So happy to be back in Dublin! #realBarrystea #nomosquitoes #theresnoplacelikehome
Then she sits back on Meg’s rattan sofa out on the balcony and scrolls down through the comments. In a matter of minutes, there are loads. Mostly from her old school pals down home, all dying to know when she is coming to see them. ‘So we can arrange the biggest welcome home party that Ballyroan has ever seen!’ as her future sister-in-law-to-be posted.
But then there is one comment that makes her heart stop.
From @freddiedecourcey.
Him. Most definitely him.
Welcome home, Harriet. Can I call you?
Instantly, she drops the phone, as if she’s just been electrocuted.
Ohgodohgodohgod, she thinks, her heart rate soaring as she gets up and goes inside and paces around a bit.
This isn’t the first time she’s heard from Freddie either. There were a few – more than a few, to tell the truth – stray texts and a couple of late-night phone calls from him when she was away. ‘Just wondering how you’re doing. When you’re home, maybe we can meet up?’ To date, she’d stonewalled him, ignored his messages and not returned his calls.
And that, she tells herself, is exactly what I’m going to do now, too.
Certainly not till she at least gets to talk the whole thing through properly with Meg, because if there was one thing Meg never did, it was give bad advice. After all, the reasons why Freddie and Harriet broke up in the first place are still very much there, aren’t they?
Do nothing, she tells herself. Do absolutely nothing. Wait to talk to Meg properly, get advice. Meg had been right a year ago when all of Harriet’s deepest, darkest suspicions about Freddie had turned out to be entirely correct. He was out of her league, Meg had told her, and wasn’t she right?
‘You’re well in over your head with a guy like him,’ she’d said; Harriet could still remember every word vividly. Meg had gently talked her through it all, no detail spared. ‘I hate having to tell you this,’ she’d said reluctantly, ‘but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, and I wouldn’t be a true pal unless I told you what everyone else seems to know. Fact is, Freddie is still seeing an old girlfriend behind your back, someone else far more suited to him, certainly as far as that snotty family of his are concerned.’
Harriet could still remember how she’d felt on being told that her intuition was completely on the money. And worst of all was that Meg was right; there was no chance in hell that his family would ever, ever have accepted the likes of her. She knew it, they knew it, the dogs on the street seemed to know it. Yadda, yadda, yadda – Harriet had heard it all, and nothing has changed since she’s been away over the last year. Not a single thing.
God, but she was a misguided moron to have read anything into Freddie getting back in contact with her. He was just so well mannered and polite – he was kind and considerate like that to everyone, not just her. He’d been to a public school, for God’s sake. You couldn’t fault his manners. Well, except for the whole sleeping with someone else behind her back thing. Besides, he’s probably figured enough time has passed between them for it to be OK to get in touch, ‘as friends’.
He just feels a bit guilty about how it all came to a crashing halt between us, she thinks. He probably wants to make sure that she isn’t sobbing herself to sleep at night, in a tea towel bought at the charity shop for twenty cents.
She and Freddie have been apart now for almost one whole year. Well, three hundred and fifty-two days, to be exact. And for every single one of those days, Harriet has thought about him and wondered how he is, and even though she tried her very hardest to throw herself into her new job abroad, and even though it killed her to keep ignoring his messages and stonewalling him, absolutely nothing would stop the feeling that there was a great slab of stone right where her heart used to be.
Abruptly, she stands up.
Distractions. She needs distractions, badly. She checks the time difference in New York, figures it’s early morning over there, and tries calling her parents.
Her dad answers, yawning sleepily down the phone.
‘Harriet, love,’ he says. ‘It’s so good to hear your voice – we missed you so much! I can’t wait to see you when we’re home this Thursday – and neither can your mam.’
‘I hope I didn’t wake you up, Dad?’ Harriet says apologetically, although she can clearly hear the sound of the TV on, as a weatherman gives out the forecast for the Tri-state area and predicts thundery downpours for the whole of Manhattan.
