Woman to Woman (11 page)

Jo stared silently at her friend, knowing that there was no quick solution to this problem. She opened the glove compartment, found a pack of travel tissues and handed Aisling one to replace the soggy, twisted one which was crumbling in her hands.”

Just moments ago, she had felt like someone living a glorious dream life of motherhood, with a fairytale wedding and contented family life just waiting in the wings. Now she felt about a hundred years old and very weary. Aisling and Michael had always epitomised the perfect couple to her:

what hope was there if they couldn’t make it?

It wasn’t as if Jo hadn’t witnessed enough relationship and marriage breakups already. She knew plenty of people who’d fought tooth and nail over every stick of furniture in their soon-to-be-sold house and automatically hissed ‘that bitch’ or ‘what a bastard’ when anyone mentioned their ex-partners’ names.

She’d learned to be careful when she bumped into people she hadn’t seen for a while you just never knew what a simple question like “How’s Gerry?” could provoke.

“Burning in Hell, I hope!” snarled one bitter friend the previous Christmas, when Jo had innocently inquired after the other woman’s once-adored husband.

She knew it was silly, but she’d always had this rose coloured view of the Morans’ marriage. Maybe it was because she’d been so close to

Aisling all those years ago and so thrilled when she’d fallen in love with Michael, but Jo really believed that they were perfect for one another. How blind had she been? A perfect house, two lovely children, a wife delighted to play housekeeper-cum-nanny and a handsome husband didn’t necessarily make an ideal marriage.

“I have to go home, Jo.” Aisling straightened up. The boys are with the babysitter and I must go home to them, honestly.” She smiled briefly, the professional-mother smile dusted off and brought down from the attic for an emergency.

“You go on, I’ll be fine.”

“I can’t leave you like this.” Jo was horrified.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ash …”

“You’re here to go to the party. They expect you.” Aisling shrugged, checking her blotchy face in the mirror.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She managed a grim smile.

“I’m sorry, Jo. I shouldn’t have told you this, it’s not your problem.”

“Of course, it’s … well, OK, it’s not my problem,” Jo stammered, ‘but you’re my friend, Ash, and you shouldn’t be on your own tonight. I just have to see Richard for a moment…” She broke off, desperate to tell Richard her news and knowing that Aisling wouldn’t want to wait there a moment longer. There’s something I have to tell him.”

“Don’t worry,” replied Aisling brusquely.

“I’ll ring Fiona when I get home. She’ll come in.” Aisling opened the car door and got out with Jo following her.

God, this was awful, Jo thought in distress. What was she going to do? Damn Richard for not picking her up earlier.

She’d have told him about the baby by now and she could’ve driven Aisling home, instead of having to leave her in this condition. What the hell was she to do?

Aisling made the decision for her.

Thank you, Jo.” Aisling reached over and took Jo’s hand.

“I’ll phone you tomorrow. You go on in.”

“Don’t go … Ash,” begged Jo.

“Hang on for a couple of minutes, please. I can’t let you drive home

on your own in this state.” “I’m fine Aisling insisted.

“Fiona will be at home this evening. She wants me to ring her as soon as I get in.”

“You can’t drive like this protested Jo.

“I’m fine, really. I’ll be home in half an hour.”

“You promise you’ll ring Fiona?” Jo demanded, feeling torn.

“Yes. I promise, I promise on my granny’s life.” The corner of Aisling’s mouth lifted into a slight smile at the words, an old joke shared by two flat mates many years ago. Aisling had always hated her grandmother with a vengeance.

But how was the landlord supposed to know that when the demure insurance clerk from the basement flat innocently promised not to have any parties, “On my granny’s life.”

Then Aisling was gone, hurrying towards her car before Jo had a chance to stop her. She watched Aisling drive slowly out the front gate with misgivings, praying that she’d get home safely, hoping she would have the sense to ring her neighbour for help. Mind you, what could anyone do?

Suddenly she didn’t feel like going to a party after all. Poor Aisling, she thought, and what about Phillip and Paul? They were too young to deal with their parents splitting up. How could a couple of ten-year-olds understand the notion of separation or divorce? Jo’s hand slipped to rest on her stomach. I’ll never let anyone hurt you, my darling, she murmured. Nobody will hurt you.

