When they meet up at the pizza place and exchange opening pecks on cheeks, she calms. He’s easygoing, soothing, even nicer to look at close up across the table. She’s struck again by his teeth and feels self-conscious. The gap between her two upper front ones has never much bothered her – doesn’t Madonna have one? – but now she wonders if he minds. And there are the ‘incisors’ the dentist once remarked on – not to mention the uneven bottom row. They were never bad enough to get done on the National Health, and who’d want to waste their own money on teeth? Not that it was ever an option. He truly doesn’t seem to care. Lightly creased in smiles, he contentedly gazes at her eating her pizza slice by slice, her tongue slithering through the melting cheese on her hands. They share a bottle of Soave – she finds herself drinking faster than he is.
‘How was your weekend?’ she asks.
‘I packed the rucksack and got a bus to Wicklow.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Walked up Lugnaquilla. It was great. Fantastic views.’
‘I love mountains!’ she exclaims.
‘Maybe sometime we should climb one,’ he suggests shyly.
‘Yeah, be great,’ she replies almost under her breath, then buries her eyes in her plate.
‘And you,’ he says after a second or two. ‘How was Battle of Algiers?’
‘Brilliant.’ He expects her to go on but her eyes stay silently down.
‘Yes, it is,’ he agrees.
‘It sorta manipulates you,’ she says, looking back up with a smile. ‘You know what they’re doing is wrong, but you kinda feel it’s right.’ She feels a tiny thrill at coming up with the judgement out of the blue.
‘Like here?’ he asks. She doesn’t answer and itches to change the subject.
‘So tell me ’bout youse,’ she finally says.
‘Not as much to tell as there should be,’ he replies. ‘Irish father, as it happens—’
‘Would be with a name like yours,’ she whips in.
‘Though they left a long time ago. The family did OK.’
‘I can see that.’
He blushes modestly, then casts his most beguiling grin, his eyes twinkling. ‘My mother was English, though. Bit of French blood. She was a good-looking woman.’
She notices the tension. His smile disappears. ‘Yeah, both gone.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘There we are, nothing to be done.’
She thinks of asking how and why, but decides from the sadness in his expression that he doesn’t really want to discuss it.
‘So it’s me alone against the world,’ he continues, proclaiming it like a manifesto.
‘No brothers or sisters?’ she asks.
‘Just me. A lonely orphan in Dublin.’ He reverts to his default mode of self-mocking. She sees him as the standard male who deals with past regrets by avoiding them. Silence follows for a second or two of memory and consolation.
He’s chatty enough and reticent only about himself – she understands that’s in a boy’s nature. Above all, he’s a good listener and she finds herself chattering away in all sorts of unintended directions.
‘So what about you?’ he pipes up.
‘Not much to tell either. Not yet rags to riches. My da’s a mechanic, never had a proper academic education.’ He watches her break into a smile of fondness. ‘Mind you, the wee man’s now a self-taught philosopher king.’ Unlike him, she’s not holding back. ‘Ma’s a classroom assistant since my brother and I grew up. Working-class Catholic. They reckon they never had a proper chance so they were damned – well, my da used another word – if it was going to be the same for my brother and me. They pushed me. Scholarships mattered. That’s what got me here.’
‘And your brother?’
‘Oh. He’s a clever boy. Committed to the cause. You know.’ She sounds embarrassed. ‘He’s the philosopher windbag. Hot air and purple prose.’ She feels she’s gone too far and tries to row back. He concentrates fiercely on his pizza and eats hungrily.
‘I’d have been the same,’ he says between mouthfuls.
‘Not that he’s ever up to anything, just a whole load of blather. Gets boring after all these years.’ She forces a grin. ‘Thank God I got away.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
His hand creeps slowly across the table and ends up resting on hers. She lets it linger. She means to pull hers away, but, if she’s failing at that, there’s no way she’ll let him know where she lives. She imagines Mrs Ryan, cigarette hanging from lip, looking down on her through the curtains of the front bedroom.
