The Better Woman (23 page)

‘Why did you do it?'

His answer was ready; it was clear that he'd analysed his reasons many times before. ‘I was just trying to get a small bit ahead. All my life I've teetered on the brink of unemployment, lived hand to mouth. I wanted to have some money in my pocket, for once. I knew it was wrong . . .' He broke down crying.

‘I won't mention this to anyone,' she said. ‘I just want you to go – quietly.'

He left. Quietly, as she'd asked. In his wake she felt shaken. But strong. Her experiences on EquiBank's trading floor had hardened her.

Later on that day, just as Sarah was about to lock up, the door flung inwards and a familiar voice called out, ‘Sarah Ryan! Come here and give me a hug!'

‘Well, if it isn't the bride-to-be!' Sarah grinned. ‘Nuala Kelly.'

They hugged then stepped back to examine each other.

‘You're positively glowing,' said Sarah in admiration.

‘It's all the facials I've been having in preparation for the big day.' Nuala touched Sarah's hair. ‘Those highlights are mad. What was it like getting your hair done in New York?'

‘Crazy. Just like everything else there.'

Sarah told Nuala about Fred's Hair Salon as she locked the door and turned off the lights.

‘Do you want a cup of tea?' she asked as they walked through to the house.

‘Go way with your tea!' Nuala gave her a small shove. ‘I haven't seen you for six months.'

‘I don't have anything stronger in the house, sorry.'

‘Let's go across the road then,' said Nuala, as if it was that simple.

‘To Delaney's?'

‘Don't tell me you haven't ever had a drink there?'

‘Not since John,' Sarah admitted.

‘Then it's well and truly time,' Nuala declared, grabbing her by the arm.

Delaney's hadn't changed at all in the four years since Sarah had last set foot in there. The same old faces lined the bar. The lounge, although practically empty, was clouded with cigarette smoke.

John's father was behind the bar.

‘Sarah, you're back.'

Tall like John, with thinning hair combed neatly to the side, his smile was warm. Sarah had always liked Mr Delaney much more than his wife.

‘Yes,' she replied. ‘I got home yesterday. This is my friend Nuala.'

Mr Delaney smiled again. ‘Hello, Nuala. Sarah here was gone so long that we were thinking she had no notion of coming home at all. Now, what can I get you?'

‘A glass of white wine and a Heineken, please,' said Sarah.

He turned to get glasses from the shelf behind.

‘How's John keeping?' asked Nuala brazenly.

‘He's doing grand,' replied Mr Delaney, pouring tawny Heineken from the tap. ‘He's been in Canada for the last few months. A famous pianist invited him over for an extended visit – I can't remember the fellow's name, though. It all goes in one ear and out the other with me. John gets his talent from his mother's side.'

‘Where is he going after Canada?' Nuala ignored Sarah's nudge in the ribs. ‘Back to Paris?'

‘No, he's finished there. He says he'll go wherever he gets invited to play. Like a tinker with no home, said I,' Mr Delaney chortled. ‘His mother didn't find it funny, though.'

The drinks ready, Sarah opened her purse to pay.

‘On the house, love,' said Mr Delaney, waving away the money.

The girls thanked him and made their way to one of the far tables.

‘Why did you ask him about John?' Sarah hissed once they were sitting down.

‘Because I knew you wanted to know,' Nuala replied airily.

Nuala's wedding day dawned with a cold blue sky. Sarah woke, her knees cramped.

‘Sleeping beauty awakens,' Nuala commented by her side.

‘Morning,' Sarah grinned. ‘Did you sleep okay?'

‘Not a wink.'

‘Nervous?'

‘Yeah.'

Sarah propped herself up on her elbows. ‘Too early to use champagne to calm the nerves. How about a strong cup of tea?'

Nuala shook her head. ‘Let's just lie here and talk for a while.'

‘Okay. What do you want to talk about, bride-to-be?'

Nuala usually smiled when Sarah called her
bride-to-be
. Not this time, though.

‘Let's talk about whether I'm making a huge mistake or not,' she replied in a serious tone of voice.

‘Oh, don't be silly,' Sarah admonished. ‘Of course you aren't making a mistake.'

‘You don't like him, do you?'

