Sorry I lost it just then, I typed. Perhaps we could meet again and this time I’ll buy the coffees.
I waited in case he was nearby and replied.
But he didn’t.
Quite suddenly, I didn’t want to go home. Saoirse was out for the day and I didn’t want to sit in the apartment alone, where I’d have time to think again about my habit of sabotaging my own life. I’d got it together so well in Spain, I couldn’t quite believe I seemed to have morphed into someone completely different in Dublin. I’d thought I was better. But, clearly, I was utterly hopeless. And I didn’t want to drown in my hopelessness alone. I needed to be somewhere, anywhere with other people.
So, almost without realising it, I walked to the Luas stop and got on the tram for Ranelagh.
Although I had a key to my parents’ house, I didn’t use it but rang the bell instead. I heard the sounds of a door opening and the barking of a dog – a dog? Where had that come from? – and then the clipped sound of high heels on a tiled floor.
Mum opened the door and her eyes widened in surprise.
‘Juno!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here? Not that it isn’t lovely to see you,’ she added as she scooped up the miniature dachshund puppy before it shot out of the door, ‘but I wasn’t expecting you to call by so soon. Isn’t he a dear?’ She thrust the dog into my face. ‘I know it’s a bit bonkers to get another dog after years without one, but Betsey Freeman’s daughter’s dachs had a litter, and I couldn’t resist. His name is Seyton.’
Seyton is a character in Macbeth, the servant who stays with the king when everyone else is abandoning him. I was pretty sure I’d never mentioned Banquo to her by name, so it was odd that she’d chosen to name the puppy after another character in the play.
‘Not at all odd,’ she remarked when I said this to her, ‘because you and I are connected spiritually, and it’s quite possible that you passed the idea to me subconsciously. He’s a dote, isn’t he?’ She closed the hall door and let the puppy run along the hallway again.
He shot out of the kitchen door into the garden, and we followed him.
‘You brought the good weather home with you,’ she said. ‘I’ve been sitting out. Well, sitting isn’t really the word because I’ve been spending a lot of time cleaning up after this guy. He knows he’s only meant to poop at the back of the garden but, of course, he’s trying to go everywhere. Seyton, no!’ And she was off after him as he squatted on the grass.
Why on earth had I come here? I wondered as I watched them. Why had I opened myself up to my mother’s scatterbrained lunacy? But deep down I knew. There was no way I could mope when I was in Mum’s company. The woman simply didn’t know the meaning of the word.
‘So are you OK for that osteoporosis thingy?’ she asked as she sat beside me on a wooden bench beneath the apple tree.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘No problem.’
She said nothing as Seyton bounded over to her and she patted him on the head.
‘He’s definitely not a bitch?’ I asked.
‘No. Why on earth would you think that?’
I told her about Banquo, and she laughed.
‘How could you possibly have made such a basic mistake?’ she demanded.
‘She’s a very chunky cat.’ I took out my phone and showed her some pictures of Ophelia during her pregnancy.
‘Not very Ophelia-like,’ agreed Mum. ‘More of your Kardashian cat with that behind.’
I laughed.
‘That’s good to hear,’ she said. ‘You’ve had a long face on you since you arrived. What’s the matter?’
I think the last time I sobbed on Mum’s shoulder was when I was about six and Tiffany Lorrimer, who sat next to me in school, told me that she wasn’t going to be my friend because I had a funny face and wore silly clothes. She was partly right, both about the face and the clothes. I wasn’t pretty as a child and, although we wore a navy uniform at school, Mum’s selection of non-school wear for me was bohemian at best, without any concession to current fashions. I remember Tiffany and one of her friends looking at me in such a disdainful way that, when Mum met me at the school gate that afternoon, I hadn’t been able to contain my tears. And I wasn’t able to contain them now, either.
‘Juno. Juno.’ She put her arms around me and gathered me close. ‘It’s OK, my sweetheart. Whatever it is, don’t worry. We’ll sort it out. It’s OK.’
