It's Got To Be Perfect

by Claire Allan

  I took some money from my purse, pressing it as deep into my pockets as possible, and nipped out the door towards the local market where I stocked up on all sorts of goodies for our picnic. It really was a glorious day and the city was alive with visitors and locals all making their way around, getting on with their life.

  I felt like a very small cog in a very big wheel and for once that feeling was just fine with me. I even stood still, just for a few seconds, outside the market and let the sun beat down on my face.

  Whatever had brought me here, whatever I would find out about Darcy and Gerry, whatever would become of Fionn and Alex, I was overcome by the sure and certain feeling that it would all work out just fine.

  23

  I could feel my skin warm and start to sizzle. I knew I should probably move – cover up a little or add more sun cream but I was too blissed out to do anything. I was lying on the cool grass in St Stephen’s Green while Darcy sat, her back rested against a tree, reading. Fionn was lost in some sort of sexy text loop with Alex who was clearly missing his wife-to-be.

  “If I had known all it would take would be a midnight flit to Dublin, I’d have done it a week ago,” she’d said dreamily as we scoffed some chocolate-covered strawberries and sneaked a wee sip of wine from our Thermos flasks.

  Darcy had looked at me and rolled her eyes and I had shrugged my shoulders.

  “The problem hasn’t gone away though, has it?” Darcy had said and Fionn looked most taken aback.

  Of course Darcy was right. The problem – the big Rebecca-shaped problem – was still there. Just because Alex wasn’t being held to ransom by her just now didn’t mean that she wouldn’t rear her head again.

  “Oh for goodness sakes,” Fionn had said in a more than exasperated tone of voice. “First of all Rebecca is a problem. Then it’s Alex that is the problem – him and his commitment phobia. And then it’s me because I let him get away with murder. And now it’s Rebecca again . . .”

  Darcy shrugged her shoulders and Fionn looked to me for back-up.

  “Look, darling,” I replied as supportively as I possibly could, “I’m delighted Alex seems to have his act together and seems to be getting over his fear of commitment but you have to accept Rebecca is still there – the Woman Scorned and you know what they say about that . . .”

  “And,” Darcy interjected, “Alex is horny. It doesn’t mean he has grown up. It takes a lot for a man to grow up, believe me.”

  Fionn had raised her middle finger and said she didn’t want to talk about it any more and Darcy had gone back to reading her book – or at least doing a very good impression of someone reading a book. I looked at the back of her book (which was obscuring her face) and wondered what on earth was going on with her and Gerry and what I could do to make her tell me. Chances were there was nothing I could do until she was willing to tell me herself, so I lay back and started reading until my eyes grew a little heavy and I fell into a half-doze.

  It was only when my skin started to singe that I forced my eyes open and sat up.

  “Isn’t this lovely?” I asked, stretching my arms to the sky.

  “It sure is,” Fionn replied. “And it beats working for a living.”

  “If only it could be like this all the time,” Darcy added with a smile, putting her book down and pushing her glasses to the top of her head. Her long legs were already deliciously golden and I felt quite self-conscious of my milk-bottle variety splayed out in front of me.

  “Funny that you don’t realise how much you need a break till you stop for a while,” I added, realising that for the last few weeks I had been like a tightly coiled spring and that it was only here that my body and mind were starting to relax.

  “So are you ever going to tell me what finally got you to leave Derry behind and head down the road to see me? Must have been something big,” Darcy asked and Fionn sat up, crossed her legs and put her phone down.

  I explained how Pearse had messed things up for me at work and how I had lost out on my two biggest clients because of it. I told her I blamed myself in some ways for treating him so poorly. Of course Darcy dismissed this entirely – he was an arse, she reminded me. And if he had been so annoyed with my behaviour he shouldn’t have agreed to continue working with me and been so sociable during our meeting at Manna. She said that even though things had ended badly he could have still done me the courtesy of talking to me first rather than talking directly to Bob.

  While a part of me agreed with her, I also wondered whether I would have offered him the same courtesy if the roles had been reversed. After all, I had slept with someone else while we were still together – regardless of the state of our relationship, I would have been utterly devastated if he had done that to me.

  As I told her this I felt very ashamed of how I had acted and the sheen of the day in the sun started to fade.

  “Annie, you have to stop beating yourself up about things. What is done, is done. Pearse knew your relationship was in trouble. He more than likely knew that it was never going to last. He might be hurt but in the long run he will thank you for it. Believe it or not, you will even thank yourself.” Then she added with a wink, “You must already feel better knowing that you never have to sleep with him again.”

  “Is that how you would feel if Gerry dumped you after sleeping with someone else?” Fionn asked and I felt my face redden, aware that Fionn might well be closer to the mark than she realised.

  “It’s a different situation,” Darcy said. “You can’t compare the two.”

  “Why not?” Fionn asked, playing devil’s advocate and still clearly irked by Darcy’s judgements on her own relationship.

  “Because Gerry and I are different. We are different people. We have a different dynamic to Annie and Pearse. He wouldn’t do that and neither would I.”

  “Oh, so you are perfect then?” Fionn asked and I started to feel nervous.

