Champagne Kisses (30 page)

I hated the bastard for all the hurt he had caused me, but it seemed the more I cursed him in my head, the more turned on I became.

Within seconds of imagining my New Yorker being rough with me, grinding against me, and slapping my ass the way he did, I trembled with the most intense orgasm. I had built up such immense emotion that my body twisted and crumpled until I could no longer continue touching myself.

For a few moments I lay there prolonging this glorious sensation I was feeling. Why was it that someone I now harboured such venom for could manage to serve me so much pleasure?

What a typical woman I was. Treat the bitch mean, keep her forever keen …

The morning of Woody’s christening had started off a disaster.

Everyone was in a grump to start with as Woody had spent the whole night waking up on the hour, every hour. Parker and I reckoned it was something to do with the full moon, but Maddie was convinced her child was teething.

‘Babies can be born with exposed teeth,’ she informed us, ‘I know my baby. And he’s getting teeth. The fact that he’s only a month old means nothing.’

To make matters worse, the poor little fella also had a bad cough and Maddie was frantic with worry.

I’d pleaded with the local pharmacist to give me some sort of medication like a cough bottle, but was told bluntly, ‘There are no cough bottles for children under twelve months.’

If that wasn’t enough to be going on with, yet more annoying problems surfaced. There were the curious yellow stains that somehow magicked themselves on to Woody’s christening robe, the unknown whereabouts of Parker’s video camera, not to mention the issue with the melted baptismal candles.

Bright spark yours truly had foolishly left them in a bag beside a radiator, which resulted in an unholy mess and many more grey hairs for Maddie.

After much screaming and stressing, we gathered our bits and walked out of the apartment at 1.15 to make the church at two o’clock.

By then Woody’s robe was pure once again, thanks to the power of Vanish.

Jeff managed to locate the video camera on top of their wardrobe, and as he looked incredibly suspicious we just said nothing and thanked him. And after an emergency call to Maddie’s highly religious grandmother, the candle situation was sorted; she’d bought several back-ups just in case.

It’ll be all right on the night, we told ourselves. What could possibly go wrong now?

But our cheery optimism didn’t last long, as Jeff’s Porsche Cayenne Jeep decided to have a flat battery. A far from amused Maddie then drove us to the church in her tiny 3 Series.

God only knows how four adults and one Maxi Cosy car seat actually fitted into such a small motor. It was a tight squeeze, but on the plus side we got to know each other more intimately on the journey.

When we arrived not only was Maddie’s family there to meet us, but so was the rain, which in fact was a good thing because it ushered us all into the church quickly and cut out the idle chit-chat.

With just minutes to spare, Parker, Maddie, myself and Woody took our places at the top of the church along with five other families who were also having their children christened. Tragically Jeff had to sit alongside some of Maddie’s family, and got off to a bad start with them when his mobile phone started to ring from inside his jacket pocket.

The theme from
Fantasy Island
clearly wasn’t popular with this clan, but he made his apologies and looked very cute in doing so.

With Parker as the Fairy Godfather and me as the Wicked Godmother – that’s ‘Wicked’ in the alcoholic beverage sense – I started to fear for Woody’s moral upbringing. I don’t think I was alone with such concerns. While I tried my best to ignore the whispers of the extended Lord family, as I didn’t think I’d benefit from their gossiping, I couldn’t escape hearing from two pews down, ‘He’s the queer who won’t let her move home’, and, ‘She’s the adulteress. The one who slept with her married boss and then leaked it to the papers.’

I was maddened by the inaccuracies.

How dare they pontificate over Parker and me! They have no right. They don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.

Yes, he’s the queer, but there’s nicer ways to put it. But he’s not stopping Maddie from moving home. She just couldn’t stand to be near such bigots. And who could blame her? As for being called an adulteress, I suppose that’s fair enough, but I wanted to march straight over to them and put them straight that it wasn’t actually my boss that I snogged – and only snogged – and that I
never
leaked it to the papers. As if!

Sure, the running joke in my business is never let the facts get in the way of a good story, but it sure ain’t funny when you’re on the receiving end of mistaken hearsay.

I was building up to an evil glare when the priest turned to face us from his cup-polishing and table-laying and introduced himself. The words, ‘Welcome everyone, my name is Father Neven,’ had barely left the man’s mouth when Parker blurted out, ‘Oh good God.’

