Friends Like Us (13 page)

‘Hello stranger!' she had said when she picked up.

He laughed but sounded slightly sheepish. It had been ten days since she had spoken to him but there had been texts, so she knew he hadn't died or anything. He'd just been busy with his new shop. There was a lot to do. She wondered though if it was just the bakery that was keeping him. She had a niggling feeling that it was something – someone – else.

‘What's going on?' she said. ‘Don't tell me you've fallen in love?' She was teasing him but she wanted to know. She braced herself for the answer.

‘No,' he said, to her relief, ‘nothing like that. Just busy with the bakery. Actually that's why I'm calling. The painters are in… come on… I need your beady eye. You can advise me on colours… and, whatever you say…'

‘You'll do the opposite?'

‘Totally.' Cormac laughed, sounding normal again. She felt a lift in her spirit. He was back, the Mel and Cormac show was back on the road.

‘I think that's very wise,' she said. ‘Very wise indeed.'

‘No, seriously. Come and have a look at it.'

‘I would love to.'

They drove along the coast, through Dun Laoghaire with all the day trippers and swimmers and ice-cream eaters, zipping along until they got to Dalkey and the two of them, Rolo lolloping beside them, cut through past the library and onto Church Street.

‘Here it is.'

They stood outside a boarded-up shop.

‘What do you think, Rolo? Will you like living in a bakery?' Melissa pretended to listen to the dog. ‘What's that? Oh bad news, Cormac, he says he'd prefer a butchers'. Oh dear. Poor Rolo. He's going to be disappointed.'

It was between the newsagents and the supermarket and a big sign stated. ‘The Daily Bread opens here soon. We look forward to baking your morning loaf.'

‘Corny?' asked Cormac.

‘Totally. But nice. I like it.' She smiled at Cormac who shrugged. He looked nervous. ‘How are you feeling?'

‘Like it's Christmas and although
I know
Santa isn't coming, I'm still hopeful he might.'

Melissa nodded. She got it. ‘It'll be amazing. I know it. You've got all those commercial contracts, and all the ladies will be popping in to take a look at the new hunky bread man in the midst. You can just appear covered in flour and grunt and they will all love it.'

‘Now
that
excites me. A non-speaking role in the fantasies of red-blooded females. I'm not scared one bit.'

‘You're well able for them.'

Although he looked wrecked from all the hours he was putting in getting the shop up and his daily running, he was looking good. Well, he always did but she found herself studying him. She noticed the hairs on his forearms were golden, his skin brown. And then she realized she wanted to touch him. Not in the normal way, the hugs, the playful swipes, but to reach out to touch him, as though to see if he was real.

I must be going mad, she thought. Maybe it's because we haven't seen much of each other lately. She tried to keep the conversation going but she was distracted by a slight musky smell off him. And what about his jaw… his broad shoulders and, of course, the most attractive thing about him of all: the way he was perfectly comfortable with himself. And so completely happy. She'd always loved him, but she was struck that there was something more, something deeper. She
loved
him. Oh no. This was going to ruin everything.

He and Walter had agonised for weeks over the name of the shop until he had gone for The Daily Bread. They had toyed with Bread Box (too plain), even just Bread! (as though it was a musical). For one mad five minutes, Cormac actually considered Body of Christ, but luckily Walter reminded him that no one would buy bread from a shop that reminded people of communion sessions. Especially in Ireland.

So The Daily Bread it was to be. And now there was only six weeks until he moved into the flat above and rose before dawn to begin making his sourdoughs, his boules, his baguettes, his cottage loaves. He felt sick with nerves and excitement.

But there was one person he wanted to soothe him, to reassure him that everything was going to be okay, and that was Melissa. He had been trying to resist calling her and instead had been spending all his spare moments with Erica. They'd been our five whole times, to a restaurant (her choice), to the cinema (his), to a historical walk of Dublin of the Georgian buildings (Erica's idea), to a vegan café which was surprisingly delicious and to his for a meal cooked by him. It had been an unqualified success and it was true what they say about the quickest way to a woman's heart was through her stomach. She stayed the night and everything was most satisfactory and enjoyable. They were starting to think of themselves as boyfriend and girlfriend.