‘Colin? Of course I do –'

‘No, you don't,' Nuala cut her off. ‘Come on, admit it.'

‘I'll admit no such thing.' Sarah was firm. ‘This is the morning of your wedding, for God's sake. Why do you want to start an argument?'

‘I don't want an argument,' Nuala insisted. ‘I just want you to be honest, that's all.'

‘You're the one getting married, not me,' Sarah pointed out. ‘You're the one who needs to be honest with yourself.'

A tense silence filled the small bedroom. Sarah heard the creak of a door and some footsteps on the landing. The rest of the household was starting to rise. She needed to address Nuala's doubts quickly.

‘Just remember what you love about Colin,' she told her friend. ‘That's what's important – banish the rest of the fanfare from your head.'

A knock sounded on the door and Nuala's mother bustled in.

‘A lovely crisp day, it is,' she exclaimed as she drew back the curtains. ‘Now, you'd better hop out of bed, Nuala. The hairdresser will be here at nine.'

Nuala peeled back the covers and her mother rushed off to begin breakfast.

‘Problem is, I can't remember what it is I love about Colin,' she said in a matter-of-fact way as she tied the belt of her housecoat.

Breakfast, hairdresser and make-up followed in quick succession. Nuala smiled and laughed through it all, and nobody but Sarah noticed that she was a little detached.

The bride's dress was rich cream brocade with a scooped neckline and long sleeves. She looked like a medieval princess. Sarah's burgundy dress was of a similar style.

‘Are you okay?' Sarah whispered when they had a brief moment alone before going downstairs.

‘Yeah,' Nuala replied vaguely.

The heating in the church was patchy and Sarah felt blasts of cold air as she walked down the aisle. Nuala followed close behind with her father. In what looked like a brisk interchange, the bride's father handed her to her future husband and the service began.

The priest, old and doddery, referred to Colin as Colm and gave a rambling sermon on the sanctity of marriage. More than an hour later, the wedding party smiled and posed in front of the altar. Cameras flashed, and permanently recorded the forced smiles of the bride and groom.

Later, after the meal and speeches, Sarah had token dances with the recently married best man and Nuala's brother, who now had a steady girlfriend. For the rest of the night she hopped from group to group, talking, laughing, but feeling a little on the outer. It would have been nice to have had Kieran there, to dance with and talk to.
There's nothing quite like a wedding to make you feel lonely
, she thought.

In hindsight, the decision to sell the shop had been inevitable since the moment Sarah arrived back from New York. She missed the exhilaration of EquiBank's trading floor and found the day-to-day management of the shop hopelessly dull by comparison. She missed the big-city buzz, the honking horns and pushing pedestrians. She couldn't visualise her future in Carrickmore. No matter how hard she tried.

Even before she recognised the decision as final, she started to prepare for the sale by getting the books in order, doing a full stocktake and arranging for the exterior to be painted.

‘I can't believe you're going through with it,' said Nuala when she saw the advertisement in the
Cork Examiner
.

Sarah shrugged. ‘EquiBank Dublin have an opening in the fixed interest desk and, thanks to Denise's reference, I've been offered the job.'

‘Oh. Congratulations.'

‘At least
try
to sound like you're excited for me.'

‘I am,' Nuala said, but not very convincingly. ‘But I don't understand why you have to sell the shop. Why don't you put someone in charge?'

Sarah arched an eyebrow. ‘I tried that before, and look where it got me.'

‘Brendan was just bad luck – it would work if you found the right person.'

Sarah shook her head, quite determined. ‘I don't want the worry of it. I learned in New York that you can't do investment banking fifty per cent – it's all or nothing.'

‘You know, I envy your ambition,' Nuala sighed. ‘I wish I had your drive. You decide something and you go for it – college, New York, now Dublin. Me, I just float along . . .'

She sounded very disillusioned. In fact, since the wedding she often had a resigned expression on her face. However, she'd never mentioned again that she couldn't remember what it was she loved about Colin.

Sarah put an arm around her friend's shoulders. ‘You can visit me heaps when I get my new place.'

‘Colin doesn't like Dublin – he says the crime up there is something terrible.'

‘Well then, you'll just have to come without Colin,' Sarah replied tartly.

