by Martina Cole
Eamonn stood up and banged his fist on the desk. ‘Oh no, you don’t! That child is not making an exhibition of herself tonight. If you get her out of bed and bring her down for this toffee-nosed bunch to snigger at, I’ll give you such a slap across the chops you’ll have bells ringing in your head for days!’
Deirdra was nonplussed. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard. Now get back there and I’ll be in soon. You tell them that Norah has fallen asleep, and then tell the fucking band to stop playing Miles Davis and give us something everyone can dance to, OK? That noise is going right through my head. This is supposed to be a party, for fuck’s sake. Who could dance to that dirge going on at the moment, I ask you?’
Deirdra rushed from the room. Eamonn followed her sedately. As he hit the ballroom he was once again a genial host, from his smile to his effortless small talk. Even his wife couldn’t fault him.
The band struck up Summertime, and people danced to it slowly. A black singer called Marcella who had come with Petey started to sing along and suddenly it was a real party. Ten minutes later the band was playing You Are The Sunshine of My Life and everyone was singing along.
It was now a party party and even Deirdra realised as much. All her sophisticated dreams had gone out of the window but she finally relaxed and began to enjoy herself.
Jack made his way over to his son-in-law.
As Marcella started to sing Danny Boy, the older man’s eyes misted up. He always got emotional over that song, most Irishmen did.
‘I see you’re getting choked.’ Eamonn’s voice was scornful.
‘Sure you’re a dreadful man, you know, you have no soul,’ Jack grinned, wiping his eyes. ‘How’s that eejit of a daughter of mine these days? Christ, but she’s piling on the pounds. It must be like mounting a fecking elephant.’
Eamonn was saved from answering by the arrival of Petey and Anthony Baggato, both well on in drink and cocaine.
‘We’re all meeting tomorrow at the Ravenite, be there,’ Anthony told him.
Eamonn nodded. ‘What’s the talk on the wire taps and everything else?’
Anthony shrugged. ‘They’re out for the big fish, they don’t know about us. Unlike others I could name, we keep a low profile.’
‘If only they knew, eh?’ Petey said jovially.
‘Great party,’ Anthony told Eamonn.
‘Yeah, thanks to me. If it was left to Deirdra we’d all be standing around talking about Russian authors and minimalist painters. Oh, and politics, mustn’t forget that.’
‘Fuck politics, and fuck the Russians. They’re all bastard Communists anyway,’ growled Jack.
Eamonn laughed. ‘Not the writers, or the ones she professes to read anyway. They’re all dissidents, whatever the fuck that is.’
Petey shrugged and said seriously, ‘Probably the Russian word for queers. Most of these authors are strange, you know. I’ve seen that on the Johnny Carson Show. All those words in their head and when they get interviewed they talk about fuck all. I notice things like that.’ He felt he had said something very profound and was very pleased with himself.
An hour later the party started to break up, and an hour after that Eamonn was ready for his bed.
The trouble was, so was Deirdra.
As they undressed she kept up a running stream of conversation. How well her party had gone, how everyone had told her how great it had been. How everyone had complimented her on the food and the decor.
In short, how clever she was.
As he climbed into bed Eamonn said softly, ‘It was the kid’s birthday. Tomorrow I’m taking Norah to McDonald’s and giving her a real treat for once. Get a few of her friends together.’
Deirdra didn’t answer. He turned over and pulled the quilt up to his neck. Switching on the lights, she went to the bathroom and was gone some time, getting herself ready. He lay gritting his teeth in bed. It was going to be one of those nights. Lying there, he faced the inevitable.
Fondling himself, he pictured Cathy in his mind. Her hair, her eyes, her breasts. He pictured her legs opening to him, her eyes inviting him. By the time Deirdra came back and turned off the lights, he was ready for her.
As she caressed him she felt the stiffness of his manhood and chuckled with delight. ‘We are a big boy tonight.’
With his usual mockery he said, ‘And it’s all for you, baby.’
