Chance
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‘Sally? Hi! It’s me. I’m just ringing to let you know … hey!’ cried Fiona, nearly dropping her mobile at the sudden sharp pain she felt between her shoulder blades.
She looked around to see a tiny woman standing behind her in the bus queue, struggling with a two-metre long curtain rail.
‘Sorry, love, did I hit youse?’ the woman asked.
‘You’re alright,’ said Fiona and returned to her phone conversation. ‘Sally, I’m going to call over to Dermot’s for dinner so don’t cook anything for me. Listen, I’ve got to go. There’s a No. 10 coming. See you, Bye.’
Fiona hung up.
The queue surged forward as the No. 10 bus came, and went. It surged again a minute later as a second No. 10 came, and went. Ten minutes later, Fiona thought she saw the driver of the third No. 10 grinnng as he appeared to drive straight for the puddle but then, maybe deciding he could do without the abuse he'd get if he drenched those in the queue, he stopped just short of it.
‘Watch it,’ Fiona warned a teenage boy who shoved up against her as she climbed onto the bus.
‘You watch it,’ he warned her back.
Managing to secure hand space on a pole with several others, Fiona closed her eyes and began to think – not for the first time – that Sally and the others might be right and that, maybe, it was about time she bought a car.
‘Missus, your bag is beeping,’ a small boy, at ear level to the bag called up and she reached into her handbag and pulled out her mobile. There was a text message from her boyfriend, Dermot. Fiona groaned as she read it. ‘Milk & razors’ – short and sweet, just like him, at least in one respect. Anyway, why couldn’t he get them himself? Were either milk or especially razors so urgent that he had to text her? Couldn’t he have at least softened his message with a ‘please’?
The bus-driver braked suddenly and once Fiona had steadied herself, she made her way up along the bus to get off at her stop.
Two weeks before, on an especially dull and dreary November evening, Fiona had first spotted the car of her dreams in the glass-fronted showrooms by the bus stop. Like it was tonight, the Mercedes Benz CLK 200K Elegant Coupe had been sitting in the brightly lit window; all brazen red and shiny silver, crying out for attention – like a prostitute in an Amsterdam window.
Fiona now stood looking in at Mercedes, as she’d christened her – Mercedes being a girl’s name long before the make of a car. This was the car she wanted, not some five-year-old Opel, not that either was an option right now given her financial state. She gave Mercedes a little wave, looked around in case anyone had been watching, then turned and carried on to the shop.
‘What kept you?’ Dermot asked her as he opened the door.
‘No, ‘hello my darling’. No, ‘Come, come, my sweet, take the weight of your feet.’
Fiona walked past him into the kitchen. She sniffed the air. Nothing,
‘Weren’t you going to cook tonight?’ she asked.
‘I was but we can get a takeaway instead. I’ve just been so busy. I went to the bank this afternoon to ask them to extend my business overdraft but they refused, said they needed to see some returns before they can finance me any further. Can you believe them turning me down like that?
‘I guess they have a point.’
From the look on his face, she knew immediately she’d said the wrong thing. She should have learned by now to just murmur her agreement.
‘I am trying to set up a new business, Fiona. They need to be looking at my potential, not at my daily returns. You see …’
But Fiona had switched off. She’d heard it all before. Ever since he’d set up his own website company, it was all he ever talked about.
She took the razors and milk out of her bag and handed them to him. ‘Here, your messages. And I bought you a scratch card,’ she said, searching around in the bottom of her bag. ‘It’s in here somewhere. Maybe that’ll give you the cash injection you’re looking for.’
‘Why do you bother buying those things? Do you really think you stand a chance of winning?
‘As much as anyone,’
Actually that wasn’t quite true. Everytime Fiona bought a lottery ticket or a scratch card she was absolutely certain she’d a winner on her hands. The fact that over the years, at a minimum investment of €4 per week, she’d won a total of €8 didn’t dissuade her in the least but merely convinced her that her turn was getting closer all the time. She’d explained all this to Dermot before and didn’t feel like doing so again, just to have him point out how illogical her thinking was. Suddenly she was tired.
