A Week in Winter(26)

In Orla’s office, James and Simon were very tight-lipped these days. Business was not good. The economy was sluggish, it didn’t matter what politicians said. They knew. People weren’t booking stands at exhibitions like they used to. Trade fairs were smaller than last year. The prospects were dire. They were placing all their hopes on Marty Green, who was very big in the conference business. They were having drinks in the office to impress him.

‘Ask that sexy redhead friend of yours to come and help us dress the set,’ James suggested.

‘Brigid’s just got engaged. She won’t want to be a party-party girl these days.’

‘Well, tell her to bring her fiancé. Is he presentable and everything?’

‘You’re worse than my mother and her mother put together. Very presentable, richer than God,’ Orla said.

Brigid and Foxy thought it would be a laugh and turned up in high good form. Marty Green was delighted with them all and seemed to be taking the sales pitch on board. He was also very interested in Orla, who had dressed to kill in a scarlet silk dress she had found in a charity shop and really expensive red and black shiny high heels. She passed around the white wine and the tray of canapés.

‘These are very good,’ Marty Green said appreciatively, ‘who’s your caterer?’

‘Oh, I did these myself,’ Orla smiled at him.

‘Really? Not just a pretty face, then?’ He was definitely impressed, which was what this reception was all about. But Orla felt he was rather too impressed with her and not enough with the company.

‘That’s very nice of you, Mr Green, but I wasn’t hired here to make canapés and smile. We all work very hard, and as James and Simon were saying, this has paid off. We know the market and the situation very well. It’s good to get a chance to tell you about it personally.’

‘And very pleasant it is to hear about it personally.’ His eyes never left her face.

Orla moved away but knew he was watching her all the time. Even when James was giving statistics, when Simon was talking about trends, when Foxy was braying about great new restaurants and Brigid was asking if Mr Green was interested in rugby, as she could get him tickets.

Marty Green wondered if Orla would like to have dinner with him.

She saw James and Simon smiling at each other in relief and suddenly felt hugely resentful. She was being offered to Marty Green. It was as simple as that. She had dressed up, spent her lunchtime making finicky, awkward little savouries, rolling asparagus spears in pastry and serving them with a dipping sauce, arranging little quails’ eggs artistically with celery salt on lettuce leaves, and now they wanted to send her out like a sacrificial lamb to be pawed by Marty Green.

‘Thank you so much but sadly I have plans of my own tonight, Mr Green,’ she said.

He was suave; she would give him that much. ‘I’m sure you must indeed have plans. Another time, perhaps?’

And they all smiled different smiles: Orla’s was nailed to her face, James and Simon’s were like a horror mask. Brigid’s smile hid her shock that Orla would pass up on a date with such a wealthy and charming man as Marty Green. Foxy’s smile was vague and foolish, as always.

Marty Green left saying that he would be in touch. Orla poured herself a large drink.

‘Why did you have to be so very rude to him?’ Simon asked.

‘I wasn’t at all rude. I thanked him and told him that I had my own plans.’

‘That’s what I mean. You don’t have any plans.’

‘Oh, yes I do. I plan not to go out with some businessman as if I were an escort or a hooker.’

‘Come on now, that wasn’t remotely what was suggested,’ James said.

‘It was spelled out in capital letters.’ Orla was furious now. ‘Take the nice man out, bill and coo at him, get his name on a contract.’

‘We are all in this together. We assumed that—’

‘Why didn’t you bring a pole in here and put it up in the office and I could have taken off my clothes and danced around it? That would have helped too, wouldn’t it?’

‘It was only dinner,’ Simon said.

‘Yes, and at the end of an expensive dinner I’d be able to get up and say goodbye and thank you Mr Green? What world do you live in? If I’d gone out to a meal with him and then not gone back to his hotel, I would have been a tease. I would have led him on. He’d have been more annoyed still. This way we all save face. Well, most of us do.’

‘Hey, Orla, you’re being a bit heavy about this,’ Foxy said.

Brigid glared at him but he didn’t see.

‘I mean, that’s what tonight was all about.’

‘You never said a truer word, Foxy,’ Orla said.

Next day James and Simon were prepared to be generous. They had discussed it, they could have given the wrong impression. The last thing they wanted to do was . . . well, what Orla had suggested they were doing.

Orla listened politely until they had finished. Then she spoke very carefully.

‘This isn’t just a hissy fit. I’ve been thinking of leaving for quite a while. My aunt is setting up a hotel in the West of Ireland. I just needed something to focus my mind, and this is it. Please don’t take this as a sulk or as part of a campaign to make you grovel. It’s far from that. It’s just a month’s notice, with great gratitude for all I’ve learned here.’