Love Letters (10 page)

The smell of the turf fire was the first thing that hit them as they fought their way in. The bar was just visible and behind it could be seen at least three young men, pulling pints, pouring whiskey and handing over change with astonishing speed and accuracy.

Laura kept her quarry in her sights, wondering if this made her a stalker, or just a fan. Because he was so tall, she could follow him as he wove through the crowd in the main bar to where someone was gesturing to a pint glass of black fluid that had been ordered for him. The pub seemed to consist of several small wooden rooms; the now illegal nicotine had stained the walls to a warm brown. Her moment had come. It would have been easier to have ducked out of the way into one of the side rooms, but she was determined not to lose sight of him now.

Laura watched him dispose of most of what she assumed was porter in one draught. She leant in to Monica to ask if she thought ‘a pint of plain’ meant porter.

Monica, who had no literary references to worry about, shrugged, struggling to make herself heard over the noise. She said, ‘We’ve got to get nearer to him. You can’t ask him to come to the festival from here.’

Dermot was obviously in full flow, talking, laughing, gesturing with his glass that had somehow got refilled.

Laura’s habitual reticence returned with a vengeance. The thought of actually talking to her hero was suddenly too daunting. ‘Well, he’s not going to say yes, is he?’ Laura shouted. ‘There’s no point! Let’s just have a quick orange juice or something and then go back.’

Monica was not having this. ‘You’ve got us to the pub, you must complete your mission. You can’t travel all this way and not. Follow me.’

With the skill Laura had admired before – a smile here, an ‘excuse me’ here, and a couple of times, a very suggestive wink – Monica got through the throng and to her destination.

Laura hurried after her, smiling and ‘excuse me-ing’ in her wake, not daring to hang back in case she got separated from Monica for ever.

‘Hello, Dermot!’ shouted Monica. ‘I’ve got someone here very anxious to meet you.’

Laura cringed. ‘Hello!’ she said, trying to smile. Now she was up close, she could clearly she that Dermot was even more attractive than he had been in his author photo of fifteen years ago. His hair and eyelashes were just as curly but there was a definition about his features now, lines and shadows that proclaimed him a man and not a boy.

‘Hello,’ Dermot said back and then crinkled his eyes slightly in thought. ‘Weren’t you at the gig? I think I noticed you there in the corner.’

‘Really?’ This time her smile was spontaneous and completely incredulous. She chuckled, pleased her anti-Blarney device worked as well as any girl’s although she thought so highly of him. There was no way he could have spotted her in that crowd.

‘No, I did. I saw you with your tangled curls and your slightly red nose.’

Her hand went up to it. ‘Is it red?’ She knew about the tangled curls. She hadn’t packed her straighteners and her hair had responded to the sea air in its usual exuberant fashion.

‘A little, but to be truthful, I didn’t see that until just now.’

She felt herself blush, hoping the heat of the room would justify it. It was hot, and there were a lot of Aran sweaters about – they probably raised the temperature as much as the fire did. ‘I don’t know how you could have seen me in all that crowd of people . . .’

‘I did spot you, however,’ he said, possibly sensing that she didn’t know how to finish her sentence.

Now Laura worried that he would have seen her adoring expression, too. ‘Well done you,’ she said lamely, silently admonishing herself for losing the art of conversation now she’d got him to herself.

She rather expected him to turn away and speak to some of the other people who were standing around, all wanting a piece of the great man. He seemed to know everyone. He didn’t. ‘So, you’ve read my books?’

‘Yes. Both of them,’ she said.

To her consternation, he flinched, although it was the last thing she’d wanted him to do. ‘If you’re going to talk like that,’ he said, ‘I’ll find someone else to make conversation with.’

As he didn’t move she had the courage to say, ‘I only said—’

‘I know what you said.’ His words were a full stop on that topic of conversation. ‘Why haven’t you two got a drink?’ Before either of them could respond he’d said, ‘Charles, will you do the decent thing?’

Charles nodded and smiled. ‘Coming up.’

He’d set off for the bar before either of them could ask for orange juice. If it was alcohol, and Laura accepted it would be, she’d just sip it.

