Authors: Sheila O'Flanagan
Read on for an exclusive preview of Sheila O’Flanagan’s sensational new novel,
Better Together
, available in hardback and ebook from 5
th
July 2012.
Sheridan Gray knew that the piece she had written, full of tragedy, drama and long-kept secrets, was one of the strongest she’d ever done. It was a compelling story and she’d got the balance just right. She’d been sympathetic where sympathy would be expected, and critical where it was important to criticise. It was everything she’d been asked for and more. It would change the lives of the people concerned for ever.
And it would change hers too. At least that was what she hoped. That was why she’d written it. To change everything. Back to the way it was before. Back to when she’d had everything she’d ever wanted.
Well, almost.
She stared unblinkingly at the computer. Was it ever possible to go back? And would she ever be able to forget the people about whom she’d just written? People who had become part of her life.
She had to. Because that was the only way to be a winner. She’d always wanted to be a winner, and with this story, she was.
The only problem, she realised, as she saved the document and closed her laptop, was that she didn’t know if the prize was worth it. Or even if it was the prize she truly wanted any more.
Sheridan was so engrossed in the newspaper report she was writing that she dismissed the notification about a new email in her inbox without even thinking. Her fingers continued to fly over the keyboard as she described the carnival atmosphere in Dublin the previous night, where an unprecedented crowd had turned up to watch the Brazil women’s national soccer team play a friendly match in the city. It had been a fun evening, full of colour and good humour, helped by the unexpectedly balmy weather which, as Sheridan now wrote, the Brazilian women had brought with them – along with their footballing skills, cheerful personalities and undoubted good looks. A large portion of the sizeable crowd had been teenage boys following the footballers’ every move, and every time the glamorous striker got the ball, the stadium had been illuminated by thousands of flashlights as they took yet another photo of her. After the match the ladies had posed for more photos on the pitch, much to the delight of the supporters.
From Sheridan’s point of view it had been a lovely assignment, in sharp contrast to the times when she was sent to the back of beyond to watch dour men’s matches in torrential rain. She wanted the readers of the
City Scope
– Dublin’s biggest newspaper – to absorb the atmosphere too and, she admitted to herself, she wanted to present women excelling in what was generally seen as a men’s sport in the most positive light she could.
So she was taking special care about the piece, making sure she got the balance exactly right. It wasn’t until Martyn Powell, the sports editor, pushed a pile of papers out of the way and sat on the edge of her desk that she glanced up from the screen in front of her.
‘Looks like D-Day.’ Martyn’s naturally long face was even gloomier than usual, his drooping moustache adding to his hangdog expression. ‘It’s from the top.’
Sheridan felt her heart beat faster as she opened the email, which was headed ‘The Future of the
City Scope
’, and scanned its contents.
Rumours about the paper where she’d worked for the past five years had been circulating for weeks. The staff had listened to every one of them and come up with some ideas of their own too, but nobody really knew what the fate of the thirty-year-old newspaper would be. Changes would have to be made, they all acknowledged that. The newspaper industry was in a precarious state and the
City Scope
had been haemorrhaging money over the past year. Everyone knew that something had to give sooner or later. The reporters had been gossiping for weeks. Now it looked like the time had come.
‘What d’you think?’ asked Martyn.
‘I haven’t a clue.’ Sheridan pulled her flame-red curls back from her face and secured them with a lurid green bobble, which she took from her desk drawer. ‘I suppose they can try some more cutbacks.’
The paper had introduced a raft of cost-cutting initiatives a few months earlier, most of which had irritated the journalists without delivering the required savings.
‘I hope it’s only cutbacks,’ said Martyn. ‘And not anything worse.’
‘Well yes. So do I.’ Sheridan tightened the bobble. ‘But we’re an institution, Marty, they have to come up with something.’
‘Huh. So far all they’ve come up with is reducing expenses. Ours, not theirs, of course.’
Sheridan grinned. Martyn was a man who liked to take full advantage of his expense account.
‘How’s the piece going?’ Martyn nodded at the open document on her computer screen.
‘Nearly finished.’ She glanced at it herself. ‘It was good fun and nice to see the ladies on the pitch for a change.’
‘There were some real crackers there all right.’ Martyn had been looking at the photos earlier.
‘Skilful athletes,’ Sheridan reminded him, and he nodded even though she knew he only paid lip service to women’s sporting abilities. ‘And not a diva among them.’
‘I wonder will we all still be here to report on the European Cup qualifiers?’ asked Martyn, who enjoyed talking football with the paper’s only female sports reporter.
‘I hope so.’ Sheridan looked worried. ‘Ireland has a great chance this time. I want to get the
Scope
totally behind the team.’
‘You’re supposed to be impartial.’
‘Get lost, Powell.’ She roared with laughter. ‘When was the
City Scope
ever impartial about football?’
Martyn’s smile still wasn’t enough to rid him of his gloomy expression, but the conversation had temporarily taken their minds off the contents of the email. Which had said that there would be a meeting of all staff in the boardroom at noon. Everyone was expected to attend.
