In a Moment Read online

  In a

  Moment

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Published 2012

  by Poolbeg Press Ltd

  123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle

  Dublin 13, Ireland

  E-mail: [email protected]

  www.poolbeg.com

  © Caroline Finnerty 2012

  Copyright for typesetting, layout, design

  © Poolbeg Press Ltd

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  1

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-84223-527-0

  eBook ISBN 978-1-84223-565-2

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Typeset by Patricia Hope in Sabon 11.3/16

  Printed by CPI, Mackays, UK

  www.poolbeg.com

  About the author

  Caroline Finnerty lives in County Kildare with her husband Simon, daughter Lila, twins Tom and Bea, and their two dogs. In a Moment is her first novel.

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly a huge thank you to Paula Campbell in Poolbeg for the phone call that made my dreams come true. Paula, I will say it again – I don’t know how you do it! I am delighted to come on board with you and all the team.

  Also thank you to Gaye Shortland for your amazing eye, your encouraging words and also your enthusiasm for the characters, which means a lot to me. I look forward to working together on future books.

  To Simon, thank you for taking the children off at weekends to give me time to write. I can’t think of anyone else I would rather share this life with. I love our little family. xx

  Thank you to Mam and Dad – everyone should have parents like you. Thank you for everything throughout the years and all that you still do for me now. I couldn’t even begin to mention how much I appreciate this. Mam – this book would not have happened without your unwavering belief in me and your constant encouragement. Dad – thank you for instilling a love of books from a young age.

  To Dee Finnerty for your help on all kinds of things, from being a spare pair of hands for the twins, to your knowledge of all things photography-related and of weird computer glitches.

  For my parents-in-law Mary and Neil for all that you do for us, from child-minding to dinner-making, but above all for your support.

  To the staff on St Peter’s Ward in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin for taking such good care of my babies.

  Thanks also to Elaine and Darren for the play-dates when you already have your hands full.

  To Daisy Cummins for your advice.

  To my wonderful friends for the chats, fun and laughter.

  And, of course, thank you, reader, for choosing this book from all the great titles that are out there. I really do appreciate it. I hope you enjoy reading it and I would love to hear from you on my website www.carolinefinnerty.ie or on www.facebook.com/carolinefinnertywriter.

  With much love, Caroline xxx

  For Simon, Lila, Tom & Bea,

  my beautiful family

  xxxx

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  Part II

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  Part III

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  Part IV

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  She felt her knees buckle beneath her and she reached out to grab onto the post of the staircase. She used it to guide herself downwards so that she was sitting on the bottom step. Just as she thought she might be starting to heal, taking tentative steps forward, this had come and knocked her off balance again. She wasn’t expecting it – it was like a below-the-belt punch coming at her, leaving her reeling in its wake. She needed to see his face, as if somehow by looking at him it would confirm that he had been a real person. She ran upstairs and into her bedroom. Pulling out the drawer of her bedside table, she reached for his photo.

  Part I

  1

  Winter, 2010

  The lift doors separated and Adam White stepped out into the bright reception of Parker & Associates. As he walked across the high-glaze cream travertine tiles he was almost overpowered by the scent emanating from the two extravagant conical vases standing on either side of the reception desk. They were brimming with fresh metre-high arrangements of snapdragons, burnt-orange birds of paradise and fuchsia-toned orchids. The area was minimally furnished with only a simple Scandinavian-style bench, which was more for show than functionality.

  Parker & Associates was a young firm of business analysts located just off the Grand Canal on the south side of Dublin City. Their ultra-modern headquarters took over the entire top floor of the building and consisted of floor-to-ceiling glazed offices surrounding a central roof garden. Depending on which end of the office you went to, the view extended all the way up to Howth Head on the north side of the city or down to Killiney Hill on the south side.

  By the time Adam had grabbed himself a coffee, sat at his desk and switched on his PC, his rising in the small hours of the morning seemed like eons ago. He rubbed his eyes for the umpteenth time. He felt fuzzy with tiredness, he found it hard even to think straight, his reactions were slow and his whole body felt heavy as if he was lugging two huge suitcases on either side of him whenever he walked. As he tried to concentrate on a spreadsheet on the screen in front of him, the rows seemed to merge together.

