The Matchmaker (16 page)

Martin Johnston, the visiting American professor, had given her the low-down on what his college were looking for each semester, and she had broken down a proposed lecture schedule accordingly. Synge, Joyce, Behan, O’Casey, Beckett, Keane, Friel, McGahern, O’Brien and Heaney: she covered them all, the great and the good of Irish writing with Yeats as her core. William Butler Yeats would not let her down. In Stanford she would be able to carry on with her research and might even have access to college funding or a research grant for her work on the great influence of women on W. B. Yeats’s poetry.

The printer was acting up and she almost attacked it when a page got stuck and she had to take the back off to release it. Anna fed it like a baby watching the pages appear. Everything had to look perfect: Martin had warned her sloppiness would mean automatic rejection. She had a meeting with him first thing in the morning where she had to give a fifteen-minute verbal presentation of her academic proposal. She was exhausted and her shoulders and back ached but she was determined to finish the task at hand. There’d be plenty of time for sleep later. She worked till five a.m. and had fallen asleep at her computer, her head touching the keyboard. Thank heavens she hadn’t deleted anything.

At eight a.m. Anna Ryan was woken by the sound of the city traffic moving in the street outside her door, and in a panic showered and dressed, grabbing a simple black skirt and T-shirt and a pair of sexy black high heels, pulling her contrary hair back neatly as she slipped her arms into her velvet jacket and downed a glass of orange juice before racing to the meeting.

Passing Philip on the corridor she barely had time to say hello to him as she ran into the Dean’s office and began her pitch.

Phew! She had pulled it together. She could see Brendan, the head of the English Department, and Martin were both reacting positively during her presentation.

‘We are very keen this year to have an Irish person lecture on Irish Literature, bring their own cadence and style to it,’ Martin said smiling.

‘How long before I know?’ she blurted out, sounding madly over-enthusiastic.

‘The Stanford College authorities and the heads of the English Department will make their decision quickly.’

Finishing the interview she was conscious of the fact that Martin had quite a few envelopes of résumés and proposals already under his arm as he said his goodbyes. She watched his short fat legs and stocky body propelling him across the hallowed cobblestones towards the waiting car.

‘Safe journey,’ she whispered.

Consulting the day’s timetable, she saw she had a lecture at three and a tutorial mid-morning. Anna felt incoherent with exhaustion. She’d cancel the tutorial; no doubt her twenty students would be relieved to discover they had a free period. But the lecture in the afternoon she would give, there was no point upsetting her own head of department when she might be looking for a sabbatical next year. Anna yawned; she’d go home and sleep for a few hours, then she’d be right as rain.

Ten days later it was Mona who told her the news.

‘Can you believe that schmuck Philip getting to go to Stanford for the year?’ she exclaimed as they queued together in the canteen for lunch.

Anna felt her stomach lurch and almost dropped her tray. Philip Flynn had made no mention to her of applying for the year-long lecturing post that she had told him about. He hadn’t said a word to her when she had been prattling on excitedly about her application and what the Americans were looking for.

‘I was sure you’d get it, Anna, but what the hell do my fellow countrymen know of lecturers like you who have the ability to pack their classes and interest their students compared to egotists like Philip who try to promote their own work?’

She must have looked dismayed because Mona stroked her shoulder.

‘I know he’s a friend of yours, Anna honey, but I just can’t take to the man. The only good thing about it is that he’ll be off campus for at least six months.’

Anna winced. She had told Philip all about her intended application and he had made absolutely no mention of putting himself forward. Maybe Mona had got it wrong?

Brendan was in his office when she marched in like a virago and demanded an explanation.

‘Anna, a number of my staff put forward proposals for the year’s sabbatical at Stanford,’ he soothed. ‘Everyone here was competing with people from UCD and Galway and Cork. It was a broad field and Philip won it fair and square. The Americans liked what he was offering and he was selected. I’m sorry but it was not my decision.’

‘What was his proposal?’ she demanded.

‘Well, obviously you are all covering a lot of similar ground, especially for an audience outside of Ireland. Philip was focusing on the dramatists, but I suppose the paper he’s working on, “The Female Influence on Ireland’s Great Dramatists”, did have an appeal.’

