In My Sister's Shoes

by Sinéad Moriarty

  I watched as Mark asked Jessica who the road-runner was and she said some strange groupie had been hanging around outside his office, asking about him and his family. Mark sighed and said it was part of the job. They headed off in the same direction, and we went back to meet Gonzo in the slowest getaway car in existence. It took him six goes to get the engine started.

  ‘Not cerebrally inclined,’ said Derek, staring at me. ‘Who the hell does he think he is? Stephen fuckin’ what’s-his-face, the guy in the wheel chair who writes all those maths books?’

  ‘Halkins?’ I ventured.

  ‘Hawking,’ said Gonzo, with authority, as we stared at him. ‘I’ve read A Brief History of Time. It’s good shit. The dude is funny.’

  ‘You need to get out more,’ said Derek.

  ‘Anyway, at least it looks like we were wrong about Mark cheating,’ I said, trying to move on from the fact that our brother-in-law was going around telling everyone that our family was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. The nerve of him!

  ‘Of course he isn’t cheating? Hello! The guy’s a roaring queen,’ said the spurned tattooist. ‘His eyes didn’t even dilate when I bent down to pick up the pen. He’s just into spending time with that maths geek because she does research and shit for him. Your sister is safe, her husband isn’t cheating on her. He’s either gay or asexual.’

  ‘Stephen Hawking had an affair,’ announced Gonzo.

  ‘What?’ I asked impatiently.

  ‘He left his wife and did a runner with his nurse.’

  ‘He’s completely paralysed – he can’t run anywhere with anyone,’ I reminded him.

  ‘If there’s a will there’s a way,’ said Gonzo, as the car kangarooed out of the car park. We would have been faster in Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair.

  As we were driving out I caught a glimpse of Mark holding the door of a building open for an attractive woman in a trench-coat. They were laughing.

  ‘Stop the car!’ I shouted.

  Gonzo slammed on the brakes and we skidded to a halt.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Derek.

  Clearly they hadn’t seen Mark so I decided to be discreet. I wanted to check this out alone. ‘Nothing. I just need some air. I’m going to go for a walk around the campus and I’ll grab a cab home.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Gonzo said, handing the keys to Roxanne.

  ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I need some space. I’ll catch up with you all later.’ With that I hopped out and walked briskly towards the building I’d seen Mark go into.

  I waited until they had driven off and opened the door slowly. Expecting to find Mark in a clinch with the woman in the trench-coat, I was shocked to see that I was in a small library and about ten people were sitting down, drinking tea and coffee from Styrofoam cups.

  A lady stood up and welcomed everyone to the meeting.

  Then she turned to Mark and asked him how things were going.

  ‘Not very well. I had to tell my sister-in-law, Kate, that I couldn’t take Fiona to her next chemo session and she flipped. She thinks I’m a completely selfish git. All we seem to do is argue. She can’t see things from my point of view and I suppose, if I’m being honest, I’m not very good at seeing things from hers. We can’t seem to get on. Maybe it’s because we’re both struggling to deal with Fiona’s cancer in different ways. To be honest, I don’t know how we’d cope without her – she’s been a life-saver,’ he said. I could hardly believe myears. Was Mark actually praising me? Did he really appreciate me coming back instead of thinking it was my duty? Why couldn’t he say any of this to myface?… Had I ever given him the opportunity to say it? I was transfixed.

  ‘I’m finding the cancer even harder to deal with, now Fiona’s bald,’ Mark continued, his voice beginning to shake. ‘I don’t recognize the woman who used to be my wife. She looks like a cancer victim now. I can’t see Fiona. I just see bald head and illness. It terrifies me to see her like this. I don’t know what to say or do. Suddenly her dying seems like a reality. I can’t deal with it. I can’t bring up the boys alone. I need Fiona – she’s the core of our family. She is the family. I wish I could do something. Fix it. Make it go away. But I just stand by and watch her suffer. I’m immersing myself in work because it’s the only time I switch off. I feel selfish for not being there more, but I dread going home. I don’t –’

  ‘Excuse me, is this the relatives-of-cancer meeting?’ said a voice behind me.

