Anna felt her stomach lurch and almost dropped her tray. Philip Flynn had made no mention to her of applying for the year-long lecturing post that she had told him about. He hadn’t said a word to her when she had been prattling on excitedly about her application and what the Americans were looking for.
‘I was sure you’d get it, Anna, but what the hell do my fellow countrymen know of lecturers like you who have the ability to pack their classes and interest their students compared to egotists like Philip who try to promote their own work?’
She must have looked dismayed because Mona stroked her shoulder.
‘I know he’s a friend of yours, Anna honey, but I just can’t take to the man. The only good thing about it is that he’ll be off campus for at least six months.’
Anna winced. She had told Philip all about her intended application and he had made absolutely no mention of putting himself forward. Maybe Mona had got it wrong?
Brendan was in his office when she marched in like a virago and demanded an explanation.
‘Anna, a number of my staff put forward proposals for the year’s sabbatical at Stanford,’ he soothed. ‘Everyone here was competing with people from UCD and Galway and Cork. It was a broad field and Philip won it fair and square. The Americans liked what he was offering and he was selected. I’m sorry but it was not my decision.’
‘What was his proposal?’ she demanded.
‘Well, obviously you are all covering a lot of similar ground, especially for an audience outside of Ireland. Philip was focusing on the dramatists, but I suppose the paper he’s working on, “The Female Influence on Ireland’s Great Dramatists”, did have an appeal.’
‘Brendan, that is my idea,’ she screamed. ‘You know that! Yeats was a complex man but the essence of Philip’s study is the same as mine. He’s taken my idea!’
‘His proposal might have some similarities to yours,’ he admitted, ‘but it had a broader scope and hence a broader appeal.’ Brendan Delaney sighed. God preserve him from competing academics. Philip Flynn was an arrogant prick and he himself had been surprised by his sudden candidacy and detour into academic writing as opposed to those godawful plays of his. ‘I’m sorry, Anna, there’s nothing I can do. Philip spoke with the people in Stanford last night and has agreed to take the position with them.’
Fuming with indignation, she left the office and strode across the quadrangle. When she found Philip she would give him a piece of her mind. He was the lowest of the low – a plagiarist! He had listened to her outline over the past few months, what she was working on, and had simply rehashed it and submitted it. She’d murder him!
Chapter Twenty-five
In a fury Anna, her hair wild and tumbling around her shoulders, her long black-and-red-striped cardigan blowing about her, searched the whole of Trinity. She searched the staffroom, the library, the corner of the restaurant where he usually sat, only to be told that Philip Flynn had gone home. Grabbing her keys she jumped into her trusty red Polo and driven to Glasnevin where he lived.
The small red-brick terrace house he shared with his mammy was close to the Botanic Gardens. Last summer and spring he had regularly taken her there for picnics and walks. Anna squeezed into a tiny parking spot outside it and ran up to the front door, ringing the bell.
Dympna Flynn answered it. She was wearing a salmon-coloured cardigan, a tartan skirt and her regulation nylon stockings and high heels. Her fair hair was immaculately blow-dried as if she had just come back from the hairdresser’s.
‘Is he in?’ demanded Anna.
‘Philip’s not here but he’s due any minute. He went to the butcher’s to get us a nice bit of fillet steak for the dinner.’ Philip’s mammy was not used to Anna using that tone of voice and looked slightly insulted.
‘Then if you don’t mind, Dympna, I’ll wait.’
It was uncomfortable sitting in the front room with its hard sofa and display cabinet of ornaments and china. Dympna sat across from her, her hands fidgeting on her lap.
‘Have you heard the good news about him going to America?’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ Anna said tersely.
‘I’m going to miss him terribly,’ said Dympna, reaching for a hankie stuck up her cardigan sleeve. ‘But I can’t stand in his way. Philip is so excited about it. He’s trying to persuade me to come out and visit him. As visiting lecturer he will have accommodation provided.’
