“Because her doctor is a gobshite and my brothers didn’t want to know.”
“They know now.”
“Yeah, well . . . thanks for saying it. And thanks for last night.”
“Did you like Float?” Conall started on his second Magnum.
She thought about it. “Not really. It was sort of sleazy. I just wanted to go because I couldn’t.”
“We always want what we can’t have.”
“Like you with me.”
He laughed but didn’t answer.
“You’ve money, you’ve a house in Wellington Road, you’re . . . you know . . .” She waved a hand up and down his body.
“What?”
“For an old bloke, you’re not bad-looking. You could get plenty of girls. Why are you hanging around, pestering me?”
“You’re nice-looking.” He paused. “Very nice-looking. And even though you’re not pleasant, you’re interesting. Like a David Cronenberg film. Crash.” He crooked an eyebrow but the reference was lost on her.
“When will it all go weird and I’ll suddenly be mad about you?”
“Actually, I would have thought it would have happened by now. Most girls . . . me coming to see their sick mother. And rescuing you, doing the middle-of-the-night drive. That stuff is normally pretty effective.”
“So when will you go off me?”
It was starting to happen already. Last night in Float—had it only been last night?—had shown him how mismatched they were. “When I’ve had sex with you.”
She laughed. At least he was honest.
Eventually, she spoke. “All right.”
“All right what?”
“Sex. Let’s do it.”
“You fancy me?”
She hesitated. “I think I might. A bit.” She paused again. “I guess I’m curious.” Suddenly anxious, she asked. “But you won’t be all saggy and old-looking? I’m used to young, fit blokes.”
“I’m forty-two, not eighty-two. I have good genes. And a personal trainer.”
“But look at the crap you eat.”
“I’ve a fast metabolism.”
“Okay, just so long as it’s not like Night of the Living Dead.”
“Let’s just forget this. You’re not into it—”
“No, I want to.” Then she added, “I think.”
Suddenly, she was being pulled toward him and his mouth lowered itself to meet hers. He smelled different. More grown-up. Gilbert had been a great man for statement aftershaves, ones that surrounded him like a pungent cloud, base notes and top notes and God knows what else spattering everywhere. Andrei smelled of man-body and sweat and lust. But Conall smelled of . . . sophisticated lives. He smelled of old leather and wood smoke and parquet floor. He smelled of money. And ice cream, but only briefly.
Lydia waited. She paid attention to how she was responding. Yes, it was working. The smell of his skin and the heat of his hand on her waist.
“You’ve done this before,” she said, when they broke away.
“So . . .” he said slowly, “. . . have you.”
Right, she definitely fancied him.
Their heart vibrations are not in harmony. Lydia’s beat is a nanosecond behind Conall’s, so the end of hers bites off the start of his. But it’s an interesting, edgy, overlapping one-two rhythm that in many ways is more seductive than harmony. Fascinating.
Day 25 . . .
“Good evening,” Jemima said. “Celtic Psychic Line.”
“Mystic Maureen?”
“Speaking, my dear.”
“Aha! It is you, at long last! I recognize that posh voice. I’ve spoken to twelve, fecking twelve, so-called Maureens, trying to find you.”
Yes, Jemima had to admit that the company liked to put about the fiction that there was just one wise old woman employed by Celtic Psychic Line instead of several appallingly badly paid women doing shift work on their own phone.
“I’ve rung loads of times trying to get you and all I got was these liars who know nothing about anything. I was afraid I’d never find you. I thought you’d, like, died or something.”
Jemima had reduced quite dramatically her number of shifts. Fionn was the cause. Between accompanying him to the set and attempting to douse his out-of-control womanizing and keeping a lid on the enmity between him and Grudge, well, she was quite sapped.
“I spoke to you about a month ago and everything you predicted for me came true.”
“Assuming it was happy events I foresaw, then I am overjoyed. But, as I’m sure I told you at the time, I have no psychic ability. There is no such thing.”
