‘I’m telling you, Francesca, he’s emerald green,’ Millie said firmly.
‘But why? He’s with the sexy high-flyer. Why on earth would he be jealous?’
‘Well, part of it is because he’s being a mean dog in the manger piss artist, but I’d say the shock of seeing you with another man made him realize what he’s missing,’ Millie said astutely.
‘You’re just biased, Millie,’ Francesca said fondly.
‘We’ll see. Now, make a date with dishy Ralph. He sounds like he’s just what you need right now.’
‘I don’t need complications,’ Francesca retorted.
‘Who’s talking about complications, for God’s sake! It’s a date, that’s all.’
‘Dates are for teenagers. I’m forty, Millie, heading very rapidly for forty-one,’ Francesca groaned.
‘Oh, don’t be such a wimp,’ jeered Millie. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye.’
‘Bye.’ Francesca smiled as she hung up. Millie was such a tonic. And she was right. What harm could a dinner date do? It would be nice to have male company again. The next time Ralph called her, she’d accept his invitation to dinner. She wasn’t interested in having a romantic interlude but the friendship could be nice. She meant what she said about complications. She’d seen friends whose marriages had broken down rush into disastrous relationships on the rebound and give themselves even more grief. She wasn’t going to fall into that trap. Being single suited her just fine for now, she decided as she went to the Golden Pages and took down the numbers of several estate agents.
Ralph fumbled with his key and let himself into his apartment. He’d stopped off at the Barge and had a few snifters on top of the wine he’d polished off at Francesca’s and he was a little under the weather, to say the least. He was feeling sorry for himself. He’d come all the way up from Cork to take the woman out to dinner and much good it had done him. He’d been hoping that right this very minute she’d be in his arms doing wild, dirty things to him. He gave a great sigh and belched. Alcohol fumes wreathed his head.
He might as well have another drink, he decided, lurching to his feet. He saw the red light on his answering machine flashing steadily. Sod it, he thought as he poured himself a generous tumbler of whiskey, some of it splashing onto the carpet as his hand shook.
He put the glass to his lips and took a swig, grimacing as the whiskey hit the back of his throat. He jabbed a finger at the play button and heard the whir of the tape.
‘Ralph, you bastard. Where are you? You promised you’d be at Sally’s summer project play. How can you do this to your own daughter? You do it to them all the time. How can you be so totally selfish? Have you no feelings for them at all? You’re not fit to be a father,’ his wife raged.
Ralph smote his forehead. He’d completely forgotten about Sally’s play. Damn. Damn. Damn. He’d make it up to her. He’d take her to McDonald’s and the pictures. She’d enjoy that. Jill had no business talking to him like that, he thought self-pityingly as he slumped into a chair clutching his precious tumbler of whiskey.
Chapter Forty-four
NIKKI PUT THE sheets into the washing machine, threw in some washing powder tablets and switched it on. She then turned her attention to the dishes in the sink. Her few days of peace and quiet had flown by. It was hard to believe it was time to go home. She stood at the sink, up to her wrists in hot, sudsy water, and stared unseeingly out of the kitchen window. She’d come to this place to sort things out in her head and she was going home as confused as ever, she thought dispiritedly.
She’d been on such a high looking forward to Mark’s arrival but when he’d finally driven down the little lane and she’d hurried out to greet him, all she’d got was a distracted peck on the cheek. Eventually, after much prompting, the whole sorry saga had come erupting out of him, much to her dismay. He was hopping mad.
She just couldn’t figure Mark out, she thought dejectedly as she washed the dishes and placed them in the drainer. She’d been over the moon to hear that the wicked witch of Howth was seeing a man. That was precisely the kind of news she’d been longing to hear for months. But Mark was like a demon.
‘He drives a ten-year-old Saab, he’s after her money, I’m telling you. No wonder she wanted to sell up,’ he ranted. ‘He knows that he’s onto a good thing. And Francesca’s such a softie she can’t see it. But I’m not stupid. I know a chancer on the make when I see one.’
