by Cathy Kelly
Sam was different too.
‘Mother is just Mother,’ she said to Joanne one day. ‘We can’t change her any more than she can change us. We just have to figure out how to live with her.’
‘I thought I was supposed to be the younger one who knew nothing,’ teased Joanne, then hugged her sister.
‘If India wakes and cries when she sees me, what then?’ said Jean, still clearly very anxious.
Sam patted her mother’s back gently.
‘Babies are a steep learning curve. Just soothe her, sing her a little song, hold her close. Stay calm.’
‘I can do calm,’ agreed Jean. ‘But singing?’
‘You were in a choir for years. Murmur something gently. A lullaby.’
‘OK, a lullaby.’
Half an hour later, when India was settled in her cot, the lights were low and Jean was settled in a chair with a magazine, Sam let herself out.
She stood outside the door, thinking that she’d never imagined this day would come. But it had. Another steep learning curve. But then, love and learning – that seemed to be what life was all about.
Ginger
The trees were sprouting the first buds in Grace’s garden as Ginger parked outside Grace and Esmerelda’s.
‘Dogs rolled in mud. Pooey,’ announced Esmerelda, opening the door and almost running away. ‘Me busy. We going to your father’s to spend night. No time to clean stinky dogs.’
Ginger was wearing her walking gear because she planned to go walking in the countryside later and she backed off as the two dogs leapt delightedly at her.
‘Down,’ she yelled at Cloud and Pepperpot, who looked more like chimney sweeps than cockapoos. The stink was incredible.
‘Blasted dog walker,’ said Aunt Grace, standing in the hallway with a barrage of boxes in front of her to keep her safe. ‘I don’t suppose you could wash them? They’ll stink out the car . . .’
‘Can you fire that dog walker and hire one who stops them rolling in crap?’ said Ginger, groaning.
‘He’s cute and I think you might like him,’ said Grace irrepressibly.
‘I already hate him,’ said Ginger.
Trying to keep the dogs at bay, she got dog treats from the kitchen, then coaxed the two dogs upstairs and locked them in the bathroom. The special doggy shampoo sat where it was last time she’d had to do this.
She stripped off her sweatshirt and her T-shirt until she was down to her sports bra, then hoisted Cloud in.
‘You are not a cloud, you are putting on weight,’ she murmured to the dog, feeding treats and talking doggie nonsense so Cloud would not be scared as the water started.
Twenty minutes later, Cloud and Pepperpot were clean, about six dirty towels destined for the boil wash were on the floor and everything she was wearing was wet.
Since there was nothing of either Grace’s or Esmerelda’s she could wear, she was going to be wearing this outfit for the evening.
Grace was at the door when Ginger let the dogs out.
‘Esmerelda, let them out!’
The dogs whizzed past Grace and down the stairs, a blur of wet fur.
‘Now, I have two things to show you,’ said Grace, leading the way to her bedroom.
On a desk sat a computer where Grace liked to order things from the internet, but tonight it was set up to a social media site.
‘Look,’ said Grace.
‘I didn’t know you were into social media,’ said Ginger, peering.
‘I don’t do that Instamatic thing or the Twitters but I like this one. I have some old friends on it and I like looking at the rubbish people put up. A lot of people lie, you know.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ said Ginger.
It was Facebook and she realised the page was Liza’s.
Moving swiftly back, she said: ‘I don’t want to look at this.’
‘No, do,’ insisted Grace.
Unwillingly, Ginger looked at where Grace was pointing a spindly but manicured finger.
‘See: single. They’ve split up. Her and that big idiot. Pair of idiots, really.’
Grace was Facebook-stalking her former best friend.
‘I should never have told you,’ she said, half laughing. ‘Stalker.’
‘I thought I might keep an eye out. She has no privacy settings, but then she never did have an ounce of sense. Silly girl. Well?’
Still wet, Ginger sat down on the bed. ‘Well what?’
