Those Faraday Girls

by Monica McInerney

  She glanced at her watch. Three p.m., on the dot. Perfect. She was longing for a glass of champagne. She draped her tanned and toned body in a flimsy silk kaftan, pulled on a floppy sunhat and large dark glasses. A final check in the mirror, a reapplication of the pale-pink lipstick that went surprisingly well with her still-red hair and she was done.

  ‘George?’ she called as she strolled down the cool hallway towards the living area. ‘Where are you, my darling? I’ve got a sudden longing to hear something special.’

  ‘Of course, my sweet,’ his voice came back to her. ‘Classical? Jazz?’

  ‘Neither,’ she said as she emerged onto the terrace. ‘What about the sound of one cork popping?’

  Clementine was on the phone to Peter, the man she’d been dating for several months. She’d arranged to meet him for dinner on Saturday night. He wasn’t happy.

  ‘You can’t come out with me because you’re going to be in Ireland? You decided on the spur of the moment, did you?’

  ‘I did, actually.’

  ‘Clementine, if you don’t want to go out with me, you can just say. You don’t have to come up with these outlandish excuses.’

  ‘It’s not outlandish. It’s the truth.’

  ‘Really? Well, as it happens, I wouldn’t have been able to meet up with you on Saturday night either, because I’m taking a trip to the moon.’ He hung up.

  Clementine stared at the phone for a moment. Had that really happened? He’d actually hung up in a sulk? What on earth was going on today? It had felt like an ordinary day when she got up. Then Leo had called from New York with his bombshell news (‘No, Clementine, I’m not going to put Maggie on – you’ll see both of them in less than two days so save all your questions until then.’) Ten minutes later a call from Leo’s travel agent to say it was all arranged; she and Eliza were booked on the same flight, business-class, direct to London, then on to Ireland. A call to Juliet to confirm that it was actually all happening. And now this childish reaction from her would-be date. So much for an ordinary day.

  No wonder she studied birds, she thought as she went into her room to start packing. They were far less complicated than humans.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  In Dublin, in the northside suburb of Phibsboro, Sadie Faraday was gardening. She’d arrived home from the office after six as usual and changed straight out of her work clothes, wanting to take advantage of the warm summer evening. She’d started in the tiny front garden of her red-brick two-storey terrace house. There was very little room for anything more than some ground cover and a hanging basket by the front door, but she was pleased with this year’s display. She liked the colours and scents to greet her each morning and evening. Living with the long grey months of Irish autumns and winters, Sadie did everything possible to surround herself with colour when she could.

  She was now in her back garden, having decided it was time to pick off the dead roses from the three bushes that lined her fence. Three stems from finishing, she heard her neighbour’s door open. She wondered if there was time to make a dash inside. She wasn’t in the mood for one of Ivy’s gossip sessions tonight.

  ‘Lovely evening, Sally,’ Ivy called over their shared shoulder-high wall.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Sadie called back. Every now and then, it came as a surprise to hear herself called by a different name to the one she’d grown up with. But if she wasn’t used to it by now, she never would be. ‘How are things with you?’

  ‘Grand, thank God,’ Ivy said. ‘You’re still living the single life, I see? I haven’t seen that husband of yours for weeks now, it seems. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Everything’s great, Ivy. Thanks for asking.’ She snipped at another couple of roses and then took pity on the older woman. She was bursting with curiosity, Sadie knew that. ‘Were you starting to think I’d locked him in the cellar?’

  ‘Oh, of course not. It’s just that van of his hasn’t been out the front. A bit of a landmark that, you know. My Michael says that if it wasn’t for the O’Toole Cleaners’ van he wouldn’t be able to find his way home from the pub some nights.’

  ‘Is it getting on your nerves again, Ivy?’ Sadie asked. She’d long ago learned that Ivy had a roundabout way of making a complaint.

  ‘Not at all, of course not. Well, only now and again.’

  ‘I’ll tell Larry when he gets back. He’s always happy to park it further down the road. You only ever have to ask.’

  ‘I hate to be a bother. So everything’s all right with Larry, is it?’

