The Heart Whisperer (26 page)

‘There is one other thing you need to know,' Helen said to Claire. ‘He likes to fix things. It's kind of a compulsion.'

‘I think that's pretty nice,' Claire smiled, ‘as compulsions go.'

‘Good for you,' Jean said. ‘It is nice.'

‘Speaking of fixing things,' Richard's father said, ‘the motor mower's on the blink, Rich. We've been waiting for you to come down to sort it.'

Other people's families had always been a mystery to Claire. The rough and tumble and noise of them, the way they squabbled and made up. The mantelpieces of framed photographs – holidays and graduations and twenty-firsts. She had always felt as if she was on the outside, looking in. But around the crowded table, she felt included, part of a real family, one that couldn't have been more different from her own.

Meals at home, even when Nick was still there, had been silent. Her dad would have one earphone in his ear and his small radio tucked into his pocket. Nick would read a book. After he had gone to the States, Claire and her dad would eat in front of the TV. There had been love at home, but it had gone underground when her mother died and it had never found its way back up to the surface.

After lunch, Richard, his father and Andreas went outside with a box of tools and Dog sloped out after them, keeping a respectful distance.

‘Call Sky News!' Aine gasped. ‘Richard is playing with a dog. He hates dogs.'

‘He doesn't,' his mother said. ‘He hates germs.'

Aine started laughing. ‘Remember Dutch?'

‘Dutch was our sheepdog when we were growing up,' Helen said. ‘Richard would only touch him when he was wearing Marigolds.'

‘She means when Richard was wearing Marigolds,' Helen clarified. ‘Not the dog.'

They stood at the window, watching Richard throwing a frisbee which Dog dutifully retrieved.

‘Well, that's it.' Helen opened another bottle of wine. ‘I'm buying a hat because he must be seriously into Claire, to do that.'

Mossy wouldn't start. Claire turned the engine over and over until she smelled it flooding. Richard tried to jump-start it then called the AA.

‘Why don't you stay the night? We have plenty of room,' Jean said when they were all back in the living room with the fire lit.

‘I've got to fly to Glasgow in the morning,' Richard said.

‘You could drive up first thing?' Jean said. ‘With the girls.'

They all looked at Claire. She couldn't face the whole thing about who was going to sleep where. It was only a second date. ‘I've got an audition in the morning.'

‘That sounds so glamorous.' Aine sighed.

‘It isn't.'

‘Do you do any of those radio ads?' Helen asked. ‘Terms and conditions apply. Prices may rise as well as fall.'

‘No. But I'm planning to do a demo tape and sent it around some advertising agencies.'

‘I'll get the guy who records our radio ads to handle all that for you,' Richard said.

‘Watch this space!' Aine waved her glass.

‘
Listen
to this space,' Helen groaned. ‘Told you she was a fruit loop,' she mouthed at Claire.

‘You told her
what?
' Aine snorted. And they were off again.

One minute Claire was sitting in the overheated tow-truck cab, listening to Richard and Ronan, the driver, talking about battery posts and starter switches, and the next, Richard was shaking her gently and they were pulling over at the top of her laneway.

Ronan lowered the ramp and let Dog out of Mossy. He hadn't been allowed to travel in the tow-truck. He climbed down stiffly and gave Richard a wounded look. Claire put the key in the lock and it turned with a silky ‘click'.

‘I'll get Ronan to drop me home then leave the car with my mechanic,' Richard said. ‘When I get back from Scotland, I'll get it sorted.' He kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘You were a big hit today. They all loved you.'

She smiled; the afternoon had left her with a hazy glow of warmth. She had loved them too.

Kelly tugged at the zipper of the cream sequinned dress but it was stuck fast. She caught her breath and looked at her reflection. She was half in and half out of the dress, her dark hair caught up in a ponytail. She put her hand on her belly. Was it slightly swollen? She opened the velvet curtain and called over an assistant. ‘I need the next size.'

‘That one's perfect on you!' the girl said. ‘I can help you get the zip up.'

‘No!' Kelly insisted. ‘Get me the ten.' Her phone rang.

‘Did you catch the show?'

‘I missed it.' Did Nick seriously think she had time to sit around watching TV? She'd had to cram two meetings into the morning so she had time to come to Dundrum to find something to wear for his awards dinner.

