This Charming Man (74 page)

‘Go?’

‘Yes. Do it.’

He flicked euro coin upwards, where it winked and twinkled in the air, then came back down again, to land on back of Considine’s hand. He slapped his palm over it.

I was holding my breath.

‘Well?’ I asked.

He removed hand. ‘Heads,’ he said.

Heads. I exhaled.

‘Okay, looks like I’m going to Dublin. Thanks for your offer but will go alone. Must leave right now, though, before courage deserts. No
Law and Order
for me tonight.’

Considine walked me to my car, wishing me Godspeed.

He had made me coffee in non-tartan flask. Kindly. Also tasteful.

‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Kick your man’s arse, he deserves it. Drive carefully.’

I stood by car, the door open, but not getting in. Our goodbye felt incomplete.

‘Text me,’ he said.

‘Okay. Bye, Considine. Go home, it’s freezing.’

He walked away, then stopped and turned back. ‘Hold on a minute.’ He approached like he had spotted something about me – lint on my collar, perhaps, or ball of fluff in my eyebrow – and wanted to help remove it.

I waited and he stepped into my space. He put his hand on my neck.

‘Is it piece of thread?’ I asked.

‘What?’ He frowned. His forehead very close, so could see it all, where skin stopped and dark hairline abruptly began.

‘Dead leaf in hair?’

‘What? No.’ Perhaps further frowning but couldn’t bloody see because he was so close, had double vision. ‘Want to show you something.’

Without further ado – really in quite brisk business-like manner – he bent his head and put his mouth on mine. So warm in the cold night.

So
that’s
what had been waiting for! Revelation – Rossa Considine exceptional kisser. Slow and sweet and sexy. Kissing with whole mouth, not just doing hard, tongue-darty sword-play that many people think is good kissing. Felt quite swoony in my head and knees went weak and – wait a minute! Déjà vu! Had been kissed like this before. Only the last time it had stopped just as had really been getting going and this time it went on and on, becoming more gorgeous, more beautiful, my body tingling and alive and…

Finally broke apart, Considine almost staggering. ‘Go,’ he said, in thick, growly voice. Sexy. ‘For Christ’s sake, go.’

‘You kiss just like Chloe!’

He laughed, backed across the grass towards his house (showing exceptional balance on uneven ground). ‘Hurry back, Lola. But drive carefully.’

Just past Matt the Thrashers
Rang Grace Gildee from car. (Yes, know it’s illegal.)

‘Is Lola Daly here. Will go with you to Paddy on one condition.’

‘Which is?’

‘You let me style you.’

‘Style me?’

‘Not for always! Just once.’ What she think I am? Charity worker?

‘You mean gussy me up in heels and stuff?’

‘Correct.’

‘… And frock…?’

‘And frock.’

‘… But…
why?’

Because it was a shocking waste, potentially attractive woman like her. ‘Hope you don’t mind me saying,’ I said, ‘but you don’t make most of yourself.’

She gave little laugh. Couldn’t care less that she didn’t make most of self. Simply
couldn’t care less
! Takes all sorts, as Mum used to say.

‘Okay. When you come to Dublin?’

‘Am on my way.’

‘Is that her?’ Marnie had spotted the woman waiting on the pavement.

‘That’s her.’ I pulled the car over to the kerb. ‘Lola, it’s me, Grace. Hop in.’

Lola climbed into the back seat. Nervously she said, ‘You said there would be at least three women.’

‘There will be,’ I said. ‘Marnie, Lola, Lola, Marnie.’

‘Hi,’ Lola said quietly.

‘Hi.’ Marnie twisted right round to face Lola and suddenly I started to worry.

Well, I say that. As it happened, all day I’d been climbing the walls with a variety of worries, not least the fear that Marnie would turn up scuttered. However, she was sober – but was it my imagination or was she just a little
too
interested in Lola?

Jesus. What Pandora’s box might I have opened?

I said, ‘We’ve just got to swing by and pick up Dee.’

‘Did he hit Dee too?’ Lola sounded horrified.

‘No, no, she’s coming along to get us into his apartment. But she won’t be coming in with us.’ Dee and I had had an exhaustive discussion about which would be the best tactic and – reluctantly – she’d agreed that it would be better ifshe stayed out. Things had the potential to get messy, and ifshe was there it could exacerbate the situation.

‘Grace.’ Lola’s little voice came from the back. ‘There will be at least three women, yes? Because I don’t want to do it ifit’s just me and Marnie. I’m too scared.’

