Be Careful What You Wish For, page 35
‘There’s a useful lesson,’ said Helen. ‘The next time I leave you a note I’ll pop it in the fridge. In the meantime, the message was to let you know Fionn called.’
‘I can pick it up from the answerphone, it’s no big deal,’ shrugged Molly.
‘No, I mean called to the apartment. Forced his way in, more or less. He seemed convinced you were skulking around the corner avoiding him and had a case of the Doubting Thomases, bent on putting his fingers in the holes.’
Molly was thrilled by his insistence. ‘Pushy,’ she breathed.
‘Patrick thought he’d have to turn physical and eject him but he saw sense in the end,’ said Helen. ‘Look, I should tell you that I spotted him at the airport when I was collecting Patrick and he was in a clinch with a tall blonde.’
Molly waited for righteous indignation to sweep through her. It didn’t. She waited for the misery of the deposed to sweep through her. It didn’t. She waited for any emotion to sweep through her. It didn’t. This meant she was well and truly over Fionn McCullagh – even evidence of perfidy failed to move her. Then she realised she was clutching two halves of a pencil left by the phone message pad and carbon smears from the broken strip of wood were daubed on her hands. If Helen said ‘I told you so’ she’d tear the telephone out of the socket.
‘I’m sorry,’ murmured Helen.
That bit deeper. Molly felt submerged beneath an exhaustion more draining than she’d experienced in her life; as though she’d given birth without painkillers or spent a week weeding or been floored by a wayward blow to the gut.
‘I was semi-expecting it/ she lied. ‘His wife flew over from Seattle to retrieve him. She doesn’t sound like a woman who’s easily fobbed off. Think I’ll turn in now, Helen. I’ll give you a call tomorrow when I work out my off-duty and we can arrange to meet up.’
‘Are you sure you’re fine?’
‘Right as rain. Although what’s right about rain is beyond me. Right as sunshine would be nearer the mark. I’m rambling, negative sign. I’m going to make myself some herbal tea and adjourn to my boudoir. Good night, Helen.’
Helen was loath to allow her to disconnect; she sensed Molly was more devastated by Fionn’s betrayal than her blase response indicated. ‘Would you like me to drop by and have a cup of it with you?’
‘Thanks but no thanks. I’ll probably be dead to the world before the tea’s brewed.’
‘If you’re certain …’ Helen persisted.
‘Completely. Utterly. Absolutely. Speak to you tomorrow.’ Molly replaced the handset before Helen could fuss any more. Then she crumpled.
When she surfaced from the tears, nose threatening to disintegrate like an overblown rose, she thought: This serves me right for wishing I could make my mind up between Hercules and Fionn. Helga made her mind up first and beat me to it. Imagine losing him to her twice. I must be as dense as a peat briquette.’
Which didn’t comfort Molly in the least but at least it galvanised her into heaving herself to her feet and going to bed. With her clothes on.
Next morning at work Barry gestured her towards the vacant seat next to him.
‘Myself and some of the lads had a brainwave last night in The Kip,’ he said. ‘I’m just about to adjust all the numbers on the newsroom noticeboard. We’ve decided to rename the Garda Press Office the Garda Suppress Office because they’re so tight-lipped.’
‘And the rest,’ muttered Stephen on his way to the water cooler.
‘Inspirational,’ said Molly. ‘Are you going out for the coffees?’
‘Another twenty minutes and I’ll fetch them from the canteen. The classified girls will be on their breaks by then.’
‘Have you learned nothing from the past few weeks?’ Molly, wearing glasses because her eyes were too sore from weeping to risk contact lenses, rounded on an astonished Barry. ‘You were at your wits’ end – although, come to think of it, that wouldn’t take long – when Kay gave you your marching orders, and then two minutes after domestic harmony is restored you’re eyeing up girls half your age. You disgust me, Barry Dalton. I wouldn’t accept a coffee from you if my mental health depended on it.’
Stephen paused on his way back to the newsdesk to smirk at Barry’s discomfort.
‘And as for you,’ began Molly.
‘I’ve never lusted after an ad rep in my life, so help me God,’ protested Stephen. ‘I’m a happily married man.’
