Two For Joy

by Patricia Scanlan

  Oliver shook his head sorrowfully. Women! You couldn’t live with them and you couldn’t live without them. He switched over to the sports channel and watched a match. Noreen hadn’t stirred. Around ten he called upstairs and asked would she like a cup of tea.

  ‘No thanks,’ came the terse reply.

  No sign of a thaw, he thought ruefully as he surfed the channels.

  By eleven he was yawning his head off. There was no point in putting it off any longer. He switched off the lights, locked the front door and sloped upstairs. Noreen’s lamp was still on but she kept her back to him. He sat on his side of the bed and began to undress.

  ‘Goodnight, Noreen,’ he said as he slid into bed beside his wife.

  ‘’Night,’ she muttered.

  They lay stiffly, side by side.

  ‘Don’t be mad with me,’ he said softly. ‘It’s our anniversary. I booked a table for us at the Lake View tomorrow night.’

  Noreen gave a deep sigh. ‘I got my period today.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Oliver. That explained her bad humour.

  ‘And Maura called by. She’s three months pregnant,’ Noreen said forlornly.

  Oh heck! thought Oliver in consternation. No wonder Noreen was in a foul humour. He rolled over on his side and put his arms around her. She relaxed against him. ‘It will happen, Noreen, just relax about it,’ he murmured against her hair.

  To his dismay she started to cry.

  ‘I’m worried, Oliver. We’ve been trying for a year. I’m going to go and have a check-up. And I just felt such a bitch. I was so jealous of Maura. I was disgusted with myself.’

  ‘Don’t say things like that. You’re not a bitch,’ he soothed her awkwardly. Weeping women unnerved him. ‘Go to the doctor and see what he says. It could be something simple. Stop crying now and go to sleep.’

  He felt her wipe her eyes and felt sorry for her. He tightened his arms around her.

  ‘Everything will be fine, Noreen,’ he said with as much conviction as he could. Nevertheless he couldn’t suppress the niggle of unease in his belly. Just say there was a problem and Noreen couldn’t have a baby. She’d be gutted.

  Lord above, don’t let that happen to her, he prayed as she drifted off to sleep in his arms, leaving him awake and troubled.

  9

  Heather yawned, took a sip of her bud and felt utterly bored. Lorna was deep in conversation with an Armani-clad Brad Pitt lookalike, the air was thick with smoke and the din in the pub was giving her a headache. They’d trekked all the way out to Finnegan’s in Dalkey because Lorna was convinced she was going to meet a pop star or a film star or a racing driver, or some sort of celebrity. ‘Look, Bono, Eddie Irving, Lisa Stansfield, Pat Kenny, they all drink there. It’s their local. All the rich guys hang out there, I’m telling you, Heather. One of the girls at work lives out here and she told me this is definitely one of the hot spots to nab a guy who’s loaded, so we’re going to make the effort and go out there on Saturday nights, OK?’ Lorna had decreed.

  The first time they’d gone Heather had enjoyed herself. It had been a novelty. Dalkey was chic and cosmopolitan. They’d eaten at a posh little Italian restaurant before heading for the pub, and there was a buzz in the pub that set the adrenaline flowing and the night had flown past. Lorna was on an absolute high the next day, and told Heather that from then on Finnegan’s was going to be their local and they should even consider moving to Dalkey to live, it was so ‘in’.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, we couldn’t afford to live in Dalkey, and besides we’d have to spend hours commuting,’ Heather retorted.

  ‘Well, I think we should think about it. I’m fed up living in Drumcondra. Who lives in Drumcondra, for God’s sake?’ Lorna grumbled.

  Heather took another sip of her beer and waved away a cloud of smoke wafting over the shoulder of a stunning blonde in a micro mini that hadn’t much more material than a hanky. Lorna loved all this. She was in her element. Heather could take so much of it, and then she got bored. She would far prefer to come out to Dalkey in the daytime and stroll around the shops and art galleries, then have lunch and go for a long tramp up to Killiney Hill inhaling great lungfuls of fresh air. Lorna hated walking and fresh air!

  They were so unalike really. Sometimes it amazed Heather that they’d survived living together in that poky little flat in Drumcondra for eight months. A thought struck her: it was around this time last year at Oliver Flynn’s wedding that they’d made the decision to come to live in Dublin. That year had flown, she thought, a little shocked.