‘Brendan, that is my idea,’ she screamed. ‘You
know
that! Yeats was a complex man but the essence of Philip’s study is the same as mine. He’s taken my idea!’

‘His proposal might have some similarities to yours,’ he admitted, ‘but it had a broader scope and hence a broader appeal.’ Brendan Delaney sighed. God preserve him from competing academics. Philip Flynn was an arrogant prick and he himself had been surprised by his sudden candidacy and detour into academic writing as opposed to those godawful plays of his. ‘I’m sorry, Anna, there’s nothing I can do. Philip spoke with the people in Stanford last night and has agreed to take the position with them.’

Fuming with indignation, she left the office and strode across the quadrangle. When she found Philip she would give him a piece of her mind. He was the lowest of the low – a plagiarist! He had listened to her outline over the past few months, what she was working on, and had simply rehashed it and submitted it. She’d murder him!

In a fury Anna, her hair wild and tumbling around her shoulders, her long black-and-red-striped cardigan blowing about her, searched the whole of Trinity. She searched the staffroom, the library, the corner of the restaurant where he usually sat, only to be told that Philip Flynn had gone home. Grabbing her keys she jumped into her trusty red Polo and driven to Glasnevin where he lived.

The small red-brick terrace house he shared with his mammy was close to the Botanic Gardens. Last summer and spring he had regularly taken her there for picnics and walks. Anna squeezed into a tiny parking spot outside it and ran up to the front door, ringing the bell.

Dympna Flynn answered it. She was wearing a salmon-coloured cardigan, a tartan skirt and her regulation nylon stockings and high heels. Her fair hair was immaculately blow-dried as if she had just come back from the hairdresser’s.

‘Is he in?’ demanded Anna.

‘Philip’s not here but he’s due any minute. He went to the butcher’s to get us a nice bit of fillet steak for the dinner.’ Philip’s mammy was not used to Anna using that tone of voice and looked slightly insulted.

‘Then if you don’t mind, Dympna, I’ll wait.’

It was uncomfortable sitting in the front room with its hard sofa and display cabinet of ornaments and china. Dympna sat across from her, her hands fidgeting on her lap.

‘Have you heard the good news about him going to America?’

‘That’s why I’m here,’ Anna said tersely.

‘I’m going to miss him terribly,’ said Dympna, reaching for a hankie stuck up her cardigan sleeve. ‘But I can’t stand in his way. Philip is so excited about it. He’s trying to persuade me to come out and visit him. As visiting lecturer he will have accommodation provided.’

Anna gritted her teeth. Her mother had always said never trust a man beyond twenty-five still living with his mother – she should have listened to her. ‘That would be nice.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea or coffee while you’re waiting?’

‘Coffee with milk and no sugar would be great, thanks.’

She studied the patterned carpet and the porcelain thimbles and glass animals that Philip’s mother collected, the lace protectors on the chairs and the print of a stag in the Scottish highlands. Was it any wonder he wrote such shite plays! A grown man living in this place with poor Dympna waiting on him hand and foot!

Dympna was just carrying in a tray with two china mugs of coffee when Philip appeared, carrying their dinner in a plastic bag.

‘Oh, hello, Anna,’ he said, looking awkwardly at her, his gaze shifting around the familiar room. She had surprised him.

‘I just heard about America,’ she said, trying to keep her voice even.

‘It was a last-minute thing,’ he stammered. ‘I just decided on the spur of the moment to throw my hat in the ring too.’

‘Along with my proposal,’ she said sarcastically. ‘The study I’ve been working on for the past year.’

Dympna, picking up the tension, grabbed the bag from McCarthy’s butcher’s. ‘If you two will excuse me I’ll just put this meat in the fridge.’

Philip ran his fingers through his thick black hair, his expression wary. ‘There is a difference,’ he argued.

‘And when did you come up with this brilliant idea of the influence of women on some Irish dramatists? Would it have been when I asked you to read over my paper on Lady Gregory’s influence on Yeats? Or confided in you about my research on Maud Gonne?’

He moved his lips, his dark eyes searching for some kind of response.

‘You are such a total shit, Philip. A schemer! A big nothing!’