‘How does it make you feel?’
Ginger considered it. The previous June, knowing that Liza and James had split up would have seemed like divine intervention, but now she merely felt sad for her former friend. Now that she had real friends, good friends, she understood that Liza had never been one.
‘I feel sorry for them both,’ she said.
Grace beamed at her.
‘You are a wonderful girl, Ginger Reilly. Just wonderful. You deserve all happiness in life.’
‘Yes, and wet dogs in my car,’ laughed Ginger.
‘They can come in my jeep,’ said a deep voice.
‘You haven’t met my new dog walker,’ said Grace, her grin truly devilish. ‘Should I fire him? You decide.’
Ginger turned and saw Will stood at the door of Grace’s bedroom.
With a surprising speed for a woman of her age, Grace slipped past Will and could be heard beetling down the stairs.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Ginger, no longer able to summon up any hostility. It had been months, after all. Although why Will was walking her great-aunt’s dogs made no sense to her.
‘Looking for you. Trying to make it up to you.’
‘Why? You were never interested in me,’ she said flatly.
‘Who told you that?’ said Will and he moved so that he was sitting on the bed beside her.
‘Carla—’
‘Very reliable woman, Carla,’ said Will. ‘Great liar. I knew that by the time I’d agreed to go to the ceremony with her, but I couldn’t back out. And then—’ his eyes, those amazing brown eyes that looked so stunning with his blond hair, darkened, ‘when you left with that smug git, I knew there was no point.’
Ginger bit her lip.
‘Except I couldn’t live without you.’
‘You appeared to manage,’ Ginger said tartly.
‘I had to when you blocked my number and ignored my note. I also thought you were seeing Tyson,’ he replied. ‘And then Grace got in touch.’
‘Grace got in touch? Is she secretly CIA?’ Ginger asked.
‘Let’s just say I think she has a good grasp of Facebook and she knows all your secrets.’
‘I have to stop telling her things,’ Ginger said, beginning to grin.
‘So, do you think you would give me the pleasure of taking one of the most beautiful, strong, clever women I’ve ever known out for dinner?’
Smelling of wet dog, Ginger did something she’d never done in her life: she sat on a man’s lap and didn’t think for even one second that she might be heavy, that she might crush the life out of him. Will Stapleton wanted her and she wanted him. Had wanted him since that night in his jeep.
‘I might,’ she said and then his hands cupped her face and he was kissing her.
This was how it was supposed to feel, she realised, as she felt him holding her like she was something precious.
This was worth waiting for.
And a week later, in her pretty bedroom in her tiny house, Ginger found that kisses were not the only thing worth waiting for.
‘I understand all those romantic novels now,’ she said, as they lay together, panting, smiling, bodies touching because they couldn’t bear to be apart.
‘You’ll understand it more the second time,’ said Will. ‘I love you, Ginger Reilly. Every glorious inch of you.’
PA
RT FIVE
The Next Birthday
Callie
Callie’s car had finally given up the ghost.
‘Goodbye sweet car,’ said Poppy, patting it affectionately as it was towed away. ‘You have been a good and faithful servant.’
Callie laughed out loud.
‘Once, you barely wanted to sit in it,’ she said fondly, putting an arm around her daughter.
‘Yeah,’ said Poppy, ‘I wasn’t an enlightened being then. And do not say I was a spoiled brat, Granny,’ she warned her grandmother, who’d come out to witness the farewell.
‘Nothing spoiled about you, Poppy pet,’ said her grandmother. ‘You didn’t know any better. When you know better, it’s different. What’s the plan now, Cal?’ She’d come around to calling her daughter Cal instead of Claire and it helped Callie. Claire was someone she’d left behind and the real Callie, the one who was bringing up her daughter and surviving, was someone she was growing nicely into.
‘The money from work is not really enough for a replacement,’ Callie said ruefully.
