Be Careful What You Wish For, page 37
The new tenants would be moving in at the weekend, a couple from work. That’s why she hadn’t needed the letting agent. She’d been on nodding terms with Lorraine and Ted for a year or so and preferred to leave her home in the care of people she knew. Matching suitcases and a flight bag rested against a sofa. So much for the adage about having no more possessions than you can carry on your back. Then again, life had a way of tricking you into acquiring goods and chattels. For the twenty-third time she checked the window for a taxi drawing up, considered ringing the firm to confirm it was on its way but obliged herself to be patient. It wasn’t due for another ten minutes. She couldn’t sit, so she paced the living room and replayed her strained conversation of a few days earlier with Geraldine.
‘But you never mentioned emigrating when we spoke in Galway,’ Geraldine whined.
‘It was an opportunity that came up unexpectedly. There was a vacancy with a sister firm in Oz that needed filling urgently. I only had a week to make up my mind.’
‘But you can’t even give me an address.’ Geraldine was testy. ‘You’re behaving in a most peculiar fashion, Helen. One minute you’re inviting me to Dublin for the weekend, the next you’re jetting off to Australia and I’ve no way of knowing when I’ll see you again.’
Helen avoided pointing out that the sisters weren’t exactly confidantes; instead she placated Geraldine with false promises about sending her an address and dangled the prospect of a holiday which would never happen. Patrick wasn’t mentioned until the end, when Geraldine asked: ‘Any word on our brother’s wedding plans?’
‘Not a sausage,’ lied Helen.
‘Maybe I should ring him, establish the state of progress.’
Helen didn’t want Geraldine talking to Miriam and discovering that Patrick was also going to Australia.
‘I’d leave it, Geraldine. You know Patrick doesn’t care to be interrogated about his movements. He’ll give us dates and details when he’s ready.’
‘I suppose.’ Geraldine’s acquiescence was begruding but at least she agreed and Helen ended the conversation on the pretext of another call beeping on the line.
She twisted her watch around her wrist to read the dial and decided if the taxi weren’t with her in two minutes she’d phone the company. A knock on the door forestalled her. It was Molly, breathless and perspiring.
‘Caught you. Decided to share the taxi with you to the airport,’ she panted.
‘We said our goodbyes over a meal and a bottle of bubbly yesterday.’ Helen was touched.
‘I know, but I wanted to wave you off.’ Molly slumped on the arm of the sofa. ‘I thought I’d left it too late when I switched my alarm off and rolled over to sleep again but I belted down to the DART and there was a train on the platform. Have I time for a cold drink?’
‘No, taxi’s pulling up. Could you manage one of those suitcases while I dead-lock the front door.’ Helen dropped her keys, picked them up and dropped them again, but finally the cab was hugging the coastline into town.
‘I really appreciate this.’ Helen squeezed Molly’s hand as they sailed across the roundabout on the airport perimeter.
‘What are friends for,’ Molly responded. She hoped she wasn’t going to bawl; airports always made her feel lachrymose but there was the added misery of losing the best friend she was ever likely to have. And to a future that could only be viewed as clandestine. If it weren’t for Fionn in her life, reassuringly loving, she’d be weeping for herself as well as Helen.
‘There’s no need to come in,’ said Helen to Molly, producing her purse to pay the taxi-driver.
‘I want to see you on the plane,’ insisted Molly. ‘You’re stuck with me until Passport Control.’
Helen smiled but Molly was unable to return it.
At the Aer Lingus check-in desk Helen was handed a note instructing her to ring a number urgently. She scrabbled for coins and Molly reached her mobile to her.
‘I don’t recognise the number.’ Trepidation accelerated her pulse as she dialled the London code. Patrick answered it on the second peal; it was the direct line into his office.
‘Miriam discovered what we were planning,’ he explained, voice stealthy.
‘Why aren’t you in mid-air?’ Helen asked. ‘I’m at the airport. I was about to check in my bags when I received your message. I didn’t know what was wrong.’
‘I’m telling you what’s wrong. Miriam learned what we intended. She threatened to tell my employers, the police, Geraldine, the village priest back home in Ballydoyle; she warned she’d take out an ad in the newspaper. She was hysterical. I had to promise not to go. At least not for now. I’d never be allowed to take up that position in Sydney.’
Helen listened dully to the words as they washed over her. She knew she should feel something – grief, betrayal, anything – but was conscious only of a flight information screen with flashing ‘now boarding’ lights for Budapest and Paris.
She tuned back in to Patrick, who was explaining this was only a delay, it didn’t mean their plans were scrapped. He’d gone into work that morning, persuaded the boss to tear up his resignation letter and he’d start planning another escape route for them. Maybe Ecuador after all.
‘Why were you still living with Miriam? Why didn’t you move out into a hotel after we made our decision?’ Helen sounded strangely unaltered to her own ears; you’d imagine there’d be a physical manifestation of the ground crumbling beneath your feet – a crack in the voice, at least, to match the chasm that had opened up. She ignored Molly’s frantic eye signals appealing for information.
