This Charming Man (46 page)

Marnie paused, swallowed, then said, ‘Yes, sometimes, I believe.’

‘So he’s a singer,’ Ma said. She liked singers, musicians, people in the arts, basically anyone without a regular income. ‘Paddy never said.’

‘He’s not a singer.’

Marnie had told me about Mr de Courcy but she’d threatened that if I ever breathed a word, she’d tell everyone that I hadn’t yet lost my virginity. (Mortifying at almost eighteen.)

I understood why she was so protective of Paddy. Marnie and I were embarrassed by our parents: Dad and his nose and his commie notions; Ma and her bluestocking chic and her do-gooding tendencies. But Paddy’s father was in a different league.

Personally, it was electrifying to finally get a look at the man that I’d heard so much about. He had a massive jaw, which he kept working, like he was crushing raw potatoes between his back teeth. His skin had a tender-looking rawness to it, as though he’d shaved off three or four extra layers, just to teach his face a lesson. His eyes were the same long-distance blue as Paddy’s but his had a staring glassiness to them.

‘He takes them out at night and polishes them,’ Marnie said, reading my mind. ‘Can we go back? We’ve walked enough.’

‘Let’s just go and say hello.’

‘No, Ma. You wouldn’t like him.’

‘You can’t decide that,’ Dad said.

‘We like everyone,’ Ma insisted. ‘Look, he’s switching on his microphone. He must be about to start his act.’

‘He’s not a busker,’ Marnie said somewhat desperately.

‘Ssh, let’s hear the man,’ Dad said, turning an expectant face in Mr de Courcy’s direction.

What had Dad been expecting? Jokes? Ballads? Sinatra covers?

He got the last thing on earth he’d imagined.

Mr de Courcy clenched his back teeth nine or ten times, held the microphone with white-knuckled fingers before his mouth and barked, ‘Now hear this! God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to save us. His only son. To save us miserable sinners. Yes, you, that woman right there in the blue anorak, and you, sir, there. And are we grateful? Are
you
?’ he asked a startled jogger. ‘No, you most certainly are
not. How do we repay this great act of sacrifice? By sinning. Sins of the flesh. Lust! Greed, gluttony, anger, envy, but mostly lust!’

Men walking their dogs, young mothers wheeling their babies, family groups enjoying the last hour of daylight – the invective reached them all. They looked variously surprised, alarmed, sometimes offended. Such freelance God-bothering was highly unusual. Ireland had officialchannels for this sort of thing – an army of priests who ran a closed shop.

Ma and Dad were rooted to the spot. Their expressions were so radiant with shock, they looked like converts.

‘Can we go?’ Marnie pleaded, shaking Ma’s elbow. ‘I’m afraid he’ll see me and shout at me about lust.’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Protectively Ma and Dad hurried us towards home and eventually Mr de Courcy’s voice faded away. Perhaps it was the curve of the pier or the direction of the wind, but when we were almost at the end, Marnie whispered, ‘He’s singing now.’

We cocked our ears and heard – very clearly – carried to us on the wind, ‘She’s just a devilwoman, with evilon her mind.’ He sang in a lumbering, dirge-like fashion, divesting the song of any jauntiness. ‘Beware the devil woman, she’s going to get you from behiiiind.’

Dad stared in the direction of the noise. ‘It’s a downright tragedy,’ he said.

‘I must admit I’d been expecting a waster who drank,’ Ma said. ‘If only.’

‘But he is a waster,’ Marnie said. ‘He got sacked from his job and didn’t try to get another. He doesn’t earn any money. This is all he does now.’

‘Poor Paddy. And his mother is dead. No one to take care of him.’

‘Poor Paddy.’

‘Poor Paddy.’

‘Poor Paddy.’

‘Damien! Damien Stapleton! You great, big, sexy ride, over here!’

‘Ah there she is,’ Damien said.

A woman at a faraway table was standing up and waving: tall, busty, blonde, loud; the type who yelled greetings from four miles away.

‘That’s
Juno?’

‘That’s her,’ he said happily, grasping my hand and hurrying us across the restaurant. ‘Don’t worry. You’re really alike. You’re going to get on great.’

She wasn’t what I’d expected and this made me very anxious. I hate to have my prejudices overturned. The picture in my head had Juno as a lady-who-lunches type, who wore a lot of white and starved herself into early-onset osteoporosis. I mean, she’d worked in PR, for Browning and Eagle no less, could you blame me? But she was hale and hearty, and dressed in jeans and a rugby shirt worn with the collar flicked up. Many things annoy me – I’d be the first to admit that I’m deeply intolerant – but rugby shirts worn with the collars flicked up make rage boil up inside me like toxic black smoke.