‘Time you sorted out that account that Jason says is clean,’ said her mother.
‘No,’ said Callie. ‘I’m not touching a penny of that money, even if none of it came from any fraud. There are people who need their money back and I feel a responsibility for them. If there’s any left over at the end when everyone’s paid back, well – fine.’
They’d gone over the argument many times before.
‘Yes, Gran, we have to pay Dad’s debts,’ Poppy said earnestly. ‘Nita across the road has the same thing. Her dad owes the moneylenders and even the money she earns in the hairdresser’s at the weekend goes into the pot.’
Callie felt her heart swell with pride. It wasn’t a traditional Hallmark moment, but it said how far they’d come. That Poppy, who once would have sold her soul for a new designer handbag, cared about paying back people her father had defrauded was heartbreaking. They’d never pay it all back, of course, but the police had recovered plenty of it. Callie was thinking of petitioning the courts for money for herself and Poppy to live on.
‘Honey, I promise that if you need it for anything serious, I will find money,’ Callie said fiercely. ‘You come first. I won’t raid that bank account for me, but for you, yes. So you are not to limit yourself in your dreams. But I can figure out how to buy a new old banger. And wait till I’ve got my new qualifications in health care – we’ll really be in the money!’ she joked.
The three of them walked inside with Poppy eagerly chatting about a make-up artist she was following online and who had the most incredible YouTube tutorials.
Callie actually knew exactly how to get a new car but she didn’t want to say yes to it: Ricky had offered her one of his.
‘It’s ancient,’ he’d said on the phone. ‘You’d be doing me a favour in getting it off the forecourt.’
‘Freddie wasn’t supposed to tell you. He’s like a parrot,’ chided Callie. ‘Ricky, I can’t take your car.’
‘Why not?’ he’d asked.
Because, Callie thought, it would mean relying on someone. She had come to rely on herself. That felt powerful.
‘If I’m stuck, I’ll get back to you, but give me a chance. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.’
Sam
Sam was woken on her birthday this year by another phone call, but not quite as early. She was awake anyway – India’s timekeeping still meant there were no lie-ins in their household.
‘Mother!’ she said as her mother came on first.
‘Just wanted to wish you happy birthday, darling,’ Jean said.
This was new – the ‘darling’. Sam liked it.
‘I have a small gift for you and your father and I will drive over before you go down the country, if that’s all right.’
Once, Jean would have dropped something at the door and gone on her way.
Progress had definitely been made.
‘Thanks, Mother,’ said Sam.
‘You’ll love the pressie,’ said her father irrepressibly in the background.
When she got off the phone, Ted had prepared breakfast in bed for his wife.
From the kitchen, India could be heard roaring for her own breakfast.
‘Happy birthday, my darling,’ he said, kissing her. ‘Nothing can compare to last year’s gift but here are . . . more earrings!’
He laughed as he handed her a beautifully wrapped box.
‘The gold is not supposed to come off these.’
Sam grabbed her husband and pulled him down onto the bed.
‘Do we have time?’ she said, biting his earlobe.
Another roar came from the kitchen.
‘Tonight?’ said Ted hopefully.
‘It’s a date.’
They drove to Ballyglen in a leisurely way. They’d booked a tiny separate house on the estate because it might be noisy at the birthday party. Joanne and Patrick had been invited but Pixie had a bug.
‘You go and have fun with your new friends. How often do you get to have a birthday party with two friends whose birthdays are on the same day,’ said Joanne. ‘I’ll stay here and mop up sick.’
‘You poor love,’ said Sam. ‘I hate you missing it. Ginger’s brothers and their wives are going, and her dad, plus Callie’s daughter, her aunt and mother.’
‘I can meet them again. Go and have birthday fun and when we are non-toxic here, we can meet them.’
In her baby seat, India cooed at her mother.
Sam grabbed her phone and took another photo.
Ted, eyes on the road, laughed. ‘I think we’ll need more iCloud storage,’ he said.
