The Girl I Used to Know

by Faith Hogan

  ‘Come on, we should be getting along.’ Amanda put her arm through Richard’s to guide him away from the house. It was as she turned that she finally really noticed what could be the jewel in the crown of this whole square. ‘Oh,’ she whispered, dropping Richard’s arm distractedly, ‘what a lovely garden.’ She made her way over to railings that were rusted to the strength of lollipop sticks.

  ‘It’s a bloody wilderness,’ Richard laughed as he tried to train his eyes through the thick growth of hedges and brambles.

  ‘It needn’t be though, this could be beautiful someday, Richard. Goodness,’ she peered into the wilderness, ‘we just have to get this house, I have the strangest feeling this is where we belong.’ Amanda could suddenly see her children playing here someday. She could imagine being part of a family again and now she wanted this house more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. ‘God, I hope we get it.’

  ‘I told you, leave it to me, babe, you just leave it all to me,’ he said with confidence, and that’s exactly what she did, she was happy to spend her life backing him up, they were a couple. Nothing could stop them as a united front.

  Chapter 31

  January 30 – Friday

  Four hundred euros, a damn sight less than thirty pieces of silver, paid to the private investigator – that was all it took and then there was no denying it. Her husband was having an affair with Arial Wade. The investigator, Patricia, had secured everything about her, short of her bra size, and Amanda had a feeling that she could probably have conjured that out of her bag too, if she asked. She had photographs, dates, times, addresses and even a copy of a credit card receipt that she’d managed to wangle out of some poor florist. It was confirmed and, in some ways, seeing it in black and white prints, ten by eights, made Amanda feel a little stronger, even though she suspected it was false bravado.

  She sat, for over an hour in her kitchen, just leafing through the photographs, like a forensic voyeur, she had to examine every detail. It was amazing, really, they had the same taste in so many things from their expensive watches (they both wore Breguet with everything) to the same disloyal man. Then she noticed, sitting on Arial’s doorstep, a great big hairless cat and it had been enough to tip Amanda into a kind of anger that she hadn’t felt in decades. The blasted cat, bald or not, typified all that she and her family had conceded just to keep Richard happy. To be fair, she was extra-sensitive on the subject of cats now that she’d seen how much that cat in Tess’s flat, meant to Robyn. She dropped the photos, it was eleven o’clock, plenty of time before she had to go and pick up the kids from school.

  Amanda pounded up the stairs, two at a time, a rampaging elephant might have moved more elegantly, but she didn’t care. She launched herself into their insipid, pretentious bedroom, flung every item belonging to Richard onto the bed. She had a plan, or at least she felt emboldened enough to stop torturing herself and do something about the tragedy she had allowed her life to spiral into.

  *

  It took only a few hours to set the stage. A call to an adventure centre in Connemara secured places for the kids for that weekend. They could catch the train this evening and be settled in before Richard even realised they were gone. Two days of pony trekking went down better than expected while she was ostensibly going to visit an old school friend in Wales. Richard for his part remained immune to any of this flurry of activity. His days had taken on the predictability of work, work and more work, or at least that was what she was supposed to think. When Amanda thought about it, Richard had been going into ‘work’ for almost four months now, six days per week. Sunday was golf and he set off early for the club, had lunch there and returned in time to slouch in front of the telly with the papers, sometime after nine o’clock at night.

  Well, not this weekend.

  Amanda picked the kids up from school at the usual time. In the boot, she packed up two weekend bags. She suggested they all have dinner in the train station together before catching the train west. Then she would return to Swift Square and wait for Richard.

  *

  Casper arrived out of school scowling at the unfairness of having to miss his friend’s birthday party but Robyn was genuinely looking forward to her weekend. They managed to get a table in the restaurant and ordered dinner and they sat, all three of them deep in their own thoughts while they ate.

  ‘Is everything all right, Mum?’ Robyn asked eventually, looking at Amanda’s plate.

  ‘Oh, yes, fine. I’m just not very hungry.’ Amanda brushed away her concern.

