“You’ve been burning the candle at both ends,” she read as she sipped her tea. “You need time to recharge your batteries. A quiet day would be a good idea.”
Bree pressed the button which lowered the Fiat Brava down to ground level. She got into the car and drove it to the concourse outside the workshop, glad that this morning’s jobs had all been fairly straightforward. The Brava had needed its brake discs replaced, and all of her earlier jobs had been just as simple.
She got out of the car and brought the keys back to reception.
“You look the worse for wear today,” said Christy. “Where were you last night?”
“Out with my sisters,” said Bree. “Cate got engaged.”
“Cate—the cool one?”
Bree grinned. “Yep.”
“Didn’t think she was the sort who believed in marriage,” said Christy. “I thought she was one of those career woman feminist types.”
“You can be a career woman and still believe in marriage,” said Bree mildly.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Christy looked wistful. “It’s not that I don’t think women can do a good job—sure, you’re a great little worker, Bree—but things were easier when they stayed at home.”
“Christy Burke, you’re a chauvinistic old sod,” said Bree. “D’you really think I’d be better off in the kitchen?”
“Only if you could cook,” he told her and ducked as she threw an empty Styrofoam cup at him.
The phone rang and Christy picked up the receiver. Bree poured herself another cup of coffee and sipped it slowly. Because she’d been feeling a little fragile this morning she’d worked twice as hard as she normally did. She couldn’t understand why she was feeling fragile—unless it was the fact that she normally drank spirits rather than wine. But she’d even felt a little woozy in the taxi last night, surprising herself by closing her eyes until the driver had decanted her outside the flat.
Usually she liked getting home to the flat after a night out. But last night it had felt strangely unwelcoming. For the first time she’d noticed how drab the curtains were and how threadbare the carpet in the living room was. She’d opened the tiny fridge and taken out the only item in it—a half-carton of milk—which she drank in one go. She’d looked at her tiny shower room and sighed at the grubby tiles and then she’d crawled into her unmade bed and lain there quite unable to get to sleep.
She felt inadequate. Until yesterday she’d always felt superior to her sisters but suddenly she’d felt inadequate. She’d rationalized the marriage thing but she couldn’t rationalize her sudden feeling that maybe they also had a point about possessions. She’d jeered them, of course, when they got on to the topic of houses and apartments and interior decorating. She’d laughed when Cate and Nessa had held a fifteen-minute discussion on the merits of net curtains versus venetian blinds, roller blinds and roman blinds. Bree hadn’t even known there were so many different ways of covering your windows. And she’d laughed even more when Nessa talked about the way that she persuaded Adam that converting the garage had been his idea when he’d been so opposed to it at the start.
Manipulative, she’d said. And not worth the effort.
She didn’t want to think that she’d quite like to try her hand at converting a garage into a study. Surely, she thought, her talents would lie the other way around. She should convert the entire house into a garage.
“I’ll send someone to see it.” Christy’s words suddenly reached her and she turned around as he replaced the receiver.
“Want to do a job on site?” he asked.
“What sort of job?”
“Tires,” said Christy.
“Tires!” Bree looked at him in disgust. Changing tires wasn’t exactly a mechanic’s job.
“Do you remember Declan Morrissey?” asked Christy.
Bree frowned.
“You did the service on his son’s Fiat,” Christy reminded her.
“Oh, of course.” She nodded. “The lunatic young driver syndrome.”
“That’s the one,” said Christy. “He’s had a visit from some vandals, it seems. They’ve slashed the tires of his car and his son’s car. He wondered whether he’d be better off getting a tire place to come around and deal with it but I said we would. Do you want to do it?”
“Sure, why not.” Bree drained the cup and threw it into the refuse sack. “Does he want a full set for both cars?”
“Plus a spare,” said Christy. “He drives the Alfa, the son drives the Fiat.”
“I remember,” said Bree.
“We’ll send him a bill,” said Christy. “You don’t have to get a check or anything.”
“OK.” Bree yawned. “It’ll be nice to get out.”
“Don’t spend all day at it,” warned Christy. “You’ve a few other things to finish here too, you know.”
“Give me a break,” said Bree. “You know I’ve done loads already.”
“Oh, all right.” Christy looked at her consideringly. “When you’ve finished the tire job and you drop the van back, you can go home.”
“You’re all heart, Christy,” said Bree as she pushed open the door to the huge storeroom. “Absolutely all heart.”
Declan Morrissey lived near the RTÉ studios in Donnybrook. Bree indicated left as she drove down Nutley Lane and found the small turn that led to the Morrissey house. Big houses, she thought, as she looked for number four. Big houses, big money, no wonder Declan had bought a car for his son and was footing the bill for the repairs. Despite his comments about the size of the bill, it probably didn’t make the slightest bit of difference to him.
She parked the van outside a detached house with a cobbled driveway where she recognized the yellow Punto she’d worked on previously.