He offers to drop her home, but she declines, giving him a peck on the cheek before setting off down the dimly lit lane. There’s a spring in her step. He’s nice. Really nice. Pity she can’t let it go anywhere. But there’s no reason not to be friends.
Imperceptibly, they fall into a routine, controlled by when he happens to appear at the library – lunch breaks together when he’s there, sometimes supper out when she’s ahead of her work and doesn’t have the kids to do. Though she only ever uses work as an excuse for being busy – she’s not going to mention her life as a childminder.
Occasionally they see a movie – he loves discussing them as much as she does. Schindler’s List keeps them going for hours – he’s fascinated by the different ways a ‘good’ man can behave in the face of evil. At his suggestion, they go to Indecent Proposal – she feels her cheeks going redder and redder as the story unfolds and Demi Moore undresses. He turns to her, appears to notice despite the darkness, chuckles, pats her on the thigh, then withdraws his hand.
She’s impressed by how hard he’s working, and his sympathetic understanding that she needs space and time for her own studies. Sometimes they walk round the city; on cold days he might hold her hands to warm them. They give each other chaste kisses as they part. He offers no hint of sex or love.
As these days and early weeks pass, a puzzle begins to trouble her. She’s thrown by how much she’s liking this man – as she now sees him – and how much she wants to spend time with him. He’s amiable, relaxing, interesting. There’s no side to him. He’s also gorgeous – she feasts on him every time she sees him. There’s no avoiding it – she wants him and has tried at times to convey it in her eyes. The puzzle is how slowly they seem to be moving – or, rather, he is.
She’s sure he’s attracted to her. She thinks she sees the desire in his eyes – yet he seems content to go on playing it for friendship. Perhaps that’s one reason why she’s grown to like him so much. Over a supper out – he’s not short of money and will never allow her to contribute, which is a relief – she tries a gambit to move it on.
‘It’s great eating out, but sometime I’d like to cook for you myself,’ she begins.
‘That’d be good,’ he says, ‘another of your talents to explore.’
‘Trouble is,’ she goes on downcast, ‘where I live is girls only and the landlady’s a witch. No men allowed.’
‘That’s Stone Age.’ He grins.
‘I blame the priests,’ she says.
‘Well never mind, we’ll just have to live on pizza.’
Why doesn’t he take the bait and invite her to his place instead? A nasty thought surfaces. Has he got a girlfriend hidden away somewhere? But on that her instinct is certain: he hasn’t. So what’s stopping him? Is there something she’s missed? God, maybe he’s not even into girls. No, he is. She’s sure of that too.
If, in those early days, they’d ended up in a pub, had a few drinks, gone back to where he lives – even checked into a cheap hotel or behind the bushes on a rug for God’s sake, warmed by alcohol – desire would have taken over. That would have suited her after such long abstinence – an escapist fling with a dreamy boy hailing from a different planet, no strings attached. Now it’s gone too far and they’ve spent too much time together for it to be just that. The implications of eventual sex begin to weigh more heavily. Yet, though he always tries to answer everything she asks, she feels she still doesn’
t really know this man she’s getting in so deep with.
‘So,’ she asks once, ‘you’ve never told me about your student days.’
‘They were pretty average,’ he says.
‘Hey, doesn’t matter what they were. I don’t mind.’
He’s silent, even gloomy, then speaks. ‘OK, I confess. I did history at Exeter. Now you’re going to really despise me.’
She laughs out loud, shaking her head at him. ‘You oul fool, I already know you’re a posh boy.’
Titbits like this are frustratingly meagre. Perhaps she has too idealized a view of what a relationship, even just a proper friendship, should be. Isn’t it about not just answering questions but immersing yourself into each other’s life, family, prejudices, experiences, all the pieces that make you the person you are – knowing there’s nothing you can’t share? It nags her that she’s only scraped his surface.
‘You know something,’ she says another time, idly twirling spaghetti on her fork, ‘we spend all this time together and it’s great. But I still feel I dunno anything ’bout you.’
