Too Good to Be True

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  She walked into the living room carrying two bone-china mugs of coffee, put them down on the black lacquer table, and then began to light the candles dotted around the room. Ben exhaled slowly.

  “Don’t,” said Leah.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Breathe disapproval like that,” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. It’s the candles, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t like the smell of jasmine,” he told her.

  She turned to him, the match still flickering between her fingers. “I do,” she told him, and lit another one.

  “I know.”

  “When we’re in your house I don’t ask you to turn down the lights,” she said. “This is my place. I want to light candles.”

  “Fine. No problem.”

  “They’re restful. Therapeutic. You’d think you’d understand that,” she added.

  “I’m not disputing it. I just don’t like the smell, that’s all. It’s no big deal.”

  “But you’re making it a big deal.”

  “How?” he asked.

  “Breathing like that.” She blew out the match and looked at the cluster of half-a-dozen cream-colored candles which flickered gently in the draught from the doorway. “Six,” she said. “That’s not too many.”

  “I said it’s OK.”

  “I’ll put them out,” she told him. “On one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “That you promise me it’s over between you and the curly crazy woman.”

  “What?” He stared at her.

  “I need to know,” she said.

  They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

  “Why do you need to know?” he asked. “I thought we were just friends.”

  “Oh, come on, Ben,” she snapped. “I really think that you have to make up your mind about things.”

  “I don’t have to make up my mind about anything yet,” he said.

  “You do,” said Leah. “You can’t go on living your life like this.”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Drifting,” she said.

  “I’m not drifting,” said Ben. “I drifted with you for a few years, I admit — and I’m sorry if that wasn’t really what you wanted. But I didn’t drift into getting married and I didn’t drift into splitting up. Those things happened pretty damn quick.”

  “It’s just…” She sighed. “I need to know if I’m wasting my time with you, Ben. I need to know whether you think there’s something between us.”

  “Of course there’s something between us,” he said. “Leah, I care about you. I always have. But…”

  “But only as someone to sleep with, not to marry,” she finished.

  “You’re being unfair,” he told her.

  “I need to know,” she repeated.

  “I can’t tell you right now,” said Ben. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  “You can’t tell me because you want to keep your options open.”

  Ben stood up. “I have to leave,” he said shakily. “I can’t keep making the same mistake over and over. Not with Carey. And not with you.”

  “Don’t go.” Suddenly the anger had left her face and her eyes were melted chocolate again. “I’m sorry. I’ll put out the candles.”

  “It’s not the candles,” he said. “It’s everything.”

  “Ben…”

  “I need to be on my own for a while,” he said. “I’m sorry for all the fucking-up I’ve done, Leah, I really am. You deserve better than me.”

  “Ben…”

  He put on his jacket.

  “Call me,” she said. “When you’ve got yourself sorted out. Call me then.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Thanks for this evening, Leah.”

  “Yeah, right.” She didn’t try to kiss him before he left. And when he closed the door behind him she blew out all of the candles.

  He was tired but he didn’t want to go home and he didn’t want to go to bed. He walked along the canal, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders hunched against the cold wind. He was utterly useless, he decided. Because of Carey he’d hurt Leah. Because of Leah he’d hurt Carey. His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. Somewhere surely it was a sign of his masculine success that he had two women fighting over him. Well, maybe not exactly fighting over him, but he was the apex of a kind of love triangle. Except that in his triangle nobody loved anybody anymore. Which somehow defeated the purpose of the whole thing.

  Now Leah was moving things on. Since the accident in the shop she’d slotted back into his life without saying what she wanted from him. But tonight was different. Tonight she’d made it clear to him that she wanted more than they’d had before. The thing was, he had no idea what he wanted himself. And did what he want really matter anymore? He’d wanted Carey, but he’d made such a complete mess of that that he didn’t trust himself to know his own mind about anything to do with women. Not that any bloke really did. He comforted himself with the thought. But he hated lumping himself in with the pool of men that women defined as emotional fuckwits. He’d kind of hoped he was a cut above that. Clearly, though, he wasn’t.

  He groaned and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets.

  “I don’t understand Leah,” he muttered aloud. “I don’t understand Carey, and even though I thought I understood Freya I clearly don’t, because I have absolutely no idea why she and Brian would split up so soon after they decided they were going to get married.” He’d been utterly shocked by Freya’s announcement and he knew that he’d have to get to the bottom of it. He hoped it wasn’t because Brian Hayes had behaved like a fuckwit too. He’d always liked Brian. Got on with him. Imagined that one day he probably would marry Freya even though she always seemed to be perfectly content to stay single.

  He stopped and looked into the murky water of the canal. Maybe it was Freya and him. Maybe there was something about them which stopped them forming proper relationships with people and making that final leap into total commitment. Not that anyone could exactly blame them, he thought. After all, Charles and Gail weren’t exactly fun role models of what marriage was all about. They’d been so close, so wrapped up in each other, that they hadn’t had time for anyone else, not even their children. Maybe both he and Freya were afraid of turning out like Charles and Gail.