The house was double-fronted, two windows either side of the door and three windows along the front at the upstairs level. The door was painted in olive green with a heavy brass knocker shaped like a lion’s head. There were two terracotta urns on the step, overflowing with brightly colored flowers which scented the air. Despite the grandeur of the house, it looked welcoming. Bree lifted the lion’s head and knocked on the door.
The man who answered the knock was a younger, entirely sexier version of Declan Morrissey. He was about six feet tall with olive skin and black hair which fell into his huge brown eyes. Bree felt her body tingle as she looked at him.
“I’m here about the tires,” she said. “I’m Bree Driscoll. From the garage.”
“Hi.” He smiled at her and she felt her heart flip over. “I’m Michael. Are you the girl that told Dad I was compensating for a small penis?”
“Of course I didn’t say that!” She felt her face flame with embarrassment. “I just said that you drove too fast.”
“He lectured me,” said Michael. “I take the corners too fast and I drive like a rally driver—a bad rally driver, he told me. I didn’t take much notice because he said that some girl in the garage had told him all this but,” his brown eyes flickered, “maybe you do know what you’re talking about.”
“I know what I’m talking about,” said Bree. “You’re driving that Punto into the ground. What’s the point?”
“What’s the point in having a fast car if you don’t drive it fast?”
“There’s laws about how fast you should drive,” said Bree. “Why don’t you spend a day at Mondello if you want to drive fast?”
“Mondello?”
“You can hire out a Formula Ford and drive it around the track. You can hire a rally car too.”
“It wouldn’t be the same,” said Michael.
“It’s great fun,” Bree told him.
“Have you done it?”
“Of course.”
“How fast?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Your lap time?”
“Pretty fast,” she said.
“I bet I’d beat it.”
“Perhaps.” Her look was challenging.
“I thought I heard voices. Hello ag
ain.” Declan Morrissey strode into the hallway and smiled at Bree in recognition. “You’ve been sent out to do the tires, have you?”
“Hello, Mr. Morrissey. Sorry about your bad luck.”
“Bastards,” said Declan. “You read about this sort of thing but you don’t think it’ll happen to you.”
“Why did it happen to you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Declan.
“Intimidation,” said Michael.
“Don’t be stupid.” His father looked at him in irritation.
“Dad’s involved in a fraud trial at the moment,” said Michael. “He thinks someone might be trying to upset him.”
“A fraud trial?” Bree looked at them in surprise.
“Dad’s a barrister,” Michael told her.
That explained the expensive house and the extravagant twenty-first present, thought Bree.
“It’s not intimidation,” said Declan irritably. “It was just some blokes coming home from the pub drunk or something.”
“Either way, I guess I’d better get on with it,” said Bree.
“Do you want a hand?” asked Michael.
“I can manage,” she said.
“It’d be easier with two of us,” said Michael.
She grinned at him. “Actually, no. You’d be in the way. But you can chat to me if you like.”
“OK. But I can help you get the tires out of the van.”
“Sure.”
They rolled the tires into the driveway and Bree jacked up Michael’s Punto.
“So why do you do this?” he asked curiously as she slid the front passenger tire into place.
“Why not?” she asked.
“It’s not a job you’d expect a woman to do,” said Michael.
She looked at him. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Well, it’s not,” he protested. “You can say all you like about women doing men’s jobs but most of them don’t want to get their hands dirty.”
“Did you just meander out of the jungle or have you learned to be so sexist?” she asked.
“OK, I’ve never met a girl who likes getting her hands dirty,” he said.
She laughed. “I love getting my hands dirty.”
“I don’t,” admitted Michael. “Even though I like to drive fast. I think I take after my mother. She wasn’t a hands dirty kind of woman.”
“Wasn’t?” Bree glanced at him.
“She died,” said Michael.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
Bree liked the way he said thank you instead of muttering that it didn’t matter like so many people did. She liked his calm acceptance of her condolences.
“It was five years ago,” said Michael. “She had cancer.”
“That must have been difficult.” Bree moved around to the back of the car.
“Not nice,” admitted Michael. “And, of course, more difficult for her because she was away from home.”
“She died abroad?”
“Ireland was abroad to her,” said Michael. “She was from Spain. Valencia.”
That explained the dark good looks, thought Bree.
“Have you any brothers or sisters?” asked Bree.
“Two sisters,” said Michael. “Marta and Manuela. They got the Spanish names.”
Bree grinned. “She liked the letter M, your mum.”
“I guess so.” Michael grinned back at her. “My sisters are both younger. Marta is eighteen. Manuela is fourteen.”
“I’m the youngest in my family,” Bree told him. “I’ve two older sisters.” She lowered the Punto and tightened the bolts. “OK, now to your Dad’s car.”
Declan Morrissey drove the same top-of-the-range Alfa as Adam. Bree and Michael brought the wheels into the driveway and she began the task of fitting them.
“And your sisters, how old are they?” asked Michael as he watched her.
“Nessa is thirty-four. Cate is thirty.”
“And you?”
“I’m twenty-five,” said Bree. She looked up at him. “Getting old!”
“You look very young,” Michael said. “I thought you were a kid when you knocked at the door.”
