Three Wise Men, page 27
Gloria scribbles furiously as she handles the fourth card.
‘I see a baby here, dear. A little boy. He’s playing in your back garden, he has dark hair like you. He’ll bring you much joy, you’ll have waited a long time for him, but he’s worth the wait.’
Her pen stops in its headlong flight across the page.
‘He’ll be with me soon, won’t he?’
‘Not for some time,’ frowns Mrs Gilmartin. ‘He wants to be born to you but it isn’t the right moment. Be patient, he will come.’
Gloria’s confidence in her abilities is diminishing as she picks up the fifth card.
‘You’re gifted in your friends, appreciate them. I see you surrounded by people who love you, they form a circle around you. But you must be careful not to break the circle. There is pressure on it from outside, you must withstand that pressure and nurture your friends. You’re the sort of person for whom friendships are lifelong, you have an ability to love and be loved and to smooth away obstacles. Are you Gemini? No? Libra? I thought so, you like peace and order, you want life to be beautiful. There is ugliness ahead but friendship will help you through it.’
The sixth card is retrieved. Mrs Gilmartin runs her hand across her forehead wearily.
‘Are you all right?’ asks Gloria. ‘Can I fetch you a glass of water?’
‘I’m fine, my dear, just a weak spell, it’s passed now. I need to concentrate so intensely during a reading that sometimes my energy levels drop.’
‘I thought for a minute you’d seen something appalling in my card,’ she half-jokes.
The older woman regards her seriously.
‘My dear, it’s not my place to predict tragedies, if I did see any I wouldn’t say so, and besides, what the cards show me is what may come to pass, not what will inevitably happen. You have free will, you can choose one path above another and alter your own destiny. I can warn you of certain pitfalls, I can’t predict you’ll fall under a bus. But I can say, “Be careful in traffic, you have a tendency to daydream.” You need to do something about the iron in your blood, I sense a deficiency there.’
Buy vitamin pills, writes Gloria, nodding obediently. It’s not so different to being in a doctor’s surgery, apart from the toaster in the corner of her field of vision.
‘This is the romance card,’ says Mrs Gilmartin. She sighs as she studies it. ‘You had a great love affair, it ran its course for many years, but now you have doubts about it.’
‘It’s over,’ agrees Gloria.
‘This great love affair is over and you feel empty, cast adrift, unsure of yourself. You’ve been part of a couple so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be an individual. Regard this as an opportunity, explore yourself, learn to be on your own for a change, start to enjoy your own company. The solitary life doesn’t suit you but go with it for now, it will bring rewards.’
She really doesn’t have a clue about the baby, Gloria smirks, as she writes.
‘I see a man in the distance, a man who has tender thoughts for you. But there’s a barrier, maybe you feel it’s too soon, maybe you feel he’s not right for you. Trust your instincts. This man has recently given you a gift. Enjoy it, but remember, all gifts must be returned one day.’
Gloria’s puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘There is a man who wishes you well and a man who wishes you ill. You’re connected to both of them.’
‘How will I know which is which?’
‘You’ll know,’ says Mrs Gilmartin. ‘Now show me your left hand, dear.’
She runs her fingers lightly along it.
‘This is the lifeline, you’ll have a long life with no serious illnesses. This is your loveline. You aren’t interested in hordes of men, you prefer loyalty and continuity. What’s the expression they use now, serial …?’
‘Monogamy,’ Gloria tells her. ‘It’s true, I’m the original practitioner of serial monogamy. Much good it does me.’
‘It’s your nature, dear,’ says Mrs Gilmartin. ‘You can’t buck your nature. Or if you do there’s a tangle to unknot. I see one great love affair which has ended and another one waiting to begin.’
‘When?’
‘Not for some time. A nature like yours can’t cast off one lover and take on another, you need time to adjust. Let yourself take that time, don’t be in a hurry, it’s out there waiting for you. Now make a wish, dear. Concentrate on it, fill your mind with it.’
Gloria thinks of her baby, eyes tightly closed. ‘Grow healthy and strong,’ she urges him. When she opens them, Mrs Gilmartin is watching with an unfathomable expression.
