Woman to Woman (55 page)

When the guests were all eating, she pushed the door between the kitchen and the dining room open just a fraction, and listened.

She heard murmurs of “Delicious, Rachel’ and This salmon is fantastic, how did you do it?” They liked it. She only hoped the pheasant went down as well.

“Would you like some pheasant?” she asked Amy when the girl returned to the kitchen after delivering the last plate.

“I’m a vegetarian Amy said, then added, ‘but everyone in there is gobbling the pheasant up like mad. Even Aunt Antonia.”

“Not a woman easily pleased, I believe.” Aisling filled the sink with hot water.

Amy grimaced.

“She’s a cow. I hope she chokes on it. Not because of your cooking she added quickly.

“No offence.”

“None taken. If you’re hungry, I could make you some nice cheese sauce for the broccoli and cauliflower, or an omelette?”

Aisling had noticed that the girl looked tired and pale under her heavy pancake foundation.

“No, but thanks anyway.” Amy was really very pretty when she smiled.

“D’you want a hand with the washing-up?”

Aisling scrubbed and Amy dried.

“Do you cook all the time, for a living, I mean?”

“Actually, this is my first dinner party Aisling explained, I work as a secretary in a legal firm and I ended up catering for!

a special lunch when the original caterers made a mess off things. That’s where I met your father and he said your mother would love some help with parties and dinners for her new business.” “That’s true. She can’t even make tea. So you never did anything like this before?”

- “I love cooking and I’ve done cooking courses but I never actually thought of doing it professionally. Until this year, anyway.”

“Why is that?”

“I was a housewife and I went back to work when my husband and I split up earlier this year Aisling said matteroffactly.

She didn’t feel her heart ache when she said it, didn’t feel the lump in her throat at the thought of Michael. Thank God. She rinsed a copper-bottomed saucepan and placed it on the drainer.

“When people congratulated me on my cooking after the lunch, I decided to do something about it and then your mum rang. With a bit of luck, and if people get my cards when they’re leaving, I’ll get more jobs like this.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. You’re a career woman.” Amy dried a wooden spoon carefully.

Aisling smiled at the girl.

“I suppose I am. Strange, I never thought I’d be one.”

That’s what I want to be Amy said.

“I don’t want to sit around like Mum did for years waiting for something to happen before Dad pushed her into doing something.”

That’s hardly fair, Amy.” Aisling rebuked gently.” If your mother hasn’t worked for a few years, it’s very, very difficult going back. I should know.

“My first few months back at work were a nightmare. Imagine if you’d been off school for two years and then had to go back to class with girls two years younger and start again …”

“I suppose you’re right Amy said reluctantly.

“I know I’m right Aisling said firmly.

“You’d feel totally threatened and stupid, because they’d know more than you.

You’d be paranoid about not fitting in. It’s a horrible feeling, believe me. Take it from me, your mum’s been really brave setting up this PR company and I’m sure she could do with your support.”

“Suppose.” Amy dried a saucepan.

“Everything’s going wonderfully, Aisling.”

Rachel rushed into the kitchen clutching four empty bottles of wine.

“It is if you’ve gone through all that booze already reproved Amy, as if she hadn’t been drinking herself.

“That’s nine bottles at least.”

“It’s a party. And there are twelve of us,” Rachel retorted.

They love the pheasant, especially Antonia. She says she’s “amazed it’s so good”. Bitch. Can you put cyanide on her cheesecake,

Aisling grinned.

“I’m not sure how good that would be for my reputation as a dinner-party cook. I’ll do salmon timbales but I draw the line at cyanide.”

“They were gorgeous,” Rachel sighed.

“Everyone wanted to know how I did them. And the pheasant too. I think they’re all convinced I cleaned out Marks and Spencer’s food hall. As soon as Antonia is gone, do come in and I’ll introduce you, won’t you?”

Aisling didn’t really want to but then she thought about her business.

“Of course. I’ll need to freshen up first.”

“Use my room,” volunteered Amy.

It was half twelve when Aisling turned the key in her front door lock. The pots and pans would just have to stay in the hall overnight, she decided, dumping everything onto the hall carpet.

