The Better Woman (33 page)

Brian regarded her from under his bushy eyebrows. He looked as if he had begun to contemplate her arguments.

‘Paula,' he shouted to his secretary, who was sitting outside at her desk.

‘Yes?'

‘Can you book a table at Franco's?'

‘How many?'

‘Two.'

Jodi stared at him incredulously. So that was the end of it? Rachel and Eileen were to lose their jobs without any further discussion?

Brian leaned forward in his seat. His puffy lips parted to bare yellowed teeth. Jodi hadn't seen him smile before. If possible, it made him even less attractive.

‘Let's talk about it over lunch,' he said in a voice that was low for him.

‘Pardon?'

‘You and me. Lunch.' The smile had transformed into a leer. ‘Franco's is one of the best places in town,' he declared as if she should be honoured. ‘Mondays are quiet there – we'll have some privacy, time to get to know each other a little better, eh?'

His leer widened, taking over his whole face. His intentions were quite unmistakeable and nothing to with Rachel and Eileen's jobs. Shock froze Jodi to the spot.

Brian heaved his fat little body up from his chair. He straightened his tie and squeezed his arms into his suit jacket. Coming around from the desk, he noticed an untied lace and stooped to fix it.

‘I'm busy,' Jodi mumbled.

‘What?' He straightened, his face red from the rush of blood, thinking perhaps he had misheard.

‘I'm too busy to take lunch today,' she said, her words hurrying out.

Abruptly, she swung on her heel and practically ran from his office. Paula, the secretary, didn't even look up as she passed. Maybe she was used to women hurrying out. How many cosy lunches for two had she booked at Franco's before today?

Jodi flew down the corridor and, coming out at the foyer to see she had just missed a lift, decided to take the stairs. Down she went, flight after flight, her heels clicking on the bare grey concrete. She was trembling, her hands, her knees, her insides, everywhere. Why had she not seen it before? How like Bob he was? The fat face, the bullying ways, and now the misdirected desire?

What is wrong with me? Why do men like that think I'm an easy touch?

She had no answers. She walked around the surrounding
streets and tried to calm down enough to look at the situation objectively. She went back over everything in her head. Was it possible she had mistaken Brian's intentions?

No. He said Franco's was private and we could ‘get to know each other'. He mentioned nothing more about Rachel and Eileen. And I know the look he had on his face.

The next most pertinent question was why hadn't she stood up to him? Let him know in no uncertain terms that she wasn't up for any hanky-panky or whatever else he had in mind?

Because I was petrified. So scared I couldn't think straight. All I could see was Bob in front of me.

Jodi heard a horn beep furiously and realised she had unwittingly crossed a side street without looking for oncoming traffic. She raised an apologetic hand to the driver and hurried along to the safety of the footpath on the other side.

Her thoughts reverted back to the problem at hand. Could she go back to the office and act as though everything was okay? Could she fool herself that Brian didn't look like Bob and history wasn't about to repeat itself?

I have a job that I love, a fabulous car and shares in the company. I'll be damned if Brian Hughes is going to scare me away from Invesco!

Jodi returned to the office and got on with her work.

The following day she received another invitation for lunch. The email read:
Paula can get us into Franco's at 1 pm. Please confirm
.

She typed a response.

Sorry, Brian. I should have explained that I don't go to lunches or dinners with the boss. I had a bad experience in the past. I know that you wouldn't take advantage, but I'd prefer for all our dealings to be here in the office. Thanks for your understanding.

Her lips twitched as she pressed SEND. Brian might be frighteningly like Bob, but she wasn't at all like the old Jodi. She'd come a long, long way.

Dublin, 1997

Sarah strode into her office and put her briefcase on her desk. She'd inherited the office from Eric who had retired two years ago. Perched on the mezzanine level, it had glass walls on three sides. She could see everything that was going on down on the trading floor, and everyone could see what was going on in her fishbowl: her visitors, her moods, her every move. It was the one thing she didn't like about being chief dealer.

