‘Max, how’s it going?’ I said, while Clodagh began speaking.
‘But, it’s my party,’ she said. ‘It’s only getting started.’
‘Clodagh. I’m tired. I’ve been working all week. I am not fecking twenty-five any longer.’
‘Excuse me a moment,’I said, wondering why Clodagh bothered her arse with this charmless excuse for a boyfriend. And she questioned why I had stayed with Michael! Yet there she was, with someone who, every time I met him, displayed as much charisma as a boiled turnip. He looked not unlike one too.
For a moment, I stood, not knowing what to do. I was aware of Red out of the corner of my eye, still in conversationwith someone. I couldn’t walk up to him. He’d waved. Was that enough. I mean, I’d see him again on Monday. We didn’t need to talk to each other tonight, did we? But then, he was suddenly alone, the man he’d been talking to had gone. And Red looked directly at me. The two of us stood, watching each other, in the middle of the melee, the noise, the talking, the braying. Bridget was taking another selfiein the midst of a group. I recognised Lucinda, Clodagh’s producer, who was trying not to be head locked into the group.
Without thinking, we moved towards each other and then we were standing in front of one another.
‘Hi Red,’ I said. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Grand, you?’
‘Lovely thanks. How’s your dad? It was really nice to see him again,’ I began gabbling. ‘He’s looking well, better than I thoughthe would, you know, after a stroke. And the house is the same. It was nice to see it again. And tell him that Michael didn’t have any of Peggy’s cake, but Rosie and I loved it…’
‘She makes a good cake,’ he said. ‘I think she might put whiskey into it.’
‘No wonder it was good. Maybe I shouldn’t have given so much of it to Rosie. But it was good to see her eating something.’
He smiled. ‘I rememberonce finishing off the sherry trifle for Christmas… I was eight. Oh my God. Mam had made me a separate one, in a tiny bowl, without sherry, but I polished off the adults’ one. I’ve never had sherry since. Sick as a dog. I can still smell it now. There’s that wine shop in Sandycove, and I can’t even walk past because of the smell. It smells of being sick on Christmas night.’
‘I don’t think thatis what they are going for,’ I said, laughing. ‘Anyway, you’ve never told me that!’ I was behaving as though there hadn’t been an eighteen year hiatus, as though we were still together.
‘Tab,’ he spoke carefully, reminding me that there was a yawning gap between us, ‘there’s a lot you don’t know about me.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’ Jesus, I was forgetting myself, slipping into a place, a feeling,I had no business being.
‘Forget it. Okay?’
I nodded.And breathe.And smile. I thought.
‘So,’ he said, as though we were starting all over again. ‘Having a good time?’
‘Well, I just met Bridget O’Flaherty, weather supremo, meteorological tsar…sothatwas exciting.’ I was working hard to keep things light, to stop myself from either slipping into our easy repartee which left me confused orto start crying and force him to confront what happened. Neither was going to help our current working situation but all I knew was, standing there with him, his body close to mine, bending to speak into each other’s ears so we could hear each other above the music, I was happy. For the first time in years, I was happy. I could feel it, a warmth in my stomach, a fizzing in my synapses, and a lightnessin my toes. Happiness. A strange and lovely feeling. Fun. I was in danger of actually having fun.
‘Tsarina.’
‘What?’
‘Weather tsarina, surely?’
‘Indeed, weather tsarina, sultana… princess of precipitation? Which do you prefer?’
‘Sultana, definitely. I see no raisin not to.’
‘Red!’ I giggled. ‘You can do better than that.’
‘The problem is, I can’t,’ he said, making us both laugh again. ‘Someeting this sultana then. Highlight of your life?’
‘Thehighlight,’ I said. ‘Apart from the time I met Orville the duck at the stage door of the Gaiety after the panto.’
He laughed. ‘You see, I did not know that about you. Mine was meeting Ray Houghton. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I was eighteen,’ he chuckled. ‘Old enough to know better, but he was such a hero. Scoring thatgoal at Italia ’90. But he was well used to idiot boys like me being goggle-eyed and slack-jawed. A real hero. You don’t meet many ofthemevery day.’
‘A bit better than Orville,’ I said. ‘And there I was thinking that meeting a green puppet could be the greatest brush with fame and you go and trump me with your story of meeting a man who single-handedly improved the mental health of an entirenation.’
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, laughing again. From behind us we heard the sound of ‘Happy Birthday’ being sung. We watched as a huge cake was pushed on a trolley towards Clodagh and a surge of people followed, all singing. And then a chorus of ‘For She’s A Jolly Good Fellow’, which someone changed to ‘For She’s A Jolly Good Newsreader’ started up, whilst Clodagh attempted to blow outthe candles. But for some reason, before she had even mustered enough breath, Bridget had swept over them, with the zeal of a firefighter determined to put out all flames, however miniature.