  Once they’d made the decision to move, Lorna had got a receptionist’s job in a new hotel out near the airport two weeks after sending out her CV. Heather had got a job as a wages clerk in a small printing firm. Unfortunately, four months after she’d joined they’d gone to the wall and she’d been jobless for two weeks, much to her dismay and Lorna’s consternation.

  ‘You’ll have to pay your rent, I can’t afford to pay for the two of us,’ she’d said bluntly.

  ‘Don’t worry, Lorna, I wouldn’t dream of asking you to pay my rent. I can always go and bunk in with Ruth if I have to, or go back to Kilronan. I won’t be a drain on you.’ Heather’d bristled but she was hurt by her cousin’s lack of sympathy and support.

  Mention of going to Ruth’s or, worse, going home had shut Lorna up and she’d backtracked fast. ‘Well, maybe for a week or so I could lend you the money,’ she’d suggested a tad reluctantly.

  Fortunately Heather had got a job in the letting agency section of a large auctioneer’s.

  Brooke, Byrne & O’Connell were a shower of chancers, Heather reflected as she popped a handful of peanuts into her mouth. She didn’t like working for them. They didn’t care what kind of tenants they got for their clients, once they got their money, and because of their lax, unprofessional attitude she was constantly having to deal with irate landlords and tenants. She was going to look for another job, she assured herself. One of these days.

  The Brad Pitt lookalike excused himself to go to the loo and Lorna beamed at Heather. ‘He’s gorgeous, isn’t he? He’s an architect and he has a place in Killiney. He wants me to go back for a drink, you don’t mind, do you, sweetie?’

  ‘Oh Lorna, why didn’t you tell me earlier? I’ll probably miss the last Dart and it’ll cost me an arm and a leg to get a taxi.’ Heather was furious. Typical Lorna.

  ‘He only asked me a minute ago,’ Lorna said indignantly. ‘Honestly, why don’t you make an effort and shift someone yourself instead of sitting there with a face on you?’

  Heather grabbed her jacket and bag. ‘Goodnight, Lorna,’ she said tartly. ‘Enjoy your drink.’ She made her way through the throngs and cursed when she got outside. It was lashing rain and she wasn’t dressed for rainy weather. She glanced at her watch – if she hurried she might make the last Dart. It was hard to run in her high heels and the rain whipped into her face as she raced along the high street towards the Dart Station. Five minutes later, she sat panting on the swaying train, relieved beyond measure that she hadn’t had to get a taxi home. She’d be able to get a Nite link bus to Drumcondra from the city centre. Heather yawned again and stared at her reflection in the train window as it flashed past the expensive houses that dotted the coast. In daylight it was a picturesque journey, and it would be lovely to be able to live in such a glamorous setting, but it certainly wouldn’t be practical. Left to her own devices, Lorna would make the move without thinking of the consequences. If she had her way they’d be living in an upmarket apartment in town, but they’d have no money once the rent was paid.

  It was expensive living in Dublin. She had to spend far more than when she was living at home in Kilronan, she thought ruefully. Bus and train fares alone took a sizeable chunk out of her salary. She’d been able to walk to her job in Mangan’s at home. Suddenly she felt terribly homesick. She’d liked working in the small accountancy firm. She’d got to know so many people from the locality that she couldn’t walk down the street without be
ing greeted by someone or other. She missed the dramatic society and the socializing it involved. She missed the tennis club, even though she kept up her membership and played there on the weekends she went home. She missed Kilronan itself: just going for a walk along the lakeshore had always lifted her spirits no matter how down she was.

  Leaving Kilronan had brought home to her how much she actually liked and appreciated her home town, whereas Lorna on the other hand was thrilled to shake the dust of Kilronan off her shoes and rarely went back to visit.

  She was really a country girl at heart, Heather reflected, probably a totally un-hip thing to admit to. She smiled, thinking of how horrified Lorna would be to hear her expressing such sentiments. She was going to go home next weekend, she decided. Lorna could come out to Dalkey on her own.

  She was glad to get off the bus and hurry down Botanic Avenue, then turn right to her little street with its row of redbrick houses. She was looking forward to getting into bed and not having to get up in the morning. Her heart sank as she neared the flat and heard the loud throb of music pounding through the front window. The girls downstairs must be having a party. She was just about to put her key in the door when it was pulled open and a young man staggered out looking extremely green around the gills. Two seconds later he was puking in the front garden.

