‘You’re not missing much, it’s not that great,’ Millie assured her. But Sophie was not to be mollified.
‘I didn’t ask you, did I?’ she said rudely.
‘Be like that then,’ Millie snapped.
‘You’re just so rude.’
‘And you’re—’
‘Girls! Be quiet!’
Whitney Houston’s melodic tones filled the air as Hilary’s daughters obeyed her dictate. ‘Take that puss off you in Gran’s,’ Hilary warned as Sophie stomped up Mrs Hammond’s garden path ten minutes later.
‘Take a chill pill, Mam!’ Sophie scowled.
‘Less of your cheek, miss,’ Hilary snapped.
Had she been as moody and stroppy when she was a teen? she wondered when she’d dropped the girls home an hour later before going to do her supermarket shop. She’d been hoping Sophie would get out of her huff and offer to come shopping with her and queue at the meat counter while Hilary shopped around the narrow aisles of the old-fashioned supermarket. And then unload the trolley for her at the checkout. But neither of her daughters had offered and she felt grouchy and tired, with the beginnings of a headache. She circled the large car park hoping to get a spot near the door. Luck wasn’t on her side and she had to park at the far end and got drenched before she made it to the shelter of the shop.
By the time she put her key in the front door, fifty minutes later, Hilary was starving and weary to her bones. She was going to put away the shopping, order their Chinese takeaway and pour herself a big glass of red and that was it for today. The housework could wait until tomorrow.
The house felt warm and welcoming and she tried to overlook the two school bags dumped on the hall floor beside the hallstand. Millie’s leaking shoes were left in the middle of the floor where she had stepped out of them. God Almighty, was it too much to expect them to put their stuff away when they came in from school? Laden with bags, she shoved open the kitchen door and felt a rush of anger at the sight that greeted her. ‘Ah for God’s sake, you pair, look at the state of the place! The least you could have done was filled the dishwasher,’ Hilary ranted, seeing the breakfast dishes still on the kitchen counter.
‘It needs to be emptied,’ Sophie muttered from where she lay sprawled on the sofa in the family room.
‘Well why didn’t you empty it? Do I have to do every bloody thing in this house? Sophie, you empty it and put those dirty dishes in it and, Millie, you get over here and help me unpack the shopping.’
‘Why can’t she do it – most of this stuff is for her sleep-over,’ Millie grumbled, unpacking mini Twixes and Crunchies. ‘I have to study.’
‘You could have studied while I was doing the shopping instead of lolling on the sofa watching rubbish on TV.’
‘I was tired, Mam!’
‘And I’m not?’
‘Oh give it a rest.’
‘Don’t talk to me like that.’
‘Well you’re just so cranky,’ Millie retorted furiously.
‘Maybe if I got a bit more cooperation in this house I wouldn’t be so cranky. Perhaps if my daughters got up off their backsides and gave me a hand now and again instead of behaving like two lazy lumps, I wouldn’t be so cranky. Did you ever think of that?’ Hilary raged, giving vent to her frustration.
‘Why don’t you just go and get someone to replace Magda?’ her eldest daughter said exasperatedly. ‘It can’t be that hard to get a cleaner.’
‘Listen, madam, it’s far from cleaners you were reared. And let me tell you when I was your age, myself and your aunt used to spend every Saturday cleaning Granny and Granddad’s house from top to bottom. Hoovering, polishing, cleaning windows and floors, scrubbing the bathroom, shining the brasses. You pair don’t know you’re alive. Tomorrow morning this house is getting cleaned thoroughly so be prepared to get up early and roll up your sleeves.’ She banged the press door having flung all the goodies for Sophie’s party into the Tupperware containers.
‘This is all your fault.’ Millie turned on Sophie. ‘What do you need a sleepover for? You’re not ten any more.’
‘Oh just shut up you.’ Sophie slammed the dishwasher door closed and stomped upstairs.
‘Sophie, have you tidied your bedroom, and is that bathroom of yours clean?’ Hilary yelled.
‘It’s fine, I’ll do it tomorrow.’
‘You certainly will do it tomorrow if your friends are coming over,’ Hilary assured her.
‘They won’t mind. Their bedrooms are just as untidy.’
