Whose Life is it Anyway? Read online

  ‘OK, my turn to confess. This is my first date with a man who is black, over thirty-five and has a proper job.’

  ‘That’s a lot of firsts.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘What did your previous boyfriends do?’

  ‘Confession number two. There haven’t been very many previous boyfriends. There was an apprentice jockey, an out-of-work actor and a photographer.’

  ‘Photography’s a proper job.’

  ‘You didn’t see his photos. You?’

  ‘Boring, really. Went out with the same girl for nine years. We broke up six months ago.’

  ‘Reason?’

  ‘It just fizzled out and I moved to Dublin.’

  ‘Define “fizzled”.’

  ‘We realized it wasn’t meant to be.’

  ‘Who realized first?’

  ‘I suppose I did.’

  ‘Was she English?’

  ‘French.’

  ‘Ugly?’

  ‘Good-looking.’

  ‘Obese?’

  ‘Slim.’

  ‘Thick?’

  ‘Doctor.’

  ‘Selfish?’

  ‘She works for the Red Cross.’

  ‘I’m just going to pop outside and shoot myself.’

  Pierre laughed. ‘She wasn’t funny.’

  ‘Funny’s all very well, but it has to come as part of a package. I’m not beautiful, French or intellectual. I hate flies and creepy-crawlies so I could never go and save people in Africa even if I was a doctor. Besides, my hair goes fuzzy in the humidity and I look worse than normal. So maybe you should save yourself a few quid on the dinner and we’ll call it a day now.’

  ‘I think you missed the part about Brigitte and me breaking up.’

  ‘And I think you need your head examined. She sounds amazing.’

  ‘She was in lots of ways, but she wasn’t right for me. I’m sure she’ll make someone else very happy.’

  ‘Pierre, you need to understand something here. I’m not a clown. I’m not funny in the morning or, truth be told, for most of the afternoon. I can occasionally be amusing in the evening – alcohol units depending – and in my column. But that doesn’t mean I’m a barrel of laughs to be with. In fact, I can be a right grumpy old cow.’

  ‘I happen to think you’re gorgeous, sexy, very clever and witty. Maybe you won’t save the world, but I can live with that.’

  ‘What did your family think when you broke up with your girlfriend of nine years?’

  ‘My parents were fond of Brigitte and I think they hoped we’d settle down, but it was my decision and they respect that.’

  ‘What about your brothers and sisters?’

  ‘I’m an only child.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘That’s bad?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Only children are used to undivided attention, not having to share their toys and are bossy.’

  ‘And this is based on?’

  ‘Observation.’

  ‘I’m forty-two. I’ve learnt to share my toys.’

  ‘That remains to be seen.’

  ‘How many siblings do you have?’

  ‘If my father had had his way I’d have ten. But my mother put the skids on after three children. I’ve one older sister, Siobhan, and a younger brother, Finn.’

  ‘Middle child!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t they tend to be chippy and resentful because they have an undefined place in the family?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘How did your family feel about your break-ups?’

  ‘The only one I bothered to tell them about was the jockey because my dad’s mad into horse-racing. He had high hopes we’d be going to Cheltenham celebrating Gold Cup winners. He was a bit put out when I told him I’d got dumped for a horse. Needless to say, the rest of them thought it was hilarious.’

  Pierre roared laughing.

  ‘I was quite upset at the time.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK, I’m over it now.’

  ‘What was the horse called?’

  ‘Prancing Queen,’ I said, and we both giggled.

  Our food arrived and we ate in silence for a while.

  ‘How did you get into journalism?’ Pierre asked.

  ‘My auntie Nuala suggested it and I liked the idea. English was the only subject I was good at in school. So I came to Dublin to study.’

  ‘Why Dublin?’

  ‘I wanted to get away from my family. It was a bit crowded in my house before I left and I needed some space. My sister, her husband and their two kids were living with us, not to mention the steady stream of relatives that come through the kitchen door every day. We’re a very close family, which is great, but when you’re a teenager it can be a little claustrophobic. I knew my parents would be supportive of me coming to Ireland so it kept everyone happy. Then I got a job on the paper, writing about anything that needed to be covered – literally from obituaries to shaggy-dog stories. You name it, I wrote about it. It was good training and it eventually led to me getting my own column. So I stayed.’

  ‘Do you miss London?’

  ‘I miss my family but I go home regularly. What about you?’

  ‘Studied phonetics at Cambridge followed by a PhD. Then I decided I’d like to lecture so I went to teach in Berlin for a while, moved to Paris and now I’m here.’

  ‘Do you like it here?’

  ‘I like it more and more by the minute.’

  ‘I was just thinking the same thing.’

  ‘Dessert?’

  ‘Not hungry.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Not thirsty.’

  ‘My place?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  3

  As I walked into Pierre’s apartment I realized that this was another first. I had never gone back to a man’s place on a first date. If I liked them enough, I always brought them back to my apartment. It was safer that way. If they turned out to be a psychopath and attacked me with an ice pick, kitchen knife or some other culinary utensil, I could scream and my neighbours would hear me through the paper-thin walls and call the police.

