Be Careful What You Wish For, page 10
‘Did you find it hard settling in England?’ she asked.
‘At first. Not because it was foreign – it was too familiar in some ways. I didn’t want to vegetate in theme pubs distressed by interior designers with Micks distressed by alcohol, all of them wailing about how Utopian the homeland was and how unfair life was to dispatch them into exile.’
‘Then why on earth did you wind up in Camden Town – surely that’s an Irish area?’
Patrick shook his head. ‘Used to be. It’s much more multi-ethnic now. You’ll still hear Offaly and Wexford accents but they’re in the minority. I didn’t actively choose to live there. I was looking for a flat and someone at work was vacating theirs so I took over the lease. If they’d been quitting a place in Hammersmith I dare say I’d be living in West London.’
‘And work – do you enjoy your job?’ Helen probed. This was like extracting teeth – could the man volunteer no information?
He flicked at a snowdrop in its pot on the coffee table in front of him, setting its bell nodding mutely. ‘Yes, there’s potential for promotion. The firm’s a reputable one, I do a little foreign travel, I like my colleagues. It’s a fine life in the employment sense.’
‘You’re a souped-up accountant, right?’
Patrick pulled a face. ‘I don’t know if an actuary counts as souped-up anything. Anyway, how about you? Are you bathed in job satisfaction writing your computer programmes? You’re obviously doing well if this house is anything to judge by. I leafed through the property section of one of the Dublin papers on the plane over and worked out I could only afford a place if someone advanced me a hundred-year mortgage. I rent my place. Miriam wants us to buy but we’ll have to move out of town, we’ll never be able to afford anything in Camden. She fancies Surbiton; there’s a reliable train service.’
Helen regarded him over the rim of her mug. Men were another species. One minute it’s ‘You are my pulse, my heart beats only for you’, the next they’re casually telling you they’ll probably buy a house in some commuter belt because the train timetable has passed inspection.
‘You look cross. The job can’t be that bad,’ said Patrick.
‘No, it’s grand.’ She rallied, clattering their mugs onto the tray and preparing to carry it out to the kitchen. ‘I didn’t realise it fully at the time I studied computers on a post-graduate course but it was a winning choice. There’s always plenty of work around and your employers are more inclined to treat you well because it’s temptingly easy to jump ship. There are all sorts of perks including shares. They’ve even installed a screen in the canteen so you can track their performance.’
He removed the tray from her hands. ‘Allow me, Helen.’ He transfixed her with his lazy smile; with his fringe cascading into his eyes he reminded her of the gangly teenager she remembered with such affection – and more than affection.
As he turned the door handle he spoke with his back to her. ‘If you’re resolute on separation, I think you owe me something.’
A flicker in his tone activated her guard.
‘What did you have in mind?’
Patrick faced her. He looked at Helen in a way that caught her heart between giant hands and mangled it. Then he spoke.
‘One more night together. I know you’re my sister but you’re my lover too. Let me make love to you again. For the last time.’
CHAPTER 8
Molly was rushing to finish her court report so she could make it over to the National Gallery by 7 p.m. A session of lectures on Irish art was starting and, in a fit of self-improvement, she’d resolved to attend them. Experience had drummed it into her not to sign on for the complete term, a lesson she’d learned after paying up front for instruction in pottery, Spanish and bodhrán playing, and managing to miss more than half of each course. The bodhrán episode was particularly galling because she’d lashed out the money on a drum with a Book of Kells bird-beast undulating across it, convinced she’d be hammering away like a professional in no time. She’d nurtured visions of herself in a ceilidh band, giving it welly during an impromptu session in a little Donegal pub crammed to the rafters with an admiring entourage. That was before her debut lesson; she’d have borrowed a bodhrán if there’d been any hint she was going to handle it like a hen scratching – her instructor’s description of her technique, an inelegant one although he couldn’t be faulted for accuracy. Anyway the traditional music lessons had gone the way of good intentions. Never mind paving a road to hell, she could surface a motorway network. Although Irish motorways were few and far between, a particular handicap in a state where the roads tended to speak with forked tongue.
