Three Women

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  ‘For some people it does—’

  ‘Well it’s not working for us!’

  Erin knew what he said was true. It wasn’t working. Maybe they just didn’t care enough about each other to make the effort. But going back and forwards between London and Dublin sporadically every few weeks and communicating by texts and emails and phone calls wasn’t enough for either of them.

  ‘What will we do?’ she said, already suspecting the answer.

  ‘I think we should finish it,’ he replied, leaning forward on the couch, his face serious. ‘We both know it’s not working any more. So what’s the point?’

  Erin tried not to cry. She did really like him – love him, in a way. But she didn’t love him enough to change her life for him, even to make the commitment of going to London. And Luke – she knew that, deep down, he didn’t care enough about her to make her central to his life. They both deserved better.

  ‘I’m sorry, Luke,’ she said, crying even though she tried not to. ‘I know it’s the right thing, but I just feel sad about it.’

  They were both upset, but they promised to try to stay friends.

  Erin offered to drive him to the airport, but, much to her relief, he insisted on taking the Air Coach.

  ‘You can bring me out for an expensive dinner if I’m ever in London!’ she said.

  ‘Sure thing, and we’ll try to stay in touch if I’m home,’ he said, pulling her into his arms as they said goodbye.

  Erin was sitting feeling numb and rather forlorn when Nikki and Claire finally arrived back.

  ‘Luke and I just broke up,’ she told them. ‘I’m back to being single again.’

  ‘What?’

  She told them everything and they both admitted that they weren’t surprised.

  ‘I couldn’t imagine you married to Luke,’ said Nikki firmly. ‘I couldn’t see the two of you babysitting Snoopy B and bringing Snoopy out cool places.’

  ‘Weddings are notorious for breaking couples up,’ said Claire, sagely. ‘They make people take a hard look at their relationship.’

  ‘I thought weddings were meant to be great for meeting people,’ laughed Nikki. ‘Because I’ve got a hot date with Shay’s cousin Paul next week. We’re going to the cinema.’

  ‘Nikki!’ they both screamed.

  ‘Shut up!’ she warned, plomping herself heavily on the couch and putting her feet on the footstool. ‘Nice guys are hard to meet and he is a seriously nice guy.’

  Erin found herself laughing as Nikki told them all about Paul.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  ERIN STARED AT the screen of her apple mac, trying to turn the image around. It looked pretty good, but was still not a hundred per cent what she wanted. She wanted perfection, and for the product name and the image to jump out at you simultaneously. She was on a deadline with this; she had to have it with the client by six this evening, as their marketing people were presenting it to the directors and the board first thing in the morning. She gave it another whirl and made the image even sharper. Perfect!

  ‘Time for coffee,’ she said, rewarding herself and heading for the office coffee-maker where Monika and Lilly were already brewing up a pot. It was lashing rain outside and the water pelted against the window panes. She could see people running helter-skelter with umbrellas, trying to avoid the downpour. She chatted for a few minutes with the others and, returning to her desk, got a call from Declan to come to his office to meet a potential new client. She needed this like a hole in the head today, but Declan was the boss. Grabbing her notebook and pen, she went to join him.

  ‘Hey, Erin, I’d like to introduce you to Brian Quinn and Matt Ryan,’ said Declan from behind his massive red desk.

  Erin smiled as she greeted Matt, wondering what the hell he was doing in the office.

  ‘So you two know each other?’

  ‘Yes, we’re friends,’ she said quickly, embarrassed by the way Matt said nothing about their connections.

  ‘Brian and Matt love the work you did on Lia’s album. They shot the video for two of her songs. Anyhow, they have just finished filming a new feature film and are here to talk about the possibility of us doing all the design work for the film’s marketing campaign. I worked with them a few years ago on Cromwell, but I’ve told them that this time you will be the lead designer on this project. So maybe we can all sit down and talk about it?’

  Shit – Erin was conscious of the time!

  ‘I’m sorry, Declan, but I have to have something to Georgina Hill and her team very soon,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Okay then, we can just have a very brief run-through today and you can set up a meeting with the guys tomorrow or the next day,’ he suggested.

  Erin sat and listened as Brian, the producer, gave a very brief outline of the film, which had received some funding from the Film Board. It was yet another coming-of-age Irish film and unfortunately nothing jumped out at her in terms of marketability.

  ‘I’d like to see the film,’ she suggested.

  ‘I’m still editing it,’ confessed Matt, ‘so it’s not all picture-locked yet and—’

  ‘The guys are on a bit of a deadline,’ explained Declan. ‘They want to submit it to the Sundance Festival and the Cannes Film Festival and they both require some marketing back-up. Also another thing, Erin – there is a very limited budget on this.’

  Matt at least had the good grace to look shamefaced. No wonder Declan was handing the job to her …

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, ‘but I really have to go. Can you send me a DVD of it the minute it’s ready?’

  ‘I’ll be working on it all night,’ Matt said. She could see he was already exhausted. ‘I could try to have it done for tomorrow, but even if you saw a bit of it would that help?’