“My name is Sissy? Do you remember me? You told me I’d meet a man in the ticket queue in BusAras.”
“I assure you I most certainly did not. I would never say something as specific as that. As I remember, we did a quick overview of your life, and I told you to brush your hair, smile at people and endeavor to see past the surface. That at first impression a man may seem like a . . . the word you used was tool, as I recall, and his hair may be, to fall back on your description, gank—”
“You said that a decent heart would beat beneath his hideous orange hoodie.”
“I said that a decent heart may beat beneath his hideous orange hoodie. I offered no guarantees. I simply urged a more open-minded attitude.”
“How did you know he’d be wearing a hideous orange hoodie?”
“I did not. The description was yours. I am eighty-eight years of age. What would I know of hoodies?”
“You said BusAras. That I’d meet him there.”
“I acknowledge that we discussed that you take the bus for weekend trips to your family. I said, and I believe it to be true, that stations are places where romance tends to flourish, that travelers are less likely to be hidebound by their day-to-day identity. It’s mere common sense.”
“I brushed my hair, I smiled, I saw past the surface. I met a man! It all happened just like you said it would.”
“Overjoyed, my dear.” She would like to get off the line now; she was quite wearied by this silliness. She had only taken this job to save young girls from wasting their hard-earned cash. The last thing she had wanted was to convince them that it worked.
“Pick a card for me,” Sissy said. “Is Jesse the man of my dreams?”
Jemima picked a card. Fidelity. “Yes.”
“Will we have children?”
Jemima picked the next card. “Yes.”
“How many?”
“Two. A boy, then a girl.”
“What will we call them? Only joking!”
“Finian and Anastasia.”
Sissy gasped. In an urgent whisper, she said, “Oh. My. God. How did you know that? No one could know that. You’re amazing.”
“I know nothing. I simply plucked two names from the ether.”
“But they were my grandparents’ names. My daddy’s mammy and daddy. They were my favorites! Oh, I used to go and stay with them when I was small and I never had to eat proper food. They gave me Marietta cookies stuck together with butter for my breakfast and I used to squeeze them together and the butter would come out of the holes and—Oh my God, I’ve got tingles all over. It’s not like they’re regular names, like Paddy and Mary. It’s not as if you could have taken a chance.”
“A lucky guess.” She was so very tired.
“Not a lucky guess. You’re a genius. You should have your own show.”
“Dear heart, you must go now. You’ve been charged so much money already. I bid you goodnight.”
Day 25 . . .
The drive took just over an hour, not long—it was ten in the evening and the traffic was light—but still long enough for Lydia to think about what she was going to do. It was a good thing, she concluded. She did fancy Conall, she was nearly sure of it, and it would cure her of Andrei. If she was sleeping with Conall, she’d stop sleeping with Andrei; that’s just the way she was. She didn’t multitask when it came to men. Some people, specifically Shoane, loved the intri
gue of having two or three men on the go. She took great pleasure in going straight from one bed to the next and she set herself secret challenges, like sleeping with all three in a twenty-four-hour period. But, for some reason, Lydia didn’t enjoy the complications. She wondered if you’d have to really hate men to behave like that.
But what would it be like with Conall? Because he’d had so much straightforward sex over the last eons would he have moved on to freaky stuff? Maybe he couldn’t come unless he was being caned? Or asphyxiated? It would be fun, she supposed. In a way. Well, interesting, anyway. The only problem was that she wasn’t sure how you’d go about asphyxiating someone, but she figured he’d show her.
Without consultation, Conall drove them to Wellington Road and although there was no way on earth Lydia would have let Conall into her cupboard at 66 Star Street, she was a bit miffed. He could have asked her.
“Jesus, the state of this place.” Lydia gazed around Conall’s hall, at the torn-at walls displaying their layers, like wounds.
“Yeah . . . it is a bit . . .” Conall seemed to be noticing it for the first time. “I’ve been so busy.”
