Semi-Sweet Page 17

  Stephen raised his cup. Sometimes silence was the safest option.

  Geraldine sighed. “I wish Hannah and Adam would give it a try.” And as Stephen opened his mouth, she added quickly, “I know you say they’re just friends, but can’t friends become something more? At least they could try.”

  “Maybe they’re afraid of ruining their friendship if it didn’t work out,” Stephen said.

  Geraldine flapped an impatient hand at him. “Why are you always so sensible? And there was that other lovely man from Scotland—I told you about him, but you probably don’t remember that either.”

  Stephen smiled. “Actually, I do. Isn’t he the one who makes kitchens?”

  “Yes—he was just lovely, and I’m sure if she’d encouraged him, he would have been interested.”

  “She’s trying to get a business off the ground,” Stephen pointed out. “That doesn’t leave a lot of time to socialize.”

  “I know, I know—especially now with that awful accident and Una gone again.”

  “But she’ll be back in a few days, won’t she?”

  Geraldine lifted her shoulders. “Who knows what’ll happen now? That whole family must be devastated.”

  They drank in silence for a while. It was twenty past eleven, and they were having their usual nighttime cup of tea before going upstairs to bed.

  “We were talking at work today,” Stephen said after a minute.

  There were four male dentists working in the clinic—three now, without Tom. Geraldine had met them all. The other two were in their thirties, both with young families. Tom had started the clinic more than twenty years before, with another man who had since died. Stephen had worked there for more than a decade. The younger men had joined in the last five years.

  “About Tom,” Stephen added. He lifted the spoon in the sugar bowl and let the sugar spill off it.

  “Oh, yes?”

  “We were thinking that he doesn’t have that long left to work,” Stephen said, digging the spoon in again.

  Geraldine stared. “What do you mean, he doesn’t have that long left? Tom is barely sixty.”

  “He’ll be sixty-two next birthday,” Stephen said. “He could take early retirement now if he wanted.”

  Geraldine frowned. “Early retirement? Has he ever talked about it?”

  “Well, no, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “I wish you’d stop playing with that sugar,” Geraldine said sharply. “I can’t see Tom wanting that at all. He’s much too active to give up work. What would he do with himself all day?”

  Stephen lifted the teapot and refilled their cups. “Well, maybe after what’s happened, he might change his mind.”

  Geraldine’s hand, reaching for the milk jug, stilled. “Stephen, you’re not going to hound him out, are you? Have you forgotten that it was Tom who started the clinic? He got you in there, for God’s sake.”

  Stephen put his hands up. “Of course I haven’t forgotten, Geraldine. But it’s not entirely up to me—I’m just one voice in there.”

  “You’re the senior voice. You and Tom are the seniors. The others haven’t been there long enough to be having those kinds of discussions.”

  “Look, it wasn’t an official discussion. It wasn’t anything like that. The subject just came up casually over lunch, that’s all.”

  “It was an accident,” Geraldine said angrily, “and he’ll be well punished for it. The man could go to jail, for heaven’s sake. The rest of his life could be ruined.”

  “I know it could.”

  “We’re his friends. He’ll need us to be there for him.”

  “I know,” Stephen repeated. “We will be there for him.”

  “So there’ll be no more talk of him having to leave work?”

  “Geraldine, I told you it wasn’t like that.”

  “But if the subject comes up again, you’ll defend him?”

  “Yes.”

  Geraldine reached for a biscuit.

  “I thought you’d given them up for Lent,” Stephen said mildly.

  “Oh, who cares about bloody Lent?” Geraldine snapped. “There are more important things than Lent !”

  She dropped the biscuit and put her head into her hands. Stephen reached across the table and stroked her arm.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “No, I’m sorry,” she said, and he could hear the tears in her voice. “I’m not cross with you, it’s just…What a horrible thing to happen. It’s just horrible.”

  “It is,” Stephen said, squeezing her arm gently. “It really is horrible.”