No matter what she’d said to try and allay his fears, he would not be placated. He’d made love to her perfunctorily, and then tossed and turned while she lay frustrated and disheartened beside him.
So what if that guy was after Francesca’s money? It was her money and that was her lookout. She was big enough – in every way, Nikki thought viciously – to look after herself. What was it with Mark? Why did it matter to him? Why did he have to hang on to her? There really was only one answer that she could come up with, if she were being totally honest, and that was that he still had feelings for his wife. Otherwise he’d never react so strongly every time they had a tiff. Why couldn’t he have phoned Francesca to tell her that he was agreeing to put the house up for sale? Why did he have to go traipsing over to Howth to tell her in person? she wondered unhappily. Was it just an excuse to see her? Did he still love Francesca?
Nikki rinsed her hands under the tap and dried them. She wandered out onto the veranda and sat down in the rocking chair. The sea breeze blew her hair into her eyes and impatiently she brushed it away. She felt she was fighting a losing battle. Francesca seemed to have all the cards and she was playing a very skilful game. Maybe this Ralph guy was just a ploy to make Mark jealous enough to go back to her. That would be humiliating. She’d never be able to stay in EuroBank Irl. if that happened. But what could she do? She had to think of something, and fast, to bind Mark tightly to her.
There was one course of action she could take but it was rather drastic. And besides, the truth was she didn’t want him to be bound to her. More than anything she wanted him to be with her because it was where he wanted to be. That was the only way that led to peace of mind. What a mess her life was. Deep down Nikki knew that hard as it was to live with Mark, it would be unbearable to have to live without him. On the other hand, if they stayed together it would always be on his terms. To think otherwise was only fooling herself.
‘I’d be delighted to value the house for you, Mrs Kirwan, if you could give me a time and day that suits you,’ William Lloyd of Lloyd & Flood, Estate Agents, Auctioneers, and Valuers, said briskly.
‘How about tomorrow morning at eleven? I work during the week,’ Francesca suggested.
‘Fine. I’ll be there. You’ll certainly have no trouble selling the property, Mrs Kirwan, although it’s mid-summer, a slow time in the property business. There’s always a pick-up come the end of August, September.’
‘That’s fine, whenever,’ Francesca replied. ‘See you on Saturday.’
‘Indeed I will. Goodbye, Mrs Kirwan.’
Francesca put down the phone slowly. This was it. She was committed now. The ‘For Sale’ sign would be up next week, she thought with a tinge of sadness.
Release, relax, let go. Her little mantra popped into her head. Selling the house would be a huge letting go, she acknowledged. There’d be no turning back then. She was reluctant to phone Mark to let him know that she’d engaged the services of an estate agent. She couldn’t face another abusive tirade. A thought struck her. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She rooted in her bag for her wallet and withdrew a business card of Mark’s. She’d never got around to throwing it out. Just as well, she thought, studying his business details. She sat at the computer and logged on to send an e-mail. It meant she wouldn’t have to talk to the old crab but she could keep him up to date with developments.
She sent her husband a short note telling him of her choice of estate agents. She paused then, wondering if she should type: if that’s OK by you? but decided that that would seem as if she were ask
ing his permission, which certainly wasn’t the case. She ended simply by saying that she would keep him updated. She reread it carefully before sending it off and wondered what his response would be.
It was a fraught day. She was up and down every ten minutes to see if he’d replied and every time the phone rang she jumped, half expecting it to be Mark ranting down the line. She was hoping, too, that Ralph would call to see how she was and perhaps suggest a dinner date over the weekend. As four o’clock came and neither of them had contacted her, she felt a mounting sense of disappointment. Fortunately Ken was out of the office all day and wasn’t there to observe her jumpy behaviour.
At ten to five she checked once more to see if Mark had responded. Her stomach clenched when she saw she had an e-mail. Fine was his terse reply and inexplicably it infuriated her. Was that the best he could do? He was so childish sometimes it was beyond belief.
She went home from work in a crabby humour and spent several hours cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom despite the fact that she had a cleaning lady who came once a week and who would have been mortally offended if she had known what Francesca was up to.