“Unbelievable.” Lydia turned and caught her dress on a nail sticking out from a crate. “Get off me! And it’s not a question of cash? Like, you have enough to do the place up?”
“A policeman wouldn’t ask me that question. This way.” He guided her up the wide splintery staircase and into his bedroom. Conall clapped his hands twice and suddenly a paradise was illuminated.
Stunned, Lydia stood on the threshold. She hardly knew what to look at first. The thick, thick carpet, spreading before her in a vast plain, in a color that she couldn’t possibly name—not gray, not heather, not pale blue, but something else, something far more beautiful and unique. They must have invented a new color, just for Conall Hathaway’s bedroom carpet. And the curtains, like curtains they had in expensive hotels, in some heavy silky fabric, tumbling twelve feet from the lofty ceiling, and gathering in a shimmering pool on the floor.
“What just happened there?” she asked. “Did we cross into another dimension?”
Oh the bed! Enormous. So wide. So loooonnnngggg. And there was something about the duvet cover. Even from a distance she could sense how delicious it would feel, how cool and smooth and kind.
“What a bed,” she said, in awe. “I’ll sleep well tonight.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” he said softly.
She turned toward the voice. Oh yeah. Him. For a moment she’d forgotten why she was there. “So how do you want to do this?”
“Do what?”
“This.” She pointed toward the bed.
“I didn’t realize . . . I thought we’d just wing it. See what happens?”
He kissed her and her body began to respond.
“How about I open this . . .” He played with the buttons on the front of her dress and when his hand brushed her nipple, braless under the fabric, it made her shudder
His eyes met hers and she shuddered again. “Good or bad?”
She wasn’t sure.
He moved his fingers in a circular movement around the buttons, until she thought they’d never be opened, that she and her need would be locked in forever. Then, with a sudden, almost violent flick, all four buttons were opened and he slithered the dress off over her head. He lay her down on the bed and slowly removed her knickers. She was panting.
“Do you want me to cane you?” she gasped.
He broke away and looked at her.
“Or asphyxiate you?”
“No.” He looked horrified. “Is that what you want?”
“No. I wondered if it turned you on.”
“You turn me on.”
He took her hand and placed it on his groin.
“So I do.”
Day 25 . . .
“Okay, boss?” Danno asked Katie.
Katie turned to Danno, her face ablaze with beauty. “Okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, like—” He gestured at the nightclub, at all the people, the journalists, the models and the celebrities who had shown up to help Wayne Diffney celebrate the launch of Seven Vintage Cars, One Dart Ticket. “Anything you need me to be doing?”
“Danno, I can quite honestly say that this is the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life.”
Danno was suddenly deeply disillusioned. “I thought you didn’t mess with that stuff.”
“Not drugs. Just happy.” She treated him to another luminous smile.
“High on life?” Danno distrusted nothing more than a natural up.
“I should be exhausted,” she confided. “I got almost no sleep last night. But I feel like I’ll never need to sleep again. I feel invincible.”
“Sounds like happy pills to me,” he said doubtfully. “You take care of yourself, Katie. Don’t let your man play the eejit.”
“Oh Danno, I’m fine! This is like a holiday romance. Either Fionn’s show will fail and he’ll go back to Pokey, or his show will be a success and it’ll go to his head. There is no future in this at all, but for the moment it’s perfect.”
Wayne’s launch had been a dream. Even before ten o’clock, guests had begun to arrive, so Katie didn’t have to endure long, sweaty minutes, standing in an empty nightclub, Wayne gazing at her with wounded eyes, terrified that no one would show. And the people who came were proper guests. Wayne’s many aunties and cousins were all well and good but Katie needed the media to appear for this to work and, to her great pleasure, they’d shown up in hordes. From chatting to them she understood that there was a great reservoir of goodwill for Wayne Diffney. “His wife doing that to him . . .” “Never mind the wife; it was the hair when he was in Laddz. My heart went out to the chap.” “Do I understand it correctly, that the album title is about Shocko having seven vintage cars and Wayne only having a Dart ticket, the day Hailey left him?”
