The Heart Whisperer (10 page)

‘It's been hell for the last three months but, once she goes to pre-school, we'll get our lives back.'

‘Right.' Nick remembered Claire wetting the bed when she was six. The nightmares that had woken her up every night for months when she was nine. The time, when she was ten, that she'd caught lice and he'd had to cut her hair. The mood swings when she was twelve. The months of tears when she was fourteen and he'd told her he was going to college in the States. You never got your life back when you had a child.

‘How's show business?' Rory put his arm round Nick's shoulders.

‘So far so good.'

‘Should Doctor Phil watch his back? Niamh says you're pretty good but I'm not sure I trust her critical faculties.' Rory guffawed.
‘She's at home all day. She probably means compared to the Teletubbies.'

Rory kept his arm draped over his shoulder as they walked along. Nick imagined it floating away and focused on Kelly. She was trying to distract Linh from the squirrel with a game of peek-a-boo.

‘It's good to have the TV show as another string to your bow.' Rory kicked at some leaves. ‘People are struggling to pay the mortgage. They haven't got money to throw away on therapy.'

Nick shrugged Rory's arm off. ‘As a matter of fact,' he said, sounding angrier than he meant to, ‘a drop in income means people can't afford to separate so they need couples counselling to keep their relationships on track.'

Rory guffawed. ‘You tell yourself that, Doctor Nick, while me and all the other divorce lawyers laugh all the way to the bank.'

‘I'm not a doctor,' Nick's heart was thudding under his sweatshirt, ‘and I didn't think anyone in this country was laughing all the way to the bank.'

‘That's my point, pal. Kelly's business must be taking a hammering with the property slump. You might have to get the old breadwinner's hat out one of these days.' Nick felt his face heat up. He and Kelly had been living on her savings since they'd moved back to Dublin, she must have told Niamh. ‘I'm just saying,' Rory spread his hands, ‘it wouldn't hurt to be proactive. Write a book. Think about getting your own show.'

‘I'm way ahead of you,' Nick snapped before he could stop himself. ‘In fact, I might need you to look over a contract in the next couple of months.'

‘Attaboy!' Rory grinned. ‘Are we talking your own series?'

‘I can't talk about it.' Nick said, before he could help himself.

Rory's eyes widened. ‘Hang on! Is this something to do with a certain new relationship reality show that La Clancy might be hosting for Clingfilms?'

Nick shook his head but it was too late. He had a terrible poker face and Rory wasn't a lawyer for nothing.

‘Have they put an offer on paper?'

‘I haven't even spoken to them.' Nick tried, desperately, to
backtrack. ‘Look, I shouldn't have said anything. It's still up in the air.'

‘My lips,' Rory mimed a zipping motion, ‘sealed.'

Kelly linked her arm with Nick's as they walked back along the riverbank. ‘Isn't Linh adorable?'

Nick watched the little girl running ahead of them, chasing a Highland terrier with a branch. ‘She is,' he said, as an elderly woman with a walking stick stepped into Linh's path.

‘Leave him alone!' she shouted. ‘You horrible little girl.'

‘Hey!' Rory jogged up to her. ‘Don't talk to my daughter like that!'

She leaned down, picked the dog up and tucked him under her free arm.

‘Want to play!' Linh stamped her sparkly foot.

‘He doesn't want to play with
you
!'

‘I told you not to shout at my daughter!' Rory squared his shoulders.

Nick hurried over. ‘Let's just all take a deep breath here,' he said in a calm, even voice.

‘This child is completely out of control.' The woman rounded on him. ‘My dog has epilepsy and you,' a flicker of recognition passed over her face, ‘are Doc Nick from television! I'm Mary.' She beamed. ‘This is Twinkle. We think you're marvellous!'

‘This keeps happening,' Kelly laughed after Mary had finally stopped telling Nick how marvellous he was and gone away.

‘Better get used to that!' Rory grinned. Nick shot him a warning look but he pretended not to see it. ‘It's going to get a lot worse when he's on Channel 5!'

‘What I hear you say,' Nick said patiently, ‘is that you feel hurt because I held this back from you. And angry because I didn't consult you before telling Oonagh I was interested in the show. And insulted because I told Rory about it and—'

‘Betrayed.' Kelly picked at her salad. Her voice was so low he could hardly hear it. ‘I feel betrayed.'

