Be Careful What You Wish For. Martina Devlin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ I’d fancy you myself if I were a man,’ said Helen. ‘Are you sure the rabble are ready for that?’

      ‘Ready or not, here I come. Now let’s throw comfort to the wind and drape you in something equally alluring.’

      ‘I don’t have anything in that category,’ protested Helen, but Molly was already rummaging in her wardrobe.

      She produced a gold slip-dress, discarded its modest surcoat and handed it to Helen.

      ‘You’re a demon in female form, Molly. I can’t wear a bra with that, which means my nipples will show through.’ She held her champagne flute before her like a talisman.

      ‘You’re flat-chested, it doesn’t matter. But your legs aren’t bad,’ Molly added kindly, ‘and that slit up the side will show one of them off, depending on –’ she swivelled the silk dress on the hanger – ‘which way around you wear it. I can’t tell the back from the front on this, Sharkey. Shouldn’t there be a label?’

      ‘I’m not. Wearing. A gold dress. To the pub.’ Helen drained her glass defiantly. ‘Since you’re determined to make a harlot of me, I’ll put this on.’ She produced a wispy dark blue dress. ‘I’ve had it by for an emergency. But there’s no need to break the glass,’ she added, as Molly flung herself on the bed, kicking over her empty flute.

      ‘A half-bottle wasn’t enough. I should have gone for the full monty,’ she ruminated, waiting for Helen to morph into a seductress. She brightened. ‘Perhaps I should nip back and buy another half, see if Hercules is pining without me.’

      ‘No time, the taxi’s due any minute. Pass me those suede slingbacks. I know you haven’t seen them before, they’re part of the emergency package too. God knows if I’ll be able to totter in them. I’m only going to places that have waiter service because I intend to do absolutely no walking in these. In the interests of avoiding a visit to casualty.’

      Helen struck a catwalk pose. The dress floated flimsily as a cobweb across her slim body and plummeted at the back.

      ‘Talk about capitulation. You certainly know how to do slut when you put your mind to it,’ breathed Molly. ‘Even in a navy dress.’

      ‘It’s not navy, it’s midnight blue.’

      The doorbell punctured their quibbling.

      ‘That’ll be the cab,’ said Helen. ‘Let’s go to a hotel bar instead of the Lifer. The champagne has given me a taste for more of the good life.’

      ‘We’ll start in The Clarence where we’ll trifle with the affections of U2 fans and tourists. Then we’ll check the immediate vicinity for any pop stars who might be loitering, waiting for their limousines to pick them up. Obviously we won’t waste time toying with them – rock gods can have anything they want from us. Afterwards we’ll plunge into the night and cause all-purpose mayhem on the streets of Dublin.’

      ‘Promise me this.’ Helen clung to the banister as she negotiated the stairs. ‘We’ll do it sitting down.’

      Helen reeled back indoors in the early hours, giddy from laughter and wine. She dangled her shoes by the straps and plotted a route towards bed, dimly aware that every stitch she was wearing reeked of smoke but beyond caring. She was about to nosedive and only her mattress could cushion the landing.

      She giggled before oblivion claimed her. A mental image of Molly on her way to the ladies in the restaurant distracted her from sleep: urbane, sophisticated and with a ladder as wide as the Liffey snaking up the back of her tights. Helen chased in after her with the replacement pair she always carried in her bag, a Good Samaritan’s deed that had Molly calling her the battery-powered Little Miss Ever Ready.

      But Molly admitted she was glad of Helen’s taste in sheer denier when they returned to their table and found the couple next to them had bailed out, to be replaced by four South African rugby fans weekending in Dublin for a Lansdowne Road match. What a result – the craic ratio was about to skyrocket up the Richter scale, although the friends had derived a certain entertainment value from spying on the first-daters preceding the foursome. Their body language had been fascinating. They could tell from the girl’s this was going to be another case of sudden-death dating; the end was as visible as if the fellow had a dagger protruding from between his shoulder blades. It was pitiful watching the polite indifference with which she treated him. Molly was prepared to gamble a month’s salary there’d be no good-night kiss; that girl would be ducking for cover before the car’s handbrake was on. The Boers were a distinct improvement, she mouthed to Helen, just before turning towards them, radiating a glow of invitation so brazen even the Statue of Liberty couldn’t have held her torch any higher.

      The friends’ return from the ladies precipitated copious eyeball slewing while the fellows tried to think of an opening gambit. Easier said than done in view of the regularity with which they’d been raising and lowering their elbows since late afternoon. Despite Molly’s signals, which spelled out ‘Ready when you are, boys. Form an orderly queue and I’ll attend to each of you in turn’, the visitors had a few false starts before they were up and running. The whole point about picking up men was the fellows had to imagine they were the hunters. So Molly and Helen ignored ‘Do you always wear so much perfume?’ and a burst of ‘Molly Malone’ when they heard her name. ‘Must try harder’ was the subliminal message. Finally they decided to put the lads out of their misery and asked if they could recommend any of the South African wines on the menu, offering them a shatter-proof excuse to buy a couple of bottles and push their tables together. Mingling hands and mingling glances, step one of the courtship dance.

      Molly automatically chatted up a massive specimen – Hercules truly was an aberration on her usual type, best categorised as the larger the better. Obviously, she’d once rationalised, she was in the grip of some primeval instinct to select the biggest troglodyte in the tribe – what could she do? It was genetic programming.

      One of the South Africans pressed dessert menus on the women and tried to cajole them into choosing the restaurant’s cheesecake speciality. Molly was willing – she prided herself on being available to temptation at all times of the day or night – but Helen frowned.

      ‘You mean voluntarily order a dessert? A high-calorific, sugar-drenched, artery-clogging pudding? Ask for it and then eat it? I think not.’ Her look was withering. ‘And attempting to induce someone else to do it is even more reprehensible. I call that corrupt. It’s the sort of behaviour that might be acceptable in the Transvaal but it simply won’t pass muster in Temple Bar.’

      A study in primness, Helen signalled to the waiter and asked for a chocolate fudge ensemble that made the cheesecake seem positively spartan. Meanwhile, Molly, not fully convinced she was witnessing a wind-up, heaved a sigh of relief and added banoffi pie – ‘with ice cream as well as cream’ – to the order.

      The men had Irish coffees with whiskey chasers in case there was too much coffee in the coffees. Molly and Helen exchanged pitying glances at their ignorance – by the dregs of the weekend these visitors would have more faith in Irish coffees. Then Molly became engrossed in experimenting whether Hercules’ place in her affections could be usurped by a Goliath of a South African with blond hair and – a million points deducted for this – a moustache that settled on his upper lip like a third eyebrow. She was inclined towards giving him a chance, when she became aware that the foot tapping against hers under the table didn’t belong to … what was his name anyway – Pieter? … but to Helen. Who seemed to be suggesting, make that insisting, they adjourn to the ladies.

      ‘How are we going to rid ourselves of the away СКАЧАТЬ