‘Lola, I need you to trust me.’ I made my voice sound reassuring, even slightly amused. I couldn’t have her losing her bloody nerve now!

I drew up outside Dee’s office and texted her, letting her know that we were waiting. A few moments later she appeared and climbed into the back seat beside Lola. She was nothing like her usual breezy, positive self. She had been devastated when, sitting in my car outside Christopher Holland’s
house, I’d told her what I’d known about Paddy. She’d been so appalled that she hadn’t been able to catch her breath.

‘Oh my God,’ she’d gasped, rocking backwards and forwards. It had been as ifshe was crying, but without tears. ‘Oh my God. I knew Paddy wasa… a, like I
knew
he had no loyalty to anyone but himselfand I knew he was off his head with ambition… but I thought I could just about stomach it because he’s so popular with the voters.’ She’d heaved in a ragged breath. ‘The price you have to pay. But… I mean, Grace,
I
was a battered wife. And I had no clue about Paddy.’

She’d bowed her head again and heaved air through her hands. ‘My deputy leader is a woman-batterer. Me, and all I stand for. How on earth did I end up in bed with one of them?’

She’d looked up at me, her face red, her eyes bulging. ‘I have no time for pop-psychology,’ she’d said fiercely, ‘no time at all.’

‘Me either.’

‘But they say we replicate patterns. Am I replicating a pattern? Am I drawn to violent men? Do I recognize something in them?’

‘Christ, Dee, I wouldn’t have a clue…’

She’d fallen silent. Eventually she’d said, ‘What am I going to do? There’s a saying that a tragedy isn’t a choice between right and wrong, it’s a choice between two rights.’ Yes, I knew it. Ma produced it fairly regularly. Usually when she was trying to decide what to make for dinner. ‘But,’ Dee had gone on, ‘this is a choice between two wrongs.’

‘How so?’

‘IfI do nothing, Angus Sprott will publish his story, my career will be over – then I can’t help anyone. But ifI shop Paddy to the press, I’ll be taken down with him – then I can’t help anyone. But ifI sack him without making the reasons public, the voters will lose confidence and won’t vote for us in the general election – then I can’t help anyone. Or if I can persuade him to stop sabotaging me and we carry on working together, it means I’m knowingly sharing power with a woman-batterer.’

‘That’s four wrongs actually,’ I’d pointed out.

‘Well, there you are. That’s how big a tragedy it is.’

She’d leant back against her head rest and closed her eyes. I could nearly hear her brain clicking, as she did various calibrations, weighing up one unpalatable scenario against another.

‘Politics is a filthy business,’ she’d murmured. ‘I only ever wanted to
help people. But even ifyou think you’re incorruptible, even ifyou think your motives are entirely pure, you end up… sullied.’

She’d opened her eyes and sat up straight, seemingly infused with new energy. ‘I’m not a do-nothing sort of person, Grace.’

I had begun to feel uneasy. I was going to come out of this badly, I just
knew
.

‘What is the least-bad choice here?’ She’d looked at me. I’d looked back at her. There had been fresh purpose in her eyes. She had started to scare me then. ‘The least-bad choice is that I put my personal qualms to one side and do a deal with Paddy.’

‘And that deal is…?’

‘Ifhe lays off the smear campaign, the women won’t go public with their stories.’

‘But you’ll have to persuade the women to be in on this.’

She’d looked at me, surprised. ‘Not me. You. You’ll persuade them.’

Bollocks. Oh bollocks, bollocks…

‘But you know them, Grace! Your sister. That stylist…’

‘I’ll try. But I
can’t
promise, Dee.’

‘But you’ll try your very best? You swear to me?’

Oh for fuck’s sake. ‘… Yes.’

Once she’d extracted a solemn vow from me, she’d sunk back into her torpor. ‘God, but I’m depressed.’

She hadn’t been the only fecking one.

Funnily enough, three of the four of us knew the code to Paddy’s gate: Dee from working with him, Lola from when she was riding him and me from the time I had interviewed Alicia.

Once we were in, I parked three buildings away from Paddy’s, on the opposite side of the road. Paddy and Alicia were out at some function. Dee, who knew their schedule, predicted they’d arrive home at around 10.45 p.m.

It was now 10.38.

‘I think we’re too near his flat,’ Lola said anxiously. ‘He might see us.’

I drove forward ten yards. ‘Is that okay?’

‘No,’ Marnie said. ‘Now we can’t see.’

I forced back a sigh and reversed to my original spot.

‘Here’s someone!’ Marnie declared.

A car had parked outside Paddy’s block and the silhouette of a man emerged from the driver’s side.

