by Cathy Kelly
‘Thanks, Mum – you’re a star!’ yelled Michael, while Fiona giggled and insisted she’d get the truth out there.
‘I’m telling Robbie so he can use it in his speech.’
‘If that’s the worst Robbie has for his speech, then we’re doing OK,’ remarked Katy wryly.
There was no time to talk again. Grace managed it so that there were no private moments between her and Stephen until he was borne off by Michael to stay with him and Katy for the night. She closed her front door with a combination of relief and sadness. What else had Stephen been planning to tell her about his break-up with Julia – and why did he think she wanted to listen?
Coward, she told herself as she finally went upstairs to the comfort of her toile de Jouy bedroom, a lonely bower. She knew why. But it would be a mistake.
It was impossible to revisit a marriage once it was over, and theirs had ended fifteen years ago. It was only nostalgia and loneliness that was making them feel any different.
On Sunday evening, a much happier Leila was back in Dublin and yearning to stretch her legs after the drive from Bridgeport. Walking Pixie gave her the perfect excuse. In the glow of the street lights, the city had a certain charm to it, she decided. She no longer felt any hint of fear when she set off in the evening, thanks to Pixie bouncing along beside her, eager to be ploughing through puddles and sniffing trees already scented by other dogs.
At night, the streets had their own atmosphere, with people out walking their dogs or jogging or zipping past like Lycra-clad superheroes, heads down low over the handlebars of their bicycles.
The early-morning walks were her favourite, though, because she loved watching the trees along the canal change, the bare branches reaching bleakly into the sky becoming covered with green shoots tipped with buds.
The wedding was just weeks away, and Leila thought about it as she walked, in between smiling at Pixie’s antics. She and Susie had talked twice already today, and they’d made plans for Jack and Susie to visit Dublin soon for a weekend.
Jack insisted he wanted to go to the zoo. ‘I like the rain, Leelu,’ he’d added determinedly, ruling out the possibility of his treat being ruined by the weather.
‘Rain or shine,’ agreed Leila.
‘Leelu loves the rain,’ teased Susie, and it had felt to Leila as if she and her sister were back where they’d always been: close.
How could she have let that bond disappear over a man?
Why did people want to search for mates anyway? It was so crazy, so doomed to failure.
Then she thought of Michael rubbing Katy’s feet. There was something so luxuriously together about such an act, Leila thought. Would anyone ever massage her feet for her?
They never had before. Tynan hadn’t been much of a man for feet; more of a breast man, to be honest. The gentle romance of caressing her toes would never have occurred to him.
Leila sighed as she walked. That was the past, she told herself: move on.
Searching for that impossible dream had nearly cost her her family.
As they walked in the dusk, Pixie had begun to tug on the lead, dragging Leila back to planet earth. The dog had spotted Tasha and Mitzi, two of her doggy friends, in the distance.
‘Don’t pull, Pixie,’ said Leila automatically.
The special harness she’d bought had helped, and she’d got herself a couple of dog-training books as well. When her mother went back to living at home, it would be a help to her if Pixie was walking to heel instead of her usual meandering zigzag; with a bad hip, she couldn’t risk being pulled over or unbalanced. And to save her mother chasing after Pixie when she was running wild on the playing fields, Leila was planning to train her to come when called. It was such a nuisance that all the training classes she’d found seemed to be at at the weekend, because Leila spent her weekends in Bridgeport, visiting her mum. In the meantime, she was trying a few lessons in the apartment with doggy-biscuit rewards, though they hadn’t been having much success so far.
Leila let the extending lead out. Tasha and Mitzi were off the lead because they were beautifully trained and came when called. Their owner was one of those women who looked elegant even in wellingtons. Leila smiled at her, thinking how funny it was that they had no idea of each other’s names. It was a real dog walkers’ thing. Everyone knew the dogs’ names but nobody knew the people’s. Quizzing a fellow dog-walker – what’s your name, what do you do, where do you live – seemed a bit like asking someone in prison what they were in for.