‘Let’s forget the takeaway. I think I’ll head home.’
There was no one in the apartment when she got there and, after raiding the fridge for whatever she could find, she spent a few hours watching TV then went to bed. The next morning she woke late.
‘Why didn’t either of you call me?’ she asked Sian and Sally, as she came into the kitchen. She went to the toaster and put in a couple of slices of bread. ‘Does anyone else want toast?’ she asked.
Both girls shook their heads.
‘But I’ll have a cup of tea if you’re making it,’ answered Sally.
‘Me too,’ added Sian.
‘Fiona,’ began Sally when Fiona had sat down, ‘Jack at work has booked a house in Wicklow for the weekend so Sian and myself are going down tonight, we’re going to cook dinner for his birthday. He asked me to ask you if you’d like to come. I meant to say it to you earlier but I forgot.’
‘But I hardly know Jack. I’ve only met him a few times.’
‘Yeah, but the two of you have always got on well when you have met.’
‘He is good fun. It might be a laugh. I’ll give Dermot a ring, see what he says. I don’t think we’re doing anything tonight.’
‘The thing is, Fiona,’ began Sally, and Fiona couldn’t help but notice the look she gave Sian, ‘the house only sleeps eight and there are already seven of us going.’
‘I see,’ said Fiona, and she did. Her two best friends simply couldn’t stand the sight of her boyfriend. ‘I don’t know I’ll go.’
The bus was less crowded than it had been the day before and she managed to get a seat but there was one drawback, she was sharing it with a lunatic who kept ranting on about his runners having been stolen, a different pair presumably to ones he was wearing.
Her phone rang. It was her boss, Ina.
‘Hi, Fi.’ Warning bells sounded. Ina never called her ‘Fi’ unless she was about to ask a favour.
‘Hi Ina.’
‘Listen, I won’t be in until this afternoon and Gillian rang to say she’s sick again so you’re going to be on your own in the shop for the morning.’
‘I see.’ Fiona turned her phone over. There was something stuck to the back of it – it was a scratch card, the one she’d bought for Dermot the night before but couldn’t find.
‘Now the rep from Whispers is going to call at twelve and …’
Fiona peeled off the card and as Ina listed out a string of jobs, Fiona rested the scratch card on her knee and began scratching away the squares of silver. €4. €50,000. €5,000.
‘So will you give Mrs Grey a ring to tell her …’ Ina was droning on.
€25,000. €50,000. €50,000. Fiona stared at the card. She went back over the numbers again.
‘And if Mrs Hayes comes in will you make sure to...’
There was no doubt. She had matched three €50,000’s.
‘ … the bank in your lunch break but make sure to be back before …’
‘Ina,’ Fiona interrupted. ‘Look I’ve got to go. You see …’ Just then she heard the siren of an ambulance. ‘You see my appendix has burst or at least that’s what the ambulance men seem to think because that’s where I am right now, in an ambulance. You can probably hear the siren. So, got to go. Talk to you when I’ve recovered.’
She hung up. Like Ina was going to swallow that! But, so what? She’d just won €50,000. Okay, she needed a plan. First things first, she needed to get her hands on the money. She turned over the card and read the back of it; the address of the charity foundation was quite near and Fiona realised that if she got off at the next stop, it wouldn’t take her more than twenty minutes to get there.
She ran back along the way the bus had come, as far as the car showrooms where she was about to take a left but, then, she paused. There was Mercedes in her spot in the window. For the first time the price stuck on her windscreen meant something to Fiona. €48,820. Imagine she could buy Mercedes. She could just walk in and buy her. But what was she thinking? She was nuts. There were heaps more practical uses she could put the money to. And what would Dermot think if she suddenly turned up in a car like that?
But then a thought struck her. She’d bought the ticket for Dermot but had forgotten to give it to him. Did that mean it was really his? But she was the one actually holding it. And, besides, he didn’t know anything about it. ‘No, no, no,’ she muttered. She’d have to tell him.
She sat down on the low wall outside the showrooms and rang.
