Double Wedding Page 4

  Carol played like a demon and rang rings around poor Lily, who became even more nervous and intimidated as Carol whizzed around her. As they approached match point Carol had never felt so focused in her life. She sliced an ace down the line and felt a surge of triumph as, moments later, Jen mentally crumpled and played a return shot into the net. Another powerful ace and it was all over.

  ‘Jeepers, Carol, that was some match. Well done, I know I didn’t do much to help,’ Lily apologized as they walked to the net to shake hands with their opponents. You can say that again, Carol thought irritably, but she merely shrugged and said nothing, her silence making poor Lily feel even more inadequate as a player.

  ‘Good match,’ Jen said tightly, proffering a limp hand.

  ‘Any time,’ Carol said airily. She hated limp handshakes. As she came off the court she saw the hunk studying her admiringly.

  ‘Well played,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied coolly, and continued in to the clubhouse, dying to have a shower, her legs aching from all the running.

  The relief of standing under the reviving hot jets was indescribable, and Carol relaxed and lathered soap all over. There was nothing like winning at tennis. It gave her such a buzz, but today for some reason it felt a thousand times better. Jen had not liked being beaten. Carol knew exactly how she felt. There were players you could cope with losing against and there were ones that really got to you. Losing to Jen would have got to her. And for some perverse reason she was glad the other girl had lost in front of the hunk. As far as she knew they were an item. The circuit’s golden couple.

  Later, as she sipped a Club Orange at the bar, a voice behind her said, ‘Let me buy you a drink, you deserve one after that marathon.’ She turned to find the hunk smiling sexily and holding out his hand. ‘Gary Davis.’

  ‘Carol Logan,’ she reciprocated, noting approvingly that his handshake was firm, unlike that of his girlfriend.

  ‘Well, Carol Logan, you certainly played like a pro today.’

  ‘No point in playing otherwise.’ She withdrew her hand from his lingering handclasp.

  ‘So what can I get you?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said casually.

  ‘Aw, come on, how about champagne to celebrate?’

  Carol laughed. What an over-the-top show-off. Did he think that she was easily impressed?

  ‘Some other time, perhaps, but thanks for the offer. I think your girlfriend is looking for you.’ She glanced over to the door to where Jen was staring over at them.

  ‘She knows where I am,’ he drawled.

  ‘So she does. Excuse me.’ She slid off her stool. ‘I’m just going to join my friends.’ She left him standing, staring after her as she crossed the bar to join Jessica and Mike.

  Over the next couple of months she encountered Gary and Jen on the circuit. She kept him at arm’s length, refusing his offer to buy her a drink, instinctively knowing that the way to hook Gary was to play hard to get. And hook him she wanted to, badly. He was a challenge, no doubt about it. Women flocked to him. He had an easy, sexy charm, and he knew it. His girlfriend had an ever watchful, possessive air about her, understandably. Being Gary Davis’s girlfriend was not for the faint-hearted.

  Things came to a head when she played opposite him in a game of mixed doubles. It was a hard-fought match and she didn’t give an inch; as they squared up against each other, the glint in his eye was matched by the determination in hers and they battled over every point. His serve was powerful but she held her own against him, and even though they lost by a game, she was at least comforted by the fact that she had certainly been no pushover.

  ‘You have to let me buy you a drink after this,’ he informed her when they met later on at the bar.

  ‘I don’t have to let you do anything,’ she said tartly.

  ‘Are you afraid of me?’ he demanded.

  Carol chuckled, highly amused at his attitude and secretly delighted that she was getting to him.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Gary.’ She arched an eyebrow at him. ‘Why on earth would you think that?’

  ‘Well, I’ve being trying to buy you a drink for ages and you keep saying no and running off on me as if I had the plague,’ he said plaintively.

  ‘Gary, I’m just not pushed about drinking, but if it’s such a big deal I’ll have a Club Orange.’ She was extremely pleased with her strategy; she’d certainly reinforced the impression that he was chasing her and that she wasn’t the slightest bit interested.

