by Marian Keyes
“Eilish said you’d driven her and that she’d liked you. The guy seemed to find it hard to believe but . . . joke, Lydia.”
“I’m doubled-over laughing. So where to?”
“Nowhere. I just thought we’d sit here and talk. Why don’t you come in for some breakfast?”
“The neck of you! I’ve a living to earn. I’m not your . . . plaything.”
“I’ll pay you.”
“I don’t want you to pay me.” She shuddered. “This is really creepy. You’re turning my stomach. Please get out.”
He stared at her, aghast. “I’ve handled this all wrong,” he muttered. “How can I make it better?”
“By getting out of my car and never contacting me again. That way I won’t press charges.”
“Give me a chance.”
“Please get out of my car.”
“When’s your next day off? What would you like to do? Say anything you want. Anything, and I’ll go along with it.”
“Yeah, grand, so. I’d like you to drive me to Boyne in County Meath, help me clean a really nasty kitchen, humor my not-very-well-in-the-head mum, visit an old people’s home with me and threaten one of my brothers. I don’t mind which one. I’ve got three, so you can have the pleasure of choosing.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer something more . . . you know? We could drive down to Powerscourt and have lunch at—”
“Don’t start negotiating. It’s my day off, that’s what I’m doing.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I’ve to go to work tomorrow.”
“So go to work. I couldn’t give a shite.”
Dispirited, Lydia stomped up the stairs to her flat. Thanks to that madzer Conall Hathaway, her night’s take was down at least thirty euro. She couldn’t take his money, it felt trashy. When she’d eventually managed to oust him from her car, she hadn’t got it in her to go after another fare. It was 7:30 a.m. and all she was good for was home. She’d have a shower, she decided, and wash away her night’s work, and then she’d go straight to sleep. And when she woke up she’d go to the supermarket and buy proper food, fresh stuff, with vitamins and enzymes; no more living on chips and chocolate. Maybe then she wouldn’t be so knackered all the time . . .
She let herself into the flat and, as she shut the door behind her, she heard a noise. It was the sound of Andrei and Jan’s bedroom door opening. Andrei appeared, bare-chested, in a pair of sweats, as if he’d been waiting for her. Without thinking, she moved to him and he took her in his arms and wordlessly unzipped her hoodie and she let him. She surrendered with relief to his hard body, to his smell, to his sure, confident touch. Suddenly, all her tiredness had disappeared and she was tearing off her clothes and pushing him toward his bedroom, and when she met a wall of resistance she realized that Andrei was steering her to her own room. Jan. She’d completely forgotten about him.
“Jan? He’s here?” she gasped.
“Sleeping. We must be quiet,” Andrei whispered urgently.
But it was impossible. As he covered her body with kisses, she couldn’t stop little whimpers escaping. When he entered her, he groaned long and hard, and when she came, he clamped his hand over her mouth and she stared at him, bug-eyed, as his blue eyes burned into hers and her body exploded in ever-increasing circles of pleasure.
“What about Poor Fucker?” Andrei asked, cradling her body in his arms. “You still . . .?”
“No. Gone.”
“You tell him? About this?”
“Yeah.” She felt him tense up. “You worried about a posse of Nigerians coming round to kick the crap out of you?”
“Not worried.”
“What about Rosie?” Her instinct, as always, was to add some insulting description like “Rosie, the last virgin in Ireland,” but it didn’t feel right. I mean, I’m sleeping with her boyfriend. I couldn’t insult her any more than I already am.
“Do not speak her name.”
He was rolling away from her and getting out of bed and leaving the room, and she was glad because now she could go to sleep.
Day 32 . . .
Matt walked into his office and Salvatore said, “Didn’t know you’d got the morning off.”
“Haha.”
Yes, so it was 11:15. Yes, so Matt was late. But Maeve had had another panic attack this morning, the second in less than a week, and it had taken a long time to calm her down and to persuade her that they could both go to work. It was like a return to the bad old days, and it was all Fionn Purdue’s fault.
“So what’s up?” Salvatore asked.
“An emergency.”
“How thrilling! What kind of emergency?”
Matt looked at him carefully. Salvatore had always been a smart-arse, but this was a bit much.
“A private emergency,” Matt said slowly. “And I’m here now.”
And it wasn’t as if he was exactly snowed under with work. He and the team were keeping a steady flow of cash coming in, by flogging upgrades to those companies who already had Edios—no mean feat in the current economic climate—but there were precious few proper prospects on the horizon. What they really needed was to land a big fish, to persuade some company, preferably a giant conglomerate, to change their software to Edios. Amazingly, there was still no movement on the Bank of British Columbia. They hadn’t agreed to a sale but neither had they pulled out of negotiations and all progress had stalled, bogged down in the mud of their poker-faced inscrutability. Sign of the times, Matt knew—people were terrified of spending money—but the stalemate was chipping away at everyone’s morale.
He wondered if his team was losing faith in him. Salvatore’s disrespect wasn’t a good sign. But, looked at another way, he was probably lucky to still have a team.
Looked at another way, a dark voice said in his head, he was probably lucky to still have a job.
