Friends! she wanted to shriek. You don’t know the meaning of the word. But she restrained herself. She’d die before she let him know how she felt. How the sight of him in his cream trenchcoat had set her heart and pulse racing.
‘Sure,’ she said in a cool, offhand tone. ‘Let’s be friends by all means. Max! Max!’ she called the dog to heel. If he felt like standing chit-chatting on the beach, she didn’t.
‘Bye, Steve,’ she said crisply, beginning to walk away.
‘Lainey!’ Steve caught her arm and turned her back to face him.
‘Let go of my arm, Steve,’ she snapped icily.
‘There’s still something there! Isn’t there?’ he demanded. ‘I can feel it, sense it!’
Lainey stared up into his hard angry eyes. ‘What I felt for you died a long time ago, Steve, so don’t kid yourself,’ she said scornfully.
‘Liar! I know you better than you know yourself, Lainey. Why haven’t you married Tony Mangan yet?’
‘That is none of your business, Steve McGrath, but I will tell you one thing, you’ll never be half the man Tony is. Now let go of my arm.’
Steve glared down at her. The last rays of sunlight had disappeared and dusk enfolded them. Before she realized what he was doing he had bent his head and was kissing her hotly, passionately. ‘Now tell me there’s nothing there,’ he said grimly as they stared at each other in the dark. ‘Because I can’t get you out of my mind. I want you, damn it, more than I’ve ever wanted you and every time I see you it gets worse.’
‘Are you proposing we have an affair?’ Lainey asked, stunned.
‘Yes! If you want one,’ Steve said eagerly, bending his head towards her again. Lainey pushed him away angrily.
‘You’re a beauty, Steve, a real beauty. You really want to have your cake and eat it! What’s wrong? Is Helena making you keep to your own side of the bed? All you want is sex! That’s all you ever wanted from me but I loved you too much to see it. Well I don’t love you any more, so tough fromage, Steve. You can buy sex any night you like down on the quays, that’s if any of those unfortunate ladies would touch a creep like you!’ She left him standing staring after her as she walked, head held high, towards the steps leading to the pier.
What a bastard! An arrogant selfish bastard! she raged. Did he think she would come running when he snapped his fingers. Just because he said he wanted her? Big deal! Well he didn’t know her half as well as he thought he did. If he went down on his bended knees and begged her, if he offered to divorce Helena to marry her, she wouldn’t have him back. Helena had got what she deserved in Steve McGrath, she thought bitterly.
The encounter disturbed her and ruined her little holiday and she drove back to Dublin the next morning totally pissed off. When she got to work and found that Patrick Nolan had suffered a serious stroke the previous night she was utterly shocked. Then Dominic rang and asked her to go for a drink that night but she couldn’t face the thought of going out. After she put the phone down and burst into tears she decided to have a bath and an early night. God knows what was going to happen at work. She’d need her wits about her, she reasoned. She was just pouring herself a cup of coffee before she went to bed when the doorbell rang and she heard Dominic’s deep voice on the intercom.
‘I was a bit worried!’ he explained as she opened the door a few minutes later to find him standing smiling at her. ‘You didn’t sound a bit like yourself. Is anything the matter?’
‘No . . . yes . . . I don’t know.’ To her dismay two big tears rolled down her cheeks.
‘Ah now!’ he exclaimed, putting a comforting arm around her as he closed the door behind him. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked as she sobbed into his black overcoat.
‘Everything!’ she wept. ‘Every damn bloody thing!’
‘Tell me about it then,’ he said comfortingly as he put his arms around her and let her cry.
She told him then about Steve and how confused she was and, as if that wasn’t enough, about Patrick’s stroke and the problems that was going to cause. He didn’t say much, just asked a few pertinent questions and let her pour it all out of her.
‘I’m awfully sorry, Dominic. I don’t usually go around bawling my eyes out and telling all my deep dark secrets,’ she apologized a little later. ‘It must be PMT.’
‘I’m an expert on PMT,’ he said lightly. ‘My wife suffers from it, and so, therefore, do I.’