As the congregation stretched to see what the commotion was, Parker dipped his head in shame, leaving Maddie and myself also to look around in bewilderment, pretending we didn’t know who was taking the Lord’s name in vain.

‘What’s up with you?’ I whispered, furious that he’d given the relations more ammunition to attack us with.

‘I’ve shagged the priest,’ laughed Parker, all the
while
holding his nose trying to stop himself from snorting.

‘What?’

‘You heard me the first time … I shagged the bloody priest.’

‘Are you sure it was this old wrinkly?’ I asked, making sure Parker was right before I alerted a highly stressed Maddie to the fact. ‘Are you sure it was Father Neven or whatever he calls himself?’

‘Ha. Trust me, it was him,’ sniggered Parker. ‘His name on Gaydar is Neven Heaven ’69. We met at a café in Dun Laoghaire and after two skinny lattes we were back at his, getting jiggy with it.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Excuse me, Miss Valentine, that sort of language is not acceptable in such places as this. We are in a house of worship.’

‘Listen, I can’t see much worshipping going on, can you? Ohmigod that’s so funny. Half the family look like they want to bash us. I’m surprised you didn’t explode into a big puff of smoke as you walked through the door.’

‘I was quite surprised myself.’

‘I’ll have to start calling
you
Eve from now on, you temptress.’

‘Actually, I quite like that. Grrrr. Fancy a bite of my apple?’

I thought we had been keeping our conversation at low volume but the second I turned to inform Maddie of our news I found she was snarling at me.

‘Eh, is there any chance on keeping focused for like five minutes please? I can hear my mother complaining, saying I told you so in my ear. What’s so blinking funny?’

‘I’m sorry, hon, just forget it. We’ll behave.’ I tried to sound convincing but her face remained angry.

‘Tell me now so we can get it out of your system before the really important stuff kicks off.’

‘You’ll go mad. I don’t want you to go mad. Please just forget about it.’

‘Just tell me.’ Her face was turning a scary beetroot colour and totally overripe.

‘OK, OK, it’s no biggie really, it’s just Parker’s shagged the priest.’

‘What?’

‘Calm down, I’m sure it was ages ago. It was just a one-off thing. I’m sure Neven Heaven ’69 won’t remember him.’

‘You’re kidding me?’ As Maddie’s jaw dropped, her sense of humour thankfully popped right back in.

‘That’s ma-ad. I won’t be able to look him in the eye now. God, what hope has my child got? I get a randy reverend to baptize him. I give him two nymphomaniacs as godparents, and as a further insult I stick on him a stupid name like Woody. You couldn’t write this stuff.’

‘I’d say we’ve got the makings of an infamous porn star on our hands.’

‘Yes, this is a very proud moment for me, Eva,’
explained
Maddie, as she bounced Woody on her knee to pacify him. ‘I’ll be talking to the Biography Channel in years to come, and they’ll ask me when I first knew Woody would become the most successful porn artist of all time. And I’ll say it was his christening day. The day we wetted his head and all the sex addicts in the room prayed for him to continue their good work!’

Despite some childish chuckling from the three of us, the saving of Woody’s soul went off without any further hitches. Jeff even managed to catch some of the event with the five minutes of battery time the video had left.

By the time we gathered up our coats and made it outside, the clouds had dispersed and the smokers among us had set about making new ones.

Trapped by Maddie’s overly excited grandparents, who were beaming with pride, we struggled to find adjectives to compliment the service.

Parker got in early by saying what a lovely sermon it was. Maddie claimed that having the baptism ‘was extremely special to both Woody and me’. Which left smarty-pants here claiming, ‘Isn’t it nice to see a priest so in tune with his parishioners? I really felt he touched a part of all of us today. Parker, didn’t you feel touched by Father Neven?’

Putting on his grown-up face Parker concurred. ‘Yes, I feel like I’ve been touched.’ Poor Jeff could only look on in confusion.

This discussion was about to run out of legs when
it
was abruptly cut short by Granny Lord screaming, ‘Over here, Father!’

With no time for escape his holiness had descended upon us and insisted on shaking hands with everyone. It was one of those sturdy firm handshakes which showed strength of character and was instantly endearing.

