After a little while I noticed that the two of them still weren’t doing any work—not that there was anything unusual about it, especially considering that Mr. Simmonds hadn’t yet returned—but instead of making personal calls to Australia or flicking through Marie Claire or eating their lunch (which Meredia did most days around ten-thirty) they just sat and looked at me in an odd way.
I stopped typing and looked up.
“What’s wrong?” I asked in exasperation. “Why are you both being so weird?”
“Tell her,” muttered Meredia to Megan.
“Oh no,” said Megan with a grim little laugh. “Oh no, not me. It was your idea so you get to tell her.”
“You bitch!” exclaimed Meredia. “It was not my idea. It was our idea.”
“Fuck you!” cried Megan. “You’re the one who started all…”
My phone rang, interrupting the exchange. I managed to answer it without taking my eyes off the pair of them. I hated to miss a good fight, and you could depend on Meredia and Megan to have some humdingers. It was amusing to see how short-lived their detente had been.
“Hello,” I said.
“Lucy!” said a voice.
Oh dear. It was my roommate Karen. She sounded angry. I must have forgotten to leave a check for the gas or the phone or something.
“Karen, hi!” I said quickly, trying to cover my nervousness. “Look, I’m sorry I forgot to leave the check for the phone. Or is it the gas? I got home late last night and…”
“Lucy, is it true?” she interrupted.
“Of course it’s true,” I said indignantly. “It was well after midnight when I got in and…”
“No, no, no,” she said impatiently. “I mean about you getting married?”
The room tilted slightly.
“Excuse me?” I said faintly. “Who on earth told you that?”
“The receptionist who answers the phone at your office,” said Karen. “And I must say that it’s a bit much having to find out from her. When were you going to tell Charlotte and me? I thought we were your best friends. And now we’ll have to put an ad in for a new roommate and we all get along so well and what if we get someone horrible who doesn’t drink and who doesn’t know any good-looking men and it won’t be the same without you and…”
Her voice continued plaintively.
Megan and Meredia had gone suspiciously quiet. They were both sitting very, very still, guilt and fear written on their fool faces.
The guilt on their faces? Karen talking about me getting married? Megan and Meredia’s insistence that Hetty’s prediction had come “true”? Mrs. Nolan foretelling that I would be getting married.
The guilt on their faces.
Chapter 11
The penny finally dropped. It was so outrageous I could hardly believe it.
Was it really possible that, because they thought that Mrs. Nolan’s predictions for Meredia, Megan and Hetty had come true, her predictions for me were also bound to come true? Could it really be that this pair of idiots had gone around telling people that I was getting married, as if it was a fact and not the prediction of a tarot reader?
Rage surged through me. And bewilderment. How could they be so stupid?
I realized that I was not one to talk. My life had been a series of one stupid thing after another, interspersed with some really ridiculous things and one or two downright insane things. But I was pretty sure that I’d never have done anything as crazy as that!
I narrowed my eyes at them. Meredia shrunk back in her chair, the very picture of craven fear. Megan set her mouth—well one side of it anyway—in a stubborn and brazen fashion. She wasn’t so easy to scare.
Karen continued to talk at high speed.
“…I suppose we could get a guy for a roommate but what if he got a crush on one of us and…”
“Karen,” I said, trying to get a word in edgewise.
“…and he’d pee all over the bathroom, you know what men are like…”
“Karen,” I said again, a bit louder.
“…of course he might have good-looking friends, in fact he might even be good-looking himself, but we wouldn’t be able to walk around with no clothes on although if he was good-looking maybe we’d want to and…”
“Karen!” I shouted.
She shut up.
“Karen,” I said with relief, glad to have arrested the unstoppable train of her stream of consciousness. “I can’t really talk right now, but I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
“It’s Steven, I suppose,” she interrupted. “I’m glad, he’s great. I don’t know why you had to go and dump him, unless you wanted him to ask you to marry him, all along. Smart move, Lucy, I wouldn’t have expected that from you…”
I hung up. I had to. I didn’t know what else to do. I stared hard at Meredia and then at Megan and then back to Meredia. And then quickly flicked another glare at Megan just to let her know that I was still on her case.
After a few seconds I spoke. “That was Karen,” I said, in a daze. “And she seems to be under the impression that I’m getting married.”
“Sorry,” muttered Meredia.
“Yeah, sorry,” muttered Megan.
“Sorry for what?” I said unkindly. “Perhaps you’d care to tell me just what exactly is going on?”
I mean, I had a fairly good idea of what was going on. But I wanted to know the full facts and I also wanted to put the pair of them through the very awkward experience of having to explain. To have to say, out loud, in words, in front of people, the exact nature of their stupidity. The door opened and Catherine from the director’s office breezed in and flung something in the in-tray.
“Lucy,” she called. “Congratulations! I’ll be down later to hear all the details.”
And breezed out again.
“What the fu…” I began.
The phone rang. It was my other roommate, Charlotte.
“Lucy,” she said breathlessly. “Karen’s just told me! And I want to tell you that I’m really happy for you. I know Karen says that you’re a stupid bitch for not telling us, but I’m sure you had your reasons.”