‘Good question.’ Patrick sighed. ‘Unfortunately I don’t have a good answer. I was being cowardly – I only told her last night.’
‘You mean you allowed her to carry on for a month believing everything was fine between the two of you and the wedding plans were on track?’
Patrick didn’t respond.
‘You did, didn’t you?’ Helen insisted.
‘Yes.’
‘And how did she realise you were leaving her for me?’
‘She wormed it out of me that there was another woman. You wouldn’t believe the night we had, Helen. We sat through it crying and shouting and demolishing china. She even went for me with a pair of scissors – I didn’t think she had so much passion in her. Anyway, she said something about you – she knows how attached we are to one another. I stupidly thought she realised more than she did and gave the game away. Basically she’s blackmailing me not to go to you. I’m uncertain if it’s because she imagines I’ll stay with her or if it’s because if she can’t have me then nobody can.’
‘You could always try calling her bluff.’ Helen was hesitant but she made the suggestion anyway.
Patrick vetoed it instantly. ‘The woman’s deranged. She’d hound us, Helen. No, we have to draw breath and think this through. I’m not giving up on us but we need to pause a while.’
Helen focused on the flight information screen, now blinking a boarding light for Berlin. She’d never been to Germany, she realised. She’d travelled as far afield as Singapore but had never made it to a country just a few hours’ flying time away.
‘Helen? Helen, are you still there?’ Patrick’s voice whimpered in her ear.
‘Goodbye, Patrick. Have a happy life. I won’t be part of it.’ She pressed the disconnect button.
Molly’s face was a question mark.
‘Creative ambiguities,’ said Helen, and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder.
CHAPTER 27
The gilt-edged wedding invitation arrived in the post with no prior warning.
Jenny Stewart-Browne and Patrick Sharkey
request the pleasure of
Helen Sharkey and guest
at their marriage in Rotherburn Parish Church, York
on June 26th at midday
and afterwards at the Old Coach House.
Helen studied it: the RSVP was to Patrick’s old address in Camden Town, which meant he’d never moved. Same address, different girlfriend – he was useless on his own. Their last conversation had been two years previously at Dublin airport; she hadn’t seen him since then. The time Helen labelled her Nearly Phase, when she’d nearly turned her life on its head, nearly left her home and job, nearly made a mistake – or not. She had no way of knowing.
Life was … stabilised now. She was still in the same house and working for the same firm, except she had Tony’s job since he’d been head-hunted by a rival outfit. There was no man in her life but she had a sister in it; she made the effort to spend time with Geraldine and virtue had to be its own reward because she discovered that beneath her sister’s prickly shell was a prickly individual. But one who nevertheless displayed occasional flashes of humour and whose company could be stimulating. Of course it could also be downright tedious but she only had the one sister, she may make the best of it.
Helen crumpled Patrick’s wedding invitation in the kitchen bin and sighed as she realised Geraldine would harass her to go to York for the occasion. Well, she could plague her as much as she liked, Helen intended to be in Timbuktu if not Xanadu when 26 June wore around.
‘Why not Quito?’ she suggested to the packet of break-fast cereals, and when it didn’t put up an argument she decided to make enquiries at a travel agency during her lunch break.
The phone rang.
‘I hope you haven’t forgotten you’re coming to the antenatal clinic with me at lunchtime.’ It was Molly.
‘No,’ fibbed Helen. ‘I’ll be at the Rotunda at twelve thirty. How’s my godchild-to-be?’
‘Alive and kicking, especially the kicking.’
‘Have you settled into the new house yet? Worked out how to operate the dishwasher and appointed a cupboard for storing the crisps in and another for the baked beans?’
‘Fionn’s the organiser,’ said Molly, ‘I’m leaving all that to him. All I need to locate is the television remote control because it’s too awkward to heave my vast bulk off the sofa when I want to change channels. Only one more week of work, thank heavens, then I can submit to the waves of sloth which are even now threatening to engulf me. I can’t bend down to paint my toenails any more. Fionn sat me on the edge of the kitchen table and did them for me last night.’
‘There’s devotion. What sort of a fist did he make of it?’
‘Not half bad. If this boyfriend of mine is ever made redundant as an architect I think we could set him up in business as a visiting beautician. Perhaps himself and Kay Dalton could go into partnership together. Barry’s mad keen on entrepreneurial schemes at the moment. After twenty-odd years in journalism it’s finally hit him that he’ll never make his fortune from newspapers – unless he raises the finances to buy one, which is as likely as –’
‘Patrick’s getting married. An invitation came in this morning’s post.’ Helen heard Molly’s intake of breath.
‘Are you going?’
‘No, I’ve decided to honour a prior commitment to kick up my heels in Quito.’
‘How do you feel, Helen?’
‘Sad, relieved, regretful, a pick ‘n’ mix of emotions. I don’t suppose I’ll ever marry. I can’t believe he’s able to shrug off our past so readily. Or maybe, unfortunately, I can. Anyway it seems as though it happened a long time ago to another person.’
