City Woman

by Patricia Scanlan

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Maggie as she tried hard to erase the fantasy of Adam Dunne making love to her, which was what it had taken to get any way aroused at all. Maybe if she had her tubes tied, it might be different with Terry. She wouldn’t be on edge about getting pregnant again and she might recover her old zest for love-making with her husband. Lately it was becoming a real chore, much to her dismay. Maggie had always enjoyed sex until she had got pregnant. Once she no longer had to worry about contraception, she’d be fine.

  Clinging on to that hope, she turned her attentions to her avid spouse, discreetly hiding a yawn against his shoulder. The barbecue had been great fun. She had drunk more wine than was good for her and all she really wanted to do was to turn over and fall fast asleep.

  ‘Aw, Mags, this is great,’ Terry murmured huskily against her ear. ‘You’re some woman! I’m going to make love to you all night. I missed you.’

  Oh Lord! Maggie gave a deep sigh, which her husband mistook for a sign of passion. He congratulated himself on being an even better lover than he had given himself credit for.

  Twenty-Four

  ‘Well! What do you think?’ With a flourish, Sandra Nolan handed Maggie the mock-up of her cover. It was the following Tuesday and Maggie was in Dublin for a meeting with her sales and marketing director. Her mother was taking care of the children for the day.

  ‘You weren’t around, Maggie; so Denis, the head of our art department, had to get going on it, and I needed something fast to get a package together to start selling in. Of course it’s only a rough and if you have any ideas or suggestions we’ll be perfectly happy to take them into consideration.’

  Maggie gazed at the intended cover with awe. Denis had read some of the manuscript and she couldn’t get over how he had put the perfect face on Nicola, her heroine. He had captured her vulnerability, her strength, her determination to be her own woman. Dressed in a smart tailored suit with a slim briefcase tucked under her arm, Nicola looked as if she was about to march off the cover. Emblazoned in big gold letters was the title, City Woman, and beneath it, her own name, Maggie Ryan, in royal blue.

  It was indescribable the way she felt. As long as she lived, Maggie knew she would never forget this moment. A fierce burst of pride surged through her. Her novel, hers alone, something she had achieved by herself through hard slogging and determination, that not Terry nor anyone else could take away from her.

  ‘I take it you like it, then?’ asked Sandra, beaming. That day she was looking extremely smart in a Michael Gall black-and-white check tailored suit. Maggie had come prepared, having learned from their last encounter. Knowing they were going to have lunch with Carol Lewis, the woman who would be handling her publicity, and who would, no doubt, be another glamour puss, Maggie had worn a simple but extremely elegant Jacques Vert pink-and-black dress that she had picked up in Stock Exchange, the smart swop shop in Baggot Street. It had cost her a fraction of the original price. With her make-up on and her smart new short hairstyle, Maggie knew without vanity that she was looking her very best.

  ‘You’re speechless – is it with pleasure or dismay?’ Sandra queried a trifle anxiously.

  ‘Oh, I think it’s gorgeous! I love it. Just look at Nicola; he’s pictured her perfectly. I can’t believe that the face he has put on my character is just so right. Oh, Sandra, I’m so excited!’ Maggie bubbled.

  ‘I love it when an author sees her cover for the first time,’ Sandra laughed, ‘especially when the response is as enthusiastic as yours.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Carol shouldn’t be long. Would you like another drink or will we head in to the Coffee Dock?’

  ‘We might as well go in. I don’t usually drink in the middle of the day,’ Maggie confessed.

  ‘Don’t get the wrong impression; I don’t either,’ Sandra assured her as she led the way along the carpeted corridor of Jury’s Hotel. ‘But today being the day that was in it, I thought we might celebrate.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t need alcohol today – I’ve got this.’ Maggie waved her cover exuberantly.

  ‘I’ve got more good news for you.’ Sandra sat down at their table and took a menu from the waitress. Maggie did likewise.

  ‘What news?’ she said excitedly; this encounter was getting more like Christmas by the minute.

  ‘I’ve been talking to the wholesalers and I’m getting a really good response. They like the cover, they love the title and they like the sound of the story-line. Maggie, this could be really big. What am I saying? This will be really big. Easons and Hughes & Hughes are hoping to do window displays. That’s fantastic for an unknown author and we’re already discussing signing sessions. We’re going to launch in the UK in the spring. Our UK publicist is working on a tour and Carol and I are going to have to get out there and hype City Woman for all it’s worth. Just hurry on with your rewrites and get your next one started. They’re asking about your follow-up already.’

