Semi-Sweet (19 page)

Maybe Alice was the only one who noticed. It wasn’t as if he were falling around the place, and he hadn’t thrown up or disgraced
himself in any obvious way. He was slurring his words a bit, certainly, and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked like someone
who’d had a few too many, and he was louder than usual, monopolizing the conversation, like he always did after too much alcohol.

But maybe it was more obvious to her; maybe it didn’t really bother anyone else. And so what anyway, if he’d overdone it a
bit? They were out for the night, weren’t they? They were helping a good cause, and it wasn’t doing anyone any harm. And there
were plenty of others who’d had more than a few; you only had to look around to see that.

It was useless—her excuses failed to reassure her. The knot in her stomach wouldn’t budge. Her armpits felt horribly damp,
her hands kept making fists. She wanted to go home; she wanted them both home and out of sight, before everyone started talking
about Tom Joyce, who was making a bit of a fool of himself at the charity dinner-dance.

The band switched to a slow waltz, and Stephen extended a hand to her. “Come on,” he said, pulling her up. He wasn’t 100 percent
sober either, she told herself—he didn’t volunteer to dance when he was—but he was still well able to hold his own, and Geraldine
didn’t seem in the least concerned about him.

Alice tried to will her tension away as she let Stephen lead her around the stifling, perfumed room. “Isn’t it hot?” she said,
but he wasn’t listening, his head tilted toward a neighboring couple, the man saying something that made him smile.

I’m worried about Tom’s drinking,
she wanted to say to him.
Maybe you could have a word.
But of course she kept quiet. Tom would hit the roof—and it wouldn’t be fair to Stephen, who was more a work colleague and
a casual friend than someone you could expect to get involved in something like that.

There was nobody she could talk to. Not Tom’s family, such as they were: a priest brother in Colombia, a pair of sisters—one
married, one separated, both living in England—a ninety-two-year-old uncle in a nursing home at the other side of the country
whom they visited a handful of times a year.

Alice wasn’t close to either of her own siblings, not in that way. And of course she wouldn’t dream of mentioning anything
to Ellen—what could their daughter do so far away, except worry about her father?

At half past twelve, Alice told Geraldine she had a headache, and Geraldine immediately said, “I’ll get Reception to call
us a taxi,” so Alice suspected that she’d been wanting to go home too. The taxi arrived remarkably quickly—they were still
gathering coats and bags when the porter came and found them.

Tom stumbled getting into the back, and Stephen put a hand on his arm and said, “Easy there, fellow,” and Alice’s face burned
in the darkness. She sat between Tom and Stephen, and before they were through the gates of the hotel, Tom’s head had drooped
toward her shoulder. She prayed he wouldn’t snore.

Geraldine turned in her seat. “The dinner was nice, I must say.”

“My beef was tough,” Stephen said.

“How long till we have to get up for work?” Alice asked, so neither of them would look for Tom’s opinion of the beef.

They both groaned, and Geraldine said, “Oh, don’t think about that.”

Tom’s mood would be black in the morning. Alice dreaded the drive in to work. He usually dropped her, since Glass Slipper
was on the way to the dental clinic, and it made more sense than to take the two cars. She made her own way home, relishing
the half-hour walk after her day in the shop, unless the weather was very bad, in which case she took a lift from Geraldine.

“That’s nice music,” Geraldine was saying to the driver.

“It’s Herbie Hancock,” he told her. “One of my favorites.”

“Do you play yourself?”

“I do, a bit.”

Tom’s head was heavy on Alice’s shoulder. She shifted slightly, and Stephen immediately moved to allow her more room. “I’m
fine,” she said quickly. Here was the roundabout. Up the hill and two more left turns and they were home.

She dug her elbow into Tom’s side when the car stopped, and he snuffled awake. “Money for the taxi,” she hissed—she had only
a fifty-euro note in her wallet—but Geraldine said, “Alice, forget it—we’ll sort it out tomorrow.” Stephen walked around the
car and opened the back door and shepherded Tom out onto the path.

“Maybe he needn’t bother coming in tomorrow,” he murmured to Alice as she climbed out. “Let him sleep in. We can manage.”

“We’ll see,” she answered. “Thanks very much.”

If Tom missed a day’s work because of drink, they’d be talking about it at the clinic. She dug into her bag to fish out the
door key, and grabbed Tom’s arm as he lurched toward her.

“Will I go to the door with you?” Stephen asked.

“No, we’re fine. You head off.”

Tom leaned heavily against her while she walked as quickly as she could up the driveway, which had never seemed so long. The
taxi sat there, idling, long after Stephen had gotten back inside. She willed them to go, to stop watching Alice Joyce supporting
her drunk husband.

Lying alone in bed later—she hadn’t been able to get Tom past the living-room couch, so she’d pulled off his shoes and lifted
up his legs and left him there—she imagined the conversation in the taxi after they’d been dropped. About how Tom had been
knocking it back, about poor Alice having to put up with that. Maybe a remark about a dentist needing a clear head and a steady
hand.

