Ireland, though, could still pull her strings, especially when history was in the making. On a cold February afternoon, Reggie, Thea, and Geoffrey huddled around a tiny transistor radio in Geoffrey’s room, struggling to hear, through the scratch and screech of poor reception, the Ireland versus Scotland rugby match that would determine who won the Triple Crown tournament. Having already beaten Wales and England, the Irish had only to beat Scotland to claim a prize that had not been theirs for thirty-three years. That was why this decider had the whole country sitting on the edge of its seat, and around the world, among the Irish diaspora, many an émigré was glued to a transistor radio like this one. Thirty-three years. Thea was moved when she heard the crowd roar—the familiar distant din of Lansdowne Road—she could even feel the hum of the fans’ expectation. The low voice of a commentator and the sharp pierce of a whistle meandered out of the radio with neither urgency nor compassion, yet they grappled with every sound, sucking in the aural crumbs that inadequate radio waves threw their way. Straining to hear the score, Geoffrey had leaned ever closer, as if his proximity to the plastic transistor would increase his proximity to this there-again gone-again match, while Thea and Reggie, who was also supporting Ireland, sat on the edge of the twin beds, twisting their hands, waiting for history to deliver.
In Baghdad, where the only contact with home was infrequent deliveries of mail brought in the bags of rare travelers from London, the agonized cries of Ireland were like a bittersweet illusion. Perhaps they weren’t winning at all.
The commentary eventually faded as hissing interference took over the airwaves, destroyed the tenuous link with Dublin and swallowed the Triple Crown decider with a gulp.
It was much later that evening when Reggie, after running into a Scot at Reception, hurried up to Thea’s room and banged on her door, yelling that they had done it! Ireland had indeed beaten Scotland and won the tournament. She squealed as they leaped about and a rugby party was hastily convened in her room, where they celebrated as late as a working night allowed. After the others had left, Thea pulled her curtains closed against the city lights and had a sudden vision of her father, so clear that she might have walked into their sitting room the moment the final whistle blew. Not for him great leaps into the air and roars of delight, no: he was sitting in his green easy chair, his fingers around a bottle of Guinness, eyes brimming.
“I hear,” Sachiv teased her the next morning, “that congratulations are in order, Miss Kerrigan?”
“They certainly are, Mr. Nair.”
Temptation was a toy, a plaything, and although she told herself she was no marriage-wrecker, she could not quit those significant glances, which soon mattered more to her than tea and cakes after work. She wanted to gush like a teenager, but Kim revealed a puritanical streak. A girlish crush on the manager, Kim could apparently accept, but open flirtation met with open disapproval, so she wasn’t told about the subtle smiles that were exchanged at every opportunity. Neither did she notice that one day, when they passed through the lobby, Sachiv did not smile or say hello, but shook his head at Thea, as if defeated.
It moved her. They had had no more than three conversations on their own, and although those had been openly cordial, there was an undercurrent, accepted by both, referred to by neither. There were so few opportunities to speak to one another alone that Thea began to lose heart. She simply wanted to know him, a little, to find out if he was indeed the man she thought she saw. Perhaps they would have nothing to say, given the chance, but that chance never seemed to come and conversation continued to elude them.
Until, one night, Thea’s phone rang, shaking her from deep sleep.
“I want to make sex with you.”
She had turned on the light, picked up the receiver and heard the words before becoming properly conscious. “Huh?”
And the voice said again, “I want to make sex with you.”
She slammed down the phone, her heart thudding. What the hell?
It was two a.m. A prank call. Fine, she thought, but an in-house prank call. Someone in the kitchen, perhaps, or another guest, even, killing the small hours, that was all. That was all. She turned out the light and rolled over. Most nights, she and Kim were the only women guests in the hotel, so it wasn’t surprising that they should be targeted like this.
Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang again. Thea sat up, cursing. With every ring, fear climbed a notch. She waited, rigid, until it stopped. Her mind hurled itself around her brain until it became snared on one ghastly thought: those boys—the waiters—had keys to the rooms. They let themselves in every morning when they brought breakfast. . . .
They let themselves in.
Out of bed in a blink, she flew to the door, double-locked it and put on the chain. Then she sat up against her pillows, barely breathing so that she might hear every sound in the corridor. Half past two. Locked in fright, she waited, wanting to be asleep, feeling every minute pass until, in the
