Last of the Great Romantics (24 page)

'Sorry?'

'I forgot you're not used to the grid system yet. Just jump in a cab at Park Avenue and give the address. It's only five blocks from you.'

At exactly one p.m., Portia stepped out of a yellow cab and into the crisp sunshine. 'Have a nice day, ma'am,' the taxi driver called after her, sounding as though he really meant it.

'Thanks,' she smiled, 'you too.'

A uniformed concierge gracefully held the door open for her and she stepped inside, squinting a bit till her eyes got used to bright overhead lights. The restaurant was big and bustling, high-ceilinged and elegant, with waiters and bus boys running around. It was obviously very trendy too, as a long queue had already formed at the reception desk.

'Portia, darling, lovely to see you.' It was Lynn, shoving Versace sunglasses into the breast pocket of her crisp linen jacket as she entered the restaurant doors, a bit breathless from having rushed to get there. 'Hi Paul. God, if you get any more gorgeous I'll make your wife divorce you.' Lynn strode confidently up to the top of the queue and kissed the maître d' warmly, leaving Portia to trail in her wake.

'May I say how stunning you're looking today,' the maître d' toadied to Lynn as he escorted them to a window table and helped her off with her jacket. She did indeed look a million dollars in a smart black linen trouser suit, with a low-cut sleeveless top which revealed her perfectly tanned, toned, athletic shoulders.

'I'm really sorry about this but I only have about forty minutes for lunch, so if it's OK with you, can we get straight down to it?'

'Ehh, yes, of course,' Portia answered, wondering: Get down to what exactly?

Lynn fished about in her Hermès bag for a very stuffed-looking Filofax and whipped it open in a blinding flash of French-polished nails. 'Firstly, let me emphasize that geography is not any kind of barrier between me and my goal. If you can tell me of any single, eligible guys that you might know of in Ireland, I am so there.'

OK, Portia thought, we're in for a continuation of last nights discussion. So this lunch wasn't about Lynn being friendly towards her at all. It was just another chance for her to pick Portia's brains. She took a sip of her mineral water and braced herself while Lynn rabbited on.

'If you think that Ireland is where I need to go, then that's where I'll go. I'm fully prepared to invest time and energy in this project. You gotta speculate to accumulate. And if Andrew is anything to go by, then Irish guys are hot, hot, hot.'

'Lynn, I need to stop you right there. I am from a tiny village in a backwater of County Kildare. It's hardly Las Vegas.'

'Think.' Lynn was impatiently rapping a gold pen against her Filofax.

'OK, let's see. Well, there's Tom O'Donnell, he's definitely single.'

'Age?'

'Oh, you know how it is with balding men in their fifties, it's nearly impossible to put a definite age on them, particularly when they start losing their teeth.' What the hell, Portia figured, might as well have a bit of fun with this.

'Occupation and an estimate of his earnings?'

'Let's see now.' Portia sat back and deliberately took her time. 'He's our local taxi driver and claims he owns a fleet of taxis, but it's actually just a Nissan Micra that failed the NCT and his mother's second-hand Volvo. In fact, I think that's your main problem with Tom.'

'What?'

'He still lives at home with his mother. Very close to her too; he drives her to mass every Sunday'

'Any special talents or interests I should know about?'

'Well, I've never seen it myself, but they say he can sink a pint of Guinness in under five seconds. And my mother swears she once heard him burp the national anthem.'

Lynn's face fell as she angrily put a neat line through his name. 'Who else have you got?'

'Let me think . . .' Portia took another long sip of mineral water and really started to enjoy herself. 'Oh I know. God, why didn't I think of it before, it's so obvious, it's staring me in the face.'

'Who, what?'

'Single, straight and absolutely loaded. He's probably the most eligible bachelor in the county. He's got loads of women running after him.'

'Other women are not a variable which concerns me. Describe him.'

'Well, he's what you might call gothic-looking. You know, tall and skinny. Mid forties, I'd think.'

'I
love
that look, you mean like that actor Richard E. Grant?'

'More Herman Munster, really. Quite reserved, always very well dressed. Oh, and he works with his hands. Loads of women want to date him, from as far away as, oh, Carlow. Let me put it this way, I don't think he'd have any problem finding his way around a naked woman's body.'

'Did he ever come on to you? When you were single, I mean.'

'I wouldn't really be his type. Well, not yet anyway.'

'So what does he do?'

'Oh, didn't I say? He's the local undertaker. Hugely successful too – he did my father's funeral and we were all delighted at how smoothly the whole thing went. Even my mother was forced to admit it was a far better send-off than the old bastard deserved.'

Lynn sighed deeply and decided to change tack. 'Why don't I leave you to think a little further about
suitable
guys from the Emerald Isle and in the meantime, here's a list of the Macmillan Burke men I need information on. Basic stuff, really: status, income, which Ivy League school they attended, college grades, general dating history and whether they're leg or breast men.'

Portia looked at her, wondering if she was messing around. It was only when Lynn tore out a neat list of names from her Filofax and handed it over that she realized she was being deadly serious.

'Don't look so dumbfounded, Portia, I need your help here. You can't expect me to find all this out for myself, can you? As a married woman, you can get away with asking anything you want and guys will tell you straight out. If I ask, they just smell the agenda and clam right up.'

Or maybe they just see the shark fin sticking out the back of your neck and that gives them their first clue, Portia thought as lunch was served. A buffalo mozzarella salad with Parma ham and caramelized onion marmalade . . . unbelievably delicious but as far as Portia was concerned it may as well have been boiled tripe on toast. Funny, she thought, how company can sometimes make you completely lose your appetite.

