by Cathy Kelly
Callie inhaled swiftly. This truth was so brutal, so real. Imagine a parent having to inject a drug into their child to overcome the effects of a heroin overdose. She’d been absent for it all, on the missing list when it came to helping her mother.
‘Oh Ma, I know it was bad but I didn’t see much of it,’ said Callie, holding her mother’s worn hands. ‘I just took Jason’s money and sent that. But you needed real help and I wasn’t there. I’m so sorry. I can never pay you back for taking us in like this, after everything.’
‘It’s what mothers do,’ said Pat simply. ‘You don’t have to pay me back for anything. I got you and Poppy back. That’s all I need.’
Freddie could only stay one day and when he left the next day, Callie felt unaccountably low.
Poppy and her mother had gone off to a garden centre – Poppy willingly going to a garden centre! – and Callie was alone with the dog.
Sitting there, hugging the small dog, she cried.
Alone at last, she let the pain and the betrayal emerge.
She hadn’t known, hadn’t seen, the real Jason. He had cut her off from her family, had conned her and abandoned their beloved daughter. How foolish had she been not to have seen any of this?
She cried till she didn’t know if she could cry anymore.
What next for her and Poppy? How could there be any decent future for them? She had no qualifications to get a good job, and besides, she was forever marked by Jason’s actions.
At that moment, she felt lower than she’d ever felt.
And then, even though Freddie had spent a day talking to her about his life, about the depths to which addiction had brought him, she thought of Xanax again, something to help her cope for a while.
It wasn’t addiction: heck, no. It was just something to help her, to take the edge off, like the odd glass of wine. Plus, a doctor had originally prescribed them to her, so it was fine. Really.
Callie walked with a quick step the half a mile to the Russet Lounge.
The Russet was not the sort of classy establishment that Jason and his pals would have liked, as it did not feature any expensive Armagnacs or unusual craft beers handmade by an ancient order of monks.
No, the Russet Lounge catered for a wide variety of people, some of whom were unemployed and liked to watch sports on the television, some of whom had decent jobs and liked a few pints after work, and some of whom were less easily classified.
In Callie’s day, her mother or her aunt would never have dreamed of going into the Russet Lounge on any but rare occasions where they’d partake of a small gin and tonic or a hot whiskey. But now there were plenty of women in there: women like Glory, who sat in the corner and played solitaire on her own on her phone.
Long before Freddie had turned up, Callie’s mother had been filling her daughter in on the various local people and the troubles they’d had over the years. She mentioned an old friend’s daughter, Glory, who was only in her early thirties but was known for selling drugs.
‘Not the hard stuff, mind you,’ her mother had said wearily, ‘but enough to land her in court a couple of times. She can’t stop, sells out of the Russet Lounge and they just leave her to it now. There’s a market for it. She tells her mother she has the kids to look after and needs the money, but sure, her mother looks after those kids most of the time.
‘Feeds them too,’ Pat went on. ‘Freddie says she’s an addict but she’s feeding other people’s addiction too, which is part of the pattern. Sell to feed your own habit. I don’t know whether to feel pity for her or to hate her.’
At the time, Callie’s first thought had been that perhaps poor Glory had never had the chances in life to get clean the way Freddie had. And then that night in bed, her mind had begun clicking over.
Glory was somebody local and possibly, possibly, a safe person for Callie to ask about getting some Xanax. She’d had none left for ages now and she felt the loss keenly.
But she felt ashamed even thinking it after Freddie had talked to her about his time with heroin. The woman she’d been before would never have sunk to this level, but the woman she was now was desperate. She justified it to herself constantly: it was a drug she’d had before, just something to take the edge off. A few to tide her over. Just for a week, perhaps. Because she had to face her future and do something about getting a job. Buying prescription meds was not the same as being a proper addict, was it?
Walking into the pub, she spotted a woman sitting alone with a glass of something that looked like fizzy orange but might have been heavily spiked with alcohol, playing on her phone.
Glory had ombré hair – dark brown roots and blonde tips – but it wasn’t the ombré of expensive salons. More the ombré of someone who didn’t care what the world thought of her hairstyle or didn’t have money to waste when she could use it on pharmaceuticals.
Nervously, Callie approached her.
‘Glory?’
The woman had looked up at her suspiciously. Then the suspicion went and she broke into a smile. Not a nice smile, either.
‘You’re that woman, aren’t you? The one whose husband’s done a runner with all the money.’
‘Yes,’ said Callie flatly, ‘that’s who I am. The woman whose husband has done a runner.’ Callie sank into the seat opposite and kept her voice really low this time. ‘I thought you might be able to help me with getting something I need?’
‘Like what?’ said Glory, raising her eyebrow.
‘Xanax. I don’t know any doctors around here and . . .’
Glory looked at her, then looked down to see Callie’s hand shaking.
‘I might know someone who could,’ she said cautiously.
She watched Callie’s shaking hand again for a moment. Assessing.
‘An hour. Back of the pub. Have cash on you. Don’t bring anyone with you. If you’re messing with me, don’t. I know you, know your ma’s house.’
