacle. A clinger-onner, a cling-on. Melissa would never love him or see him as anything more than the non-gay gay best friend. This second-best life was, he had thought, until now, good enough for him. But no longer. Erica was the answer to all his problems, the key to his freedom from this unrequited state.

  He and Melissa had met years ago in University College Dublin, when life hung enticingly before them and responsibility stretched only as far as remembering to Sharpie your name on the hummus. He actually had a photograph from the very first day he saw her and he had given his camera to someone to snap them all. It was the beginning of term in their second year and Melissa, sitting on the grass outside the Arts Block, was wearing baggy men’s pyjama bottoms, a holey jumper and black Doc Martens. And laughing. She looked so beautiful, so happy. He in contrast looked like a moody teenager (which he was desperately trying to be. He had to consciously not smile in photos and there is a decade of images of unsmiling Cormac. It had driven his mam, Meenie, mad.

  And Cormac had been in love with Melissa since then. Properly in love, not just fancied-a-bit or found-attractive, but really and truly and desperately in love. He knew, logically that there were other woman in the world, but he didn’t believe it, like conspiracy theorists or flat-earthers. He was afraid he would be trapped in this state of unrequited torture for the rest of his life, Cormac forever hankering after her and Melissa never knowing.

  But she does know. Well, there was that time, embarrassingly, he happened to shout it out at the top of his voice. A particular mortification which still had the power to stop him in his tracks whenever the memory tunnelled its way to the surface.

  A whole group of them had gone to Clare to hole up in a house for a weekend of windy walks, drunken late nights and hugely enjoyable pontificating. Bleary of eye and sick of stomach, Cormac and Melissa alone drove early on the Sunday morning to the Cliffs of Moher – probably the last place on earth one should go when unsteady and nauseous but she wanted to and he wasn’t going to let her go alone. He’d go to Mars if she wanted to but luckily she’s never expressed an interest so he was off the hook on that one.

  They stepped out of the car and were immediately blown off their feet and couldn’t stop laughing as they linked arms and huddled together, shuffling along the path, wobbling towards the terrible drop. They fell to their knees and pulled themselves, commando-like, towards the edge and peered over to the swirling, swirmy sight below them, seagulls surfing the waves of wind, like kamikaze pilots, brave, fearless and death-wished. But for humans, the fall, thousands of metres to the sea below, was horrifying.

  Lying on their bellies, peering over the edge, being buffeted by the wind, they caught each other’s hands, and for a moment he thought I am never going to let go, they are going to have to prise me off this hand, call the fire brigade or chip me off with a chisel. He felt like kissing it, kissing her.

  ‘Yayhoooooooooo!’ He shouted exuberantly into the wind.

  Melissa grinned. ‘Yoooooohooooo!’ she countered, her voice slamming into the wind.

  ‘Life… I love you!’ she yelled, her voice this time carrying all the way to Boston. Cormac squeezed her hand again and looked at her, her beautiful brown eyes, her lopsided mouth, her freckly nose, her rosy cheeks. He couldn’t help himself.

  ‘And I love yoooouuuu!’ He screamed it into the Atlantic wind.

  Cormac had wished he could swallow his words back again, gobble them like a seagull, delete and rewind. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, frozen in time and space. Fuck. Why had he said that? A seagull swooped past them, the tip of his wing almost brushing their noses.

  Melissa was looking down to the sheer drop and the crashing sea below. He thought he felt her hand squeeze his a little tighter but he couldn’t be sure. She turned and smiled. ‘Ready to go back?’ Cormac began to breathe again, thinking she hadn’t heard him.

  He nodded. But after they belly-shuffled back from the edge and got to their feet and when they were sitting in the quiet of the car, and before she started up the engine, she said: ‘Don’t love me, Cormac.’ She played with her keyring. He remembers it, it was Snoopy and Woodstock hugging. ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘At least, not like that. Please.’

  ‘I don’t!’ he laughed a little too hard. ‘Not like that, okay? You know, like friends.’

