Happy Ever After

by Patricia Scanlan

  Why hadn’t she died in that accident, she thought frantically as she tried to compose herself. It would have been a welcome release from her dismal life. She had a flashback to the moment the car had juddered out of control and the tree had loomed ahead of her. She’d had time to wrench the wheel and avoid it but, Judith remembered with a sudden stomach-lurching jolt, she hadn’t. She’d driven straight into it. She’d tried to commit suicide because the opportunity had presented itself. Suicide had always been at the back of her mind, all these years. A safety net when life got too unbearable. She had done nothing to try and prevent the car from crashing into the tree. She’d been prepared to die. She’d wanted to die.

  Attempted suicide. It sounded so dramatic, but it hadn’t been really; it had been an inviting option. And that was what truly frightened her. Mentally, emotionally, you couldn’t sink lower than that. Judith remembered the depths of her misery that awful day and felt it was nothing to how she felt now. She hadn’t succeeded then, but what was to stop her trying again? Fear wrapped itself around her, tight, dark and malevolent. She was becoming like Lily had once been. Weak, mentally fragile and very frightened. She buried her face in her hands and cried bitterly, fearful of what was to become of her.

  ‘She’s a bitch, Ciara, a walking bitch,’ Debbie fumed as she hurried down the long corridor to the hospital exit. ‘How dare she accuse me of doing nothing at work? She’s such a minger. I’m glad I said what I said to her. I’m glad I finally stood up to her, because she deserved it, and she’s had it coming for a long time. You and the others don’t know the way it’s been for me this past year. God, I feel sick even thinking of it. And I feel sick after what’s happened, because I’m no good at fighting with people. I’m no good at having rows, my stomach gets tied up in knots and I think I’m going to puke, and I’m just crap at arguing, but she had no business talking to me like that – and in front of you as well. You’d think I was twelve, the way she went on.’ Debbie was almost in tears as she hurried along the hospital corridor.

  ‘Yeah, well, she did tell me to say she apologized if you were offended,’ Ciara said breathlessly, trying to keep up, and dodging between people who were coming in to visit. ‘She said she didn’t intend to offend you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she bloody well did offend me, and I won’t be going near her again,’ Debbie raged as they emerged from the foyer into the sunlight. Cigarette smoke wafted over them from the smokers congregated at the door.

  ‘Phew!’ Debbie waved her hands in front of her face and grimaced. ‘Bad enough having to visit her, without getting lung cancer.’ She glowered at a middle-aged woman in a pink dressing gown who was waving her cigarette in the air as she made a point to her companion.

  ‘Keep your voice down; she’ll hear you,’ muttered Ciara, red-cheeked.

  ‘I meant her to hear me,’ retorted Debbie. ‘Why should I have to inhale her smoke, and why do they ignore the instructions that people are not supposed to smoke in that area? It’s outrageous, and so disrespectful of others,’ she ranted.

  ‘Do you want to get a bus or a taxi?’ Ciara sighed.

  ‘Might as well get the bus, seeing as there’s one there.’ Debbie scowled, heading for the queue. ‘Sorry for flying off the handle,’ she murmured a few minutes later, as they sat in a seat near the back.

  ‘That’s OK. Don’t worry about it.’ Her friend patted her on the arm. ‘Mind you, I think Judith got a major shock when you called her a bully. She certainly wasn’t expecting that – she went white,’ Ciara remarked as the doors whooshed closed and the bus moved away from the stop.

  ‘Well, she deserved it. Like I said, she’s done nothing but pick on me for months, and then she stopped my increment, and I’m just sick of it. I hate coming into work, I’m always petrified I’ll be late. I’m always petrified I’ll make a mistake and have her coming down on me like a ton of bricks. I hope it gives her something to think about.’ Debbie sat, flushed and angry, none the better for the encounter.

  ‘I think it will. She really went pale when you said it,’ Ciara reiterated. ‘And then she went pink. She looks a bit shattered, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah, well, I suppose if you’d been at death’s door, you’d look shattered too. I hope she’s out for months,’ Debbie said viciously.

  ‘Hmm,’ murmured Ciara, and prudently refrained from any more discussion of the matter. She took her phone out of her bag and began texting, leaving Debbie to regain her equilibrium.