‘Not at all,’ her dad says sounding as clear as if he is actually in the room with Harriet, and not thousands of miles away. ‘Your mam is already up and showered and dressed and giving out yards because Macy’s on Herald Square doesn’t open for another two hours.’
‘I never said that!’ Harriet hears her mam insisting loudly in the background. ‘I’m only up and dressed because I have to go to a major veterinary conference and work hard all day, to keep you in the manner to which you’re accustomed, you roaring eejit!’
‘In fact, you’re not even our first caller today, Harriet, love,’ her dad says wryly. ‘Your two brothers already woke us up at six this morning, New York time, with, I’m not joking you, a list the length of their arm of stuff for us to bring home for their stag night. Oh, you’d want to hear the kind of shite they were after: inflatable willies and latex crap and all that bollock-ology. They’ve a right fecking cheek, the pair of them.’
‘Give me that phone,’ Harriet’s mam says, grabbing it from him, as Harriet smiles at all their affectionate squabbling. She’s missed all this so much more than she realised. ‘And for God’s sake,’ her mam says, ‘if you’re going to cut your toenails, can you please do it in the bathroom? No, not you, Harriet, love. I was talking to your dad. So how are you feeling today, pet? Not too jet-lagged, I hope?’
‘Did the boys really ask you to bring back sex toys?’ Harriet asks, making herself another Nespresso from Meg’s fancy machine and sitting up onto a stool at the kitchen island, loving the chance to catch up on all the family gossip.
‘They certainly did, and the pair of them got a right lash of my tongue, I can tell you,’ her mam says in a brisk, no-nonsense tone. ‘Can you imagine us going through customs with all that sleazy tat in our suitcases? Honestly. If we were stopped and searched, I’d never hold my head up high again.’
‘And how are the brides-to-be?’
Jack and Terry were engaged to two lovely girls who work together in the same hair salon, and all four first met during a charity fundraiser a few years ago, when the lads agreed to shave their full heads of hair off for a cancer awareness stunt. That made page twelve in the local paper, the twin engagements had made page five, and everyone was hoping the actual double wedding might be a page one story, come the big day.
‘Well,’ her mother harrumphs, ‘all I can say is, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle have absolutely nothing on that pair. Honestly, all they’re short of doing is ringing up the Archbishop of Canterbury and asking him for a loan of Westminster Abbey for the ceremony. The money this wedding is costing!’
‘Really?’ says Harriet, all ears.
‘Don’t get me started,’ her mother groans. ‘“Oh, your presence is the greatest gift we can possibly ask for,” Alisha says, the last time I was with her getting my highlights done. “So all we’re asking is that our guests make a little contribution towards our special day. Just whatever you feel you can afford – but just to make it nice and easy for you, there’s a bank giro attached to the bottom of each individual invitation. My own parents have given us two thousand quid each, just to give you a rough guideline.” Well, I won’t repeat to you what your father said to me afterwards.’
‘“What a load of bollocks!” I believe were my exact words,’ she hears her dad shout in the background.
‘Two thousand?’ Harriet says, nearly falling off her stool in shock.
‘I know,’ her mam says. ‘Do they think we’re on the rich li
st, or something? Or from a family like that de Courcey fella you used to go out with?’
But Harriet doesn’t answer and just goes very quiet instead.
Suddenly the whole mood, which was so light and jovial, seems to shift.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, pet,’ her mam says, sensing the change in atmosphere. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I just hoped that a bit of time away would have given you some perspective on all that. All in the past now, though, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, that Freddie sounded like a perfectly nice fella, but I always felt you were a bit of a mismatch. Your backgrounds were so different, you might as well have come from different planets. He went to one of those posh public schools, for God’s sake. And do you remember how the twins used to slag him off for coming out with things like, “golly gosh” and “blimey” the whole time?’
‘He’s been in touch again, Mam,’ Harriet blurts out. Can’t stop herself, but then, she tells her mam everything. ‘Since before I came back, actually. Just as a friend, I’m sure. Nothing more.’
