The Heart Whisperer (8 page)

‘I'm not going to bullshit you,' Oonagh said through a mouthful of macaroon. ‘The bad news is you can forget about your slot turning into a regular thing.'

Nick's heart sank.

‘It's not you. It's the whole show.' Oonagh sighed. ‘The station budgets are about to take another hammering and I don't think we're going to escape. The good news is,' she picked out a pistachio macaroon and smiled at it, ‘I've got a parachute. I've been talking to a UK production company about a really exciting new project. It's a reality TV show franchise that's going to roll out on Channel 5 next spring and, if it gets the ratings, it'll go to the States.'

Nick felt a prickle of irritation. He liked Oonagh but she was self-obsessed. It was just like her to ramble on about how great her own career prospects looked when he was about to be fired.

‘The working title is
Relationship Rescue
.' Oonagh peeled off a strip of fake eyelashes from one eye and stuck it to the macaroon box. ‘The idea is to reunite couples who have split and hook them up with counsellors and coaches to try to resolve their problems. At the end, they get to decide whether to make a go of it again. They approached me and Owen to co-present but the producers have gone off him big time. Would you be interested in coming on board?'

It took a second to sink in. Oonagh wasn't firing him. He thought she might be offering him a job. ‘Wow! As what?'

‘Co-presenter and lead coach? I won't have the final say but I'd like to put you forward to Clingfilms.'

He stared at her. Clingfilms was a huge UK production company. ‘But I don't have any real TV experience—'

‘You're a natural, Nick. People love you. We had three hundred emails after your slot last week. Our previous record was two hundred the time Owen got his back waxed live on air.' She peeled the eyelashes off her other eye. ‘And most of those were complaints. What do you say?'

Nick was still struggling to take it in. ‘I need to think about it.'

Oonagh laughed, expelling a cloud of tiny green crumbs. ‘About what? The chance of getting the We-Fit message out to millions of people instead of the pathetic little OO show audience?'

Nick's mind was racing. A UK profile would give him an amazing platform for a series of We-Fit seminars. He could write a book. ‘But what about Owen?'

‘Oh, he'll go thermonuclear.' Oonagh sighed. ‘But the truth is, he never really had a chance. He's sixty-three and, as you might have already noticed, he thinks any kind of therapy is,' she impersonated Owen's booming baritone, ‘a pile of shite.'

‘I thought he was fifty-five?'

‘You haven't seen him naked,' Oonagh said, dryly. ‘Are you interested or not?'

‘I'll have to discuss it with Kelly—'

‘You can't discuss it with anyone. I'm breaking my nondisclosure agreement even mentioning this to you.'

‘I can't do that—' Nick began.

‘Why?'

‘Kelly and I don't have any secrets from one another.'

Oonagh bit into a raspberry macaroon. ‘It would only be for a couple of weeks.'

‘I wouldn't feel OK about not telling her.'

‘Fine.' Oonagh closed the Ladurée box and licked her fingers. ‘Let's just forget this conversation happened.'

Nick swallowed. An opportunity like this might never come along again. ‘Hang on, just give me a second.'

‘You have about twenty-nine,' Oonagh said, ‘before Owen comes back from the canteen, finds you here and does his King Kong impersonation.'

Nick stood up. His heart was racing. ‘OK,' he said, ‘do it, put me forward.' Kelly was his biggest supporter. She'd understand.

Kelly opened the fridge to get a bag of salad leaves for lunch. The cake she'd made for Claire was still there, sitting on the middle shelf covered with Saran Wrap. She took it out and put it on the table. It was too pretty to throw away. She peeled the wrap off, picked off the black marzipan stiletto and remodelled it into a black daisy with a red centre then she wrapped the cake up again and got her laptop and her jacket.

Niamh and Rory had been Kelly's first Irish clients. They had hired Kelly to redecorate their Regency house in Blackrock. She had taken the ferry to Brittany with Niamh and spent three days scouring the markets and they'd bonded over sofas and tables and chandeliers. She was so close to Nick that there wasn't really room in her life for friends, but it was fun to have another couple to hang out with from time to time. She hadn't seen them much over the last three months. They had adopted a little Vietnamese girl and they'd had their hands full. Today, Kelly knew, was her third birthday.