But she wasn't
quite
Melissa and one day he cracked and picked up his phone. And now here she was, standing, silently, absorbing the whole scene. He saw her look at him, and she looked shocked, or maybe it was something else that he couldn't work out.

‘Are you all right?' he asked.

‘Fine, fine,' she said. ‘Now, let me have a good look around.'

They walked round the back and had a look around. Cormac pointed out where the baking part was going to be, where the front counter was, which would have high stools, where the coffee machine would be, where the sofa for lounging would go. Rolo was sniffing around.

‘Well?' he ventured. ‘What do you really think?'

She looked up. ‘You know something Cormac Cullen. I think it is amazing. You are making your dream come true and not many of us actually manage to do that. And the world needs bread. As Marie Antoinette realised to her peril.'

‘True,' he said.

‘And Rolo is very proud. Aren't you Rolo? We're both proud.' We can't wait to critique your baps.'

‘Critique my baps!' He laughed.

‘What's wrong with baps? It wasn't rye sourdough you were reared on, Mr Cullen. You'd have been happy with a bap five years ago. Bread snob.'

He laughed again and looked around at his little shop, happy she was there, sharing this exciting time in his life with him. He'd wanted to bring Melissa here first, before he brought Erica. She was still the most important person in the world to him. A hard habit to break. Wasn't that a song? And he really should tell her about Erica, before he didn't and then it got too weird. ‘I… I…' he began.

‘Yes?' She looked at him hopefully. Was he trying to tell her something?

‘Nothing,' he said, suddenly feeling awkward. He didn't trust himself to tell her without showing his true feelings. Any one normal would just say it but he was convinced that she would guess that Erica was just a foil while he moved on from loving Melissa. ‘I forgot what I was going to say. Come on, let's get some fresh air,' he said. ‘Now I'm to be living in the suburbs, I may do as the suburbans do… and start walking the pier.'

‘Oh God,' said Melissa, ‘to think I got away from South County Dublin and you are
choosing
to come back.'

‘It's nice, okay? I'm too old to live in town, these days. I want a gentler pace of life. And Rolo's going to love it.'

‘You'll be buying a cagoule and wearing pleather slippers next.'

‘You obviously haven't seen me relaxing at home, lately. Anyway, don't all natives walk the pier?'

‘It's the law. I haven't done it in years.'

‘Well then? Coming?'

‘Only if we get an ice cream afterwards? Or is whippy ice cream too uncool for you. Does it need to be
gelato?
'

‘Not if a flake is involved.'

‘Now you're talking. Rolo? Walk?'

They chatted the whole way along the pier and later queued for ice creams. They sat on a wall by the sea. Melissa was busily pushing her flake inside her cone and then licking the top to seal the hole.

‘Jesus!' Melissa's 99 had collapsed and it was melting through the bottom of the cone.

‘Why don't you just lick it like a normal person?'

‘Because that would be weird. You cannot veer from anything but consuming it like you did when you were seven. I wouldn't trust anyone who ate 99s neatly.'

Rolo was in full attention mode. At any moment, there was going to be ice cream on the ground and he was ready. And Cormac was watching Melissa out of the corner of his eye.

He was loving every second of being with Melissa. It was like binge-eating the night before a diet. He wasn't quite ready to give up sugar yet, but he knew he had to. This shop was the beginning of his new life and he knew his old life, slavishly loving Melissa, his unreciprocated love affair, was over. He had no choice. It was as though the universe had decided for him. He looked away. A surge of sadness welling up. He felt his heart was breaking. The thought of not sharing a 99 with her was like a death to him. Yes, I am pathetic, he thought.

But it wasn't right to do this to Erica. It was going well. She was so different to Melissa. She was cool, impressive and nice. She might be on the slightly extreme end of faddy (she only consumed what Aztecs and yogis ate) but he was beginning to realize that it
was
good to meet people who could teach you things. And Erica was teaching him that not everyone thinks a bag of cheese and onion crisps is something to be savoured. In fact, it was to be scorned.

But for now, he was hanging out with Melissa, his guilty pleasure. Soon to be consigned to history.

