Mistake

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  ‘I know. But I really like driving.’

  Mum is torn, I think, between wanting me to be happy and her overall feeling that Dave is probably right about my job.

  ‘Besides,’ I add, ‘I did all the paperwork and everything to make it my business. I went on the course. I found new clients. I’m doing well.’

  ‘I understand. I do, really. But when it becomes something that takes you away from home overnight . . .’

  ‘That’s a one-off,’ I said. ‘But . . . oh, Mum, there’s something about being in the car that makes me feel good.’

  ‘Hmm. Well you don’t look it. You’re as pale as anything and you’ve got dark circles under your eyes.’

  I told her we’d already agreed that working mothers often looked wrecked and added that there was nothing wrong with me that a trip to the hairdresser followed by a nice relaxing massage wouldn’t cure.

  ‘Well, get your glam on before Sunday,’ she says. ‘Because I want you at your most fabulous then.’

  Mum has only just left when Thea Ryan rings to ask if I can bring her to an interview at RTÉ the next day. I never say no to Thea and I can fit it in after collecting some businessmen from Heuston station and taking them to their hotel, which is beside the canal and not that far from Thea’s house. It still leaves me time to be home and pick up the children from school. I’m pleased with my time-management skills as I slot Thea’s job into my diary. I realise that I’m actually flouting Dave’s express order not to take on any more work, and that there’s going to be a real showdown about this sooner rather than later.

  Right now, though, he doesn’t need to know.

  He’s pleased when I tell him about Sunday lunch at Mum’s. Despite her accepted lack of prowess in the kitchen, she’s experienced at roast dinners, which I’m presuming will be what’s on the menu. Dave says he’ll get a nice bottle of wine to bring with us and I nod in agreement while making a mental note to get some flowers too. I wish we’d done this last year, before Dad became ill. We didn’t celebrate any of his birthdays after the big do he had for his sixtieth, when we hired a private room at the local pub and surprised him. Lots of friends he hadn’t seen for years came and it was a great night. Mum’s own sixtieth was a smaller event because she reckoned it was too soon to have another big hooley. She was wrong. We should have gone mad then too. I make a note to celebrate every single one of her birthdays in the future. Because you never know, do you?

  I’m not quite so pleased with my time-management skills when it actually comes to picking up the businessmen, because the rain has returned and the traffic is dreadful. After I eventually deposit them at their hotel, I do a bit of what I like to call bushcraft driving to get around some of the worst of the black spots, and I’m pleased to be only five minutes late pulling up outside Thea Ryan’s house.

  I grab her umbrella from the boot and hurry to her door, surprised that she hasn’t opened it already, because despite her general air of scattiness, she’s very punctual, and I reckoned she’d be peppering about my lateness, even if it is only five minutes.

  There’s a furious barking from inside, but although I’ve rung the bell, there’s no sign of Thea, which makes me anxious. I take out my phone and dial her number, and I can actually hear it jingle in the hallway. I kneel down and peer through the letter box, but I can’t see anyone. I know, because she told me, that Desmond was meeting a friend of his this morning, so he’s not there. But she should be.

  ‘Ms Ryan!’ I call through the letter box. ‘Are you OK? Can you hear me?’

  There’s more furious barking and I swear at the dog, who’s jumping at the door.

  ‘Be quiet!’ I hiss. ‘Where’s your mum? Where’s Thea?’

  He barks again, runs a little bit down the hallway and then stops. A cold feeling of dread comes over me. Is the dog trying to tell me that Thea is lying unconscious on the floor, or worse? And then I hear her.

  ‘Roxy!’ Her voice is muffled. ‘Are you outside?’

  ‘Yes!’ I shout back. ‘Where are you? Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course I am!’ She sounds peeved but not in pain. ‘I’m trapped, that’s all.’

  ‘Trapped where?’

  ‘In the downstairs bathroom.’

  I’m so relieved that she hasn’t fallen and broken a hip, or had a stroke or anything so much worse, that I start to laugh.

  ‘Are you still there?’ she calls.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come around the side of the house, for heaven’s sake!’

