by Marian Keyes
Was desperate to return to early days when he was besotted with me, when I could do no wrong. The occasions when he’d been loving and tender had greatly outnumbered the bad ones – but I couldn’t find the way back.
Worked harder to be sexier, to anticipate his moods, his needs, to be more informed about politics, to be constantly available for him, day or night.
Was so anxious about keeping him happy that had no emotion left over to love anyone else. I forgot about Bridie, Treese and Jem, they were just drains on my time.
Tried to control everything in the whole world so that nothing would annoy him. But anything could spark his fury – a red traffic light, a fishbone in his dinner, me forgetting to remind him to do something that I’d known nothing about.
Then it all came to an abrupt end – the news broke that Paddy was getting married to another woman and would have no further use for me. Should have been happy to be free of him. But wasn’t. With him I felt worthless. But without him, felt so shamed, thought would never recover.
18.11
Text from Considine.
U come for dinner b4 Law & Order? My
place 8.30?
20.39
Considine’s kitchen eating wholesome-style stew
Final Considine mystery laid to rest. The goggles and shower cap?
For when he is cooking. Goggles to protect eyes from tearing up when he is chopping onions. Shower cap to stop strong cooking smells pervading his hair. (Thought, but didn’t say, If you are so concerned about your hair, Considine, why you not comb it once in a while? But, like said, didn’t articulate it, as he had done kindly act of cooking me dinner.)
‘Delicious stew, Considine.’
‘Good.’ Man of few words.
‘I had visitor today,’ I said.
He looked up. I realized something in my delivery had sounded like coy way of saying had got my period. Very quickly said, ‘A journalist came to see me.’
‘About what?’
‘She wanted… She said… You know the boyfriend I told you, I mean Chloe, about? Well, she says I was not only one he… you know… hurt. She wanted me to go to Dublin with other women to… talk… to him.’
‘That is excellent!’
‘No, that is terrible!’
‘Why?’
‘Because am afraid of him.’
‘But you won’t be alone with him, will you? There will be other women there.’
Long pause. ‘You think I should go?’
‘Think you should definitely go!’
‘But what if it’s awful?’
‘What is worst thing that could happen?’
Sifted through feelings. Very worst thing? That he would hit me? No. That he would make me love him again? No. That he would leave me convulsed with longing? No. ‘That he would mock me.’
‘Is that so bad?’
Yes. Really was. ‘He made me feel so… worthless. I was… nothing. Useless, without any importance… I don’t feel like that now. Not saying am swaggering around thinking am fantastic but… don’t want to revert to clueless, helpless, worthless person I was when going out with him and when he dumped me.’
‘Would it help if you had company? If I drove you?’
Kindly, kindly offer. Who would have thought it, of cranky-arse Considine?
‘You know what I wish?’ I said. ‘Wish Chloe could come with me.’
Thoughtful silence, then he said, ‘If that is what it takes to make you go, Chloe will come with you.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Am being silly. Forget I said it. But will you tell me why Chloe is out of commission at moment? Had thought Gillian had put her foot down, but not that, is it?’
‘No, nothing to do with Gillian. Just doesn’t feel right. Has happened in past. At times, very comfortable with Chloe. Other times… can’t believe am grown man dressing up in ladies’ clothing. Fair enough sentiment, no?’
‘Nothing wrong with grown man dressing up in ladies’ clothing.’ Stout defence. ‘But think I understand. Your offer very kindly.’
‘Because think you should go to Dublin. Is good opportunity. Other women there. Nothing to be scared of. If you don’t take this chance, you will be creeping around, afraid of bumping into him. Not good to be always looking over shoulder. Better to just deal with stuff.’
Men. So practical!
Found I was reconsidering bald refusal to go to Dublin. Considine’s generosity had surprised me into reopening negotiations in head. If he was prepared to dress up in ladies’ clothing even though had knocked it off, then he must really believe I needed to see Paddy.
‘Okay,’ I said slowly. ‘Hear what you’re saying. No offence, but I need second opinion.’
