Anyone for Me?

by Fiona Cassidy

  “Now hang on just a minute –”

  “Repeat!”

  So I said the words reluctantly.

  “I will believe what I am saying and allow myself to enjoy the experience. I will have dreams and wishes for my big day and they will all come true with the help of all the people who truly love me.”

  I smiled as I copied her again – as much as I could remember of it.

  “And most important of all, I will transform myself and be a proper lady for the first time in my life.”

  That was a bridge too far. “You better be finished,” I said to distract her, “because I feel like a right prat standing here with my phone tucked under my chin and my right hand in the air talking to myself!”

  “I wouldn’t have to resort to such tactics if you’d be agreeable,” Frankie grumbled. “Promise me, Ruby, that from now on you’re going to look at things in a new light and stop being difficult. I want you to enjoy this and I want to share it with you.”

  “I promise,” I said (only half meaning it really but already feeling a slight shift in my point of view).

  “Gabriel is a bit shocking all right but a complete genius,” she went on. “I did a bit of research on him and he really is the best to be had. When Luke decided to get you a wedding planner he didn’t use half measures. You are such a lucky girl. We’re going to have so much fun with him and if you dare speak I’ll jump down the phone and smack you one.”

  I curled my lip but quickly stopped making faces as I remembered the words I had just sworn to.

  “Maybe we can catch up tonight,” Frankie suggested.

  “I’ll not be home until tomorrow,” I said. “I have a few things to do.”

  “Are you okay?” Frankie asked, still speaking in a gruff tone but more gently than before.

  “Yes, I’m fine or at least I will be when I’ve got my hands on a little more information. I kind of told Mammy that I was embarking on a mission to find my real mother.”

  “What is it with you at the minute, Ruby? Are you on a mission to fall out with everyone around you? Was she annoyed?”

  “Not so much annoyed as completely unreasonable. She’s refusing to talk about it. I went for a drive last night to Mulroy Cove and found out a few things. I don’t know whether they’ll help me or not but, coupled with the other information I’m looking for, it might all come together to be useful to some degree. I’m not sure that I want to pursue it in the same way I did before but I do need to know. I need to finish this once and for all.”

  “Be careful, Ruby.”

  “I will.”

  “Ring me later and let me know you’re okay.”

  “Are you sure you want me to?”

  “Yes, you tart, as when all is said and done I love you – and, when you need to be told you’re acting like a prat, I’ll do it for you.”

  “You don’t say. Okay, I’ll talk to you later. And Frankie . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. My toe is always here if you need it to kick you into touch.”

  I snapped my phone shut and walked to the other side of the market where there was the delicious aroma of home-made soup and asked for a large helping of the tomato and basil variety which was bubbling merrily on a camping stove. As I ate, I willed my mother to hurry up.

  Chapter 18

  “Have you calmed down yet?” Mammy enquired when she eventually found me sitting on the bonnet of the car.

  “I’m perfectly calm, Mammy. I just want to go home.” (And loot the attic.) “I’m tired.” (Oh feck. Wrong thing to say.)

  “See. See. I told you that you needed a pick-me-up. I know when you’re run down. A mother always knows best.”

  I breathed and counted to four hundred before inviting her to put her purchases into the boot.

  “You’re in an awful rush, Ruby. I thought the whole point of you wanting to stay was so you could spend some time with me, but every time we get an opportunity you’re running off to lie down or in a splutter to get away from me. Are you hiding something? You’re not pregnant, are you? That would explain the tiredness and you do look quite peaky.”

  “I am not pregnant, Mammy. That would be the last thing I’d want at this precise moment in time. I know I’m not the most girly of girls but even I know walking down the aisle with a bump would be a bad look.”

  Mammy smiled and patted me on the knee. “I’ve arranged to close the shop and take this afternoon off work.”

  I could feel my chin dropping in shock.

  “Donal can manage quite well himself at the club. He thought you were in bad form yesterday evening as well and when I suggested you and me doing something together he said he’d get someone to cover my shift. He really is a darling.”

  “He’s wonderful. A great fella altogether. I must go and thank him. Personally.” (Feckin interfering do-gooder!)

  We arrived back at the cottage to find Luke making tea. “I thought you might like something before you went to work,” he said to Mammy.

  “What a thoughtful boy you are,” Mammy said, putting her arm around him, “but as it happens I’m taking the afternoon off to spend with my daughter and her boyfriend. I don’t see them that often and they’re leaving tomorrow so I’m going to make the most of it.”

  Luke smiled tightly and I knew that his thoughts must mirror mine. Either that or he was worried he was going to be left taking Mammy shopping while I searched the house as had been the original plan.

  “Do you fancy going somewhere nice, Mammy?” I suggested suddenly (desperation inspiring me with a plan of sorts). “Maybe we could take a drive into the mountains or go to Donegal town or into Killybegs to watch the boats?”

  “I suppose we could. That’s a great idea,” Mammy said thoughtfully.

  “We could make a picnic and take it with us,” I pressed on.

  “But I’ve just used the last of the bread,” said Luke on cue, reading my mind and hiding the remainder of the packet.

