Better Together (8 page)

‘Ah, I’ll be fine.’ Much as she loved the sympathy, she didn’t like the use of endearments or pet names. They always
seemed fake to her. She slid her hand from beneath his and pushed back her hair. She’d left it loose today because tying it back would only worsen her headache, and it fell in a cloud of vivid red around her still-pale face.

‘Of course you will,’ he said. He repeated Talia’s assertion that she was a great reporter and that she’d get another job and that this was probably an opportunity. Sheridan was already getting tired of the word ‘opportunity’, even though she’d used it herself. She wondered if other people who’d been made redundant got fed up with well-meaning friends telling them it could be an opportunity too. She told Griff about Talia’s job offer and that she was going to take it. He looked surprised.

‘I thought she was committed to the
City Scope
.’

‘Yeah, well, so was I and look what happened.’ Sheridan ground some black pepper over the fish she’d ordered. ‘She’s right to take the chance while she can.’

‘Absolutely. Smart girl, keeping her irons in the fire like that. I wonder, did she know what was going to happen at the
Scope
?’

‘There’ve been rumours for ages,’ Sheridan reminded him. ‘If I’d been less of a fool myself I’d’ve started looking for something else before now.’

‘So when she’s moving out?’ asked Griff.

Sheridan told him, and added that they were planning to go to the Canaries first.

‘Excellent idea,’ he said. ‘That’ll get your spirits up.’

‘And afterwards I’ll have to knuckle down to getting a job. And,’ she added hesitantly, ‘a new flatmate.’

Griff added some extra garlic potatoes to his plate.

‘Any thoughts?’ he asked as he sliced his steak.

‘Well . . .’ Sheridan looked at him through lowered eyes. ‘I did have an idea, yes. Well, it was Talia’s idea actually, but I think it’s a good one . . .’

Griff waited for her to speak.

‘We thought that maybe you’d like to move in with me.’ The words came in a rush, and she noticed the suspicion of a frown cross his face. ‘Of course it’s just a suggestion,’ she added quickly. ‘It’s not like you have to do it. I’m not trying to pressurise you into something you . . . you’re not ready for.’

She wished she hadn’t said anything. Griff was scratching his chin thoughtfully, as though working out how best to reply to her. But it was clear that he wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea. She felt a hot flush scorch her cheeks.

‘It was just that with her moving out, I need someone, and you spend a lot of time there already, so she thought and I thought too I suppose that it would be a good idea.’ She realised that she was blathering. And that he was still scratching his chin.

‘I suppose it was a question that would come up eventually.’ He finally left his chin alone and looked at her.

‘If you’re uncomfortable about it . . .’

‘No. No. It’s something we probably needed to talk about.’

We might be going to talk about it, she thought, but I can’t believe it’s going to be in a good way. She took a gulp from her glass of wine, thinking that redundancy was turning her into a total lush. Griff took a measured sip from his own glass and then put it carefully on the table.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to be with you a lot,’ said Griff slowly. ‘I’m really fond of you, Sher. We’ve had some great times together.’

This was a sentence that was definitely going to include a ‘but’, Sheridan realised. She waited for it.

‘But I like living with Gemma and Marianne. It’s relaxing.’

‘Living with me wouldn’t be?’ Sheridan waited a moment before she spoke, unable to keep the hurt out of her voice.

‘It’s not that,’ said Griff. ‘Living with you would be . . . well, living with my girlfriend. And that would kinda make you more than just a girlfriend, wouldn’t it?’

‘I guess . . .’

‘And what I’m saying is that I love you and want you to be my girlfriend, but not a girlfriend I live with. Not right now.’

Sheridan thought about this for a moment.

‘So what you’re really saying is that we have a good relationship now but you don’t want to mess it up by making it more than it is? Which would happen if you moved in with me.’

‘Exactly.’ He looked relieved. ‘You know, the thing I love best about you, Sher, is that you think like a man. You don’t get messy and emotional and cry at stupid things. You don’t think that I have to be with you twenty-four/seven for me to care about you.’

‘No, I don’t think that.’ Sheridan was picking at the corner of her paper napkin.

‘You’re one of the best women I’ve ever gone out with. There’s no bullshit with you.’