Quickly, he turned away from that unthinkable thought and faced into his emails. Nothing of interest, except one from his brother, Alex, subject matter: TONIGHT!!!!
Matt, Alex and the second best man, Russ, were due to meet after work to finalize details on the Vegas stag week.
6:30 The Duke. Do not cancel again! Alex
Matt fired off a breezy reply:
I’ll be there. Should be early. I’ll have the pints waiting.
As if. Not with Maeve the way she was. Briefly, his life seemed to tighten around him—Maeve, the job, the stagnation of everything—choking off all light and hope . . . Then he had a fantastic idea! There was a way out of this!
Energized and hopeful, he was keen to get going right away. When could he nip out? When could it be called lunchtime? Noon, that would do. Less than forty minutes.
“Thanks for dropping by,” Salvatore called after him, but nothing could puncture Matt’s buoyant hope.
A new home, Matt had decided. That was the answer! A fresh start
in a new place would fix everything. He spent a few moments in the street outside the real-estate agent’s, glancing from photo to photo, wondering what form his and Maeve’s new life would take, then he stepped confidently inside, all set to make it a reality.
The girl at the desk—Philippa—looked up expectantly when Matt came in, then he saw something behind her eyes die a little.
“Can I help you?” She managed a professional smile.
“Ah yes. I’d like to move home.”
“Take a seat. You’ve been in before?”
“. . . Er . . . I have.”
“Matt, isn’t it?”
“Matt Geary.”
“That’s right, I remember. So we’d have your details on file. What’s your address?”
“Sixty-six Star Street. The flat on—”
“—the ground floor. It’s all coming back to me.” Philippa started clicking. “You were last in, in March.”
That recently? It felt much longer ago to Matt.
“We did a home visit this time last year,” Philippa said. “And did a valuat
ion. But in the current market, that figure would have dropped substantially.”
Matt swallowed. “By how much?”
“We recently sold a very similar flat to yours, ground floor, back garden, central location, for—” She did a bit more clicking and named a sum that was so low it scared Matt. Even lower than it had been the last time he’d been in, which, if Philippa was right, was only three months ago.
“So we’d be looking for another home in or around the same price region?” Philippa asked. “You haven’t won the Euro Millions or anything?”
Matt shook his head.
“And what were you thinking of? A flat in a similar setup to your current home? A flat in a new development? There are some really good deals in a magnificent gated community in CityWest. Incredibly high-spec. The apartments are spectacular, and there’s a gym, sauna, Jacuzzi, a sunken yoga garden—”
“In each apartment?”
“Oh no. Communal. Shared.”
“Right. Well, I was thinking more of a house. Somewhere private. You know, where you wouldn’t meet other people in the hall.”
“You certainly wouldn’t get a house this close to the city center. Not with the equity you have.”
“Okay. Well, show me what you’ve got.”
“Just out of curiosity,” Philippa asked, “what happened the last time?”
“My wife didn’t like the ones I picked out.”
“Right. Well, let’s see if we can find something she likes this time.”
Day 32 . . .
Lydia didn’t recognize the number on the phone but, what the hell, she answered it anyway. Live a little.
“This is Conall Hathaway.”
“Ah, for the love of—How did you get my number?”
“You rang this morning to tell me you were outside my house.”
Her hair! Her bloody needy hair—she should have just got out of the car and rung the doorbell.
“I’ve decided to take you up on your invitation,” he said.
“What invitation?”
“Tomorrow. I’m taking the day off. We’re spending it together. We’re going to drive somewhere and—what did you say? Do some cleaning? Meet your mum?”
“I only said it because I knew you wouldn’t be into it.”
“But I am into it.”
“You’re not coming.”
“What time will I pick you up?”
“No time. You’re not coming. Get used to it. Go into work, make another million quid.”
“I’m coming.”
He sounded firm and convincing and she realized it was a good thing she’d met his type before. She’d driven a fair few of them over the years. Those men—and they were nearly always men—with their confidence and their vision and their complete lack of interest in what anyone else was looking for. They wanted what they wanted and then they went and got it and they didn’t care what mayhem they caused. There was a phrase that army blokes used when they were trying to explain away a load of dead civilians. Collateral damage, that was it. Yeah, the Conall Hathaways of this world had no interest in their collateral damage.
“I reckon about ten o’clock,” he was saying. “You won’t want to go any earlier because of the traffic. But any later and too much of the day will have gone.”
If he was doing this to anyone else, it might even work. But it wouldn’t work with her.
“So . . . see you at ten?”
“See you at ten,” she repeated, with great sarcasm.
She’d go at nine.
Day 32 . . .
As he was driving home, Matt passed the woman who’d accused him of being an ax murderer a few weeks back. The memory filled him with surprising bile. Which only intensified when he remembered that he hadn’t done today’s daily Act of Kindness. Bollocks. Between the late start this morning and then the distraction of all that Philippa, the real-estate agent, had had to offer him, he’d clean forgotten. But the thought of having to be kind to some random stranger met with shocking resistance. He couldn’t do it. No way. He’d just lie to Maeve, he decided; and the idea sat so comfortably with him that suddenly he was scared. No, he’d tell the truth and simply ask her for a day off. Then he had an even better idea: hadn’t he done today’s AOK by visiting Philippa? By finding Maeve a potential new home, he’d done an AOK for her. Or indeed for himself. But that was such a novel notion, he moved on quickly. Yes, an Act of Kindness for Maeve. And by not going out with Alex tonight, he was doing Maeve yet another AOK. Speaking of which . . .
