Too Good to Be True

by Sheila O'Flanagan

“Why don’t we celebrate first?”

  “Celebrate?”

  “I’m in Swords,” he said. “Let’s push the boat out and go to lunch.”

  “I don’t know if —”

  “I’ve already booked it,” said Peter. “The Old Schoolhouse. One o’clock.”

  “That was cutting it a bit fine!” she exclaimed. “I might’ve still been in town at one o’clock.”

  “Ah, but I knew you wouldn’t.”

  “That’s one of the things that always irritated me about you,” she told him sternly. “Your always being right.”

  “Not always,” Peter said. “But about this I am. Come on, Carey, you want to celebrate, surely.”

  “Well, yes, I do,” she admitted. “I was standing here wishing I had someone with me earlier.”

  “You have me now,” said Peter. “Or at least you will at one o’clock. The reservation’s in my name.”

  “You’re amazing.”

  “See you there,” he said, and rang off.

  The Old Schoolhouse was exactly that. Set off on a side road from the village, it had been a small school at the early part of the twentieth century, and though it had clearly been renovated and altered to become a restaurant, it still retained the high ceilings and a background atmosphere of sloping desks, inkwells, and scab-kneed children.

  Carey walked inside and looked around for Peter without expecting to see him. But, once again, he was there before her, reading the menu in front of him.

  “Hi,” she said as she sat down at the table beside him.

  “Hello there.” He beamed at her. “Well, what’s it like?”

  “A bit strange actually,” she said. “I was moving furniture round before I came out and I suddenly realized that I could put it anywhere I liked because I didn’t have to please anyone else.”

  Peter laughed. “I don’t want to burst your bubble, but those apartments don’t exactly lend themselves to a wide range of furniture configurations. They’re not what you might call huge.”

  “They’re fine,” she said sternly. “And you’re not to start pointing out defects when I’ve only just moved in.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Peter. “I was just teasing.” He looked up as a waiter stood beside the table and ordered two glasses of champagne.

  “Peter!” cried Carey.

  “Why not?” he asked. “It’s your first place. And I told you we should celebrate.”

  “This is really good of you,” she said after the waiter had returned with their champagne and taken their lunch order. “And it is nice to mark the occasion.”

  “When Sandra and I first bought our house we celebrated by going to Burger King,” Peter told her wryly. “I’d left my credit cards at home and we only had enough for a couple of quarter-pounders instead of the slap-up meal I’d planned.”

  “Idiot,” said Carey.

  “No wonder she left me.” Peter sighed.

  “I’d leave you if you were celebrating our first home together with a couple of quarter-pounders,” said Carey.

  “You’re leaving me anyway,” he told her.

  She made a face at him.

  “I’ll miss you,” he said. “I’ll miss knowing you’re there.”

  “You won’t,” she said. “You’ll be glad to get your spare room back.”

  “You know I’ll miss you,” he said. “Even though you’ve practically hung a sign round your neck saying Do Not Touch and even though I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing to you half the time, it’s still been great having you there.”

  “Don’t say things like that.” She fiddled with the linen napkin.

  “I’m just telling you how I feel,” said Peter.

  “And you already know how I feel,” she said sharply. “So just stop.”

  “OK, OK.” He picked up his glass of champagne and held it towards her. “Right. To you, my sweet, and your new apartment, and may God bless all who sleep in it.”

  “Fool.” But she giggled and clinked glasses with him.

  “So are you going to live on your own?” asked Peter. “Or will you have someone share?”

  “I’m going to be on my own for a while,” she replied. “It’s about time I tried it.”

  “It’s not half as much fun as it’s cracked up to be,” remarked Peter.

  Carey didn’t respond, but picked up her fork and prodded the tagliatelle carbonara which the waiter had just placed in front of her.

  “Two more glasses of champagne,” said Peter.

  “Oh no,” she protested.

  “One more won’t hurt,” he told her. “You’ll be fine.”

  “OK,” she said, “but that’s it. I told you I’ve loads of things to do today.”

  “The first thing you have to do is to chill out and enjoy yourself,” said Peter.

  “I will so long as you don’t keep getting at me,” she told him.

  “Not another word,” he promised.

  “You’re terribly bossy,” she complained, but smiled at him all the same.

  He kept his promise; the lunch was perfect, and somehow she didn’t find herself objecting when he ordered yet more champagne. She felt herself relax with him in a way that she hadn’t been able to when she was living in his house, and she remembered why it was that she’d fallen for him in the first place. He was totally charming. He said the right thing at the right time and he made her feel special. He’d been good at that when they’d been seeing each other, she remembered, sending her flowers at home, or surprising her with tickets to a concert she’d wanted to see when she thought they were simply meeting for a drink, or unexpectedly turning up at the gates of the ATC Centre on one of the only hot days of the summer with a picnic hamper and whisking her off to the coast for the afternoon when her shift had ended. Rushing into an impetuous marriage with Ben Russell might have seemed romantic, she thought suddenly, but Peter Furness actually was romantic.

  “You OK?” asked Peter.

  “Sure, fine.” She clattered back to the present. “Daydreaming.”

