‘You and I might never have met.’ He laughed, and gave a mock shiver to think this could have been on the cards.
Freda felt her shoulders relax. She loved Holly’s Hotel just as it was; it was a great place for a celebration, and the idea of it being turned into a ‘leisure complex’ sounded awful. But it didn’t matter by what chance she had been introduced to this exciting man, who for some impossible-to-understand reason seemed to fancy her greatly. She gave a sigh of pure pleasure.
He smiled at her and her heart melted.
Freda hoped that he wouldn’t want to come home with her. The flat was in a total mess, and there was all the business of it being a first date and being thought a slapper, and if he were going to come to her place she would need a week getting it ready. Suppose he suggested going to Holly’s Hotel?
But he wouldn’t, would he, he had too much class.
Or maybe he didn’t want to all that much?
They were the last people to leave the restaurant. Quentins arranged a taxi for them. Mark said he would see her home. When the cab stopped, he got out and saw her to the door.
‘Lovely place, as I would have expected,’ he said, and he kissed her on each cheek and got back into the taxi.
Freda climbed the stairs and went into her little flat, which looked as if it had been ransacked by burglars but was actually just the way she’d left it. She sat on the side of her bed, not knowing whether to be relieved or disappointed that he hadn’t come in.
When she had been telling him about the library, he had listened to every word as if she was the only person in the room. But what if he was that way with everyone? Did he really like her? Of course not, how could he? She was just a librarian; he was so smart and had travelled everywhere.
She felt suddenly lonely here tonight. She might get a cat to talk to.
Eva had advised her against it; she said that cats were the natural enemy of birds, and anyway, if you became fond of them it stopped you from travelling. Still, if she had a cat it might purr at her, be some kind of presence in this empty place, perched at the top of a big house.
She fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed over and over that she was trying to get on to a ferry but it kept leaving the shore before she could get on board.
‘Come on, Freda, we don’t do vague,’ Lane said over coffee in the little theatre the next morning.
‘I’m not being vague, I’m telling you every single detail of the menu down to the chocolate shaped like a Q at the end.’ Freda was indignant.
‘But what about him? Did you like him? Was he easy to talk to?’
‘He was fine, very smooth, very charming. He’s in what they call the “leisure industry . . .”’
Lane snorted in derision.
‘. . . and he’s here to discuss investing in Holly’s. They want to do a major expansion.’
‘Holly’s doesn’t need expanding. It’s fine as it is. Did you . . .?’
‘No.’
‘And did he want to . . .?’
‘Again, no. So now, does that answer every interrogation on the sexual front?’ Freda wondered.
Lane looked hurt. ‘We always tell, that’s why I asked.’
‘Well, I have told. Nothing, nada, zilch.’
‘Ah yes, but will you tell when there is something to tell?’ Lane speculated.
‘We’ll never know, will we?’ Freda sounded more lighthearted than she felt.
‘Suppose I were to warn you off this guy Mark,’ Lane looked serious. She couldn’t put a finger on what it was, but there was something about him that worried her. ‘Suppose I said I didn’t trust him. Suppose I said you don’t know anything about him, that he’s just spinning you a line. If I were to do that, would I lose you as a friend?’
‘Nothing to warn me off – one bunch of roses which went to Miss Duffy, one dinner . . . hardly an affair.’
‘Early days,’ Lane said darkly. ‘He’ll be back. I feel sure of it.’
Joe Duggan, a man Freda had last met in college five years ago, rang to ask her to a party that night. Freda had no intention of going to a group of strangers with a fellow she barely remembered, but polite as always, she asked him what he was doing these days.
‘Lecturing in technology, mainly to dummies,’ he said. ‘You know, people who are afraid of gadgets and who don’t want to miss out. I’m not too bad at it, actually; I tell them machines are stupid and that calms them down.’
‘Joe, I may have a great job for you. Can you come and see me in the library on Friday,’ Freda said. This could be the next Friends meeting settled.