  ‘Oh, come on, have something stronger!’ he urged.

  ‘Nope! I’m playing matches all over the weekend. I don’t need to be slowed down by alcohol,’ she explained calmly.

  ‘God, you’re very dedicated. You don’t give an inch on court.’

  ‘Neither do you,’ she pointed out. Their eyes met and held and some intangible bond ignited between them. Gary smiled at her.

  ‘A kindred spirit,’ he said softly and she knew there and then that he was the one she wanted.

  ‘Do you think so?’ she challenged.

  ‘I know so,’ he said huskily, turning on the charm. ‘Have dinner with me and let’s find out.’

  ‘I don’t two-time. You’re Jen’s boyfriend.’ Her blunt response took him by surprise.

  ‘Oh! How high-minded of you.’ His tone was faintly jeering.

  She shrugged. ‘Say what you like, but that’s my policy. It saves me a lot of trouble.’

  ‘I suppose you have a point,’ he allowed, as he ordered the orange drink for her and a beer for himself. ‘So what drives you then?’ He sat back on his stool and turned to look at her, his brown eyes staring unwaveringly into her own. His stare was disconcerting but she made a conscious effort to ignore it.

  ‘I play to win,’ she said simply.

  ‘In everything?’ His eyes never left her face.

  ‘Why not?’ she said lightly, breaking his stare to take a welcome drink of the ice-cold orange.

  ‘And if you lose?’

  ‘Tomorrow is another day.’ She grinned, enjoying the banter and the sexual frisson that sparked between them.

  ‘Are you seeing anyone yourself?’ he queried offhandedly.

  ‘Not any more.’ Carol took another sip of her drink. ‘He said I preferred tennis to him.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Tennis is a very satisfying game.’ She eyeballed him as she finished her drink and stood up.

  ‘Thanks for the drink, I’ll see you around.’ Head up, back straight, she walked out of the bar without looking back. Two weeks later, she heard on the grapevine that it was all off with Jen.

  The next time she saw him he said briskly, ‘I’m footloose and fancy-free. It wasn’t working with Jen and me. Care to have dinner with me?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said easily, and saw his mouth open in surprise. He’d been expecting a battle of wills. She laughed, delighted to have wrong-footed him.

  ‘I’m going to have my hands full with you,’ he murmured, his eyes warm as they surveyed her from head to toe.

  ‘Me? I’m a pussy cat,’ she teased, writing down her telephone number and passing it to him. ‘Call me, I have to go. I’m due on court in ten minutes and I need to get changed.’

  ‘Have a good game.’ He smiled.

  ‘Indeed I will,’ she assured him, on cloud nine that she had him where she wanted him. It had been one of the most satisfying moments of her life.

  * * *

  Carol sighed as she marched across Binn’s Bridge, shading her eyes from the prisms of sunlight that dazzled up from the Royal Canal. It had been fun then, almost a game, albeit a game that she intended to win, but as things got serious with them and she continued to fall even more in love with him, life became much more of a roller-coaster. Gary started putting pressure on her to sleep with him and she would have in a heartbeat if she’d felt secure about him. It became an unspoken struggle between them, and each was equally determined as to the outcome.

  So far
she was shading it, she conceded. She was holding out with great difficulty, it had to be said, about sleeping with him, much to the frustration of both of them, but so far it had paid off. They were engaged. Nevertheless she now understood Jen’s watchfulness, as she had become watchful herself in the face of his constant flirting with other women.

  It was difficult. She often wanted to rage at him and tell him not to be such an obnoxious bastard, but that would be playing the game his way and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Only to Jessica did she pour out her fears and doubts. Jessica was her touchstone, her comforter, and her shoulder to cry on.