  “Pleasant thoughts?”

  She flushed. “Partly.”

  “You should only be having beautiful thoughts today,” he told her as he waved at the waiter and ordered still more champagne. “So drink up, girl, and keep on celebrating.”

  “Anything you say,” she agreed. “Anything you say.”

  “Now I’m drunk.” Carey hiccoughed as she pushed another empty glass away. “You said we were only having one drink, but we’ve had lots and now I’m drunk.”

  “I’m a bit under the weather myself,” admitted Peter. “But it was fun.”

  “You’re really nice,” she said. “And I’m sorry that I was nasty to you when I found out you were married.”

  “You were entitled to be nasty to me.”

  “Maybe.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t know if anyone is ever entitled to be nasty to anyone else though. People should be kind to each other, shouldn’t they?”

  “I guess so.” Peter watched her as she sat there with her closed eyes and then signaled for the bill. “And could you order us a taxi?” he asked.

  The waiter nodded and ten minutes later told them that the cab had arrived.

  “This is totally inconvenient,” murmured Carey as Peter led her outside. “I’m abandoning my car here and I really need it to get to work and do shopping.”

  “You’re not on until tomorrow afternoon, are you?” asked Peter. “You’ll have plenty of time to collect it.”

  “But I wanted to be organized,” she wailed. “I wanted to get all my stuff together and spend the night in my new apartment.”

  “You can do all that in the morning,” said Peter.

  “I can’t spend the night in my apartment in the morning.” Carey frowned in confusion at her own sentence and closed her eyes again.

  They made the journey in silence and Peter asked the taxi-driver to stop at the pub in Blanchardstown village.

  “What are we doing now?” Carey opened her
eyes again and looked round.

  “Hair of the dog,” said Peter.

  “It’s a bit soon for hair of the dog,” she objected.

  “Well, how about sheep as a lamb?” he suggested.

  “Sorry?”

  “Both of us have skived off today. We might as well have a few more drinks and make it worthwhile.”

  She laughed. “I am not going to get pissed in the middle of the afternoon and have a hangover by nine o’clock,” she told him.

  “Just the one,” said Peter.

  “Oh, all right.”

  They had two. And then Carey said that she was knackered and that she really did need to get back and pack some stuff. “Because I honestly do want to be ready to move,” she told him. “Tomorrow, seeing as I’ve made such a mess of today.”

  “You’ll have plenty of nights to spend in your new apartment,” Peter said. “Spend one more night with me instead.”

  She looked at him, recognizing that the tone of his voice had changed. He met her gaze and smiled.

  “You mean sleep with you, don’t you?” she said.

  “Look, we’re both free agents,” said Peter. “There’s nothing wrong with us sleeping together.”

  “We’re both married to other people,” said Carey.

  Peter laughed. “And you think those other people will care?”

  “Well, no,” she acknowledged. “I was being facetious.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know if I want to sleep with you,” said Carey.

  “Why not?”

  “I loved you and then I stopped loving you. I only slept with you when I loved you.”

  “And how do you feel about me now?” he asked.

  “I like you,” she said. “I’m grateful to you.”

  He made a face. “But you don’t love me anymore?”

  “I’m drunk,” she told him. “I’m not really at my best, judgment-wise, when I’m drunk.”

  “I love you, Carey,” said Peter. “From the moment I met you.”

  “Ben said that.” She took off her glasses and polished them on the corner of her shirt. “But it didn’t last.”

  “With me it would,” said Peter. “I promise you.”

  She sighed. “I’m getting out of one relationship,” she said. “I’m not sure I’m ready to get right back into another one again. Especially one I’ve been in before.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be bothering Ben,” said Peter.

  “I know.”

  “Stay with me tonight anyway,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything awful like force myself on you if you don’t want me to.”

  She smiled. “I guess if you were going to do that you could’ve done it before now.”

  “Exactly,” said Peter. “But don’t think the thought hasn’t crossed my mind.”

  It had crossed Carey’s mind, certainly. Some nights as she’d lain in the narrow single bed she’d thought about getting up and sliding into bed beside Peter instead. She’d imagined the feel of his arms round her and the taste of his lips on hers and it had been very hard to pull the duvet round her shoulders and make herself go to sleep on her own.

  “I’ll stay the night,” she said. “But I don’t think I’m ready to sleep with you yet, Peter.”

  “As long as you’re not ruling out the possibility in the future, that’s OK with me,” he said, and kissed her on the lips.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  MANDARIN

  An oil with a cheering fragrance that’s also calm and gentle

  Freya stood in the middle of the Rathmines branch of Herbal Matters and surveyed the work so far. The huge plate-glass window had been replaced and new carpets had been put down, but they were still working on the shelving, and it would be another week before the store was finally ready to re-open. Ben and Freya had taken the opportunity to redesign the layout so that there was more space for customers to browse and (said Freya hopefully) more space for goods that might entice them to buy. Freya was going through a despairing phase about the loyalty of their clients and the effect that the accident was having on their cashflow. And it had been an accident. The police had called round to tell them that the two men in the Jeep were brothers. The younger brother, in the passenger seat, was an epileptic who’d forgotten to take his medication and had had a fit, which had distracted the driver so much that he’d lost control of the Jeep; that was why it had plowed so dramatically into the shop. The doctors thought it was the impact of the accident that had caused the younger man to swallow his tongue rather than the fit, since that was a relatively rare occurrence, but they still praised Ben for his handling of the situation.

