Three Wise Men, page 29
‘So does this mean we’re back to sharking for Beautiful Boys?’ Kate has a hopeful gleam in her blue eyes.
‘You can count me out, Kate,’ says Gloria. ‘I’m nearly three months pregnant, the only Beautiful Boy I’m interested in is the one I’m carrying around with me twenty-four hours a day.’
‘Have you been told it’s a boy?’ asks Eimear.
‘No, I just have a feeling about it,’ explains Gloria. ‘I’ll be glad when I’m past the three months mark, I’ll start to relax, tell work and my mother and people.’
‘You still haven’t told your mother?’ Eimear is incredulous. ‘But Mick knows – what if he blurts it out to her? They only live a few streets apart after all.’
She’s ashen. ‘God oh God oh God, Eimear, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll ring her immediately.’
While Gloria’s in the hall, Eimear tackles Kate.
‘You hear from Mick from time to time, why is he set so implacably against this baby? He should have softened by now.’
A shrug.
‘Is there something you’re not telling me, Kate?’
Eimear detects a faint blush spreading across her face. ‘Kate, you’re holding out on me, give.’
‘I’m not, Mulligan,’ she protests. ‘Cross my heart and hope to diet. Mick just doesn’t fancy fatherhood.’
‘He ought to have thought of that before they started fertility treatment.’
‘Maybe he didn’t expect it to work. So will we chase a few Beautiful Boys next weekend?’
‘I’m not ready for another relationship, besides I still haven’t blown Christy away.’
‘Piece of cake.’ Kate flaps her hand dismissively. ‘Anyway Beautiful Boys aren’t about relationships, they’re about instant gratification – the only kind worth having.’
‘Give me a break,’ complains Eimear. ‘I’d rather concentrate on moving house. I’ve mountains of organising to do, I need to find a plasterer and a plumber.’
‘Shame on you, Mulligan. Imagine preferring the Golden Pages to a gilded youth. Well, I’m planning to grow old disgracefully even if you’re sinking into its hoary arms without a murmur.’
‘You can shark on your own, can’t you?’
‘Ah, you see, that’s where you’re wrong,’ explains Kate. ‘I’ve been pondering this and it’s my conclusion that successful sharking is always carried out in pairs. A woman on her own looks desperate, three women together look self-contained – a pair of women look available but not too predatory. It’s the optimum combination.’
They’re laughing as Gloria returns from the phone.
‘How’d the Mammy take it, Glo?’ asks Eimear.
‘The good news is, she’s started knitting.’
‘And the bad news?’
‘She’s going around to Mick’s to sort him out.’
‘Oops,’ says Kate. ‘That could be tricky.’
‘You’re being too pessimistic, what can he say other than that he’s not ready to be a daddy and you went ahead without him.’ Eimear shrugs.
Gloria and Kate look ill at ease.
‘Did she suggest you called the baby after your father?’ asks Kate.
‘Naturally. But to wind her up I said I was thinking of Fergus. She protested that everyone would call him Fergie. So then I said maybe I’d carry on the family tradition and plump for a film star’s name – either Cary or Spencer.’ Gloria chuckles. ‘I was paying her back for the baby story. She launched into it yet again – you know the one she told everyone at my first holy communion AND my confirmation AND my graduation AND my wedding, and just about every occasion where she can inflict maximum embarrassment before the widest audience.’
‘That’s the one about you being jealous of your new brother,’ Eimear says, more from manners than interest – she’s right, Mrs Mallon does repeat it ad nauseam. And Gloria may well have inherited the trait.
Gloria beams. ‘I watched Daddy in front of the fire fussing over a strange baby and I suggested we pitch him in on top of the coals to see if that wouldn’t heat him up.’
‘You divil,’ laughs Kate, who’s heard the story as often as Eimear.
‘I was only three,’ Gloria defends herself. ‘It’s the oddest thing, I was in the house when both Rudy and Marlene were born and I don’t remember so much as a whimper from my mother’s room. When you see women having babies on television they’re bellowing fit to wake the dead and shouting, “You bastard!” at their husbands.’
