Chapter Forty
My mouth hangs open like some crazy-golf prop as I cradle my teacup, knees bent into Donal’s grey sweatshirt. I thought nothing could shock me more than his performance last night, but I was wrong.
‘Say something?’ Donal, who is buttering another slice of toast for me, looks up.
I can’t compute. ‘W-what do you mean, it’s all yours?’ Maybe it’s the exhaustion after we made love three times in the space of ten hours. Donal is the most tender man I’ve ever been with.
‘You asked me how many people live here and I told you, just me. It’s all mine.’ He slices the toast in quarters for me, puts the knife down and licks his long fingers. We’d decided to stay in for breakfast, because it was nearer the bed.
A memory of the girls – Amanda, I think – talking about Peter R.
and Fitzwilliam Square and renovations drifts into my mind.
But I’d been too busy fixing Belinda’s dress to pay enough attention to what she was actually saying.
I hadn’t known Peter R. was Donal then. It hadn’t really registered. But now . . .
I put my tea carefully on the coaster on the table. ‘Can you explain?’
‘Cheese?’ he offers instead of answering my question.
Confusion rains down on me ‘No, thanks,’ I answer.
‘Jam?’
‘No! Explain, Donal?’
‘I own this house, Grace. I flipped the house I was in on Gardiner Street and then I moved in here. I’ve notions or what?’ He throws his eyes dramatically up to the ceiling.
I can see the pride glowing all over his face as he slides the plate of hot, buttery toast towards me.
‘Hang on. But – but this house is worth millions? You told me you were in construction. You used to deliver Chinese food. How do you own this house? How can you afford this?’ I try to grasp his words.
‘Two point one million, to be exact. But I got it in the recession for less than the market value as it was basically falling down. I did enough work on it to make it presentable enough to rent out while I saved to do the reconstruction. It nearly killed me with the repayments. Every penny I have is pumped into this place, hence me doing Chinese deliveries to free up some actual cash to eat and pay my phone bill! I’ve been on this project for years.
It took over my life. But now it’s my home.
’ He leans back against the free-standing chrome double-door fridge.
I’m speechless. Utterly speechless.
‘So how did I afford it? Good question,’ he jokes. ‘I bought my first house for a pittance when I was twenty-one through the money I saved from my job in construction, and various weekend jobs I’d pick up.’
I find my voice. ‘When I was twenty-one, my mammy was still washing my clothes and on rainy days my dad would drop me to my job at Bridal Reflections in Donnybrook. I’d yet to go back to design college in Inchicore. And you were buying houses!’
‘I don’t want to bore you with my employment history.’
I point to the chair opposite me. ‘Bore me! I demand you to bore me. Every little detail, mister. Now, sit down.’ I pick my tea back up.
Donal pulls out the chair at the table and sits, makes a kiss with his pursed lips.
‘I like it when you’re bossy.’ He smiles.
‘It was a little one-bed cottage in Rathmines. Well, it was basically a shell of a house. They couldn’t give it away.
I knew the builder, David Hoban, who was selling it, and he liked me.
Anyway, I worked with him on a housing estate in Portmarnock during the day, and I did up the cottage in the evenings and at weekends –worked around the clock.
I went on YouTube and taught myself how to rewire, replumb all the things that woulda cost me a fortune otherwise.
I painted the place myself, even did the roof.
Decorated it with stuff from charity shops – my sisters helped, they have a great eye for bargains, we all do. Then I sold it for quite the profit.’
Donal looks for my reaction. I’m incredibly shocked. But most of all, I feel an overwhelming moment of pride.
‘That’s just amazing. Wow. What a talent you have.’ I’m so stunned I actually laugh.
‘Ah, I dunno, I think I was lucky, the property market changed. It was good timing, property was on the rise, so I kept renting my shoebox on Gardiner Street and bought another house in Harold’s Cross with the cottage profits, and the market got better and better for the areas I was able to afford.
Then the recession came, but I was one of the lucky ones.
’ Donal says all this with not one ounce of smug superiority.
‘Truly unbelievable,’ I tell him.
‘It is. But ya know, I work hard, like you, and I’m a firm believer in hard work paying off.’
‘As am I, but this is . . . this house, what you’ve achieved, it’s phenomenal.’ My eyes dart around the room.
‘Ahh listen, I need to build up my bank account again now. I’m asset rich, cash poor.
