Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [36]
With a raise of his eyebrows, Jack indicated a silent ‘Can I?’ and extracted the cigarette with his lips. Striking a match, he lit up, extinguished the match with a firm flick of his hand, then inhaled deeply.
Ashling followed all of his movements, repulsed yet unable to look away.
‘Looks like I picked the wrong girl to quit smoking.’ Jack trailed back to his office.
‘I need your help, girls,’ Dervla O’Donnell boomed, distracting everyone. She leapt up from Hibernian Bride’s Autumn fashion spread, her large-is-lovely silk-knit three-piece swishing, as she began pacing. ‘What will the well-dressed wedding guest be wearing in Autumn 2000? What’s hot, what’s happening, what’s now?’
‘Well, I see chins are definitely in, dear,’ Lisa twinkled, and with a tilt of her head, indicated Dervla’s plenitude of chinnage.
A gasp of shock from the office segued seamlessly into laughter, uplifting Lisa. She was proud of her clever, bitchy tongue and the power it gave her.
Dervla stood stock-still in astonishment, as all around her, colleagues laughed, then she too attempted a good-sport’s smile.
‘Isn’t this what it’s all about?’ With fake heartiness, Jack raised his pint to Kelvin and Gerry. ‘No women here to annoy us?’
Kelvin flicked a glance around the pub. The Friday night clientele included a fair few women.
‘But none of them are sitting here with us, wrecking our heads,’ Jack elaborated.
‘I wouldn’t mind if that Lisa was sitting here,’ Kelvin said. ‘Jayzus, she’s beautiful.’
‘Gorgeous,’ Gerry agreed, moved to speaking.
‘And have you noticed the way that though her eyes stay still, her nipples follow you around the room?’ Kelvin remarked.
Both Gerry and Jack looked slightly taken aback by this.
‘Mercedes is pretty tasty too,’ Kelvin enthused.
‘She hasn’t got much to say for herself, though,’ Gerry said, in an open-and-shut case of the kettle calling the pot black.
Kelvin grinned at Gerry. ‘It’s not her conversational skills I’m interested in.’
They sniggered and nudged in dirty approval.
‘Pass us the ashtray, Kelvin,’ Jack interrupted. As Kelvin obliged, Jack chortled miserably, ‘The last time I said that to someone they turned around and said, “You’ve ruined my life, you bastard.” ’
Gerry and Kelvin shifted uncomfortably. Jack was destroying the Friday-night feel-good factor.
‘Leave it alone,’ Kelvin advised, then made a valiant attempt to steer things in the right direction. ‘Isn’t Ashling a dote?’
‘Lovely. Like a nice kid sister,’ Gerry agreed.
‘And a good-looking girl, too,’ Kelvin added generously. ‘Just not a stunner like Lisa or Mercedes.’
A small eel of discomfort squirmed in Jack – Ashling made him feel funny. Something like shame, or perhaps it was irritation.
‘I’m only saying,’ Jack returned to more pleasant things, ‘isn’t it nice not having any women here? So if I remark that it’s a lovely sunny evening, no one will turn around and say “Get out you loser, I’m sorry I ever met you.” ’
With an exaggerated sigh, Kelvin gave in. ‘So it’s all off with Mai again?’
Jack nodded.
‘Would you not just give up on it?’
‘You’re always fighting,’ Gerry threw in his tuppenny’s worth.
‘She drives me wild,’ Jack insisted, in frustration. ‘You don’t know what it’s like!’
‘’Course I do, I’m married,’ Gerry said.
‘No! I don’t mean like that –’
‘Love ‘em and leave ‘em,’ Kelvin interrupted with a laddish leer. ‘That’s my motto. Or rather, Not love ‘em and leave ‘em.’
And that was quite enough about emotions, Kelvin decided.
To think how glad they’d all been when Jack had first started squiring Mai! It had been over a year since Dee, his long-term girlfriend, had abruptly left him, and it was good to see him back in the game. Or so they’d thought. But after the honeymoon period had worn off – which