Anna gritted her teeth. Her mother had always said never trust a man beyond twenty-five still living with his mother – she should have listened to her. ‘That would be nice.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea or coffee while you’re waiting?’
‘Coffee with milk and no sugar would be great, thanks.’
She studied the patterned carpet and the porcelain thimbles and glass animals that Philip’s mother collected, the lace protectors on the chairs and the print of a stag in the Scottish highlands. Was it any wonder he wrote such shite plays! A grown man living in this place with poor Dympna waiting on him hand and foot!
Dympna was just carrying in a tray with two china mugs of coffee when Philip appeared, carrying their dinner in a plastic bag.
‘Oh, hello, Anna,’ he said, looking awkwardly at her, his gaze shifting around the familiar room. She had surprised him.
‘I just heard about America,’ she said, trying to keep her voice even.
‘It was a last-minute thing,’ he stammered. ‘I just decided on the spur of the moment to throw my hat in the ring too.’
‘Along with my proposal,’ she said sarcastically. ‘The study I’ve been working on for the past year.’
Dympna, picking up the tension, grabbed the bag from McCarthy’s butcher’s. ‘If you two will excuse me I’ll just put this meat in the fridge.’
Philip ran his fingers through his thick black hair, his expression wary. ‘There is a difference,’ he argued.
‘And when did you come up with this brilliant idea of the influence of women on some Irish dramatists? Would it have been when I asked you to read over my paper on Lady Gregory’s influence on Yeats? Or confided in you about my research on Maud Gonne?’
He moved his lips, his dark eyes searching for some kind of response.
‘You are such a total shit, Philip. A schemer! A big nothing!’
‘Hold on, Anna, I am as entitled to apply for Stanford as you or anyone else. A year out of this place is just what I need. OK, OK, there is some similarity between our proposals, I do admit, but mine is at a very early stage.’
‘You lying little creep.’
‘I am actually hoping to develop a script, write a play even while I’m away in California.’
Anna studied his handsome, smug, self-satisfied face. How in her right mind had she ever imagined that he was an interesting, intelligent guy, one she could perhaps have a relationship with!
‘I could lodge a formal complaint, produce my early drafts, my original studies and notes, and send them to Martin Johnston tonight,’ she threatened, ‘and you can send him yours.’
‘Mine is just an early proposal – barely at first draft stage,’ he said, backtracking madly.
‘Really!’
She knew she had him. The full extent of his cheating and lies was obvious, though she suspected he was not going to climb down and admit his culpability. ‘You are pathetic!’ she hissed softly, grabbing her handbag.
She could see bewilderment written all over his face. Philip hadn’t even the sensitivity or emotional depth to recognize what he had done to her. How had she ever imagined he was anything special?
Dympna was standing in the hallway with a plate of biscuits in her hand. Anna guessed that she had overheard the full gist of their conversation.
‘I’m sorry he upset you . . .’ she began to say, fussing around offering more coffee and biscuits, as Anna, not trusting herself to say another word, headed for the hall door.
Chapter Twenty-six
Anna resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t
going to Stanford, but what irked her most was the fact that Philip had muscled in on her academic territory. He might be a mammy’s boy but he was still a scheming bastard! Hell would freeze over before she would ever attend one of his awful plays again.
Over Sunday lunch at her mother’s Grace and Sarah had loyally taken her side as good sisters do in such circumstances, and hadn’t a good word to say about him.
‘Honestly, Anna, he was so rude and full of himself,’ insisted Grace. ‘The man thinks he’s a genius!’
‘He’s a snake in the grass, as Granny would say,’ Sarah added emphatically. ‘The few times I met him, he acted as if I wasn’t there!’
Anna blazed. She obviously hadn’t a clue about men. Her instincts about men were so off centre that she had liked a guy both her sisters had taken such a dislike to.
‘Anna, love, it’s better you saw Philip in a true light before the two of you got more involved,’ consoled her mum. ‘Far better to find out now what a schemer he was before any more harm was done. Anyway a man like him is not good enough for one of my daughters!’
