Be Careful What You Wish For, page 8
‘They didn’t have it so spartan,’ she said. ‘St Benedict wrote that a pint of wine a day was ample per monk. I think I could manage very nicely on a similar allocation.’
‘How come you’re such an expert on the monastic life?’
‘Newspapers make you instant experts on the oddest subjects. I wrote a feature last week on the history of winemaking for the drinks column. Lucky for you that you caught me while the information is still at the top of the pile in my brain. By next week it will have been evicted to make room for the mating habits of sea birds or a history of Jewish persecution.’
Waiting for the barman to boil the kettle, Molly tapped her teeth with a mixture of vexation and attraction. There was a spark between herself and Fionn, she couldn’t deny it. But sparks could cause blazes to burn houses down. He was still a married man. Just because he and Helga were on a lay-off didn’t mean he could do his laying elsewhere. She was quite sure that wasn’t what Helga had in mind. Then again, the Scandinavians had rampaged through Ireland fairly thoroughly in the first millennium – their American descendants didn’t need to swoop down and scoop up all the available men in the third. That Helga sounded a right one. Although in fairness, admitted Molly, folding and unfolding a twenty-pound note, Fionn was biased. And not stupid. He’d make zero headway if he said: ‘She cooked cabbage and bacon to titillate my tastebuds and bought camisoles to titillate my appetite, but it wasn’t enough because I’m a self-centred animal.’ She cast a glance back at Fionn. He hadn’t even mentioned Helga; she might as well no longer exist for him. This buck took out of sight out of mind so literally his lady was in danger of being airbrushed out of existence. He’d pulled the same stunt on her.
On their second drink apiece, thawed by the combination of flames and whiskey, Fionn mentioned his wife.
‘I can’t believe how uncomplicated life is without Olga.’
Although crippled with curiosity and convinced he owed her at least a teaser in the gossip stakes, Molly found herself veering away from the subject. There’ll be no more walking this day.’ She indicated the hailstones bouncing off the nearest window. ‘So much for today being the opener for spring.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says the calendar. It’s the first of February, St Bridget’s Day.’
‘People must have been hardier in those days,’ said Fionn. ‘Most people date it from the March twenty-first equinox.’
‘We’ve gone soft since St Bridget was around running craft workshops and showing the locals how to make rush crosses to sell to the tourists,’ agreed Molly.
‘Soft, now that’s not a word you could apply to Olga.’ Fionn looked woebegone.
Molly resigned herself to a deconstruction of the concept of marriage, as experienced by Fionn McCullagh. She preferred to believe in happily ever afters, even for people who swanned off to have their happily ever after with someone else instead of her. Four years ago she’d have climbed on a table and cheered if she could have gazed into a crystal ball and witnessed Fionn telling her his marriage was a mistake and she was the one he truly loved. But four years equals 48 months, equals more than 200 weeks equals – pause for calculation – nearly 1500 days. And she didn’t want to hear a melancholy story on a storm-lashed day – or any other day for that matter.
Molly had experienced a surfeit of sorrow during the months following his rejection, when she closed down everything but the essential life-support system, and trailed vacantly from one day to the next. Helen had been predictably solid and Barry had been a rock too, cajoling her out for drinks and listening to her whine about being finished with love. Finished off by love. Even as she’d said it a spark of common sense had stirred within her and she’d realised she was talking nonsense. But she’d formed the words anyway and allowed Barry to pat her awkwardly, clearly horrified at being the recipient of so much naked emotion but determined to be supportive.
Now Molly only half-listened to Fionn’s account of how two into one wouldn’t go, swirling the honey-coloured liquid around in her glass. She inhaled: hot whiskeys always reminded her of being ill as a little girl, when her mother would add a teaspoonful of whiskey to sugar and warm milk to cosset her. ‘Time to mollycoddle my girl,’ she’d say. Suddenly she was suffused with an urge to ring her mother for a chat; she hadn’t been home since Christmas and she missed her. No lover, no friend, was endowed with the capacity to envelop her in unconditional love the way her mother could. She’d go home to Derry at the weekend and take her to lunch somewhere smart where her mother would have the satisfaction of being scandalised by the prices.