  ‘Well, exactly,’ Casper said. He had pulled the buds from his ears and Amanda realised he sounded just like his father, judging her if she ate and mocking her if she didn’t.

  ‘Very funny.’ Amanda tried to laugh, except, deep down, she wanted to cry. She wanted her little boy back, not this gangly youth who was turning into a sullen version of Richard. ‘I’ve told you, I’m turning over a new leaf. Diet, exercise, I’m going to finally be a yummy mummy.’ She smiled at her two children. They may be teenagers, but when she looked at them now, she realised they may drive her to distraction at times but they still needed her and she loved them with all her heart.

  ‘Sure that’s all?’ Robyn said and she squeezed Amanda’s hand.

  ‘What else could it be? Aren’t you always telling me I eat too much cake?’ Amanda smiled, a little wobbly, but smiled all the same.

  ‘I know we have, but it’s only when we’re mad at you. Really, we’ve never meant it.’ Robyn looked over at her brother, as though they had something to tell her. ‘It’s just, we’re…’

  ‘What?’ The last thing Amanda wanted was to have them worrying about their parents. She looked at her daughter now, caught something lurking in her eyes, an uneasiness that shouldn’t be there.

  ‘Robyn thinks you and Dad might be getting a divorce,’ Casper said the words and managed to inject some cynicism into them, but all the same, Amanda caught something in his eyes.

  ‘Why would you think that?’ She managed to keep her voice even and her smile straight. Surely, they wouldn’t see the muscles pull at it so it felt as if rigor mortis was setting in around her cheeks and eyes.

  ‘It’s mad, I know. I told her.’

  ‘It’s not mad at all, Casper. We never see Dad. He’s never home and now you’re gone all the time, and losing all this weight and changing your hair, it’s like…’

  ‘She thinks you’ve met someone,’ Casper threw his eyes up to heaven as though nothing could be more ridiculous.

  ‘Well, maybe not met someone, I don’t know, but…’ Robyn flushed. ‘I did wonder if maybe you were, you know, going through,’ she looked about her now, had the good grace to lower her voice, ‘the menopause, but look at you,’ her lips drew up into a quivering smile, ‘with all the weight you’ve lost, you don’t look… middle-aged anymore, so I thought maybe you…’

  ‘I’ve met someone?’ Amanda started to laugh. The notion of anyone looking at her with a view to romance seemed so wildly out of this world, it made her feel something very strange. ‘Seriously?’ she laughed a drum roll sound that teetered between the verges of giddiness and gloom. She dismissed the tears that threatened from the pellet of emotion sitting awkwardly in her throat. There was so much more here than she could even begin to put a name on. ‘Oh, Robyn,’ she moved her arm around her daughter. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for laughing and I’m sorry if you’ve been worried. I’m losing the weight for me, though, can you understand that? I’m losing the weight because I want to be healthy. I want to live a long and good life and maybe someday I want to bounce my grandchildren on my knees.’ She held Robyn for as long as her daughter allowed and when she pulled away, she said the only thing she could. ‘I love you, Robyn, both of you,’ she looked across at Casper, she couldn’t lie. ‘And who knows what the future holds, but I can promise you this, we are a family and we will always be a family and I will always love you both.’

  Amanda walked them to the gate at the train station,
feeling a weight upon her shoulders that she’d never expected to feel. She stood for a long time, after the train pulled away, thinking about what they’d said. She was sure of one thing. They knew. She wasn’t sure how they knew, or what exactly they knew, but they knew that it was crunch time and that made her feel as if she had even more to prove. She walked out to the car, dreading the weekend ahead. She was going back to Swift Square. She would wait for Richard to come home, even if it took hours, she would have it out with him tonight.

