The Girl I Used to Know

by Faith Hogan

  Camino was a heaving, sweaty basement club. The music sent an anticipatory shiver through Amanda as they headed away from the dancing to a small tapas bar upstairs.

  ‘Hungry?’ Carlos asked her.

  ‘Ravenous.’ It was as though she hadn’t eaten all day long, then when she thought about it, she realised, what with nerves and time, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  ‘Let’s order something here and then we can go dancing?’ Carlos showed her to a long table that filled the length of the restaurant. They squished up at the end and joined the group conversation there. Carlos seemed to know everyone. Later she realised that most people there had arrived in smaller groups and some on their own, but everyone was welcomed just the same. The wine flowed and conversation was lively. There wasn’t a mention of designer labels or the right place to holiday or anyone else’s dirty laundry. It was liberating to be among people who had no expectations of you or of the night before them, only that they were all intent on eating, drinking and being merry. The wine certainly made things easier and soon she and Carlos were chatting away as if they did this every weekend. No one seemed to notice that she was a decade and a half older than he was and, if they did, they were far too diplomatic to make it obvious that they had an opinion about it or perhaps they really just didn’t care.

  ‘Come on, let’s go dancing.’ He smiled at her and she thought she might turn herself inside out with desire for him. The music didn’t help either, nor did the movement, soon they were like two extras from Dirty Dancing gyrating their way across the floor. Amanda was throwing her hips and shoulders around with the best of them. After they had managed to sweat themselves into a fever of what Amanda knew for her was desire, the music slowed. Amanda thought she’d never heard such slow music and she felt herself blush as she leaned in close to Carlos. When he kissed her it was full and warm as if she was diving head first into heaven and she never wanted to come out again.

  ‘You’re happy?’

  ‘God, Carlos, this is…’ She was divinely happy. In this moment, she’d have traded everything with Richard – apart from her children of course – to stand here and feel the longing that pulsed between them. ‘I think it’s time we were leaving, don’t you?’ His eyes met hers and, although they didn’t speak, in some ways they’d exchanged a lifetime’s worth of words. ‘Let’s go.’ They went back upstairs and she grabbed her bag.

  Outside, the air was icy cold, so her breath held on tight to it, warm, lingering and erotic.

  ‘So, you want me to drive you home,’ he said, looking at her from beneath his slightly too long fringe.

  ‘Well, maybe, unless you have a better idea?’ She leaned in close to him for emphasis. God, when did she turn into such a tease?

  ‘As it happens I do,’ he said and he pointed to the door behind them. It was a non-descript green door, same as any number of other old shop doors all around the city. ‘That’s my building, I live at the top.’ He pointed up to two small dormer windows that peeped out three storeys overhead. ‘Fancy a…’ he pulled her close, ‘coffee?’

  ‘God yes, and maybe more than one, if you’re up to it.’ They laughed their way up she didn’t know how many steps of stairs. There was no coffee, because once they got inside Carlos’s flat there was just a frenzied discarding of clothes and lovemaking.

  Later, he woke her from deepest sleep and this time their lovemaking was slow, sublime and achingly zealous.

  *

  ‘Richard?’ her phone rang just after seven.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m…’ she tried to rub the sleep from her eyes, looked back towards Carlos who was stretching down the length of the bed, his tanned skin even more olive against the stark whiteness of his sheets. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘No. Nothing, except that I’m here on Swift Square and my family seem to have left without even letting me know.’

  ‘Yes, well, we had plans for the weekend.’ The last thing she was going to do was tell him that Casper and Robyn had decided to sleep over with friends or that she had spent the night in the arms of a hunky Italian. ‘Why are you there?’ She watched Carlos make his way around the room, admired his muscular body move with the grace and fluidity of someone much lighter and daintier. God, but he was even more beautiful this morning.

  ‘I’ve come home to you. I’ve come back.’ Richard’s voice held an uncomfortable note of earnestness that sat at odds with the offhandness she’d grown used to over the years.

