But Lisa was filled with skittish optimism. It wouldn’t dare rain. ‘No, let’s go.’ And off they set.
The too-bright rays of the sun filtering through the swollen clouds had the effect of making everything look almost super-real. Stray clumps of grass were lit to a green so bright it was nearly hallucinogenic. The grey stone of the pier bounced a purple colour back at her. Any fool could tell it was about to piss down, but Lisa was determined that it wouldn’t.
So this was walking, she thought, as they strode along. Well, it wasn’t so bad. The air smelt funny, though.
‘Fresh.’ Jack cleared the matter up for her. ‘See that there,’ he pointed proudly to a boat. ‘That’s mine.’
‘That one?’ All excited, Lisa gestured at a sleek, shiny-white gin palace.
‘No, that one.’
‘Oh.’ It was only then that Lisa noticed the tatty craft beside it. She’d thought it was a piece of driftwood. ‘Fabulous!’ she managed. Well, he liked it, why not pretend? Blimey, she thought, I must like him.
Before they were halfway down the pier, the rain started with delicate patters. Lisa had dressed for many eventualities, but rain wasn’t one of them. Goose-pimples puckered her bare arms.
‘Here, put this on.’ Jack was shrugging off his hip-length leather jacket.
‘I couldn’t.’ Of course she could – and would – but it couldn’t hurt to be fluffy-coy.
‘You can.’ Already he was arranging the crackly jacket on her shoulders, the heat from his body wrapping itself around her. She slipped her arms into the still-warm sleeves, the cuffs covering her hands, the shoulders swamping her. The jacket was miles too big and it felt good.
‘We’d better go back,’ he said, and as the rain began to pelt down they started running. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to hold hands. ‘You’ll never come here with me again,’ he gasped as they sprinted.
‘Too right.’ She flashed him a grin, savouring the dry warmth of his palm and his big-man’s fingers laced into hers.
When they reached the car, Jack was soaked. His hair was shiny-black and plastered to his skull and his drenched shirt was semi-transparent and stuck to him, tantalizingly showing a covering of chest-hair. She wasn’t much drier.
‘Christ!’ With a screech of outraged laughter he surveyed himself.
Spilling over with good humour, Lisa panted, Open the car fast!’
She ran round to the passenger side, expecting him to wrench the key into the lock, but then she glanced up at him…
Afterwards, when she thought about it, she couldn’t be sure which one of them had made the first move. Did he? Or did she? All she knew was they were suddenly swinging into each other and she found herself up against the hardness of his front, his wet thighs against hers. His face was spattered with drops and his hair had gone into little points which were dripping into his dark eyes. And he lowered his mouth to hers.
Lisa was aware of many things: the salty smell of a rain-soaked sea, the cool drops on her face, the warmth of his mouth and the fish-leap in her knickers. Pretty sexy stuff. She felt like something from a Calvin Klein ad.
The kiss wasn’t a lengthy one, coming to an end before it really got going. Quality rather than quantity. Gently unpeeling his lips from her yielding ones, Jack guided her to the car and whispered, ‘In you get.’
They drove back into town and went to a café-bar where she dried her hair under the hand-drier. Then she fixed her make-up and went back out to the bar, smiling widely. Over a glass of wine and a pint, they talked in low, comfortable tones, mostly gossipy chat about the people at work.
‘Tell me, is Marcus Valentine going out with our very own Ashling?’ Jack asked.
‘Mmmm. And what do you reckon to Kelvin and Trix?’
‘Don’t tell me they’re an item!’ Jack looked quite shaken at the thought. ‘I thought she was going out with a – what does she call him? – a fish-mongrel?’
‘She is, but I just have a feeling she and Kelvin might end up together.’
‘But don’t they kind of hate each other? – Oh, I get it.’ Jack nodded. ‘One of those.’
‘You sound as if you don’t approve.’ Lisa was extremely curious.
Jack was embarrassed. ‘Whatever floats your boat. But,’ he was alluding to his public rows with Mai and now he was really embarrassed, ‘I’m not actually keen on routine shouting matches with a partner. Though I know that’s probably hard to believe.’
‘So why did you and Mai…?’
