Something You Should Know

by Melissa Hill

  “Anyway,” he continued, “I’d like to live in Dublin. We’re happy here, our friends are here – why not?”

  “Well, there’s no harm in having a look, is there?’ Karen said, thrilled that Shane felt the same way she did, “and we’re in no rush – we can wait until something decent comes on the market, and with your friend on side, I’m sure we’ll find something we like.”

  “Great.” Shane put his arms around her. “I’ll ring Steve tomorrow. I know he’ll be only too delighted to help.”

  “Are you coming into town with me today, or what?” Karen asked impatiently, “I need to get Shane a birthday present, so, if you’re coming, get your ass in gear.”

  Jenny had been going on about Roan for the last ten minutes, and Karen didn’t think she could put up with it much longer. She couldn’t understand why Jenny had let him get away with the Venice thing. But, she had to admit that her friend had been in great form these last few days, so she wasn’t going to say anything.

  Jenny put her hands up. “OK, OK, I get the message.” she giggled. “Sorry, Karen, I should get myself a dog, or a cat or something, then I could natter away to my heart’s content.”

  “Out – now.” Karen said, feigning sternness, as she locked the door behind them. “Just be careful, Jenny, that’s all. I know I’ve said this before, but just make sure that you know what you’re doing, OK?”

  “Yes sir,” Jenny mock-saluted her, and they went to collect Tessa from her flat, before catching the bus into town.

  Two hours later, and after a fruitless search for a suitable present for Shane, the girls decided to take a break from the madness of Grafton Street on a Saturday.

  “What about a Playstation game, or something?” Jenny suggested, as they sat at a table in the Kylemore in St Stephens Green shopping centre.

  "Video games? There won’t be any of that juvenile stuff in our house – I can tell you that,” Karen said, spooning sugar into her mug.

  “What house?” Jenny asked easily.

  It took Karen a second to realise what she had said. “Oh, Jen, I’m sorry, that just slipped out. I wasn’t going to tell you until I had something concrete, but … Shane and I are thinking of buying a place together.”

  “Oh.” Jenny was taken aback.

  “It won’t be for a while yet, though,” Karen added quickly. “I mean, I’m not going to leave you in the lurch, or anything. It’s just we’ve decided to find somewhere before we get married. I’m sorry.”

  Jenny waved the thought away. “Not at all, don’t be silly. Of course you’ll be moving in together. I wondered about that when you got engaged. There’s no point in the two of you renting separately for the next few years, is there? It’d be dead money.” She smiled at Karen, who was sitting there with a rueful expression. “Don’t look like that – it’s fine, really.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?” Karen felt like an absolute heel. She was planning to tell Jenny, but the time was never right. “As I said, it won’t be for a while yet.”

  “Where are you planning to buy?” Tessa asked

  “We were thinking of somewhere around Rathgar or Terenure.”

  Tessa looked at her. “You do realise that it’ll cost you a small fortune for a house around either of those areas,” she said.

  “Well, we’re not necessarily looking for a house, maybe just an apartment or a duplex. Whatever comes up, really.” Karen took another mouthful of tea. She didn’t yet want to tell them that something had already come up. A block of newly-renovated apartments in Terenure village had come on the market, and she and Shane were going to take a look at one of them the following week. It would probably come to nothing anyway, she told herself. She just didn’t want Jenny to think that she had it all planned without saying anything to her first. After all, when Karen moved out, Jenny would have to find someone else to share the flat in Leinster Square.

  “Well, I think it’s brilliant,” Jenny enthused. “Imagine owning your own place in Dublin?”

  “Imagine having a man that wants to marry you,” Tessa said glumly, “don’t get me wrong – you know I’m thrilled for you, but I just wish Gerry would hurry up and produce the ring. I’ve dropped so many hints since you two got engaged that I’m surprised he hasn’t fallen over them by now.”

  Karen winked at her. “You might beat me to it yet. We decided not to set a date for the wedding until after we get a house sorted – and that could take ages.” She wolfed down the last of her doughnut, and licked her lips with relish. “Anyway, getting engaged means meeting the rest of the family, which isn’t much fun, I can tell you.”

