The Men in her Life

moments’ warmth before they split for the day for work. ‘All that fuss. We’re all right like we are, aren’t we?’
    It wasn’t really a question, so she hadn’t answered, not trusting herself not to say something that would give him an excuse to leave her. It wasn’t that he had changed his mind, she told herself, it was just that Jack wasn’t the marrying kind. On a perfect day in a perfect place he knew how to say the perfect thing and she had been a fool for reading more into it. Jack made you dream you had a different life. He put strawberries on your breakfast cereal.

    Mo turned around and looked at Eamon who was eating his chops as he waited for his answer. She knew that if she said yes, he would not withdraw his offer the next day. He was reliable and trustworthy, and you knew where you were with him. He was kind and they had a good time together. There would be no strawberries with Eamon, but that wasn’t such a bad thing. Truth be told, strawberries always brought her up in a bit of a rash.
    She thought about their last night in Ireland , the mini-cab and the dinner. That had been a surprise. Not a sparkling, quicksilver promise, but a treat all the same. Eamon would look after her and they would grow old together and maybe retire to Ireland and she could dance away her fading years in the company of people who looked like her.
    If she said no, she knew she would lose him. It had been brave of him to ask, and he was too much of a man to accept rejection and go on as if nothing had happened. That was why he had not asked her on their last night in Galway , she understood now. It would have been too horrible to sit next to each other on the plane the next day, knowing that they would go their separate ways after they touched down.
    ‘I will marry you, Eamon,’ she told him, solemnly, putting the fish-slice back in the frying-pan.
    The words took a second or two of chewing to register, then he put down his knife and fork and stood up.
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘I’m sure.’
    In one jump he was on his chair and then he leapt onto the table with an agility she had never seen before, jumped down and lifted her off the floor with the enthusiasm of his embrace.
    ‘I love you,’ he told her, kissing her neck.
    ‘And I love you,’ she replied, laughing with the joy of it, her feet in the air. And only as she spoke the words did she know it was true, and she was glad.

    Holly picked up the ten-pound bowling ball and frowned at the skittles at the end of the lane. If she got a strike, her relationship with Matt was going to last, she decided. One, two, three, four steps, swing the ball and bowl. The ball rolled spinning down the centre of the lane and clipped the first skittle beautifully. They were all going down, they were, they were. No. One skittle remained standing.
    ‘Try a heavier ball,’ Matt urged her, ‘that was almost perfect, but you didn’t quite have the power...’
    Furiously proud, Holly ignored him and picked up another ten-pounder. She threw it recklessly and it veered off halfway down into the gulley.
    It was ridiculous to wager the outcome of a relationship on the throw of a bowling ball, she thought grumpily as she sat down and picked her lit cigarette from the ashtray in the arm of the padded seat. It was as childish and meaningless as picking the petals off a daisy reciting ‘he loves me, he loves me not’. But the time she spent with Matt was so straightforward and uncomplicated, compared to her usual tortured agonizing about men, that she found herself needing talismans to cling onto. She could not tell whether he liked her or just liked having sex with her, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask him, so she had to rely on signs.
    Matt hurled a sixteen-pound ball down the lane and got a strike. He spun around like a winning-penalty kicker, punching the air with both fists. She stood up and hugged him in congratulation.
    ‘Now you,’ he said, ‘come on, I know you can do it.’
    She waited for the sixteen-pounder he had used to roll all the way back down the side of the lane, then picked it off and pretended almost to drop it, it was so heavy. Matt stepped forward to help her, then back as he realized she was teasing. One, two, three steps, swing the arm, if this lot went down she would have him for the rest of the summer, she bargained, releasing the ball and following through with her arm as he had instructed her. The ball thundered down the polished wooden lane