At a Time Like This

by Catherine Dunne

  They made up eventually, Claire and Maggie, one night in my house when Nora was in Tipperary with her in-laws. I invited them both separately, so that neither knew the other would be there. I had them arrive at different times. When they met in my living room, they were both instantly angry at me, which was exactly what I had intended.

  ‘Be as pissed off with me as you like,’ I said to them. ‘It’s been over two years and things have . . . moved on.’ I knew, because Maggie had told me, that Ray had recently moved on, too, into the territory of his latest secretary. ‘So why shouldn’t we move on, heal the breach? We need each other, you know we do.’

  I uncorked the white wine that lay in the ice bucket on the coffee table. ‘I’m going to see to the twins. I’ll be back in half an hour. Just remember how miserable we all are without each other.’ And I left. I meant it, too. I’d missed our evenings back then more than I’d thought I would, our phone conversations afterwards, the speculations, the gossip. Even leaving Nora out of the equation from my point of view, have you any idea how many possible combinations of friendship there are among three articulate, competitive, complex women? Enough to liven up most days of the week, that’s for sure. And I still had each of them on the phone to me anyway, Maggie and Claire, almost daily. I was never sure how much information from one I was expected to feed back to the other. It had me exhausted.

  So. The time came when I felt I had to do something, even if it backfired. And Nora’s absences have often been times filled with opportunity for me, one way and another.

  When I got back downstairs, the room was very still. The twins had been angelic on that night, and we’d all taken turns reading aloud chapters from The Big Friendly Giant. Each of the girls was very proud of her ability to read. It was one of those glowing, quiet times that I’m glad we shared. I’d been able, too, to listen for raised voices, anger or slamming doors from the room below, but none of it had happened. Nevertheless, I knocked on the living-room door before I entered. Claire was hiccuping, the aftermath of what must have been a silent storm of sobbing. Maggie was holding her hand and stroked it, gently.

  ‘Don’t, Claire, don’t break your heart over it. It’s too—’

  And then she stopped speaking. Fair enough. That was the deal that she and I had agreed on. The details would be between her and Claire. They were nobody else’s business, certainly not mine. But I was relieved they had made up. It meant we could, maybe, patch things up and stitch our friendships back together again. Had Maggie and Claire remained estranged, I don’t know what I would have done. I’d probably have fought her, my oldest friend, but I didn’t want to. I was glad that night that I didn’t have to.

  Because Maggie and I rarely fight. Oh, she doesn’t let me get away with things: she argues with me and challenges me and calls things as she sees them. But that’s not fighting, not in my book. There are only two significant occasions of conflict that I can remember in the forty years we have been friends. Each occasion is very different from the other. The first makes me laugh. The second gives me pause for reflection. It still makes me wonder how well we can ever know someone else, how we always forget that they retain the capacity to surprise us and make us feel humble.

  Anyway, the first time Maggie really stood up to me was about fourteen years in the brewing. It concerned a little girl called Melissa McKee – a child whom Maggie and I both knew while at primary school. As it happened, Melissa was put sitting between Maggie and me one day and I objected. The child wet her knickers constantly and even then, everything in me rebelled at the indignity of enduring that kind of unpleasantness: any kind of unpleasantness. Maggie was always the kinder of the two of us, that goes without saying. Nevertheless, my objections – vociferous and inappropriate – landed both of us in hot water and the Principal’s office at the same time. She punished us with extra homework: spellings, I think. But it was no punishment for me. Books have been my refuge all my life. They gave me something to do to fill up the silences of my childhood home. Maggie minded, but she didn’t kick up about it. At least not on that occasion. Our parents might have been summoned to the school as well, but I can no longer remember.

  Years later, at some birthday party or other of mine, celebrated while we were all still at Trinity, I remember that I objected loudly to the presence of Nora, whom I emphatically had not invited. It was then that Maggie went in for the kill. She’d waited all that time, and now she was taking no prisoners. I wanted the Helicopter to go; Maggie was adamant that she should stay.