“The overalls might have been a giveaway.” Bree glanced down at her blue working clothes with the Crosbie’s garage logo emblazoned on the pocket.
“A little,” said Michael.
“Michael! Phone!” Declan stood at the front door and called his son. Bree continued to work in silence. Pity he was younger than her, she thought as she fitted the last tire. He was very, very attractive. But probably a weirdo like all the others.
She checked the nuts on the tires, stood up and wiped her hands on the seat of her pants. Then she knocked on the front door again.
“Finished?” It was Declan who answered it this time.
She nodded.
“That was quick.”
“It’s not difficult,” said Bree. “Pain in the neck for you, though.”
“Oh well.” Declan shrugged philosophically. “These things happen.” He smiled at her. “Would you like a cup of tea or anything before you go?”
Bree wrestled with her conscience. A drink of anything would be nice, she was still feeling dehydrated from the previous night. But she really only wanted to say yes because it might mean seeing Michael again. Which was pathetic.
“I’d love a cup,” she said.
“Great,” said Declan. “This way.”
He lead her through an elegant tiled hallway into a bright, sunny kitchen. The enormous pine table was covered in newspapers and magazines. Michael was leaning against the wall and talking fast and fluent Spanish on the phone. Bree liked the liquid sounds of the Spanish words. She understood a little of his conversation, the Spanish that she’d learned during her time in Spain coming back to her. But Michael was talking about Ireland, about the U2 concert he’d been to at Croke Park. Bree had been to that concert too.
Declan filled the kettle and placed two china mugs on the table. “Milk?”
Bree nodded.
“Sugar?” asked Declan. “Are you like all tradesmen—loading up your tea with sugar?”
“You’re supposed to call us tradespeople.” Bree grinned. “And sometimes I take sugar but not always.”
“So—this time?”
She shook her head.
He took a bright yellow teapot from the shelf and poured hot water into it. Bree felt as though she should be doing something to help but she didn’t quite know what.
“Of course I miss you!” Michael had switched to English and Bree felt his words like a dagger through her heart. Typical, she thought. I see a man, I like him but he’s involved with someone else. Someone Spanish, it seems. Maybe he met a girl the last time he was there.
Declan saw her eyes flicker in his son’s direction.
“He’s talking to his sisters,” said Declan. “They’re staying with Monica’s parents for a few weeks.”
“Monica?”
“My late wife,” said Declan.
“Yes,” said Bree. “Michael told me about her. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
The same polite acceptance. The same clear, candid eyes. Declan was nearly as attractive as his son.
“They’re having a great time.” Michael replaced the receiver and sat down at the table with them. “But Mannie is feeling a little homesick.” He looked at Bree. “She was the one who’d spent the least time in Spain.”
Bree nodded in understanding although she didn’t really understand because she’d never felt homesick in her life. Even when she’d lived in Spain. She’d lived for the moment, never thinking about life anywhere else.
The kettle boiled and Declan filled the teapot. He placed a plate of scones on the table. Bree eyed them hungrily. She hadn’t eaten earlier because of her hangover but she was starving now.
“Take one,” said Michael. “If you don’t, Dad’ll be very hurt.”
“No I won’t,” said De
clan. “Don’t feel obliged to eat anything if you don’t want to, Bree.”
“Actually, I will have one.” She took a scone and cut it in half. “I’m ravenous.”
Michael laughed. “If only the girls ever said that!”
“Marta and Manuela are always on diets,” explained Declan. “I try to tell them that they don’t need to be but I know I’m wasting my time.”
“I’ve never been on a diet.” Bree spoke through a mouthful of crumbs. “I can’t see the point, really. I know that I’m a biggish girl and I honestly can’t see myself being happier if I was existing on lettuce leaves all day.”
“You need muscles to lift those tires around the place,” said Michael.
“You didn’t let her lift them!” Declan looked shocked.
“It’s my job, Mr. Morrissey,” said Bree. “If Christy had come out to do it, you wouldn’t have had Michael lifting tires for him.”
Michael laughed but Declan looked uncomfortable.
“I’d better be off.” Bree drained her cup. “Thank you very much for the tea. And the scone was absolutely delicious.”
“It’s Dad’s secret talent,” said Michael.
“What?”
“Baking.” Michael told her. “Didn’t you realize they were home-cooked?”
“They tasted really good,” said Bree. “But I didn’t imagine…”
Declan grinned. “You lug tires, I bake scones. Equality in action.”
“Absolutely,” she said.
Michael walked with her to the door.
“Will we see you again?” he asked.
“I hope not,” said Bree. “I don’t like to think that your tires would be slashed two nights in a row.”
“Will I see you again?” amended Michael.
She looked at him, feeling a long-dormant thud of excitement in her heart. He was only twenty-one though. Young for a potential boyfriend. Too immature? Twenty-one-year-old blokes were babies really. But he seemed different. And he’d spoken of his mother with regret but not in the uncomfortable way that many men did when they talked about bereavement.
“How?” she asked.
“A drink?” he suggested. “At the weekend if you’re free?”
He's Got to Go Page 10
