8

Though she hadn’t slept until well after midnight, Sam is up at four o’clock to check everything for her meeting in New York. A light sleeper at the best of times, she is anxious about her presentation to the board of Arrow, the new car manufacturers, who are breaking into the American market. Howard MacKinley in New York, who acts as agent for High Res, had organized the meeting.

‘Mega bucks here for High Res,’ Ciara, Sam’s boss, had said when she assigned her to the job of devising a television advertisement for Arrow. ‘American company but the money is coming from China.’

‘Like everything else these days.’

‘The Chinese want to make it the new Toyota. Seems one of the top brass of Arrow was staying in the Four Seasons last summer and happened to see a High Res advertisement on the television – yours – and wants you for the job. So it’s the Rockefeller Center. Break a leg.’

To steady her nerves, Sam invokes her therapist’s formula. Rubbing her enamel ring she had brought from her time in New Mexico, the ex-nun’s coping device made them both laugh: ‘Think of them in the restroom, Samantha: trouser legs down around their ankles – little boys wiping their arses.’

The kitchen still holds the sour taste of the previous night’s scene with Philip: they had both been bickering until he eventually declared he was off to bed. Her trolley case and laptop stand waiting on the gleaming tiles. After her cleaning woman’s work of the previous day, the recessed lights on the ceiling catch the shine on the chrome trim of the high chairs, and the copper pots and pans (rarely used) hanging above the Richmond range. Steam rises from her mug of coffee on the kitchen island.

As soon as she hears the taxi at the front door, she takes a last sip from the coffee mug and empties the remainder down the sink, making sure to scour the mug and the sink before reaching for her bags. Passport, computer, hard copies of her proposal for the directors, she has already checked a couple of times. She gathers her handbag, BlackBerry and laptop, starts to wheel her trolley case, and switches off the lights. Over the spire of St Killian’s Catholic Church, the flashing lights of a plane are dipping towards the airport.

Instead of Dave, her usual driver, the taxi company has sent along a man who knows about everything: the weather, where the health service has gone wrong, and the shower in Leinster House – wasters. Dave had to go with the missus; she’s having some hospital tests done. His own missus never wants to talk about sickness or doctors, and won’t go near a graveyard.

‘What do you make a that?’

‘Yes, I suppose people differ about these things.’ She takes out her BlackBerry, but the previous night’s stand-off with Philip comes between her and the lit-up screen. Philip too hadn’t slept: tossing and turning, and sighing deeply as if trying to rid his heart of some burden.

‘Them preservatives,’ the taxi driver is saying as they join the traffic at Sutton Cross.

‘Excuse me.’

‘What’s causin all the cancer. We never had that before. Them preservatives. An all the pressures on people today.’

‘You’re right.’

‘Like a dog chasin its tail.’

‘Excuse me.’

‘Puttin ourselves under too much strain. Never satisfied.’

‘Right.’

She endures his prattle as a way of escaping the guilt that is rising within, and the echo of her mother’s recriminations. ‘You’re a cheeky bitch who wants her own way. I gave in to your father most of the time. See how well we got on.’

The driver launches into the surgical operations that go wrong – he saw it on the telly the other night: he even had the percentages. She dials her own number and holds a business conversation about deadlines and projects.

‘I gave up the smokes meself about ten years ago, and, I’m not jokin you, I never looked back.’

‘Really.’

At the set-down in front of the main terminal, brake lights glow as cars and coaches pull up. The morning air is filled with the smell of aircraft fuel.

Sam tips the driver, releases the handle of her trolley case and hurries towards the entrance where young men in a huddle are smoking outside the automatic doors. Beside them is a stack of golf clubs on a trolley.

‘I guarantee you won’t make the cut this time, Anto,’ says one with a shaven head.

‘I won’t like fuck.’ While he speaks, Anto’s head keeps darting from side to side. ‘I’ll wipe the fuckin course with you. Come on or we’ll miss our poxy flight.’

They fling their lighted cigarettes on the concrete and barge ahead of her, leaving a jet stream of stale beer when the auto-matic doors open.