Still, she had hopes as high as Macgillacuddy’s Reeks for the Irish art series. Based on nothing concrete admittedly. But she reasoned that even if she only managed five of the ten art lectures she’d be expanding her mind, instead of her stomach with alcohol and crisps in the pub.
Furthermore, thought Molly, muttering as her fingers flew over the keyboard – ‘… comma, close quotes, said Judge Justin Blanchard’ – she couldn’t be accused of going to these night classes because she was on the pull. She wasn’t doing Essential Bodybuilding for Big Boys. There’d only be girlies at an art appreciation class. Molly giggled, struck by a recollection of one of Barry’s previous assignments.
‘Barry, remember the time you posed nude for a watercolours class?’
He quaked. ‘Molloy, your memory is elephantine. I was young and suggestible. It was all the news editor’s fault.’
‘Wonder what happened to that photograph of you, newborn nude, goosebumps on sentry duty, not forgetting the essential prop of a rose between your teeth. And that toothy grin of yours – actually it wasn’t so much a smile as a rictus. It was a classic. We had that pic pinned to the noticeboard for decades.’ Molly tapped her teeth. ‘Every time you annihilated it we had another copy printed up. It must be about time we rustled up the documentary evidence afresh.’
Complacency streamed from Barry. Molly spun a suspicious glance in his direction.
‘You cornered the negative, didn’t you? You bribed the photographer and ground the neg into infinitesimal atoms.’
Barry’s smug aura intensified. He locked his drawer with the self-congratulation of a man completing a solid day’s work – every story passed to him by the newsdesk was knocked down into fillers – and announced, ‘I’m for The Kip. Fancy a jar?’
The Kip was their local, a dive of a pub that lived up to its name by attracting gurriers and journalists – often interchangeable – in equal measure. It was actually called The Salmon’s Leap but some wag had renamed it The Kipper’s Free Fall and so it was universally known. It was a mystery why a city-centre pub was called The Salmon’s Leap anyway – it didn’t even sell prawn cocktail crisps.
Barry reached Molly her coat as though it were a foregone conclusion they’d spend an hour in The Kip whining about work and ducking the editor if this should be one of his evenings for fraternising with the staff.
‘Sorry, you’ll have to shred reputations without me tonight. I have other plans,’ she said. With only an undertone of triumph.
Astonishment rampaged across Barry’s narrow features as he watched her tug on her stone-coloured mac. ‘It can’t be a date. You haven’t spent the past hour trooping up and down to the jacks to check on the size and hue of any spot you might be incubating. Nor have you legged it down to a cubicle and swapped your suit for something tight, teasing and singularly inappropriate unless you actively want to be molested. Are you paying a visit to an aged aunt?’
Molly raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘Why do social plans always have to incorporate food or drink with you, Barry? I’m attending a lecture at the National Gallery, as it happens: An Introduction to Irish Art. We’ll be examining the work of both Yeatses – that’s John and Jack to a pleb like yourself – plus Lavery, Paul Henry and, um, I haven’t read the syllabus all that thoroughly.’
Barry took a melodramatically enacted shuffle backwards. ‘That’s me stepping back in amazement. How long have you nurtured these leanings towards culture?’
‘I’ve always been interested in it, except life in a newsroom tends to suffocate the tendencies.’
‘First I’ve heard,’ objected Barry. ‘You never volunteer for the Wexford Opera Festival gig. You don’t even write book reviews.’
Molly favoured him with a look that would have withered a rubber plant but which bounced off Barry.
He continued: ‘And then there was the time Stephen sent us all a memo suggesting we do a Yossarian and eliminate adjectives and adverbs from our copy, sure you didn’t even know who he was.’
Defensiveness distracted Molly so that she transmitted her story to the wrong basket. ‘You never read Catch 22 either; you only knew him from the film, so that makes you a culture crow rather than a culture vulture. If Sport ring down to say court copy has landed in their basket can you tell them to spike it? I’ve sent another version to the newsdesk. Now if you don’t mind, Barry, I have paintings to appraise.’
