Be Careful What You Wish For, page 30
‘Food?’
‘Food doused in alcohol. Consumed with alcohol on the side, no doubt. And if there’s chips you’ll be asking for wine vinegar to sprinkle on them.’
Molly ignored Helen. ‘Alternatively we could go somewhere for cocktails and eat the fruit out of them.’
‘That would certainly take care of the hunger,’ said Helen.
‘It would?’ Molly, having suggested the scheme, was overwhelmed by its flaws.
‘Absolutely. A couple of cocktails apiece and we’d be so far gone we wouldn’t know what to do with a plate of chips if they arrived carrying an “eat us” banner.’
‘I can never imagine myself so pixilated that I wouldn’t know how to decimate a plate of chips. Now, are we heading off in search of some stomach lining?’
‘I’d still like a slice of pecan pie at some stage, possibly the pudding one.’ There was a disconsolate note in Helen’s voice.
‘Have one if you must but I’d like you to know I’ve enrolled in the Save the Pecan Foundation and we take a dim view of nutivores like yourself scoffing endangered species.’
Helen stood. ‘Molly, hunger has obviously left you deranged. Since it’s too late to look for a new best friend let’s go eat pasta.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Molly was earnest. She caught hold of Helen by the arm and pulled her back into her chair. ‘Do you think it’s wise to go off somewhere with Patrick? Are you sure it’s what you truly want? Fine if you’ve thought it through and are prepared for the consequences but if he’s pressurising you into it maybe you should reconsider. I’d hate to think of you taking an irrevocable step. I know you want to spend some time together but a weekend might be too protracted. Perhaps you should scale down – go away for the day.’
Helen chomped on her lower lip. ‘You’re right, it is precipitate. It made sense when I was with Patrick but now I’m not convinced. The idea was to get to know each other again, it’s been three years since we spent any time together. We seem to know everything there is about one another on one level and scarcely anything at all on another. Does that sound ridiculous?’
‘No,’ lied Molly, who considered it smacked of insanity.
‘I wish we could be together for a while, somewhere private that didn’t involve actually going away. To be honest I’m a little wary about that, I suppose because there’s always a risk of reality becoming obscured. I know I need to keep my feet on the ground.’
‘Aha.’ Molly sat upright so abruptly her bracelets jangled. ‘Just call me your good fairy. I’m in a position to make your wish come true.’
‘You are?’
‘You can use my apartment. Fionn moved into his new place earlier this week and I can make an old man very happy, not to mention a bold man very soppy, by announcing my intention to empty his fridge and leave blonde hairs in his shower plughole. I’ll clear out of number 16 by Friday lunchtime and stay away all the following day. From Sunday you can make your own arrangements. How does that grab you – does it transform you into Helen of Joy?’
Helen didn’t respond immediately. Her lower lip, already brutally mauled, came in for further mistreatment while she pondered Molly’s offer. It answered most of her reservations … but Molly had only a double bed. Her spare room was used as a study.
‘There’s a sofabed in the study,’ said Molly. 1 don’t need an Ouija board to divine that expression you’re wearing.’
Helen thanked her so profusely that Molly raised her hands in capitulation.
‘I know I’m the best friend in the world, I know I deserve a medal but I’d settle for dinner. Now I’m ready to sally forth, what’s keeping you?’
‘I’m sallying fifth,’ said Helen.
‘Let’s go to Milano’s,’ suggested Molly as they passed the uniformed doorman.
‘The Unicorn.’ Helen’s tone brooked no argument. ‘I’m buying and I owe you more than a pizza.’
‘You don’t owe me anything. Except a decent burial if my stomach isn’t introduced to some food soon.’
‘We’re on our way. I’ll need to find a hole-in-the-wall machine but there should be a basket of bread in front of you within four minutes, three if we take our shoes off and sprint.’
CHAPTER 22
A phone call from Fionn left Molly fulminating. Helga was on a plane bound for Dublin to rescue their marriage and Fionn was relying on Molly to rescue him from Helga.
‘Not my function,’ she snarled.
‘Do you want me or don’t you?’ he asked.
It was a bald question; Molly had no option but to prevaricate since she didn’t know the answer. If in doubt, turn the tables.