Anna stared at her bowl of rice pudding, stirring in a heaped spoon of sugar. It was so stupid; she had let her guard down with Philip Flynn, made allowances for his vanity and egotism by convincing herself that they were intelligent, artistic, like-minded people. How wrong could she get!
‘You know that your father would never have taken to him,’ added Maggie Ryan firmly.
Afterwards, as they were tidying up in the kitchen, her mother had given her a big old-fashioned hug.
‘Anna, love, I know that you’re disappointed about not going to America,’ she began, ‘and you must be hurt by what Philip has done. I know the two of you were close and had a lot in common, which is a good thing in one way, but some of these college fellows you’ve got involved with – I don’t know what to make of them. Maybe you should give other men a chance. A man doesn’t have to have a whole rake of degrees and doctorates to be kind and loving, believe me!’ Maggie added earnestly.
Anna knew there was a truth to what her mother was saying but after Philip’s behaviour she didn’t know if she had any interest in trusting any man again!
‘To be honest, I’m so annoyed about the whole stupid Philip thing that I can hardly think!’ she confided. ‘I feel like my brain is scrambled.’
‘Maybe you should take some time off and go away and leave all that college work for a while,’ Maggie suggested
‘Mum, I have to try and push ahead with the Yeats study. I’m not going to have Philip turn around and say he wrote his one first. There’s no chance I could go away for a few weeks to the States or anything like that.’
‘Then maybe you could take a short break, go away just for a few days.’
‘I just don’t have time for a holiday,’ Anna argued, thinking of all the first- and second-year papers she had to mark.
‘I don’t mean that kind of holiday, I mean peace and quiet, a chance to relax. What about a day or two in Gran’s cottage? No one’s been up there since last summer, and one of us should probably take a look over the place and see what needs doing before the holidays. Besides, a change of scene might do you good.’
Anna had to admit it did sound appealing, especially after the stresses of the past few days. She could do with a little tranquillity. She needed to be alone, have time to think. A few days in the peace and quiet of Granny’s cottage in the West, away from everything and everyone, was exactly what she needed. How was it her mum always seemed to know what was best?
Maggie Ryan smiled to herself. A few days in Roundstone was indeed the best medicine for any tortured soul. The cottage might be a bit damp but things like that never usually bothered Anna, and she could check out if any repairs to the place were needed.
Anna set off on the road to Galway after her last lecture on Thursday.
The traffic was light as she drove through town after town: Moate, Athlone and Ballinasloe, bypassing Loughrea; at this rate she’d be in Galway before she knew it. She’d been up for a few days last summer with Sarah and Evie, and before that it had been a family celebration for her grandmother’s birthday two years ago. The Ryan family had enjoyed a perfect weekend in Roundstone, with a barbecue and chilly swims on the beach and chatting long into the night wrapped in rugs around the fireplace. At eighty-two, her grandmother Annabel had been strong and well then, beating them all at poker and insisting on cooking huge meals and playing Joan Baez songs on her guitar and telling their fortunes.
Her decline and failing memory had all happened so suddenly. One minute capable and kind, organizing them all, and the next becoming a frail bedridden woman in a Dublin nursing home who could hardly remember their names. Poor Gran! How she must have hated it! Her death had brought an awkward sense of relief that the sparkling spirit of her grandmother was no longer tied to the decrepit frame and mind of an old woman.
‘Thank God, she’s finally free.’ Her mother’s words had echoed all their sentiments.
The road leading to the cottage was dark; her headlights picked up a rat running across the road. She turned off the engine and fumbled in her bag for the house keys as she grabbed her bag and locked the car.
The grass was overgrown and she trod carefully on the driveway that led to Gull Cottage, a dark shape that was perched near the sea. The sound of the waves and the smell of the sea cast their usual spell on her in the dim moonlight as she grasped the reassuring stone bird ‘Gully’ who perched beside the blue-painted front door, jiggling the keys as she opened it.
