Summer fiction: I Can Do Rude by Maya Kulukundis

Irish Times

20 hours ago

It is quite something if a man offers to buy you a fur hat. It is even quite something if a man, with arm twisted, agrees
to buy you a fur hat. So, should you find yourself with a man who feels guilty enough and whose pockets you know to be deep, demand it. Say: I want a fur hat and I want you to buy one for me. Sam and I are in New York and today he will do just that.
I am not meant
to be in New York. I was brought here, a pity-bring, because of what had happened – something common and procedural, about which one must avoid being sentimental – and how it had made me lose my nerve. I had become scared to dress, scared to bathe, and scared, even, to pee, for when naked and looking down at my dipped hips and the downy wisps of my pubic hair, I ached. I had expected Sam to ache too, in solidarity, and hide away with me. For we are lovers, and lovers often mirror one another. But then Sam announced that he was going away, and to
Manhattan
of all places. He needed to spend a long weekend out of Ireland. To taste again his old American life.
But don't you see that I am sad still? I said. And surely you are sad, too?
Yes, Sam said. But the world cannot stop every time one is sad.
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I would, however, not let Sam leave me, not so soon, and as his departure day approached, I egged my fears on. I let my bladder fill such that twice, in the middles of nights, it burst, meaning Sam had to wake, carry the sheets to the washing machine, and tell me that I must not be ashamed. Then, eventually, after I screeched and bashed my head against the wall, Sam relented. Fine. I could come. We would stay with his best and cleverest friend, Marcus, and Marcus's girlfriend, Nancy. And it would be good for us; it might even be fun. So long as I behaved and did not make a fuss.
Fuss? I said, a bump rising at my hairline.
Me?
On the plane, emboldened, I pushed for more.
And should I behave and make no fuss, what? I said. What do I get?
Anything you like, Sam said, tearing his headphones out of their plastic sack.
I thought of steely women in extravagant winter clothes, photographs I had seen of Maria Callas, Jackie O.
A fur hat, I said.
I want
a fur hat.
I have, in fact, behaved. I have skipped nicely through Sam's old haunts: a corner of Central Park in which, he told me, his ashes would one day be scattered; a cocktail bar downtown in which the hostess hugged him from behind; a fabled deli in the Bronx, in which rotting sausages were strung up like garlands and my nose never quite adjusted, my eyes tick-ticking with the turning meat smell. In every space, the
I want
has simmered under my tongue, keeping me sweet. And today is our last day so, before we make our way to JFK, the fur-hat-buying has to happen.
An oyster grown in sewage would taste only of sewage. But here, you would say it was delicious
Yes, Sam said this morning, when I woke and kissed and said,
I want.
Yes, Sam said, as we followed Marcus into the belly of Grand Central Station, to the Oyster Bar where he had booked a farewell lunch, and I said:
I want.
Yes, Helena. After lunch, we will go shopping and
you shall get.
My own fur hat, to have and to hold, a present from my darling beau! An 'abortion present', I clarify, just quiet enough so that Marcus, now sitting opposite us and flattening his napkin on his lap, cannot hear but Sam, next to me, can. He grips my knee under the table:
shh, shh.
Oysters arrive. We take tiny forks and stab them, teasing each from its shell, severing that fleshy tendon that is like the thin cord on a tongue-tie, tipping our necks back and swallowing. An oyster tastes only of the sea, but here, you should say it is delicious.
Delicious, I say.
Sam explains about the oysters in New York Harbour, which grew once, were killed off by sewage dumping, but might be made to grow again. An oyster grown in sewage would taste only of sewage. But here, you would say it was delicious.
That sounds delicious! I say.
I am getting good at New York Talk.
Marcus says that he once owned a set of gold-plated forks, all of which, over a decade, had disappeared into people's handbags.
And whose handbags were they?
He peers at me in joke suspicion, but it is true that I am the outsider here, the stranger who has breakfasted at his breakfast bar and looked up, up, at him offering comments on books – good books, books by Russians- with the hope that he deem me interesting. For that is always the challenge, appealing to the nearest and dearest. But should said dearest be
Marcus
, whose conversation flips into a glinting shoal of names, many of which, it hits you – is made to hit you through moments of sharp emphasis – are from the depths of your boyfriend's sexual past, stay calm. Change tack. Play the role most easily available to you: meek, sweet, coquette.
So now, I fluff my hair, I unzip my purse, I open it wide and hold it up to Marcus's eyes to say: see? No forks in here! Marcus smirks and Sam nods: yes, Helena, correct.
Nancy wouldn't join us for lunch. She is reviewing an opera tonight and can't have a social day if work is involved. Or so Marcus said, raising his eyebrows. My darling critic, Marcus calls her. My little workaholic. Anyway, if Nancy does eat lunch, it wouldn't be with me. I was looking in the bathroom mirror earlier and she arrived – for creams or teeth – but when she saw me, she shucked and twisted back for the bedroom, the heels of her slippers slapping against the floor.