  Yet here I was, strolling into Pierre’s apartment without a care in the world. Everything about this day had been surreal. I looked around me. The place was gorgeous. Unlike the jumped-up broom cupboard I lived in, this was a proper, grown-up apartment with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that looked out on to the river Liffey. The walls were painted a creamy-beige, the furniture was chocolate brown, and beautiful rugs were strewn on the wooden floors. The walls were covered with incredible paintings and tall, striking sculptures filled the corners of the room.

  The bookshelf beside me groaned under the weight of French literary greats – Flaubert, Balzac, Hugo, Maupassant, Baudelaire – plus a copy of Joyce’s Ulysses. I had had Ulysses beside my bed now for six months. But somehow, every time I went to read it, it got replaced after the first page by Dan Brown on a good day and Hello! on a bad one.

  ‘Welcome to my bachelor pad,’ said Pierre, coming out of the kitchen with a bottle of wine and two matching, unchipped wine glasses.

  ‘So this is how real grown-ups live.’ I smiled.

  ‘I’m sure your place is lovely.’

  ‘It’s a dump and you’re never going to see it. This is incredible. I feel as if I’ve stepped into another world.’

  ‘I’d like to take all the credit but my mother came over and helped kit it out. It’s her thing.’

  ‘Is she an interior designer?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, she’s been running a business for years. Very successful.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. She’s got amazing taste. Is this her?’ I asked, picking up a photo from the mantelpiece.

  ‘Yes. It was taken a couple of years ago in Paris at her sixtieth birthday party.’

  ‘She looks about thirty!’ I said, peering at the photo. The woman smiling back at
me was beautiful, stylish and youthful. Pierre was sitting beside her. He had one arm round his mother and the other round a woman of about thirty, who looked like Jennifer Aniston, only better.

  ‘Is that your ex-girlfriend?’ I asked, praying he’d say it was his cousin.

  ‘Yes, that’s Brigitte.’

  Bollox.

  ‘Have you read all of these?’ I asked, gesturing at the bookshelf in an attempt to divert from the stunning supermodel ex-girlfriend beaming down at me from the mantelpiece.

  ‘Yes. My father was a professor of French at Oxford, so French literature has always been a high priority for him. I didn’t get footballs for my birthday, I got books.’

  ‘Did you mind?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have been my first choice. But we only children don’t have anyone to kick a ball with so reading was something I did a lot of.’

  ‘To be so well read is such an achievement. Your dad did a good job.’

  ‘What did you get on your birthdays?’

  ‘I never got what I wanted either. When I asked for Barbie Ballet, I got Barbie with a home-made Irish dancing costume sewn on to her. When I asked for luminous pink leg-warmers, I got scratchy woolly socks that my great-auntie Josie knitted. And on my fourteenth birthday I asked for a Duran Duran T-shirt and ended up with one that said, “E´irinn go Br´ch” instead.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I hadn’t a clue because I never paid attention in Irish class, but my father proudly announced that it meant “Ireland for ever”. Needless to say, it never saw the light of day.’

  ‘Poor Niamh, you sound more deprived than I was.’

  ‘I was very nearly a social outcast.’

  ‘What saved you?’

  ‘My sense of humour. You?’

  ‘I was good at sports. When you’re a guy and you’re good at sports, you automatically have kudos.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say you were too shabby academically either, Professor.’

  ‘I got by.’ He grinned.

  ‘Confession.’

  ‘Uh-oh.’

  ‘I’ve read precisely none of the books on your bookshelf. I still haven’t even got round to reading Ulysses although I bought it two years ago.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘In my opinion it’s overrated.’

  ‘Fantastic. Now I don’t have to feel guilty every time I see it staring accusingly at me from under the bed.’

  ‘Confession.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I didn’t invite you back here to discuss literature.’

  ‘And there I was thinking it was my intellect that had attracted you.’

  Pierre moved in closer and kissed me. Usually I would play hard to get on a first night, but this was a whole new universe. I was consumed with lust. It took me precisely ten seconds to rip off my clothes, ten seconds to rip off his and then, thankfully, it took a little longer to have the most passionate sex of my life.

  I woke up early the next morning, my eyes stuck together with mascara. Thankfully, Pierre was still asleep, so I slipped out of bed and into the bathroom to do some damage control. What I saw in the mirror was not pretty. I had smudged, panda eyes and bed hair. But not the tousled look of a woman who has just been ravished by her lover – I had the bird’s nest of someone who has over-bleached it. I rubbed my eyes and tried to find a brush but all I could see was a nailbrush, so I used that. Bad idea. Now I looked like I’d had an electric shock. I scrubbed my teeth so he’d think I woke up with fragrant breath and I patched up my makeup, so I looked less scary and ‘natural’.

  I walked out to find Pierre in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. Gorgeous, clever and a cook. Was this really happening? He grinned at me. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Smells good.’

  ‘Scrambled eggs and bacon OK for you?’

  ‘Fantastic.’

  ‘Grab a seat.’

  ‘Do all your conquests get this treatment?’

  ‘Only the good ones.’

  I smiled.

  ‘Did you enjoy last night?’

  ‘Average.’

