Unfaithful (56 page)

He changed when Maggie Rowan came into his life. She was like a breath of fresh air; questioning and challenging him yet eager to learn. He began spending more time at the little flat she shared with her brother, where he was grateful for her company and the home-made dinners and she enjoyed some adult conversation. She encouraged him to exercise more and ease up on his drinking. They seemed to be a good match but he was nervous of giving his heart away. The memory of his beloved Sophie still burned and he was afraid of loving so deeply again.

Fergus limited his social contacts to an inner circle of suitable nonconformist friends, including several would-be girlfriends, who often got together for a few drinks, to play card games and crack jokes. He brought together a tight clique of fast-moving people and linked their lives by the golden thread of his charm. They had a sense of themselves as an elite group of charlatans. He gave everything the heady air of adventure and with his knack for throwing parties he remained the social ringleader.

Occasionally, after work, Fergus would bring some of the reporters to his favourite pub, The Gresham, on O' Connell Street. It really was the most horrible-looking place; ghastly with a terrible stench of beer, but he loved it. The pub was owned and run by his old school friend, John Bowen, who had aspirations of being a poet. John had lost his arm in a terrible car crash and he and Fergus would often joke irreverently about all the things they could do with one arm!

Fergus and John were usually surrounded by women. Both men had an eye for a vibrant woman and Fergus especially attracted them with his brooding good looks and falcon gaze. He would sit at the bar, often drinking cups of tea and brainstorming ideas for the newspaper. John often attacked his more outlandish ideas and Fergus delighted in crafting elaborate replies. He loved nothing more than the friendly banter back and forth. Fergus introduced John and Maggie and they quickly became an item.

Five foot ten with deep red, curly hair and widely separated green eyes, Maggie reminded men of the women in Titian's paintings with her ravishing and seductive presence. She and John had a stormy romance. He was artistic and creative with too much of a fondness for the drink and she was passionate and hot-tempered which often resulted in raging arguments. They married shortly after Maggie discovered she was pregnant. The baby was only a few months old when John began philandering. Fergus became Maggie's confidante and the bond between them grew even stronger.

Fergus and Maggie shared a wicked sense of humour and were constantly pulling pranks on each other. She loved the parties which Fergus was renowned for and which she often helped him host. Fergus, who took unusual pride in his ability to observe with all his senses, would set up experiments to test his friends' sense of smell and touch. He would spread some common-place foods on the kitchen table, blindfold his guests and lead them down the line as they poked the objects with their hands or bent over and sniffed. “What have you got a hold of?” he would ask theatrically, as the party broke into laughter. He would then crown the winners with ridiculous medals and ribbons. They would go head-to-head with the all-time champion; Fergus himself. He wasn't interested in any game that he couldn't win.

John began to realise that his wife was spending more and more time with Fergus which led to many arguments between them. Their relationship was purely platonic and Maggie didn't care if her husband believed her.  Wildly fond of Fergus, Maggie often seemed closer to him than to her own husband, and she would often stay up late into the night listening to his brainstorming.

Fergus behaved quite casually with most of his friends but where Maggie was concerned he obsessively observed the conventional routines of birthday
s and christenings. As her pregnancy advanced, he became entranced by the notion that throwing a party for a newborn child would bring good luck. An hour after the baby came into the world he rushed over to their house with metres of gaudy bunting. He draped the house until it looked like Little Italy and rang up all his friends to come and greet the newborn child. Maggie would always remember the night as a magical moment of closeness and camaraderie, one of those times that seemed to stretch out and define their friendship.

Maggie separated from John and took her baby and her brother to live in an apartment in Dublin city centre. One night Fergus drove to visit her, late at night, not wanting to disturb the children. He and Maggie stayed
up most of the night talking. Maggie realised Fergus' visit appeared improper and would probably get the trusty old rumour mill going.

She begged him not to pull any pranks in her apartment building, knowing from experience that he was apt to spend twenty minutes riding the elevator just to aggravate the doorman! He promised to behave himself. Shortly after he left, the doorman knocked on her door and handed her two of the dirtiest notes she had ever seen. “Madam,” he said, as if speaking to a woman of the night, “your gentleman friend asked me to give you these.” He handed her the notes with the greatest disdain.

She phoned Fergus in a rage. He burst out laughing, delighted to have annoyed her. “Have you ever seen such dirty notes?” he chuckled. “I had to walk into ten different shops to find them.” Eventually, she joined in his laughter. He was like a joyous little boy at heart with simple pleasures and rascally impulses.

The offices of The Stand were located on the fourth floor of a converted mill which could be accessed by stairs or elevator. Fergus always chose the stairs. When he reached the fourth floor he would march straight to his desk, kicking aside anything that lay in his path. If he appeared to be nursing a hangover, the reporters would lower their heads but most of the time he would be in fine form. Bursting into the room, he would roar with laughter, regale everyone with his stories and dictate memoranda before he even took off his coat and sat down! When Eileen Butler, his personal secretary, greeted him with her customary “good morning” he would say, “it's always a good morning.”

His office was the biggest on the floor and it also served as the newsroom. He sat in the back corner of the room at a gigantic roll-top desk, large enough to form a private work space. Every morning Eileen would top the desk with a row of giant yellow pencils, twice the size of normal ones with great soft lead. She sat at a smaller desk in front of a long row of floor-to-ceiling windows. Beside her were six tables where The Stand's vaunted research staff sat; three women, more or less, depending on how many had recently quit. A nearby bookshelf held a beat-up set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a gift which he had inherited from his grandfather but that was more for show and decoration than anything else; most of the information they needed could be found online at the touch of a button.

