Surely there was a risk of some chemical reaction between all these different products? She must have applied dozens of different chemicals in the past hour, between shampoo, deodorant, skin moisturiser, perfume and now all these hair products. What if one last addition - a bit of mouthspray, for example was the missing part of the jigsaw, the final chemical formula that set off a reaction among all the other products? Boom, up she’d go in a sensational fireball. She’d read about cases of unexplained spontaneous combustion. That would give Lainey a surprise - if she came home and found just a tiny pile of ashes in her spare room, surrounded by empty cans of hair care products. Eva waited a moment after she had applied the hairspray. Everything seemed to be quiet. No wisps of smoke coming off her hair. Next she found the box of silk flowers Lainey had mentioned. She tried a large yellow one. No, she looked like she was on her way to a Hawaiian luau. A little blue one, perhaps. No, it looked like an insect had landed on her head. Then a medium-sized pink and white one. She pinned it just above her right ear. It looked quite nice, she thought. Jaunty. So, to jewellery. She didn’t own much but she had chosen very carefully, from young designers in Dublin. She chose her favourite heavy silver pendant, more a piece of art than a piece of jewellery, and hung it round her neck. That looked good against the
black dress, she thought. Elegant. Striking even. Maybe she’d buy a little black dress for herself when she got back to Dublin. Now, just the stockings and she was done. She heard a rustle behind her. It was Rex, claws out, kneading holes into her new pair of stockings.
Fifteen minutes later, Eva smoothed her dress over her thighs as she settled in to Greg’s car. She hoped the high colour in her cheeks had disappeared. How embarrassing. Greg must have heard her roaring at Rex. He’d been outside knocking at the door, it seemed, while she had been shouting and chasing the kitten around the flat, threatening to strangle him with the stockings he had just destroyed. Rex had thoroughly enjoyed the chase, even daring to take another nip at the stockings. Eva had eventually heard the knocking and had answered it, bare-legged, her head poking around the door. Greg had been standing there dressed in a formal suit, his hair sleek with some gel or cream. ‘Greg, hello. How on earth did you get in?’ She’d been expecting him to ring on the entry phone. Greg seemed taken aback at her question. ‘Hello, Niamh. Your neighbour downstairs let me in. He knows me.’ ‘Oh, good. Uhm, are you early or am I late?’
‘Actually, I’m right on time.’
‘Right,’ Eva said, smiling slightly hysterically.
Greg moved forward as if to come in and wait for her in the apartment. She nearly slammed the door in his face. There was no way he could come in, the place was like a tip. ‘I’ll meet you down in the car, will I? Won’t be a moment, I promise.’
Upending her suitcase again and then doing the same thing to Lainey’s drawers, she eventually found another pair of stockings and hurriedly pulled them on. Shoes, bag, lipstick, perfume. She was out of the door five minutes later.
‘Bye, Rex,’ she’d called. ‘Be good. And don’t wait up.’
‘I MANAGED to get a booking at The Loft,’ Greg said to her as he pulled out from the kerb. ‘Is that a nice place?’ ‘It’s the in place in Melbourne at the moment.’ He seemed disappointed that he needed to spell it out. ‘Some people wait weeks to get a booking.’ The inference was, some people but not me, because I Am Very Important in this city. It was certainly impressive, Eva thought a little later as they were shown to their table. The height of luxury. Gliding waiters. Handwritten menus. Very well-groomed customers. She didn’t think she’d be getting many ideas for Ambrosia here. Greg was a considerate host, very courteous, though he did seem to be throwing back the glasses of wine faster than might have been wise, Eva thought. Perhaps the drink-driving laws weren’t as strict in Australia as they were in Ireland.
Midway into the second bottle of wine, he started to get a bit misty-eyed. ‘Niamh Kennedy,’ he said, gazing at her. ‘Such a beautiful name. It suits you too. You and your dark Celtic hair, your creamy Celtic skin …’
Uh oh, she thought. What next? Her white Celtic teeth?
‘So Greg, tell me about your cafes,’ she said hurriedly. ‘All about them.’ And stop staring at my Celtic bosom, she thought.
Greg was perfectly happy to stop talking about Eva’s body parts if he could talk about himself instead. For the next fifteen minutes she heard in great detail about every stage of the establishment of Four Quarters. She had just started to drift off a little when she realised something. Perhaps this was an ideal opportunity to learn how cafes were run. Was she being sneaky? she wondered guiltily as he explained how he and his chefs had decided on the menus. No, Dublin was hardly the competition, surely.
