The O’Hara Affair (44 page)

Bethany couldn’t engage.
Flirty – something strange just happened in SL,
she blurted.

What? Didn’t your BF show up?

Yes, he did. But he had changed. He was awful and ugly. And he didn’t sound like himself.

Tell me all about it.

So Bethany told Flirty everything that had happened on Shakespeare Island – everything, that is, bar the picture of Corban O’Hara that had featured on Hero’s profile page. For some reason, that had been the most unsettling thing about the whole bizarre encounter, and she didn’t want to share it.

Do you think it was his way of dumping you? asked Flirty, when Bethany had finished her tale of woe.

I guess maybe it was.

Are you upset?

Bethany realized that she was. Very upset.
Yes,
she said. She was almost too embarrassed to admit to Flirty how upsetting her ‘date’ with Hero had been. What a loser she was! To be upset because she’d been dumped by a virtual boyfriend in a virtual world!

I’m sorry to hear that, honey. Are you still in Díseart?

Yes.

Is it a lovely evening there?

Yes.

Go for a walk, sweetie-pie. It will clear your head.

Flirty was right. She should go for a walk, for a run – a swim, even. She needed to feel the evening sun on her face, the wind in her hair, the sand under her feet.

I’ll do that,
she told Flirty.

Take your phone. What’s your number?

Bethany typed it in and sent it.

I’ll text you mine. If you feel like talking, just give me a call.

You’re very good to me.

I’ve become very fond of you. You take care.

I will.

Bethany logged off, resisting the temptation to go in search of her Hero. Flirty had been right. She’d been spending far too much time in fantasy land: it was time she got herself a real life. What was she doing, dancing on a beach in a virtual world when she could be doing it for real, just yards away? But, she thought, reaching for her phone, the sad fact was that in real life she had no one to dance with. She missed Hero already.

She tucked a towel and her swimming costume into her backpack, slid her feet into flip-flops, and opened the front door. Beyond the garden gate the sea was diamantine. There was a tang of salt in the air, a dolphin-shaped cloud was sailing in an expanse of cerulean sky, a curlew was calling plaintively. As she raised her face to the evening sun, the wind pulled her hair across her cheeks.
This
was life! This was real life. She didn’t need a stupid Hero to make it good for her. Did she?

Shutting the front door behind her, Bethany hit the beach.

Fleur logged off, feeling a little shaky. Had she done the right thing? She didn’t want to make Bethany miserable, but she simply could not have allowed the girl’s virtual relationship with that so-called ‘Hero’ Evanier to go any further. It would almost certainly have led to real harm: what Fleur had done was an exercise in damage limitation.

She wondered if Corban had tried to log in to Second Life yet; and how he’d react when he found he couldn’t. She wondered if he had noticed that his home movie had gone missing, and what he’d make of that. She had not yet heard from him, but she knew he’d been in town because his car was no longer parked outside his apartment. She guessed he’d been working late on set, schmoozing with the glitterati.

She turned on the radio and turned it off again. She flipped through the pages of French
Vogue
, then let it drop to the floor. She reached for one of the smooth stones that she kept in a glass bowl on the table, and tossed it from hand to hand. Oh! How she longed for company. She wished she could bring forward her date with Jake Malone: she would love to get revenge on her erstwhile lover by openly flirting with a beautiful young man over a glass of wine, right here on her deck where the entire village could see – but really, what good would that do? She wasn’t in the mood for flirting:
she needed to talk woman to woman. And Río was just down the road.

Grabbing her bag and phone, Fleur was just about to let herself out of her duplex when the door bell sounded. She froze. Corban? But, on checking the security cam, she saw that it was Dervla.

‘Come up, come up!’ she said, pressing the release.

Dervla climbed the stairs, looking drained. ‘Can I have a glass of wine?’ was the first thing she said.

Instantly, Fleur segued into counsellor mode. ‘Of course,
chérie
. Red or white?’

‘Preferably a bottle of each.’ Dervla kissed Fleur on the cheek. ‘Sorry. Whatever’s open.’

‘As always, there’s a bottle on the deck,’ smiled Fleur. ‘You know, sometimes I feel like Captain Cat in
Under Milk Wood
, observing the goings-on of the village from his eyrie.’