After they'd left Rory and Niamh, they'd driven over to Avoca for lunch. It was one of the places Kelly loved most and Nick was
hoping they'd find a quiet table in the garden but it was buzzing with children and wasps.

‘Betrayed,' Nick repeated. It was hard to remember all the things Kelly felt.
Offended. Upset. Shocked. Confused.
She had spent the last ten minutes listing them without looking at him at all, though the Two Listening exercise was very clear about maintaining eye contact. ‘Is there anything else you want to share?'

She shook her dark head. ‘I guess not.'

‘I want to take full responsibility for all the pain I've caused you. We promised to tell one another everything. I broke the promise but I will never do that again.' He waited for a small boy who had crawled under their wooden table to emerge and run off before he went on. ‘I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?'

Kelly nodded at the half-eaten avocado on her plate.

Nick felt a wave of relief and a prickle of excitement. It was out in the open now. They could talk about it. They could make plans. ‘It's an amazing opportunity, you know. I mean, nothing might come of it but—'

‘It is an amazing opportunity.' Kelly folded her napkin. ‘But I'm not sure the timing is right.'

‘The timing?' Nick said carefully. He didn't want to upset her again but what did time have to do with it?

‘We have to factor our baby plans into the equation.'

They had agreed, when they moved to Dublin, that Nick would spend three years getting his career up and running before they started thinking about a family.

‘I know we said that we'd wait three years before we started trying.' Kelly looked up at him for the first time since the river walk; her wide blue eyes were wet, she had a tiny smudge of mascara on one cheekbone. ‘But everything has really taken off for you since the
OO
show. I think we should start trying right away.' She smiled at him.

A pulse of panic ticked in the back of Nick's throat. ‘Can we look at the big picture for a second? This job would give us a chance to get our finances on the kind of solid footing we need before we start a family.' Her smile faded. ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, Kelly. We've run through our savings. We're
living in a rented house. We could afford to support a child at a stretch but if we wanted two—'

‘Like we agreed.'

‘Like we discussed, we could run into trouble.'

‘But you're booked out with private sessions!'

‘There are rumours that
OO in the Afternoon
is going to be cancelled, and if it is I'll be back to square one in the middle of a recession. People are struggling to pay their mortgages. They haven't got money to throw away on therapy.' He couldn't believe that he was quoting Rory.

A wasp landed on his hand. He wanted to swat it away but he sat perfectly still and, after a moment, it climbed on to Kelly's plate. She stared down at it, her lips pressed between her teeth.

‘Honey, couldn't we just start trying anyway? In case we have a problem and we can't conceive.'

Nick leaned over and took her hand. ‘You're thirty. We have all the time in the world.'

She nodded. ‘Could you take the plates away before this little guy stings one of us.'

‘Sure.' Nick kissed her fingertips, gathered their plates and carried them across the lawn to the café.

The wasp was circling a trickle of spilled salad dressing. Kelly picked up her water glass and turned it over, trapping it inside. She watched it fly against the glass, again and again, until, after a while, it stopped and began to crawl up and down the sheer sides instead still trying desperately to find a way out.

‘Ray! My man!' Paul Fisher came out from behind his desk and gave Ray a bear hug. ‘Looking good!'

‘You too,' Ray lied. Paul was in his old rock and roll uniform. Faded jeans and Queens of the Stone Age T-shirt, but he still looked like an anaemic accountant.

Paul sat down again, his hand hovering over his phone. ‘Can I get Carline to get you something? Coffee? A drink?'

‘I'll wait till lunch, thanks.'

‘Shit!' Paul smacked his forehead with his palm. ‘You didn't get my message?'

Ray had switched his phone off in the Sounds Familiar meeting. ‘No.'

‘I've got a new signing coming in. Bloody boy band from Swindon. They're down in reception now. Whole building already stinks of Lynx.'

Ray shrugged. ‘I'm around tonight. We could catch some dinner?' Paul shook his head. ‘Or a drink.'

