The O’Hara Affair (18 page)

Dervla gave him a surprised look. ‘How did you know that I was up for an award?’

‘I read about it in
The Irish Times
.’

The barman arrived with Corban’s pint of Guinness. ‘Thanks, Fergal,’ said Corban. ‘Tell me, how are you and Geraldine getting on with the new arrival?’

‘Grand, thanks, Corban. He’s started to sleep through the night now. And he’s the smiliest young fella you ever saw.’

‘Have you a photo?’

‘I have, of course.’

Fergal slid a hand into his breast pocket, produced a couple of colour photographs, and handed them to Corban. Dervla was struck dumb with horror. She hadn’t even known that Fergal and Geraldine had had a new baby! How could she have missed out on that nugget of news?

‘He’s a grand head of hair,’ observed Corban, holding the photos at arm’s length so that Fleur and Dervla could have a look, too. ‘Takes after his daddy.’

‘Ah, but lucky for him, he’s his mammy’s nose.’

‘Look at the feet on him!’ Corban said, laughing, as he scrutinized the second picture. ‘He’ll be playing for Connaught as soon as he can walk!’

‘Pah! You men!’ said Fleur. ‘Even looking at a picture of a baby, all you can think of is football!’

‘Here, Fergal,’ said Corban, taking another fifty from his billfold, ‘take that to wet the babby’s head.’

Fergal accepted the banknote, and slid it into a pocket. ‘That’s very good of you, Corban,’ he said. ‘You’re a dacent skin.’

‘Here’s to you. And to little Manus.’ Corban raised his pint, and Dervla realized that not only had he known the fact that Fergal had had a baby, but he even knew the infant’s name! Oh, God – how inadequate she was! Had spending
her days solitaire in the Old Rectory made her undergo a personality change, rendered her socially inept? She raised her glass, and echoed, ‘To Manus!’ and then she started rummaging in her pocket for her purse so that she, too, could contribute towards the wetting of the baby’s head.

Fergal departed with a thank you, a smile and seventy euros, and Dervla cursed herself for not having had the nous to ask after his family earlier, rather than exchange banalities on the bloody weather.

Corban leaned a little closer to Fleur. ‘Fleur O’Farrell,’ he said, ‘are you wearing a new scent?’

‘You noticed,
Monsieur
!’

‘Of course I noticed.’

‘You approve?’

‘Mmm. I approve. It suits you. Feminine…and – mmm – not quite so innocent as it smells at first. Tell me what it is, and I’ll bring you some back on my next business trip.’ ‘It’s
Narcisse Blanc
. You’ll have to write it down. It’s not the kind of name a man would remember.’

‘I’ll remember it.’

Corban then turned his attention back to Dervla. ‘May I ask who’s publishing you?’

Dervla told him.

He considered, then nodded. ‘They’re great. They’re small, but they’re keen, and once they get behind an author, they do their best to push. Have you an agent?’

‘No,’ said Dervla. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘Not with a first book. But you might want to think about acquiring one before you sign your next deal.’

‘My next deal!’ scoffed Dervla.

‘Why shouldn’t you get another deal?’

‘Because I don’t have anything else to write about.’

‘I can think of a title straight away.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. How about:
Women Entrepreneurs – Kicking Ass and Getting Results
.’

‘Nice aphorism.’ Dervla gave him a challenging look. ‘But is it true?’

‘It doesn’t have to be true,’ Corban told her, ‘as long as it sells.’

‘Aren’t you being a little cynical?’

‘Hello? This, coming from a former estate agent?’

Dervla laughed, despite herself.

‘Cynicism’s all right,’ he told her. ‘It’s a carapace that allows us to function.’

‘A survival mechanism?’

‘Exactly. If we didn’t allow ourselves to be cynical from time to time, we’d be stumbling around with no protective membrane. It’s the same with humour. If we didn’t distil a grain of humour from the dark side of life, we’d be banjaxed.’

Dervla thought about the myriad times she and Río had used gallows humour as a way of coping with their father’s alcoholism, and the politically incorrect jokes that she and Christian shared about ‘the elderly’, and knew that Corban was right.

‘It’s true, of course,’ sighed Fleur. ‘How could we have laughed at George Bush otherwise?’

‘Or our current Taoiseach?’ Corban took a swig of his pint, then set it down. ‘How was your walk?’

‘Excellent,’ Fleur told him. ‘Dervla saw a – what kind of a bird was it, Dervla?’

‘A merlin.’