  It was entirely possible that my sister and my dearest friend were going to have a full-on bitch-fest in the middle of a public park in Dublin.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you implied it. Darcy, you sit in judgement of everyone else. My relationship is a joke, my fiancé a commitment-phobe, me a walkover. Annie here is a tart who had no respect for her partner, who was an arse anyway. But you, you in your fancy apartment and your designer clothes and your lovely boyfriend – well, nothing could ever be wrong in your world, could it?”

  My heart started to thump. Surely Fionn had been privy to the same conversations I had. She knew something was wrong with Darcy and yet she was pushing her – and being downright nasty with it.

  “I didn’t say that,” Darcy replied, quieter this time.

  “But you didn’t need to, Darce. It’s there all the time in everything you say. You don’t even know Alex and yet you are there judging him like no one’s business and judging our relationship. And you didn’t know Annie and Pearse together – it was good sometimes, you know. Sure it wasn’t going to be forever, but that doesn’t make him an arse.”

  “No,” Darcy said coldly. “Him being an actual arse is what makes him an arse. That has nothing to do with how long he dated Annie. And I’m not judgemental – I just don’t walk around with my eyes closed all the time.”

  I didn’t know what to say or do. I wanted to challenge her about what was going on with Gerry. I wanted to tell Fionn to stop picking on her. I wanted to get up and walk away from the scene that was unfolding and do something altogether less uncomfortable – like stick those fecking nipple-tassels on again and go five rounds with the old biddy from the protest group.

  “My eyes are very much open,” Fionn said. “I know Alex isn’t perfect but he is perfect for me. And yes, we have our issues but I would really appreciate it if you would stop casting aspersions on what we do have, because he is the man I’m going to marry and spend the rest of my life with. He’ll be the father of my children, my best friend, my everything . . .”

  Her voice started to
falter and I hoped this would be enough to put Darcy off, but no, my sister was about to pull an absolute blinder.

  Slowly she started to clap, a fake, insincere but loud clap. “Well, fair fucking play to you, missus, and your happy life and your best friend and your everything and your fucking children!”

  “Darcy!” I pleaded as Fionn’s face fell.

  “What?” said Darcy. “If you can’t handle a healthy dose of reality then that really isn’t my problem.”

  “So what is your fucking problem then?” Fionn almost roared.

  Darcy stood up, dusted herself down and lifted her bag.

  “You. You two and your self-obsessed little world. That’s what my problem is. Get over yourself, ladies.”

  And she walked off, leaving Fionn and me once again open-mouthed in disbelief.

  This time we knew she wouldn’t be walking back in ten minutes later to apologise and dance badly to “I Will Survive”.

  Darcy had always had a temper. We had our fair share of scraps in our childhood and teenage years. I still remembered the time she emptied a waste-bin over my head when I had dared use her make-up during a particularly dodgy experimentation-with-colour stage in my early teenage years. I also had a small scar on my left hand where she had stabbed me with her fork when I tried to swipe a chip from her plate. There were various other mental scars too – she could turn nasty when she wanted – but mostly, since we reached our adult years and stopped sharing the same house, things had been hugely improved between us and I looked on her – perhaps unfairly – as the mother our mother never really was. She was the person I could confide in and who could make things right, except now things were very not right and very, very mixed up.

  “Know any good hotels?” Fionn asked and I sat there, rigid with shock, shivering in the heat of St Stephen’s Green.

  “I know nothing about Dublin. Nothing at all.”

  “Well, I’m not staying,” Fionn said. “I’ll go and get my case and find somewhere else to stay. You can come with me if you want to.”

  I shook my head and dragged my fingers through my hair. “Hang on, Fionn. Darcy was a bitch, I’m not going to say she wasn’t, but there is obviously something very wrong in her life.”

  “Okay then, let her walk all over you just like you let everyone else do,” Fionn said, packing her things in her bag and standing up, then storming off in the opposite direction to Darcy while I was left there like a cold snotter (and a cold snotter with a pathological fear of pickpockets and big cities) in the middle of a park, not entirely sure what the hell had just happened.

  I couldn’t phone Darcy. I couldn’t phone Fionn. I couldn’t phone Pearse and it would have been laughable to phone Bob even though he was the only person who had shown me even an ounce of warmth and compassion in the last few days and who I was still speaking to. I couldn’t – or wouldn’t – phone Ant. There was nothing I could say to him anyway and, at that moment, on a bench in the park crying like the fecking loon that I was, I wasn’t even sure I would make sense.

  Coming to Dublin was supposed to sort everything out. Darcy was supposed to say soothing words. Fionn and I were supposed to be having a great craic and being all Sex and the City with ourselves. It was not supposed to be crap. I was not supposed to be stranded in the middle of a park unsure of how to get back to Darcy’s apartment and unsure of the reception I’d get there even if I found it.

  I had tried calling each of them and got no answer – both were obviously in mega-huffs which was fine by me as I felt myself sink into a mega-huff as well. They had abandoned me, right in the middle of a city I barely knew. Could I even remember Darcy’s address? Not without my address book and, as my luck would have it, I didn’t have it with me. I really didn’t know the way back to Darcy’s. Should I head in the direction in which Fionn had stormed off?

