It's All About Him (12 page)

'Not really my bag, although' – she studied Dee – 'I wouldn't mind painting you.'

Dee rolled her eyes. 'That would be a waste of paint. If you're looking for a model, you've got one right over there.' Dee inclined her head as the lovely Zoe walked past.

'She's a stunner,' Vi agreed, 'but I'm interested in inner beauty too.'

Dee grinned. 'Is that your way of telling me I'm ugly?'

'Stop fishing for compliments,' Vi patted Dee's hand, 'you know you're gorgeous outside and in.'

'Stop, you're making me blush.'

'So will you?'

'What?'

'Will you pose for me?'

'Oh, Vi, it's really not my thing—'

'You would be doing me a huge favour,' Vi pleaded. 'I could come and study you while you worked.'

'I don't think so—'

'You wouldn't even know I was there.'

'Ah, Vi—'

'And in exchange, I'd do a portrait of young Sam,' Vi said with a triumphant grin.

Dee paused. A portrait of Sam would be something she would treasure, especially if it was painted by someone as talented as Vi. 'Go on, then.'

'Wonderful. I've a lot to do this week but I'll come over next Monday about ten.'

'Monday?'

'Is that a problem?' Vi challenged.

Dee sighed and shook her head, smiling. 'No, Vi, no problem.'

Dee felt stressed. Neil had come back into her life and was waiting for her to call him; Ronan was putting her tinder pressure to produce more dishes and although it would increase her bank balance she wasn't at all sure she could cope; she still hadn't had that chat with Lisa about increasing the rent and she wasn't sure she'd ever work up the courage to do it and now, to cap it all, Vi Valentine was going to become a semi-permanent fixture in her kitchen drawing her 'inner beauty' or more accurately her inner panic.

Dee had seen the keen observation in Vi's work and was afraid of it. There was so much going on in her head right now and the last thing she needed or wanted was to have that exposed; it would be worse than posing nude.

'I didn't know you were back.' Lisa breezed into the kitchen making Dee jump. 'Is everything okay?' she added when she saw Dee's sombre expression.

'Yeah, fine. How's Sam?'

'Not a bother on him, but I put some more cream on his feet just in case.'

'Oh!'

'Sorry, shouldn't I have? I thought you said that's what you were going to do and it's just when you didn't get back by lunchtime—'

'No, that's fine, thanks. Sorry, I'm just a bit distracted. I completely forgot about the cream.'

'Neil?'

'Among other things.'

'Did you tell Conor?'

Dee nodded.

'How did he take it?'

'He's worried for me and for Sam.'

Lisa filled plastic beakers with filtered water and put the lids on. 'So have you decided what you're going to do?'

Dee shook her head, went to the pantry and took out flour, baking soda and butter. She would make bread; that usually calmed her when she was feeling flustered or anxious.

'What about going to see his mother?'

'Sorry?'

'Neil's mother. Why don't you go and see her?' Lisa repeated patiently.

'Shouldn't you be getting back to Martha? The babies are probably awake by now.'

'If you don't want to talk about it just say so,' Lisa said with a scowl.

Dee grinned. 'I don't want to talk about it.'

'Fine, fine, I'm leaving.'

'Lisa?'

The other girl paused in the doorway.

'Thanks.'

Lisa smiled. 'No problem.'

Dee worked solidly through the afternoon in relative peace and then when Lisa and Martha went home, she buttoned Sam into a warm jacket and took him for a walk down on the beach. As they clambered around the rock pools, Sam's feet safely encased in cotton socks and knee-high wellies, Dee felt the tension begin to seep from her bones.

'Can we go on holidays, Mum?' Sam said, out of the blue.

'Not in winter time, sweetheart.'

'Then in the summer?'

'We'll see,' she prevaricated. 'Maybe we could go down to Tramore for a few days.'

'Natalie is going to Switzerland, skiing, and Tom is going to Scotland in the summer,' Sam told her. 'It would be fun if we could go on a plane together, wouldn't it, Mum?'

He looked up at her, his large, beautiful eyes making her catch her breath.

'Lovely,' she agreed and, watching him run off to play, happy with her response, Dee wondered if his first flight would be with his father.

Ger flicked the toast crumbs from his trousers and stood up and stretched. Lisa looked up from the newspaper. 'If you're making a cuppa I'd love one.'