  Jenny giggled, having heard the tale of the terrible toddlers. “Tell her about the children’s names,” she urged Karen.

  Karen rolled her eyes. “I know you worked as a maternity nurse, Tessa, so you’ve probably heard worse, but Shane’s nieces and nephews have the strangest names I’ve ever come across.”

  “Go on,” Tessa leaned forward.

  “The oldest fella is called – wait until you hear this – Keanu. I nearly fell out of my chair when Shane’s sister started shouting,” Karen adopted what she thought was her best country accent, ‘Keanu, Keanu – I’m warning you, leave Honty alone – stop choking her.”

  “Tell her what Honty stands for,” Jenny said, with tears of laughter in her eyes. Although she had heard the story before, and had never met the other woman, Karen’s impression of her future sister-in-law had her in fits of laughter.

  “It stands for Pocahontas,” Karen said flatly, while trying to keep a straight face. “Honty stands for Pocahontas. The woman called the poor child after a Disney cartoon character.”

  “That’s not unusual, by any means,” Tessa grinned, “I’ve come across a few Pocahontases in my time. When that film was out and I was in Holles St Maternity hospital, we had lots of them.”

  “Are you serious?” asked Jenny.

  Tessa nodded. “Yep – but the best I ever heard was the one about the mother who called her child Femaalay.”

  “Fema … what?”

  “Well, it’s a bit of an urban legend around the hospitals, but I’m sure there’s a grain of truth in it somewhere,” Tessa explained. “Apparently, this woman gave birth to a girl but didn’t name her straight away. When the nurse brought the baby to her mother’s bed the next morning, the woman took one look at the pink tag on her daughter’s wrist and said, ‘Femaalay Kelly – that’s a grand name for a young one.’

  “Femaalay? I don’t get it,” said Jenny, confused.

  “I do.” Karen said, in fits of laughter. “The woman read the tag as Femaalay Kelly, when it actually said Female Kelly – isn’t that it, Tessa?”

  The other girl nodded with a smile. “I don’t know if it’s true, but believe me – anything’s possible.”

  “And I thought Keanu and Pocahontas Byrne were bad,” spluttered Karen, through a mouthful of tea.

  Thank goodness that Jenny didn’t seem to mind her moving out, Karen thought, as she watched her friend laughing with Tessa. Maybe she was thinking of keeping on the flat herself. Still, the rent was expensive for one person, and it would be crazy to let the extra bedroom go to waste. Enough, she scolded herself. There was no point in her wondering about what Jenny might do. At least she knew now that a move was in the offing. Anyway, she and Shane were only starting to view properties next week. They mightn’t end up moving for ages yet and there she was running away with herself already.

  Chapter 19

  Karen and Shane looked around in dismay at the apartment they were being shown.

  “It’s a little bit small,” Shane said to the estate agent.

  That was an understatement, Karen thought. The place was a like a shoebox. How could anyone be expected to live here?

  “It may look a little small, but the designer has made amazing use of the space available,” said the estate agent, a man to whom she had taken an instant dislike. Although hardly even a man, Karen thought, with a smil
e. He looked as though he was barely out of secondary school. He had been quite rude with Shane earlier, when he had enquired about the asking price.

  “Asking price?” he had said, in an annoying affected accent that had got right up Karen’s nose. “These apartments will be snapped up at auction. They’re in a prime location, as I’m sure you already know. The guideline price means nothing when it comes to property like this.”

  “Amazing use of space, huh?” Shane repeated, catching Karen’s eye, and nodding towards the doorway. She followed his gaze, and noticed that the living-room and bedroom doors were not yet hung, which instantly gave the impression of additional space. There was no way that even a two-seater sofa would fit there, once the doors went in. The flat in Leinster Square was bigger than this ‘exceptionally spacious and tastefully decorated deluxe apartment’, as the estate agents brochure had proclaimed.

