This Charming Man (24 page)

‘Most of it had been paid for before the actualwedding. I paid an 80 per cent deposit way back in May and yes, the cheque cleared. Admittedly the balance hasn’t been paid because, God – ’ she sagged – ‘they got so much wrong on the day. No vegetarian meals, they ran out of the main meal, seven people didn’t get fed. They lost the wedding cake, we still don’t know what they did with it. The Ladies was out of order and the dancefloor was like an ice rink. Everyone was slipping and sliding and Toria’s new father-in-law had to go to casualty with a dislocated knee. I know I’m a
government minister and I have standards to uphold, but this was my only daughter’s wedding.’

I nodded with sympathy.

‘It was only a couple of months ago – in August – and we’re still in dispute, but of course I’ll pay them when we’ve agreed on a figure.’ She looked forlorn.

‘Doesn’t it scare you that someone would set you up? To follow your life in such detail that they’d know you hadn’t paid the balance on the wedding? Then use it to discredit you?’

‘It’s part and parcel of being a politician.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I’ve faced worse.’

I was reminded of her past. She’d been hospitalized eight times by her ex-husband, before she eventually left him – and was ostracized by her devout Catholic family for doing so.

With sudden, genuine curiosity, I asked, ‘Do you ever make risotto just for yourself?’

Risotto is such a pain, all those lovingly added spoonfuls of stock, who’d be bothered?

‘It’s not a trick question,’ I added.

She thought about it. ‘Sometimes.’

I knew it. I was in awe of those types who, even when they’re starving, would prefer to take time to prepare something wonderful. When I was hungry, I’d eat anything, so long as it was immediately available: stale bread, black bananas or handfuls of cornflakes, crammed into my mouth, straight from the packet.

‘So what about men?’ I asked.

‘What about them?’ A gleaming smile.

‘Anyone special?’

‘No, no time. And the only men I meet are politicians and, really, you’d have to be in a bad way…’

But she was sexy. And, of course, hot-blooded. Well, half of her anyway. I could imagine her having lengthy sex and eating poached peaches with all kinds of men – laughably handsome actors, arrogant racehorse-owning millionaires…

‘Okay, Dee, I think I’ve got all I need. Thanks for the macaroons. I’m sorry I didn’t eat any.’

‘It’s all right. Paddy’s coming over later for a working supper, I’ll make him eat them.’

‘What’s it like working with Paddy?’ I shouldn’t ask.

‘Paddy?’ She tipped her head and stared up at a corner of the ceiling, a little smile on her lips. ‘Would you look at the size of that cobweb. Normally I don’t wear my contact lenses at home. When the place looks dirty I just take my glasses off. Instant soft-focus.’ She turned back to look at me. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘Paddy’s great.’

‘Well, we all know that. Can I use your loo before I go?’

For a split second she looked anxious. ‘It’s upstairs. Come up, I’ll show you.’

I closed the bathroom door behind me. Dee was hovering on the landing, looking edgy. I understood her anxiety. Journalists were always writing terrible things about the personal stuff they found in subjects’ bathrooms. Not that I was planning a stitch-up. Just as well, the bathroom was clean and there wasn’t even a mildewed shower curtain, or a home Botox kit. A poor haul.

When I re-emerged, Dee was gone. Three shut doors faced me. Bedrooms, and it was like they were whispering, Open me, go on, Grace, open me. And I just couldn’t resist. I pretended it was my journalist’s dogged instinct in the quest of a little extra colour; but to be honest, I was just being nosy.

I turned the knob of a door and pushed it open and, although the room was dark, I was surprised to feelthe heat of another human being within. A thrill of fear zipped through me. I’d gone too far. What if it was some muscly brickie that Dee had picked up for rampant, anonymous sex?

I was already backing out when I saw that it was a woman – a girl, really – who was lying on the bed. She sat up when the door opened and as the light from the landing window travelled across the room, I was stunned with shock. Her nose was spread halfway across her face and her eyes were so swollen and purple she couldn’t possibly be able to see. She opened her mouth. Two of her front teeth were missing.

‘Sorry!’ I retreated.

‘Dee!’ the girl called, panic in her voice. ‘DEEEEE!’

‘No, shush, please, it’s okay, shush.’ Dee would kill me.

Dee was out of the kitchen and up the stairs. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s my fault! I was having a sneaky look. I shouldn’t have.’

Dee sighed. ‘If you wanted to see my underwear drawer, all you had to do was ask.’