‘That’s a joke,’ said Molly. ‘You’re all happily married men. But that doesn’t stop you presenting yourself as idealists trapped within sterile marriages for the sake of the children when you’re in a dim corner of The Kip talking to any gullible little creature with a pair of bright eyes.’
Stephen drew himself up to his full five feet six inches and adopted his chief news editor demeanour. ‘Molly, I think you should remember whom you’re addressing.’
‘A happily married man – isn’t that the claim you just made?’ she said.
Barry forsook his fish expression and prodded Molly towards the back door.
‘Where are you taking me and why are you manhandling me?’ she demanded.
‘For coffee and for the sake of your career.’
‘Feck the career.’
‘For the sake of your mortgage then,’ Barry answered. ‘And since when did a politically correct person like yourself use expressions such as manhandle?’
The disdain that dripped from Molly would have withered a hardy perennial. ‘And since when did a woman like myself use expressions such as person-handle?’
Barry was impervious; Corkmen were accustomed to scornful women, he was fond of remarking. ‘If you continue in that vein I’ll start explaining to strangers you’re menopausal,’ he threatened, nudging her towards Cafe Aroma. ‘Now, you can tell me why you’re behaving like an unguided missile or you can tell me nothing, but we’re shooting caffeine into your system at the speed of light. Possibly nicotine too if current behaviour persists. I’ll make a decision on that further down the line.’
‘I don’t smoke any more,’ said Molly.
‘There’s smoke drifting from your nostrils from where I’m standing.’
Against her will, Molly giggled.
‘That’s better.’ Barry deposited her at a window table and went to the counter to order twin double espressos.
‘Espresso makes me jumpy,’ objected Molly.
‘Not as jumpy as you make me when you’re in this humour. So do you want to talk about it?’
‘Not really.’ Molly nodded her thanks to the teenager who placed coffee in front of her. ‘My life’s a disaster area and I don’t know where to appeal for humanitarian relief aid.’
‘I take it you mean your personal life.’ Barry’s eyes were kind behind his perennially smeared glasses.
Molly sipped at the espresso cream. ‘What else. I’m going to die old and unloved without anyone to leave flowers on my grave.’
‘You’re always insisting you want to be cremated.’
Molly removed her spectacles and laid them on the table between them. ‘Don’t be so literal, Barry, I’ll never manage a wallow with you correcting me at every turn around. Fionn’s gone back to his wife and he’s tormenting me to give him absolution. Well, I’m not doing it. I won’t see him to give him the satisfaction of thinking there’s no hard feelings because there are. I have grievances so solid about this you could quarry them.’ She spotted a pear-shaped coffee stain on her jacket and tutted. ‘I can’t even be bothered asking for a glass of cold water to attack that piece of clumsiness. It can stand as a symbol of the state my life is in.’
Barry went to the counter and returned with water and a wedge of paper napkins. Molly automatically dipped and rubbed.
‘He wasn’t the worst in the world. I’ve seen you with pond life lower than Fionn,’ said Barry, hand on his chin as he watched the mop-up.
‘He was as far down the food chain as it’s possible to date. Anyway, since when did you feel the impulse to defend Fionn McCullagh? The two of you were squaring up in my flat only a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Rush of blood to the head.’ Barry squirmed as he recalled his declarations to Molly. ‘I wasn’t in the whole of my health over this business with Kay.’
Molly thrust a note at Barry. ‘Fetch us some more coffees, filter ones this time. My system couldn’t negotiate another double espresso.’
She brooded while he placed the order.
‘There’s one thing I don’t understand here.’ Barry started to run his fingers through his hair but reconsidered because he’d combed it painstakingly to cover the spreading bald patch.
‘Only one? You’re streets ahead of me,’ snarled Molly, with a wet oblong the size of Inishbofin across her front.
Barry thought to himself that he could be reading newspapers, answering telephones, he could even be working. So how come he was sitting opposite a colleague who’d mutated into a porcupine? Oh yes, because she was a friend.