  “If that’s what we’re up against, this is going to be an absolute nightmare,” Karen said afterwards, when they had made their excuses, and went to the nearest pub for lunch That afternoon, they were going to see a townhouse in the same area.

  “I think it’s probably the location, love,” Shane said, tucking into his roast beef dinner, “Property around here is never going to be cheap.”

  “I don’t fancy living outside Dublin, though, do you?” Karen said. “I’d hate to have to spend hours every day commuting. Neither do I want to settle for something resembling a dog box.”

  “Don’t panic, Karen, that’s not an option yet. Anyway,” he said, with a glint in his eye, “I have a bit of an ace up my sleeve.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know how we only qualify for a small mortgage at the moment? Well, Jack knows a guy that can grant us more money.”

  “Your brother Jack? How?”

  “He knows a guy who works as a mortgage advisor with one of the building societies over here. Jack owns a house at home in Meath that he’s renting out, and he’s going to put that house up as collateral for whatever extra money we need. What this means is that we can get a much bigger mortgage than what they offered us at the bank. The salary restrictions will still apply, but because there’s a guarantee, this guy can organise for his building society to give us a bigger mortgage.”

  Karen was stunned. “He’d do that for us? Why?”

  Shane shrugged. “Jack knows the property score over here, and how hard it is to get anything decent. As well as that, he already owns his apartment in London, and another house of his own back home. It’s nothing to him. The only risk he’s taking is that we might default on the mortgage repayments, and he knows that that won’t happen. McCann’s pay very well, and I’ll be due a salary increase every year, as well as bonuses. And of course, you have a secure job with Acorn Fidelity.”

  Karen was contemplative. This was very generous of Jack.

  “And how did he come up with this idea?” she asked.

  “He reckons this kind of thing happens a lot in England, except it’s usually the parents putting forward the family home as a guarantee for their children. It’ll have to start happening here soon too. Our generation can’t get adequate mortgages any other way.”

  “So you have it more or less worked out already?”

  Shane speared green beans onto his fork. “More or less. We just have to find a place first. It gives us a bit of headstart on everyone else, though, doesn’t it?” he grinned.

  “I’ll say. Shane this is brilliant, why didn’t you say anything about it before?”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t really sure what we were up against price-wise. But, after seeing that cubby hole of a place this morning, I knew we’d have to pay more than what the bank have offered us for anything even half-decent.”

  This was great news, Karen thought, finishing the remainder of her club sandwich. With Jack’s offer, they now had some leeway with regard to the price. They’d have to arrange to go over to London, and thank him properly. After all, he barely knew Karen, and here he was offering the deeds of his own house, lock, stock and barrel to them. Imagine Jack owning his own house in Meath and a London apartment – and he a single man, and only in his thirties. He must be loaded.

  “It’s almost two o clock,” Shane said eventually, pushing his plate away from him.

  “We’d better head on up to that mews and see what it’s like. Who knows,’ he said, winking at Karen, as he went to pay their bill, “it might just be house of our dreams.”

  “Far from it,” Karen said grumpily to Jenny at home afterwards. “The place was an absolute dive. We’d have to put the asking price and more back into it, to try and make it anyway liveable. It’s so depressing.”

  “It sounds tough,” Jenny said, regarding her friend thoughtfully. “Why don’t you start looking outside Terenure? It’s always been an expensive area. Maybe somewhere further from town might be better.”

  “Well, it’s not really the money that’s the problem, Jen –” Karen then told her about Jack’s offer, “we just want somewhere that’s a decent size, and needs nothing much doing to it. Honestly, Jen, I never imagined that finding a house would be so much hassle.”

  The intercom buzzer went and Jenny ran to answer it. “Hi,” she said breathlessly, and buzzed their visitor in.

  Karen rolled her eyes. “Lover boy, I take it?”

  She nodded. “I hope you don’t mind, Karen, but we’re watching a movie. Do you want to watch it with us?”