  Ben Russell, pop-psychiatrist, he said to himself as he began walking again. He put his head down and strode onwards, not thinking anymore. He reached Crumlin before the real tiredness started to kick in, then leaned against the bridge and wished that he hadn’t come so far. His calf muscles were aching now and his feet hurt. He saw an unoccupied taxi and hailed it, falling gratefully into the back seat. Surreptitiously he eased off his leather shoes and began to rub the soles of his feet. At least they were comfortable shoes, otherwise he’d never have managed the distance between Ballsbridge and Crumlin without blisters.

  Looking at his shoes made him think of Carey again. Shoes and Carey were inextricably linked in his head. He wondered if she’d phone him about the sofa or whether she regretted her offer. Not that it mattered really. He’d lived with the uncomfortable armchairs for a long time now. A bit longer wouldn’t make any difference.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ATLAS CEDARWOOD

  A sensual oil with a woody aroma which helps to raise the spirit

  “I am so hopeless at this,” wailed Carey as her fourth ball of the night veered into the left-hand gully of the bowling lane. “I can’t seem to co-ordinate at all.”

  “You’ve got to follow through,” Elena told her. “You’re just dropping the ball and hoping for the best.”

  “Story of my life!” Carey grinned at her friend. “This must surely be the last round.”

  “One more each,” said Elena. “Then you can finish in the knowledge that even though you were utterly crap, our team still won tonight.”

  Carey shook her head. “Not right,” she said. “I don’t like b
eing a passenger on the team. I want to compete, not just take part.”

  “That’s my girl, all right.” Chris Brady put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “But you’re a truly awful bowler, aren’t you?”

  “I knew I would be,” Carey told him. “I swore I wouldn’t get involved, but Jennifer persuaded me against my much better judgment.”

  “Are you coming into town with us afterwards?” asked Chris. “We’re going to a club.”

  “I haven’t been clubbing in months,” said Carey. “Of course I’m coming.”

  “Excellent.” Elena picked up a fourteen-pound ball and eyed up the pins. “As soon as I get a strike with this little lot I’ve put our victory beyond doubt.”

  Carey watched as Elena strode up to the lane and delivered the ball, curling in from the right across the bowling lane so that it reached the pins at exactly the right place to knock them all down.

  “I don’t know how she does that.” She sighed deeply. “I wish I could get to grips with this, I really do.”

  “You can’t be good at everything,” Chris told her.

  “The odd thing might be nice.”

  “You’re good at your job.”

  “I’m supposed to be,” said Carey. “That doesn’t count.” She looked at him warily. “At least, I hope I’m still good at my job.”

  “You are,” he said. “Though I thought you might be interested in the refresher course they’re running at Shannon next month.”

  “I didn’t hear about it.” She frowned.

  “There’s a notice on the board,” said Chris. “You might enjoy it.”

  “Enjoy?” she grinned. “I don’t know. But it’d be nice to get away for a week.”

  “Put your name down,” he told her. “It’d be good for you.”

  She looked at him anxiously. “You’re saying this because you think it would be a break for me and because I have to do a course at some point this year — not because you think I’m utterly useless?”

  “Carey, why do you look for hidden agendas when there aren’t any?” asked Chris. “I went on the last course, I thought you might benefit from this one.”

  “If you’re sure that’s the only reason.”

  “Positive,” he said. “Now come on, it’s your last ball. See if you can’t get a strike.”

  Two hours later the bowlers were in the latest hot spot night-club, chugging bottles of beer or designer alcohol and dancing enthusiastically. Carey had completely lost herself in the beat of the music and she felt freer than she’d done in months. Every so often guys that she didn’t know would come and dance opposite her and she’d smile at them and allow them to dance, but she didn’t bother to try to communicate with them. It was good to be back on the circuit again, she thought. Good to be with her friends, good to be clubbing, good not to care. It was a pity Gina couldn’t come, but Gina had gone to Scotland for a couple of days to meet with Steve’s grandparents. She hadn’t been looking forward to it that much, but as she said to Carey, it was one of those things you had to do to keep the prospective in-laws happy. Something Carey didn’t have to worry about anymore. She smiled to herself and jumped up and down to the beat of the bass, her hair flying out round her head, her arms waving in the air.

  It was nearly four o’clock by the time she got home, but her shift the next day wasn’t until nine in the evening so the time didn’t matter. She opened the fridge and poured herself a tall glass of cranberry juice. She was thirsty from dancing but not from alcohol, because she’d restricted herself to just two bottles of Smirnoff Ice. Anyway, she hadn’t needed alcohol for a buzz tonight. She drank the juice, then a glass of water, and then she filled the kettle for a cup of tea. It was, she felt, very uncool to want to drink a cup of tea before going to bed, but she always did, it was part of her sleep ritual.

  She leaned her head against the balcony doors while she waited for the kettle to boil. In the distance she could see the sodium fizz of the motorway lights and the white glow from the airport. She liked knowing that it was so near. She’d felt cut off in the brief time she’d lived in Portobello. Maybe I’m just a sad work-obsessed fool, she thought. But at least it’s better than being obsessed about anything else.

