Mother of the Bride (23 page)

‘Not yet. I'll wait till Amy wakes up and see what she feels like.'

As she sipped her drink Helen agreed with Fran that a big take-away pizza with all the trimmings was exactly what they all needed.

Amy stared blankly at the computer screen, barely able to work. She couldn't concentrate or even think about what she was meant to be doing. She was sitting at her desk, but her mind was a hundred miles away.

She had stayed out of work for four days. Any longer and she would have needed to get a doctor's certificate to say she was sick. Somehow, with her parents' and Jess's help, she had managed to pull herself together enough to get into the office and look presentable.

‘I look awful,' she had grimaced, studying herself in the mirror.

‘You are meant to have been off sick,' Jess had reminded her before she left for St Brigid's. ‘No one is expecting you to report back into the office glowing with health and looking good.'

The past few days had been a total blur of being at home at her parents', and then at Jess's, and Amy felt like she really had been hit by some awful illness that had absolutely floored her and left her barely able to stand or talk or function like a normal person.

‘Just thank your lucky stars that you don't have to face twenty-seven curious eight-year-olds trying to prise information out of you about why you were sick, and asking you if you had chicken-pox or worms!' Jess said.

Daniel had texted her, saying ‘
THINKING ABOUT YOU
'.

‘
ME TOO!
' Amy had answered, but there had been no more communication. She longed to phone him or email him but her pride just about stopped her. If Daniel wanted to talk to her he knew where she was!

She'd gone into work slightly early, as she couldn't face the thought of crowded rush-hour buses, and had slipped behind her desk, then checked the raft of company emails that awaited her. She put the photo of Daniel in a pair of Hawaiian-print shorts and with a cheeky grin on his face, taken in Dingle last summer, into her drawer alongside two copies of
Beautiful
Bride
that she had been reading. She watched from the corner of her eye as her boss Norah arrived into her office and got on the phone straight away. Hopefully she would manage to keep off Norah's radar until lunchtime at least.

Amy took out the Gordon's file and began to go through it. They were a family of a father and three sons who ran a chain of busy garden centres in the suburbs, and had come to Solutions with the idea of trying a coordinated marketing campaign to attract more customers and tell them about the landscaping services they offered. Fintan Gordon was a nice man, and he'd insisted on giving Amy a beautiful potted magnolia tree the first time he'd come to the office for a meeting. It had pride of place on Dan's balcony and was just about to come into bud.

Amy looked at some of the design work that Jilly had done on the campaign, and really liked it. She herself still had to work out the costing on various avenues of the promotion, which included advertising banners on the back of local buses. What a triumph it would be, too, to get a piece on the family business in the
Sunday Times
! And a lovely double-page spread about the firm in the new
The Gardener
magazine – if they took out an ad on the back page. It would be money well spent as far as she was concerned. She'd noticed that her dad had a copy of the magazine, and had spotted one
in the hairdresser's and the dentist's in the past few weeks. It had a perfectly targeted circulation! She rang a few places to get rates, and was busy writing up her proposal when Norah came down to the desk with her usual mug of black coffee in her hand.

‘Good to have you back, Amy.'

‘Thanks.' Amy glanced up from what she was doing.

‘You're still looking a bit peaky.'

‘I still feel it,' Amy said slowly.

‘Hope that boyfriend of yours is taking good care of you.'

Amy didn't trust herself to speak and just nodded dumbly.

Norah hesitated for a second as Amy stared fixedly down at her keyboard, wishing that her boss would disappear.

‘Everything OK?' Norah said.

‘I'm fine.' Amy smiled, trying to avoid Norah's scrutiny.

She breathed a huge sigh of relief when Norah passed along and turned her eagle-eyed attention on Gary Cole, the new guy who had come to work with them last year. He was getting a lot of the crappy jobs, but everyone had to start at the bottom, that's how it worked. As Norah pulled a chair up at his desk poor Gary's pimply skin flushed a deep red.