‘But wasn’t he blind?’

‘That’s no excuse, when you have a first-class vantage point. Take a seat, and tell me what’s troubling you. But first –’ Fleur grabbed another glass from the cabinet ‘– tell me how you got away from your role as gaoler.’

Dervla collapsed on a patio chair, and put her head in her hands. ‘I begged Finn to take over,’ she said. ‘Daphne gets on so well with him that I said I’d pay him double if he gave me a couple of hours off this evening. That’s how badly I needed to get out of that house.’

‘Are things worse than ever?’

‘Yes. I got a phone call from Nemia today. Her mother’s had a stroke. She won’t be coming back.’

‘
Merde!
’ Fleur sucked in her breath. This
was
bad news. ‘But surely it will be easy enough to find a replacement?’

Dervla shook her head. ‘I made some phone calls today. It’s actually
not
easy, Fleur. Carers are reluctant to live in a
remote part of the country – we were really lucky that Nemia was dedicated enough to come all the way from London with Daphne. And there are all kinds of terms and conditions and clauses when you go through an agency. There may even have to be interviews to see if we’re suitable candidates—’

‘Hang on, dear one – shouldn’t
you
be vetting
them
?’

‘You’d think it would be that way, wouldn’t you?’ said Dervla, with a mirthless laugh. ‘But agencies are so fussy now. Hell, they can afford to be. I’m not the only person in the country going demented caring for someone with dementia. There are thousands of us out there, desperate for help.’

Fleur unstoppered the bottle, and poured wine. ‘What about hiring somebody local?’

‘I did put an ad up in Ryan’s when Nemia was due to go off on holiday, but the only person who replied was a boy with piercings who was into Radiohead.’

‘OK. What about the homes you said you were going to visit?’

Dervla drooped. ‘Oh, Fleur. You’d put a dog out of its misery rather than abandon it somewhere like that.’

‘They’re that bad?’

‘No – they’re not
bad
. It’s not that they’re unhygienic or anything like that: at least the one I saw wasn’t.’

‘I thought you had arranged to look at more than one?’

‘I didn’t get much past the first one – La Paloma. I wimped out, Fleur. I just found the whole exercise so dispiriting.’

‘Here. Have wine.’ Fleur handed Dervla a glass.

‘Thanks.’ Dervla swigged, then set her wineglass on the table. ‘The thing is, La Paloma was lovely, and the staff were just gorgeous. But all the old people sit around in these big chairs, just kind of
lolling
. That’s the only word I can find
for it. They don’t inhabit their bodies any more. They’re all vacant, as if their souls have left the building and the lights have all been turned off, but there are ghosts living there still. And I know that I don’t like Daphne much, but if she goes into one of those places, her lights will be put out and she’ll haunt her own body for another ten, maybe twenty years, because she’ll be kept alive by the miracle that is medical science, regardless of whether or not she wants to go on living.’ Dervla took another swig of wine.

‘D’you know what living with Daphne is like? It’s like living with a dementor from Harry Potter. She’s sucking away my soul. Look – she’s even driven me to drink.’ Dervla drained her glass, then reached for the bottle.

Fleur watched as Dervla filled her glass beyond what was an acceptable limit. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘You clearly are not cut out for caring.’

‘Who is?’

‘Lots of people are. Caring is a vocation. It’s something some really talented people are put on this planet to do. Mother Teresa was a shining example. But it’s not your vocation, Dervla, and you can’t beat yourself up about that.’

‘But I’m being paid to look after Daphne! It’s my job!’

‘And you’re doing it to the best of your ability. If someone handed me a violin and said, “I’ll pay you to play that”, I could take a stab at it, but it doesn’t mean I’d be any good. You’ve bitten off more than you can chew, Dervla.’

‘But I feel like such a wimp! I was the toughest gal in the auctioneering game, once upon a time. Look at me now, brought to my knees by a little old lady.’

Fleur raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe you should stand up to her more.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you say she treats you like a servant. Maybe if you
were less biddable she’d respect you more. Maybe, if you were more authoritative—’

‘You don’t understand, Fleur. I can’t be authoritative. I have no shots to call. I am her employee. I
am
her servant.’