Antonia and her husband had stayed at the Coughlans’ until eleven, so Aisling and Amy had sat in the kitchen watching Tom Cruise in Top Gun on the small TV beside the microwave until they’d left.

When Aisling finally walked into the dining room, everyone clapped.

“The best meal I’ve had in years said one woman, holding up a large glass of port as a toast.

“I do hope you can cook for me sometime.”

“Of course Aisling said.

“I’ll give you a card.”

The meal had been a huge success and, as she went into the kitchen to look for Flossie, she felt elated but dog-tired. She switched off the lights downstairs and went to bed, not even bothering to take off her eye make-up. Just before turning out her bedside light, she switched the alarm clock off. She was going to have a lie-in in the morning. She deserved it.

“Aisling, that really isn’t you. It doesn’t suit you.” Sam stood a few feet away from the changing cubicle, eyes narrowed as he , looked at the fitted navy dress Aisling had just tried on. She sighed in exasperation. This was the third item she’d tried on and he’d hated the other two as well.

The cream woollen dress with a matching long cardigan was ‘too tight’, the elegant black shirt was ‘too short’, and she’d thought he was going to have a seizure when he saw the clingy red lycra top that went with it. They’d been shopping in the Stephen’s Green Centre for just an hour and Aisling was already wondering what sort of illness she could fake so she could go home. She’d been so thrilled with Sam’s present of a clothes voucher to celebrate their first month of going out together. It was such a thoughtful gift, she’d told Fiona happily.

Aisling cooked a special dinner for the occasion and she was delighted when Sam gave her the voucher which was hidden in a big box of chocolates. It was the sort of gesture Michael would never have made.

“We can go shopping next Saturday Sam had said, unwrapping a coffee creme for her.

“I’d love that she said truthfully, wondering how to avoid eating too many chocolates without upsetting him. A whole box of Dairy Milk would mean she couldn’t eat a proper meal for at least a month.

“I’d love to go shopping with you.”

Famous last words.

“What would look good on me, Sam?” she demanded now, irritated beyond belief.

“A yashmak?”

“Honey, don’t get upset.” He looked pained, his eyes troubled, as if she’d really upset him.

“I just want you to buy something suitable, that’s all.”

“Suitable for what?”

“For going out to dinner with me, for the office. You needn’t be so defensive. I’m only trying to help.”

“Listen, Sam.” Aisling looked at him with eyes blazing.

“You and I have very different ideas about what’s “suitable”. I have the sort of figure I can show off. And I want to show it off!”

she hissed.

“Have you got that?”

“Fine. I just want you to look nice.”

The cheek of him, Aisling thought crossly as she retreated into the changing room and pulled the curtains. As if she didn’t look nice before.

Men always thought they knew better than you. She hoped this particular phase turned out to be just that a phase a brief one. For all his faults, Michael had never been particularly interested in her wardrobe. Then again, maybe that had been part of the problem. Perhaps men were supposed to be fascinated by what their women wore. Perhaps it was a caveman thing, a flattering thing.

Aisling stood in her bra and knickers and looked at the three very nice outfits that Sam had condemned. They all looked nice. But after years of wearing sloppy Tshirts and elastic-wasted trousers, she probably wasn’t the best fashion expert in the world.

Wearing anything clingy was a thrill for her. But maybe Sam was right and she shouldn’t indulge her taste for spray-on lycra garments in case she ended up looking like mutton dressed as lamb.

“Aisling.” The curtain shook.

“Look what I’ve found.”

She stuck her head out of the cubicle.

“This,” Sam produced a clothes-hanger from behind his back, ‘would be lovely on you.”

This’ turned out to be a long, highly patterned pale peach dress that

flowed and billowed like a sail, a dress which would undoubtedly make her look like an over-the-hill bridesmaid.

Six months ago, Aisling would have loved it, mainly because it was big enough to accommodate a size sixteen. However, she wasn’t a size sixteen any more and she wanted to wear something which showed off the fact. Sam didn’t know anything about this. He had no idea she’d lost so much weight, she hadn’t told him. Aisling had felt it might change his opinion of her, as if he’d go off her if he found out she hadn’t always been the slim blonde she was now.

