Donal had said she was a fine-looking woman when he’d flicked through the wedding photos and he’d looked over at her with a gleam in his eyes. It was a gleam she’d not seen in a good long while, not since Brian, but she still recognised it. The gleam told her he’d like to kiss her. Now, she puckered her lips and half closed her eyes homing in on her reflection. Jaysus wept! The poor man would take fright with that coming at him, she thought, opening her eyes and stepping back from the mirror. There was a whining and scrabbling at the door. She’d been in here long enough. It was time she took Pooh for a walk.
She opened the door with a sigh, knowing she’d find the poodle sitting with his lead in his mouth right outside it to be certain she didn’t miss him. The first time he’d plonked himself there she’d nearly gone over and, there but for the grace of God, she could have wound up needing her hip replaced like Rosemary Farrell. She’d copped on to his tricks now. ‘Let me get my coat on and we’ll see what the day’s doing out there.’ He stood up and ruffed. Maureen scratched behind his ear. ‘It’s all very hard this business of meeting someone new when you’ve been a married woman since you were a girl of twenty, you know, Pooh, and you don’t help.’
The poodle had a bad attitude when it came to Donal. He was jealous and Maureen had hoped he’d get over this if Donal joined them for his obedience classes but he’d been very disobedient at the last one. He was a tolerant man, was Donal. There weren’t many men who’d put up with being bitten on the arse by a green-eyed, standard poodle and having to have a tetanus shot as a result.
The instructor had said she was going to have to keep a watchful eye on Pooh’s behaviour around Donal. Maureen had rebutted, she wasn’t paying good money to be told the obvious, and the instructor had puffed up like one of those strange Japanese fish she’d seen on a nature programme before advising her distraction and reward was key when it came to cultivating obedient behaviour. She was to distract the poodle when he began to tense and growl in Donal’s presence and reward him when he behaved calmly. Lots of positive reinforcement was needed. This was something she was dubious about because she’d been told to do the same thing with Moira when she was a troublesome teenager. It hadn’t worked. What had worked was telling her, ‘I brought you into this world, my girl, and I can take you out just as easily.’ Usually followed by a wave of the wooden spoon.
So, here she was having to walk around with a packet of doggy treats in her coat pocket at all times. Sure, she’d been like the Pied Piper of Howth Harbour in a red coat the other day as she’d set off down the pier with an entourage of cocker spaniel, Labrador and feisty Dalmatian in tow.
Pooh looked up at her now with his head cocked to one side. ‘You’re not going to make me choose you know. So, you might as well accept that Donal’s going to be a part of my life. Just like the girls are going to have to do the same. I’m seeing him tonight for your information. We’re going out for dinner.’
Pooh whined.
‘And it’s no good whining, so cop on to yourself.’ She retrieved her coat from where it was hanging in the utility room.’ Pooh padded after her wanting guarantees she wasn’t going to get sidetracked by an afternoon episode of Emmerdale or the like. ‘There’s no one I can talk to about Donal either, except you,’ she said to him as she slid into the red parker and zipped it up. ‘I’m not the girl who sat giggling with her friends over the peck she’d fended off from Beanpole Brown anymore. He tried his luck after taking me to the cinema, you know. I’m a widowed woman, Pooh, of a pensionable age so I am.’ She headed toward the front door. ‘I don’t have those sort of conversations with Rosemary or Marian or my golfing girls and I certainly couldn’t have them with Rosi, Aisling or Moira.’ The thought of the look on any of their faces were she to ask their advice as to what she should do when Donal tried to have his way with her made her chortle. ‘So, you’re it,’ she said, venturing out and shutting the door behind them.
Chapter 2
The restaurant Donal had booked them into was an Italian place in Raheny which had been garnering good reviews. It was halfway between where he lived in Drumcondra and where she lived in Howth. Maureen insisted on driving herself to meet him even though he’d offered to pick her up. It would have made for a long round trip and she was worried it’d be painful for him to sit for so long. Pooh’s poodly teeth were sharp and had indeed made their mark. She hadn’t wanted to risk another encounter between them just yet either. Not until she felt she was making headway with this positive reinforcement doggy treat business.
It wasn’t the best night to be out and about, she thought, hunching over the steering wheel as the windscreen wipers worked overtime. She could feel her little car getting buffeted at the lights but she managed to find the bistro without too much trouble and was grateful for the easy car parking behind the restaurant. It was not the night to be walking miles. The car slid into a space