  ‘You’ve what?’ Amanda felt the words splutter from her mouth.

  ‘I’m moving back in. Things didn’t work out between Arial and me and I want to give us another go.’

  ‘You can’t just…’ Carlos was putting on a bathrobe. He moved as quietly as he could from the bedroom to give her some privacy. ‘Richard, you can’t just decide you’re going to swan back into our lives.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Are you serious? You can’t just move back in and expect…’ Amanda started to search for the clothes that had been fired off so quickly the night before.

  ‘Of course I can, this is my home too after all, Amanda. I should never have moved out. It was a stupid thing to do, for so many reasons.’ She could hear him moving about, imagined him looking around the kitchen, seeing the cups stacked high in the sink and wrinkling his nose in disapproval.

  ‘Richard, I’m on my way home now, please, don’t think that this is okay. This is not okay, you can’t just do this…’ But the line went dead in her hand.

  She scrabbled into her clothes as quickly as she could manage. In the tiny kitchen, Carlos was making them both coffees. It seemed the coffee maker took up most of the kitchen and the cup he handed her smelled heavenly. She looked around his flat. This was very much a single man’s domain. Framed cinema posters, an enormous L-shaped sofa – she found herself wondering how on earth he managed to get that up the flights of stairs and a huge television in the corner. What she wouldn’t give to stay here for just another few hours, but Richard’s call made that impossible. So, she drank her coffee, kissed him lightly on the lips and made her way back to real life.

  Carlos had been a little present just for her; but now she had to go and finally sort out her husband. She knew, as she sat into a taxi, she had let things slide for too long. She needed to sort out her life and finally, sort out her marriage.

  Chapter 41

  Forty-seven years earlier…

  Ballycove had shrunk, the way places do when you’ve been away for a while. Tess could see no other great changes – there were no new shops and all that were there before were still the same. It seemed as if the lines of washing blowing in the early summer wind had not been touched since she last walked past them almost a full year earlier. But, of course, that was ridiculous, everything had changed. Nothing could remain unaffected and Tess was walking, breathing evidence of that.

  She skirted about the little village, careful to avoid the schoolhouse where Douglas would surely be setting scholars to rights. He had taken over where her father left off; would he have his cane in one hand and perhaps his Bible in the other? She planned to call in on her mother, but it seemed her feet had other ideas and instead of heading down Plunkett Road past the only three substantial houses in the village, she made for the cliff path. It was a narrow boreen; grown tighter with time and weeds that edged ever closer to the middle before the local council culled back growth for another year. She capered along, the roar of the sea below, a mellow blue and frothy white, lapping up on the rocks with the gentleness of a lullaby to soothe her wayward thoughts.

  Soon, she was standing at the last house on the road. Aunt Beatrice’s little cottage looked much the same as it had when she had spent so much of her childhood here. It had drawn her in then, pulling her out of the way of her father’s temper and her mother’s nerves. Aunt Beatrice and this little house had soothed her when she was sad and gave her courage when fear raged within her. When she looked back on her childh
ood, she would remember this little plot and the humble home upon it. She would remember cold days with hot chocolate made on the little stove, or warm days sitting in the garden, home-made lemonade and patchwork quilts spread across the grass. Perhaps she stood too long, but soon she felt a shiver seep from deep within her bones and it shook her out.

  Somewhere, behind the house, the sound of a baby crying cut through her thoughts. She must have been imagining it, she decided, but all the same, she moved fast through the garden gate, up the narrow paved path. It was a baby, crying inconsolably. Douglas and Nancy’s baby, the child that might have been hers had they not cheated her out of the life, the husband and the house that might have made her feel complete. She never had the chance – the thought crushed Tess as she heaved about the corner of the house.