Lainey laughed. Dominic was terribly nice and she felt quite at ease in his company. He made her fresh coffee and talked with her a while and promised when he was leaving to ring her the next day to see how she was and how things were. It was a promise he kept. He rang her often after that and they began to see each other much more regularly, at least once a week when he was up in Dublin. They found great companionship in each other. And as he confided in her more, Lainey realized that he was quite a lonely man despite having a wife and four children. As the situation at work deteriorated and more pressure was put on her because of Patrick’s stroke, she began to depend upon him much more. He was always there for her and it was only when she hadn’t seen him for six weeks that she realized just how much Dominic Kent was coming to mean to her. She had been in England, Scotland and Wales for three weeks, doing a marketing blitz, and when she got back he was on holidays in the West with his family.
When he rang her to tell her he was back in Dublin for a few days she was delighted. She had so much to tell him, all about what was going on in Verdon, and she was really looking forward to seeing him. They arranged to meet at the gates of St Stephen’s Green before going somewhere for dinner. His whole face lit up when he saw her and she hugged him warmly. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said.
‘I missed you,’ Lainey confessed. And it was true! She had missed him. They smiled at each other in the late afternoon sun and then as though it was the most natural thing in the world they kissed, a warm companionable loving kiss that made her feel utterly cherished. It was then that Lainey fell in love with Dominic Kent and he with her.
They agonized over whether they should part. They tried it for a while but they missed each other so much that it was impossible. They tried to keep the relationship platonic, the way it had been. But it had changed and they had to face it. How ironic, thought Lainey, as she wrestled with her conscience. She had felt nothing but disgust for Steve when he had told her he wanted to have an affair with her and here she was contemplating taking such a step herself. Still, there was a hell of a lot more to the relationship she had with Dominic than sex.
‘Everybody deserves some happiness, Lainey. Take what’s on offer,’ Tony advised non-judgementally. Tony liked Dominic. They got on well, and the older man had no problems with the fact that he was gay. It was obvious to Tony that Lainey and Dominic cared deeply about each other.
If she had thought for one moment that Dominic was deceiving her about his relationship with his wife, she would have finished with him long before this. But in all the time she had known him, and even before they had fallen in love, it was obvious that Rita Kent’s priorities did not include her husband, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It was this more than anything that made Lainey decide to continue the relationship with Dominic. And as she lay watching him sleeping after the first time they made love, she did not regret it. With Dominic it had been much much more than sex. Lainey had felt truly loved. As he pulled her close and sleepily kissed her she felt a lovely moment of happiness before she, too, fell asleep.
Wednesday 8 May 1985
‘Peter, I’ve had enough. I quit! If I had a thing dangling between my legs I’d never have been treated like this. You just can’t stomach a woman telling you where you’re going wrong. Well, let Damien do the job and make a balls of it. I couldn’t care less. I have three weeks’ leave left – you can take that as my notice.’ Lainey glared at her boss, flung her letter of resignation on his black-ash desk and marched from the office. She was furious and she wanted out of Verdon Books Publishing Company Ltd.
It didn’t take long for her to clear out her bright roomy office. Lainey was a neat and organized person and her office reflected that. If only Patrick Nolan hadn’t died last year after another stroke. Patrick loved books and the book trade, just like she did, and they had made a great team. But Peter, his son, had taken over the running of the company on his father’s death and all he was interested in was cost-cutting and making a profit.
That was all very well, but some costs paid dividends that were not easily reflected in the financial directors’s annual accounts statement. About six months after he took over, Peter called her in to his office and presented her with her last expenses sheet.
‘Lainey,’ he said smoothly, looking out at her over his bi-focals, ‘there are some fairly hefty expenses here. Perhaps you would run through the list with me to give me an idea of what company money is being spent on.’ She was flabbergasted! And then angry. Patrick had never questioned her expenses. He had trusted her implicitly and left her to do her job. She didn’t let her anger show. Maybe Peter was just curious as to what the money was spent on. Well she’d give him the benefit of the doubt this time. Politely she explained her expenses to him. Overnight stays. Dinners with wholesalers, retailers, authors, journalists. Petrol. Christmas gifts . . .