‘Well I mind. I have some standards. I don’t want them going home saying our house is a tip,’ Hilary shouted up the stairs and was sure she heard a muttered, ‘Oh piss off.’
Hilary’s lips thinned and she was ready to run up the stairs and have it out with Sophie for her lack of respect. No one in her family respected her, she fumed, spraying Jif into the sink and scrubbing the tea stains around the plughole. They made it look so easy on those silly TV ads, for household cleaning agents, that assumed women were morons. She scrubbed aggressively, venting her annoyance on her dirty sink, and deciding that first thing on Monday morning she was getting a new cleaner.
How nice for Niall to be out playing at a session on Friday night, leaving her to sort everything for the weekend as usual. He needed to cop on to himself a bit more and muck in. She was damned if she was doing his or the girls’ washing this weekend, she decided, throwing tea towels and dishcloths into the washing machine. And he could press his own trousers while he was at it. That was a bit passive-aggressive, she thought crossly. She should just have it out with him. Hilary hated rows, and it would turn into a row because Niall would get defensive and irritable, knowing she was right, and there’d be an atmosphere, and sometimes it just wasn’t worth it, she thought glumly, fed up with everything and everyone. Did Colette realize just how lucky she was with her housekeeper, and her Town Cars to whisk her wherever she needed to go? And her long weekends in Nantucket? Some people had all the luck. She tied a knot in the ponging bin bag and hauled it out to the black bin, another chore Niall should have done, Hilary fumed resentfully.
When she finally ordered their takeaway, all the shopping had been put away, the hall had been cleared and the living room was relatively tidy. She was starving. She made up the shredded crispy duck pancakes while a sullen Millie dished out the lemon chicken, egg fried rice and chow mein.
Millie took her plate and marched out into the hall to take her meal upstairs. Hilary took a deep breath, ready to remonstrate with her. Meals were not allowed to be eaten in bedrooms. But she stopped. Her daughter looked pale and tired, she had her period, and there had been enough shouting and arguing. It was Friday night. They were all tired. Enough was enough. She took her own plate to the sofa, and Sophie followed her and sat in the armchair. They ate their meal in silence, lost in their own thoughts.
Colette lay sprawled on her queen-sized bed, the sun slanting through her apartment windows, reflecting on the Murano glass vase that held an arrangement of peony roses. Normally the sight would give her pleasure but she was too troubled to notice the beauty and simplicity of the arrangement. She studied a photo of herself and a smiling, brown-eyed, straight-nosed, square-jawed, broad-shouldered young man with his arms around her. It was the happiest time of her life. She had been in love, in lust, completely confident in her allure for Rod. And then, out of the blue, he’d told her he was ending it. He wanted to ‘concentrate on his studies’. Bitterness rose in her at the memory. Concentrate on that little fat bogger was more like it. Had he married his red-headed nurse?
Tears slid down Colette’s cheek. Rod had confirmed what she had always known, that men could not be trusted. No man was capable of being faithful. She couldn’t be sure, but she suspected Des had the odd dalliance or two. He hadn’t given her any reason to think so, but she had her suspicions. Extra-long hours at the office. Working out more than usual. A keener attention to his appearance.
She wouldn’t ever let on to Hilary though. Some things
you had to keep to yourself. No doubt Hilary trusted Niall one hundred per cent. She was a fool. Who was to say he didn’t dally with some of the women who enjoyed his music sessions? Colette had seen how they’d responded to his easy charm. She’d caught him giving her the once-over a few times. If she put her mind to it she could seduce Niall Hammond, Colette thought dismissively, wiping her eyes. It wasn’t seducing men that was the problem, it was keeping them that was difficult.
Hilary was right though. If she had any sense she would stay well away from her ex-boyfriend. To go down that road again was more than she could bear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Well that was tasty, son. Very tasty indeed – you’re a dab hand at the cooking,’ Nancy praised, wiping the last bit of sauce from her plate with a piece of Vienna roll. Although she had enjoyed the chicken dish, her stomach was unsettled at the thought of what was to come.