  There, in the centre of the little garden, was a large grey silver cross pram; the sort of pram that Tess might have bought in the January sales. It was a pram to push about the city streets, proudly looking down on the beautiful child within. She raced over now but pulled up short before the pram, held her breath while she peeped over the pile of summer blankets. The little face within was peering wide-eyed and distressed at her. It seemed to Tess, there was no choice, she had to take the baby out, console it. As she lifted up the little one, it struck her how much he resembled both Nancy and herself. It was a boy, all dressed in blue, with eyes that were just a little too large and soft skin that smelled of powder and purity. The baby wore a blue bonnet and someone had crocheted a small blue cardigan that was still too bulky for his tiny body.

  For those moments, time stood still, Tess walked about the garden, comforting the baby, and everything in the world felt right. She was meant to be here. She was meant to come here today, to pick him up and look out upon the sea. She was meant to look after him. She held him from her, inspecting him; every crevice of his face was so familiar, as though she might be looking at a reflection of herself and Nancy years before – and for a moment, the light glinting off the sea made everything perfect. Tess blinked again, pulled him close, the crying had stopped now, perhaps he was just too warm.

  She looked back at the house. This was silly. She was being silly, but she couldn’t put him back into the pram. She took a step towards the back door, then another and another. Before she knew it, she was walking quickly to the front of the house, past the front door, out the narrow path, through the gate. The baby was gurgling, happy. The sea, far below, was calm and, for once, still. In those few surreal moments, the whole village had been cast under a spell. Her sister lay sleeping, as did the McNultys at the end of the road.

  Up and past Plunkett Road, Tess walked, her head held high. She should have brought the pram, then she might have been just walking round the block. That was it, she had taken the baby to stop it crying, to ease its discomfort, and it was working. She’d just walk back the way she came and knock on Nancy’s door and everything would be as it should be. Then, she looked down once more at the child in her arms. She never knew that something so small could stir so much within her.

  There was no time to think. Suddenly she became aware of the traffic rumbling past at the end of the road. Turn left and she was at the bus station. She kept on walking, one foot before the other, and then she nodded towards a woman who was familiar. In her anxious, giddy state, she couldn’t put a name on her. She saw the bus, the driver idling while the engine ran. She pulled out her ticket, told herself to stop thinking. She had to do this. She knew she had to. In those moments, she could convince herself that this was fine. This was her baby and she was taking him home.

  The smell of stale cigarettes on the bus caught her breath as she stumbled to the leather upholstery too heated by the sun to welcome her. She sat in the furthest seat from the driver – six seats in a row – and prayed that no one joined her.

  The baby had settled now. Soon she’d have to get it food. Tess thought of all the things she did not know of babies. There was so much, but then what did anyone know when they set out on the path of motherhood. She willed the driver to start up the bus. Sweat trimmed uncomfortable bands of damp along her back, it was guilt, of course, but she could live with that. Her eyes locked with the baby’s as though they’d made some secret pact. She would never leave him in the garden.

  ‘Be a while yet, if you want to take a walk about,’ the driver shouted back.

  ‘No, we’re fine. We’ve done our walking.’ They sat, for she wasn’t sure how long, in a contented reverie, the baby and Tess. All the rhymes and songs she’d ever known waited for this moment and soon they were ensconced in their tiny little world while she sang those familiar tunes.

  Tess hardly noticed the commotion on the street. It was only when the bus seemed to shake that she looked up, maybe expecting the engine to have started, but not really expecting anything at all.

  ‘Tess,’ Nancy screamed from the front of the bus. ‘I’ve been frantic, what were you thinking?’ She launched her normally insignificant self along the aisle, was beside them in a breath. ‘Oh, my God, is he all right?’ She went to take the baby from her, then faltered as she caught something in her sister’s eyes. ‘Oh, Tess, I was so scared, I thought I’d lost him. Surely you can understand, you can’t just steal my baby?’ Nancy’s face was blotched with tears and panic.

  ‘I didn’t… I mean…’ she held the baby close for just a second longer, felt Nancy rip him from her arms then and knew that something fundamental had severed between them. There would be no going back – ever.