Katie was shepherding Wayne around, ensuring that he spoke pleasantly to all the social diarists and journalists, even those who had shafted him in the past—of whom there were many—and suddenly, there was Fionn, in his dirty boots and jacket of many pockets, standing in an empty space, smiling awkwardly and being ignored by one and all.
“Just wanted you to know I’m here,” he called. “You do your thing. I’m here for you when you want me.”
She snagged George, who was scurrying past. “George, this is Fionn. Mind him. Introduce him to a few people.”
George swept Fionn away, and as Katie worked the room with Wayne, she caught an occasional glimpse of him. He seemed to be laughing and talking, which was a relief.
“Wayne, this is Catherine Daly from The Times . . .”
“Wayne, Casey Kaplan from the Spokesman. I know the pair of you go way back . . .”
Keith from the Tribune popped up in front of her. “Katie, give us a lend of Wayne for a second. Just want to take a couple of shots of him with someone.” He seemed quite agitated.
“Who?”
“Just over here.” Keith led them through the crowds. “Wayne, Katie, this is Fionn Purdue. Remember the name; you’ll be hearing it again. Fronting up a new gardening show. Lot of heat around it.”
Katie laughed in delight. “Pleased to meet you, Fionn Purdue.”
“Pleased to meet you, Katie Richmond.”
Neither Wayne nor Keith could see what was so funny.
“Katie.” Danno appeared. “We’re ready to start the speeches.”
In honor of the occasion—and it was an honor—James “Woolfman” Woolf, the managing director of Apex Europe, had flown in from London, with his stunning wife, Karolina, and their equally exquisite daughters, Siena and Maya. Under usual circumstances, Irish launches remained untroubled by anyone from the London end of things.
Woolfman, blessed with extraordinary good looks and magnetic charisma, chatted with charming “just folks” humility about the times he’d met icons like Nelson Mandela, Robert Plant—and, of course, the Dalai Lama. But who hadn’t met the Dala
i Lama, Katie thought absently. The brand was in danger of overexposure. A bit like Louis Vuitton. Outlets everywhere, even in duty-frees. She took a quick look at the faces around her: everyone was gazing with shiny, devoted eyes at Woolfman, and she was touched by the first prickles of alarm. They were so stunned with love for Woolfman that it seemed they’d entirely forgotten the reason they were there, to wit, Wayne Diffney. But . . . finally! . . . Woolfman said, “I can now add Wayne Diffney to the list of people I can boast about having met.”
And the day was saved! Relief flooded Katie and she wondered why she had ever doubted Woolfman. He was a charm monster, a public-relations superstar, a hero.
Much clapping and whistling accompanied the appearance of Wayne on stage. His speech was brief and grateful and then, with prearranged spontaneity, someone (Danno) handed him a guitar and urged him to sing a few songs, which he promptly did. “The Day She Left.” Then, “She’s Having His Baby.” And, of course, the first single from the album, “They Killed My Hair.”
A tad mawkish, perhaps, but no one could deny he had good reason.
That was the work bit pretty much over for Katie, and for the rest of the night Fionn never left her side. He generated a lot of interest. Time after time, Katie heard him being asked, “How do you know Wayne?”
“To be honest, I don’t,” he always replied. “I’ve never met him before tonight. I’m here with Katie Richmond.”
“With Katie Richmond?”
“With Katie Richmond.”
“Girlfriend’s heading for a fall.” George, watching from the shadows, shook his head gloomily.
“It won’t last,” Lila-May agreed.
“What’s wrong with all of you?” Danno said, exasperated. “Can’t you just let her be happy?”
“But what does he see in her?”
“What? You think it should be you? With your long hair and your pointy bazoomas and—”
Fueled by a sudden surge of rage, Danno lunged at Lila-May and engaged her in a hot, dirty kiss, which came as a huge surprise to her, but an even bigger surprise to him. He’d been pretty sure he was gay.