Jack shifted. ‘Dunno, really. Habit, I reckon. It was fun at the start and then I think we didn’t know any other way of truly relating. Anyway!’ He didn’t want to dissect it any further because he still felt a type of loyalty to Mai, so he turned to Lisa with a smile. ‘Another drink?’
‘No, I don’t think so –’
But just as she was about to lay her hand meaningfully on his thigh and say, ‘Will you come back for coffee?’ Jack said, ‘Right then, I’ll drop you home.’ And she knew that that was all he meant. But never mind, she thought, ever the optimist, he liked her. He must like her: he’d kissed her. He couldn’t have been nicer. And she closed her mind to the little voice that replied. He could have been nicer, he could have shagged you.
Dreamily, Clodagh floated around the kitchen, thinking about the sex earlier that day. It had been beyond belief, the best yet…
As she put the sugar in the microwave and the milk in the washing machine, Dylan watched her. And wondered. Horrible thoughts. Unspeakable thoughts.
‘Don’t want my dinner.’ Craig threw down his spoon with a violent clatter. ‘I want SWEETS.’
‘Sweets,’ Clodagh hummed, foraging in the cupboard and producing a bag of Maltesers. ‘Sweets it is.’
She seemed to be moving to music that only she could hear.
‘I want sweets too,’ Molly snarled.
‘I want sweets too,’ Clodagh mewed tunefully to herself, locating another packet.
Dylan watched, aghast.
With a playful flourish, she ripped open Molly’s bag of sweets and extracted one between her thumb and finger. ‘For you?’ she sparkled at Molly. ‘No, for me.’ Ignoring Molly’s tantrummy objections, she held the Malteser between her pursed lips, sucking slightly at it, then inhaled it into her mouth where she rolled it around in a way that manifestly gave her enormous pleasure.
‘Clodagh?’ Dylan’s voice cracked.
‘Hmmm?’
‘Clodagh?’
Instantly she snapped to attention and disposed of the Malteser with a savage crunch. ‘What?’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine.’
‘You just seem a little bit distracted.’
‘Am I?’
‘What are you thinking?’ he heard himself ask.
Quick as a flash, she replied, ‘I was thinking how much I love you.’
‘Really?’ Dylan asked warily. He was torn. He suspected he shouldn’t really believe her, but he so badly wanted to…
‘Yes, I really, really love you.’ She forced herself to put her arms around him.
‘Honestly?’ He’d managed to make eye-contact with her.
She met his gaze calmly. ‘Honestly.’
50
August advanced and the pressure built. There were still gaps in the first issue, and any attempts to fill them were thwarted. An interview with Ben Affleck had to be cancelled after he contracted food-poisoning, a review of a shoe-shop had to be killed after the shop suddenly closed down, a piece about sexually active nuns was deemed to be too risky, legally.
One particular day was so frustratingly obstacle-ridden that both Ashling and Mercedes cried. Even Trix had a suspicious brightness about her eyes. (Then she stormed from the office into a nearby shop, where she stole a pair of earrings and returned in much better form.)
What added to everyone’s grief was that they didn’t have the luxury of giving the first issue their undivided time and attention. They were also working on Oc
tober and November. Then, in the midst of all the mayhem, Lisa called an editorial meeting for the December issue.
But she wasn’t – despite the bitter resistance – being a ‘slave-driving bitch’. December films were previewed in August. If the star of the film was in town, the interview had to be conducted there and then, and not in a couple of weeks when Colleen’s workload had lessened and the star had long departed for another country.
Then, of course, there was the launch party, which Lisa obsessed about. ‘It’s got to make a statement, cause a splash. I want people to cry if they haven’t been invited. I want a spectacular guest-list, gorgeous gifts, genius drinks and great food. Let’s see,’ she drummed her fingers on the desk, ‘what food shall we do?’
‘How about sushi?’ Trix suggested, sarcastically.
‘Perfect.’ Lisa exhaled, her eyes glittery. ‘Of course, what else?’
Ashling was charged with the task of assembling a list of a thousand of Ireland’s movers and shakers.
‘I’m not sure Ireland has a thousand movers and shakers,’ Ashling said doubtfully. ‘And you want to give presents to all of them. Where are we going to get the budget?’
