by Cathy Kelly
It worked in business: Marcella’s company was one of the top three in the country and could pick and choose clients. It worked in finance: her portfolio of shares was doing better than most, despite the horrific stock market downfall. And it worked in clothes: Marcella loved shopping and wore a clever mix of investment clothes alongside High Street stuff so that nobody could tell the difference.
But pickiness simply didn’t work when it came to men. With men, pickiness meant that you ended up alone.
It wasn’t that she’d made a deal with the Devil and opted for work success over home and hearth. Marcella had wanted both and would have sacrificed some workplace success if it had been necessary; if she’d met a man who’d wanted less spin doctor and more of a wife. The sisterhood who sang her praises as a feminist might have been shocked to discover this, but it was true. The end justified the means.
But the right man hadn’t asked her–either subtly or in an outright fashion–to compromise her career, and she wondered now if it had been her fault because her criteria for the perfect man was too stringent? Marcella didn’t want someone who would ‘do’. She wanted it to be perfect or she didn’t want it at all.
So many people seemed to think she had it all, particularly women friends who’d split from their husbands and found themselves back in the world of dating again. Marcella, they seemed to imply, had everything sussed, knew how the system worked. She went out to dinners and parties, got her picture in the society pages, had a lovely life for herself and never sat at home moping with a bottle of wine and a DVD. She could guide them, the friends said, happy to have compatriots in their new single life.
Adept at appearing utterly content and in control, Marcella never allowed herself to shriek that of course she didn’t have it all sussed: if she had, she’d be sharing a bottle of wine and a DVD with her own man instead of schlepping around town with newly-liberated girlfriends.
Ingrid was one of the few people with whom she could be honest. How ironic that her confidante on the subject of loneliness was a woman with the perfect marriage.
‘It’s not all about a man, Ingrid,’ she explained. ‘I have so much and I’m lucky. I have the best job in the world; but at night, the job’s not much comfort. I keep thinking that it’s a lonely life, that I wanted more all those years ago, that I still want it. Not sex, really, but companionship.’
The running joke about the telly star, Ken Devlin, was a part of that: a game she and Ingrid played to pretend that men were just playthings and a woman like Marcella didn’t have time for them. But she did. And when friends like Ingrid spoke about their husbands, idly mentioning that they were going out for a pizza together or taking a spur-of-the-moment weekend away thanks to a cheap flight, Marcella felt horrendously lonely. There was nobody to do those things with her. Nobody to hold her hand during turbulence on a plane, nobody to buy her flu medicine when she wasn’t well, nobody to put the dustbins out on rubbish day. It wasn’t wild hot sex Marcella craved: it was another body to come home to and somebody to share her life.
‘Marcella, I’ve got Connor on line two. He says it’s urgent.’ Daniel, Marcella’s personal assistant, had a mellow voice that was very calming to listen to. He’d been with her for three years and no matter how frenzied the message he was delivering–and with the nature of their business, he sometimes had to deliver very urgent messages indeed–Daniel made it sound as if they had all the time in the world to sort the problem out.
‘Thanks, Daniel,’ said Marcella, flicking over to line two.
Connor Davitt was her partner in SD International, which stood for Schmidt-Davitt, and occasionally acted as a fire blanket to be thrown over disasters. Today, Connor was out on the road with one of their big corporate clients who were running a golf fundraiser and had been blessed with decent weather for it. It was part event management, part smiling and making sure all the right people met all the other right people. Connor could do it in his sleep. Unless someone had hit the nineteenth hole too early in the day and was now running amok with a nine iron and a bottle of scotch, Marcella knew that the problem was likely to be unrelated to today’s event.
‘Connor, what’s up?’ she asked.
‘It’s what’s down that’s the problem,’ he said. ‘Trousers.’
‘For Chrissake, not again. Who?’
‘Mickey Roche, on a fact-finding jolly in the Bahamas. And the problem, among others, is a woman who says she hadn’t been paid and he owes her four hundred dollars.’
‘Fact-finding jolly in the Bahamas? Why do they persist in sending people like Mickey Roche to the Bahamas?’ she asked wearily.
