Desperately Seeking - By Evelyn Cosgrave Page 0,11

a fool. Yet he never seemed to notice me. I thought it a little odd that someone who had appeared so besotted could now behave as if I was a nobody. But I didn’t think it was odd enough to pin him as a jackass and move on. Perhaps if I’d been better at my job I would have been too busy to obsess about a jumped-up lawyer who thought he was God’s gift.

I hadn’t had a boyfriend in a while. Philip was still sort of on the scene but we both knew it wasn’t going anywhere. We had fallen heavily in lust with each other while working on a portfolio together. But when we had had time to get to know each other we realized, as you do in these situations, that we had nothing in common. He was quite boring with little interest in anything other than his job, and sport. He was immature, a bit mean and far, far too fond of himself. It was while I was realizing all this that it dawned on me I’d been doing this sort of thing for too long. After I’d got over the notion that I might marry every man who excited my interest I gave up on the idea of serious relationships altogether. After all, a girl has the right just to want to have fun. But for a while now it hadn’t been fun. I was bored and a little tired. However, a hot and heavy affair with a married man was not what I needed.

We met again by accident one night at a party. It was somebody’s fortieth. I hadn’t been planning to go but Colette persuaded me. She and I have been friends for years, as far back as schooldays when we were in the same class, had the same hairstyle, liked the same boys and told each other everything. But we went to different universities and followed different careers. We liked different boys, and by our mid-twenties we had little in common. She got married and had kids and I didn’t. Then we ended up back in Limerick and there seemed to be enough between us for a rekindling. I admire Colette: she’s so together and sure of herself. On that particular evening she fancied a night out and wanted me along for company. I owed her one. The person turning forty was some friend of her husband’s but she reckoned she needed the night out more than he did.

We arrived together but soon drifted into disparate groups. Colette and I always work a party well. We give each other breathing space but we’ll still be there for the other if needed. I was having a very good time. I had fallen upon a group of young men who were delighted to find even one attractive woman under thirty. I flirted with them and we decided collectively that it was better to shoot yourself than to turn forty in your own living room with a bunch of even older old farts. The house was a big, sprawling affair in the suburbs so we were able to drift off into some side room that might have been an office, or a gift-wrapping room. We had requisitioned a bottle of vodka and were about to begin an elaborate drinking game when Daniel O’Hanlon appeared at the door.

He seemed drunk. ‘Can I join you?’ he asked. ‘Or is there an age limit?’ he added a little sourly.

I said nothing.

I didn’t need to. One of my junior companions hopped up and launched a near obscene licking-up session: ‘Oh, hi, Mr O’Hanlon! We were just taking a break from all the craziness next door. Great party! Do you know the hosts? Smashing house. Do you live around here?’

He went on and on, but nobody was listening, least of all Daniel, and his mates were about to make off with the vodka. Daniel came further into the room and sort of shoved the sycophant out with the others. Then he closed the door. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, you were doing a pretty good job of ignoring me.’

‘I wasn’t ignoring you, I was resisting you.’

‘Resisting me! Give me a break, Mr O’Hanlon.’

‘You are gorgeous, you know.’

‘Yes, I know. Thanks!’

Suddenly his look changed and he seemed less drunk than disoriented. There was something vulnerable about him, something that suggested he needed help.

‘Look, Kate, I know I’ve messed you around since that night in the Merry Widow but I’ve been thinking about you constantly.