Niamh's face lit up when she opened the door. She had finger paint on her face and flour on her wrap-around dress. ‘Come in!'

‘I can't. I just wanted to drop this over.' Kelly handed over the cake.

‘Wow! Linh will love it. Just come in for a minute. I've been dying for you to meet her!'

A tiny figure in a tutu flashed past the kitchen door. ‘I'd love to, sweetie,' Kelly said. ‘But I've got a meeting.'

‘Well, let's get together for a walk soon, the four of us.' Niamh's face broke into a happy smile. ‘I mean the five of us. I'm still getting used to that!'

The bell gave a little jangle as Kelly pushed the door open.

‘Do you need any help?' A girl smiled up at her from behind a Venetian mirrored desk.

‘Just looking. Oh, this is lovely.' Kelly picked up a dusky rose crew-neck cotton sweater with tiny mother of pearl buttons.

‘Isn't it?' the girl stood up. ‘It's from the Autumn collection.'

Along with the rose there was a delicate oyster and a pale blue. Ten minutes later, the girl was wrapping all three in tissue and Kelly was handing over her business credit card. She regretted it the moment she left the shop. Her hand was clammy around the ribbon handles of the bag. They were supposed to be watching what they were spending. Nick would be horrified if he ever found out she'd blown nearly two hundred dollars like this. She'd have to hide the bag with the others.

Eilish was dancing around the tiny room that served as a kitchen, a living room and a study area for Holly. ‘Hair we go! Hair we go! Hair we go!' She shimmied past the desk to light the candles on the mantelpiece.

‘Stop!' Claire put her fingers in her ears. ‘Enough with the awful hair jokes.'

‘Sorry! I just can't get my head,' Eilish tossed her black bob, ‘around the fact that we're both getting thirteen hundred euros for one day's work!' She salsaed into the kitchen, pulled a bottle out of the fridge and danced back to fill their glasses, then raised hers in a toast.

‘You gave yourself a year to get your acting career back on track and look what you've done in less than a month.'

Claire smiled. ‘You've done pretty well yourself!'

After Lorcan had told Claire she'd been cast in the hair care ad, Eilish had door-stopped him until he'd sent her headshot over to the ad agency and today she'd had a call to say she'd been cast too. So tonight they were celebrating with Aldi's finest cava and Eilish's notoriously decadent demerara meringues. But, first, they had to work their way through her Provençal onion tart and her salmon with sugarsnap peas and dill pistachio pastou.

Eilish leaned over the cooker and peeked into a sauté pan. ‘Eat
your heart out, Nigella! But slow-cook it in Coke first, then dip it in seventy per cent chocolate and don't forget to lick your fingers afterwards.'

Claire's phone rang halfway through the main course. It was Ray. ‘I don't like Prosecco,' he said. ‘Does that make me antisecco?' There was a lot of clattering in the background. ‘Come upstairs. I've got a little surprise for you. Actually, it's a sizeable surprise.'

‘I'm over in Eilish's.' Claire put down her fork. ‘She's made dinner to celebrate the hair thing.'

‘You've eaten?' Ray sounded disappointed.

‘We're eating now.' Claire made a pleading face. Eilish rolled her eyes and then nodded reluctantly. ‘Do you want to come and join us?'

‘No thanks. I have a … takeaway.' There was a loud crash in the background.

‘What's that?'

It was Ray's takeaway. It had woken up and it was trying to get out of the sink.

Ray needed to find something really special to celebrate Claire getting the hair ad, and as he was walking along Chatham Street it hit him. A lobster. There was only one left on the pile of crushed ice in the window of the fish shop. It was huge and blue-black with glassy eyes on stalks and rubber bands around its massive claws. A leg that looked as though it was supposed to still be attached lay nearby.

The fishmonger picked it up and waved it at him. ‘They like to scrap,' he said fondly. ‘Tell you what, as you're a Smoke Covered Horse,' he winked, ‘I'll give you five euro off and I'll throw in the leg.'

He whistled the opening bars of ‘Wish You Were Her' as he wrapped the struggling lobster up in newspaper and moved on to ‘Pretty Stupid' as he tried to wrestle it into a plastic bag. ‘It's a shame you fellas decided to call it a day. I was hoping for a reunion.'

‘Never say never.' Ray took out his wallet.