  I nodded and legged it before Mark had a chance to turn around.

  I felt stupid for having assumed he was having an affair. For all his flaws, I knew Mark loved Fiona, but he had been behaving so selfishly…

  I knew what he meant when he said he felt helpless and how he wanted to fix her, but running away to the office wasn’t helping. He needed to come home, deal with the reality of cancer and be more supportive. The more time you spent with Fiona, the less scary it was. He had to get a grip and spend more time with his sick wife and less time moaning about it in self-help meetings.

  24

  Over the next few weeks I watched Mark for any signs of improvement, but he was, as usual, busy. Clearly the meetings weren’t making him understand that he needed to be at home more.

  He was due to present the paper the following week, and was like an excited kid at the prospect. One day I asked him casuallyif he was a fan of alternative medicine and self-help groups. He looked at me blankly. ‘Not really, no. I hope you’re not planning on taking Fiona to some dodgy healer with false promises of miracle cures. It’s the last thing she needs.’

  I walked out of the room before I strangled him. The self-help group was clearly just that: self-help. No help for the poor sods who had to live with you.

  In the meantime – possibly to keep me off the streets doing bad Cagney and Lacey imitations – Tara had called and told me about an upcoming school reunion. It was our thirteenth and everyone was meeting in a restaurant in town to catch up. We had gone to an all-girls convent school, so these gatherings tended to be competitive in every way – clothes, careers, husbands, diamonds, figures… You name it, they noticed.

  For our tenth school reunion I had flown in late from London after covering a film première in the freezing cold and lashing rain. With some careful embellishment I had made it all sound very glamorous. I had also spent two months’ wages on a gorgeous designer dress so I’d look the part of a successful TV presenter when I made my entrance.

  In I strutted, half-way through the meal, brimming with confidence, loudlygreeting everyone like long-lost friends. I pitied the girls who had never left the backwater of Dublin – girls who had sensible, pensionable jobs in the bank or the civil service and married the boy next door. How dull, I thought, how incredibly insular… How could they stand to be stuck in the same rut for ten years? While they told me about their children, I cut across them with stories of jetting to Rome to interview Brad Pitt (a bare-faced lie, but who would know?) and my wild social life, partying with other media stars in London.

  Some of my former school mates had seemed impressed, some bored and others sceptical. But I didn’t care. I had created the person I wanted to be – glamorous, adventurous, successful and, best of all, away from Ireland. Who cared if I really lived in a cramped studio flat, earned almost no money and spent my days interviewing D-celebs or making tea for the presenters whose jobs I coveted? They’d never know. I could talk the talk better than anyone I knew.

  But this year’s reunion was going to be a different story. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to expose myself and my current pathetic status to anyone, let alone a group of women I’d lorded it over three years ago. I told Tara there was no way I was going.

  ‘Come on,’ she pleaded, over coffee. ‘It’ll be good for you to get out and meet people again. You’re spending far too much time cooped up with two five-year-olds. It’s making you do crazy things, like stalk your brother-in-law.’ Tara had disapproved of my attempts to catch Mark out. She said there was no
wayhe would be doing the dirt on Fiona, especially not now in her time of need. Tara always saw the best in people: it was one of her endearing qualities. I expected the worst, and was usuallyproven right…

  ‘Seriously, Kate, you need to be with people your own age,’ she continued. ‘We’ll have a few drinks – well, you can have a few drinks, I’ll be on water – and have a laugh.’

  ‘They’ll be laughing at me. I’ll be the biggest loser there.’

  ‘No, they won’t. They’ll be sympathetic and admire you.’

  ‘I doubt it, and I’ve only myself to blame. I spent the whole of the ten-year reunion boasting about how amazing my life was.’

  ‘It was amazing, and it will be again when Fiona’s better.’

