by Cathy Kelly
After Tynan had gone, she’d fallen apart. Perhaps she should have done what Fiona’s friend at work had done and gone off to show the world that she wasn’t finished just because her husband had left her. But grieving over a failed marriage felt like a necessary part of the process. She’d needed to sit in misery in order to move on; it was like grief, really. Grieving for what might have been.
And now she had moved on. Finally.
Except she’d moved on to a man she probably couldn’t have and who might not have the slightest feeling for her – or did he? She wished she knew.
‘Are you seeing anyone?’ she asked Fiona abruptly, anxious to stop thinking about Devlin.
Fiona’s escapades in the dating world always made for marvellous stories. She was the exact opposite of Leila and had spent her twenty-seven years on earth having fun and not caring what anyone, boyfriend or otherwise, thought about her.
‘Not right now,’ Fiona said. ‘I’m between unsuitable men.’
Leila laughed out loud.
‘Why is it so hard to figure out if they’re unsuitable in the first place?’
‘Dunno. I get carried away by the physical bits – face, nice pecs, the tough-but-I-could-tame-him look I can’t resist.’ Fiona sighed as if this had been a long and often-fought battle. ‘How about you? Are you seeing anyone?’
Leila felt the blush rise up her chest and hit her face. At least she was facing ahead so Fiona couldn’t see the colour of her.
‘No,’ she said blithely.
Which was true: she wasn’t. One ludicrous night where she and her boss – her boss! – had kissed hardly counted as dating someone. Neither did the current situation in the office, where Devlin appeared to be either ignoring her or talking to her like she was a maiden aunt he was in dreadful fear of offending. It was all so complicated.
‘I brought my iPod,’ announced Fiona. ‘Do you want to listen to some music?’
‘Sure.’
Fiona fiddled with the iPod for a moment, and then music flooded the car.
Fiona leaned her seat back, closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.
With her passenger out for the count, Leila allowed herself to relive that moment in Rome with Devlin. Time suspended, his arms around her, fantasising about the life they might have. In this happy haze, the miles flew past.
Susie had woken at half six to the sound of Jack watching Power Rangers on the TV in their tiny living room, which was next door to the apartment’s big bedroom. Why was it, she wondered, that she had to haul him from his bed on school mornings at seven thirty when on weekends he was up with the lark?
‘It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ one of the mothers had said cheerfully the previous day, when Susie had picked Jack up from school. ‘It’s like they’ve got sleeping sickness on school days, and come Saturday, they’re raring to go at dawn!’
Susie had kept the smile nailed to her face when the other woman went on to happily declare that tomorrow it would be her turn to have Saturday morning in bed: ‘Mark had a lie-in last Saturday – this one’s mine!’
There was nobody with whom Susie could share the weekend mornings. Jack’s father had been gone long before their son was born. Every part of his care, except when she was at work and he was at school or at darling Mollsie’s, was Susie’s responsibility.
She loved him so much it almost hurt, but in spite of that, there were times when the sheer weight of exhaustion and responsibility became too much for her. She had to keep healthy, earn money and stay sane for both their sakes; there was nobody else to rely on. If she allowed herself to contemplate the things that could go wrong, how easily their precarious security could fall apart, it scared her so much that she couldn’t breathe. What if she got injured or was too sick to cope – who’d look after Jack then?
Monday was the only day when Susie could do the school pick-up. She carved the hours out of the rest of her working week by taking half-hour lunches and starting early, but it was worth it to see Jack’s chubby little face light up in a smile when he saw her standing with the other mothers at the school gates.
Despite the years she’d been doing it, she still had the sense of not quite fitting into any of the groups of waiting parents. There were the working mothers who made it when their schedules allowed, and the mothers who didn’t work outside the home who were there come rain or shine, but Susie fell awkwardly into the gap between the two groups.
Sure, there were divorced parents, including one divorced father who had an office at home, shared custody of his daughter, and picked her up every day. But Susie was the only truly single parent. And she felt the difference keenly.
