Woman to Woman (9 page)

It was time to go in. Aisling checked her make-up in the rear-view mirror and rubbed at a tiny smudge of mascara below her eye. You weren’t supposed to rub the delicate skin around your eyes roughly, she knew from those endless magazine articles.

Once she’d hit thirty, she really meant to look after her skin properly. But the new make-up routine fell by the wayside.

Before long, Aisling was back to soap and water with a little Oil of Ulay when she remembered it.

Would Michael have stayed in love with her if she had pampered her skin and spent hours toning, plucking, waxing and beautifying herself? Probably not. If he’d wanted a glamorous career woman to show off to his friends, nothing short of a miracle could have made him stay with his un-careerist wife.

She obliterated the mascara smudge, rubbing away the heavy foundation she’d applied to hide her reddened eyes.

Damn, she muttered, rummaging in her meagre make-up bag for a tiny tube of concealer to hide the damage.

Polyfilla was what she needed, Aisling thought miserably as she peered into the mirror. A passing couple looked into her dusty red Starlet as they walked hand in hand through the back gate to the newspaper premises.

Casually dressed in jeans, trendy Timberland boots and matching chunky cord jackets, they strode past quickly. The girl stared straight at Aisling before looking away, flicking long chestnut hair out of her eyes with the confidence of youthful beauty.

Aisling flushed under their scrutiny and imagined that they were thinking, “Why bother?” Just a boring old housewife trying to tart herself up when all the powder and paint in the world couldn’t cover up the beginnings of a double chin.

A drink would be nice, she thought again. Just one large one to give her courage and help her smile at the strange faces. If she could still manage a smile when she’d confronted Michael, of course. Aisling took a deep breath and opened the car door.

She couldn’t see anyone else in the corner of the car park where she’d parked. Near the door, a leather-clad figure was parking a motorcycle.

She hadn’t been on a motorbike in years and the idea of a spin down the motorway, with the wind in her face and no time to think about her life, was suddenly very appealing.

She’d rented one of those scooters on that brilliant holiday in Greece. Her father had grimly warned her about broken limbs and permanent scars. That did it. Wearing her old denim shorts and T-shirt, she’d

sped along the rocky roads with Jo racing along beside her on an equally battered scooter, laughing into the wind with the sheer joy of it all.

“Last one home has to go out with Spiros!” screeched Jo, pumping her foot up and down on the gas pedal. She wasn’t going to be the one accompanying the over-hairy owner of their apartment block to dinner in the taverna.

They were probably only going at fifteen miles an hour but it felt like flying as they passed tiny white villas gleaming in the hot Aegean sun, smiling at the local women huddled in their all-encompassing black dresses.

She wouldn’t dream of riding on a scooter any more.

Scooters and motorbikes were for the slim young girls you saw in tampon adverts, girls with bum-length hair, minuscule white shorts and lots of attitude. They were most definitely not for women who couldn’t do up their jeans any more.

The newsroom was probably full of them, she reflected, cute model types drafted in the pose for snaps with the managing director. Maybe she could ask them for hints. She could drag a few of them up to Michael and ask them was he worth fighting for?

For a moment, she savoured a picture of Michael’s face, red with anger at his wife calmly telling a group of gorgeous young women that he was a lying, cheating bastard. She’d never be able to do it, though. Fiona would, she’d love to do it, if Pat was ever dumb enough to betray

Aisling knew she’d only ever dream about slapping Michael. Like she’d dreamed of slapping her father’s face every time he made her feel worthless and stupid. Was that all men ever did?

She leaned against the car and closed her eyes for a moment. She was dreading tonight, smiling hello to all Michael’s colleagues, wondering what they’d think when they saw her Michael Moran’s once-slim wife transformed into a busty hausfrau with no conversation and zero style. No wonder he’d got himself a mistress when that was what he had to go

home to at night, she could almost hear them saying. Damn him! She slammed the car door shut and smoothed down her dress. No chickening out now.