‘Shall we go through to the front room and find your friends? It’s long past my granddaughter’s bedtime.’
‘What about my wish? Will it come true?’ asks Gloria.
She puts a finger to her lips and Gloria notices for the first time she’s wearing frosted pink lipstick that’s bleeding slightly where it’s been applied shakily. ‘Everything comes in its own time, dear.’
The three friends pile into a pub called The Hunter’s Moon on the main road back to Dublin.
‘That woman is beyond brilliant,’ proclaims Kate. ‘What she told me about my life is uncanny. She knew about Pearse, about the job, the flat, everything.’
‘What did she say about the future, Kate? You’re not paying her to tell you things you already know.’ Eimear is less than enthusiastic about their Ashboume psychic.
‘She had plenty to say about the future,’ insists Kate. ‘I’m going to travel with my job and I won’t settle down for years and years. When I do she sees me in a happy home surrounded by sunshine and laughter. And I’ve been wasting my time with the wrong sort of men, I’m to be choosier and have confidence in myself.’
‘All very general,’ sneers Eimear, splashing the tonic into her vodka. ‘You could point to every woman in this pub and tell her she’s been wasting her time with the wrong sort of men and she’d say you were a genius.’
‘How did it go for you, Eimear?’ asks Gloria. ‘Is Christy the one for you or are you wasting your time with wrong uns too?’
Eimear taps the table. ‘That woman was useless. I’m supposed to stop worrying about material things. “Possessions will only end up possessing you,” she told me. I’m to chill out and let the dust mount up and take time to get to know myself.’
‘I have to get to know myself too,’ exclaims Gloria. ‘It must be her party piece. What about you, Kate, are you supposed to take this voyage around yourself too?’
‘No, she didn’t mention that, I’ll be travelling in hot countries and I’m to go easy on the drink, apparently there’s a danger I might get too fond of it. Whose round is it?’
Eimear is still playing with her vodka, too annoyed to drink it.
‘Any word of men, Eimear?’ enquires Gloria. ‘I’ve two of them after me, apparently, though I haven’t spotted even one yet.’
‘There’s the usual tall dark stranger hanging around but he isn’t Mister Right,’ she snorts. ‘He isn’t even Mister Keep-Me-Going-Till-Mister-Right-Arrives, I’m to stop using him and learn to make my own way. That woman claims I’ve never been without a man since I was fifteen and I’m far too dependent on them for my own good.’
‘She wasn’t far off the mark there, Mulligan,’ interjects Kate, sucking her lemon slice in the absence of further alcohol.
‘It’s the implications of the remark I object to, as though I’m using men as props – as chauffeurs, as decorators, as financial advisors, as bed-warmers.’
Kate winks at Gloria and she winks back. This Mrs Gilmartin doesn’t just foretell the future she dispenses sound advice too.
‘Put it this way,’ Gloria addresses Eimear. ‘Would you be bothered with Christy if you weren’t house-hunting and didn’t find it useful to have him ferry you around?’
She’s indignant. ‘Just because the Beetle’s conked out and I can’t afford to have it repaired doesn’t mean I’m stranded. Can’t I get a lift off either one of you if I need it.’
‘True, but we weren’t able to tap pipes and peer under floorboards to tell you if the house with clematis framing the door you were so keen on was a dream purchase or a nightmare waiting to engulf your bank account.’
Eimear tosses her head. ‘She didn’t mention my collection of poetry, she didn’t mention my separation, she didn’t mention my job.’
‘But she did say there was a creative force within you that needed expression,’ Kate reminds her.
‘That could mean anything.’
‘So what happened to “Adios amigo,” if Christy didn’t get the Mrs Gilmartin imprimatur?’ asks Gloria.
‘The Troy Boy, in lieu of anything younger,’ remarks Kate.
Eimear raises her drink defiantly. ‘I’ll show that old biddy who’s using who,’ she vows. ‘I’m going to make this work with Christy Troy, I’ll ring him as soon as I get home and invite him over for a meal on Friday night. Candles, Puccini, the works.’
