Three Wise Men, page 13
‘You’ve a new man,’ Eimear tells Kate.
Kate spills her drink down her linen tunic.
‘Or you fancy someone and you’re hoping he’ll step forward as a replacement for Pearse,’ Eimear amplifies her hypothesis. ‘That’s why you aren’t bothered at being borderline thirty-three and single. It’s easy to be manful about being manless when there’s a dreamboat hoving into view on the horizon.’
Eimear empties her glass triumphantly and retrieves the olives from Gloria’s front.
‘Fancy an oliver?’ she proffers the container but Kate doesn’t notice, she’s frowning with concentration.
She jolts forward, directs a brilliant smile at Eimear and says, ‘I could never fancy an oliver, I’d keep remembering Saint Oliver Plunkett and his shrunken head in Drogheda. He’d be moving in for the clinch and I’d be thinking about doll-sized desiccated heads and blessed martyrs and’ – she spits the name out – ‘Oliver Cromwell, which naturally would make me remember warts and decapitations. None of which,’ she rounds off, ‘are conducive to snogging.’
Their snorts wake Gloria, who drowsily asks whose character they’ve just lambasted, and then anxiously wonders if she’s been snoring.
‘Like a trooper,’ Kate tells her.
‘No, you swear like a trooper,’ objects Eimear.
‘Feck off, I don’t,’ she says, and they dissolve again.
It’s only as they’re packing up to leave – there’s no more woeful sight than empty wine bottles – that Eimear remembers Kate side-stepped her theorising about a new man.
‘So do you have your eye on someone?’ she asks as they take a last look at Howth with its des res dots strung along the coastline. No Viking marauders, thinks Eimear, but what can you expect, sunshine and a floor show?
‘What makes you imagine that?’ responds Kate, bending to tie her laces.
‘Why do Irish people always answer a question with another question?’ tuts Eimear.
‘You mean like you’ve just done,’ says Gloria, coming up behind them.
‘It’s a fair cop,’ shrugs Eimear. ‘It makes sense to assume you’ve another man in mind – if not in body, Kate. You look exactly the same post-Pearse as you did during-Pearse and women between men always use it as an opportunity to cut their hair or dye it or buy a trendy new wardrobe.’
‘Excellent work, Holmes.’ Kate breaks into applause. ‘But how do you account for Gloria’s identical appearance despite her hiatus from Mick?’
‘That’s because it was only a blip, she never made the break and never had any intention of doing so,’ replies Eimear.
‘Feel free to talk about me as if I’m not here,’ offers Gloria.
‘Whereas your split from Pearse, my dear Kate, appears to be final and irrevocable,’ continues Eimear.
‘So I’m supposed to race out for a blonde rinse to support your theory?’ challenges Kate, draping her arm across Gloria’s shoulders.
‘No, I can’t imagine you as anything other than a redhead.’ Eimear steps back and studies her friends, posed against the clifftop like a postcard from the edge.
‘I think Kate would suit a fringe,’ Gloria speculates. ‘I read an interview with Jilly Cooper in which she said fringes were great yokes for covering up wrinkly foreheads and distracting attention from crow’s feet around the eyes.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, pal.’ Kate pushes her playfully.
‘You look grand as you are,’ Eimear tells her, for there is a radiance about her – maybe it’s the halo of sun bouncing off her hair.
Kate’s flustered, she never could take compliments. ‘You said that as though you meant it, Mulligan,’ she responds.
‘It’s my new ploy, post-cynical cynicism. I make outrageous statements in a sincere voice and nobody knows when I’m taking the Michael. Clever or what?’
‘Fiendish,’ Kate congratulates her. ‘Last one down the hill’s a sissy.’
‘We’re girls, we’re allowed to be sissies,’ protests Gloria bringing up the rear.
‘Sister Xavier didn’t lavish all that attention on us to turn out a race of sissies,’ Kate calls over her shoulder. ‘How’s my London derriere holding up, Eimear, would it still inspire songs?’
She’s inordinately proud of her bottom, she had a little op when she lived in England to tighten the cheeks and needs constant reassurance that it was money well spent.