‘Wow,’ said Corban. ‘They’re scarce enough. Male or female?’

‘Male.’

‘They’re such elegant-looking birds, aren’t they? Apart from—’

‘Their silly little legs, like feathered trousers!’ exclaimed Fleur. ‘That’s just what Dervla said about them, earlier.’

‘That’s it, exactly!’ Corban said with a laugh. ‘What’s that breed of chicken that has feathery legs, too? Some kind of bantam.’

‘Silkies?’ said Dervla.

‘That’s it. Hey – cue for a joke. A chicken and an egg are lying in bed together. The chicken is smoking a cigarette, and the egg is looking cross. “Well,” says the egg, “I guess that answers
that
question.”’

Dervla spluttered on her Guinness.

‘I don’t get it,’ said Fleur, looking perplexed.

‘Which came first?’ prompted Dervla.

Fleur shrugged. ‘I still don’t get it.’

‘Never mind, my little French poodle.’ Corban put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. ‘It’s probably something to do with the fact that English is not your first tongue.’

‘I must run that joke by my sister Río,’ said Dervla. ‘She collects them.’

‘Río? Why is that name familiar?’ asked Corban.

‘She’s working on
The O’Hara Affair
,’ Fleur told him. ‘She’s the set-dresser. By the way, can Dervla and I visit the set some day?’

‘Sure. Just let me know in advance and I’ll tell one of the ADs to expect you. You could come this weekend, if you like.’

‘But you won’t be there!’

‘Where will I be?’

‘In London, of course, you noodle.’

Corban struck his forehead with the heel of his hand.

‘See? Your memory
is
rubbish,’ Fleur remonstrated. ‘What’s the name of the perfume you’re supposed to be bringing back for me?’

‘That’s easy.
Narcisse Blanc
.’

‘Go to the top of the class!’

Dervla suddenly felt superfluous. She drained her glass and rose to her feet. ‘I’d better make tracks,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to get dinner on the table.’

‘Why don’t you and Christian join us here?’ said Corban. ‘We’re eating upstairs in the restaurant this evening.’

Dervla shook her head. ‘We can’t. I promised I’d cook for my mother-in-law.’

Corban looked grave. ‘She has Alzheimer’s, hasn’t she?’ Clearly registering her surprise that he was so clued-up, he added: ‘Fleur told me. I am sorry – for you and your husband as well as your mother-in-law. Living with Alzheimer’s is tough. I have a cousin who cares for her father twenty-four/ seven.’

‘It’s actually dementia that Daphne has.’

He sucked in his breath. ‘Ow. That’s worse.’

‘It is?’

‘Yes. Alzheimer’s is fatal, in the end. With dementia, a person can go on for years.’

Was this indeed the case? Dervla decided she’d better do a little online research.

‘But isn’t that a good thing?’ said Fleur.

Corban gave her a questioning look. ‘What do you think? Scientists have calculated that, in theory, modern man could be capable of living to a hundred and twenty.’

Fleur shuddered. ‘Oh. I guess that
isn’t
a good thing.’

‘I wouldn’t want to live that long,’ said Corban, ‘which is why I carry a living will.’

‘You do?’ said Fleur. ‘I didn’t know that.’

Corban reached for his billfold again. He took a folded sheet of paper from it, and handed it to Fleur.

‘“If”,’ she read out loud, ‘“I suffer an incurable, irreversible illness, disease, or condition and my attending physician determines that my condition is terminal, I direct that lifesustaining measures that would serve only to prolong my dying be withheld or discontinued.”’ She gave him an admiring look. ‘Wow. Well done, you, Corban O’Hara.’

Dervla found herself sitting down again. ‘How do you make one of those?’ she asked.

‘It’s easy,’ Corban told her. ‘You’ll find hundreds of sample living wills on the internet.’

‘Now, that is something I would be interested in doing.’

‘My own mother was a card-carrying member of Exit.’

‘Exit?’

‘The Voluntary Euthanasia Society. She contracted terminal cancer, and self-delivered.’

‘You mean…she committed suicide?’ asked Dervla, hesitantly.

‘Yes. She did it very beautifully. Filled her house with flowers, enjoyed a glass of Bordeaux, put some Mozart on the CD player. Then took the pills. She wrote us – my brother and me – a beautiful letter, to say goodbye.’

‘Oh, Corban,’ said Dervla. ‘I am sorry.’

He smiled at her. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. She would have hated to have died in hospital, all tubed up. She was a free spirit.’

‘What age was she, when she died?’