Inside she joins the airport fever, and has to sidestep to avoid the trolley cases. A group of people are gathered beneath a flight information board; others are rushing to join long lines in front of the check-in desks. Stewardesses are parading their figures and flirting with cockpit crews; their high heels beat a come-hither on the floor. A voice-over issuing a warning: mind your property, because unattended bags will be confiscated immediately. She is glad to see only two men in front of her at the priority check-in desk: some recompense, at least, for the red-eye tedium.

Inside the security area there are checks, scans, and the clatter of trays on the conveyor belts as they rumble through the scanner. His belly hanging over the waistband of his trousers, an agent is ambling up and down in one of the bays issuing orders, quoting regulations: if someone has liquids in a bag, remove them please. Place all belts, coins and any metal object in the tray. His arms hang loose from his body as if he’s ready to whip a six-gun from a holster. Signals bleep in the personal scanner; he orders one of the passengers to go back and take off his shoes.

The big bloke is now bragging to a blonde agent about a bargain he bought off the plans in Spain, while behind his back, the blonde woman glances at a colleague and rolls her eyes. Sam is put in mind of her father, Ollie – God’s gift to women – who even tried to charm Sister Marie Bernadette, the school principal, at a Christmas concert. ‘Your dad is a very funny man, Samantha,’ the nun said the following day as she tripped along the corridor.

Rising at an ungodly hour, lining up at the security check and waiting at the gate is getting in on her, but this is what she has to go through to afford La Salle, the Iranian cats-eye marble floors, meals with the girls at Hugo’s wine bar, and being able to send her children to private schools. And she has no intention of going back to pebble-dashed Raheny. She puts her computer into its case, and resumes her attitude.

Yet, something deep inside seems to be loosening, or not quite under control, despite the mantra to which she clings – modern woman is keeping all the plates spinning. Not even the move to La Salle is having the desired effect. The invisible curtain is always there between herself and Zara. Dylan is becoming ever so ready to argue. Only a short while ago, when they were in Raheny, he was snuggling up to her as they watched The Simpsons.

And Philip. The last time they made love must have been that night when they returned from the Four Seasons after the Christmas party, and even then, she was faking it, in an attempt to recover the rich space they had once shared. Like the night in ucd when the examinations were over and they got a sudden wild notion to leave the student bar, run across to one of the rooms and give full rein to their craving for each other on top of the lecturer’s desk in an empty and darkened theatre.

She passes by a row of brightly lit shops, and stops at the Dolce & Gabbana counter: the thought of buying perfume gives her some respite. While she examines the shelves, her thoughts are racing. She has made it to the captain’s table, and she isn’t going to let that slip. But four hours’ sleep and being dictated to by a bloated security agent is not exactly what she anticipated when High Res made her the senior creative director of the Irish operation. Then her head was turned by the glamour: giving presentations in London or New York, and being whisked away from Kennedy in a limousine. She would be the woman who had it all: a planet away from the empty life her mother led, whose days were circumscribed by Coronation Street, and going out with himself, Gorgeous George, to show off their Boston Two-Step.

To calm the dissident voices from within, she steers towards the Jo Malone counter. There she buys Sweet Lime & Cedar Cologne from a Paris Hilton lookalike, who, while wrapping the cologne, tries to tout other products in the range. ‘This is our new iconic cream-coloured box, black tissue and grosgrain ribbon,’ robot Paris Hilton says. She glances at Sam’s MasterCard, and wants to know if Samantha would like to look over their selected gift ideas?

‘Another time.’ On her way to the gate, she buys a latte and a copy of Hello! The three fat women who had spilled out of a taxi ahead of her at the set-down point are now tucking in to the Full Irish. With a tissue in her plump fist, one of them is wiping perspiration from her forehead. Sam despises them. Probably in some dead end job – Saturday night in the local, and then to the Chinese for a curry, two weeks in Costa bloody del Sol.

Out on the apron, men in overalls are refuelling a plane; others in the next bay are casting bags on to a trolley. Pink streaks are showing on the horizon.

Already passengers are gathering at the gate. Among them, a stout man with a boozy face is pacing up and down as he talks into his mobile. ‘The quantity surveyor,’ he bellows. ‘That’s what I’m paying the fucker for.’ Adjacent passengers affect a deep interest in their newspapers. He closes down the mobile, and continues to mutter.