Who could I ask? Bridie? Treese? Jem?
No. None of them knew how bad things had got with Paddy. Would involve too much explaining. Would take too long. Would have to spend too much time agreeing that Paddy de Courcy was mad bastard. Would lose sight of objective.
‘My mum,’ I said. ‘She is dead.’ Even after all these years it choked me to say it. ‘Would normally go to graveyard to ask her opinion, but would take too much time.’
‘I see.’ Considine handling news of consultation with dead mother with aplomb. ‘So you need to get a sign from her, yes?’
‘Yes.’ Impressive deductive powers, Considine.
‘How about…? Let’s see. Toss a coin?’ he suggested. He produced euro from his pocket. ‘Heads your mum says yes? Tails your mum says no?’
Marvellous idea. ‘But give me a moment.’ I walked towards darkened window at back of house, stared out towards foamy sea and asked, Mum, tell me what I should do.
I turned around to face the room. Considine had moved away, close to the front door, giving impression of maintaining respectful distance. ‘Go,’ I said.
‘Go?’
‘Yes. Do it.’
He flicked euro coin upwards, where it winked and twinkled in the air, then came back down again, to land on back of Considine’s hand. He slapped his palm over it.
I was holding my breath.
‘Well?’ I asked.
He removed hand. ‘Heads,’ he said.
Heads. I exhaled.
‘Okay, looks like I’m going to Dublin. Thanks for your offer but will go alone. Must leave right now, though, before courage deserts. No Law and Order for me tonight.’
20.59
Considine walked me to my car, wishing me Godspeed.
He had made me coffee in non-tartan flask. Kindly. Also tasteful.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Kick your man’s arse, he deserves it. Drive carefully.’
I stood by car, the door open, but not getting in. Our goodbye felt incomplete.
‘Text me,’ he said.
‘Okay. Bye, Considine. Go home, it’s freezing.’
He walked away, then stopped and turned back. ‘Hold on a minute.’ He approached like he had spotted something about me – lint on my collar, perhaps, or ball of fluff in my eyebrow – and wanted to help remove it.
I waited and he stepped into my space. He put his hand on my neck.
‘Is it piece of thread?’ I asked.
‘What?’ He frowned. His forehead very close, so could see it all, where skin stopped and dark hairline abruptly began.
‘Dead leaf in hair?’
‘What? No.’ Perhaps further frowning but couldn’t bloody see because he was so close, had double vision. ‘Want to show you something.’
Without further ado – really in quite brisk business-like manner – he bent his head and put his mouth on mine. So warm in the cold night.
So that’s what had been waiting for! Revelation – Rossa Considine exceptional kisser. Slow and sweet and sexy. Kissing with whole mouth, not just doing hard, tongue-darty sword-play that many people think is good kissing. Felt quite swoony in my head and knees went weak and – wait a minute! Déjà vu! Had been kissed like this before. Only the last time it had stopped just as had really been getting goi
ng and this time it went on and on, becoming more gorgeous, more beautiful, my body tingling and alive and…
Finally broke apart, Considine almost staggering. ‘Go,’ he said, in thick, growly voice. Sexy. ‘For Christ’s sake, go.’
‘You kiss just like Chloe!’
He laughed, backed across the grass towards his house (showing exceptional balance on uneven ground). ‘Hurry back, Lola. But drive carefully.’
22.12
Just past Matt the Thrashers
Rang Grace Gildee from car. (Yes, know it’s illegal.)
‘Is Lola Daly here. Will go with you to Paddy on one condition.’
‘Which is?’
‘You let me style you.’
‘Style me?’
‘Not for always! Just once.’ What she think I am? Charity worker?
‘You mean gussy me up in heels and stuff?’
‘Correct.’
‘… And frock…?’
‘And frock.’
‘… But… why?’
Because it was a shocking waste, potentially attractive woman like her. ‘Hope you don’t mind me saying,’ I said, ‘but you don’t make most of yourself.’
She gave little laugh. Couldn’t care less that she didn’t make most of self. Simply couldn’t care less! Takes all sorts, as Mum used to say.
