‘If you’d prefer to go to Christine’s I’ll understand,’ Sarah said, ‘but I’d love you to be here – and so would the children.’
‘I’ll come, of course I will,’ her father replied. ‘And I’ll do my best not to challenge him to a duel.’
She smiled at the idea of her eighty-two-year-old father standing back to back with Neil, six foot two and fifteen stone. ‘Thanks, Dad – you’re a pet.’
It was for the children. Christmas was all about families; they deserved to have both parents there. But lying in bed at night, safe in the darkness and silence of her room, she allowed herself to acknowledge that she wanted it too.
***
Dear Helen
Great news! I finally passed the driving test, third time lucky! I’m still petrified behind the wheel – I think I probably always will be – but I’ll take it easy and hope for the best. At last I can let poor Dad off the hook and bring Martha and Stephen to school in the morning – and I’ve even got myself a car! Someone who works with Brian has a brother with a garage, and he found it for me. It’s a Ford Fiesta and it’s bright yellow, which I’m not mad about, but only four years old and apparently in good condition. I’m planning to put my bike in the boot every morning and drive as far as the school, then cycle on to the nursing home from there. I’ll only drive when I have to.
And more news: I’ve invited Neil and his mother to Christmas dinner. I don’t know what you’ll have to say about that, but it just felt like the right thing to do. I’m still so confused about him. He hasn’t said he wants to come back, hasn’t even hinted at it, but maybe he’s waiting for me to give some indication that I’d let him. Oh, I don’t know, I’m so mixed up. I’ll let you know how the day goes anyway.
Enjoy Scotland – only another week until you head off. Maybe Frank will propose over there! And I’m so glad your mother is going too. She’d have been so lonely without you and Alice, now that your father is gone. I’m sure you’ll get on fine, and I’ll look forward to hearing how it goes.
Right – deep breath: I think I’ve finished the cookbook! I’m terrified to show it to anyone, but I’m also very excited about it! I’ve tried it out on Martha, and on Paddy, my eight-year-old nephew, and they both said it was really easy to use. Martha did sausage rolls and Paddy made a batch of coconut castles. So if you’re still happy to help, feel free to contact your publisher friend after Christmas – God, I’m full of butterflies after just writing that! Imagine if he actually wants to meet me – I’ll be a nervous wreck!
I’m sending a tiny little gift, and one for Alice, which I hope you don’t mind delivering, since I haven’t got her address in Cardiff. Please give her a hug from me.
Happy Christmas, my friend, all the very best to you and Frank for 1992, let’s hope it’s a good one, as poor John Lennon would say.
Sarah xx
Helen
Sarah Flannery
You little minx, inviting your ex to Christmas dinner. And his mother too, so it looks totally respectable, when you’re probably planning to bat your eyelashes at him all evening. Just be careful, lady: I’m all for following your heart – and I suspect that he still has a hold on it – but look after yourself too, OK? Don’t let him back into your life too easily. Make him deserve you.
Frank proposing marriage? He’d better not, unless he wants me to have a minor coronary. I’ve walked down the aisle once in my life, and I’ve no intention of doing it again, thank you.
You passed the driving test – fabulous. You’ll be whizzing around the countryside in no time. Sending a dual Christmas/congratulations present of a road map and a compass, to keep you going in a straight line.
Cookbook is done, wonderful. I’ve gone ahead and contacted Paul the publisher, who is intrigued, and happy to have a look – he says he’ll bring it home and test it out on his kids. I’ve put his phone number at the top of this letter, and I’ve told him you’ll call him first week in January to arrange delivery. See how I anticipated you chickening out, and made it impossible? Let me know what he says.
My photo frame is delightful, thank you. I’ll put one of Frank and me in it and make his day, and Alice will be very happy to get hers – you’re sweet to think of her. Frank asked why you and I have never met. I told him one day, when the time is right.
Oh, God, Cliff Richard has just started singing ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ again: must go and shoot the radio. Happy Christmas, hope it goes well. 1992 here we come.
