Unravelling Oliver(29)

I do not mean to sneer at Alice. She made everything possible. Alice was always loyal. It is a wonderful quality in a wife.





13. Moya


I was shocked to my core when I heard what Oliver did to Alice. Everyone is talking about it. I mean, he was never the violent type as far as I knew, and if anyone should know, it’s me. If it had happened before, Alice would undoubtedly have told me. I am so glad that I’m not around for the trial. Not all publicity is good publicity. Oliver certainly never raised a hand to me. I have seen him irritable all right, the man could be cranky for sure, and occasionally, towards the end of our relationship, he was downright rude to me, but in the early days he was very different.

I always thought Oliver could have done better than Alice. She just wasn’t his type. That probably sounds ridiculous when you think how long they’ve been married, but anyone who met the pair of them together would have said the same thing. Well, they mightn’t have said it, but they’d definitely have been thinking it. Anyway, he and Alice were not seen together out and about at openings and social functions that often, so I guess Oliver agreed with me. He said it was because she was shy. If I were her, I wouldn’t have let him out of my sight.

I first met the Ryans when we moved into the house next door to them; it must be nearly twenty years ago now. Kate and Gerry were only toddlers at the time. It’s strange to think that their house was Alice’s family home, because it always seemed to me to be very much Oliver’s territory.

I took the opportunity to introduce myself at their earliest convenience. At the time, I only knew Oliver as Vincent Dax. Con was reluctant to come with me; he’s so backward about coming forward sometimes. But I insisted. Oliver himself opened the door to us. I nearly swooned. He really is such a handsome man. Dark and smouldering. Oliver really looked after himself over the years. We have so much in common.

I am sure there was an instant attraction between Oliver and me. Con was completely unaware of it at the time, as he is unaware of most things, I am sorry to say. I used to think that if only life were fair, Con would have ended up with Alice, and Oliver with me, and we all could have lived happily ever after. God knows I did my best to shove Con and Alice together over the years, but, alas, Con doesn’t have the imagination to recognize an opportunity when he sees one. He’d probably bore her to death, but she was always so obliging that I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded. It would have made it so easy for us. For Oliver and me.

Alice, despite being an artist, didn’t look arty at all. She was frumpy, actually, and a bit on the heavy side. She wore mumsy clothes and had a collection of the most hideous cardigans I’ve ever seen, but she adored Oliver. You could see that a mile off. You could hardly blame her.

Con and I shared nothing but Sunday lunch. Con likes to eat. In his defence, I can tell you that he was always complimentary about my cooking. By the end of my first year of marriage to Con, I knew it was a mistake. I should have left him, but by then I was pregnant with Kate, and Gerry was born two years later. Con is a great dad, I’ll give him that. He has always been patient with the children, and I really don’t think I could have raised them on my own. He is dull, which is fine, if you like that sort of thing. Some women would be delighted to be married to him. He is a dentist. He earns a lot of money. He spends his working life looking into small, enclosed spaces filled with rot and decay. It genuinely interests him. That and gardening. When other dentists began to branch out a few years ago into cosmetic dentistry and Botox injections and derma fillers, could I persuade Con to get involved? No, I bloody couldn’t. Like I said, no imagination. He could have saved me a fortune.

I really shouldn’t be mean about him. I hate to be uncharitable. To me, he was like an unwanted pet. You don’t want him around and yet you don’t really want to hurt him or for him to come to any harm. He loves me, I suppose, and that is the cross I have to bear.

Oliver was just different in every way, but he was off-limits. That is what made it all so exciting. I knew he admired me. I had caught him watching me from the window of his study often enough. I knew it would not take much to seduce him. Sometimes, you just know.

It was sometime in the mid 1990s and I was starring as the Queen in the stage musical adaptation of Oliver’s first book, The Prince of Solarand. Oliver sometimes appeared at rehearsals to see how things were going, or to consult on suggested changes to the text. Another writer, Graham, had been hired to write the libretto. Oliver was way too busy. Graham was delighted with how easy-going Oliver was about the script. Normally writers are unbelievably precious about changes or edits, but Oliver was fine about everything; even when quite substantial changes were made to some characters or plot points, Oliver was more than happy to go along with them.

After our first Saturday morning rehearsal, Oliver took a few of us to lunch in L’étoile Bleue, a regular haunt of the acting community run by Michael and Dermot, who were Ireland’s most famous gay couple. Oliver was generous. I had an easy familiarity with him by then, as we were neighbours, so it wasn’t difficult for me to be able to monopolize him at the lunch. After the meal, it was only natural that Oliver would offer me a lift home. A little wine at lunchtime had loosened my self-control, and as we approached the Avenue, I found myself telling Oliver how attractive he was. I knew I was taking a risk. I was supposed to be a friend of Alice’s, and he hadn’t actually given me any reason to think he felt anything for me. So I was rather pleased to say the least when he put his hand on my thigh.