In his heart of hearts Eamonn felt sorry for the child, knowing that she was desperately trying to please her mother. She was talking to all the grown-ups about the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, and finding it difficult. Deirdra tried to coach the girl but it was really a case of the blind leading the blind where culture was concerned.
He was idly scanning the room when he saw that blonde head again. His heart lifted, and he felt a pulse ticking inside his temple. Then she turned around and his hopes died.
It wasn’t Cathy.
It was a stranger, though that wasn’t so surprising. Deirdra was a bitch for inviting unknown people she classed as ‘interesting’. Well, fuck interesting, this particular stranger was layable, that would do for him. Eamonn homed in on her.
‘How do you do? I’m the man of the house. And you might be . . .?’
Usually his accent alone was enough to seduce the American women, they couldn’t resist it. This lady, however, was a different kettle of fish. On closer inspection she was not all he had hoped. She had the blue eyes, the cheekbones and the chin, but that was as far as the similarity to Cathy went.
In the nasal tones of Brooklyn she told him: ‘I’m Carol Van Dutty, and I’m a sculptress. Your wife is interested in one of my works. It’s a particularly fine piece, actually, Deirdra has quite an eye . . .’
He interrupted her before she hit him full swing with the sales pitch.
‘My wife, honey, wouldn’t know a sculpture from a hole in her arse. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you and forget about you until I’m forced at gunpoint to write you a cheque.’
Carol Van Dutty, real name Rebekka Splint, watched wide-eyed as the handsome hunk walked away from her.
Eamonn was upset and it showed. He really had thought he had seen Cathy. He had felt her near to him, sensed her presence. All an illusion, of course.
He saw his daughter and sighed once more. Norah looked at him with the bewildered eyes of an eight year old totally out of her depth. He walked towards her, greeting people as he went.
‘Hi, baby, what’s cooking?’
Norah laughed, a happy carefree sound, and he was disarmed. She was only a kid, for Christ’s sakes, and here she was, made up like a fucking carnival dancer.
‘Come on, sweetcakes. What say me and you retire to my study and smoke a cigar and enjoy a brandy? Christ, you’re eight, it’s time you started drinking and smoking at least.’ Norah giggled into her gloved hands. He felt a surge of real affection for her; if his wife would leave her alone she’d be a terrific kid.
Eamonn took her hand. As they moved through the crowd and made their way to the door, they were stopped by a business associate of his, an Italian named Johnny Galdi.
‘Terrific party, Eamonn, and is this the little birthday girl?’ He chucked her under the chin with his heavy hand. Norah moved her head away and the man laughed. ‘Not interested in boys yet, huh?’
‘She’s shy, Johnny, she’s her daddy’s girl.’
Johnny squeezed the eighteen-year-old bimbette on his arm and laughed gustily. ‘Ain’t they all?’
Johnny was sixty if he was a day and suddenly he made Eamonn feel depressed. Would that be him eventually, still chasing tail at sixty? Still looking for that elusive female, the one he’d want to fuck until they were too old and too decrepit but they could still reminisce?
He led Norah to his study, spying Deirdra on the way. She was surrounded by a group of young men, all hanging on her every word. This depressed him as well, because he knew they were all out to put the touch on her for something. She paraded struggling actors, painters, sculptors, and every other fucking wacko she could find, around his home, forever listening to their crap with wide eyes and an open cheque-book. How had his life come to this?
Inside the study he poured himself a large Johnnie Walker Blue Label, and a Coke for Norah. They sat side by side on the Victorian loveseat his wife insisted was ‘just the thing’ for his study and he tried to make conversation with his only daughter.
‘How’s school?’
‘It’s OK.’
‘How’s your friends?’
‘They’re OK.’
‘How’s everything going?’
‘OK.’
‘Jesus Christ, Norah, is that all you can say? That school costs over three thousand dollars a term and all you can say is OK?’
She looked at him with puzzled eyes. ‘Are you OK, Daddy?’
Shaking his head he laughed, but it was an exasperated sound.
‘I’m a child, Daddy, I’m not supposed to talk to you. Don’t you watch
Oprah
?’