‘It’s very kind of your friend to get us drinks,’ said Laura. ‘Obviously—’ she’d been going to say that they would pay him back, but Dermot made one of his sweeping gestures.

‘I have a tab behind the bar tonight,’ he said.

‘Oh. Thank you.’

The ensuing silence seemed to amuse Dermot. It was killing Laura. Monica decided to put her out of her misery.

‘Laura’s got a favour to ask you,’ she said.

‘Laura? That’s a pretty name. What does it mean?’

‘To do with laurels. Shall we move on?’

Dermot Flynn laughed. His laugh was as sexy as his voice, Laura observed with a sort of detachment. It was like being up close to a tiger or something. It was really fascinating but somehow nothing to do with her.

‘So what’s this favour?’ asked Dermot, sipping the drink that looked like black treacle.

Laura wished Monica hadn’t said anything. ‘I’m not going to ask it because I know you’ll say no. There’s no point.’

‘I might not. You don’t know for sure.’ He seemed amused.

‘I do so know for sure,’ said Laura, falling unconsciously into the local speech pattern and swaying slightly. She steadied herself on a wooden bench.

‘Why are you so sure?’

Laura was frustrated. This was embarrassing and stupid; she wished she could magic herself back to the bed and breakfast. ‘I just am.’ She didn’t want to go into what their hostess had said about him not being willing to attend a literary festival in the town five miles away. He must already think she was an idiot.

‘Ask me anyway.’

‘You might as well,’ said Monica, her frustration obvious. ‘We’ve come a long enough way.’

At that moment two tumblers of whiskey appeared and were handed to the girls. Laura had resolved not to drink any more – she was already feeling the effects – but she was so grateful for the diversion she said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and took a large draught.

‘Steady,’ murmured Monica. ‘It’s strong stuff.’ Like a contrary teenager, Laura just laughed and took another gulp.

‘So, what were you going to ask me?’ Dermot seemed very insistent that her favour be asked.

It’s a funny thing about alcohol, thought Laura, feeling far removed from reality. You’re perfectly fine, not drunk at all, and then one more sip and you are completely out of your head. Although she knew intellectually it was a bad thing, a very bad thing, just at that moment, it felt really good. It seemed to make her perception extra clear. She felt bold and confident.

‘OK, here goes nothing.’ Laura smiled, suddenly loving the world. ‘Will you come to a literary festival I’m organising in England?’ Then, before he could answer she quickly added, ‘No? Well, I told you you’d say no.’ She may have suddenly taken the possession of the meaning of life but she wasn’t silly. She knew when she was beaten.

‘But I haven’t said no.’ Dermot stared at her. His gaze was direct and very unsettling.

‘But you will.’ Laura was sure of her ground even if physically it wobbled a little beneath her feet. Another sip of whiskey and suddenly she knew everything.

‘No I won’t,’ he said, his eyes narrow, his mouth slightly lifted in one corner.

‘Told you!’ said Laura, and then turned to Monica. ‘We can go back now. In fact, maybe we should.’

Monica was looking at her anxiously. She seemed miles away. Laura smiled lopsidedly at her and raised a glass. ‘Can we have some water, please?’ Monica turned to Charles, who was hovering in a helpful way.

‘Two waters coming up,’ he said.

Laura’s head had begun to swim. It was pleasant, if strange. She smiled at Dermot. He was so utterly lovely! And he was talking to her! Why was that? She did find it a little difficult to work out what he was saying, though. She leant closer and concentrated very hard on his mouth.

‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t go to the literary festival,’ Dermot said slowly. ‘I said I wouldn’t say no.’

Laura’s uncanny clarity left her. She was now very confused. ‘What?’

At that moment Charles arrived with two glasses of water. ‘Drink up,’ said Monica, thrusting one of them at Laura. ‘Or you’ll want to die in the morning.’

‘She’s right,’ said Charles.

Laura obediently sipped her water. It seemed to make her drunker than ever, but she felt it was a good thing that she realised she was drunk. Before she’d just thought she knew everything. Dermot was speaking again so she focused on his mouth.

‘I will go to the festival you’re arranging in England,’ he said. ‘On one condition.’

