Three Months Earlier
‘Patient Penelope. The wife of the King of Ithaca, Odysseus. A serious and diligent character, a devoted wife and mother, some critics dismiss her as a symbol of marital fidelity, but Penelope is a complex woman who weaves her plots as deftly as she weaves a garment.’ The tour guide leaves a mysterious pause while his eyes run over his intrigued audience.
Gabriel and I are at an exhibition in the National Museum. We’re in the back row of the gathered crowd, standing slightly away from the others as though we don’t belong, or don’t want to be a part of their gang, but aren’t too cool to risk missing what’s being said. I’m listening to the tour guide while Gabriel leafs through the brochure beside me. He will be able to repeat what the guide has said later, word for word. He loves this stuff. I love that he loves this stuff more than the stuff itself. He’s somebody who knows how to fill time, and when I met him that was one of his most desirable traits because I had a date with destiny. In sixty years, max, I had a date with someone on the other side.
‘Penelope’s husband Odysseus goes to fight in the Trojan War, which is fought for ten years and it takes him a further ten years to return. Penelope is in a very dangerous situation when one hundred and eight suitors in total begin demanding her hand in marriage. Penelope is clever, and concocts ways to delay her suitors, leading on each man with the promise of possibility but never submitting to any one.’
I suddenly feel self-conscious. Gabriel’s arm draped loosely over my shoulder feels too heavy.
‘The story of Penelope’s loom, which we see here, symbolises one of the queen’s cunning tricks. Penelope worked at weaving a shroud for the eventual funeral of her father-in-law Laertes, claiming she would choose a husband as soon as the shroud was completed. By day, she worked on a great loom in the royal halls, at night she secretly unravelled what she had done. She persisted for three years, waiting for her husband to return, deceiving her suitors until they were reunited.’
It grates on me. ‘Did he wait for her?’ I call out.
‘Excuse me?’ the tour guide asks, eyes darting to find the owner of the voice. The crowd parts and turns to look at me.
‘Penelope is the epitome of conjugal fidelity, but what about her husband? Did he save himself for her, out there in the war, for twenty years?’
Gabriel chuckles.
The tour guide smiles and talks briefly about the nine other children Odysseus had with five other women, and his long journey to return to Ithaca from the Trojan War.
‘So, no then,’ I mumble to Gabriel as the group move on. ‘Silly Penelope.’
‘It was an excellent question,’ he says, and I hear the amusement in his voice.
I turn again to the painting of Penelope while Gabriel flicks through the brochure. Am I Patient Penelope? Am I weaving by day, unravelling by night, deceiving this loyal and beautiful suitor while I wait to be reunited with my husband? I look up at Gabriel. Gabriel’s blue eyes are playful, not reading into my thoughts. Amazingly deceived.
‘She could have just slept with them all while she was waiting,’ he says. ‘Not much fun, Prudish Penelope.’
I laugh, rest my head on his chest. He wraps his arm around me, holds me tight and kisses the top of my head. He’s built like a house and I could live inside his hug; big, broad and strong, he spends his days outdoors climbing trees as a tree surgeon, or arborist to use the title he prefers. He’s used to being up at a height, loves the wind and rain, all elements, an adventurer, an explorer, and if not at the top of a tree, he can be found beneath one, with his head in a book. In the evening after work, he smells of peppery watercress.
We met two years ago at a chicken wing festival in Bray, he was beside me at the counter, holding up the line behind him while he ordered a cheeseburger. He caught me at a good moment, I liked the humour, which was his intention; he’d been trying to get my attention. His chat-up line I suppose.
Me mate wants to know if you’ll go out with him.
I’ll have a cheeseburger, please.
I’m a sucker for a bad chat-up line, but I’ve good taste in men. Good men, great men.
He starts to move one way and I pull him in the opposite direction, away from Patient Penelope’s gaze. She’s been watching me and she thinks she recognises her type when she sees one. But I’m not her type, I’m not her and I don’t want to be her. I will not pause my life as she did to wait for an uncertain future.
‘Gabriel.’
‘Holly.’ He matches my serious tone.
‘About your proposition.’
‘To march on the government to prevent premature Christmas decorations? We’ve just taken them down, surely they’ll go up again soon.’
I have to arch my back and crane my neck to look up at him, he’s so tall. His eyes are smiling.
‘No, the other one. The moving in with you one.’
‘Ah.’
‘Let’s do it.’
He punches the air and makes a quiet stadium-sized-crowd-cheering sound.
‘If you promise me that we’ll get a TV, and that every day when I wake up you will look like this.’ I stand on tiptoe to get closer to his face. I place my hands on his cheeks, feel his smile beneath the Balbo beard he grows, trims and maintains like a pro; the tree man who cultivates his own face.
‘That is a prerequisite of being my flatmate.’
‘Fuck-mate,’ I say and we laugh, childishly.
‘Were you always so romantic?’ he asks, wrapping his arms around me.
I used to be. I used to be very different. Naïve, perhaps. But I’m not any more. I hug him tightly and rest my head on his chest. I catch Penelope’s judgemental eye. I lift my chin haughtily. She thinks she knows me. She doesn’t.