  Maggie was stunned. Looking for a second novel, window displays, hype and wholesalers, launches, publicity tours, signing sessions. This was the kind of thing she read about in interviews with Barbara Taylor Bradford and Danielle Steele and Maeve Binchy – and here it was happening to her!

  ‘Maggie, it’s only starting, believe me!’ Sandra declared happily. ‘But you’ve got to be one hundred per cent committed if you want to make it. You’re going to have Marcy breathing down your neck for editorial, and you’re going to have Carol and me on your back for sales and marketing. Don’t think it’s easy. It’s not, but it’s a great challenge. I love getting my teeth into something like this. I love building up a new author. It gives me such a buzz.’

  Maggie envied Sandra her enthusiasm for her career and her freedom to go where she liked and do as she pleased. She was unattached and totally happy with her lifestyle. She had a townhouse in Glasnevin and was always jetting off to London on business. Then there were the trade fairs and conferences she attended all over the world. Sandra Nolan had the ideal life, Maggie decided ruefully, as she watched the other woman making a note in her bulging Filofax.

  ‘Sandra, darling, what are you doing here?’ a plummy voice demanded, and the sales and marketing director was being air-kissed on both cheeks by an extremely glamorous, very thin, heavily made-up, bejewelled woman. The scent of Opium was overpowering. With a shock, Maggie realized that it was Angela Allen, the bestselling novelist who headed Enterprise’s stable. Based in the Isle of Man, she kept a mews in Dublin.

  ‘Angela! Hi, I might ask the same of you,’ Sandra smiled and then introduced Maggie.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve enjoyed all your books,’ Maggie said politely.

  ‘Ryan . . . Ryan. Oh yes! you’re the new find, aren’t you? I heard about City Woman. Terrific title. Best of luck.’ Angela sounded enthusiastic but her eyes were cold and Maggie got the feeling that she didn’t really mean it.

  ‘We must do lunch some day, Sandra. You can take me to Dobbins the next time I’m in town. I’ve just come from RTE. I had to record an interview for an arts programme. It will be transmitted in two weeks’ time. I won’t join you. Jonathan is waiting for me over there. We’re just having coffee.’

  Angela smiled sweetly, blew some kisses on the wind and glided along to where her husband was sitting. Every eye in the restaurant was upon her and she knew it and gloried in it.

  ‘That will be you one of these days,’ Sandra murmured slyly. Maggie looked at her and laughed. It was quite obvious that Angela wasn’t too happy about ‘the new find’. For some time now her crown had been slipping and Maggie had found her last two novels definitely disappointing. There were a lot of new writers around, nudging her from her top position in the bestseller lists. Maggie was fresh blood, new talent. No wonder Angela hadn’t been too friendly.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, loveys.’ Another voice intruded on her thoughts and Maggie looked up to see a rotund, smiling woman plonking herself on the chair opposite her. ‘I’m Carol, and you must be Maggie. I’ve been so looking forward to
meeting you.’

  ‘Hello.’ Maggie smiled and knew immediately she was going to like this friendly woman. Carol was nothing like what she had imagined a top PR person to be. Glamorous she was not. Her curly brown hair was liberally sprinkled with grey, she wore no make-up apart from the merest touch of lipstick and mascara, but her skin was soft and creamy and unlined, despite the fact that she was in her mid-fifties. She wore a simple flowered cotton dress and carried a huge soft leather bag, out of which she took a file for Sandra. Earth mother was how Maggie would have described her.

  ‘That book’s a winner,’ the earth mother said matter-of-factly, as she handed Maggie a file similar to Sandra’s. ‘I’m starving, loveys. Should we eat before we get down to business?’

  ‘Good thinking,’ agreed Sandra, who ate like a horse and never put on a pound. ‘Angela’s here having coffee with Jonathan,’ she murmured.

  ‘Oh, what a drag! I suppose I’d better go and pay homage,’ Carol groaned. ‘It’s enough to put anyone off their lunch . . . even me.’ She gave a hearty chuckle and headed in the direction of the bestselling author.

  ‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’ said Sandra. ‘The two of you are going to get on great. Carol likes no-nonsense people. Angela’s a bit highly strung and she can be difficult at times,’ she explained diplomatically.

  ‘I understand,’ Maggie said.

  The three had a jolly lunch and by the time Maggie left she was on cloud nine. Carol said that she urgently needed some biographical notes about Maggie so that she could include them in the publicity pack that she was preparing for the media. Her suggested campaign seemed to please Sandra, and Maggie just couldn’t believe that such good luck was happening to her. She looked at her watch. It was gone three-thirty. She decided she’d just pop in to see Terry before heading back to Wicklow. She was dying to share her good news with him. Window displays, signing sessions. Wowie! This was big time; this was it! It was really unbelievable. For a moment Maggie felt incredibly happy and she hugged it to herself. It was like waking up on Christmas morning when she was a child, knowing that Santa had come. It was like the day she got engaged and like the first time she held her babies – that rare, precious, happy feeling when nothing matters and you’re high as high can be. It doesn’t happen very often in a lifetime. Make the most of this, she told herself as she strode out to her car.

  ‘Jesus, Maggie, what are you doing here? The VAT inspector’s arrived to do a spot-check and I’m up to my eyes. Is there something wrong with any of the kids?’ Terry was not in a good humour.

  ‘No, no, they’re fine,’ Maggie said hastily, her bubble beginning to subside.

  ‘Well, what’s wrong?’ Terry asked irritably. ‘I thought you’d be long gone by now.’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong. Oh Terry, I’ve just had the most marvellous lunch. I met Angela Allen and then Carol, the publicist, and it’s really going to be exciting. They’re talking about having window displays and doing signing sessions and publicity tours and look,’ she bubbled, taking her cover out of her bag with a proud wave and handing it to her husband.

  ‘Lovely, lovely, it’s great.’ Terry hardly glanced at it. ‘Look, Maggie, I’m really up to my ears. You can tell me all about it at the weekend. I’ve got to bring this lot out to that little bastard. He can sit in the front office – he’s not coming in here.’ With that he marched out the door with an armful of files and left her alone and crestfallen in his office.

  Had Terry no idea how important this was to her? OK, she knew that VAT inspectors were most unwelcome visitors, but even so, to dismiss the cover of her first novel with barely a glance was hurtful in the extreme. She would never have done that to him. When he had started up his financial consultancy after they had returned home from Saudi she had been behind him every step of the way, making sure that he never had to worry about anything at home, despite the fact that she had just had twins. She had made sure that his domestic life was always serene, his meals always on the table, his clothes washed and ironed for him. He never had to do housework because he was working so hard and Maggie understood how necessary it was to get things going. She hadn’t moaned, she had just mucked in and did what she had to do. Why, now, when she needed it, couldn’t he be as supportive of her? The trouble with Terry was that everything had to revolve around him. His little dramas with VAT inspectors were far more important than his wife’s novel.

  Maggie straightened her shoulders, put her cover carefully back in her bag and walked out the door of her husband’s office. Terry never even noticed she was going. He was explaining something in a file to the inspector and was all charm and smiles.

  Well fuck you, mister! Maggie thought, anger beginning to replace her disappointment. You can just go to hell as far as I’m concerned because I’ve had it with you. She strode out to the foyer and waited impatiently for the lift. Angrily, she jabbed the buttons on the two elevators. If Terry Ryan thought for one minute that Maggie was going to go on being the good little wife that she had been for the past six years, he could go and scratch himself. Before she had married him she had been vibrant and happy and full of life. And look at her now: fraught, harassed, full of guilt because she feared she was neglecting her children and him. She should be over the moon with excitement because of the great opportunity she had created for herself. Maggie marched into the lift, the doors closed silently behind her and she descended smoothly to the ground floor of the large modern office building. She ran down the steps and five minutes later was driving back towards the city and not in the direction she had intended before her encounter with her husband.

  She wasn’t going back to Wicklow this evening: she was going to phone her mother and ask her to keep the children overnight. Nelsie would probably moan, but let her! Maggie had always been more than a good daughter; now she was calling in her markers. She was staying in the city tonight, because tonight was the start of the rest of her life. If Terry didn’t want to be part of it that was his loss.