  She heard the click of the kettle as it boiled and she made herself her cup of tea. She turned on the TV and flicked through the channels. Sky One was showing an episode of Stargate. Carey liked Stargate though she was skeptical of wormholes as a means of transport across the galaxy. She reckoned that there was a place for a decent controller helping them to arrive in the right place at the right time on the show. Good control would stop them ending up in so much trouble every week.

  Sylvia Lynch was awake too. She was trying not to look at the alarm clock beside her bed because the last time she’d looked it was ten to four and she’d made a pact with God and with herself that if she didn’t look again, Jeanne would be home before the hour. But she knew that more than ten minutes had passed and Jeanne still wasn’t home. Jeanne was a sensible girl — as sensible as a just seventeen-year-old could be, at any rate. She shouldn’t worry about her, she shouldn’t want to phone her to check where she was, but it was hard to lie here and not conjure up images of Jeanne and that boy Gary. Or Jeanne and Gary’s friends. Or Jeanne and goodness knew who else. She didn’t want to think that Jeanne might be sleeping with Gary, but it was a possibility. She always told Jeanne that there was nothing she couldn’t tell her, but so far there was nothing that Jeanne ever wanted to tell her. She wondered whether other parents had this problem with their children. As far as she could see, these days mothers and daughters were supposed to get on tremendously well all the time, but that didn’t happen with her and Jeanne. They liked different things, they laughed at different jokes, and they differed wildly about the acceptable time to come home on a Friday night. She should be grateful that Jeanne was at least just going out with one boyfriend — unlike Carey who, Sylvia remembered, had been surrounded by them at seventeen. She’d never been able to get Carey to babysit for her on Fridays because her younger sister had always been off having fun. “Plenty of time for babysitting when I’ve actually got the babies,” Carey would laugh, and then tell Sylvia that there were much better babysitters than her around the place anyway.

  Sylvia opened her eye and looked at the clock. A quarter past four. They were going to Tamango’s, Jeanne had told her. A gang of them. And then they might go back to one of the girls’ houses nearby. Sylvia had wanted to know what was wrong with coming directly home after Tamango’s, but Jeanne had just looked pityingly at her and said that she wouldn’t be too late. But a quarter past four was too late. It really was.

  She stiffened as she heard footsteps on the gravel driveway outside and then, thankfully, the sound of a key in the front door. She felt every muscle in her body relax as Jeanne tiptoed up the stairs. She was going to call out to her daughter, but then decided not to. She didn’t want Jeanne to know that she hadn’t gone to sleep. She didn’t want Jeanne to know how much she worried.

  Freya burrowed into her green armchair and readjusted the yellow cushion behind her head. She opened the book she’d bought that day titled Change Can Be Good — A Woman’s Guide to the Menopause. She had decided to be positive about this, just as the book suggested. She wasn’t going to look at it as a bad thing in her life, but just something that had happened to her. And it wasn’t as though it was the worst thing in the world that could have happened — she might, for example, have been standing in the middle of the shop the day the Jeep had driven through the window and been seriously injured. But she hadn’t. Dr. O’Donnell could just as easily have told her she had some serious illness. But — excluding the menopause — she was in perfect health. And if that wasn’t good enough for Brian bloody Hayes, well, he’d never been good enough for her in the first place.

  Then she felt the rush of prickling heat begin to envelop her so that suddenly she was covered in a lather of perspiration until not just her forehead but her
back, her shoulders, her neck, and even the top of her head were soaking wet. Her light cotton top was drenched. She snapped the book closed, got up, and changed into another top. She was going to have to buy more clothes, she decided as she sat down again. She couldn’t be sure whether that was a positive or a negative.

  Leah awoke with a jump, her eyes snapping open. It was the sudden squall of rain beating against the bedroom window that had disturbed her. She slid out of bed and peeked through the curtains, wondering whether or not the weather would ever settle into a more spring-like pattern. It had been dry and almost warm earlier, but now she shivered as she watched a stream of water cascade down the glass. She pulled on her jade-green robe and went into the kitchen. She filled a mug with milk and put it in the microwave while she took a jar of hot chocolate from the cupboard. When the milk had heated enough she spooned the chocolate in and stirred it vigorously. Then she brought the drink back to bed and got between the covers again.

  She wished she hadn’t annoyed Ben by lighting the candles tonight. She hadn’t intended to have a serious make-or-break type conversation because she thought it was too early to start issuing ultimatums, but she’d somehow managed to do it anyway, and now she didn’t know where she stood with him. She was worried because since he’d lent her the money for her salon, she didn’t want to irritate, annoy, or pressurize him so much that he asked for it back. Fuck, she thought as she sipped her hot chocolate. I hope I haven’t blown it.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  BLACK PEPPER

  A spicy, warm oil which is both stimulating and useful for helping muscle fatigue

  Carey was pleased when she got home from her 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift to find a message on her answering machine saying that her furniture was ready to be delivered. As she dialed the warehouse number she told herself that she’d certainly come a long way when she was as thrilled about a leather couch as she normally would be about a pair of Manolos. She waited impatiently for the phone to be answered, planning where she’d put the couch and wondering whether or not she could do with another blue and red Joan Miró print on the far wall for extra color.