  She nodded. ‘I need you, Cormac Cullen. I need you in my life. You’re for keeps. Let’s not ruin things. Ever.’

  ‘That’s what I meant! You fool.’ He laughed it off. ‘What did you think? That I was declaring my intensions? It’d be like incest anyway. We’d be arrested.’

  How they laughed. Cormac’s performance of his disgust of being physical with Melissa, the horror of her naked body next to his, kissing her lips, and touching her and sleeping with her, made them howl. It was convincing. So convincing the subject had never been returned to.

  He should have been an actor but, instead, became a photographer, but after a decade or so, he decided that there was a limit to how many photographs you could take of children in pushchairs asleep at the end of the St Patrick’s Day parade. So, somewhere along the way, he had discovered baking and instead dedicated his life to the joys of flour, eggs and butter.

  After spending six months in Paris, learning the art of pastry, he and his friend Walter, a German whose bread knowledge and passion was impressive, bordering on the obsessive, had been planning their own bakery for years.

  And this month, as finance was in place, the two had signed a lease on a modest premises in Dalkey, a small suburban village along the coast, with a little main street and a church at one end and a pub at the other.

  There were to be ovens at the back and room for a coffee shop at the front. The only drawback for Cormac was the dawn starts.

  But at the end of the day, it was only bread. Cormac wanted his life to be about more than just work, he wanted a partner. Well, he wanted Melissa.

  But it was time for New Cormac. And New Cormac would not be pining and whining over Melissa, he was going to find a girlfriend. He had the blind-date tonight and although he knew he was still clinging onto Melissa, and that he wasn’t ready to let go but tonight he would. He really would. But the thought was killing him.

  This, he had decided, was his year to end it. He had to get on with his life, if he put his mind to it and showed a bit of backbone. He had the new business venture with Walter, so there was a new life just itching to get going but only if he had the balls to grab it.

  And it was Walter, his business partner, who had handed him a life-raft. Or rather the name of the woman he was seeing tonight.

  About a month ago, he’d met Walter in the building-site-bakery. He’d put down his take-out cappuccino from the supermarket.

  ‘Disgusting,’ he concluded.

  ‘Ours will be better,’ Cormac had said.

  ‘Ours will be super-fucking much better,’ said Walter, before their conversation turned to relationships. Walter had arrived straight from Bremen for a month’s holiday in Connemara a decade before but had had his blond head turned by a red one, Nora’s. And he was blessed with Nora, capable and brilliant, she was one of those women who was able to manage everything. Bremen was now a distant memory and he and Nora had five-year-old Axel, plus a brand-new baby due the week of the opening.

  Walter had shrugged at the timing. ‘We will cope,’ he said, optimistically.

  ‘Will Nora’s Mam be looking after the baby?’

  ‘A little. Or I’ll have him in a sling with me.’

  ‘You Germans!’ teased Cormac. ‘So modern
!’

  Walter shrugged. ‘Why? Is it not normal? Should I not take care of my children?’

  ‘Of course… I was joking.’ Cormac looked at Walter who had balanced his chair on its back two legs. He was wobbling dangerously. ‘You’re a good team, you and Nora.’

  Walter nodded, returning to earth. ‘Every day I think that. Every day I look at this beautiful Irish woman and think how lucky I am.’

  Walter took out his phone and showed Cormac a new picture of Nora and Axel grinning for the camera.

  ‘They’re gorgeous,’ said Cormac, wistfully. Wife and children, a family, love. What more could any man want?

  Walter nodded in agreement. ‘I’m a lucky man. And what about you, my friend? Still pining? Like a puppy or a little child who has been forgotten by Weinachtsmann?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Father Claus. Whatever he’s called.’ Walter raised an eyebrow. ‘How long have we known each other? Seven years?’

  Cormac nodded. ‘Our eyes met over sourdough.’

  ‘Seven years! Seven years you’ve been obsessing over Melissa. It’s too long, man. You need to let go and find someone who will want to be with you, sleep with you, be there in the morning, wave goodbye, say hello, kiss you… make love to you. Have babies with you.’