Molly detected the loneliness in Helen’s voice and wished she could find some way to mitigate it. ‘I suppose it’s useless telling you we have a new chief sub who’s single – well, divorced – with all his own teeth and hair, and a fleeting resemblance to Patrick Bergin. Play your cards right and yours could be the face that launches a thousand headlines.’
‘How fleeting a similarity to Patrick Bergin?’
‘Imagine a jowlier, shorter brother. But I don’t know why I’m even mentioning it, or the fact that he’ll be in The Kip on Friday night, because you never agree to meet any of the men I suggest.’ Molly’s tone waxed towards indignation until she recalled Helen’s wedding invitation.
‘I’m happy as I am,’ insisted Helen. ‘Work’s going well. Sure they throw so much money at me I don’t know what to spend it on, never mind contemplate cashing in the share options. I’m looking forward to a goddaughter to fritter some cash on.’
‘Or godson.’ Molly felt obliged to enter the addendum, although both were convinced she was carrying a girl.
‘A godson will equally require bribes on the strict understanding that in years to come he’ll visit me in my bath chair in the old folks’ home. Possibly liberate me for a couple of hours every Christmas morning for a glass of sherry in the bosom of his family.’
‘So that’s how it works,’ marvelled Molly.
‘Indeed. Now I have work to go to even if you can use your pregnancy as an excuse to turn up late, Molly Molloy. I’ll see you at the entrance to the Rotunda.’
Helen registered a wave of discontent as she fished out her briefcase from behind the sofa. The signs of affluence were more visible in her home now – a couple of paintings where framed prints had once hung; a pair of two-seater green chesterfields instead of elderly couches covered in cream throws. A silver Beetle was parked outside her front door. But her life wasn’t exactly enthralling. She could only work so many hours … and then what?
She retraced her steps to the kitchen and ferreted out Patrick’s wedding invitation. If he could press the fast forward button on life, why couldn’t she?
‘It still hurts, that’s why,’ she whispered.
Helen flipped open her briefcase and extracted a photograph from the back pocket. Patrick and herself grinned at the lens. He’d taken it that time she’d borrowed Molly’s apartment, holding the camera at arm’s length and snapping them both. It was slightly out of focus but their happiness was palpable.
Patrick was everything she’d ever wanted in a man. But then nobody was allowed to have everything, Helen reminded herself. Only last year she bought herself a gaudily painted wooden parrot as an aide-mémoire and kept it on her desk at work: its plumage was a sight to behold but it squawked. That’s how nature operated and life took its cue from her.
‘Defective dreams,’ moped Helen, replacing the photograph in her briefcase.
Turning the ignition in the car, a thought struck her with such impetus that it winded her and she had to leave the engine idling while she digested it. People were given second chances – look at Molly and Fionn – why not dreams? They could be straightened out and tweaked in another direction. What was missing was the will to dream them. But she honestly wasn’t certain if she had it in her.
Helen checked her rear-view mirror and pulled out, lecturing herself as she drove. So she wasn’t likely to have the happy ending she’d have chosen for herself. But she didn’t need to wallow all her life either. She could meet this chief sub-editor of Molly’s on Friday, that would be a start. He might not be her knight in shining armour but she didn’t think she could fit one of those fellows clanking into her living room, horse and all. Molly’s colleague might distract her for an hour or a month. And if he didn’t she’d be no worse off.
Helen swung her briefcase in her hand as she left her company car in its reserved parking space, an executive perk, and tested out the notion of meeting a man. It didn’t seem utterly impossible. Maybe she could do it. If she could fly off to Quito on her own for a holiday she should be able to manage a drink with a person of the male persuasion. She imagined Molly’s delight at lunchtime if she told her she was free to grace The Kip with her presence after all.
‘A Patrick Bergin lookalike,’ said Helen, ‘that’s promising. Just keep telling yourself, there’s more than one Patrick in the world.’
She rolled the words around on her tongue, wondering if she believed them. Wishing she could. Faltering over wishing for anything.
‘There’s more than one Patrick in the world.’
Say the words and make them come true.
If you enjoyed Be Careful What You Wish For, check out these other great Martina Devlin titles.
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About the Author
MARTINA DEVLIN was born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone. She now lives in Dublin, where she works as a reporter and columnist for the Irish Independent. In 1996 she won a Hennessy Cognac Literary Award for her short story, ‘Confessions’. Her first novel, Three Wise Men, was an instant bestseller in Ireland last year.
Acclaim for Martina Devlin’s THREE WISE MEN:
‘I’m in awe. Three Wise Men is a great book: well written, engrossing, believable, compelling. This is my Ireland, these are the women I know, a million miles from the way women traditionally have appeared in Irish fiction. Victims, martyrs – I don’t think so! Martina Devlin draws friendship and love, with its attendant comforts and pains, with unflinching honesty. And into the bargain, it’s funny!’ MARIAN KEYES
‘A lovely first novel. Martina Devlin immediately grabs your heart.’ JILLY COOPER
Also by the Author
Three Wise Men
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © Martina Devlin 2001
Martina Devlin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