‘You’ll have to come down and have another look at Four Quarters.’ Greg was practically purring under all the attention. ‘I could show you around.’
‘Actually, Greg, that would be fantastic,’ she said honestly.
Then he surprised her. ‘Don’t tell me. You’re looking for some ideas for your work, aren’t you?’
She went pale and red, in quick succession. ‘For
my work?’ Had he guessed? Had Lainey told him about the delicatessen? ‘Yes, for your sculpting. You’re looking for inspiration of some kind, aren’t you? Lainey said you were hoping to do some work here.’ She smiled in relief. ‘Uhm, yes, that’s exactly it. I’m thinking about producing a new series of urban work,’ she improvised quickly. ‘Moving on from the inspiration of the outdoors and the Irish landscape into a different sort of city sensibility. And what better place to get close to the heartbeat of a city than in an inner-city cafe?’ She could hardly believe she’d just said all of that. Her years at art school hadn’t been wasted after all. Greg lapped it up. ‘Especially one of the most popular cafes in town. Niamh, you can spend as much time there as you like. I’ll let my manager know you’re coming down, she’ll look after you. We can set you up in one of the quarters and you can just watch and listen and get all the inspiration you need. Who knows, maybe I might even commission you to do a sculpture specially for me?’ ‘Oh. That would be good,’ she said, her smile getting a little forced. Perhaps he’d settle for a quick sketch of the building? ‘I’ll be down there myself a fair bit next week. Sorting out a few staffing problems. People just don’t want to work hard these days, if you ask me. They walk out after a few days, can’t stick it.’
‘Really? Isn’t that terrible.’
‘It is. We always seem to be looking for staff.’
‘Really?’ she said again. Her mind was racing suddenly. How would she find staff for her cafe, she wondered? Advertise? Ask around among her friends? Perhaps she could talk to his manager and some of his staff too. Just see how they managed the day-to-day running, the staffing, the ordering, everything. Maybe when she got back to Dublin she could enrol in a business course somewhere, to really top up her knowledge. She almost wanted to ring Ambrose then and there and blurt out all her ideas.
Across the table, Greg was looking at his watch. ‘We’d better go, if you don’t mind skipping dessert. It’s a bit of a drive to the party yet. And I said we’d be there around nine-thirty.’
She noticed a slur in his voice. ‘Are you sure you’re okay to drive?’
‘Fine, fine. Now, this is on me, okay? Don’t even think about taking out your purse.’ He pulled out a slimline calculator from his wallet and checked the sums. Twice. He seemed satisfied. ‘I’ll leave the tip too,’ he said magnanimously, as if he had just left a hundred-dollar bill. Eva glanced at it. It was less than five dollars.
He noticed her expression. ‘I think it’s important to be careful with your money, Niamh. You might not realise that, being of an artistic nature, but I
learnt the lesson very early on in life and it’s got me where I am today.’ Eva smiled wanly. She’d just realised she was out for the night with Mr Scrooge.
Joseph was lying on his hotel bed reading when the phone rang. The taxi for Warner Street, Brighton, was downstairs. ‘I’ll be right there, thanks.’ He grabbed his coat and threw it on over his black jeans and the latest of George’s Tshirts, this one advertising some new London club. Aaron had said caj, so caj it was. He should bring something to drink, he thought. Some beer or wine. Maybe the taxi could stop at an off licence on the way. Then he remembered he’d bought a couple of bottles of Australian wine in Sydney to take back as a present for Rosemary. One of those would do for now, he’d replace it later. What would he put it in? The zip-off daypack from his backpack - perfect. It was only when they were in Brighton and the driver asked him which number Warner Street that Joseph realised he’d left the address back at the hotel. He asked the driver to go up and down the long street while they both tried to spot a party house. He’d expected lots of lights, loud music, people spilling out into the warm night air. But there wasn’t a sound.
‘You sure this is the right street, mate?’ the driver asked. ‘I think so. Can we just do another circuit, please?’ ‘Your money, mate. I’ll drive up and down all night if you want.’ After the second loop Joseph decided to get out and investigate on foot. Maybe he’d be better able to hear any party sounds that way. Or even see someone else going into a party house. He’d do one loop on foot, and if he couldn’t find it he’d just catch a taxi back to his hotel. He’d noticed a rank around the corner, so that wouldn’t be a drama. He passed a fifty-dollar bill to the driver as payment. ‘Keep the change,’ he said. ‘That’s a big tip, mate,’ the driver said in amazement. ‘You sure?’ ‘Sure,’ Joseph said, climbing out. ‘Mad bloody tourists,’ the driver thought as he took off.