  ‘No, I’m not pining. Anymore.’ Cormac had felt a bit defensive. ‘I admit I was but…’ he paused and took a deep breath. ‘It’s time. Time I moved on.’ For a moment, Cormac believed he was ready. He actually began to feel excited.

  ‘Are you sure. Because you’re wasting your life. You are no longer a young man…’

  ‘Jesus, Walter. All right.’ Cormac drank some of his putrid coffee. ‘I know that… actually, it’s something I’ve been thinking myself. I have to let go, to move on, to…’

  ‘Good. Because, life is, as you all say, too small. Listen to me now, because we have an idea. A set-up, a fix-up… Nora’s got a friend who works on some international bank. She’s just back from New York – a banking exec person by day, a yoga teacher by weekend. Now, doesn’t that sound intriguing?’

  Did it? He supposed it did, but he wasn’t filled with great enthusiasm.

  Walter continued. ‘Erica’s her name. Something like that. Nora had the idea. She met her at some fundraising event and said as soon as she met this Erica person, she thought of you. Say the word and we can set something up. She is a very attractive woman – tall and stretchy, you know? She, apparently, is very conscious of her health. I thought that would suit you with your running and your swimming.’

  ‘She sounds terrifying.’ And totally unlike Melissa, he thought. Part of him was hoping that there might be a doppelganger out there, someone like Melissa but better, because she liked him back.

  ‘Listen, my friend,’ said Walter, all earnest and insistent. ‘You should do this. In fact, I am going to order you to do it. You need some exercise of the different kind. You know what I’m saying? Huh?’

  Cormac nodded. He did. He’d had girlfriends and lovers for years and years but none of them lit his fire. This time though, he was determined to just get on with it, with no comparisons with Melissa.

  ‘Anyway,’ Walter continued, ‘Nora’s told her all about you. Said you know about bread. We couldn’t think of anything else, but it seemed to be enough. Men are few and far between when women get to a certain age so you should be taking full advantage of that, my man, get out there and enjoy your rarity factor.’

  ‘Bread? Surely there’s more to me than that?’

  Walter shrugged as though there wasn’t.

  ‘Well, that makes me sound mad. And sad.’

  Walter just raised one eyebrow. ‘I think she said that bread was the devil, but Nora couldn’t work out whether she was joshing or not.’

  ‘Please let it be her wacky sense of humour.’

  ‘She did ask if you were gay,’ said Walter, ‘however…’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I said, you may as well be.’

  ‘May as well be?’ Cormac spluttered.

  Walter shrugged again. ‘You are not, as they say, getting much action… you are wasting all that virile energy, your männlichkeit.’

  ‘Okay. I take your point. My männlichkeit has been a bit on the quiet side lately.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Okay. Set me up with her,’ said Cormac quickly. ‘Why not? Jesus!’

  ‘Seriously? You sure?’

  ‘Fuck it. It’s driving me crazy, all this. I’ve got to end it. Not that there’s bloody well anything to end. I can’t do this, the picking up, being nice, the listening to her heartbroken stories, being at the end of a phone whenever anything has gone wrong. I’m a doormat, that’s all, a fucking doormat. It’s time I faced it. I’ve realized that I can’t be her friend anymore. No more Herr Nice Guy,’ he said, for Walter’s benefit.

  His friend nodded, sensing Cormac’s pain. ‘It is time,’ he said, seriously. ‘I think you are making the right decision. I will organize it.’

  Cormac shook himself. ‘I’m ready. I am fucking ready.’ He almost whooped in an embarrassing attempt of frat boy enthusiasm. He felt excited. Or was it fear. Who cares? At least it was something.

  Come on, Cullen. Back in the game.

  And he was meeting her tonight at the bar at one of the city’s newest and swankiest hotels.