  Debbie gazed out the window when the bus stopped at traffic lights at the junction of Collins Avenue and Grace Park. The pace of the traffic was slow, and the sun beat in on top of her head, making her squint. If it hadn’t been for Judith, she could have been enjoying a nice glass of chilled white wine with Bryan, instead of sitting in traffic seething. Her husband wouldn’t be interested in listening to her account of the blow-up. Emotional dramas were not his thing. He’d just tell her she was imagining things and to get on with it. Well, she was getting on with it. She’d finally made a stand.

  Maybe Judith’s barb had been a mixed blessing, because it had enabled Debbie actually to confront her boss with the accusation of bullying. There had been no pussyfooting. She’d said it as it was, and it was a victory of sorts that Judith had apologized for offending her, via Ciara.

  The bus lurched forward when the lights went green, but some idiot driver was stuck on the yellow box, impeding their progress. A cacophony of honking horns ensued, and she was grateful for the fact that at least she wasn’t driving in the Friday-evening mayhem. The rush-hour traffic was heavy and, even with the advantage of the bus lanes, it took them an age to get into town. Ciara was going to meet her boyfriend at the Savoy, to go to a film, so they parted company on O’Connell Street. Debbie made her way towards Temple Bar, determined to forget her encounter with Judith and looking forward to a drink and then a romantic meal with her husband.

  ‘Judith, why are you so upset? I’m going to have to call one of the house doctors to write up some sedation for you. You’ve got yourself into a terrible state.’ The nurse lifted her wrist and took her pulse. Judith sobbed, unable to compose herself. She wanted to be sedated. She wanted to go into oblivion and not have to think about anything.

  The door creaked open, and Cecily appeared, looking smart and well groomed in a pair of white linen trousers and a navy jacket. Her jaw dropped when she caught sight of Judith’s teary, red-eyed, woebegone face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, dismayed, glancing at the nurse.

  ‘I don’t know. She won’t tell me.’ The nurse wrote a note in her chart. ‘Judith, I’m going to get one of the doctors to have a look at you. Stop crying now,’ she ordered briskly. ‘You have a visitor.’

  ‘Don’t you speak to me like that. You know nothing about her, or me,’ Judith spat, incensed by the nurse’s authoritarian tone. ‘Cecily is just visiting because she feels it’s her duty, not because she wants to. I have no one in my life who really cares about me except my friend Jillian and my mother, so don’t patronize me, Miss, and don’t order me about. I’m old enough to be your mother.’

  Cecily and the nurse stared at the wild-eyed woman in front of them.

  ‘I was just coming in to say goodbye. I’m off to France with my family for a month, but I don’t think this is a good time to visit,’ Cecily murmured, taken aback.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ agreed the nurse. ‘I’ll get them to put a No Visitors sign on the door.’

  ‘Yes, do that. That will suit me down to the ground,’ Judith hiccuped. ‘Go away, the two of you, and leave me alone. That’s all I want – to be left alone.’ The nurse ushered Cecily out the door and turned back to Judith.

  ‘Now, Judith. You have to tell me what’s brought this on. It can’t be that bad,’ she soothed, as though speaking to a very cantankerous toddler. She was only short of going, ‘There, there,’ and patting her on the back. It was the last straw for Judith.

  ‘Oh, what would you know?’ she screeched, th
e last remnants of control deserting her. ‘I tried to commit suicide and didn’t succeed. The girls at work think I’m a bully, and they’re right. I’m manless, childless, completely physically crocked, and I don’t even have a home of my own. How fucking bad do you want it to be?’

  She turned her back on the nurse and curled up on the bed and wailed with grief and despair.

  Cecily made her way towards the lifts, shocked by what she’d just witnessed. Judith had really lost it. She looked like a madwoman with her wild, red-rimmed eyes, keening and bawling. It was scary. Her elder sister was always so reserved and controlled. And never less than perfectly groomed. The woman she’d left behind was someone unknown to her.

  She bit her lip as she jabbed the button on the wall for the lift. If Judith was having some sort of a nervous breakdown, would she be expected to stay at home and have to cancel her trip abroad? It would be so inconvenient. They’d booked a house in Brittany for a month, and friends were coming to stay for the first week and, later on, her sister-in-law and her children were joining them. Too many people would be discommoded if she cancelled, but could Lily cope on her own? Tom wouldn’t want to know. He and Judith were not on speaking terms, and he wouldn’t go out of his way to help.

