Better Together (31 page)

She continued to lie on the bed until, despite her misery, the hollow feeling in her stomach finally sent her into the galley kitchen in search of something to eat. There was a half-finished packet of Hobnobs in the cupboard and a past-its-sell-by-date yoghurt in the fridge. She looked at her food options with dismay and wondered once again why misery seemed to make her hungrier.

She glanced at her watch. Six thirty. She remembered Nina’s invitation and her own dismissal of it. Right now, the idea of the guesthouse owner’s cooking was immensely tempting. But she couldn’t change her mind at this stage. Nina would think she was a complete flake, and besides, she was probably already sitting down to a delicious and nutritious meal made from the ingredients of a properly stocked fridge.

Sheridan put the kettle on and shook the biscuits on to a plate.

Nina was feeling unexpectedly cheerful. She realised that she’d been keeping herself to herself for far too long. Retreating into herself had been her way of dealing with things in the past, in the days when she’d been the only one living at home with Dolores and it was easier to say nothing than to risk the sharp end of her mother’s tongue on whatever
the current issue might be. There were lots of issues with Dolores. She’d been a nit-picking sort of woman. Nina had got used to bottling things up so that Dolores couldn’t criticise her, but the truth was that it had been a welcome release to share her worries with Peggy.

I’m too damn sensitive about what other people think, she told herself as she seared a tuna steak in the pan. I wasn’t like that after Mam died. I was tough then. I need to find my inner toughness again now.

She added some chopped peppers to the pan and allowed them to cook alongside the tuna. She was sorry that Sheridan hadn’t taken up her invitation to dinner. She was feeling in an expansive mood, ready to chat. Not ready, obviously, to fill her guest tenant in on all of Ardbawn’s gossip, but prepared to talk a bit more about the town and the people who lived there. She missed talking, she realised suddenly. She missed the idle chatter that she and Sean had shared. There had been very few guests over recent weeks and most of them had been simply overnighters, not looking for information or chat, simply staying in Ardbawn for a particular event without paying the premium prices of the Riverview Hotel. In other years, during the quiet times, there had been Sean and the children to talk to. But now there was nobody, and although she wasn’t feeling as starkly alone as she had in the first weeks after his departure, she was missing the company.

Put the past behind you. That was what Phaedra had instructed Cancerians to do. And that was what she would do. Although, she murmured to herself as she transferred her meal to a plate, the jury was still out on which part of the past needed to be forgotten most.

Sheridan was hungry and bored. The Hobnobs had been soft and unappetising and she hadn’t been able to take the edge off her hunger by starting a Wii soccer game in which, inexplicably, Xabi Alonso was playing like a total muppet.

It’s Saturday night and I’m a single woman, she told herself. I should be out on the town, not sitting in eating stale biscuits and yelling at a computer game. She got up and starting moving around the studio, tidying away bits and pieces that didn’t need to be tidied at all, feeling restless and discontent.

She realised that in the time she’d so far spent in Ardbawn, she’d been trying desperately to keep busy and convince herself that she was becoming an investigative journalist and adding to her CV, when the truth was that she was just a temp filling in for someone else. The whole thing with Joe O’Malley was something she’d built up out of all proportion simply because she was lonely and wanted someone – anyone – to care about her. The knees-turning-to-jelly stuff was nonsense. And getting into a tizzy about the fact that he was the son of the man who’d chopped her job was silly. She was giving her feelings for Joe way too much importance and she was only doing that because she was substituting a sudden obsession with a man she hardly knew for real love. It was far more likely that what she’d felt for Griff (even if he hadn’t reduced her to a trembling wreck) was love. Maybe it was love
because
it hadn’t reduced her to a trembling wreck. When she’d realised he wasn’t interested in marrying her, she’d been devastated. She wouldn’t have felt like that if she hadn’t had genuine feelings for him. And those feelings had been nurtured over a long time. Whereas with Joe O’Malley it had all been based on
some kind of ridiculous rush of the electricity that Ritz had talked about. Which wasn’t anything to do with real feelings at all.

She sighed. She needed to centre herself again and remember what was important in her life. Although, being honest with herself, she wasn’t quite sure what that was right now. But sitting in the studio, feeling sorry for herself, wasn’t going to help.