Inside, the air was musty and damp. She flicked on the light and looked around her. Dead bluebottles littered the windowsill; spider webs looped across the glass, which was salt-stained. The kitchen had been left neat and tidy ready for visitors with tea bags and coffee and sugar ready in their polished tins. She checked the fridge and switched it on, then plugged in her grandmother’s radio and tape player. The sound of fiddle music filled the air. Gull Cottage always made every visitor feel welcome.
She got down a mug and filled the kettle after letting the water run for a minute. From the small bag of groceries she’d brought along, she opened a packet of wheaten crackers, adding two slices of cheese to them. She wrapped herself in a wool blanket as the heating got going and walked around inspecting the place. There was a leak from the roof in the bathroom, the window pane in the spare bedroom rattled ominously and in the living room there was a large patch of damp on the wall behind the blue couch. She smiled when she spotted that Evie’s red bucket and spade had been left in the little bedroom ready for her next visit, along with a rubber ring and a broken sandal. She used to do the very same thing when she was small – leaving something behind in the hope of ensuring her return.
Once the cottage was warm and aired, she’d make up her bed. She looked in on her grandmother’s room with its old-fashioned double bed and dressing table and opted instead for the familiarity of the room she’d shared with her sisters. This time she had no rivals for the sole possession of the cosy double bed rather than the bunk beds that crowded one half of the room. She opened the window slightly to air it before making her way back to the kitchen.
The kettle was boiled and she cut herself more cheese, adding three baby tomatoes and a spoon of pickle to the plate of crackers. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was as she poured milk into her tea and sat down to eat, perusing a copy of her grandmother’s favourite cookbook as she did so. Monica Sheridan had been the doyenne of Irish cooking and Gran used make big jugs of homemade lemonade based on one of her recipes. Gran had scribbled notes and measurements in pencil on some of the pages along with a recipe for brown bread. She touched the perfect looped writing, emotion welling up inside her as she remembered Annabel Ryan. Her grandmother had been a bright interesting woman, filled with a zest for life and curiosity about everything – botany and plant life, nature, politics, literature and history, music and cookery – and was a great one for collecting recipes, though she never got round to
using the half of them.
Once she’d eaten, Anna made herself comfortable in the sitting room, snuggling up on the couch and putting on one of her favourites tapes: Simon and Garfunkel. The tension eased from her as she listened to the words of the ‘59th Street Bridge Song’ telling her to slow down. She flicked through two old magazines and yawned.
Bedtime beckoned and, after putting crisp white sheets on the mattress and a pale blue floral quiltcover on the bed, she soon found herself drifting off to sleep, listening to the sound of the sea and shifting shingle and sand from the beach below.
She slept in and it was late morning when she woke to perfect silence in the cottage except for the distant sound of the waves. She stretched in the comfortable bed, trying to make decisions. A walk then breakfast? Breakfast and a shower? Or should she pull on a towelling robe and go down the beach for a swim? Although it was bright and sunny outside there was a strong breeze blowing so she soon rejected the latter. Getting out of bed, she flicked on the immersion switch in the hot press before padding into the kitchen in her bare feet and putting on the kettle. First, a mug of coffee and a slice of toast and marmalade, then a shower, then get dressed. She needed some supplies: bread, milk, butter, meat, juice, plus a few odds and ends to clean the place. She’d drive into town to pick up a few things and a newspaper, then concentrate on work for the rest of the day. She jumped when she realized she had wasted almost an hour sitting at the windowsill watching honeysuckle blow against the cottage wall and wild roses dance in the wind. Her gaze was drawn to the patch of blue and the hardy souls playing and running on the beach. How was it that children and Labradors never felt the cold?
Braving the ancient bathroom Anna hopped under the useless contraption her family considered a shower. It limped into action as she turned the mixer tap frantically trying to achieve some balance of water that wasn’t roasting hot or freezing. Scrubbing herself dry she flung on a pair of jeans, a washed-out pale blue T-shirt and her navy sweater as she grabbed her car keys.
The Matchmaker Page 13