CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jo climbed out of the car slowly, grateful for the chance to stretch her legs after so long in the driving seat. Her back ached and her shoulders were stiff from continually crunching gears as she passed trundling juggernauts and carloads of tourists meandering along the road west. It had taken two weary hours to reach Longford, the half way point between Dublin and Jo’s home town in the West. Holidaymakers enjoying the June sunshine had dawdled along the road all the way from the Naas Road, admiring cows, lamb-filled fields and the lush green countryside.
Fifteen years of travelling from Dublin to Sligo had made Jo immune to the charms of the N4. She didn’t want to gaze at cows, so once she left the outskirts of the city, she just put her foot down and drove, eager to get the four-hour journey to Innisbhail over with.
By lunchtime, the rumbling in her stomach meant she just had to stop somewhere for something to eat and a break.
How do you expect to grow if you won’t let Mummy eat properly? she addressed her tiny bump as she walked into the Longford Arms from the car park, massaging her aching neck with one hand. Proper lunch or just a. sandwich? she wondered when she reached the reception area.
A handsome man standing at the desk followed her with his eyes, openly admiring the tall, leggy brunette in the flowing saffron-coloured dress.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jo saw him look and couldn’t resist giving him a come-hitherish little smile. Then she casually flicked back her curls with one hand and walked into the dining room, her dress swirling around slender tanned ankles. She couldn’t be bothered with men right now, but it was still nice to know that she hadn’t lost her
touch. Fortified by a huge chicken salad, cheesecake and a Lucozade for energy, she was back in the car by two and overtaking tourists’ cars at five past.
As she drove past the villages and hamlets which had signposted every journey home since she’d been nineteen, Jo felt a growing sense of excitement.
She couldn’t count the number of times she’d travelled down this road, dying to see her mother, Shane and Tom full of news and eager to hear theirs. She certainly had some amazing news for them this time. But Jo had decided not to tell anyone until after Shane’s birthday party. You’re only forty once, she thought and it wouldn’t be fair to disrupt the surprise party her sister-in-law, Mary, had been painstakingly planning for weeks by announcing the existence of another addition to the Ryan family.
She’d tell her mother, Jo decided. She’d have to. Her mother could detect something out of the ordinary in about two seconds, which was why Jo had only made a few hurried phone calls from the office since she’d found out she was pregnant. It wasn’t that Laura Ryan would pass out at the news that her only daughter was pregnant before they’d gone through the big church wedding shenanigans. Her mother had never been one of those people who gossiped disapprovingly at the back of the church before Mass, the ones who tut tutted over any poor girl who was pregnant and unmarried.
But Jo knew what her mother had gone through. It had been a huge struggle to raise three kids on her own when their father died. She had been both parent and sole breadwinner for four-year-old Jo, seven-year-old Tom and ten-year-old Shane. While Laura was able to run the small dairy farm her husband had left her, she was determined that her children never wanted for anything.
When times were lean she sold eggs from her Rhode Island Reds and the rich yellow butter she churned every week. Jo loved her job of collecting the eggs in the morning and evening, leaving one in each nest to confuse the hens into laying there again the next day. By the
time they were teenagers the three Ryan kids could drive the tractor with ease, knew how to help a cow give birth and could milk in their sleep. When Tom decided to study to be a vet, Laura knitted Aran jumpers for sale in Innisbhail’s craft shop to help pay his fees. Now that Shane ran the farm and had turned it into a much larger business, the bad times were over. Laura still kept her hens and made her own butter, but she’d handed over the farm to her elder son and was finally able to relax after twenty years of difficult single parenthood.
So much had changed since Jo had first talked to her mother about settling down and having a family. She’d been seventeen then, in the first flush of what she thought was the love of her life, dreaming of a fairytale wedding, exquisite children, a bungalow beside the sea with a tennis court out the back and a garden big enough for ten kids.
Seventeen years later, she could laugh at her teenage dreams. At least she could afford a baby now. Then, her entire fortune had consisted of a collection of much loved secondhand books, four David Bowie albums and thirty pounds in her post office account. Not exactly enough to keep a small child in nappies, never mind pureed vegetables.
She’d planned to rely on Steve, of course, her well-off, clever boyfriend. Would he have been a better father than Richard, she wondered?
She passed a bus bound for Dublin, ready to pick up scores of weary office workers and students and bring them back home for the weekend.
That particular journey was burned into her head like a cattle brand, hours of endlessly winding wet roads interspersed with mind-numbingly boring stops in rush-hour traffic and only one longed-for break in Mullingar for steaming tea. Four hours in a rackety bus had never been her ideal way to spend Friday evenings.
She remembered that freezing January night the bus had broken down outside Foxford and she and the other passengers had been stranded there for two hours before another bus arrived. Three squares of
chocolate and a sip of tea from someone else’s flask were not enough to keep hypothermia at bay when the wind whistled wickedly outside and the heating didn’t work inside.
Her mother had been quite frantic when Jo finally reached home, convinced that there’d been some dreadful accident. Jo could understand how she’d felt. Just a few miles down the road from where the bus had broken down, the tiny white cross was still there, tucked neatly into the ditch at a deceptively gentle-looking bend. A few plastic flowers were jammed up close to the cross, just under the letters “RIP’.
She’d thought those little grottoes were pretty when she’d been a child, always full of flowers, the small Virgin Marys in their sky-blue cloaks brightening the roadsides.
The road widened just before she reached Ballina. Jo remembered driving out that way with Steve, going to a party in his mother’s precious Mercedes. Banana yellow with cream leather seats and an opulent interior smell Jo would never forget. It was Mrs. Kavanagh’s pride and joy.
Being Steve, he’d taken the corner badly and the car had nearly ended up in the ditch. Jo didn’t know which thought’ had terrified him most being injured or facing Mummy’s wrath if he dented her car.
That had been Steve all over, but she hadn’t seen it at the time. Of course, she hadn’t seen it this time either. She’d screwed up exactly the same way seventeen years down the line. Awful though it was to face it, Richard and Steve seemed to share some awful genetic code, Bastards’ DNA, which helped them forget responsibilities and promises as soon as something or someone more interesting appeared on the horizon.
You’d think I’d have copped on by now, Jo thought all of a sudden. What if I have a baby boy and he turns out to be a mini-Richard?
Don’t be ridiculous. She patted her belly and turned up the volume. Mariah Carey’s clear, piercing voice filled the car singing “Always Be My Baby’. Mariah’s man wanted to leave her but she knew he’d be back.
