‘A perfect combination, if I may say so,’ Clara smiles warmly.
I grin like a prize eejit and get back to the question.
‘So anyway, Sarah had spotted a tiny kiosk up for rent out at Terminal One in the airport …’
‘… And a knockdown rent, at that, because the location was so out of the way, no one else wanted it,’ Sarah interrupts, but then whenever she and I get talking about how we started up, we both get over-excited and tend to overlap each other.
‘Everyone said we were nuts to even consider investing in such a rubbishy location …’
‘… Only Sarah here managed to negotiate even more of a rock-bottom rent for us …’
‘… But at that stage the banks were refusing to lend to us, so I had to borrow start-up capital from my family …’
‘Same here,’ I say, ‘which we used to invest in securing a contract with Burke’s handmade chocolates …’
‘… That they’d supply exclusively to us and us alone …’
Meanwhile, poor old Clara’s been looking from one of us to the other, Wimbledon-style, frantically trying to keep up.
‘So initially, you opened up at the airport,’ she says. ‘Must have been incredibly hard work at first.’
Sarah takes over that one and I nod along with her, remembering all too well what a slog it was back in those early days. No messing, we’d both be on the road at four a.m. to get out to the airport and open up, ready for all the early morning commuters. And we’d stay there, sometimes till well past ten at night, astonished at just how much trade we were still doing. V. tired, hungry airline passengers all wanting a coffee to perk them up and a slice of The Chocolate Bar’s double mocha choccie biscuit cake to go along with it, were nearly beating a path to our door. The perfect carb hit.
We both reminisce fondly as Clara checks the tape recorder in front of her. Amazing times. It was v. strange at first, experiencing success when I’d become so accustomed to nothing but failure. But then, this was something different, something special and we both knew it. We seemed to somehow catch a wave, we’d trapped lightning in a bottle, however modestly we first started out. Within six months, we’d our start-up loans paid off, and after our first year we’d even cleared enough profit to start looking at expansion.
So, propelled along by Sarah’s can-do attitude and my genuine love and belief in our product, we expanded into a bigger location out at the airport. A proper unit this time, in a far better location, in the flashy new duty free hall at Terminal Two. Word of mouth took over and suddenly we were getting glowing little mentions in the papers, including a review from v. well known and highly regarded food critic. Neither Sarah nor I could believe it when he wrote a lovely piece saying that by far the best part of travelling out of Terminal Two now was the chance to have a latte and one of our handmade double Mocha whip chocolates, all for only two Euro. (Divine choccie, by the way, one of my faves, definitely makes it into my product all-time top ten.)
We framed the review and somehow just knew we were on our way. But even though business was booming and we were starting to do very nicely thank you, Sarah still had an eye on us growing bigger still. So when a lease came up for renewal in the city centre, we just went for it. Which is what tonight’s all about. The official grand opening of The Chocolate Bar’s second branch on Dame Street, right in the heart of the city. Amazing location, couldn’t ask for better. Means we not only cash in on all the tourists but also it’s a great catchment area for the busy city lunch trade, as there’s so many offices around there.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this. No matter how old you are, no matter how little dosh you have on you, no matter where you’re from or what you do, chocolate really is the world’s great unifier. We get kids in, we get their grannies, we get back-packers from the furthest corners of the planet, we get businessmen in suits, we even get homeless people, but then we’ve a policy that we’ll give them any out-of-date stock that we’re only chucking out anyway. Which was my idea. (There but for the grace of God, etc.)
And then there’s a natural break in the chat. Sarah sits back into the comfy sofa and glances over at me as if to say, well that’s it, that’s pretty much brought her up to speed, hasn’t it? What’s left to talk about now?
Seems Clara still has a few more questions for us, though. She adjusts her tape recorder, then looks keenly at both of us.
‘OK then, that seems to be the business end of things covered,’ she says, ‘so now I’d like touch on something a little bit more personal, if I may. Just so our readers can get a clearer picture of who you both are. As people.’