  ‘Remember Melissa McKee?’ she said to me. ‘You got me extra spellings and tables for that caper. Now it’s payback time.’

  I was stunned. For a moment, all I could think was: who the fuck is Melissa McKee? It’s Nora Murphy we’re talking about here. Then I saw Maggie’s grinning face, her slow nod, her ‘come to me’ hand gestures as she encouraged my memory, and I burst out laughing.

  ‘Melissa McKee!’ I said as I cracked up. ‘She smelt of wee!’

  And that was the end of occasion Number One. Occasion Number Two was more serious. It belonged to our teenage years. Or our Teenage Years, as our parents might have referred to them. With good reason. We were tearaways, Maggie and I. Given what adolescents get up to today, I suppose we weren’t as bad as we might have been. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop us trying. On this occasion, Maggie’s demonstration of loyalty astounded me, even frightened me, I think, with its force and the depth of its implications. Don’t the Chinese believe if someone saves your life, that you in turn become responsible for them, that you owe them for as long as you both shall live? Well, then.

  We were about fifteen or so when my father abruptly told us – my mother and me, that is – that we were leaving Killiney. It probably came as no surprise to her, but I remember feeling a mixture of shock and disdain. He’d said this kind of thing before, a number of times, but nothing had ever happened. He talked about moving to a ‘classier neighbourhood’ in the same way that he’d mention politicians by their first names, boast about handshakes and deals done and money secreted in brown envelopes: all this when he thought I wasn’t listening. Parents have no idea what their children hear while sitting at the top of the stairs, or peering through cracks in doorways while heated discussions ensue in bedrooms and kitchens and hallways: particularly in the days when phones were still located in the coldest, draughtiest places in the house. It is a lesson that has served me well with my own children. I have always remembered the acuteness of their capacity for hearing, along with their ability to make themselves invisible. Unhearing, unseeing, un-present, right in the midst of upheaval. And avidly taking everything in.

  ‘The decision is made, Georgina,’ my father told me, ‘so there’s no point in you going on about it.’ At this stage, I had said nothing. I had decided to stay silent and furious. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t have taken a genius to read my expression.

  ‘Your mother and I have bought a house in Ballsbridge. As soon as the sale of this one is through, we’re on our way.’ His dismissiveness only served to feed my rage. I have never accepted anyone else’s control over my life.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he said. ‘It’s not the dark side of the moon, you know. You can still see your friends.’

  I looked over at my mother, the original Helicopter. She fought my father from time to time, but always gave in in the end. Her attitude was a partly combative, but mostly resigned martyrdom. Perhaps it came from being so much younger than he was. Such a relationship requires careful management, guile and insight – none of which my mother possessed. And so, my father was resplendent in his ownership of her. He had once boomed jovially to his cronies over drinks in our front room one Christmas how he had ‘got’ my mother ‘while she was still young and pliable’. I can still feel how the sudden silence that resulted crawled all over my skin, making me want to slink away somewhere and cower in the darkness. But I stayed, hoping with a forlorn hope that this time, she would answer him and show some spirit. She did n
ot. And he remained oblivious. The guests first looked down at their glasses and then at each other.

  I can only have been about ten at that time, but I have never forgotten the feeling of vicarious humiliation. Before or since, I don’t think I ever heard my mother express any opinion voluntarily – one that wasn’t extracted as a result of my father’s stern ‘Well, Caroline? Is it or is it not so?’ Just as he did now.

  Her tone was weary. What little fight might have been left in her seemed to have disappeared. ‘You’ll settle, Georgina, you’ll see. And you can always have your friends to stay.’ Then she lit another cigarette and looked out of the window.

  I left the sitting room in a rush, ran down the hallway and slammed the front door behind me as hard as I could. It was the most eloquent statement I could think of making in the midst of my impotence. I could feel the windows shake behind me. Maggie was waiting for me at the end of her street, ten minutes’ walk away. She was sitting on one of the low whitewashed walls, swinging her legs. The O’Tooles’ garden was always the neighbourhood meeting-point for us teenagers – something that made the new owners furious. They were not called O’Toole, but it didn’t matter to us: that’s how the corner house would always be known. That Saturday afternoon, we were the first to arrive, Maggie and I.