‘Hello,’ Leila said cheerfully.
‘Hello,’ said the woman. ‘Lovely evening, isn’t it? I’m so glad the days are starting to get a little longer – it makes it easier when you’re out walking. I do so hate walking when it’s pitch dark. I’m not sure these two would be much protection against any would-be assailant.’
‘I doubt Pixie would be either,’ Leila said ruefully. ‘I think we probably should all have alarms or big sticks.’
They both smiled at the idea, and then suddenly the other woman let out a roar: ‘Girls, stop!’
Leila turned in time to see the three dogs joyfully taking turns to lie on their backs and wriggle deliciously in some suspicious-looking mud. The way they were trying to coat their bodies in it made Leila think that this was no ordinary dirt.
‘If that’s fox shit, I’ll murder you, you monkeys!’ yelled the soignée woman, and Leila was momentarily more shocked at hearing her swear than learning that Pixie had rolled in the dreaded fox poo again.
She pulled the extending lead in, but it was no good, the damage was done. Pixie looked up at her, a huge grin on her face. Leila bent down and sniffed, and instantly smelled the pungent aroma that confirmed her fears.
‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘what a nightmare. I can’t believe I have to bring her home and wash her again.’
‘I’ve to wash two,’ sighed the other woman.
She called the two dogs, snapped their leads on and started giving out to them. ‘I can’t believe you did that, you are so bold.’
Neither Mitzi nor Tasha looked in the least put out by this as they panted happily up at their mistress.
‘We’re clearly wonderful disciplinarians,’ the woman said.
‘Yes, clearly,’ said Leila gloomily. ‘I’ve never washed her in my place before.’
‘Really?’
‘No. She’s my mother’s dog, and the only other time I had to wash her was at my mother’s house. Unlike Mum, I don’t have a bath, just a shower, and I’m really not sure how that’s going to work. With the bath, I lay out lines of teeny dog biscuits for her to eat.’
The other woman laughed. ‘I’d advise that you take pretty much all your clothes off too, because you are going to get wet and sudsy, and possibly a bit foxy if any of the nastiness comes off on you. So arm yourself with lots of towels and some sort of antiseptic stuff to get rid of the stink. Uh, good luck, that’s our evening sorted,’ she added, and she marched off.
‘I can’t believe you, Pixie,’ Leila said as they turned in the other direction.
Pixie looked up at her mistress and finally appeared to show some repentance – but not much.
‘I suppose fox poo is lovely to you, like eau de cologne for dogs.’
They made it home in ten minutes, with Leila no longer thinking about her sister or her friend or foot-rubbing. Her mind was fully occupied with figuring out how the heck she was going to get Pixie into the lift and up to the apartment without touching anything on the way. And then into the shower.
She was so busy thinking that when they reached the apartment block, she barely registered the figure standing just inside the door. She assumed that whoever it was must be waiting for someone to come down from upstairs; you had to use a code to get in, and then unless you were a resident and had a key, whoever you’d come to see would have to buzz you in or come down and open the door.
She keyed in the pin for the door, pushed it open, trying to get Pixie in without banging off doors or walls, and
then suddenly stopped, because the figure leaning against the wall was Tynan.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Leila. Afterwards, she was glad that there’d been so much drama about the dog and the fox poo and that she’d been irritated about it all, because it meant that when she set eyes on her husband for the first time in eight months, she hadn’t looked at him with longing and burst into tears.
‘I’m back in town and I wanted to come and see you,’ said Tynan with the skill he had for making the unbelievable sound entirely plausible.
‘You want to see me, why?’ said Leila, standing her ground and aware that the stench of fox crap was now beginning to permeate the small hallway.
‘To say that I’ve missed you, darling. And by the way, what is that smell, and when did you get a dog?’
‘She’s my mother’s dog – Pixie, remember?’ said Leila, desperately trying to find her self-possession.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Tynan. ‘Cute, isn’t she?’