Lucky girl. Jo was beginning to wonder if she could keep any man.
The car crested the hill and Innisbhail lay before her, a small town nestling in a shallow valley, facing a remarkably sedate Atlantic on the fourth side. On bad days, the sea was a murky grey, surf crashing violently against the rocky shore.
Today it was calm and the couple of small fishing boats far out to sea bobbed serenely on the water.
In the distance, she could see the remains of the old abbey beside her mother’s home and the small wood where she’d played as a child.
The view always brought a lump to Jo’s throat. Today was no different. This is where your mummy comes from, she told the baby tremulously, wishing she didn’t feel so emotionally precarious all the time.
Just last week, she’d cried when the owner of a health farm had rung up to say thanks for the lovely piece they’d written in the June issue. And on Wednesday, when she’d stupidly pulled out of a parking space in front of another driver on Capel Street and he’d responded with angry gestures and lots of honking, she’d felt like dissolving into tears.
Cop on, Jo, she commanded. Don’t wimp out now.
She drove down the familiar winding road and into the town, past the convent where she’d gone to school and along the main street where she and Marie Brennan had spent five years walking their bikes wearily up the hill before the long cycle home. Everything looked exactly the same, apart from the bright orange plastic burger bar sign hanging over the old post office, jarring with the sedate black and white shop fronts on the left side of the road.
The seats outside O’Reilly’s Bar had been repainted, and someone had finally replaced the tired-looking hanging baskets with new wire ones from which rampant nasturtiums hung in wild clumps.
The Birkenstock twins were walking along past Dillon’s, the butchers, their once-auburn hair tied back into greying sensible plaits as they marched steadily up the hill, nattering non-stop in German, no doubt.
They’d tried to teach Jo once but she’d never got beyond the “How are you? I’m fine’ stage.
She was sorry now that she hadn’t made the effort to learn German. Then again, she was sorry she’d never learned how to play the piano, how to knit Aran and how to change her own spark plugs.
Well, there’d be plenty of time for that when she was the size of a house and could spend hours reclining on the settee, reading educational books and waiting for baby to make an appearance.
A man on the footpath was waving energetically at her. She jerked back to reality and stopped the car, opening the window all the way down.
“Hello!” roared Billy Gallagher enthusiastically, dragging two small cross-looking boys over to Jo’s car.
“How are you?” His sunburned face was warm with greeting, as friendly as it had been when they’d been in high infants together and she’d stuck up for him when the big boys bullied him because he was the teacher’s son.
“I’m fine, Billy. How are you? God, the boys are getting so big now, I can’t believe the size of them!”
“Say hello to your auntie Jo, Connell and Michael,” he demanded, pulling the boys closer to the car.
No joy.
“Ah sure, they take after me.” He grinned.
“Shy.”
“You were never shy, Billy, don’t give me that!” Jo laughed.
“A slow developer, then “How’s Marie?”
“Bringing her granny into Ballina to get her glasses changed.
She’d have been here if she knew you were coming today,” he said, mildly reproachful. Jo knew that Marie would be vexed if she found her old friend was coming home for Shane’s fortieth birthday party a day early and hadn’t told her.
“It’s so busy in the office now that I didn’t know if I’d be able to get away a day early,” she said, not quite truthfully. It was difficult to pacify everyone when you lived a long way from home.
Everyone thought they should be first on your visiting list. She didn’t want to upset Marie, but once she’d told her exactly what was going on, the other woman would definitely understand why she had come home early without mentioning it.
“Will I get her to ring you when she gets home?” asked Billy, as three-year-old Connell started to pull in the direction of an ice cream van.
“Do that. Bye boys, bye Billy.”
After that, she waved at people but didn’t stop. You could be stopping all day, saying hello to this one and that, giving potted histories on what you’d done or where you’d been. Jo loved the friendliness of Innisbhail, the sensation of being enveloped in a warm, welcoming blanket. But it could be a bit overwhelming, especially when you were in a rush.
Two miles out of town, she took a left turn at the abbey and drove a quarter of a mile before turning left again, past the old green gates and over the cattle grid to park beside her mother’s Mini.
The Albertine climbing rose was out in force, covering the front of the small, whitewashed cottage in a wreath of baby-pink flowers. She could smell its rich, heady scent on the afternoon air as Prince, the old sheepdog, stumbled sleepily out into the sunshine and started wagging his tail as soon as he saw her.
“Hello, old boy,” she said delightedly, rumpling his fur.
Prince panted and wagged, gazing up with rheumy eyes, happy to have someone new to pet him.
“Darling, how wonderful to see you!” Laura Ryan stood at the porch, her hands covered in flour and more than a bit of it on her dark curly hair.
“Mum.” Jo ran up and hugged her mother, breathing in the smell of lemon soap she always used along with the scent of Charlie Red she’d worn ever since her seven-year-old grandson, Ben, had bought it for her for Christmas.
“You look good,” her mother said slowly, standing back and taking in her daughter’s ever-so-slightly fuller figure which was admittedly well
hidden by her flowing dress. “Have you been baking or bathing in flour?” Jo demanded, laughing as she brushed flour from her mother’s hair.
“Baking until Flo Doyle rang me to say she’d seen your car in the town. It’s impossible to answer the phone when your hands are covered in flour.”
“Good to see the old bush telegraph is still working as reliably as ever.” Jo said.
That woman has nothing better to do but look out her front window and use the phone all day long,” her mother answered, heading back into the kitchen to put the pastry lid on her apple tart.
“She rang “so I’d be prepared for you” to put it in her words. What does she think I’d be doing that I wouldn’t want you to see? Having it off with the postman?”
Jo laughed and automatically went to the black iron range to move the heavy metal kettle onto the hottest plate. Prince followed her, his nose snuffling her dress in the hope that she had a couple of Mixed Ovals hidden somewhere. The kettle hissed satisfactorily, already nearly boiled.
“Just give me a moment to finish this one and I’m all yours,” her mother said, putting the finishing touches to the tart.
“There’s coffee in the cupboard if you want it,” she added.
“No, I’ve given up coffee.” It had been nearly two weeks since Jo had tasted a drop of coffee.
“You’ve what?” Tart forgotten, Laura turned around and stared at her daughter. Dark brown eyes met dark brown eyes as her mother’s quizzical gaze bored into Jo’s head.