He laughs. ‘What do you want to know? What is there to know? I’m all yours to see.’ He thinks, seeking to justify himself. ‘I’ve always told you anything you’ve asked.’
‘I know you have. I know you try. But it’s like . . . it’s like you’ve no family. No friends. None I know of, anyway. No past – sometimes what you tell me just feels like lines in a CV. We talk ’bout stuff but we never really talk ’bout you.’
‘I told you, I’m not very interesting. And I don’t have friends here.’ He pauses. ‘And, hey, I don’t quiz you about you. You said you’d got away. Maybe I’m the same.’
‘Fair enough,’ she says, ‘can’t argue with that.’
That’s it, and they change the subject, chatting as easily as always. But his face momentarily droops and she realizes she’s struck a nerve.
‘Remember you said you wanted to climb a hill?’ he says a few days later during the lunch break.
‘Yeah?’ She wonders what’s coming.
‘Weekend after next my mate Rob’s coming over. We’re driving to Connemara. We’d like you to come.’
‘We?’
‘Yes, we. He’s my oldest friend. I was thinking of what you said.’ She looks puzzled. ‘About knowing about me.’
‘Oh, right.’ She frowns. ‘Didn’t mean you to take it that literally.’
‘I didn’t. He was coming anyway. He’s good fun, clever too. A reporter for The Times. I’ll show you his byline. Rob McNeil.’
‘OK. Sounds great.’ The frown gives way to a beam and then to bleakness. ‘Look, I’d love to but I can’t.’
‘You can’t!’
‘I got a commitment: my flatmates are having a gathering.’
‘Can’t you get out of it?’ he pleads. ‘Just this once. Just for me.’
The beseeching in his eyes alarms her – he’s never exposed himself like that before. Has the moment come? Is this his foot pushing the accelerator? If so, she wants more than ever to be on the ride, though her strength of feeling has made it scarier.
Her arrangement with Mrs Ryan is one weekend a month off – and the dates clash. She needs a plan.
‘I was just wondering about something, Mrs Ryan,’ she says as tea that evening is ending.
‘Yes, love,’ she says, looking up from her plate. It’s cheese on toast with beans and chips – the kids are gone, having bolted theirs down and rinsed their plates.
‘I was gonna ask if it might be possible to swap my weekend off this month.’
Mrs Ryan’s eyebrows rise disagreeably. ‘That wouldn’t be very convenient, Maire. You never asked it before.’
‘I know, it’s just that something’s come up for my studies. Bit short notice but there’s a symposium the weekend after next in Cork – it’s about international law and war crimes.’
‘Sorry, love, you’ve got me there, what’s that?
‘It’s like . . . a symposium’s like some of the world’s experts on it’ll be gathered there. Lectures and discussion groups. Could help with my degree.’
‘It’s to do with your degree?’
‘Yes, Mrs Ryan. They’re laying on a bus for the third-years.’
‘OK, Maire, I’ll think about it. Maybe Margaret can help out.’
‘That’d be great, Mrs Ryan, thanks.’
She knows that Margaret, Mrs Ryan’s pregnant younger daughter, won’t be doing anything better – but also won’t want the bother. It’s down to how hard Mrs Ryan wants to push it.
Later that evening, she hears Mrs Ryan on the phone. She edges her room door ajar to make out what she’s saying, but whoever’s on the other end of the line seems to be doing most of the talking, only odd phrases wafting up. ‘Yes, that’s right . . . there’s a bus taking them . . . she says it’s good for her degree.’ She guesses Mrs Ryan’s trying to persuade her daughter – not that Margaret would be impressed by helping anyone get a degree.
As she’s leaving for the library next morning, Mrs Ryan pops her head out of her bedroom door. Her hairnet’s still in place, along with the cigarette.
‘Before you go, Maire – I had a chat with Margaret. You can go on your weekend for whatever that occasion is you mentioned.’
She’s startled, never believing it would work. ‘Thank you, Mrs Ryan, thanks very much.’
