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It was Rosa who almost killed Glenda De Graffe, and forever after took the credit for finding her. One misty morning, she was exiting the car park of her apartment building when a pedestrian unexpectedly stepped in front of her Polo and forced her to make an emergency stop.
Profoundly relieved she had not been in a hurry, yet nevertheless swearing loudly, Rosa hopped out of the car. She was all set to verify the stranger was unhurt and berate her for her lack of due care and attention. As she had sustained a shock, Rosa was not entirely certain what her priority was at that moment.
She never got around to scolding Glenda when she conceded it was difficult to see oncoming automobiles with tears streaming down your face. Rosa was sorely tempted to jump back into her car and drive away at high speed, forgetting she had ever seen the weeping pedestrian. She discarded that course of action as cowardly. With a heavy heart, she advanced on the sobbing woman and enquired if she was all right.
Glenda De Graffe, a Dutch national, was a longstanding member of the Irish community. She had platinum grey hair, pale blue eyes, a kindly full face, even fuller breasts, and a substantial bottom. In 2001, when Glenda was only fifty-one, her husband unexpectedly passed away, leaving her alone and childless. She did not especially mind the absence of children, having accepted years earlier she would never have a family.
What she minded very much was that her deceased spouse had only left a small life insurance benefit. Under the terms of her late husband’s will, she also stood to inherit the family home the couple had shared for the past five years. As the house had been in her husband’s family for four generations, Glenda experienced a twinge of guilt because she was now the legal owner instead of one of his siblings.
The will reading that followed the funeral was a tense affair, and Glenda’s feelings were hurt by the way her in-laws spoke to her as if she was nothing but a gold digger, instead of their brother’s lawful wife. If they had been kinder, she might have been tempted to stay on good terms with them, or even sell them the house at a value far below its market value. That would have enabled her to purchase a small apartment which would be easier for her to manage during her remaining years.
However, they chose not to show any compassion towards her or her situation, and the result was a breach in relations. Glenda returned home in tears, and asked herself what one woman was going to do with a five-bedroom Victorian property.
She was able to provide an answer to her own question a week later. A kindly neighbour came around to visit, and tentatively suggested it would be a good idea to open some of the mail that was mounting up. She was worried Glenda’s electricity might be cut off if she neglected to pay the bill. Having very little else to do at the time, the two women set about organising the paperwork.
Twenty minutes and twelve envelopes later, Glenda discovered her late spouse had mortgaged the family home with a subprime lender up to and beyond the hilt. He had used the cash to fund a failed business venture and consequently there was not a penny left. It was Glenda’s neighbour who stumbled across the final sting in the tail when she opened a letter from the insurance company. The premium on the mortgage insurance policy had not been paid for six months.
Despite Harold De Graffe now being dead and buried, the insurance provider refused to discharge one cent of the outstanding loan on the house. Thankfully, Harold had kept up the payments on a term life policy. The payout was modest, but at least it provided Glenda with enough cash to keep the wolf from the door for the next twelve months, while she learned to cope with her new life.
A year later, Glenda felt she had more knowledge of the banking, insurance and court sectors than she would ever need or use again. This hard-won familiarity did not prevent the subprime lender from repossessing the house that had been in Harold’s family for generations.
The fact the in-laws who had treated her so unkindly had come by their just deserts was scant comfort to Glenda. When she encountered them at the mass held to commemorate the first anniversary of Harold’s passing, she freely admitted it would have been better for them to have the house than the cold institution who seemed to almost revel in sucking the life out of vulnerable individuals such as her.
Harold’s sister, Olga, turned up her nose at the proffered olive branch. She laid the blame firmly at Glenda’s door, saying her brother had only mortgaged the property in an attempt to provide for his high maintenance wife and her excessive spending habits.
The nieces and nephews who had always been made so welcome in Harold and Glenda’s home flanked their mother and uttered not one word in their aunt’s defence. After that, she turned her back on the family and resolved that, come what may, she would never have anything to do with them again, even if she ended up on the streets as a result.
She returned home and set about cataloguing any asset she could lay her hands upon, even the collection of limited edition prints she had previously set aside for Harold’s nephew. Over the month that followed, she sold everything that could possibly be sold, and gave away what could not. Even with the help of the few friends she had left, Glenda barely made it out of the house with her three suitcases of belongings before the bailiffs arrived to take possession. Effectively homeless, she set about making a new life for herself.
Always a wonderful cook and homemaker, she was fortunate enough to find employment at a family owned boutique hotel in Dublin 8, where she soon attained the position of senior housekeeper.
