by Melissa Hill
If she wore a dress like that, people would think she was pregnant, she had got so fat. The black shirt came in handy that way; at least it hid her bulging stomach.
Roan was spot on. She’d have to try and lose all this weight. Funny, she’d never really bothered about it before – it must just be age catching up with her. She had read in a magazine once that as you grow older, you gain so many pounds per year as your body muscles start to sag. That must be what was happening to her. She’d have to watch herself. She was only twenty-eight after all – if she didn’t do something soon, she’d be massive by the time she was thirty.
“Come on, guys, we’re going in here for one.” Tessa signalled for everyone behind to follow her into the pub, which was packed to the gills with revellers. Temple Bar was a busy spot, especially on Friday nights.
She went to get a drink and as she caught sight of herself in the mirror behind the bar, Jenny grimaced. Her hair looked dreadful. Never again would she use one of those home-colouring kits. The bleach had covered her roots as she’d hoped, but had also dried up her hair so that her curls were now a mass of frizz. She couldn’t get an appointment for love nor money with a hairdresser in Dun Laoghaire.
“Jen, over here.” Karen smiled and patted the seat beside her.
“Busy in here tonight, isn’t it?” Jenny said, putting her drink on the table, “We’re lucky to get a seat.”
“Definitely,” Karen lit up another cigarette. “Tessa leapt in as soon as she spotted a crowd of girls getting ready to leave. Did you see the get-up of them? They looked like they were on a hen night or something.”
“Tessa’s will be next,” Jenny said. “I’m amazed that they’re getting married so quickly. November doesn’t seem that far away at all.”
“I know, but she has practically everything organised already. She was a woman on a mission once he popped the question.”
Jenny looked at Karen thoughtfully. “Well, have you said anything to Shane yet?”
She shook her head. “No, I’ll have to soon, though. He keeps dropping hints and it’s starting to annoy me.”
Jenny laughed. “I don’t understand you at all, sometimes. Usually the women are mad to get cracking on the wedding plans, not the other way round.”
Karen rolled her eyes. “To be honest, the thoughts of organising hotels, and guest lists and all that, fills me with absolute dread. Not to mention trying to find the so-called perfect dress. It’s enough to put anyone off getting married altogether.”
“Not me,” Jenny said, “I’d give anything to be in your position now.”
Karen said nothing.
Tessa walked over to the table, one arm in one sleeve of her coat. “Right, come on you two. Drink up – we’re moving.”
“Already?” they said in unison. “But we’ve just got a seat.”
“Hey, we’re on a pub crawl here, and we’ve got at least another ten pubs to do. Get going.”
“If this is her engagement party, what’ll her hen night be like?” Jenny laughed, as she walked out the door in front of Karen.
They didn’t manage ten pubs Tessa had hoped for, because after a short while Gerry had begun to get a little worse for wear. The other lads had each bought a shot of Southern Comfort every time they moved, so by pub five, her fiancé was more than a little inebriated.
“I don’t believe this,” Tessa exclaimed, only starting to feel tiddly herself. Gerry was slumped on one of the tables. “I’ll have to take him home soon – he won’t last much longer at this pace. And I wanted to go dancing tonight.”
“It’s all right, I’ll look after him,” Shane said. “I’ve to go in to work for a half day tomorrow, so I promised myself I wouldn’t stay out too long tonight.”
“Oh no.” Tessa wailed. “Karen, you’ll stay out, won’t you?”
“Of course I’m staying out. I don’t have to get up early tomorrow,” she said, putting her arms around Shane. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, by the looks of it I’m better off getting out of here while I can. There’s no way I’m ending up in Copper Face Jacks tonight.”
Jenny came back to the table, looking slightly the worse for wear. “Aidan made me knock back a treble tequila with him at the bar – yeuch.” She stuck out her tongue. “Who’s going to Copper Face Jacks?”