Fionn was still talking, some drivel about Olga being so consumed by her job as an interior decorator that she sidelined their relationship, and Molly drained her glass. She must be wearing an appropriately sympathetic expression because he didn’t falter as he unburdened himself of his saga; not much of a page turner but he was mesmerised by it – and he knew the ending already. All those years as a junior reporter sitting through council meetings without nodding off from the undiluted tedium were paying dividends; he hadn’t spotted how deep into her zero-interest zone he was plodding.
‘So we decided we’d take a three-month break from each other. I’ve come home to see if I can find work here and Olga is considering whether she could live in Dublin.’
Molly was so rattled she tore the menu she’d been covertly studying with a view to ordering lunch. That was more or less the same arrangement he’d made with her. The man was utterly devoid of tact.
‘But I don’t anticipate us ever being reunited, Molly. Now that I’m away from Olga I’m able to see what an ill-matched couple we were. We have nothing in common. Being with you reminds me what it’s like to spend time in the company of someone you feel wholly at ease with. Sorry if I’m being precipitate here. I don’t want to presume anything on your part, you haven’t even told me if you’re involved with someone else. But just being with you, Molly –’ he allowed his eyes to mist over at this point. She thought about offering him a tissue for his snivelly cold but reluctantly vetoed the idea – ‘allows me to recognise how sterile my life has become. And I’ve missed Dublin. She’s grown up since I’ve been away and I want to check out all the adult bumps and curves the old girl has acquired.’ He ran his fingers through his hair so that it stood up in spikes, a gesture she remembered, although he was wearing the hair shorter now and – could it be, yes – she did believe it was thinning at the crown. The sight of Fionn’s scalp cheered her inordinately.
We should order something to eat, thought Molly, deciding it was a better idea to use her menu for that purpose rather than the one she’d been contemplating: slapping Fionn McCullagh on the back of his legs with it for vacating her life for four years, not so much as a postcard, then reappearing and assuming she was his for a brace of hot whiskeys.
‘I’m ravenous. Shall we see if they can rustle up some food?’ Her face was deliberately bland.
Fionn radiated disappointment at her studied non-reaction to his résumé of the marital minefield but he stepped up to the bar to order a spinach and blue cheese pasta and a shepherd’s pie, with chips to share, the latter suggested by him.
Molly was reminded of Helen’s joke: How do you know an Irishman fancies you? He offers to buy you chips. Helen would be so-o disapproving if she knew Molly were seeing Fionn again. She’d been a little too enthusiastic about wading into him when he and Molly split up. Make that split asunder, it conveyed a more accurate impression of their parting. Anyway, Helen always had reservations about Fionn’s charms so she wasn’t an honest broker. Molly lifted her empty glass. Closer inspection revealed that, yes, it was still empty.
Fionn, meanwhile, was trying to attract the barman’s attention – easier said than done with a coachload of indecisive Swiss punters. Molly used the hiatus to contemplate what she’d learned about him. Fionn was single-ish, available and no less attractive or entertaining than he had been four years ago when she thought their destinies were interwoven. So why wasn’t she twining her arms around him saying, ‘You poor dear, how you’ve suffered,’ and offering to soothe his woes away? Was it rancour because he’d once measured her, computed the statistics and discarded her? Or perhaps she’d outgrown him …
Molly regarded his rear view as he leaned on the counter, conversing with the barman, who’d discovered he wasn’t among the Swiss party and all but fallen on his neck in gratitude. He was easy on the eye, easy on the ear too when he wasn’t hammering on about Helga. Available men weren’t that common; she shouldn’t be profligate about discarding one until she was certain whether she wanted him or not. He gave every indication of wanting her, which was balm enough at the moment. If in doubt, hang on to a man – that seemed a sensible maxim.
When Fionn returned to their bench, the decision was taken. Molly treated him to a dazzling smile, gave her head a shake so the curls spiralled in every direction and allowed her leg to rest ever so slightly against his.