  ‘It wasn’t really that great. It onlytook off when I got my own show last year. Even then the effort of competing with younger, more ambitious, more beautiful women was wearing me down. It’s dog eat dog out there. Still, it’s a lot better than spending your days covered with snot and jam or holding a bucket for your sister to vomit into.’ I sighed.

  ‘Just come along to it and if it’s awful we’ll leave,’ begged Tara.

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t do it. It’s too humiliating. Sorry.’

  Tara admitted defeat and told me to call her if I changed my mind.

  I went home feeling like an all-time failure. As I was bashing about in the kitchen making myself an enormous comfort sandwich, my phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, is that Kate O’Brien?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Peter Kildare here. I’m a producer at TV3. I hear you’re in town for the next few months and I wondered if you’d be interested in helping us out with a bit of presenting.’

  ‘Sure, absolutely, I’d love to,’ I said, not having the slightest inclination to play hard to get or pretend I needed to check mybusyschedule. All the old tricks were out the window.

  ‘Great. We’re covering Party in the Park at the end of the month so it’ll be an all-day affair. Our female presenter broke her leg water-skiing.’

  ‘Sounds great. Not the broken-leg bit, the job,’ I added, not wanting him to think I was a cut-throat wench who wished ill on others, although I was jumping up and down and silently thanking God for her accident.

  ‘It’ll be live, but it should be a piece of cake to someone with your experience. Why don’t you pop into the studio tomorrow and we’ll run through the list of bands playing and the schedule?’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘OK, see you then.’

  ‘Peter?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How did you know I was back in Dublin?’

  ‘I bumped into your pal Sam Taylor a couple of weeks ago and he said you were going to be in town for a while and would probably be up for occasional work. He filled me in on your experience in London, so I thought I’d give you a call.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you did. Thanks.’

  We hung up and it was then that I realized my hands were shaking. ‘Yippee!’ I screeched. A job, a real job, something I was good at, where I had to use mybrain and think on my feet. Oh, the joy of doing something for myself. And, best of all, Sam had been thinking of me – in between shagging the young one in his office. Still, it felt good to know he was looking out for me.

  I sent him a text – after agonizing over the wording for a good half an hour. I wanted to sound grateful but not overlyso – grateful but breezy. I didn’t want him to get the impression that, because he’d mentioned my name, I might lunge at him again. Eventually I sent: Just got call re TV3 job. Txs for mentioning me 2 Peter. Prciate it. Kate.

  I dumped my sandwich in the bin and opted for some crackers and a pint of water. I needed to starve myself for the next week so I wouldn’t look like a frump on TV. Then it hit me. My hair! Shit! I couldn’t go on TV in a dodgy platinum wig. I’d have to go and buy a new one, a nice one that looked like my own chocolate-brown hair. I’d go into the shop first thing in the morning after I’d dropped the twins to school and have it for my meeting with Peter.

  I called Tara to tell her my good news and she asked if I’d come to the reunion now. What the hell? I thought. I could do with a night out. I wanted to celebrate my job. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Kate O’Brien is back!

  Dad walked in as I was introducing the next band, using the wooden spoon as my microphone.

  ‘Hi.’ I grinned.

  He looked around suspiciously.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘You seem happy,’ he said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘You haven’t in a while.’

  ‘Haven’t I?’ I asked, surprised. Sure I hadn’t been a bundle of joy, but I’d thought I was hiding it well.

  ‘You’ve had a face on you that could curdle milk.’

  ‘Well, maybe I haven’t had much to smile about until now.’

  ‘Did you meet a lad?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘No, I got a job,’ I said, beaming.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, sounding disappointed. ‘No boyfriend, then?’

  ‘No,’ I said, annoyed that he was ruining my buzz. ‘I’m really excited about this job. It’ll be great to work again.’

  ‘Ah, you put far too much emphasis on that old job. What you need is to meet a nice lad who’ll look after you.’

  ‘Like Mark?’

  ‘You’d never end up with a gobshite like him,’ said Dad, giving me a vote of confidence.

  ‘I’ve kissed a lot of frogs,’ I admitted.

  ‘I don’t want to hear about that.’