“Not me. I’m off,” Shane said, getting to his feet. He gave Karen a quick kiss goodbye, and after some difficulty, eventually succeeded in getting Gerry out of his seat.
Tessa watched them leave, and then rubbed her hands with glee. “Right, now I can really let loose. Who’s for a flaming sambuca?” she said running off to the bar like a child let loose in a sweet-shop
Hours later, Jenny, Karen, Tessa and a much-depleted crowd made it to the nightclub.
“Ouch. My feet are bloody killing me.” Tessa said, after leaving her coat in the cloakroom. “I don’t know why we had to walk all the way up Grafton St. We should have got a taxi.”
“Oh yeah? And who’s the one that wanted to go window-shopping?” Karen teased. After a few sambucas, Tessa had got the drunken idea that she should start looking for her wedding dress, and had dragged Jenny, Karen and her other friends Katie and Caroline, to a window display at a bridal boutique on Grafton St. The girls had walked to the nightclub from there, and were to meet Aidan and the others in Copper Face Jacks.
“Can you see any sign of the others?” Karen shouted, craning her head to see around the dance-floor, as she made her way through to the crowded bar.
“If they’re here, the dance-floor is the last place they’ll be,” Tessa said, wiggling her hips to a dance remix of U2’s Lemon. “They’re men, remember?”
“They might be at the upstairs bar.” Jenny struggled to be heard over the music. “Let’s get the drinks in anyway – oh, thank you.” Tessa said, beaming at a guy who stood back to let her in front of him at the bar.
Karen rolled her eyes at Jenny as they watched Tessa making big eyes at a barman, trying to get him to notice her. It was an old trick of hers, trying to get him to feel sorry for her by looking as though she had never bought a drink at the bar in her life. It worked – the young barman was over to her in a shot, ignoring everyone else.
Drinks in hand, the girls moved over to where Katie and Caroline stood near the dance floor.
“Looks like it’s becoming a girls’ night out,” Tessa said, after searching for the others to no avail. “Oooh, listen – I love that song! Come on.” She caught Karen and Jenny by the hand, and practically dragged them towards the dance floor.
“No, I’ll stay here with the drinks,” Jenny said, and the others looked at her in amazement.
“But you love this one!” Karen exclaimed.
“No, you go on ahead – seriously.”
Jenny watched the girls try to strut their stuff on the overcrowded dance floor.
She didn’t quite know why, but her exuberance had suddenly had left her. She didn’t really want to be here at all. The crowds and the noise were getting to her. Even the drink didn’t seem to be having much of an effect, at this stage. It must have been the walk from town to here, she thought. The fresh air must have sobered her up. She looked up sharply as a tall girl in high heels swayed towards her, and nearly knocked her over.
“Hey, watch where you’re going.” she said, starting to feel more and more annoyed and uncomfortable by the minute.
A few songs later, the girls came back from the dance floor, giggling and damp with sweat from their exertions. Jenny wondered why they all seemed to be giggling and whispering amongst themselves. She felt annoyed again, and was just about to tell them she was leaving, when she heard another song start. Then she knew why the girls were whispering.
“It’s your favourite.” Karen exclaimed. “We got the DJ to play it. He was supposed to play a request for you but he must have forgotten. Come on – you have to come out dancing now.” She took the drink out of her hand. Jenny had no choice but the follow the girls onto
the dance floor, leaving her drink with Katie, who was a grunge fan, and refused to dance to anything resembling pop music.
Jenny, Karen and Tessa linked arms in an attempt to make some more room for themselves on the floor as they danced, Jenny belting out the words of the song as she did. This was much better, she thought.
She was beginning to really enjoy herself until she saw something at the edge of the dance floor – something that shattered her happiness into pieces.
Roan couldn’t believe his luck. The Ice Maiden had finally cracked and how. Everyone in the office had been surprised when their fine looking workmate had joined them in the pub earlier that evening. Normally, Cara never deigned to go out with her workmates – she always made it seem as though she had something better to do.
