“No.”
“Tattoos then?”
“Daddy!”
“And what’s going to happen once you go back to the States?” My poor mother was clearly torn between the idea of me settling down with a nice young man and the thought that the Black Sheep might come back and be under her feet for good.
“Well, actually, he’s going to go back with me!” I announced.
“And marry you? Oh thank the Lord!” Mam beamed. The perfect solution.
And I wasn’t even lying. Okay, maybe the marriage bit was a tad premature but the rest was true. Oliver Conlon was going to join me in America, and not on some temporary secondment, but a full-time transfer. The triumphant return to New York was working out far better than I ever could have imagined. If everything went according to plan and he got the promotion he was hoping for before Christmas, it would be better again.
Just then my phone rang.
“Oh!” I couldn’t help my surprise at the fact that Oliver’s number was flashing on my phone. “That’s actually him now. I’ll take this outside.”
“Hi, this is a nice surprise!” I said happily, as soon as I was out of earshot.
And it was a surprise. I’d been adamant from the start that the relationship be kept a secret as the last thing I wanted was another in-house romance on my CV. As a result we never phoned each other on impulse.
“Look, Holly, I had to let you know –”
“Sorry? Speak up – I can barely hear you!”
“Holly, will you just listen!” he hissed. “You won’t be coming with me to Baron’s on Monday.”
“Oh. Okay. Why not?”
“It’s Catherine. She’s going to want to see you first thing instead.”
“Oh,” I said again, shrugging. “Well, it’s not like I didn’t see that coming.”
“Holly, I’m serious. It’s serious.”
“How serious? What’s she going to do? Take me off the job?” I laughed.
There was silence.
“She can’t do that, Oliver! And let that little twerp win? No way. She can’t – can she?”
“Look, I probably shouldn’t have said anything. I have to go.”
“What do you mean you shouldn’t have said anything? Of course you should have! You’re being crazy. I’ll be back at the apartment in a couple of hours – come over then and tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t. Not tonight.”
“Well, in the morning then.”
“I can’t. I’m – I’m away until Monday – look, I have to go.”
“Fine, suit yourself,” I said sulkily. Then it hit me, “Where did you hear all this anyway?”
But he was gone, leaving me with a silent phone and the start of an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. The nightmare of the last time I’d been summoned to a manager’s office was suddenly all too clear in my memory.
I rejoined my parents who were now at the dinner table.
“Now eat every bit of that – you’re starting to fade away!” My mother handed me what could only be describedas the largest plate of Irish Dinner I’d ever seen. Mountains of mashed potato soared over a huge slab of roast beef, swimming in gravy and, ugh, mushy peas . . .
And then, just as I thought things couldn’t get any worse, she looked at me, fork in mid-air, and said, “Holly, I really wish you’d stop dying your lovely red hair – that awful blonde makes it look like straw!”
Chapter 3
“Back to New York? This Friday?”
I’d been gazing through the floor-to-ceiling window at the view out over Dublin Bay, waiting for my telling-off to finish. But with these words my eyes flew to the well-dressed woman sitting in front of me.
“Yes, well, they need you for next Monday.” Catherine Taylor thought for a minute. “But you probably have a few things to finish up here so Friday seems the earliest you could go really.”
“I’m not suggesting going earlier!” I almost laughed, “I’m still trying to figure out why I have to go at all!”
“Look, Holly,” Catherine said patiently, “we’ve been over this. I’ve explained the dilemma I have and really this is the best solution I can come up with.”
“It’s a ridiculous solution!” I burst out. “In fact, it’s not a solution at all. It’s . . .” I struggled to find the right words, but they wouldn’t come. “It’s just ridiculous,” I finished lamely.
“Be that as it may, that’s the way it will have to be.”
I looked across the table at her. Only a couple of years older than me, Catherine Taylor’s position in the company was one I envied. A senior manager at Grantham Sparks Dublin Office was only one step from partner, and for a woman to have achieved this by her early thirties was nothing short of a miracle. Not that she looked young enough to be in her early thirties, to be frank. No, Catherine Taylor was blessed with the kind of timeless looks that were a great asset in your forties but deemed a disadvantage any earlier. However, her career success couldn’t be disputed. The downside was that she wasn’t viewed with much affection by her colleagues. Especially those she’d passed out on the way up. But, to be honest, the fact that her unpopularity didn’t seem to bother her just made me admire her that little bit more.
However, in this instance, she’d got it very, very wrong.
“You can’t punish me for doing my job! For doing my job properly!”
“I’d like you to stop looking on this as a punishment! Look, Holly, you may not have noticed but Ireland – Dublin – is in the mire at the moment. If one of my main clients threatens to leave unless a member of the team is replaced, my hands are tied! My biggest problem is that I’ve no other assignment to give you. Tuscon Construction and Cherryfield Developments have gone into receivership and God knows who else is heading that way. I’m really sorry, Holly, but I have no choice. I can’t lose anymore clients. New York only set up the Dublin office because of the Celtic Tiger – they could close us just as quick and then none of us would have a job.”
