Still You

by Claire Allan

  Chapter 23

  Present Day

  Only a week had passed when Sinéad arrived at my front door grinning from ear to ear and waving a piece of card at me. “Friday night. Glad rags. Me and you. No excuses,” she said. She thrust the card into my hand and walked past me into the living room.

  I looked down. It was a ticket to a charity dinner dance in the Everglades Hotel – a very fancy spot on the outskirts of town.

  “Northern People bought a table, and Peter can’t go. So you are my plus one.”

  “But surely there is someone else in the office you could take instead?”

  “Well, of course there is – but I don’t want to. You need a night out. When exactly was the last time you got your glad rags on for a night on the town?”

  “Erm, when exactly was the last time I had glad rags?” I asked. “I have nothing suitable to wear to a black-tie event.” Although, if I was being honest, the thought of dressing up did hold a certain appeal. It had been a very long time.

  “You can go shopping. Or borrow something of mine. Don’t sweat the details!”

  “But the girls –”

  “Will be with their daddy, because it’s Friday night. Now I said no excuses, so no more excuses! I have a great girl coming over for hair and make-up.”

  “But I work until five thirty –”

  “At six thirty. You’ll be done by then. The make-up girl is going to come to your house, giving you time for a quick shower and a transformation. We’ll be at the Everglades for seven forty-five – a little late, but just in time for dinner at eight. Please, please, please! You know you deserve this. You’ve been working so hard – and you need to bling yourself up a night to prove to yourself once and for all that Matthew Casey is an idiot.”

  “Well, when you put it like that …”

  I watched as Sinéad’s fist pumped the air.

  “Good woman, yourself! It will be a great night – we’ll have a blast. Why don’t you come down to mine now and we’ll see if I have anything you can borrow?”

  It was Sorcha who told Áine of my big night out. The eldest of my twins had shocked me to the core by asking if she could go back with me to Áine’s to help out. I had eyed her suspiciously and, yes, I had asked her what indiscretion she had committed that I was yet to find out about.

  “Nothing!” she protested.

  “So you are asking to go and see Áine, without trying to garner favour to get away with something you have yet to ask me about or tell me about?”

  “You don’t have to be so cynical, Mum,” she said. “You wanted me to spend time with Áine, so I did. And I like her and now you’re freaking out!”

  “I’m not freaking out. I’m just mildly suspicious. Has the real Sorcha been abducted by aliens and replaced by a child I no longer recognise?”

  “Mum, you are so not cool. Like, really not cool. I just think Áine’s great. She has some terrific stories – and I think she’s pretty kickass. Rocking that big house on her own – not a bother on her. I like her.” She looked so sincere that I had to believe her – and I was determined not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  When she arrived at Áine’s after school, Eve in tow, she brought a bunch of flowers she had bought in the local garage and even offered to make a pot of tea. Áine seemed more than delighted to see the twins, telling me it was nice to have a bit of a buzz around the house again with young people. I listened to their chat – the girls telling Áine what had happened in school that day with a freedom they never seemed to have with me – while I prepared dinner and did some of Áine’s filing for her. I dipped in and out of the conversation and when I heard my name taken in vain I decided to listen in a little closer.

  “She has borrowed a dress from her friend, Sinéad,” I heard Sorcha say. “It makes her look brilliant. Not her usual mumsy self!”

  I smiled – and then wondered was I right to smile. After all, while she’d said I looked brilliant in my dress she also said I normally looked mumsy.

  “She hasn’t been out in such a long time,” I heard Eve say. “And I can’t remember the last time she got really, really dressed up – she’s getting her hair and make-up done and everything.”

  “Well, I have to make sure not to keep her late so she has plenty of time to get dolled up to the nines,” Áine replied. “There’s something so special about getting dressed up to go out dancing.”

  “Did you go to all the dances when you were younger?” Sorcha asked.

  “Not as many as I should have,” Áine said, “but I had some memorable nights all the same. I’m sure I have some of my old dancing dresses upstairs in the back of a wardrobe somewhere. I’ll ask your mum to help me dig them out sometime if you would like to see them?”

  The girls squealed with delight at the thought – and as I tidied up and got ready to serve dinner I realised two things. The first was that I would really like to see those dresses myself – and the second was that my girls were bringing a whole new layer to reminiscence work with Áine, without even trying. I couldn’t help but smile as I turned to put the plates on the dinner table and felt proud of my daughters – who were helping without even trying.

  We were still in our little bubble of contentment when Jonathan arrived. He smiled at the sight and smiled even more when I plated him up some dinner. Since learning that he wasn’t married and lived alone, I tried to make sure dinner went a little further so he could heat it up when he called over. Áine had let it slip that he often came straight from work and resorted to picking from the fridge rather than eating properly. He made a fuss at first, saying there was no need, but over the course of a few weeks he became grateful to have a hot meal there for him.

  “I have an evening meeting later – and it’s been a long day already. This is perfect, Georgina, thank you,” he said.

