Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [81]
Jack tactfully deflected her question. ‘Thing is, Channel 9 is currently very gratifying. After two years of real graft and struggle, finally the staff are well paid, corporate sponsors are pleased and consumers are getting intelligent programming. And we’re nearly on the point of attracting investment so we can commission even more quality programming.’
‘Top,’ Lisa said vaguely. She’d heard enough about Channel 9 for now. ‘What else do you do?’
‘Aahhhhh,’ Jack thought out loud. ‘I see my parents most weekends. Just pop in for an hour here and there. They’re not as young as they used to be so time with them seems that much more precious. You know what I mean?’
With desperate haste Lisa changed the subject. ‘Do you ever go to restaurant openings? Or first nights? That kind of thing?’
‘Nope,’ Jack said shortly. ‘I hate them. I was born without the shmooze gene, although I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.’
‘How so?’ Lisa dissembled.
‘Ah, come on, I’m a narky bollocks.’
‘You’ve never been to me,’ Lisa said, which wasn’t to say that she hadn’t noticed his tantrums.
‘I don’t mean to be,’ he said with vague wistfulness. ‘It just… sort of… happens, and I’m always sorry afterwards.’
‘So your bark is worse than your bite?’
He swung around. ‘Done!’ he said, putting down his spanner. Then he added softly, ‘Not always. Sometimes my bite is very bad.’
Before she could take him up on that provocative statement, he was clattering spanners and screwdrivers back into his toolbox. ‘It’s on a twenty-four-hour clock, should be no bother to set, hot water any time you like. See you tomorrow and sorry for arriving unannounced.’
‘No proble–’
Suddenly he was gone, the house seemed too empty, and Lisa was alone – very alone – with her thoughts.
Oliver had cared about clothes, about parties, about art and music and clubs and knowing the right people. Jack was a badly dressed closet-socialist who sailed on a surfboard and who had no social life to speak of. But he was also big and sexy and dangerous and smelt nice, and hey, you can’t have everything.
24
You’re a great girl, Ashling, you’re a great girl, Ashling. Dylan’s farewell to Ashling carouselled in her head, as she walked home from the Shelbourne. And only stopped when she popped into Café Moka for something to eat.
When she finally reached home, Boo was sitting outside.
‘Where’ve you been?’ Ashling asked. ‘I haven’t seen you in a couple of days.’
He threw his look heavenwards. ‘Women!’ he exclaimed, good-naturedly. ‘Always trying to keep tabs on you.’ His eyes were bright in his unshaven face. ‘I felt like a change of scene.’ He waved a grubby hand in a playfully louche gesture. ‘A beautiful shop doorway in Henry Street beckoned, so I laid my hat there for a couple of nights.’
‘So you sleep around,’ Ashling said. ‘Typical man.’
‘It meant nothing,’ Boo said earnestly. ‘It was just a physical thing.’
‘Last night I had books for you.’ Ashling was annoyed at being caught, once more, on the hop.
Until she remembered that she had a review copy of a Patricia Cornwell in her bag. No one at the office had wanted it so Ashling had taken it for Joy.
‘Would you be into this?’ Awkwardly she tugged it from her bag. Boo’s eyes blazed with so much interest that she felt slightly sick. She had so much, he had nothing except an orange blanket.
‘Deadly,’ he breathed. ‘I’ll mind it, make sure nothing happens to it.’
‘You can keep it.’
‘How come?’
‘I got it, er, free. At work.’
‘Cool job,’ he congratulated. ‘Thanks, Ashling, I appreciate this.’
‘It’s nothing,’ she said, stiffly. Upset by the unfairness of the world, angry with herself for having so much power, guilty because she did so little.
As she stuck her key in the door, he called, ‘What did you think of Marcus Valentine?’
‘I don’t know.’ For a moment she was about to launch into a long explanation of how she hadn’t fancied him, then she’d seen him on the stage and couldn’t help changing her mind, how she was dying for him to ring her and hoped that there might be a message waiting