Who we are ‘as people’? As opposed to what? I suddenly think. Who we are as gorillas? For a moment, Sarah and I look across at each other, a bit mystified. Then she shrugs at me as if to say, well the publicity’s not doing us any harm, so let’s just play along.
‘You both seem to work such incredibly long hours,’ Clara says and we nod vigorously. Certainly no denying that one. ‘So I suppose I was just wondering, does that leave any time in either of your lives for a relationship? Can I begin by asking you, Sarah?’
Am relieved beyond belief that she started with Sarah. And I’m now sitting here with a clenched arse, only praying she won’t ask me the same thing.
The normally unflappable Sarah falters just a tiny bit, but if you didn’t know Sarah, you’d never cop it, she’s incredibly cool. It’s only me that picks up on a tiny bit of discomfort, something in the way she shifts slightly on the sofa. But then, Sarah’s single, has been for the longest time and says that now she’s turned thirty, she’s officially starting to get just a tiny bit panicky. She has one bullet-proof strategy, though: never, on pain of death, to let it be known that she’s officially single and looking.
‘Well, as you say,’ she says eventually, eyeballing Clara, ‘I find that with the hours we work, it’s just so difficult to even see friends, never mind sustain a relationship.’
Good gal, I think. Great answer.
‘In fact, our pals are all saying the only way they’ll ever get to see us is if they call into The Chocolate Bar every day!’ I chip in, in a futile attempt to back her up.
‘Plus you have to bear in mind,’ Sarah goes on, ‘I’m in my car at the crack of dawn and it would be really unusual for me to get home before ten in the evening. ’Course, by then I’m just so whacked that even if George Clooney knocked on my door, I’d probably end up just yawning into his face … ha, ha!’
She laughs just that bit too much, then looks to me as if to say, ‘Get this one to change the fecking subject, FAST.’
Sure enough, Clara’s over to me now.
‘And, if I can turn to you, Angie, would you agree?’ she asks. ‘Is it impossible to have a relationship, given the schedule you both work? Are you married? Or with a partner? Or maybe seeing anyone right now?’
Silence.
And for the first time since the interview started, I’m at a total loss for words.
Because I’ve never talked publicly about this before and am not even a hundred per cent certain that I want to. Our close friends and family all know, of course, but it’s a totally different thing announcing it to the media. Besides, is all just so new, it’s barely even been six months …
‘Angie?’ Clara interrupts my chain of thought, patiently waiting on an answer.
‘Well, em …’ I half mumble.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact,’ Sarah answers firmly for me. ‘Yes, she is in a relationship. With someone lovely, who treats her like the princess she is.’
I shrug back at Clara as if to say, that answer your question? ’Cos that’s all you’re gonna get, lady.
‘So then you didn’t seem to find it difficult to meet someone with the crazy hours that you put in?’ she asks me directly.
‘Well, you see, we’d already known each other for a long time before The Chocolate Bar ever came into being,’ is all I say.
‘They were and are great fri
ends,’ Sarah says. ‘Which is by far the best foundation for any relationship, really. I mean … just look at Prince William and Kate.’
‘Right then,’ Clara says thoughtfully, and I think, phew. We’re off that highly mortifying subject, thank you, God.
‘Well, in that case, ladies, there’s just one more thing I’d like to ask you both, just before our photographer gets here,’ Clara goes on, and for a split second I relax, thinking it’s back to talking about the business. Has to be. Major sigh of relief all round.
But no, turns out I’m spectacularly wrong.
‘Sticking with your personal lives for a moment, if I may …’
Shit, what now?
‘I’d like to ask you both about that waitress who went missing around two years ago. Kitty Hope, wasn’t that her name?’
And suddenly, it’s like no air moves.
We weren’t expecting this. And it’s not bloody fair to spring it on us out of the blue! I thought we were just here to plug The Chocolate Bar? My shoulders instantly seize and I swear I know without being told exactly what’s coming next.