  ‘You’re lucky we don’t have the guards on you,’ Douglas was standing over her now, his wife and child shepherded safely towards the front of the bus. ‘Whatever you think you’re playing at, Tess, this is not a game. It’s over and if I set eyes on you anywhere near my wife or child again, so help me…’ The hatred on his face made her flinch far more than any fear of getting hit.

  Behind him the bus driver laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on now, Master Buckley, there’s no harm done. Let the girl go back to where she came from.’ The driver’s eyes held disgust and pity in equal measure when he regarded Tess, but his calm voice was enough to defuse Douglas’s anger. Tess watched, bereft, her hands still warm from holding the baby, she brought them to her face, could still just catch the scent of him, a mixture of baby powder and summer days. Her heart broke open once more, as their perfect family made their way back to that charming cottage overlooking the Irish sea.

  When the bus pulled out of Ballycove that day, Tess had a feeling that she wouldn’t be coming back here for a very, very long time.

  Chapter 42

  February 21 – Saturday

  There was no excuse, no reason to put things off any longer. Tess knew where to find Nancy and Stephen persuaded her to let him drive her on a sunny Saturday afternoon. They arrived in Ballycove, for all the world like two day-trippers.

  ‘So, this is where it all began…’ Stephen said when they were sitting outside her parents’ house.

  ‘It’s a little tragic, isn’t it?’ she said and, truly, looking at the house she had grown up in, she felt a pang of something close to loneliness. It was rattled by years of neglect, the roof in need of repair and the windows yellowed and dirty. ‘My fault, of course,’ she said and she dug into her bag; she had brought along the key to the front door, it was her house after all, but she couldn’t bring herself to go inside, not today. ‘I think it was my mother’s way of making things right. They left it to me, since Nancy inherited Aunt Beatrice’s cottage. To tell the truth, it was another thing to make Douglas hate me all the more. He’d have preferred the Master’s two-story village house, to the little farm cottage at the end of a one-track road.’ She smiled now, it was so obvious how very different they’d always been, pity she’d learned that far too late to change things any sooner.

  ‘So this is yours?’ Stephen lowered his head to look out the passenger door window. ‘Do you want to go inside?’ He smiled at her, but he didn’t ask the questions that she drea
ded most. It was too obvious what had happened anyway. She’d just left the house to die of its own accord and it seemed like that was what it was doing, even if it was taking three and a half decades to get on with it.

  ‘Yes. I didn’t know it straight away. I just turned up at my father’s funeral and left when the clay was scattered on his grave. They sent me a letter, well, the solicitor did at any rate.’ She smiled, could see now it had been Douglas’s hand behind those tense lines on a taciturn page. Nancy’s letters had been different, a flowing deluge of sentiment and sorrow, the first sent when their mother died. It was filled with grief and love and loneliness and it was, in its own way, an attempt at a reunion. They both knew, that behind those words, Douglas would have none of it. Then, a decade later, with the passing of her father, Nancy wrote once more. This time, the sorrow was more demure, time had settled between them and they both knew there was no room for reconsolidation, but still Tess caught something in the flowing hand. ‘My father wouldn’t have wanted a scene, so I just arrived and left. I shook hands as mourning daughters do, but then I travelled back to Dublin on the evening bus and kept my grief my own. This house meant nothing to me and, if I’m honest, maybe I liked the idea of it embarrassing Douglas as it slowly decayed before his eyes every day.’ She was not proud of how she had allowed herself to feel for far too many years.

  ‘It seems to me that Nancy has been looking to make amends for quite a while so,’ Stephen said. ‘Maybe she didn’t get quite the prize that you thought she had.’

  ‘Honestly, looking back, I think she married our father and that probably suited her.’

  ‘You speak about your father as if he was… something terrible… but he left you this house…’

  ‘No. He wasn’t terrible, he was just so very middle-class. He was like a lot of men back then, so taken up with what the neighbours thought, cripplingly so. I suppose, I just wanted to get away from that, whereas Nancy was like my mother and she needed someone to take care of her and make her safe.’