Foreign Affairs (35 page)

Paula lay in bed feeling a bit of a heel. She hadn’t been very nice to Helen. In fact she’d behaved childishly. As the Wolfe Tones belted out
The One Road
Paula slid out of
bed and walked out to the landing. In the darkness she could see a glimmer of light under Helen’s door.

She knocked softly and entered. Helen was reading.

‘I’m sorry, Helen.’ Paula was contrite.

‘That’s OK, Paula, I know you were disappointed, but you can see now why I wouldn’t let you go,’ Helen said wryly.

‘I acted really childishly, sorry about that.’ Paula was abashed.

‘Ah forget it,’ Helen grinned. ‘Isn’t it some carry-on though? The neighbours are crazy to bother ringing the police. They’re not going to do anything because half
of them in there are policemen or detectives. I’m afraid grinning and bearing it is the only solution. It shouldn’t go on for much longer. It will be daybreak in another hour or
so.’

‘I bet the house will be in some state,’ Paula commented as someone started singing
It’s a Long Way to Tipperary
and the rest of them joined in with gusto.

‘Poor Nick,’ Helen frowned. ‘I hope they straighten the place up before he comes home.’

‘What’s this Nick like then?’ Paula yawned and hopped into bed beside her aunt.

‘He’s a nice man,’ Helen said. ‘He’s a structural engineer, he owns his own company. He oversees projects abroad sometimes. That’s why he’s in Africa.
His marriage broke up too. That was one of the reasons he went away the last time.’

‘What happened?’ Paula asked.

Helen sighed. ‘He found his wife in bed with his best friend. It was dreadful. He was terribly cut up and bitter about it. I never felt so sorry for anybody in my life. At least Molly
Kelly wasn’t my best friend. It’s bad enough finding out your husband or wife is having an affair. But imagine finding out the affair was with your best friend? Imagine catching them in
the act? How horrible!’

‘Does he know about you and Anthony?’

Helen shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t imagine so. He’ll get a bit of a surprise when he comes home.’

‘You can say that again.’ Paula grimaced as the unmistakable sound of breaking glass came from next door. A man cursed vehemently and loudly.

I think I’ll skip the party when Helen’s away, Paula thought drowsily a half an hour later as the last car door banged and shouted goodbyes were said. A horn beeped loudly before
blessed silence descended on the road.

It was amazing how quiet the house was without Helen, Paula reflected as she dusted and polished one Saturday several weeks later. Her aunt and her mother had phoned that
morning from Marbella, giggling and laughing like schoolgirls. They were having a ball abroad. Paula was delighted for them. Especially for her mother. Maura really deserved the break.

Since she left home Paula had begun to realize that her mother had a hard enough life. Constantly in the kitchen, cooking meals for her brood. She washed and ironed and managed to look after
them all on a not very substantial budget. And she was rarely in a bad humour. Paula smiled as she thought of her mother’s laughter on the phone when Paula warned her not to go having any
affair with one of those hunky Spanish waiters. Maura had come up to Helen’s for a few days before the holiday proper. Paula made a great fuss of her. She brought her breakfast in bed. Took
her into town. Went for walks down to the Botanic Gardens. Maura enjoyed every minute of it and Paula had been glad to have the time with her mother and make her feel very special. Sometimes she
felt she’d been a little bit selfish taking off out of St Margaret’s Bay the way she had. Her eagerness to leave must have been a bit hurtful to her parents, although they’d never
said anything. When she’d finished tidying up, she’d write a nice long letter to her dad, she decided. He was so proud of how well she was doing at school. He’d been very chuffed
by her Inter Cert results. He always made a fuss of her when she went home. Her dad was the best in the world, Paula thought fondly as the phone rang.

It was Miriam, Helen’s friend, to say she’d be in a bit late tonight, and not to worry. Paula assured her that it was fine. Jenny and Beth were coming over to stay for the rest of
the weekend so she wouldn’t be on her own. Miriam was a very nice woman and great fun, but Paula quite enjoyed the few hours on her own and would have been perfectly happy to spend the entire
fortnight by herself. She was cooking dinner for the girls tonight and as a special treat she’d bought a bottle of wine. They weren’t going to go to a disco. They were going to have a
nice meal and flop in front of the fire and watch TV. It was going to be A Girls’ Night In sort of a night. She’d want to get her skates on though, Paula decided, catching sight of the
time. She still had a lot to do and she wanted to make a cheesecake for dessert.