‘It’s so simple to prepare and it’s all cooked in the one dish,’ Jonathan explained, scoffing a crispy potato quarter. ‘Just line a dish coated with olive oil with sliced onions and mushrooms and a few lemon slices. Put the seasoned chicken breasts on top. Mix a couple of quartered spuds, some trimmed green beans, garlic, seasoning, and a drizzle of oil. Cook for fifty minutes and Bob’s your uncle. Actually it was Hilary who gave me the recipe. It’s one of her “life-saver” dinners as she calls them.’
‘I wish I’d known that recipe when I was working,’ Nancy chuckled, remembering how she would race home at lunchtime and cook a meat, potatoes and veg dinner before hurrying back to work. ‘I’m very fond of Hilary, she’s a lovely girl.’
‘I know,’ Jonathan agreed affectionately. ‘She’s the best in the world and I’m lucky to have her as a friend.’
‘And she’s lucky to have you too,’ Nancy declared, placing a large helping of apple crumble, drenched in steaming creamy custard, in front of him.
‘Ooooh yum! You spoil me rotten.’ Jonathan tucked in with gusto, delighted that she had made his favourite childhood dessert. ‘So tell me all the news, scandal and gossip,’ he grinned when she sat back down opposite him.
‘Ah it’s quite enough around here these days. Poor Nellie Murphy passed away last week and she was lying on a trolley in A&E for two days before they got a bed for her. It’s a disgrace,’ Nancy grumbled. ‘All them chancers up in the Dáil never have to wait in A&E departments. Into the Mater Private and the Blackrock Clinic with them. There might be a boom but it’s not making any difference to the likes of us.’
‘Ah yes, the golden circle. The privileged few will always be looked after. Will it ever change?’ Jonathan spooned honey-sweetened apple into his mouth.
‘And we’ve plenty of chancers here too, I can tell you. You know that fella Donnie Quill over on Hawthorn Street? He works for the Health Board. Well Maura Flynn who lives beside him – she’s in the knitting group and she’s a nurse – she saw himself and another fella, brazen as you like, unloading a hospital bed from his trailer and storing it in his garage. And they cost thousands! And he’s getting petrol from somewhere too because Maura sees him filling the two cars with it. You know the wife, Antonia, a real snooty one that wouldn’t pass the time of day with you if you met her on the street, a right little consequence. Well Maura has the measure of her. “Did your car run out of petrol again?” Maura says, ever so airy-fairy when Donnie was filling it with petrol, and Antonia was raging!’ Nancy chuckled, and Jonathan laughed, enjoying his catch-up with the various goings on in Rosslara. ‘Terrible, isn’t it, to be robbing the Health Board like that?’
‘Robbing us like that! It’s our hard-earned taxes that pay for it.’ Jonathan began clearing away the dishes. ‘But don’t forget, what goes around comes around.’
‘And seemingly he was fiddling the gas company for years. Could have blown up the street interfering with the meter. Ah the world is gone to the divil.’ Nancy wiped the table. ‘The news is full of terrible things. How can people do the things they do to each other?’
‘Man’s inhumanity to man is endless indeed,’ Jonathan sighed, filling the dishwasher.
‘If I asked you something would you tell me the truth, son?’ Nancy said hesitantly, filling the kettle to make another pot of tea. Her heart started to pound.
‘Eh . . . yes . . . of course I would.’ Jonathan looked at her in surprise.
‘Good,’ Nancy said weakly. ‘That’s good to know because I want to ask you something.’
‘Right, fire ahead.’ Jonathan frowned, seeing how troubled his mother had become, and wondered what was up.
Nancy took a deep breath. ‘When you were young did anyone ever do anything bad to you? Anyone at school, the teachers, or the priests or the brothers? Were you ever abused?’ She studied his face intently, her blue eyes filled with concern and dread.
It was as though time had stood still in his mother’s kitchen. Jonathan was acutely aware of the silence between them. The aroma of the meal they’d just eaten lingering in the air, the kettle beginning to hiss as it boiled. The steady tick-tock of the clock on the wall and the light of the moon glimmering through the frosted-glass panes in the back door lent an almost surreal air to the moment. Nancy stared at him expectantly, her hands clasped so tightly together her knuckles were white.