‘Does that mean passionfruit ice-cream for dessert?’ enquires Gloria.
‘It means I’ll be having my roots seen to before Friday,’ promises Eimear. ‘The man doesn’t know it yet but he’s in for the time of his life.’
‘Fighting talk, Mulligan,’ applauds Kate. ‘I’ll lend you my fornicating tape to help create the ambience.’
‘You’re not still using that to pull men,’ says Gloria.
‘Certainly I am. Wall-to-wall Lionel Ritchie and the Righteous Brothers, it’s never been known to fail. There’s just one condition, Mulligan.’
‘Name it.’
‘You have to memorise the Christy conquest and titillate us with it. And I mean every detail, from which item of clothing he removes when, to the words he whispers in your ear at the crucial juncture.’
‘You drive a hard bargain, Kate McGlade,’ says Eimear. ‘But for the ultimate fornicating tape – it’s a deal.’
CHAPTER 33
Talk about an anti-climax, chafes Eimear. Christy couldn’t see her last night, he was working. So the fornicating tape is sitting in its plastic container, still waiting to be unleashed on him. So much for her fooling herself he’s putty in her hands.
‘Come to dinner,’ she purred, in her Sharon Stone starter kit voice.
‘Love to but I’m on the rota,’ he said.
He must have detected a drop in temperature because he suggested she accompany him on this afternoon’s job – she’s waiting to be collected now.
‘I can’t go to work with you,’ Eimear protested. ‘I’ll look like a groupie.’ But she agreed anyway.
She’s watching from the window for his car when the phone rings.
‘Are you sore all over? Is your body a throbbing mass of sated lust? Is he still captive in your boudoir?’ It’s Kate, avid for some tantalising titbits.
‘Go take a cold shower, Kate; it didn’t happen.’
‘He passed up dinner for two chez toi? The man’s unnatural. That’s bad news.’
It’s too good an opportunity to pass up. ‘Good news, bad news, who knows?’ Eimear shrugs. ‘Maybe I was panicked into inviting him.’
‘Stop right there, Mulligan, that sounds suspiciously like backsliding. Why did he turn you down?’
‘He had to work. He offered to call by afterwards for a drink but he said it would be midnight and it didn’t seem worth it. I want to tease him lingeringly over the course of an evening, not reach him a can and jump him while he’s pulling the tab.’
‘So it’s game on,’ whoops Kate. ‘This is only a postponement, not a cancellation. Give him the works tonight, a few bars of “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” and he’ll be a pool of water at your ankles.’
‘Kate, I have decided to have sex with Christy. I have promised to share the gory details with you. Now shag off and leave the when and where up to my discretion.’
‘Touchy.’
‘It’s just struck me,’ says Eimear, ‘that it’s not beyond the realms of possibility I’m planning to seduce a man with the same tape you used on my husband.’
The connection crackles with electricity between them.
‘Am I right?’
‘Would I display such a taste deficit?’ Kate responds.
‘Yes.’
She can hear Kate breathing. ‘Let me read your stars, Eimear,’ she suggests finally. ‘See if tonight’s a propitious time for you to put the moves on Christy.’
‘You make me sound like a predatory female. As it happens, he’s more than keen to oblige.’
Kate reads: ‘“A pairing of Mercury and Mars heightens the pleasure of sharing, especially for September Librans, for whom this planetary duo may materialise in the guise of a virile male presence.” Hey, that’s it, the chequered flag. The planets are telling you to go for it.’
The doorbell rings.
‘That’ll be Christy,’ says Eimear.
‘He must’ve read your stars too and decided to strike while the girlfriend is hot.’
‘Kate, contain yourself, he’s working.’
‘Asked you along to hold his spare roll of film, has he?’
‘Just to keep him company. And I have to confess I’m curious to see him in action.’
‘You shouldn’t have to step outside the door to see that if you play your cards right.’
‘Kate,’ Eimear remonstrates with her, ‘any more quadruple entendres and I’m withholding all further information from you. Gloria too, in case she leaks it to you.’