  They sat opposite each other, the tea cooling in their cups, the clock on the wall every now and then giving a soft electronic whirr.

  Patrick lay back in the hot, scented water and closed his eyes.

  We had this password, Nora had said, leaning across the table toward him, for when we fancied a boy.

  Waiting for Patrick to ask, so of course he’d asked.

  It was “climax,” she’d said, watching his face. If one of us worked it into a sentence, the other knew to lay off whoever it was, or else.

  The dress she wore crossed over her breasts, and when she leaned toward him, it revealed quite a lot of them. He’d found it hard to avoid looking. She’d caught him once, more than once. It didn’t seem to bother her.

  Did you ever fall out over boys? he’d asked.

  It was just talk, there was no harm in it. It was just harmless talk about two schoolgirls and what they might have gotten up to.

  Nora had grinned. A few times we shared, if he was too good to resist, she’d said. Not at the same time, of course. Poking her fork into the pasta she’d barely touched. Although there was this one guy…Trailing off then, laughing softly. Leah would kill me, she’d said. She’d have my guts for garters.

  Go on, Patrick had said, smiling. Your secret’s safe with me. I won’t tell.

  She’d put a finger to the side of her mouth, pretending to consider. Well, she’d said, let’s just say he got a very tasty…um, sandwich one night. We were all a bit drunk…but it was great fun.

  Twirling a fork through her pasta, smiling. He was older, so he knew a thing or two about keeping us happy. Bringing her fork to her lips, sliding it out slowly. Oh, my.

  Patrick lay in the warm water and pictured two teenage girls peeling off their school clothes—unknotting ties, unbuttoning white shirts, stepping out of pleated skirts. Teasing him, giggling as they undressed. Lying on a bed, or on a floor, maybe—yes, let’s put them on the floor, in front of a log fire, with their firm bodies and their lacy white panties.

  He was an older man, someone Patrick’s own age, probably. Watching as they shed their uniforms, smiling at their antics, egging them on, maybe, before taking off his own clothes and joining them.

  He knew a thing or two about keeping us happy. Oh, my.

  He lifted himself quickly from the bath, patted himself dry, and walked naked into the bedroom.

  Leah looked up from her book and glanced at his erection. “Oh, God,” she said. “Sorry, Patrick, not tonight. I’m totally bushed.”

  April

  Sooner or later it had to happen.

  After several Friday nights of successfully managing to ignore the events that had taken place in the lives of their daughters, matters between Fiona Bradshaw and Geraldine Robinson finally bubbled to the surface—in Maureen Hardiman’s house, of all places.

  The bridge itself was played in the drawing room. Maureen called it the drawing room, but as far as Geraldine could see, it was identical in both size and layout to her own sitting room. Typical Maureen, putting on airs, with her collection of spindly-legged two-seaters that really seated only two very good friends comfortably—what was wrong with fold-up chairs?—and ridiculous little coffee tables that were far too low and that barely held their cards and score sheets, never mind a handbag.

  There was nothing disastrous in itself about Fiona and Geraldine meeting up. Hadn’t they been in the same room sever
al times since Patrick’s defection? Hadn’t they sat opposite each other for a set time each evening? They were both mature women; they could handle a sensitive situation with the dignity and tact it required. There was no reason for any loss of face or sharp words of any kind. No blame whatsoever need be attached to either party, for indeed both women were entirely blameless.

  Geraldine took her seat opposite her partner as usual at the start of the evening, and play commenced. In due course a new game was announced, and the partners who were moving found their new positions and began again. The cards were dealt, the usual discussions ensued. Games were won and lost, scores were entered. The evening wore on.

  As usual, Geraldine and Fiona eventually found themselves playing against each other. At no time over the course of that particular bridge game did Geraldine address Fiona directly, or vice versa, unless communication was strictly necessary. The two women’s eyes never met, and their hands remained resolutely apart, despite the limited space on Maureen’s tables. So far so normal.