‘Loo-kin’ good, Billy Ray,’ says Eimear in her hillbilly voice, reaching out to pat her neat rear. ‘I sho’ do gotta get mahself one of those new-fangled jobs sho’ nuff.’
‘Ah, leave it out, weren’t you born with a London derriere,’ she responds. ‘You didn’t have to trek over the water for one.’
The laughter is punctured by a roar from Gloria. ‘Oh no, nobody reminded me to take my sniffer and I’m half an hour late. Oh God oh God oh God, I have to get to the bottom of the hill before I can inhale. Let me past you, Eimear.’
‘Calm down, Gloria, five more minutes won’t make any difference,’ says Kate but Gloria continues to panic.
‘I’m going to buy another alarm clock and carry it with me, it’s the only way,’ she moans.
‘Gloria, I’m sure the sniffer times are only guidelines, I can’t see how a little local variation will banjax your treatment,’ says Eimear, catching up with her.
‘I know, I know,’ she keens, ‘but what if it does matter? What if I’m risking the whole process by my carelessness? I have to do everything I can, just as the doctors and nurses have to do everything they can, that way we minimise the chances of anything going wrong – don’t you understand?’
‘I do, dote, I do,’ Eimear tries to reassure her as the angel comes into view. ‘Now, Gloria, sit down by your metal man there and catch your breath, you won’t inhale properly if you’re panting.’
She throws herself on to the ground and Eimear holds her hand while Kate crouches alongside her.
‘In out, in out, in out, gently now,’ advises Kate. ‘No, not yet, put the inhaler down, you’re still gasping. In out, in out, in out. Good woman, now the other nostril. Don’t stand up yet, give it a minute to sink it. Are you allowed another wish on Daedalus on the way down, Eimear?’
‘Doubt it, that sounds greedy,’ Eimear demurs. ‘Isn’t greed one of the seven deadly sins?’
‘That’s Catholicism,’ Kate objects. ‘What has wishing on big bronze angels at the bottom of Killiney Hill to do with Catholicism? It’s pagan and that shower knew all about excess – sure they invented it.’
‘When you put it like that …’ shrugs Eimear. ‘Still, I’ll give it a miss. Ready for the off now, Glo?’
They help her struggle to her feet.
‘Home again, home again, jiggidy jog,’ Gloria murmurs.
‘Nursery rhymes. Is this second childhood regression already?’ Kate speculates, as they set off along the road to the station.
‘Maybe. Sure, isn’t adulthood overrated?’ says Gloria, walking only slightly unsteadily.
They adopt positions either side of her just in case.
‘Ah, come on now, no maudlin sentimentality,’ objects Kate. ‘We couldn’t wait to be grown up and leave home. We couldn’t wait to bang the school gate. We couldn’t wait to shake the dust of Omagh off our feet.’
‘Omagh means virgin plain,’ observes Eimear.
‘Mick says that’s because it was full of plain virgins,’ from Gloria.
‘Right, and they were all in his class at the Christian Brothers school,’ agrees Kate.
They’re still giggling as the Dart station comes into view.
CHAPTER 16
‘I wonder why we bother with men at all. They have blue cheese breath and emery board skin,’ Eimear starts the ball rolling.
‘They roll their socks up inside their underpants and never throw away T-shirts,’ suggests Gloria.
‘They leave mouldy sandwich crusts under the bed,’ Eimear puts in.
‘They fill the kitchen bin with takeaway curry containers and draw the curtains on sunny Saturdays so they can watch sports on television,’ comes from Gloria.
‘They pinch your nail scissors to tame the jungle spouting from their noses,’ Kate shares in the fun.
‘They sit on the lavatory for hours reading newspapers when you need the sink to wash off your face mask,’ says Eimear.
They wait for Kate to lob in another contribution but the nail scissors complaint seems to have exhausted her stock of grievances.
‘The trouble with men is … they’re not women,’ concludes Eimear, waving her ice-cream spoon authoritatively. She’s trying to eat more and smoke less, starting with ice-cream as an essential food source.
So far the experiment has been successful. Ice-cream plus airing grudges seem as Utopian a way of spending an evening as any invented. No woman in her right mind could fail to count herself lucky for breaking free of one of those oafs, they agree – or at least Gloria and Eimear are in accord, Kate seems unconvinced.
