Best of Friends

Three days later, on Friday morning just after nine, Abby pulled up outside a big house in a swish Cork suburb for a private decluttering job. Many people thought that Abby no longer took on private commissions since her television success but, in fact, the opposite was true. Although television paid well, it wasn’t as lucrative as everyone imagined. The big sums of money bandied about in the who’s-earning-what articles in newspapers were generally wrong and often represented what Abby would earn if she sold herself and her entire family into slavery for ten years. A successful television series meant a reasonable amount of money in the bank and the possibility of making more money if the series kept on attracting high ratings. It did not mean, as lots of people thought, that someone came round to her house with a Vuitton holdall stuffed with tenners. Private jobs were her bread and butter.

This morning’s job was one she felt wary of: Tanya Monaghan, a local socialite much given to appearing in the gossip column photos, wanted Abby’s help to declutter her life. Fair enough. Except that Abby had a sneaking suspicion that Tanya’s house didn’t need anything in the way of de-junking and that she merely wanted Abby’s services because of the fame factor. It was like having your dinner parties catered by a famous chef or your garden landscaped by a well-known gardener.

‘Abby Barton – you know, from the television – well, she sorts the house out for me,’ Tanya would say airily.

There was an intercom built into the wall beside the electric gates of the Monaghan home. Tanya’s husband, who was some sort of construction magnate, was clearly rolling in funds. Abby lowered the Jeep window.

‘Abby Barton for Mrs Monaghan,’ she shouted into the intercom.

‘Come in,’ said a gentle, heavily accented voice. Not Tanya’s, Abby was sure. Therefore the voice of some hired help, which meant the whole house was probably spotless as it was. She parked on a flawless gravel drive and didn’t have to ring the doorbell before the door opened. A shy, dark-haired woman in clumpy shoes smiled at her.

‘Welcome,’ she said in her quiet voice.

Tanya appeared from the top of the staircase. ‘I’ll take over, Manuela,’ she said dismissively.

‘Thanks,’ Abby said politely to Manuela, who shot her a friendly look as though to say nobody in this household thanked her very often. Abby would bet her day’s wages that Manuela could tell some stories about her employer. Perhaps they could compare notes afterwards.

‘Nice of you to drop in,’ said Tanya, waving a languid hand in Abby’s direction. A skeletal blonde with size six hips in pink Versace jeans, she was coiffed to within an inch of her life and, from the studied bored look on her face, was clearly determined not to be fazed by her celebrity house declutterer.

Ms Size-Six-Hips lit up the first of many cigarettes and took Abby on a tour of the house. It was so big that Abby was glad she’d worn flat shoes. It was also as perfectly tidy as a house in a style magazine. They went upstairs.

‘As you can see, I haven’t any room in here,’ Tanya said when they reached a dressing room roughly the same size as Abby’s own bedroom. With clothes crammed into every space, it was definitely the messiest room in the Monaghan house, but still nowhere near the scale of disaster that Abby had encountered on the show. One family had lived for three years with all their clothes stored in plastic bin liners because their wardrobes were jammed full of really old clothes and nobody had been able to face tackling either the mouldy wardrobes or the moths. Compared to that, Tanya’s dressing room was perfect enough to stand in for a clothes shop display.

‘Do you think you can sort it out?’ Tanya said, not looking at Abby but scrutinising an immaculate nail.

Abby thought of the endless perfect rooms, which required little work. It would be wrong of her to take on a job where there was none. Only this room needed anything doing to it, and judging by the labels hanging from many of the obviously unworn clothes, the main solution would be to take away Tanya’s gold credit card. The money for the commission would be nice but Abby was intrinsically honest. Besides, she wasn’t in the mood for spending much time with the self-obsessed and rude Tanya Monaghan.

‘Tanya, there’s not a lot to do here,’ she said bluntly. ‘This room needs a day’s work but that’s all. I couldn’t take your money for nothing.’

‘Well,’ Tanya looked almost offended at the idea that her house wasn’t suitable, ‘can’t you do something?’

‘Tanya, it would be wrong of me to say the whole house needs doing. You’ve no clutter at all.’

‘This room, then,’ Tanya said eagerly.

‘OK.’

‘Great. I’ll send Manuela up in case you want tea or coffee,’ Tanya said, smiling now she’d got her way. ‘I have to go out. I’ll be back much later. Have fun.’

And she was gone, leaving Abby feeling decidedly irritated.

Working in Tanya’s dressing room had another big minus, Abby decided when she’d finished the job and was pulling on her jacket: those floor-to-ceiling mirrors were as unforgiving as the ones in the hairdresser’s, and magnified every line. She should have asked Tanya for advice on plastic surgery. Tanya would be the sort of person to know where to go to have eyebags miraculously lifted. The only problems with surgery, Abby decided, were that it hurt and there was always a risk of it going wrong. Look at all those women with lips that looked like inflated Lilos. No, Abby only wanted surgery if she could be guaranteed that she’d look herself, only younger.

On her way home, she stopped at a row of shops to buy a banana and some bottled water to keep her going. Emerging from the shop, she passed a glossy chemist’s and the lure of shiny new lipsticks drew her in. She’d had a dull but lucrative day. She deserved a treat, like a new lippie or maybe some nail varnish. After an enjoyable ten minutes dawdling at the beauty counter, Abby decided to buy a new, even more expensive eye cream as well as a lip-plumping lotion, an ultra-moisturising face mask and, to cheer herself up, a mascara that promised spidery lashes like a sexy French actress. With huge jet-black lashes batting, perhaps nobody would notice Abby’s crow’s-feet. As her credit card was processed to debit a horrifyingly large sum, Abby decided that an eye lift would still be cheaper in the long run. Still, she signed the bill, turned away from the till and went whomp straight into the raincoated body of a man.

