‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hi.’
She looked at him uncertainly as she sat down and apologised for being late. She explained about Conall Brophy and his protest, all the time expecting him to tell her to shut up about some man he’d never heard of and explain instead why she’d turned up uninvited at his father’s house.
Instead, his expression was concerned, and after she’d finished, he said he hoped that things would turn out all right for him.
‘To be honest, I can’t see how,’ said Sheridan. ‘He’s going to lose his house, he hasn’t got a job . . .’ She thought again of how panicked she’d felt when she’d lost her own job. And how devastated she’d been to have to leave the apartment, even though it was only a rental.
‘There are people who can give him advice,’ Joe said.
‘Hmm. Like retrain and learn new skills and all that sort of guff.’ Sheridan had temporarily forgotten her concern about her dinner with Joe as she thought of Conall’s situation. ‘Easy to say, not alway so easy to do. And when he did try to do something else, the job went to a friend of a friend instead.’
‘I can see how that would upset him,’ agreed Joe.
‘He was very distressed,’ Sheridan said. ‘And now his wife is worried that he’ll have a criminal record, which will prevent him from getting work in the future. It’s terrible,’ she added, ‘how one simple mistake can wreck your life . . .’ Her voice trailed off as she thought of her own mistake. Joe hadn’t referred to it yet. It was impossible that he didn’t know. Surely.
She glanced around the room and felt even more uncomfortable as she realised just how inappropriate her current garb of jeans (still a bit damp from the rain) and sweatshirt was. Almost all the other female diners had dressed up and were looking subtly sophisticated, while the men wore suits, or a least a jacket, like Joe. Nobody else looked like they’d just come in from a tramp around the hillside. She’d known the right thing to wear. Her sexy green dress would have been perfect. But right now she stuck out like a sore thumb.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Joe.
‘Just wishing I’d had time to go home and change first,’ she replied.
‘You’re fine the way you are,’ said Joe.
She smiled nervously. If he was trying to put her at her ease by telling her she looked OK when she knew that she absolutely didn’t, did that mean he was still unaware of her visit to his father’s house? She felt as though she were sitting on an unexploded bomb, expecting it to go off at any moment but not knowing when. Neither did she know if the bomb was ticking. Right now, he seemed far too relaxed to have a go at her, but how could she know what he was really thinking?
‘It’s good to see you,’ he added.
‘Have you been busy yourself?’ she asked. ‘You were away on business, weren’t you?’
‘Nightmare.’ He poured iced water from a jug already on the table into her glass. ‘Problems at the company I manage, issues with some overseas investors. Got it sorted eventually, but it’s not my favourite way of spending time.’
‘Were you abroad?’
‘Dubai,’ he said. ‘My father has some business interests there.’
Perhaps they hadn’t wanted to bother him while he was away, she thought, even as the mention of his father made her stomach churn. She took a sip of her water and steeled herself to confess.
Before she could speak, a waiter came over and asked if they were ready to order. Sheridan, who hadn’t managed to take in what was on the menu, looked at him blankly and Joe asked him to give them another few minutes.
‘Of course, Mr O’Malley,’ said the waiter. ‘Take as much time as you like.’
‘I think before we eat . . .’ She took another sip of the water. ‘Before we eat, we need to just . . . um . . . there’s something we need to talk about first.’
He leaned forward. ‘This isn’t anything to do with you thinking I’m married, is it?’ he asked.
‘No. No. Of course not.’
‘Whew.’ He relaxed again. ‘I was worried there for a moment.’
‘It’s nothing about you,’ she said hesitantly. ‘It’s . . . it’s . . .’
‘What? What’s the matter?’
‘I think . . . I think you might have a problem being here with me,’ she said. ‘You might decide that this is a big mistake.’
He continued to look at her, a puzzled expression on his face.
Then she told him, the words tumbling from her lips in a rush. About losing her job in Dublin and blaming Paudie, about her plans to write an in-depth piece about him, about going to March Manor and being mistaken for a taxi driver. As she spoke, his expression grew from puzzled to surprised, to slightly amused and finally grim.
‘So dinner with me tonight was what for you?’ he asked. ‘An opportunity to pump me for details about my family?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Of course not. You asked me and I came because I . . . I wanted to.’
‘But you knew I was Paudie’s son.’
‘Not when you asked me,’ Sheridan reminded him. ‘I thought you were Josh’s dad then. It was only when I went to the house that I realised who everyone was.’
‘What were you expecting when you did that?’ he asked. ‘That my dad would simply say yes to an interview? That he’d tell you all sorts of things he’s never told anyone else so that you could – what – make a name for yourself?’
‘I went to the house on impulse. I really had no idea what I planned to ask him.’
‘And how did you intend to publish whatever you finally wrote?’
‘I hadn’t decided. I just saw it as a way to get back into the mainstream press or perhaps build up a reputation as a freelance journalist. It’s bloody hard, you know, to get a foot in the door, even for someone like me who should know exactly how to open those doors. Everything I did before was sports related. I wanted to show that I could do something different. That I wasn’t a loser just because I was turfed out of the City Scope when your dad invested in it.’
