The Importance of Being Me Read online

  “Are you there, Lar? Hello? Hello?” I do that ridiculously pointless move of hitting the buttons over and over. My office door opens. Lar stands there in his black stocking feet. He always removes his scuffed brown shoes in his office.

  “But you didn’t hang up. I didn’t hear that hang-up tone,” I say to him, confused.

  “No, I just gently laid the phone on my desk and slipped out the door. Damn, I forgot my coffee.” His little finger pushes the heavy glasses back up his nose.

  “Ask Maria to bring it down,” I say to him impatiently.

  “Ah no, that’s not fair on Ria, it’s not her job to run around after me with my coffee. Give us half of yours, will ya?” He lifts a cup from beside my water bottle and I dutifully pour half of mine into it and hand it to him. He sits. “Tony is our building contractor. He’s from St Ives and he knows Cornwall like the back of his hand. He needs another head over there, though: that’s why I’m trying to push you for an answer. If you really can’t go for the summer, I need to ask Yvonne. There are certain aspects of the paperwork, some part of the planning permission he needs help with before he can move on and finish the job. Plus the little apartment up above needs a woman’s touch.” Lar raises his coffee to his lips.

  “It’s not that easy. I tried to talk to Susan again this morning.” I shake my mouse and minimise my Nerja relocation file. Why is life so bloody complicated?

  “Aren’t you the parent and isn’t she only almost sixteen?” He sips and makes a face of complete bafflement.

  “Yes, I do know all this, thank you, Lar, but almost sixteen-year-old girls are very different to how they were in your day. They have much . . . fuller lives.” I hear myself and it sounds completely ludicrous.

  “Any chance of a sachet of sugar?” He spies my slim sugar sachets for clients with our logo emblazoned on them.

  “Absolutely not!” I reprimand him.

  “Tastes of nothing without a bit of sugar.” He slowly raises his eyes to the ceiling. “Here’s the truth, though: you are living in your ex-husband’s house paying him rent, even though the property is mortgage free—”

  I interrupt him. “Mar-nee has a huge mortgage on her place, he needs—”

  He interrupts me straight back. “I’m not finished, I’m offering you the chance of a lifetime—”

  “So you keep telling me.”

  “So you keep telling me.” We interrupt each other with the same sentence.

  “Knock, knock.” She doesn’t knock. She just says the words and walks right in.

  “Are you okay, Yvonne?” Immediately she gets my back up. I don’t really know why. She hasn’t actually ever done anything to me I can prove, but I just know she thinks she’s better than me. Call it woman’s intuition.

  “I thought this meeting was at eleven.” She slides her slender five-foot nine-inch frame into the spare chair beside Lar.

  “How’s Lar?” She pats his knee.

  “Lar is good, thank you, Vonne,” he replies kindly.

  She is dressed in her usual power suit, white shirt and feck-off high heels. Red soles. You know the ones. Her long, jet-black hair is perfectly pulled into a low ponytail. I’m immediately conscious of my high messy ponytail. Her features are sharp yet she gets away with it and you would definitely call her very attractive. David used to say she was slightly scary in a really sexy way: Cruella de Vil meets Anne Hathaway.

  “It’s not the official Monday-morning meeting, Yvonne,” I say as I stare at my slightly crumpled pink cardigan, cream nylon skirt and brown flat knee-high boots.

  “Has Susan decided if you can go to the Cornwall office for the summer?” she asks in a patronising way.

  “I’m not discussing that right now, Yvonne, I’m on the Desmonds’ Nerja relocation, and we have that police officer in his Manhattan apartment in the heart of Greenwich Village looking for an apartment swap in Ennis, Co. Clare. Can you start on this? He’s logged all his details and pictures; he just needs a follow-up call.” Piss off, Yvonne is what I’m thinking though. Right now I hate her and her easy, uncomplicated single life.

  “Sorry, no can do. I’m off to meet Anna McDonough, the Tuscany swap woman, in about ten minutes to finalise her three weeks there. I need to check she has made all those changes to her priceless glass-ornament collection in Dalkey that we agreed on and that the cooker hood is fixed.”

