‘Good plan,’ he says. ‘Good plan.’
We split the bill after a verbal struggle of ‘me’, ‘no, me’.
Then my phone pings. My taxi’s outside. I grab my coat, shrug myself into it and turn to say goodbye.
‘I’m walking you out,’ he says.
It’s a nice feeling having him at my back. The street is busy, people belting up and down, heads bent against the rain which has replaced the sleet. Plenty of people have started the Twelve Pubs of Christmas early now December is officially here and there is lots of laughter and high jinks in the air.
‘I think I’ll head off, too,’ he says. ‘You hiking tomorrow?’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I can’t. But maybe next week.’
‘Great,’ he says, looking pleased.
He opens the cab door for me, waits till I’m inside, then leans in and says, ‘Night, hope you get there safely.’
‘Don’t worry, she will,’ says a voice from the front, ‘she always does; we take care of her.’
Finn’s eyes smile as they meet mine. ‘Good to know,’ he says, and he shuts the door.
And my heart does a little weird skip.
14
Marin
It’s nearly the weekend of Joey’s birthday party and today, Thursday, two days before the party, I realise I will have to order a cake. Because work has been so manic, I haven’t managed to bake one. I’ve been trying to sell a lovely cottage in a prime location in Dalkey for a sweet elderly lady who wants to move into an apartment and the sale fell through at the last minute. She’s devastated because it means she might miss out on the apartment she wants to buy and I’m devastated because thewould-be buyers have been stringing me along for weeks now.
And then Nate ruins everything by mentioning that Steve and Angie might hang around for a drink when they come to pick up Alexandra on Saturday evening after the party.
I don’t know why but this sends me into orbit.
‘I’ll be tired,’ I snap.
‘It’s only a few friends, for God’s sake,’ he says, irritated.
I’m cleaning up after dinner and even though the kids usually take their turns, this is mine and Nate’s evening and yet, somehow, I am scrubbing the frying pan that can’t go into the dishwasher or the special coating will come off, and he’s sitting at the kitchen table with his phone and the work diary that Rachel says is ‘soo old fashioned, Dad!’.
‘Once, we didn’t have mobile phones, kiddo,’ he likes to say back. ‘I prefer to make notes and this is how I do it.’
He’s using the Mont Blanc pen he’s had for years which was the source of one of our rare early rows as money was excruciatingly tight at the time – Rachel was two and I was only workingpart-time. I like to think I don’t hold grudges but clearly I do as, lately, I cannot even see that pen without thinking of that time when we were living on the budget from hell.
Mind you, I think guiltily, I was better at budgets then. Now I am afraid to look at mycredit-card bill. I did some online shopping during the week – new winter boots from Acne and some perfume, the exotic Atelier Cologne’s Grand Néroli, which I read about in a magazine and then fell in love with. It’s so expensive I feel a frisson of guilt every time I spray it on.
I can hardly feel annoyed at Nate’s expensive pen when I can’t be let near a website without flexing my credit card.
‘If you really don’t want Steve and Angie coming, I can put them off. It’s just drinks and a little something to eat. But if it’s too much trouble...’ he says now, a hint of acid in his voice.
Irritation at having to magic up nibbles as well as drinks ratchets up to rage. How dare he dump Steve and Angie into the mix on the same weekend as Joey’s party? It’s costing us a fortune – in money, time and energy. Most of which is mine.
‘I like our friends coming to have drinks,’ I snap, ‘but in order to have Alexa at the party, as she is hardly Joey’s close pal, I had to invite the whole class, Nate.Twenty-five kids.’
‘You didn’t have to invite them all,’ he says.
‘You don’t understand school politics,’ I reply. ‘It’s all or nobody.’
I wish it wasn’t this way but I can’t risk upsetting any of the mothers – and then I think: why not? Why do I always have to please everyone?