‘We get someone to sponsor it, probably a cosmetic house,’ Lisa snapped.
Lisa was even more bad-tempered than usual. Three days after the mini-snog from Jack, he’d gone to New Orleans for the worldwide Randolph Communications conference. For ten days! He’d apologized for abandoning them at such a busy time, but Lisa was more pissed off that his absence would disrupt the momentum of their romance.
‘Have a look at the party invite.’ Lisa tossed Ashling and Mercedes a plain silver card.
‘Er, lovely,’ Ashling said.
‘Words would be nice,’ Mercedes sneered.
Lisa sighed irritably. ‘They’re on it.’
‘Well, how about having them visible to the naked eye?’
Ashling and Mercedes bent and turned the card until the light caught it in a particular way, then the words were revealed – also silver, tiny and crammed into a corner.
‘That’ll intrigue them,’ Lisa said grimly.
Ashling was worried. It all seemed a bit clever. If it had arrived through her letter-box she’d have thrown it in the bin.
Lisa flew to London for the day to discuss party drinks with a ‘mixologist’.
‘What’s a mixologist?’ Ashling asked.
‘A barman,’ Mercedes said drily. ‘Something there’s hardly a shortage of in this country.’
Mercedes suspected she’d overheard Lisa making an appointment to have a Botox injection done while she was in London, and that that was her real reason for going there. Sure enough, when Lisa returned the following day, there was an armour-plated rigidity to her forehead. But she also had an elaborate list of too-cool-for-school drinks. The guests were to be greeted with a champagne cocktail, then served lemon martinis, followed by cosmopolitans, manhattans, go-go rums and, finally, vodka espressos.
‘Oh yeah, and I’ve also sorted the gifts,’ Lisa accused. Was she the only one who did any work around here? ‘As each guest leaves, we’ll present them with a bottle of wee.’
‘A bottle of what?’ Ashling was weary and perplexed – if this was Lisa’s idea of a joke, it was an extremely poor one.
‘Wee. A bottle of wee.’
‘You’re going to give a thousand of Ireland’s movers and shakers a bottle of wee?’ She didn’t have the energy to laugh. ‘That’s an awful lot of wee. Where are you going to get it? Do we all have to make a contribution?’
Open-mouthed, Lisa surveyed Ashling. ‘From Lancôme, of course.’
Immediately Ashling’s head flashed with an image of hundreds of Lancôme employees urinating into bottles, especially for Lisa. ‘That’s very decent of them.’ What was Lisa on about?
‘It’s only the fifty-ml bottle.’ Lisa persisted with her parallel-universe chat. ‘But it looks big enough, no?’ She held up a little bottle of Oui.
‘Oh,’ Ashling breathed in enlightenment. ‘You mean Oui!’
‘Yeah, wee. Why, what did you think I said?’
I need a break, Ashling realized.
She rang Marcus, who greeted her with, ‘Hello, stranger.’
‘Um, yeh, hahaha. Meet me for lunch?’
‘Can you spare the time? I’m honoured.’
‘Half-twelve at Neary’s.’ She couldn’t be doing with this.
‘C’ mere till I tell you something hilarious.’ Ashling was all set to launch into her wee/Oui story, when Marcus retorted, ‘Look, I’m the funny one, right?’
Astonished, Ashling gaped at him. ‘What is wrong with you?’
‘Nothing.’ Marcus was suddenly humble. ‘God, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s because I’m working so hard, isn’t it?’ Ashling grasped the nettle. They’d been having a few too many little spats of late, generated by his feeling ignored. ‘Marcus, if it’s any consolation, you’re the only person I see. I haven’t seen Clodagh, Ted, Joy or anyone else and I haven’t been to salsa in ages. But in two weeks this magazine will be launched and life will go back to normal.’
‘Right,’ he said quietly.
‘Come over tonight,’ she urged. ‘Please. You’re going to Edinburgh in a few days and I won’t see you for a week. I promise not to fall asleep.’
He conceded a half-smile. ‘You have to sleep at some stage.’
‘I’ll stay awake long enough for, um – I’ll stay awake long enough,’ she promised, with innuendo.