  Without preamble, I said ‘We’re moving.’ I was aware that my jaw was clenched.

  Maggie looked at me, not understanding at first.

  ‘We’re moving to fucking Ballsbridge. They have the house up for sale.’

  Her smile faded. She eased herself off the wall, stumbling in the process. Her backside grazed the pebble-dashing, dislodging flakes of paint. She brushed at the seat of her jeans, then wiped her hands on her denim-clad thighs before she spoke.

  ‘When did they tell you?’

  ‘Just now.’ I remember angrily biting back tears, drawing blood in the process. I could taste its warm, coppery tinge on my tongue.

  ‘When will you be going?’ She was already pulling the packet of ten Carrolls out of her pocket. We were in the safe zone. Nobody from either house could see us, not even by telescope. Or radar. Or satellite. Thus we habitually reassured each other, fifteen-year-old technological sophisticates.

  I shrugged. ‘They didn’t give me a date. I didn’t ask. Whenever the house is sold, I suppose. I dunno – however long that takes.’

  Then she smiled. ‘Ballsbridge is not so far. I mean, it’s not Cork, or anything. We can still meet at weekends. It doesn’t have to change things.’

  I felt grateful, hopeful almost. But I wasn’t going to let her soothe my rage at my parents. I relished the purity of my wrath, my indignant response to injustice. ‘It will change things, you know it will.’

  ‘Not unless you let it,’ Maggie said. ‘Come on,’ she urged, and made her way towards the green space. I followed, surprised at her matter-of-factness. We sat under the huge beech tree, the grass still warm and fragrant of late August. She pulled a cigarette out of her packet of ten, split the white paper cylinder up the centre and spilled commas of tobacco into the palm of her hand. Then she reached back into her jeans pocket and pulled out a tiny parcel of silver paper and a pack of Rizlas. I watched as she expertly rolled a joint. This, I knew, was Paul’s doing. Four years older than us, already a student at Trinity. Maggie’s big brother had always treated us as equals, taught us many things we were eager to know, and more than likely shouldn’t have.

  Then she lit up. I noticed that her fingernails were more bitten than usual, some of them topped with bloody streaks where she had nipped and nibbled at the flesh. The nails were so short they seemed to be growing inwards and downwards, embedding themselves back into the roots they had come from. It must have taken a huge effort of will to kill that habit. Maggie told me afterwards that she’d stopped biting her nails as soon as she left home: a conscious effort to show outwardly what her new freedom had brought her. Pride, self-esteem, relief. From what I can remember, at that time Paul was getting ready to repeat his exams and there was trouble in Maggie’s household. Her parents had never tolerated failure of any kind.

  ‘I wish they’d leave him alone,’ she’d said to me earlier that week. Her distress was palpable. ‘He’s studying for hours every day. Nothing’s ever enough for them.’

  She adored her brother, and he her. For a moment, I wanted to ask how she was doing in the middle of all of that. But the enormity of my own loss took over and I let the moment pass.

  Now she offered me the joint, holding her breath for the dope’s maximum impact. I took it, although I didn’t crave dope the way some of the others did. I’ve never liked the way I can’t measure its effects. I’ve indulged, of course. What student didn’t? But I’ve always preferred my substances legal and predictable. There is no moral judgement in that: it’s simply that you can’t have a bad trip on a few glasses of wine. It’s much easier to stay in control.

  I took one drag and handed the joint back to her. ‘I hate this,’ I said. ‘It’ll mean new school, new neighbours, the lot.’ As an only child, I believed that I had a greater right to complain than most. After all, I had no one to share things with in the furtive sanctuary of a bedroom, or over cups of tea in the empty kitchen of an even emptier house.

  ‘What school will you be going to?’ she asked after an interval. Maggie was ever the pragmatist. She accepted the realities of life in the way I never could. Accepted them, and then tried to fit her life around them without admitting defeat.

  I shrugged, still angry. ‘Dunno. They haven’t told me yet.’