Above his desk a piece of board caught the debris that fell from the ceiling when the furniture salesmen upstairs rearranged their merchandise. He would sit under the canopy and take off his coat, donning his reading glasses which made him look even sexier. Then he would spread the morning newspapers across his desk and lose himself in reading for several hours. Loud chuckles and cackles would be heard from him as he read. Of course, he had a computer but nothing beat the touch and feel of a real newspaper between his fingers.

While the writers worked on their stories, he would hunker down at his desk, burrow through the news and dictate emails. He rarely spoke directly with members of his staff, instead he communicated by email or note. When a thought came to him-it could be on someone's late arrival or a problem with one of their newspaper articles-Fergus would yell at the top of his voice. His long-suffering secretary would have to type an email, even though she sat so close to him that it would have been just as easy to talk about it, or whack him over the head, something she often wanted to do! A heavy smoker, he lit up with great haste, taking a few quick puffs and forgetting about his cigarette as fast as he had lit it. He threw his matches into the waste basket sometimes without shaking them out and Eileen often had to put out the subsequent fires!

His team knew when their boss particularly liked their work because the partition between their offices did not reach all the way to the ceiling. He would laugh violently when pleased with a story, often his shoulders shook convulsively. If especially pleased he would bound out of his seat, drop by the reporter's desk and compliment him on the article personally. He was very much a hands-on boss and liked to be involved in everything. The Stand was his life, his passion, even more since his beloved Sophie passed away.  However, if he disliked a piece, he would try to give the writer a clearer idea of what he wanted and ask them to re-write it. If it still wasn't quite to his satisfaction, he would hand the assignment to someone else. It was a clever way of creating competition among his team. He was a stickler for detail and an absolute perfectionist, often agonising for hours over a particular feature, to get it just right.

As he worked with his staff around him, barking questions, compressing words or eliminating them entirely, he seemed to have found his place in life. He was like a showman running a great game or an act and orchestrating his team to play their chosen part. His staff couldn't help feeling that they were working with a significant figure. He had a way of looking directly at people and challenging them with his questions that was almost hypnotic. He was dynamic, a tremendous character, there was no doubt about it.

Writing for The Stand was tough but exciting; like a giant adrenaline rush filled with moments of laughter and friendship. The stress and effort, the long hours, the arguments and deadline pressures all merge
d in the minds of the team as part of the magic of the place. Everyone agreed that, in spite of the heated debates and arguments, Fergus Kelly was a prince who always made the job fun. Of course, the real fun arrived when the writers hopped out of bed, got to the nearest news stand and saw their own words staring back at them. There was nothing like it.

He read through his staff's work almost as fast as they could write it. Watching him edit was to see a man in his element. He wriggled at his desk; thumping and scuffing and swearing under his breath. He fidgeted, flexing his arms and grinding his teeth as if limbering up his mind with his muscles. When he concentrated, he locked his face in a severe scowl. If a story failed to meet his exacting standards, he would scuff his feet and let out a low grumble or a chuckle; a kind of symbol of the roars he would have been willing to emit if the story had truly pleased him. 

The main office was open plan and in the middle of the room was the section which handled the subscriptions and general administration for the newspaper. A nervous, shy man named Benjamin Lyons supervised the administration department which coincidentally was staffed by all female assistants; mostly students who worked part-time to earn some extra money. The girls teased Benjamin mercilessly which heightened his sense of embarrassment. He was a taskmaster and some of his team had a tendency to be a little absentminded. Tilly Regan delighted in tormenting him and would respond to his frequent reprimands by leaning forward and giving him an eyeful of her rather ample cleavage! This of course caused poor Benjamin's eyes to swell out of their sockets and drove everything else from his mind.

The advertising sales team sat near the administration section and often worked late hours in their cramped quarters. The sales team knew the writers well. They spent a lot of time socialising together which lead to a great camaraderie among them. The sales team admired the writers and realised that a bit of controversy helped to push sales, while the writers knew the sales people needed hot copy to sell advertising space and there was plenty of hot copy to go around. Everyone agreed with Fergus' motto that “good journalism sells.”

Fergus was a lover of words. He kept a little notebook with him at all times which he would withdraw from the inside pocket of his jacket to jot down a word or phrase that struck him. He delighted in forceful words and fresh expressions. When he heard one, he pounced, chuckling and trying it out in various intonations and conversations. He filled up many notebooks over the years, occasionally ripping pages out and pulling his writers aside to show them his treasured expressions which they would then inject into their stories.

He was interested in everyone and ev
erything, which is why he was such an outstanding newspaper man. He took a visceral delight in hearing information and in telling it to the masses and was happy to examine the evidence on all sides of a story, whether or not he went along with it. It was his enchantment with the strangeness of people and their passions which had led him to take an interest in Mark McNamara's story.

Chapter 8

“How's Shona doing?” Colm asked Jackie.

“Fine,” she replied curtly.

“Just fine?” he searched his wife’s face, trying to read her expression.

“Well, I haven't seen much of her lately. I know she's been busy with work.” He could detect a hint of irritation in her voice.

“She hardly ever visits anymore.”

“I expect she's consumed with her own life. We chat on the phone sometimes.”

“But you two used to be so close.”

“Yeah, well, people change, relationships change,” Jackie sighed, feeling for the millionth time like she was being interrogated. Their relationship had never been the same since she'd confessed to having an affair with Mark McNamara. The trial had gotten a lot of media coverage and Shona's face had been splashed across the front pa
ge of every major newspaper. Jackie knew it was only a matter of time before her husband found out what she'd done. Besides, the guilt had been a huge burden to bear and after months of agonising, she'd told him what she'd done. Sometimes, she wished she'd never said anything. He seemed to be constantly watching her and she felt that she had to explain her whereabouts to him at all times. It was only as much as she deserved, she realised that, but she wondered if their relationship could ever recover from what she'd done.