For her and Jack, there was no man to put out the bins, play football with his son and sort out the fuse box in the dark. If anything needed fixing in her small two-bedroom apartment, Susie had to try and sort it herself.
‘You’re great,’ said one school father approvingly when he spotted her in the DIY store, looking high and low for picture hooks.
‘I love a bit of DIY,’ said Susie briskly, marching off to the till. Talking to the fathers was always a mistake. Better to have them think she was stand-offish than risk them assuming she was batting her eyelashes at them.
She wondered how the other mothers saw her. She didn’t have Leila’s obvious sex appeal or the money for expensive blonde streaks, but otherwise the sisters were very alike, with their hour-glass figures and big, heavy-lashed eyes. They certainly dressed differently, though, with Susie being careful to wear outfits that projected a hard-working, almost sombre mien. In work, she dressed in the dark trousers and blouses that BroadbanzInc insisted upon. Outside of work, she was a fan of jeans, flat shoes and nothing that emphasised her figure. She’d learned that lesson early.
Sexy single mothers were looked down on by people who jumped to the conclusion that they had only themselves to blame for their situation. And it made her sad to think so, but some people believed that single mothers were forever on the lookout for a man.
Susie was determined to give them no cause for talk in that direction. Nobody would ever know she was lonely.
Today, there would be no time for loneliness. She was looking forward to it all: the girlish fun of discussing dresses, being with Katy and even Leila.
She’d done nothing but think about what Katy had said to her about Leila. She needs us now.
At nine, she dropped Jack off at Mollsie’s house and set off for Milady’s Salon with a spring in her step.
An hour had passed and they still hadn’t decided on a colour.
The three of them tried on 1930s-style dresses in Birdie’s favourite old-rose shade and stood side by side in front of the big mirrors, with Katy and Birdie, now on their second cups of tea, looking on. The colour suited Susie and Leila, but it made Fiona look as if she should be in hospital on a drip.
‘It’s a nursing-home bed-jacket colour on me,’ she said, not at all put out by the sight of herself in a dress that so obviously didn’t suit her.
Fiona was quite amazing, Leila thought admiringly. She didn’t feel that she had failed because she looked bad in an outfit – it was just the colour, not her personally.
Glancing across at Susie, Leila found that she too seemed impressed.
‘I’d have thought it was somehow my fault for having the wrong colouring,’ said Susie.
‘Me too,’ said Leila, and for a brief moment, the sisters smiled at each other in total accord.
‘You never used to be like that,’ Susie said quietly, moving closer to Leila.
‘Life,’ said Leila, shrugging. ‘I think I lost my confidence somewhere along the way.’
Susie’s hand found her sister’s and squeezed.
Leila squeezed back.
‘I lost mine too,’ Susie whispered.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help,’ Leila said.
‘You’re here now,’ said Susie, because it seemed like exactly the right thing to say. No long speeches, no shouting; just the know
ledge that their relationship was strong enough after all to weather this.
The two sisters retreated to the dressing room area.
‘You should be yelling at me,’ Leila said sadly. ‘I left you alone with Jack – I left Mum, too. All for a bloody man who was off the first time someone shoved her push-up bra at him.’
‘If he wanted to go, he’d have gone whatever was shoved in his face,’ Susie said. ‘Sisters and mothers don’t go.’
‘Or nephews,’ said Leila. ‘I love Jack, he’s adorable.’
‘He wants to know why I don’t have an iPhone,’ said Susie, grinning. ‘Apparently everyone’s mum has one.’
‘I could buy you one,’ Leila offered.
‘Hey, not having all the expensive stuff in life didn’t do us any harm, Leelu,’ said her sister, and they both grinned.
‘Fair enough, but promise me you won’t ever make him take his driving test in a car where the back doors don’t open and the driver’s front window is stuck at half-mast, come rain or shine?’
And then they were laughing, discussing how awful that car had been and how they’d managed never having the money to go on any of the school overnight trips.
