by Cathy Kelly
Ruby was in the same class as Nuala’s daughter Cliona, who used to be a great pal but was never round their house any more. None of Ruby’s friends visited the Morrisons’ house these days. Even Ruby wanted to be out all the time.
By the end of the morning, Jennifer had been persuaded to buy the damned moisturiser as well as a massage oil.
‘For someone to rub into you …’ the demonstrator cooed as she totted up the bill.
Yeah, the postman if I bribe him, thought Jennifer grimly.
‘Oh goody, I love being rubbed with oils,’ she said in her most sarcastic tones.
She stayed till the bitter end because she wanted to talk to Nuala alone. Ruby was being so weird lately. Jennifer wondered was it just teenagerdom and hormones? She’d been difficult enough as a teenager herself – probably God playing a trick on her and letting her get a taste of her own medicine.
‘How’s Cliona?’ she asked idly, because she didn’t want Nuala to know she was unsure of herself here. Jennifer hated people having the upper hand.
‘Great,’ said Nuala, tidying up.
She sliced up some carrot cake.
‘Do you want to take some home for the girls?’ she asked. ‘But then you bake far better than I do.’
‘I don’t do it so much these days,’ Jennifer said, which was partly true. She loved baking, but she only did it now when she was angry. Which was, admittedly, a lot of the time. But buying calorific desserts in the supermarket was easier.
‘And Ruby?’
‘Oh, you know, tricky,’ Jennifer replied. ‘Not keen on inviting anyone home any more. I expect they’re all the same now …?’
The look Nuala gave her made Jennifer instantly furious with herself for letting her guard down.
‘Cliona’s always been a bit of a home bird. We’re lucky that way,’ Nuala said.
Jennifer felt like flinging the plate of cake in temper. Nuala looked so smug. Her daughter loved to stay home and play happy families, she seemed to be saying. It isn’t so easy when your husband’s broken the family up, Jennifer wanted to shout, but then it would be all over both The Close and the school that Jennifer Morrison was falling apart: Put on tons of weight, let herself go and now she’s shouting at coffee mornings.
Nuala should try living with what she had to put up with.
Jennifer tried, she really did, but it was so hard. Hearing the girls chatter about life with bloody Vonnie drove her insane. It had been fine when Ryan had lived alone on nothing but takeaways, but since he’d taken up with that damn woman, he’d had a life. Jennifer had no damn life.
At least Lulu, her mother, was on her side, her only ally, albeit a constantly nagging one.
‘Come on, Jennifer, you’ve got to get out and about, start seeing other men, darling,’ she was forever telling her. ‘You’re only young once. You can’t give up just because your marriage failed. My girl never gave up on anything in her life.’
Jennifer managed a watery grin, but inside she was thinking that she was nobody’s girl any more. Nobody’s anything. Nobody’s wife, anyway. It was hard being a brilliant mother when you were in pain and felt rejected.
She took a slice of cake and looked at the brochure with its creams and serums. She’d buy it all. She’d ring Nuala’s make-up person, who was now gone, and tell her she’d changed her mind: that she wanted more than two products. Ryan shouldn’t think he was going to squander their money on another woman. Not if she had anything to do with it.
The radio in the school staffroom was tuned to a lunchtime talk show on which a panel discussion was under way about people giving up hectic all-hours jobs in favour of part-time work where they could enjoy home life.
Grace sat with a much-needed cup of tea and listened along with everyone else not on yard duty.
‘Are we killing ourselves for nothing when we could be having more relaxed, stress-free lives?’ asked the radio host.
In the studio, putting one side of the argument was a woman who’d once run a fabulously successful company but said she’d never had the chance to put her children to bed. Realising that she’d spent more time on aeroplanes than curled up on the couch with her family watching movies, she’d sold the business and bought a house in the country. Now she kept chickens and pigs, baked her own bread and spent every waking minute with her children when they weren’t at school.
