Tales From a Hen Weekend (28 page)

‘Right. OK.’ I’m blustering now, completely at a loss. ‘Right, well, thank you anyway. We’ll be back if… well, when we… if we manage to…’

‘Let’s go, Kate,’ says Emily flatly. ‘This isn’t going to happen. We’ll have to take Jude home on the train. We’ll have to carry her leg between us.’

I’m glad to get back out into the street, to be honest. I can feel that woman’s eyes following me out of the door.

‘How did we
not
think of that?’ complains Emily. ‘Are we stupid, or what? Of
course
we can’t hire a car without our driving licences.’

‘Well, we’ve had one or two things on our minds. Christ, what a pain. Well, I’d better warn Jude that there’s a slight change of plan. I wonder what the trains are like, here.’

We lean against the wall while I take out my phone and find the number in my address book.

‘Whoops!’ I laugh, cutting off the dialling quickly and starting over. ‘Nearly did it again!’

‘Did what again?’

‘The wrong number. Harry’s. You know, it’s under
Irish
, next to Jude. How embarrassing that would have been. I’d better take it out of my contacts.’ I pause, look at Emily for a minute, then add thoughtfully: ‘Although, on the other hand…’

‘No. Whatever you’re thinking, I don’t like the look of it in your eyes. No, Katie!’

‘Well, it’s worth a try, isn’t it? He can only say no.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I still say no!’

But the number’s already dialling. Like I say, I don’t like shilly-shallying around if I’ve made my mind up to something.

‘Harry?’

‘Hello. Who’s this?’

‘It’s Katie. From the hen party?’

‘Katie!’ His voice sounds warm and pleased. It’s just the tonic I need. ‘How lovely to hear from you again! Are you back home now?’

‘No. Actually, Harry, a couple of us have stayed in Ireland. We’ve got to take our friend home to County Cork – Kinsale. She’s broken her ankle, and …’

‘Poor girl! Did you say Kinsale? That’s only a little way from where I’m going to stay with my cousin. How are you getting down there, Katie?’

‘Well. We
were
trying to hire a car, but we’ve… come up against a bit of a problem. So it looks like we’ll be carrying Jude onto the train.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just about to leave. Where are you? I’ll pick you up.’

‘Well, I don’t like to put you out. I mean, it’s three of us, and one’s got her leg in plaster. We have to pick her up from the hospital. Are you sure you don’t mind? We’ll… um… we’ll pay for the petrol. And buy you a drink, or two.’

‘I’m liking the sound of this more and more!’ he laughs. ‘Honestly, Katie, it’ll be good to have your company. I’m in no hurry, I’d just planned to take a slow drive down there. Didn’t I say to call me if you needed anything?’

Yes, although I seem to remember that was in connection with a striptease. I feel hot at the thought of this, and decide maybe I shouldn’t mention it.

‘It’s really nice of you. Why don’t we walk round to your hotel to meet you?’

Emily’s giving me a very old-fashioned look when I end the call. But what the hell? I’ve got us a lift, haven’t I? Can’t say fairer than that.

Harry’s driving a bright blue Corsa with a sunroof. It doesn’t really go with the image I’ve been building up of him in my mind. It’s too girly. Of course, you don’t get a lot of choice with a hire car (and we got no choice at all, as it happens); then again, do I really know anything about this guy? The looks Emily’s still giving me as we get into the car and head for the hospital to pick up Jude are very clearly conveying that I might just as well have asked for a lift from a serial rapist, for all the sense I’ve displayed and all I know about him.

‘I’ll go and fetch Jude,’ says Emily as soon as we pull up in the hospital car park. ‘You can wait here.’

I’m trying to avoid looking at him. I’m conscious of the fact that I wasn’t too bothered about knowing him when we snogged each other half senseless on Saturday night.

‘Well, now,’ he says, leaning back in the driver’s seat and opening the window to let in some fresh air. ‘Harry James Cornwell. I was born on the fourth of January 1973. I’m a Capricorn. I live in London: Tower Hamlets – I share a flat with a guy called Adam and his girlfriend Ruth. I work in the Human Resources department of an IT company in Wapping. I’ve got two younger brothers and I’d like a dog one day. A spaniel. I play rugby for a company team on Sunday mornings and I go to the gym twice a week. I don’t smoke but I probably drink more than I should do. I like fish and chips and Chinese food but I can’t eat curry – it gives me heartburn. What?’

I’m holding up my hand, laughing and shaking my head.

‘OK, OK! Fair enough! I know you, now! I know more about you than I know about some of my own family!’

I suddenly stop laughing as I say this. How bloody true
that’s
turned out to be, this weekend.

‘Are you OK?’ he asks me quietly.

‘Yes. But it’s been a bit of a strange weekend. Everyone’s found out things about each other. I’ve even found out things about myself. It’s all been quite shocking.’

‘I see what you mean about shocks!’ he says, looking concerned. ‘And your friend’s had a rough time, too, by the look of it,’ he adds, nodding out of the window as Emily comes into view, helping Jude across the car park on her crutches.

‘It’s been more upsetting for everyone else than it has for me, really. I was a bit of a bitch, keeping it quiet, but I wanted us all to enjoy the weekend away. Can we keep off the subject, do you think?’

‘Don’t worry. I’m discretion itself. I won’t mention the W-word.’

Emily opens the back door of the car, but Harry jumps out and rushes round to the back, holding the door open and helping Jude onto the seat before putting her case in the boot. She slides across and sits against the other door, with her legs stretched out. Emily squeezes in carefully next to her and lifts her plastered leg onto her lap.