She unwound a cashmere scarf from her neck, unbuttoned her heavy winter coat and hung both items in the closet behind her desk. Sitting down, she took a moment to savour the sweet silence. The phone hadn't started to ring and there was nobody waiting at her door for a word of advice. Not yet, anyway. Give it ten minutes and there'd be the usual bedlam.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled over three seconds, held it for three and then slowly exhaled. She'd read about the breathing technique in a magazine last year and found it very effective,
particularly at night when she needed to wind down from a manic day in the office.

After a few minutes of deep breathing, she turned on her computer. While it was loading up, she read the pink telephone-message slips that had been left on her desk. They were mostly trivial matters that could have been dealt with by any one of her staff. However, it was a frustrating fact of life that the richest clients wanted to deal only with the boss. If those clients were a little less self-important and a little more flexible, Sarah would not have to work twelve-hour days.

She had just started to read her emails when her secretary, Linda, popped her head around the door.

‘The usual?' she enquired.

‘Yes, please.'

A black coffee was exactly what Sarah needed to warm up on this chilly December morning where gardens, rooftops and windscreens had been coated with a sparkling layer of frost, leaving the city as pretty as a picture, until the sparkle melted away and revealed the greyness beneath.

Sarah quickly scanned through the messages in her inbox. They were all flagged urgent, but then what wasn't urgent in a business where the market could drop five per cent in as many seconds? Every message had to be read and resolved, or delegated. Quickly.

Sarah had a recurring nightmare in which she couldn't get to the end of her inbox. She'd read a message but five more would replace it. While she read the next, the new ones multiplied to twenty. She'd wake in a sweat, realise it was just a nightmare, but fail to go back to sleep because it was so damn close to the truth.

A new message highlighted on her screen.

Tim Brennan.

The sight of Tim's name always brought a funny feeling, a twinge. She saw him very rarely these days. They would meet up whenever she visited EquiBank's New York headquarters. They'd go for dinner or a drink. Catch up on what was happening in their respective lives and careers. Give each other a chaste kiss goodbye till next time. Walk away with a nagging sense of regret. Or at least Sarah did. She couldn't tell if Tim felt the same.

She clicked on the message to open it.

Hi Sarah, hope all's well with you. Big news here. I'm moving back to Ireland to take over the running of the farm. Obviously, I've resigned from EquiBank. Will give you a call when I get back.

Tim

Sarah's mouth dropped open as she read the message. Tim had resigned! He sounded so blasé about it. As if it was no big deal to go from being a vice-president to a farmer. As if it was an everyday thing to trade in a penthouse in Manhattan for an old farmhouse in Cork. Sarah had last seen him at his father's funeral in March. He had been shocked and sad, but had given no indication of stepping into his father's shoes.

Sarah hardly noticed that Linda was back with her coffee. Her secretary cleared her throat and began to run through Sarah's commitments for the day.

‘You have a management meeting at nine . . . Lunch is at Gardenia's . . . I've allowed thirty minutes' travel time . . .'

Linda was under the false impression that Sarah was incapable of remembering what was scheduled for the day. Each meeting or lunch or dinner entailed such meticulous preparation that
Sarah was very unlikely to forget. But she kept mum; she quite liked Linda telling her what she already knew. It was the only constant of her day.

‘You have back-to-back meetings for the entire afternoon, then you're meeting Eric MacDonald for dinner – 8 pm sharp. I've allowed fifteen minutes' travel time.'

Sarah's phone began to ring. She answered it and Linda, who had finished her recital, closed the door softly on her way out. The bedlam had begun.

Twelve hours later, Sarah finished her last phone call of the day and began to shut down her computer. She had a clanging headache and was in no mood for the dinner ahead. She briefly considered cancelling but dismissed the idea almost straight away. She couldn't let Eric down like that. The dinner was in honour of his sixty-eighth birthday. All the family would be there and her presence would be missed.