‘Dermot, hi, it’s me. I just want to ask you …what? Well, when’s a good time then? But it’s important. Can’t they wait? … Look, I just want to ask you what you’d say if I told you you’d won … Dermot! Don’t hang …’
But her phone had gone dead. She couldn’t believe it. Times had certainly changed since they’d started going out together. At the beginning he used to call her practically every hour but now, here she was, trying to give him €50,000 and he’d hung up on her. She redialled his number.
‘Look, Dermot, I need to tell you … I know you’re with clients but … Dermot, just listen for a second …'
But he’d hung up again. She redialled and this time got straight through to his voicemail.
Exactly two hours later, Fiona walked into the car showroom.
‘Hello,’ she called out but nobody answered.
She noticed a man in his late twenties talking on the phone in an office at the rear of the showrooms. He looked up, she waved, but he looked back down again, without seeming to see her.
She walked over to Mercedes and ran her fingers along her side. Idly she tried the door and was surprised when it opened. She glanced back towards the office but the young man was still on the phone so she sat in.
He was at her side in seconds.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked, looking her up and down.
‘Just taking a look,’ she muttered, examining the dashboard.
‘Excuse me, is Madam interested in purchasing?’
‘No, I’m just some weirdo who spends her days wandering around car showrooms.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘Yes, I’m interested in purchasing. That’s why I’m here. So tell me, how much are you prepared to sell it for?’
‘Forty-eight thousand, eight hundred and twenty euros, as the sign clearly states.’
‘I can read. But what I want to know is how much are you prepared to take for it. In cash.’
The man, snorted, actually snorted. She was beginning to really dislike him.
‘Maybe you don’t understand our end of the business but it doesn’t quite work like that. We don’t give cash discounts on prestige cars such as this. There’s usually a long waiting list. We can sell as many of these cars as we can get our hands on.’
‘So this car is already sold then?’
‘No but …’
‘And if someone came in off the street and offered you €45,000 in cash, up front, you’d turn them down even in November when car sales are hardly at their peak?’
‘Well, obviously I’d have to say …’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, yes, in the unlikely event that …’
She opened her bag. Having ignored the bank’s advice on high interest deposit accounts and other such sensible options, she’d asked for the lot in cash.
‘Take a look,’ she invited him now and he peered in. ‘Perhaps you’d care for me to step into your office,’ she suggested.
‘Please, come this way.’
Less than an hour later, Fiona and Mercedes were on the N11, heading south. At a set of lights, she glanced to the right and caught sight of a family in the car alongside her, staring glumly over at her. As they reached the edge of the city they picked up speed.
At Kimacanogue, she turned off and drove wherever the road took her, up and down, around and about the mountainy roads. She felt like waving at every car she passed. And shouting. ‘See me! See me in my Mercedes Benz CLK 200K Elegant Coupe!’
When she came to Johnny Fox’s Pub, she decided to stop for lunch but, anxious at being parted from her baby, she sat out front, near the car park. As she tucked into her doorstopper sandwich, she thought about how guilty she should feel, should being the operative word. She’d spent money – arguably Dermot’s money – on buying Mercedes, money he needed for his new business. She really was a bad person. A very bad person.
Funny she didn’t feel bad. In fact she hadn’t felt so good in a long, long time. She noticed two teenage boys examining Mercedes. She hoped they’d kept their grubby paws to themselves.
‘They do get a lot of attention, don’t they?’
She looked around. One of the two men sitting at a nearby table was addressing her.
‘I’ve the same model in black.’ He nodded towards the rear of the car park, to a car identical in every respect to Mercedes bar colour. With eyes only for her Mercedes, Fiona hadn’t noticed it.
‘Have you had it long?’ The man asked.
‘No. In fact I just got her today.’
‘Congratulations! Well then, I insist on buying you a celebratory drink. To welcome you into our little club.’
‘Well, I …’
‘Go on, let him,’ his companion interrupted.
Fiona looked at this second man for the first time. Her jaw dropped. ‘You’re, you’re…’ she racked her brains. She couldn’t remember his name but she recognised his very handsome face. He’d been in Fair City years ago, playing one of the children but had left to break into Hollywood, which he’d managed to do very successfully. He’d since appeared in several really big movies, co-starring alongside Sean Connery in his latest. ‘You’re Simon Mills.’
