by Marian Keyes
‘Magazine, actually.’ Ashling heard someone giggle nervously and realized helplessly that it was herself. ‘Just the one.’
‘And why are you leaving Woman’s Place?’
‘I’m looking for a new challenge,’ Ashling offered nervously. Sally Healy had told her to say that.
The door opened and in came the bitten man.
‘Ah, Jack.’ Calvin Carter frowned. ‘This is Ashling Kennedy. Ash as in cigarette ash, ling to rhyme with sing.’
‘How’s it going?’ Jack had other things on his mind. He was in a foul mood. He’d been up half the night in negotiations with technicians at the TV station, while conducting almost simultaneous negotiations with a US network to persuade them not to sell their award-winning series to RTE but to Channel 9 instead. And as if his workload hadn’t already reached critical mass, he’d been charged with setting up this stupid new magazine. The last thing the world needs is another women’s magazine! But, if he was honest, the true source of his grief was Mai. She drove him insane. He hated her. He hated her so much. How had he ever thought he was mad about her! No way was he taking her calls. Never again, that was the last time, the very, very last time…
He swung himself behind the table, trying hard to concentrate on the interview – old Calvin got his boxers in such a bunch about them. In a moment or two he knew he’d be expected to ask something that sounded vaguely relevant, but all he could think about was that he might be bleeding to death. Or dying of rabies. How soon did the foaming at the mouth begin? he wondered.
Leaning back on the two hind legs of his chair, he held his wounded finger out in front of him, staring at it. He couldn’t believe she’d bitten him. Again. She’d promised the last time… He pulled the twist of toilet paper tighter and bright red blood rushed through it.
‘Tell me your strengths and weaknesses,’ Calvin invited Ashling.
‘I’d have to be honest and say that my weakest area is editorial work. While I can produce tag-lines, headings and short pieces, I haven’t much experience of writing long articles.’
None, actually, if she was completely up-front.
‘My strengths are that I am meticulous, organized and hard-working. I’m a good second-in-command,’ Ashling said earnestly, quoting directly from Sally Healy. Then she stopped and said, ‘Excuse me, would you like a Band-Aid for your finger?’
Jack Devine looked up, startled. ‘Who, me?’
‘I don’t see anyone else bleeding all over the place.’ Ashling attempted a smile.
Jack Devine shook his head violently. ‘Nah, no… Thanks,’ he added, surlily.
‘Why not?’ Calvin Carter intervened.
‘I’m fine.’ Jack gestured with his good hand.
‘Take the Band-Aid,’ Calvin said. ‘Sounds like a good idea.’
Ashling lifted her bag on to her lap and, with the minimum of rummaging, produced a box of plasters. Lifting the lid, she flicked through them, lifted one out and handed it to Jack. ‘Try that for size.’
Jack looked at it as if he had no idea what to do. Calvin Carter was no help either.
Ashling swallowed a sigh, got up from her chair, took the plaster from Jack’s hand and ripped off the grease-proof paper. ‘Hold out your finger.’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ he said sarcastically.
With speed and efficiency she wrapped it around the bleeding digit. To her surprise, on the pretext of making sure the plaster was secure, she gave his finger a little squeeze and felt shameful satisfaction at the wince that fluttered across his face.
‘What else have you got?’ Calvin Carter asked curiously. ‘Aspirins?’
She nodded cautiously. ‘Would you like one?’
‘No, thanks. A pen and notepad?’
She nodded again.
‘How about – and this is a long shot, I’ll admit – a portable sewing kit?’
Ashling paused sheepishly, then her entire demeanour lifted and lightened in a half-laugh of admission. ‘Actually, I do.’ Her smile was wide.
‘You’re very organized,’ Jack Devine interrupted. He made it sound like an insult.
‘Somebody needs to be.’ Calvin Carter had revised his earlier opinion of her. She was charming and even though she had lipstick on her teeth, at least she was wearing lipstick. ‘Thank you, Ashling, we’ll be in touch.’
Ashling shook hands with both men, once more taking the opportunity to give Jack Devine’s wound a good, hard squeeze.
‘Hey, I liked her,’ Calvin Carter laughed.
‘I didn’t,’ Jack Devine said, moodily.
