Emily
My phone had been my constant companion since I emailed Ben. So far he hadn’t responded but that didn’t stop me jumping every time a notification arrived. So I jumped when my Messenger pinged that Saturday at 4pm – relaxing only when I saw that the message was from Cian. No doubt it would be about dinner. I’d had my hair and make-up done and bought a new dress (a forties-style tea dress that hugged my curves in a nice but not over the top manner).
My heart sank when I saw the first line.
Sorry to do this so last minute. Look, Jack is a little unsettled today and to be honest getting a sitter has been difficult. Not everyone understands how I’m going out so soon after Rose’s death – especially for dinner with a female friend.
I felt tears well in my eyes before I read on.
So if you don’t mind, I thought why don’t you come round to my house instead? I can throw something tasty together and we can still chat. I know it’s not a posh dinner, and my attempts at thanking you for being such a good listener seem to be cursed, but I hope you understand? Besides, I’m sure Jack would really like to see you.
My first reaction was to be relieved that he wasn’t cancelling altogether, but I did also feel disappointed – I had been looking forward to being wined and dined in a nice restaurant. I touched my hand to my perfectly waved and set hair, thought of the dress that was hanging on the back of my bedroom door. It deserved to be shown off. But I could hardly argue with him, could I? This wasn’t a date. This was a meal between friends and friends understood when other friends who had recently lost their wives couldn’t get babysitters and needed to stay in instead.
I tried to convince myself this could actually work in my favour. It would be just Cian and me, in his house (with Jack of course, but toddlers slept; they were famous for it). It would be more intimate. Maybe we would sit on the rug in front of a blazing fire after and sip wine, and while I had no (serious) expectations anything would happen – maybe there would be a moment when he would look at me and there would be some sort of connection that would lay the foundations for something else?
I typed back that I would love to come over for dinner and I would see him later. Then I changed into my new dress anyway because, well, I didn’t really have an alternative. I was hardly going to show up in my lounge wear, with my newly coiffed hair tied back in a scrunchie.
Jack was already asleep when I got there.
‘He was just worn out,’ Cian said, looking a little on the worn out side himself although his hair was damp, suggesting he had just showered. He was dressed casually in jeans and a fresh white T-shirt, in a look not dissimilar to the one he sported in the big family portrait. I instantly felt over-dressed.
As Cian helped me out of my coat, I felt his breath, briefly, on the back of my neck and I closed my eyes, breathed in the smell of his musky cologne.
‘I was going to wear this out for dinner,’ I said. ‘Almost everything else is in the wash,’ I lied.
‘You look lovely, Emily,’ he said, staring straight at me, taking me in from head to toe. I felt something in the pit of my stomach tighten. ‘And you’ve done something different with your hair?’
I touched my hand to my soft curls. ‘Thank you. It was time for a bit of a change,’ I said.
‘It suits you. I like it.’
He led me through to the kitchen where there was a distinct lack of cooking smells. There was however a bottle of red open and breathing on the island, with two glasses beside it. He started to pour. ‘Here’s my confession,’ he said. ‘I’m a terrible, and I mean awful, cook. I’m just about scraping by with Jack by living off the pity casseroles people have been dropping over since Rose died. That and a good line in Potato Waffles and Fish Fingers.’
He was blushing as he handed me the glass of wine. ‘But I do have a fine selection of takeaway menus – everything from pizza to Indian and even a leaflet from the Thai place in town – but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you fancy spending tomorrow chucking up your guts.’
He laughed a little, his whole face changing as he did so, and I laughed too.
‘Best avoid that then,’ I said.
‘Is there anything that takes your fancy?’ he asked, opening the drawer in the island and pulling out what was indeed a stellar collection of takeaway menus and spreading them in front of me, his hand briefly brushing mine as I lifted the leaflet for the Mandarin Palace Chinese. I wondered whether he felt the same spark I did, in fact I allowed myself to believe just for a moment that he did. In believing that, I was able to put thoughts of what had been said at work – how Owen was, how it all was – to the back of my mind. I’d enjoy dinner with him. With a friend. A friend I hoped might be more.
*
It wasn’t quite a rug in front of a roaring fire, but Cian and I sat on opposite sides of that big squashy sofa and chatted after we’d eaten. We had abandoned the red wine in favour of a dry white with our dinner, and I was on my second glass and feeling myself relax more and more in his company. I had kicked off my heels and tucked my legs up under me and we were both sitting facing each other. Cian looked less tired, less strained, than he had done in my company before. If it weren’t for the massive picture of Rose looking down on us, I could almost, almost make believe she had never existed.
So when Cian started to speak of the renewed police interest in her death I felt, I don’t know, disappointed? Irritated?