“Given up coffee, that’s all,” Jo answered. Then she laughed out loud. She should have known better than to try and hide the news from her mother for even one millisecond. She should have just announced it as soon as she’d got out of the car.
“It’s not good for babies, is it?” she said simply.
“Oh Jo!” Her mother’s face crumpled into tears and she threw her arms around Jo, clinging to her as if for dear life.
“Oh my darling, that’s wonderful news. I’m so happy for you, so happy. Now sit down she said, leading Jo to the old faded green armchair
which had been in the kitchen as long as Jo could remember.
“Sit down and tell me everything.”
Jo sank gratefully into the chair, feeling immeasurably comforted by her mother’s love and affection. The small kitchen, with its flowery wallpaper, lace curtains and gallery of Seanie, Dan and Ben’s finger paintings, was so familiar. So what if Richard had left her. She still had her family. Her mother pulled up a small stool and sat down beside Jo.
“When did you find out? And why are you only telling me now?” she demanded.
“If you told Richard’s rat bag of a mother before me, I’ll murder the pair of you!” She was only half joking. Although Laura Ryan had never actually met Richard’s mother, she’d heard enough about her from Jo to loathe the other woman.
That’s the problem,” said Jo, wondering how best to broach the subject. Head on, she decided.
“Richard doesn’t want to know. He’s baby-phobic or commitment-phobic or something like that…”
Her mother’s freckled face paled visibly.
“What do you mean, he doesn’t want to know? It’s his baby, what is there to know?”
“I mean that he didn’t want me to have it, Mum. It was an accident, we didn’t plan it or anything. But I thought he’d be happy, it’s my fault really.” She sighed.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Laura said angrily.
“It’s not just your fault. It takes two people to make a baby and he’s old enough to know the consequences of sex. What did he expect?”
Jo barely registered that her mother was talking about sex in such a nonchalant manner.
“He expected me to be the sort of career woman who wouldn’t want a baby messing up her perfect life,” said Jo in a wobbly voice.
“He wanted me to have an abortion, but I wouldn’t.”
She broke down finally and sobbed. Her mother wrapped her arms around Jo, holding her close and whispering the same soft nothings she’d whispered thirty years before to comfort a little girl frightened of
shadows in the bedroom after her father’s funeral. “There there my love. Don’t worry, Jo. We’re all here for you, I promise. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to be there for the birth of a grandchild and this is the perfect opportunity.”
They sat like that for a while. Prince lay on the floor beside them, knowing something was up and waiting with his nose between his paws in an expectant manner.
“I’m OK, Mum, honestly.” Jo felt around for her handbag and got a tissue.
“I’m used to the idea, thinking about the baby is giving me some kind of strength.”
“Are you eating properly?” demanded her mother, getting up to make tea.
“Yes, Mum.” Jo laughed.
“Like a horse, in fact. I’m going to end up like the Michelin Man if I’m not careful. I’ve had the most dreadful morning sickness and I can’t keep anything down, before twelve. After that,” she said, “I eat everything I can get my hands on!”
“You’ll have some fruit cake, then, won’t you?”
“Definitely.”
Jo laid out the china cups and saucers her mother always insisted on using and settled herself at the kitchen table. Hot sweet tea and mouthfuls of soft, crumbling cake gave her an energy boost and she started her story.
The scent of perfectly cooked apple tart filled the kitchen by the time she was finished.
“What’s the plan for Shane’s birthday anyway?” she asked.
“For a start, he’d better not see you or he’ll know something’s up,” her mother said, carefully laying four perfectly golden tarts on the
“He’s gone to Killalla to look at some cows and he won’t be back until late. Mary’s coming over here with the boys and we’re going to finish the cooking.
We’ve got a hundred coming so that’s a lot of sausage rolls.”
“Don’t tell her, will you?” begged Jo.
“I don’t want to ruin Shane’s night. It’s his party.”
“It’s more Mary’s, the amount of work she’s done,” Laura said.
“She’s made enough cakes and quiches to feed the five thousand, so if nobody’s hungry we’ll all have full freezers for the next month. I’ve
said I’m going into Ballina shopping tomorrow so I won’t be over to them for lunch,” her mother added, carrying the tarts away to the tiny pantry.
“It was the only excuse I could come up with. Mary’s telling him she’s going with me, but we plan to make up the salads here and bring everything down to O’Reilly’s. She bought banners and balloons and everything, God bless her.”
- “Shane is going to get quite a shock,” commented Jo.
“Shock isn’t the word for it. Mary’s been telling him he shouldn’t let being forty bother him and that she’s not going to make a fuss. I told him I’d get him a nice pullover and some socks and bring the pair of them out to the pub tomorrow evening before I go to bingo. Poor Shane. He hasn’t a clue.”
They laughed together.
“He hates the thought of being forty, but I think he’s a little upset that Mary and he aren’t doing anything special tomorrow night. I can’t wait to see his face when he realises he’s been had,” Laura said with a grin.
“How are Tom and Karen?” asked Jo.
“It’s been hard for them now Karen’s back at work,” said Laura.
“Oisin is some handful and Anna, the girl who runs the creche, is driven demented with him. Karen hates leaving him in the morning and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she gives up work to mind him herself.”
Lord, thought Jo to herself when her mother had gone outside to make up the hens’ feed. If Karen couldn’t cope with six-month-old Oisin despite having the back-up of a husband, two unmarried sisters living round the corner and a helpful mother-in-law, how the hell was she going to manage totally on her own? She knew that her extrovert sister-in-law loved her job as a beautician. The idea that Karen, of all people, wasn’t able to combine motherhood and career gave Jo a headache thinking about it.
“I’m not giving up my job for any baby,” Karen had said defiantly when she was pregnant and an elderly neighbour commented that she’d better stop working before she began looking pregnant.
Mary had coped with two small children and her job as a nurse, Jo reminded herself. Mary had worked four days a week in the local hospital even when Ben was going through the terrible twos and made valiant efforts to demolish any room he was left alone in for more than three minutes.
When Mary arrived at half seven, honking her horn excitedly and sprinting into the house to see her sister-in-law, Jo was desperate to ask her how she coped with both a new baby and a job. But she couldn’t. She’d never really been interested in Karen and Mary’s pregnancies, but now she was fairly bursting to ask questions.
