Be Careful What You Wish For. Martina Devlin

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      A coach party of Swiss senior citizens, a pile of sodden raincoats at their feet, were immersed in an alcohol-free lunch at two trestle tables towards the rear of the pub. But a cushion-jammed bench alongside the inglenook fireplace was vacant and Molly and Fionn commandeered it.

      ‘Those monks had funny-peculiar attitudes anyway,’ remarked Molly, apropos of nothing. ‘Especially where women were concerned. Your medieval aesthetics viewed us as she-devils. Of course, that’s just because they were scared witless of the other sex and in complete denial of their bodily urges.’

      Fionn nodded. ‘Denial of bodily urges is unhealthy – that’s always been my credo.’

      Molly frowned. ‘On the other hand, gratifying all your inclinations is probably not advisable either. There has to be something to separate us from the beasts.’ Fionn was excessively complacent. He needn’t imagine a couple of hot whiskeys would generate any body heat from her. Just because their sex life had been sensational … Molly’s hand flew to her mouth. Where had that sprung from? It was years since she’d allowed herself to dwell on their times in bed – and on the living-room rug and in the shower and on the beach at Mullaghmore that night when she’d admitted it had always been her ambition to make love beneath the stars. Only she’d anticipated a Caribbean sky rather than a low-lying Sligo one, but it had seemed churlish to mention it when he was co-operating so enthusiastically with making her wish come true.

      ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ Molly whispered.

      ‘What did you say?’ Fionn set down his glass and slid along the bench towards her.

      Startled, because she hadn’t realised she’d spoken aloud, Molly improvised. ‘I was thinking about those monks. They were great ones for making rash vows and having to work around them, like St Columcille, who swore his feet would never touch Irish soil again after he stormed off to Iona. When he had to return he filled his boots with Scottish earth so they never did. Those fellows had plenty of mantras but they seemed not to extend to cleanliness is next to godliness.’

      Molly noticed her fingernails weren’t exactly pious using that criterion and sat on her hands in case Fionn spotted them too. She continued: ‘But they were cunning enough to weasel their way out of definitive statements. Exactly like my first newspaper editor who wrote a provocative column and always concluded with: “If anyone proves me wrong I’ll eat my Sunday bowler on the steps of the town hall.” He had a supply of chocolate hats on standby in case anyone ever called his bluff.’

      Fionn scratched the back of his neck and Molly noticed how the hair curled around the collar of his rugby shirt.

      ‘Your conversations are deranged. Fascinating but demented,’ he said. ‘What have chocolate bowlers to do with medieval monks, or do all your stories feature chocolate? I haven’t forgotten you’re fixated on the stuff. Wasn’t it myself who introduced you to white Toblerone?’

      Molly smiled at him properly for the first time. ‘I glimpsed Paradise, thanks to you,’ she breathed. ‘My gratitude is boundless. I’ll buy you a drink to prove it.’

      ‘That’s another advantage to not being a monk,’ said Fionn. ‘You have licence to sip hot whiskeys with a divine creature on a weekday. And she buys her round.’

      Molly vacillated between being flattered and indignant. But she felt obliged to put him straight on the monastic life as she riffled through her handbag for her purse.

      ‘They didn’t have it so spartan,’ she said. ‘St Benedict wrote that a pint of wine a day was ample per monk. I think I could manage very nicely on a similar allocation.’

      ‘How come you’re such an expert on the monastic life?’

      ‘Newspapers make you instant experts on the oddest subjects. I wrote a feature last week on the history of winemaking for the drinks column. Lucky for you that you caught me while the information is still at the top of the pile in my brain. By next week it will have been evicted to make room for the mating habits of sea birds or a history of Jewish persecution.’

      Waiting for the barman to boil the kettle, Molly tapped her teeth with a mixture of vexation and attraction. There was a spark between herself and Fionn, she couldn’t deny it. But sparks could cause blazes to burn houses down. He was still a married man. Just because he and Helga were on a lay-off didn’t mean he could do his laying elsewhere. She was quite sure that wasn’t what Helga had in mind. Then again, the Scandinavians had rampaged through Ireland fairly thoroughly in the first millennium – their American descendants didn’t need to swoop down and scoop up all the available men in the third. That Helga sounded a right one. Although in fairness, admitted Molly, folding and unfolding a twenty-pound note, Fionn was biased. And not stupid. He’d make zero headway if he said: ‘She cooked cabbage and bacon to titillate my tastebuds and bought camisoles to titillate my appetite, but it wasn’t enough because I’m a self-centred animal.’ She cast a glance back at Fionn. He hadn’t even mentioned Helga; she might as well no longer exist for him. This buck took out of sight out of mind so literally his lady was in danger of being airbrushed out of existence. He’d pulled the same stunt on her.

      On their second drink apiece, thawed by the combination of flames and whiskey, Fionn mentioned his wife.

      ‘I can’t believe how uncomplicated life is without Olga.’

      Although crippled with curiosity and convinced he owed her at least a teaser in the gossip stakes, Molly found herself veering away from the subject. There’ll be no more walking this day.’ She indicated the hailstones bouncing off the nearest window. ‘So much for today being the opener for spring.’

      ‘Says who?’

      ‘Says the calendar. It’s the first of February, St Bridget’s Day.’

      ‘People must have been hardier in those days,’ said Fionn. ‘Most people date it from the March twenty-first equinox.’

      ‘We’ve gone soft since St Bridget was around running craft workshops and showing the locals how to make rush crosses to sell to the tourists,’ agreed Molly.

      ‘Soft, now that’s not a word you could apply to Olga.’ Fionn looked woebegone.

      Molly resigned herself to a deconstruction of the concept of marriage, as experienced by Fionn McCullagh. She preferred to believe in happily ever afters, even for people who swanned off to have their happily ever after with someone else instead of her. Four years ago she’d have climbed on a table and cheered if she could have gazed into a crystal ball and witnessed Fionn telling her his marriage was a mistake and she was the one he truly loved. But four years equals 48 months, equals more than 200 weeks equals – pause for calculation – nearly 1500 days. And she didn’t want to hear a melancholy story on a storm-lashed day – or any other day for that matter.

      Molly had experienced a surfeit of sorrow during the months following his rejection, when she closed down everything but the essential life-support system, and trailed vacantly from one day to the next. Helen had been predictably solid and Barry had been a rock too, cajoling her out for drinks and listening to her whine about being finished with love. Finished off by love. Even as she’d said it a spark of common sense had stirred within her and she’d realised she was talking nonsense. But she’d formed the words anyway and allowed Barry to pat her awkwardly, clearly horrified at being the recipient of so much naked emotion but determined to be supportive.

      Now Molly only half-listened to Fionn’s account of how two into one wouldn’t go, swirling the СКАЧАТЬ