At lunchtime Amy left early and escaped to Grafton Street, moping about on her own in Marks & Spencer's and BT's and grabbing a quick sandwich and a smoothie. The afternoon was spent going over the figures on the Chippos crunchy corn snack campaign with Jackie from their accounts section, and sending replies to about six new potential customers telling them about the services that Solutions offered.

‘Hey, won't be long till your wedding,' teased Jackie, who had got married last year in Clare. ‘Where are you two lovebirds off to on honeymoon?'

‘Not sure yet, but I expect it will involve surfing and snorkelling,' Amy fibbed, feeling herself redden as much as Gary had. She
printed out another sheet of figures quickly to distract Jackie from asking any more questions.

She was wrapping things up on the predicted spend on the Chippo's snack account when Norah called her into her office.

‘I just want a word, Amy.'

What the hell did her boss want?

‘I couldn't help noticing you weren't yourself today, Amy,' said Norah, gesturing to the seat across from her big oak desk. ‘Is everything all right?'

Amy swallowed hard. ‘I'm fine,' she lied. ‘Just a bit tired after being sick, that's all.'

‘Are you sure that is all it is?' asked Norah kindly, coming over to sit near her, perching on the corner of her desk in her classic black shift dress and black opaque tights.

Damn her boss's perceptiveness! Nothing could get by her.

‘I noticed that the picture of your fiancé seemed to have disappeared from your desk.'

‘My fiancé Daniel?'

‘Yes. He's a pretty cool guy, judging by that photo of yours. Besides, I didn't spot you up on any wedding or honeymoon websites even once today.'

Amy sighed. The woman really did have eyes in the back of her head. Jackie and Nadia were right: she must have cameras hidden all over the place.

‘Is everything OK between the two of you?'

Amy heard a sob, and realized suddenly that it had escaped from her mouth. Was she mad, letting her guard down in front of Madame Perfect, her boss Norah Fortune?

Norah, the forty-year-old head of Solutions marketing, with her immaculately styled shoulder-length blonde hair, manicured nails, and round face with piercing blue eyes, was staring at her inquisitively.

‘No, actually, it's not,' Amy admitted, her voice breaking. ‘We've split up. Daniel doesn't want to get married.'

‘Oh, Amy,' said Norah softly. ‘I'm sorry. How awful for both of you!'

‘Yes,' said Amy glumly. ‘AWFUL!'

‘I remember when I broke up with my fiancé, I thought that I would die and that nothing would ever go right again in my life,' confessed Norah. ‘It was about four weeks before my wedding, and there was uproar in the family about George and me splitting up and everything having to be cancelled.'

Amy was confused. What was Norah talking about? She was married to a composer called George, a gentle bald-headed man with glasses who was said to have written the music for a big American airline advertising campaign that had netted them enough money to buy a massive house out in Dalkey. They had eight-year-old twins called Charley and Henry who'd been born with the help of IVF. Norah made no secret about it.

‘But you're married to George!' Amy said, incredulous.

‘Now I am, but after we broke up I went out with other men. First of all there was a disastrous two years when I was involved with a charming French lawyer called Marc, who slept with every legal apprentice who crossed his desk; and then I had an ill-advised fling with a client. Then, luckily, fate intervened and George and I met up again, when we weren't so scared and stupid and both knew what we wanted. I adore that man, and he is a wonderful father.'

Amy sighed heavily.

‘I guess what I am trying to say,' explained Norah, ‘is that you should believe in fate! That in the end we marry the people we love and, if we are lucky, get to spend the rest of our lives loving them. Wait and see what happens. It's called LIFE! You and your Daniel are both so young.'

All the way home on the bus Amy thought about her
conversation with Norah. She didn't want to be like Norah, and wait years, and waste half her life, with only a slight chance that she and Daniel would ever find each other again. She wanted Daniel now!

Helen didn't know what possessed her, but she phoned Carmel Quinn again and asked if they could meet for coffee. Carmel immediately suggested The Shelbourne Hotel.

‘I have an appointment in town on Wednesday, so that would suit me best.'

