This Charming Man

  But it wasn’t him at all! Instead it was Spanish John, his driver. Knew him well because he sometimes collected and delivered me to Paddy. Although he had never been less than cordial to me, was quite frightened of him. A big, bulky type, who looked as if he could snap your neck in two as if it were a chicken wing in barbecue sauce.

  ‘Spanish John,’ I beseeched, ‘I need to see Paddy. Let me in, I’m begging you.’

  He shook head and rumbled, ‘Go home, Lola.’

  ‘Is she up there with him?’ I asked.

  Spanish John was a master of discretion (and not Spanish). All he said was, ‘Come on, Lola, I’ll drop you home.’

  ‘She is up there!’

  Gently, almost kindly, he steered me away from the door and towards Paddy’s Saab.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said huffily. ‘I’ve my own car, I can drive myself.’

  ‘Good luck, Lola,’ he said. With finality.

  Such finality emboldened me to ask the question which I’d always wanted to know the answer to.

  ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘I’ve always wondered. Why do they call you Spanish John when you’re not Spanish?’

  For a moment I thought he would step forward and do a very painful karate chop on me, then he seemed to relent. ‘Just look at me.’ He pointed to his red hair, white fizzog and many freckles. ‘Did you ever see anyone who looks less Spanish?’

  ‘Ah.’ I understood. ‘Irony?’

  ‘Or possibly sarcasm. Never sure of distinction.’

  Tuesday night, later still

  That was it, had been turned away from Paddy’s door, like a smelly beggar.

  Sanity returned like a bucket of cold water thrown in my face and I was scandalized by my behaviour. I’d been like a mentally ill person. Deranged. Stalking Paddy. Yes, Bridie was right. Stalking him.

  And I was appalled at the way I’d treated Bridie. Asking for a flask of soup. Where would Bridie get soup? Then refusing to tell her the gate code and hanging up on her. Bridie was a concerned friend!

  I saw how mad I’d been, and the worst thing of all – while in the grip of my lunacy, I’d been convinced that I was perfectly sane. The final blow.

  Couldn’t go on like this, not eating, not sleeping, making a shambles of work, treating friends like servants and driving around the city without due care and attention…

  I drove to Bridie’s house. She was in her pyjamas and glad to see me.

  I apologized profusely for the sleeping-bag business, then the gate-code business.

  ‘Accepted,’ Bridie said. ‘Accepted. So what’s up?’

  ‘I’ve made a decision,’ I said. ‘Have decided to pack up my life and move to the end of the earth. To a place with no reminders of Paddy. You have a globe, haven’t you?’

  ‘Er, yes…’

  (From studying geography when she was at school. She never throws anything away.)

  On Bridie’s globe the end of the earth (from Ireland) was New Zealand. Fine. That would do. I believed they had lovely scenery. I could go on a Lord of the Rings tour.

  But Bridie was the voice of reason. ‘New Zealand is costly to get to,’ she said. ‘Also very far away.’

  ‘But that is the very point,’ I said. ‘I have to get far away from here, so I don’t see Alicia’s picture every time I go to buy a bar of chocolate, or hear about Paddy on evening news, not that I watch evening news – God, it’s so depressing, apart from that thing about the hens, did you see it?’

  ‘What about Uncle Tom’s cabin?’ Barry suggested. Barry was also in his pyjamas.

  Uncle Tom’s cabin was a holiday home that Bridie’s uncle Tom had in County Clare. Had been there for Treese’s hen weekend. Broke many things. (Not me personally, just between the lot of us.)

  ‘That’s remote,’ Barry said.

  ‘It doesn’t even have telly!’ Bridie agreed. ‘But if you go mental all on your own, you can be home in three hours, since they’ve opened the Kildare bypass.’

  (The Kildare bypass is the best thing to ever happen to Bridie’s extended family, as many of them live in Dublin but love Uncle Tom’s cabin. It knocks forty-five minutes off the drive, Bridie’s dad says. But what do I care? I am thirty-one and, if I don’t kill myself, am likely to live another forty years. I can spend all that time sitting in a traffic jam outside Kildare and it will make no difference to anything.)

  ‘Thank you for kindly offer,’ I said. ‘But I can’t stay in Uncle Tom’s cabin for ever. Some of your family might want to use it.’