The self-possession arrived just in time.
‘Very cute,’ snapped Leila. ‘Now, what are you doing here?’
‘Honey, I told you – I missed you. I made a mistake.’
Suddenly Tynan was right beside her, and even in her messed-up state of mind, she could see that he looked good. Still lean, sexy and with that fabulous smile and dangerous charm that made a girl think she was the only one in the world.
Except when there was another girl, called Diane.
‘Oh well,’ she said sharply, ‘we all make mistakes. Again, what are you doing here, Tynan?’
If he was surprised that things weren’t going as well as planned, he didn’t show it.
‘I’m here to say sorry. I should never have left you.’
Somehow he was closer to her and she could smell his cologne, the scent of him, and at that moment, it smelled wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but while once she’d loved the scent of Tynan, right now he smelled strange – and that was in spite of the overpowering scent of fox.
‘But you did leave, didn’t you, and I’ve moved on, so bye, Tynan. I have a dog to wash.’
‘Please,’ he murmured.
‘No, go away.’
‘I could help you wash her.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Leila still couldn’t believe she was saying this. Not that long ago, she’d have begged for the chance to meet him face to face so that she could tell him how much she missed him, and promise that whatever she’d done wrong, she’d do better the next time. She’d change, be whatever he wanted. She’d stay up all night with him at gigs, anything.
But things were different now.
Even though Tynan was standing there looking as handsome and charming as ever, Leila knew something had changed since he’d been gone.
Then it hit her: she was different. She could not go back to the old, clinging Leila, the one who’d begged him not to leave.
‘You can’t do it on your own – wash that dog in our apartment, I mean,’ Tynan said.
Leila glared at him, feeling a flash of anger.
‘Just so you know,’ she said grimly, ‘it’s not our apartment, it’s my apartment. It always was. And yes, I am going to wash my dog in my apartment.’
‘You’ll need some help,’ he said. ‘I could do it, I’m great with animals.’
The thought of having someone else to give her a hand, even Tynan – especially Tynan – made Leila falter. ‘Well …’ she began.
He took Pixie’s lead from her. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’m brilliant with dogs.’
‘I thought you were brilliant with girls from marketing,’ she said bitchily.
Tynan ignored this. ‘You never saw me with a dog before,’ he said. ‘I must be losing it – I don’t remember this little honey at all. Aren’t you lovely?’ he said to Pixie. ‘Come on, Leila, open the door, we’ll go up. It’ll be done in a flash. You change, I’ll do it. We can talk some.’
She looked at him, clad in typical Tynan clothes: the usual cool ensemble of a battered but elegant leather jacket, jeans that moulded to his lean body, a band T-shirt clinging to his chest. His slightly curly hair was long again, and he had the trademark stubble.
He was entirely irresistible, no doubt about it.
Stop it, Leila! shrieked a voice inside her head. He left you, remember!
Yes, he left. No phone calls afterwards, no nothing.
But it would be fun to watch him get all those fabulous clothes dirty washing fox crap off Pixie, she thought wickedly.
‘Right!’ she said, making her mind up. ‘You can come up and help. And then you’re going – OK?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, saluting. But he was grinning now.
‘Stop with all the smiling and the flirting,’ she warned. ‘Don’t forget you marched out of here and I haven’t heard a word from you since. So don’t think you can march back in and things are going to be fine again.’
She didn’t know where all this was coming from, but somehow the anger was helping.
‘I just wanted to see you, Leila,’ he said gently, his voice a low purr. She’d forgotten how he could do that. His bed voice: the one that would make her melt as he whispered all the things he was going to do to her.
But it wasn’t working properly on her any more.
‘Get the keys out, Leila,’ he added smoothly, ‘before somebody comes along and complains about the smell in the lobby. I’m sure there’s something in the statutory by-laws of these apartments that says stinky, crappy dogs cannot hang around here for too long.’