‘Fact-finding is less fun in wet cities than it is in tropical paradises,’ Connor answered.
Marcella hated these fire-blanket jobs. Because people read about them, they assumed it was all a company like SD International did. It wasn’t; as Marcella frequently said, their job was making people achieve the best possible version of themselves.
‘Has he been arrested?’
‘No. They were on the balcony of his hotel smoking a joint and he thought it might be fun to sunbathe in the nude, as you do.’
‘As you do,’ agreed Marcella, thinking with distaste of Mickey Roche, a councillor who would never be entered in a Mr Universe contest unless the judging criteria changed to allow swollen beer bellies, forty per cent body fat and lascivious eyes. He was also an idiot. He’d spent a week on an intensive SD International media-training course and had promptly gone out to do a radio interview where he’d managed to insult the interviewer by implying that big bosoms had got her the job. Bizarrely, the public liked him. Mickey tells it like it is, they said proudly.
There was, Marcella thought, no accounting for taste.
Connor continued the story: ‘He took umbrage when the hotel staff told him to put his clothes on.’
‘Naturally.’
‘And then, he shut the door on the lady in question, throwing her clothes off the balcony into the swimming pool area, but neglecting to throw down any of the four hundred dollars he’d promised her. They’re sending him home with all the other councillors, who are embarrassed and–’
‘–determined to shift any blame from themselves by letting everyone know what Mickey was up to, distancing themselves from the scandal.’
‘Precisely. Statements are expected by tonight. Only one of them was clued in enough to phone party headquarters to mention what had happened.’
Marcella knew it had been a slow news week. Mickey’s fun-packed jaunt had all the makings of a fabulous news story, offering the papers any number of angles, from the waste of tax-payers’ money onwards. Worst was the fun the tabloids would have with a story that involved public nudity and a man named Mickey.
‘Please tell me nobody’s got photographs?’ she said.
‘Can’t tell you that,’ Connor replied. ‘You’ll have to make some calls. I’m a bit stuck here.’
‘No problem,’ she said. ‘Talk later.’
Marcella swung into action. First, she needed to find out what the fourth estate knew about the problem. She phoned a journalist friend of hers.
‘Donald, it’s Marcella Schmidt. Can you talk?’
‘Private talk?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hold on. I’ll take this in the office.’
Marcella waited. She’d been in the Courier Mail often and knew that real privacy was almost impossible in a place where knowing other people’s business was the life blood of most of the inhabitants. As news editor, Donald had a glass-walled office, but the door was permanently open and, if he shut it, every reporter’s eyes would be on it, knowing that something interesting was happening. A few clever souls had learned to lip-read purely for moments such as these.
Donald and Marcella went way back. Many moons ago, they’d had a fling on a press trip to Brussels and, for whatever glorious reason, there had never been any awkwardness between them since. They’d both been between relationships at the time, and the follow
ing morning they’d lain in Donald’s giant bed in the hotel and enjoyed talking to each other just as much as they’d enjoyed making rather tipsy love the night before.
It would never have worked for them to be together properly, Marcella was sure of that. Donald was more married to his job than he could ever be to any woman. Committed journalists were a nightmare: always obsessed with stories, never able to let go of the job. But they’d remained friends and, sometimes, they tipped each other off on news the other should know.
‘I’m in the dog box,’ Donald said. ‘Talk.’
‘OK, I hate asking this, but I have a wayward councillor who’s in a bit of bother ’
‘Mickey Roche,’ he said before she’d even finished. ‘The chief sub-editor fancies “Taking the Mickey”.’ The Courier Mail was a broadsheet so would never print such a headline, but the office’s unofficial bookie, a sports writer named Chuck, ran a highly profitable book on possible headlines for stories in the tabloids. ‘My money’s on “Mickey’s Mouse”.’
‘You’ve got a picture,’ Marcella groaned. Only with photographic evidence could such a headline be imaginable. How else would they report that Mickey’s mickey was mouse-sized?