  Holding the umbrella over my head, I walk around the house and notice that there’s a narrow frosted-glass pane in the wall with a small hinged window above it. I guess this is the downstairs bathroom.

  ‘Ms Ryan?’ I say tentatively.

  The window, which pivots open horizontally, opens a little more and I see Thea’s worried blue eyes behind it.

  ‘I can’t believe this has happened.’ She’s somewhere between anxious, raging and embarrassed. ‘I came in to freshen up before you arrived, and the latch on the door has slipped or something. I can’t get out.’

  The window opening is too narrow for me to get in, and I say so.

  ‘Well there’s no point in you getting in anyhow,’ declares Thea. ‘We’d both be trapped in the bathroom then.’

  I laugh again. I can’t help it.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she says.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ I agree. ‘Do any of your neighbours have a spare key?’

  ‘To the hall door, yes,’ says Thea. ‘The Mulcahys at number six do. But I don’t know if Fiona is home, and even if she is, how will we get this door open?’

  ‘If we can get into the house, I’m sure we’ll come up with something.’

  I head back down the pathway. Happily, my ring on the doorbell of number six is answered by a woman around my own age who insists on coming with me to Thea’s.

  ‘Poor dear,’ she says as we open her hall door. ‘I’m sure she’s distraught.’

  She’s more like a spitting cat, I think, as Fiona Mulcahy and I unsuccessfully try the old-fashioned knob on the bathroom door.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ cries Thea. ‘I’ll be trapped in here all day. I need to contact RTÉ and tell them I can’t make it. If only I’d brought my phone in with me, I might be able to do the interview down the line. Not that talking to them from my bathroom would be my preferred option, but all the same, it would be something. Perhaps . . .’ She pauses for a moment. ‘Perhaps you could throw my phone through the bathroom window. I could call them then. That would be a solution, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘But not the one you want,’ I say as I examine the door lock. ‘Because after that you’d still be stuck in the bathroom. I’m going to have a go at getting you out. Could you stand well away from the door?’

  ‘You’re hardly going to try to break it down,’ she cries. ‘It’s a heavy door, Roxy. You’d need a strong man to do it.’

  ‘Yes, but the problem isn’t the door, it’s the lock. And I have a plan.’

  ‘What kind of plan?’ asks Fiona.

  ‘My daughter got stuck in a room in my mum’s house a few years ago,’ I tell her. ‘My dad got her out. There’s a touch of brute force involved, so we might need the two of us, but it’s as much about timing as anything else.’

  ‘OK.’ She looks at me doubtfully.

  ‘Are you standing out of the way, Ms Ryan?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m cowering behind the toilet.’ Thea’s tone is acerbic, and I grin.

  ‘OK,’ I tell Fiona. ‘When I say push, can you put your shoulder to the door with me?’

  She nods.

  I turn the doorknob all the way in the right direction and then pull it hard. As I do, I shout, ‘Push!’ and Fiona and I both bang hard against the door, which abruptly flies open. The two of us stumble inside, stopping ourselves from falling by grabbing the hand basin. Thea Ryan is standing between the loo and the far wall, looking at us with astonished delight.

 
‘Oh my goodness, Roxy, you did it!’ she exclaims. ‘You clever, clever girl.’

  ‘Probably wouldn’t have managed it without Fiona,’ I say. ‘It needed a bit more than one shoulder.’

  ‘That was impressive.’ Fiona is smiling. ‘I can’t wait to tell my husband that I kicked in a door today.’

  ‘It’s all about getting the bolt back as far as you can, then sort of pulling it away from the hole and using the force of your body to bump the rest of it out,’ I explain as I rub my shoulder. I’m going to have a bruise on it later. I banged into the door pretty hard, knowing that it needed a good jolt.

  ‘Well, I’m very impressed.’ Thea walks out of the bathroom and into the hallway. ‘Fiona, my dear, thank you so much for your help.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ says Fiona. ‘I’ll keep your keys, shall I?’

  ‘Of course.’ Thea nods. ‘You’re a great neighbour. Thank you again.’

  Fiona leaves the house and I wait while Thea puts on a royal-blue coat and a purple hat with a blue feather. Then I shelter her with the umbrella as we make our way to the car.