All the time he was kneading Cathy’s breasts, lifting Cathy’s body up to his, eating her with a fervour that Deirdra found amazing, and finally pumping into Cathy as if their lives depended on it. As he felt his wife’s orgasm, he started to experience his own. In his mind Cathy was panting beneath him, her breasts heaving with her need for him, her wetness for him only, her moans for him only.
As he collapsed on top of his wife, she placed her arms around his neck and sighed. ‘That was good, baby, the best.’
She really believed she had made him feel like that. He felt bad for her suddenly, wanted to tell her the truth: that it would take Arnold Schwarzenegger to lift it for him where she was concerned.
Instead, he kissed her on the lips and rolled off her. He felt lonely, lonelier than he had ever been in his entire life. He had everything most people could want: a fine home, a nice family and enough money to buy his own island if he wanted to. Yet at this moment he would exchange it all for one kiss, one night with Cathy.
As his wife snored softly beside him, Eamonn lay awake and remembered his childhood with Cathy and his father.
If only he’d known then what he knew now. Oscar Wilde said that youth was wasted on the young, and he was right. When you were young you wasted not only your own life, but usually someone else’s as well.
Sleep, that night, was a hell of a long time coming.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Eamonn listened as Petey and Jack argued about one of their collectors. The man’s name was Michael Flynn and his brother in Ireland had been denounced by the IRA as an informant. Word had come from Belfast to give him the bad news. In other words, make him disappear.
Petey was not so sure they should get involved; Jack’s attitude was that they had been given their orders and should carry them out with the minimum of fuss. Eamonn was indifferent.
The Mahoney name was still enough to strike fear into the hearts of many people in New York State, as far afield as Florida, Miami and Boston. They were the main collectors for the IRA now, and through this had gone on to bigger and better things, from drug dealing to smuggling. Anything that anyone wanted, anywhere, at any time.
Eamonn would in fact be just as happy if they left the Cause, stopped collecting for it, because he’d made a fortune from it and was still making a fortune in other ways.
His nightclubs alone brought him in enough to live on comfortably for the rest of his natural life. They were all real businessmen these days, with office space in Manhattan and invites to City Hall. He himself paid over a million dollars a year in rent for his own offices off Wall Street and knew that his legitimate businesses would more than meet his needs these days.
Which was probably what was causing this dissatisfaction with his life. He had the houses, the cars, the holidays . . . He had a wife, a fine family. In reality he had everything he had ever wanted.
And it still wasn’t enough. He wanted someone he could respect, someone he could love. He wanted a woman he could possess, and be possessed by. Someone who would always love him, no matter what.
He sighed and Jack said snidely, ‘Are we running on too much for you, Eamonn? Only I know business bores you these days.’
He didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Look, either kill him or leave him be,’ he said. ‘There’s two choices here. I can’t see what the problem is. I’ll arrange it, if you like,’ he offered. ‘That way it’s down to me and you don’t have to square it with your conscience or anyone else’s.’
Petey slammed his fist on to the desk, the noise deafening in the small room.
‘I’m fucking sick of all thi
s! They talk and we jump. It’s like we have no lives or minds of our own any more. This is getting beyond a fucking joke. Michael has done nothing wrong. He’s mortified at what his brother did . . .’
Eamonn stood up and said gently: ‘Give it a rest, Petey. It’s done. Let’s forget about it.’
The three men stared at each other balefully, each with their own thoughts, each knowing they had arrived at an impasse.
It had been coming on them for a while.
Familiarity breeds contempt. They were all aware of that fact but had never thought it would apply to them. Now they found it did. Each wanted different things from life, and at times like this their individual wants and needs seemed more important than the future of the collecting business.
Petey wanted out; had wanted it for a long time.
Jack wanted out, but knew that as the elder brother he could do nothing without bringing trouble on to everyone else’s head.
Eamonn didn’t really care either way. He swung between wanting more and more, and wanting none of it.