‘Really?’ her mother says, using an entire octave in that single word and loading it with about three different meanings. Opera singers at the Met have got absolutely nothing on Harriet’s mother.
‘It’s all cool, Mam, honestly,’ Harriet rushes to reassure her. ‘You don’t need to worry. Really. It’s only a few messages and texts, that’s all.’
‘Whenever anyone tells me not to worry,’ her mam says very, very slowly, ‘then I automatically worry twice as much.’
‘So you’re staying at your friend Meg’s?’ her dad says, grabbing the phone back and thankfully changing the subject.
‘I’m in the middle of a conversation with her,’ her mam says, snatching the phone right back again as a hissed conversation between the two of them ensues. ‘Now kindly go back into the bathroom and finish your toenails.’
‘I already finished them, now it’s my turn for the phone—’
‘Did you wash your hands?’
‘Course I did, now let me talk to Harriet!’ Then more movement and muffled conversation. ‘Sorry about that,’ her dad says, finally getting hold of the phone. ‘I just wanted to say that it’s great your pal Meg is putting you up till we get home. Good on you, love. Save yourself a few quid. Unlike this bloody stag night – the whole thing is costing me a right packet. I’m telling you, it’ll be a miracle if I don’t end up on parish relief, this wedding is costing so much.’
‘Hand me back that phone,’ her mam says crossly, ‘and for the love of God, stop grousing about money for two minutes, will you? Now Harriet, love, I really do need to go. The conference is starting shortly, but you can tell me everything that’s been going on with that de Courcey fella as soon as we’re back home. We’re so excited to see you. And I know your brothers will be too—’
‘Even though they’re acting like a right pair of gobshites with their three-day wedding extravaganza and their joint stag night, and don’t get me started on the two wannabe Kardashians they’re marrying,’ her dad grumbles good-heartedly, grabbing the phone again. ‘They want a rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. Rehearse what, I says? Sure we already know how to use knives and forks, thanks very much.’
‘For God’s sake, I’m trying to talk to her,’ her mam says, to much grunting and moaning from her dad, as the phone is snatched back from him yet again.
‘I really can’t wait to see you guys,’ Harriet smiles. ‘And in the meantime, it’s lovely to be here with Meg. You’d want to see the place she’s living in . . .’
‘I’m very fond of that girl,’ her mam says approvingly, and Harriet can almost hear the smile in her mother’s voice. ‘Always came across like a young one with her head screwed on right. And she was so kind to you, love. Remember when that Freddie fella started messing around on you? She was a real pal to you then, wasn’t she?’
‘She certainly was, yes,’ Harriet agrees.
‘She was good enough to tell you the truth, Harriet,’ her mother says. ‘When plenty of other friends would have been only too delighted to see you hanging out with a rich kid like that, to see what they could get out of it for themselves.’
‘I know, Mam,’ Harriet says quietly. ‘I remember very well.’
‘Then when the Kenya trip came up, wasn’t it Meg who helped you pack your bags? And even drove you to the airport, if I remember right?’
‘She did, Mam. She was a dote.’
‘And now you just arrive on her doorstep and she takes you in? Now that’s a true-blue friend, pet. You mark my words.’
I hope you’re right Mam, Harriet thinks. I hope to God you’re right.
*
As the day wears on, and with nothing better to do with herself, Harriet wanders around the wraparound balcony, gazing down on views that stretch all the way over the docklands, probably the coolest and most expensive quarter of town. It’s high summer, the day’s getting hotter by the minute, and all she can see five floors beneath her at street level are hipster-y coffee shops, high-end boutiques and the very same trendy farmers’ markets that she and Meg once used to snigger at because they were so grossly overpriced.
‘Three fifty for a coffee?’ Harriet used to say. ‘Are they for real? And did you see the heads of broccoli that they’re charging two eighty for? Sure that’s half the price down home!’
‘Ahh, but don’t forget the missing ingredient,’ Meg smiled, ‘the designer mud that’s caked onto the sides of it. That’s what these ones with more money than sense are prepared to fork out for.’