‘I had a lot of feedback from the two conflict pieces so I did a slot on the three things couples most row about. Money, sex and in-laws. Oonagh came up with a name: “the good, the bad and the ugly”. Pretty smart, eh?'

‘I guess.' Kelly sat down on the stool; she was beginning to get very tired of hearing about how smart Oonagh was.

‘What time are we meeting tonight?'

‘Tonight?' Kelly had to go and check on an extension in Ranelagh later. It would be dusty and the builders would be diffi-cult. She'd been looking forward to going home and getting into a hot bath.

‘It's our date night, remember?'

‘Are you sure?'

‘You put it in my diary after you cancelled the last one.'

With a sinking heart, she realised he was right. ‘Why don't you book something,' she snapped. It wouldn't kill him to organise it for once. She did it every month.

‘Sure.' He sounded hurt. ‘There's a French film festival at the IFI.'

Subtitles. Kelly felt like sliding down on to the floor at the very thought of them. There was a rough edge on Kelly's thumbnail where she'd caught it on the zip. She pressed it against her cheek. ‘Text me the time and I'll meet you at the cinema.'

‘Perfect!' he said too cheerfully. ‘We can have supper afterwards.'

Then he'd want to make love, Kelly thought, after she'd hung up. And she didn't want to. She knew it was stupid, the kind of thing a teenager thought, but she was afraid that if she was pregnant, sex might somehow mess it up.

Nick leaned back in his leather chair and stared at the wallpaper on his iPhone. It was a photograph of Kelly taken back in May. She was in the garden in a tiny brown flower-print sundress and a wide-brimmed straw hat with a blue ribbon.

Kelly had a special camera smile, a way of turning slightly to the side and looking over her shoulder, that she thought made her look pretty, but she was laughing in this shot and when she was happy, she didn't just look pretty, she looked beautiful.

He knew how much she was hoping that the Clomid would work. But he was hoping just as much that it wouldn't. She had rushed him into this without giving him a chance to share his feelings. He wasn't even sure that he could share them. How could he explain what it had been like struggling to bring Claire up, on his own? Nick remembered a photograph of his sister that he put up on his locker in his dorm at college. She was about ten. When he looked at it, he didn't see the sweet red-haired girl with the shy smile, he saw the gap that should have been fixed between her top front teeth. The way her navy school jumper was worn at the elbows. The pinkish tinge that all her shirts had because he kept forgetting to separate the colours from the whites.

He stared back down at the photograph of Kelly. He missed the
laughing girl in the garden. He would have given anything to sit next to her in the cinema and hold her hand in the dark.

Ash was already waiting outside the Stephen's Green Centre when Ray got out of the cab. She was wearing a belted black coat and high black boots, her roots had grown out and her eyes were puffy.

‘Thanks,' she said.

‘Any time,' Ray said, automatically, then wished he hadn't. He didn't mind helping her out this once but he didn't want it to become a regular thing.

‘Hi,' he said to Willow.

‘Hello.' She stared gloomily down at her tiny blue All Stars. She was obviously looking forward to this as much as he was.

However, Ray had done his homework this time and found a new vegan-friendly restaurant called the Happy Cow. He and Willow queued on the stairs in silence, and by the time they were seated at a table, he was starting to feel exhausted. He pointed at her rabbit backpack. ‘Have you got David Bowie in there?'

‘Bowie was dirty.' Willow was tearing little bits off the paper place mat. ‘Granny wanted to wash him so I brought my Sylvanian family instead.'

Ray opened the menu and stared at it, but the print was too small to read. He had put off getting glasses for years on the grounds that they'd ruin his rock ‘n' roll image but unless he wrote another ‘Asia Sky', he thought grimly, he wouldn't have to worry about that any more.

A cute Australian waitress in black shorts and a T-shirt that said ‘Meat is Murder' came to take their order. She beamed at Willow. ‘What are you going to have, missy?' Willow asked for a vegetarian stir fry and an orange juice. ‘What about your dad?'

‘He's not my real dad,' Willow said. ‘He's bi-logical.'

‘Right!' The waitress looked at Ray. She was smiling now but there was pity in her eyes.

