The Girl I Was Before: 'A Fun Feel Good Read' (Lily McDermott Series Book 1)

by Izzy Bayliss

  “Shit! What time is it?” I said hopping up off the bench.

  “Nearly two.”

  “Damn, I’m going to be late back, and I was doing so well today!”

  "Call over after work and we'll share a bottle of wine," she said.

  We said a hasty goodbye and I ran back towards the office. As I tried to sneak back to my desk, Stephen tutted and looked at his watch as I walked quickly past him muttering, “Some things never change”.

  The conversation with Frankie at lunchtime had got me thinking. She was right, I needed a change, and since my life had already gone tits up, I knew that now might be a good time to try something new. Things couldn’t have got much worse than they were right then, I reasoned. When I had a quiet spell in the afternoon, I took out my notebook and started writing a list of things I could do with my life. I love lists. Lists make me happy. There was no better feeling in this life than putting all the little niggly things you have to do down on a sheet of paper and then crossing them off with one fell swoop as soon as you have completed the task. I thought about what I could do and what options were open to me. I knew I could get another job similar to what I was doing in Rapid Response – I had lots of experience after all, and I was sure Stephen would give me an ok-ish reference, but I really didn’t want to work in another call centre. It would be like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. I knew I could try and do something with my business degree, but I broke out in a cold sweat at the thoughts of doing an interview. I shuddered when I imagined all the questions potential employers would be asking me, wondering why I never bothered doing anything with my degree after college. Plus when I had done my degree the Celtic Tiger was alive and roaring – I was sure everything I studied was probably well out of date at this stage.

  I could work in a shop I reasoned, maybe a clothes shop or something. I might even get a discount on lots of lovely clothes, but the idea just didn’t excite me. If I was going to change career, I wanted to do it properly. I wanted to do something that I loved, that I was really passionate about. I wanted to be like Frankie and to get out of bed every morning and not dread going to work. I brainstormed for a bit longer, but soon found my list changing to a list of reasons why I still loved Marc.

  ***

  That evening I sat back on Frankie's sofa with my feet curled up underneath me while she poured us a large fishbowl shaped glass of wine each.

  “I was talking to Joannah earlier, she said she’d been trying to get you,” Frankie said.

  Frankie, Joannah and I had all been friends in school, although I saw a lot more of Frankie these days, but we still kept in touch with Joannah.

  “Yeah, she’s left me four messages already. I’m just not ready to talk about it yet though, y’know?”

  “Yeah I guessed that. Well you’re not going to like this, Lily –” Frankie said.

  “What is it, Frankie – my life is a mess, one more little upset won’t matter,” I sighed wearily.

  “Well it’s baby Noah’s christening on Saturday.”

  “I know, I'm making the cake for it. ” Baking was a hobby of mine - well it was my only hobby really, if you excluded eating and sleeping. I made cakes for family and friends whenever they had a special occasion. I loved the feeling of moulding the sugar-paste between my fingers and crafting it into different shapes.

  "She wants us both to come –”

  “Well, I can’t go. No way. I don't mind doing the cake but I couldn’t face the rest if it.”

  “You have to – I said we’d both be there,” Frankie winced.

  “Noooo!” I groaned. “Why did you say I’d go? You know what those things are like!” I pleaded to Frankie.

  “It might do you good to get out of the house for a while.”

  “I am out of the house – I’m here aren’t I?”

  “My place and work don’t count. Look we won’t stay long and sure we’ll lash into the wine when we get back to the house afterwards – it’ll be grand.”

  I said nothing. Just a few weeks ago Marc and I had called over together to Joannah and Noel’s house to meet baby Noah, and now here I was with my husband missing in action. It was still so raw. I really didn’t want to go and face people. I knew Frankie had told Joannah about Marc and I, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet and I knew she would have a million questions for me. I was dreading it.

