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Whatever the
reason she decided to collect her car and drive out to Rathmines, to a bistro she ate in as often as possible which offered a decent lunch at a reasonable price; a rare bird in the rip-off republic.  Best of all, it was a low
fat
lunch.  Although it had been some years since she had been truly overweight Kate still had a slimmer’s mentality, and took care to eat healthy food.  Well, most of the time; only comfort food can cure some ills.  But she made sure that any slips
were
only occasional; losing the weight had been one of the hardest things she had ever done, and she took great pains to see it stayed off.  No amount of treats were worth repeating the grim diet, and even grimmer exercise routine she had forced upon herself, and so she reminded herself every time she felt a longing for a rack of ribs, or something deep fried.

She left Trinity feeling hungry but surprisingly good,
all things considered, and began walking up Kildare Street, to where she rented a car-parking space for a quite stupendous amount of money; junior lecturers do not qualify for a parking space in Trinity College.  As she made her through the bustling throng she saw an instantly familiar figure walking along the crowded pavement towards her, and her heart dropped with a sickening lurch.  It was Peter, his size making him unmistakable no matter how dense the crowd.  But the mere fact of seeing him again was not what caused her heart to sink, nor was it even those God-awful articles in the paper.  Rather it was the fact that he was walking down the street smiling down at one Rachel O’Leary.  She was the girl he had been seeing before they had had a bitter argument and he left for England’s shores, long before he and Kate had hooked up.  This same Rachel O’Leary had caused Kate one or two sleepless nights in the past, when her darker, self-hating side had whispered that she was second-best, a rebound girlfriend, that but for that row…  And so forth.  And even in her more lucid moments she had occasionally wondered,
What
if
, a line of speculation that rarely leads anywhere good.  But even that was not what caused her to feel as if she were about to throw up; the real kicker was that he was holding hands with the bitch.  Not that she cared anymore, of course; it was just that they shared history together and… well, it just made her feel odd, that was all.  And strangely near tears.

Kate forced a
wide smile and slowed as they approached, affecting a gay air as she said brightly, ‘Hi, Peter, nice to see you again.  I thought you would have been back in England by now.’

He looked thinner
, with one or two new lines on his face that could only be attributed to grief over his mother, but he managed a quick, strained smile as he replied, ‘I decided to take a bit of a holiday.  I’ve been up to my eyes lately and I need a rest.  And I’d forgotten how much I missed Ireland, missed all my family and friends.’

Kate, though knowing perfectly well she had no right in the world to do so, directed a rather pointed look at Rachel and said dryly, ‘
Obviously
.’

Peter flushed a little and said, in a slightly
defiant tone, ‘You know Rachel, I believe?’

Kate smiled at the other woman
sweetly, ‘Oh yes, she’s been at every Howitt get-together I’ve ever been to. 
How could I forget her?
  How are you, Rachel?’

Rachel smiled back
with equal radiance, though there were vicious lights in her big blue eyes as she simpered, ‘Never better, thanks.  Especially now that Peter’s home.  We’d almost forgotten how wonderful he is; seeing him again is like Christmas coming early.’

‘How nice for you,
’ said Kate sweetly, smiling all the wider but thinking,
Little bitch!  Standing there smirking with your dyed blonde hair and your face caked with cheap make-up!
  The problem, of course, was that Rachel was very tall, thin and far prettier than Kate had ever felt herself to be.  More, it was clear from her every word and action that she had never suffered a second’s self-doubt in all her life; certainly
she
had never been as much as a pound overweight, and no spot would ever dare sully her complexion.  They had met several times, and Rachel had shown herself –to a girlfriend’s jaundiced eye at least- to be still interested in Peter, and to hate Kate bitterly because of it.  A hatred Kate was starting to reciprocate.  With interest.

‘Have they caught the guys who burgled you, Kate?’ asked Peter, the expression on his face making it clear
that he was not just making conversation.

Kate shrugged
, ‘Sort of.  I think.  But it’s a very long story, I’m afraid.’

‘Such a pit
y we don’t have time to hear it,’ interposed Rachel with a certain sweetness of her own, ‘but we’re on our way to afternoon tea, aren’t we, Peter?  Still, we’ll probably read all about it in tomorrow’s papers anyway.’

Peter gave her an irritated look, which pleased Kate no end, and also prevented him from seeing the murderous glance
she
directed at Rachel.  He turned back to her and said, ‘You’ll join us, of course?  Tell us all about your burglar over tea and sandwiches?’

Kate shook her head, ‘I can’t, I’m afraid, I’m meeting someone for lunch myself.’ 
Besides,
she thought blackly,
I wouldn’t dream of intruding on your little love-fest.  I’d be afraid of throwing up on you.

‘Anyone we know?’ interposed Rachel, ‘or do we hav
e to buy one of tomorrow’s tabloids to find out?’

Peter ignored her entirely, ‘Some other time, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps.  If you have a free day before you go back.’

He smiled, his expression suddenly warming as he said softly, ‘I’ll make a day free.’

Kate actually felt her knees tremble a little under the look he directed her, a notion she would have scoffed at before now.  It was his bloody smile, and those dark, brooding eyes, reminding her just why she had fallen for him in the first place.  Their expression also brought back vivid memories of the physical passion they had shared, which was like nothing she had experienced before, and certainly not since.  She took a deep, calming breath, cheered up no end by the look that had suddenly appeared on Rachel’s face; that of a cat that’s just been kicked off its favourite seat.  A seat that had a bowl of cream perched on top of it.

