one people noticed: high-spirited, spontaneous and generous, everyone wanted a piece of her.
Straight out of college, she began working in personal wealth management, a banking job that required a lot of schmoozing and socializing. Informal and funny, she was nothing like her polite, polished colleagues and was a great success.
Jessie was initially shocked, then impressed, at the rate with which she got through boyfriends. No sooner had she declared an interest in someone than she was reporting to Jessie, ‘Ah, it didn’t work out. Plenty more fish!’ Occasionally when a man disappointed her, her spirits were – briefly – dampened, but never for long. It wasn’t until she was twenty-seven, and Jessie and Keeva were already mothers of young sons, that Izzy met Tristão, a Brazilian banker who lived in New York.
Tristão was stocky and immensely handsome.
‘What? I wasn’t good-looking enough for you?’ Johnny complained to her.
Tristão was a big hit with the rest of them. He’d come to Errislannan, eat Ellen’s rhubarb tart, play with baby Barty and Ferdia, and spend Sunday afternoons standing on the side of a wet and windy GAA pitch, just like the rest of them. His English was perfect and his sense of humour impeccable.
Once a month Izzy flew to New York for four days, then two weeks later, Tristão would come to Ireland. The transatlantic thing seemed to work for them, probably because they both had so much energy: Izzy could get off the plane and go straight into work. Their holidays were always strange and amazing: travelling on a camel caravan through Uzbekistan; ten days spent tracking polar bears in Alaska.
‘I thought I was very daring going to Vietnam,’ Jessie had said.
Now and again there was talk that Izzy might move to New York permanently but then she’d say something like ‘Changed my mind. I like Ireland too much.’
Over four years, she and Tristão split up at least twice, but always got back together. Their relationship might have been unconventional but it suited them.
SEVENTY-NINE
‘Don’t stop!’ Jessie held onto Johnny’s hip bones, as he drove in and out of her, with the speed of a jackrabbit.
‘Are you …?’ he grunted.
‘Not yet! Go faster.’
Propped on his arms over her, his hair was dark and slick with sweat. A drop landed on her face and she touched it with her tongue. She was absolutely loving this. Why didn’t they do it more often?
They’d gone for a late drink to say goodbye to Loretta and Marcello.
‘So sad we will not see you for another year.’ Loretta had sighed, stroking Johnny’s cheek.
‘Are you flirting with my husband?’ Jessie asked. ‘Or just being Italian?’
‘Flirting,’ Loretta said. ‘He is sexy man.’
‘That eejit?’
‘To me he is not an eejit,’ Loretta said. ‘He is sexy man. I love Marcello, but if I have one night free of my marriage, I would choose Johnny.’
‘If I have one night free of my marriage,’ Marcello said, ‘I would choose Johnny also.’
‘Lord save us,’ Johnny bellowed, embarrassed. ‘Is it swingers ye are?’
‘He charms me,’ Loretta informed Jessie. ‘And simply, he is …’ she twirled her fingers around Johnny’s face and torso, her Italian hands painting an eloquent picture ‘… hot. Yes, he is hot.’
All of a sudden, Jessie agreed.
Johnny had picked up a bit of a tan, which made his eyes brighter and his teeth very white. Unlike Marcello, a squashy bear of a man, Johnny seemed lean and strong. Not tall, but a lot of power in those hips and thighs …
Seeing her husband through the eyes of another woman had her hurrying through the farewells and pushing him back down the hill, into their bed, for a no-frills fuck.
‘No!’ she’d objected, as he’d planted a line of butterfly kisses from her stomach to her nipple. ‘No fiddly business. Get right to it. Now!’
He tore off his clothes and slid straight into her, and she let herself yelp, ‘Oh, God!’ with a rare abandon.
‘Tell. Me. About. It,’ he said, matching each word with a thrust.
When he slowed down and began varying his strokes, she howled, ‘No!’
She didn’t want finesse, she didn’t want skill, she just wanted to be fucked. ‘Just keep doing exactly what you’re doing.’
Tonight she wanted to come while he pounded away on top of her, but his breathing changed, he was making that sound that always indicated the end was in sight.
‘Hold on,’ she ordered. ‘Think about the dip in Kilkenny’s profits!’
‘Are you nearly …?’
‘Yes. Yes! Yes! Yes!’
Afterwards, star-fished across the bed, she murmured, ‘That was fucking fabulous.’