‘Really?' The fishmonger looked pleased. ‘That's not what Chip
Connolly said. I had him in here last week. He bought a lovely bit of hake.'

‘Yeah?' Ray tried to sound casual. ‘What did he say?'

‘I said “Any chance of the Horses getting back together?” and he said “Over my effing dead body”.' The fishmonger handed over the thrashing bag. ‘Maybe it was “Over my dead effing body” but you get the general sense.'

The lobster had calmed down by the time Ray got it home, but while he was on the phone it had livened up again. It had torn its way out of the bag and managed to escape from the sink. It came limping towards Ray now across the draining board, one big claw held up, like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky.

‘Got to go, Claire.' Ray hung up, threw a towel over the lobster and shoved it into the freezer. He'd read somewhere that was supposed to slow its blood down. He poured himself a glass of Prosecco. What was he supposed to do with the bloody lobster now? He didn't want to cook it, he felt too sorry for it. Could he keep it alive for the weekend and bring it back to the shop? What would he feed it? What did lobsters eat?

‘Fish, clams, whelks and smaller, weaker lobsters,'
according to Google. Ray looked at the abandoned leg in the sink. Maybe the lobster wouldn't know it was his own leg if Ray cooked it first.

‘Promise me that the first thing you'll do when you get paid is get out of Ray's basement and get a place of your own.' Eilish refilled their glasses with the last of the cava. ‘The whole
Upstairs Downstairs
thing is wrong on so many levels.'

Claire nibbled a sugarsnap pea. ‘I feel bad about just leaving him there on his own.'

Eilish snorted. ‘Do you think he'll feel bad about leaving you there when the band gets back together and he swans off for another seven years?'

Claire was beginning to wonder whether that was going to happen at all.

Eilish refilled their glasses. ‘Look, I know Ray's charming and he's generous and he was there for you after you broke up with Declan but—'

‘What?'

‘Do you think that any self-respecting guy, say that gorgeous man you met on
The Spaniard
, is going to put up with an ex-rock star texting you every fifteen minutes and turning up in the middle of the night in his pants?'

‘And a T-shirt.'

Eilish shook her head. ‘It's Peter Pan and Wendy. As long as you have Ray, you don't need to have a relationship. You don't have to take risks or get hurt. Sometimes I wonder if you think you deserve to be happy at all.'

Claire stood up and went into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

‘I'm sorry,' Eilish said softly. ‘It's just that you're your own worst enemy, Claire. Look at the way you handed Declan to Emma.'

Claire wheeled around. ‘They went behind my back.'

‘You
let
him go off for all those little assignations with her. This is Emma Lacey who used to ice her nipples for auditions. Who'd get up on a cracked plate if she thought she'd get a credit.'

Claire flushed. She
had
known. But she'd felt the way she always did when something bad was happening. Frozen to the spot, powerless to stop it.

‘It's been three years and you've had, what, two one-night stands?'

‘One of them was a five-night stand, the other one was a three-night stand.'

Eilish twisted the stem of her glass and tiny prisms of light from the candles danced, like fireflies, around the walls.

Claire sighed. ‘I thought this was a celebration?'

‘All I want to say is don't waste another three years in that gloomy basement watching box sets and playing word games with Ray Devine.' She stood up. ‘Lecture over. Now I'm going to wash out my mouth with demerara meringues.'

After he'd finished the second bottle of Prosecco, Ray opened the freezer door cautiously. Rocky was wedged between a frozen pizza and a bottle of Absolut. He glared out with his weird stalky eyes, the big claw raised defiantly. Ray sighed. This wasn't how he imagined tonight would turn out.

‘Bit late to be building a sandcastle, isn't it?' the taxi driver said on the Merrion Road. Ray was in the back with Rocky and a bottle of Absolut in a bucket between his knees. He was too drunk to remember why he'd brought the spade but it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

‘You can drop me here!' He pointed at the side gate to the park. The plan had been to release Rocky on the beach but this would do.

The park was deserted and the pond was silvered with moonlight. Nights like this reminded Ray of being young and staying up late with Claire. Nights when they'd drive her mother's clapped-out old car up the Dublin mountains with enough money for one pint between them. They'd sit on the bonnet for hours after the Blue Light had closed looking down at the glitter of the city. Anything had seemed possible on nights like that.