Marcus, slumped in the living room with the newspaper, caught me on my way to dress and said, You should understand. That girl is not for the mornings.
That girl is not for the evenings either. When we all went for cocktails on the first night, Marcus announced that he and Nancy were engaged. Nancy, wearing a huge woollen cape and hunching to hide the width of her shoulders, hunched even lower when Marcus said it.
We have decided that we might as well get married.
I said nothing, twirled my olive stick. Sam finished his Negroni, and he said nothing too. It was a bar of hard surfaces, the chatter of one table colliding with that of another – and as the saying-nothing continued, I wondered whether Marcus had announced anything at all.
Then Sam, loosened, began describing his Dublin life. And I know his Dublin life,
I am
his Dublin life, but in his telling it was as if he were looking at the life from above, making it all small and dull and squashable.
Nancy, sitting up, said, Surely you'll come back to New York? If it's such a dump?
And so Sam started on visa-talk – he would need to procure an American wife- and it was as if he were twizzling a needle into the soft corner of my eye which stung, stung such that I was worried I might glitch, say something I shouldn't. I pressed Sam's palm against burning cheek to mean: stop now, please.
By the last round, I had reset. I stood on my tiptoes to kiss Marcus nicely on the cheek and Sam nicely on the lips and I thanked them for the evening.
Sam put his hand on my back. Of course, my sweet.
A pleasure! Marcus said.
Nancy stared at me with sharp, green eyes and swished out into the street.
Back at the apartment, Nancy balanced on the windowsill, knees tight at her chest and one arm dangling down. Marcus rushed to the guest room where Sam and I were undressing and said, Come, watch this. We crept into the hallway as Marcus sidled up to Nancy with a spliff and cooed,
Pspsps
, Nancy-Nancy, here's your bedtime joint. She offered her hand. Marcus slid the spliff between her fingers. She lit it, took a long drag, and shooed us all away.
Later, when Sam and I were lying together, I asked why he had not congratulated Marcus and Nancy on their engagement.
God, he said. I thought that was a joke.
He laughed then, a big laugh during which I could see the brown tops of his molars.
Well, well. We'll send them flowers after we leave.
I do not see why Nancy deserves flowers for she does not play right. She should know never to glare or to round her shoulders. She should know where it is acceptable to turn her sadness or anger on, and to otherwise twist the tap and shut it off. I am younger by 11 whole years, but already much better at this than her.
I felt that Sam and I should have sex then, but we had been told to wait for two weeks, lest I risk an infection, and Sam would not take another risk. So, we lay alongside one another, holding hands. And when I began to cry in short, sharp bursts, Sam held the duvet up to make for me a safe and private hideaway:
shh, shh.
In the morning, Marcus informed us that we had kept him up with our night-time noises.
I apologised; Sam buttered his toast with jumpy strokes.
No need to apologise! Marcus said. I'm glad
someone's
having fun here.
Nancy stared into her coffee cup and twice she loudly yawned.
Marcus says there is a name in New York for girls like me – willowy, eager girls who leap into an older man's bed and bounce. We are, he says, the 'out-of-town ingénues'. He says this as a tease, but even as a tease it makes no sense. I do not bounce. I am stiff in bed, and with Sam, because he made me shy, I was stiffer still. And I am not from a different town, I am from a different world. And now that I exist here, in this American brand of bright light and blue-lipped cold, my world seems completely fragile – as if, with my back turned, it might have been hacked apart into tiny shards and those shards sucked away.
I can't, I said. The hole doesn't open. It does, Sam said, that's why we are here
The oysters are over. Shells, empty and turned upside down like stony petals on the plate.
The waiter appears with a crème brûlée. I don't remember anyone ordering dessert. I must have been distracted; my thinking splintered. Sam hands me a dessert spoon. I tap once at the thin layer of caramelised sugar; it gives; I scoop out the custard. The girl should take the first bite before the men start eating, that's the rule.
And isn't it strange that I know this, that I have learned this? It was never the rule at home.
Suddenly, I want to stand; I want to press my forehead against Marcus's and to spit, low and fierce, I don't need your forks, whatever the value. I have my own and they are good enough.
But I know not to be low or fierce in an oyster bar.
It is true, though, that I have done things that I know you should not do. I know that you should not miss pills, or leave gaps longer than 12 hours, but I did. I skipped. I knew that you should track cycles and that there were ways of being careful, but I wasn't. I disconnected. And I knew it was a mistake and mistakes are a source of great stress but when, 10 weeks on, I was shown the images by a so-sorry technician, I felt neither panic nor disgust, but a calm and easy recognition. Like coming upon a favourite jumper at the back of the cupboard drawer.
Oh, I thought, so there you are.
So, there you are, I sang, on the bus, in the bath. So, there you are; you are there.
But for Sam, it was no easy feeling. He drank one glass of water quickly, then another. He opened the fridge and stared inside, at the eggs and the milk and the container we keep for the odd knobs of Parmesan cheese.
You are so young, he said. It would be the wrong time.
And I suppose it would be silly to have a child instead of living
a full life.