‘She was protecting you, wasn’t she,’ Eimear points out. ‘She knew you were downstairs, she didn’t want to terrify you so she obviously bit on a pillow. Now when are you coming with me to see the cottage?’
‘Soon,’ Gloria hedges.
‘Looking at it won’t commit you to anything. It’s not as though the house will stretch out grisly tentacles and hook you in against your will.’
They banter for a while, then Kate drops Eimear home. She’s contemplating that rejection routine call to Christy when the phone rings. It’s Mick McDermott, of all people.
‘I’ve just had a visit from Mrs Mallon,’ he begins.
Eimear attempts to judge if he’s been drinking from his pronunciation – he seems sober.
‘That was sociable of her.’
‘It wasn’t a social call – far from it. She wanted to remind me of my responsibilities. Except, as I had to point out to her, they aren’t my responsibilities.’
‘Mick, why are you telling me this?’
‘Because it concerns you.’
Eimear is baffled.
‘Obviously,’ he continues, ‘since I didn’t impregnate the bitch, somebody did. So I made a few calls to Dublin. Kate knew all about it but she wasn’t talking. You women are all the same, thick as thieves. But I worked my way along to Jack and he had some very interesting information to shed on this novel situation.’
‘My Jack?’
‘Loyal of you to call him that under the circumstances. Or downright stupid. He knew all about the pregnancy, in fact he’s the man behind it.’
‘I’m not following you.’ His voice booms inside Eimear’s head, ricocheting around it.
‘Your Jack, as you like to call him, is the father of Gloria’s child. And Kate knows all about it.’
‘You’re lying,’ she says, and presses the button that breaks the connection.
But Eimear knows he isn’t lying, she knows it as surely as she realises there’s no going back now, she’s alone in the world. No Gloria, no Kate, no friends. No Jack, no Christy, no lovers. Only herself alone. On automatic pilot, she rings Gloria.
‘Is it Jack’s baby?’ Eimear asks.
There’s a painful intake of breath.
‘Is it?’ she repeats. Her voice sounds odd to her.
‘Yes.’
Eimear hangs up.
A few minutes later, the phone rings again. It’s Kate. ‘I’m coming around to see you.’
‘I won’t open the door.’
‘I have to talk to you, Gloria’s distraught.’
‘Kate, I’ll only say this once. Between the two of you, you’ve blighted my life. Stay away from me.’
‘Mulligan, listen, I know you’re hurting. We can sort this out, give me a chance to –’
Eimear lays the handset on the table and walks out of the room, Kate’s voice splintering fainter and fainter behind her.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 35
‘I’m so proud of you.’ Christy hugs Eimear.
They’re at her book launch, surrounded by people she’s never met before and will probably never encounter again. They don’t pay much attention to Eimear, they seem preoccupied by the free drink and miniature spring rolls.
Bitchin’ Babes doesn’t have a huge promotions budget, its marketing director Josie explains to her. She’s been eating cheese and onion Taytos, Eimear flinches from her breath. So the venue isn’t a hotel, it’s in their managing director’s office, which could do with a lick of paint. The fumiture’s been moved out to her secretary’s cubby hole but even so, it’s anything but roomy. Not that they need a lot of space, there’s sixteen people here including Christy, Eimear and the Bitchin’ Babes team.
What HAS this mythical publicity budget been spent on, she wonders. Certainly not the wine, they obviously give this gut-rot away free. Maybe they overspent on blowing up posters from the publicity shots of her, although Christy didn’t charge for taking the photograph. Enlarged and unfamiliar versions of her face, airbrushed to look misty, adorn the walls: they’ve turned me into a Sacred Heart picture, she realises with a jolt – her eyes follow you around the room.
Eimear O’Brien the Poet is windswept, which is natural enough when you’re standing on a beach, and encased in an Aran sweater – a garment she usually leaves to the tourists. But the publishers insisted: they wanted to push the Celtic goddess line, although she seriously doubts if a Celtic goddess would be caught dead in a knitted jersey.
The book is called Mna, which makes it sound like a public convenience, but Josie talked her into it. ‘They won’t know it’s a jacks in Sydney,’ she explained. She could schmooze for Ireland, flattering her into thinking Aussies will be queuing up to buy her collection.