‘What kind of Christmas gifts?’ he interrupted her.
Lainey arched a perfectly-shaped eyebrow at his tone. ‘Champagne. Whiskey. Brandy,’ she said coolly. His attitude left a lot to be desired. He was beginning to make her feel as though she was personally benefiting in some way from her expense account.
‘Who gets champagne, for heaven’s sake?’ he queried rattily.
‘We always send our top-selling author a crate of Bollinger and some of our biggest wholesalers get one too. After all, Peter, if it wasn’t for them, you or I wouldn’t be sitting here,’ she retorted tartly.
‘What’s this bill from a travel agent?’ He pointed a stubby finger at the offending amount.
‘As you know, Michelle Powell completed Career Girls for us in six months, no mean feat for a six-hundred-page blockbuster, and it’s walking off the shelves, just like her other one. And she had been approached by two other publishers but decided to remain with us. Patrick said before he died that he’d like to send her off on holidays as a little treat and I arranged it!’ Lainey said icily. ‘And believe me, it paid off. She’s halfway through her next novel as you heard at Friday’s meeting.’
‘Typical of Dad!’ muttered Peter. ‘What’s this?’
Lainey stood up and looked at her watch pointedly. ‘I’m sorry, Peter. I’ve a meeting in town with the PR firm to discuss the publicity for Miriam Daily’s new book and I’m meeting her first to sort a few things out for the press release. I’ll be back later this afternoon if you wish to continue,’ – his cross-examination, she was sorely tempted to say.
‘Yes, well, I think in future you’d better stick to a monthly budget. Then we’ll know where we stand. I’ll talk to the accountant about it. And I don’t think we’ll be sending any more authors on holidays.’ Peter puffed on a cigar and glared at her.
‘Fine!’ she snapped, ‘but if you don’t look after your authors, don’t be surprised if they move elsewhere. And it’s not I who will be affected if my expense account is cut, but don’t expect wholesalers and retailers to be quite so supportive. It’s all part of the game, Peter. And treating these people properly pays dividends. Patrick understood that.’
‘Thank you, Lainey, I don’t need a lecture on how to run the business.’
‘Well, Peter, as long as I’m Sales and Marketing Manager for Verdon and as long as it’s my department that’s been targeted for cutbacks, I intend to give you my views, however unpalatable they may be.’
‘By the way,’ Peter raised his voice just as she was about to leave. ‘I’ll be sending Damien to the London Book Fair from now on. It will be good experience for him. I’m sure you won’t mind.’
‘Not in the slightest,’ Lainey said dryly, although she was absolutely furious. So Boy Wonder was off to London! The sneaky little scut. Ever since Peter had recruited Damien Lawson as administrative assistant, he had been poking his ski-slope of a nose into her department, trying to muscle in. Obviously he was succeeding, she sighed, as she collected her briefcase and strode out of the office. ‘I’ll be back by three,’ she told Margaret, her secretary.
Whereas once she couldn’t wait to get in to work, she was finding it harder and harder to motivate herself and muster up any enthusiasm these days, she reflected glumly, as she drove around Stephen’s Green looking for a parking place. Peter couldn’t see beyond his nose, and in the conservative financial director he had an ally. No doubt smarmy Lawson was agreeing with everything they said. Maybe it was time to think of going somewhere else! she thought, faintly depressed. She had put a hell of a lot of work into Verdon Books. She had built up a great relationship with wholesalers and retailers and authors and artists and she had got an immense amount of job satisfaction. But if things carried on like this she didn’t think she could handle it. To watch all her good work going down the Swannee because of unnecessary penny-pinching would be too hard to swallow. She must start keeping an eye out in The Bookseller to see what jobs were going, she decided, as she parked opposite the Shelbourne, which was really handy because she was meeting Miriam Daily in the Horseshoe Bar. Defiantly she ordered champagne for the author and toasted her success.