Roan had never worked alongside Cara on a project, and so had little to do with her, other than eye her long legs and super-fit body, whenever she walked past his desk.
Pete was always going on and on about how Cara fancied him, but Roan couldn’t see it himself. Cara wasn’t the type of girl to be making eyes and flirting in the office. She was much classier than that. She was a master at holding herself in check, and nothing ever seemed to faze her. Even when McNamara was putting pressure on her to finish a project, Cara always held her composure, and never seemed at all hassled by anything. Her constant and considerable frostiness towards the rest of her colleagues earned Cara the nickname ‘Ice Maiden’.
Mark Dignan had explained this to Roan a few days after he joined their project team. She never socialised with them, he said, not even at the Christmas Party. “She stays for the meal, just to make an appearance, but as soon as the tables are cleared, she’s off.”
Roan had been intrigued by Cara from the very beginning – any red-blooded male would be attracted by her looks alone – not to mention the fact that she was cool, distant, and completely uninterested in him. And Roan wasn’t used to not being noticed by women.
She had let her guard drop a little that evening in the pub. It had been a frantic week, and everyone on the team had worked like demons to get the Second Direct Insurace project completed on time. There had been jubilation in the office when Ross McNamara announced that he was taking them all out for drinks afterwards. “You too, Cara,” he had said to her. “You’re not getting out of it this time – we all deserve a little celebration after the terrific work we did this week.”
To Roan’s surprise, Cara had agreed, and had been knocking back glasses of wine in the pub like there was going to be a grape shortage.
Pete Brennan had bet Roan and Mark fifty quid that Cara would end up ‘dragging him home’ by the end of the night. That had been as good as a dare for Roan. He decided there and then that he would wipe the stupid grin off his workmate’s face.
The likes of Pete Brennan was no match for him when it came to charming the birds. He’d wipe the floor with him.
Cara had been a little wary when Roan had first started chatting to her at the bar. He started out using his tried and trusted methods, like complimenting her on her appearance, and pretending to be deeply interested in everything she had to say. That usually made most birds weak at the knees. Not Cara, though. She had been very difficult to break down.
It was only when Roan began to talk to her about work that the conversation became at all animated. A definite gleam appeared in Cara’s eye as she talked spiritedly about her job at Evanston Corporation. Then, little by little, as the evening went on, and the drinks kept flowing, Roan’s compliments and loaded remarks finally began to hit the spot.
Pete had been livid when he copped on to what Roan was at. He tried on a number of occasions to join their conversation, but Roan, well-practiced in monopolising a woman’s attentions, was having none of it.
Even Roan had to admit he was surprised when Cara agreed to go clubbing with them.
Before they reached the nightclub, Cara all of a sudden pulled Roan into a doorway, and kissed him urgently on the lips. He had been totally bowled over by the fact that she had made the first move. After all, he wasn’t really sure that he would make a move on her – it was more a question of pissing off Pete Brennan, and messing up his precious bet, as well as bruising his ego.
He had Jenny to think of, after all.
Still, he debated with himself, the likes of Cara was enough to tempt any man, single or not. And Jenny wouldn’t know the difference anyway. She was too caught up with work these days, she hardly paid him any attention at all. If she did find out that he had a bit of a snog, she couldn’t really blame him for looking for a bit of affection elsewhere.
Anyway she wouldn’t find out.
Jenny was probably tucked up at home, sitting in front of the telly, wrecked after a week’s work. She had been going on and on at him all week about how tired she was lately. There was certainly no question of her going out on the razz tonight.
“Do you want to get out of here?” he heard Cara ask him over the loud music. “It’s getting too crowded.”
Roan studied her face for a moment, a little unsure of what he wanted to do next. It would be the easiest thing in the world to go somewhere with Cara, have what he was certain would be amazing sex, and then go back to the flat he shared with Jenny. She’d probably be fast asleep, and wouldn’t suspect a thing. But something inside Roan made him hesitate, and he didn’t quite know what. After all, he thought, looking over his shoulder to where the others were standing at the bar, he would look like a right fool if he didn’t follow through with Cara.