‘Do you have any meat?' Ray asked. ‘At all?'

‘No.' She pointed at the logo on her apron. ‘If we had meat the cow wouldn't be happy, would he?'

‘Cows were female, last time I looked,' Ray said. He pointed at something on the bottom of the menu. ‘I'll have that.'

‘Are you sure?' The waitress's smile turned into a smirk.

‘Yes,' Ray snapped. ‘I'm positive.' Her smirk turned into a grin and then into a laugh. He glared at her. ‘Is there a problem with that?'

She shook her head helplessly. ‘So that's one vegetarian stir fry and one Function Room: Available for Private Parties. How would you like that done, sir?'

Ray sighed. ‘Just bring me whatever she's having.'

‘Do you really look at cows?' Willow asked when the waitress was gone.

‘It's just an expression.' Ray sneezed. He wondered if he was coming down with something after the drenching he'd had on the fire escape.

‘Bless you!' Willow said.

‘Thank you.'

‘It's just an expression.' Willow shrugged off her backpack and began to unpack some tiny rabbit figurines.

‘More rabbits.' Ray blew his nose.

‘Sylvanian rabbits. They're called the Babblebrooks,' Willow said. ‘They have five children.' She lined them up on the table. ‘Richard, Judy, Bubba, Breezy and baby Coral.'

It was going to be a long lunch.

Willow ate slowly, very slowly, chewing everything carefully and taking lots of breaks to fill Ray in on the complex family dynamics of Sylvanian families. There were Buttercups, Blackberries, Dappledawns and Cottontails. And that was just rabbits. Other animals were involved. Penguins, hedgehogs, ponies. Ray lost count.

‘The Barkers are my second favourites. They're dogs but I left them in my house in London,' Willow looked sadly at a piece of tofu, ‘with Maurice.' She said it the French way, Moreece.

‘What's Maurice? A badger? A skunk? A duck-billed platypus?'

‘He's Mummy's boyfriend.'

Ray pictured a weedy Belgian hipster with complicated facial hair. ‘And what does this Maurice do?'

‘He's a singer in a band called In Your Dreams.'

A bean sprout went down the wrong way. ‘Maurice DeVeau?' Ray spluttered.

Willow nodded.

Maurice DeVeau was a legend. He'd been on the cover of
Rolling Stone
twice. Ray tried to cough up the sprout but it was stuck. He grabbed his glass and drained his orange juice.

Willow put down her fork. ‘Your eyes are very sticky outy.'

He nodded and coughed again.

‘Do you want me to do the Heineken manoeuvre?'

‘The,' he spluttered, ‘what?'

‘It's where you stand behind someone, and—'

Ray laughed so hard that the bean sprout shot out and landed by Willow's bowl.

She looked at it for a moment. ‘You're supposed to chew it seven times before you swallow it.'

‘I was a singer in a band, too, you know,' Ray said, when he caught his breath.

‘I saw a picture,' Willow was arranging the Babblebrooks around the bean sprout, ‘in your toilet.'

‘We were called Smoke Covered Horses. Claire had come up with the name of the band by mistake. She always got the lyrics of songs wrong. She'd thought that one of the lines in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was “the girl with colitis goes by”.'

‘I don't understand.' Willow frowned. ‘Why are the horses covered in smoke? Are they on fire?'

‘There's this song called “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple, who are, by the way, a seminal rock band.'

‘What's seminal?'

‘Never mind. I played the song for my friend Claire and she thought it sounded like “Smoke Covered Horses”.'

Willow shook her head. ‘But it doesn't.'

‘It does if you hear the song. It's like,' Ray picked a pea off his plate and began to sing, ‘all we are saying, is give peas a chance.' Willow stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. He pointed
at his rice and drummed a reggae beat on the table with his cutlery. ‘Get up, stand up, stand up for your rice!'

‘But I'm sitting down.'

Ray racked his brains for one she'd get. ‘OK. When I was your age, we had this hymn at school called “Gladly, the Cross I'd Bear”. But I thought it was a song about a bear named Gladly—'

Willow nodded. ‘With crossed eyes.'

‘Yes. But it's about Jesus's cross.'

‘Why is Jesus cross with a bear?'