Sam grinned at him. ‘Definitely,’ she said. ‘I think we should try for another baby. We are so blessed to have India, but wouldn’t it be amazing if she had a sister? Look how Joanne and I are so close. I mean, now I’ve done it once—’
‘Try more?’ said Ted. ‘I am so definitely up for that.’
Ginger
Ginger was looking at her belongings stacked in the tiny hallway of her apartment and wondering if she’d overpacked, as usual. The guinea pigs were thrilled to be going on an adventure and were squeakily squabbling over who got to use their wheel.
‘You’d swear you pair never got to go anywhere,’ Ginger laughed, peering in at them affectionately. ‘If we get to go on our next big adventure after this birthday party, I’m buying you a second wheel and a bigger luxury duplex.’
And keeping it high up, she added mentally.
The next big adventure was that she and Will had decided to move in together to a fixer-upper house they’d discovered half an hour from the gym. Because Ginger would work from home a lot more, and because Will’s hours were flexible, they’d decided to get two dogs.
‘Rescue ones,’ said Will decisively.
‘Yes,’ said Ginger fervently, thinking of the stories she’d written about sad-eyed abandoned animals in shelters, staring up at her and waiting for a forever home that didn’t always come.
Dogs would love the guinea pigs: in a sandwich, out of a sandwich, whatever. She could not put her two beloved guinea pigs through that. So careful plans to keep the guineas safe would have to be made. Her dad would be delighted to help. He could build some yoke of a bookcase that was dog-proof and high enough for the dogs not to notice. Well, she hoped so.
Her dad loved Will, almost as much as Declan and Mick did, who – after an initial period of assessment while they grimly decided if he was good enough for their little sister – had adopted him as practically another brother.
Her phone pinged with a text:
Sorry, Ginger, just leaving. Got delayed. Love you.
Her heart did that little skip that Zoe, her sister-in-law, said was not atrial defibrillation but a woman in love.
Will always said he
loved her in texts. He’d practically moved in already, and might be the worst in the world at cleaning up the bathroom and used the washing machine on 60 degrees every time, so he shrunk sweaters, but he knew Ginger needed reassurance. He understood her. That was worth more than ruined sweaters any day.
When the doorbell rang a moment later, Ginger was still in that loved-up place, and, without thinking that Will had his own key, would hardly be using the doorbell and must have travelled via Star Trek technology to get there at this speed, she opened it, beaming.
Except the visitor was not her tall, handsome beloved man. It was Liza.
A Liza who was still thin, no longer tanned, possibly Botoxed, Ginger thought in some alarm, and sobbing her eyes out.
‘James has left me,’ wailed Liza and, for a millisecond, Ginger’s brain went into a slight confusion.
James . . .? And then she remembered. James, the love of Liza’s life. Groom at the wedding from hell. Amazingly, she felt nothing – not a quiver, nothing.
‘I know he left you,’ Ginger said bluntly. ‘It was on Facebook, ages ago.’
Liza burst into fresh sobs.
Even though she was small, she had a lifetime of pushing Ginger around and, somehow, she made her way into the apartment, where she immediately sat down on the most comfortable armchair. Arranging her feet up under her, she began to cry again. She was clearly there for the long haul.
‘Do you have anything to drink? A white wine spritzer, perhaps?’ said Liza, between sobs.
The new, improved Ginger reasserted herself.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s morning, for a start. This isn’t a bar. And you can’t stay, Liza. I’m going away for a few days.’
‘But I need you,’ wailed Liza. ‘I have to get him back!’
Ginger thought of the talks she now did in schools and colleges about women empowering themselves and not allowing themselves to be defined by either society or one person.
She had never used the precise example of her friendship with Liza to illustrate this fact: that would be cruel to Liza. But she explained how she had allowed her feelings of not fitting in due to her weight to allow herself to be walked on, made to feel less than.