Three Wise Men, page 16
She makes a mental note to stop off at Urbana and buy herself something frivolous as soon as Gloria is scanned and despatched.
‘The trouble with instant gratification,’ she addresses her companion, ‘is that it doesn’t happen quick enough for me.’
‘Hedonist,’ replies Gloria.
‘Each to their own. Some people might say you’re a masochist for putting yourself through this. Not’ – she adds hastily as Gloria’s face crumples – ‘that I’m one of them.’
(Something frivolous AND decadent, Kate promises herself.)
This shoulder to lean on business is making her feel like she’s propping up the heavens. But she owes Gloria, so move over Atlas.
CHAPTER 20
‘I think the flowery drawers you dumped in the kitchen bin swung it for Eimear,’ reveals Gloria.
‘Really? Why’s that?’ Kate is delighted but puzzled.
‘I can’t go into it here, people are listening,’ hisses Gloria.
‘These women are having all manner of distasteful procedures done to them, it’s our duty to distract them,’ she shoots back, but Gloria flaps crossly at her and she’s forced to wait.
It’s four months later and they’re at the fertility clinic again for Gloria’s second try – the first was a strike but Kate’s forbidden from mentioning it on the grounds it might be bad luck.
‘And no feeble jokes about “good luck, bad luck, who knows?”’ Gloria instructs her. ‘I had enough of putting a brave face on it during that week Mick and I spent in New Orleans after the first failed IVF. All that Mardi Gras merry-making only depressed me.’
Mick’s conjugal hand-holding, marginal in their debut innings, has trailed off noticeably so Kate is back in the tastefully decorated waiting room, sitting alongside tastefully dressed couples. Maybe Mick’s opting out so his hopes don’t ride too high, Kate thinks.
‘Come along, let’s pour some sugary tea down you,’ she bosses Gloria as she returns from her scan moaning about how much blood she’s had syringed out of her tired veins.
‘I don’t take sugar,’ she complains.
‘Come on, let’s get some chocolate biscuits down you,’ Kate alternates, heading for the canteen with Gloria’s handbag bouncing alongside hers at the hip. She’s noticed women always follow their handbags and sure enough, Gloria trots after obediently.
‘You said the flowery drawers swung it for me,’ Kate reminds her, giving her the grace of a sip or two of tea first.
‘It’s true,’ swallows Gloria. ‘She couldn’t care less when I told her about Jack belting you and about how your face was a rainbow for weeks on end and how you had to have stitches to a cut below the eye –’
‘I don’t remember any stitches.’
‘I had to invent something, the woman was like an iceberg. I was laying it on with a trowel,’ protests Gloria.
‘Fair enough. Except it made no difference, did it?’
‘None,’ agrees Gloria. ‘You’ve been whore non grata for months, which wasn’t exactly easy for me with everything I’ve had on my plate, though you’ve never heard me complain.’
‘You’re a living legend, I salute you, oh exalted one, now despatch me from my misery.’
‘So I’ve had months of warring best friends, when what I need most in my life is serenity,’ continues Gloria, ‘then all of a sudden last night she mentioned your name. Yours, She Who Must Be Obliterated.’
‘What did she want to know?’ interrogates Kate, twirling a loose button on her reefer jacket.
‘Just how you were and if you were seeing someone and whether Jack had ever been back in touch with you – gossipy stuff.’
‘And what did you tell her?’
‘You know all the answers already, Kate. Oh, all right, to please you. I said you were in mourning for a lost friendship, a relationship you always valued but had stupidly jeopardised in a moment of madness, that you were devastated when Jack told you it was only sex between the two of you and that despite everything he preferred Eimear’s body to yours.’
‘Was I comatose when he imparted this gem to me?’ Kate is so indignant she rips the button off her jacket.
‘Artistic licence. Anyway she seemed to mellow and started reminiscing about the triumphant days of the triumvirate and finally she asked me for her favourite story again.’
‘Not her favourite story,’ groans Kate.
‘Oh yes,’ Gloria’s eyes sparkle. ‘The bedtime tale in which Kate turns her key in the lock to find Jack naked on HER sheets with a voluptuous teenager, drinking HER champagne and with two used condoms from HER bedside table on the floor beside them.’
‘Thanks for reminding me about the condoms, I’d forgotten that succulent morsel.’ Kate’s expression is as sour as her voice.