On the morning she came within a hair’s breadth of destroying Rosa’s no-claims discount on her car insurance, the owners of the hotel invited the staff to a meeting in the hotel restaurant.
In the starkest possible terms, Glenda and her co-workers were informed the bank had pulled the financial plug. The hotel was officially insolvent, and would be closing its doors within the hour. Glenda was only one of two dozen employees who found themselves without employment, many of whom were past the age of being considered prime candidates for positions in the hospitality industry. To add insult to injury, it soon transpired cash flow was non-existent. Redundancy payments would not be forthcoming, and would have to be applied for to the state.
Glenda was one of three employees who had a live-in post. At sixty-one years of age, a black cloud of despair settled over her when she unexpectedly found herself yet again without either home or job.
As if this was not bad enough, she had recently used every penny of her savings to purchase a four-year National Solidarity Bond, leaving herself with only a few hundred euro in her current account, and twenty euro in her purse. She was close to despair as she wandered the streets, visualising the bleak future that awaited her.
Needless to say, it was not Rosa who extracted this information. In desperation, she ushered Glenda into the Polo and drove her to Falcon. Once she had her comfortably settled in an armchair, she made the beleaguered Dutch woman a cup of strong tea with a dash of whiskey, and unleashed her boss upon her.
Within the hour, Dorothy had extracted every relevant detail of Glenda’s trials and tribulations, as well as about one hundred completely irrelevant ones. She freely admitted she loved to hear the nitty gritty of other people’s lives, and was extremely curious about her fellow homo sapiens.
After listening sympathetically to the tale, Dorothy speedily concluded the best way to proceed was for Rosa to head over to the hotel in question and collect Glenda’s possessions, most of which she had packed before setting off in quest of fresh air, and disconsolately ended up on Echlin Street.
Rosa would also assist with the necessary paperwork for the statutory redundancy claim. In the meantime, Glenda would take over Jamie’s old room, and act as Dorothy’s housekeeper and chef until the move to Howth, by which time she might have found gainful employment at another hotel.
Once it dawned upon Glenda that she would not be sleeping in a doorway that night or any time soon, and the much-talked-of move to the new house was not scheduled to take place until December, she quickly calmed down, fell in with their plans and set about cleaning the apartment.
Dorothy had thrown a massive going-away party for Jamie the previous weekend, and Falcon had not quite recovered. With his venture capital safely tucked into his wallet, Jamie departed the Emerald Isle an extremely happy personal trainer. He left Dorothy feeling sad, but resigned to life without him.
The cleaners were due to make their weekly scheduled visit, although by the time they arrived, Glenda had the apartment restored to its former glory. She happily tutted over empty glasses and bottles discovered under beds, and ladies’ lingerie found lurking under one recliner in the drawing room.
Since a large portion of the Dublin gay community had attended the party, Dorothy was relieved that nothing worse than a pair of red lacy panties had been left behind. She was confident they were not her own since red was not her colour. She did not think they belonged to Rosa either, but would not have been prepared to swear to it.
Her assistant tended to have a very Sex In The City, ‘get it while you can’, ‘you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince’, ‘when was the last time you got laid, Boss?’, type of attitude, which Dorothy envied and deplored in equal measures.
She wished she had employed a similar approach during her twenties, or even her thirties. That said, having reached the ripe old age of forty, she did not feel ready to start indulging in casual liaisons or one-night stands, no matter how frog-like or prince-like the prospective partners might be. Bel agreed that casual hookups were not the way to go, but was still of the opinion Dorothy should remain open to the possibility of a new relationship. She tried to persuade her friend to at least consider the idea.
‘What do you think of Nicholas Kerrigan?’ she asked one day. ‘He told Gerald he thinks you’re gorgeous.’
Dorothy looked dubious. ‘Eh...well, he’s charming and, eh...very well groomed and pleasant, but he is my solicitor. Would going out with my own lawyer not be a bit strange?’
Bel waved away this detail as being of not the slightest consequence. ‘Plenty of lawyers at that firm, chick,’ she said firmly. ‘They’re one of the biggest in the country. You could easily make alternative arrangements if things became serious between you. I’m only asking you not to write him off, that’s all.’
As a result of this chat, Dorothy promised her oldest friend she would not close her mind to the possibility of a new man in her life, then promptly forgot all about it. She reasoned if God wanted her to have a relationship, he would send her the right man. Even with Rosa’s help, she had a crazy amount of things to do before the end of the year. In her opinion, she did not have time to go looking for love or anything close to it.