‘OK,’ said Callie, scared at the implied threat.
She got to her feet quickly and almost ran out of the pub. She must have been mad. How could she even think of doing this? Even if they were drugs that doctors prescribed, she was still buying them illegally. That was a criminal offence.
And it meant dealing with a woman who scared her.
But she couldn’t cope on her own, couldn’t afford to pay a doctor anymore and was out of options. Under her current financial and legal cloud, she would never qualify for the medical card that would entitle her to free medical care, so she would have to shell out cash for a local doctor. And with no income, that wasn’t an option.
She spent the next half an hour going around in circles in her mind, torturing herself with the thought of what she was about to do. Then she went home, slipped in the back door and took forty of her precious euros from her stash. She hadn’t asked how much the drugs would cost, but this was the most she could spend.
When the time was nearly up, Callie walked slowly towards the pub, hating herself. No. She was not going to do this. She would not sink this low. And then she thought about how she’d run out of tablets a few days ago, how it had stressed her, and how sometimes being able to take one was the only thing that got her through the day.
When the panic came, she felt the calmness as the drug hit her system and she could relax just that little bit. That’s all she wanted – to be able to cope.
She met Glory at the back of the pub, her heart rate seriously elevated.
Glory was sitting on a wrecked old pub chair beside the bins and slowly smoking a rolled-up cigarette. Callie smelled hash, which she didn’t think she’d smelled so close up since she’d gone out with Ricky all those years ago.
‘Fifty quid for ten since you’re a first-time customer,’ said Glory, getting straight down to business.
‘What?’ said Callie, shocked. ‘They’re not that expensive.’
‘No
t if you are buying them in the pharmacy.’ Glory’s smile was cold. ‘But you’re buying them from Glory’s Pharmacy, so the price is different.’
‘I only have forty euros.’
‘Fine. You can have eight.’
Callie handed over her valuable cash.
Glory, in a very skilled move, found her roll-ups pack and seemed to be messing with cigarette papers to the outside eye. But Callie could see her using a small razor blade to cut off part of a card of bubble-packaged tablets.
She then handed over the small package as smoothly as if shaking hands.
Getting to her feet, she took a deep drag on her cigarette.
‘See ya around.’ And she was gone.
Callie felt a rush of guilt and anxiety.
What was she doing? Who had she become?
She was going to use these Xanax to get her through and then after this no more. No more.
Sam
Sam sat on the floor in the nursery with India snuggled up against her. She felt calm even though she wasn’t sure if the antidepressants could have kicked in so soon. It would surely take longer than ten days, but she felt better already. It was admitting that she was terrified of the darkness, terrified of falling into a hole of depression – that’s what Joanne said.
Ted had taken that first week off and was there to take care of India so that Sam could sleep. Whenever he could, and when he thought Sam wasn’t looking, he researched post-natal depression on the internet. She noticed it on his browsing history, and even though she could barely summon up the energy to shower each day, she wanted to dance with love for him.
‘You need healthy foods, no junk,’ he said gravely, coming home from the shops with what looked like the entire health food section in bags.
‘You setting up a restaurant?’ asked Joanne, who was there to babysit. Ted was keen that Sam had company in case she felt any sense of fear or loneliness returning. Sometimes it was Joanne, sometimes it was Liam, who had been asked – by Sam – not to mention her current problems to her mother.
‘It’s nothing to do with you taking care of India,’ Ted had said, holding on to her shoulders, determined to reassure her. ‘You are the best mother in the world. India adores you and you are far better with her than I am. You are a natural mother.’ He said those words a lot. ‘But you need us around you, loving you.’
‘A health food restaurant, yes,’ Ted joked back. ‘I’m going to whip up some nourishing chicken soup – it’s not called Jewish Penicillin for nothing. My pal, Levi, swears by it. Cake. Yes, lemon and poppy seed cake. It’s a Mary Berry recipe.’
Sam perked up. ‘You’ve never baked before.’
Ted beamed at her. ‘You always say that if you can read, you can cook, right? Well, I can read—’
Sam and Joanne laughed so hard at the notion of Ted baking that the dogs began barking and India woke up.
‘I’ll go,’ said Joanne.
Sam laid a hand on her sister’s arm. ‘No, let me. I’m good. When I’m not so good, I’ll say so, but I’m not an invalid. I want to take care of my baby.’
And she did.
Now, Sam looked down at India with absolute adoration.
‘Mummy will mind you, take care of you and tickle you,’ she said, doing more little tickles and India gurgled back. The sound filled Sam with love and, more than that, a feeling of trust.
As Joanne had advised, she’d abandoned all the baby books but one sensible one.
There were no insane routines, no hint in the writing that if the reader did not do everything exactly as it was written, they would fail. It was more of a: babies are tougher than you think. You parents are brighter than you think. You will actually figure it out. But here are some tips.
‘It’s a pity there aren’t more funny guides to how to be a mummy, isn’t it?’ Sam said to India, who looked back at her mother with bright eyes.
The noise of the dogs made her realise Ted was home, but he was early, surely?
