‘Bridget!’ Clodagh hugged her, air-kissing as though they were long-lost friends. ‘So lovely that you came.’
‘I would not have missed this for anything. I just love parties, especially ones like this. It’s full of the old dinosaurs of Irish television. All those ones who you thought had popped their clogs years ago. I mean, I just saw Val Connolly. Who exhumed him?’
‘Val?’ said Clodagh. I could tell she was doing her best to hold on to her smile ‘He runs his own production company now. Makes millions.’ She turned to me and imperceptibly widened her eyes giving a tiny shake of her head.
‘Well, not as disinteresting as I initially thought,’ said Bridget. ‘I always say, there are only two points to a man. One, if he’s drop-dead gorgeous, or two, if he’s loaded. Normally, I like both.’
Clodagh managed to mouth ‘see what I mean’ to me. ‘Tab,’ she said, ‘I should have introduced you… this is Bridget O’Flaherty, our new weather...
‘The new meteorologist and television personality,’ said Bridget. ‘Or that’s what my agent wants me to call myself. It’s meaningless, to me, but she insists on it. Absolutely insists. Says I’m not just a pretty face. Well, she says I’m that, but she would wouldn’t she, being my mother and everything. Meteorologist and television personality, that’s me! Anyway, pleased to meet you.’ She shook my hand.
‘Tabitha,’ I said. ‘Clodagh’s friend. No media connections. Just here for the free champagne.’
‘So, how old are you, Clodagh?’ she said.
‘Forty,’ said Clodagh, quickly, eyes giving a flicker.
‘Really?’ Bridget raised a sceptical brow.
‘Yes really! Goodness me, you don’t think I am younger than that, do you?’ went on Clodagh. ‘You don’t think I am pretending to be older than I actually am to lend myself a sense of gravitas?’
‘Gravitas? Is that something to do with gravity?’
‘No,’ said Clodagh. ‘It’s to do with gravy. On your roast chicken.’
Bridget looked confused, but I was beginning to laugh, discreetly.
‘We all like gravitas, Bridget,’ Clodagh continued. ‘Except some of us were born with it, some of us have gravitas thrust upon us and others don’t even know what it is.’
‘Oh do fuck off,’ said Bridget, sweetly. ‘All I’m saying is that you don’t look forty…’
‘Nor do you,’ said Clodagh.
‘But obviously I don’t!’ said Bridget.
‘You look fifty!’ Clodagh drained her glass of champagne. ‘Oh, aren’t you?’
‘I’m fecking thirty-one,’ said Bridget, rattled. ‘It’s just that I’ve been working – professionally – since I was five. It’s really ageing, those late nights and having to get on the road again. Fecking Riverdance. Even now, if I walk into a shop and they are playing the music, I can feel my feet start to twitch, and my knees start to ache. I can hear the voice of our teacher shouting at us to keep on. I can’t walk around Temple Bar or any of the tourist shops. It’s all Mammy’s fault. She put me on the stage, spotted my talent early. Her own dancing career was cruelly cut short by a terrible accident that involved a bullock at the St Patrick’s Day parade when she was twelve. Never got over it and she put all her effort into me. When my knees packed in, she thought television was our only answer. She’s over there, actually.’ She pointed out a woman who looked like a slightly older version of Bridget, the same look entirely, but she was shorter and her hair an unnatural shade of red.
Then Bridget suddenly shouted. ‘Selfie!’ And put both arms around us and held up her phone. ‘This, ladies, is going on Twitter,’ she said. ‘I try and post every fifteen minutes. Everyone smile!’
And just as I was clinched in this media sandwich, I saw a face looking over at me. Red. He waved his hand, an indiscernible expression on his face, while I disentangled myself from Bridget’s limbs.
Maybe it was the effect of the champagne, but all I wanted to do was put my two hands around his face and pull him towards me and kiss him. I wanted to remember what he tasted like, what it felt to feel his breath on mine, feel the heat of his skin on me.
*
Clodagh passed me another glass of Prosecco as soon as Bridget had gone to air-kiss and schmooze others. ‘You look like you need this,’ she said. ‘I know I do. What do you think of her?’
‘Who?’
‘What’s wrong with you? You’re miles away.’
‘She’s…’ I came back to the conversation. ‘She’s just like all you media types. Self-obsessed.’
She sank her wine. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘But who else would put them through this except for self-obsessed, masochistic narcissists.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Talking of another one.’ And then, louder, ‘Max! I thought you’d disappeared somewhere.’
And there was Max, shorter and plainer than I had remembered, wearing a black polo-neck, like a miniature James Bond, or at least someone trying to channel James Bond. And failing. He didn’t smile. ‘No, but I’m not going to stay much longer,’ he said. ‘I’m going to head off.’ He nodded at me, ignoring Clodagh’s obvious disappointment.
‘Max, how’s it going?’ I said, while Clodagh began speaking.
‘But, it’s my party,’ she said. ‘It’s only getting started.’
‘Clodagh. I’m tired. I’ve been working all week. I am not fecking twenty-five any longer.’
‘Excuse me a moment,’ I said, wondering why Clodagh bothered her arse with this charmless excuse for a boyfriend. And she questioned why I had stayed with Michael! Yet there she was, with someone who, every time I met him, displayed as much charisma as a boiled turnip. He looked not unlike one too.
For a moment, I stood, not knowing what to do. I was aware of Red out of the corner of my eye, still in conversation with someone. I couldn’t walk up to him. He’d waved. Was that enough. I mean, I’d see him again on Monday. We didn’t need to talk to each other tonight, did we? But then, he was suddenly alone, the man he’d been talking to had gone. And Red looked directly at me. The two of us stood, watching each other, in the middle of the melee, the noise, the talking, the braying. Bridget was taking another selfie in the midst of a group. I recognised Lucinda, Clodagh’s producer, who was trying not to be head locked into the group.
Without thinking, we moved towards each other and then we were standing in front of one another.
‘Hi Red,’ I said. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Grand, you?’
‘Lovely thanks. How’s your dad? It was really nice to see him again,’ I began gabbling. ‘He’s looking well, better than I thought he would, you know, after a stroke. And the house is the same. It was nice to see it again. And tell him that Michael didn’t have any of Peggy’s cake, but Rosie and I loved it…’
‘She makes a good cake,’ he said. ‘I think she might put whiskey into it.’
‘No wonder it was good. Maybe I shouldn’t have given so much of it to Rosie. But it was good to see her eating something.’
He smiled. ‘I remember once finishing off the sherry trifle for Christmas… I was eight. Oh my God. Mam had made me a separate one, in a tiny bowl, without sherry, but I polished off the adults’ one. I’ve never had sherry since. Sick as a dog. I can still smell it now. There’s that wine shop in Sandycove, and I can’t even walk past because of the smell. It smells of being sick on Christmas night.’
‘I don’t think that is what they are going for,’ I said, laughing. ‘Anyway, you’ve never told me that!’ I was behaving as though there hadn’t been an eighteen year hiatus, as though we were still together.
‘Tab,’ he spoke carefully, reminding me that there was a yawning gap between us, ‘there’s a lot you don’t know about me.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’ Jesus, I was forgetting myself, slipping into a place, a feeling, I had no business being.
‘Forget it. Okay?’
I nodded. And breathe. And smile. I thought.