If This Is Paradise, I Want My Money Back (14 page)

Right then, my final port of call for the night. To visit someone I’ve been wanting to see for just the longest time, but well . . . other more pressing matters somehow got in the way. It takes a few goes for me to really focus hard on her, because every time I think about her, I start welling up. Or getting wobbly. Or else just bawling. Third time’s the charm, though, and there she is. And it’s just my luck that she’s fast asleep on the sofa, a half-drunk mug of cocoa on the table beside her, and the crossword from today’s paper lying on her knee, with only about three clues left to answer. The cryptic one, not the halfwit one that’s more targeted at eejits like me.

But then, that’s my mum for you. She’s always been brilliant at crosswords, and claims they’re better than half a sleeping tablet for knocking her out at night. Crosswords, sudoku and solving murder mysteries on telly. (Jane Marple, Hercule Poirot and Inspector Morse are her great role models in life.) In fact, Kate and I often reckon that Mum’s idea of a perfect, blissfully happy retirement is to live in a small cottage in the country, and go round the place solving mysteries before the local police do, eventually gaining the trust and respect of the station sergeant, who’ll start coming to her for advice first, the minute any major crime is committed. Which she’ll solve effortlessly, before anyone has time to start talking about forensics or DNA tests. Just like in an Agatha Christie.

And that’s when the tears really start. I don’t think I can do this. I love her too much and I miss her too much. She looks so peaceful and serene, dozing away; God knows what the sight of me howling and wailing into her face would do to her. I want to visit her when I’m more in control, when I can talk to her calmly without this block of unbearable pain that’s surging up inside me, just at the sight of her beautiful, pale face. The sobs are choking me now and I know that if she were to see me in this state, I’d only end up upsetting her more.

I want her to have a happy, comforting dream about me, one where she knows I’m OK, not a shagging nightmare.

So, instead, I look down at the crossword and my eye falls on 3 Across.

Three words; one with one letter, one with four, one with three, and by a miracle, I think I can guess the clue.

I try to pick up her biro from where it rolled out of her hand and on to the sofa, before she conked out, but I can’t pick it up. I try again, nothing. My hand’s just gliding clean through it.

Shit.

The one time I actually know what the answer is, too; and I want nothing more than for her to sleep soundly, then wake up in the morning with the clue done and somehow just know that it’s a little sign from me.

The answer, by the way, is ‘I love you’.

Chapter Ten

KATE

Bright and early the following morning, I find her at home, in her pristine bedroom, that’s been interior designed, and feng shuied, and scrubbed and decluttered to within an inch of its life. Kate’s room, in fact Kate’s entire house, always reminds me a bit of the Barbie house she used to play with as a kid: everything you look at is either cream or white, or else comes with a ruffle on it, and I always feel like I’m dirtying the place just by being there. Sullying it by my mere presence. Her ‘no shoes policy’ is actually making me feel guilty for sitting on the bed beside her, fully shod.

I’d never, in a million years, get away with it if I was alive.

In fact, I remember one famous occasion, when the house was all newly built and Kate and Paul had first moved in. Anyhoo, she went through about a six-month-long phase of dying to show it off to just about anyone she could. Neighbours, family, friends she hadn’t seen for decades; all you had to do was innocently stroll by her front door and glance in the general direction of the house, only to be dragged in, kicking and screaming, and made to admire the Waterford chandeliers/the kitchen that was carried flat-pack by flat-pack all the way down from Ikea in Belfast/the cashmere rug that no one’s allowed to stand on, not even in bare feet/ the Villeroy & Boch kitchen sink that all dishes have to be washed in first before they’re deemed clean enough to be loaded into the dishwasher. And by the way, I am
not
making that last one up. I only wish to God I was.

So Kate had Mum and I over for our inspection trip, and the two of us were sitting nervously in her immaculate, snow-white drawing room, terrified that we might mess something up, and listening nervously to the tick, tick, tick of the reproduction grandmother clock, a wedding present from Perfect Paul’s family, while Kate stuck the kettle on in the kitchen. Eventually, just like in a prisoner-of-war movie, Mum cracked, her will to chat was just too much, so she dragged her repro Georgian high-backed chair over the thick cashmere carpet to where I was sitting in the bay window, too afraid to park my bum on the cream silk furniture, in case I might leave a mark.

‘So, like I was saying, love,’ she said, continuing a conversation we’d been having in the car on the way there. ‘Nuala wants the whole gang of us to go to Medjugorje this summer, after the disaster of Lourdes last year, you know, when she had a list the length of your arm of stuff to pray for, and not one single thing was cured, not even her ingrown toenail, and you know how painful they can be . . .’

‘MUM!’ Kate screeched, interrupting us with the tea tray. ‘What are you doing, moving furniture around? That chair does NOT belong there. We already have four imprints on the good new carpet, we do NOT want eight!’

