The Women Who Ran Away - Sheila O'Flanagan Page 0,97
to the bathroom. A glance in the mirror startled her – she’d forgotten about her shorter hairstyle and, despite clearly having drunk a lot, the scarlet lipstick still stained her lips.
She put on the disposable shower cap to protect her new hairdo and stood under the hot water, allowing it to massage the back of her neck. The sensation was soothing and she felt better afterwards, but she was still shaky when she walked downstairs.
Grace was already seated at one of the tables in the cloister, a cup of coffee in front of her. She looked up as Deira approached.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘Did I lose it completely?’ Deira pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. ‘Because I’m a delicate flower this morning. I can’t believe I’m hung-over. I haven’t been hung-over in months.’
‘You were fine until the shots,’ Grace told her.
‘Shots!’ Deira looked aghast. ‘I don’t drink shots.’
‘You did last night,’ said Grace. ‘After the second bottle of wine.’
‘Didn’t we eat?’ asked Deira. ‘I don’t usually get wasted if I eat.’
‘The barman brought us some free tapas,’ said Grace. ‘We didn’t bother about food after that.’
‘Obviously I didn’t eat enough of them. Weren’t we talking to people, too?’
‘A group of men,’ said Grace. ‘They heard us speaking English and they wanted to chat. They bought the second bottle because we’d finished ours, and then the shots afterwards. But they weren’t trying to get us drunk or anything.’
‘I didn’t say or do anything awful, did I?’ asked Deira as it started to come back to her. ‘There was someone called Roberto, and . . . Leo, was it? They were lecturers at the university. Not literature.’
‘Architecture,’ supplied Grace.
‘I can’t remember the last time I did something like this,’ said Deira.
‘Me neither, to be honest.’
‘But you’re not hung-over.’
‘Well, I didn’t have the shots,’ said Grace. ‘But my secret non-hangover weapon comes with age. I know it’s generally the case that the older you get, the worse your reaction to a late night is, but since the menopause, I don’t get hangovers.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Nope,’ said Grace. ‘It’s a compensation for the hot flushes and memory loss. Mind you, I limit myself to a couple of glasses of wine any time I go out. And maybe a G&T afterwards. So I’m not exactly lashing it back. Doesn’t affect me, though.’
‘You should’ve saved me from myself,’ said Deira.
‘Why?’ Grace smiled. ‘You were having a good time. We both were.’
Deira got up from the table and helped herself to some fresh fruit from the buffet.
‘I remember laughing a lot,’ she said as she sat down again. ‘So that was a good thing.’
‘The guys knew Dublin,’ Grace said. ‘One of them had worked as a barman in the city when he was at college. They got the humour.’
‘When he was at college!’ Deira stared at her. ‘Don’t tell me we got drunk with a bunch of graduates.’
Grace took out her phone and scrolled to a photo. It showed the two of them raising glasses of wine to the four men behind them.
‘Thank God,’ said Deira. ‘At least they don’t look like kids.’
‘In their thirties, I think,’ said Grace. ‘Which is young enough for them all to be my sons. Something I find hard to grasp even though I have a son who’s thirty. And his sister is older!’
‘We were talking a lot about Alcalá de Henares and its history.’ Deira’s memories were becoming clearer now. ‘And the storks. We had a big discussion about storks!’
‘That’s because the bar was called La Cigüeña. Which means stork,’ said Grace. ‘They’re one of the symbols of the city, apparently.’
‘Right. Well, I’m sorry if it was my fault we ended up out half the night,’ said Deira. ‘Just because I wanted to flaunt my red lipstick and new hairdo.’
‘I enjoyed myself mightily,’ Grace told her. ‘I haven’t been out like that since long before Ken was diagnosed. I don’t have many girlfriends. It’s crazy really, but somehow I was never one for having groups of girls I was close to. There’s a few, of course, but even then we wouldn’t go out on the complete lash. I suppose it wouldn’t be the done thing for women of a certain age to totter out of a pub.’
‘It depends on the women,’ said Deira. ‘And the pub.’
Grace laughed. ‘Are you feeling up to unlocking the clue?’
Deira nodded, and Grace took the laptop from the bag beside her.