Mandy Meets had been an immediate success. A chat show with clout, it reminded Amanda of her ‘Life on the Fringe’ interviews. Only now, instead of the grim district courts, she conducted her interviews at gala openings where celebrities spoke to her in their slinky dresses and stilettoes, their black ties. The red carpet had never been so glittery; but Amanda was not a simpering cypher for guests to promote their egos and latest releases. When she sat in her swivel chair to interview them, she knew where to stick the needle and puncture the celebrity membrane. She would search for the sudden foot-tap, fingers tightening, the jerk of an Adam’s apple. Those tell-tale signs told her she had smashed through PR spin and stroked the nerve that made her guests more interesting or defensive – or simply angry enough to walk off her show. All grist to the publicity mill, and Lar’s invitation to dine with him in The Amber Door told her he was happy with the direction she had taken.
He ordered oysters for a starter and lobster for his main course. Amanda stayed with the salads and made a pretence of eating the scallops. He talked to her about widowerhood and the difficulties of moving on. She wondered if she should offer him her condolences. It seemed such an intimate thing to do and she had only met Rosalind once at the LR1 launch. Better not. Who needed to be reminded of sorrow when they were smiling?
The Amber Door had been his wife’s favourite restaurant, he told her. Tonight was the first time he had dined there since her death. It was rumoured at LR1 that he kept Rosalind’s ashes in an urn in their bedroom. Such a romantic, foolhardy thing to do. She had been a renowned entrepreneur, who had never wanted children to interfere with her business interests. Together, she and Lar had acquired property, expanded their stable of magazines and, finally, fulfilled their ambition to establish their own television channel.
Tiramisu or Chocolate Heaven? Amanda skimmed the choices on the dessert menu. Not in a thousand years.
‘Just black decaf coffee for me.’ She smiled across the table at Lar.
‘You’ve eaten so little,’ he protested. ‘Are you sure you won’t indulge?’
‘Image is everything,’ she said. ‘I can’t afford to look ten pounds heavier on screen.’
‘Even if you indulged in the entire dessert menu, you’d still be flawless.’ His eyes lingered too long on her midriff and it was there, that jolt of anticipation. An awareness that they both understood how the night could end.
He talked about his magazines and she listened eagerly, flattered to be taken into his confidence. More cutbacks in Richardson Publications. The sales of Hitz had dropped. He intended closing the magazine down. Readers claimed it had lost its hard edge since Karl Lawson left.
‘Did Lawson ever thank you for the freedom campaign you ran for him?’ Lar asked
Hearing his name uttered so casually startled her. Was this a sardonic comment, she wondered, but, no, he sounded genuinely interested.
‘No. I never asked for thanks,’ she replied. ‘He suffered greatly from the media coverage at the time of his niece’s disappearance. It was my way of helping him get his life back together again.’
She didn’t want to talk about Karl Lawson yet he was there at the table, the whiff of homelessness pushing through the smell of lobster thermidor and loin of venison. They were everywhere these days. The nation’s disgrace, sleeping in cardboard boxes and damp doorways. How could Karl Lawson possibly have joined their ranks?
She had seen him on the Liffey boardwalk one afternoon when she was returning from the launch of a lingerie collection. He had let his hair grow or, perhaps, just hadn’t bothered having it cut, and the wavy, uncombed strands added to his unkempt appearance. His anorak and jeans were clean, and he had a backpack on the bench beside him, a rolled sleeping bag attached to it. He was watching the river as it flowed between the high, grey walls. Amanda turned before he saw her and joined the pedestrians hurrying across the Ha’penny Bridge.
‘Did you believe he was guilty?’ she asked Lar.
‘Whether I did or not was irrelevant,’ he replied. ‘The scandal was affecting our advertising revenue.’
‘Innocent or guilty, it didn’t matter to you?’
‘Sentiment doesn’t increase my bottom line.’
‘Why didn’t you give him back his job when he was released?’
‘Mud sticks. You can wash it off as often as you like but a residue remains.’ He handed the dessert menu back to the waiter and ordered Chocolate Heaven.
Amanda hoped it wouldn’t give him indigestion. A long night lay ahead.
‘A cigar would be an excellent way to end a wonderful evening,’ he said when he had ordered a brandy for himself and a glass of Evian water for Amanda. He smiled, deep crinkles around his eyes. How he would enjoy viewing her through a satisfying plume of smoke, Amanda thought… but times had changed, and the air between them was clear and perfect when they left the restaurant. He asked if he should call a taxi to take her home.
‘That would be ideal,’ she replied, holding his gaze, unafraid and certain. ‘Or, it would be, if that’s what you’d like me to do.’
When the taxi arrived, he waited until she was seated inside and then joined her. The driver drove through Sandymount and Blackrock, past the lights of Dun Laoghaire Harbour and onwards to the outskirts of Rockfield, where his house stood on the summit of Bayview Heights. An avenue of cypress led to the front entrance, where the name ‘Shearwater’ was carved in granite.
Reminders of Rosalind were everywhere. The elegant wall hangings and paintings had been chosen by her on their trips abroad, said Lar. The photographs that had charted their lives together were still on view and the library, filled with her favourite books, had the dusty stillness of a shrine. Amanda studied her portrait in the hall, the proud tilt of her head, her frozen smile.
They didn’t lie on the marital bed. The guest room was bright and impersonal, no memories to distract him, no ashes. The age difference didn’t matter. Lar was a robust sixty-year-old with the sexual urgency of a teenager. When Amanda used the bathroom, she saw the tablets he took. He had hidden them in a discreet drawer that also held his blood pressure and cholesterol medication. She would never reveal that she knew how his energy was fuelled – or that she had found Rosalind’s ashes in the master bedroom when he was downstairs in the kitchen making eggs Benedict. They were in an ornate urn, which had been, Amanda suspected, bought by Rosalind on one of their trips abroad. She touched the urn and smiled.
She had heard that his aggression was more pronounced since her death. Amanda didn’t fear his aggression. It had lifted him from the floor whenever he failed, a tougher man each time. She, too, knew what it was like to fall apart and rise again. She hurried back to the spare room to await his return.
Later, he took her hand and led her out on to the balcony to admire the view. Stars splintered like cut glass on Dublin Bay and the city below them was ringed with radiance.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lar was wrong in believing Rosalind had given him everything he desired. He could have asked for more, but never knew he wanted it until Amanda awakened that need in him. Fatherhood at sixty. He had been thrilled. A child to carry his footprint into a new generation.
The word was out in LR1 that she had trapped him. Let them gossip by the water cooler. Amanda didn’t care. No one trapped Lar Richardson. He made his own decisions. The gamble she took when she discarded her contraceptive pill had paid off and she was no longer a frivolous dalliance on his arm. She had acquired status. His child’s mother. His wife. Touching her belly, tiny feet beating against his hand.