‘No can do. I'll be with the kiddywinks.' Ray thought this might be the name of the boy band until he followed Paul's eyes to a framed picture of two small girls. ‘I have twenty minutes, now,' Paul said cheerfully. ‘What's on your mind?'

He fiddled with a paper clip while Ray explained. ‘Listen, man. I'm all for a reunion. Have you seen the Facebook page? There's still a huge fan base out there, but I think the call would be better coming from you. Maybe if you got in touch with Chip and said sorry—'

‘Sorry?' Ray got up and went to the window. Paul's office had a view of Soho that the clubbers never saw. Ray stared out at the chimney pots and the crooked lines of washing and the wilting pot plants in kitchen windows then he turned back to Paul. ‘I didn't call
him
a “talentless fame whore”.'

‘You know what he's like.'

Ray did. Bitter, twisted, vindictive.

‘You don't have to apologise if you don't want to, Ray. Just write another “Asia Sky”,' he snapped his fingers, ‘and I'll get you a solo deal. Simple.'

Except it wasn't. Ray had been trying to write another decent song for years and couldn't.

‘Whatever you decide,' Paul stood up, ‘my door is always open.' He was opening it now and Ray had no choice but to walk out through it.

Ray got into the lift and jabbed the button. He was shaking and his palms were clammy. The lift stopped at the fourth floor and a girl with a blonde pixie crop got in. Ray could feel her checking him out.

‘It's you, isn't it?' the girl said. Why did they always have to say
that? Of course it was him. Who else would he be? He gritted his teeth. ‘I guess the disguise isn't working.'

She had a small, feline face that looked sort of familiar. ‘It's Aisling,' she said. ‘Ash. I work here. I mean …' She frowned. ‘I did till about five minutes ago. I just quit.'

The lift stopped and they both got out and stood awkwardly in reception. A bunch of guys who looked about twelve years old were slouched on the sofas, watching music videos on a wall of old-fashioned Bush TVs.

‘You don't remember me, do you?' The girl was staring up at him. ‘I used to work in PR? I'm Ash. Irish Ash?'

A faint bell jangled in the back of Ray's head but he was too upset to hear it properly. ‘Irish Ash!' he said. ‘Course I remember you.'

Then, all of a sudden, he did. She used to have long hair. He had a murky recollection of going back to her flat once after a gig. He couldn't remember anything else except that her shower curtain had a pattern of very realistic goldfish. ‘How are things?'

‘Not so good. I'm just about to move back to Dublin.' She shook her head. ‘It's so weird bumping into you, today, after all this time.' A tear streaked down her face. It hung on her chin for a moment and then dropped on to the front of her dress.

Jesus, Ray thought, this was all he needed. He put his hand on Ash's back and propelled her out through the glass doors on to Wardour Street. It was raining. She pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights out of her bag and her hands were shaking when he lit her cigarette for her.

Ray had thought he'd be unfolding a starched napkin and drinking champagne with Paul Fisher right now, not standing in the rain with some weepy girl he'd had a one-night stand with seven years ago. He needed to get drunk, he decided, very drunk. ‘Do you want to get a drink?'

The pub was deserted and gloomy with a row of flashing slot machines. The beer-stained carpets stuck to the soles of Ray's shoes when he went to the bar. He ordered two double Jameson and Cokes and brought them over to where Aisling was sitting.

She picked out the straw and took a gulp of her drink. ‘I'm just
having a bit of a weird time. I broke up with my fiancé last week. I resigned from my job, and now I have to go back to Dublin, where I know nobody, to live with my parents.'

Ray swallowed half of his whiskey in one sour gulp. ‘You know me. I'll give you my number. We can meet up.'

She poked at the ice in her glass with a finger. ‘Like you'll call me back.'

‘Sure I will,' Ray said, though that was a lie.

‘You didn't last time. I must have left about a hundred messages.'

Did she have any idea how many girls left messages on his machine back in those days? ‘I'm sorry.' He finished his whiskey.

‘I needed to talk to you.'

Ray signalled for another round. ‘Talk to me now.'

She stared down at the greasy table while the barman made their drinks. A fly landed on the collar of her denim dress and then on the rim of her glass. She brushed it away. Then her eyes filmed over with tears again. She opened her bag. He thought she was looking for a tissue but she took out an iPhone and handed it to him.