‘Meet a nice normal guy,’ I say.
‘It never occurred to me that she’d get that far. I was just hoping she’d have a non-insane evening. But one hour with Rory, and Ash was head over heels. She was totally freaked out by it – this was the last thing she was looking for, specially just when she was getting Joe where she wanted him. She couldn’t even believe she’d spent that long talking to Rory. She had this rule about not talking to a guy for too long, in case he thought he was in with a chance – Ash figured that wasn’t fair, when she wasn’t on for a relationship—’
‘You told us the reason she had that rule was because she liked to make guys work for it.’
Lucy shrugs. ‘That was the best I could come up with. I had to tell you she cut off her chat with Rory halfway through the evening, because other people might’ve noticed that; but I wasn’t about to tell you she wasn’t into relationships, or you wouldn’t have gone looking for her secret guy. And I couldn’t exactly go into the whole thing.’
‘Fair enough,’ I say. For someone who doesn’t like coming up with scripts, Lucy’s done a lot of it, the last while. Aislinn got good at sucking people in, all right. ‘So Aislinn didn’t know what to do about Rory?’
That smile on one side of Lucy’s mouth again, tender and bruised. ‘No, she knew exactly what to do about him: give him the brush-off. But she couldn’t do it. She thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. We went back to hers that night, after the launch, and she could not stop talking about him. She was all pink and giggly, like a kid, and she kept going, “What do I do? OhmyGod, Luce, what do I do?” ’
‘What did you say?’
The smile breaks up. ‘By this time I had no qualms about telling Ash what to do. I went, “You ring Joe tomorrow and cut him loose. Tell him you can’t live with yourself if you break up a marriage, some bullshit like that—” ’ Lucy’s hands go through her hair again. ‘I could hear myself sounding like her, making up stories . . . I just wanted her out of the whole Joe thing, before she pulled the pin and blew herself to bits. I told her, “And then when Rory rings you, which he will, you say yes I’d love to meet up thank you very much.” I told her, “This is how you get your revenge on Joe. By not letting him lose you a guy you actually really like. By not letting him run your life any more.” Right?’
‘Sounds dead right to me,’ I say. ‘Sounds like she should’ve had it tattooed on her arm. But no?’
Lucy shakes her head. ‘No way. Not a chance. And being honest, I could see why not. The amount Ash had put into this . . . All the planning, all the energy. All the starving herself. Shagging this guy she loathed, for months. And right when it was all about to pay off, when the explosions were about to go off and the big soundtrack number was about to kick in, I was telling her to ditch the whole thing?’
And she was telling Aislinn to give up the magic, just when she was about to start shooting fireballs out of her palms. ‘That wouldn’t be easy,’ I say. ‘I get that.’
‘And then of course two days later Rory texted Ash, wanting to meet up. If she said no, he’d take it as a brush-off, obviously – and she couldn’t exactly say, “Could you just give me a month or two while I finish shagging this guy into leaving his wife, then I’ll be all yours?” She stalled him a bit, as much as she could without him thinking she wasn’t into him, but in the end she said yes; yes, let’s meet. And they went for a pint, and they had an amazing time, and Aislinn was totally smitten.’
‘But she still didn’t break it off with Joe.’
‘No. She just started trying to nudge him along, hurry the whole thing up. She dropped hints about how much she missed him when he had to go home, and how she wanted to have babies and she wasn’t getting any younger . . . She had to be extra careful, because the last thing she wanted was him getting all noble and giving her up because she deserved better, or getting paranoid that she was sticking holes in the condoms. It was—’ Lucy’s hands go over her face and she laughs into her fingers, a laugh with a sob caught in it. ‘Jesus, it would’ve been hysterical, if it wasn’t so insane.’
‘How’d Joe react?’
‘I was praying he’d do the grand renunciation. I was trying to send him thought-waves. I’m not even joking.’ Another half-sob of laughter. ‘But nope: Joe just followed right along where Aislinn was taking him. Three weeks ago – just after New Year’s – he told her he was going to leave his wife.’
McCann, who used to brag to Aislinn’s mother about how he’d never leave his family. She’d fed all that into the shredder. I say, ‘I bet she was delighted with that.’
‘Oh yeah.’ Lucy wipes her hands down her face. This is taking a lot out of her. ‘Yeah, she was over the moon. Except Joe wanted to wait till summer. One of his kids is doing the Leaving Cert; Joe didn’t want him upset till that was over.’
‘Meaning Ash would have six more months of trying to juggle him and Rory.’
‘Yeah. She wasn’t happy about that, at all. She cried – not hard enough to be ugly, of course, just a cute little tear – and she told him she knew there would be something else after that, men never left their wives, it was so hard to watch him go home to another woman, blah blah blah. But Joe wouldn’t budge.’
‘So what did she do about it?’
‘God . . .’ Lucy grimaces, eyes closing. ‘Aislinn was so, so badly out of her depth. This was real stuff, you know? Twenty-five-year marriages, kids . . . There was no way she could keep up. Not a chance. All she could think of to do was keep Joe nervous, basically. She was still being Perfect Girlfriend, but every now and then she’d show him some Facebook picture of someone’s baby and sigh, or she’d let it slip that some client at work had flirted with her . . . She just kept poking him, nice and delicately, with the chance he could lose her if he didn’t get off his arse.’
I ask, ‘Did she ever tell him about Rory? Even a hint?’
‘You mean, to make the point that she had options?’ Lucy shakes her head. ‘No. I thought of that, too. I specifically asked Aislinn – warned her, more like – and she said no way. But I wondered if . . . I told you Joe wanted to be able to look through her phone. I wondered if maybe Ash was leaving a couple of texts from Rory on there. Just so, if Joe went looking . . .’
Which she was. Jesus Christ. I think about banging my head off the coffee table a few times. Na?ve didn’t begin to describe this girl.
‘That was what worried me,’ Lucy says, ‘when Ash told me she had invited Rory over for dinner. They could’ve met anywhere, you know? If they wanted a shag, they could’ve gone back to Rory’s. Why go where Aislinn knew Joe might show up?’