Never Too Late (47 page)

said enigmatically.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m thinking of looking for another job,’ she announced.

Actually, I’ve applied for several and I’ve got an interview

tomorrow.’

Cara stopped fiddling around in her rucksack and looked

at her friend in horror. ‘You can’t be serious?’ she said,

astounded. ‘When did you decide that? Where are you

going?’

She didn’t voice her final question: What will I do

without you? They’d been together since college, worked

side by side in Yoshi Advertising for four years and

endured Bernard Redmond’s temper tantrums together.

Cara couldn’t imagine working in Yoshi without Zoe

grumbling good-naturedly by her side, slagging off Bernard

whenever she got the opportunity. There was nobody

around she could team up with to compose filthy limericks

about their colleagues, nobody to laugh with till they

were sick at lunch, nobody to discuss life, the universe and

everything with.

‘I don’t know for definite,’ Zoe answered. ‘The interview

tomorrow is with Solve and I don’t think I’d like to work

there. But I’ve got to get out of this place. Bernard’s so

mean he’ll never increase our wages beyond the national

wage agreement and the only way we’re going to get

promoted is if somebody dies, although I can think of a

few people around here I’d personally pay to have wiped

out purely for the good of humanity.’ She stopped joking

and gave Cara an apologetic look. ‘I’m never going to get

on unless I leave here. I was reading an article in Cosmopolitan about your career and in cases like this, when you’ve got the boss from hell, it makes sense to cut

your losses and find another job.’

‘Oh.’ Cara couldn’t think of much else to say. ‘You’re

right but …’ she blinked back a tear at the thought of a

Zoe-free office ‘… I’ll miss you so much.’

Zoe threw a pink highlighter pen at her teasingly.

‘Jaysus, missus, I’m only leaving the company, not the

planet. You won’t be banished from my organiser because

we’re not in the trenches together anymore.’

‘I know.’ Cara still looked gloomy.

‘Go on,’ Zoe said with a quick glance at her watch,

‘you’ll miss lover boy if you stay here any longer talking to

me.

Ewan thought it was a great idea. ‘Zoe’s right.’ He sat

on one of the canal benches and extracted his chicken

sandwich from its little plastic triangle. It was a warm

March day and the clusters of daffodils planted along the

edge of the water were brilliantly yellow in the lunchtime

sun. A family of ducks swam serenely in front of

them, muttering quietly among themselves in duck

language.

‘But she’s going to leave the company,’ Cara said miserably,

sitting down beside him and ignoring her own cheese

salad sandwich.

‘I’ll probably bugger off myself in a year or so,’ Ewan

remarked, mouth full of chicken.

‘Jesus, what do you mean?’ Cara was utterly astounded

now. ‘It’s like the bloody diaspora around here. Where are you going?’

‘Relax,’ he said.

Cara loathed it when people said that.

‘I am relaxed,’ she hissed in a most unrelaxed tone. ‘I

simply want to know why all my friends are leaving the

company where we work. Is that too much to ask?’

‘Well,’ Ewan said equably, ‘if I was working somewhere

else, you’d feel able to admit that you were going out with

me and you wouldn’t be afraid that Bernard would fire

you.’

‘It’s not so much that he’d fire me,’ she prevaricated, not

having explained the real reason to Ewan because she

couldn’t bear to get into a discussion of the trauma she could never quite forget.’It’s …Anyway, don’t change the subject.

Why would you want to leave Yoshi?’

‘It’s great experience working under my boss, but if it

wasn’t for Ken, I don’t think I’d be here at all. Bernard is a

complete space cadet and I’d have better opportunities

somewhere else. I’d quite like to work in Deja Vu. They’ve

a great creative team. Zoe should try applying there if

tomorrow’s interview doesn’t work out.’

‘What about me?’ Cara asked mulishly. Ewan was

thinking of jobs for her best friend but not for her. It

wasn’t fair.

He leaned over and gave her a chicken-scented kiss. ‘You

should consider updating your CV too, my little apple

blossom, because without Zoe, you’ll be doing her work as

well as your own until Bernard bothers to rehire.’