That night she went to bed with a vague sense of disappointment. Now that she’d finally decided to go out with Ralph the least he could have done was phone her, she thought irrationally as she lay in bed flicking desultorily through Vanity Fair. Maybe she’d put him off by her refusals. He was easily put off then, if that was the case, she thought glumly. Perhaps she should call him. That was the thing to do now. Women no longer had to sit by the phone waiting for a phone call from a man. They were allowed to be pro-active. It was an equal society, she assured herself. Far different from the one she’d grown up in.
If she hadn’t heard from him over the weekend she’d call him on Monday, she decided, reading her horoscope at the back. It was all about Saturn being in her seventh house, she couldn’t make head nor tail of it. It was no help to her, she decided as she switched off the bedside light and waited for sleep to come.
* * *
Mark yawned. Nikki had gone to bed ages ago. He should go himself but he wanted to be alone for a while. He went out onto the balcony and sat looking at the lights in the windows of the plush apartments. Small floodlights illuminated the grounds giving the shrubs and flowers strange shapes and shadows in the dark. The breeze whispered through the branches of the trees, carrying the scent of honeysuckle and stock. A sliver of new moon hung lopsidedly in the sky and stars twinkled faintly. It was hard to see them in the city. On the veranda of the beach house in the inky blackness of the countryside they had shone vividly, so near he’d felt he could reach out and pluck one from the dark velvet sky. It was a pity he’d been so agitated about Francesca’s carry on. It had spoilt the night for him and Nikki.
Mark stretched his legs out in front of him. So the house was finally going up for sale. He’d received Francesca’s e-mail with some surprise. When she’d been with him she hadn’t known one end of a computer from another and here she was e-mailing. What next? he wondered drily.
He couldn’t fault her choice of estate agents. Lloyd & Flood were top notch. There’d be no messing about there. She could deal with it, he thought stubbornly. She could do the Judas act. Soon enough he’d have no home of his own. He’d have to do something about that. He’d never envisaged living the rest of his life in Nikki’s apartment. It was unthinkable. He liked to be his own man. Decisions were going to have to be made. His heart sank at the prospect.
A sense of loneliness enveloped him. All that he knew, all that was familiar had changed so completely. Once the future had held no fears for him, now he felt like a rudderless ship adrift on the edge of a whirlpool. The sale of his house would be the end of an era for him but where he would go from there he had no idea.
Ralph lay on the floor snoring, an empty whiskey bottle beside him. His phone rang, its piercing tone making no impression on his befuddled brain. On and on it rang, at regular intervals, to no avail. Dusk turned to darkness and slowly the night hours passed until a pale pink tinge in the eastern sky heralded the dawning of a new day. Oblivious to everything, Ralph slept in a drunken stupor, a little smile playing around his lips.
Chapter Forty-five
FRANCESCA SAT IN the kitchen drinking coffee. Upstairs she could hear William Lloyd, the estate agent, going from room to room. She’d watched him making notes in his leather bound notepad and wondered idly what his description of her home would be. She felt almost detached about the sale. The sooner it was over the better.
Once William Lloyd and his notebook were gone she was going to start the mother and father of a clearout. There was another thing she was going to have to do soon, and that was to tell her parents that she was getting a divorce. That wasn’t going to go down well. Millie had told her that her mother had confided that she was praying to St Jude, the patron saint for hopeless causes, that she and Mark would have a reconciliation.
Fat chance, Francesca mused, given that they could hardly talk to each other without trading insults.
She heard William Lloyd stride into the bathroom. He was extremely thorough. He’d been upstairs for so long he must be writing a novel, she thought moodily. No phone call from Ralph so far. She’d be dining alone, as usual, this weekend, it seemed.
Eventually the estate agent made his way downstairs to the kitchen. ‘Excellent property, Mrs Kirwan,’ he said, rubbing his hands. ‘Couldn’t ask for better. I’ll have the photographer come out and take some shots whenever suits.’
‘The sooner the better. I’m anxious for a quick sale,’ Francesca informed him politely.