  We made a great team. (Bonny and Clyde, eat your hearts out!)

  “Go and get some bread, Mammy,” I said quickly. (Anything to get her out of the house for two minutes. I probably wouldn’t have enough time to embark on a major search but with any luck she’d bump into half the country at the shop and that would stall her. I knew I was on to something. I could taste it. All I needed was a bit of peace and a lot of luck.)

  “God but you’re very bossy,” Mammy said. “Sure we don’t need a picnic. Why go to all that trouble when we could just as easily sit in somewhere and have somebody else make us a sandwich?”

  I was starting to hyperventilate and knew that Luke could see it but instead of helping me he seemed to think that now was a good time to disappear. I was going to kill him.

  The house phone rang and, once Mammy had gone to answer it, I sighed in frustration and wondered what the hell I was going to do.

  The door opened and Mammy came in, shaking her head. “I’m ever so sorry, Ruby, but that was one of the boys from the club. There’s been a problem and I need to go down. I might have to stay for a while to get things sorted. I know you were really looking forward to going out this afternoon but I will make it up to you, I promise.”

  “Okay,” I conceded whilst trying to keep my gleeful anticipation of the contents of the attic in check. “You go on, Mammy. We’ll stay here and look after the shop.”

  “I have the closed sign up on it already, pet, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “Well, sure, we’ll see,” I said, helping her into her coat, dashing to open the door for her and practically kicking her out through it. (I was nothing if not very helpful and very obvious.)

  I did a little dance once I heard the car tyres crunching on the driveway, signalling that the coast was clear for a bit of detective work.

  “Where the hell were you?” I demanded when I saw Luke emerge.

  “Making a very important phone call,” he said whilst waving his mobile phone
in front of me. “To the Senior Citizens’ Club!”

  “It was you?” I breathed in admiration.

  “The one and only,” he smiled.

  “But how did you organise that?”

  “I rang Donal and told him that you were planning a surprise meal for your mother and that you needed to get rid of her for a while and he was most helpful and said he’d organise a diversion.”

  “Have I told you lately that I think you’re a genius and an all-round brilliant husband-to-be?”

  “No. But feel free to charm me with your compliments. I can take them.”

  “I will, don’t worry, but first I need to do some investigating. And then I need to do some cooking. Could you not have said I was decorating the house or something? I can’t boil an egg without mucking it up.”

  I balanced on the ladder and opened the attic trapdoor with an almighty clatter.

  “Ruby, it’s a good job that there’s nobody around,” Luke hissed from below. “With the racket you’re making, you’d be found out in no time.”

  I hunted around to my left-hand side and eventually located the light switch.

  Minding my head, I climbed into the attic and began to look around, starting to feel slightly frantic as I couldn’t see anything resembling what I was looking for. I couldn’t even see the other old storage boxes of photos she had always had. I spent a while aimlessly wandering about, lifting random objects and haplessly looking around me. I was sure that I would find it, though, as when Mammy had first moved here she had told me that all her photographs and personal memorabilia had been put in the attic for safe keeping. I just needed to find where. The roof space was quite big and I was amazed at how much stuff there was. How one woman had managed to accumulate so much over the years was beyond me. She must have a hidden hoarding obsession I had never noticed before. We’d have to talk!

  “Isobel, where have you put it?” I whispered.

  Suddenly I had a thought. I knew that Mammy possessed a large old-fashioned trunk. Where was that? Dodging boxes, a bookcase, some old ornaments, a lamp and the obligatory crate of old toys which every attic must possess, I eventually found my mother’s trunk. It opened easily. I lifted out clothes, photograph albums and jewellery boxes but so far couldn’t see any leather box. I continued to hunt and lift things out until eventually I could see the bottom of the trunk. I sat cross-legged and started to go through everything I had just removed but to no avail as I found nothing.

  Slowly and purposefully I started to put everything back in the trunk, trying to remember the order in which things had been packed away. I was totally deflated, not to mention miserable.

  Once everything had been put back in its place and the trunk closed, I sat down heavily on the lid and felt like crying. Was this all fate trying to tell me to leave well enough alone? Should I take the apparent loss of the box, along with my mother’s reaction and what the men in the pub had told me, and get the hint that it was all a bad idea? I fidgeted with my fingers for a short while as I contemplated life and eventually got up after saying a prayer.

  “Come on, Daddy. I know that you’d help and that you’d want me to know the truth. Please guide me now.”

  I felt terrible but after I had emerged from the attic I went into Mammy’s bedroom and opened her drawers and looked in her wardrobe in case she had hidden something there but there was nothing to be found and it was with a heavy heart that I started to wonder if she had got rid of it or destroyed it.

  Luke was in equally bad form as we sat in silence in the kitchen, drinking coffee. While I had been up in the attic rooting through the trunk he’d had a phone call from his mother and his facial expression was now changing from being sombre to sad to angry to pensive. I knew he was miserable and, although I wanted to give vent to my own annoyance, I didn’t as I knew he was really hurt.

  “What did she say?” I eventually asked after watching him shred a piece of kitchen roll before he sat back and moodily kicked his toe against the table leg.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I think it does actually, Luke. You’re about to jump out of your skin so therefore they must have really annoyed you.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Just drop it!” he snapped.