  ‘I didn’t say I’d slept with them all.’

  ‘Jesus, will you stop? Just go out and find yourself a nice, sensible boy and get hitched so I can sleep in peace.’

  ‘Why? Are you worried I’ll be living with you for ever? Am I cramping your style?’

  ‘Every father wants to see his girls settled and not end up old maids.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Well, you’re not getting any younger.’

  ‘I’ve got loads of time. Where’s the fire? I haven’t met anyone I really liked yet.’

  ‘Maybe you’re too choosy.’

  ‘Am I supposed to compromise and marry some tosser?’

  ‘Life’s all about compromise.’

  ‘You didn’t compromise with Mum. You said it was love at first sight.’

  ‘True, but we were lucky. Most people grow on each other over time.’

  ‘Like weeds?’

  ‘There’s no need to be smart. I’m just saying don’t turn a lad down because he might not be the best-looking fella around.’

  ‘Marry an ugly guy and he’ll grow on me?’

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘Do you have anyone in mind?’

  ‘Well, I know Derek’s pal is keen on you.’

  ‘I sincerely hope you’re not referring to Gonzo.’

  Dad shrugged.

  ‘Jesus, Dad, how desperate do you think I am?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting you go out with him. All I’m saying is, don’t rule out a fella for not looking like George Best.’

  ‘I’m glad we don’t have arranged marriages here or you’d sell me off to Quasimodo.’

  ‘There’s no need to fly off the handle. I’m only telling you to keep an open mind. You should have stayed with that fella Sam. He’d have looked after you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, he’s got someone else.’

  ‘The good ones always get snapped up. He was mad about you before you ran off to London.’

  ‘I went to pursue a career in media.’

  ‘And sure where did that get you?’

  ‘It got me my own TV show, Dad. Which, by the way, is a reallybig deal.’

  ‘Didn’t find you a husband, though, did it?’

  ‘I don’t want a bloody husband. I can look after myself.’

  ‘What about children?’

  ‘What about them? I don’t want any. I’m not ready fo
r all that.’

  ‘Life passes by very quickly, Kate. Don’t miss out on the good things.’

  ‘I was happy,’ I snapped. ‘I had a great life before I had to give it all up.’

  ‘You never seemed that happy to me. You were always stressed out.’

  ‘I like stress,’ I muttered.

  ‘All I’m saying is that sometimes the best things in life are to be found on your own front doorstep. The grass isn’t always greener elsewhere.’

  ‘And sometimes, Dad, it is. A lot greener. I like being independent.’

  ‘I just want you to be happy, pet,’ he said, patting my arm.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes, Kate?’

  ‘Can I borrow some money?’

  Two nights later, as I waited for Tara to pick me up for the reunion, I began to regret my decision. The wig I had bought with Dad’s money wouldn’t be ready until the next day so I was wearing a white scarf on my head, which made me look even more washed out than I was. I still couldn’t fit into most of my clothes so I had put on a green wrap dress that didn’t really suit me, but it was the only vaguely dressy thing that fitted so I had to wear it. I felt marginally better when I saw Tara, who was wearing a tent-like maternity top over stretchy trousers.

  The minute we walked into the restaurant I knew it had been a mistake to come. The first group of girls we bumped into looked fantastic. Their hair was shiny, thick and beautiful, and their clothes fitted properly. Hilary Dunne was in the middle of them. She was the girl who had always intimidated everyone in the class. The ‘super-cool bitch’. Good-looking, confident and sporty, she had ruled the roost in our year. She and I had never got on – mainly because I was jealous of her and she thought me far too uncool to hang out with. I had particularly enjoyed chatting to her at the last reunion and rubbing my ‘fabulous’ career in her face.

  After school she had tried to make it as a model and failed. While she was still young and beautiful she had married an older man with oodles of cash and become a ladyof leisure, which you could tell she was bored with. At the ten-year reunion, as I had spun my stories of glitzy parties and Hollywood-star encounters, she had tried to put me down in front of a group of our classmates.