  ‘Listen, Matt, let me finish what I’m doing,’ she offered, ‘then I’ll phone you later and come over to the studio in Temple Bar and you can show me what you have got. At least I can make a start while you are working on the rest.’

  ‘Sounds good!’ said Brian.

  With no time for pleasantries, Erin practically ran back to her desk. She had been talking to the girls about going to the cinema tonight but she’d text them and tell them to go without her. She would definitely be working late!

  Chapter Fifty-six

  ERIN HAD GOT everything to georgina just in time.

  ‘I could hug you, Erin,’ Georgina said when she called to say thank you. Erin hoped that the presentation would go well tomorrow and that everyone would be happy with her work on the new logos and images for O’Hara’s Country Foods, suppliers of organic ham, sausages, rashers and the black and white puddings that Nikki had developed a passion for. They were a very old, respected Irish company and just needed a bit of a design upgrade to suit today’s market.

  She debated going home to change and get something to eat, but knew well that Matt probably hadn’t eaten either. She phoned him and told him she would be there as soon as possible. En route, she grabbed them a burger each, some fries and two chocolate milkshakes from Eddie Rockets. If it was going to be a long night they needed to keep their strength up!

  Matt fell on the food like a starving wolf and she watched him gulp it down. Judging by the paper cups and pizza boxes strewn about, that was all he’d eaten in days.

  ‘Thanks!’ he said, polishing off the rest of her milkshake.

  ‘Okay, let’s see this film of yours,’ she suggested, knowing how hard it was to show something so rough and unready ahead of time when often your vision of what you are creating isn’t fully realized on the screen the way it is in your head.

  She pulled a chair over beside his screen, watching as Matt began to work and run the film. Even at a glance she could see that it was beautifully shot and lit. The story was about a boy and a girl who met when they were ten and somehow stayed in love with each other all the rest of their lives. Never being together, but never being apart. It was called Border and was set in a small town in Northern Ireland that lite
rally had the border between the south of Ireland and the north running through it. The children had first met swimming in a forbidden stream and the film followed their lives over the next twenty years. It was stunning, and the music and atmosphere were almost magical, though it was set against the bigotry of the Troubles.

  ‘Matt, it’s absolutely amazing!’

  ‘You sound shocked!’ he teased.

  ‘Okay, I am shocked that it’s so good!’ she admitted, excited to be in any way involved in such a project.

  She got him to copy stuff to her laptop and the two of them worked on. Erin was searching for that one image that would encapsulate the film for viewers around the world and capture their attention. She was also playing around with ideas for the film’s title sequence, which hadn’t yet been done or even considered.

  She went out for ten minutes and got them coffee and chocolate. Matt was bleary-eyed, and she wasn’t much better. Suddenly, running back through the film again, the image of young Sarah and Sean splashing together in the water in the sunlight came to her, and she replayed it over and over again. It was much more profound than the one of the tanks and soldiers that Brian had suggested, as you could see where the stream bisected the two pieces of farmland.

  Excited, she showed it to Matt to see what he thought. He sat hunched over the table, glued to the screen, his long hair all over the place, his glasses dirty. She didn’t know why, but she caught his hair and pulled it back from his face, like he was a kid, and touched his hand. It was as though she had wanted to touch his skin all night.

  Suddenly Matt turned and pulled her on to his lap and kissed her. His mouth was warm and he tasted of coffee, and she found she wanted to kiss him back. It was lovely. Exhausted or not, they both wanted to kiss some more.

  ‘Wow, this is some night!’ said Matt, totally deadpan, and Erin found herself bursting out laughing as they clung together in fits.

  ‘We have to work,’ he reminded her, turning his full attention back to the screen. ‘But when this gets finished and edited, will you come out with me, Erin?’

  ‘Like on a date?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, catching her hand in his. ‘Or something like that.’

  Erin was knackered, but she couldn’t believe it. Matt liked her – really liked her!

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  NINA WATCHED AS the men put up the large ‘for sale’ sign outside the house. It was heartbreaking. It was as if the final nail had been hammered into months of horrendous change: from Tom’s financial troubles to his going on to lose the entire business; Erin deciding to find her birth mother; even Jack announcing he was going off to Australia for a year with a girl they barely knew. Nina had felt that her life was tumbling down around her and that, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t manage to hold on to anything. But somehow she had been able to gradually accept the change – the house being sold, Tom having at his age to start over again, Erin meeting her mother and now thinking of getting to know her half-brothers and sister, and even accepting that Jack was growing up and would take off to the other side of the world with a girl he was pretty crazy about.

  A photographer had come and taken the photos of the house and garden for the sales brochure and Dominick had told her that Clifton would appear on Delahunt’s page in Thursday’s property section of the Irish Times. The house would also feature on their website.

  ‘Then we just wait and see,’ he said, sounding very positive.

  Nina had spent weeks trying to strip clutter and unnecessary items from the house. How they had ever managed to accumulate so many things was beyond her. She seemed to spend all her time loading her car with items for the local charity shop or bringing things to the dump. Erin and Jack had been roped in to help and hours were spent going through boxes of old toys and books and family mementos.

