Two Months Later
“Have you packed the nappies?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And the baby wipes?”
“Yes.”
“I need them back here a minute,” I said. “She’s done a right messy one.”
I stood looking around Eva’s nursery, which we had just finished decorating. We had moved into a three-bedroom house with a little garden in Hampstead, belonging to Geoff, just two weeks before. We didn’t know ourselves with the extra space and we were still so central to everything. We had set about decorating Eva’s nursery first. Ben had ripped up the old carpet and sanded down the floorboards. We painted the walls a lovely biscuit colour and Ben had stencilled a clown print all along the top border of the room. A polished mahogany cot stood in the centre of the room with a mobile of colourful circus animals hanging above it. I was really happy with how it had turned out.
I changed Eva again and bundled her into her snowsuit before handing her to Ben. He strapped her into her car seat while I ran around checking and double-checking that we hadn’t forgotten anything. Nappies, wipes, clothes, cream, cloths . . .
“Come on, we don’t want to be late,” Ben pressed.
“Right, okay,” I sighed. It still amazed me how long it took to leave the house with Eva in tow. “I think that’s everything. Oh crap, did you put the buggy in – it’s in the utility room?”
“Don’t worry, it’s in the boot.”
“Right,” I said, “we’d better go.” I grabbed my down jacket off the coat-stand and put my arms into it. I wrapped my lambswool scarf double around my neck.
We went outside and Ben clicked Eva’s car seat into the back and I got into the front seat. It was a cold November morning and I could see my breath on the air in front of me. Ben had had to de-ice the windscreen and the puddles were covered with a lid of ice begging to be jumped on. He started the car and we set off.
We hit the rush-hour gridlock and, as we sat there, my eyes kept checking the clock in case we were going to be late. Finally, the traffic moved on and we reached the airport. We parked the car and hurried in to the Arrivals hall to wait for them.
“Can you see them?” I asked Ben as I scanned the crowd of people. He was taller than me so had the advantage when it came to things like this.
“No sign of them yet anyway – they’re probably stuck in baggage reclaim – you know how slow it can be.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I said nervously.
“Kate – just relax. It’s all going to be fine.” He put his arm around my shoulder. He had Eva in her sling and her little head was cuddled in against his chest as she dozed. It was at times like this when I looked at the two of them together, the two people that I loved most in the whole world, that I felt my heart surge with happiness. I leant over and kissed her downy hair. I would lay my life on the line for her.
Finally I spotted them coming through the crowd, wheeling their cases behind them.
“Dad, Aoife, over here!”
They were coming to meet Baby Eva for the first time. Gran was going to stay with Patrick and Luisa for the weekend. They picked us out amongst the sea of faces and waved. I ran over towards them, ready to start this new chapter with my family.
Look at you there, doing great – you’re a natural at it, Kate. You’ve taken to motherhood like a duck to water. I knew you would though. Yourself and Ben are doing a great job. Sure you don’t need me at all – I would only be in your way. You got a good one there, Kate, let me tell you – she’s a dream baby. And, my goodness, she’s a little beauty, isn’t she? She looks just like you at that age. Oh, and I love the name! Enjoy those newborn cuddles, there is nothing quite like them. They don’t be long growing up and, before you know it, you’ll have a head-banging two-year-old on your hands. I’m glad you’ve made up with your dad and you’re working on getting to know Aoife too – you don’t know how happy this makes me. You of all people know that sometimes life can be unfair, Kate, but you’ve picked yourself up and I’m so proud of the way you’ve turned out and the woman that you’ve grown into today.
THE END
If you enjoyed
The Last Goodbye by Caroline Finnerty
why not try
In a Moment also published
by Poolbeg?
Here’s a sneak preview of the prologue
and chapters one and two.
In a Moment Prologue
She felt her knees buckle beneath her and she reached out to grab onto the post of the staircase. She used it to guide herself downwards so that she was sitting on the bottom step. Just as she thought she might be starting to heal, taking tentative steps forward, this had come and knocked her off balance again. She wasn’t expecting it – it was like a below-the-belt punch coming at her, leaving her reeling in its wake. She needed to see his face, as if somehow by looking at him it would confirm that he had been a real person. She ran upstairs and into her bedroom. Pulling out the drawer of her bedside table, she reached for his photo.
In a Moment Chapter 1
Winter, 2010
The lift doors separated and Adam White stepped out into the bright reception of Parker & Associates. As he walked across the high-glaze cream travertine tiles he was almost overpowered by the scent emanating from the two extravagant conical vases standing on either side of the reception desk. They were brimming with fresh metre-high arrangements of snapdragons, burnt-orange birds of paradise and fuchsia-toned orchids. The area was minimally furnished with only a simple Scandinavian-style bench, which was more for show than functionality.
Parker & Associates was a young firm of business analysts located just off the Grand Canal on the south side of Dublin City. Their ultra-modern headquarters took over the entire topfloor of the building and consisted of floor-to-ceiling glazed offices surrounding a central roof garden. Depending on which end of the office you went to, the view extended all the way up to Howth Head on the northside of the city or down to Killiney Hill on the southside.