‘There’s farmers down home would give you that for free – cow dung isn’t an extra luxury there!’ Harriet had said, and the two fell about laughing. She still remembers the day so well; it had been mild and sunny and they’d taken a stroll around the whole dockland area, just to have a sneaky peek at the luxury homes and flats that they could never afford.
And now, here’s Meg, actually living in one. And living on her own too, as far as Harriet can see, even though this apartment is vast and could house a whole family, easily. Although, mind you, to call a place like this an apartment is a massive understatement. This is more like a millionaire’s crash pad – it has all the bells and whistles, everything you could possibly imagine.
How much money has this cost whoever owns it? It is unfathomable to Harriet, whose earthly goods could all be contained in a small backpack and a few black bin liners. She’s been working abroad on a charity programme for the past twelve months, and has come back with little more than a big red sunburnt face, a collection of mosquito bites and a shocking case of diarrhoea. Yet in the meantime, Meg seems to have gone from being as broke as Harriet to living the life of a multimillionaire. What on earth has happened in the meantime? Is she out dealing drugs in her spare time, or what?
Harriet picks up her coffee cup, slides open the balcony doors and goes back inside the apartment, whistling as she wanders from the staggeringly huge living area and on into the master bedroom. Not that she’s deliberately snooping or anything, but still. There are an awful lot of things she can’t help noticing. That the dressing table in the main bedroom is stuffed full with all of Meg’s things, for one; her face creams, the special make-up she wears so many signs that she’s been staying here for a long, long time. Then, in the kitchen, there is the special gluten-free cereal that Meg eats in a neatly labelled container. Not only that, but post addressed to Meg has been laid out on the hall table.
The evidence is starting to stack up, and it all points to one thing. Meg is lying about this place. She has to be. She told Harriet she was only here on a lucky Airbnb, but that just doesn’t hold up.
Next thing, parcels from DHL arrive at the door, and the delivery guy asks Harriet to sign for them.
‘So what’s in them?’ she asks curiously.
‘Looks like dresses to me,’ comes the shrugged response. ‘When they’re over a certain price band, the VAT goes up, so that’s why I need you to sign for them.’
After he’s gone, Harriet examines the customs declarations on the outside of the boxes. Two dresses from Marni, a pair of trousers from Comme des Garçons and a pair of boots from Russell and Bromley. At even the roughest calculation, that has to be well over a thousand quid’s worth of lovely new things, right there.
A thousand quid, Harriet thinks, in total and utter shock. An insane amount of money.
Which makes no sense on any level, because Meg never, ever used to have a single spare bean for clothes at all. So how come she’s suddenly living the life of a multimillionaire? And how could she afford it? A win on the lottery, maybe? An inheritance from a wealthy relative?
Just then, a text pings through on Harriet’s phone. Meg, again.
This time her message is short, sweet and very much to the point.
Hi Harriet. I’m so sorry I can’t ask you to stay on any longer. I’m very happy to help you pack up and get home though. Will even drive you there myself.
So now Harriet isn’t wondering about her erstwhile pal Meg anymore.
At this stage, she’s starting to be a little suspicious of her.
Chapter Twelve
Meg
Ever the hypocrite, I’ve spent most of the day smiling and being perfectly polite to Jess’s pale, pinched little face. It’s almost killing me, but so far, I’ve successfully managed to be sweetness and light around her, all while dreaming up new and novel ways of getting her far, far away from her married boyfriend, where she wouldn’t be a bother to anyone anymore. Like the North Pole, I think, as Jess beavers away at the desk beside me. Or the Arctic Circle at the very least.
Just then, Senator Katherine herself bounds into the office, fresh from a meeting with the Department of the Environment, her presence instantly sending an electric current of energy through the whole team. Trailing behind her is her husband Philip, laden down with a tray of fresh pastries and croissants for everyone. The differences in their personalities, right down to the way they greet the room, couldn’t be more striking.
The Fixer Page 9