Less Than Perfect (20 page)

‘Yes. It happened a few months ago, but it's still very raw.' We sit on the sand and look out at the water as it shimmers under the sun.

Matthew finishes his ice cream and licks his fingers. ‘That was good.'

Ben's still hard at work, so occupied catching drips with his tongue that he seems oblivious to everything else.

Matthew smiles at him indulgently, asking me, ‘Do you have any nieces or nephews?'

‘No.'

‘Do you go back to Ireland often?'

‘No,' I say again, feeling the dull ache of homesickness. ‘I've not been home at all.' There's a pause. I feel Matthew's eyes on me, waiting for me to elaborate. ‘The family situation there is a bit fractured. My father, well, he … he had an affair.'

Even as I say it, I'm stunned. I have no idea what made me blurt this out; it's something I try not to think of, let alone talk about.

Matthew's still looking at me, waiting for me to carry on, and for some reason I do. ‘Mum and Dad were having a break at the time, trying to work out their priorities, and he went and had an affair … Of course there was no fixing anything after that.'

The affair destroyed our family. The hardest thing for me to accept was that this atrocity wasn't perpetrated by strangers, like the bomb. The decimation of our family was single-handedly caused by someone I knew and trusted, a hypocrite if ever there was one: my father.

‘He had an affair with his
secretary
, how pathetic and unimaginative is that? It didn't last long, just enough to wreck the marriage completely. The divorce was devastating – for all of us.'

Matthew nods, as though he understands some of what I feel. ‘Sophie, my sister, is pretty devastated about her marriage break-up, as are the rest of us.' His voice is deliberately low.
Even though Ben is presently preoccupied, Matthew obviously doesn't want to risk him overhearing. ‘Her husband had an affair too.'

‘Do you still talk to him? Your brother-in-law?'

‘Steve? Of course I do. I meet him for a drink every now and then.'

‘Really? But what about the impact of his actions on Ben?' My tone, though muted like his, is harsher than I intend. ‘How can you forgive that so easily?'

‘I don't condone what he did,' Matthew replies, taking a fistful of sand into his large hand and watching it sift through his crooked fingers. ‘He's damaged Ben and Sophie – they'll never trust anyone unequivocally again. But he doesn't deserve to be completely ostracised.'

‘I don't see it like that. Trust is more important than anything.'

‘What's most important is keeping the people you love safe,' Matthew looks up and holds my gaze, ‘not hurting them physically, or doing things that put them in danger.'

I wait, expecting him to continue, to put forward arguments to justify his point of view, but he doesn't. In his own quiet way, he's said all that he's going to say.

I smile. ‘I think, because of your profession, you see things differently to me – more leniently, which is kind of surprising, really.'

He smiles back. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.'

Ben finishes his ice cream and looks up, a big pink circle around his grinning, satisfied mouth. Matthew uses a napkin to clean him up. ‘Want to take a walk, mate? Look for some shells?'

‘
Yes
.'

‘Stand still a second – I'll take off your sandals.'

As soon as his footwear is removed, Ben makes a beeline for the water, dancing along the edge, leaving small footprints that are quickly removed by the incoming tide. Matthew and I follow him at a more leisurely pace, shoes swinging from our fingers.

‘Ouch, it's cold.' I wince when a wave laps over my toes.

‘Chicken.' He grins and takes my hand in his.

We walk along, Ben veering in and out of the water ahead of us, lost in his own little world. My hand feels awkward in Matthew's, like an intimacy I'm not quite ready for, a closeness and warmth that don't fit with a mere second date. But I get used to it. Just like I get used to the water, which isn't that cold at all after a while.

That night, in bed, I toss and turn and try to make sense of it. If there's one thing more sanctimonious than an ethics professor, it's a police officer. On that level alone it doesn't make any sense that I'm attracted to Matthew Blake. Throw in his gentle personality, his steadiness, his overall
niceness
, so different to the men I've dated in recent years, and it becomes even harder to understand – not to mention the fact that I've had the most extraordinarily intimate and revealing day despite the presence of his four-year-old nephew!