  Heather hurried up the stairs feeling queasy herself. She hoped he’d clean up the mess, not that there was much chance of that. The racket was deafening; it was a wonder the neighbours hadn’t called the police. She opened the door at the top of the landing and let herself into her abode. It really was not at the cutting edge of interior design, she had to admit as she walked onto the landing with its shabby beige carpet and cream chip wallpaper. The sitting-room, which in another life had been a back bedroom, had an old-fashioned grate and black fireplace. At least they could light a fire, which was cosy enough in the winter. The cream chip wallpaper matched that on the landing and a worn gold and green pattern carpet covered the floor. A stained two-seater sofa, an armchair and a unit for the TV, all the cheapest of the cheap, comprised the furnishings. Heather never ceased to be amazed at the standard of furnishings that some landlords felt was sufficient to charge hefty rents for.

  The poky little kitchen was basic and uninspiring. The bedroom that she and Lorna shared was fairly big and bright, the best room in the flat. At the moment it was in need of a good tidy. Neither herself or her cousin were the tidiest of people. The dressing-table overflowed with make-up, deodorant and a miscellany of dress jewellery and accessories. The two small linen baskets were full to the brim, clothes were draped on a wooden chair and hung higgledy piggledy from the door of the bulging wardrobe. Shoes lined the wall under the window, bags were shoved under the beds. ‘All in all a bit of a nightmare,’ Heather conceded as she snapped on the light. At least she’d made her bed. Lorna never made her bed; how she slept in it was a mystery to her cousin. For someone who was always so immaculately turned out, Lorna could be surprisingly slovenly in her domestic habits. She only cleaned the bath after much nagging from Heather, and her housekeeping, particularly in the kitchen, left a lot to be desired. Mostly they ate out, or lived on take-aways.

  When Ruth had seen the state of the kitchen and bedroom she had nearly freaked. She was extremely tidy, and couldn’t understand how someone could sleep at night in such an untidy room. When she and Heather had shared a bedroom growing up, the only rows they’d ever had had been as a result of Heather’s untidiness.

  One of the best things about being in Dublin, though, was seeing her twin regularly. They often had lunch in the cheap and cheerful restaurants dotted around Temple Bar, as both of them worked in the city centre. They didn’t live too far from each other either, but her sister only came to visit when Lorna wasn’t around. There had been no thaw between the pair and they kept well away from each other, which suited Heather. She’d found walking the tightrope between them when they had been talking a totally stressful experience.

  A loud hammering on the front door stopped Heather in her tracks. The neighbours, she hoped – maybe the racket would stop. Minutes later the deafening din eased and she breathed a sigh of relief as she kicked her shoes off and began to undress, looking forward to a peaceful night’s sleep. She’d just snuggled under the duvet with a hot water bottle when the sound of ‘There’s Murder on the Dancefloor’ nearly lifted the floorboards from under her bed.

  ‘There’ll be murder on the ground floor in a minute if you don’t shut up that bloody racket,’ she growled as she pulled the duvet over her ears in a futile effort to drown out the noise as the revellers downstairs partied long and loudly into the early hours. She had just fallen into an exhausted sleep when the phone rang, its shrill tone penetrating and insistent. In a complete heap, she staggered out to the landing. If someone was ringing at this hour of the night, it had to be bad news. A bleary-eyed glance at her watch showed her that it was just gone four thirty.

  ‘Hello?’ she managed.

  ‘Hello Margy, sorry about earlier, I luv ya, yer a great ride,’ a drunken voice slurred.

  ‘I’m not Margy, you stupid git,’ Heather snarled, slamming down the phone. It rang again and she glared at it.

  ‘Margy! Margy, don’t be—’

  ‘I’m not Margy,’ she raged. She flung down the receiver on the small table. He could stay there all night if he wanted to, she couldn’t care less. She was leaving the phone off the hook too. She crawled into bed again. Her hot water bottle had gone cold and she threw it down on the floor and shivered. Lorna wasn’t home yet either. She must have stayed the night with the guy she’d met in Finnegan’s.