She changed out of her slouch jeans and sweatshirt into her favourite Levi 505s and a chocolate-coloured top with embroidered detail around the neckline and cuffs. Then she put on her only boots with a heel. She was going out for something to eat. She wasn’t going to wallow in gloom any longer.

She got into the Beetle and drove slowly down the driveway, stopping before she reached the gates because another car had turned in and there wasn’t enough room for them both to pass through. She waited while the other driver accelerated quickly and passed her by without acknowledging the fact that she’d allowed him the right of way.

Tosser, she thought, as she glanced in her rear-view mirror and saw the car stop in front of the house. Just as well I didn’t call up to Nina if she has a new arrival. And I’m glad for her that she has, even if he’s an ignorant pig of a driver and probably just as ignorant a guest.

She parked in the designated spaces surrounding the plaza and walked to the Riverside pub. She knew from her lunch with DJ that it also had an evening bar-food menu, and she wanted to eat somewhere warm and friendly. She’d brought
Andre Agassi’s autobiography with her, a book she’d been meaning to read for ages, and she was prepared to sit on her own, eat a meal and read. But she was equally prepared to chat to people if anyone started up a conversation with her. Sheridan didn’t mind being in pubs on her own, although she knew it was something a lot of women felt uncomfortable about. Men on their own in pubs usually looked perfectly at ease. Women always looked as though they were waiting for someone (and usually were).

The Riverside was half full and showing a round-up of the day’s soccer matches on TV. Sheridan sat at a corner table that had a good view of the screen, glanced at the menu, then ordered chicken goujons and chips as well as a bottle of non-alcoholic beer. She sat back in her seat and felt herself relax. She was perfectly fine with her own company. But she liked the buzz of conversation going on around her.

‘Sheridan Gray!’

She hadn’t spotted Shimmy when she’d first walked into the pub because he was in the centre of a group of people, but he’d seen her and he came over to her.

‘What are you doing here all on your own?’ he asked.

‘Waiting for dinner,’ she told him. ‘I’m starving and the fridge at home is totally empty.’

‘Is anyone joining you?’ he asked.

‘Only Andre,’ she replied as she picked up the biography. ‘But I believe he’s good company.’

‘You’re a weird person, you know that,’ said Shimmy.

‘No weirder than you.’

‘There’s no need to sit here by yourself. Come and join us.’ He gestured towards the group, who were clustered around a number of tables at the other end of the lounge.

‘I’ll be in the way,’ she protested. ‘And none of you are eating.’

‘A couple of the girls have ordered food. It’s fine.’

‘OK, so.’ She nodded and followed him, asking the waitress to bring the food to her new table.

Shimmy introduced her to the group, which was a mixture of men and women in their late twenties and early thirties who’d all been watching the live soccer earlier.

‘I enjoy the footie,’ said one of the girls, a pretty brunette wearing a short tartan skirt and a red jumper over opaque black tights and black boots. ‘Though it’s just an excuse to come to the pub, isn’t it? You must be a true fan, though, Sheridan. What’s the best match you’ve ever seen?’

‘I was in the Nou Camp for a Barcelona cup tie,’ said Sheridan. ‘That was very exciting.’

‘Great team. Great stadium,’ agreed the man sitting beside Shimmy, a glass of beer in front of him.

‘Wonderful,’ she agreed.

The group of friends was welcoming and chatty, drawing Sheridan in to their conversation so that she was soon exchanging stories of her time on the
City Scope
, comparing it with the
Central News
and telling them that the
News
was a far more exciting place to work, which caused them to laugh.

‘It’s more diverse,’ she explained.

‘I bet you miss interviewing famous sports stars, though,’ said the brunette, whose name was Jasmine.

‘I didn’t get to interview that many famous people,’ Sheridan said. ‘But I once had my photo taken with Cristiano Ronaldo.’ She took out her phone and showed it to them.

‘He’s so fit,’ said Jasmine, who turned to the man beside her and poked him in the ribs. ‘You need to get on the treadmill, Terry! Otherwise I’m trading you in.’

There was more good-natured banter between the group. Sheridan realised that this was what she’d missed since losing her job. The last time she’d been out like this was the night she’d ended up drinking whiskey with her ex-colleagues and woken with a hangover in Griff’s bed the following morning. At least there was no chance of her having a hangover this time, she thought as she ordered another alcohol-free beer. Which meant that tonight was already a better night than that one had been.