Instead, she rolled out layer after layer of flaky pastry, leaving her mother and the nimble-fingered Mary to handle the lumps of sticky sausage meat. Prince sat glued to Mary’s side, knowing she was soft-hearted enough to slip him the odd bit of sausage meat, something his mistress, who was watching his weight, never did.
“How’s that gorgeous man of yours?” asked Mary with the smile she hadn’t been able to take off her face all evening.
It would have been cruel to ruin Mary’s evening by telling her the truth. She was so excited at the thought of the surprise birthday party that she was running on pure adrenalin.
“He’s fine.” Jo didn’t dare look at her mother.
“How’s his back?” Mary inquired, her professional interest sparked by Richard’s constant lower-disc problem.
“Fine,” Jo answered tautly, wondering whether he was getting a soothing massage from that Sascha bitch. A nice kick in the backside, that’s the sort of treatment she’d like to give him now. She thought of all those evenings when she’d worn herself out gently rubbing massage oil into his aching muscles.
“He’d really want to watch his back, you know. He could have a lot of problems later in life,” Mary continued seriously, blithely unaware of the looks being passed between Laura and Jo.
“Tell us, love, what should we be wearing for autumn?”
asked Laura, as though she actually gave a hoot for fashion.
“Oh yes!” said Mary eagerly.
“I was going to wear my velvet dress tomorrow night, but if you think I should try something else, Jo?”
“What else have you got?” Jo asked, delighted to change the subject.
“I love that amber two-piece you wore for Oisin’s christening. What about that?”
“Do you think that would be nice? I’ve gone off it because my tummy’s sticking out,” sighed Mary.
“Get out of here! What tummy?” demanded Jo, thinking of her own expanding belly.
“Do I look all right?” begged Mary, adjusting her bra strap in the toilet mirror in O’Reilly’s the following evening.
“Shane hasn’t said I look nice at all.”
“He’s shell-shocked, Mary,” Jo pointed out practically. The poor man still hasn’t got over how you managed to set up this entire party without him hearing a whisper. He certainly hasn’t got his brain sorted out enough to tell you that you look beautiful. And you do,” she added.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mary tearfully, fiddling with her lustrous red curls.
“You look lovely Jo said firmly.
“Now come on out and get the dancing started. It’s like a wedding out there, everyone’s waiting for you two to start dancing!”
After several duty dances with old family friends, Jo was about to head outside for a breath of fresh air when a hand on her shoulder made her whirl around.
“Hello, Jo.” She’d have known that husky voice anywhere.
Steve Kavanagh hadn’t changed a bit.
He was still good-looking although he certainly hadn’t got any younger. The gleaming blue eyes that used to dazzle her now had a generous scattering of tiny lines around them.
“How are you?”
For a moment, Jo couldn’t think of anything to say. Her social smile deserted her and she just looked at him blankly.
What did you say to the first man who’d ever broken your heart?
Get a grip, Jo, she told herself sharply. What have you been doing for the last seventeen years, if it wasn’t learning how to get one up on this sneaky, two-timing pig?
“Wonderful, Steve, I’m wonderful,” she breathed in her best sexy voice.
“And how are you?”
Was it her imagination, or did his eyes light up at the tone of her voice?
“Fine. But you look fantastic,” he said, a hint of awe in his voice. Thank God she’d worn the Lainey Keogh dress that moulded her figure like a second skin.
“Thank you, Steve.” She smiled like a cat who’d just found a cat-flap in the cream bun factory door.
“Isn’t Miriam with you tonight?”
“Yes, she’s over by the bar We were on our way back after dinner and thought we’d drop in.”
Thought you’d crash the party because you can’t bear to miss anything, Jo thought nastily. There’s no way you and your horrible wife were invited to this party.
“It’s been a long time, Jo,” he said.
“Gosh, I suppose it has, she replied. Ten years at least, she added, knowing well it was fifteen.
“I think about you, about us, sometimes.” Steve stared at her, giving her the benefit of the lethal Kavanagh smile she’d never been able to resist when she was a teenager.
“Do you?” Jo smiled at him indulgently.
“Weren’t we the mad things, convinced we were in love at seventeen?” She laughed, as though she hadn’t spent months crying when she heard he was going to marry Miriam Timmons.
“Sometimes I see your picture in the magazine and wonder what it would have been like if we’d stayed together …”
“Goodness, Steve, you old romantic. We’d have killed each I other if we’d stayed together. I couldn’t imagine it!” it gave her a dart of pleasure to see him flinch as the barb struck home. Serves you right, you bastard, she thought. He wasn’t ageing well.
Funny, thought Jo, eyeing him up surreptitiously. She used to think he
dressed so well. Now she was a fashion editor and Steve Kavanagh was standing before her wearing a red polo shirt which didn’t go with his red cheeks and a pair of cream jeans which did nothing for his beer belly.
“Joanne, nice to see you.” Jo swivelled around to face her old-time enemy, the only person who’d ever called her by her full name since she’d insisted on being called Jo at the tomboyish age of ten.
“Miriam, what a surprise!” The chubby Miriam Timmons she’d known had grown up into a very thin woman, with a short helmet of frosted blonde hair and the sort of mahogany tan which would have cancer specialists shaking their heads in disbelief.
She was dressed beautifully, in a coffee-coloured suede skirt and a silk blouse, but the clothes hung on her bony frame like laundry on a clothes-horse. A cluster of gold bangles and gold necklaces rattled as she moved and she made sure that her ostentatious engagement diamond, in a setting as big as a knuckleduster, caught the light as she waved her hand.
“Well, Joanne, you’re looking well. Are you here on your own?” Miriam looked around the room pointedly as though trying to seek out Jo’s boyfriend. Jo would have bet a year’s salary that Miriam knew damn well she was here on her own and wanted to rub it in. Boyfriend couldn’t be bothered to come with you, huh? Jo could almost hear the words.
Miriam’s heavily made-up eyes dropped to Jo’s bare ring finger
Two can play at that game, thought Jo.
“I didn’t expect to see you two here,” she said.
“Mary didn’t mention inviting you.” Take that, you gate crashing cow, she thought venomously.
Miriam blinked nervously. She’d done that in French class when she tried to pretend she’d mislaid her grammar copybook.
“We, we were … just passing and thought we’d drop in!”
she faltered.
Score one to me. Jo smiled to herself.
“Steve was telling me you buy Style,” she added.
“It’s lovely to know that the people at home follow your career.
Although I should point out, Steve,” she said, ‘that the photo they’ve ‘ been using on my bylines recently is at least a year old. It was taken when I was at the Paris fashion shows last spring and it’s ancient!”