Aisling was slightly out of breath when she made it to the imposing front doors where a security guard with a clipboard and a self-important expression on his face gazed down at her.

“I’mer … expected at the party she stammered. The supplement… My husband works here …”

“Name?” queried the guard loftily, pen poised over his list.

“Aisling Moran,” she answered and, as if by magic, the man’s stony face lit up.

“Mrs. Moran! Grand to meet you at last. Come on in before those news hounds drink the place dry!”

She found herself being bustled over to the stairs where the guard yelled up for Mick ‘… to escort Mrs. Moran to the party.”

Aisling had barely put a foot on the bottom step before another, much younger man in a similar navy uniform and a very short haircut materialised and walked with her up the stairs.

Aisling muttered something about not having been escorted anywhere for

“Not at all, Ma’am,” the muscular young man smiled cheerily.

“These stairs are a bit steep if you’re not used to them and God knows you’d never find your way around the warren upstairs if you didn’t know where you were going!”

He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years younger than she was but, from the way he was walking beside her at a snail’s pace and the way he called her “Ma’am’, she was obviously a dead ringer for his mother. Marvellous.

“Bye now.” He gave her a good luck sort of grin and walked briskly back the way they had come, leaving her standing outside the newsroom, her heart thumping at the thought of making her entrance alone.

What are you doing here? she asked herself wretchedly.

Why aren’t you sitting at home with your head buried firmly in the sand as usual?

Because you have to find out what’s going on, the voice in her head pointed out calmly. And if you don’t find out now, you never will. It’s up to you whether you try and ignore his infidelity or whether you demand that it ends. Get a grip on yourself, Aisling, she said out loud. Go on.

She put one hand tentatively on the door before it swung back on her violently as two men in suits with ties askew pushed their way out of the office giggling hysterically.

“Aisling Moran! How are you?” Suddenly, she was grabbed by one of the revellers and enveloped in a bear hug. Tom,” she said with pleasure as she recognised the paper’s chief sub-editor, one of Michael’s best friends.

“I haven’t seen you in an age,” he said warmly. A huge smile lit up his grey-bearded face. A tall man with hunched shoulders, Tom had always been in shape, but now sported a little pot belly under his straining shirt.

Aisling noticed the heavy sprinkling of grey in his hair and beard and realised, with a shock, that she hadn’t seen him for well over two years.

But then, I haven’t exactly turned the clock backwards myself, she thought wryly.

“How are you?” he roared merrily, sending strong whiskey fumes in her direction.

This is your husband’s big night, eh? You must be so proud.

We all are.”

I’m bloody delirious, she thought, grinning back with a saccharine smile. Tom pushed the swing doors open and led Aisling into a room which buzzed with activity. MTV, RTE, Super and Sky Sports belted out at top volume from the bank of TV screens on one wall. Nobody seemed to notice the cacophony made by Pearl Jam’s latest hit, a droning Formula One race and the news in two languages. Instead, they screeched with laughter, talked rapidly and gestured for more drink as two harassed looking girls wearing black skirts and white shirts circled the room balancing glasses on large trays.

People stood around in little groups of two or three, laughing and

shouting at each other, sharing the jokes of colleagues who worked long hours together and knew each other better than their families.

“Are you saying I got that story from another paper?” she heard someone say indignantly.

“You’d swallow a brick, Pat.” said another voice.

“He’s only winding you up for a bet. That’s another drink you owe me, by the way, Shay.”

They’re all on form tonight,” chuckled Tom.

Aisling thought they all looked glamorous and dynamic.

She’d always been in awe of her husband’s colleagues, especially the women.

“Here we are she heard Tom say, as they pushed their way to the centre of the room where a group of people stood, listening to a tall, dark man.

Michael was holding court, as usual. He had this incredibly irritating habit of pontificating on all sorts of subjects, although politics was his favourite.

At home, he generally started giving Aisling his views on the most recent political crisis when she was ready to turn out her bedside light, or when she was just settling down to watchER He never realised that she was doing something else and wasn’t necessarily interested in what he thought about the Labour Party’s conference, or Bill Clinton’s speech. But then he never noticed the way her eyes glazed over when he really got going.