Lainey lasted another six months with Verdon, watching her publicity budget being slashed, watching Damien edging his way into her area with Peter’s tacit approval. Not only did he go to the London book fair, he went to Frankfurt as well and the last straw came when he took over the launching of Michelle Powell’s latest blockbuster, something that Lainey had always taken care of with great flair. ‘It’s as much an administrative function as a marketing function and I think Damien is showing great aptitude and initiative as well as keeping costs down,’ Peter had remarked snidely. Michelle’s launch had been a disaster. Cheap plonk, a few savoury snacks, a couple of balloons on the ceiling of the hotel room and the people had started drifting off once they saw things were not going to improve. It had been tacky and tawdry and Lainey had been mortified, especially as a few people who thought that she was responsible had remarked to her that it hadn’t been as good as other Verdon launches. Michelle had been terribly put out and Lainey couldn’t blame her.
‘It was dreadful,’ she told Peter angrily first thing the following morning.
‘I didn’t think so and we saved a fortune. Lainey, your launches are much too lavish. In fact I’m turning responsibility for all further launches over to Damien from now on, if you don’t mind.’
They eyeballed each other and finally Peter looked away. Silently Lainey left his office and went down to her own where she typed out her resignation on her shocked secretary’s typewriter.
‘What are you going to do?’ Margaret asked in concern.
‘I don’t know yet. But I can’t stick this,’ Lainey fumed.
‘Me neither,’ muttered Margaret miserably. Lainey felt a pang. She’d miss Margaret. They had been a team since she had started to work for Verdon. And she’d miss her authors. She’d have to ring around and tell people she was leaving. After she presented a silent Peter with her resignation she tidied out her office and spent the rest of the day on the phone telling people of her decision. Without exception they were shocked, especially some of the authors she had been working closely with. They were even more shocked when they heard that Damien would be taking over her position as Sales and Marketing Manager. ‘Not that little puke!’ Miriam Daily howled in dismay when Lainey told her the news. ‘Oh Lainey please don’t go. I couldn’t work with him.’
‘I’m really sorry, Miriam,’ Lainey said regretfully. She liked the writer, who was a terrible panicker when she dried up and who would spend hours moaning about the pressure she was under. But she was a very successful author for them and Lainey had cosseted
her through her last three books. Miriam wouldn’t get much cosseting from Damien, Lainey reflected, and it would be interesting in a year’s time to see how many authors had left the Verdon stable.
She went home that night by taxi, as she had to leave the company car behind her. For the first time, Lainey realized what she had done. She had no job, no car, and rent to pay. Fortunately she had a fairly healthy bank account so the wolf wouldn’t be at the door for a while; and she’d get her tax back. She didn’t know how she felt, she decided, as she sat curled up in her huge cane chair flicking idly through a few recent copies of The Bookseller. She was sorry to have left Verdon the way she had. It had been great working for Patrick but Peter was another kettle of fish and she could see that the company was slipping even in the short time that he had been in charge. Restlessly she got up and paced around. It was a pity Dominic wasn’t there. At least she could talk it all out with him. She longed to ring him and tell him the story but she would never ring him at home.
It took her a while to fall asleep but after a few hours of tossing and turning she finally dropped off. The ring of the phone woke her and sleepily she stretched out a hand and picked up the receiver. Who the hell could be ringing at this hour of the night? She hoped there was nothing wrong at home. Unless it was Cecily making another one of her silent phone calls! Soon after Lainey had moved into the apartment in Monkstown she had started getting silent phone calls. She was ex-directory so it had to be someone who knew her, she thought grimly after the third such call in a week. But why had they started now? And who would she have given her number to? Racking her brains it dawned on her that only the previous weekend when she had been home she had given her new number to Simon, in Cecily’s presence. It couldn’t be Simon and even Cecily couldn’t be that pathetic. There was something disturbed about that kind of behaviour. But the calls had persisted and Lainey had had to get her number changed. She deliberately didn’t give Simon and Cecily her new number for a couple of months and did not receive one call. Two weeks after giving Simon her new number, again in Cecily’s presence, she started getting the calls again. Once she had dialled Cecily and Simon’s number immediately after getting such a call. Cecily had picked the phone up on the first ring and when Lainey asked to speak to Simon, she had got so flustered she had started to stutter and stammer that he wasn’t there and that she was just at that very moment going to ring ‘Mummy’ in Dublin.
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