Be Careful What You Wish For, page 14
Right up until that morning Molly had toyed with the idea of sliding a card through McDaid’s letterbox for Hercules but decided she was too old to send an unsigned Valentine and too proud to send a signed one. Chercher Le Ram was easier said than done, even for a thoroughly modern ewe.
Barry knew she was seeing Fionn again, unlike Helen. Molly judged it as well to spare herself a lecture and was resolved to neglect mentioning she was back in his arms until she was literally back in his arms. Molly wasn’t overlooking how loyally Helen had operated a tissues conveyor belt, passing dry supplies to her and binning soggy ones during the gloomy months following Fionn’s defection; nor was she forgetting Helen’s altogether too-enthusiastic trashing of his behaviour, his morals and even his fire-engine-red sportscar. ‘Sportscars should never, repeat, never, be red,’ claimed Helen. ‘It’s gilding the lily.’ Anyway he’d sold it when he emigrated. He was now driving his father’s borrowed Toyota Corolla. Colour: dark blue. No danger of ostentation there.
Meanwhile Barry – who thought sportscars should come only in scarlet, and fantasised about waking up one birthday to discover Kay had traded in their pension plan for a Lamborghini – reckoned Molly should accept Fionn’s re-entry into her life with gratitude as a chance to settle old scores. By which he meant she should shag him and then dump him from a great height. Say, the distance from bed to floor. Molly was not impervious to the attractions of this plan but felt Barry didn’t realise how few men there were out there. He imagined she could pick and choose. Which she probably could if prepared to make her selection from nineteen-year-old wide boys and forty-year-old mammy’s boys.
‘How is there no pleasing me?’ she’d demanded of Barry, with her hand over the phone mouthpiece as she’d waited for a Fine Gael deputy to take her call. ‘Aren’t I permanently on tenterhooks to be pleased? There’s nothing I enjoy better than being pleased.’
Barry had carried on typing. ‘Ireland is choking with women who rely on Valentine’s Day as the one time of year when they might be reached a few flowers or a box of chocolates, even if they were bought from the garage on the corner and cost as much thought as choosing a packet of cigarettes. And here you are whingeing about going out for dinner with a fellow whose ambition it is to stuff you with expensive food and drink and then kiss you until your mouth drops off. Or your underwear.’
‘A married man,’ Molly had pointed out.
‘You’re quibbling.’
‘And you’re just standing up for him because you’re married too. Anyway, if I’m not choosy for myself nobody’s going to do it for me.’
Her politician’s voice on the line had ended the exchange, but later Molly returned to it.
‘And is wining and dining and snogging the living daylights out of Kay on the agenda tonight?’
Barry had been aghast. ‘Jayz, no, the restaurants will be jammed, overcharging for their Valentine specials and emotionally blackmailing you to buy hyper-frothing fizz at inflated prices. But,’ he’d added virtuously, ‘I won’t expect Kay to cook. We’ll have a Chinese takeaway and a rather saucy little wine I selected from the supermarket at lunchtime. If she behaves herself I may allow her to run my bath before bed.’
‘Will she share it with you?’
‘Steady, Molloy. That sort of disgusting behaviour may be acceptable in Derry where families of eight probably pile into the bath en masse but it’s not what we’d be accustomed to at all in my patch. I’m not averse to sharing my body although I draw the line at my bath. Kay can perch on the edge and admire my manly physique, maybe scrub my back before we adjourn to the nuptial chamber.’
‘Oh, to die and be reborn as Kay Dalton.’
Barry had flicked a paperclip at her.
A long drink and a short shower later – no time for a bath – Molly was sitting opposite Fionn as he flashed gum and tooth enamel profligately and entertained her with a rant about a corkscrew called the Socrates he had spotted in a shop that day. She made a mental note to buy Helen one.
‘I wouldn’t mind if Socrates were particularly associated with wine,’ chafed Fionn. ‘There was an English duke sentenced to death who chose to be drowned in a vat of wine – they could name a corkscrew after him with my blessing. But a Greek philosopher? They’ll be selling us Albert Camus tin openers next.’