Now she had more help, Dorothy determined to quit procrastinating and tick another few items off her to-do list. She discovered a newly opened clinic was offering something called hi-definition liposuction. After discussing it with Rosa and conducting some extensive research, Dorothy admitted the procedure would be overkill for her, because she only had a few stubborn pockets of fat.
She attended a consultation at the most upmarket clinic in town, where the handsome Italian doctor recommended she have a combination of liposuction and radio frequency. As her upper arms were a source of considerable annoyance, she went ahead and booked the treatment as per his recommendation. It was with some trepidation she went to keep her appointment on the nominated day.
To her everlasting relief, the procedure did not hurt anywhere near as much as the first time she had her bikini line zapped, although this was very likely due to the extensive amount of local anaesthetic the doctor used on her. The process certainly felt extremely odd as the fat was liquefied and sucked out by the tube-like implement. When Dorothy analysed the sensation afterwards, she decided it was more alien than painful.
After she had been given a chance to recover and eased herself back into her clothes, Rosa collected her. As per doctor’s orders, Dorothy spent the following three days resting. Loath to delay the recovery process, she wore the necessary compression garments, and did not attempt to either drive or lift anything heavier than a cup of tea for five days. To her amusement, Glenda hovered over her like a mother hen with a new chick, and behaved as if Dorothy had endured open-heart surgery instead of lipo.
The bruising and swelling had all but disappeared ten days later, and the handsome Italian doctor professed himself very pleased with his latest patient’s progress. Feeling on top of the world and very proud of herself, Dorothy asked Rosa to book her into a dental clinic for laser teeth whitening.
Apart from a couple of small gaps, she had always been lucky with the general shape and condition of her teeth, and had never experienced any major oral health worries. Nonetheless, where the colour was concerned there was definite room for improvement. As per the literature from the clinic, she hoped to achieve a result of five or six shades lighter.
On the day of the appointment, Rosa saw her boss off. She wished her good luck and reminded her she needed some new clothes if she got the urge to shop after the treatment and perhaps show off her new smile.
When she was alone, Rosa returned to her desk with a cup of coffee to see if she could make head or tail of the latest numbers Bea Lacey had mailed her regarding the ongoing refurbishment of The Unicorn hotel. An hour later, Rosa glanced up from a massive pile of invoices and was startled to see her little boss standing in the doorway, her brown eyes brimming with tears.
‘Oh, Rosa, it hurt so much, I had to ask them to stop after the first twenty minutes,’ Dorothy caught her breath in a sob. ‘I feel like such a wimp!’
Rosa did her best to look supportive and understanding, yet did not quite make it. ‘I hear that can happen sometimes, Boss. Some folks are more sensitive to the acid than others. Felicity had it done last year and she nearly fell asleep. She hardly felt a thing.’
‘Oh,’ was all Dorothy could say, as she regarded her assistant helplessly, and wondered if she was likely to meet the much-talked-of Felicity any time soon, for the purposes of admiring her pearly whites at close range.
‘All is not lost, for Rosa is here.’
‘What do you mean, Rose?’
It irritated Rosa Barnett beyond measure that virtually every Irish person she encountered insisted on calling her Rose instead of her given name. She tried hard not to let it get to her. When in Rome and all that.
‘Laser teeth whitening is usually reserved for poor folks who can’t afford veneers. You, Boss, do not have that problem. I hear there’s even a new one out now called the painless veneer, which should suit you down to the ground,’ she grinned impishly.
‘Less of your cheek, Rosa Barnett,’ Dorothy frowned. ‘Book me into the most expensive and exclusive clinic in the state for a consultation. Make sure it has the prettiest and most pain-free veneers, and the best-looking dentists to apply them so I have something to admire while I’m there.’
Rosa speedily located an exclusive clinic on the South Side favoured by many Irish celebrities, including Marty Lovegood of the Late Night Show fame. Dorothy told her assistant about her little crush on the presenter, and how he was a friend of Claudia’s.
She half-expected Rosa to laugh, yet she did nothing of the sort. Nor did she scoff at the idea of Dorothy coming face to face with the man himself. She advised her boss to take Claudia up on the offer to introduce her to Marty and see how things worked out.
‘You never know, Boss,’ she said seriously, ‘he could be a winner, and he does have a good job on the TV. He might even have a few bucks of his own. You can bet your Irish ass he is one guy who did not learn to drive on a Massey Ferguson tractor. Judging by those suits he wears, I doubt he’s ever laid eyes on any piece of farm machinery.’
