The Heart Whisperer (37 page)

A seminar co-ordinator in the UK wanted to discuss a position on their roster of speakers. A women's magazine called Bliss wanted to know if he'd be interested in a monthly column on making marriage work. And Oonagh had mailed him a list of potential dates for the two of them to fly to London to sign contracts with Clingfilms.

All the things Nick had daydreamed about a few weeks ago seemed to be falling into his lap, but he didn't want them any more. All he wanted was to turn over in the lumpy bed and find Kelly lying beside him.

Kelly pulled on her robe and went downstairs. The garden looked as if it had been burgled. Litter had blown over the wall. Two patio chairs were lying on their sides on the lawn. A huge plant pot had blown over and cracked and the magnolia, the white one Nick had bought her for her birthday, had snapped in half.

She opened the door. A gust of wind blew her hair straight up in the air and rattled a vase on a shelf on the other side of the room. She forced the door closed again and watched crisp bags, newspapers and chip wrappers whip past the window. Usually, when
she couldn't sleep, she went online and logged on to one of her fertility message boards, but she couldn't face them any more.

She filled the kettle and put a camomile tea bag into a cup, then she changed her mind and went into the living room and poured herself a finger of Scotch. She hardly drank at all, not since she was seventeen and her parents had sent her to that awful place. A glass of wine with dinner every few weeks. A flute of champagne at a wedding. She'd stopped completely on her honeymoon. Drinking was a bad idea if you were trying to conceive, that's what all the books said.

She swallowed the whisky in one neat gulp. Every month, for three years and three months, she'd held on to the hope that she might be pregnant. But this month, for the first time, she knew for certain that she wasn't.

Ray had changed the bandage earlier and the cut had started bleeding again. Claire had been right. He should have had it stitched up. It hurt like hell. The wind was howling down the fire escape, playing it like a huge out-of-tune harmonica. He hoped that Willow was asleep. Some kids were scared of storms, though he hadn't been. A good storm had always stopped his parents fighting for some reason. Maybe because it was louder than they were. He felt the old wave of self-pity gathering force out there in the wet, wild night, so he got up, went down to the living room and picked up the weapon he'd always used against it – his guitar. He played the opening chords of ‘Asia Sky' and then, without thinking, he shifted into something else. Something new, something good. He remembered the lyrics he'd scribbled on the Rice Krispies box the night Willow stayed over and he knew, before he even searched the bin to find them, that they would fit perfectly.

The storm had finally died down and Nick was drifting back to sleep when the old man started up. Nick flipped the pillow over, squeezed his eyes closed and tried to shut out the moans and groans of pain coming from the surgery below him. Then, when he couldn't take any more, he jumped out of bed, grabbed a T-shirt and went downstairs.

The old man sat up blinking when he switched on the light. ‘What is it?' he gasped. ‘What's wrong?'

‘You're making so much noise I can't sleep.' Nick shook a sleeping tablet into his hand. ‘You need one of these.' He popped a painkiller from its blister pack. ‘And one of these.'

‘I don't need painkillers. I'm fine.'

‘Well, I'm not!' Nick snapped. ‘This stoical shit about not taking your medication has to stop. It's driving me mad and it's upsetting Claire.'

‘I have never done anything to hurt Claire,' the old man said sharply.

‘Really? You should have seen her face when she found a couple of vodka bottles in here a few months ago,' Nick said. That woke the old man up. ‘I covered for you. Again. But you owe me, Dad.' He held his palm out. ‘Take them.'

The old man frowned but he put the tablets in his mouth and washed them down with a gulp of water.

Nick slammed the door and climbed the stairs again. He was back in bed before he realised that he'd called the old man ‘Dad'.

Ray had been calling Ash for days. She must be screening his calls, he thought. He tried again, this time using his landline, and she picked up straight away. ‘Please stop calling me, Ray,' she said when she heard his voice. ‘I don't want to talk to you.'

‘Is Willow OK?'

‘She saw you getting punched in the face. What do you think?'

‘I'd like to see her just to—'

‘To what? Upset her all over again.'