‘Men and women were never intended to cohabit; to spend time together occasionally, fine, to chain themselves to each other for a lifetime, not so fine,’ Eimear announces over the dripping tubs.
They’re revolting and being revolting, eating straight from containers. Gloria nods, although Eimear can’t think why since she’s gone back to Mick – maybe she’s being supportive. Or perhaps living with Mick again has shuffled her deck of cards into something approaching reality. Then again, she could simply be engrossed in her pecan fudge flavour.
A wave of misery sweeps over Eimear, one which even brown bread ice-cream (tastier than it sounds) can’t avert. If life without Jack is such bliss, how come she feels as if she’s doing penance? Don’t tell her this is one of those sins of omission the nuns used to warn them about.
‘Jack’s found someone else,’ wails Eimear. ‘He told me so on the phone when I offered to have him back. Can you believe it, I rang my fornicating husband volunteering to forgive him, convinced he’d have had enough of the single life by now, and he tells me it’s only a matter of time before he moves in with his new girlfriend.’
Kate drops her coconut ice-cream and Gloria throws her a reproachful glance.
‘You’re well rid of him, Eimear,’ says Gloria. ‘Remember what a nuisance men are – monopolising the TV remote control and breathing curry fumes all over you, we’ve just been discussing how much better life is without them.’
‘No, I need a man,’ groans Eimear. ‘The bed’s too big, the living room’s too tidy, the bathroom’s too clean, the house’s too quiet.’
‘You don’t need to take Jack back for company, advertise for a flatmate,’ suggests Gloria, who drove her to distraction, at ramming speed, when they shared. She’s irritating Eimear now with her girl guide suggestions.
Day after day she had Gloria with her, ‘I wonder if Mick remembered to pick up his dry-cleaning – he needn’t expect me to remind him,’ and Gloria with her, ‘There’s meat in our freezer needs using up but no way will Mick cook a meal for himself, not while there’s a chipper at the bottom of our street.’ Eimear was starting to wonder why she left the man at all. She longed to tell her to cut along home to him, she might as well do it sooner as later, but Gloria would have taken it the wrong way – probably because there wasn’t a right way to take it.
‘God, I’m such a bitch,’ she cries aloud, and the others exchange puzzled glances.
Eimear hates herself for her mental diatribe against sweet little Glo, who listens for hours on end when she feels ready to implode with rage and jealousy. Who else can she talk to, Kate’s never around and there are some things a girl can’t tell her mother. Eimear attempts to visualise the scene at home as she pours her heart out about Jack’s double whammy, the affair and the split.
‘You remember that fellow who was waiting at the top of the aisle when I swanned up in a gown that cost nearly a month’s salary? Well, I know he seemed keen on me at the time but it turns out he prefers someone else and he’s been giving her one – or 101 – behind my back for months.’
Oh yes, her mother could cope with that. Not. At least Gloria isn’t shocked when she talks about how much she misses Jack and how she’d like to punch him and stroke him and punish him and kiss him. Have him back again.
‘So what about a flatmate, would that help?’ repeats Gloria.
‘I’ve an empty bed, an empty fridge, an empty freezer now that we’ve liberated the ice-cream, an empty bank account and an empty life. How’s a flatmate going to improve my pathetic lot?’ Eimear bawls in a frenzy of self-pity.
Gloria and Kate make soothing noises.
‘Knowing Jack, he can’t believe his luck at finding himself single,’ Eimear fumes. ‘Oh, his new squeeze may think it’s true love, that once-in-a-lifetime lightning bolt from Mount Olympus, but I wouldn’t get too comfortable with the poetic professor if I were her. He’s keen on falling in love but he isn’t strong on staying power, especially if it means he might have to resist temptation. He’s all for listening to his heart – except his heart speaks with forked tongue.’
Yet still Eimear wants him to come home. Every so often she’s walloped by a wave of nostalgia for the first year of their marriage when they’d spend all Sunday in bed, with one of them making forays to the kitchen for emergency rations. They weren’t just making love, although there was no end of that – they were cuddling and dozing and listening to the radio and reading newspapers and talking, talking, talking.