‘But no partying, OK?’
‘That’s great, it’s only for work.’
It seems too easy to be true – but what’s to worry about that? She’s off to Connemara with her posh English boy and, no doubt, his posh English friend. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath – eight days to wait.
It’s going to happen.
CHAPTER 7
Post-election, Friday, 5 May, to Sunday, 7 May
On the Friday afternoon Anne-Marie Gallagher had called into Audax Chambers. A ‘Congratulations’ banner hung and they gathered in reception to applaud as she entered. Her timing was fortuitous; the TV was showing the new prime minister, Lionel Buller, leaving Buckingham Palace after ‘kissing hands’ with the monarch.
‘You did it,’ said Kieron Carnegie.
‘You did it, Kieron,’ she replied.
‘Wrong. It’s entirely your achievement. And it doesn’t surprise me one jot.’ They exchanged happy smiles. ‘That was some speech.’
‘I’m not sure what took hold of me.’
‘The risk taker that lurks within.’
He leant close to whisper. ‘You may find you get a phone call soon.’
‘What?’ For once she seemed genuinely puzzled.
‘I’m afraid this may be the one and only time you have to allow me to know something you don’t.’
‘You’re incorrigible,’ she murmured, turning to mingle.
The call came at 8.30 on the Sunday morning, the number showing private.
‘He wants to see me? Yes, of course, name your time.’
She was lying in her bath, soapsuds playing around her toes, incredulity around her eyes.
‘Four-thirty. I’ll look forward to it. Oh, and where do I arrive?’
The instruction was brief. ‘Sure, I’ll remember to smile.’
She dialled Kieron Carnegie’s number. ‘You set me up again!’
‘Not at all,’ he protested. ‘They called me out of the blue.’
‘Checking me out?’
‘Just one of Lionel’s boys. He was only asking if there was anything they needed to know.’
‘And?’
‘I said you were the most remarkable young woman I had ever met. It seemed to satisfy him.’ He paused. ‘Good luck. Don’t worry if he doesn’t smile, he left his sense of humour behind in the womb.’
At 4.28 p.m., conveying herself elegantly on black, lightly heeled boots, she was ushered through the gates of Downing Street by the duty policemen. ‘Good afternoon, Ms Gallagher.’ Their recognition shot a dart of pleasure through her. For the cameras parked outside Number 10 she affect
ed a shy smile. ‘What’s he giving you, Anne-Marie?’ came a shout. She raised an eyebrow at the offender.
At 4.30 p.m. the black front door opened. A young man with floppy hair, a boy, it seemed to her, at the heart of government, shook her hand and addressed her with a silky maturity.
‘Welcome, Ms Gallagher. Philip Wells, private secretary to the Prime Minister. You’re the last by some way and he’s retreated to the flat. If you could bear to follow me up . . .’
Lionel Buller was dressed in charcoal grey suit trousers and a white shirt, top button open. In the corner, she saw a jacket and tie folded carefully over a chair.
‘Anne-Marie, good to see you.’
‘And you, too, Prime Minister,’ she replied.
Without a handshake or embrace, he gestured her to sit down. Somehow she had expected him to forgo formality and ask her to call him by his first name.
A second man looked on, similarly dressed but with tie in place, topped by retreating sandy hair whitening at the edges. ‘You know Rob McNeil,’ stated Buller. It was an assumption that neither of them challenged.
‘Good to meet,’ said McNeil stretching out his hand.
‘Yes, indeed,’ she replied, shaking it. She felt not just shock but a punch of dread. Over the years, she had occasionally noticed his rising profile and ultimate appointment as political editor. As she herself grew in her smaller world, there was little danger of their careers crossing paths – until her selection as a parliamentary candidate. Even then a little known, would-be MP was too small fry for a national political editor.
Now, without any rehearsal, she was pitched together with him. She told herself to stay calm and show nothing – there was no reason, in such a different context, why he should suddenly start thinking about a weekend twenty-four years ago.
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