Donald laughed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think there are any pics, but you can’t be sure. We haven’t got them, anyhow. How are you going to play this?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know,’ Marcella replied. ‘Not a lot of damage limitation available for a toked-up councillor strutting his naked stuff on a Bahamian hotel balcony.’
This time, Donald laughed so much he snorted. ‘You should be in the office book for headlines,’ he said. ‘You have a flair for it. We’ll be going soft on Mickey, no puns intended. There’s bound to be a reaction in Leinster House, so we’ll use that rather than speculate.’ Leinster House was the Irish parliamentary chamber and while Mickey, as a local county councillor, wasn’t based there, his party would come in for a few slingshots over their wayward party member. ‘Are you around this week for a drink?’
Marcella ran through her diary in her head. ‘Should be,’ she said. ‘Friday maybe? I’ll phone you tomorrow.’
‘Great. Now, you’ve got the inside track with Ingrid Fitzgerald and David Kenny,’ he went on. ‘Any truth to the rumour that there are cash-flow problems with Kenny’s department store and that DeVere’s are going to buy them out in a fire sale?’
For a moment, Marcella’s legendary cool deserted her. A fire sale only occurred when financial problems meant everything had to go. ‘What?’ she said.
‘I’ll take that as a “no” then,’ Donald replied. ‘Just a very small rumour, Ingrid. I heard it last week and there’s been nothing else, so I wondered if there was any truth in it. We don’t have the staff or the money to run on every tip-off.’
‘I hadn’t heard any such thing,’ Marcella said firmly, recovering. She cared about Donald, but Ingrid and David were among her closest friends. Her protective instinct went into overdrive. ‘It’s unlikely, very unlikely,’ she added. ‘David’s a very canny businessman and, from what I hear, things are doing brilliantly.’
‘Right.’ Donald was thoughtful. ‘Sour grapes from DeVere’s perhaps?’
‘Could be. Stranger things have happened,’ Marcella said lightly. ‘I’ll call you back about Friday. Thanks, Donald.’
She got off the phone, the fate of Mickey Roche completely gone from her mind. She needed to talk to David soon.
7
What doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger. I just hope you don’t have to go through that process in the first place. But if you do, it’s true. Trust me.
Two days later, David walked through the front entrance of Kenny’s department store. He often went to the office that way, pushing open the big brown-and-gold swinging doors, the way the customers did, instead of slipping in through the back entrance that led into the offices. It was a way of connecting with the store, reminding him of what he did.
Even early on a Wednesday morning, the store was buzzing. The cosmetics hall was a flurry of activity, with scent wafting in the air and the hum of people chatting. The music in the store was always discreetly low, Vivaldi today. David hated piped pop, and insisted on proper, classical music. Occasionally even opera came from the speakers. He walked through cosmetics and into jewellery, which was quiet. The jewellery hall was elegant, with exquisite costume jewellery displayed alongside a limited amount of the real stuff. He had recently taken the work of a new designer, a young man from Poland, who was extremely good. David looked in one of the cabinets at Pavel Zaborsky’s work, noting with approval how well it looked. Modern, rounded pieces, cufflinks and rings, with round cabochon semi-precious jewels in each. It wasn’t expensive, but it looked incredibly expensive, that was the trick. David had been hooked immediately. It wasn’t the sort of thing that Ingrid liked. She was the epitome of the modern woman, and yet her taste in jewellery ran to Art Deco pieces, marcasite brooches and delicate little watches and earrings that looked like they might fall off the hand of some etiolated Viennese countess from the twenties. No, Ingrid wouldn’t like Pavel’s jewellery, but there were plenty who did.
His daughter, Molly, had told him that her flatmate Natalie had nearly finished her first collection.
He liked Natalie, admired her fierce dedication to her work and how she was prepared to work hard in the store’s café, never expecting anything from being best friends with the owner’s daughter. But then, David thought with pride, Molly wouldn’t actually be friends with anyone who thought like that. Even at school, she’d hated the clique of what she called ‘the children of’. These were teenagers with famous, wealthy parents who somehow believed that because Mummy or Daddy worked in big business or appeared on the telly it made them special by association. As Molly used to say: ‘Not!’
