Chapter Sixteen
Just as I put the last hem stitch into Kathleen Kearney’s tiny, sublime, gold bridesmaid dress, my buzzer sounds.
‘Who the hell?’ I mutter, draping the dress over the chair. I head down to open the door and reef it back halfway.
‘Donal!’ My hand flies to my forehead to shield my eyes from the dipping sun.
I’m genuinely so happy to see his face. In fact, I’m shocked at how happy I am.
His hair is tucked into a well-faded black T-shirt, and he has on khaki shorts and his workman’s boots; there are splodges of dried dirt on his legs and hands.
‘No way?’ I gasp, tugging the door with all my might, pulling it open wide.
He takes a large step back, his hand outstretched as though he’s in a hurry. ‘You need to fill in your PPS, company number and some more stuff, but I think you should be in with a shot.’
‘That’s so kind of you,’ I say as I lean across and take the yellow piece of paper and he starts to move away. ‘Come up for a coffee?’
He stops. His eyes widen. He takes a step back towards me.
‘If you’re sure? I-I was honestly just going to slip it in your letterbox, but then I thought you might just think it was junk mail and bin it.
I don’t want to intrude.’ He looks at the ground for a moment too long like he’s hoping I’m not annoyed.
‘Are you kidding me? I’m delighted to see you!
Absolutely, please come in but don’t mind the state of the flat.
’ I’m aware I’m scruffy in Logan’s just-below-the-knee faded Rolling Stones T-shirt and my pink Crocs.
My hair, although still unruly, is at least freshly washed, air-dried and scooped up into a top knot.
I’ve a measuring tape around my neck, various safety pins and threads stuck to the T-shirt.
‘Right, so.’ Donal steps in and I shut the door behind us. He follows me up the rickety stairs as I try to clean myself off.
‘Will I take off my boots?’ he asks when we get inside, and I shake my head. He lowers himself onto my couch, it’s oddly reassuring.
‘No, it’s grand. Coffee? Or I do have those craft beers I suggested the night you brought my Chinese?’ I push open the rooftop door to let some air in, settle the wooden footstool in the gap.
His eyes fill with what looks like relief. ‘Well, it is a Saturday.’ He grins and once again, I see those perfect white teeth.
I remove the measuring tape, pull more loose threads from my top, and roll up spools of thread from the table. ‘I was about to heat up a beef stroganoff, if you’re hungry?’
‘Me? I’m always hungry.’ He opens his long arms and rests them on either side of the couch. He takes up so much space.
‘Great. Although it’s kinda small, it’s a one-person meal deal.’ I grit my teeth.
‘I find it hard to cook beef for one, too,’ he says.
‘Oh, it’s frozen. I don’t cook beef at all, and every time I eat it I think about Logan,’ I suddenly say, and I’m not sure why. I hold his eye to see his reaction.
‘Why is that?’ he of course asks, his expression the same.
I put on Logan’s stroppy accent. ‘‘‘I’m not eating animal produce anymore. I’m turning vegan.” That’s what Logan told me one Christmas Eve as we strolled down Grafton Street – after I’d been slaving in a sweaty, stressed state over our turkey and ham all day, and I cannot cook!’
‘Shit timing alright,’ Donal says with a roll of his eyes, removing a cushion from behind him. ‘This tool has a pattern for shit timing on his decisions.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ I acknowledge.
I move into the kitchenette, take the newly bought ready meal from the freezer, try to bat away the dry ice that circulates.
‘So, what happened to the Christmas dinner?’ he calls after me.
‘I binned it. I’d burnt it anyway. It was a horrible Christmas.
He’d been waiting for news on an audition for a show in the West End, and he was like a boiling kettle with a broken off-switch – down to the last three, he was, moments away from a career-changing casting decision. It was also the night he proposed.’
I slide the beef stroganoff out of the cardboard, peeling off the plastic. I set it down.
‘Again, shit timing. How did he do it, the proposal?’ Donal crosses his long legs.
I pull open the fridge and lift out two cold Whiplash beers.
‘We were standing, teeth chattering, in the icy cold in front of a horse and cart at the top of St Stephen’s Green.