‘Imagine,’ Christy’s arm steals around her waist, ‘all these people are here because of you.’
She regards them, knocking back glasses of wine and spilling spring-roll filling down their fronts. Isn’t she the lucky one.
‘They’re just professional liggers,’ Eimear complains. ‘I don’t know a soul apart from you and Josie.’
‘Sorry you didn’t change your mind about inviting Gloria and Kate?’
She treats him to her most disdainful glare and his arm drops from her waist.
She never did give Christy his marching orders; she may be simple but she’s not completely dense. No point in ordering a general evacuation of everyone in her life. Besides, the adoration is reassuring, it makes Eimear feel less … abandoned. She’s been keeping busy since it happened. Moving house, putting the finishing touches to Mna, pleading with builders to finish her bathroom. You have to hop over a hole in the floor where floorboards used to be and negotiate some exposed pipes just to use the 100 – it’s like an obstacle course. Her bladder is learning admirable self-control. Still, she’s settling into her cottage much quicker than she expected – she can have as many swagged curtains as she likes, without anyone complaining.
Eimear frowns, remembering the letter she had from Gloria, a self-serving epistle purporting to justify her behaviour – and which reassured her, as though she gave a fiddler’s, that out of loyalty she never actually went to bed with Jack. She’s just having his baby. So that’s all right then. She ignored it, and the second letter that followed it. Gloria has a funny definition of loyalty. Eimear grinds her teeth, wondering which dictionary she’s using.
‘How’s it going, Christy?’
A familiar-looking man in his late thirties, in an expensive linen suit that manages to look cheap on him, sidles up. He’s wearing grey suede shoes. Eimear’s mother calls all suede footwear brothel creepers, implying the men who wear them are fiends in human form. In this man’s case, she’s inclined to agree – he’d surely sizzle under a splash of holy water.
‘Eimear, this is Manus. Eimear O’Brien, Manus Comiskey. Manus is our arts correspondent,’ Christy does the honours.
‘So you’re the poetess.’ Manus has one of those Dublin 4 accents that sound English to everyone but the English.
‘Poet,’ she corrects him.
‘Right. I haven’t read the book but I hear you come across like a man-hating harpy in it.’
‘That’s because I am a man-hating harpy,’ she smiles blindingly.
‘Splendid, I’ll set up an interview so,’ Manus grins. It’s an unfortunate one which sucks in the lips above the teeth and exposes the gums. ‘I need to circulate here, there’s a few people I must have a word with, but I’ll be back. No slipping away while my back’s turned, now, Eimear the man-hating poetess.’
He half-turns, pauses, and says to Christy: ‘You wouldn’t take a snap of your woman Landers over there with the youngster beside her, would you? I suspect he’s her latest squeeze, it should make for some idle speculation in the gossip column.’
‘No, I wouldn’t, I’m off-duty,’ snorts Christy, ‘Steve’s supposed to be covering this.’
‘No sign of him.’ Manus scans the room.
‘Not my problem,’ shrugs Christy, and pointedly drapes an arm around Eimear.
Manus makes a beeline for the drinks table and stays resolutely within inches of it, so much for the need to circulate.
‘He gets my goat,’ Christy says. ‘He thinks he’s such a lady-killer, he has the confidence of a king.’
‘Prince Charles never struck me as very confident,’ she responds. ‘Of course he isn’t a king yet.’
As Christy broods about Manus Comiskey, she fits the face to the picture byline she remembers seeing on Thursdays in the Irish Independent – the photo is at least ten years out of date, which is why it’s taken her a while to recognise him. He should be had up for misrepresentation.
‘Working press, be charming to them,’ hisses Josie in her ear.
Eimear’s startled – some saliva has bounced off her lobe. ‘Where?’
Josie indicates three bored-looking individuals propped against the table doubling as a bar. Along with Manus there’s a balding swinger with shoulder-length sandy hair wearing a biker’s jacket with the collar turned up and a girl with too much black eyeliner who doesn’t look old enough to be allowed out on her own.
‘Go over and beguile them, it’s worth a few inches,’ she adds, still in an undertone.