“Charl—” I tried to say. But, as with Karen, there was no getting a word in edgewise with her.
“And, Lucy, I’m so glad things have finally worked out for you,” she chattered on. “To be quite honest, I never thought that they would. I know I always disagreed with you when you went on about how you were going to end up as an old maid with forty cats, but I was beginning to be afraid that that really was what was going to happen….”
“Charlotte,” I interrupted her angrily, “I’ve got to go.”
And I slammed down the phone.
Which rang again immediately. This time it was Daniel.
“Lucy,” he croaked, “tell me it’s not true. Don’t marry him! No one could love you as much as I do.”
I waited grimly for him to shut up.
“Lucy,” he said after a while. “Are you there?”
“Yes,” I said shortly. “Who told you?”
“Chris,” he said, sounding surprised.
“Chris?” I yelled. “Chris, my brother?!!”
“Er, yes,” said poor Daniel. “Is this supposed to be a secret or something?”
“Daniel,” I tried to explain. “Look, I can’t go into this, right now. But I’ll call you as soon as I can, okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed. “And I was only joking earlier. I really am very hap…”
I hung up. The phone rang again.
And I let it ring.
“One of you two better answer it,” I said grimly.
Meredia picked up the phone.
“Hello,” she said nervously.
“No,” she said, looking fearfully at me. “She can’t come to the phone right now.”
A pause.
“Yes, I’ll tell her,” she said, and hung up.
“Who was it?” I asked, feeling like I was dreaming.
“Er, the boys in the mailroom.
They want to take you out for a drink to celebrate.”
“Just how bad is this?” I asked, my head spinning in horror. “Have you e-mailed everyone in the entire organization? Or just several hundred of my closest friends? I mean, how does my brother know?”
“Your brother?” asked Megan, alarm flitting across her face.
Meredia swallowed. “Lucy,” she said nervously. “We haven’t e-mailed anyone. Honestly.”
“No,” chimed in Megan, laughing slightly in what I can only hope for her sake was relief. “We’ve told hardly anyone. Just Caroline. And Blandina and…”
“Blandina!” I interjected sharply. “You’ve told Blandina. If you’ve told Blandina, we don’t need bloody e-mail. The whole world must already know. They probably know on Mars. In fact I bet my mother knows.”
Blandina was the PR person at our company, and gossip was her currency, the air that she breathed.
My phone rang again.
“One of you better answer that,” I said threateningly.
“If it’s anyone else calling to congratulate me on my impending nuptials I may not be responsible for my actions.”
Megan picked up the phone.
“Hello,” she said, a nervous quaver in her voice.
“It’s for you,” she said, handing the phone over to me as if it were red hot.
“Megan,” I hissed, gesturing to her to cover the mouthpiece. “I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’m not taking this call.”
“I think you’d better,” she said miserably. “It’s your mother.”
Chapter 12
I stared pleadingly at Megan, then at the phone, then at Megan again.
This did not bode well. Surely it was too soon for someone else to have died? And she definitely wasn’t just calling for a chat—my mother and I had never had the, “Oh go on, buy it, I won’t tell Daddy, no one would believe you’ve got a grown-up daughter, it looks better on you than it does on me, can I have a squirt of your perfume, you’ve a better figure now than the day you got married, now let’s go for several gin and tonics because you’re my best friend,” type of relationship. So it meant that my mother must somehow have gotten wind of the whole me-getting-married fiasco and I was very reluctant to talk to her.
To be honest, I was quite afraid of her.
“Tell her I’m not here,” I hissed desperately at Megan.
Immediately there was an eruption from the receiver, which sounded like two parrots fighting, but which was actually my mother yelling that she had heard that. I took the phone.
“Who’s dead?” I said, playing for time.
“You are,” she roared, with an uncharacteristic flash of wit.
“Ha, ha,” I said nervously.
“Lucy Carmel Sullivan,” she sounded furious. “Christopher Patrick just telephoned me and he tells me that you’re getting married. Married!”
“Mum…”
“What a lovely state of affairs that your own mother has to find out such a thing through the grapevine!”
“Mum…”
“Of course I had to act as if I knew all about it. But I knew this day would come, Lucy. I always knew it. Since you were a child you’ve been flighty and feckless. We couldn’t depend on you to do anything—except to get it wrong. There’s only one reason that a young woman gets married in such a hurry and that’s if she’s stupid enough to get herself into trouble. Although you’re bloody lucky that you’ve got the guy to say he’ll stand by you, although what kind of a useless idiot he is, God only knows…”
I didn’t know what to say, because it was kind of funny—there was a long-standing joke in my family that whatever I ever did, my mother found fault with it. I had so much experience of her disapproval and disappointment that it no longer really bothered me.
And years ago, I’d given up hoping that she’d approve of my boyfriends, that she’d admire my apartment, that she’d be in awe of my job and that she’d like my friends.
“You’re just like your father,” she said bitterly.
