Martina Devlin - Three Wise Men

She’s not one of those women that men feel the need to pamper. One boyfriend told her he believed she’d be offended if he helped her into her coat, as though it implied she were incapable of looking after herself. He didn’t last long. Kate’s never been mollycoddled – that’s what comes of being a woman with hands and shoulders as wide as a man’s. She has neat little feet though, size four, which is tiny for her height (5 feet 10 inches), Pearse says it’s a wonder she doesn’t topple over because they’re hardly big enough to balance her. Eimear has size seven feet, hah!

Even Jack, who fetches and carries for Eimear as though she’d shatter like an eggshell if she so much as lifted a shopping bag, cheerfully tells Kate she’s a fine strapping armful of a lass.

‘Would you feck off, I’m only two inches taller than Eimear,’ she complains, but he treats it as a joke.

‘There’s a lot more of you to love,’ he laughs, grabbing her waist and massaging the excess flesh with a leer. Men think they’re flattering a woman when they’re sending her screaming for the nearest set of bathroom scales.

She’s never seen Eimear weigh herself, she wouldn’t give a second thought to the calorie-counting misery that consumes most women. Eimear has no appetite: the cigarettes help, but she’s never seen her study a cream bun with naked longing or work her way through a slab of chocolate as though rationing is about to be declared. Eimear is languid about food – she’ll take a biscuit if it’s offered but forget to finish it. Obviously Eimear’s the one with the food phobia, not Glo and herself, for all their stuffing and starving. But it takes more than a feeling of self-righteousness to squeeze a woman into a size 10.

‘No wonder Jack is straying,’ says Kate. (Oops. Is the intercom switched on or off?)

She can’t imagine Eimear wolfing into croissants dolloped with apricot jam in bed with Jack and deliberately dribbling some on to him so she has to lick it off. Not that Kate’s found an opportunity to do that with Jack yet but she has nothing against it in principle.

‘Admittedly I have no principles where Jack is concerned.’ She spins around in her adjustable chair for the pleasure of feeling light-headed. With Pearse she’d probably complain that they’d never wash the stains out of the sheets.

‘Shall I try to reach the Toners for you now, Kate?’ Bridie’s voice crackles over the intercom. (Rats, it was on.)

‘Not just yet thanks, Bridie; there are a few details in the deeds I have to sort out first.’

Kate is pseudo-businesslike. She shuffles the pages, determined to make the Toners and their seaside cottage her priority, but within moments she’s sunk in her reverie again.

Although they’re a trio, she and Gloria have always been closer. There’s an imbalance in friendships where one of the members is drop-dead gorgeous and the others are drop-dead ordinary. They didn’t feel jealous of the chosen one but they were aware she was different. Different as in better, different as in luckier: she had an edge. Eimear was allowed to get away with murder all her life and simply accepted it as her due.

She and Gloria rolled their eyes as Eimear sailed through a potential crisis, blithely unaware of the possibilities for disaster, while they doggy-paddled in her wake. Sometimes benefiting, it has to be conceded, from knowing this exquisite creature. Fellows would talk to them in the hopes of an introduction, they were guaranteed a certain level of popularity on her account.

That’s why the trio never extended to a foursome or beyond – Gloria and Kate were always suspicious that people wanted to be their friends as an entrée to Eimear and Eimear herself was serenely indifferent. She has the two of them, that’s friendship sorted.

Her attitude to Jack is the same: she married him, what more could he ask for? ‘She’s never spontaneously affectionate,’ he complains. ‘If you suggest a cuddle she weighs up the consequences of whether or not it will crush her blouse.’

Kate savours it when he’s mean about Eimear, his complaints help justify her disloyalty.

She flicks her intercom switch to ‘off and pretends to speak to her secretary.

‘Could you make a note of this please, Bridie. Eimear brings out the best in people but she doesn’t have that effect on me. I’m adept at dissembling but I hate her – I’ve loathed her for years.’

‘Gloria on line one for you, will you take the call?’

Bridie’s voice buzzes in and frog-marches her back to reality.

‘Glo, how’s life?’

‘Same as ever.’ Her voice sounds quavery, like someone who’s been crying.

‘Mick all right?’

‘Same as ever.’

Kate’s suspicions are confirmed, there is a wobble, tears have recently been shed.

‘That bad?’ she jokes, but Gloria doesn’t manage even a pretend giggle.

‘Eimear tells me she invited you and Pearse to dinner tonight but you won’t come.’

There’s accusation now, as well as a tremor.

‘This is supposed to be a democracy, it’s not mandatory to accept dinner invitations. Anyway it’s not a case of won’t, it’s can’t. Pearse has a work party on and I promised I’d turn up and lend him some immoral support.’

‘Oh.’ Gloria sounds mollified. ‘Why didn’t you tell Eimear that, she says you just snapped a refusal and claimed you were dashing out and couldn’t talk.’

‘What’s so terrible about that? I was in a rush. Eimear’s being awkward, you know how she likes everything her own way. She probably decided on this dinner weeks ago but never bothered checking with either of us because she assumed we’d drop everything for her.’

‘I have no everything to drop, I’m only too pleased to escape the house,’ responds Gloria. ‘Are you sure there’s no way you can avoid this work do? I promised Eimear I’d try and persuade you to change your mind.’

‘I’ve been neglecting Pearse lately, I want to try and make it up to him,’ Kate lies slickly. At least the first half is true. She lowers her voice conspiratorially. ‘You know what I mean, I can’t go into details over the phone.’

‘Right, of course, I’m glad to hear you and Pearse are getting along better. Why don’t you come over tomorrow afternoon, Mick’s at a match and we’ll have the house to ourselves.’

‘Why not,’ agrees Kate. ‘You can tell me why you’ve been crying while you’re at it.’

‘Just the usual baby blues.’

Kate hesitates, it’s difficult to know how to comfort her. She tries flippancy.

‘Time to switch to baby pinks, those blues are too depressing.’

Gloria rewards her feeble attempt at humour with a chuckle. Then she adds: ‘You’ll never guess who my mother was talking to in the supermarket the other day – Miss McGinn.’

‘Amo-Amas-Amat McGinn?’

‘The same. She was asking after Eimear,’ says Gloria.

‘Naturally, she was her pet. I was the one who ponged out her class.’

Kate has three older sisters and became selective about perfumes from an early age, there were always crates of the stuff lying around. She’d wear nothing but Channel 5, as they called it, at a time when most girls her age were still squirting on the Parma Violet scents. It didn’t render her any more seductive, but it gave her a certain cachet in school.

‘Remember how she’d say, “Would the child who smells like a city tart’s boudoir kindly go to the lavatory and scrub herself down,”’ recalls Gloria.

‘Is she still seeing Ronan Donnelly the estate agent?’ Kate quizzes Gloria.

‘So my mother says, and still no sign of a ring. That makes it a thirty-five-year courtship, give or take a year.’