‘I'll call you tomorrow,' he said, ‘maybe then—'

‘I don't think so.' She hung up.

If he just showed up at the house and knocked on the door, she would have to let him see Willow, wouldn't she? Just for a minute. Long enough to explain that he wasn't hurt and to reassure her.

There was a row of small shops at the end of Ash's parents' road. A chemist. A dry cleaner. A newsagent. A bell jangled when Ray pushed the door open. The shop was dark and musty and divided into too many narrow aisles with tightly packed shelves. He walked around trying to find something he could get for Willow that would make up for what had happened.

There was a shelf of plastic toy sets in dusty blister packs but they were too cheap and tacky. He looked at the jars of old-fashioned sweets on a shelf behind the counter. Clove rocks. Pineapple cubes. Sour apples. The sweets he used to eat when he was Willow's age.

A stout, middle-aged woman appeared behind the counter. ‘What can I do you for?'

Ray pointed at the jars. ‘Can I have a …' What did they come in, nowadays? Ounces? Pounds? Grammes? ‘… bag of those.'

She lifted down a jar and started weighing sweets out into stainless-steel scales. ‘What happened to you?' She blinked at him, curiously, from behind her thick glasses.

‘Oh,' he touched the bridge of his nose, ‘I fell over …' He looked around for inspiration. ‘… a bale of briquettes.'

‘No, I mean what
happened
to you? You were Ray Devine, right?'

‘Um.' He swallowed. ‘Yeah.'

‘I used to think you were the hottest thing on two legs.' He saw now that she was far younger than he'd thought. Late thirties maybe. ‘ “Asia Sky” was my wedding song. I can't believe you never wrote another one.'

Ray remembered the night of the storm. ‘I think I might have,' he said hotly. ‘I mean I did.'

‘Really?' Her eyes sparkled behind her glasses. ‘Let's hear it, then.'

He shook his head. ‘I couldn't—'

‘Come on! I was your biggest fan! I went to every gig you did in Dublin. I was right up the front at The Point. I even threw my knickers at you once but they got tangled up in Happy's drumsticks. You owe me!'

Ray had been fantasising about his comeback for nearly four years. He'd imagined it happening in Paris, Berlin or London, not in a musty newsagent's in suburban Dublin. But something came over him. Something he couldn't fight. The raw, messy, eager compulsion to perform. He felt the delicious fight-or-flight cocktail of stage fright seep into his veins, even though there was no stage, just a counter piled with discounted cans of cat food. This was absurd. He picked up a tin, held it, like a microphone, cleared his throat twice and began to sing.

‘She knows the Heineken manoeuvre,

She had a fraction on her arm,

She suddenly came out of nowhere,

Now she's wearing your heart like a charm.

And little stars come out of you—

You can't believe it but it's true

She takes your old and makes it new

And little stars come out of you.'

‘That was …' The woman shook her head when he was finished. Ray had a sinking feeling that she was going to tell him it sounded just like an ad on TV. ‘… even better than “Asia Sky”.'

She slid the bag of sweets across the counter as he reached into his jacket for his wallet.

‘Don't even think about it,' she said. ‘These are on me.'

Ray knocked on the door of Ash's parents' house but nobody answered. He went across the street and sat on a wall under a cherry tree. After a while, he realised he was hungry, so he started to eat the sweets.

It was past nine when a car pulled up into the driveway and a couple in their sixties got out. The man leaned into the back and lifted Willow out. She was fast asleep with her rabbit backpack still on. Ray remembered something he'd read once, a line in an article that said you're not a man until you have carried your sleeping child from your car into your house.

Now wasn't the time to wake his daughter up to explain that he was fine. That people fought sometimes but that it wasn't the end of the world. But there would be a time. He'd make sure of it.

Eilish was back in Dublin for the weekend. She'd promised to come around and cook dinner for Claire but she was too tired so she had brought an Indian takeaway instead.

‘We're going to have to watch the news, I'm afraid.' Claire switched on the TV and Dog opened one eye, stared blearily at the screen then went straight back to sleep.

‘Is it all over between Dog and Anne?' Eilish ladled chicken korma into bowls.