The waiter returned, but Joe waved him away again.
‘Are you blaming my father for the fact that you lost your job?’ Joe sounded incredulous.
‘Well, he has this reputation, you know. Mr Slash-and-Burn, that’s what he’s called.’
‘Not by anyone close to him.’
‘He takes over businesses and gets rid of people,’ said Sheridan. ‘You can’t deny that.’
‘He invests in ailing businesses and turns them around, preserving jobs for most of the employees,’ Joe said.
‘But what about the jobs that aren’t saved? What about the people who’re thrown on the street? The ones he calls dead wood?’
‘It’s hard to lose your job, of course’ said Joe. ‘But everyone would lose their job in a failing company if it wasn’t for people like my father.’
‘Yet people like your dad make loads of money out of it,’ Sheridan reminded him. ‘You see it all the time, these so-called saviours coming in, firing people and then rewarding themselves with huge bonuses. Those bonuses could’ve kept staff working.’
‘You’re a right little socialist, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, please!’ She looked at him, suddenly annoyed. ‘I’m stating a fact. And it’s not that I think we should have a communist state set-up, but there are people who take too much on the back of the work of others, and they live great lives and don’t have a clue, not a clue, how bloody demoralising it is to send out a million CVs without even a reply, because they’re already cocooned in their luxury offices with jobs that pay them far too much in the first place.’
‘If that’s how you think about my father, I’m guessing you weren’t planning on writing anything very flattering about him,’ observed Joe.
‘I would have done a balanced piece.’
‘Nothing you’ve said to me has been very balanced.’
‘You don’t understand!’ she cried. ‘I’ve seen your father’s house. I’ve seen how you live. Your famil
y has it all. But tonight I met someone who was driven to total despair over his unemployment situation. He nearly burned down the school, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Are you trying to blame my dad for that too?’ asked Joe.
‘No. No. And I know he’s not exactly responsible for me ending up in a place like Ardbawn either . . .’
‘A place like Ardbawn?’ Joe looked at her wryly. ‘You mean a backwater like Ardbawn? Somewhere that doesn’t value your investigative skills? Your passion for a story?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Sheridan. ‘I meant . . . Oh, look, it’s just I had plans, you know? Dreams about what I wanted from my life, from my career. And somehow your father has scuppered them.’
‘So you’re out to scupper him, is that it?’ asked Joe when she lapsed into silence.
‘I thought I could . . . oh, I don’t know, upset him a bit. Let him know how it feels.’ Sheridan pushed a stray lock of hair from her face. ‘I realise that makes me sound completely bonkers. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were and that I agreed to meet you for dinner. I’m particularly sorry I barged into your home last Saturday. But I’m not sorry I was thinking of doing a story, because that’s my job and that’s what I do, and even though I prefer my stuff to be about sports stars not businessmen, I’m proud of it.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Joe.
‘And I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch with you and tell you about what happened. I thought you would’ve heard from your brother and sister already about me. I didn’t honestly believe you’d be here tonight. I should’ve texted you and cancelled. It would have been better. As it is . . .’ she stood up, ‘I think I should go.’
‘Sheridan . . .’ He didn’t finish the sentence.
She had to go before she burst into tears. It was one thing having a private sniffle, but she never, ever cried in front of other people. Least of all men. That was a total sign of weakness. She picked up her bag and took a deep breath.
‘Goodbye,’ she said.
He looked at her thoughtfully and then spoke in a calm, measured voice.
‘Goodbye,’ he said.
She was sure she could hear a trace of anger behind the calm. She couldn’t blame him for being angry with her. She was angry with herself too.
He hadn’t stopped her. Sheridan realised, after she’d left the hotel, that a part of her had half hoped that he would come running after her and tell her that everything was fine, that he understood how she felt, that it didn’t matter, he loved her anyway. Which might have worked well in the romantic movies she enjoyed watching from time to time, but it never actually happened in real life. In real life what happened was that you got outside and realised that it was now bucketing down with rain, and that in the few seconds it took to get to your car, your hair was getting plastered to your head and your trainers weren’t heavy enough to keep out the deluge.
She was aware, as she sat in the Beetle, that she hadn’t handled events particularly well. She leaned her head on the steering wheel and asked herself why things never turned out the way she wanted, what it was that seemed to mess up her best-laid plans and left her feeling hopelessly inadequate. When she’d first got the job at the City Scope, she’d thought that she was travelling a new path; a successful one that would make her parents proud of her. Now she realised that it had only been a diversion, that getting things wrong was her default mode and that Pat and Alice would always regard her as the child they had to worry about.
It took nearly ten minutes before she felt composed enough to start the engine and pull out on to the road. There was very little traffic moving through the town now, the rain clearly having persuaded people to stay indoors. She wondered if it would be worthwhile driving to Kilkenny again to see how things were turning out for Conall and Lorraine Brophy, but she didn’t want to piss off Vinnie Murray. She supposed that proper journalists never cared about pissing people off, but she did. Whenever she interviewed sports stars, she was always polite and understanding, even when she was asking them questions they didn’t especially want to answer. (Matt had once told her that she lacked a killer instinct, that she didn’t go for the jugular or kick a man when he was down. Sheridan couldn’t understand why anyone would want to.)