  “If I said that to you, you’d pester me until I told you, and I’ve got all night,” I said casually. “I feel like shit too, only you have the luxury of knowing why. Talk about it and let me help you.”

  “Help!” he shouted. “The only way you could help would be if you could open an offshore bank account for them to rifle. I can’t believe the cheek of them. I’m the one saving for a wedding but do they care? Not at all!”

  “You told them about the wedding?” I said, knowing that my voice sounded fearful in the extreme. Luke had planned on telling them only at the last minute in the hope that they’d be otherwise occupied and unable to come.

  “Yes, I told them, but they’re not interested at all. Far more concerned about getting their hands on more cash. ‘Photographers do very well these days. You’ve got plenty of work. You can afford to help your parents once in a while. Remember where you came from.’” This was said in a squeaky voice, obviously mimicking his mother. “Remember where I came from? Is she for feckin real? My earliest memories involve the two of them coming in plastered and me having to look after them as well as see to Mandy who was only a baby at the time.”

  I thought about my childhood and realised how blessed I had been. I had always known where my parents were. I had never been left alone and I had always felt wanted and loved. And now here I was, feeling bad because I couldn’t find my birth mother, when according to the stories I had heard she could have provided me with a similar childhood to Luke’s if not one which was much worse.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly grabbing his hand.

  “Why are you sorry?” he asked.

  “Because I’m being selfish and stupid about everything. Maybe I should give it all up as a bad job and just be thankful that my childhood was so pleasant and that my mother still wants me even though I’m a permanent pain in her arse.”

  “Whoa!” Luke said, squeezing me back. “Don’t you dare think like that. Take all opportunities with both hands and don’t let me stand in your way. I’m probably being stupid too. You’d think at my age that I’d have got over feeling the way I do but I can’t help it. They just annoy me so much.”

  “Of course they do,” I said. “You’re not like them, so you know that their behaviour is wrong. In fact, I think you should be the one searching for your birth certificate as you may well be adopted too, judging by how well-rounded and sweet and nice you are.”

  Luke smiled weakly, shrugged off my hand and took another sip of his coffee before taking his wallet out with the intention of helping his mother again.

  I opened my mouth to protest but Luke silenced me with his hand. “Save it, Ruby,” he said as he got his phone and prepared to transfer money. “If I don’t do it, they’ll only ring Mandy and I don’t want her to be involved.”

  At that moment we heard the sound of car doors closing and I knew that Mammy must be home and, what was worse, I realised that I had nothing cooked.

  Shit.

  Donal raised his eyebrows when he came in and he looked at Luke quizzically. Mammy, however, didn’t seem the least bit fazed that nothing had been done, instead jumping to the conclusion that Luke and I had been after some quality time together on our own.

  “You young ones are so easy to see through. All you had to do was ask, y’know. Why didn’t you just take yourselves away for the day instead of staying cooped up in here?” She looked at us questioningly and then coloured as she jumped to the staggeringly wrong conclusionthat ‘quality time’ meant getting frisky. (In both our current states nothing could have been further from our minds or less possible.)

  “Why don’t you go into the shop and grab something from the chiller?” Mammy suggested in a blatant attempt to change the subject as quickly as
possible. “There are some nice pies and I think there might be a lasagne and a quiche as well. I can rustle up a salad to go with it and make a few chips if you’d like.”

  “I’m not that bothered,” I mumbled as Luke made similar noises.

  “Oh go on! I’m hungry and I’m sure Donal is,” Mammy said. “Go in and have a look and surprise us.”

  Luke and I reluctantly went into the shop and looked around. Even though I felt sad and depressed my spirits lifted as soon as I opened the door and the smell of herbs and spices and fresh bread wafted over me. The shop was like something that had been taken out of a country-kitchen cookery show with all its wicker baskets filled with fruit, gingham-covered pots and colourful crockery.

  Luke opened the chiller cabinet and looked in morosely. “Well, what do you fancy?”

  “Oh, just pick something. Mammy won’t care. She’ll eat anything,” I answered absentmindedly, wandering into the tiny room at the back of the shop where Mammy kept all her order sheets and did her accounts.

  There was a desk and a chair and a small filing cabinet where she kept all the papers relating to the business and, although it was usually locked, today it was open and a batch of papers was sticking out the top preventing the drawer from closing properly. I went over and opened the drawer with the intention of sliding the papers back into place but something made me lift them and when I did my heart skipped a beat as there at the bottom of the first drawer of the cabinet lay an unforgettable and familiar sight.

  The lid of the box had the design of an ornate rose on it just as I remembered from all those years ago and it was made of leather.

  “I’ve found it! Oh my God, I’ve found it, Luke!” I squealed (quietly). “I should have known that Mammy wouldn’t have left it lying around for me to find. She’s too clever for that or at least she thought she was before she left her filing cabinet unlocked. You’d think I was meant to find it. Thank you, Daddy! Luke, go and give Mammy whatever you’ve picked and divert her attention for a minute until I look in here and see what I can find.”