Molly was sorry he’d mentioned Greek philosophers, it reminded her of Hercules, but she mentally chanted ‘furry fingers’ until the distraction faded. Even supposing Hercules had a rush of blood to the head and invited her out on a Valentine date, it would probably have been a few glasses of retsina in The Acropolis on Lower Leeson Street. This was much more agreeable, she instructed her doubts, clinking glasses of the widow Clicquot in Ricardo’s with the mad keen Fionn McCullagh. And Fionn was easy on the eye. Life would be most harmonious if it could be played out in restaurants with subdued lighting and attentive waiters. Familiarity was supposed to breed contempt but Molly needed convincing that she’d ever want to swap an ice-bucket with champagne for a mug of tea.
She didn’t envy Kay Dalton her cheeky bottle of wine and Chinese takeaway. And she certainly didn’t covet the apogee of Kay’s evening, as plotted by Barry – the chance to work herself into a lather soaping his shoulder blades. Whereas Fionn was looking distinctly appetising tonight – and dripping wet, he’d present even more of an amuse bouche. Which reminded her, it had been about twenty-three hours since lunch; Molly felt a hunger pang and popped a length of breadstick in her mouth.
She watched Fionn as he examined the menu and compared him with Barry of the thinning hair and thickening waist. Barry was a pet but he was also fairly representative of the fellows she met, and Molly was resigned to the fact that Irishmen tended not to resemble Pierce Brosnan. Not unless they had a head and body transplant. Some days Barry’s face looked like it had worn out a couple of bodies. The twelve-year-old masquerading as a reporter was from Navan; it seemed inconceivable the same town could produce both himself and Pierce Brosnan. Molly’s next-door neighbour Elizabeth was always threatening to move there to hunt out a posse of Brosnan cousins who might bear a passing congruence to Navan’s best-packaged product.
‘Is the champagne chilled enough?’
Fionn’s voice recalled Molly to Ricardo’s. Whoops, she’d taken her eye off the ball. A man in the hand is worth any number in the bush, especially when he’s buying bubbles.
‘Ambrosial,’ she smiled, observing her companion with an ever-more appreciative eye.
Fionn, it must be conceded, had a certain something, and living abroad had accentuated it. Exposure to foreign situations tempered Irishmen; it should be compulsory, like inoculations. Whereas Barry, whose exotic experience amounted to a couple of weeks a year in Spain or Portugal, was as cosmopolitan as a sack of potatoes. He was a mate, great company in The Kip and he’d borrow your last tenner to buy someone a drink, but he wasn’t in the same league as Fionn McCullagh, who effortlessly caught waiters’ eyes and hailed taxis. Barry had trouble persuading bus drivers to slow down, let alone halt cabs. And Fionn had ordered champagne without consulting her as soon as they were shown to their table – exactly the sort of assertiveness she liked in a man. Molly preferred consultation on everything else but her preference for champagne was a foregone conclusion.
‘Any word on the job situation?’ she asked, a ploy to terminate their silent monitoring of one another.
‘I start back with my old firm on Monday.’ He squirmed in his seat. ‘It’s not exactly a retrograde step. They’ve expanded and moved into other areas. They think the expertise I acquired in high-rise office developments in Seattle will be a boon.’
‘Hey, so that’s what we’re celebrating.’ Molly clinked her flute against his.
‘That’s not what I’m celebrating.’ Fionn watched her over the rim. ‘Celebrating may be premature, anyhow. Call it marking the occasion in an appropriate way.’
‘What occasion would that be?’ Molly was having difficulty keeping her heart inside its fuchsia satin wrapper.
Fionn glanced away and then back at her, too sturdily built to play coy and yet giving it a lash anyway. ‘A second chance. If you’ll have me, Molly.’
The waiter arrived with their starters. Even on Valentine’s Day they have a sixth sense for the verbal equivalent of coitus interruptus. But Molly welcomed the distraction of salmon and ginger parcels to slice through – Fionn was spreading his cards on the table while she was still wondering if it was time to break the seal on the deck. She felt he was rushing her. She wanted him to rush her. She was muddled. She needed more champagne.