‘What I don’t understand,’ he tried again, ‘is why you’re so bothered about Fionn going back to his wife. I thought you were girded for it from the outset. Whatever happened to shag him and shake him off?’
‘That’s exactly the problem,’ Molly all but sobbed. ‘I was meant to do the dumping, not him.’
Pique, thought Barry.
Pig,’ said Barry. ‘A gentleman always allows the lady to believe she’s ending their relationship.’
‘I hate him,’ said Molly.
If she did there wouldn’t be half these histrionics, Barry reflected. He drank coffee, delighted with his cloudburst of insight into the female psyche. Perhaps all that drama with Kay had honed his intuition.
‘In a fortnight or so you’ll be over him, Molly. You’ll look back on the way you’re feeling today and be incredulous that he could churn you up like this,’ he counselled. Then he lobbed in what he considered to be the killer gem, one she’d thank him for in time. ‘And you know deep in your heart you’re better off without him.’
Molly scowled. She preferred Barry when he was ogling advertising girlies.
Fortunately her mobile phone rang before she selected a thorn from the briar patch on the tip of her tongue with which to prick Barry’s pomposity. It was Stephen, enquiring whether either of his reporters fancied doing some work that day.
‘And don’t tell me you’re meeting contacts because I know you and Dalton are gossiping over sticky buns in one or other of your coffeeshop haunts. Meanwhile, I have a newspaper that needs filling so make tracks back here pronto. And bring me a milky coffee while you’re about it.’
Molly pulled a face at Barry. ‘It’s il capo di tutti capi placing his order for coffee. Suppose we ought to head back.’
‘Suppose,’ agreed Barry. ‘Thought you were going to change that tune on your ringer. You said it was niggling you.’
‘Never found the time.’ She hurled the metallic blue phone back in her bag. ‘Life’s too short to sort out all your irks. Anyway, you need a few niggles to distract you from the predominant aggravations. Like your life swerving so far awry you can’t remember how to heave it back on track.’
They collected Stephen’s coffee and an apple slice to ingratiate themselves with him and strolled back through the GPO arcade to the office.
‘What is that tune on your mobile anyway? Is it a film score?’ asked Barry.
Molly snorted. Or it might have been an incipient sob. Some Day My Prince Will Come.
Helen was brimming over with verve. She compensated for previous weeks of inefficiency by lashing through outstanding work in a surfeit of energy. If Tony were there to observe it he’d have been impressed. However, he was on a couple of days’ leave, bringing honour to his country as he high-stepped his way through a dynamic mambo in competition in Reykjavik. Helen discovered she was humming as she worked. The last time she’d caught herself doing that was Christmas Eve when someone had brought a CD player into the office and she’d warbled along, word perfect, to Wham!’s Last Christmas.
‘You’re in fine fettle,’ commented Kevin Boylan at the desk next to her. ‘Did your Lotto numbers come up at the weekend?’
Helen decided against telling him only mares were in fine fettle and she wasn’t a horse the last time she’d checked in the mirror. Instead she responded: ‘You must be psychic. I netted a seven-figure pay-out. I’m torn between a Ferrari and a Corvette Stingray. Believe me, Kevin, every cloud has a base-metal lining. It’s wrecking my head trying to choose. And that’s only the wheels. Then it’s which island to buy. Let nobody convince you money strips a person of their responsibilities. There’s a mammoth onus to spend to the hilt.’
‘I know you’re joking, because you wouldn’t be here if you’d clicked on the Lotto.’ He looked anything but certain.
‘Just fulfilling my commitments before I pack my bags and jet off to the Caribbean. Now, I wonder where I left those holiday brochures.’ She rummaged in her briefcase and produced the instruction manual for her microwave, while Kevin craned to see what she was reading.
He relaxed. ‘You had me going for a minute there.’
Helen chortled. ‘I don’t even do the Lotto.’
‘Something has you trilling, all the same.’
‘Must be springtime and the sap rising.’
The arrival of the postboy concluded their exchange. Not that he ever had important communiqués to deliver – anything worth saying was transmitted by email – but they nevertheless ripped open their envelopes with misplaced expectancy.
