City Woman (29 page)

‘One of these days that will be me, Mags.’

‘I know it will,’ she smiled.

‘They must be loaded, whoever they are: that mobile is the biggest one on the site. There’s twenty thousand quids’ worth there or more. Imagine paying that for a mobile
home!’

‘Imagine the palace they must be living in, then,’ laughed Maggie. ‘Come on before the food’s all gone.’

There were four other couples already on Cathy’s veranda and introductions followed. Cathy’s husband, Dan, was a jovial, gregarious man and Maggie and he hit it off immediately.
Terry was soon deep in conversation with the glamorous raven-haired Sylvia, who was wearing psychedelic leggings and a body-suit that left nothing to the imagination.

‘See the femme fatale is turning on the charm for Terry,’ said Cathy with a grin as she turned the sizzling spare ribs and chicken pieces on the grill, ‘but don’t mind
her; she’s all talk and no action. She’s harmless. Between herself now and Lady Muck you’d have two great characters for your books,’ Cathy laughed. Maggie had told her
about her forthcoming novel.

‘Who’s Lady Muck?’ Maggie asked, intrigued, as she helped Dan to butter some rolls for the hot-dogs.

‘She owns the mobile beside the one you’re in. She must be coming down next week. I see hubby unpacking all the luggage.’

‘Do you not like her?’ Maggie asked curiously.

‘Oh I can’t stand her, with her airs and graces. She really thinks she’s somebody. He’s—’ Cathy jerked a thumb in the direction of the grey-suited man
‘—a stockbroker and they’re absolutely loaded. We’re only in the penny-halfpenny place beside them and Dan’s not doing badly.’ She smiled affectionately at her
husband. Dan was in computers.

‘Well, at least you own your own mobile,’ Maggie said cheerfully as she popped a black olive into her mouth. ‘We’re only renting ours.’

‘Oh dear, Lady Muck won’t bid you the time of day. “Renteds” are the lowest of the low in the hierarchy here,’ giggled Cathy, who was getting slightly tipsy.

‘There seems to be a bit of let’s-outdo-the-Joneses here – or is it my imagination?’ observed Maggie, who had passed a few pleasant hours people-watching during the
previous week. In fact she had been thinking what a marvellous novel she could write about the various little rivalries that characterized mobile land. Who had the biggest veranda? Who had the most
luxurious loungers? Who had satellite TV? Who drove the biggest car? It went on and on! Maggie had been vastly entertained.

Cathy deftly pronged the sausages and laid them on a plate. ‘My dear,’ she said drolly, ‘one doesn’t keep up with the Joneses here; one keeps up with the Montclares
– your neighbours. Wait until you see herself and Sylvia outdoing each other in gear. They play tennis in their whites. Mind you, Sylvia is no Steffi Graf, poor thing. She’s been lucky
not to decapitate herself a few times.’

Maggie guffawed. She did enjoy Cathy’s sense of humour and it was going to be very interesting to observe the interplay between Sylvia and Mrs Montclare.

‘Though,’ added Cathy as she arranged the marinaded ribs artistically on a plate, ‘they’re really only blow-ins, you know, those Montclares. They arrived on site only
last year but you’d think they owned the place. Alex, his lordship over there, spent a fortune in Arnotts on garden furniture for his new veranda as we were all informed one evening, and then
. . .’ She threw her eyes dramatically up to heaven. ‘You’ll never guess what they did?’

‘What?’ Maggie was still laughing.

‘They got a landscape gardener to “do” the veranda. My dear, where you or I might stick a few night-scented stock and aubrietia in a flower pot, she had to have her huge
terracotta pots planted with all kinds of exotica. I ask you! Poor Sylvia was only going bananas. It’s a pity you aren’t here for the summer; you’d get a bestseller out of
it.’

‘Yes, it is a pity, isn’t it?’ Maggie dipped a portion of chicken into the barbecue sauce and ate it with relish. ‘I just couldn’t afford it, to be honest.
It’s very pricey here but it’s very well run.’

‘Well, keep in touch anyway, won’t you, when you go?’ Cathy urged. ‘I can keep you up to date on the goings-on here.’

‘’Course I will,’ Maggie assured her as Dan called out for everybody to come and help themselves before Maggie had all the barbecue sauce eaten.

‘Ah, Maggie, do I have to?’ Terry moaned.

‘Terry, I’m ovulating; condom or nothing! Sorry.’

‘The sooner you have that tube thing done the better,’ Terry grumbled, as he paused.

‘Yes,’ sighed Maggie as she tried hard to erase the fantasy of Adam Dunne making love to her, which was what it had taken to get any way aroused at all. Maybe if she had her tubes
tied, it might be different with Terry. She wouldn’t be on edge about getting pregnant again and she might recover her old zest for love-making with her husband. Lately it was becoming a real
chore, much to her dismay. Maggie had always enjoyed sex until she had got pregnant. Once she no longer had to worry about contraception, she’d be fine.