‘Hold on, Anna, I am as entitled to apply for Stanford as you or anyone else. A year out of this place is just what I need. OK, OK, there is some similarity between our proposals, I do admit, but mine is at a very early stage.’

‘You lying little creep.’

‘I am actually hoping to develop a script, write a play even while I’m away in California.’

Anna studied his handsome, smug, self-satisfied face. How in her right mind had she ever imagined that he was an interesting, intelligent guy, one she could perhaps have a relationship with!

‘I could lodge a formal complaint, produce my early drafts, my original studies and notes, and send them to Martin Johnston tonight,’ she threatened, ‘and you can send him yours.’

‘Mine is just an early proposal – barely at first draft stage,’ he said, backtracking madly.

‘Really!’

She knew she had him. The full extent of his cheating and lies was obvious, though she suspected he was not going to climb down and admit his culpability. ‘You are pathetic!’ she hissed softly, grabbing her handbag.

She could see bewilderment written all over his face. Philip hadn’t even the sensitivity or emotional depth to recognize what he had done to her. How had she ever imagined he was anything special?

Dympna was standing in the hallway with a plate of biscuits in her hand. Anna guessed that she had overheard the full gist of their conversation.

‘I’m sorry he upset you . . .’ she began to say, fussing around offering more coffee and biscuits, as Anna, not trusting herself to say another word, headed for the hall door.

Anna resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to Stanford, but what irked her most was the fact that Philip had muscled in on her academic territory. He might be a mammy’s boy but he was still a scheming bastard! Hell would freeze over before she would ever attend one of his awful plays again.

Over Sunday lunch at her mother’s Grace and Sarah had loyally taken her side as good sisters do in such circumstances, and hadn’t a good word to say about him.

‘Honestly, Anna, he was so rude and full of himself,’ insisted Grace. ‘The man thinks he’s a genius!’

‘He’s a snake in the grass, as Granny would say,’ Sarah added emphatically. ‘The few times I met him, he acted as if I wasn’t there!’

Anna blazed. She obviously hadn’t a clue about men. Her instincts about men were so off centre that she had liked a guy both her sisters had taken such a
dis
like to.

‘Anna, love, it’s better you saw Philip in a true light before the two of you got more involved,’ consoled her mum. ‘Far better to find out now what a schemer he was before any more harm was done. Anyway a man like him is not good enough for one of my daughters!’

Anna stared at her bowl of rice pudding, stirring in a heaped spoon of sugar. It was so stupid; she had let her guard down with Philip Flynn, made allowances for his vanity and egotism by convincing herself that they were intelligent, artistic, like-minded people. How wrong could she get!

‘You know that your father would never have taken to him,’ added Maggie Ryan firmly.

Afterwards, as they were tidying up in the kitchen, her mother had given her a big old-fashioned hug.

‘Anna, love, I know that you’re disappointed about not going to America,’ she began, ‘and you must be hurt by what Philip has done. I know the two of you were close and had a lot in common, which is a good thing in one way, but some of these college fellows you’ve got involved with – I don’t know what to make of them. Maybe you should give other men a chance. A man doesn’t have to have a whole rake of degrees and doctorates to be kind and loving, believe me!’ Maggie added earnestly.

Anna knew there was a truth to what her mother was saying but after Philip’s behaviour she didn’t know if she had any interest in trusting any man again!

‘To be honest, I’m so annoyed about the whole stupid Philip thing that I can hardly think!’ she confided. ‘I feel like my brain is scrambled.’

‘Maybe you should take some time off and go away and leave all that college work for a while,’ Maggie suggested

‘Mum, I have to try and push ahead with the Yeats study. I’m not going to have Philip turn around and say he wrote his one first. There’s no chance I could go away for a few weeks to the States or anything like that.’

‘Then maybe you could take a short break, go away just for a few days.’

‘I just don’t have time for a holiday,’ Anna argued, thinking of all the first- and second-year papers she had to mark.

‘I don’t mean that kind of holiday, I mean peace and quiet, a chance to relax. What about a day or two in Gran’s cottage? No one’s been up there since last summer, and one of us should probably take a look over the place and see what needs doing before the holidays. Besides, a change of scene might do you good.’