I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. Since Oliver’s call on Saturday night I’d braced myself for the mother of all rows this morning, but nothing could have prepared me for this. The fact that Catherine was being calm and measured instead of just hauling me over the coals and screeching at me, actually made the situation far, far worse.
I sat there, shaking my head.
“Holly, let me assure you of something.” She tried again to get through to me. “I don’t like Ger Baron any more than you do. I certainly don’t like getting irate telephone calls from him at nine thirty on a Friday night, so if it’s any consolation I’ve been filled in on the issues you had with him and I’ll be personally following every one of them up. I’ll just be using more,” she sighed, “how should I put this – diplomatic methods.”
“I still think I’m being penalised.” My initial shock had now turned to anger.
“I know it looks like that. And yes, your methods have caused us to clash more than once in the past few months. But of course I know how good you are at your job. And let me assure you, two years ago this wouldn’t be happening. We’d have been able to tell Ger Baron to take his pubs and his gravel and get lost. But I can’t do that now.”
It was clear that nothing I could say was going to change her mind, not when she’d gone as far as ringing New York and arranging a project for me to start on the following Monday.
All I could do was summon up whatever dignity I had left, shake her hand and leave her office.
Once outside the door, my resolve started to slip.
I had three days left in Dublin.
Three days left with Oliver.
Oliver!
I scrambled for my phone.
“Look, it’s not as bad as it seems,” Oliver said, tryingto console me as he sat opposite me in a crowded coffee shop in Dawson Street.
“It’s worse!” I mumbled, my head in my hands.
“How is it? You were heading back soon anyway.”
<
br /> I looked through my fingers. “I had six weeks. We had six weeks. Now we have three days!” I groaned and put my hands over my eyes again.
“Look, it doesn’t change anything – I’ll be there before you know it.”
I looked up. “When?”
“When what?”
“When will you be there?”
“Well, when we’d planned, after the promotions.”
“What if you don’t get promoted?”
“Oh, I will,” Oliver said confidently, and then laughed. “Especially now that my maverick sidekick has been evicted from the country!”
“For God’s sake, Oliver, there’s no need to sound so relieved about it!” I wailed.
“Oh relax, I’m not relieved, honestly I’m not.I’m going to miss you like crazy.” He stole a furtive glance around then leaned over the table. “I hope you have Skype in that lonely New York apartment.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “And you’ll definitely come out at Christmas?”
“I will definitely come out as soon as I can.”
“That’s not what I said!”
“Oh come on, Holly, think of how good it’ll be for us if I’m manager before I arrive. Think of how good it’ll be for you. I’m no one as I am now – it would be career suicide if I transferred as a team leader. What difference does a few weeks make anyway? We have the rest of our lives to make it up.”
He had a point. In the bigger scheme of things, my having to return a bit earlier than planned really wasn’t the end of the world. The problem was that, despite Catherine’s reassurances, it still felt like I was going home to New York under a cloud, which was the very thing I didn’t want. For this reason I hadn’t even told my parents yet. My mother would wring her hands and then buy up every penny candle she could find in the church, whereas Dad would probably laugh. I was dreading the conversation so much I was even toying with the idea of not telling them at all.
I sighed again.
At this, Oliver put his hand on mine and, looking at me with the big brown eyes that still had the power to melt my heart, he said softly, “Trust me. It will be okay. I promise.”
“Soyou’re heading back tomorrow?”
Another colleague, the same question. These Going Away drinks were starting to seem like a bad idea.
“Yes.” I smiled through gritted teeth for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“Wow, that’s earlier than you thought!”
‘Tell me something I don’t know!’ I felt like saying, but instead I smiled the when-you’re-good-you’re-good smile I’d been practising all day saying, “Oh, you know how it is when Head Office calls . . .”
I looked around. The drinks had been Oliver’s suggestion, a solution to my fear that people would think I was slinking back to New York with my tail between my legs. In a way I was grateful that he realised how important this was to me. But, given that I hadn’t made that many friends while I was in Ireland, I worried that it would be just me and him – but he’d assured me that no one would pass up the chance of after-work drinks. Especially after-work drinks on a Thursday as it heralded the unofficial start to most people’s weekends.
And he’d been right. The bar was full. Hordes of slick city types were crammed together like penguins at feeding time, ties and tongues loosened.
“It wasn’t the same without you today.” Seán squeezed his way in beside me.
“Ah thanks, but I’m sure Ger Baron didn’t miss me.” Being resigned to my early return didn’t mean I still wasn’t bitter as hell about the reason behind it.
“Oh, I don’t know, I think he was as bored as I was.”
Seán looked so doleful that I laughed.
“Well, you’ll just have to provide the entertainment instead! Where’s Oliver?”
“On his way. I have to get the drinks in. What’ll you have?”
“I’m fine at the moment.” I gestured to my still full glass of white wine.
