Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [88]
‘I’m just popping over to Ashling’s for an hour,’ Clodagh called to Dylan, who was watching telly in the half-papered front-room.
‘Are you?’ he asked, in surprise. This was a break from the norm, Clodagh rarely went out in the evenings. And never without him. But before he could question her further, she was already slamming the door and reversing the Nissan Micra out into the road.
‘I need to talk to you,’ Clodagh announced, as Ashling let her into the flat.
‘So I gather,’ Ashling said, dismally.
‘And I need you to do me a favour.’
‘I’ll do my best’
‘Hey, do you know there’s a homeless man sitting in your doorway?’ Clodagh abruptly changed tack. ‘He said hello to me.’
‘That’s probably Boo,’ Ashling said, idly. ‘Young, brown hair, smiley?’
‘Yes, but…’ Clodagh faltered. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Not intimately, but… well, we have the odd chat in passing.’
‘But he’s probably a drug addict! He might mug you with a syringe – that’s what they do, you know. Or break into your flat.’
‘He’s not a drug addict.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He told me.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘You can tell.’ Ashling was suddenly irritable. ‘If someone is drunk or stoned you can tell just by talking to them.’
‘So how come he’s homeless then?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Ashling admitted. It had seemed rude to ask. ‘But he’s very nice. Normal, actually. And I wouldn’t blame him if he did drink or take drugs – being homeless looks horrible.’
Clodagh pushed her lower lip out mutinously. ‘I don’t know where you get these people from. But just be careful, will you? Anyway, I need to talk to you. I’ve made a decision.’
‘What is it?’ Going on anti-depressants? Leaving Dylan?
‘The time has come,’ Clodagh lowered herself down on to the couch. Getting herself comfortable she repeated, ‘The time has come…’
‘For what?’ Nerves made Ashling snap.
‘… for me to go back to work,’ Clodagh finished.
This wasn’t what Ashling had been expecting. She’d been braced for something a lot uglier. ‘What? You? Go back to work?’
‘Why not?’ Clodagh was defensive.
‘Er, exactly. Why not? But what triggered this?’
‘Ah, I’ve been thinking about it for a while. It probably isn’t healthy to pour all my energies into my children.’ Privately Clodagh reckoned that that was where the terrible, itchy-uncomfortable feelings of dissatisfaction were coming from. ‘I need to get out of the house more. Have adult conversations.’
‘And that’s all you wanted to talk to me about?’ Ashling needed to check.
‘What else would there be?’ Clodagh sounded surprised.
‘Nothing.’ Ashling could have smacked Dylan, getting her worked up into a state of high anxiety, when it was clear that all that was wrong with Clodagh was boredom. ‘So what kind of job were you thinking of?’
‘Don’t know yet,’ Clodagh admitted. ‘Don’t really mind. Anything… Although,’ she added ruefully, ‘whatever it is, it’ll be hard to go back to taking orders from other people. People who aren’t my children, that is.’
As Ashling rearranged her mood to fit in with this unexpected turn of events, Clodagh fell into a reverie. She was always reading books where housewives started their own business. Where they turned their great baking skills into a cake industry. Or set up a health club for women. Or channelled their pottery hobby into a thriving enterprise, employing, oh, at least seven or eight people. They made it sound so easy. Banks lent them money, sisters-in-law minded children, neighbours converted the garage into an HQ, everyone rallied round. When the café flooded, the world and its granny mucked in to clear up: customers, postmen, innocent passers-by and someone the heroine had had a bad argument with. (This usually signalled the end of the disagreement.)
And these fictional enterprising women invariably bagged a man into the bargain.
But you have a man, Clodagh reminded herself.
Yes, but….
So could she set up her own business? What could she do?
Nothing, if she was honest. She sincerely doubted that anyone would pay to eat something she’d cooked. In fact, with Craig and Molly she almost had to pay them to eat their meals.