She walked slowly towards the entrance, the jaunty spring in her step gone. When she pushed open the heavy newsroom doors, she was greeted with cries of hello as her ex-colleagues waved celebratory bottles of beer and glasses. The usual suspects were out in force, she noticed, making her way expertly through the throng, waving hello here, shaking hands there, without stopping at all. It was a trick she’d learned early in her journalistic career and was very useful for avoiding people you couldn’t stand or people who’d talk all night once they’d started.

Jo skirted the groups of merrymakers, smiling and waving to all corners. She needed a party like she needed a hole in the head but

there was no escaping this one. Half an hour with Janice would undoubtedly cheer her up.

Janice O’Brien was talking nineteen to the dozen as per usual at a makeshift bar at the back of the newsroom. Janice and her companions appeared to be testing different types of lager and seeing who could tell the difference between Smirnoff, Stolichnaya and Absolut.

Jo knew better. With someone else paying the bar bill, the News team could pile up empty bottles faster than women queuing to see the Chippendales. Ridiculously large numbers of bottles were already empty, lined up against the wall awaiting disposal.

“Where have you been, sexy?” Nick Cullen slid an arm around her and planted a hot, beery kiss on her cheek. Tall, muscular and able to hold his beer better than any barrel, Nick was a brilliant reporter and a dreadful flirt, always keen , to bring the female reporters off to the pub.

“You can’t be pissed already,” Jo asked as she pushed him away.

“In an act of selflessness,” Brian Reddin interrupted, ‘we started earlier on our own so we wouldn’t drink this bar dry.”

“Thank God you’ve come!” said Janice gratefully, pulling her friend over to lean against a photocopier.

“This pair of lushes have been keeping me prisoner here, making me get them drinks all evening.”

“All that exercise must be great training for the marathon, then,” Jo commented.

“I still can’t believe you’re drunk already,” she added, poking Nick in the chest.

“Is Richard coming tonight?” Janice inquired, reaching back to the bar as she poured a stiff gin and tonic for her friend.

“Yes. I thought he’d be here already but I couldn’t see his”, car said Jo, scanning the room for a sight of her boyfriend’s short blond

“He’s supposed to be working tonight and didn’t have time to pick me up before he got here, so where in the hell could he be? Unless he was in earlier and decided to wait until the party was really going. Did he?”

she looked at the others. “We haven’t seen your Viking at all this evening interjected Nick, using the nickname which irritated the hell out of Richard, ‘so you’re mine for the night, gorgeous. Love the dress.” His bleary eyes lit up appreciatively as he took in Jo’s curves accentuated by her clinging silken dress.

“Thanks, Nick, I wore it specially for you, of course.”

“Oh really … D’you fancy you and I taking a stroll to the photocopier to see if you really can photocopy your bum and bonk at the same time?”

“Since I don’t fancy seeing my derriere in full blown-up glory all over the newsroom next time I come here, I think I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you,” she replied tartly.

Jo took the drink Janice had poured for her, knowing that refusing alcohol would automatically start Janice’s mind ticking furiously. She waited until Janice was mixing up a drink for herself, then she reached back and swopped her gin and tonic for a glass of mineral water.

Then she hoisted herself onto one of the desks and sat back as Janice filled her in on the latest gossip. Everyone was asking who would get the fashion editor’s job when Anita Brady left the following month to edit a new woman’s magazine.

They’ll never get anyone as good,” remarked Janice, reaching out to spear a cocktail sausage from a passing waitress.

“Oh, these are lovely,” she squealed as she bit into the succulent flesh.

“Come back here immediately!”

“Anita’s hell to work for,” she added, taking four more sausages from the waitress.

“But she’s good at her job, so you have to learn to live with the temper tantrums. It’s the husband I feel sorry for. You can’t blame him for seeking solace in the arms of another woman when he’s married to the sort of cow who could put Mike Tyson in hospital.”

Jo looked up sharply, searching Janice’s face for a hint of ambiguity. Did she know about Michael and Aisling? But Janice had moved on from infidelity to incompetence.

