‘Shall I order us tea and scones?’
‘Grand.’
He did so and then produced a packet of Player’s from his shirt pocket. He opened it and giving it a tap offered the protruding cigarette to her.
‘Oh, no I don’t, thanks.’ She’d had a puff on the cigarette her friend, Deirdre, pinched from her mammy’s apron pocket when they were thirteen. She’d thought she was going to cough up a lung and when she’d finished wheezing, she’d felt violently ill. It had put her off for good.
‘Do you mind if I do?’
‘No, of course not.’
She watched him from under her lashes as he lit the cigarette with a gold Zippo. It was engraved but she couldn’t read what with. He saw her looking at it.
‘A twenty-first present from my folks. I’ve a matching hip flask.’
‘So, you’re twenty-one.’ She’d wondered.
‘Closer to twenty-two and what about you, Clio, how old are you?’
‘Eighteen. I’ll be nineteen in June.’ She watched him lift his head and exhale a plume of smoke. There was something elegant about the process and she almost wished she did smoke.
‘So,’ he said lazily. ‘Tell me more about yourself. What makes you tick, Clio Whelan.’
‘Well,’ Clio thought about his question, ‘I suppose what drives me is my need to break the mould.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I don’t want to wind up being an Agony Aunt for the paper or writing a women’s lifestyle column. That isn’t what I want to read when I pick up the paper. I want to read about what’s going on in the city and that’s what I want to report on. There aren’t any women doing that and I think it will be a while before there are, but I intend to be right there with my pen and pad at the ready when things change. And I want to write my book of course.’
Gerry could see the passion in her eyes as she spoke. ‘And, I think you’ll do both.’
Clio checked his smile but there was no hint of condensation or indication that he might be humouring her, as was apt to happen when she put voice to her dreams. The only thing she could read in his expression was admiration.
‘There’s more to you than your ambition, though. What about family, you know brothers and sisters?’
‘Oh,’ she waved her hand dismissively, ‘I’ve too many of both.’
Something, her words or her expression, Clio wasn’t sure, made him laugh and encouraged she told him all about the Whelan madhouse.
‘It sounds like fun.’
‘Chaos more like. They drive me mad all of them but I love them dearly. What about yourself?’ She looked at him sitting back in his chair, legs crossed, relaxed, and was struck by how at ease he was here in the hotel. Taking tea in upmarket establishments was clearly something he was used to unlike herself who was perched on the edge of her seat half expecting a tap on the shoulder from the concierge asking exactly what she, Cliona Whelan from Phibsborough was doing there. She could sense from his quiet confidence how different their lives were and the seed of an idea was planted.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything and do you mind if I take notes?’ Her hand was already closing around the notebook she never left home without.
‘For your character profile?’ He looked amused as he took a long drag on his cigarette.
Clio watched the tip glow brightly and the ash begin to bend. He flicked it in the ashtray and looked at her expectantly.
‘No, I’ve an article I’d like to write.’
‘About me? I can assure you, your far more interesting than me Clio.’
She shook her head. ‘I disagree. Your life’s so different to mine and the average Dubliner, Gerry therefore it’s automatically of interest especially as so many Irish have family in Boston. I want to know about what your life there’s like. Why you feel connected to Ireland even though your third generation. The, things you did growing up that sort of thing. What it means to you and your family for you to spend a year at Trinity and how it differs from college life in Boston. I’m sure others would too.’
‘I think you’re quite mad, Clio.’ He shook his head and ground his cigarette out.
‘A little maybe, but most of us Irish are.’ He smiled at that and encouraged, she clicked her pen testing it on the blank page she’d opened her notebook to. ‘Well, what do you say?’
‘Will you let me read it when you’ve written it?’
‘Of course.’
He studied her intently for a moment. ‘I don’t think you are the sort of girl who takes no for an answer are you, Clio?’
‘I’m most certainly not,’ she said, mock-sternly.
He grinned. ‘Well then, I’ve no choice. Where should I start?’
‘Tell me about your family and what it was like growing up in Boston.’
Clio listened intently, her hand flying across the page, not wanting to miss a word of what he was saying. She was right, his life was as different to hers as could be and reading between the lines, she sensed his family was wealthy. What they called in America, old money wealthy. Gerry was one of three boys who’d had a pretty sheltered childhood. He’d gone to good Catholic schools, summered in Cape Cod, that sort of thing. She watched his face grow illuminated as he described the wide sky and endless stretches of sand and the sense of freedom he’d always felt arriving at the Cape, knowing the whole summer was his to lie on the warm sand, to run down the beach as the waves caught his feet, and to swim. As a teenager he’d been good at track and he’d have liked to have studied medicine. Medicine was a noble profession, he said, but as the oldest son, a career in politics was predetermined. His father moved in those circles and it was an assumption Gerry had grown up with that he