‘I just want it to be all over and done with. So Jack and I can get on with our lives. It feels like there’s a big cloud hanging over both our heads,’ he said sadly.
‘And the police – have they told you anything at all?’
He shook his head. ‘They don’t seem to want to share any information with me. They say it’s “not relevant to Rose’s case” and then they ask more questions. They’re contradicting themselves left, right and centre. They keep asking if I ever met Kevin McDaid. Keep asking about my relationship with Rose – like I haven’t told them, told the whole bloody world – how I felt about her. She was my wife – the mother of my son.’ He sat forward, buried his head in his hands for a moment. I didn’t know what to do – part of me wanted to reach out and touch him. Comfort him. Just as the urge began to get too much, he sat up again, ran his fingers through his hair and looked at me. His eyes were narrowed, burning with rage.
‘Do you know my solicitor has warned me they may search the house? The case isn’t relevant to Rose’s case – but they may search my fucking house? May seize my computer? How will I even be able to work if they seize my computer? Not that I can write my name at the minute but still. That’s my life’s work, and they want to take it and rip it all to pieces trying to find what? Some imaginary Tweet I sent to Kevin McDaid asking him to kill my wife? Offering him money to do it. It’s ludicrous!’
I sat back. Stunned for a second. Cian was angry now. His eyes dark. I could see the muscles in his hands tense.
‘I’m sure it’ll all get cleared up soon,’ I soothed. ‘They can’t make stuff up. They can’t accuse you of something you didn’t do, or wouldn’t do.’
‘But mud sticks, Emily. Don’t you realise that? Once the rumours start, people will start to believe them. And there are people out there who want to believe it. People who would love to see me get brought down a peg or two.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ I said.
‘Oh Emily, you sweet, naive creature. Of course it’s true. Nothing gets people off round here like seeing someone who made something of themselves have it all come crashing down around them. We lie – pretend we’re proud of our success stories – but that’s bullshit, Emily. At the end of the day, we’re all supposed to know our place. Not have ideas above our station. As the old saying goes “Once shite gets up, it’s hard to beat down.” Well there are plenty who think I’m nothing but a piece of shit – me and my pretentious ways and my big words and my literary awards. My lovely house, and my beautiful son and my perfect wife. People like to hate me for that. People want to hate me. To destroy me. They think pinning this on me will do it – but the truth is I’m already destroyed. I was destroyed the moment she died. But that’s not enough – people are cruel, Emily.’
I knew that only too well – the cruelty of others was seared on my brain. But people could be good too – I had to believe that.
‘A lot of people love you – you and Jack – and they want to help.’
He snorted. ‘Yeah. That’s why the one person I can confide in is someone I’ve only known a couple of weeks?’ There was a laugh – hollow, cold. It stung a little.
‘You’ve friends. The staff at Scott’s speak very highly of you.’
‘Even Owen?’ His eyebrow was raised.
I paused. ‘Owen keeps himself to himself. I don’t really speak to him too much.’
‘It’s not like Owen to be solitary. Normally he likes to be all over everyone else’s business.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
Suddenly Cian was standing up, his hands in his hair again, walking across the room – or more accurately stomping. I could see his hands clenching on his head. He walked to the far end of the kitchen, stood with his back to me, his hands on the worktop, his head hung low. I didn’t know what to say or do, so I sipped from my wine glass, the wine now tasting warm and bitter. My stomach was clenching. I realised I was still nervous – but now it wasn’t in a good way.
After a time – maybe thirty seconds, which of course felt like much more – he turned to look at me again. His face sad again. Traces of anger gone. ‘Can I trust you, Emily?’ he said.
‘Of course,’ I replied.
‘I mean, really trust you?’ He was walking towards me, I turned to face him head on, pulling my legs out from under me and putting my feet flat on the floor.
‘You know you can,’ I said.