“That nauseous Denise Keogh from features. She obviously thinks she’s a dead cert for the job even though she has as much fashion sense as a

lobotomised gorilla. ““Don mock, Janice interrupted Brian. The odds are two to one that she gets the job and you’ve a tenner on her to win!”

“Only because her uncle owns shares in the bloody paper said Janice caustically, ‘and because I like to bet on dead certs.

If she does get the job, I’ll bet you twenty quid that her first fashion spread is on leg warmers, tank tops and frizzy hair. Oh yeah, and blue eyeliner.”

She broke off as they spotted Richard pushing his way through the partygoers. A tall willowy blonde in a slinky black mini-dress followed close behind like a puppy on a lead.

“Nice dress she’s nearly wearing remarked the columnist with a flash of the bitchiness for which she was renowned.

“I’ve got scarves bigger than that.”

“Miaow, miaow.” Nick wagged a finger in Janice’s direction.

“I think it’s a lovely dress.”

“You would she replied smartly.

“That’s because when you think at all, you think from below the belt.”

Nick sniggered into his beer again and nearly lost his balance as a result, but Jo didn’t notice even when he grabbed her to steady himself. She watched her boyfriend, the father of her unborn baby, talking animatedly with his beautiful companion as he strolled round the room sizing up photographic opportunities.

The blonde simpered and giggled every few steps, licking her lips in what she obviously thought was a very sexy manner.

“Hello, darling.” Richard smiled at Jo when he and the blonde reached her corner of the room. This is Sascha, Will’s sister. She’s just started freelancing in Paris with Now magazine and she’s doing a piece on Dublin social life.”

“I thought she was working undercover on a prostitution story Janice muttered under her breath.

Nobody heard. They were all staring at the blonde apparition in front of them. Sascha smiled at the group from sleepy green eyes, seemingly unconcerned that she’d forgotten either a reporter’s notebook or tape

recorder and had been gazing only at the handsome photographer instead of keeping her eyes peeled for material.

“I’m sure I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” asked Janice, eyes narrowed as she tried to remember where she’d seen the other woman before.

“Didn’t you do some modelling for one of the British catalogues?” she asked.

“Next, was it?”

“Yeah,” Sascha smiled again, displaying perfect white teeth and the selfconfidence of a woman who knows she’d look fabulous wearing a bin liner

“I was with the Premiere agency for a couple of years and I did a lot of work in Japan.” She paused, giving the three men the benefit of another practised hundred-watt smile.

“I’ve left modelling. I’m just getting into writing now. I feel I’m a natural writer, y’know, it comes from in here.” She touched her tanned cleavage. Richard’s gaze slid down to the spot in question as if mesmerised by her model-girl 32A chest.

“So I’m going to try reporting and then go home and get on with a book or something.”

The two female journalists stared silently at her beautiful blank face, wondering what besotted commissioning editor had given Sascha the job of writing about one of the world’s literary capitals, when it was clear that any word longer than two syllables would involve a lengthy consultation with the dictionary.

“When did you start writing?” Jo asked kindly.

“Last month,” said Sascha happily.

“I’ve just done an article on modelling and some of the girls said I wouldn’t be able to do it, but I think writing comes from the heart, doesn’t it? I know I can do it.”

Sascha smiled at everyone broadly.

“I’ve been doing this personal development course and when I focus my energy on something, I can make it happen. That’s what my counsellor says anyway. You’re all writers, huh?”

“You could say that,” Janice answered, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

“We just dabble, you understand. I’m still not sure whether I should

stick with writing or focus on brain surgery, perhaps. Decisions, decisions.”

Jo smiled nervously up at Richard, hoping that he’d read her mind and leave Sascha to her life story so they could talk quietly together.

“Would you like a drink, darling?” she murmured.

But he had other ideas.

“No, duty first. I better take a few pictures.”

Jo moved closer to him, breathing in the lemony smell of Eau Sauvage and the faint fragrance of fabric conditioner from his pristine cotton shirt. God, she loved the way he smelled, the way his skin tasted, the way he always looked.

Tonight, dressed in a plain charcoal grey suit which she knew had cost about a month’s salary, he oozed style and elegance. Compared to Brian and Nick in their casual chain store chic, he looked like a model from the Next catalogue.