Sam catches herself gazing into the distance, but childlike wonder is not allowed for the modern woman who is expected to be indifferent to everyone except her private concerns, so she checks her BlackBerry. ‘Sorry about that, Mum. Won’t happen again. Love you, Zara’ is the only message, sent at 4.56 am. Images of the row with Zara over her refusal to eat her dinner seep through Sam’s defensive wall. Her competent mask is inclined to sag, but she suppresses her tears and tries to concentrate on her New York meeting.

Why does life have to be so fucking repetitive? Her own days at university come winging back. Checking her weight a couple of times a day. Worried to death in case she had put on a pound, and yet, striking a pose among the group when they gathered at the main hall of the Arts Block, where she had to be the centre of attention. Someone was talking about a new band called U2. Father Tom was rushing by with flyers: rehearsal for the charismatic Mass on the Friday. Her private hell now bequeathed to her daughter.

To appease her rising guilt, she hits on an idea, and rushes back to House of Ireland where she has seen very smart pendants in Celtic design. She will have it engraved when she gets back to Dublin. Zara will love it.

The strap of her laptop is cutting in to her shoulder; she uses the handle, and leaves the shop, striding towards the gate, her high heels sharp on the concourse floor. Hughes & Hughes is displaying the number one bestseller, I Never Loved Him Anyway. A cardboard cut-out of the author with glittering stars on her blonde hair stands at the entrance to the shop. Sam picks up a copy along with a tabloid version of the Irish Independent, and joins the queue for the cash register.

The crowd at the gate has got bigger: they are leafing through newspapers; the builder is still pacing, still giving out on the mobile, one chubby hand covering the other ear. Sam takes her personal diary from her bag, and shuts out the world. Her therapist had introduced her to dreams: the royal road to the unconscious, Samantha. She reads over the one she had had the other night.

In the dream, she is driving into town in her suv. Peggy Lee comes on the radio singing: ‘Is That All There Is?’ – a song she hates; she grabs the tuner to turn down the sound, but the knob falls off; the music blares. Anderson’s Crêperie was playing it one afternoon when she was having a latte with the girls. She wanted to get away from the clang of the coffee-maker, the crying of young children, and Peggy Lee’s plaintive voice.

She woke with a start, causing Philip to wake also. He touched her arm: ‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

He turns away on his side: ‘You were shouting, something about music, “stop the music”.’

‘Oh just a silly … you know … dream.’

‘ok.’ In a minute he is breathing evenly, and she is left staring at the ornamental ceiling rose, and the set of special lights she had to have after seeing them in Interior Décor.

Only a few seats in the business class are occupied. Across the aisle, and a couple of rows to the front, a stout bloke is removing his jacket when a stewardess comes hurrying to him and offers to hang it in the clothes rack. His wide bulk strains the crisp white shirt. He throws a sly glance in her direction, and busies himself taking pillows from the overhead locker. On another flight she had to endure his bombast about the government ministers he knows, and their party pieces at Christmas socials in The Shelbourne. He knows Charlie well: been to The Curragh and Punchestown with him – great party man.

When he started on the different contracts his firm had in hand, she took out her laptop and made some excuse about being under pressure to check over details for a meeting that day in Manhattan. His face fell into a childish pout; he emptied two baby Jameson into a glass, tossed off the whiskey and fell asleep, now and again waking himself with his deep snoring, and then smacking his lips and settling once more into the pillow.

He had been featured in the Business Section of one of the papers: ‘Son of Irish navvy a major player in the construction industry’. Another success story, like Quinlan, who is flying the Tricolour over Claridge’s. The Paddys have arrived.

As soon as breakfast has been served and others are pulling down blinds and turning to sleep, Sam takes out her laptop and reviews her progress report for the six directors who will be seated around a table scrutinizing her presentation. She is anxious. What if they don’t like it, or fire questions she hasn’t thought through? Will it fall asunder? After an hour or so, she closes down and checks the flight path on her monitor.

The flight attendant is at her elbow with a coffee pot, and when he has sashayed to the galley, she sits back, catches her reflection on the vacant monitor and is surprised by the tight set of her mouth.