As Fiona sipped her drink, she tried hard to stop smirking. Here she was, with Simon-The-Movie-Star and Reg-The-Film-Producer on a fine winter’s day, sitting out, enjoying a late lunch and a celebratory glass of champagne, looking out over the mountains, her Mercedes close by. Sure beats the hell out of work, she thought to herself.
‘Fiona,’ Simon interrupted, ‘we’re going to a house party back in Dublin this evening, do you fancy coming?’
Fiona thought for a second. Any party they were going to was bound to be a pretty fancy affair but just as she was about to say yes, her phone rang.
It was Sally to tell her they were about to leave for Wicklow and to find out if Fiona had changed her mind about coming to Jack’s dinner party.
‘I’m already in Wicklow,’ Fiona told her. ‘What? Well, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything later but have I got a surprise for you? No, no, you’ll have to wait. Just give me the address of the house and I’ll meet you there.’ Suddenly a thought struck her and she pressed the hold button. ‘Don’t suppose you two feel like coming to dinner with some friends of mine before you head to your party?’
Reg and Simon looked at one another.
‘Why not?’ answered Reg, probably assuming that all her friends drove around in cars like his and Fiona’s and lived a matching lifestyle.
‘Sally, can I bring a couple of people with me for dinner?’ Fiona asked. ‘Just say yes, you won’t regret it. Go on. Really, you’ll be glad.’
The real reason Fiona had asked Reg and Simon along was to see the look on Sian and Sally’s faces. Both girls were forever complaining about how boring she’d become since she’d started going out with Dermot but she felt that turning up in a Mercedes with two movie people following behind in a second Mercedes should shut them up for a while.
Now, as they sat around the living room, waiting for the other four guests to arrive, Sian and Sally were hanging on every word Simon and Reg uttered but Fiona had grown tired of listening. The two men were repeating the same stories they’d already told her that afternoon; stories about how terribly well they were doing in Hollywood. She decided she needed a break and wandered into the kitchen.
Jack was peeling potatoes.
‘Hi Jack.’ She leant up against the counter. ‘I thought this dinner party was Sian and Sally’s idea. How come the birthday boy ends up doing all the cooking?’
‘I figure that if we’re going to eat tonight, someone has to make a start. Sally and Sian are far more interested in your two friends than in cooking.’
Fiona felt like kicking herself. She was here as a friend of a friend yet she’d landed in with two strangers, acquaintances of a friend of a friend. She suddenly realised just how inappropriate it had been to invite Simon and Reg along for Jack’s birthday dinner, despite what Sally had said.
‘Look, Jack, I’m sorry. I should have asked you.’
‘Don’t be. Sally and Sian are happy.’
‘Don’t you mind?’
‘Well I’ll consider forgiving you but only if you give me a hand with cooking dinner.’
‘Where do I start?’
‘First, let me pour you some more wine. And then you can tackle the vegetables while you tell me all about your new car.’
Fiona scraped and rinsed and sliced assorted vegetables while she told Jack the story of how she came to own Mercedes. She told him about the bus journeys to and from work, the three matching numbers, how she used to pass Mercedes sitting in the showroom window everyday, how – on an impulse – she’d decided to blow her winnings on her. Maybe it was the wine but she found him very easy to talk to and as they worked away in the kitchen, she chatted on and on.
I guess,’ she was saying now, coming back to the winning scratch card, ‘I probably should have done something sensible with the money like … oh my God!’ she suddenly cried.
‘What?’
‘I forgot to ring Dermot to let him know where I am.’
She brought his number up on her phone and dialled.
‘Dermot, hi, it’s me. Listen, I’m in …what? Well then keep them on hold. Why did you take my call if you haven’t time to talk? Dermot? I just wanted to tell you that … Dermot? Dermot?’
But he was gone.
Soon the other four guests, two couples, had arrived and everyone sat down to dinner.