Helen didn't know what she would say to Dan's mother, but she knew that something had to be done. She had never seen Amy so unhappy. Amy had moved temporarily to Jess's house and was back at work, but, as Ciara so aptly put it, she was like a robot going through the motions. She knew that Paddy had phoned Eddie, and that both fathers had been equally puzzled about what was going on between their offspring and had commiserated with each other.

Carmel was sitting on a couch near the window in the hotel's magnificent lounge overlooking St Stephen's Green, elegant as ever in a cream jacket and tan-coloured trousers.

‘It's lovely to see you,' she said, as Helen joined her and ordered a pot of tea.

Helen sat down beside her, unsure of how to start.

‘How is Amy?' asked Carmel.

Helen would love to have lied and said Amy was fine and had a wonderful new boyfriend, but she was brutally honest instead.

‘Miserable.'

‘Dan's the same,' Carmel said slowly. ‘He tries to pretend that he's fine, but it's obvious he really misses Amy. Eddie and I are baffled as to what this is all about, and believe me, Helen, we are highly embarrassed at our son's behaviour.'

‘Has he said anything to you?'

‘Obviously there was some big row about a surf weekend, but Eddie says that there was more to it than that. Dan wouldn't say much to me, but he does talk to his father. Eddie's close to the boys.'

‘Amy blames herself,' Helen said calmly. ‘She says that she was too caught up in planning and organizing the wedding and all the arrangements, and drove Dan away.'

‘For heaven's sake, a girl has to organize a wedding and make arrangements!' Carmel sighed with exasperation. ‘Dan should have thanked heaven he had a girlfriend who
could
organize things. What kind of wife would she be if she couldn't? Honestly, men haven't a clue.'

Helen was surprised that Carmel was not just taking her son's side.

‘I don't know what is going on with my boys,' Carmel ruminated. ‘Rob was going out for years with Hannah, a nice girl but clearly not the right person for him, and the two of them finally decided to break up. Then there's Dan, getting cold feet about marrying Amy – and Dylan, who seems to have a string of unsuitable girlfriends. The boys don't talk to me very much, and I try not to interfere in their lives, they are young men after all, but this situation is unfortunate, to say the least.'

‘The past few weeks have been a nightmare,' Helen confided. ‘But at least we've cancelled everything. Sent the wedding gifts back, and told everyone.'

‘It must be awful,' Carmel commiserated with her. ‘I myself
found it so embarrassing telling our friends and family. And it's so humiliating.'

‘Anyway, it's all done now, and I guess we just have to get over it!' said Helen sadly. ‘Paddy and I were always very fond of Dan; we still are. Amy is young, and she will just have to get on with her life, even if it is without him.'

‘Helen, I wish I could say that I could do something to change things, but unfortunately I cannot,' said Carmel firmly. ‘We cannot interfere where Dan is concerned; he is thirty-three, after all. Eddie and I have a policy not to intrude in our sons' lives. There is nothing worse than a man who constantly seeks the approval of his parents!'

‘Of course not.'

‘Amy might think that Eddie and I had some hand in this, but I promise you we had nothing to do with it. Both of us think that Amy and Dan were very suited and we were looking forward to having her as a daughter-in-law.'

Helen could sense regret in Carmel's voice, along with an unwillingness to say any more about the situation.

Awkwardly, they finished their tea and made some small talk before Helen paid the bill.

‘Please give Amy my regards,' said Carmel, as she took up her handbag and left.

Helen considered staying on in town and doing a bit of shopping, but she was in no mood for looking at clothes or shoes, and instead decided to call over to see her mother.

Sheila was a big worry at the moment. Last week she had taken the DART train to Malahide for no apparent reason, using her oldage pass. Her mother didn't know a soul in Malahide, and luckily a Good Samaritan called Alice Scanlon had noticed her sitting on a bench down near the marina in the spitting rain and gone over to check if she was OK. Sheila hadn't been able to remember where she
lived, and had been persuaded by Alice to go to her house for a cup of tea while she tried to discover who to contact.

Alice had found Helen's name and phone number under ‘next of kin' on the donor card in Sheila's handbag and had phoned her.