By the time Adam had grabbed himself a coffee, sat at his desk and switched on his PC, his rising in the small hours of the morning seemed like eons ago. He rubbed his eyes for the umpteenth time. He felt fuzzy with tiredness, he found it hard even to think straight, his reactions were slow and his whole body felt heavy as if he was lugging two huge suitcases on either side of him whenever he walked. As he tried to concentrate on a spreadsheet on the screen in front of him, the rows seemed to merge together.
Although it was eight thirty, it was very early by Parker’s standards and the office was still largely empty. On any given day the majority of people wouldn’t arrive in until nine at the earliest but normally on Friday people didn’t show their faces until much later after the ritual of Thursday-night drinks. Fridays were a write-off as far as work was concerned; it was generally accepted that you did only the bare minimum to get by and then spent Monday to Thursday making up for it. The company prided itself on its ‘relaxed and casual’ culture. The open-plan office was decorated with leafy, tropical foliage and beanbags were interspersed randomly to help soften the corporate feel. Croissants and pastries were delivered fresh from the local bakery every morning and there were always baskets scattered arbitrarily around the place, brimming with sweets and chocolate. Employees were also welcome to help themselves to the fully stocked fridge which was laden with ice-cream and softdrinks. It was lamented by all who worked there that once you joined Parker & Associates, there was no avoiding gaining the ‘Parker-stone’.
A while laterAdam’s colleagues started arriving in. He greeted them and watched as one by one they dropped their bags at their desks before heading straight to the staff room for a pecan-nut pie, the only pastry deemed suitable for the hangover of Fridays.
Emma made her way with slow footsteps down the grey vinyled corridor. As she walked, she couldn’t help but think what a contagious shade of grey it was; it wasn’t the soft dove-grey of a cashmere sweater or the inky grey of a storm
cloud before it burst – it was that awful shade of grey that sucked the life out of you just from merely looking at it. As she rounded the corner, she could hear the high-pitched screeches coming from behind the canteen door. Well, ‘canteen’ was probably stretching it – it was a room barely six metres square. The floor was covered with worn lino and it was sparsely furnished with a Formica table, six red shiny plastic-backed chairs, a cork noticeboard and a dire fridge where, no matter how many group emails were sent warning users to discard their foods after their best-before date, noone ever seemed to lay claim to the mouldy ham.
You could almost tell the day of the week it was by the roars thatfiltered out into the corridor. Fridays were full of raucous laughter; Mondays were a more sombre, almost silent affair.
Emma pushed open the door and glanced around at the usual posse of girls sitting at the table scattered with takeaway sandwich-wrappers and foil crisp-bags. The roars from two seconds earlier disappeared almost like someone had twisted a volume-switch on the whole room. Nothing new there, she thought to herself. She was used to having this effect on people recently. The stench from some rice-and-ham dish that Dan from IT was reheating in the microwave almost made her gag.
“Hiya, Emma. Busy?” Helen the receptionist chimed, in an overly cheery voice.
“Y’know yourself, kept going.”
Helen nodded. “Tell me about it.”
What would you know about being busy unless it’s trying to stick your gel nail back on and answer the phone at the same time?
“That won’t keep you going!” Helen nodded to the teabag that Emma wastaking out of the jar above the microwave.
“I’m not hungry just now, I’ll grab something later.”
Emma knew her tone sounded defensive, but she felt self-conscious in front of the group about her lack of lunch – but she just couldn’t stomach anything right now. She turned away from Helen and her cronies and as soon as the kettle had boiled she busied herself by pouring boiling water onto her teabag.
Helen turned back around to her gang and proceeded to moan about how her bridesmaid had put on weight since the last dress fitting and that now she would have to get the dress altered for her. Her audience tutted in sympathy and agreed that her friend had some cheek to gain a few pounds. One of them even added that if she were a real friend she would at least offer to do the cabbage-soup diet to fit back into the dress. Emma wasn’t included in the conversation, nor did she want to be.
Emma worked on the creative team for A1 Adverts but A1 Adverts was not your typical glamorous advertising agency residing in beautiful glazed offices with a sea view and bountiful budgets. Rather A1 specialised in bright and zingy ‘can’t get it out of your head’ type adverts for their clients. A1’s specialty was the discount market; they didn’t do the high-end adverts that won awards. How she would love to work on campaigns such as those! A1’s customers were discount furniture stores, tile shops, budget airlines and basically anyone in the business of discount retailing in Ireland. All their adverts were the same: flashing bubble-text on a neon-coloured background and always backed with shouty voices. In fairness to A1 Adverts, it was a model that worked; they were cheaper than their competitors and they were tailored to that end of the market. But it was a long, long way from the glossy editorials with their subtle imaging that she had spent so much time analysing in college. Emma was a ‘campaign developer’ – in other words, she had to come up with new ideas for their clients’ adverts.