In bed, Sam was helpful and kind. He sat with me until I moved my chest up and down like a person asleep, whereupon he slipped away to read. Alone, I put my hand on my stomach and pressed in, in, trying to find the beating thing.
So, there you were, I whispered. There you were; you were there.
We went private and it was all so quick to arrange.
In the hospital, Sam was helpful too. They gave me a pill to push into myself to begin loosening my cervix, but I did not understand how to do it, so the woman had to demonstrate with an upwards swoop. She left the room to give me privacy, but I did not want privacy. I wanted to leave. I should not, I began to say, to sob. And Sam was nervous, saying, don't say that. It'll cause problems. In his nervousness, he was sharp, so I tried; I put my fingers inside and pushed but was met by a warm, hard wall, as if I were bringing a vegetable to the mouth of a toddler and smashing, smashing it against their stubborn gums. I can't, I said. The hole doesn't open. It does, Sam said,
that's why we are here.
I'm not doing it, I said. You have to do it, not me. Sam hesitated. He walked to the door and locked it. He stood over the bed. He took the pill from me. I held my blanket over my nose and mouth and breathed through him – I have slept with this blanket every night for 22 years, he, he was always a 'he', has faded from blue to grey and his corners have worn away from rubbing against my knuckles – and Sam stroked my upper thigh, and then began circling, circling my clitoris with his thumb. He waited for my breathing to slow and to deepen, and then he slid one finger into a space that I myself have never known, and lodged the pill there, where it began to dissolve, prising apart the tight threads of me – I could feel the unlacing, it was a burning like a stitch – and opening my body wider, wide enough so that it would do the thing I couldn't, wouldn't otherwise do: let go.
Afterwards, when I came up on a wheeling bed and was instructed to pass urine, Sam hobbled me to the loo. He eased down the gauze knickers that had appeared upon me, and, afterwards, he placed my chin on his shoulder as he ducked, wiped clean the seat and lip of the bowl and flushed, all so that I was not witness to the blood.
*
The lunch bill arrives in a smart, black jacket and Marcus slips some cash inside. He must be getting on. He has a function to attend.
What, I say, is the
function
of a function?
Marcus laughs, ruffles my hair. I duck. Shake him off.
Perhaps you should be taking this one along to 47th Street, Sam, he says.
What is 47th Street? I say.
The Diamond District, Helena, Sam says. We'll save that one for another trip, eh?
Marcus unhooks his coat, wishes us a pleasant flight home and makes for the door, trousers bunching under the fat of his buttocks. He is sweating. We all are, having been pummelled for the last hour by the station's central heating.
I am excused; I go to the bathroom. My pad is wet through and smells of pennies. I hold it close to smell the penny smell and to check, but, of course – and I am no simple girl, but sometimes the mind plays tricks, it imagines souls where there are no souls, cells where there are no cells – there is nothing there. But even so, I want. I lean against the stall wall and I want.
I roll the pad up, bin it, replace it. When I return, Sam is holding out my coat. I am threaded through the sleeves, the
I want
pulsing in me as little, precious shocks. I shiver into them. For to know that you want, that you
can
want – wanting being the fullest feeling, the only one that will ever ache the whole of you – is a rare and a magical thing. So, if you have had a want, understand it. Own it. Twist it into something real.
Sam, I say, taking his hands in mine. I want my fur hat.
Yes, sweetheart. Let's get you your fur hat.
We walk together. Sam swings my arm in a game and he is chatting to me, freely, happily.
It has been good. Good to have me along.
He is mine again, now that Marcus has gone.
When we reach the Fur District, Sam explains about wholesalers. A wholesaler means that no money is spent on the customer experience. The salesmen and women do not have to be nice to us. In fact, they may be rude.
I can do rude, I say.
We step down a dip and into a shop. It is dark and dusty. Bare mannequins loom in the window, arms bent into awkward angles as if engaged in timid dance.
A man emerges from a basement place and asks what it is we want.
We want a fur hat, Sam says. Fox, preferably. Pillbox.
The man produces a wooden pole. He hooks down a series of hats that hang high on the wall: hats with stripy tails, hats that are dyed green and purple, fur-lined baseball caps of wrinkling brown leather.
Not quite, Sam says. Something plainer, grander. In black.
The man grunts. Nothing for you today. Try tomorrow.
We fly tonight, Sam says. We will go elsewhere.
Goodbye! I say. Thanks for all your help!
We climb back on to the street and I am imagining my fur hat. I am imagining strutting through this city with my hat in my arms: black and fox and grand and soft. I will be a woman of great power, with my fur hat. A woman who does not care about cruelty. A woman who looks you in the eye and dares you – just dares you – to throw red paint.
Maya Kulukundis
Maya Kulukundis recently completed an MPhil in creative writing at the Oscar Wilde Centre. Her publications include stories in Banshee and the anthology Tidings (Lilliput Press, 2024). She was awarded an IWC Duo Mentorship in 2023 and was selected for the Stinging Fly six-month fiction workshop in 2024. She is working on a short story collection