  Chapter 7

  When Saturday came around, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower to make myself look somewhat presentable. I had decided that I was going to make an effort with what I wore, because I wanted to look like I was doing okay, even if I really wasn’t. I didn’t want a barrage of questions or worse still, people to pity me. I put on a simple black and green shift dress that zipped up easily at the side, without me having to lie on the bed and suck in my stomach to get the zip up and then spend the day worrying that it might burst if I moved too suddenly. I put on a pair of grey suede ankle boots and put loose rollers in my hair in an effort to transform my stringy hair into the voluminous tresses of Kate Middleton, but I needn’t have bothered as the curls had fallen out before I had even left the house.

  I put the cake I had spent all the previous day making into a box. It was a two tier lemon sponge cake covered in white icing. I had cut out miniature bunting from blue icing and draped it along the sides of the cake. I had fashioned four tiny building blocks from the remainder of the blue icing and had piped the letters of baby Noah's name onto each block. I arranged them along the base of the cake. It had turned out well; I just hoped Joannah would like it.

  Frankie picked me up and we headed for the church where the christening was to take place.

  I swallowed back a lump in my throat as the pointed steeple came into view in the distance; it was St. Columba’s church – the same church where Marc and I had got married.

  “This is going to be hell,” I muttered to Frankie.

  “C’mon,” she said putting her arm around my shoulder and steering me inside. I hadn’t been back in the church since our wedding day – yes I know I am a hypocrite. As I walked up the aisle, I couldn’t help thinking over everything that had happened during the last few weeks. When we said our vows up there at the altar, there was no way I had seen this coming.

  We sat in a pew midway down the church.

  “Are you okay?” Frankie asked, looking concerned.

  “I’ll be fine – I’m just a bit sad.”

  She gave my hand a quick squeeze.

  Some priests enjoy a full bells and whistles ceremony, no matter how many times they do a mass they still get a kick from it, and unfortunately Fr Furey fell into this category.

  To make matters worse, baby Noah wasn’t the only baby being christened that day. No, there were seven other babies to get through too. I took a deep breath in – it was going to be a long one. Frankie and I obeyed the ceremony, we stood when everyone else stood, we knelt when everyone else knelt down, except for the bit where some people knelt and some stayed standing, neither of us was too sure which group were right or what to do, so we kind of half knelt, half stood. We prayed along with everyone else, and we reamed off a list of Saints, most of whom I had never even heard of when finally, two hours later, it was over and we headed back to Joannah and Noel’s place.

  “I need a stiff one after that,” Frankie sighed.

  “Me too.”

  Back in the house I set up the cake, while Joannah settled baby Noah. Frankie made chitchat with the various aunties and uncles. When I was finished I went to the toilet, and came back to find Frankie deep in conversation with Noel’s elderly grandaunt. She was singing the praises of Fr Furey saying how he always did a good mass, and that some of the younger priests these days didn’t put the time in but Fr Furey always enjoyed a good sermon. I needed to rescue Frankie so I called her over and pretended that I wanted her for something.

  Myself and Frankie looked odd among all the friends and relations. All of Joannah and Noel’s other friends were
coupled up and had babies, so they had something in common. They automatically gravitated towards each other and sat together, taking over the sitting room. Two women beside us were deep in conversation, practically competing about how many times they had been up with their teething babies the night before. Then when the sleep deprivation conversation had been exhausted, they moved on to discussing the number of cubes their little ones were taking belonging to some lady called Annabel Caramel or something that sounded like a toffee apple.

  I could feel Frankie getting restless beside me.

  “Here, where is the wine?” Frankie asked looking around her but there was no sign of it.

  Eventually we spotted Noel making his way over to us with a tray with two bottles.

  “Now, ladies, sorry it’s taking me so long to get over here, you’re both probably parched, what would you two like to drink?”

  “I’ll have a glass of red please, Noel,” Frankie said.

  “Eh, I only have sparkling water or apple juice I’m afraid, girls.” He was apologetic.