As Molly headed for the door he called after her: ‘I’ll be in The Kip for however long it takes me to drink two scoops if you find art less soul-quenching than you expected.’
Molly bought her ticket in the gift shop and contemplated a rack of magnets. There was one of Ophelia drifting towards a watery grave but she decided it wouldn’t sit easily on her fridge alongside her ‘I Can Be Bribed – Try Chocolate’ magnet.
She slid into her seat in the lecture theatre as the lights dimmed. Projected onto a slide screen at the front was a portrait of a well-fed man wearing an impressive wig which frolicked artlessly along the metal epaulettes on his armour. He was clean-shaven and had particularly moist and prominent lips. The purpose of displaying this lavishly coiffed warrior, she learned, was to demonstrate the artist’s expertise with texture: the sheen of armour, the crisp linen of his lace collar, the soft tumble of hair. The lecturer didn’t mention the dewy plumpness of his mouth. Then Molly caught herself short – imagine giving the eye to a fellow dead and buried these past three hundred years. Besides, he was probably five feet tall and riddled with syphilis.
Her attention wandered during an explanation of symbolism in The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife, as portrayed being plighted on a battlefield. Historical authenticity obviously wasn’t high on the painter’s list of priorities. She registered the allegory about the broken harp strings and Strongbow’s all-subjugating Norman foot straddling a Celtic cross but then her eyes wandered past a familiar outline two seats ahead of her, screeched to a halt and backtracked. Could it be? She was nearly positive it was.
‘Turn sideways, turn sideways,’ she hissed. The elderly woman in the seat next to her complied.
The broad shoulders were resolutely immobile, however, listening with a convincing air of attentiveness to the lecture.
Molly fidgeted for the remainder of the hour, fragments of the lecture penetrating her consciousness occasionally as the curator covered three centuries at a cracking pace. When the lights were raised the man two seats in front of her stretched and rose to his feet. Hercules was unveiled as an appreciator of art. Molly’s heart swelled with pride: so she hadn’t been guided purely – make that impurely – by cupidity in gravitating towards him. He wasn’t just a he-babe, he was a cultivated man. Plus – a lifetime of stooping to pick up lucky pennies was finally paying off – he appeared to be on his own. The nymph who acted so proprietorial towards him in Bewley’s was nowhere in view.
Surely now he’d have to speak to her instead of presenting that relentless, although still flawless, profile. She stood and looked directly at him as he ambled past; not a flicker of recognition. What was this, a farewell to his arms? Molly wasn’t taking it stationary – she catapulted after him and fell into step alongside Hercules at the foot of the curveting staircase.
‘You work in my off-licence, don’t you?’
Not the most memorable of gambits but to the point and impossible to ignore. In the interests of future sales if not common courtesy.
Hercules’ eyes flickered over her and retreated beneath their lids.
‘Do you mean McDaid’s?’ He played for time – not in the guttural Greek accent she was expecting but the elongated tones of South Dublin. The limit of their previous conversations – that’s £9.50, please – hadn’t been enough to formulate an impression.
‘The one and only. You’ve had a fortune from me over the years.’ She beamed to conceal her nerves.
‘Not me personally.’ Definitely a South Dublin drawl, not a hint of anything foreign.
‘Well, no, not you personally,’ conceded Molly, ‘unless you have shares in Rosemount wines, which is unlikely since they’re Aussie. Mind you, there’s a sizeable Greek community in Melbourne, so it’s possible. I’m babbling, feel free to interrupt me.’
The Cadbury eyes slid towards her again; a gleam of something lambent within them. Molly was trying to decide if it was distaste or amusement when she missed her footing on a step and toppled chinwards towards the marble floor. Before she had time to feel mortification, let alone pain, a hand snaked out and grasped her none too gently by the elbow. She sneered at her flat brown and cream lace-up ankle boots – where’s the benefit in being sensibly shod if you still risk falling face first?