‘Thanks.’ She injected the word with as much irony as she could manage.

‘Honestly,’ said Griff. ‘I absolutely love the way things are with us. But moving in with you – that’s taking things to a whole new level, isn’t it?’

‘And that bothers you?’

‘It’s a lot to think about right away,’ said Griff. Suddenly his eyes lit up. ‘I know you’re under pressure to get someone, though. What about Eithne? Last time we spoke, she said something about the landlord needing vacant possession of her flat soon. Hey, don’t you think that’d be perfect?’

Sheridan scrunched the napkin into a ball. Eithne was the eldest of Griff’s five sisters. And the gabbiest.

‘I’m not so sure that would work out,’ she said.

‘It was just a thought,’ he told her. ‘Etty is great company, very easy to get on with.’

The idea of having Griff’s sisters in both his house and her apartment, keeping an eye on them, was too freaky for her to even contemplate. It should have been freaky for him too.

‘OK, so not Eithne,’ he said when she remained silent. ‘We’ll think of someone.’

‘But not you.’

‘No. That doesn’t matter, though, does it?’ He covered her hand with his again. ‘We’re still grand the way we are, aren’t we?’

Would she be turning into a stereotypical girl if she yelled at him that she’d asked him to move in with her and he’d said no, and so by no stretch of the imagination could she possibly think things were all right? After all, he’d told her that she thought like a man. He wasn’t the only person to have ever said that to her, although it was the first time for him. There was no reason to get emotional over something that he was regarding as practical. Was there?

‘I think we’re fine as friends,’ she told him finally.

‘I knew you’d see it like that.’

‘It’s just . . .’

‘What?’

‘Well, if we’re going out together on dates, not just as friends, but we don’t want to be in a relationship – well, where’s it all leading?’

‘Does it have to be leading anywhere?’

She hadn’t thought so before. At least, not consciously. But she was thinking about it now. He loved her, he liked sleeping with her, but he didn’t want to move in with her. That sounded like a problem to her, even if he imagined it was a perfect arrangement. She was obviously less like a man than he thought. Damn it, she thought, if it hadn’t been for the trouble at the
Scope
, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And I’d be perfectly happy to think that he might come back to Kilmainham tonight but go home in the morning. As it is . . .

‘Hey, you’re just a bit upset because of your job. I understand that.’

‘It’s more than my job,’ she told him.

‘Why?’

‘Why d’you think?’ She felt herself suddenly losing her composure. ‘You don’t want to live with me. You don’t love me enough. But you’re OK sleeping with me whenever you feel like it. You’re happy with things the way they are, but you know what, Griff, it makes me feel a bit like . . . like your plaything.’

‘You know that’s not true.’ He looked bewildered. ‘I wouldn’t dream of regarding you as a plaything. Besides, I thought you liked how things between us were too. You did until yesterday.’

‘I lost my job yesterday and I had to do a bit of thinking,
and I thought that maybe we were in the sort of place that you’d
want
to live with me. I know it’s Talia’s suggestion, but it matters to me too. I wanted you to move in with me because we’ve being going out for ages and it seems to me, that being the case, that moving in might be a next step. But I was wrong.’

‘You sound just like Gemma when she’s having a row with Jerry. All kind of incoherent and emotional and . . . and . . . like a girl.’

‘Because I
am
a girl! And I’m not incoherent. I’m making a valid point.’

‘What do you want from me?’

She sat back in her seat. She hadn’t thought it through. But she did now. The logical consequence of them living together was, perhaps, to eventually get married. Or have children. Children weren’t on her radar yet. But one day they might be. Marriage hadn’t been. Now it was.

‘I think I want a future,’ she said, after all these things had filtered through her mind. ‘A long-term future.’

Griff exhaled sharply. ‘With me?’

‘That’s the way my mind was going, obviously. But not yours,’ she added as she observed the hunted expression in his eyes.

‘It’s not that I mightn’t,’ he told her. ‘But I’m not ready yet. C’mon, Sher. With us it’s all about having a good time and great sex.’ He grinned at her. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t think the sex isn’t great.’

‘Of course it’s great,’ she said.