  Part of me wanted simply to feck the lot of them and walk to the nearest bar and get scuttered – but I figured that getting scuttered would not help me find my way to wherever on earth it was I was going to spend the night. I felt tears prick in my eyes as I gathered my belongings and started walking, hoping for a glance of something familiar to lead me to the city centre. Spotting the Shelbourne, I headed towards it only to be confronted by the most manic traffic imaginable. There was Luas, three thousand taxis, people on bikes, people walking, ordinary cars with grumpy drivers all going in a jillion directions and leaving me dizzy with confusion.

  Which probably explains why I ended up walking out in front of a Dublin taxi driver driving his very own Dublin taxi which might as well have had “Killing Machine” written all over it.

  You know how they say that in those moments your whole life starts to go in slow motion? Well, that’s bollocks. It all speeded up – too fast. The car was too fast. My life was going too fast. My breathing was too fast. The person shouting at me to be careful was shouting too fast. The only thing that wasn’t going too fast was me. I was in slow-down mode. As I tried to turn, my body seemed to freeze as if my feet were stuck like a wee Lego man on a Lego board to the road. My feet felt as though they weighed six stone each – which I was pretty sure they didn’t but they wouldn’t move and all I could do was twist a little and gasp a lot and then – in a very fast way – pray that what was about to happen wasn’t going to be too godawfully painful. I mean, seriously, my life was pretty shit as it was – did I have to add the trauma of all my bones being smashed to smithereens into the mix?

  I closed my eyes, knowing that was the only thing I could do and felt a body-blow against mine – but it wasn’t a metal body-blow. More a human-y one. Someone had pushed me out of the way and as I hurtled towards the pavement, twisting my stupid Lego ankles and grazing my knee, I heard him land with a similarly inelegant thud on the pavement beside me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, standing up and brushing himself off. He reached his hand out to mine and, when I glanced up, he was there all floppy-haired and besuited.

  “Fine, just fine,” I muttered and then burst into snottery tears.

  “Are you sure?”

  “My ankle hurts,” I sniffed. “And I cut my kneeeeeeeeee,” I wailed.

  He helped me to a chair outside a nearby coffee shop at the top of Dawson Street.

  “Have a seat. I’ll get you a hot cup of sweet tea,” he offered and as I watched him walk to the counter my head started to swim. Whether it was with shock, or stress or the effects of the wine we had sipped out of the flask earlier I didn’t know. Whatever it was, however, I wasn’t taking any chances. I put my head in my hands and started to breathe slowly and evenly – which actually ended up more like mad hyperventilation.

  “Calm down,” he soothed me, sitting a tea in front of me.

  I looked at him – this stranger. This stranger who had saved my life. This stranger who had bought me a hot sweet tea. This stranger in a big city who I didn’t know at all.

  “Thank you,” I stuttered.

  He smiled, his eyes crinkling, and he offered me his hand.

  “Owen,” he said. “My name is Owen Reilly. And don’t worry about thanking me. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  I noticed his hand was grazed and had an urge to touch it – but this was shock. This was definitely shock. I shook my head and shivered, despite the heat.

  “Drink your tea,” he urged, making to leave.

  “Do you have to go?” I asked, rather pathetically, but I figured if I couldn’t get away with pathetic, just after I’d almost been run over, then I never would. “I mean, go if you want to. You must have somewhere to be. I’m sorry. I’m not usually a complete psycho. I’m usually quite normal. I’m usually in control.” All of which prompted a fresh flurry of tears as my ankle throbbed in time with my hyperventilation.

  He didn’t look embarrassed, or awkward. He simply sat down and asked me to look in his eyes (in a non-creepy way) until my breathing evened out.

  “Now . . .”

  “Annie. Annie Delaney,” I offered back.

&
nbsp; “Well, Annie Delaney, drink your tea and think about your breathing and when you’ve calmed down we’ll have a look at that ankle of yours.”

  I nodded and did what I was told and my breathing did settle down and my ankle throbbing eased.

  I asked him if I could buy him a cup of tea, or maybe a bun.

  “A tea would be just fine,” he said and smiled.

  “And then I’ll let you go,” I promised. “I’m sorry for taking up your time.”

  “Stop apologising. You’ve had a nasty shock.” He smiled slowly and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “But you must have things to do?”

  “To tell you the truth I had a date with a frozen meal and the telly. I probably shouldn’t have told you that – it makes me look like a saddo but tonight was going to be all about a beef curry and Top Gear.”

  I laughed, immediately relaxing, and I sipped my tea feeling the colour return to my cheeks. I was just about to ask him who his favourite Top Gear presenter was when my phone burst into life with the ringtone I reserved for Fionn.

  “Annie,” she began, “I’m in the Westbury. Alex’s card. Come and join me. I’m getting our cases sent over in a taxi. Darcy wasn’t home yet – Gerry sorted it. Come and meet me and we’ll figure out just what in the hell we’re going to do next. Okay? Room 114? See you there.” And she rang off without even giving me the chance to talk.

  “The Westbury,” I muttered.