Dorothy was still mulling over Rosa’s words when she showed up at the dental clinic for her first appointment. It transpired that, while in theory the veneers could be fitted within three weeks, five was closer to the norm. She was advised to work to a six-week timeframe just to be on the safe side and avoid disappointment. The process would involve a minimum of five appointments, in addition to regular check-ups afterwards.
All of this and more she discovered during her initial consultation. The most shocking disclosure of all was that if she ground her teeth while asleep (which many people did, apparently) she might have to wear a mouth guard for the rest of her life, or risk her veneers becoming damaged. This surprised her and, annoyingly, she had no sure way of determining whether she ground them or not.
Declan had never mentioned it, although it was fair to say her ex would not have noticed if she had spontaneously combusted in the bed next to him. Victor had never mentioned it, but then Victor had always taken the view that unless something was happening directly to him, it was not happening at all.
After a number of photographs had been taken of her mouth and smile, the dentist invited her into his office so they could go through the costs involved. Dorothy reassured him that money would not be a problem as she was filthy rich, but felt it only fair to warn him she was inclined to be a wimp. He kindly informed her he dealt with plenty of wimps on a weekly basis, and had a special teddy bear for the more sensitive patients to hold during the process, should they feel the need.
He also reminded her there would be anaesthetic involved at the more difficult stages, hence there was no need for her to feel anxious. Dorothy was delighted to hear about the teddy and, after making her next appointment for something called a wax-up, left happy. She reported back to Rosa that even though the veneers were going to cost her a small fortune and would be a life-long commitment, she was confident she would not wimp out midway through the process.
Pleased her upper arms were once again bruise and swelling free, and feeling reckless and daring, Dorothy made an appointment to have her abdomen and chin vacuumed using the same procedure. Despite her strict exercise and diet regime, she still had some fat around her old jelly belly which steadfastly refused to budge. Ideally, she would really have liked to have had her thighs zapped as well, but felt it might be too much if she had all three areas done at once.
The medics were very pleased with her arms, but were reluctant to perform the other two procedures on the same day. They said the abdomen and neck areas would feel considerably more sensitive, and have a longer healing time that her upper arms.
Dorothy was determined to be completely healed in time for the house move, which meant she did not have the luxury of faffing about. She set about getting her own way with the Italian doctor and his assistant.
She eventually persuaded them to fall in with her plans, but only after she faithfully promised to follow their advice to the letter. She agreed to wear the required compression garments for as long as necessary, and stay quietly at home with her feet up for at least a week after the procedure. Lastly, she agreed to foot the bill so a nurse from their clinic could visit her every day at Falcon in order to ensure all was going well.
The Italian doctor reluctantly agreed to perform both procedures on the same day, and reminded her she would have to return to the clinic to have a couple of small stitches removed. Relieved they had come around so quickly, Dorothy speedily acquiesced to his terms, and the appointment was made.
Once again, she felt strange but calm as the fat was liquefied and sucked out, although she later admitted to Rosa she was grateful the medics had insisted she take two Valium on top of the anaesthetic. She was fairly certain that, without it, she would have grown extremely anxious as soon as the doctor began to work on her face and neck area.
After the procedure, Dorothy was assisted into the compression garments and her clothes. As arranged, Rosa collected her from the clinic and gently guided her into the car. Glenda was horrified when her boss arrived home with her head wrapped in a makeshift niqab, and wearing what could only be described as a face bra for support.
‘I have to wear this for the rest of the day,’ Dorothy explained through a mouthful of fabric. ‘The swelling can take up to three weeks to subside, but hopefully I’ll be fairly normal in ten days. You know I’m a fast healer, Glen. Please don’t look so upset.’
As good as her word, Dorothy stayed home and rested as much as possible for seven days, and followed the nurse’s orders to the letter. At the requisite time, she attended the clinic for her follow-up appointment and had the stitches removed. The doctor professed himself delighted with the results.
By the eighth day, her abdomen was still badly swollen, although she noticed there was a considerable diminution of the facial bruising. Her jawline was certainly more defined, although it was early days and the effects would not really be obvious for at least another month.
Even though the process had been quite traumatic in its own way, Dorothy resolved to have her thighs done once she was settled in the new house, depending on how pleased she was with the results on the rest of her body. Assuming lunges did not do the trick, for everybody knew lunges were the way to go to achieve toned thighs.