‘I said I liked her,’ Calvin Carter repeated. He wasn’t used to being disagreed with. ‘She’s reliable and resourceful. Give her the job.’
4
Clodagh woke early. Nothing new there. Clodagh always woke early. That’s what having children did to you. If they weren’t roaring to be fed, they were squashing into the bed between you and your husband and if they weren’t doing that, they were in the kitchen at six-thirty on a Saturday morning, clattering saucepans ominously.
This morning they were on clattering-saucepans-ominously duty. She would subsequently discover that Craig, the five-year-old, was showing Molly, the two-and-a-half-year-old, how to make scrambled eggs. Out of flour, water, olive oil, ketchup, brown sauce, vinegar, cocoa, birthday candles and, of course, eggs. Nine of them, including shells. Clodagh knew from the quality of the racket that terrible things were taking place in the room below her, but she was too tired, or too something, to get up and intervene.
Eyes focused on nothing, she lay listening to chairs being scraped along the new limestone-tiled floor, month-old SieMatic cupboards being opened and slammed and Le Creuset pans being battered to within an inch of their lives.
Beside her, still deep in sleep, Dylan shifted, then threw his arm over her. She snuggled into him for a moment, looking for relief. Then froze in familiar reluctance and wearily moved away again as she felt his arousal unfurling and straightening against her stomach.
Not sex. She couldn’t bear it. She wanted affection, but whenever she moved her body against his, seeking out comfort, he got turned on. Especially in the morning. She felt guilty every time she turned away from him. But not guilty enough to oblige.
He stood a better chance in the evenings, especially when she’d had a few drinks. She never deprived him for longer than a month because she was too afraid of what it would mean. So when the deadline loomed, she always orchestrated some form of drunkenness and delivered the goods, her enthusiasm and inventiveness in direct proportion to how much gin she’d consumed.
Dylan reached for her again and she slithered across the sheets out of reach, with a nimbleness borne of many months of practice.
A particularly hysterical bout of clattering wafted up from the room below.
‘Little fuckers,’ Dylan mumbled, sleepily. ‘They’ll knock the house down on us.’
‘I’ll go and shout at them.’ It was safer to get up.
By the time Ashling arrived later that morning, the scrambled-egg débâcle was but a distant memory and had been superseded by the atrocities of the breakfast table.
When Clodagh went to answer the door, she was involved in some kind of complicated negotiations with the angelic-looking, flaxen-haired Molly, concerning the wearing of a cardigan. Molly was insisting on wearing her orange one.
‘Hi Ashling,’ Clodagh said absently, then thrust her face down to Molly’s and insisted in exasperation, ‘But you’re too big for it, Molly. You haven’t worn it since you were a baby. Why don’t you wear this lovely pink one?’
‘Nooooooo!’ Molly tried to wriggle away to freedom.
‘But you’ll be cold.’ Clodagh held tight on to Molly’s arm.
‘Nooooooo!’
‘Come into the kitchen, Ashling.’ Clodagh dragged Molly down the hall. ‘CRAIG! GET OFF THE CAROUSEL!’
The equally angelic-looking, flaxen-haired Craig had clambered into the corner cupboard in the kitchen and was swinging
himself backwards and forwards on the wire shelf, cushioned on bags of rice and pasta.
Ashling walked to the kettle and switched it on. Ashling and Clodagh had grown up two doors away from each other and had been best friends since the time when it was safer for Ashling to be in Clodagh’s house than in her own.
It had been Clodagh who’d broken the news to Ashling about her waistless condition. It was also Clodagh who’d enlightened Ashling on other aspects of herself by saying, ‘You’re so fortunate to have your personality. Me, all I have is my looks.’
Not that Ashling had ever taken umbrage. Clodagh wasn’t malicious, simply candid, and it would have been a total waste of time to deny how singularly beautiful she was. Short and shapely, with Scandinavian colouring and long, burnished ropes of blonde hair, she was traffic-stopping. Not that that was saying much in Dublin, where the traffic rarely moved.
Ashling had momentous news. ‘I got a job!’
‘When?’
‘I heard over a week ago,’ Ashling admitted. ‘But I’ve been at work every night until midnight tidying it all up for the new person at Woman’s Place.’
