Semi-Sweet (18 page)

“No preferences?” Sliding a tray toward her, reaching for a chocolate-lime.

“Not really.” It wasn’t a lie: He was immune to them all. “How do you resist them, surrounded all day?”

She laughed. “Believe me, if you spent as long as I do baking them, you’d soon lose the taste.” She closed the lid of the
little yellow box. “Sometimes I think if I never see another cupcake, it’ll be fine. In fact,” she continued, sliding the
box toward him, “these days I’d much rather have a bag of Aged White Cheddar Kettle Chips.”

“Do you never get a break?” Feeling his way toward an opportunity, waiting for his moment.

 “Funny you should ask. I’ve just taken someone on who does a couple of hours three mornings a week. It’s heaven.”

He passed her a five-euro note—now or never. “And what about evenings?” he asked. “Do you ever get a free one of those?”

Hannah looked at him. Her half smile didn’t disappear, but something changed in her face all the same. She blinked once, her
mouth opening slightly. She seemed to be trying to come up with a response, but none came.

“I thought,” he went on—because he had to go on, one of them had to say something—“you might like to meet up for a drink,
or…whatever, really.”

She was going to turn him down. He was sure, all at once, that she wasn’t going to say yes.

Decidedly uncomfortable now, she held his money, her eyes slipping from his face to the cash drawer. “Actually—”

Yes, she was turning him down. He wished himself anywhere but where he was.

“I’m really sorry,” she said all in a rush, “but I’ve…recently broken up with someone.” Her face going pink again. “It was
a long-term relationship, and it happened suddenly—the breakup, I mean, and I don’t think—”

Her embarrassment dismayed him. “That’s fine,” he cut in quickly, smiling to show he didn’t mind in the least. “You don’t
have to explain. It was just a thought. No harm done.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, rummaging for his change. “If the timing were different or—”

“Really, it’s fine. You’ve done nothing to be sorry for.” He took the money and pocketed it. “You need time to yourself—I
understand perfectly.” He turned to go, his knee banging against the counter in his haste.

“Thank you,” she said, “for…being so nice about it.” She smiled faintly. “If it weren’t such a cliché, I’d say it’s not you,
it’s me.”

“No problem. Be seeing you.”

But of course he wouldn’t be seeing her again. The four steps to the door seemed to take forever.

When she got the answering machine for the third time, Fiona knew that her daughter was avoiding her.

“You’ve reached Indulgence,”
Leah said in her salon voice.
“Sorry we can’t come to the phone at this time, but if you leave your name and number, we’ll return your call at our earliest
convenience.”

Fiona waited for the beep, and then said, “Leah, it’s me. Please get in touch.” She paused. “There’s no need for us to fall
out. I didn’t mean to upset you. Give me a ring when you get this message.”

She hung up and walked to the window, looking out at the long, narrow back lawn that her neighbor’s fourteen-year-old son
mowed every fortnight in the summer, in return for twenty euro. Fiona remembered when a youngster would have cut a neighbor’s
grass for nothing, but that time was long gone.

She leaned against the windowsill and thought of how her plans for Leah were all going terribly wrong, and she wondered bitterly
about the unfairness of it.

Look at the salon she’d financed when Leah didn’t have two cents to rub together, fresh out of beauty school and no notion
what to do next. Hadn’t Fiona sorted her out? Hadn’t Leah been happy to take her mother’s money? How many mothers would have
done as much and asked nothing in return?

Look at the men she’d had in mind for Leah, sons of friends with qualifications and good jobs and excellent prospects. The
lengths she’d gone to introduce Leah to them, the efforts she’d made. The few dates that had come out of such meetings, the
hopes Fiona always had, and then, a week or a month later, Leah’s saying it hadn’t worked out. But someone would have turned
up eventually, Fiona was certain.

And now look at her daughter. Pregnant and unmarried, living with a man who’d been happy to string her along for months, who
might never have left his cozy setup with another woman if Leah hadn’t been careless enough to get caught.

A man who’d made small talk with Fiona whenever they’d met socially, all the time running around with her daughter on the
quiet. Who looked at Fiona defiantly now, not a scrap of shame for having behaved despicably. Proud, probably, of his bastard
on the way.

And Leah avoiding her. Screening her phone calls because Fiona showed concern, because she said what she was thinking instead
of smiling and pretending she was pleased with how things had worked out.

The salon would inevitably suffer with the disruption, Leah’s whole future suddenly uncertain, because who knew how long this
man would stay with her, how long before his attention was caught by another pretty blonde? How was Fiona to remain silent?
What mother could?

History was repeating itself in a horribly ironic way, with her own daughter playing the part of the other woman. Leah was
inflicting the hurt now that had been visited on Fiona thirty years earlier, the bitterness and shock of it every bit as vivid
today as they had been then.

I’m sorry,
he’d said as Fiona had stood dumbfounded, the tea towel still in her hand.
I didn’t mean it to happen, it just did.
Leah babbling in her baby talk, sitting on the kitchen floor, banging a wooden spoon on the tiles.
I’m so sorry.

Fiona’s heart thudding in her chest, a prickle of cold sweat on her forehead. Bending to pick up her daughter, needing something
to hold on to.

How long?
All she could manage to say, with her throat closing up and her abdomen clenched so tightly she could hardly breathe.
How long?
Her legs had begun suddenly to tremble, forcing her to put Leah down again in case they both crashed to the floor.