The boardroom of the
City Scope
wasn’t really big enough to accommodate all of the newspaper’s staff, so they stood shoulder to shoulder in the limited space as they waited for the arrival of the management team. There was a buzz of chatter as people speculated on the news that Ernie Johnson, the managing director, might bring. But Sheridan wasn’t talking. She was considering all the possible outcomes and not liking any of them.
The worst, of course, was that the newspaper might close down. But that was utterly unthinkable. The
City Scope
, with its extensive sports coverage, had been in existence all of her life. Even before she’d joined the paper, reading it had been a major part of her week. When she’d finally landed a job there, she hadn’t quite been able to believe it. And it had turned out to be the best job in the world. Even though she’d originally studied journalism to get away from sport. Even though she’d wanted to carve a very different career for herself.
Sheridan Gray had grown up in a sports-mad family. Sitting down in front of
Match of the Day
,
Sportsnight
and
Grandstand
was practically mandatory in the Gray household (as had been the daily purchase of the
City Scope
, widely regarded as the paper with the most authoritative sports section in the country). Sheridan’s father and her two older brothers played both soccer and Gaelic football, and her mum was a PE teacher. But Sheridan wasn’t obsessed in the same way as her parents and her brothers, and (being perfectly honest about it, although she wouldn’t dream of saying so out loud) she disliked competing against other people. This was in contrast to everyone else in the family, who didn’t believe that it was the taking part and not the winning that counted; as far as they were concerned, winning was the most important thing of all.
Sheridan didn’t know why the competitive gene that ran so strongly through her parents and her brothers had passed her by, but the truth was that her favourite sporting activity was simply running by herself, not trying to beat anyone, not even the clock. She enjoyed jogging, which she found relaxing, and she needed relaxation because the Gray household, caught up as it always was with matches that the others were involved in, was rarely a relaxing place to be.
For most of her childhood it had been a given that she would spend weekends with her mother, Alice, on the sidelines of a pitch, wrapped up in a quilted anorak, warm gloves and knitted hat against the biting cold, while shouting encouragement at the men in her family. Afterwards there would be endless, sometimes heated, discussions about the match. The coach’s selections were analysed, as was the team’s performance, the opposition’s tactics and even the level of support that both teams received. Sheridan would listen to the conversation without taking part. As far as she was concerned she’d done her bit by screaming until her throat was sore.
Matt and Con, her brothers, were picked to play for the Dublin Gaelic football team when they were old enough, which was the pinnacle of success as far as everyone in the family was concerned. They threw a huge party the day the announcement was made and Alice (not normally known for her baking skills) produced an enormous rectangular cake, which she’d decorated to look like a football pitch. Plastic figures wearing green shirts were placed in each goal mouth to represent Matt and Con, while a referee in the middle took the place of their father, Pat.
It was unfortunate, Sheridan thought, that her brothers’ time with the Dublin team had also coincided with a slump in its fortunes, otherwise there would have been even bigger and better parties to celebrate more success. However, the Gray boys, as they were known, were always given high praise by the media for their unstinting efforts on behalf of their county, and indeed for their local club too, which regularly won the league, more often than not due to a spectacular shot from one or other of the boys.
It was when these reports (always from the
City Scope
) were being solemnly read out that Sheridan felt both proud of and yet disconnected from the rest of her family. She couldn’t understand why being beaten totally devastated Matt and Con, and left them stomping around the house, slamming doors and impossible to talk to. Both Alice and Pat seemed to think that this was perfectly normal behaviour, but Sheridan asked herself why on earth they didn’t just get over it. She was used to hearing people say ‘it’s only a game’, but as far as the Grays were concerned, it seemed to be so much more than that.
As she grew older, she became impatient with their obsessions. She wished that she lived in a house where she didn’t fall over football boots as soon as she walked in the door, and wasn’t greeted by a forest of drying sports shirts in the kitchen every day. She longed to have discussions on hair and make-up from time to time (something she knew woefully little about) instead of listening to constant arguments about disallowed penalties and professional fouls. But there was nobody to have these discussions with. Alice wasn’t the sort of person who devoted much time to hair and beauty. She was a tall, trim woman who kept her greying hair short and whose main beauty product was an industrial-sized jar of Pond’s moisturiser which she kept on the bathroom shelf, between the cans of Lynx and tubs of Brylcreem. And the truth was that Sheridan couldn’t categorise herself as the kind of girl who knew a lot about beauty either. Despite her weekly jogs, she didn’t have the lean, wiry build of a runner. She was as sturdy as her brothers, broad shouldered and statuesque rather than thin and elegant, and infinitely more comfortable in jeans and jumpers than dresses and high heels. From time to time she went on a blitz of fashion shopping with some of her friends, but more often than not the micro miniskirts or tight boots that had seemed like a good idea at the time ended up unworn in the back of her wardrobe, a testament to the fact that her thighs were the body feature she disliked the most.