‘So we don’t need the other stuff. The dull stuff. The making-plans-and-settling-down stuff. It’s way too much responsibility for me right now.’

He was thirty-one years old. Sheridan’s father had been married with kids by then. She wondered when it had happened that men in their early thirties decided they were too young for responsibility. Then she reminded herself that, until yesterday, she hadn’t been thinking much about responsibilities herself. And that her mother had had three children by the time she was twenty-nine.

‘We’ve had some great times,’ she agreed. ‘I suppose they won’t last for ever. Obviously they won’t,’ she added, ‘if we’re not interested in . . . in taking things further.’

‘This is the best relationship I’ve ever had,’ he told her. ‘You’re one of the most brilliant girlfriends in the world. There’s no reason to mess it up by making it into something else. Not yet.’

‘I know. But . . .’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have listened to Talia. I shouldn’t have thought about the whole living-together thing. The problem is, now that I have . . .’

‘You’ve changed everything,’ finished Griff.

‘I’m sorry.’

Griff took his credit card out of his wallet and handed it to the waiter, who’d arrived with the bill. ‘My treat tonight, seeing as you’re one of the recently unemployed.’

They normally split the bill. Sheridan preferred it that way. But tonight she let Griff pay.

‘So what now?’ asked Griff as they stood on the pavement outside the restaurant. ‘Do you want to come back to the house?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘D’you want me to come back to your place?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want ever to see me again?’

Of course she wanted to see him again. She still loved him. But she couldn’t unsay what had been said and she couldn’t get past the fact that he didn’t want to live with her.

‘I’ll call you,’ he said when she didn’t speak.

‘OK.’

‘Well, good night so.’ He hesitated for a moment, then put his arms around her and drew her towards him.

‘No.’ She swallowed hard. ‘No, Griff, don’t.’

‘Come on, Sher.’ His expression was pained. ‘You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.’

‘I don’t think we will,’ she said. ‘And . . . and . . . maybe it’s better if you don’t call me after all.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked. ‘You’ve had a rough time. I’m sorry I didn’t say what you wanted tonight, but maybe you’ll see that ultimately it’s the right thing.’

‘If it’s the right thing, then we’re wasting our time together.’

‘How can enjoying somebody’s company be wasting your time?’ he asked.

She’d once asked the same question herself. Talia had been nagging her about her habit of going out on Saturday nights with different male friends to watch the match in a pub. Her friend had asked if there wasn’t one guy that she wanted to go out with more than others. When Sheridan said no, Talia had questioned her as to why she was wasting her time with so many men if none of them mattered to her. Sheridan had responded that she enjoyed being with them. That they were friends. And, she’d asked Talia, how could having fun with people you liked be wasting your time? She’d spoken the truth then. What had happened to make her change her mind?

‘But if you think that’s what we’ve been doing . . .’ His voice was harder than she’d ever heard it before. ‘No point in hanging around. No point in long goodbyes.’

‘No point at all.’

She watched him raise his arm and hail a taxi, and then he was gone. She turned up Georges Street and began walking. She couldn’t quite believe that in the space of two days she’d managed to lose her job, her flatmate and her boyfriend. A hat-trick of losses. She felt sick. As a parrot.

Nina had once felt that God was looking out for her the day she married Sean Fallon. She was totally and utterly in love with her husband and, to her astonishment, because he could have had anyone he chose, he seemed to be totally in love with her too. She reckoned that she was the kind of woman he needed, someone calm and sensible who could rein in some of his madder ideas and be a bulwark against his occasionally emotional outbursts. She sometimes still felt inadequate in the glamour stakes in comparison to his previous girlfriends (because no matter how hard she tried, she simply didn’t have that extra something that all truly glamorous women do), but she knew that Sean hadn’t married her for glamour. He’d married her because he loved the down-to-earth practicality of her and her ability to abandon that side of her nature when they were beneath the sheets together.

‘You’re my perfect match,’ he whispered on their wedding night. ‘My dad was right about you.’

Nina, despite her initial reservations, got on well with Anthony Fallon, although his wife was cooler towards her. But she didn’t care about her in-laws any more. All that
mattered was that she was the one who’d tamed Sean, and that she was the one who had him by her side.