  Although it was eight thirty, it was very early by Parker’s standards and the office was still largely empty. On any given day the majority of people wouldn’t arrive in until nine at the earliest but normally on Friday people didn’t show their faces until much later after the ritual of Thursday-night drinks. Fridays were a write-off as far as work was concerned; it was generally accepted that you did only the bare minimum to get by and then spent Monday to Thursday making up for it. The company prided itself on its ‘relaxed and casual’ culture. The open-plan office was decorated with leafy, tropical foliage and beanbags were interspersed randomly to he
lp soften the corporate feel. Croissants and pastries were delivered fresh from the local bakery every morning and there were always baskets scattered arbitrarily around the place, brimming with sweets and chocolate. Employees were also welcome to help themselves to the fully stocked fridge which was laden with ice-cream and soft drinks. It was lamented by all who worked there that once you joined Parker & Associates, there was no avoiding gaining the ‘Parker-stone’.

  A while later Adam’s colleagues started arriving in. He greeted them and watched as one by one they dropped their bags at their desks before heading straight to the staff room for a pecan-nut pie, the only pastry deemed suitable for the hangover of Fridays.

  * * *

  Emma made her way with slow footsteps down the grey vinyled corridor. As she walked, she couldn’t help but think what a contagious shade of grey it was; it wasn’t the soft dove-grey of a cashmere sweater or the inky grey of a storm cloud before it burst – it was that awful shade of grey that sucked the life out of you just from merely looking at it. As she rounded the corner, she could hear the high-pitched screeches coming from behind the canteen door. Well, ‘canteen’ was probably stretching it – it was a room barely six metres square. The floor was covered with worn lino and it was sparsely furnished with a Formica table, six red shiny plastic-backed chairs, a cork noticeboard and a dire fridge where, no matter how many group emails were sent warning users to discard their foods after their best-before date, no one ever seemed to lay claim to the mouldy ham.

  You could almost tell the day of the week it was by the roars that filtered out into the corridor. Fridays were full of raucous laughter; Mondays were a more sombre, almost silent affair.

  Emma pushed open the door and glanced around at the usual posse of girls sitting at the table scattered with takeaway sandwich-wrappers and foil crisp-bags. The roars from two seconds earlier disappeared almost like someone had twisted a volume-switch on the whole room. Nothing new there, she thought to herself. She was used to having this effect on people recently. The stench from some rice-and-ham dish that Dan from IT was reheating in the microwave almost made her gag.

  “Hiya, Emma. Busy?” Helen the receptionist chimed, in an overly cheery voice.

  “Y’know yourself, kept going.”

  Helen nodded. “Tell me about it.”

  What would you know about being busy unless it’s trying to stick your gel nail back on and answer the phone at the same time?

  “That won’t keep you going!” Helen nodded to the teabag that Emma was taking out of the jar above the microwave.

  “I’m not hungry just now, I’ll grab something later.”

  Emma knew her tone sounded defensive, but she felt self-conscious in front of the group about her lack of lunch – but she just couldn’t stomach anything right now. She turned away from Helen and her cronies and as soon as the kettle had boiled she busied herself by pouring boiling water onto her teabag.

  Helen turned back around to her gang and proceeded to moan about how her bridesmaid had put on weight since the last dress fitting and that now she would have to get the dress altered for her. Her audience tutted in sympathy and agreed that her friend had some cheek to gain a few pounds. One of them even added that if she were a real friend she would at least offer to do the cabbage-soup diet to fit back into the dress. Emma wasn’t included in the conversation, nor did she want to be.

  Emma worked on the creative team for A1 Adverts but A1 Adverts was not your typical glamorous advertising agency residing in beautiful glazed offices with a sea view and bountiful budgets. Rather A1 specialised in bright and zingy ‘can’t get it out of your head’ type adverts for their clients. A1’s specialty was the discount market; they didn’t do the high-end adverts that won awards. How she would love to work on campaigns such as those! A1’s customers were discount furniture stores, tile shops, budget airlines and basically anyone in the business of discount retailing in Ireland. All their adverts were the same: flashing bubble-text on a neon-coloured background and always backed with shouty voices. In fairness to A1 Adverts, it was a model that worked; they were cheaper than their competitors and they were tailored to that end of the market. But it was a long, long way from the glossy editorials with their subtle imaging that she had spent so much time analysing in college. Emma was a ‘campaign developer’ – in other words, she had to come up with new ideas for their clients’ adverts.

  She went back, sat at her desk and sighed wearily as she scrolled down to the next red-flagged email from her overflowing inbox. No matter how hard she tried, she never seemed to be able to get on top of the work that was piling up around her. At the moment she was working on a pitch for a company called Sofa World which had asked Dublin’s top advertising agencies to come up with a tag line for their Christmas campaign. Oh, she was a long way from Chanel adverts starring Keira Knightley! It was very late for launching a Christmas campaign. A1 suspected Sofa World had rejected other advertisers' efforts before turning to them at the last minute.