‘I’m not convinced it’s me you want. Just someone to save you from your wife. You’re terrified that Helga can do whatever she likes with you. She won’t turn your willpower to stone with one look from her eyes; she’s a woman not Medusa. But maybe you have no willpower where she’s concerned.’
Injury radiated from his voice. And resignation. ‘Perhaps I don’t have much willpower. Helga, I mean Olga, is a singularly determined person. But you didn’t answer my question and that’s enlightening.’
Molly played for time. ‘What was the question?’
‘I think you know.’
She sighed. It was too early for cat-and-mouse games. Molly hadn’t even finished her first cup of coffee of the day. And she’d be late for work at this rate. She was due to cover a tribunal in Dublin Castle starting at ten o’clock.
‘Do I want the incomparable Fionn McCullagh or don’t I? I’m not sure what I want. Yes I do, I know I don’t want to be cast as a human parachute – simply pull and a soft landing is guaranteed.’
‘You’re still evading the question, Molly.’
‘It’s not a fair question.’
‘I must know if there’s a chance we can have a future together.’
‘I don’t see how we can discuss the future until you sort out the present.’ Molly was rather pleased with the retort. She rewarded herself with a gulp of coffee.
‘Olga belongs to the past.’
‘So why’s she broomstick-bound for Dublin even as we speak? Answers on a postcard, please.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Molly, I don’t see why you have to be so flip about everything. It’s offensive. This is my life you’re reducing to snappy one-liners.’
Resentment roared through Molly. How dare Fionn criticise her when he was the one with a wife – not even an ex-wife – showing up to make her feel like the other woman in some cheap burlesque? Which she didn’t consider herself to be. Not at all. He was her boyfriend before he was Helga’s husband; she had a prior claim on him. And they were meant to be together for ever until Helga had muscled in, all Scandinavian and irresistible like an Ikea bargain basement.
‘It’s my life too,’ she seethed. ‘If you wanted me you could have had me four years ago instead of swanning off to design skyscrapers in Seattle and marrying a skyscraper wife to even it out. You put me through the wringer, you flattened me and now that I’ve fleshed myself out again you emerge from the woodwork and say, “Hey, babe, I’m yours if you want me.” So forgive me if I’m occasionally flip. I’d rather flip than flop. The fact is I appear to have developed a jaundiced view. Can’t imagine how.’
She was panting by the time she finished and the silence on the other end of the phone line thickened to congealing point. Molly waited for a response. And waited.
‘I see,’ said Fionn.
That was worth holding her breath for. ‘Is that it?’
‘I have to clear up the flat and collect Olga from the airport. She’ll be expecting me to meet her.’
And he always did what Olga expected. Molly slammed down the receiver with an entirely reasonable amount of force. It was a wonder the plastic didn’t crack. Not the most mature behaviour but instant gratification had much to recommend it
As she stomped about the apartment preparing for work, a jarring realisation sent her deteriorating temper into freefall. With a wife in situ Molly couldn’t camp out at Fionn’s place while Helen used her flat as an unconsummated love nest. Actually, as far as she was concerned the celibate aspect wasn’t carved in stone, so long as Helen knew what she was doing. But did anybody genuinely know what they were doing if they went to bed with their brother? Were they compos mentis? Molly shook her head until it vibrated to eject the questions cluttering it. She had enough on her mind, trying to find her mobile phone, mysteriously absent both from her handbag and the battery charger, and reach Dublin Castle by 10 a.m., never mind dwelling on sisters and brothers-in-arms. But there was still a clump of intruder thoughts irritating her. It couldn’t be the change of plan affecting Helen and Patrick; Molly would be able still to lend them her flat. She’d crash with a friend from work if necessary. And if all else failed she could take a run home for the weekend. Granted, she wasn’t long back from Derry but homes were intended as places to come and go from with cavalier irregularity; it was written into the parent/child charter. So what was rankling? As Molly dead-locked the door of her apartment she pinpointed the source of vexation: Helga was staying with Fionn. Which she’d every right to do as his wife. But Molly didn’t have to like it. And neither she did; indeed, she realised with an emotion approaching alarm, she was feeling possessive.