Petey’s voice was bitter. ‘Life’s shite. Even with all we’ve got, life’s still shite.’
‘Well, you know what they say, little brother: “Life’s better shite in a good suit, than shite on your uppers.” Remember that next time you decide you want to cross the Cause, because they’d kill you and not give a fuck.’
‘I’ll get it sorted,’ Eamonn said again. ‘Now I’m off. I’ve got Tommy Pasquale over this week and I need to get things set up for him.’
The other men nodded, understanding that what he was really saying was: Life goes on.
Eamonn snorted derisively. ‘What a load of tossers we are. We have everything and yet we have nothing. Frightening thought, isn’t it?’
He left a deafening silence behind him.
Eamonn arrived home at 7.30 and sat down to his meal with Deirdra and the children. He was smiling and laughing with them, and his wife joined in. She was on top form until they’d finished dessert and the coffee was brought in. Then the children, as if given a secret message, all asked to leave the table.
Deirdra poured Eamonn his coffee and added sugar and cream. ‘I’ve some news for you, Eamonn.’
He sipped his coffee, half an ear on his wife and the other half on the baseball game he could hear coming from the children’s den. He smiled absentmindedly at her. ‘What’s that then?’
Deirdra pushed her hair from her face and grinned. ‘Guess. Come on, try and guess.’
She was like a big kid and he decided to humour her. Christ knows he didn’t spend much time with her, the least he could do was be civil. It made life easier in the end.
‘What’s the big news, chicken? You know I’m useless at guessing games.’
She beamed at his use of the name ‘chicken’. It was what he used to call her when they were first married. When he still liked her.
Because she knew better than anyone that it wasn’t keeping his love that was the difficulty in her marriage; she would be happy if he could just like her again.
Placing her hands on her cheeks, as she had once seen Demi Moore do in a film, she said gaily: ‘I’m pregnant again.’
She still smiled even as she saw him blanch. She still forced a smile as she saw his lips set into a grim line, and she was smiling as he threw his napkin on to the table and put his head in his hands.
‘You’re joking. Tell me you’re joking!’ His voice was low, angry.
She shook her head, her smile gone now, her face as white and strained as his.
They were both silent for a while, each staring at the other like antagonists before a fight. Deirdra was having trouble holding his gaze. She was distraught. For all these years she had tried to keep this man interested in her. When she had married him, she had seen him as her escape route, a chance to have a really good life of her own. But instead she had fallen deeply in love with him, and it had never left her. No matter what he did, how he used her, how he spoke to her or neglected her - and he neglected her shamefully at times - she still carried on loving him.
She had tried to be a sophisticated woman for him, tried to make a home he would want to come back to. Had given him child after child to tie him to her. And now, finally, she had to admit: she had failed. The look on his face would have broken the strongest of spirits. It was certainly breaking hers.
‘I don’t fucking believe you, Deirdra,’ he began harshly. ‘Ain’t we got enough kids? Bearing in mind the fact you lose all interest in the poor little fuckers when they start walking and talking. We agreed after Paul that nine was more than enough. But no, you think that by having another child, and probably another after that, you’ll make me want you.
‘Well, lady, you can’t make people love you. You just can’t. I’ve tried. You’re the mother of my children, and God help me I’ve got enough of them. But that is it, that’s as far as it goes. You hold no attraction for me, you never really did. You’re a shallow, boring, spoiled little mare, like one of those Jewish princesses you knock about with, only Irish.
‘Money cushions you, has always cushioned you. But you can’t buy my love with money or with babies, darlin’. The sooner you realise that the better. I pay the bills, I make sure we all have everything we need, but that’s as far as it goes. Have the baby, go for it, but I’ll never come to your bed again after this. You’ll not catch me out again. No fucking way. It’s a chore, Deirdra, a fucking chore, mounting you and heaving away on top. I think about everyone and anyone while I’m doing it, because you hold no interest for me. So, you have this baby and make the most of it, because it’s the last one you’ll ever get from me.’