  *

  It was almost seven when she arrived back in the square. At least, she thought, she could go for a walk in the darkness. No one need see her face as she contemplated what lay ahead. She ducked into the house for a moment, grabbed her walking shoes and muffled up under a huge scarf and windcheater. The Square was deserted now. Friday evening, most of the businesses closed for the night. Amanda loved it like this. She thought this is what it must have been like when the houses were built all those years ago. Of course, there would have been the occasional carriage pulling up in front of the fine houses, but apart from that and the hissing of the streetlights fuelled by gas, there would have been the same sense of serenity about the place. Tonight, she listened as life in the square settled in for the night. Behind the tall black railings, magpies, gold crests, robins and wrens called out their final good nights to each other. Amanda was lost in the sounds of them, carried away in the simplicity but loveliness of their song.

  Moments later, the strangest thing occurred.

  In the distance, she spotted Tess Cuffe walking towards her and for a moment felt that instinctual feeling of dread. But, of course, those days were gone, Amanda knew, the hatchet had been well and truly buried and if they continued to walk around the square in opposite directions, well – that meant they were different people, but it didn’t mean they were enemies anymore. And then, it happened. Just as Amanda thought she’d left her behind for another lap, she heard the halting sound of Tess’s footsteps. It was as though she pulled up fast to check something and then, she was catching her up. Tess Cuffe was walking alongside her, silently, awkwardly and willingly. Amanda felt herself smiling shyly, finally she was not alone.

  Chapter 32

  Forty-eight years earlier…

  It was one of those interminably hot days – the kind of day that seems to start too early and go on forever. The sun ripped heat through every layer, from blouses to windows to roads. The tarmacadam steamed and shivered its wavy warmth upwards. Sweat stickiness prickled insidiously, under clothes, hats, shoes, and made Tess feel trapped, even by the sea. It blinded, slowed her down so that she couldn’t run and she couldn’t hide. On days like this, her father always went with some of the local men to Ballydiffin bog. They would spend the day cutting fuel for winter, white slaves beneath the Irish summer sun. Not today, though, Tess thought, there would be no Ballydiffin bog today.

  Tess stood at the bus station, biding her time in the cool of the darkened platform. That was the thing about buses and trains – everyone was in such a rush, you could sit here forever, putting off what you knew you had to do and no one hardly noticed you at all. Her eyes drew up towards the huge clock that struck out the minutes just a little faster than her watch. She had to go home, she was here to stand next to Nancy, to make it all look right, although, to Tess it clearly wasn’t.

  Most houses around here left their doors open, night and day. Her father thought this was a common thing to do and so, there was no barging in on top of her family. They kept themselves separate from their neighbours. Friendly and sociable, but with the kind of self-conscious restraint that comes from a peculiar middle-class snobbery – known mainly to the educated of small towns where history set aside the village master, priest and doctor as a breed apart.

  Her mother welcomed her with the usual mix of gladness and inconvenience that was her way. ‘Tess. We thought you’d missed the bus. Come on, it’s almost time to go.’ Her mother hardly looked at her, perhaps she knew of some of the damage being done. It was a funny thing, Tess realised later, Nancy hadn’t said a word. Not a single word had passed between them for the day. Even eye contact seemed to be too much. It was a surreal thing for sisters who were so close before. Of course, there wasn’t much to say. This was an occasion outside the normal rules of family etiquette. Well, it wasn’t every day that your sister married the man you loved.

  ‘I need to get back to Dublin tonight,’ Tess said, though no one seemed to mind. She had a feeling that for Douglas it would be a relief, one less thing to worry about.

  *

  Even the swallows seemed sluggish in their flight as they dropped beyond the little church on the morning of Nancy’s wedding. Their mother told Nancy to ‘hurry up’ and that she was ‘beautiful’. Their father wiped unfamiliar moistness from his eyes as he sat beside Nancy in the long bench seat of McNulty’s wedding and funeral car for hire.