  ‘They won’t, it’s the end of the summer. Look,’ she said. ‘Your heart is broken and you feel like you’ll never get over it. But you will and then you’ll be sorry you moved to New Zealand and threw away your business here. Why not go to Clare for a couple of weeks to recuperate? Get Nkechi to keep things ticking over at work. How’s your schedule at the moment? Busy?’

  ‘No.’ Not just because jobs kept being cancelled, but because of the time of year. I’d finished all the autumn/winter wardrobes for private clients – busy, rich women, who had no time to shop but needed to look stylish, businesslike, pulled-together. The next demanding time would be the Christmas party season, which kicked off the minute Hallowe’en was out of the way. There was no need to start on it for a couple of weeks. I mean, there was always work which could be done. I could be taking buyers from Brown Thomas and Costume and other good shops to lunch so they would earmark their best dresses for me and not for other stylists. Cut-throat business, styling. Really vicious. Only so many good clothes to go around and the competition is fierce. People don’t realize. They think it’s all great girly fun, wafting around with expensive frocks, making everyone look fabulous. Far from it.

  Bridie said, ‘And when you come back, if things are as bad as ever, then you can go to New Zealand.’

  ‘I know when I am being humoured, Bridie. The laugh will be on other side of your fizzog when I am living in a nice little house in Rotorua. However, I will accept your kindly offer.’

  Even later still

  Driving home

  Suddenly realized that Bridie’s pyjamas were not in fact pyjamas but strange ‘leisure’ pants for lounging in at home. Mail-order. Would swear to it. Under normal circumstances the shock would have swerved me off the road and straight into a pole. Even as things were, I was pretty disturbed. Next she’ll be wearing them out in public. She needed to be taken in hand. Barry should have a word but, now that I remembered, he was also wearing a pair. He was her enabler. She would never get help as long as he was encouraging her.

  Wednesday, 3 September 10.00

  Went to my ‘office’ (Martine’s Patisserie). I would have worked from home but my home was too small. That was the price you paid for living in the city centre. (Another price was drunken men having grunty wrestling matches outside your bedroom window at 4 a.m.)

  I ordered hot chocolate and an apricot Danish. Normally I loved apricot Danishes so much, I had to ration myself. I could eat ten in a row, no bother. But today the jammy glaze looked revolting and the apricot stared up at me like a baleful eye. Had to push it away. I took a sip of my hot chocolate and immediately wanted to vomit.

  Bell tinged. The arrival of Nkechi. Everyone looked. Plenty to look at. Nigerian, excellent posture, braids hanging all the way down her back, very long legs, then a really quite large bottom perched on top of them. But Nkechi never tried to hide her bottom. She was proud of it. Fascinating to me. Irish girls’ lives were a constant quest for bottom-disguising or bottom-reducing clothing tactics. We can learn much from other cultures.

  Nkechi, although young (twenty-three), is a genius. Like the time Rosalind Croft (wife of dodgy rich bloke Maxwell Croft) was going to a benefit dinner at the Mansion House. The neckline on her dress was so fashion-forward that none of the jewellery was working with it. We tried everything. A nightmare! Mrs Croft was about to ring up and cancel, when Nkechi said, ‘I have it!’ And whipped off her scarf, her own scarf (that she bought in a charity shop for 3 euro),
draped it around Mrs Croft’s neck and saved the day.

  ‘Nkechi,’ I said. ‘I am going to take a couple of weeks off and go down to Uncle Tom’s cabin.’

  Nkechi familiar with same. She was there for Treese’s hen night. Now that I thought of it, she broke the toaster, trying to fitinan entire bagel. Quite spectacular carnage. Black smoke started spewing from the side of toaster, followed by a big whoosh of flame. Also she broke a ceramic dolphin which had been in Bridie’s family for thirty-eight years. She’d been dancing drunkenly and did a big high kick which sent the dolphin flying, like a rugby ball over the bar, into a wall, where it smashed into smithereens. But it was a hen night, these things happen. At least no one ended up in hospital. Not like at Bridie’s hen night.

  I said, ‘I know it sounds dramatic, packing up my life, but really, Nkechi, the state of me. I can’t work, can’t sleep, my digestive system’sin flitters.’