  Moments later, Emma’s boss Maureen Hanley popped her head around the screen of her cubicle. Her frizzy hair was tied back with a scrunchy in a manner that made Emma wonder if the woman even possessed a hairbrush.

  “Hi, Emma – can you come in for a chat in five?”

  Emma felt herself redden as if Maureen could read her mind about what she had just been thinking. “Sure.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing major,” Maureen added, obviously noticing Emma’s red face.

  Emma hated her high colouring; it always betrayed her innermost feelings. At the drop of a hat her cheeks would go red for almost any reason: embarrassment, frustration, alcohol, spicy food, and God forbid she should try to tell a lie. Emma just had to accept it was part and parcel of the raw deal of having fair skin.

  She watched as Maureen walked back to her office in her black pencil-leg trousers that didn’t quite meet her court shoes and revealed her white cotton socks. On top she wore a brown tweed blazer buttoned entirely up to the top so that it was puckered across her large bust; she’d had that blazer ever since Emma had started working there seven years ago and Emma imagined she had probably had it at least seven years before that. Maureen was a harmless enough sort of woman – well, as much as a boss can be harmless. She had never married; she’d been too busy sacrificing her life for A1 Adverts. The woman lived and breathed A1, so Emma suspected that the only reason she wanted a meeting was probably because she wanted her to jump up and down about the chance to pitch to Sofa World. But Emma would not be doing any jumping.

  Five minutes later Emma grabbed her A4 refill pad so she could scribble down any ideas that would be thrown at her and walked back down the life-sucking, grey-vinyled corridor towards Maureen’s office. She knocked on her door and let herself in. Maureen looked up from her computer, almost in confusion.

  Don’t tell me she doesn’t remember asking me to come in five minutes ago?

  “Oh yes, of course, Emma – come in and sit down.” She let out a heavy sigh as she set about clearing bundles of paper and mugs with coffee stains running down the sides off the messy desk in front of her.

  Emma did as she was told and sat opposite her.

  Emma cut to the chase. “Did you see the email from Sofa World?”

  “What?” Maureen was distracted. “Oh yes, I saw that. You might draft something up and send it on and we can sit down then and have a look, yes?”

  Emma was taken aback. What did Maureen want her for if not that?

  “Well, Emma . . .” Maureen paused.

  Well, Maureen. Emma felt she should say something but Maureen’s tone told her it wasn’t her place to speak.

  “Well . . . God, Emma I’m not sure how to broach this . . .” She breathed in deeply through her nostrils, so that they flared slightly. “Well, it’s just I’ve noticed you’ve been putting in a lot of hours here lately. Some of the times on your emails have me worried – eleven p.m., midnight – there was even one at two a.m. last week! Now don’
t get me wrong, I’m all too happy for people to show their commitment to A1 Adverts but well . . .” She hesitated. “Just with everything going on, I’m a bit worried about you, that’s all.” She was starting to get flustered. “What I’m trying to say is – and I’m not doing a very good job of it – I know you’re a good worker, I’ve never had a problem with your work. I just want you to make sure you’re looking after yourself? That’s all.”

  Emma was stunned; she wasn’t used to such public displays of concern from Maureen. She instantly felt the heat creep into her cheeks. I don’t want to talk about this.

  “I’m okay, Maureen,” she said coolly so that Maureen would know it wasn’t a discussion she wished to get into.

  “Well, that’s good then,” Maureen added nervously. “It’s just, you’re not long back and well . . . well, I think you should ease yourself in a bit, that’s all.”

  Emma shifted in her seat and the discomfort between the two was palpable.

  “Okay, so you’ll send me on your proposal for Sofa World then?” Maureen said in an obvious decision to change the subject.

  “I’ll have something for you by Monday afternoon,” Emma replied curtly.

  “Great, so.”

  “Right, if that’s all?”

  Maureen gestured to the door, indicating Emma was free to go. Emma stood up to leave. She wanted to get the hell out of there. She wasn’t a person who liked discussing her feelings at the best of times, least of all with her boss.

  She went back and sat at her desk and the more she thought about the conversation she’d just had, the more she felt rage building inside her. Why were people so nosy, always trying to push it with her to see if they could be the one to make her crack and fall apart into a mess? It was nobody’s business what time she worked until. If she was skiving off, they’d be on her back – she couldn’t win! She was used to Helen and the rest of them pushing her buttons, trying their best to see if they could be the one to elicit a reaction. But Maureen? She had expected more from her boss. They had always had a perfectly healthy standoffish relationship, so what the hell was Maureen doing trying to change the playing field?