Unable to figure it out, I punch my pillows and determinedly close my eyes. But Matthew's face is there, his blue eyes looking through me, seeing into my soul. My father's affair obliterated everything I believed in: my parents' marriage; my own already fragile self-worth; not forgetting all the values around which we lived our lives, like honesty, respect for others and keeping promises. Telling Matthew has revived some of the hurt, betrayal and anger. Maybe that's why I can't sleep.

The training floor seems remarkably calm for a Tuesday morning. I find Nicola at her desk, a place she rarely frequents.

‘Hey, Nic. All well at the coalface?'

‘You should have been here an hour ago!' She grimaces. ‘But the mob is locked away in the rooms now, being trained to death.'

I laugh. ‘Got time for a chat?'

‘Yeah. What's up?'

I sit on the edge of her desk. ‘What bank does David work for again?'

‘National. Why?'

‘I'm just wondering how they're faring in the financial crisis …'

Nicola looks thoughtful. ‘I don't know. David doesn't talk much about work.'

‘What
does
he talk about?' I can't resist teasing her a little.

‘Never you mind.'

‘Still keeping her cards close to her chest …'

‘Stop talking about me in the third person!'

‘Where was I?'

‘Something about the financial crisis?'

‘Oh, yes. Actually, I was wondering if I could talk to David – sound him out about the industry in general.'

‘I'm not his keeper,' Nicola responds tartly. ‘You don't have to ask my permission.'

‘Why are you being so touchy?' I say, grinning.

‘I'm not
touchy
!' Snatching a post-it pad from her desk, she writes down some numbers, her handwriting heavy and slanted. ‘Here, work and mobile numbers.'

‘Thank you.'

I call David as soon as I get back to my desk. Though he sounds surprised to hear from me, he agrees without too many questions to meet for a coffee later in the week. I put down the phone and jump when I realise Jarrod has been listening in. ‘Jesus! You gave me a fright.'

‘Sorry,' he replies, not sounding sorry at all. ‘Just letting you know that Derek and another Telelink executive are coming in at eleven. I want you to keep a low profile while they're here.'

‘How low?'

‘Go out for a while.'

‘Okay, if you think that's necessary.'

‘It is.' He turns to walk away. ‘At least until I get the order in the bag,' he offers over his shoulder.

It's
my
order. If anyone should be getting it ‘in the bag', it's me! Smarting, I begin to type, hitting the keys with unnecessary
force, missing some and backspacing to correct the errors. I invested months of groundwork in that deal and now I'm being excluded, being asked to leave the building no less. Anger blurs my vision of the few words I've managed to type. Anger with Jarrod and Derek. And, most of all, with myself.

I sweep mascara along my lashes, leaving a thick black coat, instantly transforming my eyes, making them look bigger, darker, more striking than they really are. Outlining my lips with pencil, I fill them in with cherry-coloured gloss and decide to leave it at that: mascara and lip gloss, jeans and a dark purple cotton top, casual, perfect for a night at the movies and my third date with Matthew.

The phone rings just as I'm leaving. Pausing, I calculate the time difference, and deduce that it's possibly my father, sitting upright behind his office desk, fitting in a phone call to his estranged daughter before his official lectures commence for the day. I close the door behind me and descend the stairs, the ringing becoming fainter and fainter until I can no longer hear it.

Walking along the street outside, I will the calmness of the evening to settle over me, trying not to think about Jarrod and Derek, or about the other matter that's been occupying my thoughts all day: whether Matthew will kiss me tonight. There'll be no obvious reason not to – no colleague waiting in the car, no four-year-old nephew tagging along – and this is making me feel irrationally nervous.

As I approach, I scan the outside of the cinema for his large, distinctive figure. When I don't immediately locate him, I instantly
assume the worst: that he's stood me up. Just as my heart begins to plummet and everything about my life feels instantly and overwhelmingly hopeless, he emerges from inside the building and waves to catch my attention.

‘What's on?' My nervousness manifests as a show of briskness.