‘That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be treated with some respect.’

Dervla laughed. ‘That’s a bit like saying, “terms and conditions apply”. Hel
lo
, Fleur! When it comes to dementia, there are no terms and conditions. Base cunning and guerrilla tactics are all that will get me through the next week.’

‘You need a walk,’ said Fleur, getting to her feet. ‘Come on, up you get.’

‘Beach or bog road?’ asked Dervla listlessly.

‘Beach. In situations like this, a blast of ozone is mandatory. We’ll go down to Díseart.’

At this hour of the evening, the beach at Díseart was magical. The air seemed to shimmer with the intense golden glow of the low-slung sun, and the light bouncing off the islands made them gleam like cabochon emeralds. Feeling weightless in the water, Bethany found herself singing as she rolled over onto her back and followed the flight path of a seagull overhead. It felt good to be swimming in the sea instead of the pool she frequented in Dublin. Salt water was so much more buoyant: you could float forever. But actually, she realized, she couldn’t stay in much longer. The water was not warm. She remembered how, as a child, she would immerse herself so long in the sea that she would be blue with cold when she emerged, and how she’d run back to the cottage where her mother would have hot chocolate waiting for her. She wished there was someone there now, waiting with hot chocolate and a towel warm from the airing cupboard to wrap her in.

Kicking her legs vigorously, she swam back to shore, to the scalloped shallows. She stood up and shook her head, sending droplets spinning like diamonds, then reached up to wring the rest of the water from her hair. She took a couple of steps through the thigh-high water, then stopped dead.

Where she had left her towel and her clothes, a man was standing, watching her.

Dervla clamped a hand over her mouth. ‘I am so sorry!’ she said. ‘I’ve been so engrossed in my own problems that I didn’t stop to think that you might have some of your own to share.’

Fleur and Dervla were walking along the boreen that led to the beach at Díseart. Since they’d left Fleur’s place, they’d been lobbing between them the pros and cons of home versus residential care, without coming to any real conclusions. Dervla was in a real dilemma, thought Fleur. The tribulations of her own love life seemed petty in comparison, but she’d aired her grievances now, and it was good to hear Dervla call Corban a bastard, and worse.

‘So he’s been having an affair with Nasty Harris all along?’ asked Dervla.

‘So it would appear,’ said Fleur. ‘And it wouldn’t surprise me if she weren’t the only one.’

‘Really? Do you think he’s a sex addict, Fleur?’

‘I think he’s a fuckwit – literally. I think he’s into mind fucking. He’s like a serial collector of women.’ Fleur shuddered. ‘The most horrible part is to picture him in his penthouse watching me on my deck when I was on the phone to him, imagining he was in London. I bet he really got off on that.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to start seeing someone else.’ Fleur affected a smug expression, but inside she was still feeling a little raw. ‘Remember Jake Malone – the assistant director who showed us around the set the other day? He’s asked me out. I’m meeting him for a drink next week.’

‘Oh, Fleur! What fun!’

‘Living well is the best revenge,’ she quipped. ‘Scott Fitzgerald said that. Sadly, he died an alcoholic in LA, writing unfilmable scripts for MGM and virtually destitute.’

‘Did
anybody
in that Hollywood era live happily ever after?’

‘Yes. Lauren Bacall did. And she’s still going strong.
Merde
,’ added Fleur as they rounded the bend of the boreen onto the beach. ‘Somebody got here first.’

At the far end of the strand, a couple was sitting on the sand.

‘They must be locals,’ said Dervla. ‘This beach is one of the best-kept secrets in Coolnamara. What I love is being able to walk it, knowing that mine will be the only footprints on it until the next tide washes them away.’

‘Or until your footprints are joined by an otter’s.’ Fleur stooped to pick up a pebble. It was jade green, perfectly round, with a line of amber running through it. ‘Look! How pretty is this! I’m going to add it to my collection. Ooh! And this one too.’

‘You’re going to have to buy another bowl to put them in. You’ve enough in that collection to pave a patio.’

‘You can never have too many pretty pebbles. Ha. Maybe I should stand sentinel on my deck and throw them at Corban bloody O’Hara any time he passes.’