Precisely forty minutes later, Lynn pecked her once on each cheek and strode back to the office, leaving Portia with the same feeling the Free French resistance fighters must have had after ten minutes of being interrogated by the Gestapo. She felt bulldozed over, bossed around and, worst of all, used. Wait till I tell Andrew, was all she could think as she waved down a yellow cab and said the only words in the English language calculated to make her feel better.

'Hi there.' She beamed at the driver. 'Can you please take me to the poshest, swishest and trendiest store on the island of Manhattan? The kind of place where nothing costs less than five hundred dollars and no matter what I buy, my husband will fall in love with me all over again?'

Hours later, she arrived back at the apartment, laden down with shopping bags, all thoughts of loopy Lynn well and truly banished. After the taxi driver had said, '¿Qué?' a couple of times and Portia gesticulated wildly and pointed at her clothes like she was having a small seizure, eventually he'd deposited her in front of every true Manhattanite's raison d'être: the Madison Avenue entrance to Barneys.

Portia was instantly in girl heaven and raced around the contemporary casuals floor like a high speed Mack Sennet chase scene on speed, never in her life having seen anything quite like this. Ballyroan's sole contribution to world couture was 'Nuala's Valu-Fashions' on Main Street, where eighties originals were still sold. Not as any kind of tongue-in-cheek retro revival, they were the real thing, right down to the fuchsia-pink puffball skirt in the window, white stilettos and boiler suits, all with shoulder-padded jackets to match. It was like comparing a mangy stray dog with a Cruft's champion: everything you picked up here was a work of art, right down to the exquisite-coloured cashmere jumpers beautifully laid out on glass-topped tables. Even the freebies in the ladies' room were all Jo Malone.

'You realize US sizes are a little bigger to what you got in Europe?' a stunningly pretty assistant asked Portia, passing another mass of clothes into the changing room for her to try on.

'I know, isn't it just the best thing ever?' Portia was in seventh heaven, twirling around in a beautifully cut black bootleg trouser suit. 'This is the first time I've fitted into a size ten since I got married!'

She well and truly shopped till she dropped, the novelty of it adding to the adrenalin surge. For the first time in her life she could really appreciate Joan Rivers' comment that a woman only ever really has an orgasm when she's shopping. Portia was looking and feeling a million dollars, wearing the black trouser suit with a cream cashmere halter neck top and the most translucent Giorgio Armani make-up she'd treated herself to in the make-up hall. In one blissful afternoon she'd completely obliterated all thoughts of loony Lynn Fairweather and now just couldn't wait for the romantic dinner for two with Andrew which she'd been looking forward to all day . . .

She almost fell in the hall door and dumped her newly acquired finery on the carpet, just as the answering machine picked up a call. She was about to lift up the phone, presuming it was Andrew, when the one voice which could turn her bowels to the consistency of a mushy pea rang out, echoing around the high ceilinged hallway. 'Andrew, my darling, this is your number one lady calling! Wonderful news, I'm coming to see my baby boy and I'll be arriving tomorrow, so do send a car to JFK for your old Mummy, there's a good boy.'

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: You really won't believe this. In fact, you should probably make sure you're in a sitting position before reading any further . . .

Hi Big Sis!!!

Hope all's well in the Big Apple and that you have to buy new suitcases to carry home all the stuff I JUST KNOW you're buying for me . . . The funniest thing. Now whatever you do, don't panic, OK? You remember after Daddy's funeral how everyone was wondering who the title passed on to? And the lawyers were madly trying to trace some distant cousin who none of us had heard of? And you know how I've been saying to you for ages that we could really do with a bit of extra muscle round here for lugging baggage around and doing all the shitty jobs? Well, surprise, surprise, two birds killed with one stone . . . He's called Jasper Davenport and he's just the sweetest guy. There's a sort of family resemblance between him and me, a bit like Viola and Sebastian in
Twelfth Night
type thing. Mummy says we're like two completely dissimilar things in a pod.

Anyway, in my official capacity as acting manager, I've hired him and he's staying. Absolutely nothing for you to worry about at all, he's totally trustworthy,

Love and a big hug to Andrew, Daisyxxx

PS. Is it OK if I lend him some of Andrew's clothes? It's just that we don't have time to go shopping for a uniform for him this side of the wedding . . . hope you don't mind!!!

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: How extraordinary!

OK, I should have guessed there was something up when you hadn't done your usual trick of writing half the content of your email in the subject box at the top.
Unbelievable
news! What's he like? And, more to the point, what's he been doing all these years? Don't suppose by any miracle he's been training in hotel management?? No, that would be too good to be true, wouldn't it? Let me know everything's OK with him, will you? It's just that when you write sentences like 'don't panic' and 'nothing to worry about' it has precisely the opposite effect on me. Love, Portia

FROM: [email protected]

TO: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Of course he's completely-trustworthy, what do you think, that I went and hired some convicted criminal straight from Portlaoise prison, out on parole?

Am insulted that you think I'd give a job to someone who wasn't 10 0% kosher. Good coming from you seeing as it was your husband who went and landed us with Shelley-Marie. No, smart arse, Jasper hasn't exactly trained in hotel management but he has held a lot of responsible positions. He's an absolute godsend. Not only will he be brilliant at security for the wedding but he's dead handy with a hammer and nails too. He's been involved with the theatre for years, so he can also help with the entertainment side of things here. (Don't worry, I'm not planning on setting up a cabaret, at least, not yet . . .) I think he likes it here. And he's not even taking up one of the family rooms, he insists on sleeping in the old storage room downstairs.