Gloria smiles beatifically. ‘It’s been a softening up process on Eimear, trust me.’
‘You’re not a doctor,’ Kate finishes the sentence for her.
‘Anyway,’ Gloria continues, reviving with each sip of sweet tea, ‘I suddenly remembered that detail about the young one’s flowery whatsits down your mattress. I hadn’t told Eimear about them before and she was riveted. I had to mime how you picked them up by the label and carried them to the kitchen bin at arm’s length, fantasising about how you could use them to embarrass Jack. She was in kinks. Then I had to pretend to throw in teabags and wheaten bread and tomato ketchup –’
‘There was no ketchup,’ objects Kate.
‘No but there should’ve been. And there I am opening and closing the kitchen bin in Eimear’s house and she looks happy for the first time in months.’
‘Glad to have been of assistance,’ snarls Kate.
‘You owe her,’ retorts Gloria. ‘But the best part is, she decided that anyone who finds her rival’s smalls down her mattress, and not even vampish ones at that, is more to be pitied than scorned. Added to your discovery of him marking a student’s essay in your bed, it won her over.’
‘Actually he’d just finished his scoring, they were refreshing themselves with my champagne – which he never replaced,’ Kate points out.
‘So the good news is, Eimear’s ready to let you have your cornflake-box crown back,’ concludes Gloria.
‘I’m a wise man again?’
‘Probably. You may have to eat some humble pie first, Kate, you did something virtually unforgivable and I’m amazed Eimear’s magnanimous enough to see you again.’
‘Have you arranged a meeting?’ she asks.
‘Indeed I have,’ responds Gloria. ‘Mick’s off to the Mammy’s this weekend. He claims it’s to give my topsy-turvy hormones breathing space but I know right well he wants to be near at hand for his friend Marty Colton’s stag party. You remember Marty, don’t you? In fact, didn’t you have a ring-a-ding with him once?’
‘That was Eimear,’ Kate lies without a twinge of conscience.
‘Anyway, the end result is I have the house to myself and I’m organising a chick fest. Be there or beware. Absentees have their reputations savaged.’
‘I don’t have a reputation to lose.’ Kate pulls a face. ‘By chick fest, do you mean loads of us?’
‘Relax, I’m exaggerating,’ Gloria is reassuring. ‘It’s just the terrible threesome. I thought I should be there to referee any disputes.’
‘Glo, I could kiss you, in fact I will.’ Kate grabs her and makes loud mwah-mwah noises, to the unconcealed interest of the entire canteen.
‘Just a minute,’ she breaks off, ‘do you feel well enough for cooking? You said the treatment’s leaving you like a limp rag this time around.’
‘True,’ nods Gloria. ‘But since when did chick fests involve serious slaving in the kitchen? I’ll order in pizzas and glare balefully at you two as you knock back the wine.’
‘Not long to go now, pet,’ Kate pats her hand. ‘In three or four weeks you’ll either be wellying into it yourself or you won’t want to because even the smell of booze will have you sticking your head down the toilet.’
‘I want you clear on one point,’ announces Eimear, immediately Kate walks into Gloria’s house. ‘I don’t believe that Jack hit you and you have to stop telling people he did.’
‘I can show you the doctor’s report if you like,’ offers Kate, slumping on to the sofa. Jaysus, she thinks, here two seconds and already she’s under attack.
Gloria shoves a glass of wine into Kate’s hand and pulls a face at her; she assumes the eye-rolling and mouth-stretching are meant to be interpreted as ‘Put up with this, it’ll be over soon.’
‘I’ve no doubt you can,’ agrees Eimear. ‘But a report will only indicate that you had a nasty blow to the face, not who struck it and under what circumstances. For all we know, you could’ve walked into a door deliberately to whip up support.’
‘I was a sight for weeks on end, am I madwoman enough to voluntarily lacerate myself?’
‘I’m not sure what you’re capable of any more. I want your word that you won’t ever mention this story about Jack attacking you again. You could do his career irreparable harm.’
‘Just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And aren’t you the supportive wife, I’m impressed by your loyalty to him.’