  ‘We have to get rid of stuff,’ she warned. ‘The new house will only be about quarter the size of Clifton, so we have no space for things we no longer need. We have to be ruthless,’ she went on, hiding away a papier-mâché plate that Erin had made when she was about six and Jack’s collection of old football cards.

  The sale of Harris Engineering to Larry Maxwell and partners had finally gone through. Nina had worried how Tom would take it, but somehow, once the agreements had all been signed and the monies paid over and the debts assigned to the new owners, he had relaxed. There was nothing more that he could do for the company and the relief of it was like a huge weight being lifted off his shoulders. If they managed to sell the house for the figure Dominick felt it could achieve, then there was every chance that Tom could clear all the personal loans he had with the bank and there would be enough left to help keep them going for the coming years. They had looked at a few of the cottages and bungalows and smaller houses for sale in their area and soon realized what Dominick had meant about them having a cachet, as they were totally out of their reach and most of them needed substantial upgrading. They both recognized how lucky they were to have the coach house and that, although they would have the cost of renovating it and extending it, that was only a fraction of what buying a smaller home would cost with fees and stamp duty.

  Mike had put in their plans for The Boat House to the local council and, all going well, they should have planning permission in another few weeks and then the work would begin. Tom and Mike worked well together and seemed to be forever drawing up new designs for the interior. Tom was determined to install the latest in the range of Swedish solar panels so that they would enjoy a wonderful heating system and be fully energy-efficient.

  Tom and Mike also organized a local stonemason to come and build a wall at the bottom of the garden of the big house, creating a totally separate space for their mews and courtyard and garden.

  ‘It’s better that whoever comes to see Clifton realizes that The Boat House and the gardens around it are not in any way part of the sale,’ he said firmly.

  Nina could see he was totally immersed in restoring the old coach house and thanked heaven he had a project to occupy him. Costs were being kept to a minimum and Stephen Kelly, their local bank manager, had been more than understanding about the situation they now found themselves in.

  ‘Downsizing is the right thing to do,’ he said approvingly. ‘The fact that you are downsizing to a property that you already own makes it even better. You have been very good customers here for many years, and hopefully will still remain customers of ours.’ Nina could have hugged him.

  Jack had been wonderful. He and Pixie had delayed their trip to Australia for another few weeks until after the house was sold.

  ‘I can’t believe that when I come back we won’t be living here any more,’ he said, getting all choked up as he packed up his old Star Wars toys.

  ‘Jack, you will always have a room in The Boat House,’ Nina said, trying to control herself. ‘And all your stuff will be stored with us. I promise you’ll have a lovely new home to come back to, judging by the plans your dad and Mike have for the place.’

  ‘Are you sure, Mum?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ she promised. ‘Home is wherever we all are together – remember that.’

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  ERIN WAS DISAPPOINTED; she hadn’t heard from matt in two weeks. He obviously hadn’t really meant what he said about asking her out. She was kind of gutted about it as she hadn’t thought he was that sort of guy.

  ‘Listen, it’s far better he didn’t phone,’ consoled Claire. ‘You two are friends and you’d only destroy that.’

  ‘You might end up not liking him and thinking he’s a creep if you went out on a proper date with him,’ offered Nikki wisely.

  Erin had tried to convince herself that they were right.

  Then Matt had phoned and asked her to come to dinner – and she had said yes … yes … yes!

  They arranged to meet on Friday evening in Delaney’s in Temple Bar. Erin smiled when she saw him. Matt had not only washed and brushed his hair, but it looked like it had been cut a bit. And
he had shaved! He was wearing black trousers, a freshly washed and ironed pale-blue denim shirt and a jacket. He looked great and the minute he met her he kissed her. Whammy!

  ‘You’ve dressed up!’ she smiled.

  ‘And you’ve dressed down, but you look gorgeous,’ he smiled, catching her by the waist.

  Erin was wearing skinny jeans and a string top under a loose second-hand Miu Miu silk top. She had left her hair straight down and worn less make-up than she would normally use on a first date.

  They had one drink in the bar and then he brought her down along the quays. He refused to be drawn on which restaurant they were going to for dinner. Eventually he stopped outside a beautiful, tall Georgian house overlooking the River Liffey and, going up the steps, he rang the bell. She could see candles flickering inside the tall windows.

  A waiter appeared and opened the door, then led them up the stairs to the first-floor dining room. It was magnificent, with candelabras lit over the fireplace and antique sideboards. He showed them to a table for two in front of the tall window and Erin gasped to see the quays and river stretched out below them.

  ‘Oh Matt, this place is fabulous! How did you ever find out about it?’

  ‘One of my friends knows the chef,’ he explained. ‘The River House only opened a few months ago and everyone is raving about the food, and I wanted us to always remember our very first date … so I thought we should come here.’

  Erin looked at him. He was serious. Matt was talking already as if they were a proper couple. It was strange, but she felt it too.

  The menu was amazing and everything they ordered was perfect. Each of them tasted the other’s food. For someone who normally lived on pizza, Matt was actually a real foodie. The head waiter had recommended a really good wine and they finished off their meal with a glass of mellow port, watching the shimmering city lights reflected in the darkness on the water below.

  Afterwards they held hands and walked back up along the river together, kissing every now and then.