Never Too Late (10 page)

purple eyeshadow cracking on her eyelids, she’d applied so

much. ‘Pressies from Santa.’ She smiled, handing them

each a bag.

They smiled back. They loved Millicent, you had to. It

was a pity she wasn’t in the office more often because she

certainly had a beneficial effect on Bernard.

‘Thank you, Millicent.’ said Cara, drawing a long crimson

wool scarf from her gift bag.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Zoe said, finding a turquoise one in hers.

‘I thought we needed something nicer than that bottle

of wine you got last year,’ Millicent trilled, holding the

scarf up to Zoo’s cropped red head and admiring the

contrast. The wine, not quite a 2 pounds 99 pencescrew-topped bottle but close enough, had been Bernard’s idea of a Christmas

bonus. He was incredibly mean, the sort who’d peel an

orange in his pocket, as Cara’s dad would say.

‘How are you getting on with the campaign?’ he asked,

leaning menacingly near Cara.

She leaned hack, knowing she must reek of last night’s

booze, Bernard could smell alcohol a mile away because he

never drank.

‘Fine,’ she muttered. ‘I hope to have it finished today.’ As

soon as she’d said it, Cara was sorry. She’d planned to leave

work early to do the last of her Christmas shopping as

she’d be going home to Ballymoreen on the late bus.

Now she’d have to stay late to finish the campaign

because, once you told Bernard you’d do something, he

made your life a misery if you didn’t.

‘Good,’ he said, leaning closer as he stared at the

unfinished campaign. His hard eyes sought hers.

‘Have a nice night last night, then?’ he asked, his face so

close she could smell the mints he sucked obsessively.

He knew, the bastard. She had no idea how he knew, but

he did. Cara stuck her chin up defiantly. She was not going

to blush because he knew she’d slept with Eric.

‘Lovely,’ she said.

‘Good.’ He smiled at her, a fake rictus of his mouth that

didn’t get within a mile of his eyes. ‘I heard that some of

you, a few hardy souls, were there till closing time.’

Gritting her teeth inwardly, Cara kept smiling. ‘I love a good party, Bernard,’ she said tightly.

She got up, forcing him to move backwards, and faced

him, hands stuck into her pockets in a masculine manner.

In her size eight flat boots, she was as tall as he was, a fact which definitely unsettled Bernard. He liked being able to

tower over people, especially when they were women and

he could peer down their fronts. He never got the chance

with Cara, mainly because she never wore any item of

clothing that went below the hollow in the base of her

neck. Her wardrobe was army surplus in every definition

of the word. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ she added sweetly,

‘there’s someone I have to see.’

She marched out of the room, belted down the stairs

and barged into the ladies’ loo on the next floor.

She did look a little the worse for wear, Cara acknowledged, staring at her faintly bloodshot eyes ringed with thick, heavily mascara-ed lashes. Her normally pale skin

was very white and as she hadn’t bothered to wash her hair

that morning, it hung in limp curls around her face,

making her look more like a Central European gypsy than

usual.

Phoebe, who had a moon-faced, cheekbone-less face,

was always muttering about how lucky Cara was to have

high, striking cheekbones, a straight nose and a firm jaw.

But Cara hated her looks. She could never understand how

she’d been stuck with this strong, gypsyish face when the

rest of her family looked so totally different.

Her father was several inches shorter, of lean build, and

his hair, before it had turned the distinguished silver it was

now, had been pale brown.

Her sister Evie looked like every man’s idea of the

ultra-feminine woman with her petite hourglass figure,

large eyes and adorable little nose; no trace of Cara’s exotic

looks anywhere.

Even her mother, whom she no longer really remembered

except from photographs, had been slender, with

light brown hair, and utterly feminine. While Cara was

stuck with a frame like an ultra-athletic lumberjack and a

face that meant customs officers always narrowed their

eyes at her when she walked through the ‘EC Nationals’

channel in the airport after her holidays.