She went back, sat at her desk and sighed wearily as she scrolled down to the next red-flagged email from her overflowing inbox. No matter how hard she tried, she never seemed to be able to get on top of the work that was piling up around her. At the moment she was working on a pitch for a company called Sofa World whichhad asked Dublin’s top advertising agencies to come up with a tagline for their Christmas campaign. Oh, she was a long way from Chanel adverts starring Keira Knightley! It was very late for launching a Christmas campaign. A1 suspected Sofa World had rejected other advertisers' efforts before turning to them at the last minute.
Moments later, Emma’s boss Maureen Hanley popped her head around the screen of her cubicle. Her frizzy hair was tied back with a scrunchy in a manner that made Emma wonder if the woman even possessed a hairbrush.
“Hi, Emma – can you come in for a chat in five?”
Emma felt herself redden as if Maureen could read her mind about what she had just been thinking. “Sure.”
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing major,” Maureen added, obviously noticing Emma’s red face.
Emma hated her high colouring; it always betrayed her innermost feelings. At the drop of a hat her cheeks would go red for almost any reason: embarrassment, frustration, alcohol, spicy food, and God forbid she should try to tell a lie. Emma just had to acceptit was part and parcel of the rawdeal of having fair skin.
She watched as Maureen walked back to her office in her black pencil-leg trousers that didn’t quite meet her court shoes and revealed her white cotton socks. On top she wore a brown tweed blazer buttoned entirely up to the top so that it was puckered across her large bust; she’d had that blazer ever since Emma had started working there seven years ago and Emma imagined she had probably had it at least seven years before that. Maureen was a harmless enough sort of woman – well, as much as a boss can be harmless. She had never married; she’d been too busy sacrificing her life for A1 Adverts. The woman lived and breathed A1, so Emma suspected that the only reason she wanted a meeting was probably because she wanted her to jump up and down about the chance to pitch to Sofa World. But Emma would not be doing any jumping.
Five minutes later Emma grabbed her A4 refill pad so she could scribble down any ideas that would be thrown at her and walked back down the life-sucking, grey-vinyled corridor towardsMaureen’s office. She knocked on her door and let herself in. Maureen looked up from her computer, almost in confusion.
Don’t tell me she doesn’t remember asking me to come in five minutes ago?
“Oh yes, of course, Emma – come in and sit down.” She let out a heavy sigh as sheset about clearing bundles of paper and mugs with coffee stains running down the sides off the messy desk in front of her.
Emma did as she was told and sat opposite her.
Emma cut to the chase. “Did you see the email from Sofa World?”
“What?” Maureen was distracted. “Oh yes, I saw that. You might draftsomething up and send it on and we can sit down then and have a look, yes?”
Emma was taken aback. What did Maureen want her for if not that?
“Well, Emma . . .” Maureen paused.
Well, Maureen. Emma felt she should say something but Maureen’s tone told her it wasn’t her place to speak.
“Well . . . God, Emma I’m not sure how to broach this . . .” She breathed indeeply through her nostrils, so that they flared slightly. “Well, it’s just I’ve noticed you’ve been putting in a lot of hours here lately. Some of the times on your emails have me worried – eleven p.m., midnight – there was even one at two a.m. last week! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all too happy for people to show their commitment to A1 Adverts but well . . .” She hesitated. “Just with everything going on, I’m a bit worried about you, that’s all.” She was starting to get flustered. “What I’m trying to say is – and I’m not doing a very good job of it – I know you’re a good worker, I’ve never had a problem with your work. I just want you to make sure you’re looking after yourself? That’s all.”
Emma was stunned; she wasn’t used to such public displays of concern from Maureen. She instantly felt the heat creep into her cheeks. I don’t want to talk about this.
“I’m okay, Maureen,” she said coolly so that Maureen would know it wasn’t adiscussion she wished to get into.
“Well, that’s good then,” Maureen added nervously. “It’s just, you’re not long back and well . . . well, I think you should ease yourself in a bit, that’s all.”
Emma shifted in her seat and the d
iscomfort between the two was palpable.
“Okay, so you’ll send me on your proposal for Sofa World then?” Maureen said in an obvious decision to change the subject.
“I’ll have something for you by Monday afternoon,” Emma replied curtly.
“Great, so.”
“Right, if that’s all?”
Maureen gestured to the door, indicating Emma was free to go. Emma stood up to leave. She wanted to get the hell out of there. She wasn’t a person who liked discussing her feelings at the best of times, least of all with her boss.
She went back and sat at her desk and the more she thought about the conversation she’d just had, the more she felt rage building inside her. Why were people so nosy, always trying to push it with her to see if they could be the one to make her crack and fall apart into a mess? It was nobody’s business what time she worked until. If she was skiving off, they’d be on her back – she couldn’t win! She was used to Helen and the rest of them pushing her buttons, trying their best to see if they could be the one to elicit a reaction. But Maureen? She had expected more from her boss. They had always had a perfectly healthy standoffish relationship, so what the hell was Maureen doing trying to change the playing field?
Jesus, what had got into the woman? Surely she was too old for the menopause?
In a Moment Chapter 2
Come three o’clock and as the hangovers began to ease, Parker’s entire workforce were already planning where they would head later on that night and at five to fivethey began to pack up to leave.
Adam was just heading for the lift when Ronan from Accounts joined him.
The Last Goodbye Page 31