She moved past me and took the girlin her arms, and I wished that I’d resisted the siren call of the shut door and had just gone back downstairs like a normal person.

‘I didn’t mean to scare you,’ I called at the girl from across the threshold. ‘I’m very sorry.’

‘Elena,
pulako, pulako,’
Dee crooned, making soothing noises in some foreign language. Eventually, giving me an anxious look, the injured girl was persuaded to lie down again.

Dee shut the bedroom door firmly and said to me, ‘You didn’t see this.’

‘I’ll say nothing. I swear.’ I was tripping over my words in my desire to reassure her. I understood now why Dee had been so uncomfortable about letting me upstairs. Nothing to do with me reporting nasty things about her bathroom.

‘I mean it, Grace, you can’t tell anyone. For her safety. She’s only fifteen.’ For a moment Dee looked like she was going to break down into tears.

‘Dee, I promise on all I hold dear.’ (I wasn’t entirely certain what that was, but I wanted to convey my sincerity.) ‘But what happened to her? Elena, is that her name?’

‘Her boyfriend, pimp, whatever you want to call him, happened to her. He doesn’t know where she is. If he does, he’ll come after her. She was brought here just a couple of hours ago. It was too late to change our interview to another location and if you hadn’t needed to use the loo – ’

‘ – and poked my nose in where I shouldn’t have. I swear to God, Dee, I won’t say a word.’

‘Not even to your partner. He’s a journalist, isn’t he? Can you keep a secret from him?’

‘Yes.’

‘She makes her own macaroons. She can paint nails with her left hand.’
She harbours women on the run. She speaks some sort of Slavic-sounding language
.

I’d developed a bit of a crush on Dee Rossini…

‘And she’s sexy,’ Damien said. ‘Very good-looking party, New Ireland. Aren’t they?’

… but she also made me feel slightly inadequate.

He pressed when I didn’t answer. ‘Paddy de Courcy? Half man, half press release? Good-looking, isn’t he?’

‘I should be doing more,’ I muttered.

‘More what?’ Damien asked.

‘Just… more.’

‘It’s Uncle Damien! Damien, Damien, Damien!’

On the far side of a heavy, oak front door, Damien’s four-year-old nephew, Alex, was going wild. ‘Julius, Julius, man!’ Alex called to his seven-year-old brother. ‘Open the door, man. Damien’s here.’

The door swung open and Alex rushed at Damien and me. He was wearing Superman underpants, blue patent zip-up boots (I was guessing they belonged to his nine-year-old sister, Augustina) and a colander on his head.

‘Bike! Motorbike!’ In a way he reminded me of Bingo, he had the same joyous sort of energy. ‘Nnnnnnearrrrrrrnnnn!’

He tried to dodge past Damien, heading for the outside world, so he could sit on the Kamikaze and pretend to drive it, but Damien used his knees to block the way. ‘There’s no bike tonight, Alex.’

Taxi instead. So we could get drunk.

‘No bike?’ The energy went from Alex as though a plug had been pulled. ‘Why not, man?’

‘Just one of those things, man.’ Damien crouched down to Alex’s level. ‘Next time I come, I’ll bring the bike.’

‘Promise, man? They got a new baby here. But don’t let him on the bike, just me?’

‘Just you. Promise.’

Christine, tall and elegant and astonishingly svelte for a woman who had given birth only five weeks ago, came to welcome us. ‘Come in, come in. Sorry, I’m just in myself, it’s all a bit…’ She swiped the colander from Alex’s head. ‘I’ve been looking for that.’

Alex gave a little howl of protest. ‘That’s my lid, man.’

‘Richard should be home soon.’ Richard was Christine’s husband. He had one of those mysterious jobs where he spent fourteen hours a day on
the phone, making money. Damien and I joked privately that every day he was locked into his office and wasn’t allowed to leave until he’d made another hundred million euro. (‘Ninety-eight… ninety-nine… still ninety-nine… ninety-nine – and a hundred! Well done, off you go home, Richard.’)

We followed Christine into the enormous Colefax and Fowler kitchen, where a nervous-looking Polish girl was doing something at the microwave.

‘This is Marta,’ Christine said. ‘Our new nanny.’

Marta nodded hello and promptly scarpered.

‘And this…’ Christine gazed fondly into a bassinet, in which a tiny pink-skinned baby was asleep. ‘… is Maximillian.’

(Yes, Christine and Richard had named their four children after emperors. I know it makes them sound like grandiose nutters, but they’re not.)

Damien and I stared politely at the sleeping child.