Her phone rang just as she pulled up outside the studio. For the briefest of moments she hoped it was Joe, but in fact it was Vinnie Murray, who told her that Conall had been released on bail and that he and his wife had gone home.
‘How is he?’ asked Sheridan.
‘A bit calmer,’ Vinnie replied. ‘I think he realises that he hasn’t made things any easier by his actions.’
‘I’m glad he’s out of prison, though.’
The superintendent sounded amused. ‘He was never in prison, love. Just in the station. He’ll probably get probation anyway. Don’t worry about him.’
‘I’m not worried,’ said Sheridan. ‘I just . . . Oh, well, thanks for ringing.’
She changed out of her jeans and tidied her hair before putting on her jacket again and picking up her laptop. She wanted to go up to the house and check the Central News website for the story. Given that she’d messed up her personal life, she might as well devote all her energies to her career, no matter how far down the toilet it appeared to be. Besides, she was sure that Nina would be interested in first-hand gossip too!
Nina was surprised to see her and even more surprised when she heard about the incident at the school.
‘I don’t know Conall,’ she said as she led Sheridan into the lounge. ‘I don’t know many people from the Bawnbeg Estate. In my mind they’re all newcomers, which is silly, because the estate was built more than ten years ago. But you know what it’s like, you remember places how they were when you were younger. New houses, new buildings are always new to you.’
‘You certainly can’t say that about your house,’ said Sheridan. ‘It must be fifty years old.’
‘More than that,’ said Nina. ‘My grandparents built it.’
‘The stories these walls could tell, eh?’
‘Yes.’ Nina’s eyes had a faraway expression and it was a moment or two before she realised Sheridan was standing looking at her.
‘Would you like some tea while you’re working?’ she asked.
Sheridan was suddenly starving. Maybe I’m the sort of person who eats when they’re miserable, she thought. She wanted to ask Nina for some biscuits to go with the tea, but decided the other woman might think she was being rude. So she just said yes to the hot drink.
After Nina had gone into the kitchen, Sheridan opened the laptop. The Central News was her browser’s home screen now, and the front-page story had one of the grainy photos she’d taken with her phone and the caption ‘Stand off at St Raphaela’s’ as the headline.
DJ had done a good job, she thought, noting that he’d put in every bit of the information she’d given him, spelling the names of people she’d talked to correctly, giving snippets of information about them. He’d also discovered the names of Conall’s previous employers and had got quotes from two of them, both saying that Conall was a hardworking man and easy to get on with, and that they’d been sorry to let him go. There was some background information on the bank manager and his wife as well, although DJ hadn’t said anything about bastard bankers.
Sheridan surfed the websites of the national media and read their versions of the event, some of which were clearly just cut-and-paste jobs. She remembered that there had been a reporter from the TV news at the school and she hoped that Nina would allow her to stay in the lounge and wait for the late-night news bulletin to see if they covered it.
‘No problem at all,’ said Nina a few minutes later when she returned with a tray, which she set down on the coffee table. ‘I know it’s prurient interest, but I want to see it too.’ She poured a cup of tea and handed it to Sheridan. ‘Would you like a cupcake? I baked a lot today because I’ve got guests arriving tomorrow.’
‘I can’t eat your guests�
� cake,’ protested Sheridan, even as she hungrily eyed the selection of delicate cupcakes on the tray.
‘I made plenty. Don’t worry.’
‘I should stay away from cake, though. A minute on the lips and all that sort of thing.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Nina. ‘You’ve a great figure.’
Sheridan looked startled.
‘Seriously,’ said Nina. ‘You have. When Chrissie was younger she went through a phase of being totally self-conscious about her body shape. Thankfully it didn’t evolve into full-blown anorexia, but she went on diet after ridiculous diet where she spent her time measuring out the quantities of food she could put on her plate and knew the calorie count of just about every morsel that went into her mouth. She lost nearly two stone in weight and it wasn’t one bit good for her. This obsession girls have with looking skinny and boyish is ridiculous. Curves are so much nicer.’
‘I’m sure that’s not what most people think,’ said Sheridan. ‘But thank you for saying so.’
‘We all want to be something we aren’t,’ observed Nina. ‘We all think someone else’s body is more desirable than our own.’
Sheridan nodded slowly. Nina was right.
‘I’ve always wanted to be tall and willowy,’ said Nina. ‘Or maybe blonde and fragile.’ There was a sudden cynicism in her tone that startled Sheridan.
‘I don’t see you as blonde and fragile,’ she said. ‘It’s not you.’
Nina shrugged. ‘Do we act a certain way because of how we look? Or do we try to fit our looks to the way we are?’
‘Interesting question.’ Sheridan bit into a melt-in-the-mouth cupcake. ‘Truth is, even if I was willowy and fragile to begin with, it’d all go horribly wrong for me. Because I can’t resist my food.’
‘Good,’ said Nina. ‘You must have dinner with me again soon.’
‘That’d be nice,’ agreed Sheridan. ‘Oh – the news!’
Better Together Page 29