She rubs the diamond stone of her earring: Philip’s present. He had bought the pair in Nice while she was having a facial. Then when they were celebrating her birthday with lunch at Peploes Wine Bistro, he slipped them under her napkin. She looks through the window at the pale abyss. He’ll be going over his fifty or sixty emails now, making sure his clients are kept sweet. ‘If your clients are happy, and your numbers are good, the Red Braces can’t throw you over the cliff’ has been his golden rule over the years.

Even moving to La Salle was only a temporary lull. A fresh start was their agreed pact. Let’s put all this hassle behind us. They were both tired of squabbling anyway, so they sealed the pact with a meal out: a sacramental set piece to celebrate a new beginning. From now on they would reserve one night a week for themselves. Philip ’n Sam quality time. Let’s drink to that. They had raised their champagne glasses.

Jesus! The chocolate wrappers of last night – did she bin them? Yes. Or did … ? In her mind’s eye, she sees herself taking good care to wrap them in a plastic bag, and pop them in the bin at the side of the house. Or is she just imagining it? A relapse after her set-to with Zara: the old flaw lurking in some dark corner and ready to ambush her, despite years of therapy.

She had a minor relapse when they moved to La Salle. ‘Moving house is big in the stress scale, Samantha. Right up there with divorce and bereavement,’ her therapist had calmed her once again. That time Philip found an empty chocolate box under their bed, and had held it up in front of her. ‘What’s … ? Don’t tell me, Sammy.’

With a brave effort to be casual, she had continued to do her eyeshadow at the dressing table. ‘Oh, you know Zara and her friends. They had a sleep-over on Friday night.’

‘You’re not…’

‘Me?’ She returned to the eyeshadow, and smiled to the mirror: ‘That day is gone, thank goodness.’

Philip had been her anchor during their college days when she was bingeing and then running off to the nearest toilet to vomit. They had sat on the low wall beside the campus lake, surrounded by the high fever of last-minute revision, students lying on the grass, shading their eyes and clutching textbooks, others gearing up for free-wheeling days of filling pints in Shepherd’s Bush, or waiting on tables in Cape Cod.

‘Why?’ he had asked. ‘I want to understand.’

‘Something to do with my mother. So pretty, and slim …’

She had opened up to him in a way that she’d never done with anyone. Told him about her father too, and the evening she was going up through Raheny village with her friends, and was about to wave when she saw him in a car with Denise, the bookkeeper in his used car business. The two were taken up with each other: she laughing and her head inclined towards him. It all locked into one sickening eye-opener. The photos he had taken of the Christmas parties – Denise in every single one.

Searching for a clue, she had watched every gesture her father made that evening in the kitchen. The look of contentment on his flushed face deepened her suspicion. The boys were arguing: the same argument – Liverpool are better than Manchester United any day. No, they’re not; Liverpool are poxy.

‘How many times did I tell you not to use that word?’ Her mother in her Costa del Sol apron is draining vegetables.

‘Well, Sammy.’ He notices her downturned head, and tries to tease her about Dara, who wants to take her to the hop in The Grove.

‘Where did you get the sunburn?’ her mother snaps at him.

‘Who? Me?’ the broad smile is fading on his fat face. He turns to the boys: ‘Boys, have I a colour?’

They continued to race their cars over the linoleum and, without glancing up, they chorus: ‘Yeah, Dad, you’ve a colour.’

‘The heat of the kitchen.’ He glances at his wife, and tries the Ollie charm: ‘ok, I give up. Crowley rang.’ He throws up his arms in playful surrender. ‘Kept at me until I gave in. Went for nine holes to Portmarnock.’

‘I knew it,’ said Myra. ‘I knew it. You liar,’ breaking into a smile, and throwing a tea towel at him. ‘And I wanted you to bring me shopping.’

‘No bother, love. Take you tomorrow. Yeah, I’ll get one of the lads to cover. We’ll do Sutton and have ourselves a treat.’

Myra rises from the table and does a swingback of her arm as if to swipe at him; he joins in the play by ducking and raising his hands to protect himself.

‘Liar, liar,’ the boys laugh. ‘Dad is a liar.’ They all laugh except Samantha.

He is quick to notice her mood, and tries to charm her with their song:

Mr Sandman, bring me a dream,

Bung bung bung bung

Make him the cutest that I’ve ever seen …

‘Right, Sam. Ready,’ he taps the table like a drummer.