‘Lunchtime’s been and gone.’ He was apologetic. ‘All they have left are the day-long breakfasts so I ordered us two of those. You haven’t turned vegetarian in the last couple of years, have you? I wondered if you might, on account of asking for pasta.’
‘Only aspirationally,’ she replied. ‘I like the notion of it. All my veggie friends are shaped like carrot batons, even the ones fixated on chocolate, but I never have the willpower to reject a rasher when I see it nestling beside a fried egg on my plate. It seems so fastidious. I’ve never thought my body was a temple; I’d be more inclined to call it a supermarket if I had to put the name of a building to it. Crammed with an interesting mish-mash, nothing hallowed.’
‘Helga, I mean Olga, was vegan,’ said Fionn. ‘She didn’t like seeing me eat meat. She took all the good out of it. You’d have a nice pink lump of steak on your fork, poised to chew and savour, and she’d embark on a lecture about food additives.’ He reached his arm around the back of the settle so it was draped behind Molly.
She was dubious. ‘But the one time I saw Helga she struck me as your standard issue warrior queen, all huge and healthy and looking as though she gnawed raw meat for breakfast.’
‘No, she ate muesli, not shop-bought but blended to her own specification. I had to have muesli too, to humour her.’ Injury sluiced from Fionn.
Molly guffawed; his suffering demeanour intensified. ‘I’m sorry,’ she spluttered, ‘it’s just the thought of you spooning in the muesli, when the only cereals you’d allow into the flat when we lived together were Coco Pops, for the colour they turned the milk. It can only have been love.’
‘Affection soon withers when it’s reciprocated on a tough-love basis: “I’m doing this for your own good, hon.” She wanted to take control of every aspect of my life: diet, wardrobe, hobbies, even my dental treatment. Can you believe this, Molly, she sent me to her orthodontist to have him service my teeth? She said they were a disgrace and she was ashamed to be seen in public with me.’
‘They always looked fine to me,’ said Molly.
‘They were fine. By Irish standards. But American requirements are more exacting. So I was obliged to spend a fortune getting my overbite fixed –’ he chomped enamel for the purposes of demonstration – ‘and she still pleaded with me to smile without baring my teeth. I looked like a hirsute Mona Lisa. Without the frock, naturally.’
‘Although you’d have been wearing one of those if Helga had decided trousers were symbolic of male superiority.’ Mischief gleamed from Molly’s face.
Fionn’s eyebrows met and bristled. ‘That woman had more testosterone than me. It’s only now that I’m free of her I realise how controlling she was.’ Even his eyelashes were bristling at this stage. ‘And talk about law-abiding – if I so much as tried to jaywalk she threw a wobbler. Result: I’ll only cross when the little red man flashes up now.’
How did we work our way back to the subject of Helga? wondered Molly. This was becoming monotonous. Someone should explain to the man that women turned restless when the subject was other women. Fortunately their mixed grills arrived so Fionn’s substandard overbite was diverted into decimating Clonakilty black pudding.
On their way home, driving against the commuter traffic streaming out of Dublin, Molly considered asking him into her apartment. The day hadn’t been a washout despite the weather and Fionn McCullagh still interested her. But as they passed the off-licence she found herself craning to check if Hercules was on duty. She could always parade in there with Fionn, demonstrate how other men wanted to spend time in her company even if he couldn’t be bothered exchanging pleasantries, but she rejected the idea as petty. Nevertheless Molly said goodbye to Fionn with considerably less regret than she felt at abandoning the possibility of showing Hercules she was a sought-after woman.
Fionn was disappointed she didn’t invite him in. ‘I promise not to outstay my welcome,’ he wheedled.
Arrogant streak. One of his less alluring characteristics.
Molly planted a kiss on his ear. ‘You can’t do that if you aren’t in the apartment to begin with. I have work to finish off tonight, Fionn. I’ll call you in a few days.’
In fact she wanted to ring her mother and then flop on the floor cradling the TV remote control but she wasn’t going to tell him that. He’d probably suggest they sit in together and watch Coronation Street. But he wasn’t Tweedledee to her Tweedledum. Fionn McCullagh could play house with her when she chose and not a minute sooner. However she’d no intention of slinging out the baby with the bath water. Valentine’s Day was on the horizon and she was looking into the maws of her first 14 February since the age of fifteen without a love token.