Ger walked to the door. 'Sorry, no, I'm off for a pint.'

'But you've only just got here.' She looked at her watch. Ger had arrived only an hour ago, two hours late and an hour after Lisa had scraped his burnt dinner into the bin. He'd said he'd had to work late and of course she understood that and she'd made him a toasted cheese sandwich and brought it in on a tray so he could watch the news.

'Sorry but I promised Terry I'd meet him, he's having a few problems in work. Anyway, you'll be going to bed soon.'

Yeah but she hadn't been planning to go alone. 'I don't know why you bothered coming around at all,' she said sulkily.

Ger came back to the sofa and jumped on her. 'For a cuddle of course,' he said tickling her.

Lisa made a pretence of pushing him off.

'You don't really mind me going, do you?' he murmured into her hair. 'I kind of feel sorry for Terry, he's been having a tough time.'

'You're a big softy.'

'That's me.' He kissed her noisily. 'You go and get your beauty sleep.'

'Will I see you tomorrow night?' Lisa asked, remembering it was Friday.

'I'll call you.' He blew her a kiss and was gone.

With a frustrated sigh, Lisa turned to the telly page but there was nothing decent on. She may as well go and have a bath, shave her legs and do her nails. With luck she would talk Ger into taking her to the new Italian restaurant on the main street tomorrow night. Apparently they did a very good early bird menu and it was quite reasonable. That would appeal to Ger; he believed in value for money. And he was right of course, Lisa hadn't realized what a rip-off most of the restaurants were until he'd pointed it out to her.

'Five euros for two prawns!' Ger had said when he'd seen her starter in the Indian restaurant he'd taken her to for her birthday.

'It's really delicious,' Lisa had ventured.

'It would want to be,' he'd scoffed, 'at two-fifty a prawn.'

'But there's the salad and the lovely sauce too,' Lisa had pointed out.

He had rewarded her with a pitying look. 'God, Lisa you're so gullible.'

And of course he was right, the prices were a bit high but then they had to make a living too, didn't they? But she knew better than to say that to Ger. He felt very strongly about the huge mark-up on food, wine and even water in Irish restaurants. On the rare occasions they did go out Lisa had to listen as he went through the entire menu, putting a figure on what each dish had probably cost to make. It was wearing her down to the point that Lisa was now happier going to the pub and bringing home a takeaway or doing the cooking herself.

And Ger did love her cooking, a fact that greatly amused Dee. Lisa had never really got to grips with the whole healthy living bit, despite seeing and eating the marvellous things Dee produced every day. She didn't have the energy or the interest to prepare things from scratch and why would she when there were perfectly good sauces in jars? As for the ready meals you could get today, they were a far cry from what she had lived on when she first left home. Now she could present Ger with shredded duck with pancakes and plum sauce on a Saturday night and follow it up with a roast beef dinner for lunch the following day complete with roast potatoes and gravy. Dee had no idea how good the quality of this food was now and if she tried to tell her the other girl would just point to the ingredients and walk away. But so what if there were a few additives and sugar and salt – how could you have dinner with no salt? It hadn't done her any harm.

The bath was now full of foaming bubbles and Lisa stripped off, pausing to stand on the weighing scales before she climbed in. She groaned when she saw she'd put on another two pounds and decided that tomorrow she would just have cup-a-soups and coffee. If she could survive on liquids during the day she'd be able to enjoy her dinner all the more.

'How can you eat that muck?' Dee wrinkled her nose as Lisa stirred boiling water into her mug. 'A bowl of my soup would be much healthier and lower in calories.'

Lisa eyed the pot of chicken and vegetable broth on the stove with suspicion. 'It's got bits in it.'

'They're called vegetables,' Dee said slowly.

Lisa shrugged. 'I've made this now; it would be a shame to waste it.'

'Please yourself, but just don't let the kids near it.' Dee took the empty packet, crushed it into a ball and threw it into a bin. 'Do you know how big an insult it is that you prefer that crap to my homemade soup?'

'Don't nag, Dee, it'll give you wrinkles.'

Dee threw a cloth at her. 'So where are you going tonight anyway?'

'I'm not sure yet if Ger is free; he's got a lot on at the moment, but if he is I thought we could go to the Italian restaurant down in Swords.'

