Be Careful What You Wish For. Martina Devlin

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СКАЧАТЬ should explain to the man that women turned restless when the subject was other women. Fortunately their mixed grills arrived so Fionn’s substandard overbite was diverted into decimating Clonakilty black pudding.

      On their way home, driving against the commuter traffic streaming out of Dublin, Molly considered asking him into her apartment. The day hadn’t been a washout despite the weather and Fionn McCullagh still interested her. But as they passed the off-licence she found herself craning to check if Hercules was on duty. She could always parade in there with Fionn, demonstrate how other men wanted to spend time in her company even if he couldn’t be bothered exchanging pleasantries, but she rejected the idea as petty. Nevertheless Molly said goodbye to Fionn with considerably less regret than she felt at abandoning the possibility of showing Hercules she was a sought-after woman.

      Fionn was disappointed she didn’t invite him in. ‘I promise not to outstay my welcome,’ he wheedled.

      Arrogant streak. One of his less alluring characteristics.

      Molly planted a kiss on his ear. ‘You can’t do that if you aren’t in the apartment to begin with. I have work to finish off tonight, Fionn. I’ll call you in a few days.’

      In fact she wanted to ring her mother and then flop on the floor cradling the TV remote control but she wasn’t going to tell him that. He’d probably suggest they sit in together and watch Coronation Street. But he wasn’t Tweedledee to her Tweedledum. Fionn McCullagh could play house with her when she chose and not a minute sooner. However she’d no intention of slinging out the baby with the bath water. Valentine’s Day was on the horizon and she was looking into the maws of her first 14 February since the age of fifteen without a love token.

      Molly wasn’t about to scuttle her best chance of a bunch of roses and a soppy card. Let’s be honest, her only chance.

CHAPTER 7

      Helen willed her phone into life but it remained obstinately mute. She tried out some of the positive thinking technique she’d been reading about to see if that made a difference, visualising her number being dialled, fingers pressing the digits and herself answering. Still Patrick didn’t call her. It was ironic, she grumped, preparing to channel excess nervous energy into vacuuming, she spent more than a week avoiding his calls and now she was pining for them. Maybe the phone was off the hook – she jiggled the receiver to ensure it was operating. In a fit of rage she dragged the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard and plonked it in the middle of the living-room floor. She was disgusted at herself, behaving like a moonstruck teenager instead of a modern, capable woman.

      The cleaner howled spitefully into life. But Helen had scarcely tackled the stairs before a realisation struck that made her switch off precipitately and return it to the cupboard: she wouldn’t be able to hear the phone above its drone. Even as she humped the machine back to its hidey-hole she berated herself for waiting around for Patrick to call. If she was a modern, capable woman why couldn’t she ring him herself? She ventured into the visualisation game again, this time with her taking the initiative, but when she reached the part where he said ‘Hello’ she caved in and admitted she couldn’t manage it. Maybe her modernity was only skin deep. Or it could be that she didn’t trust herself to make contact with him.

      She was engulfed by a mental picture of his lips slithering along her neck, and panicked. What household chore could she embark on that would be both quiet and therapeutic? Perhaps polishing – she liked the lavender smell of the spray and the shapes you could draw with the foaming contents of the aerosol. Like a P for Patrick …

      Her doorbell rang before she managed the first squirt. Still clutching the can she answered it – to be confronted by a ceramic pot of snowdrops on her doorstep with a luggage label attached and her name penned in violet ink. She hunted for a note but there wasn’t one. As she stooped to grasp the pot, its concave centre encircled by a gauzy lilac ribbon, Patrick moved into her field of vision and spoke.

      ‘Let me give you a hand with that. You look far too delicate to carry an ungainly weight.’

      Helen dropped the aerosol.

      ‘It’s not that heavy, to be honest, but I’d still like to carry it in for you.’ Patrick lifted both spray can and snowdrops, and stood aside to allow her precede him into the house.

      ‘So, Helen.’ He rested himself with such ease on one of her sofas he appeared to be a permanent fixture. She marvelled at the music his voice created, transforming a name she’d never particularly liked before. ‘So, Helen, what have you been doing since our walk in the park?’

      ‘Fretting.’ She made no effort to disguise her agitation.

      His face creased into worry lines. ‘I’m sorry for being such a pest the other day. I don’t know what came over me, practically demanding you invite me to your place. I just didn’t want to let you go. I’m here to apologise.’

      So his idea of a mea culpa was to turn up anyway. A novel approach. But she was too beguiled by the unexpected sight of him to voice an objection. Nonsense, of course she could protest; she took a deep breath and managed an approximation.

      ‘Shouldn’t you be in London planning a wedding with your fiancée?’

      ‘You’re right, I should. Treat me as a mirage.’ Patrick pulled off his flying jacket and tossed it on the arm of the sofa. Helen noticed the zip was coming adrift at the bottom and smothered an impulse to sew it up for him – she wasn’t his mother.

      ‘I see neither hide nor hair of you for three years and now you’re back twice in a matter of weeks. Miriam must think it strange.’

      Patrick shrugged. ‘A man’s entitled to go home.’

      ‘Dublin’s not your home.’

      It blazed out more jaggedly than she’d have chosen but the acerbity of her denial couldn’t detract from its truth. Nevertheless she regretted it when rejection flared in his eyes. Then they clouded over and strayed around the room, ingesting its contents, lingering at a windowsill on a framed photograph of three children: two little girls in tartan skirts and buckled shoes with their smaller brother sandwiched between them, a pudgy hand clasped in each. His gaze seesawed from the younger of the two girls to Helen and back again.

      ‘Ringlets,’ he said.

      ‘I wasn’t consulted.’ She flattened her bob with tremulous fingers; she could control her voice and expression but not her hands.

      Helen hovered by the mantelpiece, irresolute where to sit. It struck her as singularly unsafe to join Patrick on the sofa, where she’d be close enough to detect the fabric conditioner smell from his clothes, to trace the indentations of a chicken pox scar on his forehead. Staying on her feet was the most sensible recourse.

      ‘Come and sit next to me,’ he invited. ‘You’re too far away.’

      Helen threw caution to the winds and perched alongside him, simultaneously poised for flight and prepared to nestle against him.

      Just as she remembered the obligations of hospitality and realised she should offer him something to eat or drink, he confessed: ‘I’m not here to apologise at all.’

      ‘I suspected as much, Patrick.’

      ‘I’m here because I couldn’t remember what your voice СКАЧАТЬ