She was making one of her mother’s adult jokes and it saddened Eamonn. Made him feel like crying, in fact. Suddenly he was terribly upset. He put an arm around her shoulders.
‘Listen to me, pumpkin, all that crap Mommy tells you to say . . . well, next time she coaches you, tell her I said you’re not to listen. Be a child, Norah, while you’ve got the chance. My father used to say to me: “Don’t try and be so old, son. One day you’ll be old for the rest of your life.” Do you understand what I’m saying here?’
Norah nodded. ‘Of course I understand, Daddy, and I know I’m a child. But you try and tell Mommy that! I haven’t got one real friend here tonight. I wanted to go to McDonald’s like my friends, but Mommy said that was low-class.’
She sighed like an old woman. Her little face was a picture of world weariness as she said sadly, ‘I wish I had more sisters - to take Mommy’s mind off of me a bit, you know?’
He hugged her to him tightly, his eyes filled with unaccustomed tears at the loneliness in his child’s voice. ‘I’ll talk to Mommy, OK? Tell her to lay off you, how’s that?’
‘She won’t listen, Daddy. She thinks I’m going to be the next great woman of America. She wants me to be famous for something. The trouble is, I’m not very good at anything much.’ Her voice was small, broken. It angered him. She was eight years old and already her mother had made her feel like a failure.
‘Daddy, can I go now, please? I mean, to bed, not back to the party. Could you square it with Mommy? She wants me to sing later and, Daddy, I really don’t want to.’
‘OK, Norah, I’ll tell her me and you got drunk and I had to put you to bed because you were singing dirty Irish songs your grandfather taught you. How’s that?’
She smiled tremulously. ‘Goodnight, Daddy. I love you.’
He pulled her to him once more. ‘And I love you, princess. Sweet dreams.’
At the door she turned and smiled again, and his heart went out to her. He drained his brandy when she had gone then picked up the phone. As he dialled, he thought of his daughter’s worries and determined to talk to his wife tonight and sort this out once and for all.
He heard the voice he was longing to hear on the answerphone at the other end of the line, and listened to it sadly.
‘
There’s nobody here to take your call. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can
.’
Cathy’s voice.
Sometimes when he rang she answered the phone and they exchanged idle chit-chat. Just hearing her voice gave him an erection.
He didn’t leave a message but replaced the receiver and stared for long moments at the phone.
In twelve years he had made over thirty trips to Britain, and never once had he seen her. Tommy always had an excuse as to why she could not attend so much as a small dinner with him. Eamonn knew she held a grudge and it broke his heart. She was still the only woman he had ever really wanted.
He poured himself another large brandy and walked to the French windows to look out on to his garden. By his study was a replica of the rose garden at Hampton Court, and there he could just make out his son Jack with his arm around the waist of a tiny dark-haired girl. But he could also see the twins and young Paul, who was only seven but with the devilment of a serial killer, about to launch a bucket of water over their eldest brother and his girl.
Before Eamonn could open the window to protest, the dirty deed was done. He could hear the girl’s screams even over the lousy jazz band his wife had booked for the evening’s entertainment. He went back to his desk, and turned off the light. He had decided to go on the missing list tonight. Let Deirdra sort out the little buggers, he didn’t have the heart for it. Personally, he thought their escapades quite funny and liked to see their high spirits, especially when his wife had all her so-called friends in the house.
He knew it was petty, but at these times he rather enjoyed her humiliation.
She’d wanted the Von Trapp family; she’d got a crowd of hooligans called the Dochertys.
Life had its compensations.
Deirdra finally located her husband towards midnight, half drunk and still laughing over the incident with the boys. She was fuming.
‘How could you, Eamonn, in front of all our friends! How could you humiliate me like this? Everyone’s been asking where you are. My father is worried about you and so is Uncle Petey. He’s gone off to search for you. How could you do this to me, Eamonn?’
Her voice was a high-pitched whine that grated on his ears.
‘On top of everything else, you sent Norah to bed! I’ve told the au pair to get her dressed again so she can sing her solo . . .’
Eamonn stood up and banged his fist on the desk. ‘Oh no, you don’t! That child is not making an exhibition of herself tonight. If you get her out of bed and bring her down for this toffee-nosed bunch to snigger at, I’ll give you such a slap across the chops you’ll have bells ringing in your head for days!’