Miriam was simmering.
“Duty calls.” sighed Jo regretfully. She slipped an arm around Steve’s waist and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“So nice to see you, Steve,” she added warmly.
“Bye, Miriam.”
Jo turned and walked away, aware that two pairs of eyes were glued to her back. A little sexy sway wouldn’t go amiss, she decided. What wouldn’t she give to hear the conversation between Steve and Miriam
Maybe it had been plain old bitchy to vamp it up so much and kiss Steve goodbye, but she didn’t care. Miriam deserved it. And the wonderful thing was, she hadn’t felt a thing when she kissed Steve. Not a smidgen of regret at what might have been. She’d shed quite enough tears over him. Thank God she was cured. All she needed to do now was cure herself of Richard.
“It’s so wonderful to be back!” Rhona stood at the office door, a huge smile on her tanned face and bags hanging off her arms.
“Did you miss me, darlings?” she trilled, dropping the bags to hug Jo warmly.
“Sorry I didn’t ring last night, pet,” she whispered.
“We didn’t get in until after eleven and I didn’t want to interrupt your and baby’s beauty sleep. And how has this place been while I’ve been away?” she added more loudly for the benefit of the rest of the staff.
“Great,” said Jo.
“We had a ball and it looks as if you did too.”
“I want to make loads of money and retire to France.” Rhona retrieved her bag and dragged out a batch of tiny tissue paper wrapped packages.
“Now these,” she said, doling them out to everyone, ‘are only small pressies, but don’t say I ever forget
“Oooh lovely,” squealed Brenda, who’d found a pair of shell earrings in her package.
On the phone as ever, Nikki waved a hand-painted pottery candle-holder at Rhona and mouthed ‘thank you’.
“I didn’t know what to get you, Tony.” said Rhona, as the chief sub-editor emerged from the advertising office with a pile of papers in his hands.
“I knew you wouldn’t like anything but booze, darling, but this lot would complain if I gave you any and not them, so I got you this.”
She produced a tiny bottle. Tony took it and peered through his glasses to see what the label said.
“Aphrodisiac oil!” he exclaimed.
“I just thought you might need some,” Rhona said innocently, batting eyelids sooty with mascara.
“You didn’t complain the last time we went to bed, Rho Rho,” he countered.
“She said I was a tiger he told everyone with a dramatic sigh.
“Women …”
“What about them?” A deep voice behind them made everyone hop guiltily.
Standing outside Rhona’s office, holding a heavy black briefcase, was Mark Denton. He did not look terribly amused.
But then, Jo decided, he rarely did these days.
If Jo had been asked to describe Mark Denton, she would never have said that he was handsome. Some women said he was attractive, sexy even, although she could never see it. She had to admit that he was well built with rugby player’s shoulders topping a lean, tall frame. But his Roman nose was crooked, his jaw could have broken rocks and the only sign that his chin had ever yielded against anything was the off-centre dent in it. Short, greying dark hair was raked back over a lined forehead. And his shrewd and piercing eyes looked as if they’d never shone with delight over anything apart from a successful deal. Everything about Mark screamed money, power and taste. If you liked that sort of thing.
Today, he was dressed in a beautifully cut grey suit with a subtle yellow silk tie and polished shoes.
“I’m here for the sales meeting he announced.
Jo could have hit herself. She’d completely forgotten about the
meeting and she should have reminded Rhona the moment the other woman came in. Mark Denton was invariably early, ‘to catch people out’ Rhona always said cheerfully and correctly.
He wouldn’t be pleased to see the entire office having a whale of a time at half ten on a Monday morning when the publication of the August issue was only a week away.
He strode into his large office and slammed the briefcase onto the highly polished conference table.
“Coffee, Brenda.” hissed Jo. Brenda scurried off like a rat let out of the lab to make the rich Colombian coffee the boss preferred to instant.
Presents completely forgotten, the staff dropped everything and rooted around their desks for folders, sheets of ideas, notebooks and pens. Mark Denton had that effect on people.
Jo knew she had those papers about the advertisement feature on safe tanning, but she was damned if she could find them. Even the usually unflappable Nikki was frantically trawling through her briefcase, muttering curses as she went.
Only Rhona remained calm and cool. She picked up her bags, sailed into her office, sat back in her chair and lit a cigarette with relish.
“God, I miss this place when I’m away for longer than two weeks,” she shouted out the door. “Maybe I wouldn’t be happy in a French chateau after all. I really do get itchy feet after too long simply lolling around in the sun, drinking wine and reading novels.”
“Don’t torture me,” moaned Jo, who was longing to lie down in the sun and read novels even if she couldn’t have kept more than a teaspoon of wine down. That sounds like sheer bliss. I’d kill to be doing that right now, to be anywhere rather than here she added in a quieter tone so Mark wouldn’t hear.
“I don’t know how you deal with him, Rhona, he’s so difficult.”
“That’s because you spark off each other, darling.” Rhona put out her cigarette and picked up a fresh notepad from her desk.
“You two are like bullfrogs in a pond, each one determined to be in the
right and boss of the pond.” “I am not!” Jo was shocked.
“You never said that to me before. You said he was difficult!”
“Don’t mind me.” The editor got up and slipped her arm around Jo.
“I’m still woozy from the journey and probably saying things I’ll regret when I calm down. You’re just the sweetest creature imaginable when Mark is on the premises, honestly.”
Jo sat back in her chair at the conference table whiles Nikki and Tony discussed ideas for the Autumn beauty supplement and mulled over what Rhona had said. There was no way she sparked off Mark, she decided crossly. It was all his fault. He irritated her beyond belief. Look at that meeting two weeks ago when he’d deliberately annoyed her by mentioning the poster campaign. All right, she should have noticed that the designers had spelt three words wrong on the mock-up, but at least she’d caught it in time. Lord knows what it would have cost to reprint two hundred posters because of a few careless spelling mistakes.
But they didn’t have to reprint so why did he have to bring it up at all?
“What do you think, Jo?”
Startled, she looked up to find them all looking at her expectantly, a distinctly quizzical look on Mark’s face. Damn.
She hated to be caught out by him of all people. There was no way she could brazen it out and pretend she knew what they’d been talking about.
“Sorry, I was miles away.”
“Obviously.”
Was she imagining it or was there a slight smile on his face?
Probably a smirk, the pig.