There were still people at their desks when Sarah walked through the floor on her way out. She saluted them as she passed but didn't feel guilty. She had done her time in the trenches, where working till 10 pm was quite the norm. If you didn't like it or couldn't stand the pace, then a career in investment banking wasn't for you. Simple.

A cruel wind lifted wisps of her hair as she scanned the street for a taxi. She stared to her right, where the flow of traffic was heaviest, and willed a taxi to come around the corner. Nothing! She wished she hadn't left her car at home. She was going to be late. Very late. The knot of tension in her chest tightened another notch. Cursing under her breath, she started to walk.

‘Ah, we thought you'd got lost,' Eric called to her when she finally arrived at the restaurant, forty minutes late.

‘Sorry.' She came round the large circular table to kiss his cheek. ‘There must be a taxi strike that I don't know of – didn't see one the whole way in. I'm glad you didn't wait to order.'

Patsy stood up to give her a hug. ‘God, girl, you're skin and bones.' She looked down at Sarah's high-heeled shoes. ‘Not exactly walking shoes, are they?'

Sarah grimaced, her feet aching. ‘Tell me about it.'

Laura, who was busy trying to coax spoonfuls of food past two-year-old Jessica's pursed lips, said hello, as did Mark, who was dabbing up something that looked liked spilt juice. Jessica stretched her lips to smile at Sarah but was crafty enough not to leave enough space for her mother to get the spoon through.

Laura and Mark's second child, a tiny four-week-old baby girl called Lucy, was asleep in her pram. Sarah peeked in and allowed the baby's fingers to curl around hers. She always felt a little sad around Laura and Mark's babies. It had been the same when Nuala's kids were young, but they were five and three now, no longer babies, and Sarah found it easier.

‘Sit down,' instructed Eric and patted the seat next to him. ‘Have a glass of wine. I'll ask the waiter to bring out some starters for you.'

Would my baby have been this tiny? Would it have had this much hair? Would it have been a girl or a boy?

Sarah extracted her finger from the baby's clasp. ‘I'll just wait for the main course – won't say no to the wine, though.'

She sat next to Eric and slipped off her shoes. The carpet felt lush under the burning soles of her feet.

‘You look tired,' he said accusingly as he poured the wine.

‘Well, you should know better than anyone how busy I am,' she replied.

‘Being tired and uptight are not necessarily part and parcel of being busy,' he retorted.

It sounded like the birthday boy had a bee in his bonnet.

‘Excuse me!' She regarded him with mock outrage. ‘I am
not
uptight.'

‘Yes, you are,' Patsy chimed in. ‘You look like the slightest thing would push you over the edge.'

Sarah looked from wife to husband bemusedly. ‘What's this? Some kind of
flog Sarah
convention? And I thought I was coming to a birthday party!'

Her quip didn't get as much as a smile from either of them.

‘You need to find a way to wind down, Sarah,' Eric told her in a deadly serious voice. ‘I used to relax by playing a few rounds of golf. You need to do something too – yoga, pilates, whatever's necessary – otherwise the stress will kill you.'

Sarah glanced across the table to see that Laura and Mark, even Jessica, were listening intently.

‘Oh, stop ganging up on me, would you?' she said crossly and took a gulp of wine.

Later, when it was time to go home, it became apparent that it wasn't her day for taxis. Having no luck outside the restaurant, Sarah set off down the street. A car slowed and beeped. Mark's head stuck out the passenger window.

‘Are you sure you'll be okay?'

The sedan was full to capacity, Eric and Patsy squashed in the back with the two children.

‘Yeah,' Sarah waved him on, ‘I'm grand. Goodnight.'

She walked on to a taxi rank that had a formidable queue. She sighed at the thought of a long wait. She'd be lucky to get home before midnight at this rate. If only it wasn't such a busy day tomorrow.

Feeling herself growing panicky at the thought of not having enough sleep, she started to do her breathing exercises. One, two, three, in. Hold. One, two, three, out.

Her turn came round quite quickly in the end.

The taxi driver was one of the ones who liked the sound of his own voice.

‘Had a good night out, luv?'

‘Work early tomorrow?'