Aware of his scrutiny, she allowed her eyes to circumnavigate the restaurant with only a faint blush betraying her confusion. There was nobody she knew in the room, a rare occurrence, for Molly had a wide circle of acquaintances. Maybe they were all disguised as attentive lovers – you wouldn’t recognise your own father if he were wearing an expression as maudlin as some of the samples on the faces surrounding her. A battery of waiters hovered a discreet distance from the diners. What about their Valentine’s Day? wondered Molly. Did they defer it until the restaurant closed? Did they pull down shutters and lock doors and then relight the candle stubs, pop their own corks and recreate the let’s pretend magic for their partners?
‘I’m curious,’ said Fionn.
‘Curioser and curioser,’ said Molly.
‘About why you didn’t answer me.’
‘I didn’t realise you asked a question,’ hedged Molly.
‘Questions aren’t always in the interrogative.’
‘Neither they are.’ She dipped her chin so that her hair streamed forward to hide her face.
Fionn reached under her mask of curls to stroke her cheek. ‘Have I told you yet how bewitching you look in that dress?’
‘The drink is obviously hitting home. You said no more than that I looked very well in it when I took off my coat.’
‘That was a gross understatement. Try fabulous, try stunning, try divine.’
‘No more adjectives,’ surrendered Molly. ‘You’re leaving me breathless.’
‘Try spellbinding, try riveting, try mouth-watering enough to eat.’
‘I draw the line there, Fionn McCullagh. That’s cannibalism.’
Over Irish coffees he returned to the subject of second chances. In a more acerbic frame of mind, Molly might have said second chances were for second-rate chancers. But she was mellowed – as much by the bubbles of admiration lapping her all evening as by the champagne – and Fionn seemed less like a villain who’d misappropriated her heart and more like a suitor who’d taken it away and treasured it.
‘I could never track down a decent Irish coffee in Seattle.’ He swirled the liquid in his glass. ‘They always used the spray-on cream that disintegrates and they drew shamrocks on top, a ghastly affectation. You make lethal Irish coffees, don’t you?’
‘Everyone should have one talent,’ replied Molly.
Fionn transfixed her with a gaze so solemn she almost sniggered.
‘You have more than one talent, Molly, you have dozens. And I took you for granted; I can never forgive myself for that. But I swear I’ll never take you for granted again if you’ll let me back into your life.’
That was enough to set a woman swooning. So why wasn’t she? It had to be the fault of the irritatingly unromantic voice in her skull, the one prevaricating that making assumptions was exactly what he was about here: assuming she’d be ready to serve him drinks in the second-chance saloon as soon as he’d abased himself. Just a little. He was fond of the more-sinned-against-than-sinning scenario. There came the unromantic voice again, the one which didn’t realise it was Valentine’s Day and it was talking out of season; it suggested she tell Fionn he’d staked his money on the wrong filly. He’d backed a loser and there was no point in crying to the bookies that he wanted to switch horses mid-race. But Molly wasn’t sure she wanted to be left alone with the unromantic voice for company, especially if it kept relying on gambling analogies.
Neither did she want to pass over her heart to Fionn McCullagh for safekeeping. He mislaid it once, he could do it again. Still, it wasn’t a case of all or nothing; she could adopt the middle ground. Barry’s advice had to be worth something. He was a man, wasn’t he? That put him on the inside track. There was nothing to stop her cherry-picking where Fionn was concerned, gorging on the fruit and pushing the stones to one side. Their love life had been the most satisfying she’d ever experienced, even allowing for that wanton summer in a kibbutz the first year she went on the pill. But only, she claimed to a disapproving Mary-P, for the purpose of regulating her periods.
So Molly captured and licked a trail of cream snaking down the outside of her glass and looked at him from under the eyelashes she’d meticulously separated with an instrument of torture known as an eyelash pin. The ‘buy me’ pitch on the front of the box promised it would be worth the effort and judging from the puppy dog gaze Fionn was training on her the blurb hadn’t exaggerated.