  Frankie and I took another look at the tray where sure enough, instead of red and white wine, the bottles were actually sparkling water and some fancy-dan apple juice. We both looked at his hands to make sure he wasn’t hiding it somewhere else.

  “Eh, have you any wine at all, Noel?” Frankie asked panicked. “Even rosé?”

  “’Fraid not. Sorry, Frankie, we’re not serving any alcohol today. It is baby Noah’s day after all,” he reminded her gently.

  “What? No alcohol?” Frankie shouted loudly so some of the relations turned to look at her.

  “No worries, Noel – I’ll have a sparkling water and Frankie will have the same won’t you?” I said giving her a look.

  “Sure,” she said sulkily.

  “I can’t believe there is no alcohol - that was the only reason I came to this bloody thing!” Frankie hissed through gritted teeth as soon as Noel had gone.

  Soon they were doing the obligatory passing the baby around and I could see baby Noah was getting closer as he made his way towards us. Don’t get me wrong, I loved baby Noah, he was the most gorgeous little pudding making o-shapes with his small mouth and bashing his arms about over his head, but I knew I was going to get upset when it was my turn to hold him and I was terrified I might not be able to keep my emotions in check. The last time I had held him was with Marc, and we had cooed over how cute he was the whole way home in the car. We had talked about when we had our own babies and how if we had a little boy, he would be dressed like a mini-Marc, or if it were a girl how protective Marc would be over her. We hadn’t decided on when we were going to start a family, we hadn’t had that conversation but we both knew we wanted children at some point in the future.

  When it was Frankie’s turn to hold him. I could feel my palms beginning to get clammy – it would be my turn next. Frankie freely admitted she was uncomfortable with babies, she was the youngest child in her family and she never babysat as a teenager, plus they always cried as soon as they were in her care. Her awkward arms were held stiffly at just the wrong angle. Sure enough two seconds later, baby Noah began to scrunch up his face before letting out a wailing cry. I could see the panic in Frankie’s face begging for someone to take the baby off her. Joannah came rushing over, laughing at Frankie’s awkwardness as she promptly removed Noah from her arms, and without warning offered him to me to hold while she went to fetch the prawn parcels from the oven. I took baby Noah into my arms and watched his eyelids get heavy again as he settled back to sleep. I sniffed his milky head. He was just so pudgy and gorgeous; I wanted to squeeze him so tight against my chest. I felt my eyes filling with tears so I wiped them away quickly.

  “He likes you,” Joannah said when she had returned and was offering us a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

  “He is just gorgeous, Joannah, you and Noel are very lucky.” I meant it.

  “Thank you, Lily, and thank you so much for the cake, you did an amazing job as usual. Everyone has been asking me about it. Honestly, you're just like a professional.”

  "Don't mention it," I mumbled feeling embarrassed.

  She paused before continuing. “I heard about Marc . . . how are you doing?”

  “Well . . . I . . . em . . . well I’m not going to lie, it’s tough.”

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh.” She was nodding her head quickly so I could tell she wasn’t really listening.

  “But you’re doing good, aren’t you?” She was doing that awkward head tilted to the side thing.

  “Well yeah, I’m just taking each day as it comes, y’know?”

  “But you’re okay, aren’t you?”

  There was only one answer she wanted to hear.

  “Yeah I’m doing fine, Joannah.”

  “Great!” She let out a huge sigh of relief. I could almost hear the “phew – thank God she’s not going to ruin my baby's christening” at the end of it.

  “Now, I’ll take him off you and put him down for a nap. Would you mind serving these for a few minutes?”

  “Not at all.” She handed me the tray and scooped up her newborn son from my arms, smiling down on his sleepy face. I felt the wrench tighten once again around my heart.

  As I walked around the room, politely offering appetisers to the guests, I felt an arm pulling me out into the hall. It was Frankie.

  “Leave that there.” She lifted the tray from my hands and plonked it down on the console table. “C’mon, quick.” She pulled me into the downstairs loo and bolted the door behind us.

  “What are you doing? You scared the bejaysus out of me!”