‘Fine, fine, that’s what I like to hear. I’ll take a look at the grounds, if you don’t mind.’ Out came the black notebook as she opened the french doors for him and he strode out into the garden, pen poised. She saw him writing busily as he stood on the deck and couldn’t help but smile. Definitely a novel, or at least a full page advertisement in the Irish Times.
The weekend passed slowly. Now that events were in motion she wanted to be gone. It was too painful to stay. A sense of failure enveloped her. This was never the way it should have been. She filled black rubbish sacks and charity bags, determined to be ruthless. But it was lonely work, as memory after memory surfaced and she cried for the recollection of what had once been a happy marriage.
‘You’re very down in the dumps, Frannie. What’s wrong?’ Ken asked as they had a quick cup of coffee the following Monday afternoon.
‘I’ve put the house up for sale. I was throwing out stuff and giving things to charity. I felt terribly lonely,’ she confessed.
‘That’s tough. It’s bad enough moving when there’s only one of you. You have to make decisions what to throw out and what to keep for four people. Would your husband not give you a hand?’
‘Are you kidding me? The last time we were together I gave him a sock on the jaw,’ Francesca confessed.
‘Oops!’ Ken grimaced. ‘That bad?’
‘That bad.’
‘Let him clear out his stuff when you’re not there,’ Ken suggested.
‘That’s what I’ll have to do. Once the notice is in the paper, I’ll e-mail him and tell him to get his ass in gear,’ Francesca declared. ‘And if he doesn’t bloody well do it, I’ll get a skip and dump the lot of it in it.’
‘Ruthless, aren’t you?’ teased Ken as he rinsed her cup for her.
‘Could I have an hour or two off some morning this week to let the photographer take some photos of the house for the paper?’
‘I’d be afraid to say no,’ Ken said. ‘I don’t want a sock in the jaw, thanks.’
‘Don’t tell anyone I told you that,’ warned Francesca.
‘Moi? I heard nuttin’,’ he assured her. ‘Take whatever time you want.’
She was sending newspaper cuttings to clients the following Wednesday afternoon when the phone rang. ‘Ken Kennedy PR, can I help you?’ she said politely.
‘Have dinner with me,’ a deep familiar v
oice said.
‘Hi,’ she said, smiling. ‘How are you?’
‘I’ve been up to my eyes,’ Ralph said. ‘Brenda Carroll had a deadline. “Stress-busters for the Stressed-out Career Woman”. And I had a Fine Arts auction to cover. How are things with you?’
‘Well, the estate agent came. The house will be in the paper next week—’ The other line buzzed. ‘Hold on a sec, my other phone’s ringing.’
‘Look, how about I pick you up tonight at home around seven-thirty and we go and have a bite to eat and catch up?’ he suggested.
‘OK then,’ Francesca said impulsively. ‘Have to go.’
She dealt with her caller, the organizer of a theatre festival, then sat back in her chair nibbling the top of her pen. What would she wear tonight? Would she have time to get a quick blow dry at lunchtime? She’d like to look her best. She picked up the phone to ring Millie to tell her the news. Her sister would be heading off to France soon, for a month. She’d miss her. They’d always been close but Millie had been a rock of strength through her marriage break-up. She was lucky to have a sister like her.
Ralph swirled a spoon in his glass of Alka-Seltzer and gulped it down. He felt lousy. He went back to his laptop and tried to concentrate on an article he was writing on antiques for a glossy magazine. He’d fed Francesca a hell of a spoof, he thought wryly. Today was the first day he’d even attempted to work after his bender. That was it, he vowed. He was swearing off the drink for good this time. He cursed as he closed the file by mistake. His fingers weren’t too steady; he kept hitting the wrong keys. He needed to have the article in on time. He couldn’t afford to lose the commission, he needed the money. He had maintenance to pay. If he was a second late with it, Jill was on his back screeching like a fishwife. She’d given him hell about missing Sally’s play. He might go to collect his daughter from school and make a fuss of her tomorrow. But he’d need to clear it with Jill or she’d cause a rumpus.
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