They were saying goodbye – a long goodbye.

It was early morning and recently on her way home from night shifts, Eilis had begun detouring through Sandycove and past O'Malley's Garden. It was still closed, shutters down, but this morning just as she skimmed past, she saw Charlie unlocking the front door and waving to a passer-by. He was dressed in an old wax jacket, heavy boots and trousers which had seen better days. He couldn't have looked more opposite to Rob. And she realized that she couldn't stop thinking of him, that the only thing that stopped her from jumping out of the car, letting it career into a wall, and running over to him, begging him to take her on as an apprentice or slave or whatever, was that some vestiges of dignity remained.

He is settling in for a nice day at work, she thought, and I am just driving home feeling as though I have been in some kind of medieval stocks with cabbages been thrown at me. She realised the metaphor wasn't quite an adequate description of a night shift in A&E but with her brain only half functioning it was the best she could do. Despite the fact that all she wanted to do was stop and pretend she needed a pelargonium or a pergola or whatever, just to see him and talk to him again, she made herself drive on.

Home at last, slightly disappointed that her sensible self was so in evident that she had driven on past the shop without talking to Charlie, but
i
f she could just survive the battle with the remote-controlled kettle (Rob's idea of a sensible household gadget) and make herself a cup of tea, all might not be so lost.

‘Hi!' she called out. ‘I'm home.'

She heard Rob's voice make a muffled response and when she walked into the living room a scented candle was burning away on the mantelpiece.

‘Morning,' he said. ‘How'd things go?' Suit on, briefcase in hand, ready for his day as consultant cardiologist. And she thought immediately of Charlie, and how different he was to Rob in every way. She felt guilty and mean. ‘I'm not going to be home tonight,' he said. ‘I'm going out, with work. And I think I'll stay in town… taxis are just too expensive.'

‘Yeah, good idea,' she said. He'd been doing this a lot lately, going out and staying out. Another woman might have thought he was having an affair, but she was sure he wasn't. You didn't want to be coming home to the outer suburbs of Dublin, all that way, and paying thirty euro in a taxi. But more than that was the fact Rob just wasn't into sex; it had never been a big part of their relationship. In fact, it barely had a walk-on role. And certainly never a
hands-on
part so surely he wouldn't be looking elsewhere for it.

Long ago, she stopped longing for him to change. Now, she knew, it was just the way he was. She used to wish he'd grab her, pull her to him, kiss her,
desire
her. In the early days, they had been so young, she hadn't quite known what to do and he seemed as clueless as she. And of course, she was still grieving for her mother. She thought both elements would get better… she assumed they would. But neither had. The grief was still there and the sex… well, it never really got going.

Rob didn't seem to worry about the lack of physical contact. And how do you talk about something like that without seeming strange or over-sexed? And if Rob was okay about it, then maybe she should be too. She consoled herself with the fact that they had a deep friendship, companionship. Which was more than others had, wasn't it? And maybe it made life easier… look what happened to the lonely and sex-starved. It didn't end well for Anna Karenina, did it? And what about Emma Bovary?

But… it might have been nice… and now she was thinking of Charlie all the time. I am obviously sex-starved, she thought, otherwise why am I fantasizing about a man I don't know? Maybe it was biological, maybe my clock is ticking, time running out. How many years had she left? Who knew but she'd hung around for too long to think that she had many left to waste.

She
had
wanted a child but Rob wasn't interested. ‘We're enough,' he had said once, years ago. ‘You and me. And we're busy… and we want weekends away.' And she had agreed because she thought he might be right and children weren't everything, but she had the sneaking feeling that perhaps they might be. Sometimes, she would see a mother, teeth gritted in determination, attempting to manoeuvre a pushchair through a shop door or pretending their child wasn't screaming as they were trying to buy milk, or seeing women standing on the side of the football pitch in the frozen wind and sleet, cheering on their child… and she would think, I would like that. I would like to be the one for that child; the one who carries you when you cry, who stands in the cold for you, the person who thinks of you all the time. Rain or shine. And they'd never even had many of those promised weekends away. Just the annual two weeks in Greece.