  “You work too hard,” Áine told him.

  “Not at all – sure what else would I be doing anyway? Don’t worry, Auntie, I do take some time off from time to time. On Friday night I’m off out to a dinner dance – so I’m definitely not all work and no play.”

  It was precisely at that time that a piece of carrot decided to lodge itself in my throat. A swift near-death experience and a pat on the back from Eve later, I regained my breath just in time to hear Áine say, “Well, that’s a coincidence, isn’t it, Georgina? You are out on Friday night too.”

  Jonathan’s eyebrow rose. “The Everglades?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I blushed. “My friend Sinéad is the editor at Northern People – she tagged me onto their table.”

  “Ah yes, Northern People. I’ve done business with them. I’m not sure I’ve met your friend though – remind me to buy you both a drink on Friday night.”

  “Oh, there’s no need,” I replied as my girls nudged each other with a distinct lack of subtlety.

  “It’s the least I can do,” Jonathan said.

  “Never refuse a drink from a handsome young man,” Áine piped up. “You never know what it might lead to. Charlotte taught me that lesson.”

  My night out was turning into something much, much more than I had thought it would – and it was still two days away.

  “If I was a younger woman and not fit for my bed at eight every evening I would get my dancing shoes on and come and join you myself,” Áine said wistfully. “You grab the opportunities to dress up and have fun while you can. Life is not half as long as you may think it is – and you never know what’s around the next corner.”

  That night, as I did my usual confiscation of electronic gadgets before kissing my daughters goodnight, Sorcha asked me for an extra hug.

  “Do you like Jonathan?” she asked.

  “He’s a very decent man,” I replied. “He looks after Áine very well.”

  “Mum, you know what I mean,” she sighed.

  “As I said, he’s a very nice man.”

  “You deserve to be happy, Mum. Don’t think Eve and I don’t want you to be happy. We wouldn’t mind if
you saw someone.”

  “I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about,” I told her, trying to force a little laughter into my voice.

  “We know you and Dad aren’t getting back together,” she said. “I think we are going to be okay with that.”

  “Sorcha Casey, I love you very, very much,” I said, kissing her on the top of the head.

  I left her room and held my breath until I reached the bottom of the stairs and could breathe out the sob I had been holding in.

  Chapter 24

  1965

  Emma sat on the back stoop, looking out over the garden. The snow had started to melt – to bleed away into the ground and down the drain – and patches of muddy, flattened green were starting to appear.

  Áine sat down by her niece and wrapped her arms around her. “Are you okay, sweet pea?”

  “I wanted the snow to stay,” Emma said, looking up at her aunt with huge brown eyes. “I don’t like it melting. It makes me sad. If it doesn’t snow any more, does that mean that Mamma isn’t watching over us any more and sending us kisses?”

  Áine shook her head and kissed Emma on the top of her head. “Of course not, sweet pea. Your mamma will always be watching over you and she will always love you. How could she not?”

  “I think Daddy has stopped loving us,” Emma said sadly. “Or not as much anyway, or he wouldn’t leave us here.”

  “Are you not happy here, pet?”

  “I am … I like it here. I do. You and Granny are lovely and you read great stories and Granny gives great cuddles. But I miss Daddy.”

  “He comes and visits as much as he can. “He’s just very busy at the moment but, believe me, he loves you very, very much. Granny and I are just helping him out a little – and we’re enjoying having you here. And if you ever feel sad, or you need cuddles, or you need to cry, then you come to me, okay? Because you and Jonathan are my number-one priority now and I promise you I am never going to let you down.”

  Áine felt her heart swell as she pulled her niece into a cuddle, feeling her small body melt into her embrace and her face bury into her cardigan.

  “I know it hurts now, baby girl, but I promise you that it will get better. You will always miss your mamma, and you will always love her – just like she will always love you. And me, and Granny and your daddy – we are all working hard to make things as nice for you as possible.”

  She felt her niece pull her a little closer.

  “Will we sit here a little longer?” Áine asked.

  “Yes, please,” a small voice answered – and they sat, despite the cold, and watched the snow trickle away.

  Áine couldn’t deny it – her mother looked younger since the children had moved in. Even the stiffness in her limbs seemed to loosen and she didn’t seem to reach for her medication as much. Rosaleen still liked to go to bed early but Áine had quickly realised she was smiling more than she had done in months. Just as the snow melted, and the flowers started to poke through again it was almost as if Rosaleen was coming back to life too.

  She revelled in her new routine too – getting the children ready for school, helping them with their homework when they came home. She had started to love the new life in the kitchen each afternoon. She would walk in the door with the children and, as she prepared dinner, she would listen to them chat excitedly to their granny about their day.

  The only fly in the ointment was the awkwardness in the staffroom when she ran into Lorcan – as she invariably did. They maintained a polite approach to each other, occasionally offering to make the other a cup of tea but it felt strained and Áine had taken to spending more time in her classroom on the pretext of marking work each lunchtime to avoid him. The children would wave at him though when they saw him – not quite understanding the delicacies of grown-up relationships. They just remembered him as the man who had bundled them into the back of his car the previous summer and taken them to run along the beach.