‘Ex-wife-to-be,’ Eimear corrects Kate. ‘My solicitor, a piranha of a man especially chosen for his overbite, will argue for a share of his royalties from the books he published while we were an item. The figure he has in mind is a most promising one. So, you hurt Jack, you hurt me. Where it really hurts, if you catch my drift.’
Kate is dazzled. ‘Mulligan, you’re as tough as old boots, I’m lost in admiration.’
Gloria, meanwhile, is looking fondly from one face to the other, as though delighted by two pupils who’ve learned their lessons well.
‘Will I dial up a pizza now or will we watch a bit of the video first?’ she asks. ‘I’ve rented Jerry Maguire.’
‘But you know none of us like Tom Cruise,’ exclaims Eimear. ‘I thought you were going for the new Woody Allen.’
‘True,’ agrees Gloria. ‘But I had a dream about Tom Cruise two nights ago and I need another look at him to see if we’ve seriously underestimated him all these years.’
‘An erotic dream?’ enquires Kate, setting down her (empty) wine glass in the hope the movement will draw Gloria’s attention to it. It doesn’t – when she’s not drinking, she’s convinced everyone else glugs too quickly.
‘As a matter of fact it was,’ blushes Gloria, chewing an end of her dark hair. ‘Even during the dream I remember thinking, “I’m not supposed to fancy Tom Cruise.” So I’m at this party and for some reason I’m the centre of attention, then Tom Cruise comes in and he looks lonely. I feel sorry for him and stroll up for a chat and we just click. He asks if I’d like to go on somewhere because he isn’t in the mood for a crowd.’
This dream needs lubrication, decides Kate. She wanders across to the table and takes possession of the wine bottle, pausing to top up Eimear’s glass en route. The bottle is not leaving her side until it’s sacrificed every last drop of its contents.
Gloria is still burbling about her Cruise missile. ‘So he makes me a cup of coffee and –’
‘Wait, I missed something crucial,’ interrupts Kate. ‘Did you go home with him?’
‘Too right, he has a chauffeur-driven car with a mini-bar waiting outside for him and we’re swept away to this mansion with TCs entwined on the security gates and I say, “TC for Tom Cruise?” and he explains they’re TGs for Top Gun which underwrote the house.’
Even Eimear is looking fidgety at this point. Kate catches her eye and indicates the bottle, Eimear slips across to join her on the sofa.
Gloria is impervious. ‘I’m thinking it’s strange he has Bewley’s instant coffee in his kitchen cupboard but I don’t mention it in case he claims to have Irish roots and I have to listen to hours of his family history. So we sit at the breakfast bar and he tells me the reason he’s unhappy is because he and Nicole Kidman have split up.’
Eimear fills their glasses, leaning back against the sofa to whisper, ‘The child’s mad, we must be kind to her.’
Gloria is gazing raptly at Tom Cruise’s face on the video cover. ‘I say I haven’t heard they’re separated and he tells me it’s still a secret, she’s on location in Mexico filming a remake of Fun in Acapulco with Brian Kennedy in the Elvis role –’
‘You have very explicit dreams,’ butts in Eimear.
‘– and when she comes back they’ll make a statement. Meanwhile Tom Cruise is lonely and he feels strangely drawn to me. “You have kind eyes,” he tells me.’
‘Works every time,’ interjects Kate. ‘The “you have kind eyes” line – it’s never known to fail. Napoleon used it on Josephine, Michael Collins used it on Kitty Kiernan, President Kennedy used it on Marilyn Monroe, my next-door neighbour Eoin uses it on all his pick-ups …’
‘What a pair of cynics you are,’ complains Gloria. ‘Anyway, I’m thinking it’s probably a mistake going to bed with him because I’ll be nothing more than a one-night stand but I decide what the hell, I can deal with feeling like a groupie tomorrow. Tonight I’m sleeping with Tom Cruise.’
She stops, just as it’s getting interesting. Eimear nudges Kate.
‘And did you?’ she prompts.
‘Oh yes.’
Silence.
‘And do you remember the details?’ wonders Eimear.
‘Oh yes.’
Silence.
‘So how was it, Glo?’ Kate bursts out.
‘He was a sex god,’ she says complacently. ‘I never knew rapture like it, I was tingling when I woke up.’
‘Where was Mick, could you not ask him to do something about the tingling?’
‘He sleeps in the spare room these days, my 4 a.m. alarm calls annoy him,’ Gloria replies matter-of-factly. ‘Anyway, shall we watch Jerry Maguire?’
