‘It’s just not me, Dad. I don’t need anyone to give me away. But I’m sure Melissa will be getting married some time, so you won’t be done out of your walk up the aisle,’ she informed him snootily when he’d protested that he was her father and it was tradition.
‘So is marriage,’ she’d wanted to say smartly, but her mother had glared at her and she’d kept her mouth shut.
She dialled her fiancé’s number but it rang out. He was probably in a crowded wine bar and couldn’t hear it.
She’d want to get a move on. The queues in the bank had made her heart sink, but she needed to lodge a cheque from a cashed-in insurance policy into her current account or there would be a lot of bouncing cheques. Her lunch-time was being whittled away, and lateness was frowned upon in the busy wages and salaries section where she worked. Old Beady-Eyes Baxter was a walking wagon to work for. She was a crabby old spinster who didn’t approve of pregnant women getting time off to go for check-ups or married women doing job-sharing. If girls wanted to get pregnant and have babies, that was their look-out; it shouldn’t interfere with their work, Judith Baxter often proclaimed. Just being pregnant was not an excuse to be treated differently. Working mothers were the bane of Judith’s life. Looking for days off because they had to bring children for injections and health-clinic appointments. Rushing out of work because crèches called to say the darlings were sick. ‘Teething problems are not Johnson & Johnson’s problems!’
Debbie could just see her supervisor mouthing off in the canteen, oblivious to the fact that she was causing severe stress to at least half a dozen women under her thumb. Or maybe she wasn’t so oblivious. Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing and enjoyed it. Judith was a bully and a manipulator. She liked being in control. She liked making her underlings’ lives difficult, especially the married ones who had children. Well, that wouldn’t be her for a few years yet, Debbie vowed, narrowly escaping being knocked down by a cyclist who broke the lights as she went to cross the quays to Merchant’s Arch.
She could always leave her job in the big insurance company that she worked for and get another position elsewhere, she mused as she zig-zagged her way across the cobblestones of Temple Bar, ducking and weaving through the lunch-time crowds. But there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t end up with another Judith. Besides, the salary was excellent at Johnson & Johnson, and the perks were good. Apart from Judith, Debbie liked and got on well with her colleagues. Moving job was the last thing she needed with her wedding coming up.
She put a spurt on: she only had five minutes left – no time to slip into Marks for some of the hoisin duck wraps that Bryan adored. She’d get them after work, she decided as she raced up the steps of the office just off Dawson Street. She watched with dismay as the door of the lift closed and it began its ascent to the upper floors. The other lift was also in use so she ran up the stairs, panting as she reached the second floor where the big open-plan office she worked in was located. She kept her head down, hurried past Judith’s glass-fronted office, which always had the blinds open so the supervisor could view her minions, and flung her bag on the floor before sinking into her chair without taking off her jacket. She was two minutes late and had the beginnings of a thumping headache. Her mobile rang and she saw that it was Bryan. She couldn’t take the call. Judith’s gimlet gaze was upon her, and personal calls and the use of mobiles were frowned upon.
Sighing, Debbie set her phone to silent. If she got a chance she’d send him a quick text later. She shrugged out of her jacket, slid it on to the back of her chair and bent her head to her keyboard. She could feel Judith staring at her. If you got into Batty Baxter’s bad books she could make your life a misery, and that was the last thing she needed.
Oh yes, you may avoid my eye, but you’re two minutes late, Miss Adams. Judith Baxter tapped her desk with her pen as she stared at the young woman at the corner desk. Who did she think she was, swanning in from her lunch, late? Just because she was getting married and had chores to do was no reason to neglect her job. These young ones were all the same, no sense of responsibility. Madam was no teenager; she was in her mid-twenties, old enough to know better. But what did she care about her job anyway? Hadn’t she far more interesting and exciting things in her life than sitting behind her computer working out wages, salaries, pensions, annual leave and sick leave? Did Debbie Adams even realize how lucky she was to have a sexy boyfriend, her own house, holidays abroad, sex on demand – everything Judith longed for but, realistically, now, had little chance of ever having. Young women these days took so much for granted.
