by Marian Keyes
He swung the car off the main road on to a smaller road, then on to an even smaller one. ‘There it is.’ He pointed through the windscreen.
Crouching on the pavement was a little red-brick artisan’s cottage. Lisa took one look at it and hated it. She liked modern and fresh, airy and spacious. This house promised cramped, dark rooms, ancient plumbing and an unhygienic free-standing kitchen with a horrid Belfast sink.
Reluctantly she got out of the car.
Jack approached the house, put the key in the lock, pushed the door and stood back to let Lisa pass. He had to duck his head to fit through the doorway.
‘Wooden floors,’ she remarked, looking around.
‘Brendan had them done a couple of months ago,’ Jack said proudly.
She forbore from enlightening him that those in the know were completely over wooden floors and that carpets were very much in the driving seat.
‘Sitting-room.’ Jack led her into a small, ash-floored room containing a red couch, a telly and a cast-iron fireplace. ‘That’s an original,’ Jack nodded at it.
‘Mmmmm.’ Lisa loathed cast-iron fireplaces – they were so busy.
‘Kitchen.’ Jack trailed her through to the next room. ‘Fridge, microwave, washing machine.’
Lisa looked around. At least the cupboards were fitted and the sink was an ordinary aluminium one – she’d rather run the risk of Alzheimer’s than live with a Belfast sink. But her satisfaction ebbed when she noticed a scrubbed-pine kitchen table, with four sturdy, rustic chairs! Heartsore, she thought of the wheely turquoise Formica table and four woven-wire chairs in her kitchen in Ladbroke Grove.
‘He said something about the boiler playing up. I’ll just take a quick look.’ Half-disappearing into a cupboard, Jack rolled up his sleeves, displaying brown forearms, with planes of muscles which shifted with the movements of his hands.
‘Pass me the spanner from that drawer there, will you?’ Jack indicated with his head. Lisa wondered if he was putting on a special macho display in her honour, then she remembered Trix saying he was handy with machinery, and felt her sap rising. She’d always had a weakness for men who were good with their hands, who got smeared in oil and came home at the end of a hard day’s fixing things, slowly unzipped their overalls and said meaningfully, ‘I bin thinkin’ ‘bout ya all day, baby.’ She also had a weakness for men with six-figure salaries and the power to promote her when she didn’t really deserve it. How nice would it be to combine the two?
Jack banged and twiddled with things for a short time longer before saying, ‘It looks like the timer is gone. You can get hot water, but you can’t pre-set it. I’ll sort it out for you. Let’s see the bathroom.’
To her surprise the bathroom passed the test. Washing herself needn’t necessarily be a lightning raid, with a loofah in one hand and a stopwatch in the other.
‘Nice bath,’ she admitted.
‘Handy little shelf there beside it,’ Jack agreed.
‘Just big enough for two glasses of wine and a scented candle.’ Lisa’s swift glance was meaningful. And wasted. To her frustration Jack had marched onwards to the next room.
‘Bedroom,’ he announced.
It was bigger and brighter than the other rooms, though it was still afflicted with a country-cottage feel. Sprigging on the white curtains, echoed by sprigging on the duvet cover and way too much pine. Pine headboard, big pine wardrobe, pine chest of drawers.
Even the mattress is probably made of pine, Lisa thought scornfully.
‘It overlooks the garden.’ Jack pointed out the window at a smallish square of grass, bordered by shrubs and blooms. Lisa’s heart sank. She’d never had a garden before and she didn’t want one. She liked flowers as much as the next woman, but only when they came in a big, cellophane bouquet, with an enormous satin ribbon and a card of congratulation. She’d rather die than take up gardening, the accessories were gruesome – elastic-waisted trousers, ridiculous floppy hats, silly baskets and mad Michael Jackson gloves. It was Not A Good Look.
And though she’d told Femme readers last July that gardening was the new sex, she hadn’t meant a word of it. Sex was sex. Perennially. She missed it.
‘He said something about having a herb garden,’ Jack said. ‘Will we check it out?’
He shot the bolt on the back door, and again had to duck his head on the way out. She followed his straight-backed progress across the little lawn, wryly amused by her own admiration. The birds chattered in the benign evening light, the air was pungent with grass and earth and for a second she didn’t hate everything.
