Stand by Me (5 page)
‘They will,’ he said confidently.
‘Everything all right?’ Kirsten Jacobs, the supervisor, came over to the booth and looked at Dominique with a degree of irritation.
‘Absolutely,’ said the customer. ‘My fault for delaying your waitress. I was debating what to drink. You know what? I’ll have two of those milks.’
Kirsten looked from one to the other and frowned.
‘You sure?’ asked Dominique.
He nodded.
‘Well get to it,’ said Kirsten as Dominique hesitated.
When she returned with the two glasses of milk, he apologised for getting her into trouble.
‘Sorry, Domino,’ he said.
‘What?’ She was startled.
‘Domino.’ He grinned at her. ‘That’s what you reminded me of as you walked back to me, all dressed in black with your white specs and the two white glasses of milk in front of you. A little domino. It’s a good game, dominoes. You need luck and strategy and a willingness to take a chance to play it well.’
‘That’s so weird,’ she said slowly as she put the milk down on the table in front of him.
‘It’s not. It’s a very old game,’ he told her.
‘No. I don’t mean that. I mean - what you called me. It’s ... it’s almost my name.’
‘Really?’
She nodded. ‘I’m Dominique,’ she said.
‘I prefer Domino,’ he said. ‘It suits you better.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Oh, because I think you’re someone who would be willing to take a chance,’ he said.
‘Depends on what I’m chancing,’ she said.
He laughed.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Brendan,’ he said.
‘Not a very chance-taking name,’ she chided and went off to get his burger and chips.
She was prepared to chat with him again, but he’d opened his newspaper and was engrossed in the sports pages when she came back. He looked up briefly and thanked her but he didn’t engage her in conversation. She was vaguely disappointed. But later, when he was leaving, he waved goodbye to her and called, ‘See you, Domino,’ even though she was taking another order at the time and so couldn’t reply.
Chapter 2
Brendan sat at one of her tables every Friday. He always ordered the mushroom burger, cremated, even during December, when she tried to persuade him to have the turkey and cranberry special. He’d looked at her in horror when she’d suggested it and told her that there was no need to run that by him again, the mushroom burger suited him just fine. Although, he added that day, he did rather like the fact that all of the waitresses in American Burger were wearing Santa Claus hats. Hers, he told her, suited her just fine. She was the prettiest girl in the restaurant, he added, which made her blush to the roots of her newly styled hair.
‘I have something for you,’ said Brendan on the Friday before Christmas when she brought him his bill.
She looked at him in surprise as he put a small, gift-wrapped box on the table.
‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Open it.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course.’
She glanced around the restaurant. But Kirsten Jacobs was busy and nobody was watching them. So she picked up the box, tore off the gold foil paper and lifted the lid. Inside was a delicate coral necklace. Her eyes widened as she looked at it.
‘Happy Christmas, Domino,’ he said.
‘I can’t take this.’ She looked at him in dismay. ‘It’s . . . well . . . they wouldn’t let me.’
‘And why not?’
She looked confused.
‘I bought it for you,’ he said. ‘So there’s no point in not accepting it.’
‘It’s really lovely,’ she told him. ‘But I don’t think I’m allowed to accept gifts from our customers.’
‘I don’t see the problem,’ he said. ‘D’you think it would be easier if you were accepting a gift from someone you were going out with?’
‘That’s a completely different - oh!’ She stared at him, and he laughed.
‘What time d’you finish?’ he asked.
‘Not till ten tonight,’ she told him.
‘Meet me for a drink when you’re done?’
She looked at him in astonishment. She liked Brendan Delahaye. He was the first man she’d never tried to impress, because he was a customer and she was a waitress and she didn’t think of him in the same way as she thought of other men; slightly mysterious people she didn’t really understand and for whom she had to be someone other than herself. Besides, Brendan was a grown-up, older and (despite not being a Dubliner) wiser than her.
‘Are you going to turn me down?’ He looked at her enquiringly. ‘I hope not. I had to pluck up my courage to ask you.’
‘You didn’t.’ She giggled self-consciously.
‘Of course I did. A lovely girl like you. I told myself I’d be devastated if you said no.’
‘Would you really?’
‘Yes.’ His voice softened. ‘Yes, I would.’
‘In that case I’d better say yes.’ She smiled.
‘The Dame Tavern,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you there.’
‘OK,’ she told him. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’
‘Me too,’ he said.
The pub was crowded. Dominique stood on tiptoe, trying to peer over the heads of the other, taller people who were clustered around the bar. This hadn’t been a good choice, she thought. Brendan might be here but she’d never see him in the Friday-night crush. Her fingers unconsciously played with the coral necklace around her throat as she looked anxiously for him.
‘There you are.’
She turned at the touch of his hand on her shoulder. He’d never touched her before. And although since she’d started going out with the gang from work at the weekend there were other men who’d put their arms around her and held her tight, she’d never got the sudden hot quiver of excitement she had at that first, casual touch from Brendan Delahaye. She was utterly astounded at how she felt. She wanted to pull him to her and kiss him straight away. She wanted to hold him and never let him go.