Judith’s sigh came from the core of her. Debbie Adams had the lifestyle Judith had hoped she’d have when she started working. She’d had a happy, carefree time for the first five years of her working life. She’d been a ‘normal’ young woman, she thought bitterly, turning to look out at the rooftops of the city below her, shimmering in the hazy heat of a late May afternoon.
She’d shared a flat with her best friend. She’d had several boyfriends, and then her father had had a stroke. Although she had a brother and a sister, both were married, and it was to Judith that the whole family had looked, to help her mother take care of him.
‘I’ve got two young children to take care of’ was her sister’s excuse. Her brother didn’t even offer an excuse; he lived in Maynooth, and that was too far out of the city to be of any real use, even if he wanted to be helpful. If she had been married, they would have had to work out something between them, but because she wasn’t she’d been well penalized for her single status.
Judith had strongly resisted moving back home, knowing that if she did she’d never have a life of her own again, but her mother had whinged and moaned so much and made her poor father feel such a nuisance that in the end she’d had no choice. Her father had died ten years later, but by then her mother had given in to ‘nerves’, unable to leave the house except to go to Mass. Lily Baxter had caused such havoc when Judith had told her she was moving out again that she’d had little choice but to stay put. Her mother had taken to her bed for months.
She had been twenty-five, the same age as Debbie Adams, when her life had ended and she’d returned home to live under her parents’ roof, to help nurse her father, Judith thought bitterly as she turned to look at the attractive young woman with the luxuriant copper hair and slender figure and the afternoon sun glinting on the diamond solitaire on her left hand.
Judith knew the girls looked upon her as a sour old hasbeen who’d never managed to nab a man. She knew they sniggered at her behind her back when she got dressed up for the company dos. All they could see was the façade; they didn’t know the circumstances of her life or that, inside, she was crucified by sadness, loneliness and resentment.
Oh, they thought they knew her, they thought that she was a hard-hearted bitch, and maybe she was now, but she hadn’t always been like that. She’d been like them once, carefree and happy, looking to the future with optimism. She remembered once, in a previous job, a celebration lunch for one of the manageresses to celebrate twenty-five years in the job. Judith had been twenty-two at the time and had thought smugly that that would never be her, she’d be married with children and finished with nine-to-five office hours. She’d be her own boss, coming and going as she pleased with no autocratic supervisors telling her what to do.
That was twenty-seven years ago and here she was, still with a manager and working office hours and not a husband, child or house to call her own. Fifty was looming in a few months and Judith was dreading it. Whatever about being a ‘career woman’ in her late forties – everyone knew that once you hit fifty you were a no-hoper heading for your pension, she thought forlornly as her phone rang. Her heart sank as she heard her mother’s voice on the other end of the line.
‘I’ll be wanting you to bring Annie up to visit me this evening. I’ve arranged for you to pick her up at half seven,’ Lily Baxter instructed.
‘Mother, how often have I told you not to be making arrangements f
or me without asking me first,’ Judith hissed furiously. Lily was forever getting her to collect this relative or that friend without knowing if Judith had made plans to go out herself. Annie, Judith’s aunt, lived in Lucan, which would mean crossing the M50 in the rush hour and then having to traipse back with her later that night.
‘I’m going out myself tonight. You’ll have to tell Annie to get a taxi or get some of her lot to give her a lift,’ Judith snapped and hung up. Now she’d have to go somewhere after work and hang around until eleven or else she’d have to drive her aunt home.
She noticed Debbie Adams chatting to one of the accountants. Judith’s lips pursed. She checked her computer. The annual-leave and sick-leave record hadn’t been sent for her to sign off. She stood up, straightened her pencil-straight skirt and marched out of her office. ‘Have you the AL and SL record ready for me to check? I don’t have it on my email,’ she said curtly, interrupting the pair’s chitchat.
‘I’m just forwarding it on to you now,’ Debbie responded coolly.