Or certainly they’d be thinking it, even if it were left unsaid.

She’d wake him in the morning. She’d do her best to get him up. If he was grumpy she’d put up with it. She turned onto her
side and read 1:14 on the clock. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

Leah couldn’t sleep. If it wasn’t the constant urge to pee, it was the horrible acidic lurch of heartburn that had her lying
awake next to Patrick at almost three in the morning.

And if it was neither of those, it was Nora O’Connor. Oh, it was stupid to think Patrick was going to be seduced by the first
attractive woman who looked at him, or flirted with him. It was stupid and insecure, and she despised herself for thinking
it.

She was pregnant with his child; he’d left his long-term partner to be with her. She was pretty and confident and independent.
He loved her, and she satisfied him in bed, she was sure of it. What possible reason would he have for straying?

Except that he’d done it to Hannah. He’d been with her for over a year, he’d been living in her house, and then he’d met Leah,
and that had been that. And Nora was very, very good at attracting a man. And she’d be working closely with Patrick—every
day, probably. She thought about Nora’s lean, well-kept body, her sexy lingerie.

So you were at school together,
Patrick had said.
In the same class?

Yes, but I hadn’t seen her in years until the other day,
Leah had told him.
We were never that close, really. And she went straight to the States after school and lost touch with everyone. She was married
twice—neither of them lasted.

She should have said something to him when Nora had told her she was job hunting. She should have realized that there was
a possibility Nora would apply when she saw the ad for the PA. She should have said,
If you see an application from Nora Paluzzi or Nora O’Connor, dump it. I know her, I was at school with her, and she’s hopeless.
She’s been sacked from every job she ever got, and now she’s back here looking for work. Don’t touch her with a barge pole.

And Patrick would have believed her and thrown Nora’s application into the bin. She should have said something, but she hadn’t.

Now she turned toward Patrick. Maybe sex would put her to sleep. She leaned across and touched her lips to the side of his
neck, to the spot he liked. She opened her mouth and pressed her tongue to his skin. She bit the flesh gently, her hand moving
slowly down his chest, past his stomach, her fingers burrowing into the coarse hair below.

He stirred. “Hey,” he whispered thickly, “can’t sleep?”

She moved closer and took his nipple into her mouth and sucked. He groaned sleepily and reached for her hips, pulling her
against him.

He loved her. There was nothing to worry about.

Hannah cut butter and added it to the mixing bowl. She switched on the stand mixer and began to weigh coconut. He’d been so
nice about her rejection, but the smile hadn’t reached his eyes. She’d felt cruel.

She cracked eggs into a smaller bowl and whisked them briskly. It must be terribly difficult to ask someone out, to put yourself
in that vulnerable position. Then again, not all men were the same. She remembered Patrick’s confidence the first time he’d
approached her, no discomfiture that she could see, even when she’d been a bit hesitant. But she’d made John uncomfortable,
and she regretted it.

She opened the oven door and slid out the top tray and shifted the others up. Outside, the sky was just beginning to show
slivers of gray. She loved this predawn time, the silence in the garden broken only by the occasional chirps of the earliest
birds. In another month or so, she’d be able to open the window as she baked, to hear them more clearly.

She beat cream cheese and orange juice together, then added soft butter and icing sugar. The carrot-ginger cupcakes were a
big hit, well worth the extra effort they took. Maybe she could grate the carrots in bulk, keep them in the freezer.

But she’d been right to turn him down; it would have been crueler to start anything that probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere.
Shame, though. Tragic timing, to meet someone who seemed so suitable while she was still shaky after Patrick.

She slid another tray into the oven and closed the door gently. As she began to spread the cream-cheese icing over the cooled
cupcakes, Adam’s revelation of the other evening slipped abruptly into her head. What had Patrick been thinking of, taking
Nora on as his PA? Even if her looks had impressed him—which they surely had—what on earth had possessed him to take on someone
so inexperienced?

The impression Hannah had gotten from Adam over the years was that Nora was well able to find jobs where qualifications came
a poor second to looking good. Did she somehow imagine that she could sit outside Patrick’s office and file her nails all
day? Surely PA to a newspaper editor was a job that required considerable organizational skills, not to mention being able
to run an office?

And even if Patrick truly loved Leah Bradshaw, what would he do if Nora decided to make a play for him? What would any man
do?

She iced the last carrot cupcake and submerged the empty bowl in the sink. None of her business what any of them got up to.
As the sky brightened, she filled the kettle for her first cup of tea.

Adam slept on his stomach, as he always did, legs splayed, arms flung out, duvet falling sideways off the bed. Oblivious to
his landlady’s movements in the kitchen directly underneath.

He dreamed about the clarinet player. He dreamed about her fair hair flying about her head as she made music on a much bigger
stage than Vintage’s, all by herself. He sat in an empty auditorium and listened to her. She wore red, a long dress that showed
him the white gleam of her shoulders and the curves of her body, and that ended in a silky pool around her ankles.