‘Over here.’ He waved her towards a bed and folded his long legs into a crouch. To show willing, Lisa half-heartedly hunkered beside him.
‘Mind your suit.’ He extended his arm protectively. ‘Don’t get muck on it.’
‘What about yours?’
‘I couldn’t give a feck about mine.’ He turned and gave her an unexpectedly mischievous smile.
Up close she saw he had a tiny chip from one of his front teeth. It added to his maverick air. ‘If I get enough grass-stains on it, it’ll have to go to the cleaner’s and I won’t be able to wear it tomorrow… And wouldn’t that be terrible?’ he asked drily.
Lisa laughed and, just for the hell of it, moved her head closer to his. She watched his pupils narrow and dilate through several expressions – confusion to interest to extreme interest back to confusion and then blankness. It took far less than a second. Then he turned away and asked, ‘Is that coriander or parsley?’
One of his locks of hair was winding around itself into a curl. Lisa wanted to put her finger in and spring it.
‘What do you think?’ he asked her again.
Feeling as if they were speaking in code, she looked at the leaf in his hand. ‘I don’t know.’
Between his thumb and forefinger, he crumbled the leaf, then held it to her face. Intimately close. ‘Smell,’ he instructed.
Her eyes closed, she inhaled, trying to breathe in his skin.
‘Coriander,’ she said in triumph. She was rewarded with another smile from him. His mouth went kind of curly at the corners…
‘And there’s basil, chives and thyme,’ he indicated. ‘You can use them for cooking.’
‘Yeah,’ she smiled. ‘I can sprinkle them on my takeaways.’
There was no point pretending to him. The days of being bonkers-besotted and wanting to cook for her beloved were long gone.
‘You don’t cook?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t have time.’
‘That’s what I keep hearing,’ he said.
‘Does, er, Mai cook?’
Big mistake. Jack’s face went back to being closed and broody. ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘– At least not for me,’ he added. ‘Come on, let’s go.
‘So what do you think of the house?’ he asked, once they were back inside.
‘I like it,’ Lisa lied. It was the best place she’d seen but that wasn’t saying much.
‘It’s got a lot of things going for it,’ Jack agreed. ‘The rent is decent, the area is nice and you can walk to work.’
‘That’s right,’ Lisa said, with a darkness that puzzled him. ‘And I could save myself £1.10 each way.’
‘Is that how much? I wouldn’t know because I’m usually in the car myself…’
‘Which is £2.20 a day.’
‘I suppose it must be…’
‘£11 a week. Taken over the course of a lifetime, it comes to quite a lot.’ At Jack struggling to maintain an expression of polite interest, Lisa broke through to lightness. Laughing, she told him about her experience with stingy Joanne. Then she told him about the other terrible places she’d viewed. About the man in Lansdown Park who had given his pet snake the freedom of the living-room, the house in Ballsbridge so untidy it looked as if it had just been burgled.
‘Well, you can move in here straight away,’ Jack offered.
He stood up and began the awkward jingling of change in his pockets that
Lisa recognized of old. It was what men did as they tried to pluck up the courage to ask her out for a drink. She could see the struggle in his eyes and his body was coiled as if he was about to launch into something.
Get on with it, she urged silently.
Then his eyes cleared and all tension seemed to fall away. ‘I’ll drop you back to your hotel now,’ he said.
Lisa understood. She sensed that he was attracted to her and she also sensed his reservations. Not only did they work together, but he was involved with someone else. No matter. She’d work her mojo on him and overcome his objections. She’d enjoy it – making Jack fall for her would take her mind off all her grief.
‘Thank you for finding me somewhere to live.’ She smiled sweetly at Jack.
‘It’s a pleasure,’ Jack replied. ‘And don’t hesitate to ask for whatever you need. I’ll do everything I can to make your move to Ireland easier.’
‘Thanks.’ She flicked him another flirty little smile.
‘You’re far too busy and too important to Colleen to waste your time viewing flats.’
Oh.
Curled on a chair, Lisa lit a fag and stared out of the hotel window on to Harcourt Street. She was bothered by mild guilt. So mild it was barely there, but the fact that it existed at all was worthy of comment. It was that bloody Ashling. She’d been so pathetically surprised when Lisa had nicked her idea.