“I’ve a lot of things on my mind,” she started hotly but got no further.
“I know the feeling,” Mark interrupted gently.
“Are you OK, you look a little pale? Would you like someone to get you some water?”
“No, no thanks,” answered Jo weakly. What was going on?
Was Mark Denton, tough guy extraordinaire getting soft in his old age or did she look absolutely dreadful, so dreadful that even he’d noticed?
“Mark’s got a great idea for the September, issue, but we’ve really got to get working on it immediately said Rhona briskly. She poured some Ballygowan into a glass and sent it down the conference table to Jo.
“He wants us to do a big fashion feature from New York, linked with an advertising supplement centred around the Mademoiselle chain of shops.
It’s pretty hush-hush right now, but they’re opening two shops here, and four in the UK in November.
“Linking up with them would be a brilliant chance for us to push the readership figures up, especially if we could do some sort of competition with them Rhona continued.
“It would mean a higher profile for Style and lots of ads.”
“And lots of money said Aidan, the advertising manager, excitedly.
“I’ve made tentative inquiries and what we need to do next is to go to New York and try and put things in motion.” Mark paused for a moment and slowly took a sip of coffee from his cup. The thing is he began, “I’d like you to get involved right now, Jo. I need you to come to New York with me. You’ll know the right way to talk to these people and it’ll be useful for setting up fashion shoots later, when we send a model and photographer out.”
“Oh.” Now she was stunned. Mark wanted her help in setting the deal up? Amazing. Jo’s mind turned somersaults thinking about it all. A month ago she’d have hated the idea because it would have meant being separated from Richard.
Not a problem she had now.
And it meant she could spend hours in Bloomingdale’s, wandering through miles of beautiful designer clothes with her credit card at the ready. Of course, travelling with Mark would hardly be a thrill, but at least it would be a break.
“Do you think you could manage it?” Mark was looking at her very strangely now, heavy eyebrows knitted together in consternation. Was he actually asking her and not ordering? What was happening to him?
“I’d love to, of course she replied in a businesslike manner.
“When do we go?”
“Saturday?”
Saturday! She’d hardly be packed by Saturday. It took her at least a month of planning and thinking about her wardrobe to go away for a weekend, never mind a business trip to New York. She just nodded her head and said “Right.” I’ll set up meetings for Tuesday and Wednesday, which gives us Monday to recover from jet-lag,” Mark was saying.
“We should be finished by Thursday, Friday at the latest.”
“Lucky old you,” said Nikki enviously.
“I love New York and I adore the Village. Weren’t you there only last year with
Jo felt her stomach lurch at the mention of his name. She hadn’t told the other girls in the office that she and Richard had broken up. She hadn’t heard a word from the bastard since that horrible morning in her flat so it was pretty obvious that he was out of her life for good. She knew she had to tell people, but she kept putting it off. How could she tell them she was single again and pregnant all in the one fell swoop? It was so embarrassing, so humiliating.
“Nikki, do you have the pictures for the perfume ad feature?” said Rhona loudly. She knew that Jo was on the verge of tears and guessed the reason why.
For the next half an hour, the conversation around the conference table ranged from advertisement features to production problems. Jo sat quietly, answering questions and trying to join in. But she didn’t feel up to it. Damn Richard.
Under the table, her hands caressed her tiny bump, gaining solace from the thought of the life inside her. Baby, baby, you make me strong, she said to herself.
When the meeting was over, Mark dismissed everybody curtly but asked Jo to stay. Instead of remaining at his seat at the top of the table, he moved into the chair beside her.
“I got the feeling that you’re not keen on going to New York.” he began, splaying his hands onto the table as he spoke.
He had strong fingers, more suited to a builder than a man who made deals on his mobile phone and drove a Porsche.
There was no wedding ring on his left hand, something which never ceased to amaze the entire office.
Why wasn’t Mark Denton married? There were always plenty of women hanging around him, Jo knew that. Quite a few of Jo’s journalistic pals had expressed an interest in him and told Jo she was a lucky bitch to work for such an attractive man. She couldn’t see it herself.
Rhona knew more about him than she let on, Jo knew that for sure. Whenever there were rumours about Mark and a mystery companion, Rhona pretended to know nothing. That was why she was such a good person to confide in. No secret would ever pass Rhona’s lips once she’d sworn to keep it. He certainly wasn’t gay. Definitely not.
“If there are personal reasons why you can’t be away, I’ll understand,” Mark said slowly.
“But I’d really like to have you with me. I know you’d make an excellent impression on these people, you talk their language and understand their ideas. I’m good on the business end but hopeless in that respect.” He laughed.
“I don’t know the difference between one designer and another, but I know you do.”
Charmed by his frankness and complimentary manner, Jo relaxed.
“I’d love to go she replied.
“It was a surprise, that’s all.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a few days,” Mark said.
“I’d hate one of the other magazines to steal a march on us which is why I want to get this sorted out immediately. I hope this isn’t disrupting your calendar too much, I hope you’ve nothing planned with Richard or anything …” His voice trailed off.
Was he pumping her for information about Richard? Jo wondered for a second. No, he couldn’t be. How could he know?
“I’ve nothing planned,” she said brightly.
“Where are we going to stay?”
“The Manhattan Fitzpatrick. It’s a beautiful hotel and it really is a
home away from home. Sitting in the bar you’d think you were in Dublin because the place is packed with Irish people.”
“Lovely.” said Jo, meaning it. When she and Richard had gone to New York the previous summer, they’d stayed with one of his friends in a small apartment in Queens, an apartment with dodgy airconditioning at that.
“By the way, thanks for putting me wise to Emma,” Mark added.
“I really had no idea what she was up to. I suppose I’m the doting uncle who sees her through rose-coloured glasses.
She was always a handful as a child, so I don’t know why I thought she’d change that much when she grew up. But she really is a good kid. She just needs to mature a bit, that’s all.”
“I understand,” answered Jo automatically.
“Do you have any plans for lunch?” he asked.
“I’ll be away all week so I won’t have a chance to talk to you about the trip.
If you’re not doing anything, we could go to Dobbin’s.”
“I’d love to have lunch,” she said truthfully. Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb and anyway, she was starved.
Dobbin’s was a fantastic place for lunch even if it was too expensive for her purse. Mark Denton could certainly afford it.
She stood up and smiled at him.
“I’ve just got to finish an article and make a few phone calls,” she said. She didn’t want him to think she’d drop her responsibilities like a shot at the mention of a free lunch.