  She said, ‘I think it’s good idea. Take yourself out of circulation for while, before you damage our reputation even further.’

  An awkward little silence ensued.

  Just one slight quibble about Nkechi – she’s an excellent stylist, really really excellent, but slightly lacking in TLC. Part of a stylist’s job is to prevent the client going out looking like a total tit. It’s our job to protect them from the gossip columnists’ harsh comments. If the client has a wrinkly décolletage, we steer them away from plunging necklines. If they have knees like a bloodhound’s jowls, we suggest floor-length gowns. But subtly. Kindly.

  However, Nkechi wasn’t always as diplomatic as I would have preferred. For example, the time she was dressing SarahJane Hutchinson. Poor woman. Her husband had left her for a young Filipino boy. Public humiliation. This was the first charity event she was attending as a deserted wife so it was important that she looked and felt good. She tried on a very pretty strapless Matthew Williamson, but it was obvious it wasn’t working. Everything going south. I was just about to tactfully suggest a Roland Mouret (gave much more support, had built-in but hidden corset) when Nkechi exclaimed, ‘You can’t go out with those bingo wings! You need sleeves, girlfriend!’

  I said, ‘Nkechi, I would appreciate it if you could take over the reins for the short time I’ll be away.’

  ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Take over. Will do.’

  I tried to swallow away my anxiety. Everything was under control. Nkechi would do it well.

  Possibly too well.

  I didn’t like the way she said, ‘Take over.’

  ‘Nkechi,’ I say, ‘you are a genius. You will go on to be a brilliant stylist, possibly the greatest of us all. But for the moment, just keep things ticking over. Please do not do a putsch on me while I’m gone. Please do not set up on your own. Please do not poach my richest clients. Be my friend. Remember: your name means “loyal” in Yoruba.’

  10.47

  Trailing dispiritedly home to pack when I see someone waiting outside my building. A woman. Tall, jeans, boots, hoodie, short spiky blonde hair. Leaning against railings, smoking. Two men passed her and said something. Her response was carried to me on the air. Go fuck yourselves.

  Who was she? What fresh hell? Then I knew! It was that journalist, Grace Gildee! I was being door-stepped, like… like a drug baron or… or… a paedophile!

  I paused in my tracks. Where should I go? Flee, flee! But flee where? I had a perfect right to go to my flat. After all, I lived there.

  Too late! She’d seen me!

  ‘Lola?’ Smiling, smiling, speedily stubbing out her cigarette with a nifty swivel of her ankle.

  ‘Hi!’

  Extending her hand. ‘Grace Gildee. Lovely to meet you.’

  Her warm, smooth hand was in mine before I could stop it.

  ‘No,’ I said, jerking my hand away. ‘Leave me alone. I’m not talking to you.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  I ignored her and fumbled in my bag for my keys. Fully intended not to make eye contact but, against my will, found myself looking straight into her face.

  Up close, I could see she wasn’t wearing make-up. Unusual. But she had no need to. Very attractive in a tomboy sort of way. Hazel-coloured eyes and a scatter of freckles across nose. The kind of woman who could run out of shampoo and have no problem washing hair with washing-up liquid. Good in an emergency, I suspected.

  ‘Lola,’ she says, ‘you can trust me.’

  ‘You can trust me!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re a cliché!’

  Nonetheless, something about her. Persuasive.

  In a soft voice, she said, ‘You really can trust me. I’m not like other journalists. I know what he’s like.’

  I stopped twirling my hand around the hidden depths of my bag, seeking my keys. I was mesmerized. Like being hypnotized by a snake.

  ‘I’ve known him half his life,’ she said.

  All of sudden, I wanted to put my head on the shoulder of her hoodie and sob and let her stroke my hair.

  But that was what she would have wanted. That’s what they all do, journalists. Pretend they’re your friends. Like the time SarahJane Hutchinson was interviewed at the Children at Risk Ball. The journalist woman was all lovely, asking where SarahJane got her gorgeous dress. And her delicious jewellery. And who did her hair? Trust me, trust me, trust me. Then the headline was:

  Mutton Dressed As Pig

  What forty-something, recently deserted wife has lost the run of herself? Running around town dressed in her teenage daughter’s clothes. A bid to recapture lost youth? Or a bid to recapture lost husband? Forget it, babes. Either way, it ain’t working.