Katy peered round the curtain and grinned at her friends.
‘Fiona has a colour she likes,’ she said innocently.
‘Blue,’ Fiona was telling Madeleine. ‘I look good in blue.’
‘Blue, right,’ said Madeleine calmly.
Leila, who hadn’t worn blue since ripping off their school uniform – royal blue – for the last time many years before, grimaced. ‘Blue?’
‘Yeah, a nice blue,’ said Fiona, oblivious to Leila and Susie’s looks of horror. She pulled out a taffeta dress with a high neck and an A-line skirt, not unlike the shape of the one they’d all had to wear for so long in school. ‘It’s a bit geeky, but the colour’s nice, don’t you think? You could, you know, cut the neck down a bit or something.’
She turned to see Birdie smothering a laugh while Leila shook her head and made throat-cutting gestures with her hand.
‘But I like it,’ cried Fiona.
‘How could you like it? It’s the school colour and it suited none of us,’ said Leila. ‘I looked like a short blue Smurf.’
‘Smurf blue is nice,’ remarked Katy. ‘This is not Smurf blue. It’s school uniform blue!’
Susie snorted.
Soon, Katy, Leila and Susie were all giggling helplessly.
‘What?’ demanded Fiona.
Madeleine turned to her assistant, Leda, and whispered that it might be time to boil the kettle again.
‘Let’s all change back into dressing gowns and have a rethink,’ she announced in the voice of a woman who had seen many, many bridal parties pass through her doors, including one memorable one where nobody – nobody – was speaking to anyone else and it had been left to her to go from one person to the next, transmitting remarks they should have been addressing to one another.
This lot were lovely, no trouble at all really, apart from the tall one who actually would have liked a denim dress if they’d had one. But tea and a break were definitely required.
Michael’s best man Robbie was, he told Michael and Stephen, a broken man.
‘Colic,’ he said, heading for one of the comfy seats in the coffee bar instead of the stools, and fortifying himself with a double espresso. ‘Marco cries all the time. It’s heartbreaking holding him because you can’t do anything except rub his back and talk to him or sing. None of those remedies from the chemist work. Is it natural for a baby to be in pain like that?’ He turned to Stephen for this question, his eyes the sunken red of someone who had only a passing acquaintance with sleep.
‘All sorts of strange things are natural for babies,’ Stephen pointed out gently. ‘Nobody tells you how intense and difficult it is at first. You wonder how people get through it all, what with the lack of sleep, the crying fits, the problems feeding … and that’s only the parents!’
Robbie managed a laugh. ‘I had no idea, none, what my parents went through,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Maureen worked out that at one point my mother had five kids under the age of seven. I can tell you, I have more admiration for her now than I ever had.’
‘Wow,’ said Michael, who was quite shocked at how shattered his best man was looking, and even more shocked at this insight into how traumatic it could be caring for a first baby. He didn’t remember reading any of this in the pregnancy guide he and Katy spent all their time poring over. That was full of stuff about how big the baby was now and what bits were developing. No talk of colic or near-derangement due to lack of sleep. ‘I didn’t think it would be that bad.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ said Robbie, distressed at having given the wrong impression. ‘It’s the most incredible experience ever – but it is hard. Marco’s three months now and he still doesn’t sleep. Maureen and I took turns when I was on paternity leave, but since I’ve gone back to work, I’ve been doing weekends. He goes to bed at seven, then he’s up at twelve, down again – if you’re lucky – at one, then up again at four.’
Michael was looking paler and paler as this tale was recounted.
‘All Maureen’s friends seem to have babies who are already sleeping through the night, and I want to kill them,’ Robbie said. ‘Sometimes I’m convinced they’re just saying it to make us feel inadequate. Babies’ sleeping schedules are a competitive sport, Maureen’s mother says.’
Stephen sat back in his chair and took another sip of his latte. ‘You didn’t sleep for months,’ he told Michael, his mind drifting back to those early days of fatherhood. ‘Your mother did more of it than me, God love her. I’d come home from work and find you asleep on the floor, with her lying beside you.’