Ethan had been different. David sighed. Ethan was showing no glimmer of interest in either the family business or getting a job. Ingrid pandered to him and had worried incessantly about him flying off to Thailand. When David had been his son’s age, he’d been working in the store: morning till night, doing all the horrible jobs so he wouldn’t get too big for his boots, as his father used to say.
‘Good morning, Mr Kenny,’ said the assistant behind the jewellery counter.
‘Good morning, Laura,’ he said instantly. ‘Peaceful in here so far?’
‘Yes, it is,’ she said, ‘but you know early mornings aren’t good jewellery times. It’ll pick up a bit later.’
‘I know, of course,’ he said, and smiled.
She’d been a little anxious when she talked to him, but only slightly. David never ruled by fear, a lesson he’d learned from his father. ‘Kenny’s is a family business and family businesses do better when the sense of family values stretches to the management as well,’ Andrew Kenny had said.
That notion had been vital in the old days, when he’d started the business. In 1924, nobody would have thought that a department store would work outside a big city, and now look at it.
David walked out of jewellery, thinking again about Molly’s friend, Natalie.
‘She’s got a lovely collection,’ Dad,’ Molly had said. ‘I can’t describe it, but it’s all brave and strong.’
‘Get her to show it to me,’ he’d said.
‘Well…’ Molly paused. ‘It’s tricky.’
‘Why?’
‘Natalie’s very independent. She’s got a thing about doing this the right way, going through Paul.’ Paul ran jewellery. ‘She doesn’t want to use you or the fact that she knows me to get her foot in the door.’
David considered this. ‘That’s either very commendable or very stupid. I don’t know which.’
‘Natalie’s anything but stupid,’ Molly pointed out. ‘If so many jewellers hadn’t gone out of business over the past year, she’d have got a job with one of them and a platform for her stuff. She’s done brilliantly setting herself up, and she wants to do it all properly. She’s like me, she hates all that “It�
��s not what you know, it’s who you know” cronyism,’ Molly almost spat.
‘I just said she could show it to me,’ David pointed out mildly. ‘I didn’t say I’d buy it from her just because she’s your friend. Business is business. Another old cliché.’ He grinned.
Directly in front of him, the vast wooden staircase stretched upwards, gleaming goddesses in the Old Celtic style at the front of each banister, like the figureheads of ships.
One was Morrigan, the warrior goddess, carved from oak with a jutting chin, trailing hair and a sword held firmly in one strong hand. The other hand held a shield decorated with the goddess’s symbol, a crow. The second goddess was Brighid, healer and keeper of the druidic fire. Her gown was carved with flames, and in her calmly crossed hands she carried one of the woven crosses that bore her name.
In David’s father’s time, the goddesses had been Egyptian, painted gold, black and azure. A trip down the Nile in the 1930s had entranced Andrew Kenny, and he’d spent a lifetime reading about Egypt and taking holidays there, staying in the Old Cataract Hotel and photographing the temples.
But when his father’s beloved Egyptian women had begun to chip and fall apart, David decided to commission these ancient Irish goddesses, in memory of a time when he’d loved a woman who knew all about the old Celtic religion.
Ingrid, who had no interest in magical imagery, had never even noticed the symbolism of these statues. He’d never told her about Star, either. Women found it hard to reconcile themselves to other great loves in a man’s life: something else his father had told him.
David ignored the stairs in favour of the escalator, but as he rose above the floors, the usual glow of pride wasn’t there. It was just as well his father couldn’t see what was happening, David thought, no longer seduced by the beauty of the department store he’d worked for all his life. If his father hadn’t been dead already, it would have killed him.
Just after half twelve, in her small office on the fifth floor of Kenny’s, Stacey O’Shaughnessy felt a cool breeze coming from somewhere. Instinctively, she turned around to see if David had opened the window in her office while she’d been down on the second floor getting coffee, but it was shut. More draughts then, that had to be it. Despite all the money that had been pumped into Kenny’s, it was still a very old building, full of architectural oddities and quirks that modern, well-insulated places didn’t have.