‘I thought it was funny you hadn’t been in touch. So tell me all about it.’
But each time Ashling tried, Craig insisted on reading to her, from an upside-down book. When the spotlight moved away from him even for a second, he clawed it back.
‘Go and play outside on the swing,’ Clodagh cajoled him.
‘But it’s raining.’
‘You’re Irish, get used to it. Go on. Out!’
No sooner had Craig gone than Molly was centre-stage.
‘Want!’ she declared, pointing at Ashling’s coffee.
‘No, that’s Ashling’s,’ Clodagh said.’You can’t have it.’
‘She can if she wants…’ Ashling felt she’d better say.
‘WANT!’ Molly insisted.
‘Would you mind?’ Clodagh asked. ‘I’ll get you another.’
Ashling slid the mug along the table, but Clodagh intercepted it before it reached Molly, which started a great caterwauling.
‘I’m just blowing on it,’ Clodagh explained. ‘So you won’t burn your mouth.’
‘WANT! WANT! WANT!’
‘But it’s too hot! You’ll burn yourself.’
‘WANT IT. WANT IT NOW!!!’
‘Oh all right then. Slowly now, don’t spill it.’
Molly put her mouth to the lip of the mug, then pulled back and started screeching. ‘Hot! Sore! Waaaaaaah!’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Clodagh muttered.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ Molly enunciated, with crystal clarity.
‘That’s right,’ Clodagh said, with a savagery that shocked Ashling. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
Dylan rushed into the room, in response to Molly’s roaring.
‘Ashling!’ He smiled, using one big hand to shove his corn-blond hair back off his face. ‘You’re looking great. Any news on the job front?’
‘I’ve got one!’
‘Lassooing runaway stallions in Mullingar?’
‘In a magazine. A young women’s one.’
‘Fair play! More money?’
Ashling nodded proudly. Not a huge increase, but better than the barely index-linked pittance she’d been getting for the past eight years at Woman’s Place.
‘And no more Letters from Father Bennett – just as well, did you see The Catholic Judger’s gone bust? There was a thing in the paper about it.’
‘So it’s all worked out for the best, really,’ Ashling glowed. ‘Mrs O’Sullivan from Waterford is probably the best thing that ever happened to me!’
Dylan looked amused – then alarmed, as a huge commotion erupted in the garden. Craig had fallen off the swing, and judging from his screeching and bawling was in considerable pain. Ashling was already rummaging in her bag for the rescue remedy.
For herself.
‘Will you go?’ Clodagh turned weary eyes to Dylan. ‘I have them all week. And just tell me his injuries on a need-to-know basis.’
Dylan withdrew.
‘Do you want me to check on Craig… ?’ Ashling asked anxiously. ‘I have plasters.’
‘So do I.’ Clodagh gave her an exasperated look. ‘Tell me about your job. Please.’
‘OK.’ Ashling gave one last regretful look at the garden. ‘It’s a glossy magazine. Much more glamorous than Woman’s Place.’
When she got to the part about Jack Devine arguing furiously, then being bitten by the Asian girl, Clodagh finally perked up.
‘Go on,’ she urged, her eyes sparkling. ‘Tell us! Nothing, but nothing puts me in better humour than overhearing people having a right old ding-dong. One day last week, I was coming out of the gym and there was a man and a woman in a parked car and they were roaring at each other. I mean, roaring! Even with the windows up I could hear them. Put me in great form for the rest of the day.’
‘I hate that,’ Ashling admitted. ‘It’s so upsetting.’
‘But why? Oh, I suppose with your, um, background… But for most people it’s nice. They feel they’re not the only ones having a hard time.’
‘Who’s having a hard time?’ Anxiety bruised Ashling’s face.
Clodagh looked uncomfortable. ‘No one. But I really envy you!’ She suddenly exploded. ‘Single, starting a new job, all that excitement.’
Ashling was speechless. To her, Clodagh’s life was the Holy Grail. The good-looking, devoted husband with the thriving business; the tasteful, Edwardian red-brick house in the chi-chi village of Donnybrook. Nothing to do all day long except microwave Barney pasta, make plans to redecorate already perfect rooms and wait for Dylan to come home.