And the desolation after he’d gone, the chasm he’d left behind. The torture of having to face him when he came by to see Leah.
The protective shell forming around her, so that after a while it became—not easy, never easy, but not quite so impossible
to smile and pretend that he hadn’t destroyed her heart.

And worst of all, on hearing of his aneurysm less than a year later, the fresh grief, the hurt on hurt that had almost caused
a complete breakdown. No satisfaction, no sense of justice being done, none of that.

She’d stayed away from his funeral, not trusting herself to come face-to-face with the woman who’d caused it all. It had taken
her five years to visit his grave, to stand in front of his headstone and read his name in the granite and realize that she
felt nothing anymore, nothing at all.

She sighed impatiently, not seeing the long strip of lawn beyond the window, the neat shrubs running up either side. Wasn’t
she entitled to be angry now? Wouldn’t any woman be angry in her position, with her history?

She turned from the window and went to run a bath—and to pour a large gin and bitter lemon to accompany it.

“Something happened today,” Hannah said.

“What?”

Adam was poaching eggs to sit on top of their smoked haddock. Smoked fish had never done much for Hannah—and she certainly
wouldn’t have chosen an egg as an accompaniment—but she was starving and not about to quibble when it was being served up
to her.

“Someone asked me out,” she said.

“Who?”

“I think I might have told you about him. He’s a carpenter. He asked if I’d put his leaflets on the counter a few weeks ago.”

“The one Geraldine tried to set you up with—I remember.” Adam cracked the second egg and dropped it carefully into the swirling
water.

“He’s been in a few times since,” Hannah went on. “I didn’t mention it because, well…”

“And now he’s asked you out.”

“Yes.”

“And you said?”

“No.”

“Blast—why do they always break up? I’ll have that one.” Adam lowered the heat under the saucepan. “So you turned him down.”

“I did.” Hannah set the table with cutlery and glasses. “The problem is…I’m wondering now if I did the right thing.”

Adam lifted out the eggs and laid them on the fish. He brought the plates to the table. “What’s he like?”

“Nice.” She poured water into their glasses. “He seems nice,” she said, “what little I know of him.” She picked up her fork.
“Thanks—this looks interesting.”

“But you’re not sure that you’re ready.”

“Yes—I mean no. I’m not sure.”

“I wouldn’t worry. If he’s keen, he’ll be in again.”

“Maybe…if I haven’t scared him off.”

Adam grinned. “Ah, men aren’t that easily scared. Nobody would ever get together if they were.”

Hannah cut a corner off her fish. “When he asked me out, I sort of…froze. I wasn’t expecting it—at least I didn’t think he’d
ask so soon—and my instinct was to say no without really thinking about it.”

“Right.”

“I know I have to move on. I do realize I can’t lock myself away…” She sighed. “Oh, let’s change the subject, it’s too depressing.
What about you? You haven’t been on a date in ages.”

He looked skeptically at her over his fish. “You think my love life’s less depressing than yours?”

“Good point. Well, what about Nora, then? Has she put her eye on anyone?”

“Not that she’s told me.” Adam paused. “Actually, speaking of Nora, there’s something I’d better tell you, before you hear
it from someone else.”

Hannah looked at him quizzically. “Sounds very mysterious.”

“Ah, it’s nothing really—it’s just that she’s got a job.”

“Has she? That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes…The thing is, it’s with the paper.”

Hannah stared. “Nora got a job with the paper? Doing what?”

He poked at his fish, separating the pale orange flesh into sections. “She’s going to be Patrick’s PA, of all things. She
starts on Monday.”

“Oh.” Hannah digested the information. “That’s weird.” She cut a piece of egg white. “Not that it makes any…It is a bit weird
though, isn’t it?”

“It’s nothing,” Adam said. “She probably won’t last longer than a week. Anyway, what do you care? I just didn’t want you hearing
it by chance, that’s all.”

Hannah wondered what had happened to Patrick’s last PA, super-efficient Andrea with her peanut allergy and her English husband
and her son in the army. Andrea who never forgot a meeting or missed an appointment, Andrea who set up golf tournaments and
organized business lunches—and who had reminded Patrick, probably, when Hannah’s birthday was approaching.

And now Andrea was gone, for whatever reason, and Patrick had taken on Nora O’Connor, who’d presumably remind him when Leah
Bradshaw’s birthday was drawing near. Nora would organize his schedule and arrange his day and book his flights when he traveled.
Nora would be spending a lot of every day in his company.

“She knows who he is, right?” she asked Adam.

“Yeah, turns out she’s friendly with Leah—apparently they used to hang around together at school, but I don’t remember her.”

“Of course, they’d have been in the same class…So Leah must have got her the job.”

“Yeah, maybe…I’m not sure.” Adam looked uncomfortable. “Han, you know what Nora’s like. It probably never crossed her mind
that it might be a bit…awkward.”

Like hell it didn’t.
Hannah smiled across the table at him. “She’s right, why should it be awkward? It’s all in the past now. It really doesn’t
bother me.”

“I don’t think I’ll be doing this dinner again,” Adam said, regarding their plates. “It hasn’t exactly been a roaring success.”

“You know what I like?” she said. “Your chicken-and-sweet-corn soup. Let’s have that tomorrow night, with those nice seeded
rolls that you got last time.”

She would put it out of her mind. It didn’t matter in the least.