  Lar leans in to her. “Oh great, yes, I meant to remind you of that last night. I viewed those pictures she put up myself. Make sure they are all removed and in storage and that cooker hood is fixed. Did you get her to re-sign? Clause ten is—”

  “I’m on it, Lar.” She smiles at him before adding, “I don’t really need reminding. I’m not the one with lots of outside stuff going on. You can save all your reminders into a Google calendar, Courtney, you know that, right, hun?”

  When people call me “hun” it reminds me of my age. I force a smile and say, “Right, hun.”

  “Anyway, I will be back for the meeting at eleven. I’m also planning on working late tonight so if anyone needs an extra pair of hands just holler.” She rises like a goddess.

  Why would anyone want to work late when it’s unnecessary? She makes us all look bad – and I guess I have just answered my own question. When she leaves, I pull at my nose, sniff loudly and make a noise. Lar knows I’m agitated.

  “Listen, I want you in Cornwall, but it will be her if you can’t go. What else can I say?” He shrugs his shoulders.

  “Nothing, it’s fine. I have to run myself. I’m meeting Mary O’Hare,” I tell him.

  He stiffens. “She’s back?”

  “Yes, she’s back, and she’s going to Denmark, to a luxury apartment for a week. It’s not a direct swap, she’s on swap points.” I throw my eyes to heaven. You earn swap points when another member of our company stays in your home and you don’t stay at theirs, then you can use them to travel when it suits you.

  “Where is left for her to actually see? She must have seen the entire big bad world at this stage!” He drains his coffee cup. “And how I have a blade of hair left on my head with her is beyond me.”

  “You are bald, Lar,” I tell him, deadpan.

  “I am?” He looks totally shocked and runs his hand over his smooth head. We both laugh. This is our in-joke. Mary O’Hare was one of Lar’s first clients. She was the first client he had who was willing to swap her sprawling mansion on Killiney Hill in Dublin with a family from a modest apartment in San Francisco, and from that swap on Mary continued to trade and went off to see the world. Sometimes she stays with her sister in Brighton and lets out her place, thus earning herself lots of swap points. However, she seems to think that she can call us all 24/7 to tell us the sights she is seeing, what she had for dinner, how her toilet isn’t flushing, how her chicken was raw in the middle. We are always here if things aren’t going smoothly, but she takes our services a bit too far. This meeting today is so I can gently tell her, again, that she can’t call us morning, noon and night.

  My phone rings out and I reach for it.

  “It’s me again. Listen, if you can come over for a day next week I think I can sort the rest. Ideally I need ya to come Wednesday as the regular town-hall lady is having her hip replacement done and Marina, her stand-in, is so much nicer. I’m taking her to the Ploughboy for a drink later, in fact. I’ll have you in and out in a couple of hours. We can see Brian Fogg in his furniture shop. If you need I can collect you from the airport and drop you back?” He talks so fast.

  “Who is this?” I can’t help myself.

  “Are you actually bloody serious?” His voice is raised and very high-pitched. I start to shake with laughter.

  “Oh, Tony Becker, sorry Tony, of course I know who you are. I’ve a lot on my plate here too, Tony. Can I go on Wednesday? Hmm . . .” I make sounds, sucky sounds, like I’m really thinking this over, clicking my tongue off the roof of my mouth over and over again. Then I focus on the framed picture of Susan on my desk. I took it last s
ummer when we went to Doolin in Co. Clare for the weekend. She is standing in front of the Aillwee caves holding an ice cream with a chocolate flake. For the first time, I really look at it. It’s her eyes. I lift the picture up in its Newbridge silver frame and pull it closer to my face. Her eyes look miserable. The cone is dripping, untouched. As I recall now, she threw it in the bin after. Then the whole trip comes flooding back: me buying her attention, buying her smiles, trying so hard to make her happy. Nothing I did pleased her. She sulked and pouted and grunted at me. Every time I looked at her, she was on the phone. When I finally did get her to talk it was because we were going home a day earlier than I had originally planned. Enough was enough. Right now, I think of the joy on my daughter’s face if I tell her she can have a sleepover with Mar-nee and David mid-week. It might just help us.

  “Yes. Yes I can. I just checked my very busy diary there. But I will prioritise you, Mr Becker, and I’ll see you on Wednesday so.” I lean back in my ergonomic office chair and Mr Kilroy gives me a silent two-thumbs-up.