‘The floor?’
‘On beanbags,’ his father chuckled. ‘Beanbags were the height of fashion then, and babies could lie in them happily and gurgle up at you.’
He seemed lost in memories.
‘You don’t know it at the time, but they’re some of the best days of your life,’ he said wistfully.
Madeleine was on the third hour of the Desmond/Rhattigan bridal party, which wasn’t unusually long. Some brides, like that sweet but dithering girl from last month, couldn’t make up their mind if their life depended upon it. Four and a half hours had been required to get her to buy the first dress she’d tried on.
Katy wasn’t like that at all, Madeleine knew. She’d chosen her gown two weeks earlier and all they had to do now was keep an eye on her emerging bump. It was the bridesmaids who couldn’t come to a decision. The two sisters loved coral, but Fiona didn’t. Pink of any hue made her shudder.
‘Fiona, it’s not your blinking wedding!’ said Leila crossly. She’d have worn anything if it pleased Katy. What the bridesmaids wore was not that important as long as they didn’t frighten the guests or resemble giant meringues. It was all about Katy.
‘I don’t like girlie colours, that’s all,’ said Fiona stubbornly.
Katy looked at Leila and shrugged.
‘You don’t have to be a bridesmaid if you hate the idea,’ she said kindly to Fiona. ‘I didn’t know you hated dresses that much, Fi, honestly. I won’t be upset. I want everyone to have a lovely day, that’s all.’
‘Now, ladies, I think I have the answer to all our prayers,’ said Madeleine, emerging from the back of the shop carrying several gowns. She was followed by Leda struggling under the weight of many more.
‘These are from a few seasons ago, so they’re cheaper, and they might be perfect with your dress, Katy. There hasn’t been anything really empire line for the past few years, but these are very Jane Austen and you girls are all slim.’
‘Don’t tell your father they’re cheaper,’ Birdie warned anxiously. Howard would have a fit if he thought any money had been spared for his beloved daughter’s wedding.
‘These,’ said Madeleine, managing to look both steely and shop-owner-professional at the same time, ‘are a good choice for a s
pring wedding. There’s navy with silver cobweb shawls you might all like.’ She glanced at Fiona as she said this. ‘Or if you’re so anti-pink, how about an amber-coloured dress?’
The girls took a navy and an amber dress each and went into the dressing rooms.
‘Is it always this tricky?’ asked Birdie.
‘This is a walk in the park,’ confided Madeleine. ‘We’ll get your girls sorted, I promise.’
Grace’s dinner party had grown as the week went on.
Susie, Leila and Birdie were all coming too, but Howard – Grace felt guilty as she sent a silent thank-you heavenward – was going to be in France for a work thing, so couldn’t be there.
She was nearly ready: all she needed were a few titbits for nibbles and she’d be all set. And some flowers. She’d seen purple parrot tulips in the florist’s just off the square, and with a bit of greenery from her own garden, they’d be perfect.
But as she set off for the town centre to do her last-minute shopping, Grace was struggling to keep the tiredness at bay. Why did she have to feel so exhausted today of all days? She wondered whether it would be worth making a doctor’s appointment next week for one of those vitamin B injections she’d heard about.
She had to be lacking in something, because there was no other explanation for how she was feeling. A wave of loneliness kept coming over her at the oddest times: watching a TV show featuring a happily married couple, even though she knew they were acting and heaven knew what went on in their real lives.
Grace saw enough of other people’s lives second-hand through her work. People might think they could fool the world, hide the pain behind closed doors, but inevitably it would reveal itself in their children. As a headmistress, she had learned to recognise the signs: uncharacteristic behaviour, loss of interest in school activities and lessons … She thought again of Ruby Morrison. Apparently there had been no improvement since Derek McGurk first alerted her to the problem; the form teacher had made several attempts to get Ruby to confide in her, but she kept insisting nothing was wrong.