  Seconds later, Roan appeared at the top of the stairs with a video and a six- pack of Carlsberg, and behaved as if Karen wasn’t even in the room. Since the Venice trip, their truce had been broken, and swords were drawn once more.

  “I got the new Vin Diesel flick, Jen – it’s just out today and it’s supposed to be brilliant,” he said.

  “What? I thought you said you’d get Titantic. You know I’ve never seen it.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t sit watching that soppy crap for over three hours. Come on, that’s more of a chick flick, and you know what I’m like.” He gave a lopsided grin, and immediately Jenny relented.

  Yeah, we all know exactly what you’re like, Karen said sourly to herself. She had decided to go over to Shane’s but there was no way she was going anywhere now. It would annoy Roan if she stayed around and played gooseberry. She paid the rent, why should she make things all nice and easy for Mr Smooth?

  “Great. I love Vin Diesel,” Karen smiled sweetly at Roan, and eyed the off-licence bag. “Did you bring any beer for us?” As if.

  Roan grunted and said nothing, then flopped down on the sofa. He unlaced his boots and to Karen disgust, took them off and left them in the middle of the carpet.

  Jenny changed the television channel, and put the movie on before sitting down beside him.

  “Any chance of a beer before it starts, Jen?” Roan asked, leaning over and chuckling as he whispered something into her ear. Karen thought she had never met anyone who could be so unashamedly rude.

  Jenny jumped up from her seat. “Sure – Karen do you want anything?”

  Karen shook her head. “No thanks. But if I did want something, I’d get it myself.” She glared at Roan, and if he realised that she was making inferences about his behaviour, he said nothing.

  About half an hour into the film, Karen stood up to visit the bathroom. She was about to return to the living-room, when she caught the tail-end of a conversation Roan and Jenny were obviously having about her.

  “I just wish she’d go – then I could have you all to myself,” Roan was saying, none- too-quietly. “Why doesn’t she just move in with Quinn now? It would be better for all concerned.”

  “Roan, stop,” Jenny said, her voice low. “This is still her flat. She’s entitled to stay here for as long as she wants. We’ll just have to wait until she’s ready.”

  “You certainly will.” Karen exclaimed, bursting open the door, unable to contain her anger. How dare he talk about her like that behind her back?

  She glar
ed at Jenny, who looked from her to Roan and back again, not knowing what to say. "Why are you two plotting behind my back?”

  “Karen, calm down. We haven’t been plotting anything. It’s just … ” she faltered, not sure what to say to her angry friend.

  Roan brusquely finished the sentence for her. “Jen and I were planning on moving in together, and seeing as you’re getting a place of your own, we thought you might as well move out with Quinn, and let me move in here.” Clearly bored by it all, he turned back to the television, leaving Jenny to deal with the aftermath.

  Karen looked at the two of them in disbelief. “I can’t believe this, why didn’t you say something?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said uneasily, “but it’s not how it all sounds. I mean, the obvious solution is to have Roan move in here after you’re gone. I wouldn’t be able to manage the rent here on my own.”

  “Why didn’t you just say something then? Why all the secrecy?” Karen couldn’t help but be annoyed with her. Now Jenny was getting as bad as he was for sneaking around. If she and Roan were thinking along those lines why didn’t she just say so?

  “I didn’t want you to feel under any pressure to move out. And there isn’t any pressure,” Jenny said. She looked at Roan again for back-up. “Look, don’t mind him, we’re fine the way we are at the moment. We have every intention of waiting until you and Shane find a place to live. There’s no rush or anything, is there, Roan?” She nudged him hard.

  “No, there’s no rush,” Roan drawled sarcastically, without once taking his eyes off the television screen. “You just take as much time as you need.” Then he added under his breath, “You will anyway.”

  Jenny looked at him, horrified at his behaviour but unable to say anything.

  Karen was fit to be tied but sh stopped herself from saying anything, when she saw the horrified look on Jenny’s face. It wasn’t fair to Jenny. She took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself. “I’m going to bed,” she said instead, and picking up her slippers from the floor, Karen promptly marched out the door.