Page 42 of Hex House
She finishes the dregs of wine in her glass and fills it up. His is empty, too, but she leaves it that way. “Fine. I’ll stop.”
There’s a prickling silence in which Owen looks inevery direction but Siobhan’s. It lasts until the starters arrive, and they stare down into bowls of Cullen skink rather than at each other.
“Why is it called Cullen skink?” Siobhan says. “It’s just soup.”
“It’s named after where it’s from,” Owen says, then seems to run out of steam. “Never mind.”
Before the mains arrive, Owen excuses himself to go to the toilet. He leaves his phone unlocked on the table and while he’s away, it flashes with the arrival of a new message. Watching the closed door to the toilets, Siobhan edges it towards her so she can read the name of the sender. When she sees ‘Sylvie’, an electrical current floods her veins. She opens their message history. Sylvie’s latest message comes as response to one he sent last night, at thirty minutes past midnight.
Hope this isn’t weird, Owen had written,but it was really great to run into you tonight. Lovely to see you let your hair down. Get home safe! Here’s a link to my company. As I said, it’s just something to consider. I definitely wouldn’t mind having you on board. Maybe we could go for another drink to talk about it?
A ten-minute pause between messages, and then he’d sent,You looked really beautiful tonight, too. Hope you don’t mind me saying.
Siobhan wants to jump up from her chair and smash the phone into tiny pieces. She wants to pour the wine all over herself and lick it from her skin. She wants to grab both sides of Owen’s face and bring it close to hers and kiss him or spit at him.I knew it, she wants to scream,I always knew what you were.
She scrolls down to read Sylvie’s reply.
Hey! No worries. Thanks for the drink, and the link. Would love to meet up and talk about the job opportunity. So excited that you’d consider me. When works for you? Appreciate the compliment, too. Winky face. Kiss.
Siobhan marks the message as unread and replaces the phone just in time for Owen to come back to the table. She watches him as he picks up the phone and reads the message, studying the blankness of his face, the way it gives absolutely nothing away. He puts the phone back down and their mains arrive. He spears his steak with a knife and Siobhan watches the juices ooze. All she can think is,Yes. I know exactly who you are now.
***
The next day, Siobhan arrives at the Showroom at 5 p.m. Sylvie is already sitting at the box office, inspecting one of her manicured nails. They’ll work together for a couple of hours to cover the busy Saturday night shift – some new blockbuster has been released, something about the end of the world and a president held hostage – and then Siobhan will do the close.
“Hey, Sylvie,” Siobhan says, taking her seat at the kiosk.
Sylvie gives her a polite nod. She’s wearing dangling earrings and a long necklace, a beaded evil eye swinging from a fine gold chain. The blockbuster is halfway through in screen one and the explosions are so loud that they rumble under their feet.
“Good week?” she asks, and Sylvie looks up at her,frowning. Their brusque snippets of exchanged speech rarely extend to a full conversation.
“It was fine.” She doesn’t return the question.
“You know,” Siobhan begins, not quite knowing where she’s going with the words until they’re out of her mouth, “I ran into Owen Jameson the other day.”
Sylvie looks up. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. We just caught up a little bit, you know. He said you were doing brilliantly. That you’re one of his brightest students. He couldn’t say enough good things about you. Just thought I’d let you know.”
If Sylvie is trying to disguise her wide smile, the hint of colour creeping into her cheeks, she’s failing. “That’s very flattering,” she says. Her soft French accent adorns every word, making it faintly musical.
“I remember you saying he seemed like a bit of a creep, but he seemed fine to me.”
Sylvie nods. “Yeah. I had a tutorial with him the other day and he was so generous. He really knows his stuff. I think maybe I got him wrong.”
“Maybe you did.”
“You know, he even offered me a job. I could be out of here before long.”
Siobhan keeps her face straight, implacable. “You don’t say.”
At that moment, a cluster of customers arrive through the main doors, and there’s a steady stream of them until the end of Sylvie’s shift. Siobhan watches her as she leaves, wondering where she’s going. She wonders if Sylvie ever sits alone in her flat and drinks until her senses burn. In the quiet after closing time, Siobhan cashes up the tilland powers down the two computers at the box office. Keith appears, looking harried, though there’s not much left to do.
“Can you clean the popcorn machine once you’ve finished that, Siobhan?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t forget the grease tray.”