She was concentrating very hard, trying to gather her scattered brain cells. She was here to get Dermot to the festival. He was asking for something. OK. He could have it. Enunciating carefully she said, ‘I’m sure anything that we can do to make—’

He was doing that unnerving starey thing again. He really did have the most amazing eyes, and lips and . . .

‘I’ll go on one condition – if you’ll sleep with me.’ He smiled his challenge.

Laura blinked. He couldn’t really have said that, could he? She must have misheard. There was something wrong with her hearing as well as her balance. She looked for Monica for confirmation but she saw that she and Charles had gone into one of the other rooms. She was alone with Dermot – if you discounted about thirty other people. She’d have to work this out for herself; she hadn’t misheard, of course, Dermot had said she had to sleep with him and then he’d go to the festival. She worked on it in her mind. Did she want to sleep with Dermot Flynn? She smiled. This was what they called a ‘no-brainer’, which was quite funny because she no longer had a brain. She did want to sleep with him.

‘OK.’ She nodded. Why not.

Dermot looked down into her eyes once more and something in her flipped. What was this feeling? The poetry-loving romantic in her wanted it to be love, but she had just enough grip left on reality to realise it was lust that stirred her. Both emotions were practically unknown to her.

She was vaguely aware of a tiny voice buried deep inside her telling her she would probably regret what she’d just said, but she drowned it out with another sip of whiskey. She knew there was nothing else in the world at that moment that she wanted to do more.

‘Well, isn’t that nice?’ he said slowly, raising an eyebrow.

Another drink was put into her hand and she sipped it. Monica appeared and murmured to her that she’d been asked to play something and then she disappeared once more into another of the rooms. Laura wasn’t quite sure how Monica’s sassy American swing would fit into the traditional Irish instruments she heard playing, but that wasn’t her problem.

‘So tell me,’ said Dermot. ‘How do you come to be organising a literary festival at your tender age?’

‘I’m twenty-six. You’d written two bestselling novels before you were my age.’

‘True, but you haven’t answered my question.’

‘I’m not really sure, to be honest. I sort of got roped in. I’m a bookseller by trade.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, I met an agent—’ She suddenly remembered that Eleanora Huckleby was his agent, too, and made a split-second decision not to mention this. She heard herself answering in a confident manner. Well, tonight she did feel confident: confident, intelligent Laura. ‘She and I got talking and she discovered I was better read than some people. Of course, working in a bookshop, I had access to everything that came out, before it was out truly. I didn’t have to pay for my reading habit.’

He chuckled. ‘It sounds to me as if you did have to pay for it, by running a literary festival.’

Laura smiled back. ‘It’s not that bad. Why don’t you like literary festivals?’

‘How do you know I don’t like them?’

‘Our landlady told us. She said you wouldn’t go to one five miles down the road which is why the Festival of Culture is in Ballyfitzpatrick and not Patricktown.’ She’d admitted everything now. ‘So why?’ She wanted and needed to know and she didn’t want him going off on a tangent about landladies or gossip.

‘I had my fill of them years ago when my books came out. I don’t want to go to them now.’

Laura forced herself to consider how she’d feel if she slept with him and then he refused to come to the festival and was relieved to discover that getting him to England, so they would have a sponsor, was not at all the reason she wanted to sleep with him – if he really meant it, of course, which she doubted – he was knee-tremblingly attractive. ‘But you did this one?’ She was trying very hard to enunciate and was pleased how sober she sounded.

‘The place is dead in winter. It’s where I live and it would be churlish not to put on a show that will fill the pubs and all the accommodation if I can, without much – any, frankly – effort.’

Laura sipped at her drink. ‘I think I’m drinking neat whiskey.’

‘It won’t do you a bit of harm.’

Laura laughed ruefully, aware that it may have already got her into a lot of trouble if not actually done her harm. She couldn’t decide what was to blame for what she was about to do: the whiskey or her wanton lust.

‘So what have you read lately that you’ve got really excited about?’

‘Well . . .’ She went on to enthuse about a recent prizewinner, and a new women’s fiction writer, and several other books that she’d enjoyed. She was proud of how lucid she sounded – to her ears at least.