‘It doesn’t need to be sorted out.’ I sniffed. ‘It’s fine, really.’
‘It’s not,’ said Mum. ‘You don’t cry when everything is fine. You don’t cry at all.’
That was completely true. Or at least it was true for the period between the Tiffany Lorrimer episode and the day I saw the news about Brad. Since then, though, I seemed to be able to cry at the drop of a hat.
Mum stroked my hair while my tears continued to flow. Seyton came and sat at my feet. I could see him out of my watery eyes, looking solemnly at me. He yapped and then licked my ankles. I gave him a feeble smile, then pulled away from my mother.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Hard to blub like a baby when there’s a dachshund licking your legs.’ I sniffed as I reached down and picked him up. He started to lick my face. ‘That’s disgusting,’ I cried. ‘Please stop.’
He licked me again.
‘I need to go and splash some water on me,’ I told Mum.
I put Seyton on the grass but he followed me into the house and into the downstairs loo.
‘You’re like Banquo,’ I said. ‘I mean, Ophelia.’
He yapped.
‘She made me feel better. You’re doing the same.’
He sat and looked at me, his eyes wide, his tongue hanging out.
‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘I’m fine now.’
Mum hadn’t budged from the bench beneath the apple tree.
‘OK?’ she asked as I sat down again.
I nodded.
‘Want to share?’
It’s not my thing, sharing. In a world where we seem to let everyone know everything about our lives, I prefer to do it all by myself. To work it out for myself. To get through the feelings by myself. That’s why Spain had been so good for me. I’d dealt with it all on my own. I’d reached acceptance. I’d sorted out my issues. I’d tried to become the strong person that Luis Navarro and everyone else in Beniflor seemed to think I already was.
As I looked at my mum I suddenly realised that I didn’t want her to know that I made mistakes. Or that I was vulnerable. I didn’t want her to know that my strength was nothing but an illusion. But who was I kidding? She knew already.
So I took a deep breath and told her everything. Meeting Brad, the accident, the discovery that he was married, going to the funeral, talking to Max Hollander. All of it. The only part I glossed over was my relationship with Pep Navarro. She might have told me to find someone to love and have some sex with, but I wasn’t prepared to share that with her.
‘Oh, Juno!’ she cried when I was finished. ‘You poor, poor pet.’ And she enveloped me in her arms again.
We had tea afterwards. She made it in her big rose-patterned teapot and served it in the matching china teacups, with a couple of slices of apple pie. It was very English country garden and very restful. She didn’t talk about what I’d told her until we’d finished, and then she asked about Max.
‘I guess I felt a connection to him, at first, because he was Brad’s brother,’ I explained. ‘I thought we were helping each other. But Saoirse said he wanted to meet me because he fancies me.’
‘Does he?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘How do you feel about him?’
‘I like him,’ I said. ‘We have stuff in common. But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘It’s gross,’ I told her. ‘They were brothers.’
‘So what?’ she demanded. ‘If you care about him . . .’
‘I don’t!’ I cried. ‘Not like that.’
‘And yet he’s
reduced you to tears.’
‘Not him. I’ve done that myself. Maybe it all got too much for me,’ I added. ‘Maybe going back to work, having to deal with people again, just triggered something inside me.’
‘Are you busy in work?’ Her question was bland.
‘Very,’ I replied. ‘It’s been all go, all week. And . . .’
‘What?’
I sighed. I hadn’t been able to get the woman with hardly any antral follicles out of my mind. By now she’d know that her chances of conceiving a baby of her own were more or less zero. So she’d have to make choices about her future family. A donor egg was one answer. But not every woman wanted to do that. And I wasn’t sure how her husband would feel about it, either. I don’t know why her situation had bothered me so much. After all, in radiology we see life-threatening situations. We know when the road ahead is going to be rocky. We know that not everyone will have a good outcome. But even though this woman’s situation wasn’t life-threatening, it would change her life as she knew it. Like me, all her dreams and hopes for the future would be altered forever. And I’d never know how it turned out for her. That’s the other thing about radiology. Once you’ve identified a problem, you see patients at the start of their journey. You don’t see how things have panned out.
‘Are you getting worried about having children yourself?’ asked Mum when I’d finished talking about the patient. ‘You shouldn’t be. You’re still young and, don’t forget, I was in my forties when you came along.’
‘True. But we don’t know how many eggs I started out with. And I’m at an age where they start decreasing more and more rapidly.’ I sighed. ‘It’s not about babies, Mum, not really. It’s just . . .’ I thought for a moment, ‘. . . it’s lost opportunities. Opportunities I thought I had with Sean and then with Brad that weren’t real opportunities at all. And it’s not that I want to jump the first man I see and have children with him, it’s just that my life isn’t working out the way I thought.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to you about opening up your chakras.’ She gave me a sympathetic look. ‘Maybe you weren’t ready to have everything come at you.’
I gave her a shaky smile. ‘I don’t think it’s my chakras or the fortune telling or—’
‘Fortune telling?’ She looked at me in disbelief. ‘You went to a fortune teller?’
‘Obviously, it was nonsense,’ I said after I’d told her about Magda.
‘What did she say to you?’
‘Oh, the usual. Difficult life, difficult times, nobody understood me. And a tall, dark and handsome prince would ride to my rescue.’
Mum laughed. ‘Did you believe any of it?’
‘It was generic,’ I said. ‘She got some things right. But they always do, don’t they?’
‘What does Max look like?’ she asked.
‘Oh, don’t you start.’ I snorted. ‘He’s fair-haired, for a start – and although he’s not bad-looking, he’s not here to rescue me.’
‘Yet you thought you were rescuing him.’
‘Don’t try to turn it into something.’
My phone beeped and I scrambled for it straight away. But the text was from Saoirse, telling me that she wouldn’t be home till Monday as she was staying an extra night at home and going straight into work from there.
‘Not him?’ asked Mum.
‘No. I guess I really pissed him off.’
‘If he cares about you, he’ll call,’ she said.
‘I don’t care if he cares. I was annoyed at him for thinking that it was all about being looked after, anyhow. I just wanted to apologise for walking out and leaving him to pay. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.’
The hurt expression was only on her face for an instant.
‘I’m sorry.’ I rubbed my already sore eyes. ‘That’s not true. I do need people. I needed you today, Mum. I’m glad you were here.’
‘I know you’ve always felt a bit out of the loop because you were a late baby,’ she said. ‘But I love all my children equally.’
‘It’s just that I thought Gonne and Butler were more . . . more like true Ryans,’ I admitted. ‘Her music and his poetry. It fitted in with everything. Whereas I was an outlier. But Max,’ I smiled at her, and this time there was no wobble in it, ‘Max told me that being a radiographer was just as creative. Because I had to think intuitively. And he was right.’
‘He sounds like a nice person,’ she said.
‘He is.’
‘He’ll call.’
But he didn’t. He sent a text later that night.
I planned to give you this earlier, he wrote. I found it on Brad’s computer and thought it would be better to hand it over in person. It’s probably best we don’t meet again, though. You’re right, there’s nothing to be gained from it. M.
There was an image attached. It was a sheet of paper headed ‘Pros & Cons’ set out in two columns. Under ‘Pros’ it said: Amazing. Lovely. Intelligent. Soulmate? Under ‘Cons’ it said: I can’t.
It didn’t have to be about me, of course. And, even if it was, I wasn’t necessarily under the ‘Pros’ column. But I knew it was. And it made me feel a little better to think that he’d agonised about us. Even if it was clear that, ultimately, he was going to stay with his family. Which was the right choice for him to make.
I read it again. And again. And again.
Finally, I wiped away the tears that had rolled down my cheeks. They were the last I would shed for Brad McIntyre. I had no more crying to do for him now.
I deleted the text.