‘I was just checking that,' he replies and gives a run-down of the films that are showing. ‘What would you like to see?'

I turn the question back on him. ‘What would
you
like to see?' Conscious that I sound even more abrupt than before, I tell myself, firmly, to relax.

‘I'd like to see something light. I think I need a laugh.'

Looking at him more closely, I see lines of weariness on his face. ‘Not a good day?'

‘No.'

‘What happened?'

‘A teenager beaten up for the amusement of other bored teenagers. He's having brain surgery as we speak, to remove a massive clot, and if he survives the operation it's quite likely that he'll be brain damaged.'

My problems with Jarrod and Derek are swiftly put into perspective. ‘I'm sorry. That's awful. The poor boy. His poor family.'

I instinctively reach for Matthew's hand, but once I have it in mine it doesn't seem enough and so I hug him instead. We stand there, my cheek pressed against his shoulder, my hands spanning his back as though they're quite used to hugging him like this, the bustle around us distant and irrelevant.

‘Do you want to just give the movie a miss?'

‘No.' He steps back from me. ‘It will take my mind off things.'

And so we go inside and agree on a romantic comedy. Matthew
buys the tickets and I insist on buying drinks, bottled water and the obligatory popcorn.

The movie is surprisingly good – funny, cynical and satisfyingly unpredictable – and when it's over and we're leaving the cinema, I feel like I've been away somewhere for an extended time. Outside the calm evening has transformed into an equally serene night.

‘Do you want to go for a drink?' Matthew asks, pausing outside one of the half-empty bars.

I can see from his face that he's exhausted and, while the movie has undoubtedly eased some of the stress from his day, I'm sure he'd rather call it a night. Maybe he won't kiss me after all. Maybe, after such a bad day at work, he'll deposit me outside my apartment and that will be that.

‘No, thanks. You're clearly very tired – and I've an early meeting in the morning.'

The meeting is with Jarrod: he wants me to talk him through the pricing models for Telelink. Just thinking about it makes me feel angry all over again and I have to make a conscious effort to put it out of my mind. I'm with Matthew now. Is he going to end this date with a kiss? Or is the timing not quite right this time too?

Matthew holds my hand firmly in his as we leave the main strip behind. The side streets are deserted, it's just the two of us, our footsteps echoing and our voices hushed and intimate as we chat about our favourite films. It isn't long before we reach my apartment block and suddenly the conversation ceases. I know then that he will. Kiss me, that is. He looks as nervous as I feel.

Once again he touches my face with his hand. And again the tenderness of his touch is surprising, totally at odds with the sheer size of his hand, the size of him. He lowers his head and I instinctively tilt mine back. My first impression is that it feels awkward, my neck is strained: he's too tall for me. As though reading my mind, he sits down on the low retaining wall that borders the front garden and manoeuvres me gently onto his lap. His thighs feel solid and muscular beneath me and I experience a strong physical reaction even before my mouth opens under his. It's immediately obvious that Matthew Blake is a good kisser. His lips are at once tentative and firm, edging me towards a state of sweet, sharp arousal. His big hands burrow in my hair, encasing my head, and the kiss deepens further. How long it goes on I'm not sure, but when it finally comes to an end we're both breathing hard.

‘I feel like a teenager, pashing in the front garden.' He smiles, his lips still very close to mine.

‘In Ireland we would say “snogging” but I know what you mean!' My voice comes out husky and disjointed. I sound as though I've been well and truly kissed, which I have.

My apartment is upstairs, tantalisingly close, and I have to stop myself inviting him up. I don't want to rush things with Matthew. I need to get used to each new stage before I can proceed to the next. I don't know why I feel like this, but it seems to be intuitive.

We start to kiss again and once more it builds to a point where I'm hardly aware that we're sitting in full public view. His hard thighs on which I'm still seated, the warm strength of his arm, supporting my lower back, his mouth pressing, retreating,
pressing again are all I'm conscious of until reality intrudes, in the form of someone slamming shut the front door. It takes all my willpower to pull away and disengage myself from his lap.