  ‘He’s in Galway at the moment for work.’

  ‘For work? Must be a big job. He’s been gone nearly three weeks, hasn’t he?’

  Sadie had always suspected Ivy kept a running tally on the neighbours. Now she was convinced. For a moment she considered giving Ivy the complete answer. ‘Yes, Ivy, he’s been gone exactly two weeks and four days. He’s midway through a takeover of our biggest competitor in the pub- and restaurant-cleaning business. There was a last-minute hitch with the lawyers and the contracts, so he’s had to extend his trip.’ He hadn’t been happy about it. ‘I can’t leave you on your own, Sally,’ he said. ‘Some fancy man will come and whisk you away from me.’

  Sadie had laughed. He’d always talked to her like that – praising her, flattering her, building up her confidence in tiny ways ever since she had met him nearly twenty years ago. It was one of the many reasons she loved him.

  Ivy was still waiting in position over the fence, keen for news. Sadie felt sorry for her. The poor woman, stuck inside all day caring for her elderly mother and selfish husband, she was always longing for some distraction.

  ‘He’ll be back on the weekend, we hope,’ Sadie said, deciding on an edited version. ‘Just as well. You’ll all start to think we’ve split up if he’s gone any longer.’

  ‘Split up? Not you two,’ Ivy replied. ‘I’ve never heard a couple get on as well as you two do. Talking and laughing all the time. You’re like two newlyweds.’

  ‘A long way from newlyweds.’

  ‘I saw Maudie the other night. Did she tell you? She’s back living with you, is she?’

  ‘Just while Lorcan’s working down the country for a few weeks.’

  ‘You’ll be planning that wedding soon, I suppose? Before people do too much more talking.’

  Sadie kept the smile on her face with some difficulty. She knew that it was Ivy who had been doing all the talking on that particular subject. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s their decision, not ours.’

  ‘Well, I suppose if you look at it like that. It’s just, you know, in the circumstances —’

  Sadie kept snipping at the roses. ‘Marriage is out of fashion these days, anyway, isn’t it? I’m sure I read something in the Irish Times about that.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ivy said, her tone slightly deflated. ‘I only read the Independent.’

  Sadie gave a final satisfying snip and then gathered up the dead blooms. ‘Excuse me, Ivy. I want to go in and make a start on dinner. Say hello to your mother for me, won’t you? I’ll try and drop in later in the week.’

  ‘She’d like that. Bye now, Sally.’

  Sadie was barely inside before she dialled the number. Her husband answered on the third ring.

  ‘Thank God it’s you,’ he said. ‘If I speak to one more lawyer today I’m going to self-combust. The sooner I’m back in Dublin the better.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’ She sat down on a kitchen chair and put her feet up on the nearby stool. ‘I’ve just been Ivy-ed again. Wait till you hear this one.’

  Ten minutes later, still on the phone, she heard a key turning in the front door. Moments later a young woman walked through the hallway into the kitchen, a rucksack slung over her left shoulder. Her pretty, lightly freckled face had a slight sheen of sweat. Her shoulder-length brown hair was caught back in a clasp, showing off two impressive displays of earrings. She was wearing a red cardigan over a blue cotton dress, its close-fitting design highlighting ra
ther than disguising the fact she was in the late stages of pregnancy.

  Sadie smiled in welcome, interrupting her story with a ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ before moving off the chair and motioning to her daughter to take her place. ‘Yes, that’s Maudie I’m talking to,’ she said into the phone. ‘Yes, she looks better than well. And of course she wants to talk to you.’

  Maudie took the phone from Sadie and lowered herself onto the chair. ‘Da, are you there?’ She laughed into the phone, resting her head back against the wall and placing her free hand protectively on her bump. ‘I’m healthy as a trout. Mum’s right. Not a bother on me. What about you? Are you ever coming home again?’

  Sadie fetched a glass of iced water and passed it to her daughter, getting a grateful smile and a whispered thanks before Maudie turned her attention back to the story her father was telling. Sadie knew once the two of them got going they could be on the phone for an hour or more. She decided the evening was too nice to stay inside. She collected her gloves and secateurs, gestured to Maudie that she’d be outside and stepped out into the warm air again.