As for Max Hollander, I thought, the phone still in my hand, Saoirse had been wrong about him. His only reason in wanting to meet me had been to give me this note.
I hesitated for a moment, then sent him a new message, saying Thank you.
There was no reply.
I hadn’t expected one.
So that was that.
I put my late lover’s brother out of my mind and concentrated on my life. Work was as busy as always, and in the evenings I went out a lot with Saoirse, who’d broken it off with her boyfriend, Conal.
‘I feel guilty that this is all my fault, after what you said in Spain about me losing Brad,’ I told her one night when we’d gone to our local for a drink. ‘You were perfectly happy before my meltdown.’
‘I can’t have been,’ she said. ‘Otherwise nothing that happened to you would’ve made the slightest difference.’
‘All the same . . .’
‘Better now than after swanning up the aisle in a long dress.’ She grinned. ‘I think I’ll be one of those older brides who get married in neat little suits and look chic and sophisticated.’
‘You and me both,’ I said. ‘If I ever get married at all.’
‘Still off the men?’
I nodded. I’d given her an edited version of my meeting with Max and finished by saying that it had been good to meet him but we wouldn’t in any way ever be involved.
‘Oh well.’ She raised her glass and clinked it against mine. ‘Girl power.’
Girl power.
I had a hangover the next day.
The next time I saw Mum was at the osteoporosis lunch. She looked fabulous in a purple-and-orange dress while I, in my suitable-for-all-occasions navy shift, was drab by comparison. Everyone at the event came up to her and talked to her, and she kept our table of ten entertained all afternoon with her theatre stories while my admiration for her ability to be all things to all people grew by the second.
After the meal, she introduced me to the chairperson of the charity, a woman who reminded me of Drina, the head of our radiology department. Sinead Curtin was around the same age as my boss, bright and vivacious and full of enthusiasm for the work they were doing. Mum drifted off while I chatted to Sinead about the value of quantitative heel ultrasound scans in predicting bone density.
‘I know this is a little out of left field,’ Sinead said when we’d finished the discussion, ‘but would you be interested in be
coming involved with us?’
‘I’ve already signed up for the direct debit to help,’ I assured her.
‘I didn’t mean as a donor,’ she said. ‘I meant as someone who could add value to our board. Two of our members will be retiring this year. I think you’d be an excellent addition.’
‘Really?’ I was both surprised and flattered. ‘Obviously, I enjoy what I do, but I don’t know if I have the qualifications or experience to make a contribution.’
‘Of course you have,’ she said. ‘You spoke so eloquently just now. You’d be great.’
‘Well . . .’
‘I won’t pressurise you to make an immediate decision,’ Sinead said. ‘But how about I give you a call next week?’
I nodded and gave her my number.
‘They’d be lucky to have you,’ Mum said, when I told her about Sinead’s offer.
‘You say the nicest things,’ I teased.
‘I mean it.’ Mum turned to look at me. ‘You were the one who made me go for the scan. You explained it so well. And I’m grateful to you.’
I smiled.
‘Why don’t you and I go away for a weekend together?’ she suggested. ‘A bit of mother and daughter time. You could take me to Beniflor.’
‘There’s nowhere to stay except the posh hotel,’ I said. ‘Pilar’s mum has sold the Villa Naranja.’
‘The posh hotel sounds wonderful,’ Mum said. ‘Look at your schedule. See what works. I’ve got a couple of weeks of filming for Clarendon Park, then I’m free for a while.’
Going back might not be a good idea, I thought. Even in a short space of time people would have moved on. But, I reminded myself, so had I. And Mum had been good to me. I’d put her off during the summer. It would be ungrateful to put her off again now.
Chapter 34
While I was considering the possibility of spending a weekend away with Mum, Pilar actually went to Spain herself for a few days, to celebrate her brother’s thirtieth birthday. She posted lots of pictures of the party on Facebook, and then emailed me another picture of the Villa Naranja, looking as beautiful as ever in the evening sun.
The Hideaway Page 31