Cara poked him roughly in the ribs. ‘Little apple blossom, my backside!’

He grabbed her with the non-sandwich-eating hand and

planted another wet kiss full on her mouth. ‘That’s not

what you were saying last night.’ he joked. ‘I could have

called you my little cuddly-wuddly bunnikins and you

wouldn’t have minded.’

She kissed him back, feeling a flare of excitement in

her belly at the thought of the night before. A bottle of

Body Shop massage oil and the dog-eared copy of the Kama Sutra they’d found in a second-hand book shop in Rathmines had combined to produce their most erotic

evening yet.

‘Point taken, my little chicky-wicky teddy bear-ums,’ she

laughed.

‘Now eat your sandwich so we can go for a romantic

stroll in the sun and breathe in some lovely Dublin

pollution,’ Ewan said as a truck belching exhaust fumes

beetled past, sending a black cloud over at least a mile of

the canal.

Cara listlessly splashed water over her breasts, watching

the bubbles in the bath redistribute themselves into

vanilla-scented mounds with every movement. The water

was at the just-hot-enough to be comfortable stage and the

bottle of Beck’s she held in the other hand was just cool

enough to be refreshing.

‘I think she’s off her rocker.’ Phoebe plucked out another

eyebrow hair and stood back to consider the effect. It wasn’t

good. She’d taken too many out of one eyebrow so unless

she evened them out, she’d look permanently surprised on

one side of her face and normal on the other. ‘I mean, how

does Zoe know she’ll get a better job if she leaves?’

‘Being in graphic design isn’t anywhere near as secure as

working in the bank,’ Cara said, splashing a few more

bubbles out of the way and thinking that she couldn’t stay there forever. ‘Agencies go under and people move companies within the advertising industry all the time.’

‘You haven’t,’ Phoebe pointed out. Although Ricky said he was thinking of chucking his job in soon.’

Cara closed her eyes in disgust. Only Ricky would be

dumb enough to give up a pensionable, decent job, which

he’d only got in the first place by a complete miracle, to do

something else. ‘What does he have in mind?’ she asked,

waiting for Phoebe to say her boyfriend was joining a boy

band or taking up a new career as a stripper. You could

never tell with Ricky.

‘He’s thinking of going back to college.’

Cara sat up in the bath. It was a mystery to her how he’d

ever got through college in the first place; she couldn’t

imagine what course he’d take up to further his studies.

Scrounging 101, perhaps. ‘But the bank would pay for him

to do a degree,’ Cara said.

‘Ricky doesn’t want to feel tied down.’ Phoebe plucked

some more. And he’d have to go back to the bank

afterwards if they paid for his course. He’d like to do

physiotherapy or something like that. He’s very good with

his hands,’ she added with a little smirk.

‘Well, Phoebs,’ Cara said, getting out of the bath and not

mentioning that the brain-dead Ricky hadn’t a hope in hell

of getting into any physiotherapy degree course no matter

how good he was at bringing his girlfriend to the heights of ecstasy with his thumbs, ‘if he gives up his job and becomes a full-time student, he’ll never have a bean and

you’ll end up practically supporting him.’

‘Don’t say that,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m trying not to think

about it. And don’t mention any of this to him, will you?

Promise?’

‘I promise,’ Cara said. ‘I’ve got enough on my plate at

the moment what with Zoe going. I’ll miss her so much.

She’s a complete wagon for not telling me until now.’

Ricky was buried in the fridge when Cara mooched into

the sitting room. A plate surrounded by a sea of crumbs

was evidence that he’d made himself a sandwich and was

now looking for something else to eat. Cara hated the way

he treated the fridge as an extension of Phoebe’s body available for his sole use at any time. She wouldn’t have

minded so much if he’d occasionally bought any food by

way of a contribution. But no, Ricky’s idea of contributing

to the household was cleaning out the cupboards when he

was hungry.