An hour and a half later she was like a demented lunatic in the kitchen. ‘Why, when you want something to turn out right, does it always turn out a disaster? And when you don’t give
a damn, you toss something up in five minutes and it’s bloody perfect?’ she muttered as she gazed in dismay at the cheese sauce, which had gone terribly lumpy. A brainwave struck.
She’d let it cool a little and blend it, and it would be fine. The cauliflower florets were all ready to be lightly steamed. Roast stuffed pork steaks were giving off the most mouth-watering
odours from the oven. The roast potatoes were crisping nicely. As soon as she’d blended the cheese sauce she’d run upstairs and change her sweatshirt and brush her hair. She washed up
the dirty crockery and set three trays. The plan was to eat in front of the fire.

The sauce had cooled sufficiently so she poured it into the blender and stuck the plug into the socket. The blender roared unexpectedly to life and she, the wallpaper and the ceiling were
splattered liberally in creamy, lumpy, yellow sauce. Frantically, Paula pulled out the plug and the noisy whirring stopped. She must have touched the on/off switch when she was bringing the blender
over to the socket and not realized. ‘You idiot! You great bloody pillock,’ she cursed herself. There was cheese sauce everywhere. In her hair, on her face, on her top. Horrified, she
clambered up on a chair and onto the counter top and started to wipe the ceiling with a damp dishcloth. Would it stain? she fretted. Or would the marks go away when it was dry? She needed this like
a hole in the head. She didn’t want the girls to come and see this chaos. Or Helen to come home to find the ceiling destroyed. A glance at the kitchen clock told her she had half an hour to
go before Beth and Jenny were due to arrive.

The doorbell rang. ‘Oh shit,’ she muttered, wiping herself off with the dishcloth. ‘Oh piss off and go away,’ she fumed as it ding-donged again. A third ring told her the
caller was going nowhere. It was too early for the girls. Definitely. Beth Cleary couldn’t be on time to save her life, let alone half an hour early. Jenny was always giving out stink about
being kept waiting when they were going anywhere. But if it wasn’t the girls, who was it? Miriam had a key, and Paula wasn’t expecting anyone to call.

Crossly she flung open the front door and saw a man standing on the steps. He looked somewhat taken aback to see her. ‘Hello,’ he said politely. ‘Is Anthony in,
please?’

‘No, sorry.’ Paula shook her head.

‘Oh! Do you know when he’ll be back?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Would Helen be there, then?’ he asked courteously.

‘Sorry, no,’ Paula said curtly.

‘And you must be one of the nieces?’ the man remarked.

What’s it to you? she wanted to retort rudely. ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Her tone was unfriendly. The man looked at her curiously.

‘Look, I’m sorry to disturb you. My name is Nick Russell, I’m Anthony and Helen’s next-door neighbour. I’ve been away and I just came in to apologize. I believe the
lads gave a very noisy party recently. It won’t happen again.’

‘Right, I’ll tell Helen, thanks,’ Paula said agitatedly, aware that time was running out. She had to clean up the mess in the kitchen, as well as herself. Chit-chatting with a
neighbour was not on her agenda right now.

‘Fine, just tell your aunt and uncle I called, I’ll see them around,’ the man said casually. Before he had even taken two steps down the garden path, Paula had closed the door
and was racing back into the kitchen, Nick Russell and his apologies the last thing on her mind.

Chapter Thirty-One

‘You should have seen the state of me, Helen. I looked like the Wreck of the Hesperus standing there with cheese sauce all over me.’ Paula giggled as she and her
aunt drove home from the station after putting a tanned and glowing Maura on the Waterford train.

‘Poor Nick.’ Helen laughed. ‘Have you seen him since?’

‘No,’ Paula answered. ‘I don’t think he’s staying there at the moment. He seems to have decorators in. He got new windows and doors put in last week.’

‘I saw that,’ Helen remarked. ‘The house looks very well. It had got a bit run-down.’

‘Hmm,’ murmured Paula, who had more on her mind than Nick Russell and the state of his house. Yesterday, during basketball practice, Barry Keating, the school’s part-time games
coach and PE instructor had massaged her calf when she’d got a bad cramp. Their eyes met. It was the most wonderful feeling. It was as if there was no-one else in the school yard. Paula knew
Barry liked her. They always had good fun in a teasing sort of way. He was a very popular member of staff and he got on well with all the girls. He encouraged them, pushed them, and motivated them
to win their matches. Lots of the girls fancied Barry and were always trying to show off in front of him.