The impact winded her and she dropped her bag of make-up to the ground with a loud clank.

‘Excuse me,’ she muttered, not looking at the man but bending down to retrieve her package, hoping nothing was broken. Clumsy and wrinkly. Was there no end to her talents? No wonder her husband was bored with her.

‘Abby Barton,’ said an amused voice. ‘Long time no see.’

Crouched down, she peered up at the voice and her stomach lurched the way it did when she drove the Jeep at high speed over bumps in the road.

The owner of the expensive-looking raincoat, staring down his long aquiline nose at her, was Jay Garnier.

A man she hadn’t seen for what…eighteen years? Nineteen? At somebody’s wedding, if she remembered correctly, when she’d wondered in advance if the old magic would be there and had been mildly upset when Jay had rolled up with an exquisite Brazilian girl with blue-black hair and a slim waist measurement which, even so, was undoubtedly a higher figure than her age.

‘Typical,’ everyone had said, watching them whirl round the dance floor, two tall lean figures moving in time to the music as if they were alone and just about to fall into bed. ‘Jay always found the best-looking girls.’

And Abby had consoled herself that she’d been one of Jay’s girls, once, and that everyone knew he moved on and the trick was not to be bothered by it. To show Jay exactly how not bothered she was by his not even coming over to say hello, Abby had flounced round the floor with her current boyfriend – the one before Tom – and got terribly drunk on pineapple daiquiris.

‘Abby,’ he said now, ‘I can’t believe it’s you. It’s so wonderful to see you – you don’t know how thrilled I am. You’ve made my day!’

Abby melted. It wasn’t just seeing him that made her feel twenty years younger, but the way he said her name. His voice had always been bewitching, low, husky. He never spoke loudly. Linda, her flatmate at college, who had never liked Jay, said he spoke softly simply to get women to lean closer to him, so he could pounce. But Abby disagreed. She could remember Jay talking to her as if she was the only person on the planet, his misty grey eyes locked with hers, passion smouldering.

‘I’ve never felt this way about anyone in the world,’ he’d said. She’d felt the same. Of course, it couldn’t have lasted; they both knew that. Holiday romances didn’t.

‘It’s so wonderful to see you.’ Jay pulled her to her feet, and his arms were around her, and in that instant, Abby hugged him back tightly. He’d barely changed. The strong profile and the chiselled jawline were the same, the jaw only softened by the unexpectedly full lower lip that was now curved up into a delighted smile. He still looked fit enough to play a ferociously aggressive game of rugby and his hair was the same dappled chestnut, although shorter than it had been in college. He certainly didn’t look forty-two, which was what he had to be – Abby’s own age.

He held her at arm’s length and stared appreciatively at her. ‘You look fabulous, Abby. Do you have time for a quick drink and a catch-up?’

They sat in the bar of the hotel across the street and reminisced. Abby had kept in touch with some of the college gang, and, jittery with a strange excitement whenever he accidentally brushed against her, she kept up a stream of conversation about them, discussing how Peter and Fiona had got married after all and now lived in Stockholm, and how Denessa had lived near Abby in Cork until a few years ago.

Jay, who was in Cork on business, lived in Dublin and ran the sales division of a successful office supply company there. He was married to a woman named Lottie and somehow, Abby wasn’t sure how, he gave a resigned impression that all wasn’t well in the marriage. Abby’s soft heart was moved at the way he shrugged and said wryly that even the best marriages went through difficult patches, didn’t they?

‘The boys are five and seven, and they’re great,’ he said. ‘How about yours? You’ve got a daughter, haven’t you?’

With relief, Abby talked about Jess and Tom, giving Jay the interview version of her life: how thrilled she was with the fame but that her family life was more important than anything else.

Jay told her about his two young sons, saying he’d married late and that the boys were keeping him young.

‘I’m afraid I must go,’ he said finally, when they’d talked for over an hour. ‘I’ve another meeting.’

‘Of course,’ said Abby. ‘Me too. Another meeting, I mean.’

His fingers brushed against hers as they both reached for the bill and Abby again felt the strangest sensation electrify her body. For a moment, she just sat and stared at Jay’s outstretched hand.

‘Let me pay,’ he insisted. ‘If you can’t let an old friend buy you a drink, who can? And I’m a very old friend,’ he added, laughing. ‘Look at the grey hairs.’

Abby laughed easily. ‘Not so old,’ she said. ‘You don’t look a day over thirty-seven. I can only assume you have a portrait in the attic like Dorian Gray.’

‘Look who’s talking.’ There was a relaxed, teasing quality to his voice and Abby smiled back as he leaned over and touched her hair. ‘You look fabulous. Fame agrees with you, Abby.’

Their eyes met and, at that instant, she was able to identify the sensation she’d experienced when he’d touched her previously: the exquisite thrill of sexual attraction. Like the tail flick of an electric eel, desire rippled throughout her body, sending every nerve ending onto high alert. And just as quickly, Abby knew how dangerous it would be to admit this to Jay. How embarrassing to behave like that with an old boyfriend, a married old boyfriend at that.

The air of savoir-faire she’d worked on so hard for her television persona came to her rescue just in time.

‘You charmer,’ she said, her voice deliberately light. ‘I bet you say that to all your old flames.’