H x
PS Met Breen a while ago – literally bumped into him. He bought me a brandy and gave me far too much information about his manic-depressive alcoholic wife. Poor sod, explains a lot.
Dear Mrs Flannery
Belated Happy Christmas – are you even allowed to wish someone Happy Christmas afterwards? Jackie and I have just got back from Scotland, which was great. We walked the legs off ourselves, and even swam briefly on Christmas morning! FREEZING, but great fun. Frank had a flask of coffee waiting for us on the beach, well laced with Scotch, which hit the spot and had us staggering back to the house. I think he may have got into a spot of bother with my mum about that. He’s great. We went to a hotel for Christmas dinner, it was hilarious, like something out of the ark, but the grub was fine.
Thank you for the lovely photo frame, I’ve put the photo of Martha into it that you sent me when you got her. It was a bit small for the frame so I made a border for it. When I told Jackie the story of how you and Mum have written to each other for years and never met she thought it was incredible. I’m sending you a key holder, made by a friend of ours called Jake. He sells them in the market here in Cardiff, and they’re very popular. Hope you like it.
Mum was telling us about your children’s cookbook idea, sounds brilliant. Mum says a publisher is going to look at it, best of luck. I’ve told her to pass on any news. If you ever need an illustrator, I’m available.
Happy New Year to you and your family,
love Alice xx
1992
Sarah
He was balding, although his face didn’t look more than midthirties. His forehead was shiny, his nose long, his teeth crooked but startlingly white. He wore a blue denim shirt and beige corduroy jeans, and when he stepped around the low table to greet her she saw his cowboy boots underneath. He gripped her hand in both of his.
‘Sarah,’ he said, his voice as rich and warm as it had sounded on the phone. ‘Paul Donnelly. Good to meet you.’
He’d come all the way from Dublin, even though she’d offered to travel to him. ‘Not at all,’ he’d said. ‘I like any excuse to get out of the office. Give me the name of a hotel near you, and I’ll see you in the lobby,’ and here he was in Uncle John’s old hotel, with a coffee pot already on the table in front of him, and a briefcase on the floor by his chair.
He indicated the pot. ‘This is still fresh – or would you rather something else?’
‘Coffee’s fine, thanks.’ She rarely drank it, and certainly not an hour before dinner – but it didn’t matter in the least what he poured, since she was far too nervous to touch a drop.
He’d given nothing away on the phone, simply said he thought they should meet and have a chat.
‘Of course he’s interested,’ Christine had said. ‘He’d hardly come all the way here if he wasn’t.’
‘Maybe he’s just letting me down lightly.’
‘Don’t be daft.’
She hadn’t stopped thinking about the cookery book since she’d finally plucked up the courage to lift the phone and ring him in January, like Helen had ordered, six weeks ago now, and he’d given her his address and asked her to send him the manuscript.
Five weeks and six days since she’d slipped the pages into an envelope and posted it off to him, her hands actually shaking as she’d stuck on the stamps. Five months it had felt like, until he’d phoned last Tuesday and told her he wanted to meet her, and what day would suit.
‘So,’ he said when coffee had been poured, ‘your child
ren’s cookery book.’
She wore the blue skirt she’d bought for her fortieth, and a grey jacket over it that she’d thought made her look businesslike. Now, in the face of his denim and corduroy, she felt overdressed. She added milk to the coffee she had no intention of drinking as she waited for him to go on.
‘I road-tested it on my two girls, aged eight and twelve,’ he said, ‘neither of whom had shown any interest in cooking. I challenged them to cook dinner one evening.’
He raised his cup and drank. With difficulty, Sarah resisted the urge to slap it from his hands. He set it back in its saucer.
‘It was a disaster,’ he said.
Sarah’s heart plummeted.
‘They fed us for a week,’ he went on, straight-faced. ‘My wife hardly saw the kitchen. I gained four pounds. My wife went shopping with the time on her hands and did severe damage to our bank account. It’s all your fault.’