She looked at the clock on the baby monitor and saw that it was only after two in the afternoon.
‘Hello, my girls,’ Ted said, beaming at them.
He bent his long body and sat down on the floor beside Sam, legs spread out much further than hers.
Leaning over, he gave her a long kiss. Then, he gave India a tiny kiss on her forehead.
‘Gimme.’
Sam passed over India.
‘What are you doing home so early, you slacker?’ she asked good-humouredly.
‘It’s an incredible day, the summer will be over before we know it and I thought: how about if we go for a drive and then a walk on the beach?’
Sam considered it. She’d gone with Ted, Joanne and her father individually for walks with India, but they’d been around the area, nowhere far.
Now Ted was suggesting going out out.
‘Please?’ he wheedled.
‘OK.’
They drove to the nearest beach, parked the car and made their way down the path to the shore itself. It was a windy day and the waves whipped and whisked. Walkers belted along the shore, stepping to music or some invisible internal beat. Dogs frolicked in the waves, brave when the sea was out, running away excitedly when it was in and barking at it.
They gazed out at the sea, watching the white horses dancing on the waves.
‘Imagine,’ said Ted, holding India up carefully in his arms. ‘Daddy’s going to teach you to swim in the sea one day. We can splash in the sand, look for pretty stones, watch out for crabs.’
Sam felt her heart melt. He was so happy with his darling girl – with both his darling girls, she realised. She’d always known how much he loved her, but the way he’d taken care of her, the way he’d worried, showed how devoted he was.
She leaned against him, glorying in the strong feel of his body and the sun shining down on them.
‘You never mentioned sandcastles, Daddy,’ she said. ‘Naughty Daddy!’
Ted laughed. ‘With moats. I love moats.’
‘Bet you I can build better sandcastles than Daddy,’ teased Sam.
Ted turned towards her, eyes smiling. ‘Bet you can, my love,’ he said. ‘You can do anything.’
Sam reached until she had her arms around him and India. ‘We can, together,’ she said.
And they were silent then, staring out at the sea. Content.
Ginger
On the Sunday morning after the photo shoot, Ginger lay in bed and listened to the dawn chorus. She was never awake this early, but today her head was clear and she felt as awake as if someone had injected her with a triple espresso. Today was the day her picture in a swimsuit was going to appear in the paper’s magazine supplement. In colour.
Showing off her legs.
More than her legs.
Her boobs . . .
The heat of pure mortification made her throw back the covers and get up.
She brought out some guinea-pig breakfast with her coffee, fed them, and then opened the window closest to the canal, where she could see the tree-lined path where early morning dog-walkers were already up. Church bells were sounding over in the big domed church in Rathmines. In the distance, the dome was peppermint green, while the sun shone on house tiles and made the soft red-brick houses shimmer in the early heat.
On a day this lovely, Ginger knew a sun-lover like Liza would have already organised herself in the garden, determined to get as many rays as she could. Liza went brown easily and never bothered with actual suncreams.
Jodie in work would not be impressed with her. Jodie believed in high sun factors the way ancient religions believed in flinging live sacrifices into volcanoes.
‘Your face turns into an old leather handbag if you don’t wear sunblock,’ she said.
Yeah, Ginger thought. You wait till your face is like an old handbag, Liza, an
d then come crawling back to me looking to be my friend. And then she grinned. She’d thought about Liza without that painful ache inside her.
It still hurt – twenty-six years of friendship couldn’t vanish that easily. But it hurt less. That was something.
The first text came at just after nine and was from Zoe:
You look incredible, Ginger. We are so proud of you! I hope you are too.
Shortly afterwards, Declan texted:
I’ll have to take you into the office for show-and-tell now. All the lads will want to meet you. Fabulous. Love ya.
Ginger felt halfway between nauseated and excited as she clicked onto the News site. Carla had insisted that those pages had been worked on by the subeditors away from the three participants and warned certain death if they defied her by trying to check them out in any way.
‘No interference,’ she’d snapped.
Nervously, Ginger waited for the page to load. Because she had automatic newspaper subscription, she got the whole paper online. There, on the front page, at the top, was a small pic of her and Jodie beaming, quite obviously in swimwear, with the tagline: ‘Our Girls Get Fit! Full story, page 3’.
Her breasts . . . Ginger pulled the page-size up. Her breasts looked huge. Implant-huge. She cringed and sped through the paper till she reached the magazine where there, on the cover, she stood.
Not Jodie or Fiona – just her.
Jack or the subeditors had cut the others out of the photo till it was just her looking like a plus-sized chorus girl in her heels, hip out, smile in place and all she needed was a basket of fruit on her head to finish off the 1940s movie look. The shock of seeing herself in full colour made her look away, but then she forced herself to look back, to be dispassionate.
She didn’t look hideous. The tan hid a multitude of sins and that swimsuit gave her curves like an hourglass. But still . . .
Shuddering, she looked inside where at least they showed a photo of the three of them together. But the headline with Ginger’s piece, with yet another solo picture of herself, made her grit her teeth: