Martina Devlin - Three Wise Men

When her stomach cramps ease she phones in a sick call to Mrs Hardiman, the head librarian. It’s a mental health day, not one for lying in bed, so she catches a bus into town (when one finally arrives – Dublin Bus doesn’t believe in pampering its passengers with a regular service) and heads straight for the shopping mecca of Grafton Street and Brown Thomas.

Its basement houses her favourite lingerie department. She fondles the teddies and baby dolls – such innocuous names for such seriously wicked underwear – and holds them along her body to judge their impact. She’s determined to choose the wispiest silks and silkiest wisps she can lay her hands on, even some provocative cutaway pieces she’d normally dismiss as too high on the slagheap index to consider. She wants to be ready for Jack when her period’s over. Stripped for action. Eimear’s mouth twists as she reflects on Jack’s predilections. Nothing too tasteful, he’s indifferent to her café-au-lait camisoles. He prefers them red and lacy or black and sheer.

Brevity is the soul of underwear, he continually tells her; it’s not his rule of thumb in life, however, because his poetry rambles on interminably. Still, at least she knows how to press his buttons.

‘I’d almost despise you for being predictable if it weren’t so useful, Jack O’Brien,’ she remarks.

A middle-aged woman a few feet away starts putting considerably more distance between them. Steady, thinks Eimear, she’s speaking out loud again – it can only be a matter of time before the men in white coats arrive.

When she’s upset she comforts herself by shopping. Admittedly that’s her response to boredom or depression too. The best therapy is retail, she’s fond of saying – a new pair of shoes are cheaper than a visit to the shrink and you have something to show for your money to boot.

‘Can I help you, madam?’

An assistant with purple lips and matching nails interrupts Eimear’s meditation, she rouses herself and finds she’s wringing a push-up bra between her hands. No wonder the girl intervened, there’s a madwoman damaging the stock.

‘Yes, do you have this in any other colours?’ She makes an effort to seem normal.

‘No, only black. It comes with a choice of French knickers or a thong to match.’ She gestures to the alternatives.

Eimear looks at them. Very Jack. ‘I’ll take both.’

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Eimear catches sight of the swimwear as she pays at the till. A wave of nostalgia engulfs her for the cheap holiday packages to Corfu and Menorca she took with Gloria and Kate, before she and Jack discovered Tuscany and the South of France. The three girls used to scorch themselves on the beach by day and sizzle at waiters as they drank themselves senseless by night. Sublime holidays.

She’s suffused by a longing so acute, it’s akin to grief, for the days when boyfriends were temporary arrangements, babies were something they popped pills to avoid and all they wanted out of life was a doss of a job that paid megabucks. And maybe a ride from Aidan Quinn – all of them worshipped him.

‘He’s the only male the three of us fancied simultaneously,’ murmurs Eimear. ‘None of us has the same taste in fellows, it’s probably what’s kept us friends for so long.’

That’s one certainty: Gloria, Kate and herself will never fall out over a man.

‘Have you heard about hyacinth bulbs in olive oil – they’re supposed to be the ultimate aphrodisiac.’ Gloria is poking at her fettuccine.

‘Can’t say I have,’ replies Eimear. ‘But surely the best place for hyacinths is the flower-bed. What are you supposed to do, eat them? Rub them over your body? Over your lover’s?’

‘The article didn’t specify,’ admits Gloria. ‘Perhaps you chop them up and sneak them into his salad.’

‘Another wizard wheeze bites the dust. Jack never touches salad, he calls it rabbit food.’

Besides, thinks a gratified Eimear, he’s ardent enough as it is, she doesn’t need love potions to lure her man to bed. ‘I can’t see Mick smacking his lips over hyacinth bulbs,’ she adds. ‘He seems more your meat-and-two-veg character.’

‘He won’t slip on the nosebag unless there’s spuds on the table,’ confirms Gloria. ‘And nobody can cook them like the real Mrs McDermott. Mick and she belong to a mutual admiration society. He even notices when she has a different coloured rinse in her hair – I could get a skinhead crop and it wouldn’t register, but she slams in some lowlights and it’s: “Mammy, all the fellows at the bank will be asking for an introduction to my good-looking sister.”’

She stabs at the pasta.

‘They say a man who’s kind to his mother will be kind to his wife.’ Eimear essays diplomacy.

‘Who’s “they”?’ demands Gloria. ‘They’ve obviously never been married.’

The pair are having lunch in an Italian restaurant opposite the library where Eimear works, to cheer Gloria up – Mick’s mother’s been staying for the weekend and she needs to let off steam. It’s not that she dislikes her mother-in-law but she resents the way Mick behaves around her. Every visit is marked by an incident; this time it centred around a takeaway fish supper Gloria fed her the first night she arrived.

‘I was only back teaching a week and I could just about manage that, I wasn’t able to face the supermarket as well so there was no food in the house to cook,’ wails Gloria. ‘The real Mrs McDermott didn’t mind, she said it made a change from proper food. But Mick claimed it was an insult to his mother to serve a carry-out and he sulked at me all weekend.’

Pig, thinks Eimear.

‘He only wants the best for his mother,’ says Eimear.

‘If that wasn’t bad enough, the real Mrs McDermott insisted on going out into the front garden every time she wanted a cigarette. I kept telling her I didn’t mind if she smoked in the house but she said my lovely home would reek for days afterwards. She stood on the doorstep in full view of the neighbours puffing away. It made me look like a house-proud harridan.’

‘You used to like her.’

‘I used to like Mick,’ responds Gloria.

‘She’s gone now.’

‘Mick isn’t.’ Gloria beheads a mushroom.

Eimear pushes away her spaghetti carbonara and lights up a cigarette.

‘You could try lingerie,’ she suggests. ‘Hyacinth bulbs in olive oil sound like a long shot but satin works every time for me.’

She pictures, with satisfaction, the keyhole-cut number she has lined up for active service that night.

‘Sounds like you and Jack are enjoying a second honeymoon.’ Gloria looks wistfully across the table, her pallor pronounced against the dark shoulder-length hair.

‘He’s being very … attentive.’ Eimear tries not to smile like a cat at the cream.

Gloria wants to say something but has trouble finding the words, all she manages is a lame, ‘Just don’t take him for granted, Eimear.’

Eimear is flippant, remembering their passion last night – and the night before that.

‘He’s putty in my hands, Glo. You want to get yourself up to Brown Thomas, they’ve slinky numbers there that Saint Patrick himself couldn’t resist. He’d be inviting back all the snakes to Ireland as the lesser of two evils.’

‘Can’t be bothered. I couldn’t care less if Mick never laid a finger on me again. I used to be mad for it but now I’d rather take Hello! magazine to bed – who needs jiggery pokery with all those celebrity home interiors to drool over.’

‘We must mention it to their marketing people,’ suggests Eimear. ‘They can emblazon “Better Than Sex” across the cover, it should double their sales. And on that high note I must clock back in at the salt mines. Michelle can’t go off on her lunch break until I’m back from mine.’