Deirdra was nonplussed. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard. Now get back there and I’ll be in soon. You tell them that Norah has fallen asleep, and then tell the fucking band to stop playing Miles Davis and give us something everyone can dance to, OK? That noise is going right through my head. This is supposed to be a party, for fuck’s sake. Who could dance to that dirge going on at the moment, I ask you?’
Deirdra rushed from the room. Eamonn followed her sedately. As he hit the ballroom he was once again a genial host, from his smile to his effortless small talk. Even his wife couldn’t fault him.
The band struck up
Summertime
, and people danced to it slowly. A black singer called Marcella who had come with Petey started to sing along and suddenly it was a real party. Ten minutes later the band was playing
You Are The Sunshine of My Life
and everyone was singing along.
It was now a party party and even Deirdra realised as much. All her sophisticated dreams had gone out of the window but she finally relaxed and began to enjoy herself.
Jack made his way over to his son-in-law.
As Marcella started to sing
Danny Boy
, the older man’s eyes misted up. He always got emotional over that song, most Irishmen did.
‘I see you’re getting choked.’ Eamonn’s voice was scornful.
‘Sure you’re a dreadful man, you know, you have no soul,’ Jack grinned, wiping his eyes. ‘How’s that eejit of a daughter of mine these days? Christ, but she’s piling on the pounds. It must be like mounting a fecking elephant.’
Eamonn was saved from answering by the arrival of Petey and Anthony Baggato, both well on in drink and cocaine.
‘We’re all meeting tomorrow at the Ravenite, be there,’ Anthony told him.
Eamonn nodded. ‘What’s the talk on the wire taps and everything else?’
Anthony shrugged. ‘They’re out for the big fish, they don’t know about us. Unlike others I could name, we keep a low profile.’
‘If only they knew, eh?’ Petey said jovially.
‘Great party,’ Anthony told Eamonn.
‘Yeah, thanks to me. If it was left to Deirdra we’d all be standing around talking about Russian authors and minimalist painters. Oh, and politics, mustn’t forget that.’
‘Fuck politics, and fuck the Russians. They’re all bastard Communists anyway,’ growled Jack.
Eamonn laughed. ‘Not the writers, or the ones she professes to read anyway. They’re all dissidents, whatever the fuck that is.’
Petey shrugged and said seriously, ‘Probably the Russian word for queers. Most of these authors are strange, you know. I’ve seen that on the
Johnny Carson Show
. All those words in their head and when they get interviewed they talk about fuck all. I notice things like that.’ He felt he had said something very profound and was very pleased with himself.
An hour later the party started to break up, and an hour after that Eamonn was ready for his bed.
The trouble was, so was Deirdra.
As they undressed she kept up a running stream of conversation. How well her party had gone, how everyone had told her how great it had been. How everyone had complimented her on the food and the decor.
In short, how clever she was.
As he climbed into bed Eamonn said softly, ‘It was the kid’s birthday. Tomorrow I’m taking Norah to McDonald’s and giving her a real treat for once. Get a few of her friends together.’
Deirdra didn’t answer. He turned over and pulled the quilt up to his neck. Switching on the lights, she went to the bathroom and was gone some time, getting herself ready. He lay gritting his teeth in bed. It was going to be one of those nights. Lying there, he faced the inevitable.
Fondling himself, he pictured Cathy in his mind. Her hair, her eyes, her breasts. He pictured her legs opening to him, her eyes inviting him. By the time Deirdra came back and turned off the lights, he was ready for her.
As she caressed him she felt the stiffness of his manhood and chuckled with delight. ‘We
are
a big boy tonight.’
With his usual mockery he said, ‘And it’s all for you, baby.’
All the time he was kneading Cathy’s breasts, lifting Cathy’s body up to his, eating her with a fervour that Deirdra found amazing, and finally pumping into Cathy as if their lives depended on it. As he felt his wife’s orgasm, he started to experience his own. In his mind Cathy was panting beneath him, her breasts heaving with her need for him, her wetness for him only, her moans for him only.