‘Still the latest man in Ireland,’ she chided, giving him a quick peck – to my alarm – on the lips.

‘It was Grace’s fault,’ Damien said. ‘She was stuck at work.’

Thanks, you disloyal fucker.

‘Earthquake in Pakistan,’ I said. ‘Mostly women and children killed. So thoughtless of them to die on a Friday evening when I’m on my way out for dinner. Ahahaha,’ I added mirthlessly, in a fruitless attempt to seem good-humoured.

‘Work,’ Juno exclaimed. ‘Give it up, I say! Send the men out to graft and let us women stay home and spend the money!’

She was trying to be friendly – shocked as I was, I could see that – and this was my chance to show good faith by replying in kind: Yes, men, lazy bastards! Good enough for them. That’ll teach them to throw their dirty socks on the bedroom floor!

But I couldn’t.

I looked at the empty chair beside her. ‘So where
is
your husband?’

‘God knows,’ she said, throwing her head back and hooting.

‘… What do you mean?’

‘On a corporate jolly in the Curragh. Cristal tent. Been down there all afternoon. Just had a call from him.’ She held up her mobile. ‘Too drunk to drive. He might make it later, but fuck alone knows what state he’ll be in. He’s in big trouble with me, he lost two grand on the horses. If I don’t get some decent diamonds as an apology, guess who’ll be sleeping in the spare room for the next month!’ She roared with laughter – and so did Damien.

Her husband wasn’t coming?

I hadn’t wanted to have this dinner. In these nicotine-free days it was a complication I could have done without. However, a group event, including me
and Juno’s husband, had seemed a benign enough proposition. Now everything had changed and I knew I’d be spending the next four hours sitting like a big plank while Damien and Juno played Do You Remember The Time We…

And why had Juno arranged a night out when Miles was on a jolly?

And why hadn’t she apologized?

Was that not… rude?

I’d suddenly come over all polite.

The waiter appeared. ‘An aperitif?’

‘A pint of Guinness,’ Damien said.

‘Make it two,’ Juno said.

She drank pints? I’ll tell you, it was a novelty to feel girly and prim.

‘You and your pints of Guinness,’ Damien said happily. ‘I’m getting flashbacks to our misspent youth. Remember? When we had no money and had to make drinks last as long as possible.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I remember having to do that too. And the cheapest pint you could buy was –’

‘Grace?’ Damien indicated the waiter. ‘Drink?’

‘I’m sorry.’ I’d been so desperately trying to fit in that I forgot he was still there. ‘Gin and tonic, please.’

‘Large?’

‘Oh why not?’

‘I’m just popping out for a cancer stick. I can’t tempt you…’ Juno slanted a smile at Damien.

He shook his head ruefully.

‘How are you two getting on since you stopped smoking?’

‘Fine,’ I said, at the same time as Damien said, ‘We’re at each other’s throats.’

‘No, we’re not,’ I said.

‘We are. We’re not getting on at all,’ he insisted.

‘Aren’t we?’

‘No. We’re not.’

‘We are!’

‘We’re not.’

‘We are!’

‘We’re not!’

Juno flashed us her pack of Marlboro, like it was an FBI badge. ‘I hate to interrupt,’ she twinkled, ‘but I’ll be out the front, while you two get your story straight.’

‘Why did you say she was like me?’ I raged in the taxi home.

‘Because she’s her own woman. She gives as good as she gets. Like you.’

‘Like me! We’ve nothing in common. She doesn’t have a job.’

‘She has two kids.’

‘She has a nanny! She plays hockey. She goes horse-riding. She says, “Everyone, let’s get naked!” ’ (The punchline to some pointless anecdote involving an all-day drinking orgy and a swimming pool.) ‘She’s a female jock.’

‘She’s fun.’

She wasn’t.

‘If you don’t like her,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to meet her again.’

‘But you will, won’t you?’

‘I might…’

‘Ah Damien, she’s your
ex-wife
.’

‘But sure, that’s immaterial. That was a thousand years ago.’

‘
Don’t
starting hanging around with her.’ Drunkenly and childishly I said, ‘Don’t be so
mean
.’

‘What’s the big deal? I love you. I’m with you.’

‘Just bloody stubborn,’ I muttered into my chest. ‘Only doing it to be contrary.’

‘No, no.’ He was being irritatingly reasonable. ‘Juno’s a part of my past and I’m glad we’re back in touch with each other.’

‘But –’

Then I was suddenly reminded of another conversation we’d had, not so long ago, and with the fighting spirit of the drunk person who knows she’s beaten but can’t bear to lose face, I said, ‘Fuck it, then, fine, fine, have it your way. Lez all be friends with lovely Juno.’