Well, tough, that’s the way it goes. That’s why Lisa was an editor and Ashling a dogsbody. And Lisa had been terrified, absolutely craven when Jack had told her the advertising situation. Fear always made her treacherous and ruthless.
At the moment the initial bowel-clenching terror had somewhat abated. Her brand of pushy optimism meant she was encapsulated in a bubble of hope where it seemed reasonably possible to generate all the advertising that was needed. Nevertheless, the fact was that Lisa’s ass was the one on the line. If the magazine bombed, Ashling’s life wasn’t over and Lisa’s was, simple as that. OK, everyone thought she was a bitch, but they had no conception of the pressure she was under.
With a long sigh, Lisa exhaled a plume of smoke – the memory of Ashling’s shocked face needled her, made her feel mildly shitty.
She’d always been able to control her emotions before. It had been easy to subjugate them to the greater good, that of the job. She’d better regain her grip.
16
Daily, invitations to press launches arrived in the post – everything from new lines in eye-shadow to openings of shops – and Lisa and Mercedes ruthlessly shared them out between them. Lisa, as editor, got first refusal. But Mercedes, as fashion and beauty editor, had to be allowed to go to a good few too. Ashling, Cinderella-like, stayed behind to mind the shop and Trix was way too far down the feeding chain ever to stand a chance of going.
‘What happens at a publicity do?’ Trix asked Lisa.
‘You stand around with a bunch of other journalists and a few celebrities,’ Lisa said. ‘You talk to anyone important, you listen to the presentation.’
‘Tell me about this one you’re going to today.’
A shop called Morocco was opening its first Irish branch. Lisa couldn’t have cared less, it had been open for years in London, but the Irish franchise holder was treating it as a big deal. Tara Palmer Tompkinson was flying over from London for the launch, which was being held in the Royalton-inspired splendour of the Fitzwilliam hotel.
‘Will they have food?’ Trix asked.
‘There’s usually something. Canapés. Champagne.’
In fact, Lisa dearly hoped there would be food because she’d started a new eating plan – instead of the Seven Dwarves diet she’d moved on to the Publicity diet. She could eat and drink what she liked, but only at publicity events. Lisa knew the importance of being thin, but she refused to be a traditional diet slave. Instead she incorporated unusual limitations and rewards into her relationship with food, always keeping the challenge fresh and interesting.
‘Champagne!’ Excitement made Trix Don-Corleone-hoarse.
‘That’s if they’re not a low-rent outfit, and if they are they don’t get a plug in the mag. Then you get your goody bag and leave.’
‘A goody bag!’ Trix lit up at the mention of something free. Something that she didn’t have to go to the trouble of stealing. ‘What kind of goody bag?’
‘Depends.’ Lisa pouted jadedly. ‘With a cosmetic company you usually get a selection of the new season’s make-up.’
Trix squeaked with delight.
‘With a shop like this, perhaps a bag –’
‘A bag!’ She hadn’t had a free bag in years, not since they’d started electronically tagging them.
‘Or a top.’
‘Oh my God!’ Trix jigged in excitement. ‘You’re so lucky!’
After a long, thoughtful pause, Trix suggested over-innocently, ‘You know, you should really take Ashling along with you.’ The pecking order was such that there was no chance Trix would ever be allowed to go until Ashling was. ‘She’s your deputy editor. She should know what the drill is if you ever get sick.’
‘But…’ Mercedes’ smooth olive face was anxious at the suggestion of someone else muscling in on such sacred ground. There were only so many free lipsticks to go round.
Mercedes’ palpable alarm coupled with the residue of guilt around Ashling made Lisa’s decision easy. ‘Good idea, Trix. OK, Ashling, you can ride shotgun with me this afternoon. That is,’ she added disingenuously, ‘if you’d like to come.’
Ashling had always been bad at holding a grudge. Especially when there was free stuff involved. ‘Would I like to come?’ She disappointed herself by exclaiming, ‘I’d love to come.’