As soon as he was parked—in a stunning stroke of luck, right outside 66 Star Street—Matt fired off a quick text to Alex.
Mergency at work. Cnt mke 2nite. Cary on widout me!
Then he hurried into the building, as if he could rush away from the guilt.
Maeve was on the couch, watching South Park.
“Take a look at these.” Matt poured a bundle of glossy brochures into her lap.
“Again?” she asked.
“It’s ages since we looked and I just think . . . like, it’s not good here, Maeve. Too many people in and out. We’d be better off in a house of our own. Just take a look, and keep an open mind, that’s all I ask.”
Maeve nodded. “Okay. Open mind. I will.” She glanced at the first one, saw the address and said, “No. Cripes, no, Matt.”
“Why not?”
“It’s less than five minutes’ drive from Hilary and Walter. They’d be round the whole time. Well, Hilary would.” There was a high likelihood that Walter would never visit. “I know she’s your mum, Matt, and she’s a dote, but we’d never get rid of her. She’d be sitting at our kitchen table, drinking wine and talking shite, till the cows came home.”
“We wouldn’t give her any wine.”
“She’d bring her own.”
“Okay.” Matt sighed heavily. “Scrap that one. Next!” A two-story box on a housing estate in suburban Shankill.
“Shankill?” She turned a despairing face to Matt. “When did we become Shankill people?”
“I thought it would be nice, it’s a community—”
“In suburbia, no one can hear you scream.”
“All right, forget that one.” It was obvious she already had her mind made up. “Look at the one in Drumcondra. It’s nowhere near my parents, it’s not in suburbia, it’s perfect.”
Maeve gazed at the photo of the house and Matt gazed at Maeve.
Eventually, she spoke. “Twelve,” she said.
“Twelve what?” But he could guess.
“Five on the ground floor, six on the first story and an attic skylight. Windows. No way. What else have you?” She moved on to the fourth and final brochure. “Cripes, Matt? A gated community?” She read through the spec. “Coded gates, coded doors, a communal Jacuzzi?”
“I know it’s not for us. I didn’t even want to take the brochure but the girl made me.”
“And the people, Matt, could you imagine the type who’d actually want to live in a place like that?” Soulless professionals with Thai-food fixations, acting like fish sauce had just been invented. “They’d be out at work all day.”
The cluster of glassy towers would be like a ghost town.
“I know this place is full of comings and goings . . .” Maeve said and Matt saw her point. Unexpectedly, it seemed safer to live in a ground-floor flat in Star Street, even with creepy Fionn sniffing around, because at least there were always people nearby.
Maeve gathered up the brochures and handed them to Matt. “Trash.”
Day 31
Conall Hathaway had to circle the block four times before he found a parking space with a good view of the front door of 66 Star Street. He switched off the engine and reached gratefully for his BlackBerry. The red light was flashing. Lovely. New emails.
Seven in total and nothing exciting in any of them, but still, communications were like oxygen to him—urgent phone calls, cryptic texts, detailed emails. He couldn’t let too much time elapse between them or else he might
die.
He drank his coffee and flicked through the radio stations and watched the blue front door and shifted in his seat and looked at his BlackBerry and wished the red light would start flashing again. He was feeling edgy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d rung Eilish and said the words I won’t be in today. Naturally, he’d been absent from his desk many, many times, but only because he was sitting at another desk in another company, in the process of taking it over. And he went on corporate jollies, champagne-soaked days in Monaco or Ascot, but that was in order to stay on the inside track with those shadowy figures in the financial markets who knew when a company was failing long before the company itself knew. It was still work.
He’d never before just called Eilish and said he wasn’t coming in because . . . well, he just wasn’t coming in. It didn’t feel good, it didn’t feel right, but it had to be done.
He’d been fond of Katie, very fond if truth be told, and he hadn’t been at all prepared for them breaking up. A woman finishing with him was a radical mutation in his pattern of romance. It hadn’t happened in a long, long time, perhaps never, and it had shaken him. Not to his core, no; his core was sealed in titanium. But to quite near his core. Enough to cause the coffee cups on the tables of his core to rattle.
Worse than Katie dumping him was that she refused to be won back. He’d offered her the ultimate prize—marriage—and she’d spurned it. Spurned him. But instead of wasting time in hand-wringing regret, he asked himself what he could learn. That always worked when things veered off course in his job. He’d devised his own formula, “The Three As and the One M”:
Assess the situation.
Acknowledge where control had been compromised.
Adapt with a new, more appropriate response for the next set of dynamics.
Move forward.
He wished it was a catchier slogan. Four As would have been ideal. The first three were perfect but he just couldn’t find an A that encapsulated the last point.