Dee raised an eyebrow. 'Council workers do overtime on a Friday night?'

Lisa laughed. 'Maybe not all of them but Ger sometimes does.'

Dee spread a thin layer of butter on a piece of soda bread still warm from the oven and pushed it towards Lisa. 'It might kill the taste of the soup.'

'If I can't get into my new jeans tonight it will be your fault.' Lisa took a bite and grinned at her. 'I don't know about your funny soup but your bread is yummy.'

'I'll be puréeing the soup for the kids – you could have some of that later.'

'You just don't give up, do you?' Lisa headed for the door with her mug. 'Are you coming?'

'Sorry?' Dee looked blank.

'Martha's got a doctor's appointment in half an hour, remember?'

'Oh, damn, I completely forgot.' Dee pushed her hair out of her eyes.

'If it's a problem, I could call the agency—'

Dee shook her head. 'No, just let me finish up here and I'm all yours.'

'Are you sure? You seem a bit flustered.'

Dee's smile was as bright as it was false. 'No, I'm fine.'

Dee ran through her list of jobs for the afternoon. There was still a lot of food to prepare for Better Books for the weekend. The only way she could get it all done was if she got some work done this evening after Sam had gone to bed. Conor wouldn't be too impressed. Friday night was their night and they usually got a takeaway, a bottle of wine and watched a video. Then they had an early night. Sometimes they never even made it as far as the bedroom; the sofa was amazingly comfortable.

She'd have to call him and cancel. Maybe it was just as well. Things had been slightly strained all week with Neil silently coming between them. Dee knew that Conor would love her to tell Neil to go to hell but she couldn't do that. She wasn't sure what to do; she just wanted to do what was best for Sam, if only she could figure out what that was.

Lisa kept nagging her to go and see Neil's mother, Peggy, until Dee felt that she might scream, but she couldn't tell Lisa why that was impossible. She knew at some stage she'd have to find people who were able to corroborate Neil's story but first she needed to talk to him and be sure that his intentions were truly honourable. It would be a lot easier to send him away and it would certainly make Lisa and Conor happy but she owed it to Sam to give Neil a chance. If she decided that father and son shouldn't meet, she wanted to be able to look Sam in the eye in later life and explain why.

Despite the huge amount of work that lay ahead of Dee and the worries crowding her brain, she totally enjoyed her afternoon with the children. When they went out to the garden, she spent all of her time running, chasing, lifting and swinging and it did her as much good as the children.

'And you wonder why I don't go to the gym,' Lisa said, when they'd come inside and settled the children down for a nap before tea time.

'I'm convinced, more than ever, that you eat too much crap,' Dee retorted. 'If you stuck to my food every day you'd be a size ten in no time.'

Lisa's eyes twinkled. 'Who wants to be a size ten? Ger likes curves.'

Now, as the last child was collected and Sam had gone up to his room to play, the two girls wiped, swept and tidied the toys away. 'You go on and get ready for your night out,' Dee said, 'I'll mop over the floors.'

'Great, thanks, Dee.' Lisa gathered all of her belongings together and shrugged on her jacket. 'Are you going out tonight?'

Dee thought of the mountain of work ahead of her but she wasn't going to tell Lisa about it, the girl would only be consumed with guilt. 'No, I think I'll just have a quiet night in.'

'Is Conor coming over?' Lisa persisted.

'Yeah, he'll probably drop by later,' Dee said, though she'd already called Conor to tell him she was working.

'Okay then, have a good weekend, see you Monday.' Lisa gave Dee a quick hug.

'Have a good time,' Dee called, locking the front door after her and going to fetch the mop.

When she'd finished in the crèche, Dee quickly made some beans on toast and called her son.

'Beans!' His little face lit up when he saw his tea.

'Hands first, please,' Dee said and lifted him up so he could reach into the cavernous Belfast sink and wash his hands.

He sat up at the table and she poured milk into his cup before fetching her tea and taking the seat opposite him. 'Did you have fun today, Sam?'

He nodded, his mouth already full of toast. 'I like it when you come to play with us, Mum.'

Immediately Dee was filled with guilt. 'But you have fun with Lisa and Martha and the other children, don't you?'

'Yeah, but it's even better when you're there too. Can we play a game after tea?'

'Sorry, darling, I have to work.'