  As she drove along Baggot Street she felt her resolve strengthening. For too long she had been living in a vacuum. Her spirit had slowly been eroded and she had ended up frustrated and vaguely unhappy. She loved her children; they meant the world to her and she would never neglect them. But by God she owed it to herself to have a life for herself as well. She didn’t want to slide into middle age, bitter and regretful that she hadn’t taken her chances. From now on she was going to take her writing and the opportunities it provided seriously. This was not a game any more – nor a hobby. This was business and she was going to embrace it all: the writing, the marketing, whatever was called for. Terry didn’t understand and he never would, but there was someone who did. Maggie pulled over and stopped the car beside a phone booth. She was on double yellow lines but she didn’t care. One quick phone call was all it would take. Rooting in her bag, Maggie found the number she was looking for.

  Twenty-Five

  She saw Adam before he saw her. She had seen him drive into the car-park, from the umbrella-shaded table she was sitting at in the beer-garden of the Addison Lodge. She knew it was ridiculous and corny and the reaction of a sixteen-year-old but her heart had started to pound, her mouth got dry and her palms started to sweat.

  ‘You idiot, Maggie!’ she murmured, but there were only a couple of tourists and a grandmother and two grandchildren in the garden, and they gave no indication of having heard her.

  She watched as Adam uncoiled himself from the car, hungry for the first look of him. Had he always been that tall, that broad? Maggie was a tall woman herself but she had always had to tilt her head to look up at Adam Dunne. He loped across the car-park with that lithe rangy stride that she knew so well and then he saw her and stopped and smiled, and for the second time that day she felt ridiculously happy. Her own mouth curved in an answering smile and it was as if there were no-one else in the universe, let alone the world. The noise of the traffic faded away; the other people in the beer-garden might as well have dissolved into thin air. M
aggie and Adam’s eyes met and they held each other’s gaze for what seemed like an eternity.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, suddenly shy.

  ‘Hello, Maggie.’ Adam leaned down and kissed her gently on the cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry about not ringing when I said I would. I—’

  ‘Maggie, you don’t have to apologize for anything,’ he said quietly. ‘I had no right to ring.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’ Maggie looked him straight in the eye. ‘I missed you, Adam.’ Maybe she was mad; no maybe about it: she was mad. This man was footloose and fancy free, a decade younger than she was, and she knew it would be the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with him. By arranging to meet him, she had taken that first dangerous step. But it felt so very good to see those dark-lashed hazel eyes smiling down at her, to look at him smile and to know that he was as glad to see her as she was to see him.

  ‘How’s your little girl?’ Adam pulled out a chair and sat down beside her.

  ‘She’s fine, Adam, back to normal.’ Maggie couldn’t take her eyes off him. He looked so lean and muscular and healthy, his tawny hair streaked with blond after weeks spent working in the sun. She fought down the urge to run her finger along his jaw and across his mouth.

  ‘Would you like another drink?’ He indicated the shandy she had been drinking.

  ‘OK,’ she agreed, wishing she felt more in control of the situation. She was acting so gauche, more like a lovesick teenager than a mature woman in her mid-thirties!

  ‘Relax, Maggie.’ Adam leaned over and patted her hand. ‘I’m even more nervous than you.’

  Maggie laughed and relaxed instantly. He knew her so well, it was uncanny. That was what had drawn her to him all those months ago when they had started going to his writers’ group together. She watched him as he went into the bar to order the drinks and knew she should take to her heels, get into her car and scorch down to Wicklow. Make up your mind now, Maggie: go, or stay and face the consequences, she argued silently with herself. The strength of her reaction to seeing Adam for the first time had shaken her. She realized that what she felt for him was no mere fleeting physical attraction. She took her car keys and the book-cover out of her bag. She badly wanted to show it to him and tell him her news. If she used the keys he wouldn’t find out about her novel until some time in the future – perhaps not until he saw it in a bookshop – and that wasn’t what she wanted. If she left now, she’d have some chance of making her marriage work. Maggie thought of Terry’s reaction when she had popped in to see him with the cover. Taking a deep breath she put her keys back in her bag and placed the cover of City Woman on the table in front of Adam’s chair. She could feel the tension ease out of her body and when Adam came out she was smiling.