  It wasn’t until much later that night, Maudie already asleep in her bedroom upstairs, that Sadie remembered the story she’d been about to tell Larry when Maudie arrived.

  It had happened that afternoon. Sadie had been in her office reading through the advertising agency submissions for the final time. They had put her into a reflective mood. She’d found it hard to believe what she was hearing in the middle of their presentations, stranger still to read it all in black-and-white like this. But the facts were the facts. O’Toole Cleaners was the most successful company of its kind in the country. A dozen full-time employees in the Dublin office, a Cork office of eight, and if the Galway takeover went through, they’d have an office of six employees in the west of Ireland. They had more than two hundred part-time employees as well. All that business built on the back of dirt.

  Her work had been interrupted by a call from her secretary. A journalist from a magazine was on hold on line one, wanting to talk to her. ‘He asked for you specifically.’

  The journalist was English, youthful-sounding, well-educated and very businesslike. He got straight to the point. He was the business editor of a magazine called Entrepreneurial Europe and was working on a major article about successful businesses, particularly those employing immigrants from the EU states. He’d attended a recent industry conference in Oslo, he told her, and had heard good things about O’Toole Cleaners. He was in Dublin for the day, and was sorry for the short notice, but could she spare thirty minutes to talk to him that afternoon?

  Normally Larry dealt with any media or publicity enquiries, but Sadie’s interest was sparked. He had obviously done his research. O’Toole Cleaners was one of the country’s largest employers of newly arrived workers from Poland, Latvia and other EU countries. She could meet him at three, she said.

  He was ten minutes early. She liked that. He apologised for not having a copy of the magazine with him. He’d hoped to bring the most recent issue but there had been difficulties with stock deliveries. He would send her a selection of back issues as soon as he returned to London.

  ‘Thanks very much for sparing the time, Mrs O’Toole. I’m sure you’re very busy.’ He smiled. ‘I have to admit, your accent surprised me. I expected an Irish accent with a name like O’Toole.’

  ‘It surprises everyone,’ Sadie said, as she led the way back to her office. ‘I grew up in Australia.’

  He took a seat and got straight down to it. ‘What we like to do with our magazine, Mrs O’Toole, is give the background to business success stories. It’s helpful for our readers – up and coming entrepreneurs – to realise it can be a long and winding road to the top.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you, then. My husband and I actually had an easy run of it.’

  ‘You did? Perhaps you could fill me in?’

  She gave him the potted history. O’Toole Cleaners was owned and run by her husband Larry and herself. They’d moved to Ireland from Australia fifteen years previously, having worked in the cleaning industry in Queensland for some years. They’d immediately recognised a gap in the market in Ireland. They’d started in Dublin, offering full cleaning services to pubs in the city centre, then to pubs outside the city centre. They did the work themselves in the beginning, as they had done in Queensland, starting at three o’clock some mornings, moving from client to client, their day’s work done before ten a.m.

  The journalist was taking notes. ‘Our readers will love hearing that. It’s a great image, the two of you, on your hands and knees, scrubbing pub floors.’

  ‘It wasn’t the dark ages,’ she said. ‘We did have machines. Those machines you heard us talking about at the conference, in fact.’

  ‘The conference?’

  ‘In Oslo. Where you first heard about us.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They expanded to restaurants, Sadie told him. The work flooded in. They had to start hiring extra staff, more each week. Irish people to begin with, and then as new immigrants came into the country, Polish, Nigerian and Chinese workers too.

  ‘I’ve seen your brochures and I have to say you have a very straightforward image. What you see is what you get.’

  ‘My husband’s idea,’ Sadie said with a smile. Straightforward was Larry’s middle name. The company brochures featured photographs of O’Toole Cleaners’ staff wearing their distinctive green overalls and driving the green vans, all with the O’Toole Cleaners logo and slogan. Nothing fancy, Larry had insisted. Let’s say it as it is: ‘The Cleanest Cleaners are O’Toole Cleaners’.