‘Okay. When you come to Dublin?’
‘Am on my way.’
Grace
‘Is that her?’ Marnie had spotted the woman waiting on the pavement.
‘That’s her.’ I pulled the car over to the kerb. ‘Lola, it’s me, Grace. Hop in.’
Lola climbed into the back seat. Nervously she said, ‘You said there would be at least three women.’
‘There will be,’ I said. ‘Marnie, Lola, Lola, Marnie.’
‘Hi,’ Lola said quietly.
‘Hi.’ Marnie twisted right round to face Lola and suddenly I started to worry.
Well, I say that. As it happened, all day I’d been climbing the walls with a variety of worries, not least the fear that Marnie would turn up scuttered. However, she was sober – but was it my imagination or was she just a little too interested in Lola?
Jesus. What Pandora’s box might I have opened?
I said, ‘We’ve just got to swing by and pick up Dee.’
‘Did he hit Dee too?’ Lola sounded horrified.
‘No, no, she’s coming along to get us into his apartment. But she won’t be coming in with us.’ Dee and I had had an exhaustive discussion about which would be the best tactic and – reluctantly – she’d agreed that it would be better ifshe stayed out. Things had the potential to get messy, and ifshe was there it could exacerbate the situation.
‘Grace.’ Lola’s little voice came from the back. ‘There will be at least three women, yes? Because I don’t want to do it ifit’s just me and Marnie. I’m too scared.’
‘Lola, I need you to trust me.’ I made my voice sound reassuring, even slightly amused. I couldn’t have her losing her bloody nerve now!
I drew up outside Dee’s office and texted her, letting her know that we were waiting. A few moments later she appeared and climbed into the back seat beside Lola. She was nothing like her usual breezy, positive self. She had been devastated when, sitting in my car outside Christopher Holland’s house, I’d told her what I’d known about Paddy. She’d been so appalled that she hadn’t been able to catch her breath.
‘Oh my God,’ she’d gasped, rocking backwards and forwards. It had been as ifshe was crying, but without tears. ‘Oh my God. I knew Paddy wasa… a, like I knew he had no loyalty to anyone but himselfand I knew he was off his head with ambition… but I thought I could just about stomach it because he’s so popular with the voters.’ She’d heaved in a ragged breath. ‘The price you have to pay. But… I mean, Grace, I was a battered wife. And I had no clue about Paddy.’
She’d bowed her head again and heaved air through her hands. ‘My deputy leader is a woman-batterer. Me, and all I stand for. How on earth did I end up in bed with one of them?’
She’d looked up at me, her face red, her eyes bulging. ‘I have no time for pop-psychology,’ she’d said fiercely, ‘no time at all.’
‘Me either.’
‘But they say we replicate patterns. Am I replicating a pattern? Am I drawn to violent men? Do I recognize something in them?’
‘Christ, Dee, I wouldn’t have a clue…’
She’d fallen silent. Eventually she’d said, ‘What am I going to do? There’s a saying that a tragedy isn’t a choice between right and wrong, it’s a choice between two rights.’ Yes, I knew it. Ma produced it fairly regularly. Usually when she was trying to decide what to make for dinner. ‘But,’ Dee had gone on, ‘this is a choice between two wrongs.’
‘How so?’
‘IfI do nothing, Angus Sprott will publish his story, my career will be over – then I can’t help anyone. But ifI shop Paddy to the press, I’ll be taken down with him – then I can’t help anyone. But ifI sack him without making the reasons public, the voters will lose confidence and won’t vote for us in the general election – then I can’t help anyone. Or if I can persuade him to stop sabotaging me and we carry on working together, it means I’m knowingly sharing power with a woman-batterer.’
‘That’s four wrongs actually,’ I’d pointed out.
‘Well, there you are. That’s how big a tragedy it is.’
She’d leant back against her head rest and closed her eyes. I could nearly hear her brain clicking, as she did various calibrations, weighing up one unpalatable scenario against another.