‘Especially the girl, she’s the Sunday Business Post’s latest find.’
‘The twelve-year-old?’ exclaims Eimear. ‘I thought she was here with her mammy.’
‘The benefits of keeping a portrait in the attic,’ sighs Josie.
‘Anyway I’ve already met the Comiskey fellow, he wants to fix up an interview later.’
Josie appraises her. ‘You’re a fast worker, I’ll grant you that. There’s a lot to be said for a head of blonde hair.’
‘Will I take you home now, Eimear?’ suggests Christy.
‘I don’t think I can leave just yet, it’s supposed to be my bash.’
‘All the best people snub their own parties. Let’s slip away and split a bottle of wine somewhere quiet, this stuff’s vile, I can feel my gastric juices complaining already.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ she tells him. ‘You get used to it.’
Obviously all those years on the Blue Nun before she knew any better have built up a tolerance.
Manus Comiskey shuffles up, two glasses in his hand. Eimear imagines he’s about to offer her one, but he explains that the barman has intimated he’s about to shut up shop, so the second glass constitutes emergency rations.
‘Of course,’ he looks lopsidedly at her, ‘if I take you on somewhere for a bite of supper, and do the interview over that, I’m automatically on expenses.’
‘She has other plans,’ says Christy.
‘She’d love to,’ says Josie.
‘Sorry, I can only invite Eimear,’ says Manus. ‘The eckies don’t run to more than a table for two.’
Eimear vacillates. On the one hand he’s obviously an obnoxious little toad, on the other hand she needs the publicity.
‘You’re not to go,’ whispers Christy.
It’s a red rag to a bull.
‘Ready when you are,’ she smiles straight into the pink-rimmed eyes of Manus Comiskey. He blinks, downs one of his drinks, hesitates over the second, sets it on a nearby table and sweeps an arm gallantly to indicate Eimear should precede him. Then he has second thoughts about the untasted wine and retrieves it for a final gulp.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, Christy,’ she promises with a quick kiss.
She knows she’s misbehaving, but she also knows he’ll let her away with it.
‘Business before pleasure,’ she murmurs quietly, as Manus’s Adam’s apple negotiates the wine.
Christy’s eyes blur with hurt.
Now that she’s alone with Manus Comiskey, Eimear feels much less confident. She doesn’t like the way he accidentally-on-purpose bumps his knee against her under the table. She’s not keen on being squirrelled away in the darkest corner of Bucci’s restaurant. And she’s not sure she wants to press ahead with her plan to dish the dirt on Jack. Revenge may be a dish best eaten cold, but there’s such a thing as indigestion. It’s retaliation enough proving to him he’s not the only Famous Seamus in the family. Her collection of poetry must be sending him into a lather.
Manus seems unable to settle until he has a bottle of wine on the table in front of them. He can’t concentrate enough to listen to the answers to questions he poses half-heartedly – if this is his interviewing technique, it stinks. But there’s a transformation as soon as he holds something liquid in his hand: he focuses, he looks closely at Eimear and murmurs: ‘I don’t know how such a beautiful woman was able to put up with Jack O’Brien for as long as you did. You must be extremely patient. And forgiving.’
She considers: now’s her chance to play the injured party to the hilt.
‘I’ve heard,’ Manus leans forward conspiratorially, ‘he had a weakness for the under-graduates.’
Eimear widens her eyes. ‘You mean …?’
Manus nods sadly.
‘I’m astonished.’
‘You didn’t know?’ He raises an eyebrow.
‘I know he’s an extremely conscientious lecturer who devotes himself to his students.’
Both eyebrows shoot up this time.
‘And it never occurred to you his interest might be more than professional?’
‘I really can’t imagine what you’re suggesting, Mr Comiskey.’
‘But you are separated, you have sold the family home.’
‘That’s true,’ she nods.
‘And that would be because …?’
Now it’s Eimear’s turn to lean forward in collusion. ‘I haven’t known you very long but I feel I can trust you.’ He nods avidly. ‘This is strictly confidential. The reason Jack and I separated was because he refused to engage in marital relations with me. The women are a cover – off the record, he prefers men.’