‘Hi, Cara.’ he said breezily, emerging from the fridge

with the last rhubarb crumble yoghurt.

‘That’s mine,’ she said indignantly.

Ricky gave her his puppy dog look, the one he used

when he was trying to borrow money. That was probably

how he’d got by in college, Cara thought grimly. One

beseeching look and no female lecturer could resist him.

‘Sorry,’ he said dolefully and pulled back the tin foil lid

anyway.

He was so incredibly good-looking, with a face like a

Calvin Klein model and the body of one too. Yet once you

knew Ricky for any length of time, Cara maintained, you

stopped noticing how wonderful he looked because he was

such a gigantic pain in the neck. Beauty was only skin

deep, whereas being dense cut to the bone.

Knowing she was being a softy for not screaming at him

about snaffling up her food, but unable to say anything

because he was Phoebe’s boyfriend after all, Cara sat down

in the good armchair and turned on the TV. As she flicked

through the channels, she hit upon some rally cross on

RTE 1 and quickly flicked to the next channel. Even Ricky

wouldn’t have the nerve to demand to see rally cross when

it was time for Friends.

‘oh’ he said in outraged tones, ‘that’s the programme I

wanted to watch!’

Cara spun around in her chair and fixed him with her

steely gaze. Rhubarb crumble was one thing, Friends was

another. ‘Tough.’

They were watching Friends in grim, very unfriendly

silence when Phoebe walked in, scented and made-up in

another of the hot little numbers she’d bought ‘specially

for Ricky. This one was a body-moulding floral see-through

top worn with tight metallic sheen trousers. It was wasted

on him tonight. Like a petulant child who wanted a

squabble refereed, he flicked back his silky hair and said:

‘It’s a repeat, Phoebe, and the rally cross is on!’

‘Ricky …’ said Phoebe, looking torn.

‘It’s our television, Ricky,’ snapped Cara angrily. ‘If you

want to watch rally cross, go home!’

‘It’s a repeat!’ he cried back.

They both looked at Phoebe expectantly.

‘It is a repeat,’ she said reluctantly, looking meaningfully

at the television where Rachel was wearing her Princess

Leia outfit for Ross.

‘Fine,’ Cara said, getting to her feet, furious that Phoebe

had taken sides in this delicate matter. It was her flat too.

‘You two watch whatever you feel like, but when you want

the rent paid, Phoebe, don’t forget to ask Ricky for his cut,

seeing as the big gobshite lives here now!’

With that, she stormed out of the room, only stopping

long enough to grab her coat and purse, before marching

out of the flat.

The sunshine of earlier had given way to a consistent

drizzle and she ploughed into the rain, not really knowing

where she was going but determined to go somewhere.

She couldn’t visit Zoe because there’d been a faint sense

of restraint between them since her friend had

announced her intention to move jobs. Ewan was at

soccer practice. To cap it all, she realised guiltily, she’d

managed to antagonise Phoebe, sweet, goodhumoured

Phoebe who wouldn’t hurt a fly. It wasn’t her fault she

had a thoughtless, feckless boyfriend who thought work

was a four-letter word and believed that mi casa, su casa only worked in the su casa variation. It was bloody Ricky’s fault, Cara thought miserably, pulling the collar of

her jacket up to protect her neck against the rain. What a

wonderful day. Everyone she could have talked to was either not really talking to her or doing something else.

Premenstrual, depressed and feeling as if the entire world

was against her, Cara decided she had only one real

option - she’d go and get terribly, terribly drunk.

‘Zoe’s at the dentist,’ Cara heard herself say in a sprightly

voice when Bernard’s secretary rang their bolt hole office

at half-nine the next morning. ‘Didn’t she mention it? No?

Root canal, I think.’

She slammed down the phone and sank her head on to

her arms, anything to relieve her thumping headache.

It had been a mistake to go to McSorley’s in Ranelagh

where she’d bumped into a crowd of Phoebe’s bank pals

and ended up spending a riotous evening with them,

slurping back beers as if the girl from accounts in the