The other side of the coin was represented by a younger woman who felt blocked from rising in her chosen career because of inherent sexism and said she was never having children because that would totally ruin her prospects.
‘Prospective employers can’t legally ask if you want children in the near future, but you know for damn sure they’d like to,’ she said. ‘So I say it upfront. I’m a career woman with no time for children.’
The search for favourite chocolates in the big box brought in as a treat for Mary’s birthday stopped.
‘Sounds a bit drastic,’ murmured Ms Higgins, drama, who had fabulous platinum hair, a long-term partner and no children as yet.
‘I’d love to have a scatter of chickens, make my own bread and not have to spend half my life marking copybooks, but I don’t have a wildly successful company to sell off,’ complained Caroline Regan, who somehow managed three children, a job, and a busy working husband who was never home in time to do anything more than turn the dishwasher on. ‘She’s talking rubbish. You need money to have that sort of life. It’s not as if you can just give up on everything and live off your own eggs and bread. Besides, you have to have the money to buy the flour, and money to feed the hens, and money for the children’s education. Where do you get that if you don’t have a big company to sell, tell me that?’
Grace sent a sympathetic look towards Caroline, who had two children sitting state exams that year and the harried expression on her face to prove it.
‘Why would you want to live in the countryside and keep chickens?’ young Ben Kennedy wanted to know. ‘You’d go mad. No people, no bars, no parties. The only way to talk to people would be on Facebook or Twitter, and you can’t exist on that – you need real people to go out with.’
‘One day,’ Caroline warned him, ‘one day you’ll know what I’m talking about and you’ll wish you could live in a cottage with nothing but fields outside.’
She had a point, Grace thought. The things you wanted when you were twenty were definitely not the things you wanted thirty years later, but nobody could tell you that: you had to find it out for yourself.
What Grace and Stephen had wanted at twenty-five and what they’d wanted at thirty-five had turned out to be wildly different.
In their early twenties, they’d been happy to have jobs at all. Grace was teaching, Stephen had a junior copywriting job in a Waterford ad agency, and they thought they were blessed with their two-bedroom terrace in the city with its painted walls and sanded floorboards because they couldn’t afford carpets.
They had cheap foreign holidays where they lazed on Greek and Spanish and Turkish beaches or went exploring. They went to a different restaurant every night in order not to miss out on anything, and made love with passion on the rackety beds with the buzz of plug-in mosquito devices in the background.
By their late twenties, they had two small children. Grace was working at Bridgeport National School and she was blissfully happy. Tired, but happy.
Stephen hadn’t been happy. He had more mountains to climb.
The argument about a rural life complete with livestock and no stress versus city life and bars aplenty was still going on in the staffroom.
‘What would you do all day if you lived in the middle of nowhere?’ Ben demanded. ‘You’d go stark raving mad.’
Ben lived in Waterford city and spent his wages on adventure sports: surfing, scuba-diving, parachute jumps. Amazing-looking women went along to these things too, in search of adventurous boyfriends.
‘I’ll tell you what you’d see living in the middle of nowhere,’ said Caroline, tearful now. ‘You’d lo
ok out the window and see nothing, and nobody would be asking you for anything or giving out to you because you hadn’t washed their special jeans in time for the weekend.’
Grace made a mental note to have a chat with Caroline later. Sometimes all she could do was listen, but when you were down to your last nerve, having someone listen quietly could be very soothing.
She searched through the chocolates for her favourite hazelnut in caramel, pocketed one, said, ‘See you all later’ to the other teachers and patted Caroline on the shoulder in a gesture of solidarity on the way out.
It was Grace’s turn to cover the second half of yard supervision today, as the teacher on duty had to race off to the dentist. She enjoyed the job as it gave her a chance to watch the children play and she could keep up with how they were all getting on. The way they played was a good sign of what was happening in their lives – much the same as break time in the staffroom, for that matter.