Give him two lips like sunrise and clover

But instead of joining in, as she used to when tripping along beside him over the sand dunes at Dollymount, she bolts from the table and dashes to her room.

Too angry to cry, she lies on her bed staring at the ceiling; downstairs the boys are still arguing about their soccer teams. She loathes everything about him – the stupid shirt, open at the neck to display a fucking gold chain, the showy buckles on the patent shoes. And the way he tries to hide his Dublin accent and use words like ‘observe’ and ‘as I recall’ when talking to Sister Marie Bernadette.

He had crushed her dream: the two of them going to the fairground on the Whitehall Road – candyfloss and his arm around her when they went up on the Ferris wheel. ‘You’ll live in one of them big houses one day. As good as the best of them,’ he had said, pointing across towards Auburn.

On the way back in the car, they sang at the top of their voices:

Sandman, I’m so alone

Don’t have nobody to call my own

Please turn on your magic beam

She hated her mother also for being such an airhead. The shame of having to watch them when they led the floor at fund-raisers for the school, showing off their dance steps: he with his suntan, and she the sequined doll.

In the early years of her marriage, she could share these painful memories with Philip. Now she can talk only to her therapist. To admit her weakness would be giving him a hostage to fortune for the next row. ‘You’re still fighting Ollie,’ he had thrown at her during their last blow-up, ‘and I don’t know what that therapist is doing with you, but I know one thing – I’m getting the brunt of it.’

‘I wouldn’t be going to a therapist at all if it hadn’t been for you and your whore-banker.’

Having broken off with Ellen, he decided to admit his guilt – hide nothing, Sam would understand. He would then have wiped the slate clean, like when his mother brought him and Andy for Confession each First Saturday. Instead of granting him absolution, Sam had to go on sleeping tablets and she lost over a stone in two weeks.

‘You’re not available to me; you’re somewhere else,’ Philip had argued. ‘You’re stuck back there in your childhood. Jesus, I don’t know … And if it’s of any interest to you – that’s why I turned to someone else’ had been his defence.

‘Right! Fucking typical. Blame me.’

The rows usually end by either one storming out and getting into their car and escaping to Dollymount, or taking the dogs around St Anne’s Park.

With one hand resting on her hip, the hostess with the French plait is striking a relaxed pose while chatting to the successful navvy’s son. He is in full flight: something about moving into Connecticut – a contract to build condos. She laughs in the right places; when she crouches to pick up a fallen serviette, her skirt slides up along the curve of her thigh.

Later, when Sam is waiting for the toilet to become free, she overhears the hostesses chatting in the galley. ‘Loaded,’ one is confiding to the other. ‘Where does he want to take you, Audrey?’

‘The Ice Bar, and then dinner.’

‘Lucky you. Grab it, Audrey.’

The captain’s update on the flight path and what to see to the left and right drowns out the rest of their conversation.

When Sam returns to her seat, Lucky Audrey is bringing her date a glass of wine.

Sam grows drowsy. Her grip on the BlackBerry slackens, like a child falling asleep and loosening its hold on a teddy bear.

As soon as she enters the conference room of the Rockefeller Center, and Howard MacKinley introduces her to the Chinese businessmen, Sam’s anxiety falls away. This is her territory. Her work has brought these men halfway across the world.

She had already arranged her pictures on Kappa boards, and refers to them during the course of her address. ‘You have invested billions in your concept: this advertising campaign alone is going to cost millions. It may decide the success or failure of your product. Here’s the deal before we start designing an ad for television or the movies.’

They warm to her brisk manner. On her fingers, she lists the selling profile of the major car manufacturers. Volvo for safety. bmw – German engineering. vw – reliability and brilliant re-sale value. Mercedes – prestige and performance. Now I’m going to get you working.’ She takes down the Kappa boards. The adrenalin is pumping; the Chinese are grinning and looking at one another behind dark-rimmed glasses.

‘What’s your strong selling point? What is different and better about your product? Think about it.’ Sam explores every avenue. ‘What is the American motorist concerned about today?’

‘The price of gasoline,’ one of the Chinese says with a broad smile.