  “Nice one. If you like I can book you a room at the Carbis Bay hotel. I get a discount. Email me your flight details; Lar has my email. See ya then, Courtney Downey.” He rings off. I put the receiver down slowly.

  “You’re going to Cornwall?” Mr Kilroy slowly places a finger and thumb on each of the handles of his heavy-rimmed glasses and slowly takes them off.

  “I’m going to Cornwall, Lar,” I say, and I do my happy dance. He lays his glasses down on my white gloss desk and we clumsily high five.

  4

  “Still suffering like us Hillary Clinton supporters, I see?” I ask Claire, nodding to Martin’s red Mini, parked in the driveway during school hours of a Monday, as she very slowly opens the hall door to me. Claire and I were very anti-Trump. Even more so now: President Trump frightens us. Juice detoxes and the Trump: our greatest current fears. Immediately I regret my words.

  “Have I got news for you! I . . . What . . . what the hell is wrong?” I gasp as I take her in properly. Claire’s face is paler than usual, freckles almost lost in the pallor of her skin tone. Her side fringe, greasy, falls across her left eye. I notice she is barefoot. Claire is never without either shoes or flip-flops, always saying to anyone who is, “You’ll get a cold in your kidneys!”

  She steps away from the barely half-open door and I squeeze myself inside. Raising her index finger, she places it over her pale lips. My normally immaculate friend has chocolate sauce down the front of her cream V-neck T-shirt and down the front of her blue linen trousers. I follow her down into the kitchen and she closes the door quietly. The kitchen is a total bombsite. A pile of cakes and sponges and buns and chopped fruit and whisked cream adorns the marble island and every available worktop. Dirty utensils and whisks and cutlery are strewn around everywhere. The smell of burning jam is overwhelming.

  “What the hell is going on, Claire? What’s happened?” I move to her, very concerned, as she stands in the middle of the kitchen, but first I go over and pull a bubbling pot from the stove and extinguish the gas.

  She doesn’t answer immediately but seconds later says, “Oh, Courtney . . . Martin is really sick.” She stares at me with red-rimmed eyes.

  “What do you mean, really sick?” I gulp out as I slowly peel off my cardigan. I’m suddenly perspiring through the thin pink cotton. I have trouble swallowing. “What? Where is he?” I am shaking now.

  “Upstairs.” Her green eyes are filled with water. Tears stream down her freckled cheeks, running into one another.

  “What? What’s wrong with him? Claire?” I put my hands on her shoulders to drag her focus back to me. Her eyes seem dead. Lifeless. She looks like a zombie. “Claire?”

  “He’s been sleeping with other people . . . mainly men, Courtney . . . ones riddled with sexually transmitted diseases apparently.” She gags. I’m sure she’s going to vomit so I grab the small silver pedal bin and hold it open in front of her. She pushes it away. She swallows hard, with an audible gulp. I drop the bin and it clatters off the dark wooden floor. I can’t get any words out. I can’t process her words. They are all jumbled up in my head, but it sounds like she just said that Martin has been sleeping with men. Martin Carney isn’t gay. What is wrong with her?

  “But . . . but . . . but Martin isn’t gay, Claire,” I stutter.

  She shakes her head and roughly pulls her fringe out of her eyes. Her hand remains on top of her head, clutching a clump of hair.

  “No, he’s not, Courtney. He is, however, very much a bisexual man.” She lets go of her hair now and it stands on end, as though she’s just got an awful fright. I know you won’t believe this, but I start to laugh. I can’t help it. It is completely ludicrous. Claire leans against the marble island in the kitchen and I spy a half-open bottle of red wine and a full glass.

  “Are you drunk, Claire?” I ask, my laugh disintegrating at her expression. She just stares at me as though I’m completely nuts.

  “A little. Yeah.” She nods. It’s only then I notice her red-stained teeth and lips. “This is far from funny, Courtney. I know you laugh in tense situations, but please . . .” She trails off.

  “I’m sorry. Jesus, you know I’m sorry, of course it’s not funny, it’s my nervous reaction, you know that . . . I’m sorry. All right, so are you telling me Martin has been sleeping with other men and he has some weird disease?” My head is completely muddled as I move to the wine.

  She pulls a face of disgust and shivers.