Perfect.
Miss Duffy had a face that would stop a clock.
‘When you have quite finished organising your social life, Miss O’Donovan, I wonder can I ask you to help with the Library Fines? And there are several people waiting for your attention at the counter.’
The first in line at the counter was Mark Malone. He said nothing, just looked at her.
‘Do you have any work to go to?’ she asked him to keep the conversation light and to break his stare.
‘I work very hard,’ he said. ‘Way into the night often, but I made time this morning to come and see you.’
‘Thank you so much for dinner,’ Freda said. ‘I was going to write you a little note, in fact, to say how much I enjoyed it.’
‘What would you have said?’
‘That it was a very warm and generous evening and to thank you.’ She kept an air of finality to the way she spoke, as if she thought it was a one-off and that she was just being grateful without regrets.
‘You said you have a day off tomorrow,’ he said.
Normally on her day off, Freda would do what she and Lane called the everyday business of living: she would bring her sheets and towels to the launderette, do some shopping at the supermarket, maybe persuade Lane to take a long lunch. Sometimes she went to an art exhibition or did window-shopping in the boutiques. She might tend her window boxes, filling them up with bulbs for the spring, and in the evening she might go to a wine bar with friends.
But not tomorrow. That would be a very different day.
Mark had wondered if Freda would like to go down to County Wicklow with him. He had to go to a meeting with Miss Holly, and maybe they could have lunch there. In the shower, Freda planned the day. They could go for a walk in the afternoon, then they would go home and she could get his supper ready. Maybe they would stay at Holly’s. In any case, he would say she looked very beautiful. He would take her in his arms.
‘We don’t have to wait any longer,’ he would say; or maybe, ‘I wouldn’t have been able to get through tonight without you.’ Something. Anything. It didn’t really matter.
She wondered what it would be like. She hoped she would be attractive enough for him. Please him properly. She wasn’t very experienced, and certainly no one recently.
The last time must have been nearly two years ago when she had had a holiday romance, a lovely guy called Andy from Scotland who had promised to stay in touch and said he would come to Ireland to see her. But he didn’t stay in touch and he hadn’t come to Ireland. It hadn’t been a big deal. Andy already had a life planned for himself: it involved banking, living near his parents and his married brothers, playing a lot of golf.
Freda didn’t know why she was even thinking about Andy now, except to worry that she might not have been any good at it, which was possibly why he might not have kept in touch. Perhaps as a lover she had been useless. She had quite enjoyed it all herself, that magical summer holiday, and thought that Andy had too. But then, you never really knew.
It would have been lovely to have had some reassurance about that side of things. Freda smiled to herself wryly at the thought of telephoning Andy at his bank, years after the fling, and asking for reassurance about her performance.
But then Mark wasn’t looking for some kind of sexual athlete. Was he? Women must have been throwing themselves at him since he was a teenager. She wished she knew more about him, and what he wanted.
And then, when she least expected it, Freda got one of her feelings. She saw as clearly as if it were an advertisement in an estate agent’s catalogue a book-lined apartment with a living room and kitchenette, two big bedrooms and a study with an overflowing desk. There was a view of the sea from the window. At the door was a small woman with short blonde hair, reading glasses around her neck on a chain and a vague, worried smile.
She was saying, ‘There you are, darling. Good to have you home!’ to whoever was coming in the door. But who was the woman? And who was she talking to? The breath left her body with a great rush, and she felt light-headed and as if her legs had turned to paper. Was it Mark?
It couldn’t be. It was wrong, the feeling must be wrong. She hadn’t seen a man, she hadn’t seen who it was arriving at the door. It couldn’t be Mark. It couldn’t be.
Shaking, she got dressed and, hands still trembling, applied mascara and lipstick. She put up her hair, found her good boots and she was ready. She felt a shiver. She felt very glad she had told nobody about this date.
The shrill bell of the intercom buzzed. He was on the doorstep.