Paula played it cool. She treated him in an offhand sort of way and concentrated on perfecting her game. Barry went out of his way to pass a few comments to her, usually inconsequential remarks
about the match or the training or whatever. It made Paula feel good when she was discreetly singled out for that special bit of attention. But it was no more than she expected.

When the match was finished, Barry went over to her, ostensibly to find out how her leg was. But after asking her if she was OK, he very quietly asked if she’d like to go for a drink with
him.

‘That would be nice,’ she murmured back.

‘How about Saturday?’

‘That doesn’t suit me,’ Paula said. ‘Sunday’s better.’

‘Sure, where would you like to go?’

‘Somewhere in town might be the best.’

‘Upstairs in the Oval is nice and private.’ Barry smiled. ‘We don’t want to run into any of this gang.’

‘Eight then,’ Paula said before striding off into the changing rooms.

You handled that very well, she thought approvingly as she stood under the powerful jets of water, letting the heat and steam soothe her aching muscles. It had been a good move to say Saturday
didn’t suit. She certainly didn’t want to give him the impression that she was over-eager. That was always fatal. Anyway Saturday didn’t suit her. That was the day her mother and
Helen were due back from their holidays. She couldn’t take off on a date and leave Helen on her own, on her first night home.

‘I’ve some news for you.’ Paula grinned at Helen as they drove into the driveway.

‘Let me guess, you’re taking lessons in Cordon Bleu,’ Helen joked.

‘Rotter,’ retorted Paula. ‘It isn’t quite as exotic as that. I’ve got a date tomorrow night.’

‘Tell me all!’ her aunt exclaimed as they let themselves into the house.

‘He’s my PE and games teacher, he’s good-looking, very athletic, and great gas.’ Paula summed up her date succinctly.

‘What age is he?’ Helen couldn’t disguise her surprise.

‘About twenty-two. He’s not a full-time teacher. Miss Doherty is our full-time teacher. Barry works part-time with different schools,’ Paula explained. ‘You’ll like
him, Helen, honest. If we start dating or anything I’ll bring him home to meet you.’

‘Don’t you think he’s a little bit old for you?’ Helen arched an eyebrow.

‘He’s only six years older,’ Paula said lightly, hoping against hope that her aunt wasn’t going to make a song and dance about her date with Barry.

‘Wouldn’t you be better off going with a boy nearer your own age?’ Helen asked.

‘Oh Helen, all the ones I’ve met are nice, but they’re so
boring
!’ Paula couldn’t hide the exasperation in her tone.

Helen laughed. ‘Paula Matthews, I’ve never met anyone like you! Boring indeed. Just be careful then. Don’t neglect your studies or that will be the end of it,’ Helen
cautioned. ‘Where are you going with this Barry?’

‘Just for a drink first and then probably the pictures.’

‘No more than a glass of wine for you, Miss, and I want you to be home by midnight at the latest. OK? You’ve to be up for school the next morning,’ Helen warned.

‘No problem, Helen . . . and thanks.’ Paula gave her aunt a hug, which was warmly returned.

The following evening, Paula sat in a snug little corner of the Oval, sipping a glass of white wine as she waited for Barry to arrive. He was late, she noted disapprovingly. If he asked her out
again he could collect her. Now that Helen had given the OK, there was no reason for him not to call to the house. ‘I wouldn’t dare sit in a pub on my own. Be a bit late so you
won’t have to,’ Jenny had warned when Paula told her about the date. Jenny and Beth had been agog when Paula informed them who her date was to be.

‘I don’t want it to get around though,’ Paula warned. ‘Barry thinks it might not go down too well with the nuns. You know, him being a teacher and everything.’

The girls assured her that no-one would hear it from their lips. Paula knew that they were deeply impressed that Barry had asked her out. They were also impressed that she was meeting him in a
pub. It surprised her that two city girls like Beth and Jenny should be so naïve. When Paula came to Dublin first, she’d expected that most of the girls in her class would be
sophisticated city slickers. This wasn’t the case at all. It was no problem for Paula to wait on her own in a pub, but she knew that plenty of the girls at school wouldn’t be seen dead
alone in a pub. In many ways she felt much more grown-up than her classmates. But then she’d always felt much older than she was, even as a child.