  Families, they could be such a nuisance. Cecily sighed as she stepped into the already crowded elevator, hoping she wouldn’t catch any germs from a wheezy old man who was hocking and spitting into a dirty grey handkerchief. She’d take her cue from Lily and play it by ear. This time, though, she was the one who had to take some responsibility where their mother was concerned. It had been a long time coming, and she’d got away with a lot, but now she was up against it, and the timing couldn’t be worse.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It had taken longer than Connie had planned to get to Mrs Mansfield’s house. Karen, her sister-in-law, had phoned her to discuss their forthcoming holiday, then a neighbour had called by, so she’d had to call Jessie back and say she was running a little late. As she drove up the wide, curving drive, she thought how elegant yet homely the impressive, ivy-clad Georgian mansion was. Dappled in the fading sun, it reposed in the manicured grounds like something from a Jane Austen novel. It was a pity Mr Darcy didn’t come riding across the fields to greet her, Connie thought, amused at the notion.

  Jessie must have been watching out for her because, as soon as Connie parked the car beside several others at the side of the house, she opened the kitchen door and waved.

  Dressed in her nurse’s uniform and wearing a short, navy cardigan, she wasn’t what Connie imagined from talking to her. She’d half imagined someone, like herself, in her late forties and, from her voice on the phone, someone warm and motherly. Jessie Sheehy was a small, wiry, black-haired woman in her late thirties, with sallow skin and white, uneven teeth which gleamed when she gave a broad smile and held her hand out. ‘Connie, nice to meet you, and thanks so much for dropping by. Have you time for a quick cuppa? Mrs Mansfield is entertaining Drew Sullivan, and three’s definitely a crowd when he calls on Friday evenings, so I get to have a cuppa in the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh yeah – he’s the guy with the stables where Mrs Mansfield keeps her horses. I met him the day I came for my interview, nice man.’ She followed the other nurse into the kitchen.

  ‘Well, Mrs M. loves him, and he humours her. He’s kind like that. She could pay him directly into his bank account, but she insists on writing a cheque out for him every week, so that she’ll get to talk to him for a little while. And she visits the stables once a week to see the horses. If she goes in the morning, you’ll bring her; if she goes in the afternoon, I will,’ Jessie said, pulling out a chair at the table for Connie. ‘I hope you didn’t mind me asking you about filling in for me next month. I’ll return the compliment if you ever need to swap,’ she added, as she poured boiling water into the teapot.

  ‘Not at all,’ Connie assured her. ‘I’m going to be pretty much a free agent, as regards time. I can tell you I’m certainly looking forward to giving up agency nursing for a while and going part time.’

  Connie sat down as Jessie brought the tea and two mugs over to the table, which already held a plate of buttered scones and milk and sugar. They chatted easily over their tea, and Connie discovered that her new colleague had a teacher husband and two teenage daughters.

  She told Connie that, apart from a few little foibles, such as not liking her nurses to wear trousers as part of their uniform, making sure they wore their caps and being somewhat fussy about taking her medication precisely as instructed and at the same time each day, Mrs Mansfield was an easy patient to look after.

  ‘She was in hospital for months as a child with TB, and I think that’s why she likes the cap and dress. I suppose we’re lucky not to have to wear the starched headdress we wore when we started out years ago. Remember them? The weight of them!’ Jessie grinned.

  ‘I know.’ Connie laughed. ‘I could never keep mine from going limp; they were the bane of my life.’ They were laughing when a deep male voice said, ‘Excuse me interrupting, ladies. Jessie, Mrs Mansfield wants to take her tablets. She told me to ask you to go up to her.’

  ‘Right, I better get going.’ Jessie stood up.

  Connie reached into her voluminous bag and took out two dozen long sachets. ‘The cat treats, as promised.’

  ‘She’ll love you for that,’ Jessie said, putting them in a press under the sink. ‘Connie, have a great holiday. I’ll see you when you get back. See ya, Drew.’ She filled a carafe with water, added a slice of lemon and hurried out of the kitchen.