‘He’s gone.’ Zoe pushed the bathroom door open and

peered around. ‘He’s taking dear Millicent out for lunch.’

They both grimaced at the same time.

‘We really owe it to “dear Millicent” to tell her what an

out and out bastard he is,’ Cara remarked, finding a

scrunchie in one pocket of her combats and tying back her

unruly hair with it. ‘The poor woman will end up married

to him and the vows won’t be a day old before she’s

ploughing through the gin like the rest of us in utter

misery when she realises he’s been conning her with his

Mr Nice Guy act.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Zoe virtuously. ‘I don’t drink.’

‘Yeah, you only drink on days beginning with T.’ Cara

retorted, swatting her friend gently across the behind as

they left. ‘Today, tomorrow, the next day … Fancy a

hangover lunch full of carbohydrates?’

‘Hell, yes,’ said Zoe. Tin dying with one. I’ve drunk eight

glasses of water already this morning and none of it was in

coffee.’

Munching their way through the Christmas lunch special

in O’Dwyer’s, Cara sympathised with Zoe over her

holiday arrangements. Zoe loathed visiting her Kerry home

for Christmas where there was guaranteed to be at least

three fights a day between her five brothers and their

father.

‘You’re so lucky having only one sister,’ she said, pushing

a Brussels sprout around her plate listlessly.

Cara raised an eyebrow. ‘Evie and I don’t exactly get on

like a house on fire, you know. She’s so touchy lately, I

can’t utter a word without saying the wrong thing. For a

start she expects me to be practically running the office by

now and can’t understand why I’m not working on the top

accounts with a company car yet.’

‘Did you explain that Bernard is a psycho with more

complexes than Disneyworld?’ asked Zoe.

‘There’s no point,’ sighed Cara. ‘She’s such a high

achiever that she expects everyone to be likewise. Excuses

are … well … no excuse. So far as she’s concerned, I’ve

been in Yoshi long enough to have pulled myself up the

promotional ladder by my fingernails.’

‘But she’s hardly running Goldman Sachs herself, now is

she?’

‘No. But if Evie had ever gone to college, she probably would be.’

‘It’s hardly your fault she got married and pregnant and

couldn’t go to college,’ Zoe said equably.

‘I know.’ Cara pushed her finished plate away and

reached for her glass of mineral water. ‘She’s just not very

pleased with me these days, I think she feels I’ve let her

down in some way. She was like my mother when I was a

kid, took over when my real mum died. Except the

nine-year age gap has turned into a generation gap. She

expects me to do amazing things with my life …’

She broke off miserably. Living up to Evie’s high

expectations had never been easy and had been harder

than ever these past few years. Her sister couldn’t

understand what had changed Cara from a lively outgoing

girl into a quiet, distant woman with a combative

look in her eyes. It had evaporated the closeness they’d

shared since their mother died when, for the devastated

six-year-old Cara, Evie had been a life saver, an adoring

and over-protective surrogate mother.

‘What does she want?’ Zoe demanded. ‘You to run for

president? I’m sorry, Cara, but Evie shouldn’t be loading all

her own unattained expectations on to your back. Anyway,’

Zoe took a quick glance at her watch and then

unhooked her coat from the back of her chair, ‘she’ll have

her beloved boyfriend, sorry, fiance, with her this time so

she won’t have any time to spare for telling you where

you’re going wrong with your life.’

Cara grimaced before finishing her drink. ‘Simon isn’t

coming for Christmas, so I’ll have Evie’s undivided attention.

Well, Dad and I will have her attention between us,’

she amended. ‘She likes telling him what to do too.’

Which was an understatement, Cara knew, thinking of

the way Evie ran through the small Ballymoreen cottage

like a whirlwind, tidying cupboards, rearranging furniture

and making lists of things she needed to buy for their

father when she went back to Dublin.