He smiled. ‘I would like to offer you a publishing deal,’ he said. ‘I think you’re onto something good here. Really good.’
Sarah was afraid to return his smile. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Well, not about the bank account,’ he said. ‘Thankfully, my wife has her own job. But yes to the rest – including, sadly, the weight gain.’ Patting his stomach, which, as far as she could see, wasn’t a bit bigger than it should be. ‘The girls found your instructions very easy to follow, and really enjoyed the experience. Maureen, my older girl, wants the book for her birthday – but considering it’s next month, I told her she might not have it on time.’
Sarah laughed delightedly. ‘You mean it? You really want to publish it?’
‘I certainly do. I can see why Helen was so enthusiastic about it.’
Helen, enthusiastic? She hadn’t even seen the manuscript, hadn’t read a word of it. Sarah decided to keep that information to herself.
He reached for his briefcase and snapped it open. ‘I take it,’ he said, ‘that you don’t have an agent.’
An agent. Sarah Flannery with an agent. Don’t laugh. ‘No.’
‘I’ve drawn up a contract,’ he went on, pulling out a thin sheaf of paper. ‘Bring it home, have a read, see what you think.’
Because he imagined there was a possibility, did he, that she might turn down a publishing deal? She accepted the pages with what she hoped was a pleasant smile, rather than a grateful beam of such brilliance it might just blind him, and tucked them into her bag as he produced a diary from the briefcase.
‘Let’s talk again,’ he said, ‘in a week or so. If you’re happy with the contract, I’d like to get moving on this, to have it on the shelves as soon as possible. I’ve had a few ideas about format that we’d need to discuss.’
He’d been thinking about it, he had a few ideas. He was serious about wanting to publish her recipes, and he was thinking about how best to do it. He was talking about it being on the shelves.
She had an urge to pull the contract out of her bag and sign it now, before he had a chance to change his mind, and possibly to accompany this with a kiss. Instead she found herself agreeing, in as normal a voice as she could manage, to let him know by the end of the following week if she was happy with the contract.
Driving to Christine’s to collect the children, she remembered the book she’d started several years earlier, before she and Neil had even met. She remembered the hours she’d spent working on it, choosing her characters, writing their story, changing the plot umpteen times, the years of rewriting and changing again and more rewriting that had all come to nothing.
She recalled Helen’s angry letter, the hurtful things she’d said about a manuscript she hadn’t even seen. Funny that she was doing the opposite now, talking up something else she hadn’t read, as if they’d come full circle.
And today they’d made a new connection – Sarah had met someone who knew Helen personally, who’d seen her face to face, who knew what she sounded like, and how tall she was, and the way she moved.
Sarah must write with the news as soon as she got home. If it wasn’t for Helen she wouldn’t have got a publishing deal so easily, might not have got one at all. A publishing deal – the phrase made her laugh out loud, in the darkness of the car. She was going to be published. Her cookery book was going to sit on bookshelves all over the country. Someone might even buy it.
She turned slowly and carefully onto Christine’s road, hugging her happiness.
1995
Helen
On February the sixteenth, shortly before her fifty-third birthday, Frank Murphy proposed to Helen Fitzpatrick for the sixth time in five years.
‘You can’t be serious,’ she said, pulling the duvet over her head.
‘I am,’ he replied, not a bit put out. ‘I’m seriously asking you, once again, to be my wife. To have and to hold, and so forth. God loves a trier.’
She threw back the duvet and grabbed the fan that was sitting on the locker, and began flapping it in front of her face. ‘Jesus, I’m burning up again. I thought I’d made it abundantly clear that I’m perfectly happy the way we are.’
‘And wouldn’t you like to make me just as happy by wearing my ring? That’s the only difference, that you’d have a nice sparkly ring on your finger.’