‘Sixty-two.’

‘That’s heartbreaking.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s the way of the world,’ he said. ‘Or it should be.’

Dervla found herself wanting to reach for his hand.

Corban’s cosmopolitan exterior and facile charm clearly concealed a soft centre. She decided that she liked this man after all. She was about to ask him how his cousin coped with her senile parent, when her phone alerted her to a text message. She accessed it to find the following:
Dropping into care home to check it out for mum. Home around 8. Will you record the match?

She smiled. Fleur had been so right earlier, when she’d said that all men thought about was football. She started to text back.

‘Well,’ said Fleur with a sigh. ‘That was a jolly conversation.’

Corban laughed. ‘I’ll tell you another joke then, shall I? To cheer you up.’

‘Yes. Do!’

‘How many Germans does it take to change a light bulb?’

‘How many?’

‘One,’ said Corban.

There was a pause, and then suddenly all three of them were rocking with laughter. And in fact, Dervla noticed, as she looked up from her phone – it wasn’t just the three of them who had found the joke funny. Over by the bar, the girl who had been sitting reading had raised her eyes from her book and was looking obliquely at Corban with a coquettishly raised eyebrow.

Later, Dervla was stocking up on basics in the village shop when she realized she’d left her binoculars behind in O’Toole’s. Back she went to reclaim them, exchanging pleasantries with the village folk as she strolled down the street. How funny it was, she thought, that in the Sugar Stack – the exclusive apartment block in Galway in which she had lived during her estate agent days – she had known nobody. Here
in Lissamore she knew almost everyone. It was a good feeling.

As she drew level with the pub window, she saw that her binoculars were no longer on the table. Fleur had mentioned that she’d need to go home to change before dinner: presumably she had taken them with her. The joint was empty now apart from the blonde girl and Corban, who was leaning against the bar. The pair were deep in conversation, and the girl was smiling: Corban was clearly working that facile charm again. His back was turned to her, and even though the door to the pub was open, something about his demeanour made Dervla stop in her tracks. Their voices came to her faintly: they were discoursing in German.

As Dervla observed them, she could see that their body language was as fluent as the German they were speaking: she recognized those little telltale signs that indicated mutual attraction; the touching of hair, the looping of a thumb in a belt, the fiddling with an earring…

Turning away, she walked back down the main street of the village. There was no sign of Fleur on her deck: she must be getting ready to join Corban in the restaurant. As Dervla zapped the locks on her car, she wondered what Corban and the blonde girl had been talking about. She suspected, somehow, that it was not a conversation they might have had had Fleur been present. How she wished she spoke German.

Dervla was feeling knackered. She’d come home to find that Kitty had been sick on the kitchen floor. There were emails backed up – most of them spam that she had to filter through to find the genuine articles. She’d made a pasta sauce from scratch because there wasn’t any in the freezer and she’d promised Christian something scrummy for supper (to cheer him up after she’d forgotten to record the match); and then
she’d had to do all the dishes by hand because the brand new dishwasher was on the blink.

They were standing together at the kitchen sink, she in her Marigolds, Christian with a drying-up cloth in his hand. Dervla emptied the washing-up bowl with an emphatic ‘Thank fuck that day’s over!’ and lunged for a bottle of wine. Daphne had joined them for dinner this evening, and when Daphne came to dinner, they didn’t have wine because Nemia had told her that alcohol made her tetchy. Tetchi
er
, you mean, Dervla had wanted to say, but she’d kept her lip zipped.

‘Don’t bother drying the rest, darling,’ Dervla told Christian. ‘Just leave them, and I’ll put them away in the morning.’ She took a couple of glasses from the cupboard, and set them on the table. ‘You open it, will you? I love the way you do it, like a proper sommelier.’

Sitting down at the table, she watched as Christian expertly stripped the foil from the neck of the bottle, inserted the corkscrew and pulled. Dervla thought the sloshing of the liquid into the long-stemmed glasses was the most welcome sound she’d ever heard.

‘Cheers,’ they said simultaneously, chinking crystal and smiling at each other.

‘Tell me the story of your day,’ said Dervla. She loved to be able to say this. In all her years as a singleton, there’d been nobody to swap stories with, nobody to give out yards to about what a shite day it had been or how badly people had behaved, or – conversely – nobody to celebrate with on those days when life had been joyous and profitable and people had made her laugh. Now, for Dervla, this was the most important time of the daily routine, when she and her husband could finally kick off their shoes and sit down and talk.