‘Correct. Americans drive long distances, gasoline prices are going up. Wars in the Middle East make the motorist nervous. Gasoline is one, comfort is another. You tell me you are targeting women drivers. Right. Here’s another question …’

From then on she is freewheeling. The copywriter and assistant art director follow her keynote address with some technical points.

During a coffee break, the Chinese leave the room to confer; MacKinley goes with them. When they return, the look on Mac-Kinley’s face is enough for Sam – High Res has it in the bag. Afterwards they go for drinks in one of the bars nearby. Mac- Kinley sidles up to her while one of the publicity team is trying to explain to the Chinese the rules of gridiron. ‘Another five star, Sam.’

‘Thanks.’

Without delay, he makes his pitch: ‘If you are at a loose end, we could meet up for – ’

‘Thanks, Howard, but I could sleep for Ireland right now. Can’t wait to get to the hotel and soak in a bubble bath. I’ve to be back in Dublin tomorrow evening. Two teenagers, ugh!’ she gestures with her raised hands, simulating a woman going crazy. ‘Doing my head in.’

‘I know the feeling, but I’m not going to give up that easily. Just thought it would be a shame for an attractive woman to be alone in New York.’

‘I’ll have to pass up on that one.’

‘Dinner, and then Central Park at this time of year – ’

‘Afraid not Howard.’

He had tried before, and she had to be wary then too; a blunt rejection could cause trouble for her – MacKinley had clout in advertising.

‘With this in the bag, High Res may be on the phone for you to work here. Four times the salary.’

‘Something to consider.’

‘I’ll be recommending you.’

‘Thanks, Howard.’

‘We could talk more over dinner.’

‘Another time. I’m jaded. But thanks.’

While the bath is running, she switches on the music centre and selects Ella Fitzgerald from the jazz section. When the water is at the right temperature and a head of foam is rising to the top, she sinks in and lies there with a glass of chablis resting on the bath’s rim. Gradually, the soft water and ‘Summertime’ loosen her residual guilt about deserting Zara, and muffles the blare of the street below her window.

She takes care with her make-up, changes into a lime green dress and brings her airport book down to the restaurant, where a waiter, with mannered smiles and gestures, escorts her to a corner table and hands her the menu.

After dinner, she considers sitting at the bar just to be near the sound of human voices, the casual comments between the barman and customers, and the pianist playing Scott Joplin and Dave Brubeck, but she had been pestered before by guys who were willing to ‘show you a good time in the Big Apple’. She decides, instead, to take her book to her room, and asks the barman to have the wine brought up.

I Never Loved Him Anyway fails to hold her interest; she throws it on the bed, and saunters aimlessly around the room before she stands looking down at the street. Darkness is falling over the humid city. She is still a bit wound up from the presentation and the excitement of winning the contract; yet her success fails to raise the mood she’s been in since the plane journey. She thinks about phoning one of the girls, but she’s already texted two of her Pilates group. And she is supposed to be living in the fast lane, out celebrating – champagne in the ice bucket, and not mooching around a hotel room in New York, while her daughter is weighing herself back in Auburn.

Zara’s is the only text on her BlackBerry. ‘Have a good trip back, Mum. Luv you.’

‘Luv you, Zara. Back 2moro.’

A yellow taxi pulls out from the kerb and brakes just in time to avoid a crash with an oncoming car. The driver hits the horn, brings the car to a sudden halt and shouts abuse through the open window at the taxi; a policeman’s whistle cuts through the haze.

Her mind begins to flit from one thought to another. Peggy Lee. Is that all there is? A five-star hotel bedroom in New York on a summer’s evening; meeting the girls at the Town Bar and Grill for lunch. One of them is shocked: her new neighbour in Abington is using cheap furniture polish on a dining-room table. Oh my God can you believe it? Instead of beeswax – she whose father traversed the men’s clothing department at Clerys for forty-five years with a measuring tape around his neck.

With each glass of wine, Sam becomes more stirred up. Weekends with the girls in Barcelona where they overspent, one to be better than the other. Lladró figurines and ormolu ornaments on the mantelpiece. She picks up her sad reflection on the blank television screen, and the sense of being cut off causes her to reach for the zapper and flick to distraction. When she finds herself dozing off with the television at a low volume for company, she undresses and gets into bed, and is surprised when she is roused by her wake-up call at six o’clock.