  They had known each other since childhood, living across the road from each other in Arklow, a small seaside town on the east coast. They’d gone to school together, survived the teenage years, and Carol had followed the other girl to Dublin. Jessica knew all about Carol’s difficulties at home. She never put on a façade with her like she did with everyone else. When her mother’s nerves went and she hit the bottle, it was Jessica she confided in. While her parents fought like cat and dog for years before her father left, it was Jessica who comforted Carol. If it wasn’t for her friend, sometimes Carol didn’t know what she’d do.

  Katie was the big thorn in Carol’s side. She too had grown up in Arklow with them, and because she and Jessica were cousins, the bond was close. Carol had always been jealous of it, and of her. No doubt she would be Jessica’s bridesmaid at the wedding. That wouldn’t be so bad, she thought smugly. How nice it would be to swan up the aisle as a bride knowing that Katie was probably pea-green with envy behind her.

  She let herself into the gloomy, red-brick terraced house where she had a bedsit on the first floor. When Jessica and Katie had moved into their house just over a mile away, she had been full sure that they would have invited her to share, but the invite hadn’t been forthcoming and she’d been devastated. She’d blamed Katie, but she’d been hurt that Jessica hadn’t insisted. After all, she was living in a grotty little bedsit that her friend was always giving out about.

  Carol could well have afforded to rent a nice flat or apartment but she was paranoid about saving. Money had been tight when her father left, even though he sent money every week and paid the bills. Nancy had scrimped to buy drink. Carol had vowed to save as much of her salary as she could so that she could have a safety net of cash for the future. Paying rent was money down the drain, she reasoned, so she got a place that didn’t make a big hole in her purse.

  Carol sighed as she turned the key in the lock and put her shoulder to the dirty beige wooden door with the flaking paint. She pushed hard. It really was a kip, she acknowledged, as she studied her abode. A single divan bed faced the door. She had covered it with a lilac candlewick bedspread and cushions lay dotted along the wall so it doubled as a sofa. One window facing on to the street gave the only natural light and an ancient chipped Belfast sink stood beneath it. At right angles to the window and sink lay a small counter top, with a tiny two-ringed cooker and a bockety fridge that wheezed and rattled like an eighty-year-old. A small black fireplace that accommodated about two briquettes in its diminutive grate was her only source of heating, and she had one rickety armchair that sagged in the middle and had cigarette burns all along the arms.

  A woodworm-infested wardrobe, crammed to the brim, completed the furnishings and black sacks of clothes and other bits and pieces tumbled untidily in the corner. She hated it so much she never brought anyone up to it, and she’d only stayed in it because she’d hoped that Gary or Jessica would take pity on her and ask her to move in.

  Gary had been horrified when he’d seen it the first time. ‘What the hell are you doing living in a gaff like this? My God, woman, it’s the pits.’

  ‘Well, we’re not all loaded like you,’ she retorted, playing the poor mouth. ‘I’m saving for a car.’

  ‘Go for promotion at work,’ he suggested.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said wearily. ‘Me and a thousand others.’

  ‘I thought you’d be a piranha in the work pool.’

  ‘Excuse me, I’m a Senior Staff Officer. I have a staff working under me,’ she boasted.

  ‘Well done,’ he said admiringly. ‘But this place is a dump, Miss Senior Staff Officer. I’ll paint it for you if you like,’ he offered. ‘You’ve got to get rid of those cabbages on the walls.’

  ‘They’re roses,’ she pointed out.

  ‘They’re not like any roses I’ve ever seen,’ he retorted, gazing around at the uninspiring décor. ‘I can see why you wear yourself out on the court, so you’d be too knackered to stay awake. I’d get nightmares in this place. What colour do you want me to paint it?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Carol was utterly touched by this unexpectedly kind offer.

  ‘Sure,’ he grinned. ‘It will only take a couple of hours.’

  ‘I’d better OK it with the landlord,’ she murmured.

  ‘You do that, and get back to me,’ he said matter-of-factly. She was ecstatic.