‘Wait,’ protests Eimear. ‘When did you have this dream? Two nights ago, right? Did you have it again last night?’
‘Afraid not.’ Gloria is regretful. ‘I went to bed early thinking, “Ready when you are, Tom,” but there was no sign of him. I’m hoping’ – she looks at the others archly – ‘the video might propel him back into my subconscious.’
‘Tom Cruise is Cancer,’ says Kate. ‘Cancer men are sensitive lovers. They’re completely devoted in their relationships and sentimentality was invented by them.’
‘You carry the most amazing pile of trivia around in your brain,’ says Gloria. ‘Well, Tom time, I’ll just slip the video into the machine.’
‘Hold your horses, woman, pull up a Ballygowan and let the dream doctors analyse your nocturnal fantasies,’ insists Eimear.
‘I don’t need them analysed, I’m frustrated and hallucinating about a film star,’ Gloria is dismissive. ‘I bet I’m not the only woman in this street, never mind this town, at the same malarkey.’
‘No, that’s the obvious interpretation.’ Eimear shakes her head. ‘Maybe you’ve superimposed Tom Cruise on to Mick and you’re secretly hoping to reclaim the ardour you once tasted with him.’
Kate looks dubious here, while Gloria is positively sneering.
‘I’ve a better idea,’ says Kate. ‘Tom Cruise isn’t your type and you’re not a one-night-stand sort of gal, yet you toddled off home with him because he looked sad. You’re projecting your own misery on to someone else and hoping they’ll be sympathetic towards you. That “you have kind eyes” line is the giveaway.’
Now it’s Gloria’s turn to look dubious while Eimear sneers.
‘I know, I know,’ says Gloria. ‘Inside my staid exterior there’s a passionate woman bursting to emerge. I’m the centre of attention at this party, I evacuate with a film star, we have fantastic jiggery pokery and I don’t care if he dumps me afterwards. I’m doing a carpe diem.’
Both Eimear and Kate look dubious at this stage.
‘Slam in the sacrificial lamb,’ Eimear instructs Gloria. ‘We’ll give Tom Cruise one last chance to prove he’s attractive in Jerry Maguire.
‘Pizza first,’ Kate puts in. ‘I vote we have one with everything on it, in honour of Glo’s bout with a sex god. It’s the nearest I expect to come to rapture this side of the menopause.’
‘Missing your blissful sessions with Jack, are you?’ enquires Eimear, as Gloria hunts out the pizza-delivery number.
Oh-oh, thinks Kate, I’m not out of the woods yet.
‘No, I’m glad that’s all over, I hated myself for betraying you.’ Kate looks levelly at Eimear, blue eyes regarding blue.
‘I forgive you,’ Eimear tells her and Kate heaves a premature sigh of relief.
‘But don’t ever think I’ll forget.’
CHAPTER 21
‘So what do you think of them, Gloria?’
Gloria hesitates. ‘I’m no great judge of poetry, Eimear. Have you shown them to Kate yet?’
‘No, yours are the first eyes to rest upon my artfully artless musings.’
Gloria spreads out the pages in front of her, sheet after sheet covered in Eimear’s slanted pen-and-ink script, and angles for time.
‘I never knew you were interested in poetry, when did you decide you had a collection inside you?’
Eimear treats her to a radiant smile. ‘It came to me one night, in a flash of inspiration, when I couldn’t sleep. I hopped out of bed for a pen and paper and then snuggled back down under the duvet with my Fungus the Bogeyman hot-water bottle and started scribbling. The words flowed as if someone else was dictating them, I hardly had to search for a rhyme. I just seemed to know instinctively that daily retching would go with oh-so-fetching’ – she points to a poem entitled ‘Bulimia For Beginners’ – ‘and that raspberry ripple would be perfection with one erect nipple in “The Naked Ice-Cream Seller”.’
She’s animated as she studies her work, vanilla bob pushed impatiently behind her ears. Gloria hardly knows how to explain the poems are mad, bad and dangerous to show to anyone but lifelong friends. Even then it’s risky, they’re certainly making her re-evaluate what she knows about Eimear. Luckily Gloria doesn’t have to deliver an opinion as Eimear snatches back the folio and combs through, searching.