Jonathan swallowed hard, his heart pounding. ‘No, Mam, no priest or teacher or brother ever did anything to me when I was young,’ he answered truthfully.
‘Oh thank God for that, Jonathan. I’ve been so worried about it. Every time I hear something on the news now, about child abuse, I wonder did anything like that happen to my lovely boy. I was afraid something had, and that you had to carry it alone. And I thought that was the cause of your sad moods.’ Nancy’s blue eyes glistened with tears and she fished up her sleeve for her handkerchief.
Jonathan put his arms around her. ‘Don’t ever worry about me, Mam, I’m fine. Honest.’ He struggled to keep the emotion from his voice. He wanted to cry.
‘Did anything ever happen to you? I know you got into fights and scraps. I used to cry myself to sleep worrying about you when you’d come home with a black eye or bloodied nose. Did anyone ever abuse you, Jonathan?’ She drew away from his embrace and looked up at him.
It was the moment he could have told her. His mother was no fool. She’d finally put two and two together. But how could he tell her that the neighbour she had lived beside for so many years of her life, and who she thought of as a good person, someone on whose door she could have knocked in times of trouble, was the very one who had abused him. If Jonathan told his mother that Gus Higgins had perpetrated the crime she feared, her peace of mind would be shattered for the rest of her life. Much as he longed to blurt out the truth he knew that he couldn’t. She too would become a victim of Higgins if she knew the reality and that he would not allow. But it wasn’t fair either to palm her off with a flat denial, he reasoned.
‘Something did happen,’ he said quietly.
‘I knew it. I knew it. When I started going back and thinking about it I knew something must have set off those depressions. Oh Jonathan, why didn’t you come to me, why didn’t you tell me,’ Nancy exclaimed, aghast, her face crumpling into tears.
‘Aah now don’t cry, Mam! Let’s bring our tea in beside the fire and we’ll talk about it and then I want you to put it out of your mind, because I have,’ he said firmly.
‘Did he hurt you? Was it anyone we knew? What age were you?’ Nancy sobbed.
‘No, no, no, no one we knew,’ he lied. ‘Go in and sit down, and I’ll bring in the tea.’ He hated seeing his mother cry, hated the way her shoulders had sagged when he’d confirmed her worst fears.
What would he say had happened him? He thought frantically, pouring their tea into mugs and sugaring and milking them. He couldn’t tell her anything like the truth. That would devastate her completely. He’d have to make up some story that wouldn’t be too disturbing for her but yet ring true.
He shucked some chocolate rings onto a plate and put
everything onto a tray and carried it into the sitting room. Even in his distressed state the sight of the soft light, the terra cotta lamps spilling their warm pools of colour around the snug sitting room that he had decorated for his mother, gave Jonathan immense satisfaction. The fire was crackling in the grate, the yellow-orange flames flickering and dancing, casting shadows thither and yon. He had been so looking forward to lazing in front of the fire, but now both of them were upset and the evening was not turning out as he’d expected.
‘Now, Mam, here you go, and I want you to stop agonizing or I won’t talk to you about it, OK?’ He handed Nancy a mug of tea and offered her a biscuit. ‘Come on, take one. The world hasn’t come to an end.’ He tried to lighten the mood.
‘You should have told me, Jonathan,’ Nancy said miserably.
‘Mam, you had enough on your plate when we were young, and besides I dealt with it.’
‘But it sent you into depressions. I’m your mother, you should have come to me,’ she protested.
‘Well I know that, but part of the depression thing was because I realized I was gay and I didn’t want to be. I just wanted to be “normal”.’ He did air quotes. ‘Whatever “normal” is. I hated being different. I just wanted to be ordinary.’
‘And what happened to you and what age were you? Were you a child?’ his mother asked fearfully.
‘No, no, no,’ he assured her, knowing that he was chickening out but comforting himself that it was for the best possible reasons. ‘Look, I was a teenager and I was walking down by the train depot and this fellow jumped me and shoved me down Leyden’s Lane and . . . well basically he touched me up.’
‘God above, that must have been so frightening. You never think of it happening to boys or men. You always think of women when sexual assault is mentioned. It’s shocking.’ She shook her head. ‘You should have gone to the police.’
A Time for Friends Page 21