‘I have to go,’ she said in a voice that was intended to be light and carefree, though she was unable to meet his gaze, ‘See you later.’  She
brushed past them on the pavement and walked quickly up to her car, unable to believe that she had reacted like that.  Like, to be honest, a jealous schoolgirl with her first boyfriend.  But it was natural enough, she supposed; after all, they had been together for a very long time.  She
wanted
him to get on with his life, of course; it was just that she hadn’t expected him to do it quite so soon.  Or with that
skinny blonde bitch.

She got into the car
, slamming the door viciously and turning on the engine.  She had a habit of playing music too loud as she drove and the radio, left on earlier, blared at her full volume,
‘...has escaped from prison...’. 
She snapped it off in irritation, suddenly close to tears.  Yes, she was behaving like a love-struck teenager but she didn’t care; it would probably take years for him to be totally out of her system.  She knew that.  Who better?  She just hadn’t been prepared to see him with another woman.  Hadn’t expected the stab of pain and jealousy she had felt.  Nor the sudden, terrible fear that she had made the biggest mistake of her life.

She shook her head to try and clear it; a
s with most things, time would cure it.  And at least he didn’t seem to have seen yesterday’s
Sunday News.
  But Rachel clearly had, and surely she must have mentioned it to him?  She had probably told him with a sweet little smile on those rosy red lips.  No, he must know about her and Michael, so was it possible that he simply didn’t care?  She started to drive, fighting back a sudden prickle of tears. 
Stop being such a damned baby!
she scolded herself,
This is what you wanted, so don’t whinge now you’ve got it!

She had
not just wanted her freedom; she had broken his heart to attain it.  Would she ever forget the look on his face when she had refused to marry him, when she had not just rejected his proposal but ended things with him as well?  And later, when she had told him she was moving out?  This was what she had fought for, in spite of his pleas, and his efforts to win her back.  So why did she feel so devastated, so
betrayed
?  Had she thought he would hang around forever, waiting for her to…  Her conscious mind tried to clamp down the thought before it was finished, to slide off towards safer waters, but some deeper part of her mind loudly finished the thought;
waiting for her to grow up.

She slid a CD into the stereo, refusing to dig deeper, to complete the train of thoug
ht.  Without thinking she started driving out of town towards home rather than up to Rathmines.  Realising what she was doing she jerked herself out of her trough of self-pity and almost turned the car around.  Then, with a sigh, she decided to continue on out to the flat anyway.  What the hell; she was nearly there and was no longer in the mood for a healthy, low-fat lunch anyway.  In fact, the exact opposite sounded like just the ticket.

When she got home
she walked down the steps to her flat fighting a feeling of depression...and stopped dead in amazement.  After all the recent, unpleasant shocks it made a welcome change to receive a pleasant surprise.  Piled up outside her door was a vast
mound
of red roses.  She reached the bottom of the steps and touched the enormous bouquet with her fingers; there were dozens,
hundreds
of flowers grouped together in the biggest bunch she had ever seen.  Kate shook her head in amazement; a couple of hundred red roses in October.  If they were from Michael, as she assumed, it showed that he had style, if nothing else.  There was a note attached to the top and Kate opened it to read,
I am so, so sorry.  P.S. I lied, I do want to be forgiven, Michael.

Kate smiled
, her spirits partially restored, and reached across to open the door of her apartment.  Putting
this
bunch in a vase was out of the question; ten
vases would hardly hold them all.  She knelt down on the doorstep and put her arms around the great, paper wrapped bundle.  They weren’t heavy but they were awkward to carry nonetheless, but she somehow managed to get them all into her sitting-room.  The question was what to do with them once she got them there.  Jimmy Shiels had smashed most of her vases but she managed to find three left intact and crammed as many of the flowers as she could into them.  The rest she simply spread across the coffee table in a fragrant red and green carpet that livened up the room amazingly.

Greatly cheered, she made herself an omelette with what she could scrape together fro
m her sadly depleted fridge, making a promise as she did so to go out on a major shopping expedition very soon.  Well, one of these days.  After eating her fill -and feeling guiltily replete- she spent an agreeably vacuous hour lying on the sofa watching
Neighbours
, one of her secret vices from her student days.  Then she reluctantly headed back to Trinity for her afternoon lecture, the unaccustomed laziness of the afternoon made all the more pleasurable by the knowledge that she really should have been writing up her class notes.  No leisure time is ever as sweet as the stolen hours that should have been spent working.

As she drove back into town she was more cheerful th
an she would have believed possible, but it wasn’t the food that had cheered her up, nor the flowers; rather it was the recollection that they hadn’t been holding hands at all; rather Rachel had been hanging onto
Peter’s
hand.  And there was a big difference.  Enough of a difference to cheer her up more than any amount of flowers could have done.

As she crossed the bottom of Dame St. and walke
d under the curving, dark-gray stone tunnel that comprised Trinity’s main entrance, a woman stepped forward from the grimy wall and said, ‘Kate Bennett?  Sorry to trouble you but I recognised you from the photo in the paper.’

She held aloft a folded-up copy of the previous day’s
News
and Kate’s heart sank; she had almost managed to forget about that for a blessed hour.
What
now? 
‘I’m Kate Bennett, yes.  What can I do for you?’  She started back in alarm and added hurriedly, ‘If you’re a journalist I have nothing to say to you whatsoever!’

‘I see you’re treating Grainne Riorda
n now,’ said the stranger, lifting her copy of the newspaper, ‘And I just wanted to tell you that you won’t get far with her as long as Trevor Jordan is in charge!’

Kate sta
red at her in astonishment;
what the hell?
  Who was this?  She didn’t appear to be a nut; about thirty, she was well groomed -more so than Kate- and better dressed too, in a black power suit and a Gucci trenchcoat.  She was good-looking too, in a dark, slightly neurotic way.  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said stiffly, ‘But just exactly who are
you?’