‘There’s something different about you all the same today and I think I’ve worked out what’s responsible for the sparkle,’ said Kevin later. ‘You have a date tonight.’
‘I do,’ confirmed Helen.
He was wrong-footed by her ready agreement, expecting prevarication. If not icicles. ‘You do? I’ve never heard you mention dates before. Don’t tell me, we’re going to play the Lotto jackpot game. So the date’s with a rock star. Let’s see, who’s playing in the RDS this week. Is it with Jim Corr?’
Helen contemplated stringing him along but decided he was too easy a target. ‘It’s with my friend Molly. We’re going to eat noodles, drink Japanese beer and set the world to rights.’
‘Japanese beer is very useful for setting-the-world-to-rights sessions,’ said Kevin.
‘I usually have the plum wine in these noodle bars but Molly said I had to expand my horizons.’
‘Feel free to expand them in my direction if the impulse strikes you.’ His glance at Helen was so forlorn she hesitated to slap him down.
Instead she chuckled as though it were a jest instead of a borderline invitation and logged off from her computer.
Helen and Molly met on the doorstep of Doheny and Nesbitt’s, took one look at the heaving masses inside – who looked bound for a different kind of heaving soon enough from the amount of alcohol they were packing away – and by mutual consent exited simultaneously. They crossed the road to O’Donoghue’s, which was also cheek by jowl, although marginally less so.
‘If we’d any sense we’d have stayed north of the river,’ muttered Molly.
‘This is only down the road from the noodle emporium,’ Helen comforted her.
‘What’s a noodle emporium?’
‘An extra large noodle bar. Now stop glaring and I’ll buy you something alcoholic.’
Molly studied the bottles ranged along the back shelves of the bar for inspiration. ‘A bacardi and pineapple juice topped up with white lemonade,’ she decided.
‘You order it, I’m not asking for that. You’ll be wanting a cherry on a stick next.’
Molly added the cherry and a straw to her list of ingredients, the unshockable barman emitted indifference as he complied, and Helen succumbed to a blast of insanity and asked for the same.
‘This is revolting,’ she told Molly.
‘But in a “here comes summer” sort of way,’ said Molly. ‘Remember we still have to decide on our holiday hot-spot destination.’
Helen ignored the latter remark. ‘There was a hailstorm this afternoon. Summer’s being dilatory.’
‘All the more reason to toast it. Now, who goes first, your news or mine?’
‘I didn’t realise you had news, Molly. I expected the Spanish Inquisition about my weekend with Patrick. I have a bet with Kevin Boylan from work you’d be carrying thumbscrews in your shoulder bag.’
Molly bit her maraschino cherry in half and mumbled that she’d forgotten how delicious they tasted. ‘I’m not anticipating tying you down and injecting you with a truth potion. But it seemed natural to assume that since I supplied the venue there might be a quid pro quo.’
‘Molly,’ said Helen, drinking deeply for Dutch courage, ‘you can have three questions. The clock is ticking and away you go.’
Molly tapped a tooth with her fingernail. ‘Did you make love?’
‘No.’
‘Are you intending to?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happens next?’
‘You’re not a journalist for nothing.’ Helen retrieved her cherry by the stalk and dropped it into Molly’s glass. ‘We’re going away together. I’m handing in my notice as soon as Tony is back in the office on Thursday. Patrick resigned from his job today. I’m not going to sell my house, that seems rash, but I’ll rent it out and cover the mortgage.’ The smile wasn’t just coming from Helen’s lips but from her eyes, her cheeks, her nose, even her eyebrows; her face was one extended grin.
‘Where will you go?’ Dazed though she was, Molly managed to probe further.
‘That’s question number four.’ Helen was positively skittish as she tapped Molly’s wrist reprovingly. ‘But I’ll grant you leeway. We’re going to Australia. Patrick has a former colleague there with an accountancy firm who’s looking for a partner. I have enough saved to give us a couple of months’ grace and hopefully I should find work before too long. They must hire software programmers in Sydney as well as Dublin.’
Molly grabbed Helen by the arm and hauled her to her feet. ‘I need air or food or both.’