As the conversation ebbed and flowed, Sheridan found herself chatting to Jasmine and two other girls, Laura and Roisin, while the men watched more football highlights.

‘I’m glad to meet you at last,’ said Laura. ‘My sister said you were very nice.’

‘That’s good of her. Who
is
your sister?’ asked Sheridan.

‘Myra.’

‘Oh.’ Sheridan was surprised. Laura, who wore her dark hair loose around her shoulders and was dressed conservatively if fashionably in jeans and a T-shirt, didn’t look in the slightest bit like Myra.

‘She’s the mad one and I’m the sensible one.’ Laura laughed at Sheridan’s expression. ‘Anyway, you and I have been in touch already, so it’s about time we met face to face. I send you the knitting patterns for the paper.’

‘You’re Laura Kennedy!’ Sheridan was shocked. She’d pictured an elderly, grey-haired woman poring over patterns every week before sending them in to the
Central News
. Myra hadn’t mentioned that Laura was her sister or that she
was in her twenties. But then they hadn’t discussed the knitting patterns in any great detail.

Laura grinned. ‘My mother owns the wool and fabric shop in the town. I love wool. Love knitting. Always have. I sew and crochet too, but knitting is my favourite thing. Sending patterns in to the paper was Myra’s idea. People like them, plus, of course, it advertises the fact that we have a great website so you can buy stuff online as well as in the shop.’

‘I was sent out of my knitting class in school for being hopeless,’ confessed Sheridan. ‘I’m totally uncoordinated when it comes to crafts.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Laura. ‘You could do it if you put your mind to it. I run knitting classes in the community centre on Thursday nights. You should come. It’s mainly younger people, you’d be surprised.’

‘I’m sure I absolutely would be surprised,’ said Sheridan. ‘But to be honest, it’s not me.’

‘We’ll get you yet,’ said Laura.

‘What about you?’ Sheridan turned to Roisin. ‘Are you a contributor to the paper too?’

Roisin shook her head. ‘Until the recession kicked in a few years ago, I was working in a technology company in Galway. Then it went wallop and so I ended up coming back here. I was very lucky, because a job came up in Paudie O’Malley’s printing works in Carlow and I got it.’

‘Oh,’ said Sheridan. For probably the first time since she’d come to Ardbawn, she hadn’t been thinking, even subliminally, about Paudie O’Malley.

‘It’s a great job and the people there are fantastic,’ said Roisin.

‘Paudie does seem to have his fingers in a lot of pies,’
remarked Sheridan, ‘particularly around this neck of the woods.’

‘He’s done well for himself,’ agreed Roisin. ‘He’s lovely to work for, though.’

‘Mr Slash-and-Burn?’ Sheridan looked sceptical.

‘That’s such an inappropriate name for him. He comes in to ailing businesses and fixes them up,’ said Roisin.

‘I know.’ Sheridan looked wryly at her. ‘He came in to my previous newspaper and decimated the staff numbers.’

There was an awkward silence as it dawned on the other girls that Sheridan had been one of those decimated.

‘But you’re here now,’ Jasmine said brightly after a moment or two. ‘How are you liking Ardbawn?’

Sheridan decided not to allow her resentment over her situation ruin an enjoyable evening. She told the girls that she liked Ardbawn very much, that DJ and Shimmy were great to work with and that staying with Nina was perfect for her.

‘How’s she doing?’ enquired Roisin. ‘It was a bit of a shock when all that stuff happened with Sean, the feckin’ eejit.’

‘OK-ish.’ Sheridan felt good about being asked about someone else in Ardbawn for a change. Almost as if she belonged. ‘I’m sure it’s been hard for her, but she seems to be coping.’

‘In some ways I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner,’ said Jasmine. ‘Sean Fallon is sex on legs.’

‘He looks good on the telly,’ agreed Sheridan.

‘A million times better in real life,’ Laura assured her. ‘There’d be times when he’d be walking down the street and you’d stop to look at him.’

‘Wow.’

‘Of course back in the day he’s supposed to have slept with half the town.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘So I’ve heard. There was talk of a bit of offside action after he was married, too. There’s a fair few men in Ardbawn who probably wouldn’t be fans of our Seanie. But all the women love him.’