This jaw-grinding response lasted as far as the ticket queue at the DART station until a cheering intervention to her temper came via the realisation it was Thursday. Which meant there’d be a lecture at the art gallery. She hadn’t managed to attend for a fortnight. Perhaps Hercules was missing her – that’s if he were still frequenting the talks. Defeatist attitude, there was every chance he’d be in Merrion Square tonight. Molly bolted back towards her flat – so what if she missed the beginning of the tribunal session, one of the other reporters would give her a shorthand note – and catapulted into the bedroom to find something more alluring to wear. She swapped her pinstriped trouser suit for a new suit in a colour the sales assistant insisted was bull’s blood but which she thought of as burgundy. Crucially it had a wraparound skirt with a tendency to splice open. She’d sit beside Hercules crossing and uncrossing her legs until he turned the shade of her suit. Which meant she’d need to stop off at the hosiery department in Clery’s first because these tights she was wearing were the denier of a black-out curtain. Crossing and uncrossing of legs required something a tad slinkier.
‘Does anyone still actually call tights hosiery?’ Molly enquired of her keys as she dead-locked the front door for the second time.
‘What’s hosiery?’ Elizabeth emerged from next door looking as though she’d managed two hours’ sleep last night. Maximum.
‘You just stick to the raspberry fishnets and you’ll never need to worry, pet,’ said Molly. ‘Teamed today with slave sandals, ankle socks and striped capri pants, I note, as once again you push against the outer boundaries of conventional garb.’
Elizabeth was complacent. ‘I seem to have a knack for throwing together a look. I reach into my wardrobe and the funkiest combinations leap out at me.’
‘Inspired,’ agreed Molly. ‘Are you headed for the DART?’
Back in the office late afternoon, Molly was writing up her copy at breakneck speed – she needed to have her coat on and her pieces filed by ten past six to make the start of the lecture. Fortunately she’d managed to scribble one story at the back of her notebook over lunch and rough out the second during a boring tranche towards the close of the session as the lawyers wrangled over technicalities. If excess baggage on her credit card hadn’t obliged her to collect a loan cheque from the Credit Union in Chronicle House she could have phoned or emailed her copy from Dublin Castle, avoided the office and been ahead of the game. But she should still be on time for Hercules if there were no distractions.
Barry had only just started a 4.30 p.m. shift, however, and was going to be in the office for the next eight hours. He was ready for a chat – their working hours hadn’t coincided yet this week – and he wasn’t deterred by Molly’s harassed, ‘I’m up against a deadline’. He knew it would be at least 7.30 p.m. before the subs started muttering they’d like to see the odd story if the next day’s paper weren’t to be peppered with empty spaces; in the meantime he had an inane grin on his face which he felt required explanation. Or at least some attention paid to it.
‘Kay and I are getting on like a house on fire,’ he said.
‘Excellent.’
‘Actually we can’t keep our hands off each other.’
‘Great.’
‘We’re like newlyweds.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘Jaw-jaw at marriage guidance led to paw-paw at home. Lubricated by a bottle of Baileys – can’t stand the stuff myself but Kay has a weakness for it. Molly, are you listening to a word I’m saying? You haven’t stopped typing.’ Barry sounded aggrieved.
‘You and Kay are having jiggery pokery in every room in the house. I’m deliriously happy for you. Now if you don’t mind I have a date with destiny and I can’t keep it until I file my copy.’
Barry decided to stop being peeved and start taking an interest in Molly’s plans for the evening. He could always crow over the Lazarus-like resurrection of his love life when she wasn’t pounding the keyboard and mumbling about checking the spelling of the tribunal lawyer’s name.
‘Anyone I know?’ he asked.
‘Who?’
‘Your date.’
‘No. Yes. Well, it’s not exactly a date. Can you make yourself useful, Bar, and look up the spelling of MacCionnaith in the library? It should be filed under the latest batch of tribunal stories.’
‘I take it from your fever pitch of excitement it’s not Fionn you’re meeting.’
‘No. Any chance of that spellcheck this side of first edition?’
Barry clicked on to the library file and read out the lawyer’s surname to her. ‘You OK with his first name?’