  ‘Are you feeling OK?’ I ask.

  ‘Stupid,’ she replies. ‘I’m feeling stupid.’

  ‘Could’ve happened to a bishop.’ It was one of Dad’s favourite rejoinders to mishaps, and Thea smiles.

  We drive in silence the rest of the way to Donnybrook, and when we pull up outside the radio studio, I escort her up the steps to the reception area. I don’t go in but leave her to her interview and wait in the car. My shoulder is throbbing now and I remind myself to put some arnica on it when I get home.

  Thea’s voice eventually comes over the airwaves. Her interview is about love – apparently she and Desmond have been married for fifty years and the presenter is asking for the secret of a happy marriage.

  ‘Trust,’ says Thea without pausing. ‘Trust and respect. I respect my husband for the kind of man he is and for the work he does. I trust him both emotionally and practically. And I hope – I’m sure – he trusts me too.’

  I feel myself go hot and cold at her words. Because trust and respect are in short supply between me and Dave, no matter what we say or do. I know that I haven’t truly been able to trust him since Rodeo Night, and I don’t feel that he respects me and the need I have to keep driving. At the same time, I don’t see how I can possibly have any views on a lack of trust in my husband given the fantasies I’ve been having about Ivo Lehane. OK, I might not have done anything, but I honestly think I would have. Which is just as bad.

  What happened to us? I wonder. It was all so good and now it’s slipping away like sand through my fingers. Were things going wrong before Dave slept with Julie? I didn’t think so – but then I thought that I was content with my life before, and now I want it to be different. We used to share everything, yet there’s an invisible barrier between us where I don’t tell him things and I’m pretty sure there’s stuff he’s not telling me. So where does that leave us? Will we find ourselves again? Will we last for fifty years like Thea and Desmond? Or . . . not?

  But if not, when will it change? When will one of us decide enough is enough? And why would we decide anything like that now, when Dave has sworn never to speak to Julie again and I’ve decided . . . Well, I haven’t decided anything yet really.

  Thea finishes her interview and I bring the car back to the front of the studio to collect her. I tell her that she spoke really well, and she smiles.

  ‘I was lucky with Desmond,’ she says. ‘Given the crowd we moved in, he could’ve had plenty of other women over the years. I could have had other men. But whatever temptations lay in our paths, we both knew that we had something good, something we couldn’t risk destroying. It’s not only how we are as husband and wife,’ she adds. ‘It’s how we are as people together.’

  That’s how I thought Dave and I were. That trust is what I thought we had.

  ‘Have you somewhere you need to be now?’ asks Thea when I pull up outside her house. ‘Because if not, it would be nice if you could have a coffee with me. It’s the only way I can say thank you for rescuing me earlier.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to . . .’

  ‘Not if you’re busy, obviously,’ says Thea. ‘I don’t want to put you under pressure.’

  I don’t socialise with clients. I stepped over a line when I had coffee with Ivo Lehane, and see what that led to! But coffee with Thea Ryan is entirely different. And I don’t need to go home yet. So I tell her that coffee would be lovely, and a couple of minutes later I’m sitting in her warm and cosy kitchen while she’s switching on a very impressive-looking machine.

  ‘Desmond bought it last Christmas,’ she says. ‘He drinks far too much coffee.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘In his case it’s a diversionary tactic,’ observes Thea. ‘He does it to put off the moment when he has to get working. I guess it’s the opposite for you.’

  I nod.

  ‘Either way, this is a nice blend,’ Thea says. ‘Though I’ll have a camomile tea myself.’

  I feel as though I should be helping her, but she bats away my offer by saying I’d be more of a hindrance than a help. I’m hoping she means it in a kind of generic way.

  She serves the coffee in a wide blue china cup with a matching saucer, and then shakes some bite-sized biscuits onto a bright green plate, which she puts between us. Her camomile tea is in a floral-patterned cup with gold edging. It’s all very Miss Marple.

  ‘How’s your mum doing?’ she asks when she’s sitting opposite me.

  ‘Not bad.’ I tell her about the octopussies and she’s charmed by the idea, saying that it’s something she should do herself.