Her suitcases packed and loaded in the car, Sarah dashed across the road for one last visit to the cemetery before the drive to Dublin. The white metal gate squeaked on opening. Mr O'Hara, bent over as he yanked stubborn weeds from the grassy verge, was midway down the main path. He straightened and touched two fingers to his cap in salute.

‘You're off then,' he said.

‘Yes. I'm hoping to get there before the dark –'

‘Just take your time, girl,' he advised. ‘Better for it to be dark than you rushing and taking unnecessary risks on the road.'

Sarah smiled at his fatherly tone.

He inclined his head in the general direction of the shop. Like all the residents of Carrickmore, he was curious about the SOLD placard at the front of the premises.

‘It didn't take long to go,' he remarked in a conversational tone.

Sarah's answer was noncommittal. ‘No, it didn't.'

Much as she liked the old fellow, she was reluctant to discuss the details of the sale with him. It seemed a foregone conclusion that Mr O'Hara and the other villagers wouldn't approve of the buyer, a supermarket chain that had plans to bulldoze the house and build a new, larger premises. Sarah could put her sentimentality to one side and see that the plans made good business sense. New homes were springing up in the area and the population was on the rise. The supermarket chain was building for the future. The villagers, though, were entrenched in the past.

‘Will you watch the grave for me?' she asked.

‘Of course, I will.'

She slipped a fifty-pound note into the palm of his weathered hand.

‘Ah, go way outta that,' he protested, trying to give it back.

‘Keep it, please.' She waved it away. ‘I'd be very grateful if you could put flowers on the grave every now and then.'

Reluctantly he stuffed the money into the inside pocket of his anorak, and Sarah, her boots scrunching on the gravel, walked on towards the grave.

‘You don't mind, do you?' she asked Peggy as she crouched down next to the marble headstone.

She'd sought her grandmother's counsel on the sale a hundred times before. As always, there was no clear answer to her question, only a deep sense of peace. The supermarket chain had paid good money. Peggy was a businesswoman: Sarah had her blessing.

In many ways Dublin was similar to New York: the streets brimming with rushed preoccupied-looking people; the congregating homeless on street corners and wide doorways; the beeping horns, screeching brakes and revving engines combining to create an urgent, familiar anthem.

Initially Sarah shared a house with two commodity brokers, George and Sam. However, it soon became apparent that they regarded her as their live-in housekeeper, leaving the bathroom sink grimed with their stubble, the kitchen sink overflowing with dishes, and the living room littered with mouldy coffee cups. Sarah cleaned up after them for a few months before deciding that enough was enough. She placed a cleaning roster over the kitchen sink, the main crime scene. George and Sam nodded and made all the right sounds when she ran through it.

‘So, I'm on Thursdays and Fridays. That should be okay.'

‘Tuesdays and Wednesdays for me – no problem.'

A week passed by, the roster totally ignored by the boys.

‘Tough few days at work. Couldn't get to it.'

‘Too tired. Maybe next week.'

Sarah went on strike and refused to do any cleaning at all until they pulled their weight. The house was bordering on unliveable when Emma, her old college friend, phoned.

‘I've got a job with Irish Life – I'm moving to Dublin too.'

‘That's great news, well done.'

‘Want to share a flat?'

‘Yes!' Sarah replied emphatically. ‘I can't live in this disgusting mess a minute longer.'

The girls moved into an old-style two-bedroom flat in Rath-mines. It had battened windows, ornate cornices and a period fireplace.

‘I'll give you my share of the bond as soon as I get a few pay packets into my bank account,' Emma promised. She was broke after a year of inter-railing around Europe.

‘Don't worry about it.'

Sarah felt guilty that she was so well off in comparison to her friend. The money from the sale of the shop, still largely intact, sat in a term-deposit account and had already earned interest that amounted to three times more than the bond. Sarah also earned a good salary. She had to work hard for it, though. She supported four male dealers who, just like their counterparts in New York, had an oversupply of testosterone and an undersupply of morals. While they swanned off to extended lunches in Dublin's most exclusive restaurants, Sarah was left to settle the bonds that were due and to borrow for any shortfalls. She also had to balance the portfolio and make everything square for the day. She worked twice as many hours as the dealers, but that was just the way things were.