‘I don't know. He's not himself and he's off his food.'

Dog had been superglued to Claire ever since the night she'd broken up with Richard. He followed her from room to room, sat
outside the bathroom door when she went to the loo and slept on her bed every night. He growled in his sleep and his huge paws twitched as if he were chasing something. Claire hoped it was Richard.

‘He looks pale,' Eilish dipped her naan bread in her bowl, ‘in a canine way.'

‘Do you think he's still digesting the Rolex?'

‘Long gone. You're not still thinking of giving that bastard a replacement, are you?'

Claire sighed. She'd found a second-hand Submariner for three thousand euros on eBay. If she decided to fix Mossy, too, she'd be broke all over again, but she had morals, even if Richard didn't. ‘It's the right thing to do.'

Eilish snorted. ‘I can think of righter things to do. Like breaking into his flat and sewing anchovies into his suits! I hope you're not having any regrets about kicking him out?'

Claire shook her head. ‘None at all.' Richard had never been right. The signs had been there. The way he always had a shower after they made love. The way he had tried to fix everything. Her locks, her garden, her car, her career. He'd even tried to fix it so that Dog was out of the way so she would move in with him. She missed Richard's family, his lovely mother, his crazy sisters, but she didn't miss him at all.

‘Sorry it's such a flying visit.' Eilish hugged Claire at the door. ‘I have to be on location in Sneem at seven in the morning. Pete's picking me up at three a.m.'

‘You and Pete,' Claire said.

Eilish blushed. ‘We're just friends.' She pulled on her fake fur coat. ‘With benefits,' she muttered.

‘When did this happen?'

‘I kissed him at the
Emerald Warriors
wrap party.'

Claire grinned. ‘I knew something was going on. Pete is always singing in the background when I call you.'

Eilish put on her gloves. ‘It's not a big deal. It's just a shoot thing. You know what they say. “What happens on
Warriors
stays on
Warriors
.” Actually, they don't say that but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.'

‘I can't believe I finally got through to you,' Niamh said. ‘I've left about a million messages.'

The only reason Kelly had answered her mobile at all was because she was stuck on the off-ramp at Junction 8 on the M50 and she thought it was her clients ringing to ask why she was so late. ‘I'm sorry. I've been meaning to get back to you. I was back in the States for the holidays and it's just been crazy since I got back.'

‘We bumped into Nick in the supermarket last weekend. He told us everything.'
Everything?
‘Rory wants me to organise a little dinner, you know, to celebrate.'
A little dinner?
Kelly imagined a tiny meal on a tiny plate. Then it clicked. Niamh wasn't talking about the fact that she'd split up from Nick. She was talking about his Channel 5 job. ‘How does Friday week sound?'

‘I'm in the car now, Niamh. I'll check my diary and call you back, OK?'

Bath to the Future was in a retail park that had been built at the peak of the property boom but never completed. Kelly parked in the vast empty car park beneath a faded poster of a happy couple cavorting in a hot tub. Her clients, a stressed-looking couple in their thirties, were already inside, bickering by the slipper baths.

The whole place had a grim, abandoned look. Someone had written ‘Fintan is a gas pig' in the dust on the mirror of a mocked-up wet room. Kelly led her clients around the massive warehouse, making copious notes, while they scrapped about hidden cisterns and suspended toilets.

‘We can't pay a hundred and fifty euros a square metre for the flooring,' the man whispered after fifteen minutes of tense argument about tiles.

‘But it's the house we'll live in for ever.' The woman looked as if she might cry.

‘Not if we can't pay the mortgage.'

Kelly felt sorry for them. ‘You don't have to decide right now. I can get you samples of all the tiles you like and then you can go home, have a glass of wine and talk it over.'

They both looked relieved. She went over to the sales counter,
where a man with wispy eyebrows and a goatee was devouring a doughnut.

‘I can only give you one sample.' He shifted a lump of doughnut from one side of his mouth to the other.

‘You're kidding me, right?'

He took a slurp of coffee from a chipped red mug. ‘New rule. People are going around all the showrooms, getting samples then using them to tile their bathrooms.'