  “Here, I found some alcohol,” she sang giddily as she produced a bottle of wine from underneath her cardigan. “An excellent bouquet if I do say so myself,” she said mimicking a wine connoisseur.

  “Where did you find that?” I asked in a mixture of horror and gratefulness.

  “In a press in the kitchen.”

  “You went snooping around her cupboards? What if she notices it’s missing?”

  “She won’t. There’s a load more where that came from – they have a right little wine bar going on in there, pity the stingy gits wouldn’t serve it!”

  “Frankie!” But I couldn’t hold back a smile. “How are we going to open it?”

  “Screw-cap!”

  She promptly opened the bottle before putting it up to her lips and knocking it back before handing it over to me.

  “This is dead classy, I must say – we're both over thirty years of age and drinking wine from the bottle while squashed into a downstairs toilet.”

  We continued swigging from the bottle until there was a knock at the door from someone who wished to use the bathroom. We polished off the rest very quickly and I hid the empty bottle in Frankie’s bag. When we emerged from the toilet we got a strange look from one of the women who had been having the sleep deprivation contest and was waiting to go in.

  We weren’t out two minutes when I was starting to feel a bit light-headed from the speed we had drunk the wine at. Noel had started to give a little speech thanking everyone for coming to share the day with them and how baby Noah had completely changed their lives. He revealed that they had actually come up with his name from amalgamating both of their names No-ah. I had never copped that before. I watched Joannah who was smiling up lovingly at him as he spoke. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel just a tinge of jealousy while looking at the two of them – not in a bad way, but I used to have that. Marc and I used to be like that. How had it come to this? Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for Joannah and Noel - baby Noah was gorgeous, and the transformation that had overcome the two of them had been nothing short of astounding, but I had thought that that was what was in the plan for Mark and I too – not a runaway husband. I must have stared for just a second too long, because they instantly pulled away from each other when they saw me looking at them. Joannah flashed me a sympathetic look, and it just made everything worse. I didn’t want their pity - I just wanted my husband back.
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  Chapter 8

  The next day, Clara had invited Dad and I over for Sunday lunch, she took these figaries now and again. They were normally quite a formal affair, the two boys would be dressed in their Sunday best of chinos and shirts - her husband Tom too, and woe betide anyone who turned up wearing jeans. Clara would serve up a three-course meal, and then after dessert Jacob would perform a little recital of what he had learnt in piano lessons that week before we were excused from the table.

  My first mistake was that I had arrived majorly hungover. After baby Noah’s christening, Frankie and I had hit town and had a fairly wild night culminating in a bar in Leeson Street. I dared not tell Clara that I had only been in bed for four hours, but I’m sure she could smell the vodka fumes on my breath.

  I took my designated seat around the oval mahogany table that Clara had bought at an auction. The table was set with the heavy silver canteen that Mum and Dad had received as a wedding present, but Dad had no use for them now and I certainly didn’t, so he had passed them onto Clara. The candles were lit in the silver candelabras, and classical music was playing gently in the background.

  “How’s work, Tom?” Dad asked politely. Tom was a barrister, and had made a fortune in the nineties from tribunals that had pretty much set him and Clara up for life. He had made a name for himself as being able to find a loophole in even the most black and white of arguments, and now was in demand by the top companies and individuals in Ireland when they needed a strong case made.

  Clara cut in, “Tom is very busy working for some high profile clients at the moment," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "I’m not meant to say it but it’s the Butler case.” She sat back against the chair with a triumphant smile on her face. For a man used to holding his own in the courtroom, Clara never let him speak for himself. Tom glared at her but she was oblivious.

  Clara was referring to the sinister court-case that was all over the news whereby a prominent businessman had been accused of murdering his wife to cash in on the huge fortune she had recently inherited from her wealthy family to help him repay some of his debts. We listened as Clara divulged far too much information about Mr Butler while Tom squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, but he was afraid to tell her to shut-up at the same time.