Clinging on to that hope, she turned her attentions to her avid spouse, discreetly hiding a yawn against his shoulder. The barbecue had been great fun. She had drunk more wine than was good for
her and all she really wanted to do was to turn over and fall fast asleep.

‘Aw, Mags, this is great,’ Terry murmured huskily against her ear. ‘You’re some woman! I’m going to make love to you all night. I missed you.’

Oh Lord! Maggie gave a deep sigh, which her husband mistook for a sign of passion. He congratulated himself on being an even better lover than he had given himself credit for.

Twenty-Four

‘Well! What do you think?’ With a flourish, Sandra Nolan handed Maggie the mock-up of her cover. It was the following Tuesday and Maggie was in Dublin for a meeting
with her sales and marketing director. Her mother was taking care of the children for the day.

‘You weren’t around, Maggie; so Denis, the head of our art department, had to get going on it, and I needed something fast to get a package together to start selling in. Of course
it’s only a rough and if you have any ideas or suggestions we’ll be perfectly happy to take them into consideration.’

Maggie gazed at the intended cover with awe. Denis had read some of the manuscript and she couldn’t get over how he had put the perfect face on Nicola, her heroine. He had captured her
vulnerability, her strength, her determination to be her own woman. Dressed in a smart tailored suit with a slim briefcase tucked under her arm, Nicola looked as if she was about to march off the
cover. Emblazoned in big gold letters was the title,
City Woman
, and beneath it, her own name, Maggie Ryan, in royal blue.

It was indescribable the way she felt. As long as she lived, Maggie knew she would never forget this moment. A fierce burst of pride surged through her. Her novel, hers alone, something she had
achieved by herself through hard slogging and determination, that not Terry nor anyone else could take away from her.

‘I take it you like it, then?’ asked Sandra, beaming. That day she was looking extremely smart in a Michael Gall black-and-white check tailored suit. Maggie had come prepared, having
learned from their last encounter. Knowing they were going to have lunch with Carol Lewis, the woman who would be handling her publicity, and who would, no doubt, be another glamour puss, Maggie
had worn a simple but extremely elegant Jacques Vert pink-and-black dress that she had picked up in Stock Exchange, the smart swop shop in Baggot Street. It had cost her a fraction of the original
price. With her make-up on and her smart new short hairstyle, Maggie knew without vanity that she was looking her very best.

‘You’re speechless – is it with pleasure or dismay?’ Sandra queried a trifle anxiously.

‘Oh, I think it’s gorgeous! I love it. Just look at Nicola; he’s pictured her perfectly. I can’t believe that the face he has put on my character is just so right. Oh,
Sandra, I’m so excited!’ Maggie bubbled.

‘I love it when an author sees her cover for the first time,’ Sandra laughed, ‘especially when the response is as enthusiastic as yours.’ She glanced at her watch.
‘Carol shouldn’t be long. Would you like another drink or will we head in to the Coffee Dock?’

‘We might as well go in. I don’t usually drink in the middle of the day,’ Maggie confessed.

‘Don’t get the wrong impression; I don’t either,’ Sandra assured her as she led the way along the carpeted corridor of Jury’s Hotel. ‘But today being the day
that was in it, I thought we might celebrate.’

‘Oh, I don’t need alcohol today – I’ve got this.’ Maggie waved her cover exuberantly.

‘I’ve got more good news for you.’ Sandra sat down at their table and took a menu from the waitress. Maggie did likewise.

‘What news?’ she said excitedly; this encounter was getting more like Christmas by the minute.

‘I’ve been talking to the wholesalers and I’m getting a really good response. They like the cover, they love the title and they like the sound of the story-line. Maggie, this
could be really big. What am I saying? This
will
be really big. Easons and Hughes & Hughes are hoping to do window displays. That’s fantastic for an unknown author and
we’re already discussing signing sessions. We’re going to launch in the UK in the spring. Our UK publicist is working on a tour and Carol and I are going to have to get out there and
hype
City Woman
for all it’s worth. Just hurry on with your rewrites and get your next one started. They’re asking about your follow-up already.’

Maggie was stunned. Looking for a second novel, window displays, hype and wholesalers, launches, publicity tours, signing sessions. This was the kind of thing she read about in interviews with
Barbara Taylor Bradford and Danielle Steele and Maeve Binchy – and here it was happening to her!