‘Really!’ Judith arched an eyebrow and turned on her heel to walk away.
‘What a bitch,’ she heard the young woman mutter to the accountant as she clattered the keys on her keyboard.
Judith smiled thinly. You haven’t seen the half of it. I’m just starting on you, you smug little madam. She scowled as she swept back into her office to check whether the email had arrived.
CHAPTER THREE
Aimee Davenport cursed quietly under her breath as she scanned the monitors and saw that her flight was delayed. She’d assured Barry that she’d be home early to collect Melissa from her friend’s so that he could go and meet with his ex-wife to talk about the forthcoming nuptials.
How she hated Heathrow, she thought glumly as she saw the queue at the check-in desk. Bad enough having to fly to London regularly for meetings without having to waste precious time in queues. She scrolled down her phone and dialled Barry’s number.
‘Hi, how’s it going?’ She heard her husband’s voice down the line, crackling because of interference.
‘Not great,’ she sighed. ‘Flight’s delayed by an hour.’
‘Aaww, Aimee,’ he groaned.
‘I’m sorry. It’s not my fault. Just pick up Melissa from Sarah’s, I’ll be home as quick as I can,’ she retorted tetchily.
‘Look, I can’t get away before five. I’m going to be stuck right in the rush hour if I’ve to pick up Melissa, drop her home, wait for you to arrive and then drive all the way out to Greystones. It will be bloody midnight before I get there,’ he grumbled.
‘Get the Dart and ask Connie to meet you and bring Melissa with you,’ Aimee suggested briskly.
‘Debbie’s going to love that!’ Barry retorted.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Barry, let her get over herself. She’d want to grow up. You’re paying a big whack for that wedding, don’t forget that.’
‘How could I? You remind me at every opportunity,’ her husband barked. ‘Leave it with me . . . I’ll deal with it, as usual. Bye.’
Aimee heard the dial tone and threw her eyes up to heaven. Just what she needed . . . Barry in a snit. It wasn’t her fault the damn plane was delayed. Did he think she liked being stuck in a stale, stuffy, noisy airport with hundreds of people milling around, when her feet were killing her, her head was throbbing, her shoulder was aching from lugging her laptop and she had a report to write and email off before the morning?
Aimee shuffled forward in the queue. Everyone thought she had an exciting career, jetting off to trade fairs and choosing new ranges of marquees and furniture and chinaware and crystal for the exclusive catering company she worked for. They didn’t think about the drudgery of travelling to these places that not even flying business class could alleviate. They didn’t have to listen to snooty clients moaning and looking for discounts. She’d discovered, since she’d been promoted to Corporate and Private Sales Director of the Irish division of Chez Moi, a top-of-the-range catering company, that the more wealth people had, the more parsimonious they were. Some of them were downright stingy. She frowned as her mobile rang and she saw her daughter’s name flash up on the caller ID.
‘Mum, I don’t want to go to Greystones with Dad. You said you’d be home. It’s not fair. Why can you never do what you say you’ll do?’ Melissa raged.
‘Honey, I’m sorry, my flight’s delayed, it’s not my fault—’
‘Yes it is. You’re just mean. All you care about is your job,’ Melissa accused.
‘Darling, that’s not true.’
‘Yes it is. I’m a latchkey kid ’cos you and Dad are too busy to do things with me like Sarah’s mum does with her,’ Melissa sulked.
Aimee smiled at the familiar emotional blackmail. ‘Stop being a drama queen. I’ve bought you something nice.’
‘See if I care. Can’t I stay at home on my own . . . pleezze, Mum? Connie doesn’t even have satellite TV. It’s so boring down there.’
‘Not at night, darling. Look, I have to go, it’s my turn in the queue—’
‘Yeah, well, I’m the daughter that has to make an appointment to see her mother – how awful is that?’ The phone went dead.
Were all teenagers like this or was it just Melissa? Aimee wondered wearily as she plonked her case on to the luggage belt and handed her passport and ticket reference to the bored-looking young man behind the check-in desk. He yawned rudely. He could do with lessons in customer care, Aimee thought crabbily as she assured him that, yes, indeed she had packed her bag herself and that, no, it had not been out of her sight at any time.