*
Lisa had lunch at the Clarence with a bestselling author whom she was trying to persuade to write a regular column. It was a success. Not only did the woman agree to do the column for a knock-down fee in exchange for regular plugs for her books, but Lisa escaped the lunch almost unscathed. Despite swirling her food energetically around her plate, all she ate was half a cherry tomato and a forkful of corn-fed chicken.
She returned to work triumphant and was trawling through her mail when Ashling showed up beside her desk, with her bag and jacket.
‘Lisa,’ Ashling said anxiously. ‘It’s two-thirty and the invite is for three. Should we go?’
Lisa laughed in sardonic surprise. ‘Rule number one – never be on time. Everyone knows that! You’re too important.’
‘Am I?’
‘Pretend.’ Lisa returned to her pile of press releases. But after a while she found herself looking up and saw that Ashling’s avid eyes were fastened on her.
‘For crying out loud!’ Lisa exclaimed, bitterly regretting ever inviting Ashling.
‘Sorry. I’m just afraid everything will be gone.’
‘What everything?’
‘The canapés, the goody bags.’
‘I’m not leaving until three, and don’t ask me again.’
At three-fifteen, Lisa reached under her desk for her Miu Miu tote, and said to a quivering Ashling, ‘Come on, then!’
The taxi journey through the traffic-thronged streets took so long that even Lisa began to worry that all the canapés and goody bags would be gone.
‘What now?’ she demanded irritably, as a policeman thrust his meaty paw at them, indicating that they should stop.
‘Ducks,’ the driver said shortly.
As Lisa wondered if ‘ducks’ was a Dublin swearword along the lines of ‘feck’, Ashling exclaimed, ‘Oh, look, ducks!’
You what! Lisa wondered, then before her startled eyes a mother duck strutted across the road, trailing six ducklings in a line behind her. Two policemen were holding up both directions of traffic to guarantee a safe passage to the duck family. She could hardly believe it!
‘Happens every year.’ Ashling’s eyes were alight. ‘The ducks hatch on the canal, then when they’re big enough, they come down to the lake on Stephen’s Green.’
‘H
undreds of them. Shags up the traffic entirely. Annoy the shite outta you,’ the taxi-driver said fondly.
This fucking city… Lisa sighed.
As Lisa and Ashling alighted outside the Fitzwilliam hotel, the day was chilly and blustery, the mini-heatwave of the previous week but a distant memory.
‘One leg-wax doesn’t make a summer,’ Ashling thought sadly, back to wearing trousers again after a long summer skirt had enjoyed a too-brief airing the day before. Then she forgot the weather and ecstatically elbowed Lisa. ‘Look! It’s your woman, what’s-her-name? Tara Palmtree Yokiemedoodle.’
And indeed it was Tara Palmtree Yokiemedoodle, parading up and down on the pavement outside the hotel, surrounded by a throng of frantically clicking photographers.
‘Givvus a bit of leg there, good girl, Tara,’ they urged.
Ashling headed for the road, to walk around the ring of photographers, but Lisa marched determinedly into the thick of them.
‘Oi, who’s she?’ Ashling heard.
Then Lisa gushed, ‘Taaaaraaaaa, darling, long time no see,’ wrestled Tara into a reluctant air-snog, then swivelled them both to face the cameras. The photographers froze from their incessant clicking, then took in the golden, caramel-haired woman, cheek-to-cheek with Tara, and commenced their clicking with renewed fervour.
‘Lisa Edwards, editor-in-chief, Colleen magazine,’ Lisa moved amongst the photographers, informing them. ‘Lisa Edwards. Lisa Edwards. I’m an old friend of Tara’s.’
‘How do you know Tara Palmtree?’ Ashling asked, in awe, when Lisa returned to her on the sidelines, where she’d been completely ignored by the photographers.
‘I don’t.’ Lisa surprised her with a grin. ‘But rule number two – never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.’
Lisa swept into the hotel, Ashling trotting behind her. Two handsome young men came forward, greeted them and relieved Ashling of her jacket. But Lisa airily refused to relinquish hers.
‘May I remind you of rule number three,’ Lisa muttered tetchily, en route to the reception room. ‘We never leave our jacket. You want to give the impression that you’re very busy, just popping in for a few minutes, that you’ve a far more interesting life going on out there.’