Her coat buttoned up against the January cold, she walked around the edge of the playground, taking in the clusters of children, watching that the little ones were happy and trying to make sure her worrisome gang in fifth class weren’t attempting any foolhardy behaviour involving giant leaps off the wall and on to the netball court.
She was thinking about Michael’s news when playtime ended and she made her way back to her office. Before getting down to work, she took the opportunity to phone her ex-husband. Over the years she’d got to know Julia, but she still preferred to ring Stephen on his mobile. It was partly because his job in advertising meant he could be anywhere, so phoning him at home might be a waste of time, but also because she felt like an interloper calling the home he shared with another woman. Stephen had his own life now and Grace wouldn’t dream of encroaching. It was one of her rules, the rules she’d made up when they’d first separated, because if they were to be apart, then it had to be properly apart. No running back to each other out of loneliness.
‘Hi there,’ she said. ‘Did Michael tell you the good news?’
‘Hello, Grace, yes, he did,’ replied Stephen. ‘He sounds so happy, and I’m very fond of Katy, but …’
After nearly thirty years, Grace had come to know his every nuance of speech, so the moment he hesitated, she could tell exactly the words he was searching for.
‘Please don’t tell me you think he’s too young to get married?’ she demanded.
Stephen Rhattigan sighed. ‘I can’t help it. Nobody tells you that when you have kids of your own they don’t stay kids for ever. Stupid, I know. Some part of me still sees him as a schoolboy with messy hair and dirty knees.’
‘He’s twenty-nine, nearly thirty, Stephen, a lot older than we were when we got married,’ Grace pointed out. ‘And don’t jump in and say look how well that turned out simply because we got divorced. We were kids when we married. The difference between us and young people now is vast. They’re wiser, they’ve grown up more quickly despite our best efforts. He’s the perfect age.’
She thought for a moment about the impact divorce had on the way parents saw their children. The parent who spent most time with the kids saw them as they were: grown up, moving away, ripping the umbilical cord. The one who’d gone to live somewhere else – like Stephen – could go on carrying that fantasy vision of eternal children in their mind. Grace knew exactly how adult and mature her son was, while Stephen, who’d left home when Michael was a spotty, often silent, fifteen, didn’t.
But there was no point in saying all this. It would sound like a recrimination along the lines of I did most of the raising of our kids.
‘You’re right, I know. I just think he seems so young sometimes,’ Stephen was saying.
‘Well he’s not. Plus he and Katy live together and we didn’t,’ Grace said firmly. ‘Living together is a great way to figure out if you’re suited.’
‘Your father would have had to be carried off in an ambulance if we’d suggested it,’ said Stephen. ‘It was bad enough when we went on holiday to Greece the first time.’
Grace smiled, remembering her dear departed dad saying that his own mother would spin in her grave if she knew that a good Catholic girl like Grace was going on holiday with a man before they got married.
‘I told him we’d have separate beds – and we did,’ she said.
‘Everyone did in our apartment block because they were all twin beds, no doubles,’ laughed Stephen.
‘Remember when we arrived, at three in the morning, and we could hear the entire busload en masse dragging beds across marble floors so they were together?’
‘It’s odd to think that our kids are doing the same things now that we did. Do you suppose they look upon us as old fuddy-duddies who’ve no idea what it is to be young?’ Stephen asked, with a hint of wistfulness. ‘I don’t feel old,’ he added speedily, ‘but advertising’s a young business.’
‘Nonsense, you’re not old,’ said Grace briskly, wanting to shut off this line of maudlin conversation. ‘Now, are you and Julia coming to dinner on Friday night? Katy’s father has imposed a three-line whip. I think he wants us all to understand that he’s masterminding this wedd—’
‘He is not,’ interrupted Stephen with irritation. ‘That man brings out the worst in me: he’s a total control freak. Look at poor Birdie. She’s afraid of her own shadow and can’t do anything without running it by bloody Howard.’