  ‘We’re not babies, Georgie. They can’t stop us meeting, staying over and stuff. It doesn’t have to change any of our plans, not unless you want it to.’ There was the glint of challenge in Maggie’s green eyes. My father’s rise and rise in recent years, his designation as ‘developer’ rather than ‘builder’ had begun to drive a wedge between me and my old neighbours. He was seen variously as someone becoming too big for his boots, or getting above his station, or running away with himself – we Irish have countless phrases for people who dare to put their head above the appropriate socially defined parapet. Not that I had any respect for my father’s dealings at that time. I didn’t. Nevertheless, even then I was acutely aware of the mass of contradictions that seethed between those who grasped at prosperity and held on to it, and those who aspired to do so but failed. Hence the origins of begrudgery

  So. Maggie’s tone made me angry. ‘What the fuck do you mean “if I want to”?’ What are you talking about?’

  But she never got time to answer. We’d been so engrossed in our exchange that neither of us had noticed the Guard – or Bean Garda, as I think we still called them back in those days – who now materialized beside us. We both froze, Maggie with the joint halfway to her lips.

  ‘I’ll take that,’ said the uniformed young woman, holding out her hand towards the joint. Talk about a smoking gun. Maggie handed it over without a word. ‘What’s your name?’

  Maggie told her. ‘And your address?’ She wrote busily.

  Then she looked at me. ‘And you are?’ she said, turning to a new page in her notebook.

  ‘Georgina White,’ I said, my heart hammering. Great, I was thinking. Perfect timing. Talk about giving my parents an excuse to ground me for life. Now the house move would be not just a financial, but a moral imperative in order to safeguard my well-being. I could have kicked myself.

  ‘It’s nuttin’ to do wi’ her,’ Maggie said.

  I looked at her in surprise. Her accent had fallen by about a dozen notches – it was pure Dublin. Even her stance was insolent, her normal posture replaced by an inner-city slouch.

  ‘Oh?’ the Garda raised her eyebrows, looking over at me, deeply suspicious. At the same time, I could see her hesitate. I could almost see her thinking: all that paperwork . . . She could hardly have ignored Maggie, caught as she was in flagrante. But I was a different matter.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Maggie, loudly, drawing the attention back to herse
lf. She rummaged in her jeans pocket and handed over her silver-wrapped booty. ‘She’s a sap. She didn’t even wanna try i’.’

  The Guard looked from one of us to the other. ‘Where do you live?’ she asked me. I told her and she nodded. ‘Is what Margaret says true?’

  I could feel Maggie’s glare. ‘Yes,’ I said, my accent pointedly different from hers. I felt shame descend like a shroud, spilling over my head, settling about my feet.

  ‘Go home,’ the Guard advised me.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Maggie. ‘Go home. Ya sap.’

  I turned and fled. I wept my way across the green, stumbled home blinded by tears of rage and guilt and self-pity. Maggie got into terrible trouble that night. She was brought to the Garda station, her parents were called, she was given an official warning. She felt, she said, the full weight, the full Majesty of the Law. Even then, she mocked herself, with Frank O’Connor for company. She had to report to the Junior Liaison Officer, she said, every week for six months. And she had to help out at the local youth club, something she took to with surprising alacrity.

  ‘Some chance I have of getting up to any mischief she said, when school resumed a few days later. She said it with a weak grin. ‘I’m grounded till I’m thirty – if I’m lucky. I’ll see nothing but my bedroom, the cop shop and a ping-pong table built for two.’

  There was an awkward silence between us for a moment. My freedom from punishment, from the consequences of my own behaviour, filled the spaces between us.

  ‘I rang but your dad wouldn’t let me talk to you,’ I said. This was true. But I also knew that I could have called to the door if I hadn’t been too cowardly to do so.

  ‘See what I mean?’ she said, lightly. ‘Grounded and incommunicado.’

  ‘Why did you do it?’ I asked her.

  She shrugged. ‘What was the point of both of us ending up in the shite? Besides, this way, I figure you owe me.’ She was laughing at me.