‘Senan the usual way, right?’
‘Right. Now about this not-exactly-a-date – does that mean he just said, “See you in the pub later,” and you’re not a hundred per cent sure if he fancies you or the idea of someone to have a jar with?’
Molly twisted her hair into a knot and slid a pen through it to keep it out of her face, then amended her spelling of MacCionnaith. ‘Questions, questions. What are you, a journalist or something? A policeman wouldn’t ask as much.’
‘Just taking a friendly interest in your affairs of the heart. I like Fionn but it’s a lose-lose situation for you, even if his wife is an ocean away. So who’s his anonymous replacement and where are you meeting him?’
‘At a lecture in the National Gallery.’
‘I can see what you mean about it not being much of a date. A woman wouldn’t know where she stood with a man who met her at an art gallery.’
Molly abandoned her story temporarily. ‘Why ever not? It’s a classy place to rendezvous.’
‘Classy, possibly; open to misinterpretation, definitely.’ Barry had the air of a man on terra firma. ‘What’s there to do in a gallery except wander around looking at paintings, many of which are pornographic or religious? And neither subject matter is conducive to a successful first date. You’re safer with a restaurant; there’s nothing pornographic or religious about food. Well, nothing obvious, anyway – you’d want to be really looking for it.’
Molly surrendered. ‘Barry, I can see you’ll give me no peace until you worm this out of me. It’s not a date, let alone a first date. It’s just that I wanted to make the art history lectures tonight on the off chance that my Greek god might be there. I’m a desperate case, I know, but that’s love for you. Or concupiscence. The jury’s out on this one. Now please, please, pretty please and all the trimmings, let me be until I file these stories. We’ll have a coffee tomorrow and you can tell me all about yourself and Kay rekindling passion and igniting the electric blanket.’
Before Barry had a chance to answer, Stephen shouted down to him there was a caller on the line with a story about planning abuses worth checking out.
‘A member of the public,’ grizzled Barry as he picked up the line. ‘Whoever it is will be giving out yards about their next-door neighbour’s kitchen extension, not systematic corruption among the town planners.’ He puckered his lips exaggeratedly at Molly. ‘Slap on an extra layer of lipstick before you leave if you’re determined to compete with a Raphael. Those Renaissance babes were the business.’
The National Gallery doesn’t have any Raphaels, thought Molly as she scrutinised her shorthand for a half-remembered quote about cronyism. But she said nothing – she didn’t want to kickstart Barry on to a discussion about the paintings on show. Which would inevitably involve him itemising Cork’s superior collections.
Barry, meanwhile, managed to palm off his caller with a phone number for Dublin Corporation’s planning office.
‘Molly,’ he said then, in quite a different tone to the one previously used.
‘For pity’s sake, Barry,’ she complained, not noticing the alteration.
‘Listen, I wanted to apologise for losing the head the other day and making a prize eejit of myself, trying to kiss you and everything.’
He had her attention now. She looked up from her tribunal report. ‘Trying and succeeding.’
Barry ducked his head, then decided to play it honest and manly. ‘Sure I’m only human,’ he said. ‘What man in his right mind wouldn’t want to kiss you?’
Molly felt mollified, an emotion she preferred to avoid by and large because she felt it trailed syrupy behind her name.
‘It was just the upset over Kay, it destabilised me,’ he added. ‘A shabby excuse but the truth is often pitiful. I could invent a more fetching lie but –’ he was almost overcome with admiration for his own creativity at this point – ‘you deserve the truth.’
‘We’ll say no more about it,’ she said magnanimously. ‘Just keep your lips to yourself in future.’
She made it to Merrion Square in time for a dawdle in the gift shop, since there was no sign of Hercules in the lecture hall, and pondered whether or not to buy a computer mousepad featuring William’s Leech’s first wife disguised as a novice nun. Gold star: she liked the Britanny convent garden; black mark: she wasn’t convinced anyone’s mousepad need a nun on it, especially one who appeared to be gazing skywards towards a vision of celestial hosts. Hercules’ arrival acted as an instant solution – Molly abandoned the computer accessories, dithering terminated.