Tonight he was on form, preaching about the changing role of newspapers in a world of instant TV news updates. It gave Aisling a glimmer of satisfaction to see one of the not-so-eager listeners raise her eyebrows at a colleague, tacit understanding of the boss’s irritating idiosyncrasies Not everyone was as awestruck in his presence as Michael liked to imagine. For a brief moment, that was a very satisfying thought.

She watched silently, trying to look at him like a stranger seeing him for the first time. Tall, dark-eyed and with the type of bone structure the Marlboro man would have died for, he was, as most of his male colleagues complained, almost too bloody good-looking to have any

brains at all. Unfortunately for all the begrudgers, he was a brilliant writer and an even better editor. He had an ego to match.

When the yearly influx of journalism students brought eager young women into the office, keen to learn every nuance of the job, they invariably developed crushes on the good-looking deputy editor.

Michael always made this sound funny, telling Aisling how they blushed when they offered to get him a sandwich at lunchtime or asked his advice on their stories instead of talking to the news editor. Despite the way he made these stories amusing, Aisling knew he was flattered by the attention.

With Michael, flattery got you everywhere.

Not a quality to make a wife feel secure, Aisling reflected.

She watched two of the younger female onlookers gaze longingly at her husband as though he were fillet steak and they’d been starved for a month.

Aisling could have told his, admirers that he stared in that intense, Robert Redford sort of manner purely to focus his eyes when he wasn’t wearing the stylish designer wire rimmed glasses he’d bought a couple of years previously.

Of course, she never got the chance to tell anyone and she suspected that they wouldn’t believe her anyway. She could imagine these particular admirers privately thinking that the deputy editor’s piercing gaze was deeply sexy, something intended for them alone. Big mistake, girls.

“Michael, look who’s arrived!” Tom announced cheerily. The entire group turned towards the newcomers. Aisling felt her face flush pinkly as everyone looked at her and hated herself for it. Michael leaned over and took her hand. He led her gently into the centre of the group, almost as if he was pleased to see her. What an actor.

Aisling, these are most of my team for the supplement.

Everyone else, this is Aisling, my wife.” Who was writing his lines, she wondered? Was this his ‘caring editor’ performance, designed to beguile the gazing students?

Aisling could see the amazement in the women’s eyes as they took in her

flushed face and less than perfect figure hidden under a loud crimson dress. Gorgeous, clever Michael, one of the most talented journalists in Dublin, married to that! She was used to it now, that look of pity when her husband’s admirers realised that their hero was stuck with the least attractive woman in the room.

At least she’d always been sure that thinking about her husband was as far as any of his female fans had ever got. She now had devastating proof that one woman had got a lot further than thinking.

As they muttered “Hello’ with varying degrees of enthusiasm, Aisling wondered if she was one of them. Maybe that was why Michael hadn’t introduced anyone individually.

Perhaps she was standing there as cool as a cucumber, the blonde with the pancake make-up and the Kim Basinger lips, or the tall brunette with tortoiseshell glasses emphasising almond-shaped blue eyes and a thin silk blouse which left nobody in any doubt that she had bypassed the bra drawer when she was getting dressed.

Aisling watched her for a moment and turned her attention to the other women in the group. Would she recognise the other woman from Fiona’s description, would she intuitively know who she was?

“Are you all right?” Her husband’s voice broke into her thoughts. She raised cool blue eyes to meet his. Strange, she had expected him to look different now that she knew his secret, but he didn’t.

He looked exactly the same as ever, a five o’clock shadow darkening his jaw, eyebrows raised in a quizzical expression.

Until today she’d have staked her life that Michael wouldn’t dream of doing anything more than talking to another woman. She gazed at her husband, noticing the dark smudges under his eyes from the long nights he’d been working late to put the finishing touches to the supplement.

That was what he’d said anyhow.

It was more likely he was exhausted from spending hours with her, sharing meals in their favourite restaurant before steaming up the