He took a deep breath. ‘Rose and Owen have known each for a long time. Long before Rose started working for him. They met when Rose was a student working a Saturday job in Tesco. He was working there too, subsidising his university years. They became friends – good friends – but that’s all it ever was, for Rose anyway. Owen, however, he always had a thing for her. I mean, I can’t blame him. She is – was – a beautiful woman. So beautiful. She wasn’t interested in him in that way though. Owen Scott would never be Rose’s type. He was much too “safe” – too boring for her. I mean, a dentist?’ Cian’s mouth curled up at the edges as he said the word ‘dentist’, as if he could imagine nothing more boring, more sedate, more uninspiring. ‘He wasn’t happy when she turned him down, but Rose being Rose, they stayed friends, you know. Then when Rose and I met – well, Owen couldn’t have made it clearer that he didn’t think I was good enough for her. I was an aspiring writer, in his eyes I was a layabout who was living in cloud cuckoo land. Rose started working for him – and she was the breadwinner then – he never missed an opportunity to remind me of that. Remind me I wasn’t treating Rose the way he could. He was sly about it though – he wouldn’t say it in front of Rose. He would tell her he admired that I was chasing my dream while rubbing my nose in my lack of success. Paying Rose a “bonus” that would cover the rent, saying that’s what friends did. I felt totally emasculated by him. So you can imagine how pissed off he was when my books started to sell. And when they started to garner critical acclaim too and interest from film producers. He realised the one thing he had over me – the security, the money – he didn’t have any more. It made him angry. Rose said he had been getting increasingly shitty with her in work. She was considering handing in her notice. I wanted her to do it, we definitely didn’t need the money any more. She had stayed on because she enjoyed the work and had friends there, but he was making her miserable, in fact. She told me, you know, that she was scared of how he would react when she told him she was leaving …’
I was dumbfounded. Although I had seen that darker, angry side of Owen lately. But still, this was something else. Something beyond my comprehension. ‘You’re not suggesting he was angry enough to want to hurt Rose though, are you? It doesn’t seem like him. Not really. He can be moody – but not this …’
Cian shook his head. ‘No, no I don’t think he would have hurt her. He wouldn’t have the balls to do anything like that. Mr Goody Two Shoes,’ he almost spat the sentence out, before laughing a distorted, angry laugh. ‘But it keeps me awake at night … just wondering … would he have asked someone to do it for him?’
Thoughts of what Ingrid Devlin had told me – that money and been deposited in Kevin McDaid’s account – jumped into my head. Had she been telling the truth about that? My head hurt – a combination of the wine and trying to take it all in.
‘You do believe me, don’t you, Emily?’ Cian said, taking my hands in his. He looked directly into my eyes, his expression soft, pleading. I thought of how broken he was. How he seemed to be just coping and no more. ‘It’s important that you believe me. I feel as if no one is on my side – even Rose’s family have been cold with me. As if they believe that I would hurt her. Can you imagine how that feels, Emily? They were my family too and now they’ve cut me off. We talk through mutual friends about visitation to Jack. Everything has changed.’
I watched as a tear rolled down his cheek – instinctively, I pulled my hand from his and wiped the tear away with my thumb, holding my hand to his cheek. He closed his eyes, rested his head on my hand as if he hadn’t rested properly in weeks. ‘I need to know someone believes me,’ he whispered.
I would have to trust my instincts, which may have been influenced by the wine, and the handsome man with his face in my hands, his tears wet on my wrist. My instincts, I realised as I felt my pulse quicken, were also influenced greatly by my heart, which in that moment just wanted to comfort Cian. He opened his eyes and looked at me, blinking back tears, waiting for my response.
‘I believe you,’ I whispered, and he turned his head and rewarded my faith in him with the softest brush of his lips against my palm.
I pulled my hand back, not because I wanted to, but because I was afraid that if I didn’t – in that very moment – I would be lost to him. I would do something stupid, try to kiss him properly or something equally daft that would send him running. His wife was only dead a couple of months and she had been the love of his life. Who was I? Someone he could talk to?
‘I’d better go,’ I said.
‘I’ve asked too much of you,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve said too much.’
I shook my head, slipped my feet back into my heels and started looking in my bag for my mobile to call a taxi. Anything that would have me looking in a direction that was not at him. ‘It’s not that at all,’ I said. ‘You haven’t asked too much of me. I believe you.’ I turned to look at him. ‘I believe in you.’
‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘Stay with me, please.’
I looked at him. I wondered whether he’d been drinking before I arrived. He certainly hadn’t drunk enough over dinner to have him making silly propositions. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said, although that damn gut and that damned heart of mine, as well as that coiled spring deep inside me, was screaming at me to say yes. ‘It’s late, and you’re emotional. It’s been a difficult time.’
‘There’s a spare room,’ he said. ‘It would just be nice to know you’re here. I’ve hated waking up alone. I can get you something to sleep in. I can drive you home in the morning.’
Ah, just friends. I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment but the thought of being close to him was so appealing and my head was still aching.
‘Please,’ he said, taking my mobile from my hand and slipping it back into my bag. ‘It would mean a lot to me.’
I nodded, found my voice and said ‘okay’ and was rewarded with a smile.
‘I know this seems strange,’ he said, as he topped up my wine glass, his mood suddenly elevated, ‘but nothing about the last two months hasn’t been strange so I’ve learned to just go with it. My instincts tell me you’re a good person to have in my corner.’
I wondered as he drained his own glass and poured another if his instincts were as intrinsically messed up as mine.