‘Can’t wait for her and Paul to have kids,’ Mum muttered darkly to me, much later, on our way home. ‘All I’ll say is, I hope she has five, one after the other, like the steps of stairs, and I hope they’re all boys, really, really messy boys who never wash themselves without being threatened first, and what’s more, I hope each one of them plays either rugby or soccer, and that they come home from practice every day, filthy from rolling around in the dirt and mud. That’d sort madam out quick enough, with her imprints on the carpet.’

Honestly, there are times when even Mum is a bit intimidated by her.

Right now, though, Kate’s sitting on the bed, still in her nightie, but with the red hair tied in a neat bun, leaving me looking at her in awe, wondering whether she even sleeps with her hair tied up, so it doesn’t get messy. Probably, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. She’s also having a conversation with Perfect Paul through the door of their en suite bathroom. Well, to be more accurate, a conversation that’s bordering on a row, if you’re with me. The gist of it seems to be that Paul’s just told her he won’t be around for the next day or two, as he’s promised to go to Galway, where all his family live, which is a good three-and-a-half-hour drive away. One of those half-work, half-business trips: he’s supposed to have a business dinner down there with a few work contacts, then meet with banks and solicitors the next morning, so there’s hardly any point in him coming all the way back home, only to face into the long drive down yet again the next day, blah di blah di blah. Paul’s a property developer, by the way, and this would be all in a normal day’s work for him. And he loves what he does, and he loves being busy, and he loves making money, but never in a ‘ram it down your throat’ kind of way, like, ‘Oh come here till I show you the new Jackson Pollock etching I just
had
to have.’ Or, ‘Don’t talk to me about the traffic jams in Marbella these days, sure a second home on the Costa is hardly worth the hassle.’ No, conspicuous consumption wouldn’t be his thing at all, that’d be more Kate’s department.

In fact, Paul’s one of those naturally street-smart guys who left school at sixteen and went to work on building sites, first as a brickie, then gradually worked his way up and started buying plots of land, taking out bank loans to finance houses he’d then build on them. He has three brothers, who all came in on the act, and pretty soon, at the height of Ireland’s property boom, they were flying. One of the brothers is an electrician, one’s a carpenter, and the youngest is a plumber. So between the lot of them, they’re a kind of building one-stop shop. ‘If you stand still in this country for long enough,’ Paul said to me once, ‘sooner or later, somebody’s going to get planning permission to put an apartment block on your head.’ It was at the time when the whole entire country seemed to be one big building site and, as Mum said, you’d nearly be afraid to leave the garden shed door open at night in case you came down in the morning and someone had opened up a Starbucks.

Oh, and, for the record, yes, all of Paul’s brothers are as handsome, lovely and down-to-earth as he is, real meat, spuds and two veg kind of guys, but sadly, all are married and long since spoken for, and all happily settled in the west of Ireland with their large and ever increasing hordes of kids. When he and Kate first got engaged after a whirlwind romance, I did of course dutifully check out all his brothers and their romantic availability, natch. Just in case one of them would have been a lovely fella for Fiona. When matchmaking, you always have to have your eyes open. But no joy, not a singleton among them.

On top of that, each one of the brothers are really into their big and blooming families, and all of the wives always seem to be forever pregnant. At the last count, there were something like twelve nieces and nephews, including twins, and I think Paul himself must have about four godchildren. It’s like they’re the most fertile family in Ireland, and according to Kate, the women they marry all have ovaries like Sten guns.

Anyway, lately in Paul’s line of work, things have started to shift. And not in a good way, either. The construction industry in Ireland, after years of being stretched to capacity, suddenly took a huge downturn. Polish workers, who almost single-handedly kept the building boom going, started going back home in their droves, as work here slowly began to dry up. Paul’s development company, thankfully, didn’t suffer too much, as he’d made most of his money by then, but for a workaholic like him, it’s hard to only have one or two building jobs in the pipeline
per year
, when not so long ago, they were beating his door down, and he could pretty much pick and choose what he wanted to do. So, tuning in to his side of the argument that’s blazing in front of me, it’s easy to see where he’s coming from. We’re in recession, work is scarce and he needs to be over in Galway with all the brothers for the next few days, and that’s all there is to it. Fair enough.

Then Kate gets going, and the gist of her counterargument, all conducted through the bathroom door by the way, is that, while she has no problem with him going to Galway to meet with a gang of other businessmen, can’t he just come straight back home to her afterwards? Does he really have to stay down for the extra night so he can practise with this band that he plays in?

This, by the way, would be the ‘pleasure’ part of Paul’s trip to the west. The band (a four-piece outfit with him on lead guitar) is a big part of Perfect Paul’s life, and they’re not half-bad either, in a traditional, ballady kind of way. Cover versions of Beatles classics, that kind of thing, all very easy listening and no one gets paid; whenever they play, it’s purely for the laugh, and people tend to show their appreciation by buying them drinks for the night. Either that or shouting out, ‘Ah, come on lads, do youse not know anything by The Dubliners?’ Anyway, apart from Paul, his brother Sean is the bass guitarist, his cousin Tommy is the drummer, and a local girl, who sounds a bit like a younger, huskier Dusty Springfield, is lead singer. Her name is Julie and although tipped for great things (there was even a rumour doing the rounds that Louis Walsh was interested in her), she seems perfectly happy to sing with the band at night and work in her dad’s pharmacy by day. Anyway, Paul loves playing with them, and is forever zipping off down to Galway just to work on new songs or play at neighbours’ birthdays/knees-ups/first Communions/ whatever you’re having yourself.