‘Politics is a filthy business,’ she’d murmured. ‘I only ever wanted to help people. But even ifyou think you’re incorruptible, even ifyou think your motives are entirely pure, you end up… sullied.’
She’d opened her eyes and sat up straight, seemingly infused with new energy. ‘I’m not a do-nothing sort of person, Grace.’
I had begun to feel uneasy. I was going to come out of this badly, I just knew.
‘What is the least-bad choice here?’ She’d looked at me. I’d looked back at her. There had been fresh purpose in her eyes. She had started to scare me then. ‘The least-bad choice is that I put my personal qualms to one side and do a deal with Paddy.’
‘And that deal is…?’
‘Ifhe lays off the smear campaign, the women won’t go public with their stories.’
‘But you’ll have to persuade the women to be in on this.’
She’d looked at me, surprised. ‘Not me. You. You’ll persuade them.’
Bollocks. Oh bollocks, bollocks…
‘But you know them, Grace! Your sister. That stylist…’
‘I’ll try. But I can’t promise, Dee.’
‘But you’ll try your very best? You swear to me?’
Oh for fuck’s sake. ‘… Yes.’
Once she’d extracted a solemn vow from me, she’d sunk back into her torpor. ‘God, but I’m depressed.’
She hadn’t been the only fecking one.
Funnily enough, three of the four of us knew the code to Paddy’s gate: Dee from working with him, Lola from when she was riding him and me from the time I had interviewed Alicia.
Once we were in, I parked three buildings away from Paddy’s, on the opposite side of the road. Paddy and Alicia were out at some function. Dee, who knew their schedule, predicted they’d arrive home at around 10.45 p.m.
It was now 10.38.
‘I think we’re too near his flat,’ Lola said anxiously. ‘He might see us.’
I drove forward ten yards. ‘Is that okay?’
‘No,’ Marnie said. ‘Now we can’t see.’
I forced back a sigh and reversed to my original spot.
‘Here’s someone!’ Marnie declared.
A car had parked outside Paddy’s block and the silhouette of a man emerged from the driver’s side.
‘Is it him?’ Lola’s voice was shaking. ‘Is it Paddy?’
‘No,’ Dee said. ‘
That’s Sidney Brolly, dropping off tomorrow’s papers.’
We watched as the silhouette dumped a bundle of stuff by the front door and hightailed it back to his car, did a screechy U-turn and drove back the way he’d come.
We all looked at the pile of papers.
‘It is safe to just leave them there?’ Lola asked.
‘She’s right,’ Marnie said. ‘Anyone could come along and steal them.’
‘Would you steal Paddy de Courcy’s newspapers?’ Dee asked.
‘No.’
‘Well, there you are… Jesus! Here they are!’
It was 10.47.
Instinctively we all slid down in our seats, like in a seventies’ cop show, and watched as Paddy’s Saab, driven by Spanish John, glided to a stop.
We listened, sweaty with tension (at least I was, I suppose I can’t speak for the others) as car doors opened and clapped shut and goodnights were called to Spanish John, who drove towards us and past us without displaying any interest.
Covertly we peeped at Paddy and Alicia disappearing into the building.
‘We’ll wait ten minutes,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll go in.’
‘Ten is too obvious,’ Marnie said. ‘I say nine.’
‘Or eleven,’ Dee suggested.
‘Okay, eleven,’ Marnie said.
Lola said nothing. I was worried that she might puke. She kept swallowing and taking deep breaths. Every time I looked at her I was seized with guilt for making her do this.
‘Why does he do it?’ Lola suddenly asked. ‘Why is he so cruel?’
‘His mother died when he was fifteen. Maybe he needs to punish all women for his mother’s desertion,’ Marnie said to Lola. ‘I’ve done lots of therapy,’ she added.
‘Lots of people’s mothers die when they’re teenagers,’ Dee scoffed. ‘And they don’t turn into power-mad women-beaters.’
‘Mine died when I was fifteen,’ Lola said. ‘And I’ve never beaten anyone.’
God love her, she didn’t look like she could beat an egg.