‘Flight’s delayed an hour and thirty minutes,’ he informed her uninterestedly.
‘I thought it was just an hour?’ she snapped.
‘Hour and a half, you haven’t been assigned a gate yet – just keep an eye on the monitors,’ he informed her, yawning again.
She wanted to rant. She wanted to rave; she wanted to shriek at him as Melissa had just shrieked at her. How deeply satisfying it would be to roar at him to smarten himself up and do his job properly and what sort of a crappy airline was he working for that couldn’t even have their flights on time? Aimee resisted the urge with difficulty.
‘Thanks,’ she said curtly, taking her boarding card, but he wasn’t even looking at her; he had turned to talk to his colleague beside him.
‘Little ignoramus,’ she muttered as she walked towards the long queues that awaited her at Security, wishing that she’d worn a pair of more serviceable shoes, knowing the long trek she had through those drab, grey, hideous tube-like corridors to her as-yet-to-be-assigned boarding gate. She supposed she could make a start on her report in the business-class lounge. Aimee sighed deeply. It had been a very long day; all she wanted to do was to get home and fall into her bed. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that she was delayed. Tonight she just didn’t have the energy for the girls’ night she’d planned to have with Melissa or, she was ashamed to admit, to pacify her daughter.
Melissa Adams dawdled towards the changing room feeling utterly browned off. Their basketball team had just lost a home match, she’d fumbled a shot and missed a chance to score an equalizer and then the final whistle had blown and she’d wanted to crawl away and hide. And then, with perfect timing, her father had phoned to say that he was collecting her from Sarah’s and that she was going to have to go out to Greystones with him. It wasn’t her fault her half-sister was getting married. Why should she have to suffer? Sometimes she considered calling herself Melissa Davenport and using her mother’s name just so she wouldn’t feel she was related to Debbie. After all, her mother never used the name Adams. She felt Aimee Adams didn’t sound as posh as Aimee Davenport. Her dad would be hurt though, and she wouldn’t like to do that to him. Her dad was good to her, she thought forlornly as she trudged along.
Worst of all, though, she’d been really looking forward to a girls’ night with her mum. They hadn’t had one in ages. It was always the same in the summer. There were weddings and parti
es practically every day, it seemed, and her mother was very busy. When she did get home, she worked on her computer and then fell asleep in front of the TV.
Aimee had assured her that they were going to have a girls’ night – they were going to have something to eat in Purple Ocean and then go to the pictures. She’d been so looking forward to it. She’d been telling Sarah about it. Sarah thought Aimee was cool. Sarah’s mum wasn’t really into fashion like Aimee was and Sarah was not allowed to have her computer and a TV in her bedroom like Melissa had. She had to share a bedroom with her younger sister, and that was gross. She had no privacy at all. Her younger sister was always stealing her clothes and make-up and they were constantly fighting.
At least she didn’t have to put up with that, Melissa comforted herself as she headed into the noisy changing room where her team-mates were changing into civvies.
‘Hard luck.’ Gemma Reilly gave her a friendly pat on the back as she rooted in her sports bag for her deodorant.
‘Thanks, Gemma,’ Melissa said gratefully, wishing she had a tall, slim figure like the other girl, who was unabashedly standing in her bra and pants, quite unaware of the envy she was stirring in several of her chunkier classmates. Melissa wriggled out of her shorts and hauled on her jeans as quickly as she could, anxious to hide her thunder thighs.
‘Pity we dropped down to fifth in the league,’ she heard Terry Corcoran say loudly to no one in particular. Terry Corcoran was a snobby bitch and Melissa detested her. She bit her lip and turned away to pull her shirt over her head, wishing she was invisible. Her boobs looked so big compared to Gemma’s. Secondary school was much more difficult than primary, she thought dejectedly as an excruciating pain ripped through her tummy.
Perfect, she thought bitterly. Periods. Just what she needed.
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