It wasn’t fair to expect him to understand her hatred for anything baggy. Keep calm, she told herself. Don’t let the sins of Michael Moran be visited on every man after him.

She reached out and took the dress from Sam.. His face creased into a smile and she grinned back at him. She impulsively leaned out and kissed him on the cheek. There was something utterly charming about Sam’s smile, that mischievous grin which lit up his face. He was quite irresistible standing there in a snow-white cricket jumper and faded denims which clung to his long legs. One of the shop assistants had eyed him up the moment they walked into the shop until Aisling shot her a proprietorial ‘hands off’ look.

“Bet you a tenner it looks lovely on you,” said Sam confidently, as she slipped back behind the curtain.

His attitude to clothes was probably because he’d lived in the States for so long, Aisling decided as she took the dress off the hanger and stepped into it. Apart from places like California, people in the US dressed in a much more conservative manner than their European cousins, didn’t they?

Aisling wasn’t sure. But she ought to give Sam the benefit of the doubt. Definitely.

“It’s beautiful, Aisling.” He held one of her hands high and made her turn so he could admire the dress from every angle.

Privately, she thought it made her look like some sort of child-woman instead of a mature woman of thirty-five. But Sam loved it.

“It’s so sexy he cried with delight.

“You look amazing.”

He grabbed her in a bear hug and whispered in her ear.

“Good enough to eat. Let’s take it.”

“And then we can stop shopping?” Aisling asked.

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll take it. “

Sit down.” The builder dragged up a paint-speckled stool for Jo to sit on. He covered it with a newspaper and Jo sat down gratefully. For once, it wasn’t tiredness, an aching back or her recently developed varicose veins that made her want to sit down rapidly. It was the state of the cottage.

She’d expected a clean, newly refurbished place but she’d walked into a disaster area, with dust everywhere and the sound of a kango hammer blasting in her ears.

Rhona had often asked her whether she was insane to sell her cosy, modern apartment in Malahide to move into an old, ramshackle cottage in the Dublin mountains.

“You won’t be in before Christmas,” Rhona declared when Jo explained that there’d be a two-week gap between moving ‘, out of her apartment and moving into the newly painted, renovated and rewired house in tranquil Redwood Lane.

The contractor’s a very reliable man and he says it’ll all be finished by the fifth of November,” Jo replied.

“Honestly, Rho, it’s not like you to be so pessimistic.”

Rhona looked at her friend shrewdly.

“Jo, if it’s finished by the tenth of November) we’ll go out to celebrate you can have dinner and I’ll eat my hat. It’s a pity you hadn’t joined Style when Ted and I bought our house. I distinctly remember being told the house would be ready by the end of August. We moved in during a torrential downpour in October. I never got the water stains out of my mother’s old cream armchair.”

It looked as if Rhona was going to be proved right. It was already the second week in November, the builders had been working for three weeks and the cottage looked worse than , ever.

The tiny hall was filthy with muddy footprints. A week of rain had stopped work on the roof. The garden had turned into a bog and roof still hadn’t been fixed. All the cottage needed was rewiring, central heating installed, a bit of work on the plumbing and a small job on the roof, or so Mark’s contractor friend had said.

So why, after three weeks, was the entire place like a building site?

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” the builder roared over the din.

“Really, Tom? Well, that’s a relief because it looks bad, very bad.” Jo’s head throbbed in time to the kango hammer.

“Turn it off roared Tom in the direction of the kitchen.

When nothing happened, he left Jo in the tiny hall wondering what the hell she was going to say to the painters who were due to arrive tomorrow.

“Tea?” asked Tom poking his head around the kitchen door.

“We’re just brewing up.”

“OK. Now tell me what’s happened?” Jo asked wearily. She got off the stool, walked into the kitchen and stared at the big hole where the sink used to be and at the gash that ran across the recently concreted floor.

“Plumbing problem. We’ve had to rip up the floor. I did ring you at the office yesterday evening to tell you,” he added, ‘but when I couldn’t contact you, I just went ahead and sorted it out. It’ll add another two days onto the work. We’ll be finished by Tuesday, latest.”