I’m forty-one this year and I’ve worked seven days a week, fifteen-hour days, for as long as I can basically remember.
It’s time to reap the rewards of that work.
That’s the whole point, not work till I drop.
And this place has been my boyhood dream,’ he tells me, and I see there is already a five o’clock shadow of stubble on his face.
I take a bite from the toast before it goes cold, wash it down with my hot tea. ‘Ha! I just realised we’ve never asked each other our ages.’
‘Oh, I assumed you were around mid-twenties? Right?’ His phone beeps on the table and he picks it up, reads a text message.
‘Smarmy.’ I take another hungry bite, chew the toast, drain my cup, as he replies to a text, then he looks up at me. ‘Thirty-three,’ I tell him as he leans over and slides his phone into the back pocket of his black jogging bottoms.
‘Do you want kids?’ He comes straight out with it.
I think before I answer. ‘I think so . . . But it’s not a dealbreaker, with you, I mean.’
‘Same.’ He nods.
‘But I am getting older . . . so, I guess I need to figure it out, fast.’
‘We need to figure that out.’ He rounds the word we out, carefully.
‘I can’t believe we’re talking about kids. I’m not sure I ever believed in fate before but I do now.’ I unravel my knees from inside Donal’s old grey sweatshirt, lean fully across the table and kiss him, hard on the lips.
‘I believe in destiny, a predetermined course of events – maybe ’cause I watch so many movies – and I believed that you were out there for me, that I’d find you and that it was never going to be about looks or money, just a real sense of connection. A partnership.’
‘Thank God for Emma Stark!’ I realise with a shock. ‘If I hadn’t seen her in town that day and dropped my bags, you’d never have helped me.’
‘Everything happens for a reason, right?’ he says.
‘You know it. Did you want kids with Daniella?’
‘Yeah, I did,’ he tells me truthfully. He pours more tea from the silver pot, his finger holding the ill-fitting lid in place.
‘So why didn’t it happen? Ten years is a long time,’ I ask.
‘She was never ready, and I was fine with that. Look, in hindsight, she didn’t love me enough. It wasn’t her fault, and again, things happen for a reason. I’m so glad now that we didn’t have kids.’
‘Yeah,’ I agree.
‘Did you want a family with Logan?’
‘Honestly?’ I scratch my head at the question.
‘I was too busy being busy and looking after him. I think I had used up all my maternal feelings babysitting him and his ego, so I don’t know.
Logan never talked about kids. When you live with somebody who you are constantly trying to keep happy, your own wants and happiness go by the wayside.
’ I actually surprise myself with my answer.
How had I never noticed this before? ‘We spent most of our time talking about Logan,’ I say.
‘Well this is a brand-new chapter for both of us. Let’s just continue to get to know each other and enjoy ourselves in these early days.’
‘Trust the process?’ I suggest.
‘Exactly.’ He pours a drop of milk into my tea and I reach for the last quarter of toast.
‘Let me put you on a fresh slice of toast? That’s gone cold.’ Donal pushes his chair back on the floorboards and all I can see in my mind’s eye are the countless batches of toast I made for Logan and never once did he make me a single slice. What a fool I was. But it’s all led me to this moment.
‘No, this is still warm and delicious.’ I pop it into my mouth.
‘Okay, then when you’re finished your tea, I’ve got something I want to show you.’
‘Oh yeah . . . ding, ding! Round four?’ I joke, as I slide my hand across the table and take his warm hand. I can’t get enough of him. His eyes light up as he looks at me, in his sweatshirt, my bedhead hair in a messy top knot, yesterday’s blotchy make-up.
‘I can’t tell you how beautiful you are.’ He flips his hand to take mine in his and squeezes it tightly.
‘I want you to grow your beard back, and your hair long again,’ I tell him, ‘but only if you want to.’
‘You do?’ he gasps at my admission.
‘Yeah, I do, I don’t want you to have to change to fit in.’ It makes me teary for some reason.
‘I do miss the beard.’ He runs his hand over his light stubble. ‘But I think the hair had to go. Thank you, though, that means a lot.’
‘I like you whatever you look like . . .’ I swallow the last piece of toast. He comes around to me and holds out his hands for me to take. I take them and slowly stand up. Donal looks down at me, drapes his arms around my neck, and softly kisses me.