‘And I bet you were out clubbing last night,’ Clodagh almost accused.
‘Yes, but… Only the Sugarclub and I was home by two. Alone,’ she said with heavy emphasis. ‘Clodagh, you’ve everything. Two gorgeous children, a gorgeous husband…’
Is he gorgeous? Surprised, Clodagh realized that this wasn’t something which had occurred to her lately. Doubtfully she admitted that for a man in his mid-thirties Dylan’s body wasn’t bad – his midriff hadn’t melted into a soft cone-shaped fold of pint-drinking flab like so many of his contemporaries’ had. He still took an interest in clothes – more than she did these days, if she was honest. And he went to a proper hairdresser’s, and not the local oul’ fella barber, who sent everyone out looking like their dad.
Ashling continued to protest. ‘… and you look fantastic! Two children and you’ve a better figure than me – and I’ve had no children, nor am I ever likely to, if my luck with men doesn’t turn soon. Ha ha ha.’
Ashling was keen for Clodagh to smile, but all she said was, ‘Everything feels old. Especially with Dylan.’
Ashling desperately summoned some advice. ‘You just need to recapture the magic. Try and remember what it was like when you first met.’
Where was she getting this stuff from? Oh yeah, she’d written it herself in Woman’s Place, to a woman who was going mad because her husband had retired and was forever under her feet.
‘I can’t even remember where I met him,’ Clodagh admitted. ‘Oh no, of course I do. You brought him to Lochlan Hegarty’s twenty-first, remember? God, it seems like a lifetime ago.’
‘You have to work at keeping things fresh,’ Ashling quoted. ‘Go out for romantic meals, maybe even go away for the weekend. I’ll babysit any time you like.’ She experienced a surge of alarm at this rash promise.
‘I wanted to get married.’ Clodagh seemed to be talking to herself. ‘Dylan and I seemed right for each other.’
‘That’s putting it mildly.’ Ashling remembered the frisson that had passed through the party when Clodagh and Dylan first clapped eyes on each other. Dylan was the most good-looking man in the group that he hung around with, Clodagh was undeniably the best-looking girl in her gang and people always gravitate towards their equals. When Dylan and Clodagh exchanged that fatal eye-meet, Ashling was actually on a date with D
ylan – her first and, as it transpired, her last. With that one look she was toast. Not that she held it against either of them. They were meant to be together, she might as well be a good sport about it.
Clodagh gave a tired chuckle. ‘Everything is fine, really. Or at least it will be when I’ve changed the colour scheme in the front-room.’
‘More decorating!’ It seemed no time since Clodagh had got her new kitchen in. In fact, it didn’t seem much longer than that since she’d done her front-room.
In the afternoon, on the way home from Clodagh’s, Ashling ducked into Tesco to buy food. She flung packet after packet of microwaveable popcorn into the basket, then went to pay.
The woman ahead of her in the queue had such a laquered, stylish look about her that Ashling found herself leaning back, all the better to admire her. Like Ashling, she wore sweatpants, trainers and a little cardigan, but unlike Ashling, everything looked touchable and lustrous. The way things are before they’re washed for the first time and lose their sheen of perfect newness.
Her trainers were pink Nike ones that Ashling had seen in a magazine, but that you couldn’t get in Ireland yet. Her pink, parachute-silk rucksack matched the pink gel in the heel of the trainers. And her hair was lovely – shiny and swingy, thick and glossy – in the way that you could never achieve yourself.
In fascination Ashling checked out the contents of the woman’s basket. Seven cans of strawberry Slimfast, seven baking potatoes, seven apples and four… five… six… seven individually wrapped little squares of chocolate from the pick’n’mix. She hadn’t even put the chocolate into a bag, she looked as if she was treating them as seven individual purchases.
Some irresistible instinct told Ashling that this paltry basketful constituted the woman’s weekly shop. Either that or she was providing a safe house for Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey, Happy and whatever the other three were called.
5
It was pouring with rain when Lisa’s plane landed at Dublin airport early on Saturday afternoon. When she’d taken off from London, she’d foolishly assumed that she couldn’t possibly feel worse, but one look at the rain-soaked view of Dublin made her see the error of her ways.