Poor Mum—nothing I ever did was good enough for her. When I finished secretarial college, I got a job with the London office of a multinational company. On my first day my mother rang me, not to congratulate me and wish me well, but to tell me that the company’s shares had dropped ten points on the FTSE index.
“Mum, listen to me, you fool,” I interrupted loudly. “I’m not getting married.”
“I see. So you’re going to shame me by presenting me with an illegitimate grandchild,” she exclaimed, still sounding furious. “And where do you get off calling me names…”
“Mum, I’m not pregnant and I’m not getting married,” I said briskly.
There was a confused pause.
“It’s a joke.” I tried to sound a bit friendlier.
“Oh, it’s a joke, that’s right,” she snorted, back in her stride. “The day you come home to me and tell me that you’ve got some decent man to marry you, that’ll be a great joke. Oh, I’ll laugh that day. I’ll laugh till I cry that day.”
To my surprise, I suddenly felt very angry. Out of the blue I wanted to shout at her that I wouldn’t ever come home and tell her that I was getting married, that I wouldn’t even invite her to the wedding.
Of course, the funniest thing of all was that, in the unlikely event of me ever winding up with a respectable man, one who had a job and a stable home and no ex-wives or criminal records, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from parading him in front of my mother and smugly inviting her to try and find some fault with him.
Because even though I often felt as if I hated her, there was still a part of me that wanted her to pat me on the head and say, “Good girl, Lucy.”
“Is Dad there?” I asked her.
“Of course your beloved father is here,” she said bitterly. “Where else would he be? Out at work?”
“Can I talk to him, please?”
If I could talk to Dad for a few moments, I would feel a bit better. At least I could console myself that I wasn’t a complete failure, that one of my parents loved me. Dad was always good at cheering me up and making fun of Mum.
“I doubt it,” she said harshly.
“Why?”
“Think about it, Lucy,” she said wearily. “He got his unemployment check yesterday so what kind of condition do you expect him to be in?”
“I see,” I said. “He’s asleep.”
“Asleep!” she barked mirthlessly. “The man is comatose. And has been, off and on, for twenty-four hours. The kitchen looks like a bottle recycling centre!”
I said nothing. My teetotal mother thought that anyone who had an occasional drink was automatically an alcoholic.
“So you’re not getting married?” she said.
“No.”
“So you’ve created all this fuss for nothing.”
“But…”
“Well, I’m going now,” she said before I was able to think of something scathing to say. “I can’t stand around here all day chatting.”
Fury surged through me. She had called me, after all, but before I could shout at her she was off again.
“Did I tell you that I’m working at the dry cleaners now?” she said, changing, without warning, to a much more conciliatory tone. “Three afternoons a week.”
“Oh.”
“As well as doing the laundry service washes on Sunday and Wednesday.”
“Oh.”
“They closed down the minimart, you see,” she went on.
“Oh.”
I was too annoyed to bother talking to her.
“So I was delighted to get the few hours at the dry cleaners,” she went on. “The extra money comes in handy.”
“Oh.”
“So between doing the cleaning at the hospital and the flowers for Saint Dominic’s and organizing a retreat with Father Colm, I’ve been keeping busy.”
I hated when she did this. This was almost worse than when she was being bitter and horrible. How was I supposed to sud
denly switch into a civilized conversation with her after the things she had just said to me?
“And are you all right yourself?” she asked awkwardly.
All the better for not seeing you, I felt like saying, but managed not to. “Fine,” I said vaguely.
“We haven’t seen you in so long,” she said in a tone that was meant to be cheerful and slightly teasing.
“I suppose.”
“Why don’t you come over some night next week?”
“I’ll see,” I said, starting to feel panicky. I couldn’t think of anything more awful than spending an evening in my mother’s company.
“Thursday,” she said firmly. “Your dad will have run out of money by then so there’s a good chance he’ll be sober.”
“Maybe.”
“Thursday,” she said, with finality. “And now I’d better go.”
She was trying to sound good-humoured and friendly, but her inexperience showed. “All those…yuppies or whatever it is they’re called, from the new townhouses, will be lining up for their lovely Armada suits and their expensive silk shirts and whathaveyou. Do you know some of them even get their ties dry-cleaned? I ask you! Their ties. What next!”
“Well, you’d better go then,” I said, with a sick heart.
“God bless. See you on Thu…”
I slammed down the phone.
“And it’s Armani!” I shouted at it.
I stared tearfully at Megan and Meredia who had been sitting silent and shamefaced throughout the lengthy conversation.
“Now look at what you’ve done!” I said, surprised by the hot, angry tears that were spilling down my face.
“Sorry,” whispered Meredia.
“Yeah, Lucy, sorry,” muttered Megan. “It was Elaine’s idea.”
“Shut up,” hissed Meredia. “My name is Meredia and it was your idea.”
I ignored them both.
They tiptoed around, shocked and frightened at how angry I was. I very rarely got angry; at least that was what they thought. In fact, I often got angry, I just very rarely showed it. I was much too afraid of people not liking me to court confrontation, and that had both pluses and minuses. The minus being that I would probably have burned a hole all the way through my stomach lining by the time I was thirty, but the plus being that on the rare occasions