  Such a shame, then, after successfully negotiating their way through most of the proceedings, after keeping to separate sides of the room during the ensuing tea and nibbles, that Geraldine happened to overhear a chance remark in Maureen’s hall at the end of the evening, when the bridge players were maneuvering themselves into coats and retrieving umbrellas. When, in fact, all danger of a contretemps of any kind between the two women in question might have been assumed to have passed.

  “Fiona,” Dolores Mulcair was heard to say in her unmistakably strident tones, “I hear that your Leah is expecting.”

  In the act of buttoning her coat, Geraldine froze.

  “Yes,” Fiona replied, “in June.”

  Geraldine turned slowly to regard her enemy and discovered Fiona to be looking directly across the hall at her, a tight smile on her face, even while Dolores was congratulating her loudly, even as Maureen Hardiman was saying triumphantly, “I knew it!”

  And if she’d seen the slightest hint of remorse, the tiniest sign of regret in Fiona’s expression, Geraldine might possibly have found it in her heart to remain silent and let the moment pass. Sadly, she saw nothing of the sort as she gazed across the hall. Fiona’s smile wasn’t one of triumph, but it held no repentance either. Not, of course, that Fiona was personally responsible for Hannah’s desertion, but her daughter had behaved despicably—surely the woman could pretend she was even a small bit ashamed of that?

  So Geraldine decided to react. “That was quick,” she said loudly, over the buzz of conversation, every bit as loudly as Dolores. “Weren’t you saying just at Christmas, Fiona, that you wished Leah would find some nice man?”

  Fiona frowned. “No, I—”

  “Oh, yes, I definitely remember you saying that,” Geraldine continued, “and now she’s due in June, which means she got pregnant”—pretending to calculate, aware that the conversations had trailed off around them—“way back in October, it must have been. Now, don’t you tell me,” she went on, “that you had no idea, you sly old thing.”

  A dead silence. Eyes swiveling from Geraldine to Fiona. A slight flush in Fiona’s cheeks the only sign that her composure was slipping. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Geraldine waited.

  “So who’s the lucky man?” someone asked finally, into the silence.

  “Yes, Fiona,” Geraldine said, the smile rigid on her face, “who is this mystery man that nobody knew about?”

  Fiona met her gaze squarely. What else could she do?

  “Patrick Dunne is his name,” she said evenly, “as you well know, Geraldine.”

  A collective indrawn breath. Eyes back on Geraldine now, waiting for her reaction. They all knew that Patrick had been with Hannah: Hadn’t Geraldine often mentioned him, saying how good he was to her daughter? Hadn’t she expressed the hope to quite a few of them that he’d propose at Christmas? And now they all knew that it was never going to happen, that he’d moved on to Leah Bradshaw, who was pregnant with his child.

  Mind you, they’d probably known it all already; when had anything stayed private in Clongarvin for more than five minutes? Hadn’t Maureen Hardiman herself been only too delighted to share the juicy details with Geraldine? But here it was, in the public domain at last.

  Geraldine turned without another word and opened Maureen’s teak front door. She stepped into the damp night air and closed the door on the silence, and walked on shaking legs to where she’d parked the car.

  Already she regretted her impulse. It had been irresistible, baiting Fiona like that, so satisfying to throw her off balance. But now they’d all look at Geraldine in pity, and they’d be careful not to mention Hannah. And, of course, she and Fiona would be watched furtively anytime they came face-to-face in the future.

  Still, it was out in the open now, no more avoiding to be done. She and Fiona would carry on as usual, she supposed. They’d be polite and cool and never, ever friendly. And naturally, the other women would be sensitive to Geraldine’s situation, and Leah’s pregnancy wouldn’t be discussed in front of her, which was a blessing.

  She started the engine and drove home, trying to remember if there was any custard. She could do with a bowl of custard—which was perfectly allowable as long as you made it with skimmed milk.