  Heather thought she was mad. Lorna didn’t know him from Adam, and he could be married or anything. She tried to mould her body into the warm spot in the bed and regain her lovely slumberous feeling. Lorna was her own worst enemy in terms of men. Wouldn’t she ever learn? Even if she was to stay on the shelf for the rest of her life, and that was looking increasingly as if it was going to be the case, Heather thought sleepily, she hoped that she’d never be as desperate as her cousin was to find Mr Right.

  She hadn’t had a boyfriend since she’d told Neil Brennan where to get off after his treatment of her the night of Oliver Flynn’s wedding. Heather’s cheeks burned with resentment as she remembered how her former boyfriend had left her twiddling her thumbs while he worked the room for business. Neil had been astonished at his reception the following day when he’d called by to say he hadn’t appreciated her leaving the hotel without even having the manners to say goodnight.

  ‘How dare you talk to me about manners, Neil Brennan! You were nearly an hour late picking me up and then you left me to entertain myself while you sat up at the bar trying to sell cars, you ignoramus. I don’t want to see you again. I’m not that desperate for a boyfriend,’ she’d exploded in an uncharacteristic display of temper that had left him gobsmacked.

  ‘But you know I’m trying to get business for the garage, I thought you understood,’ Neil tried to explain.

  ‘I understand one thing, if you’re so ambitious that you don’t even have the manners to pay a scintilla of attention to your so-called girlfriend when you go to a function with her, there’s not much point in you having a girlfriend. And if you find someone who’s prepared to put up with being treated like dirt, fine, good luck to you and my heartfelt sympathies to her. Now get lost, Neil, I’ve better things to do with my life than be your doormat!’ She’d closed the door in his face. It was her proudest moment. Lorna had congratulated her effusively when she’d heard the news. ‘Good enough for the ignorant culchie,’ she’d applauded.

  He’d built his brand spanking new garage all the same, Heather thought drowsily. In Lorna’s view he might be an ignorant culchie, but he was hardworking and ambitious and he’d put some of the lazy lumps Lorna had gone out with to shame. Maybe this architect guy might be different. Heather hoped her cousin wasn’t heading down another road to disappointment. Having a man in your life
wasn’t the be-all and end-all of life and the sooner Lorna recognized that the better.

  Still, it would be nice to have a man’s arms around her, if only to keep her warm in bed, Heather thought longingly as she gingerly stretched out her leg and felt the coldness of the sheet. A depressing thought struck her. She’d be twenty in a couple of weeks, the oldest virgin in town.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ she muttered. ‘Go asleep and stop talking nonsense!’ It was bad enough being an old maid, without being haggard and baggy-eyed as well.

  It took a mug of hot chocolate, two chocolate-covered Kimberleys and a fresh hot water bottle before Heather finally fell asleep.

  10

  Lorna tucked her arm into Carl’s as they walked along the narrow, winding and, to her dismay, extremely hilly streets towards Killiney, where the architect lived. She was wearing strappy high-heeled sandals and her feet were killing her. At least her black skin-tight leather trousers protected her legs from the nippy breeze and drizzly rain, but her hair was getting wet and her red boxy jacket and white T-shirt were not really suitable clothing for a dank, cold autumn night. It wouldn’t have killed him to get a taxi, she thought sourly as she stumbled on a broken cobblestone.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Carl encouraged. ‘See down there,’ he pointed. ‘That’s Enya’s castle.’

  Lorna was impressed. Enya was a neighbour! Wow! He must be loaded. He probably drove a Porsche, or was he more the Beemer type? She wasn’t quite sure yet. She wondered did he have a sea view over Dublin Bay, or even his own stretch of private beach. He was exactly the type of eligible bachelor that she had come to Dublin to meet, she thought triumphantly. It was worth travelling all the way over to Dalkey and this should finally prove her point to Heather, once and for all. Honestly, her cousin would want to get with the programme or she’d end up going nowhere fast, stuck in that kippy flat. Lorna couldn’t understand her. Heather was well placed to meet potential boyfriends when she was showing upmarket apartments for letting. But then, Heather was always saying to her that being a receptionist in a hotel was a great way to meet eligibles. It didn’t really work like that. Usually the only men who were interested were married or deadly dull. She’d hit gold dust tonight though, she thought excitedly, trying to ignore her throbbing feet. She could feel a blister bubbling up under her big toe. Still, it would be worth it to hook a dishy-looking architect with a luxury pad in Killiney. Killiney was even more exclusive than Dalkey.