God knows what sort of party this was, Joseph thought, walking down one side of the street and still hearing nothing. Perhaps it was a slumber party and they were asleep already? A car pulled up down the road and several people got out. Joseph watched as they crossed the road and went into a house. The door opened briefly and he
heard a faint sound of music. That had to be it. He walked up and knocked on the front door.
‘Hi, I’m Joseph, a friend of a friend of Aaron’s,’ he started to explain.
The woman who opened the door just smiled and gestured for him to come in, continuing to talk on the mobile phone clenched under her chin.
Moments after Joseph closed the front door behind him, another taxi pulled up a hundred metres down the street. A man and a woman, both dressed in jeans and Tshirts, climbed out and walked up the front path of a red-brick house six houses down.
The woman wasn’t happy. ‘We’re not staying long, Aaron, okay? You know I don’t like these friends of yours. And I don’t feel like meeting this Pommie friend of Dave’s either.’
‘I know, I know,’ the man drawled. ‘You told me. We’ll just stay an hour, all right? And don’t worry about Dave’s friend. He probably won’t even turn up.’
The FUNKY opening notes of James Brown’s classic ‘Sex Machine’ blasted around the room.
Eva bit back a smile as she watched Greg gyrate around the makeshift dancefloor, enthusiastically wriggling his behind. Lainey had said he was a tight arse. In more ways than one, it seemed. But who’d have thought he would be able to do such a fantastic James Brown impersonation? He was just hilarious, Eva thought, laughing out loud. He obviously did have a good sense of humour after all. She hadn’t been too sure. But look at him, he was a natural comedian.
As she kept watching, the song changed. But Greg’s James Brown dancing style didn’t. Eva slowly realised that Greg’s dancing wasn’t an impersonation. It was just his dancing. A kind of energetic combination of groin thrusts and hip swivels, with an occasional double-handed ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just shaking out the mat’ movement. She’d never
seen anything quite like it. From the looks on some of the other partygoers’ faces, neither had they. There were more than a few sidelong glances at Greg. More than a few open smiles.
She began to feel a bit embarrassed for him. Her date for the evening had turned into the party sideshow. And her daydream of a holiday romance with a nice Australian man was dissolving before her eyes. God, meeting someone was such a minefield, she thought. Such a series of obstacle courses, a series of judgements. On looks. Personality. Conversation. Behaviour.
It was like crossing a rope bridge, she decided. One tiny slip either way and you were over the edge, out of the race. She felt awful thinking it, but Greg’s dancing was sending him very close to the edge of the bridge. It was a shame, Eva thought. He’d been quite nice at dinner. Well, until he’d started all the Celtic hair and Celtic skin carry-on. And started to drink too much. And did that business with the bill.
As for his behaviour in the car - he’d driven through a red light, cursed other drivers, and only slowed down after she’d practically shouted at him. She’d almost had to go into battle to get him to stop at a bottle shop so she could buy some champagne for the party.
‘There’ll be plenty of drink there,’ he’d said, looking across at her in amazement. ‘Don’t waste your money.’
But Eva had insisted. She didn’t want to turn up empty-handed. Greg roared into a drive-through bottle shop, keeping the car running noisily while she hurriedly chose a bottle of Australian champagne and paid for it, wincing at the noises coming out of Greg’s car behind her. Afterwards, she’d sunk down into her seat, praying they wouldn’t crash, sitting up only when they stopped near the party house. Things hadn’t improved when they came inside the large, stylishly decorated house, filled with beautifully dressed, confident young Melburnians. Eva had felt immediately self-conscious, very out of place. She felt like she was in a drawing from her childhood. ‘Our artist has cleverly hidden an ordinary person in this room full of supermodels. Can you find her?’ Greg had started parading her around the room, reeling off her fake life story, trying to impress his friends with the company he was keeping. ‘Do you know she actually lives and works in a caravan in Galway?’ she heard him say. ‘She sang on Enya’s latest album. Bono from U2 has one of her sculptures in his garden.’ A couple of his friends had pointedly looked her up and down as if they were disappointed with her simple black dress. What had they been expecting her to wear? she wondered. A floaty green dress and an Aran sweater? A harp slung over her shoulder? What had Lainey started that night? And what could she do to fix things now? Follow Greg around