It was 6.58 a.m. when the phone rang.

I was already awake. All the same, it must be something big. Another tsunami? When something of that magnitude happened we were all called in to work immediately.

‘I’m on my way to the hospital!’ It was Jacinta. ‘Oscar’s burst his appendix!’

‘… Right.’

‘Natural disaster?’ Damien asked sleepily.

‘Take it easy, Jacinta,’ I said.

‘Jacinta,’ he muttered. ‘I might have known.’

‘No one dies from a burst appendix nowadays,’ I said. ‘He’ll be fine.’

‘No, you don’t understand! Today’s my day for interviewing Rosalind Croft and I’ll be stuck at Oscar’s bloody bedside. Of all the fucking days he has to pick! Never have children, Grace, they’re the most
profoundly
selfish –’

‘We’re not running the piece until Friday. Change the interview to tomorrow or Thursday.’

‘No, no! Rosalind’s schedule is so full, it has to be today. Today! You’ll have to go instead of me.’

‘Okay.’

‘Okay? Is that all you have to say? Aren’t you glad?’

‘… Ah…’

‘If she gives you anything, like a scarf or… or
anything,
you give it straight to me.’

They valet-parked me. A
house
with valet-parking.

A suited PA-type person escorted me to a dressing room that was bigger than my entire house, where Mrs Croft was getting her hair blow-dried. She was already fully made-up. It was hard to put an exact age on her – maybe forty-five?

I’d expected to dislike her. I was more than slightly judgemental about society women who did charity work; I suspected it was just an excuse to buy lots of frocks. But she squeezed my hand and smiled with a warmth that seemed genuine.

‘You’re going to shadow me today, Grace? I hope you won’t be bored to death.’

I sincerely doubted it. Much as I might disapprove of the super-rich, I was shamefully fascinated by their lifestyles.

People were constantly in and out of her room, bringing her phone messages, menus to approve, documents to sign. Being rich was a demanding job. Mrs Croft was chatty and pleasant to everyone. But maybe only because I was there.

A stunningly good-looking Nigerian girl called Nkechi was flitting around, laying out clothes, flicking through hangers and shouting dog’s abuse at another Nigerian girl called Abibi. ‘MaxMara, MaxMara, I said MaxMara. Why do you give me Ralph Lauren?’

‘You said cream trousers.’

‘I said cream
MaxMara
trousers, you moron. There is a
world
of difference.’

‘I’m chairing a committee meeting this morning,’ Mrs Croft said, as Nkechi helped her into a strokeably soft cream cardigan. I didn’t know much about wool but whatever this garment was made of, it was clearly very, very expensive. I was saving up phrases to tell Damien later. I decided on, ‘A cardigan knitted from the hair of newborn babies.’

‘What sort of committee meeting? Charity?’

‘Are there any other kinds of committee meeting?’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘Thank you, Nkechi.’ Nkechi zipped up the cream MaxMara pants that had caused all the shouting. ‘Sugar Babies. For babies with diabetes. Then a lunch.’

‘And what sort of lunch?’

‘Take a guess. Charity again.’ Leaning on Nkechi, she stepped into a pair of cream and brown patent, low-heeled pumps. ‘Thank you, Nkechi.’

‘Same charity?’

‘No, no, different. The Sweetheart Foundation. For children with heart defects. Thank you, Nkechi.’

Nkechi was fussing at Mrs Croft’s neck with a cream scarf decorated with horseshoes and stirrups. ‘Okay, it appears we’re ready to go.’

It was a right cavalcade. There was me, Mrs Croft, the PA, the hairdresser, Nkechi, Abibi, two cars, two drivers and a large number of Louis Vuitton suitcases.

Mrs Croft, the PA and I were helped into a Maybach (‘the dearest car in Ireland’), while Nkechi, Abibi, the hairdresser and the suitcases ‘had to suffer the ignominy’ of travelling behind us in an S-class Merc.

The other committee ladies were exactly what I’d expected: freshly blow-dried hair, impractically light-coloured clothing and accents like angle-grinders. It seemed that everyone served on everyone else’s committees and they all attended each other’s shindigs. (‘Every lunch and dinner must be like
Groundhog Day
with tit tape.’)

There was lively discussion over the theme for the Sugar Babies ball, or at least to find a theme that hadn’t been used in the previous six months at another ball. Suggestions were bigged up and shot down, according to whatever personal animosities were in play. Mrs Croft kept it all under control without having to raise her voice and they finally settled on a Marie Antoinette theme. (‘Super!’)