Cara, seemingly frustrated by the lack of a response to her question, lowered his face towards hers, and kissed him with a greater urgency, hoping to make up his mind for him.
Roan quickly pulled away. He was just about to tell Cara that he was going home – without her - when he caught sight of Jenny staring right at him from where she stood shocked and bewildered on the dance floor.
Chapter 24
“He’s the last person I want to see today,” Jenny whispered into the telephone mouthpiece. She sincerely hoped that Barry Ferguson, who was going through a filing cabinet just outside her office, didn’t overhear her conversation with Jackie, the receptionist. Barry certainly wouldn’t approve of her refusing to meet with Robbie Courtney. Robbie was the son of Dan Courtney, a local hotelier, who held a variety of investment accounts at the branch. He was therefore a golf buddy and ‘very close friend’ of Barry’s.
“Will you tell him to make an appointment in future, Jackie?” Jenny said quietly. “I’m up to my eyes at the moment, and with Conor out sick I haven’t a spare minute.”
“Right,” Jackie said curtly, cutting her off.
Jenny shook her head as she replaced the receiver. Jackie was annoyed with her, because now she’d have to face the wrath of Robbie Courtney, once Jenny refused to see him. Well, there was nothing she could do about that, she thought, turning to her computer screen. She had enough on her plate at the moment without worrying about upsetting spoilt teenagers. Conor had been out sick for over a week, and without him, the work seemed never-ending.
She checked the time on the corner of her computer screen. It was nearly lunch-time. Karen was in Dun Laoghaire today, visiting a relative in St Michael’s Hospital. They had arranged to meet for lunch in a small café on the seafront. Jenny was looking forward to it immensely. She didn’t see her friend as often as she’d have liked, since moving out of Rathmines to Dun Laoghaire, almost six months before.
Karen had thought she was crazy to just pack up and leave all her friends, almost immediately after the break-up.
“You’ll be all the way out there, on your own, Jen,” she had said to her. “You need friends around you to help you get over this.”
But Jenny had been insistent. She didn’t want to stay on her own in the flat she had shared with Roan; there were just too many memories.
When the landlord increased the rent shortly afterwards, her mind was firmly made up. There was no point in her paying a huge amount for a
two bed-room flat, and she certainly didn’t want to stay in a dingy student bed-sit. The spacious one-bed apartment overlooking the harbour that she rented in Dun Laoghaire was perfect for her and she had no regrets about leaving Rathmines. She needed solitude, and plenty of time to think things over. She couldn’t have handled staying in Rathmines, and she knew that she was bound to run into Roan again, eventually. For her own sanity, and her own good, Jenny knew that she needed to stay as far away from Roan Williams as possible.
She had spent many evenings out on her balcony at first, looking out over the sea, watching the sailboats and ferries coming in and out of the harbour, and going over and over in her mind every word that Roan had said, and every lie he had told throughout their time together.
How could she have been so stupid for so long? Jenny had asked herself that question time and time again. She remembered all the times he had let her down in the past, and all the pathetic excuses he had given her.
Yet, even now, Jenny wished that Roan would put his arms around her, and tell her that he had made a dreadful mistake – that everything was a horrible lie, and that she was the one he wanted.
Not surprisingly, he had tried telling her all this, after she had finally caught him in the act with that girl. She had recognised her as one of his workmates from Evanston. They had met briefly at Roan’s Christmas party. Jenny had found her very stand-offish at the time. Maybe that was the reason why. Maybe she and Roan had been carrying on behind her back for ages.
She hadn’t realised that something could hurt so much until that night. It was as if Roan had reached right inside her, and grabbed her heart in a vice-like grip. She had felt dizzy and sick to her stomach as she watched them together, but yet still couldn’t quite believe that it was actually Roan, until he looked up and saw her staring at them.