“You shouldn’t do that,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“I might not be able to stop myself.”
“Do you have to stop yourself?” He didn’t answer. “Maybe I can’t stop myself either.”
He smirked and went back to nursing himself. “We agreed to wait. What if your mum came in?”
Paddy reached out to him, sliding her hand over his thigh. “I don’t want to wait,” she blurted.
Sean looked at her and snorted a laugh, bending over his lap again.
“I don’t want to wait, Sean.”
He was shocked. He sat up, staying on the other end of the bed, and looked at her. “Well, I do. I want it to be special when we get married. I want to know it’s the first time for both of us.”
Shame, as pernicious and sticky as napalm, rippled through her. She should want to wait. She shouldn’t want to touch him, shouldn’t want any of it, because she was a girl. Her virginity would never be hers to give, only his to take.
Sensing her resentment, Sean reached across to her forearm, pulling her over the bed towards him. He held her tightly by her shoulders in a restraint position, pinning her arms to her sides. “You mean so much to me, Paddy. You mean the world to me. Do you know that?”
“I know.”
“And you’re a little sexpot,” he said, trying to be kind about the transgression. “What are you?”
“I’m a sexpot,” she said miserably.
He heard the fury in her voice, saw her pinched face, and knew it wasn’t okay. Slipping his hand around the back of her neck, he pressed her face into his chest so he didn’t have to look at her anymore.
“No,” he said firmly. “You’re a little sexpot.”
ELEVEN . TWO LADY WRESTLERS
I
She was covered in a gentle sweat of sheer terror. They would never, ever forgive her. Sean, her dad, everyone- they’d think Paddy had sold the story. They’d never believe it wasn’t her.
Paddy stared out the train window at the dark morning, a copy of the Daily News limp in her lap. She looked at the paper again. TWO ARRESTED FOR BABY BRIAN. The headlines were huge, an old layout trick to cover up a lack of printable copy, but it was the insert at the bottom of the article that pained her. It was a first-person account of life in Child A’s family, about the shame and shock and grief of the extended Irish Catholic family who had abandoned the boy. The piece was overwritten, punched out in short, conversational sentences. To an unfamiliar reader the bad grammar would have seemed like a heavy-handed, hokey touch, but Paddy recognized them as habitual conversational mistakes of Heather’s, left in by the subs to make it sound like the authentic voice of a greenhorn Catholic, the sort that might have evil monsters for kin. She read through the rest of the paper to keep her eyes busy. Caspar Weinberger, Reagan’s new defense secretary, was saying he would use a neutron bomb in Western Europe if necessary for American security. Paddy looked out the window at the white world and wondered whether Caspar might do her a favor and press the button before home time.
II
Dub couldn’t believe it when Paddy offered to dish out the new edition to all the departments. No one ever volunteered to do anything, and handing out the papers was a boring, messy job that stained hands black and ruined clothes. Paddy couldn’t sit still any longer. She carried twice as many papers as usual, getting her heart rate up as she carried them up and down the stairs, trying to tire herself out.
She was tired but wired, still bristling with nervous energy, when she came back into the newsroom and saw Heather sitting on the edge of a desk, dressed smartly in a white blouse and red skirt.
Paddy stopped in the doorway, astonished at her gall. She had at least expected Heather to stay out of the office today. She watched her smile along with some news guys, coyly rolling an elastic band between two fingers, and realized that she had come into the office to capitalize on her coup. She didn’t give a shit what Paddy thought of her.
Aware that a small, square body was standing in the doorway, being jostled by people coming in and out, Heather looked up and blushed when she saw who it was, raising a hand in greeting until she saw Paddy’s face. She tried to smile, showing all her marvelous teeth, but Paddy didn’t flinch. Heather muttered an excuse and slid off the desk, standing up and walking towards the back stairs.
Paddy found her shrill voice filling the entire newsroom. “You.” Heather froze. Paddy thumbed over her shoulder. “Out.”
Heather stood still for a moment. A hush fell over the mesmerized men. They looked from Heather to Paddy and back again. Someone tittered. Sensing that she had the support of the audience, Heather crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one leg.
“Do you want to talk here?” Paddy was shouting. “Will I tell them what you did?”
Heather shifted her weight nervously to the other leg. There were few crimes that could not be forgiven in the News. Stealing a colleague’s wallet from their jacket was bad, sleeping with their wife wasn’t good either, but using someone else’s story was unforgivable. Everyone appreciated the threat of losing a good story.
Heather uncrossed her arms, dropping them awkwardly to her sides, where they twitched and hung still. She turned and walked reluctantly over to Paddy, who held the door open and followed her out onto the landing and pointed her across the lift lobby and into the ladies’ loo. Back in the newsroom a huge falsetto whoop was followed by a gale of derisory laughter.
Heather began her defense before the toilet door had even banged shut. “I knew you weren’t going to use the story. You told me you couldn’t. I didn’t see any harm since you weren’t going to.” She lit a cigarette and offered the packet to Paddy.
Paddy didn’t take one. She looked at the packet and felt her lip tremble. “My whole family’ll think I did it.”
It was the one soft moment when Heather could have sympathized and made it all right, but she was frightened and ashamed and missed her cue. “Look, things can’t just be nicey-nice all the time. I’m not in this business to get popular. I’m sorry, but that’s just the game we’re in.” She crossed her arms over her chest again, not defensive but elegant this time, her cigarette hand resting on her upper arm. A clean thread of smoke rose high above the cubicle doors, making her taller.
There were so many reasons why what she had done was wrong that the words in Paddy’s mind became entangled. She opened her mouth to speak but stammered loudly and stopped, shocked at herself. Heather’s eyes widened triumphantly.
“Never mind,” she said, placing the cigarette between her lips.
Paddy slapped Heather so hard that she snapped the cigarette in half. The amputated tip bounced once on the floor and continued smoking. They stood for a moment staring at it, both shocked, a red blush flowering Heather’s cheek. Paddy was nervous but excited. She shouldn’t have done that. She was a bully. It was wrong.
She reached roughly around the back of Heather’s head, grabbing the thick blond hair at the nape. Roots popped from Heather’s scalp as she tugged, dragging her forwards into a toilet cubicle, shoving her head into the bowl, and yanking the handle. Paddy watched the water swirl around her head, catching her thick hair, sucking the tail of it down through the U-bend. Heather spluttered and tried to stand up, using all the strength in her back. She was very strong, but Paddy used her weight, leaned against her neck, and kept her down. The toilet water saturated Heather’s blouse: Paddy could see the adjusting clips on her bra strap. Farquarson might sack her for attacking another member of staff. It would placate Sean if she did get sacked. It might even convince her family that it wasn’t her who wrote the article. The recession couldn’t last too long; she’d get another job somewhere.