  ‘He wouldn’t do that unless he had strong feelings for me, sure he wouldn’t?’ she asked Jessica, who’d assured her that men did not go around painting girls’ bedsits if they didn’t feel something for the girl involved. True to his word, once the landlord had given his permission, Gary had painted the room a bright, warm, buttermilk yellow that lightened the gloom of the previous dark green.

  Yellow walls notwithstanding, she’d be delighted to shake the dust of the cramped little room off her heels, she reflected, as she filled a kettle of water to make herself a pot of tea.

  Ten minutes later she was scowling as Gary’s phone rang and rang unanswered. Here she had momentous news to tell him and he wasn’t at home. Nor were there any messages for her. Frances, the bank official who lived on the ground floor, would always leave a note for her if anyone called when she wasn’t there.

  It wouldn’t have killed him to ring her, the skunk, she thought crossly, all her previous joie de vivre evaporating.

  * * *

  Gary held the car door open for Jen and watched admiringly as she slid elegantly out of the car. He had taken her out to Dun Laoghaire and they were going to walk along the pier before having a bite to eat, in Roly’s. It was nice being with his ex for the day, and she was clearly enjoying being with him.

  He wasn’t being very fair to her, he acknowledged a little guiltily. He knew she was hoping he would come back to her, but much and all as he liked her, she was a bit too career-minded for his tastes. She was a sales rep for ASCO, a big American pharmaceutical company. She’d worked her way up to being a regional manager, and that had been one of the final nails in the coffin for him. He didn’t want to be dating a woman who was doing better than he was. And besides, there was no mystery to her any more. No challenge; not like Carol, who could drive him mad as easily as she could charm him.

  Jen might pretend that she wasn’t going to see him any more but he knew her better than that. She was a pushover for him and he might as well enjoy her while he could. She’d called him a serial heartbreaker once and he’d been secretly pleased at the label, even though she’d obviously meant it as a gratuitous insult. He liked women, he liked flirting with them, but if they were foolish enough to fall in love with him, he couldn’t be blamed for it. People had to take responsibility for their own emotions.

  Carol was cool. Sure she wanted to get married, but sometimes he felt it was more the idea of being married that appealed to her, and not his overwhelming allure. Carol could be extremely offhand with him; her walking out on him in The Oval was a case in point. No other chick he’d ever dated had walked away from him, no matter how intense the row. He glanced at his watch. Two fifteen: he’d let her cool her heels, he wouldn’t phone. He’d see her at the club tomorrow. He’d never been one to make the first move in a row. She’d better get used to it.

  * * *

  Carol lifted the phone and heard the familiar dial tone. It seemed to be working. Her fingers hovered. She desperately wanted to phone Gary. Sh
e’d spent the whole afternoon in the bedsit hoping he’d ring, but not a peep. She’d nearly gone mad looking out at the sun splitting the trees. He was such a swine sometimes. Well, to hell with him, she was damned if she was going to make the first move.

  She trudged back up the creaking stairs and flung herself on her divan. Nine-thirty, too late to make arrangements with any of her friends to go out drinking. She didn’t want to stay in feeling sorry for herself – the night would drag.

  She could go for a jog. That’s what she’d do, she decided. She’d go for a jog up to Glasnevin. Jessica and Mike might be in The Gravediggers, their cosy local, having a drink, and she could join them. Better than sitting moping on her own.

  She changed into her Adidas tracksuit and slipped some money into her pocket. She liked jogging, liked the feeling of pushing herself hard and liked knowing that she was as fit as she could possibly be. She was a huge admirer of Pilates but the workout video was difficult to do in the small confines of her bedsit; nevertheless Carol did her best to do the routine at least three times a week. Some day she was going to have a room in her house that she could convert into a gym area, all wooden floors and floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and she’d work out to her heart’s content. If only Gary would get his act together and start looking at houses with her. Thinking of him intensified her bad humour, and she headed out into the twilight fuelled with anger and fear as she pounded the streets, wondering just exactly where her fiancé was.