  Hannah raised her glass and sipped. The Spanish wine had a creamy taste that hinted at apples. “Mmm, this is a good one, must remember it.”

  “Now aren’t you glad you came out?”

  “You didn’t give me a lot of choice.”

  But she was glad, happy to escape her gloomy thoughts for a couple of hours. Here in this dimly lit wine bar it was easier not to think about little dead boys, and eaiser to push ex-boyfriends out of your head, to stop endlessly calculating, counting back the months to figure out when he might have made a baby with another woman.

  She sighed, resting her elbows on the bar. Not for the first time, she wished that she and Adam could just fall in love. How simple that would make everything, how happily-ever-after that story would be.

  Or would it? Would they drive each other mad within a week? Would romance mess things up between them, ruin the brilliant relationship they had now? She shook her head; what a foolish notion. She hadn’t the slightest intention of falling in love with her best friend. Things like that only happened in books.

  “To happy times,” she said, lifting her glass again, “that are just around the corner.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  A movement caught her eye then, and she turned to see three men and one woman assembling on the little stage, setting up instruments, settling into their seats. “Hey, I forgot about the music.”

  She watched them preparing for their performance. She saw the woman in black taking a seat, leaning forward to set pages on the stand in front of her. The keyboard player, his back to her, sorting wires and pressing switches, the enormous double bass being positioned on its stand. The man with the closely shaven head raising the saxophone to his—

  “I don’t believe it,” she said softly, lowering her glass.

  “What?”

  “The man on the far side, with the sax.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s the one who asked me out—John Wyatt. He’s John Wyatt. Remember I told you, and I said no.”

  He hadn’t been back to Cupcakes on the Corner. Almost three weeks now without a sign of him, and she kept telling herself that she was relieved, that she’d done the right thing.

  “I thought you said he was a carpenter,” Adam said.

  “Well, he was a carpenter—I mean, he is. I had no idea he did this too.”

  She was sure he’d never mentioned playing a musical instrument. But they’d spoken so little—two or three times altogether, a few minutes at the most. She knew virtually nothing about him. She remembered thinking he looked familiar, the first time he’d come into the shop, and now she realized it was because she’d seen him here.

  She sipped her drink. The ban
d played “’Round Midnight” and “Moonglow” and “At Last,” the slow old tunes wafting over her, perfectly suited to the intimate, candlelit surroundings.

  He wore a white shirt open at the neck, its sleeves rolled to the elbows. He looked relaxed as he played, perfectly at ease with his instrument. She loved the idea of a man who could make music. Patrick hadn’t even been able to sing.

  She drained her glass and turned to Adam. “Same again?”

  She hadn’t been going to stay long: She’d been planning an early night—or at least not too late a night. But what was the rush, with a Sunday lie-in to look forward to? It had been so long since she’d had a night out. One more drink wouldn’t hurt.

  They had two more. By the time the music stopped, Hannah’s head was buzzing pleasantly. “He’s coming this way,” she said as John approached the counter in conversation with the man who’d been playing the keyboard.

  “Say hello,” Adam ordered.

  “Hello there,” she called immediately, loudly, and they both looked across.

  “Well.” John smiled as he came over. “Hello to you. Still selling your cupcakes?”

  “Of course.”

  She’d forgotten how attractive his accent was. He showed no embarrassment. There was no awkwardness meeting him again. She introduced him to Adam.

  The men shook hands, and then John turned to indicate his companion. “Wally O’Toole.”

  “Hi,” he said, lifting a hand.

  “I know you,” Hannah exclaimed. “You drive a taxi. You brought me home the day my van broke down.” And the night Patrick left me, she added silently.

  She hadn’t even looked at him up to this, too preoccupied with her discovery of John in the band to notice anyone else.

  “I remember that,” he said. “Presume you got it sorted.”

  “Oh, yes, all better now.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  He was definitely Irish, no trace of a foreign accent there. He had a nice smile, with very even teeth, and tousled, muddy-blond hair.