  My hand closed over my keys. Thank God. I had to get into my flat. I had to get away from this Grace Gildee.

  17.07

  Arrive in Knockavoy! Uncle Tom’s cabin is in a field, a short way outside town.

  I drove down the bumpy boreen and parked in the gravel patch outside the front door.

  Lime-washed cottage. Thick lumpy walls. Small windows. Red-painted latched door. Deep window ledges. Charming.

  I got out of the car and was nearly blown away. Had a vision of being picked up and twirled high into the sky and out over the bay, then dashed to a watery grave in the Atlantic waves. Paddy would be sorry then. Would rue the day he ever heard of Alicia Thornton.

  Go on, wind, I begged. Take me!

  I stood with my eyes scrunched shut and my arms outstretched invitingly, but nothing happened. Annoying.

  Leaning into the wind, I battled towards the front door. The air was riddled with sea salt. My hair would be destroyed. Although was very proud of my Molichino highlights, had to admit they made hair prone to dullness and breaking. Hoped they had deep-conditioning treatment in the local chemist. Cripes! Hoped there was a local chemist. All I remembered from every other visit was pubs, many pubs, and a nightclub so extraordinarily bad it was hilarious.

  I unlocked the adorable red door and the force of the wind made it fly back against the wall with an almighty bang. Dragged bags in across the flagstones. Was I imagining it or did the house still smell of smoke from the broken toaster even though several months had elapsed since the hen night?

  There was one big living room, with sofas and rugs and a big open fire with rocking chairs in the alcove. The back windows looked out over fields, then the Atlantic, maybe a hundred yards away. Actually I’m just making that bit up, I had no idea how far away the sea was. Only men could do things like that. ‘Half a mile.’ ‘Fifty yards.’ Giving directions, that sort of thing. I could look at a woman and say, ‘36C.’ Or, ‘Let’s try it in next size up.’ But I had no idea how far away Uncle Tom’s sea was except that I wouldn’t want to walk to it in high heels.

  In the kitchen there were scorch marks on the wall behind the (new) toaster, a table with a cherry-patterned oilcloth cover, six hard wooden chairs, yellow free-standing cupboards, like from a kitchen of the 1950s, and old, mismatched delph, many with faded floral patterns. The kitchen windows also looked towards the sea. I shut my left eye and squinted
out at it. Still had no idea how far away it was.

  My mobile rang. Bridie. ‘How was the drive?’

  ‘Good, fine,’ I said. Hard to be enthusiastic.

  ‘How long did it take?’

  I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t been paying attention. But she had told me to time the journey. So I said, just off the top of my head, ‘Two hours, forty minutes.’

  She whistled and said, ‘That’s the fastest yet. I have to go, have to tell Dad. He managed two hours fifty in July but that was at half five in the morning. He’ll be upset to have been bested. Especially by a girl.’

  ‘Don’t tell him, then,’ I said. ‘Why upset him? There’s enough upset in the world.’

  17.30

  Upstairs there were three bedrooms. I chose the middle-sized one. Wasn’t so up myself that I had to pick the biggest but self-esteem was not so low that I automatically gravitated to the smallest. (Good sign.) A double bed, but very narrow. How did people cope in the olden days? Was not exactly a fatso (although would have liked a much, much smaller bottom) but there was really only room for me in it. The frame of the bed was iron and at first glance the quilt looked like patchwork and I was charmed. Then I took a closer look. Not patchwork at all. Fake patchwork business that cost a tenner in Penneys. All the same, looked good from a distance.

  The same white lumpy walls as downstairs and two small windows with red-painted frames. Cheery. With flowery curtains. Cosy.

  I opened my suitcase. Shock. The clothing I’d packed was evidence of my unsettled mental state. Nothing practical. No jeans. No boots. Foolish! Was living in a field! Needed mucker-style clothing! Instead had brought dresses, spangles, ostrich feather boa! Where did I think I’d be going? The only thing that might be useful was a pair of wellingtons. Did it matter that they were pink? Did it make them any less practical?

  I hung my impractical clothing in the mahogany wardrobe. Carved. Curved. Solid. Flyblown mirror on the front. Looked antique. You’d pay a fortune for that in Dublin.