“Fine. We’ll go at half twelve.”
Back at her desk, Jo returned to the article she was writing on autumn’s essential fashion buys and the ten wardrobe staples every woman needed. She flicked through an album of pictures from the top designers’ autumn winter collections” and chewed the top of her pen. She hated following fashion blindly, telling ordinary women with ordinary curves that over-the-top Seventies stripes or snakeskin jeans were going to look as good on them as they did on skinny little Kate Moss.
Jo’s idea of fashion was the sort of outfit which suited each individual wearer.
“Tailored black trousers are a must-have,” she wrote, as she had for
the past three years. “I’m glad to know I’m in fashion,” said Rhona, peering over Jo’s shoulder at her VDU.
“Are elasticated waists allowed?” she asked, smoothing down her black tailored trousers.
“Of course replied Jo.
“Where did you get those trousers?”
she demanded. The way my waist is going, I need elasticated ones myself.”
“Welcome to the club,” said Rhona.
“All you need is a belt to hide the elastic bit and you can breathe in comfort. Tell me,” she asked innocently, ‘what did Mark want to talk to you about all on your own io
Jo looked up suspiciously but Rhona’s expression was serious.
“We’re going to lunch to discuss the trip,” she said, knowing she sounded defensive and wondering why.
“Oh.” Rhona said. “That’s nice. Don’t forget to come back to the office afterwards, will you? No sloping off for indiscreet drinkies in O’Dwyer’s and ending up in Joy’s nightclub at four in the morning.”
“Rhona!” Jo was scandalised and shocked.
“Are you mad?”
Realising she was almost shouting, she whispered, “Just because we manage to talk for the first time without coming to blows, doesn’t mean we’re engaged you know. For God’s sake Rhona, I know I’m single, I’m not desperate!”
“You don’t have to be desperate to fancy Mark,” Rhona answered mildly.
“Just because you’re blind to his charms doesn’t mean that lots of other women wouldn’t rip out your contact lenses to be in your place, Jo.”
“Well, I’m not one of them,” hissed Jo.
“For a start, I won’t be drinking and there’s as much chance of him fancying me as there is of you winning the 3.30 at Leopardstown!”
“Fine,” grinned Rhona.
“I’ll expect you back at two with a doggy bag and a bottle containing the two glasses of wine you couldn’t drink.” She waggled one finger at Jo.
“Don’t have fun, whatever else you do!”
At half twelve on the dot, Mark appeared beside Jo’s desk, briefcase in hand.
Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes.” replied Jo nonchalantly.
“See you later.” she called in to Rhona’s office on the way out.
Rhona’s response was a wicked wink.
Knowing that Mark was behind her and couldn’t see, Jo stuck her tongue out at Rhona. Fun with Mark Denton?
Honestly, all that Chardonnay and the French sun must have scrambled Rhona’s brain.
“Nice car she said as’ she settled herself into the low-slung passenger seat of the Porsche.
“It must cost a bomb to insure.”
“It does Mark answered wryly.
“But she’s worth it he added, patting the steering wheel lovingly.
Here we go, thought Jo, another man in love with his car.
She waited for the spiel ‘it goes from nought to sixty miles an hour in half a second and has triple cylinders and buckets of horse power …” Boring, boring, boring.
But he didn’t say anything like that.
“I always dreamed of having a car like this he said instead.
“My father loved cars but he never had the money to buy anything but old wrecks. I remember him bringing me to a car show once, and we spent hours looking at all these beautiful sports cars. He said he’d love to drive one of them, just once before he died.” He paused, concentrating on turning right down Fitzwilliam Place.
Jo sneaked a sideways glance at him, amazed at this sudden softening of the hard-as-nails image. For once, his jaw wasn’t as firmly set and he looked younger than his forty-three years, more approachable somehow.
“He died before I got my first business off the ground Mark explained, ‘so he never got the chance to ride in a sports car. When I bought my first BMW, I drove to the graveyard in it. It was as if I was showing him that I’d done what he’d always dreamed of doing. I suppose that sounds very sentimental to you, does it?” He turned to look at Jo.
She shook her head, still seeing a younger version of Mark standing beside his father’s grave with tears in his eyes.
“I understand completely she said finally.
“I never really knew my father. He died when I was four and I can’t
remember him at all. But I like to think he looks down on me sometimes. I’d like to think that he could see me and be glad that I’m doing well,” she said quietly.
“He has a lot to be proud of Mark said.
“You have done well.”
Jo flushed and then laughed to hide her embarrassment.
“I wouldn’t say that she started.
“Why wouldn’t you say that?” demanded Mark, braking at traffic lights and turning to look her straight in the face.
“Things aren’t always what they seem, Mark.” she explained hesitantly.
“We all look at other people, see that they have X, Y and Z and think, “They’re happy, they’ve got everything.”
But we don’t see the other side of things at all, the problems people hide.” She shrugged.
“If you put up a good enough facade, you can fool everyone. Even yourself Yeah, she’d managed to fool herself all right, fool herself that Richard cared for her.
The car purred to a halt outside Dobbin’s and Mark switched off the ignition.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“Not really Jo replied, amazed that this man could be intuitive enough to know that she was talking about her own problems.
“Let’s have lunch and talk about business.”
That’s fine by me he answered.
Seated in a booth up beside the wall, they stared at the menu silently. Everything sounded so beautiful, thought Jo hungrily. Tarragon vinaigrette, deep-fried brie on a red currant sauce … “I love the way they describe food she said to break the silence.
“You couldn’t imagine how it could taste any better than it sounds!”
He chuckled.
“That reminds me of an awful joke he said.
“Tell me she commanded.
“OK. This American guy goes into a restaurant in Ireland and says to the waitress that he wants a chicken smothered in gravy and she says, “If you want it killed in that cruel way, sir, you better do it
yourself!” I know, it’s a dreadful joke.” Jo broke out laughing and crumbs of the bread roll she’d just bitten into spewed out onto the table.
“Sorry.” she mumbled, her mouth still full. She swallowed and grinned over at him.
“That’s daft but it’s still funny. I used to love silly jokes like that, especially the elephant ones.”
“Elephant jokes?” he asked.
“Oh, they’re totally silly but I love them,” she said.
“Here’s one. Why do elephants paint the soles of their feet yellow? So they can hide upside down in bowls of custard.”