‘Am I right in thinking that you were both friends with her? And that you both were initially involved in the search to find her?’
Sarah looks over to me and I can see the worry in her eyes, wondering how I’ll take it.
‘Yes, we were,’ is all I say quietly.
‘Thought so,’ Clara nods, shoving the tape recorder that bit closer to me now. ‘There was a huge amount of coverage about it at the time and when I Googled you both, I could see that both of your names had been linked with the case. It must have been an awful time for you. All happened over Christmas and New Year, if I remember.’
This time Sarah and I just look at her stonily without saying a word. Subtext, can we just drop it, please?
But no, Clara’s still not done with us.
‘How is the case—’ she begins, but I don’t let her finish.
‘That case has been closed for a long time,’ I interrupt her in a tone I hope conveys, ‘and that’s as much as you’re getting out of me, missy.’
‘All that coverage,’ Clara muses thoughtfully, ‘and then suddenly, the whole thing was just dropped. I can still vividly remember all those posters and flyers all over town. She was such a gorgeous-looking girl too. It did strike me as very strange at the time, though. The way the whole thing just seemed to be abandoned. ’
‘No,’ I tell her. ‘Actually, when you know the facts, it wasn’t a bit strange at all.’
‘Any further comments to make?’
Sarah picks up on my silence and smoothly as ever, takes over.
‘Can I just get in a plug for our new line of champagne truffles?’ she tactfully lobs in, anxious to get the interview back on track. ‘Special gift boxes are available for only nine ninety-five. Ideal for any birthday gift.’
Thank you, God, Clara allows her to fill air with truffle chocolates and Baileys liqueur mini bites while I sit still, just waiting for my pulse rate to come back down into double figures. It’s just there’ve been so few mentions of the whole thing in so long, that when that particular ghost is invoked, it never fails to completely knock me for six. Even now, even after two long years, even after everything that’s happened since.
And there’s so much I could tell Clara, if I chose to. I could tell her that Kitty Hope’s disappearance was sudden, yes, but for her, as we now know, not something entirely unexpected. I could open up to her about the agony of those first few days and weeks when we were all left completely in the dark, not knowing what had happened to her or where she’d gone and, of course, presuming the very worst. How it was exactly like a dazzling bright light had just gone out of my life.
I could talk about the deep shock, shock on an almost cellular level when that Detective Sergeant, Jack Crown finally unearthed the truth and broke it to us. The relief I felt that Kitty was OK, and yet the anger that she could even think of putting us all through that. That she’d been living a lie all that time and never once had told anyone, not even me.
Then with time, came a slow dawning of understanding and even a little pity. That the girl honestly felt she only had one way out and so when the need arose, of course that was the course of action she chose. I could tell Clara that just because we don’t talk about her any more doesn’t mean I don’t think of her, often. Yes, what she did was cruel and unbearably painful, but at times, I can see where she was coming from; can even understand that she honestly felt she had no other choice.
Besides, she may have hurt all of us desperately, but my own conduct since hardly stands up to criticism either, now does it?
I’ve broken an unwritten rule of friendship and my only defence is, well, Kitty broke it first.
I could tell Clara the facts, all of them. That we found out the whole truth and nothing but the truth just weeks into the search. I could tell her what was waiting for me when I got home that horrible night, the full import of what Jack Crown had to tell us. The shock of it, the anger I felt at first.
I could say that not long afterwards, I even got a postcard from her.
I’m fine. I’m sorry.
Please take care of him for me.
And maybe one day I’ll get to explain.
And that was it. After seven years of friendship, that was all I got. Three lousy lines. She’d been careful to cover her tracks, too; the postcard had been mailed from London and yet we were certain that wherever she’d pitched up, she’d never materialised there. So we figured she must have got someone to post it for her, to keep her whereabouts a secret.