Molly wasn’t about to scuttle her best chance of a bunch of roses and a soppy card. Let’s be honest, her only chance.
CHAPTER 7
Helen willed her phone into life but it remained obstinately mute. She tried out some of the positive thinking technique she’d been reading about to see if that made a difference, visualising her number being dialled, fingers pressing the digits and herself answering. Still Patrick didn’t call her. It was ironic, she grumped, preparing to channel excess nervous energy into vacuuming, she spent more than a week avoiding his calls and now she was pining for them. Maybe the phone was off the hook – she jiggled the receiver to ensure it was operating. In a fit of rage she dragged the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard and plonked it in the middle of the living-room floor. She was disgusted at herself, behaving like a moonstruck teenager instead of a modern, capable woman.
The cleaner howled spitefully into life. But Helen had scarcely tackled the stairs before a realisation struck that made her switch off precipitately and return it to the cupboard: she wouldn’t be able to hear the phone above its drone. Even as she humped the machine back to its hidey-hole she berated herself for waiting around for Patrick to call. If she was a modern, capable woman why couldn’t she ring him herself? She ventured into the visualisation game again, this time with her taking the initiative, but when she reached the part where he said ‘Hello’ she caved in and admitted she couldn’t manage it. Maybe her modernity was only skin deep. Or it could be that she didn’t trust herself to make contact with him.
She was engulfed by a mental picture of his lips slithering along her neck, and panicked. What household chore could she embark on that would be both quiet and therapeutic? Perhaps polishing – she liked the lavender smell of the spray and the shapes you could draw with the foaming contents of the aerosol. Like a P for Patrick …
Her doorbell rang before she managed the first squirt. Still clutching the can she answered it – to be confronted by a ceramic pot of snowdrops on her doorstep with a luggage label attached and her name penned in violet ink. She hunted for a note but there wasn’t one. As she stooped to grasp the pot, its concave centre encircled by a gauzy lilac ribbon, Patrick moved into her field of vision and spoke.
‘Let me give you a hand with that. You look far too delicate to carry an ungainly weight.’
Helen dropped the aerosol.
‘It’s not that heavy, to be honest, but I’d still like to carry it in for you.’ Patrick lifted both spray can and snowdrops, and stood aside to allow her precede him into the house.
‘So, Helen.’ He rested himself with such ease on one of her sofas he appeared to be a permanent fixture. She marvelled at the music his voice created, transforming a name she’d never particularly liked before. ‘So, Helen, what have you been doing since our walk in the park?’
‘Fretting.’ She made no effort to disguise her agitation.
His face creased into worry lines. ‘I’m sorry for being such a pest the other day. I don’t know what came over me, practically demanding you invite me to your place. I just didn’t want to let you go. I’m here to apologise.’
So his idea of a mea culpa was to turn up anyway. A novel approach. But she was too beguiled by the unexpected sight of him to voice an objection. Nonsense, of course she could protest; she took a deep breath and managed an approximation.
‘Shouldn’t you be in London planning a wedding with your fiancée?’
‘You’re right, I should. Treat me as a mirage.’ Patrick pulled off his flying jacket and tossed it on the arm of the sofa. Helen noticed the zip was coming adrift at the bottom and smothered an impulse to sew it up for him – she wasn’t his mother.
‘I see neither hide nor hair of you for three years and now you’re back twice in a matter of weeks. Miriam must think it strange.’
Patrick shrugged. ‘A man’s entitled to go home.’
‘Dublin’s not your home.’
It blazed out more jaggedly than she’d have chosen but the acerbity of her denial couldn’t detract from its truth. Nevertheless she regretted it when rejection flared in his eyes. Then they clouded over and strayed around the room, ingesting its contents, lingering at a windowsill on a framed photograph of three children: two little girls in tartan skirts and buckled shoes with their smaller brother sandwiched between them, a pudgy hand clasped in each. His gaze seesawed from the younger of the two girls to Helen and back again.