I was glad that Grantham Sparks had an area reserved. From my perch on a much-coveted high stool I had a clear vantage point over the crowded bar. I looked eagerly for Oliver. Maybe tonight was the night I’d throw caution to the wind and plant a big kiss on his lips in front of the whole company . . .
That would definitely ensure that I’d go out with a bang.
Hugging this new plan to myself, I sat contentedly with my drink, listening to the idle chatter that was going on around me.
It was the mention of Oliver’s name that caught my attention. I looked around, wondering if he’d come in without my noticing. But still I couldn’t see him. I listened more intently.
“Oliver Conlon? With her? That can’t be true?”
I froze.
“It absolutely is. Don’t ask me how no one spotted it before now.”
Fuck!
“Well, you’d be waiting a long time to get any personal information out of Oliver – he never tells anyone anything.”
“Well, he’d hardly be boasting about being with that grumpy cow anyway. I mean, would you?”
Eh, hello? I’m sitting right beside you?
I half-turned but the two girls who were talking had their backs to me. I turned back quickly. I was strangely excited that our secret was out, but also curious as to how we’d been caught.
“Ah, that couldn’t be true!”
Oh, yes, it is!
“It is! I saw them with my own eyes!”
No way! We’d been so careful!
At that moment I saw Oliver approach and, smiling, I put my finger on my lips. Raising an eyebrow, he stopped.
“When?”
Yes, when?
“Saturday night, in Galway of all places, all over each other they were!”
Liar! I’d been in Celbridge on Saturday night, with my parents and that bloody big dinner.
I shook my head in puzzled amusement at Oliver who moved closer, leaning in to listen.
As he did there was a shriek of laughter.
“Oh. My. God! Oliver Conlon and Catherine Taylor? On a dirty weekend in Galway. That is just too good!”
I looked at Oliver as the blood drained from his face.
And at that exact moment, my glass hit the ground.
Chapter 4
And then it was morning. When I first woke, I lay still for a minute before opening my eyes, as if all my other senses were running through a system scan, assessing how bad things actually were.
It didn’t take long to confirm that things were pretty bad.
The absence of a warm body in the bed with me, coupled with the fact that I was lying still fully dressed on top of my bedclothes, frozen into the rigor mortis of the devastated, meant that the first feeling to hit me was the cold.
And that was followed swiftly by the silence. No squawking alarm in my ear, prodding me to get up for work. Because there was no work to go to today.
Just a flight to catch.
And still I lay, eyes closed, letting the events of the evening before wash over me.
Oliver and Catherine, and I hadn’t suspected a thing.
I mean, Catherine Taylor? It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so awful. Okay, so she wasn’tthat much older than me but, seriously, she was a senior manager. Where did she even get the time? And what in God’s name did he see in her? I mean, she was good-looking in a career-driven-accountant kind of way, I’m sure she worked out and she could certainly afford killer clothes, but well, I couldn’t imagine her letting her hair down enough to –
Stop, this is getting you nowhere!
Every limb cold and aching, I dragged myself over to the window and looked down onto the road below.
His car was gone.
Oh yes, Oliver had followed me home. When I’d run from the pub he’dsprinted after me but, despite my being blinded by tears, I was in a taxi before he’d managed to catch up. But not long after I’d arrived back at the apartment, he was buzzing the door. When I’d refused to answer, he’d sat in his car outside my window
, and bombarded me with call, after call, after call.
I picked my phone up from the window ledge. Eighteen missed calls. There’d only been twelve when I left it there, tired of alternating between watching it flash and watching the car below, knowing that in it hewas ringing me.
That bloody car.
I would never be able to see a black Audi again without associating it with Oliver Conlon. That car meant so much to him. I think, to him, it was a symbol of how far he’d come. It distinguished him from the old school pals that he still played five-a-side soccer with twice a week. It was the one thing he said he would miss when he moved with me to America.
That bloody car.
The night it had all started, we’d been on a job in Finglas and, boy, had we had a bad altercation that day! As always it had been his fault.
On my arrival in Dublin it had quickly become apparent that, for whatever reason, Oliver Conlon felt threatened by my presence. Not that I ever did anything to help my situation: I contradicted him at meetings, ignored the majority of his directions and met every disdainful remark with something equally assured and cutting.
Looking back, it has to have been uncomfortable viewing for the rest of the team. Had I not worked twice as hard and twice as efficiently as everyone else, I’m sure he would have had me shipped back to the States after that first fortnight.
And that fateful day was a particularly good example. We’d been working on site with a large building company, Sunrise Developments, and to my disgust Oliver assigned me the Fixed Assets section.
Allow me to explain: Fixed Assets was for Juniors – it was tailor-made for them. You assigned a Junior to Fixed Assets and came back to them in two weeks only to check that they were still breathing. They worked on drafting up schedules, verified that the chairs they were sitting on did actually exist and that any additions to last year’s file could be vouched to invoices. A Junior with a bit of initiative might actually check a few lease agreements, but most left these to those higher up the ladder working on Creditors.
Between You and Me Page 3