Back to the row, where Kate’s thrust is that, after what’s happened to me, she and Mum are under huge stress right now, and instead of sitting in some pub belting out ‘Yesterday’ for about the two-hundredth time, she needs him here, at home, where he belongs, taking care of her.

I keep forgetting. Thing is, I’ve probably spent more time around Mum and Kate in the last few days than I ever would normally, so I constantly have to remind myself that they haven’t a clue that I’m actually grand. Never been better. And right here. And just waiting for the chance to perform wondrous miracles for them. Although, mind you, I think Kate could prove to be my toughest case yet.

Just then, Perfect Paul emerges from the bathroom, with a cloud of steam from the shower behind him, and a lovely whiff of some musky, very male aftershave. He’s only wearing a towel around his waist, and in all the time I’ve known him, I never realized what a hot bod he was packing under all those Hugo Boss suits, which only adds to his general, all-round picture-perfectness. He’s one of those chunky, solid, rugby-playing guys who look more at home on a football pitch than in the Barbie palace Kate’s created. He’s not what you might call conventionally handsome, and he doesn’t have that WOW factor the minute you look at him either; no, he’d be more of a slow burner, looks-wise. Light brown hair, blue eyes, fair skin, and, like Kate, he doesn’t have a freckle in sight, the jammy bastard. So big, he’s roughly about the size of a barge, with a neck the approximate width of a small tree trunk. The human equivalent of a pint of Guinness, Fiona always says about him. After the first sip you wonder what the big deal is, it’s only when you acquire the taste for it that you realize what you’ve been missing out on all this time.

Fiona’s very fond of her tortured metaphors. Typical English teacher.

‘Look, it’s only for a night or two, that’s all,’ Paul says, reasonably. ‘If you don’t want to be here on your own, then come with me.’

‘No,’ she says, sulkily. ‘And don’t stand on the carpet in your bare feet, you’ll leave water marks.’

‘I don’t get it. Why not?’ he asks, but gently, usually the best way to handle Kate.

‘Because . . . you know perfectly well why. Besides, I can’t leave Mum.’

‘Your mum is going to be fine for forty-eight hours . . .’

‘Suppose she isn’t? Suppose something happens and I’m not around? You know how she worries. She was bad enough before, well . . . before what happened, but now it’s like every time I’m driving, her new worry is that I’ll end up in a car crash, too.’

Oh Kate. If you could only see me, lying on the bed beside you, absolutely nothing wrong with me. Well, nothing apart from being dead, that is.

Mind you, if she saw me sprawled out on her good Frette sheets, she’d probably drag me off to be dipped in a bathtub of disinfectant, like they do on veterinary programmes with animals who have fleas.

‘Kate, we’ve been over and over this. You know I have to go, it’s as simple as that,’ Perfect Paul insists, pulling open a shirt drawer, with all his shirts perfectly ironed, starched, folded and . . . I’m not kidding . . . actually arranged in descending colour order, darker ones at the bottom, white ones at the top, like in Benetton.

‘We need this contract too badly,’ he goes on, as I stare at him, mesmerized, half-willing him to whip off the towel that’s covering his modesty so I can get a proper look at him in all his glory, if you’re with me. Christ Alive, Kate must be made of marble to be able to look at him and not want to drag him on to the bed beside her and shag him senseless.

‘If we land this deal in the bag, it could set us up for another year, at least. You know that.’

‘Of course I know that, but why can’t you just come straight home after your meetings? Why do you have to stay on for bloody band practice? Isn’t what Mum and I are going through more important?’

‘It’s not just band practice, we’re playing at a fortieth-birthday do in Sheehan’s pub.’

‘First I’ve heard of it.’

‘I told you the other day.’

‘Well, excuse me for being a bit distracted. I’ve other things going through my mind at the moment, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Well, if you don’t want to be here on your own, why don’t you just pack your bag and come too? What’s wrong with that? Jesus knows, Kate, you’ve earned the break.’

‘I just . . . don’t really feel that . . .’

Suddenly I get the feeling that she’s faffing, searching around for another excuse, and I don’t quite know why. Paul cops it, too.

‘I don’t get it,’ he says. ‘I mean, of course I know what you and your mum are dealing with right now, after . . . well, you know . . . poor old Charlotte . . .’

I gulp. Still not used to being talked about, when they don’t know I’m here. Beyond weird.

‘. . . but sometimes it’s like you never want to spend any time with my family, Kate. Ever.’