Maddie and I held our breath as he grabbed Parker’s hand. Had he recognized him? Ohmigod, he had …

‘Oh, hello again,’ smiled the Father. ‘You’re the chap who has just become godfather to Woody, isn’t that right?’

‘Yes, Father,’ uttered a bewildered Parker.

‘Great stuff, wonderful name and a wonderful child. Yes, a great day for everyone.’

‘Indeed, Father, a great day.’ Parker was now almost hyperventilating with the fear that either Maddie or I would blurt something out, and was bulging his eyes in our direction.

I was just about to make an excuse to head for the car when Neven Heaven ’69 had a twinge of recollection, and asked, ‘So have you been to my church before? I’m thinking you look very familiar, Parker.’

Once again Maddie and I held our breath.

‘Em – mm,’ stuttered Parker, ‘No, I must just have one of those common faces. People think they know me all the time. I usually frequent the Glasmount parish.’

‘Really?’ Father Neven said, straining to figure out Parker’s familiarity. ‘I never forget a face.’

The voice inside my head screamed: Maybe you might recognize his arse! but I bit my lip and signalled in the direction of the car to Maddie.

Making excuses that she needed to get Woody out of the cold, Maddie told her grandmother how well she looked and asked if they were OK for getting back to her mum’s for some food and drinks.

‘Yes, yes, your grandad will get the car for me in a minute, but thank Father Neven again for his beautiful sermon.’

‘Sorry, thank you, Father Neven, for everything,’ Maddie smiled dutifully.

‘Not at all, it was a pleasure. I hope to see you back to the church soon. And call me Adam, it’s less stuffy …’

‘Jaysus, would you Adam and Eve it? I mean, what were the chances?’

Back in the safety of the car, Jeff was brought up to speed about Parker’s dalliance, and being the easygoing guy that he is, took it very well.

‘Sure I ended up sitting behind some nutter I’d met in the George a few months back, he wouldn’t stop annoying me. You know, one of those blotchy drunks. Maddie, you’d know who he was. There was a man in a dark navy suit, pale pink shirt and badger grey hair, about mid-sixties. Do you know him?’

Now it was the turn of Parker and myself to hold our breath. As Jeff spoke you could feel the tension build.

Jeff looked worried. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Let’s just drop it,’ said Parker.

‘Why? Who’s that guy? I’m sorry if I offended anyone, I just thought we were sharing honesty moments.’

‘It’s fine, Jeff. That guy you were talking about has a drinking problem, and sometimes falls off the wagon. He also suffers with depression. But your sighting kinda answers a lot of questions we had about him and explains the reason for much of his torment,’ said Maddie quietly.

‘Why?’

‘Well, Jeff, that man you’re talking about is my father …’

10

IT WAS NOW
mid-December and Maddie was still refusing to leave the security of the apartment.

Parker or myself bought any essentials, and the Tesco online service was her only other lifeline. The only fresh air she was getting was when she’d drive to the Phoenix Park to push Woody around in his buggy. ‘No one will spot me there,’ she confided, ‘Christ, I’m so out of shape. I look like Sharon Osbourne before the surgery.’

Despite offerings of Spanx and pink wigs, Maddie declined all suggestions of camouflage and remained a constant feature in front of either the TV with Dr Phil or at the kitchen sink washing, preparing bottles or soaking soiled babygros and bibs.

I’m still personally coming to terms with the sight of a yellow mustard poo substance dripping off one of our chopping boards, after Mammy Maddie dumped a pile of clothes there in a panic.

While she claimed to be perfectly happy in her
domesticity
, and yes she looked pretty contented, my once vibrant and witty pal had cut herself off from the rest of her friends, and we were all starting to worry about her.

Sure, babies were meant to change your perspective on life, but they weren’t meant to spell the end of it. Life as Maddie knew it had become an endless ritual of never-ending baby chores, which was something none of us could identify with or understand.

Without complaint she would feed, burp, bath, dress, nap Woody, and then while he was restlessly dozing – which was when she was also supposed to be taking a break – she would do all of Woody’s laundry, make up his bottles and then just as she was sitting down for a cuppa, Woody would start to whinge from his crib, and the whole cycle would start again.