‘Really, Dad, you can’t just bung everything into the

washing machine at ninety degrees with no fabric softener,’

she’d fuss, examining faded towels so rough they could

exfoliate an elephant.

He took it very well, under the circumstances, sitting

comfortably in his old chair with the paper while she

marshalled the place the way she liked it. Cara wouldn’t

have minded so much but Dad was well able to look after

himself. He’d been doing it long enough. His wife had been

dead nearly twenty years.

The problem with Evie was that she wanted them all to

be perfect: she wanted Cara to be a perfectly turned-out

working girl with a walk-in wardrobe, Barbie’s Ken for a

boyfriend and her entire life mapped out with the precision

of a flight path. Cara suspected that her sister’s almost

obsessive desire for everything in the garden to be rosy was

because everything had been far from rosy for her. Evie

wanted Cara to have all the things she’d never had - youth,

money, a great career and an equally achieving husband. It

was just that Evie didn’t seem to understand that Cara

didn’t want those things. That was the nub of the problem.

It was difficult telling someone that their most precious

hopes and dreams simply didn’t interest you.

Cara pushed open the door of the pub and she and Zoe

braved the outside world. A fresh wind whistled around

them, insinuating itself under Cara’s hair, exploring her

neck with icy fingers. She huddled closer into her coat. ‘All

in all, I’m not sure this holiday is going to be much fun,’

she muttered.

They tramped up the street together, heads bent to

avoid the wind.

‘It’ll be more fun than mine,’ Zoe said between shivers.

At least you’re having a party tonight. My father wouldn’t

dream of having a party. It’d be a waste of money buying

drink for all the people in the town he didn’t like.’

‘True,’ Cara said. ‘Dad gives great parties. He started the

Christmas Eve drinks party a few years ago, when he got

involved with the painting group. They take it in turns to

have other parties but he always gives the Christmas one.

The class has been brilliant for him. He paints the most

amazing watercolours and he’s starting to make quite a bit

of money from them.’

‘I thought he always painted?’ Zoe said. ‘He’s been

painting since I’ve known you.’

‘No. He started the classes eight years ago when he

had his heart attack. The doctor recommended something

calming,’ Cara said thoughtfully. ‘There’s this

woman in his group, she’s a widow and she’s mad for

him - Mrs Mulanny. She’s about ten years older than

him and she’s always phoning, asking him to put a nail in

a wall or fix something. We tease him dreadfully about

her. She haunts him.’

They arrived at the office and hurried round the side of

the building to go in by the back door.

‘He’s good-looking, though, isn’t he? He looks it from

photos in your place.’

‘He’s better in the flesh. He’s sort of distinguished, you

know. His hair used to be the same colour as my sister’s

but it’s steely grey now. It really suits him.’

Cara thought of Andrew Fraser, his kind, lined face with

the warm hazel eyes and the welcoming smile. He was handsome, even in his ancient corduroys and the lumpy old jumpers he liked to wear around the house. A smile

creased her race. ‘Maybe I’ll give him a pretend present

from Mrs Mulanny: a pair of underpants! He’d love that.’

Zoe shuddered at the thought of giving her own father a

joke present. ‘Your dad sounds great,’ she said. ‘Are you

sure I can’t come home with you for the holidays?’

It was half-six that evening when Cara finally made it

back to the flat, wet through and worn out after an

afternoon devoted to her laxatives campaign and a speedy

half-hour in the Swan Centre on a Christmas version of

Supermarket Sweep. The bus for home left from the city

centre at half-seven, which meant she had about fifteen

minutes to pack her clothes, get out of the flat and get

back into town.

‘Phoebe!’ she called as she slammed the front door.

There was no reply. Either her flatmate had left already

for her holiday in Kerry or she was stuck in a pub

somewhere, nose to nose with Mr Bureau de Change.

Lucky old Phoebs, Cara thought.

She hurried into her bedroom and stared at the mess.