‘Eek, you wouldn’t be so cruel. Well run along and let the lad in. At least he doesn’t sound the horn at you, my mother always warned me about men who beep.’
‘See you.’
‘See you, Mulligan – and remember you’ve been promised a virile male presence. It could be just what the doctor ordered.’
Eimear is giggling as she answers the door, Kate really is irrepressible.
‘Hiya, Little Miss Happy.’ Christy kisses her lightly, his breath tasting of Polo mints.
‘I could go in and come out again as Little Miss Misery Boots,’ she volunteers.
‘Whoa, Neddy, we have to hit the road,’ he smiles. ‘I’ll take you as you are. And I’ve no complaints, I may add.’
Eimear feels a twinge when she looks at the SOLD sign by the garden gate – she’s living on borrowed time in the house now. Christy’s Astra is a tip on wheels, crammed with chocolate bar wrappers, out-of-date newspapers, notebooks, biros, anoraks and boots. She snoops in the back and distinguishes a frying pan.
‘Is this in case you find yourself stuck in traffic on the Nil and fancy a few rashers?’ She holds it up for inspection.
‘So that’s where it went to, I was looking for it the other night.’
‘What on earth are you doing with a frying pan in the back of your car or is that a stupid question?’
‘For the Pancake Tuesday shot – s’obvious, innit.’
‘Right,’ Eimear agrees. ‘I won’t root around any further in case I unearth a turkey.’
‘Why would I have a turkey in the car?’
‘For the Christmas shot. S’obvious, innit.’
Christy hums as he drives, elbow leaning on the open window.
‘Where are we headed?’
‘Skerries. Only a wedding but it’s an editor’s must. The bride is a niece of the chief executive’s.’
A warning bell sounds in the back of her brain. ‘What’s the name of the bridegroom?’
Christy shrugs. ‘I forget his name. It’s written on this piece of paper here.’
He digs about in one of the multiple pockets that criss-cross his beige photographer’s waistcoat and produces a scribbled scrap. Eimear reads aloud with a sinking heart:
‘Wedding of Pearse Coleman and Gertrude English, 3 p.m. Church of the Redeemer, Skerries.’
‘I’m not able to go,’ she tells him. ‘You’ll have to take me home.’
‘I can’t do that, I’ll miss the bride’s arrival.’ He’s scandalised.
‘I’ll have to stay in the car then, I can’t be seen.’ Christy runs a red light before replying. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘I know the man.’
‘An old flame?’
Eimear shudders. ‘One of Kate’s; he’s still sore at her so I don’t think it would be in the best taste to have me popping up with a box of confetti.’
Christy drums on the steering wheel.
‘You’ve suggested the solution yourself. Stay in the car, I have to hang around for an hour to catch the couple emerging from the chapel and then I’ll spin by the office to drop off the negs. After that, I’m all yours. We could take another look at your cottage, if you like.’
Pearse is wringing his hands by a tombstone as they arrive, looking more than passable in his Windsor grey, although he’s had a savage haircut. Someone should have reminded him to go to the barber a fortnight ago, thinks Eimear. There’s a red rosebud in his buttonhole which he plucks between bouts of hand-squeezing.
‘Is that him, Kate’s ex?’ Christy opens the boot to extract a tangle of cameras and flashes.
‘Ssh, he’ll hear you,’ she hisses, sinking into the seat.
‘Not unless he’s bugged the church wall,’ observes Christy, parked insouciantly on a double yellow line. ‘I’ll leave the keys in the ignition in case a traffic warden shows up.’
‘Why don’t you just pay for parking like everyone else?’
‘Nah, too tame. I like to walk on the wild side, me.’ And he blows a kiss and heads Pearse-wards.
Women with floppy hats teeter up the path to the church, hands clamped to the crown of their heads to foil the sea breeze. They mill around Pearse, kissing and cooing, and at ten minutes before the off he disappears into the church. Just in the nick of time, because a black limousine rounds the corner, slows by the entrance and then drives off again.
‘She’s keen,’ mutters Eimear. ‘She might have the decency to be a few minutes late.’
The limousine returns, an elderly man in morning suit steps out and holds his hand out to the bride.
