Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [58]
Craig’s delight dimmed. He didn’t really want them now. Getting them had been too easy, yet not quite right.
As Clodagh tried to get ready for her trip into town, the children obviously sensed she was trying to make good her escape. They were more clingy and demanding than usual and when she got into the shower, they both insisted on accompanying her.
‘Remember the days when I was the one who used to get into the shower with you,’ Dylan observed wryly when she emerged, trying to dry herself, children hanging on to her.
‘Yeees,’ she said, nervously. She didn’t want him remembering how raunchy their sex-life once used to be. In case he asked for his money back. Or worse still, tried to reactivate things.
‘Here, dry her.’ She pushed Molly towards him. ‘I’m in a hurry.’
As Clodagh reversed her Nissan Micra out of the drive, Molly stood at the front door and bawled, ‘I want to go!’ with such agony that several of the neighbours rushed to their windows to see who was being murdered.
‘So do I!’ Craig screeched in harmony. ‘Come back, oh Mummy, come back.’
Contrary little bastards, Clodagh thought, as she sped down the road. They spent most of the week telling her that they hated her, that they wanted their daddy, then the minute she tried to have a couple of hours for herself, she suddenly became flavour of the month and immersed in guilt.
At quarter past ten both Ashling and Clodagh turned up outside the Stephen’s Green centre. Neither of them apologized for being late. Because they weren’t. Not by Irish standards.
‘What’s wrong with your eye?’ Ashling asked. ‘You’re like your man out of Clockwork Orange.’
In alarm, Clodagh scrambled to get a mirror from her bag. One of Molly’s Petit Filous fell out.
‘Here.’ Ashling had beaten her to it with the mirror.
‘It’s my make-up,’ Clodagh realized, surveying herself. ‘I’ve only done one eye. When Craig saw me putting on my slap, he made me do his and I must have just forgotten to finish mine… You’d think Dylan would have told me! Does he ever look at me any more?’
At the mention of Dylan, Ashling felt awkward. She was due to meet him on Monday night for the quick drink he’d requested, and for some reason she felt funny about mentioning it to Clodagh. And funny about keeping it from her too. But until she knew what it was about she sensed it was better to keep her mouth shut. Maybe Dylan was planning a surprise holiday for Clodagh – it wouldn’t be the first time.
‘I have some stuff.’ Ashling fished a mascara and eyeliner from her bag.
‘Your tardis,’ Clodagh laughed. ‘Hey! Chanel mascara? I mean, Chanel?’
Ashling beamed with embarrassed pride. ‘It’s my new job, you see. I got it free.’
Just for a moment Clodagh couldn’t move. She swallowed and it sounded very loud to her. ‘Free? How?’
As Ashling launched into a garbled story of how someone called Mercedes was off in Donegal and how someone else called Lisa had gone to a charity lunch to bond with posh Dublin people and how someone else called Trix looked too like a Spice Girl to be allowed out, so Ashling had to represent Colleen at the Chanel Face of Autumn. ‘And they gave me a goody bag when I left.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ Clodagh said hollowly. And she looked at Ashling’s happy delighted smile and of course it was brilliant. But where had all the promise of her own life leaked away to?
‘Come on, let’s burn plastic,’ Ashling urged.
‘Where’ll we start?’
‘Jigsaw. My magic lose-half-a-stone-in-an-instant trousers have gone a bit bobbly on me and I’m hoping