‘Is it him?’ Lola’s voice was shaking. ‘Is it Paddy?’

‘No,’ Dee said. ‘That’s Sidney Brolly, dropping off tomorrow’s papers.’

We watched as the silhouette dumped a bundle of stuff by the front door and hightailed it back to his car, did a screechy U-turn and drove back the way he’d come.

We all looked at the pile of papers.

‘It is safe to just leave them there?’ Lola asked.

‘She’s right,’ Marnie said. ‘Anyone could come along and steal them.’

‘Would you steal Paddy de Courcy’s newspapers?’ Dee asked.

‘No.’

‘Well, there you are… Jesus! Here they are!’

It was 10.47.

Instinctively we all slid down in our seats, like in a seventies’ cop show, and watched as Paddy’s Saab, driven by Spanish John, glided to a stop.

We listened, sweaty with tension (at least I was, I suppose I can’t speak for the others) as car doors opened and clapped shut and goodnights were called to Spanish John, who drove towards us and past us without displaying any interest.

Covertly we peeped at Paddy and Alicia disappearing into the building.

‘We’ll wait ten minutes,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll go in.’

‘Ten is too obvious,’ Marnie said. ‘I say nine.’

‘Or eleven,’ Dee suggested.

‘Okay, eleven,’ Marnie said.

Lola said nothing. I was worried that she might puke. She kept swallowing and taking deep breaths. Every time I looked at her I was seized with guilt for making her do this.

‘Why does he do it?’ Lola suddenly asked. ‘Why is he so cruel?’

‘His mother died when he was fifteen. Maybe he needs to punish all women for his mother’s desertion,’ Marnie said to Lola. ‘I’ve done lots of therapy,’ she added.

‘Lots of people’s mothers die when they’re teenagers,’ Dee scoffed. ‘And they don’t turn into power-mad women-beaters.’

‘Mine died when I was fifteen,’ Lola said. ‘And I’ve never beaten anyone.’

God love her, she didn’t look like she could beat an egg.

‘And his father was emotionally repressed,’ Marnie said. ‘Maybe he inherited that. Like I said…’

‘Lots of therapy?’ Dee asked.

‘Yes.’

When the democratically elected eleven minutes had elapsed, I said, ‘Okay, let’s go.’

We all climbed out and crossed the road. Dee shoved her face into the intercom camera and rang Paddy’s bell. ‘Paddy, it’s Dee. I was just passing and wondered ifI could have a quick word about tomorrow.’

(Some bill or other was taking place the following day in the Dail.)

‘Sure, come on up.’

The communal door clicked opened, the four of us filed in, Dee wished us luck and Marnie, Lola and I ascended the stairs to Paddy’s flat.

We arrayed ourselves before Paddy’s door, me front and centre, Marnie slightly behind me and to my left, and Lola slightly behind me and to my right.

‘Like
Charlie’s Angels,’
Lola whispered.

But Charlie’s Eejits would be closer to the truth.

I wasn’t scared. I was worse than scared. I’d entirely lost faith in the enterprise: the three of us – Lola, Marnie and I – wouldn’t alarm a mangy dog.

‘Paddy mightn’t let us in when he sees who we are,’ I said, although I suspected that was unlikely.

Then the door opened and there was Paddy. There was a moment, just a moment, when his eyes went funny; they flickered over us, recognizing all three of us at once and his pupils did something, went either big or small, depending on what’s meant to happen when human beings discern danger, then the next thing he was doing his Paddy-on-parade smile. ‘Grace Gildee,’ he said. ‘As I live and breathe.’

He took my hand and leant forward to kiss me, pulling me into the warmth of his home. ‘And you brought Marnie. Marnie, it’s been years and years. Too long.’ A kiss on the cheek for Marnie, a kiss on the cheek for Lola and he was welcoming us in. He looked, actually, genuinely delighted.

It would have been better ifhe’d tried to slam the door shut on us and we’d had to run at it and shoulder our way in; at least then we’d have had a little bit of adrenaline behind us.

‘Come in and sit down,’ he said. ‘Let me call Alicia before she takes her make-up off. She’d be cross with me ifshe missed you.’

He disappeared down a corridor and the three of us waited in the living room, Marnie in an armchair and Lola and I on the edge of the couch. ‘He’s trying to unsettle us by being nice,’ I reminded them. ‘Remember what he’s done to you. Don’t lose sight of it.’

Lola’s knees were knocking. I took her hand. ‘You’re doing great.’

‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I should have worn jeans. I didn’t know I’d be so scared –’