BANKING ON TOM CHAPTER 8

 BANKING ON TOM CHAPTER 8

TUESDAY

 

Janet was surprised to receive Tom’s phone call from work around midday.

'Could she make time to meet in the neutral grounds of the Killiney Hotel for a coffee on Saturday to discuss a few things?' 

Janet was intrigued. In the early years of their marriage he called from work two or three times a day. The habit annoyed her. He was treating her like an adolescent, or so she thought. And so she told him. One day she bawled him out. She was due to meet some other mothers from the twins’ class and she was running late. Over the years the calls decreased in number. Now he never rang. She regretted her outburst and thought of apologizing many times. But the longer she left it, the more difficult it became. Both retreated behind walls of hurt and rejection. It seemed easier to ignore each other than to fight. Now they rarely spoke except to agree finances. She could not fault him for his generosity. There was nothing she and the girls wanted for materially. Tom threw himself into his work. When he wasn’t in the office, he was entertaining clients. Far more often than needed. But he persuaded himself this was the price of working for a small merchant bank surrounded by bigger, more established players.

 

 

Increasingly she missed the intimacy. Even the rows. She liked ‘discussions’. Tom clearly didn’t and would leave the kitchen rather than have an argument. What he could not supply in affection he compensated with money. She wanted for nothing. Which was part of the problem. She could afford alcohol. As much of it as she could drink. From time to time she realised she was drinking too much and made resolutions to cut down. These resolutions rarely lasted more than a few days. She found she was drinking when she was happy. She was drinking when she was sad. She enjoyed the company of other heavy drinkers who supported her decision. All the staff in the local off license knew her by first name. She was their most loyal client. She dropped in most days to buy a bottle of French white, generally a fine Chablis. She took comfort from the fact that she never drank before tea time. She got the girls to school and home. She was a functioning alcoholic. She remembered her father who died of cirrhosis of the liver while she was still in secondary school. When her father died, she decided never to drink. And she kept with that commitment until she began to work as an air hostess where drink was cheap and plentiful and almost a badge of honour among certain colleagues. She soon made up for lost time. When she met Tom her drinking was still under control. She was social and vivacious, popular and drunk only at the end of the evening.

 

When she first saw Tom he was playing rugby for Leinster. She had not the remotest interest in rugby and barely understood it. She had played some hockey at school and that was about it. She had always thought rugby was a ruffians’ game played by ruffians, admittedly well-heeled ruffians. She asked her friend Liz about the good looking out half.  He wasn’t very tall but what he lacked in height he made up for in strength and commitment. Liz was dating the full back and so she arranged an introduction. They hardly needed an introduction. Tom had spotted her across the bar and came across to offer her a pint. She wondered if she might have a white wine. And the rest became history.

 

Within three months they were engaged. Many of their other friends continued to date for months and years. Tom and Janet were the first out of the traps. Liz also married in due course. Not to the full back but to an actuary who hated rugby. They moved to Australia. After a number of years the marriage broke up without any children. Liz used to envy Janet and her solid and stable marriage. But as the years rolled on, she began to wonder is she had not dodged a bullet. 

 

 

Kevin O’Gorman on arriving at the hotel realised he had been rumbled. The hotel receptionist was clearly suspicious. He rang his secretary who admitted she had been under pressure to share the details of his hotel arrangements with Maura.  It had not however entirely removed the enjoyment of spending time with the attractive Valerie Thomson, twenty years his junior. When Kevin invited her to accompany him to Galway she was under no illusion as to where it might  all end up. She thought she despised women who slept their way to the top but she had found the world of PR and advertising a lot harder to crack than she had imagined. There were dozens of young men and women as brilliant as her, but few as attractive. She philosophized, what needs must. Besides Kevin wasn’t entirely unattractive. In five years’ time he would be retired and she would have his job.

 

Valerie went straight to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic to stiffen her resolve.  There followed a pleasant if halting ‘business dinner’ with a local client who put two and two together and chose to be the model of discretion. The meeting went well and the men agreed a doubling of advertising budget. When Kevin was not otherwise distracted, he was one of the best in the industry. That is why his board chose to ignore his personal life. 

 

When he arrived in the office the following morning he was greeted by his suitcases. The receptionist apologised. But it was hardly her fault. Kevin rang Maura’s office number. He was informed she was in the offices of BBB for the day. He asked to be put through.

‘Hi Maura, how are things?’ he enquired innocently.

‘I rang the hotel, Kevin. I was delighted to find you had reserved a room for Mrs and Mrs O’Gorman. And then I realised. It wasn’t me you were expecting. Since your secretary is so good as reserving hotel rooms, I suggest she book you into a hotel for the next few weeks. I am very busy at work and don’t want or need any distractions’.

With that she put the phone down.

She really didn’t have time to talk to Kevin today. She had done well to catch the first flight from Dublin earlier in the morning. She had left the night club on Leeson Street sometime after 3.00, returned home, showered and changed and called a taxi. She had left Tom behind in the club with Steph. The management meeting had ended around 9.30 and they went round the corner for an innocent drink. Various rounds later the barman had called time.  They were still filled with adrenalin and made their way to the only place serving drink in the early hours of a damp February morning. 

 

The bouncer had looked them up and down with the sense of entitlement that all bouncers possess. A taxi driver or a plumber by day and a bouncer by night. He had looked at them suspiciously. He grudgingly let them into a mostly empty room. A few middle-aged couples were chatting in booths and three women were dancing together round their handbags. Some were looking for romance. Most were looking for drink. Some trying to recover their youth. Some trying to forget it. When Maura left it served to sober up Tom and Steph. 

 

They wandered out into the fine rain. Steph got a taxi immediately. Tom felt he was sober enough to drive home. He reasoned he had drunk himself sober which regularly happened. A waste of booze he thought. He cursed his luck when he saw the unmistakeable  signs of a Garda car and its flashing blue lights as he entered Blackrock village, close to home. He thought briefly about performing a u turn but reasoned that would likely get him into even more trouble. He opened the front windows hoping to dispel the smell of alcohol. The tall Garda bent down to address Tom and ask him where he was coming from. Feeling honesty was the best policy he admitted he had driven from a Leeson Street wine bar. He explained it had been a stressful few days in the office. The Garda enquired where he worked. Tom told him IBB Bank. The Garda asked if he knew Steph Woods. It turned out that Steph’s father hailed from Dingle and was an old friend from childhood of the Garda’s father. Tom mentioned how the old man was going downhill in recent years. As it had been a quiet night they chatted for a few minutes. The Garda closed his notebook and advised Tom to take a taxi in future. And to send Steph his best.

 

Tom quietly let himself in the front door and was not surprised to find that Janet had not waited up for him. He crept upstairs and into his room. He was surprised when a few minutes later there was a knock on the door. He was even more surprised to find his teenage daughters Ciara and Deirdre at the door.

 

‘Dad, we’ve got to talk.’