He laughed and said, “You’re right, that’s silly.”
Just then the waiter appeared.
“We better pick something to eat,” Mark said, serious again, ‘or we’ll never get back to the office.”
“I’ll have the avocado salad,” Jo said straight-faced, ‘and chicken smothered in gravy!”
Mark burst out laughing while the waiter stood there with a bemused expression on his face.
“Sorry.” Jo grinned up at the waiter.
“I’ll have the avocado salad, the monkfish and some water, not the sparkling stuff.”
She looked at Mark as he scanned the menu. He was a strange man and no mistake. He’d never been anything other than abrupt and businesslike with her during the three years she’d worked for him.
Today was startlingly different. He was still the boss, no doubt about that. If his dinner arrived with a single flaw, it would be dispatched back to the kitchen like a shot, she knew.
Yet it was as if he’d suddenly decided to open up to her, to let , the tough businessman facade drop a little. Wait until she told Rhona.
“I’ll have the brie and the monkfish,” Mark announced, ‘and a bottle of number 33.”
He hadn’t even looked at the wine list, Jo realised. He obviously visited Dobbin’s so often that he knew exactly what he wanted.
“I’m not drinking anything she said quickly before the waiter left.
“I’m sorry. I should have asked. Make that a glass of red wine, will you?” he asked the waiter.
Jo was waiting for him to ask why she didn’t want wine, but he didn’t. He leaned back in the wooden bench seat and smiled at her over the small vase of carnations, a warm smile that lit up his face. He was almost handsome when he smiled.
Maybe that was what made other women fancy him, his smile, something he rarely produced when he was in the office.
“So tell me, Ms Ryan, what spurred you on to become a journalist and a fashion journalist at that?”
She looked at him curiously.
“What’s brought this on?” she asked bluntly.
“I suppose I don’t know that much about you, other than what you’ve done for Style over the past three years, which has been excellent,” he added.
“And seeing as we’re going to be travelling together, I thought it would be nice to know each other a bit better.”
His face was serious as he spoke and she found herself noticing that his eyes were a beautiful cool grey colour. Jo was suddenly glad she had washed her hair that morning and worn her navy silk dress even though she’d felt so weak when she woke up that she’d felt like wearing her dressing-gown into the office. And was it her imagination, or was he gazing at her in a distinctly un-boss like way? Stop that, Jo, she reprimanded herself. He hasn’t been interested in you in three years, he’s hardly going to start now. There’s got to be some ulterior motive for this ‘tell me about yourself stuff.
“Don’t you have my CV in your files?” she asked smartly.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“But CVs are limited. They tell you when and where a person is born, what they got in Leaving Cert English and whether they like hang-gliding or knitting, all useless when it comes to getting to know someone.”
Amazing. He wanted to know about her. Maybe he was interested in her after all! How weird. Was she interested in him, she wondered? No, she couldn’t be. She was pregnant with another man’s child, a man who’d dumped her. She couldn’t possibly fancy any man.
“Fair enough, I’ll spill the beans, on one condition she said firmly.
“What’s that?” he grinned.
“You tell me the same about you.”
“I’m afraid I’m very boring, Jo.”
That doesn’t matter. You don’t talk, I don’t talk.” She smiled triumphantly at him.
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“I thought that’s why you were bringing me to New York with you she said cheekily.
“Of course, of course. For that, and because you understand the world of clothes. I’ve never been able to understand how they can make two yards of fabric into a dress and charge two grand for it he said.
“It’s a complete rip-off.”
“I’d keep that particular sentiment to yourself when we’re in New York.” Jo laughed, ‘or we’ll be going home empty handed.
The secret of understanding the fashion world is to tell all designers that they’re either the new Coco Chanel or the most innovative designer you’ve ever seen, not that they’re rip-off merchants!”
Their first courses arrived and Jo attacked her salad with gusto.
“No breakfast she explained between mouthfuls of avocado.
“Want some brie?” he said, holding out a piece on his fork, the sort of intimate gesture lovers make. She felt that ache in her chest
“No thanks she said, remembering all she’d read about avoiding soft cheeses during pregnancy for fear of Listeria She stared down into her plate, shuffling pieces of radicchio around in the oily dressing, terrified that the tears would start.
What the hell was she doing wondering whether Mark Denton fancied her or not when the man she’d loved had walked out on her?
If Mark noticed her sudden change of face, he didn’t mention it.
“Were you always interested in fashion?” he asked blandly. Fashion yes, she could talk about that for hours. Grabbing the life belt he’d thrown her, Jo started talking. She was still at it by the time Mark had paid the bill.
That was lovely, I really enjoyed it she said truthfully as they left the restaurant.
“I’m glad,” Mark said, opening the passenger door for her.
“Actually, I brought you out because I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Of course,” Jo replied. What would she do if he asked her out to dinner? Say yes? She’d have to say yes. Anyway, it would be fun. He was a very entertaining companion when he wanted to be.
He opened his door and slid into the driver’s seat.
“It’s Emma. After what you said to me when Rhona was away, I’ve been worrying about her. She really needs a firm hand and some guidance. I’d love it if you could take her under your wing, Jo.”
Jo felt herself deflate like a burst balloon. So that was what it was all about. He wasn’t even vaguely interested in her.
He’d simply been softening her up before asking her to look after his bloody niece. What a fool she’d been to even imagine that Mark Denton would be interested in someone like her.
You’re a complete moron, Jo Ryan.
“What would you like me to do?” she asked tersely.
Take her on like a student. Train her how to write, how to interview people, you know the sort of thing. If you agree, I’d be delighted and so would Emma.”
It wouldn’t kill me to be nice to the scheming little bitch, Jo decided. But she wasn’t going to take any cheek from her.
“I’ll take her on, Mark,” Jo said coolly.
“However, I want her to understand what I’m doing for her. She better be prepared to work hard and not whinge or run to you every five minutes if she wants my help.”
“I’ll talk to her,” he said quickly. Thanks, Jo, this means a lot to me.”
She sat in stony silence until the car stopped outside the office.
“I’ll see you at the airport at ten on Saturday morning, OK?”
he said.
“Right. Thanks for lunch,” she said quickly before slamming the car
“How did you get on?” Rhona asked eagerly when Jo stalked into her office.
“Bloody awful,” Jo snapped. That man drives me insane.”
“Oh.” Rhona looked pensive.
“Maybe he’ll grow on you when you’re away.”
“I doubt it. “