Yet another secret, I should say, in whole catalogue of them she’d been carrying around.
Most of all I could tell Clara that she’s actually got her facts completely arseways.
And that her name wasn’t even Kitty to begin with.
It was Jean.
As long as she lived, Jean would never forget sitting alone in the bathroom that night, perched on the side of her bath, eyes glued to a minuscule screen on a Clearblue pregnancy test.
She couldn’t be, she thought, half out of her mind with frantic worry. Not someone like her, surely it wasn’t possible? For God’s sake, she was only twenty-two years old! With her whole life ahead of her, etc. etc. Last thing she needed right now was this. She still felt like such a big kid herself, how could she possibly start facing into parenthood?
Come on, come on, come on, she willed the thin, plastic stick she was holding with one hand, while mopping cold, clammy, panicky sweat off her forehead with the other.
Be negative. Just be negative. Please, for the love of God, be negative.
Besides, her reasonable mind told her, it really can’t be possible. He’d told her a long time ago that he couldn’t have kids, something to do with chicken pox he’d had as a kid. Which was the only reason she hadn’t bothered with birth control as diligently as she should have been. So barring this was some kind of Immaculate Conception, how in the name of arse could it have happened?
Because men lie, the same nagging voice in her head told her. And gobshites like you are always there to believe them.
She glanced back down to the skinny white stick she was clinging to.
And as soon as the one single word she’d been dreading slowly began to appear, it was as though her whole life suddenly shrivelled in front of her.
Maybe it wouldn’t be half as bad as she’d feared, she desperately tried to reason with herself at first. After all, he hadn’t had an episode, or one of his ‘outbursts’, as he referred to them, in a long, long time now. Quite the opposite, in fact; for months, he’d been nothing but contrite, mortified, apologetic even. Had seriously upped the romance in their relationship too, and lately had consistently been surprising her. Being so utterly attentive and caring, it was actually unbelievable. Bringing her home big bunches of ridiculously expensive roses after work, buying bottles of wine to have with dinner, whisking her off for romantic weekends away, just the two of them. Con
stantly telling her over and over again just how much he loved her, how he’d die without her.
And she really did love him, course she did. Besides, ever since … well, ever since his last ‘outburst’, everything was now completely back to the way it used to be. For the past few, magical months it had all been so romantic and wonderful, like when they’d first got together, years before. So she slowly started to relax, allowing herself to get swept up in it all, falling in love with him all over again.
What happened was just a blip, she’d half-managed to convince herself. Has to have been. Because just look at us now! Love’s young dream all over again. Well, in his case, love’s middle-aged dream, but still.
Mind you, every time she looked in the mirror, there were reminders staring right back at her. The stitches on her forehead had healed and healed well, as had all the bruising, but then there was still her nose … Well, the least said about that, the better. She just had to accept that she was left with it this way and that’s all there was to it.
She’d been dreading telling him her news. Mainly because this was exactly the kind of thing that could send him over the edge; that could so easily trigger one of those dangerous, terrifyingly black moods.
So as soon as he got in from work, she decided to get it over with quickly and cleanly. Made damn sure to do her best to sweeten him up a bit first, though; no harm in a bit of insurance. She handed him a glass of the expensive whiskey he loved and cooked up steak and onions for him, his all-time, desert-island favourite meal.
Then, heart pounding in her chest, she took his hand and forced herself to say the words, the speech she’d been rehearsing so carefully in her head all afternoon. There was a short, stunned silence as her whole future balanced precariously on a knife edge, and she knew as soon as she finished that the next few minutes could change the entire course of her life.
In a heartbeat, he could so easily flare up, might even claim it wasn’t his, even though there was absolutely no question about who the child’s father was. Worst of all, though, was the very distinct possibility that she could end up back inside an A&E. With another pathetic, transparent story to tell the medics. ‘I accidentally fell down the stairs,’ or similar. Yet again.
Me and You Page 19