Suddenly Logan hopped up into the carriage said, “Come on! Let’s have a little jaunt, you love a horse and carriage, you old romantic you.
” Glass?’ I ask Donal, holding up the beer can.
‘Can is fine. For me. That was romantic I guess?’
‘‘‘We can’t afford this,” was the first thing I said! And it was the truth. Nothing like a few maxed-out credit cards to take the romance out of any situation.’ I return to the couch, hand him the can. He shifts up and I sit down beside him.
‘Thank you, I’ll enjoy this, manual labour is tough in this heat.’ He clasps the can in his large hand.
‘Says to leave the beef out for ten minutes before cooking.’ I scrunch up my nose.
‘Who am I to argue with ready-meal instructions.’ Looking up at him, I’m so relaxed, he feels so familiar and it’s gorgeous to have him beside me on my couch, that I cross my legs, slip off my Crocs.
It’s that vibe he has that I felt the very first time I set eyes on him.
So chilled. So unlike Logan who was on 24/7.
I thought I liked that energy, but now that I’ve felt this energy, I like it more.
‘So, that was the proposal, huh?’ he says.
‘Yup,’ I add.
Donal peels back the can ring with a hiss; foam escapes and he puts his mouth to it quickly, not a drop spills. ‘Did he have a ring?’
‘Nope. No ring. I had to ask if we were really engaged. It felt unlike anything I’d imagined that moment to feel like. And believe you me, I had imagined the moment a lot. Like I said to you, I pushed him into the marriage.’ I open my own beer.
‘You loved him.’ Donal sets those green eyes of his on me.
I look down at the can in my hand, turn the sippy hole towards my mouth. I don’t reply.
‘But you also told me his happiness dictated your happiness?’
‘Totally.’ I nod, drink a fizzy mouthful.
‘Don’t you think your happiness should come first? I totally do. I think once you are happy, you make other people happy, not the other way round.’
I think about this. Did Logan ever really care about my happiness?
‘Do you want to talk about this?’ He recognises my silence.
‘No,’ I say truthfully, with a shake of my head. ‘I’ve bored you enough. Let’s talk about something cheerier.’
Donal stands up, puts his can down on my table, strolls to the door, peers around it. ‘That’s a really cool rooftop, why don’t you let me rustle up some food for us, and you sit out in the sun?’
‘Don’t be silly—’ I start, but he walks his long limbs back to the couch.
He reaches his hand down to me. ‘You need to let people look after you occasionally, Grace.’
So I take his hand, it’s warm as he pulls me up. I side-eye him. This feels so strange.
‘But you’re my guest,’ I tell him.
‘An unexpected one. And you’ve been working hard.
I’d like to make you dinner? I’m a pretty dab hand in the kitchen, I had to learn at a young age.
’ He’s striding to the fridge now, yanking it open.
His head disappears inside. Then he pulls it back out, holding a single, withered tomato. I can’t help but laugh.
He juggles the tomato and an old lemon. ‘I can use both of these. I’m going to make us something to accompany the beef. That sound okay?’
I like how he fits in my flat. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I am. Now you sit out in the sun, I’ll be back in a few minutes. Is it okay to leave the door on the latch?’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
He checks. ‘Anything you don’t eat?’
‘Nah. I’d be tempted even if it was still mooing.’ I pat my stomach, laughing. ‘Here, let me give you some money.’ I stand up and lift my bag from the back of the chair.
‘Sorry can’t hear you,’ he says as he exits.
Out on my rooftop the evening heat is still strong, and heavily scented with delicious smells of cooking.
I pull the deckchair closer to the shadiest part, near the building opposite.
I take a sip of the cold beer and I watch Donal cross the street towards the SuperValu.
I’m going to ask him to come to Mia’s party with me when he gets back.
It’s so strange, part of me feels like I’ve known him forever.
I keep my eye on the sliding doors and he disappears inside.
It feels so strange for a man to take care of me.
Logan never did. I took care of us. All the time.
And don’t get me started on grocery shopping with him, it was torture.
He’d read every ingredient on every packet.