‘Stephen, I have news for you,’ said Grace sternly. ‘The groom’s family have nothing to do with the wedding except turn up on the day. If Howard wants to mastermind it all like he’s hosting a G-20 summit, he will. Except I doubt Katy will allow him to get away with that. She’s no shrinking violet, our lovely daughter-in-law-to-be.’
‘I wish she’d shrink her father,’ Stephen said. ‘Do crimes of passion count between two prospective fathers-in-law?’
‘Only in France, where passion is a legitimate defence, and only on the day of the wedding itself,’ Grace told him jokingly. ‘You’ll have to hold fire till then.’
‘No court would convict me,’ said Stephen. ‘All I’d do is show them his YouTube speech about being a self-made man and how rich he is now, and I’d be acquitted. Sheer irritation needs to be a legal defence in this country.’
Grace ignored this. ‘So, are you coming to the dinner?’
‘I’ll have to get back to you,’ he said.
Grace felt a moment’s annoyance. Even when they’d been married, Stephen could never say yes to any invitation straight away. Never commit, he’d say, in case a better offer comes along.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Tell me when you get round to deciding.’ Then she hung up quickly, lest she was tempted to say more on the subject.
Stephen and Julia probably had a sheaf of invitations to choose from for their Friday night’s entertainment; unlike Grace, who had no plans. She didn’t know why, but the thought of her ex-husband idly choosing what to do annoyed her.
Perhaps she should have a go at Internet dating, as Fiona had suggested. Grab life with both hands and live it positively.
Being positive was important if she wanted to live a fully grateful life.
She thought of all the things she’d have to write in her gratitude diary tonight – about the joy of having Michael happy, the joy of him marrying Katy, who was truly lovely. Grace remonstrated with herself: there was no point in focusing on negative things like loneliness if she wasn’t going to do anything about them, was there?
After hearing Katy and Michael’s wonderful news, Leila had spent a distinctly unglamorous morning cleaning her mother’s kitchen thoroughly and using up an entire roll of black bin bags to collect rubbish from all over the house. The dead chicken smell had been eradicated, thanks to open windows, liberal use of antibacterial cleansers and as many scented candles as Leila could find.
Pixie, her mother’s spaniel, had obviously been using the living room carpet as her personal toilet, and the scent of dog pee in there refused to budge.
Check cost of new carpet, Leila wrote
on a notebook page, which was already full of house-related tasks. Or she could always see if the old floorboards would be up to baring. Floorboards were so lovely and rustic.
Work tasks filled two further pages.
She’d checked her work emails and had been on to the office by nine to delegate whatever she could and talk to Ilona about the forthcoming movie premiere. Devlin had been out of the office all day, so Leila sent him an email full of bullet points on everything she’d organised.
My mother has a broken hip and I need to be with her at the hospital for a few days. It will also take some time to organise a nursing home for when she comes out of hospital, she wrote, then her fingers stilled over her laptop keyboard.
It sounded so cold and uncaring. When Dad had been confined to bed with the series of back problems that had plagued the latter half of his life, her mother had done everything for him. She’d been his carer, devoting her life to him, and now Leila was blithely offloading the whole responsibility for her mother to someone else. It wasn’t just the care of her mother now either. The house on Poppy Lane had always been immaculate, but it looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for months. The big question was why? What had happened to turn her mother from the house-proud woman she remembered into someone who never cleaned at all?
Leila picked up the piece of paper with Katy and Michael’s wedding details written on it.
She’d drawn inexpert wedding bells and flowers around the date, and she felt happy for her friend because Katy was finally marrying the man she loved. But the contrast was unwelcome. Everything was wonderful in Katy’s life, while Leila seemed to have made a complete mess of hers. And it wasn’t going to improve any time soon.
But then she remembered her mother lying in hospital and told herself off for being selfish. The only thing that mattered right now was making sure that Mum was all right.