  Freya looked up and smiled at him as he walked into the shop.

  “Things are improving round here,” he said. “We should be on schedule to re-open soon.”

  “Maybe.” Freya had to raise her voice to be heard over the sound of an electric drill.

  “Definitely,” said Ben. “I know it’s still a mess, but it’s the kind of mess that you can deal with.”

  “I don’t feel like dealing with any messes right now.” Freya sighed. “I’m exhausted by everything.”

  “I know it’s tiring,” he said, “but at least we’re managing to do the re-fit and that insurance friend of Brian’s came through with the goods.”

  “Which is something,” agreed Freya.

  “He’s an efficient bloke, Brian, when he puts his mind to it.” Ben stepped over a supply of cardboard boxes. “I can see why he’s so successful.”

  “More efficient than me?” asked Freya.

  “God no.” Ben grinned at her. “Nobody could be more efficient than you.”

  She returned his smile, but her eyes were troubled.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Ben. “You’ve been really down this last while. I thought it was the shop, but…”

  “Oh, just some things on my plate,” said Freya. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  “I don’t worry about things I can’t change,” said Ben. “But of course I worry about you. Just like you worry about me.”

  “I never worry about you,” retorted Freya.

  Ben laughed, then put his arm round his sister’s shoulders. “Is there something wrong?” he asked.

  “Not really.”

  Ben looked at her curiously. Her tone was flat and lacking in the optimism he always associated with her. “Let’s go for a coffee,” he suggested. “We haven’t sat down and talked about non-shop things in ages.”

  “I know,” said Freya.

  “Come on.” Ben watched as one of the carpenters fixed an architrave round the doorframe. “We’ll leave the professionals to it. They’ll probably be glad to have us out of their hair.”

  The owner of the café across the road smiled at them as they entered. Ben wondered if she remembered that he was the embarrassed customer who’d been yelled at by a demented Leah in what seemed like another lifetime — she certainly gave no sign of any memories now.

  “Hello, Ben. Hello, Freya,” she said. “What can I get you?”

  “Double espresso for me,” said Ben. He turned to Freya.

  “Latte,” she said.

  They sat at a window table where they could still see the shop.

  “So what’s wrong?” asked Ben when the coffees were placed in front of them.

  “Brian’s asked me to marry him,” said Freya.

  Ben looked at her in delight. He’d wondered, after his conversation with Brian, whether or not they’d ever get married, and had been concerned by Brian’s comments about Freya’s reluctance to even talk about it. He was worried that because she’d looked after him so wonderfully after their parents died, she now continued (unwittingly) to see herself in the role of surrogate mother, which somehow held her back from taking the plunge herself.

  “I think that’s great,” he told her.

  “Do you?”

  “Well, of course I do,” he said. “I’ve always thought that you and Brian s
hould get hitched. You spend more time together than most married couples and he’s the only bloke I know who’s laid back enough to put up with you.”

  “You think I’m difficult to get on with?” she demanded.

  “Sometimes,” he told her. “You like doing things your way, Freya. You always have.”

  “I know. Brian’s forever telling me that I’m difficult.”

  Ben laughed. “So there you go! Difficult and he still wants to marry you.” His voice softened. “I think it’s great. I really do.”

  “You recommend it then?” she said dryly. “Even though your own didn’t last long enough for the ink to dry on the page?”

  “OK, I’ll admit that you were right and I was wrong about me and Carey.”

  Freya raised an eyebrow. “Actually, what was wrong was that you hadn’t finished with Leah properly. And that’s why you messed it up.”

  “Can we not talk about me?” asked Ben. “We’re here to discuss you, aren’t we?”

  “Not discuss me,” said Freya. “Just to chill out and chat.”

  “Right,” said Ben. “So he’s asked you to marry him, but it has you wandering mournfully round the place…don’t you want to marry him?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Why?” Ben looked puzzled. “You’ve been with him for ages. Don’t you think it’s time to move on to another level with him?”

  “Maybe.” Freya stared into her coffee. “There’s one question I really want to ask you.”

  “What?”

  “When, eventually, you get married to someone properly, will you want a family?”

  “Huh?”

  “Kids, Ben. Will you want them?”

  He considered the question for a moment. “I suppose so. They weren’t on my agenda with Carey straight away. We didn’t really discuss it much, but I guess there was an understanding that some day…”

  “And if you discovered that she didn’t want any?”

  “Things would hardly have been any worse, would they?” He smiled wryly. “I mean, we’ve split up, Freya. Regardless of the kid thing.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Is it an issue with you and Brian?” he asked.

  Although she desperately wanted to talk to someone about it, Freya knew that it wasn’t a subject she could discuss with Ben.