Eimear finds herself remembering their lovemaking in elaborate detail, the slithering mass of limbs and lips without beginning and end. She dwells on it constantly. She fantasises about waking up in bed one night to find him touching her.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over my candle-wick bedspread.
‘Why won’t he give us another chance, we used to be so perfect,’ she complains.
‘I have to be leaving,’ says Kate.
‘Don’t go, you two are meant to be cheering me up,’ protests Eimear.
‘Maybe it’d be better if she left,’ says an unusually tight-lipped Gloria.
‘What are you dashing off for – what can be more important than comforting a friend who’s set her heart on wallowing?’ sniffs Eimear.
‘I have some business to finish, I’ll catch up with you again,’ Kate is evasive.
‘Don’t go,’ pleads Eimear. ‘We can have hot chocolate with melted marshmallows next.’
‘Not the hot chocolate with melted marshmallows bait,’ groans Kate. ‘It’s a ploy to make me fat and spotty, admit it, Mulligan. That way I’ll never dare show my face outside the door and you’ll have as much company as you want.’
‘Precisely,’ agrees Eimear. ‘Now sit down while I check the fridge for double cream.’
Kate pulls her coat on regardless and heads for the door. Her mobile phone shrills in the hall and as she answers it she looks straight at Eimear and blushes. That’s one of the problems of red hair, she’s always complaining to Gloria and Eimear, you never cure yourself of this tendency to colour up.
‘It’s her new man,’ Eimear whispers to Gloria. ‘Kate always reddens where fellows are concerned.’
‘Has she admitted to a new boyfriend?’ asks Gloria.
‘No, but she hasn’t denied it either which is proof enough.’
‘I’m on my way,’ mutters Kate and unlatches the front door with a cheery, ‘Be seeing you, lads.’
‘Not so fast, you brazen hussy,’ remonstrates Eimear. ‘You’re like the favourite on the home straight at Leopardstown. Who was your mystery caller and where are you meeting him? Spare us no details, as your oldest friends we’re entitled to know everything.’
‘There’s nothing to know, it’s just someone from work I’m liaising with on a special report for the partners. We have to run through some statistics.’
Eimear is relentless. ‘Kate, if you’re intent on lying, have the decency to make it convincing. It’s 8 p.m. on a Saturday night, there is no one in Ireland, no one on the face of the earth, no one in this solar system, checking statistics with a colleague from work right now. So who is he?’
‘It’s approaching deadline, we have to hand the report in by the middle of next week,’ mumbles Kate. ‘Besides, what makes you think it’s a “he” I’m meeting? As a matter of fact, it’s a woman solicitor, Isabel Eccles. She has an office on the floor above me. You’ve often heard me talk about her, we meet for coffee sometimes.’
‘Why won’t you tell us about this new man,’ persists Eimear. ‘You needn’t feel embarrassed that we’ll think it’s too soon after Pearse or that I’ll be upset because of Jack. I’m glad for you, we both are – aren’t we, Glo.’
Gloria is silent, Kate shuffles awkwardly.
‘I think it’s magnificent that one of us is out there dazzling the male population and making some man beg for his date on a Saturday night,’ Eimear presses on. ‘Gloria and I aren’t exactly stalwarts of the sisterhood at the moment, with me on my knees to Jack to come home and Gloria trailing off without a word of complaint for check-ups on her own because Mick doesn’t like hospitals.’
‘Mick’s not the worst,’ Gloria defends him.
Kate drops her bag with a resigned air and reclaims her former seat.
‘You win, Mulligan, I am seeing someone else,’ she agrees, lifting her ice-cream spoon.
‘Aha! I thought as much. Shoot, I’m all ears.’
‘This I have to hear,’ mutters Gloria.
‘It’s a problematic situation,’ explains Kate. ‘I’m wild about him and he’s wild about me but he’s married to someone else.’
‘And she doesn’t know?’ prompts Eimear.
‘That’s right, she imagines the marriage is simply going through one of those ups and downs that married people say is normal. The rough with the smooth, the good with the bad, drivel like that. She has no idea about me.’
‘Some women are dense,’ breathes Eimear. ‘If it were me I’d know. Even if there was no evidence, I’d know.’