  ‘I used to crochet a lot,’ she tells me. ‘When I was on the stage I used to sit in the wings with my hook and wool. I have more crocheted caps than I know what to do with. They were all the rage back in the seventies! I found it relaxing to do, and at the same time it helped me keep my focus.’

  ‘I can send you the link to the website if you like,’ I offer. ‘Or you can google “knitted octopus”.’

  ‘I’ll google it,’ she says. ‘And I’ll definitely do it. It’s such a lovely idea.’

  ‘Mum’s house is overrun with them.’ I smile.

  ‘I can imagine it occupies her,’ says Thea. ‘Has she got out much since the funeral?’

  ‘Actually . . .’ I take a sip of coffee, then put my cup back on the saucer. ‘She’s sort of dating.’

  ‘Really!’ Thea looks both astonished and impressed. ‘Good for her.’

  I explain about the website and about the men who only want women twenty years younger than themselves, and Mum’s surprise when Diarmuid got in touch.

  ‘I haven’t met him,’ I finish. ‘But he sounds nice. Mum says it’s only friendship, which makes me feel better about it because it’s still quite soon after Dad, but as she says herself, she’s not at a time in her life when she can sit around and wait . . .’ I falter, because once again I’m thinking of Dave and me, and I can’t help wondering what’s going to happen to us in the years ahead.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Thea is looking at me quizzically. ‘You seem a little distracted all of a sudden.’

  And then, for no reason I can think of other than that she’s the sort of person who makes you tell her things, I’m blurting out the story of Rodeo Night.

  ‘Oh, my dear.’ Thea’s blue eyes are full of sympathy. ‘I can imagine how that must have hurt.’

  It’s funny, but I haven’t really thought much about how hurt I felt. I’ve focused on my anger and humiliation and devastation and betrayal, but every single one of those emotions is wrapped up in hurt. And perhaps it’s the hurt that’s so difficult to put to one side, no matter how I try.

  ‘We place our trust in someone, and when they break it, it’s not easy to repair,’ observes Thea. ‘It’s like the matching cup to the one you’re drinking out of.’

  I look at her in confusion.

  ‘They were a pair,’ s
he says. ‘I dropped one of them and the handle broke off. My daughter Juno, who’s the super-practical one of our family, glued it on for me. She did a wonderful job and it looks perfect. But I know what happened, and I’m afraid that if I use that cup, the handle will fall off and I’ll be scalded by the tea.’

  I replace my cup on the saucer.

  ‘That one’s fine.’ Thea smiles. ‘I have total faith in it.’

  But she has a point. That’s exactly how I feel about Dave now. I truly don’t think he’ll even look in Julie Halpin’s direction ever again. But there’s a nugget of doubt that something – or someone – might break his resolve. It doesn’t have to be Julie.

  Thea gets up suddenly and takes the second blue cup from the cupboard. She tips the tea she’s been drinking from her floral cup into it.

  ‘But sometimes you need to go for it,’ she says as she takes a sip and then winks at me. ‘How’s your chauffeur business?’

  I tell her that it’s doing well but that it’s another bone of contention between me and Dave.

  ‘It’s not up to me to give you advice,’ she says. ‘My children always tell me I dispense far too much of it and that most of it is worthless. But . . .’ she shrugs, ‘what’s the point of having lived to my age and not being able to share stuff?’

  ‘No point at all,’ I say.

  ‘A woman must have money and a room of her own,’ Thea says.

  Once again, I look at her in confusion.

  ‘Virginia Woolf,’ she explains. ‘She was talking about writing fiction, but it’s true in every respect. A woman needs her own space and her own money to be her own person.’

  The car is my room. The money, even though it all ends up in our joint account, is mine too. Virginia Woolf, whoever she is, is right. And maybe that’s why Dave doesn’t like me driving. It’s not that he’s a controlling sort of man, but he likes to be the one in charge. He likes to be the one to say what we can afford to do and what we can’t. He likes being the head of the house.

  Are all men like that? Do they need to feel important all the time? Does it matter to them that much?

  Thea is looking at me as she continues to drink her tea from the mended cup. I have to be more honest with her.