They went up the back stairs and Leila, who’d thought so often about their meeting again and how she might just slap him across the face, was wondering what exactly had happened to her.
For months, she’d cyber-stalked this man on Facebook and longed for him to return. Now he was here and she felt … distant. Unconnected to him. Strange.
She felt very self-conscious as they walked into the apartment, remembering the last time he’d been here, but that was sort of taken away by trying to steer Pixie in the direction of the bathroom.
‘You haven’t changed much,’ said Tynan looking around. ‘It’s all pretty much the same.’
It’s not the same, Leila wanted to say. It’s different because you left it. You left it hollow and lonely, the way you left me. But she didn’t say those things. She might have said them a couple of months ago, but not now.
‘I’ve got new throws and candles, and that wall’ – she pointed at his damn mortuary wall – ‘is going to be painted next weekend.’ She’d do it herself. They’d always decorated their own home in Bridgeport. Only people like Tynan pretended they couldn’t paint and got decorators in. Leila was a dab hand with a paint roller.
Between them they got Pixie into the bathroom.
‘There are doggy biscuits on the kitchen counter in an old marmalade jar; bring them in here,’ Leila commanded. ‘Get some towels from the hot press – the dark ones.’
‘Those old navy ones we hate?’
‘Yeah, those will do,’ she said, ‘and …’ She stopped. She’d been about to say Bring me my leggings and an old T-shirt to wear while I wash her, but she could hardly strip while Tynan was around.
She didn’t want him going into their bedroom either. It wasn’t their bedroom any more; it was her bedroom.
‘That’d be great,’ she said.
While he was gone, she took off her coat and her boots until she was down to her T-shirt and jeans.
‘Pixie, you’re going to have to stay here on your own for a minute,’ she said.
Leaving a now confused Pixie in the bathroom, she shut the door behind her. Immediately Pixie began to howl.
‘Leave her in there,’ Leila commanded Tynan. ‘She doesn’t know you and I don’t want her upset.’
‘But I told you, I’m good with dogs,’ he said, coming out of the kitchenette with the dog biscuits.
‘I said leave her,’ Leila repeated in a voice that brooked n
o opposition.
Tynan was good with everything of the female gender: old women, younger women, clearly even female dogs. She would not let him worm his way back into her life again. Not now.
In her bedroom, she quickly dressed in old leggings and an even older T-shirt, tied her hair in a ponytail and was back in the bathroom within a minute. Tynan followed her in, having shed his boots and jacket.
‘Now, baby, how are you?’ he said, crooning gently to Pixie, who wriggled up against him, fox poo and everything.
He didn’t move away, Leila had to grant him that. Clearly he was back here looking for something. She wasn’t sure what it was, but the old Tynan would not have been in favour of strange dogs covered in excrement rubbing themselves against him.
Pixie was not keen on any type of washing experience, as Leila knew, so she stepped into the shower with the dog, got the shower head down and began talking nonsense to the dog as she grabbed the strongest shampoo she could find.
‘Feed her those biscuits,’ she instructed Tynan.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, saluting.
It took three serious washes until finally Leila judged Pixie to be a clean, shiny, de-pooped dog. She herself was soaked through, and Tynan’s T-shirt was both damp from Pixie’s shaking and smudged with suspicious dark marks.
‘Now,’ said Leila, ‘get the biggest of those navy towels and just wrap it around her.’
‘You’ve done this before,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she replied bluntly.
She and the shower were both filthy. ‘Can you take her outside and finish drying her off while I clean the bathroom and have a shower?’ she said. ‘And don’t let her on the couch – except on the bit with the big blanket on. That’s where she and I sit. Actually …’ a thought occurred to her, ‘put another towel down there so she can get totally dry.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Tynan repeated, grinning.
Leila watched him leave, a devoted Pixie following him and the biscuits.
Hell, he even has that effect on dogs, she thought. He’s got her eating out of his hand.