  When Emma and Jonathan asked awkward questions about what had happened, Áine changed the subject quickly, distracting them with something infinitely more exciting than her deader-than-dead love life.

  Besides, she knew now, as she embraced her new role in the family, that she just didn’t have the time to devote to a fledgling relationship anyway and she used that justification to comfort her on the nights when she felt particularly alone and when she found herself, once again, sitting up in the kitchen on her own while everyone slept.

  Lorcan had tried once to reignite their romance. He had called by her classroom one afternoon in February after the boys and girls had gone home for the day.

  “I just wanted to see how you were doing?” he asked, standing awkwardly in the doorway. She gestured to him to come in – and he did, but he maintained a safe distance.

  “We’re doing okay,” she replied. “It’s not easy but we are getting into a routine and that seems to help.”

  “I didn’t ask how you all were doing,” he asked. “I asked how you were doing. You, Áine.”

  “Well, I’m doing okay – but I can’t think of myself without thinking of them. Not now. They need me.”

  He looked crestfallen in that second and he sighed. “There was a time, Áine, when I needed you and I liked to think that you needed me. And I hoped, despite everything we said at Christmas and everything you were dealing with, that the time would come when we might need each other again.”

  Áine looked at him sadly. There was a part of her that would always need him a little bit – that would always look back fondly at the few months they spent on the edge of something wonderful, but the rest of her knew – without a doubt – that what they had was gone. And it wasn’t coming back. Life had changed too much. She wasn’t the person Lorcan had started to fall in love with any more. She wasn’t sure, all the time, who she was – but she knew that she wasn’t her – the innocent girl who was ready to give the right man the world to the exclusion of everyone else. There was a five-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl who needed her more than any man could. She would occasionally wonder what if – but she would never doubt her decision.

  “I’m sorry, Lorcan. I’m really, really sorry,” she said and stood up to walk towards him.

  He put his hand up to stop her. “It’s okay, Áine. I understand. I wish I didn’t have to, but I understand. I won’t trouble you again.”

  And he didn’t.

  Jack came each day. He hadn’t gone back to Italy yet. He said, once he had left the house and all the memories it had, he was finding it harder and harder to motivate himself to go back. Then again he knew he had to – his business wouldn’t run itself and while things were ticking over it was only a matter of time before his contacts lost patience with him.

  “They only have so much sympathy,” he said to Áine over a cup of tea. “And when I get back I’ll have to hit the ground running. I suppose that will be good in some ways – I won’t have time to think about things, but it means I also won’t have time …”

  “To devote to the children,” Áine finished.

  He nodded sadly. “I finally feel as if they are settling a bit. I’ve seen them start to smile and laugh again – and they seem so at home. You and Rosaleen are giving them something I just can’t at the moment.”

  Áine admitted there was part of her that was glad to hear it. It was a selfish part of her which had found so much joy over the previous month spending time with her niece and nephew. She would have missed them terribly if they went with their father even though she knew that they still needed him and he needed them.

  “You know they will always have a home here, Jack,” she said. “We’ve been loving having them here and they do seem settled. They are doing well in school – even making friends. Of course it is still tough.”

  “I’m not sure when it will get easier,” he said sadly. “But it is a comfort to me to know that you are here for them.”

  “And their granny too,” Áine said.

  “Yes, of co
urse. But it’s you, Áine. You have a way with them. That creative spark. That softness that you have. It reminds me of Charlotte in a way. I’m good at talking the talk and putting bread on the table. I’m good at kicking a ball and reading to them but I fall short in other areas.”

  “It’s the years in the classroom have honed my skills with children.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s more than that. You are a gentle soul, Áine. Charlotte used to say that about you – that you were a gentle soul – much softer than she was. She said you would have made a better mother than her – that you were more suited to the role than she ever could be.”

  Áine shook her head. Her Charlotte had always been a natural with her children even if they had not originally been in her plan. She loved them so deeply and was so good with them. Wild maybe at times. Rosaleen had not necessarily agreed with their bohemian lifestyle but there was no denying they were happy, healthy and clever children who, until the very worst had happened, had felt secure in their lives. That was the sign of a good mother.

  “It’s funny, she always said she would never have children,” she said, “not until she was old and done with her travels. I remember when she first told us she was expecting though, she was so excited by it. Said she just had to go where life took her and life had not done her wrong so far …”

  “She was one of a kind,” Jack said, sipping from the cup of tea. “And I think maybe you are too, Áine. I can’t thank you enough for all you have done. Had you not been there for us – for me, I don’t know how I would have managed. I’d been holding on by a thread.”

  “Maybe we all had been a wee bit,” Áine said. “I think the children have saved us too. Truth be told, we weren’t doing well either.”

  “And you are now?”

  “We’re doing better – and isn’t that all we want just now?”