  He asked her several more questions about the sort of marketing they did. ‘And what about your own background, Mrs O’Toole? If you don’t mind telling me, how did you and Mr O’Toole meet?’

  ‘In Australia. We were both backpackers in Brisbane. We started working together, and it grew from there.’

  ‘You’ve been married for how long?’

  ‘Nineteen years.’

  ‘And your age? Larry’s age?’

  She shifted slightly in her chair. ‘Do you really need this kind of personal detail for a business story?’

  ‘Only as much as you’re happy to give. I’m sorry if I seem intrusive. I like to include what we call a break-out section in the article, a box to the side with quick facts, a photo, that kind of thing. Nothing too personal, I promise.’

  Sadie relaxed. ‘I’m forty-five. Larry is a year older.’

  ‘And do you live in Dublin? Don’t tell me, you’re in one of the seaview mansions in Killiney, next to Bono and Enya and the rest of them?’

  She laughed. ‘No, we haven’t quite hit those heights. My husband grew up on the northside of Dublin and he still prefers it there. We’re in a suburb called Phibsboro.’ She spelt it for him.

  He reached into his briefcase and took out a colour print. ‘Now, I found this photo on the web site of the Oslo conference and I’m happy to use it to accompany the article, unless you’ve another one you’d prefer to supply?’

  He passed over the photo. Sadie recognised it from the night of the conference dinner. Herself in the red dress she’d immediately regretted buying, Larry beside her looking uncomfortable in a suit. She pulled a face. ‘I’ll give you another one, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Whatever you’re most happy with,’ the journalist said. He pointed up to the pinboard by her desk. ‘Are those family photos? Because casual ones are just fine. In fact they’re often better than posed ones. Would you mind if I had a look?’

  She was happy to let him. He asked a few questions, ‘You have a daughter? What age? Eighteen? She’s very like you, isn’t she?’ before choosing a photo of the three of them, taken two years before on holiday in Spain.

  ‘It would be nice to include a photo of your daughter as well, if you’re happy for me to do that, especially as it’s a story about a family business. She works for you too, I presume?’

  Sadie explained that no, Maudi
e was working as a secretary. ‘Her boyfriend’s setting up a plumbing business. Eventually she’ll go into partnership with him.’

  ‘I’ll have to come back in a few years and do another article then; two generations of an entrepreneurial family. Now, I could get this photo scanned here in Dublin and drop it back to you this afternoon. I’ve a few others I need to do, so it’s no problem.’

  ‘That sounds grand, thank you.’

  He smiled. ‘You’ve picked up the Irish vocabulary, I see. Hard not to, I suppose.’ He started to pack away his notebook, his conversation becoming more informal. ‘Do you manage to get back to Australia very often?’

  ‘No, not since we left.’

  ‘I was in Tasmania myself a year or two back. Beautiful place. The cleanest air in the world, apparently.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sadie stood up. Larry had taught her that was the best way to bring a meeting to a close. He was right. It worked every time. ‘I hope that’s been helpful —’

  ‘Very, and once again, I really appreciate your time. Just before I leave, would you be able to give me a few extra copies of your brochures? In case our art department needs them?’

  ‘Of course.’ She rang through to her assistant but her phone was engaged. ‘Let me get them for you myself.’

  When she returned he was back behind her desk, looking at the photographs again.

  ‘Excuse my curiosity,’ he said, not embarrassed at all. ‘Perfect character trait for a journalist, I suppose.’

  ‘I suppose. Let me show you out,’ she said. Larry had also taught her that line. It worked just as well.

  He shook her hand, promising to send her the article as soon as it appeared.

  She hadn’t had a chance to think about it any more after he’d gone, distracted straightaway by a meeting with their personnel manager, and then two appointments with prospective restaurant clients. Now, in the peace of the evening, alone in the living room, something was niggling at her. What was it? Something he did? Something he said? It wasn’t the photo. He’d done as he promised – dropped it back into reception within the hour.