But she didn’t. She just smiled in relief and said that she was glad to see him. He smiled at her too and kissed her quickly on the cheek. And once again Dominique was overwhelmed by feelings she’d never had before.
‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked.
She asked for a West Coast Cooler, which made him smile, but he ordered it for her and a pint of Guinness for himself, then manoeuvred her to an alcove, where she sat on a high bar stool and he stood behind her.
‘A bit crazy to meet up late on the Friday before Christmas,’ he said, and she nodded as she took a sip of her drink. ‘Don’t tell me you like that stuff?’
‘Why?’ She looked apprehensive.
‘A spritzer,’ he said. ‘What sort of drink is that!’
‘White wine and—’
‘Oh, I know what it actually is,’ he assured her. ‘It’s just - I’m an ordinary sort of man myself. I don’t do fancy drinks.’
She smiled at him. ‘I don’t think it’s that fancy really. It’s the only one I like. I can’t drink beer and I don’t like spirits. In fact,’ she shrugged slightly, ‘I’m not into alcohol that much, to be honest.’
‘Ah well,’ he teased. ‘Maybe that’s a good thing, Domino. There’s a lot of people in this bar tonight who’re going to wish in the morning that they weren’t into alcohol.’
‘Are you always going to call me that?’ she demanded as she touched the necklace again.
‘Always,’ he told her. ‘Absolutely always.’
She loved having a proper boyfriend. And more than that, because Brendan was nine years older than her, it made her feel superior to other girls her age. She didn’t see many of her school crowd these days, but she felt that she’d overtaken Cara and the Nikkis, who’d only gone out with boys really. Whereas she was going out with a man. She’d even overtaken Emma Walsh, who was dating Pete Ferriter from down the road. She was Brendan’s girlfriend, Domino, who was far more sophisticated than any of them.
Every time they went out together she fell in love with him a little bit more. He was gentle and kind and he didn’t try to get her into bed or do any of the things her mother believed were on the high road to hell. But Dominique knew that the way she felt about him was sinful. She knew she wanted to go to bed with him. She just wasn’t sure how many dates it took before it was appropriate.
‘When are we going to see this boyfriend of yours?’ Evelyn asked as Dominique went out one night, her straight hair agonisingly teased into curls and held in place with industrial amounts of hairspray (Emma had shown her how to do this, and Dominique wouldn’t have spent the time or the effort on anyone but Brendan).
‘Sometime,’ she replied carelessly.
‘I want to know what he’s like.’
‘He’s lovely,’ said Dominique, ‘and that’s all you need to know.’
Evelyn pursed her lips. But she didn’t get the opportunity to say anything else. Dominique had gone out, slamming the front door behind her.
The thought of her gorgeous boyfriend meeting her over-strict parents filled Dominique with dread. When she was with Brendan she felt positively grown up, but she knew that her parents would treat her exactly the same in front of him as they always did - as though she was still a child who didn’t know her own mind. Brendan frequently offered to pick her up when they were going out together, but she always said that it was too much trouble and that she’d meet him in the city centre. He lived near Portobello and there wasn’t a convenient bus that could leave him in Drimnagh. Whenever he pointed out that he could always get a taxi, she’d look at him in horror and said that that was far too expensive. He would smile and say that he could afford it - he was earning decent money on the building site - but she’d shake her head and tell him to save what he had for the company he planned to set up. The office block would be finished soon, she reminded him, and then he’d need every spare penny.
‘You’re a great girl,’ he’d say each time she insisted on it. ‘You really are.’ But she knew she wasn’t. She knew that her main motivation was simply keeping him away from her parents, because she was terrified that the day he met them would be the day he decided that if all girls ended up like their mothers, he should cut his losses with Dominique Brady pretty damn quick, and she was so completely and utterly in love with him that the idea of losing him filled her with horror.
But the night they were invited to a twenty-first birthday party (which was their sixth date), Brendan insisted on picking her up. The party was in Clondalkin after all, he told her, and so calling to the Brady home was more or less on the way. Dominique reluctantly agreed and was ready half an hour before he was due to arrive, so that she could answer the door and be out of the house before her parents even knew he was there. Evelyn, however, was as determined to meet Dominique’s boyfriend as Dominique was to stop her. And so as soon as the doorbell had rung, and even as Dominique - who had been waiting in the hallway - opened the door, she was fussing around behind her telling Brendan to come inside, that it was lovely to finally meet him.
‘We don’t have time,’ said Dominique tightly, but Brendan smiled at her and said it was no problem, it would be nice to say hello.
She gritted her teeth as Evelyn ushered him into the front room - the room that was only used on special occasions and which was decked with photographs of Gabriel looking pensive and priestly among the glass and porcelain ornaments that Evelyn liked to collect.
‘Our son,’ Evelyn explained as Brendan perched on the edge of the sofa next to the sideboard with the biggest picture of Gabriel. ‘He’s a wonderful lad. He’s studying in Valladolid at the moment.’ She said the name ‘Valladolid’ as though she was actually saying ‘Heaven’.
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