She had been neglecting him. She couldn’t actually remember the last time they’d made love. Probably only a week or so ago, but that was too long. She couldn’t help it though: she was so stressed, and knackered. It was actually a relief that he was going away.
‘If you’re too tired I don’t want to put you under pressure.’ His eyes were concerned.
‘I’m not too tired.’ She could manage one night, couldn’t she?
Roll on August the thirty-first. After that, everything would be back to normal.
*
Red-eyed and agitated, Clodagh surveyed the kitchen table. There was nothing left to iron. She’d done everything: Dylan’s T-shirts, his shirts, his underpants, even his socks.
The guilt, the guilt, the horrible corrosive guilt. She could hardly bear herself, she wanted to tear her skin off with self-hatred.
She was going to make it up to all of them. She was going to be the most devoted wife and mother there ever was. Craig and Molly were going to eat everything on their plates. She moaned softly – what kind of mother had she become? Giving them biscuits on tap, letting them stay up as late as they wanted. Well, no more. She was going to be so strict. Borderline dangerous, in fact. And poor Dylan. Poor devoted, hardworking Dylan, he didn’t deserve this. The betrayal, the terrible cruelty, the cold withdrawal of her love: she hadn’t been able to let him touch her since she’d started this affair.
Affair. Her breath spasmed in her chest – she was having an affair. She swayed with vertigo at its enormity. What if she got caught? What if Dylan found out? Her heart nearly seized up at the thought. She was going to stop this now. Right now,
She hated herself, she hated what she was doing, and if she stopped before anyone found out, she could make everything all right, almost as if it had never happened. Fired by resolve, she picked up the phone. ‘It’s me.’
‘Hi, me.’
‘I want this to stop.’
He sighed. ‘Again?’
‘I mean it, I’m not going to see you any more. Don’t ring me, don’t call to the house. I love my children, I love my husband.’
After a crackly pause, he said, ‘OK.’
‘OK?’
‘OK. I understand. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye?’
‘What else is there to say?’
She replaced the phone, unexpectedly cheated. Where was the warm reward for having done the right thing? Instead she felt dissatisfied and empty – and stung. He hadn’t put up
much of a fight. And he was supposed to be crazy about her. Bastard.
Earlier, she’d entertained a daft notion that she was going to darn the holes in Dylan’s socks in another desperate attempt to demonstrate her love for him. But as she desultorily returned to the kitchen, all her housewifely resolve melted. Fuck it, she thought listlessly, Dylan could buy new socks.
Almost against her will she ran back to the hall, snatched the phone and pressed the redial button.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Get over here now.’ Her voice was tearful and angry. ‘The kids are out, we have until four o’clock.’
‘I’m on my way.’
It was eight-thirty before Ashling left the office. Nauseous with exhaustion, she couldn’t face the ten-minute walk home, so she got a taxi. Slumping back, she checked the messages on her mobile. Only one. From Marcus. He wouldn’t be coming over tonight, something about having to go to a gig. Thank God, she exhaled. Now she could ring Clodagh, then go straight to bed. And in two weeks’ time, when all this was over, she’d make it up to Marcus…
As she got out of the taxi she met Boo, who was sporting a black eye.
‘What happened to you!’
‘Saturday night’s all right for fighting,’ he quipped. ‘A few nights ago. Bloke, drunk, looking for aggro. Oh, the joys of life on the streets!’
‘That’s awful!’
The words were out before Ashling could stop them. ‘Do you mind me asking, but why are you, er, homeless?’
‘Career move,’ Boo deadpanned. ‘I make two hundred quid a day begging, all us homeless people do, didn’t you read about it in the papers?’
‘Really?’
‘No,’ he scoffed sarcastically. ‘I’m lucky to net two hundred pence. It’s the old story. No job without an address, no address without a job.’
Ashling was familiar with the concept, but she’d never really believed it actually happened.
‘But don’t you have a, you know, um, family to help you? Like parents?’
‘Yes and no.’ With a slight laugh he expounded, ‘My poor ma isn’t in the best of health. Mentally speaking. And my da did a very good impression of the invisible man when I was five. I was brought up in foster homes.’