‘Okay, you can stop admiring him now.’ Christine reached for a corkscrew. ‘Wine?’

‘Yes. Can I do anything to help?’

It was a fake question. No one could ever help Christine. She did everything so much better and faster than everyone else that there was no point. Anyway I didn’t want to help. I was at someone else’s house for my dinner, why would I want to do stuff I’d have to do at home?

‘All done,’ Christine said. ‘Did most of it last night. Just a few last-minute fiddly bits.’

‘What’s with your trouser suit?’ I asked her. ‘How come you’re looking so clean? You’re not back at work already?’

‘God, no. I’m just popping in for a couple of hours a day, just to keep an eye on things.’

Christine was so clever and accomplished that she no longer did much actualscrubbed-up, green-gowned, hands-on surgery stuff. Instead she was Head of Surgery at Dublin’s most expensive hospital, the first woman to have ever held that post. (Or perhaps she was the youngest ever Head. It was hard to keep track because the Stapletons seemed to be always winning accolades. If, every time one of them got a promotion or won an award, we gave them the celebration they deserved, we’d all end up in the Priory.)

‘So where’s Augustina?’ I looked around.

‘At her Sanskrit lesson?’ Damien asked.

‘Haha. Mandarin, actually.’

It took me a moment to realize that Christine was serious.

‘We don’t make her go,’ Christine said, as I tried to hide my astonishment – well, actually distress, if I’m to be honest. ‘She
asked
to go to lessons.’

Too weird. What nine-year-old would
ask
to learn Mandarin?

‘And we keep an eye on her,’ Christine said.

‘On her work-life balance?’ Damien suggested.

‘If your tongue could get any further into your cheek…’ Christine said. ‘Anyway, cheers.’ She held up her glass. ‘It’s lovely to see you both.’

An expectant little moment followed and Damien and I assumed our ‘Yes, we’d be honoured to be Maximillian’s spiritual guardians should you and Richard die, which of course you won’t’ faces, but Augustina scuppered the moment by walking into the kitchen and saying coolly, ‘Hello, Uncle Damien, hello, Auntie Grace.’

With no great show of enthusiasm, she kissed us both. She was tall for nine and very pretty. She sniffed the air with her dainty nose and sighed. ‘Moroccan for dinner again.’

‘How was today’s lesson?’ Christine asked. ‘What did you learn?’

‘May I check something?’ Augustina asked Christine. ‘You can’t speak Mandarin, can you? So what’s to be gained by my telling you what I learnt? You wouldn’t understand a word of it.’

Little bitch, I thought. No wonder I don’t want children. You give them everything and they thank you by growing up to despise you.

Augustina turned her attention back to me. ‘I’ve a surprise for you two.’

‘Oh? What is it?’

She furrowed her brow as if she couldn’t quite comprehend our idiocy. ‘A s-u-r-p-r-i-s-e,’ she spelt out. ‘You’re not supposed to know what it is. You’ll find out later.’

‘Hello,’ a voice said quietly. It was Richard, home from making his daily hundred million euro. Grey-suited, grey-haired and grey with exhaustion.

He managed a few moments of perfunctory conversation with Damien. ‘That was a good piece you did on Belarus,’ he said. ‘So how’s everyone at the
Press
? Mick Brennan still editor?’

All the Stapleton menfolk – brothers, brothers-in-law and Mr Stapleton senior – seem to do this whenever they meet Damien. They praise one of his recent articles, then they ask if Mick Brennan is still the editor of the
Press
.

Maybe I’m oversensitive on Damien’s behalf but I always feel they’re
implying that Damien had failed in some sort of way by not ousting Mick Brennan from his editorship, and assuming power himself.

Damien is only thirty-six and I’ve no doubt that he will edit a national newspaper some day, but in this family of overachieving clever-clogs, expectations are abnormally high.

‘Dinner,’ Christine declared. ‘Everyone sit at the table.’

She produced a shank of lamb, fragrant with cumin, and a platter of steaming couscous.

‘Not couscous,’ Julius wailed. ‘I hate couscous.’ He stabbed the back of his hand with his fork.

‘Just eat it, man.’ Alex was now wearing a sieve, the handle to the back of his head, so it looked like a baseball hat. ‘Make it easy on yourself.’

The food was delicious but I almost forgot to compliment Christine on it because it was just sort of accepted that everything she did, she did with excellence. The conversation, however, did not match the quality of the food.

Richard ate quickly and silently, then muttered something about the Hawaiian stockmarket and left the room.