Deirdra sat and took all he had to say without batting an eyelid. What was it about Eamonn Docherty that made her want him so much she couldn’t bear the thought of living without him, even though she knew that then her life could only be better? Without him she would grow, become someone, the person she really was. Instead she’d tried everything and anything to be what she thought he wanted her to be.
She suddenly saw him with stunning clarity for the first time ever. Saw him for what he really was. Shaking, she lit a cigarette. Her hands were trembling, her heart beating too fast. Utter humiliation was burning inside her.
‘Do you know something, Eamonn?’
He didn’t even look at her as he answered. ‘What?’
‘I’ve given fifteen years of my life to you.’ Her voice was low, but surprisingly clear. No trace of the usual tears or temper. ‘I have spent nearly seven of those years pregnant . . .’
‘Well, whose fault was that?’ he interrupted.
She placed both hands flat on the table and yelled, ‘Listen to me, I am talking now!’
He was so shocked, he did as she asked.
‘God help me, I’ve loved you through all those years. When you stayed out all night. When you came home with the smell of another woman on your body. When you didn’t even remember that it was Easter, or Christmas, or one of the kids’ birthday. How many times did you fly off to Las Vegas on Christmas Eve? How many times did you visit England or somewhere else and not even ask me if I minded you going, let alone did I want to come? Oh, I admit I’ve been difficult over the years, but it was because I loved you so very much. Now I have been given the final humiliation. So, in future, I won’t ask you for anything.
‘I’ll have my child. I’ll have this baby. My baby. And as God is my witness I’ll never trouble you again, though how a wife asking for a bit of her husband’s time or affection is wrong, I really don’t see. You could have pretended you cared, Eamonn. Christ knows you could at least have pretended. You have been cruel, so cruel, over the years. But I never stopped caring and hoping.’
She stood up then and her dignity amazed him.
‘If you want to leave, then go, I’ll understand. If you stay we will play our game of pretend as usual. God knows I’m used to it, I’ve played the game for fifteen long years. But even I can see it’s a pointless exercise now.’
As she walked from the room he was stunned.
That Deirdra could talk to him like that!
She closed the door softly behind her and he suddenly felt as if he had lost something precious; a great void welled up inside him, one he knew would never be filled.
Because he had deliberately destroyed someone. A small person, an insignificant person.
And that person was his wife.
Eamonn made his way to the apartment in Manhattan that he always rented for Tommy’s visits. It was off Fifth Avenue, central for everywhere and upmarket enough to walk out of at night without too much fear of being mugged. As he got into the lift he was whistling, because from Tommy he got his news of Cathy.
Over the years he had thought of her so much it was unbelievable. Sometimes he thought about her for days on end, going into a minor depression over her. Knowing that Tommy had her whenever he wanted was like a knife thrusting under his ribs. Listening to the other man constantly singing her praises made him jealous inside. He wanted what Tommy had.
And he could have had it so easily!
He played at being mates with his English counterpart. He acted the big man, taking Tommy out and around New York, hoping all the time that his friend was going to go home and tell his wife how well Eamonn Docherty was doing.
He knew it was childish, stupid, but it was what he had been doing for years.
Through Tommy, he felt he had access to Cathy, even though he had not laid eyes on her in all that time.
Tommy answered the door with a wide smile. Eamonn walked inside and heard the shower running. He raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
‘You were quick. Not an hour off the plane and already you’ve got a bit of company, eh?’
Tommy looked sheepish. ‘It’s Carla, I always ring her. We’ve got an understanding.’
Eamonn walked through and sat down on the white leather sofa. The view of the Manhattan skyline was breathtaking, but he was used to all that now. It didn’t interest him. In fact, at times he yearned for a look at the good old Thames. As full of shit and polluted as it was, he missed it. Like he missed a proper cup of tea, a full English breakfast and Saturday night up the Palais.