The food was delicious. Without any fuss Jack had managed to create a meal for ten people. If someone had landed two extra guests on top of Fiona like that she’d have lost her reason. Especially these particular two. Sian and Sally might be finding them scintillating company but she’d had enough. The sooner they left for their party in Dublin the better. And what was Simon Mills rabbiting on about now? Something about how he’d dated Pamela Anderson and Cameron Diaz, both at the same time. She happened to glance over at Jack. He caught her eye, yawned, and then crashed his head down onto the table. Fiona laughed out loud.
‘Jack!’ cried Sian. ‘What are you playing at?’
Jack raised his head up.
‘Sorry, sorry. Don’t know what came over me? So tell us, Simon, what attracted you to Pamela in the first place?’
It suddenly occurred to Fiona that this was the first time she’d been out on a Friday night in ages. She was really enjoying herself. She smiled over at Jack. He smiled back.
Later she leant across the table.
‘You know, there’s one thing I didn’t tell you. I guess I didn’t want you to know what a horrible person I am. But, you see, I bought that scratch card for my boyfriend then forgot to give it to him and now I don’t know what I’m going to do. He’ll go mad when he sees Mercedes, especially when he could do with investing the money in his new business. What am I going to tell him?’
Jack looked at her worried face, then laughed.
‘It’s no laughing matter,’ she scolded.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ he agreed, still smirking.
‘Well then, stop laughing.’
‘Why? Is the guilt eating away at you?’
‘Yes, it is a matter of fact.’
‘Look, you can’t do anything about it this evening. It’s my birthday and I command you to forget about it.’
She reached for some pavalova. ‘Have you ever done anything so low?’ she asked him.
‘Course not.’
‘What was I thinking?’
‘Stop worrying.’
‘But...’
‘Stop worrying.’
‘Alright, alright.’
‘So let’s change the subject.’
‘Okay.’
‘Good.’
The next morning, Fiona woke to the sound of someone rapping on her door.
‘Yeah, yeah, I’m getting up,’ she muttered.
Jack came into the room.
‘Fiona, Mercedes is missing.’
‘You’re kidding.’
She leapt out of bed and ran straight to the window. The space where she’d parked Mercedes the night before was empty.
‘Is this some kind of prank you and the others are playing?’ she asked finally.
Jack shook his head.
‘I’m really sorry, Fiona. I’ve already rung the guards to see if they know anything.’
Fiona felt the tears welling up in her eyes.
‘Fiona, I don’t know what to sa …
Then suddenly, she burst out laughing.
‘If only she’d been stolen before I’d gone to bed. I didn’t get a wink of sleep. I spent the entire night, tossing and turning, wondering how I was going to explain Mercedes to Dermot’.
Monday morning and Fiona sat on the low wall outside the showrooms waiting for the No. 10 bus. The space Mercedes used to occupy behind the glass front of the showrooms hadn’t been filled yet. Fiona wondered where Mercedes was now – abandoned somewhere in the Wicklow Mountains or in a garage in some back lane being re-sprayed? And here she was, waiting for the bus once again, back to square one.
The bus came and she filed on, finding a seat beside an old man with a basket on his lap. She smiled at him as she sat down, then turned to the window. She was feeling very happy this morning, she realised as she gazed out. In fact, immoderately happy, given all that had happened. Out of the corner of her eye she suddenly noticed the basket on the man’s lap move and she turned around to see a puppy’s head pop out.
‘I’m just taking this little fellow for a trip into town,’ the man explained, noticing her interest.
‘Of course.’ Fiona nodded, and then smiled to herself. Maybe the bus wasn’t such a bad place after all.
Her phone rang. It was Jack.
‘Hi there! Yeah, the guards rang again this morning. No, no news yet. What did I tell Dermot about the car? Well, in the end, i didn't have to tell him anything. We've split up. No, no, I'm fine about it - it was a long time coming. But I think when the insurance money comes in, I'll sent him half - anonymously. It'll take away the guilt. What? Lunch? Today?’ Fiona smiled. ‘Yeah, lunch would be great.’ She reached out to pat the dog. ‘Okay, outside the Stephen’s Green Centre, at one o’ clock. Sure, see you then.’
She hung up.
As she got off at her stop, she made up her mind to buy another scratch card. She was feeling very lucky.
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