  ‘So hello again. Is there tea in the pot? Those little china cups that your new boss drinks from wouldn’t quench a thirst.’ Drew Sullivan hooked a long leg around a chair and straddled it.

  ‘Hi.’ Connie smiled at the tanned, healthy-looking man facing her. ‘This is porter, it’s been standing so long. Will I make you a fresh cup?’ she offered.

  ‘Not at all, it will be fine, I like a strong cup of tea,’ Drew said easily, loping over to take a mug off a hook under one of the kitchen presses.

  ‘Me too,’ Connie said, pouring the dark-brown liquid into his mug and handing him the milk jug.

  ‘So when are you starting?’ He studied her quizzically, and reached over, took one of the buttered scones and bit into it.

  ‘I’m off to Spain at the end of next week, to recover from my daughter’s wedding, and I’ll be starting the Monday after I come back.’ Connie eyed him back over the rim of her mug and wondered how was it that, as men got older, their lines added to their looks, but on women they looked so ageing. He was one of those men who were sexy and didn’t even know it, wouldn’t even be aware it was an issue with him. Men like that were lethal, Connie mused. He reminded her of an older version of that gorgeous TV presenter on TG4, the one with the laughing eyes and the voice like treacle. Debbie was a fan, too, so she might like Drew. What was she like? she thought in amusement, at the notions that were flitting through her mind. She took another sip of tea and lowered her eyes.

  ‘My daughter got married in Boston last autumn,’ he was saying, ‘so I recovered from that in New England for a few days. It was glorious. I never saw anything like the foliage,’ he added, demolishing the scone in the second bite.

  ‘Oh, you’ve a daughter?’ She remembered Rita, Mrs Mansfield’s housekeeper, telling her he was divorced. She hadn’t realized he had children.

  ‘Two, but I don’t see them that much. They live in the States. My ex-wife moved there years ago, taking them with her.’

  ‘Oh! That must have been hard,’ Connie murmured.

  ‘It was. Very,’ he said succinctly, and his eyes darkened momentarily.

  ‘My ex-husband went to the States after he left our daughter and me. I could never understand how he could leave her and go so far away. He came home a few years later and married again and had another child. My daughter couldn’t forgive him for it. But the wedding brought a reconciliation of sorts.’ Connie sighed.

 
‘Oh! Well, that must have been tough too,’ he said quietly, his blue eyes meeting hers for a moment, before he drained his tea and pushed his mug away.

  ‘Yeah, it hasn’t been easy but, you know what, Drew, this is my time now. It’s going to be all about me, and they can all get on with things. I’ve done my bit,’ said Connie firmly as she took the mugs over to the sink and rinsed them.

  ‘That’s a good attitude you have, make sure you hang on to it,’ he grinned, walking over to her, picking up the tea towel and beginning to dry the mugs. ‘And were you ever tempted to get married again? It must have been hard raising your daughter alone,’ he inquired as he hung the mugs back on their hooks.

  ‘It was, but I got on with it, I had no other choice and, no, I was never really tempted to remarry, although maybe it would have made sense when I was younger. I would have liked another child, but I never met the right man. One marriage break-up makes you wary. Well, in my case it did,’ she amended, just in case he’d got married again or was in a second relationship. ‘Now, I’m very glad to be a free agent. You?’ She arched an eyebrow at him, curious as to what his answer would be.

  ‘Nope. As you say, a break-up makes you very wary . . . been there, done that and won’t be wearing that T-shirt again,’ he said emphatically, and she laughed.

  ‘I guess I better go, I want to get a walk in, and if I dawdle much longer I won’t bother.’

  ‘I’m off too. I have a mare in foal I want to keep an eye on; her time is near.’ Drew hung the tea towel neatly on the Aga rail, and she noticed his hands – tanned, long-fingered, with short, clean nails. They would be gentle hands, she imagined, picturing him with a newly born foal.

  ‘Poor horse,’ she smiled, ‘even to this day I can still remember my labour pains.’

  Drew chuckled as he put the milk and sugar away before holding open the back door for her. ‘I got a saucepan thrown at me the second time round. Things went downhill from there.’ They walked across the crunchy gravel to the cars. His was a black jeep covered in muck and dust.