Counting every calorie. Weighing his pasta.
Logan took all the fun out of eating, for him it was functional.
He liked to say his body was a temple, and while I used to take it as tongue-in-cheek, as I sit here now I actually think he meant it.
‘What is this?’ I ask myself under my breath, more than a little confused. Donal is bringing out the worst of Logan in my mind. Or maybe he’s just bringing things to light that I’ve ignored?
Impressively swiftly, Donal emerges from SuperValu with a plastic bag in hand. He waits for a gap in the traffic and his long legs stride across the road. I hear the flat door open and shut, Donal’s feet heavy on the rickety stairs.
He shouts out to me from the kitchenette. ‘Right, I’m doing us a chicken Caesar salad with crispy bacon and avocado, and I also bought a nice bottle of white wine? I know you like white wine. Felt like the perfect summer-evening food vibe? If that sounds cool to you?’
I call back from the comfort of my deckchair. ‘Sounds delicious, Donal! Logan never cooked me a meal in five years.’
‘Logan’s a bit of an asshole,’ Donal returns to me without missing a beat.
A silence drops. Then Donal’s head peeps around the rusty door but he sees my face.
‘Oh, you really are still in love with him . . . I apologise for that.’ He smacks his own hand slowly as he steps out onto the rooftop.
He makes his claw and pulls his hair back, his eyes even greener in the glint of the sunlight.
I say nothing, but my silence confirms it.
Our eyes lock and he just nods ever so slowly.
‘I should mind my own business. It’s just .
. . I think you’re great, Grace, and I hope he doesn’t hurt you again, that’s all.
I truly hope that things work out for you, if that’s what you really want.
Just don’t sell yourself short.’ Donal’s serious expression shifts and a big smile erupts. ‘That’s all I gotta say.’
I hug my knees to my chest. The conversation is not where I want it to be at. I feel disrespectful to him. ‘I don’t know . . . I . . . look, I think you’re great, too, Donal . . . it’s just . . . well, I . . .’
‘I know.’ He moves to me, bends over me on the deckchair, lowers his finger in front of his forehead and tips it a few times.
‘It’s just when I got home the other night and I was –’ he moves his finger up and down in front of his teeth ‘– brushing my teeth for bed, I saw my forehead was covered in orange chicken-wing sauce . . . Well, that’s when I knew I probably didn’t stand a chance for a second date.
’ He’s trying to make me laugh, relieve the pressure, still with that gorgeous grin, and it’s all to make me feel better about our situation.
Donal’s smile is contagious so my smile erupts, too.
‘Don’t be saucy now, Donal.’ I wag a finger and we both expend the nervous energy in a laugh, and when we stop, we just stare at one another.
‘At least I haven’t said balls yet.’ He moves back to the door.
‘Isn’t it just as well you didn’t go and buy us meatballs in SuperValu, or you’d have had no choice.’ I wriggle up from the deckchair and follow him inside, but I feel all discombobulated.
‘I may just have got away with that. That may have stood up in court in fairness.’ Donal folds his arms, then unfolds them. He suddenly looks a little shy again. I take a step towards him.
‘Would you come to Mia’s party with me next weekend?’ I blurt it out but I’m glad I’ve asked, even though my heart is racing a little and I don’t really know why.
Donal looks at me, his head rests to one side, he straightens up taller.
‘Really?’ A flutter of hope crosses his face.
‘As . . . as a friend. I don’t know what’s going to happen with . . .’ I trail off and he nods slowly, takes a second, as is his way, I now recognise. He rubs his beard.
‘Of course I will, sure thing. Oh, sorry, maybe not, what day? I have something on the Saturday I can’t get out of,’ he says as he unpacks the shopping, folds the plastic bag neatly.
‘It’s Friday night,’ I say hopefully.
He makes his claw again and pulls his hair back, a huge smile. ‘That’s fine. I can do that.’
I move to him, and without even planning it I hug him tightly. My head rests on his shoulder. After a moment he leans his head on mine. Then slowly he lifts his two arms and wraps them around me and I feel safer than I have felt in my entire life.