  “I only left here Sunday evening,” I say. “Martin was in bed with the flu, you were heading up to change his sheets, he wouldn’t see a doctor . . .” I list all the stupid facts until she butts in.

  “Ha! Of course he wouldn’t, he’d only want to have sex with him!”

  “Claire!” I put both my hands over my ears.

  “Or her,” she adds. “You know what, Courtney? I don’t have a problem with bisexuals. I voted yes for gay marriage, I have many gay and lesbian friends, I probably have bisexual friends: I don’t nose into what people do in their private life unless, of course, that person happens to be my husband!”

  “When did he tell you this? How did you find out? Why didn’t you call me?” All very reasonable questions, I think, as I hand her the full glass of red and pour a little drop into another glass for myself. I’m driving but this is medicinal. Shock. I only came over to ask her if I could borrow her fancy luggage for my trip to Cornwall on Wednesday. I knew she’d be delighted I was going. I wasn’t expecting this.

  “I was too embarrassed.” She gulps the red liquid. “I tried all day to call you, but every time I went to press the call button I couldn’t do it. I mean . . . I didn’t have the words.” She drinks.

  “You are in shock,” I tell her.

  “It’s more than shock, Courtney. I want to kill him.” She manages to keep her tone level.

  “So what exactly did he say to you?” I taste the bitter liquid.

  Claire pulls out the high stool and hauls herself up. There is no spinning on it today. I notice the soles of her feet are black with dirt.

  “Oh, where do I start? Where do I start, Courtney? I can’t really get my head around all this.” She heaves her chest up and takes a long, deep breath in through her nose.

  “Just go slowly and tell me in your own time.” I pull myself up onto my stool now, facing her. She exhales slowly through a tiny opening in her mouth.

  “When you left, I finished my batch of cinnamon cookies and went up to change Martin’s sheets. He was in the bathroom, so I made a start. I pulled off the duvet and a small brown plastic bottle fell onto the floor. When I picked it up, I saw it was a bottle of tablets. I read his name on them. He came out and just looked at me standing there, holding it. Martin, with a bottle of pills: he who has never taken a prescription tablet in his life. I asked him what they were. He told me they were antibiotics and that he had been to a doctor last week, on the advice of an ex-lover.”

  She looks up at me, her green eyes
dull and frightened. With a shaking hand, she picks up her wine again and caresses it, both her hands wrapped around the glass for dear life.

  “Oh my God . . . Go on,” I almost whisper.

  “I was confused. And ‘ex-lover’? Who? Anna-Rose McCarthy, seventeen years ago? I actually asked him that. He shook his head and then his face just crumpled, Courtney. He fell apart in front of me. He fell to his knees and told me he’s been living a lie.” She puts down the glass shakily and drags her hand over her mouth now, pulling the skin downwards. Then she goes on. “He said he was bisexual and had been sleeping with men, mainly on Friday nights when I was out with you . . . in gay saunas . . . and that some guy had come to the school and informed him that he had syphilis and gonorrhoea and that Martin needed to be tested too.”

  “Flipping hell.” I draw out every vowel.

  “I . . . I . . . I did notice this greenish-yellow stuff in his boxer shorts when I was washing them, but I didn’t say anything as I didn’t want to embarrass him. And he was always complaining that his testicles were painful . . . Oh, Courtney, maybe I just didn’t want to know. Seems he went for the bloods and he got a call to say he was negative for syphilis but positive for gonorrhoea and that he needed to inform previous sexual partners and start treatment straight away. That’s when he took to the bed. Like, he does also legit have the flu; those aren’t symptoms of the STD. He’s still waiting on one more test . . .”

  She can see I’m not following her on this part.

  “Don’t you understand? So yes, he has got the flu, but he’s also got a serious sexually transmitted disease, maybe another . . . and you do know what that means, don’t you?”

  “What, Claire? Tell me,” I ask, my mouth open.

  “It means, Courtney, that whatever he has, you can be pretty damn sure I have it too. And do you know what my GP said when she came to the house to take my bloods this morning and I told her what was going on? She said, ‘It’s not a crime to be bisexual.’ I said, ‘It fucking is when you’re married to me!’” Her lip quivers and her breath goes against her, then the tears roll hard and fast again.