She continued to flap. ‘God, I’m going to die, I’m going to burst into flames. Look, Frank, it’s sweet of you to keep asking me, and I’m sure you’d buy me a very sparkly ring, but honestly I’d rather not. Feel free to write me into your will, if that’s what’s bothering you: I won’t put up any objections to that. Now would you be a dote and bring me up some ice?’
He sighed as he got out of bed. ‘You haven’t heard the last of this, woman. I’ll wear you down yet.’
She watched him shamble from the room, his pyjama bottoms bagging unflatteringly around the rear. They were as comfortable with one another as any husband and wife – why was he so fixated on tying the knot?
And why, she wondered, listening to his bare feet thumping down the stairs – he couldn’t be quiet if he tried – did she feel so compelled to keep refusing him? What difference would it make, as he’d pointed out, apart from a ring on her finger? He’d buy her the Hope diamond if she asked for it. And if it made him happy, shouldn’t she swallow her reservations and just do it?
And still there was some instinct that stopped her from saying yes every time. Let them stay together for the rest of their lives – and she had no objection to that – but let them stay as they were, and avoid that final step.
She flapped her fan, remembering how eagerly she’d looked forward to being Cormac’s wife, how she couldn’t wait for them to be married. But what she had with Frank was different: it didn’t have to lead to a walk down an aisle.
So they continued to live together, with her mother coming to them every week now for Sunday lunch – Frank’s idea, naturally – and Alice and Jackie, still together in Cardiff, visiting periodically.
Her relationship with her mother, since her discovery of the truth, had undergone its own change. Nothing overt, nothing anyone observing them would notice, Helen was sure, but the knowledge of her parents’ suffering had brought with it a sort of acceptance, a quieting of the rage and resentment that she’d carried for years.
She didn’t excuse them – even if they hadn’t meant to, they’d still punished her unfairly – but she found herself able to forgive, finally, and move on. She was somewhat gentler with her mother now, and more patient, and her mother, she felt, sensed it and was glad.
Frank returned, carrying a little bowl of ice and a tea towel, the newspaper and a padded envelope wedged under an arm. He set the bowl and tea towel on her locker and let the envelope drop onto the duvet – ‘From your penfriend’ – before climbing back into bed with the newspaper.
‘Thanks.’
Helen tipped ice into the tea towel and pressed the bundle to her face, feeling the waves of heat gradually begin to ebb from it as she inhaled the frosty air. Eventually she dropped her damp bundle into th
e bowl and ripped open the envelope and pulled out a slim hardback book.
Party Food for Little People was written in sky blue on a bright green background, above a line drawing of two beaming children, a boy and a girl, wearing aprons and chef’s hats. The girl held a plate of buns iced in primary colours, each studded with a lighted candle, and the boy clutched the string of an enormous yellow balloon on which the words Happy Birthday were inscribed in red.
Running across the top of the page was the now familiar Cooking is Child’s Play logo of the series, blue letters on a banner that matched the yellow of the balloon.
Helen opened the book and found a notelet paper-clipped to the first page. She detached it and began to read.
Dear Helen
Look what arrived this morning – I had to send you one straight away! I just love the colour of this one – best so far, don’t you think? Paul sent a lovely note with it, saying he’d never worked with such an obliging author before – I still have to pinch myself when someone calls me an author!
And the letters just keep on coming, another pile last week! I’m so glad you suggested getting a response printed up – even though I’d love to reply to every one of them personally, there’s just no way I could. I can’t believe how many people take the time to write. One woman told me that she’d given her name to her local bookshop with strict instructions to notify her every time a new one comes out! And a teacher wrote that she’d recommended them to all the parents in her class as Christmas presents!
We’re still getting cards from children themselves too, so cute. I’m making a scrapbook with Martha and Stephen. Sorry, I’ll stop blathering on about it – but it’s all thanks to you, and I want to share every step of this wonderful journey with you!
Hope you and Frank are well – I know I’d love him if I ever met him, he just sounds so sweet. WHEN are you going to agree to marry him? Really, I could shake you sometimes, Helen Fitzpatrick!
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