She clung to the banister when his arm was removed, nails scratching along the polished wood. ‘Thanks, I could see it if I were teetering around in stilettos but these shoes are verging on the maiden aunt. Which I am, incidentally – a maiden aunt, that is. Of course, it’s not a term much in currency nowadays but I am unmarried and therefore a maiden of sorts, and I do have a niece back in Derry where I come from. That’s more information than you need. I did advise you to take remedial action to halt my drivel. Obviously I’m incapable of something as taxing as simultaneously climbing stairs and chatting. I suppose I’m scarlet in the face now as well as limping along. You must be sorry you ever –’
‘Come and have a coffee. The restaurant in here doesn’t shut for another hour or so.’
His intervention silenced Molly. It was like turning a corner and catching sight of a rainbow straddling the skyline. One she needn’t cross her fingers over because her wish had already been anticipated. Her Adonis was (a) on speaking terms with her, and (b) about to be on coffee-drinking terms with her. Plus he’d just saved her from making a complete fool of herself; well no, he hadn’t quite pulled off that one but even gods had their limitations. She hobbled contentedly beside him, thinking: Fine, world, end any time you like now – life can become no more halcyon.
But it could. And it did. He settled her into one of the spillover tables in the glass atrium, sauntered off and returned, before she had a chance to pinch herself, with two cappuccinos and a muffin apiece – one topped with white chocolate, the other with chocolate orange.
‘I like both types so choose whichever you prefer,’ he invited.
Molly gasped. Not only was he a Greek god, not only was he interested in art, not only did he bring her buns unsolicited, not only was he waiting on her hand and food – stop, don’t mention clumsy feet – but he had a taste for her favourite cake. In a burst of selflessness she indicated the chocolate orange muffin because it had less chocolate dribbled over it. She couldn’t help noticing the hand that reached her the plate was coated in more hair than was strictly necessary in a member of a species evolved to the extent of inventing gloves for warmth but it seemed cavalier to quibble about feet of clay. Feck it, not feet again – would her brain ever give her a break? She knew she was a maladroit holy show, he knew she was a maladroit holy show, now could they draw a line under it.
‘I’m Molly.’ She took refuge in civilities.
‘Georgie.’ He extended the uncommonly hirsute hand and shook hers. She coated his palm with some extraneous muffin crumbs – she should have used the fork he’d provided – and decided Georgie was no substitute for Hercules.
‘Georgie doesn’t sound particularly Greek,’ she remarked, apprehensive that she might have a coffee rim on her upper lip but not in a position to do anything about it short of rubbing off all her lipstick with the serviette or licking her mouth, which might send out the wrong signal. Or the right one too soon.
‘What makes you imagine I’m Greek?’ He folded his arms across his chest in a stereotypical defensive pose.
Molly noticed he had a groove on his chin, not quite a dimple, and that his hair was completely straight, without a single kinking follicle.
‘I thought someone told me you were. I didn’t mean to offend you, I didn’t realise it was an insult to suggest someone was Greek. Spartacus was Greek, wasn’t he? And any number of philosophers, all of whose names temporarily escape me. Anthony Quinn was part-Greek, George Michael’s London-Greek and that diva, Maria Don’t-Be-Callous-To-Me-Ari, she was Greek too. I’m partial to vine leaves, the retsina I can take or leave. Am I rambling again? Perhaps my batteries should be taken out.’
He gazed at her obliquely. ‘I don’t know how to take you, Molly.’
Take me any way you like, she thought, but fortunately reined in the sentiment. Instead she laid down the spoon which she’d been on the brink of using to scoop up froth from her cup and smiled demurely.
‘My parents are from Athens,’ he said. ‘But I was born in Glasthule. I prefer Guinness to retsina and my dolmades are legendary. The Georgie comes from Giorgios and the philosophers you mean probably include Plato and Aristotle. You prefer red wine, don’t you? I notice you rarely buy white unless it’s champagne.’
Molly recalled some crow’s feet which had high-handedly emerged on the sides of her eyes that morning and shook her blonde fringe forward to obscure them. So he was familiar with her taste in wine – that was an encouraging sign.
‘You have a very pretty friend,’ he added. ‘A slim, dark-haired gi- woman. I meant woman. Girl is pejorative, my sisters tell me.’
