Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [77]
The poems didn’t rhyme, the verse lengths were all wrong, but it was the individual words that were the greatest cause for concern. There were no flowers in Monica Kennedy’s poems. Instead there were strange, brutal terms that Ashling spent a long time deciphering.
Stitched into silence,
my blood is black.
I am broken glass,
I am rusting blades,
I am the punishment and the crime.
Back in the present, Ashling found Dylan watching her with anxious interest. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
She nodded assent.
‘For a minute I thought we’d lost you there.’
‘I’m fine,’ Ashling insisted. ‘Clodagh hasn’t started writing poetry, has she?’ She made herself smile as she asked.
‘Clodagh! The very thought.’ Dylan quietly chuckled, as if realizing how silly he’d been. ‘So if she starts writing poems, then I should be worried?’
‘But until then, don’t bother. She’s probably just tired and needs a break. Can’t you do something nice? Cheer her up by going on a holiday or something?’ Another one, she thought bitchily. She felt a vague resentment that Dylan was asking her for advice on how to make Clodagh’s life even nicer.
‘I can’t take any time off at the moment,’ Dylan said.
‘Well, go out for a fancy-shmancy dinner then.’
‘Clodagh’s worried about the babysitters.’
‘Why, what’s wrong with them?’
Dylan laughed, slightly embarrassed. ‘She’s afraid that they might be child-abusers. Or that they might hit the kids. To be honest I sometimes worry too.’
‘Jesus, they keep inventing new things for everyone to worry about. So get someone you can trust. How about your mother?’
‘Oh no!’ Dylan quirked his mouth down ruefully. ‘That would be so not a good idea.’
Ashling nodded. True enough. The only time that young Mrs Kelly and not-so-young Mrs Kelly saw eye-to-eye was when they were nose-to-nose in an argument – usually over the best way to take care of Dylan and Dylan’s children.
‘And Clodagh’s mother is crippled with arthritis,’ Dylan said. ‘She wouldn’t be able to manage the kids.’
‘I can babysit if you want,’ Ashling offered.
‘On a weekend night? A wild young thing like yourself?’
After a hesitation, she said, ‘Yes… Yes,’ she said again, more firmly and with slight defiance, ‘why not?’
If she was genuinely unavailable, it would increase the chances of Marcus Valentine ringing.
‘That’s spectacular.’ Dylan perked up. ‘Thanks Ashling, you’re a pet. I’ll book a table for Saturday night. I’ll see if I can get one at L’Oeuf.’
But of course, Ashling thought, amused despite herself. Where else? L’Oeuf was the elder statesman of Dublin restaurants. It had the unique distinction of always being in fashion – despite not serving Asian fusion or Modern Irish. Perennially glamorous, the food would bring a tear to your eye. So would the prices.
‘Your mammy, she’s better now, isn’t she?’ Dylan tried to make up for forcing the issue in the first place.
‘Better’ was a relative concept and anyway, that wasn’t always the point, but to please him, Ashling nodded and said, ‘Yes, she’s better now.’
‘You’re a great girl, Ashling.’ Dylan bade her farewell.
I am, Ashling thought drily, Aren’t I?
23
Ten minutes away from Dylan and Ashling, Lisa and Jasper Ffrench, the celebrity chef, were dining at the Clarence. Jasper had specifically requested that he be taken there, just so he could scorn the food as not being a quarter as good as what he produced in his eponymous restaurant. He was good-looking, unpleasant, manifestly thought he was a genius and had nothing but jealousy for everyone else in his field. ‘Amateurs,’ he declared, waving his sixth glass of wine, ‘they’re nothing but amateurs and dilettantes. Marco Pierre White – amateur! Alasdair Little – amateur!’
Jesus Christ, you’re a pain. Lisa nodded and smiled. Good thing that difficult men were her speciality. ‘That’s why you’re the one we’ve chosen to be part of Colleens success, Jasper.’
Not exactly true. Jasper