He was sweating. But so was I. It was late May, and hot. The grass outside was brown. I’d cut my father’s grass and the bucket behind the mower had filled with dust. The sweat on Joe was like a mask a footballer might have worn to protect a facial injury. He ran an arm, a sleeve, across his face and became Joe again, just Joe; the mask was gone.
I copied him. I rubbed my forehead with my napkin.
—The heat.
—It’s not too bad in here, he said. —But we’re not built for this, are we?
—No, I said. —There are forest fires – I saw it – inside the Arctic Circle. In Sweden.
—There you go, he said. —The end of the world.
—Bring it on.
—Yeah – fuck it.
He scooped some rice onto his fork.
—Look, he said. —Davy. I know it sounds a bit mad. What I’m telling you.
—Well –
—No, I know. It’s okay. But it wasn’t – it isn’t. Mad. It felt normal. Perfectly – yeah. Normal. Not the event itself, I mean. The way it felt. At the time. It felt normal. Do you understand?
—Kind of.
—Is it boring?
—No.
—Trish said it was.
—You told Trish? What you’ve been telling me?
—I didn’t get the chance, he said. —I didn’t get far with Trish, I’m afraid.
—That’s understandable, I suppose. Is it?
—Absolutely, he said. —No – I understand. Her position, like. I’m guessing I’d feel the same.
It was what I wanted to hear, Joe explaining what had happened with Trish. How he’d met this timeless beauty while Trish was on the next corridor, in the queue outside home economics.
He put the fork to his mouth. I watched him chew, then swallow. He picked up his glass.
—The food’s good.
—Yeah.
—We’ll come here again.
—Yeah.
—Anyway –.
They stood beside each other in the queue outside the maths room. He didn’t ask her if it was a daughter or a son she had in Transition Year. It didn’t feel like they had to catch up, rattle off the list of kids, and he didn’t want to waste the time they had until he was called in to meet the teacher.
—So you did feel it was a bit unique, I said.
—No, he said. —No. But the queue was getting shorter. I was there to hear what the teacher had to say. That was why I was there – I hadn’t forgotten that. And I’d have to go in.
—Okay.
They talked about the school, about the weather. The everyday stuff. It was raining out there and the shoulders of her jumper – a big, baggy thing – were wet. Her hair was wet too, a bit. The hair was long, unusually long for a woman of her age. It was the length it had been when we’d first seen her, he told me, maybe just an inch or two shorter. It was the same colour – he thought. She was the same woman. He asked her nothing and she asked him nothing. They just talked. Two parents ahead of him, a couple with matching runners, went in. He was next. The time was running out. She took her phone from her jeans pocket.
—I’m 087 –, she started.
—You knew something was up.
—What?
—Something was happening, I said.
—Of course something was happening, he said. —Have I been denying anything?
—Well, look, I said.
I felt like I was leaning forward, inviting him to thump me, pushing my face at him. But I wasn’t. I was sitting back and I knew I was making him angry. Goading him – because I wanted to.
—A woman takes her phone out, I said. —And starts reciting her number to the man beside her. She’s not married to him, he’s not married to her.
—Come here, he said. —Do you have to watch the end of a film before you decide if you’ll watch the rest of it? Is that how it works in your house?
—No.
—Do you get my point?
—Do you get mine? I said. —She took out her phone. She wanted your number. She wanted to give you hers. She wanted to see you again. You knew that – you must have. And you’re saying it was all perfectly normal?
—What’s abnormal about falling in love? he said.
—At a parent–teacher meeting?
He smiled. He was looking at it, looking at himself in it, what had happened a year before, and it suddenly made him happy.
—For the first time in the history of mankind, he said. —In the history of the Irish education system. What do you think, Davy? A man and a woman in a queue and they end up falling for each other. Has it happened before?
—I’d say so, yeah.
—I agree with you, he said. —One broken marriage for every parent–teacher meeting is my estimate. I don’t have the statistics to back that up, mind you. Will I go on?
—Yeah.
—It is different, he said. —I promise you that.
—Okay.
—So anyway, I took my phone out.
He went to Contacts and tapped as she recited the rest of her number. Then he gave her his. He put the phone back into his pocket. There was no deal; neither of them said they’d be in touch.
—Then I couldn’t remember her name, he said.
—Ah, Jesus.
—Blank, he said. —Fuckin’ blank. Nothing.
—For fuck sake.
—Do you remember it? he asked me. —Now?
—No, I said. —What is it?
—Wait, he said.
He wasn’t even sure if he’d ever known her name – when he was outside the classroom.
—I could’ve asked her, I suppose.
—That might have been a bit strange, I said.
—True, he said. —But, anyway.
—Did she know yours?
—She did.
—Are you sure?
—I think she did.
—Was the maths teacher happy with Holly? I asked.
—Very, he said. —Holly’s great.
He had her number but not her name. He decided she’d have to phone or text him first. If it was going to happen, it was up to her. What it was, he didn’t know.