‘Thanks,’ Jude says. ‘This is very kind of you, Harry. I’d never have managed on the train. I feel such an eejit, putting everyone to all this trouble.’ She leans forward and grabs my hand. ‘Hello, Katie. Sure and it’s good of you and Emily to stay over and take me home, so it is. I can’t begin to say what great friends you are, and all.’

‘It’s nothing,’ I tell her. ‘We’re glad to have an extra couple of days in Ireland, aren’t we, Em?’

Emily nods, looking at Harry with slightly less hostility. I wonder if she’s realised now how much difficulty we’d have had getting Jude home on the train. I know she’s only little, but we’d have had a job lifting her on and off, as well as her case and her crutches and our own luggage.

‘All set?’ says Harry, starting up the car. ‘Next stop Kinsale, then.’ He puts the new U2 CD into the player and starts to hum along with it as we head out through the Dublin streets.

‘Good taste in music,’ acknowledges Emily slightly grudgingly. I look in the mirror and catch her studying the back of Harry’s head, and smile to myself. She likes him really. How long before she admits it?

Sorry to say it, what with Jude having a broken ankle and everything, but I’m enjoying this. Sitting in the car next to Harry, watching his hands on the steering wheel, listening to him singing along to U2: ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own’. He glances at me from time to time, gives me a little smile as if to say: think about the words. The words are all about not thinking you’re tough, not having to do it alone. Now that he knows about the wedding being cancelled, I think he’s trying to be extra nice to me without making it too obvious. I realise I don’t know him very well but I can tell he’s that kind of guy – thoughtful, caring. I suppose I’m feeling a bit vulnerable. To be quite honest I’d like nothing better than to feel someone’s strong arms around me right now – someone who’ll look after me and tell me not to worry, everything’s going to be all right. I feel safe sitting here next to Harry in his car. Safe and surprisingly happy.

It’s a beautiful day. Once we get out of Dublin and onto the motorway heading south, it’s all countryside. It’s easy to see why it’s called the Emerald Isle. The sun’s quite hot through the car windows. I struggle out of my jacket and pull up the sleeves of my jumper. Harry watches me out of the corner of his eye. I think he fancies me. I’ve thought that all along, actually. He fancies me, and of course, I fancy him too. But I mustn’t dwell on that. It’s one thing to have a drunken snog at the end of the evening in a nightclub. Quite another thing to fancy a snog when you’re stone cold sober and sitting next to someone in his car.

‘I’m sorry we can’t take turns with the driving,’ I say, to take my mind off wanting to snog him. ‘How stupid were we, leaving our driving licences at home!’

‘That’s OK,’ he says, laughing. ‘I like driving. But if you’re not used to it, driving in Ireland can be a bit of a shock to the system. For one thing, the Irish are lousy drivers.’

‘Hey!’ pipes up Jude. ‘That is
not
fair!’

‘Well, OK. Let’s put it this way, then: all the lousiest drivers in the world are Irish.’

‘There’s a reason for it, so there is,’ says Jude defensively. ‘You see, some years back there was a desperate backlog of learner drivers waiting to take their tests. There was no way they were ever going to catch up with themselves, so the government decided to give licences to everyone that was waiting, without them having to taking a test.’ She stops and looks at us, triumphantly. ‘See?’

‘Well I’m Irish by adoption, aren’t I, so? I feel like England’s a foreign country when I go over there now, everything’s speeded up ten times faster there than when I was a kid.’

‘That’s true. It’s manic, working in London,’ says Emily.

‘The pace of life at home is horrendous,’ agrees Harry. ‘That’s one of the reasons I enjoy coming to Ireland. Dublin’s much more cosmopolitan these days, of course, but outside of Dublin, everything is slower and gentler, somehow.’

‘Apart from the drivers, apparently!’ I laugh, as a maniac in an old Beetle swerves across the lanes in front of us, making Harry brake and curse.

‘Exactly. They’re complete nutters! And the other thing is, the road signs are so unreliable! I was driving along the West Cork Coastal Route last year, and the nearer I got to where I was heading, the further away the signs were telling me I was. I thought I was going mad, or driving in the wrong direction. I actually stopped the car at one point, got out and walked up to the signpost to make sure I was reading it right. I even got hold of the post and shook it, to see if the wind had turned it round the wrong way.’

‘Sure there’d be some signs in miles and some in kilometres, that’s all. Did you not think of that?’ demands Jude.

‘Well, yes, I did, eventually, but it still didn’t account for all the distances getting steadily greater. I felt like I’d driven round in circles by the time I’d finished.’

‘You probably had,’ she retorts. ‘You were maybe driving the Ring of Kerry and no one had bothered telling you!’

We’re all laughing now, even Emily. I glance back at her and she smiles at me. She looks more relaxed. Maybe she’s beginning to realise Harry’s being a very good friend to us, doing us all a very great favour, rather than a dangerous stranger or potential rapist.

As I say, of course I do fancy him like mad. But I’m trying to put that out of my mind. I’ll be going home to Matt in a couple of days’ time. Home to try and sort out the rest of our lives, and to start planning our family.

It was after eleven this morning when we finally left Dublin and at about half past one Harry suggests we make a stop for lunch.

There’s a rousing chorus to the effect that not only is everyone hungry, they can’t remember when their last good meal was and their stomachs feel like their throats have been cut. Must be the fresh country air, even if it is only through an open inch of the window.

We stop at a place called Urlingford.

‘Almost half way,’ pronounces Jude as Harry parks the car. ‘Everybody always thinks of Urlingford as the halfway place between Dublin and Cork.’

‘Never mind all that,’ says Emily impatiently. ‘Is there a toilet anywhere? I’m desperate for a wee.’

She’s out of the car, hopping from foot to foot with a very anxious look in her eyes.

‘There’s a pub just across the car park there,’ says Jude, pointing it out as she shuffles herself across the back seat. ‘Where are my crutches?’