  When he arrived, it seemed to be just one giant room with busy-looking people in serious-looking suits, loosening ties and ordering large amounts of expensive cocktails. He was wearing a shirt, one of his nicest. He had shaved extra carefully and was wearing his old jacket. He’d had it for years but, as far as he could tell, it still looked good. Well, good-ish, he thought, being generous.

  He had looked at himself in the mirror earlier, while he was shaving. Jesus. Since when was he turning into his Dad? When exactly did he get old?

  That was his first wobble. He briefly considered heading off to Glenstal and becoming a monk but, instead, forced himself out of the house, towards a life of non-celibacy. For that was why we was doing this awful, excruciating thing, wasn’t it? To be non-celibate and all that signified, to move on from Melissa… to what? A family? A life? He didn’t dare to think that far ahead. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time.

  This hotel wasn’t a Dublin he recognized. This was like being in New York or Los Angeles or Malaysia or someplace. He suddenly had a pang for Mulligan’s where he and Melissa often met after work. He looked at the door (more a wall that moved) and wondered if he could make a run for it. Meeting Erica had been a bad idea. He wasn’t ready for this, he wasn’t a Tinder-using modern male. But standing people up, he knew, in any age and at any age, was not on. Or could he one drink and if she wasn’t there, then maybe it was okay to leave?

  He ordered a pint and tried to look busy or at least like someone who was not waiting for a stranger, in the hope of having a long and meaningful relationship, and studied the bar menu in great detail. He then stared around the room before considering getting out his phone and texting Melissa and telling her what he was doing… making her laugh, perhaps, or just being in contact. He felt suddenly so lonely, so dejected. The one person he loved, the one person he wanted in his life, was an impossibility.

  He held his phone in his hand, looking at it. No. Put it away, Cullen. You are moving on.

  Walter had said Erica was tall, with long brown hair. That sounds nice, he supposed. She had hair. That was good. And legs. Always useful.

  He had nearly finished his pint. Could he go? Make a move? He had just slipped his phone in his pocket and was looking for money to pay for his drink when there was a tap on his shoulder.

  ‘Cormac?’

  Jesus Christ! He almost fell off the stool. It was as though Cindy Crawford, a crush from his teenage years, was standing in front of him.

  ‘E-E-Erica?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She held out her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you Cormac.’ She smiled flirtatiously. She was looking at him up and down, appraising him as
though he was a sheep at a mart. She smiled, he had obviously passed.

  He took her hand and they shook. ‘Can I get you anything?’ he managed.

  ‘Martini. Dirty. Extra olives.’

  ‘If I say that, will they give us a drink?’

  She laughed and shrugged. ‘Try it and see.’

  He motioned to the bartender. ‘Martini. Dirty. Extra olives. Make it two.’

  Within moments two fine-looking drinks appeared.

  ‘I didn’t know that these things could be concocted in this country,’ he said, marvelling at it as though it was a museum exhibit. ‘I thought that, maybe, meteorologically it was impossible. Too much water in the atmosphere. Or the fact that no olives grow here or that fancy drinks were banned by the Church in 1962 because they were deemed too exciting.’

  To his surprise she laughed.

  ‘Well,’ she said, taking a sip. ‘It’s not 1962 any longer.’

  ‘It’s not?’ he said. ‘And there I was about to tell you about a brilliant new band called The Beatles.’

  She smiled. ‘Aren’t you going to try it?’

  ‘Okay. Are you sure I won’t explode or get too excited?’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘I can’t guarantee you won’t, no.’

  Jesus. He was flirting. He liked this feeling. He could get used to it. He was back in the game.

  He took a sip of the drink. ‘Communion wine never tasted like this,’ he said. ‘We used to steal it after a service. I was an altar boy.’ Why was he telling her this? He drank some more. ‘This is good.’

  ‘I know, right?’ She was smiling. ‘So, Cormac,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you tell me about yourself, y’know? Like what you’re into and stuff.’

  ‘Yes, there’s something I need to clarify,’ he said. ‘I know Walter said I was into bread. But that just makes me sound like a wheaten weirdo.’