‘Maggie, it’s only starting, believe me!’ Sandra declared happily. ‘But you’ve got to be one hundred per cent committed if you want to make it. You’re going
to have Marcy breathing down your neck for editorial, and you’re going to have Carol and me on your back for sales and marketing. Don’t think it’s easy. It’s not, but
it’s a great challenge. I love getting my teeth into something like this. I love building up a new author. It gives me such a buzz.’

Maggie envied Sandra her enthusiasm for her career and her freedom to go where she liked and do as she pleased. She was unattached and totally happy with her lifestyle. She had a townhouse in
Glasnevin and was always jetting off to London on business. Then there were the trade fairs and conferences she attended all over the world. Sandra Nolan had the ideal life, Maggie decided
ruefully, as she watched the other woman making a note in her bulging Filofax.

‘Sandra, darling, what are you doing here?’ a plummy voice demanded, and the sales and marketing director was being air-kissed on both cheeks by an extremely glamorous, very thin,
heavily made-up, bejewelled woman. The scent of Opium was overpowering. With a shock, Maggie realized that it was Angela Allen, the bestselling novelist who headed Enterprise’s stable. Based
in the Isle of Man, she kept a mews in Dublin.

‘Angela! Hi, I might ask the same of you,’ Sandra smiled and then introduced Maggie.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve enjoyed all your books,’ Maggie said politely.

‘Ryan . . . Ryan. Oh yes! you’re the new find, aren’t you? I heard about
City Woman.
Terrific title. Best of luck.’ Angela sounded enthusiastic but her eyes were
cold and Maggie got the feeling that she didn’t really mean it.

‘We must do lunch some day, Sandra. You can take me to Dobbins the next time I’m in town. I’ve just come from RTE. I had to record an interview for an arts programme. It will
be transmitted in two weeks’ time. I won’t join you. Jonathan is waiting for me over there. We’re just having coffee.’

Angela smiled sweetly, blew some kisses on the wind and glided along to where her husband was sitting. Every eye in the restaurant was upon her and she knew it and gloried in it.

‘That will be you one of these days,’ Sandra murmured slyly. Maggie looked at her and laughed. It was quite obvious that Angela wasn’t too happy about ‘the new
find’. For some time now her crown had been slipping and Maggie had found her last two novels definitely disappointing. There were a lot of new writers around, nudging her from her top
position in the bestseller lists. Maggie was fresh blood, new talent. No wonder Angela hadn’t been too friendly.

‘Sorry I’m late, loveys.’ Another voice intruded on her thoughts and Maggie looked up to see a rotund, smiling woman plonking herself on the chair opposite her.
‘I’m Carol, and you must be Maggie. I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you.’

‘Hello.’ Maggie smiled and knew immediately she was going to like this friendly woman. Carol was nothing like what she had imagined a top PR person to be. Glamorous she was not. Her
curly brown hair was liberally sprinkled with grey, she wore no make-up apart from the merest touch of lipstick and mascara, but her skin was soft and creamy and unlined, despite the fact that she
was in her mid-fifties. She wore a simple flowered cotton dress and carried a huge soft leather bag, out of which she took a file for Sandra. Earth mother was how Maggie would have described
her.

‘That book’s a winner,’ the earth mother said matter-of-factly, as she handed Maggie a file similar to Sandra’s. ‘I’m starving, loveys. Should we eat before
we get down to business?’

‘Good thinking,’ agreed Sandra, who ate like a horse and never put on a pound. ‘Angela’s here having coffee with Jonathan,’ she murmured.

‘Oh, what a drag! I suppose I’d better go and pay homage,’ Carol groaned. ‘It’s enough to put anyone off their lunch . . . even me.’ She gave a hearty chuckle
and headed in the direction of the bestselling author.

‘She’s nice, isn’t she?’ said Sandra. ‘The two of you are going to get on great. Carol likes no-nonsense people. Angela’s a bit highly strung and she can be
difficult at times,’ she explained diplomatically.

‘I understand,’ Maggie said.

The three had a jolly lunch and by the time Maggie left she was on cloud nine. Carol said that she urgently needed some biographical notes about Maggie so that she could include them in the
publicity pack that she was preparing for the media. Her suggested campaign seemed to please Sandra, and Maggie just couldn’t believe that such good luck was happening to her. She looked at
her watch. It was gone three-thirty. She decided she’d just pop in to see Terry before heading back to Wicklow. She was dying to share her good news with him. Window displays, signing
sessions. Wowie! This was big time; this was
it
! It was really unbelievable. For a moment Maggie felt incredibly happy and she hugged it to herself. It was like waking up on Christmas
morning when she was a child, knowing that Santa had come. It was like the day she got engaged and like the first time she held her babies – that rare, precious, happy feeling when nothing
matters and you’re high as high can be. It doesn’t happen very often in a lifetime. Make the most of this, she told herself as she strode out to her car.