  ‘You’re a good actress.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘When you shouted, “This is the best sex I’ve ever had,” I believed you.’

  I blushed. ‘Me and my big mouth.’

  ‘I like your big mouth very much,’ he said, kissing me. ‘Now, eat up before it goes cold.’

  ‘Great eggs.’

  ‘Thanks. So, what plans for today? I’m free until eleven. Do you fancy grabbing the papers and chilling out here?’

  ‘Oh, God, I’d love to but I have a twelve o’clock deadline for my column.’

  ‘Have you started it?’

  ‘I’ve sketched out a few ideas.’

  ‘Can I hear them?’

  ‘Not yet. I need to work on it first.’

  ‘Why don’t you do it from here? Use my computer.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. I promise not to bother you until you’ve finished and then I may have to take you back to bed.’

  ‘For an old guy, you’ve a lot of energy.’

  ‘It’s the younger woman I’m seeing. She’s making me very frisky.’

  ‘Is she good in bed?’

  ‘Best sex I’ve ever had.’

  ‘Copy-cat! Come up with your own line.’

  ‘OK, the most passionate sex I’ve ever had.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly. Now get on with your work. The sooner you finish, the sooner we can pick up where we left off last night.’

  I wrote my column in record time.

  4

  A month later we were having a drink in the local pub and Pierre asked me to move in with him.

  ‘As in live in your apartment?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, yes. I don’t think we’d both fit into yours.’

  ‘I’ve never lived with a man before. I might not be very good at it.’

  ‘You’ll be a natural.’

  ‘I have some bad habits.’

  ‘Everyone does.’

  ‘What if I drive you mad?’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘I can be very annoying and I’m not very chatty in the mornings.’

  ‘I can live with that.’

  ‘I like watching really cheesy TV.’

  ‘How bad?’

  ‘Melrose Place.’

  ‘Sounds great. What time is it on?’

  ‘I’m not very tidy.’

  ‘Nor am I.’

  ‘I work irregular hours.’

  ‘Ditto.’

  ‘Sometimes I wake up at three in the morning and make myself toasted sandwiches.’

  ‘What type?’

  ‘Cheese and onion.’

  ‘My favourite.’

  ‘It’s one of the only things I can cook. I’m hopeless in the kitchen.’

  ‘Not a problem, I like cooking.’

  ‘My favourite film isn’t The Mission, it’s Steel Magnolias.’

  ‘I knew you were lying.’

  ‘I find classical music boring. I prefer Kylie, it’s more uplifting.’

  ‘Kylie’s fine with me.’

  ‘I only ever read the magazines in the Sunday Times.’

  ‘Perfect. I never read them, so we won’t fight over the paper.’

  ‘Sometimes I eat chocolate for breakfast.’

  ‘Niamh, do you want to move in or not?’

  ‘I’d absolutely love to.’

  ‘Well, then, stop gabbing and get packing.’

  So there I was, Niamh O’Flaherty, twenty-eight-year-old columnist, moving in with my forty-two-year-old professor boyfriend. And it felt so right. I was in seventh heaven. I was finally in a proper, grown-up relationship with a man who had a real job and who made me feel ten feet tall. I had never been so happy.

  I unpacked my things and got a real buzz from seeing my
clothes hanging beside Pierre’s in the wardrobe. One night while he was making dinner in the kitchen, I rearranged the pictures on the mantelpiece, so that a photo of Pierre and me sat in front of the one of Brigitte and his mother. No offence to his mother, but I didn’t want to have his supermodel ex beaming down at me every day.

  The weird thing was that it didn’t feel strange. Living together was the most natural thing in the world. We slotted into each other’s lives like old pros. I loved living with him and he seemed to like it too.

  We did everything together. We lived in each other’s pockets, it never felt claustrophobic and we never ran out of things to say. It was perfect and I was terrified. I’d never felt like this about anyone before and I was petrified that Pierre would come home one day and say, ‘It’s over.’ I was completely in love with him and totally open to having my heart broken.

  I knew he liked me a lot. He had, after all, asked me to move in with him. But I wasn’t sure if he was in love with me. I began to obsess about it and then one night, after a few glasses of wine, I started to probe.

  ‘So, you know the way you were with Brigitte for nine years,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you must have really loved her.’

  ‘I suppose I did in the beginning. But it faded.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but why exactly did it fizzle out? What did she do to make you want to break up with her?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. The spark went out of it. We didn’t seem to have anything to say to each other and we were getting on each other’s nerves.’

  ‘What bugged you about her?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Try.’

  ‘She was very jealous.’

  Was he pulling my leg? Who could she possibly have been jealous of? She was one of the best-looking girls I’d ever seen.

  ‘Of who?’

  ‘Anyone I paid attention to.’

  ‘Were you flirting?’

  ‘No! That’s the whole point. I’d be having a normal conversation with another woman, it could be about the weather, and Brigitte would go mad.’

  ‘What would she do?’

  ‘Oh, you know, sulk and go off in a strop. She threw a drink over me once.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘We broke up soon after.’

  ‘Were you ever jealous of her?’

  ‘No. Jealousy’s a waste of time. If you’re that insecure the relationship isn’t working.’