  Tess moved through the day in a kind of numb state. Doing what was expected of her automatically, she couldn’t participate beyond those outward actions. She felt as if she was dead inside as Nancy glided softly into the life that had slipped like silken thread through Tess’s fingers. For the first time, Nancy was beautiful, a tiny dollish figure in a ruffle of lace, puffed sleeves and her long veil unable to hide the unbridled joy of her eyes. Today, Tess was the taller, sullen version, plainer for the first time in their lives. Her eyes, if anyone looked too closely, gave away the secret her upturned mouth was determined to conceal. It was arranged within weeks. Nancy and Douglas had agreed on a summer wedding. Douglas could hardly wait and so as soon as his exams finished, they were married in the little church in Ballycove. Tess’s parents paid for the wedding lunch and they would have a honeymoon holiday on the Isle of Man. They expected Tess to stand at her sister’s side and Douglas’s cousin, a pale, serious boy with glasses resting on his bony nose unevenly, was best man.

  Nancy said the day flew by her as if it were a dream – a dream that she would remember forever. Certainly, her mother cried, but managed to maintain that contented serenity that was the closest her daughters had ever seen to happiness. Tess thought the day would never end. Standing in the church, the satin of her dress clung to her, making her imagine a steady stream of perspiration course down between her shoulder blades. A film of nervous sweat sat upon her upper lip. At least, at the reception, she could slip measures of the whiskey she carried in her bag into the endless cups of tea that would mark out the day ahead. She knew it was her only hope to keep her together for the day. The men made do with resting weary elbows on the long trestle tables, drinking tea from cups bleached white the day before. There were disgruntled snorts, of ‘fine day’, when what they meant, of course, was ‘great day for the land’. Probably, the men would have given half the day up to get a run at making hay or moving cattle about to make the most of the fine weather.

  When the meal was over, Tess could feel the alcohol begin to make her head spin. These past few days, its effects on her had changed, as though some part inside her was not content with whiskey to conceal her wretchedness. Now, rather than making her feel pleasantly woozy and removed from this emptiness she carried within her, it made her feel as if she was repelling some important part of her she did not yet know.

  And of course, she hadn’t sung in weeks now. The exams had been a catastrophe, every one of them, failed spectacularly, and there was no going back, how could she? What was the point? She failed them because her heart was broken. She couldn’t sing with passion when it had been ripped from deep within her. Douglas was gone. Worse, he was gone with the one person she was closest to and, if that wasn’t bad enough, it felt as though they both despised her now. She couldn’t think of them living in Aunt Beatrice’s little cottage – that was just the final betrayal because it made her feel as though she couldn’t go back there now.

  ‘So they are letting you go,’ her father said after they had finished eating and just as a local fiddler began to stretch out the sounds of his bow a
cross the room. ‘The grand plan has come to nothing,’ he said and, to her surprise, the disappointment in his eyes didn’t feel like a reprimand, rather it felt like melancholy and that was almost worse. She could re-sit her exams, but everything about the college reminded her of Douglas. The disappointment was a physical pain so strong it halted somewhere in her gut, so hard it stole away the urge to sing.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Tess lied. ‘I’m not happy there anymore so, perhaps it’s for the best.’ Maybe it wasn’t a lie exactly, how could you be happy anywhere when everything felt so wrong.

  ‘You won’t want to come back here, I suppose,’ he nodded towards the happy couple, as if he knew much more than she had ever said. ‘We thought that once you got to Dublin you’d be the one to take flight, but it turned out to be Nancy who made the most of her year. Ballycove was never enough for you, was it?’

  ‘No. I’ll stay in Dublin.’ She had made her mind up about that, she just hadn’t expected him to agree. ‘It didn’t fall apart because of Dublin, Father,’ she said, but she suspected that, somehow, he already knew. Not everything, but he noticed the uncomfortable looks that passed between all three of them, as though they were elements that would never work together now.

  ‘Well, at least Nancy is settled,’ he sighed, half a job completed. ‘Douglas seems happy to step into my shoes in the village school and, God knows, Beatrice’s cottage is giving them a great start.’

  ‘Yes, it looks like they’re well set up.’

  ‘I…’ his voice dipped a little further, as if he couldn’t quite make up the words, but then he cleared his throat and said, ‘I’m sure you’ll find your corner too, Tess. You’ve never been happy to settle, but if the year has taught you anything, perhaps it’s that having a dream is one thing, but keeping your eyes open and taking the right opportunities is what gets you what you really want.’