‘I’ve missed you, Fionn,’ she murmured.
He read the green light and put his foot on the accelerator. Grasping both her hands in his, he responded. ‘I’ve missed you too, Molly. I’ve been an idiot. Let me make it up to you.’
She was about to acquiesce – to any suggestion that ensued – when he added melodramatically, ‘I’ve never known peace since the day I left you.’
Oh no, there was that wayward giggle threatening to erupt again. It had to be the fault of the fellow with the unromantic voice skulking in her brain. If Fionn didn’t quit giving her brooding looks and heaving Byronic sighs she’d be teetering home on her own. With indigestion. There was something faintly ridiculous about a thirty-three-year-old man playing the heavy breather over love’s labours lost. Especially when love’s labours were waiting to be regained if he’d only show some initiative like shedding the Heathcliff act and whisking her off somewhere intimate, like a borrowed penthouse in Manhattan. Or whichever sophisticated capital was the handiest, really. Dublin at a push.
A visit to the ladies seemed in order while she reconsidered her position and allowed him a breather to do likewise. There was a scrum around the mirror as women slathered on vamp-it-up lipstick. They studied their lip lines with as much reverence as if they held the answer to the Third Secret of Fatima. And sure hadn’t the Vatican revealed it anyway, in the Holy Mother of all anti-climaxes? Molly waited her turn to layer on more of the Barbie pink which matched her dress, bought in Grafton Street that lunchtime (probably around the same time as Barry had been selecting his wine) on the basis that every scarlet woman deserved a flaming lipstick. Even if the smouldering date subsided at least the lipstick would carry on throbbing. It had attracted her attention immediately she’d spied the tester in the shop. It looked downright trashy on the mouth and Molly brought it straight to the cashier without checking the price.
The girl on the till had a diamanté nose stud and an interest in lipsticks that coincided with Molly’s.
‘I have this one too.’ She’d pressed the bar code on the packaging against her till. ‘It’s called “Pretty In Pink” but I think “Trollopy In Pink” is nearer the mark. It’s a winner. If you like this you want to check out “Puce Abuse” in the same range.’
Molly had made a mental note of the name; there wasn’t time to ferret through any more makeup right then.
‘Thanks for that,’ she’d said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve tried out the new lipsticks with traces of St John’s Wort that are meant to combat depression?’
‘Haven’t come across them. They sound like a fad.’ She winked. ‘Sure there’s built-in anti-depression in anything that makes you feel like a siren.’ As the shop assistant had counted out Molly’s change she’d noticed an indignant circle of skin around the nose ring; recently pierced from the look of it. A certain restlessness emanating from the queue behind suggested it was time to move off. Molly had felt buoyant as she’d retraced her steps to the office: you could always rely on the assistants at the Mac makeup counter to lob some pop psychology in with your receipt.
Her turn at the Ricardo’s mirror arrived and she layered and glossed, then sashayed as provocatively as she knew how back to Fionn. And she was no slouch in that department.
‘I hope you don’t mind but I’ve been rather masterful,’ he stuttered, her provocative wiggle obviously hitting a bull’s-eye.
‘You’ve ordered more champagne?’
‘No, but I can collect a bottle from an off-licence if you like. I’ve ordered something else in the meantime – a taxi to take us to your flat. Or wherever else you’d like to go, it’s your choice. Just so long as we can be alone together.’
Molly started to tap her teeth but had second thoughts – it wasn’t the most alluring habit and it might smear her lipstick. Inviting himself home with her wasn’t masterful – try arrogant, a word she continually tripped over in Fionn McCullagh’s company. But she was kitted out in underwear that deserved an audience, she did have a taste for more champagne and, what the heck, she fancied some company. Specifically she fancied Fionn. He might not be as heroic as his namesake and she certainly doubted his ability to follow the first Fionn’s lead and strew a few rocks around to create another Giant’s Causeway. But why would she need a rockery in a second-floor apartment?
